The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-08-21
FALLACY OF ANTI-sILVER ARGU-
MENTS.

MEN1$.
1t is no exaggeration to say that
there has been more denunciation of
free silver by the gold men and press
than discussion of it by them. The
points in dispute they have assumed
and asserted them as facts to hold up
their statements, for they cannot be
termed arguments. They constantly
assume and assert that the free and
independent coinage of silver by this
government would make the silver dol
lar worth but fifty-three cents when
measured in gold. In doing this they
claim they are justified because today
the price of the bullion in the dollar
is only worth that amount in the mar
ket. That that is all the bullion in the
dollar is worth is true, but the very
point at issue, the pivot upon which
the whole question Of free silver
turns. is whether under free
coinage the silver in a dol
lar would not be worth in the open
market its coinage value. 1t is true
10 one can say positively and defin-
not bring about this result. But the
arguments of the silver men are en-
titled to far more weight and con-
sideration than those of the anti-silyer
men because they are based upon-eX-
perience and known facts, while the
arguments of the anti-silver men are
based upon assumption and absolutely
ignore conditions. The silver menAcan
and do point to the indisputahle fact
from 1892 until 1873 the parity between
silver and gold, at the ratio Of is to l,
was maintained, the advantage being
slightly in favor of gold all those
eighty-one years, with the exception of
the years 1908, 1912 and 1918, when the
ratio was little above 16. The COM
mercial and the coinage ratios were the
same. Many explanations of this fact,
other than that silver had all the rights
of coinage which gold had, are given
by the anti-silver men, but they are
wholly inadequate. They cannot cite
the great increase in the ratio between
silver and gold since 1873 to sustain
their argument because of a radical
by natural causes but by legislative en-
actment- The parity between gold and
silver at the ratio of 16 to /, having
been maintained under free coinage,
and that parity having been destroyed
under the decentralization of silver, do
not all the rules of logic justify and
sustain the assumption that the parity
was destroyed by the act of demonetiza-
ton? The parity once having been de-
stroyed it was perfectly competent for
other causes to increase the disparity
But all these are subsequent to the de-
struction of the parity in the first i'm
stance. The error of the gold men is
that they seek to substitute these sub
sequent causes or influences for that
first cause which destroyed the parity;
they fail to distinguish between causes
and effects.
Nothing is truer than that like causes
produce like results. 1t is upon this
axiom that the silver men base their
that it was the fact of the
free coinage of silver which main
tanned its parity with gold, and point
to the other fact that so soon as the
cause, free coinage, was removed the
result, parity, was not the same. Re
store the former conditions and the
former results will ensue. The argu-
ments of the anti-silver men can never
refute this. The restoration of the con-
dftions which existed at the time of the
demonstration of silver and the failure
Of silver and gold to remain at a. parity,
at the ratio of Is to /, under those con-
ditions alone can prove the fallacy of
the position taken by the silver men.
alone can do it. q. priori
never can.