Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1896-09-03
THE unit OF VALUE DEFINED

| Washington, Aug. 2S.--Sccretary Car
Isle has sent the following letter to II
| correspondent in Ohio, in regard TO the
unit of value, and authorized its publica-
| ton rs an answer to many other similar
| Inquiries which are constantly being adj
| dressed to him:
| 4. NJ. Simmons, Cleveland, Ohio:-My
Dear Sir: Your favor of the 18th inst,
| calling my attention to what you char
| acterize as serious errors in the circular
| recently issued by the Treasury Depart-
| ment, reached here during my absence
and | embrace the first opportunity after
my return to acknowledge it. The state
ment in the circular to which you refer il
| as follows:
"The act of April 9, 1902, established
| the first monetary system of the United
| States. The basis of the system were:
| The gold dollar. or unit, containing 24.I5
| grains of pure gold and stamped in pieces
of $40. SIS, and $3.50. denominated, re-
spectively, eagles, half eagles. and quar-
ter cugles; the silver dollar, or unit. con-
| taining 371.25 grains of pure silver.' a.
mint was established. The coinage was
unlimited and there was no mint charge.
| The ratio of gold to silver in coinage was
| 1 to Is. Both gold and silver were legal
| tender. The standard was DOUBLE"
| And you say, "fhe free-coinage advo-
| Gates point to those mistakes and claim
that they are Intentionally lugged in to
prove that the unit of value established
| by this government was gold"
| II you will re-examine the statement
you will observe that nothing whatever
| is said about the unit of value" or about
| n standard of measure of value, except
| h.,o Oh do rI xxynS Innhla " MEANING
of course, that the legal standard was
based on both gold and silver. / am un-
| able to discover any error in the state
ment. If 24T.50 grains of pure gold con-
| stitute So or units" it is evident that
| 24.75 grains of pure gold must constitute
one unit" The 24.75 grains of pure gold
| constituted gold unit, and the 371.25
| grains of pure silver constituted a silver.
unit, and the dollar was the unit
| whether it was composed of gold or silver
The unit is merely the name, or denomi-
| nation, of the coin used in computation
and in keeping accounts, and if Congress
| had seen proper to make the dime the unit
instead of the dollar it would not have
| changed the actual or legal value of the
coins TO any extent whatever. The only
| effect of such provision would have been
that instead of counting in dollars and
| fractions of dollars MS we now do we
would have counted in dimes and fractions
of dimes; that is, instead of saying zone
dollar or zone dollar and half we
would have said .ten dimes" or Fifteen
| dimes"
| The franc, worth little over 10 cents,
is the unit in France, and the mark, worth
about "a cents, is the unit in Germany, no
matter whether the franc or the mark is
represented by coin or by paper; but, not
witlstanding the fact that their unit is
much smaller than ours, and therefore.
much less valuable, their standard of value
| is as high as ours. The defect in the rea-
soning of our free-silver friends ON this
subject is that they constantly confuse
the unit of account with the standard or
measure of value. They are entirely diff
| ferent things, and have no necessary con-
nection with each other.
The words unit of value" were never
used in any coinage law of the United
States until February r. 1873, and then
they were applied to the gold dollar con-
tanning 23.22 grains of pure gold, or 25.S
| grains Of standard gold. The fact that
this quantity of gold is not now coined
into II single piece is wholly immaterial.
That quantity of gold constitutes staiid-
ard or measure of value for our dollar.
and when men contract for payment in
dollars they mean dollars equal in value
| to 25.S grains of standard gold. The
authors of the act of 1902 established
| Qegally) two standurds-a gold standard
| and silver standard-but in fact both
| of them could not be continuously used utl
| the same time.
AS long as 371.25 grains of pure silver
were actually equal in value to 24.75
grains of pure gold, there was in fact but
one standard. although represented by
| two metals; but when these quantities of
| gold and silver cease to be equal to each
| other in value. one or the other necessarily
disappeared as a standard. That is just
what happened, and gold went out Of Cir
| culati0n; silver became the actual stand
ard, and so remained until after the pass
age OF the acts of 1884 and 1897. al
The effects of the two acts of 1884 and
1897 was to change the ratio between gold
and silver from 10 to / to 1888 10. 1,
Commonly called 10 to - and the result
of this change was that silver went out
l'of circulation because il was underyaued
in the law, and gold took its place and be-1
came the actual standard of value from
that time on. Very truly yours,
j. G. Carlisle.
Death of Au A ged Citizen. ~