The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1896-04-18
DISASTER WOULD FOLLOW.
The Inevitable Result of . Free Coinage
Of Silver.

l00vII8OkS
Of Silver.
This nation cannot adopt the free
coinage of silver upon the old ratio of
sixteen to one without placing us upon
a silver basis and reducing the currency
of this country to the use of one metal
only as money, and that metal silver.
The difference in price existing in the
markets of the world between the
amount of pure gold in q gold dollar
and the amount of pure silver in silver
dollar is so great that can hardly con-
ceive of a thinking person who will as
sert that both dollars can possibly be
made to circulate eide by side as cur
rency, unless the value of the two dol
lars becomes nearly the same. When
ever free coinage is granted to
any metal that metal of neces-
sity becomes standard money in
the country where it has free coin
age. When free coinage is given to
two metals and the value of the unit
in one is greater than the value of the
unit in the other. the business of such
q country will be done universally by
the use of the cheaper metal, and the
dearer metal, wherever a nation adopts
the free coinage of the cheaper metal,
becomes simple merchandise and ceases
to be used as currency. II the law per-
mitted the people of the United States
to pay their obligations in silver dollars
which were worth no more than 60
cents when compared with gold dollars
which were worth 100 cents, no sane
man will say that the people would use
gold dollars in such payment. They
would invariably convert their gold
dollars into the cheaper silver ones and
discharge their obligations by using
only the cheaper money.
l know that certain advocates OF the
free coinage of silver upon the ratio of
sixteen to one tell us that by reinstat-
ing such free coinage the silver dol
lars would advance in price or the gold
dollars would decrease in price until
the two would again be approximately
of the same value. l do not believe
that, nor do believe that one instance
! ON the face of the earth can be named
which will warrant such a conclusion.
Mexico has free coinage of silver, but
| on that account silver is worth no more
In Mexico that it is in the United States.
| The silver dollars of Mexico are worth
| only about half as much as the silver
dollars of the United States, although
| they contain a little more silver than
| do the silver dollars of this country;
but our silver dollars are increased in
price because the government SO man
nges as to keep them at par with gold
dollars. That cannot possibly be done
if we give free coinage to silver. lean
thing of no way whereby these can be
kept at equal value at the present time
except by making the higher priced
money the standard money and refus-
ing free coinage to the cheaper money,
and then keep the cheaper money equal
in value to the better money by making
it readily convertible into the better
money.
Now, why do / believe that an in
crease in price produced simply by
cheapening the unit of measure will
prove disastrous to the business inter-
ests of this country? / will tell you
why. In the first place such a great
and sudden change in the value of our
currency would destroy the confidence
of the business world in our business
integrity, and would injrre this ma
ton beyond all computation, and the
first direful result which would be ex-
perienced by such a change would be
the total destruction of our nation cred
it. Good money is rightly called the
life-blood of the nation, but credit is the
atmosphere without which business has
no life. The perfection of credit is the
glory of modern business methods. Re
pudiation in any form is i.bhorrent to
all honest men. 1t is on this account
Ghat this scheme of reducing the value
of our circulating medium meets oppo
sition from the business men of nearly
all the civilized world.
| The next great disaster which be.
lieve would follow such legislation is
the effect that it would have upon the
wage-earners of the country. The
trouble with the advocates of the free
coinage of silver ct sixeecn to one lies
largely in the fact that they ignore The
great human product of labor, and the
way in which such legislation would
affect the people who work for wages
Their scheme is based upon the assump
tion that it would enable people to pay
their debts with greater ease, and Their
they follow that assertion by saying
that the great bulk of the people of this
country are debtors. The exact oppo
site of that is the truth. The mass Of
the people of the United States ART
creditors. All the men and womeI
who work for pay in money become
creditors the very first hour of eacl
days labor. Can anyone overestimatl
the calamity which would follow to ths
people working for wages if you GU
down the price of the dollar in which
those wages are paid one-half, and ther
increase proportiOrately the prices O