The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-08-13

]
creditors, and falling prices have left
larger and larger margin between
our net national income and our annual
interest charge. There is only one way
to stop the increasing flow of gold from
our shores, and that is to stop falling
prices. The restoration of bimetallism
will not only stop falling prices, but
will-to some extent-restore prices by
reducing the worlds demand for gold.
If it is argued that a rise in prices
lessons the value of the dollars which
we pay to our creditors, 1 reply that
in the balancing of equities, the Amer
lean people have as much right to ia
vor a financial system which will
maintain or restore prices as foreign
creditors have to insist upon a finan-
ciaI system that will reduce prices.
But
THE INTERESTS OF SOCIETY
are far superior to the interests of
either debtors or creditors, and the in
! terests of society demand financial
system which will add to the volume
OF the standard money of the world,
and thus restore stability to prices.
Perhaps the most persistent misrepre-
/ sentation that we have to meet is the
charge that we are advocating the pay
ment of debts in fifty-cent dollars At
the present time, and under present
laws, a silver dollar, when melted, loses
nearly half its value, but that will not
be true when we again establish a mint
price for silver, and leave no surplus
silver upon the market to drag down
the price of bullion. Under bimetallism
silver bullion will be worth as much
as silver coin, just as gold bullion is
now worth as much as gold coin, and
we believe that a silver dollar will be
worth as much as a. gold dollar. The
charge of Reputation Games with poor
grace from those who are seek
ing to add to the weight of
existing debts by legislation which
makes money dearer and who conceal
their designs against the great well
fare under the eupnonious pretense
that they are upholding public credit
and national honor. In answer to the
charge that gold will go abroad, it
mist be remembered that no gold can
leave this country until the owner of
the gold
RECEIVES SOMETHING IN RE-
TURN
for it which he would rather have; in
other words when gold leaves the coun-
try those who formerly owned it will
be benefited. There is no process by
which we can be compelled to part
with our gold against our will, nor is
there any process by which silver can
be forced upon US without our con-
sent. Exchanges are matters of agree
ment, and if silver comes to this coun-
try under free coinage it will be at the
invitation of some one in this country
who will give something in exchange
for 1T. Those who deny the ability of
the United States to maintain the par
ity between gold and silver ait the
present legal ratio, without foreign aid,
point to Mexico and assert that the
opening of cur minis WIFI reduce us 10
a silver basis and raise gold to a pre-
MUM. II is no reflection upon our
sister republic to remind our people
THAI the United States is much greater
than Mexico in area, in population and
in commercial strength. It is absurd to
assert that the United States is not
able to do anything which Mexico has
failed to accomplish The one thing
necessary
NJ 7
PARITY
is to furnish a. demand great enough
to utilize all the silver which will come
to the minis That Mexico has failed
to do this, is no proof that the United
States would also fail. 1t is also ar
gued that since a number of the nations
have demonetized silver nothing can be
done until all of these nations restore
bimetallism. This is also illogical. 1t
is immateriai how many or few ma
tons have open mints provided there
are sufficient open minis to furnish a
monetary demand for all the gold and
silver available for coinage
I'm reply to the argument that i'm
proved machinery mas lessened the cost
of producing silver, it is sufficient to
say that the same is true Of the pro-
duction of gold, and yet, notwithstand
ing that. the cost of production does not
determine the value of the precious met
ais, except as it may affect the supply.
If. for instance. the cost of producing
gold should be reduced 80 per cent,
without any increase in Che output, the
purchasing power of an ounce of gold
would not fall So long as there is a
monetary demand sufficient to take at
a fixed mint price all the gold and sill
yer produced, the cost of production
need not be considered. II is often OBJ
jected that the prices of gold and sill
yer cannot be fixed in relation to each
other. because of the variation in the
relative production of the metals. This
argument also overlooks the fact. that,
if
THE DEMAND FOR BOTH METALS
at a fixed price is greater than the sup
ply of both, relative production becomes
immaterial. In the early part of the
present century, the annual production
of silver was worth, at the coinage
ratio. about three times as much as the
annual production of gold; whereas,
soon after 1S49, the annual production
Of gold became worth about three times
as much, at the coinage ratio, as the
annual production of silver; and yet,
owing TO the maintenance of the BIZ