Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1896-09-25
MONEY QUESTION.
THE KEY TO TT EXPRESSED IN ONE
.s. WORD---HONESTY.
Free Coinage of Silver Would Bcne-
. ReDuGintOrs Of Dcbt-HOw Parity
... IL Naintained-The Present Silver
Dollar Is Sixteen to One, Tut Its
Coinage Is Limited. g.,

To the Northwestern Agriculturist:
MY object in writing you Is to try to
obtain a key to the money question
and protection. l am lost in regard to
understanding them. 1want the old
Republican theory; an a Republican,
and always have been; but since the
new questions have arisen l am lost.
Can you help me out? Very truly,
Nj. l.. w.
Nimrod MIMI, Aug. 6. 1896.
There are a great many OF us very
easily lost when we undertake to trace
the meandarings of statistics involving
figures away up in the millions and
billions, such as the abstruse "arguti-
ers" of the money question are fond or
citing The very men who deal IN
these undigested sta sites (misquoted
nine times out of tenn have simply
grasped a few stray bits OF 11otsam
and 1etsam of the flood Of historical
fact. and seek to impress their listeners
with the overwhelming prcfundity OF
their knowledge, rather than to en-
tighten them with any real principles
involved.
You ask for 'key to the money
cues, ~" That "key" is expressed in
simply one word-honesty.
Congress has power, under the con"
stitvltion, to measure the medium
which is used as money and put it's
certificate on the bit so measured stat
ing how much it weighs or measures;
congress may also declare, according
to powers given it by the constitution,
what kind of money should be accepted
by a creditor for all debts. in every
case except where the debtor and cred
itor have, between themselves, agreed
upon some particular kind of money or
other medium in which their account
shall be settled.
That is all the power that congress
has, or ever had. on the money ques-
ton Now, the issue in this campaign
is whether congress shall exercise that
power honestly by putting it's stamp Of
zone dollar" only on that amount of
valuable metal which is worth one dol
lar in the markets of the whole COM
anercial world, or whether ct sress, for
the benefit of Il certain class, shall lie
about it by putting it's stamp Of zone
dollar on only tifty-three cents worth
of silver and compelling people to ac-
cept that tifty-three cents in payment
of debt in which they had given one
hundred cents value when the debt
was made. The key to the whole ques-
ton is honesty"
The free coinage Of silver Is not In it.
self serious matter. No one objects on
principle to the free coinage Of silver If
the silver to 90 into a dollar could be n
,dcllars worth Of silver, just as the
gold which goes into u gold dollar Is
dollars worth Of gold. But that is not
what the silver-mine owners demand.
What they demand is that silver shall
I've coined at a ratio with gold of ''16
to IT, i. e.,thut there shall be only six
teen times as G.any grains of weight
OF pure silver In silver dollar as there
are grains of pure gold in a gold dollar
A-there is where the dishonesty comes
in, for that quantity of silver Is not
worth what that q lantity of gold is
worth in the markets Of the CONNER
'cial world. 1t would take about thir-
ty-one or thirty-two times Qnstead Of
Eixteen) as much silver as there is gold
to be worth dollar; and II this 16 to
law be enacted it will mean that every
time the United States mint shall turn
ont ''16 to 1" silver dollar it will put
the sacred signature of Uncle Sam to
.polnt-blank lie; for the government
will then take tifty-three cents worth
Aof silver and certify that it Is zone dol
lar"
The Present Silver Dollar II "10 to
ed.
"But the present silver dollar does
not contain thirty-one times as much
silver as the gold dollar contains Of
gold, and yet the present silver dollar
passes for dollar as we'll as gold"
.say the free-silverites.
Yes, that is true If the silver dollar
were made to contain a dollars worth
.of silver to-day they would be nearly
twice as large and heavy as they are
now, and would be too cumbersome to
use. Besides, the market value of SILL
yer is seldom the same from day to
day; it fuctuates, as does the value of
wheat or potatoes, and, therefore, the
weight Of coin could not possibly be
kept so that the bullion value of silver
in dollar would be worth a dollar.
Gold remains about the same from
year to year-not absolutely steady,
but with less fuctuation than any
thing else in the world. But, although
the bulkiness of silver makes the true
silver dollar clumsy and the fluctua-
ton makes it impossible, the United
States government has undertaken to
use both gold and silver coins by guar
anteeing that the silver dollar (rcgard-
less of its intrinsic bullion value\ shall
have a circulating value equal to gold
coins. This is what is termed "main-
tanning the parity CT the two metals"
How Parity Ii Maintained.
3 It Is accomplished substantially as
follows:
The United States government has
pledged its sacred honor to accept the
debts due to the United States, such as
duties OH imports and on internal reve-
nue. taxes, and has passed law max
ing silver dollars legal tender for all
debts, public and private, where no
special agreement has been made to
pay in gold. The government has also
agreed, by resolution Of con-
E gress, to limit the number of
silver dollars to certain amount
"a little less than six hundred mill
ion-and has agreed that the policy
present silver dollar in payment of all
1 of the government finances shall al
ways be such that there will be about
I as many silver dollars current as there
1 are gold dollars. This fact, together
with the legal tender quality of the sill