The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-11-04
WATSON ON MONEY
FREE COINAGE OF SILVER
ALONE is INA EEQUATE.
Falling Prices Commenced in 1896
Destruction of Paper Money
and Its Effect on Prices.
st. Louis Chronicle.

Gold. silver and treasury notes con-
stitute the legal currency of this Gov
! ernment from Jefferson's time to Lin
| coins.
That gold and silver should be used
as money, the Cons titution recognizes;
that paper could be likewise used, If
the Government saw fit, was recog-
nized by the practice of Jefferson,
Jackson and Lincoln, and the Supreme
Court of the United States. in the
broadcast, directest terms declared the
practice legal.
Populism agrees with the advocates
of silver coinage as far as they go. We
say they do not 60 far enough.
Money, can be controlled in it's price
by any one who controls the supply.
In other words. trust can be based
upon money! just as it can upon wheat
or cotton. The only way to break the
grip of trust is to bring into the
market another supply of the COM
modify "cornered."
The wheat trust is broken by bring
ing in more wheat. the cotton trust
by bringing in more cotton,
A money trust can only be broken
by bringing in more money.
II gold were the only legal currency,
it could be easily ''cornered," because
the supply is so small.
II both gold and silver constitute
the only legal money the formation of
a money trust is more difficult, but
still could be done.
There being no legal money but
gold, how could a trust in gold ever be
broken?
The world would be helpless. Every
citizen who owed a dollar of debt or
taxes would be absolutely at the
mercy of the trust Which held contrel
OF the only money in which the deut
or taxes could be paid.
The free silver men tell us that this
gold trust could be broken by opening
the mints to silver, and thus bringing
into market another supply Of legal
money.
True enough; but suppose that the
available supply Of both gold and sill
YER be "cOrnered," how then is this
trust to be defeated?
Populism says"it can only be done
by reserving to the Government the
power to issue paper money, and thus
to bring in the supply, without which
the grip Of the money trust could
never be broken.
The very fact that the spectators
in money knew that the Government
was vested with this power, and its
administration in the hands Of par
ty which would exercise this power,
would be the surest guarantee that if
the Populist principles were adopted,
no corner" on money would ever be
attempted.
We say that scarce money means
dear money, just as scarce wheat
means dear wheat. The more money
there is in circulation the easier it is
for each citizen to 60 into the market
and buy dollars with corn, cotton, land
and labor. The demand for money
depends upon the mum ber of people,
the amount of business, the am unit
of debt and the amount of taxes. This
people being in debt to the aggregate
| Of SAC, ,OOO, ,OJO, 900, and the taxes grow
ing heavier every year,while the num-
ber Of the people and the volume of
business constantly increases, the de-
mand for money has enormously in
creased over the demand of 1851.
The demand being greater than in
1867, the supply of money should be
greater. in order that the equilibrium
between money and all other COM
modities should be preserved.
But the supply has not only not in
than it was 1867.
We need not wonder then that
| money, being so much scarcer, is cor
espondiDgly dearer.
Money is measure of value," the
bookmakcrs tell us.
In 1867 money measured" the two
million bales of cotton and found
them more valuable, in dollars. than n
the nine million bales were In 1895.
"How is that:" says Populism. THE
bale of cotton had precisely the same
intrinsic value in 1885 which it had in
1867.
Not only that, but it had the same
commercial value as compared with
all other commodities-excepting
money!
In 1867 money measured" seven
hundred million bushels Of corn, and
found them to be more valuable than
twenty-one hundred millions in 1895.
man or beast just as long in 1895 as in
1867. The intrinsic value is precisely
the same. Why then does the corn
raiser have to pay six bushels Of corn
to get the money one bushel used to
get?
Simply because when the corn raiser
goes into the market to buy dollars, he
finds that the demand has increased
and the supply decreased.
Populism says that the silverite
does not reach the marrow Of the
question at all. He does not go deep
enough. He weakens the case by
commencing with 1873 as the starting
point Of failing prices," when every
body knows they commenced in 1866.
The silverite also denOunces ''con-
traction Of the currency. and yet TAX
en- pains not to explain that the coz
traction consisted in destroying the
paper money. Gold currency has not
been contracted, nor has silver. Both
have been Increased, silver especially.
The ''contraction' took place in de-
stroying the paper money, and Puru-
lism says that, while silver coinage