Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1896-08-28
SOME SOUND ADVICE.
DR.. RIOPATH, THE EMINENT HIS
TORlAN ON SILVER.
The Government Has Been Steadily
Restoration of Our Currency
the First Step Towards a Return
TO Self-Government.


in a recent interview:
According to my way of thinking
our government has been steadily
drifting away from the people and
getting into the power of special inter
ests. The circle of government has
narrowed and narrowed till it appears
to me the height OF absurdity to call it
any longer government of the peo.
pie, for the people and by the people.
/ want to see this process completely
reversed. l want to see the govern
ment restored to the people. / be-
lieve precisely what Webster and Theo-
dore Parker and Lincoln declared, viz :
That our republic is, or ought to be, a
government of the people, for the peo.
pie and by them.
How can there be any harm in
such a doctrine? In the name of
common sense, has it come to pass
that patriotic citizens in the United
States of America cannot advocate the
right of the people to govern them
selves? Has it come to this, that we
have sure enough lot of self-consti-
tuted masters who shall tell us what is
good for us and how we shall obtain
it? Are we Americans lot OF young
lings who are unable to lead our
selves, but must be led rather as with
a string and fed on porridge as with a
spoon?
"Among the methods as it seems
to me by which the government is to
be recovered by the people is, first OF
all, as the matter now stands. the
restoration of our currency. We want
our currency system put back pre-
cisely where it was under the statute
and constitution for the first 81 years
of our existence as a nation. Our
statutory bimetsllic system of currency
was taken from us in 1873 by pro-
cess which I do not care to character
ize in fitting terms. Now we propose
to have it back again. The restora.
ton of our silver money to the place
IL held before, is the peoples cause,
and the people in this contest are 60
ing to triumph. They are going to
triumph in the open light of day un-
der the clear gleam Of light and truth
"The silver dollar was from of old
the unit of money and account in the
United States. The dollar to this hour
has never been altered by the fraction
of a grain in the quantity of pure
metal composing it. Every other coin,
whether gold or silver, has been altered
time and again, but the silver uni,
never. The silver dollar was the dol.
lar of the law and the contract. 1t
is to this day the dollar of the law
and the contract. To the silver unit
all the rest, both gold and silver, have
been copformed from our first statue
Of 1902 10 that ill-starred date when
the conspiracy against our old consti-
tutional order first declared itself
The gold eagle of the original statute
and all subsequent statutes was not
made to be ten dollars, but to he OF
the value of ten dollars. The half
eagle was not made to be five dollars,
but to be OF the value OF five dollars.
The quarter-eagle was of the value of
two and one-half dollars and the
double eagle was OF the value OF
twenty dollars. Even the gold dollar
OF lS49, marvellous to relate, was not a
dollar, but was made to be the value oi
a dollar. The subsidiary coins we're
all fractions of the dollar and the dol
lar was of silver only.
mot single dictionary or encyclo-
pedia in the English language before
the year 1878 ever defined dollar in
any terms other than OF silver. In
that year the administrators of the
estate OF Noah Webster, deceased, cut
the plates OF our standard lexicon and
inserted a new definition that had be-
come necessary in order to throw a
penumbra of nationality around the in
ternational gold conspiracy.
"The way to obviate the further dis
astrous effects OF this international
gold conspiracy is to stop it. We
want the system Of bimetallism re.
stored in this country. Bimetallism
means the option of the debtor 10 pay
in either of two statutory coins ac-
cording to his own convenience and
according to the contract. This op-
ton freely granted, the commercial
parity of the two money metals will
be speedily reached, nor can such
parity ever be seriously disturbed
again ss long IS the unimpeded option
of the debtor to pay in the one metal
or the other shall be conceded by law
and the terms OF the contract. The
present commercial disparity OF the
two metals has been produced by the
pernicious legislation which began 2;
years ago and which has not yet salts