The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-09
AIMS OF SILVER MINERS
FREE COINAGE NOT EXPECTED TO
RAISE THE BULLION VALUE.
Loss of Purchasing Power of Money
Now in Use Would Require Fur
Their Issue Of Cheap Dollars.

Inc 1NepuDlcan campaign orators are out
all over the West telling the people why
the silver men want free silver and what
profit it means to the mine owners and the
blind pool behind them. This new turn In
the campaign has bewildered the Popocrats
for they have been taken unaware. Mr..
Bryan will be obliged to go on the defensive
when he comes out here again, and will
have TO explain the figures and facts now
being given to the people by the Republican
and sound-m oney orators
One of the most effective of the speakers
on the sound-money side is j. A Fraser
jr., the well-known writer on and student
of finance. He has devoted his life to the
subject of silver, and in a talk with
me has has unfolded entirely new and origi-
nal views why mine owners clamor
for free silver and shows the profits they
will make if Bryan is elected and Sc
cures free-Silver coinage. The interview
should be read by all who wish to know the
true cause of this movement. Mr.. Fraser
says:
How do the silver miners expect to profit
by the free and unlimited coinage of silver?
Through rise in the value of their product
to $1.29 per ounce? oh, no; they are per-
fectly well aware that such thing can
happen. They don't want it to happen. If
they have in view, for it would make the
real, or bullion, value of our silver dollar
100 cents, instead of 80 or 53 cents and 1t
would retain in circulation our gold coins
concurrently with our silver and paper
money on parity of actual value, instead
OF an artificial parity consisting of part
value and part credit, as at present. Re-
gardless of national and individual honor,
they are deliberately working for national
ana lnolvlduai Reputation ana roopery by
means of a debased and depreciated dollar,
Tor IN such dollar alone do they see an
enormous profit for themselves.
Their cry for an increased circulation is
a false cry No one knows better than
these men that we have volume of
money amply sufficient for the needs of
legitimate business and larger than that of
any leading commercial nation on earth,
excepting only that of France. What they
two-thirds of our money in two, and to
exile the other third, by bringing silver
down to its bullion value, which would
necessiate the use of double the number of
dollars to do the same amount of work.
Nobody knows better than they that
uties of France the Reichstag of Germany,
nor the Parliament of England, can. by a
simple act of legislation, create out of alb
which the statute is expressed. a value
equivalent to more than S6,0OO,000 10000. Yet
would haye to perform if they, attempted.
quoting Mr.. Bryan, to raise the value of
every ounce of silver, both here and every
where, to $1.29 Why do they know this to
be impossible?
Because this same statement was made
in in Congress prior roo to the passage of the
facts? Speculation forced the price of sill
yer up from SO cents to $l19, but before
the year was out it had fallen back so far
that the average for the year was only
$1.O4.
Silver production increased in the United
States alone from SO, 900 600 ounces in 1889
to 54,500000 ounces in 1890, an increase of
1850, 600 ounces. In 1891 the worlds produc-
ton of silver increased II. O75 SAT ounces over
that of 1890, and the price fell to an aver
age Of SO cents for the year. In 1892 the
worlds production ,od increased 15,sso, SAB
price for the year fell to 81 cents. In 1893
the production again advanced by II, $40, 2S5
rs cents, the treasury purchasing it's last
quota at 63 cents. 1t must not be forgotten
that during this period 1S90-93, India took
129 920,SI5 ounces of silver for coinage alone,
thus aiding enormously in sustaining the
market; and, in spite of this unprecedented
silver in less than four years the ,srice
after touching S1.19, dropped like lead to
GO cents.
CANNOT RAISE THE PRICE.
After such an experience as this it is
evident that the silver miners cannot an
ticipate any considerable rise in the value
OF their product, for they know that the
offerings of silver to the treasury were
largely in excess of the quantity the Sec
rotary was authorized to purchase every
AiAOiiIAI dUiiHS WHICH TIE OiltIuid11 ACT WAS
in operation. Although Mr.. Bryan does not
seem to have heard about it, the minis of
India have been closedtto silver ever since
1888; and that vast market is now barred
and barricaded against the mine owners.
1t is quite evident. then, that a rise in the
price OF their product is not the object
There is a woodchuch in the hole. Let us
see if we can smoke him out
IN the Anaconda copper mine at Butte,
Mont, and in other localities, they find
large quantities of silver mingled with the
copper ore. AS the copper alone pays hand
someiy to mine, every ounce of silver
they get costs practically nothing and is
so much clear gain. AT Little Cottonwood
In Utah. where the celebrated Emma mine
Nevada and in many other localities lead
ore is mined mingled with silver. 1t pays
handsomely 70 mine the lead and again the
silver is practically a by-product and all
clear gain. In every mine in which gold
is found in a quartz formation the gold is
mingled with silver. which must be ex-
tracted before the gold is commercially
available. In this case, again, silver is the
by-product of another industry. The
suS OF 1890 shows that the total number
of men engaged in the silver mining busi-
ness was less than $4,000 and that more
from the ores of other metals as the by
product of some other mining industry
That census report also shows that the
total commercial value of the silver pro-
duced $57,225.000. was less than one-half
the value of the product Of the patriotic,
Woodworking American hen You will
quantities of silver every year which would
pay them we'll if sold at 10 cents an ounce.
But this is not all. In other mines.
such as the Granite Mountain, Molly Glib
son, Last Chance, Big Bonanza of the
Comstock Lode. which has made Senator
John p. Jorcs, the real leader of the silver
party. a, millionaire twenty-five times over.
and in many more of the greatest produc-
ers, the cost of mining silver is so low that
their proprietors hug jealousy the secrets
of their balance sheets. But il IS well
known that from 1880 to 1895 millions or
ounces of silver We're offered to the gov
eminent which cost the miners not to eX-
coed from 10 to % cents per ounce delivered
at the treasury in Washington. Even when
silver was down in the neghDornood OF 63
cents there was a wild scramble to sell.
and the output continued to increase
WANTED. A MARKET.
ut is obvious, then. that it is the market
for and not the price of, their product that
worries Senator Jones, with his $25, 600 600:
Senator Stewart, with his $40000,O00 John
Mackay, with his $i00 900: W. A. Clark,
with his $40 900 600; David Moffat. with his
$40. 000, 600, and the oth,r members of the
silver trust. whose aggregate wealth is
estimated at s547 900 o00 1t is to obtain a
market that these patriots have for twenty
years maintained the most expensive lobby
ever sent to Washington by any special in
terest; which lobby. headed by General A.
j. Warner. has kept up Il continual knock