The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-17

To the Editor OF the Globe.
II free coinage becomes law, will the
government take the bullion and issue silver
certificates that will be legal tcndcrs
An answer through your columns will
oblige, yours truly,
Hudson, Wis. Oct. Is, 1886.
The bare proposition for free COIN
age implies that any owner of silver
bullion could take it to any United
States mint and have it coined into sill
Yer dollars, receiving in exchange for
his bullion one such dollar for each
371A grains of pure silver furnished by
him. On the face of it this is all that
is involved in the demand for free COIN
age at 16 TO l. The government would
play no other part in it than that of
shaping and stamping the disks of bull
lion to be known thereafter as dollars,
and handing them back to the bullion
owner without charge for its service.
This, of course, is not all that would
happen. 1t would not be possible for
the government to stop there If 1t
wished; and if the silver party should
be successful, it would not dream OF
pausing at this point. Since there are
already in existence about 430, 600, 600
silver dollars coined by the United
are in circulation either in the form
Of certificates or as coin, together with
what are stored in the treasury, the
new dollar furnished to the mine own
erS Under frea coin a ora would ,,ocS~ into
the community side by side with these,
and be undistinguishable from them
and share their fate. If the silver dol
lar coined on government account were
to remain a legal tender, which the
silver people, Of course, contemplate,
then that coined on private account
under the new regime must also be
made legal tender, because when
the coins once passed into private
hands one could not be told from the
other.
AS matter of fact, the platform Of
the Peoples party, which Mr.. Bryan
has formally accepted, together with
the speeches made by Democrats and
Populists in this campaign, indicate
clearly what we might expect for this
country should the free silver party
preponderate. We would have first
free coinage of all bullion brought to
the minis at the rate of Is to /. Second
all such coins would be made full legal
tender at their face. Third, inasmuch
as the minis, working at their full ca
pacity, could not coin in less than ten
or fifteen years enough silver dollars
to take the place of the gold. that
would instantly disappear; and. mas
much as the people would be as little
anxious to use the silver dollar as they
now are, congress that passed free
coinage act would undoubtedly au-
thorize the issue of certificates against
bullion prior to its coinage leaving thar
to follow at leisure. Fourth, it is not
improbable that a lawswould be passed
authorizing the issue of silver certifi-
Gates against silver not yet taken from
the mines to an amount equal to the
estimated extent of the deposit. Such
project has been mooted and is not
out of harmony with the rest of the
programme. Fifth there would be sue
cessive issues of legal tender paper.
supported by nothing and representing.
pure fiat money, until the ensuing COM
mercial ruin should drive the fiatist out
of power. Sixth, gold contracts would
be prohibited, and, as the reluctance of
the people to accept the debased cur
rency in exchange for products and
services would increase, there would
be, as there has been in all other coun-
tries engaged in the same experiment
savage laws passed prohibiting the ex-
port of gold or the sale of gold at a
premium, and providing other punish-
ments for all who should refuse to ac-
cept the new money at its face. This
is the outlook under a system of free
coinage.