The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-07-10
Fiction and Fancy.

Q.-What is the whole body of cur
rency of the United States to-day?
The following answer is given:
A.-Paper, $4,000, 900; silver, $780,
900, ooo gold, S6I2, ooo, 600.
How that sum is arrived at the writer
does not explain. What is called uncov-
cred paper consists of nominally $346, 900,
600 greenbacks and $500, 900, 900 national
bank notes which aggregate $546,ooo, 600.
The greenbacks have been i'll circulation
thirty-three years, and it is fair to presume
that many millions of that money have
been lost and destroyed in this time. The
national bank notes have fuctuated i'll
quantity through nearly as long period,
and of those issued by national banks
which have suspended and wound up
there is about $50, 600, 600 missing, which
has not been sent into the treasury to be
Cancelled. OF these two classes Of money
it is fair to presume that at least $780,
600, 900 has been destroyed and lost,
which reduces the amount of these two
classes of money to SAC, 900, 900.
What is meant by uncovered paper"
is money that is not representing coin in
the treasury. There is $344, ooo,o 900 OF
silver certificates in circulation. The
silver dollars are in the treasury ready to
exchange for these certificates when pre-
scented. There is considerable amount
of gold certificates ont which have been
issued principally to New York bankers
who deposited gold in the treasury, who
use these certificates in place of the coin,
There is also about $40, 600, 900 OF
Sherman legal tender currency which
was issued in payment for silver purchased
under that law during the three years it
was in existence. This money justly and
legally, too, is based OH that silver.
There is about $50, 900, 900 coined silver
dollars i'll circulation and $40, 900, 900 OF
subsidiary silver halves, quarters and
dimes, counting all that has been issued
from the minis for the last sixty years,
and deducting none for losses. So i'll
order to get the $3.50, 600, 900 of silver the
writer claims is in circulation all this
paper and silver must be counted and
none for losses deducted. The amount oil
| money in circulation is largely guess work
The writer claims there.is $612, 900, ooo
of gold in the country. He wisely refrains
| from mentioning where this vast sum is
located. There is $Ioo, 900, 900 in the
United States treasury, the sacred reserve
(?), about 500, 900, 600 in New York banks,
and $2o, 600, 900 (estimated) on the Pacific
coast, ss$2Io 900, 900, all that can be &C
counted for, and then the goldites jump at
their conclusion that there are four hun
| bred millions i'll circulation among the
people, which every, even half-sense per
son knows is bald faced fraud. There is
not more than half that amount of gold
can be honestly accounted for, which is
claimed to be in the country, by the gold
tie press and Wall streets Comptroller Of
the Treasury, Eckels.
Q.-What is the existing money stan
dard of the country?
| A.-Gold, by means of which all the
silver and all the paper are worth Ioc
cents to the dollar.
This is another half lie in the answer
to the question. The present gold stan.
dard has no legal existence, and is a
purely manufactured gold standard by a
collision between the President and Sec
rotary Carlisle and the national bankers,
chiefly Wall street gold gamblers. All
the silver coin and certificates in the
treasury and in circulation are as clearly
and legally the money standard" of this
country as the gold. The law makes it
so by making no distinction between gold
and silver coin. Not one gold dollar is
ever paid out of the treasury to redeem
silver. The minis have simply stopped
coming silver dollars for the people who
own the silver. That is all. lust as
France did. We have no gold standard
by law, but a binletallic standard. All
the silver dollars issued from the United
States minis will pay every debt both
public and private, in the United States
and all taxes which gold will pay. There
is absolutely no legal difference between
gold and silver money; nothing under the
sun except the artificial dilference-rnore
apparent than real-made by the traitor
of the White House i'll collision with
National Bank Tories of New York. The
United States is as purely bimetallic
nation as France. In order to force this
illegal gold basis system on the country
the President and Secretary Carlisle have
paid premium on gold to fill up the
treasury, OH the last one hundred millions
of bonds sold of at least ten million dol
lars, and on the former sales of one hun
dred and sixty-two millions at least
twenty-four million dollars more, aggre-
eating in premiums OH gold at least
thirty-four million dollars in order to
maintain the illegal, fictitious gold STAN
dard. These are absolute facts. Those
two hundred and sixty-two millions of
bonds sold by Cleveland were disposed of
for thirty-four million dollars below the
price the same class of bonds were selling
for on the stock market.
This is one item only of what the pres
ent illegal, forced gold standard has cost
the people to maintain, The assertion in
the answer that by gold all the silver and
all the paper are worth one hundred