The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1896-09-11

elected president how ine ! ears would
take TO cover on the Stock k1charCe to-
morrow.
My friends, rs Republican / am proud
of many things, but can sum up as the
highest satisfaction 1 have had in the
party and its career TINT the prospect of
Republican suacess never did disturb bust.
ness.
"A Grave Danger.
In connection with this financial mat
ter, do we all realize how important the
choice of president is? Do you know
that as the law Is now, without the passage
of any free coinage of silver law at all, 1t
is in tho power of tho president of the
United States to bring tho business of this
country to a silver basis9 All no has to do
Is to lot the gold reserve go, to pay out sill
yer when men ask for gold, and we are
there already. 1t Is only because tho pres
idents of the United States that we have
had and the one we have now have regard
ed 1t under the law as their public duty to
maintain the gold basis, maintaining that
parity between our silver and gold coins
which tho law declares is the policy of the
government, and because they have had
the courage TO execute the powers given to
them by the resumption act to carry out
that declaration of public law. / under
take, therefore, to say that If Mr.. Bryan
or man holding his views were In the
presidential chair, without any legislation
by congress, we should be on o silver basis
In weeks time.
The silver question-what is 1t? Do we
want silver because we want more money
a larger circulating medium? I have not
heard anybody say so. Mr.. Bryan is not
urging it upon that basis. If anybody
were to seek to give that rs reason for
wanting free silver, he would be very soon
COMPOUNDED by the statement that free sill
yer would put moro gold out of circulation
than the minis of tho United States could
possibly bring in in years of silver, and
that instead of having more money we
would have less. With our six hundred and
odd millions of gold driven out Of circula-
ton, we will reduce the per capita money
of this country between 50 and 50; so it is
not for moro money.
About the Rating OF Values.
We have an abundant supply of circulate
ing medium-gold, silver, national bank
paper, greenbacks, treasury notes, fraction
al silver. We have something like S23 per
capita OF our population. What is it, then,
that creates this demand for silver? 1t Is
openly avowcd it Is not'morc dollars, but
cheaper dollars that are wanted. 1t Is q
lower standard of value that they are do
handing. They say gold has gone up I'M
til 1T has ceased TO be u proper standard of
value, and they want silver But how do
they want it! Now, my friends, there is q
great deal of talk about bilnetallism and
the double standard, and II great deal of
confusion in the use of those terms BIZ
metallism Is the use of the two metals as
money where they are both used. BY o
double standard. they mean that wc shall
have gold dollar and silver dollar which
shall be units of value by which all prop
erty and all wages and everything is to be
measured
Now, our fathers thought that when they
used these two metals in coinage they must
determine the intrinsic relative value of IKE
two, so that comparison Of the markets of
the world would show just what relation
one ounce of silver bore to one ounce of
gold, how many ounces of silver il took to
be equal TO one ounce of gold in the mar
kets of the world where gold and silver
were used, and they carefully went about
ascertnining that. Thomas jefferson and
Alexander Hamilton gave their great pow
ers to the determination of that question,
and they collected the market reports, and
they studied with all their power that ques-
ton, and when they had found what ap-
peared to be the general and average rela-
tive value of these two metals they fixed
upon q ratio between them Now, what
was the object of all that? Why did they
lump 1t alp Because they fully understood
that unless these dollars wero of tho same
inherent, intrinsic value both of them
could not be standards of value and both
could not circulate.
Why, every boy knows that IL Is essential
that the length of his stills below the tread
shall be the same What Is tho law that
governs here? 1t is just this simple law of
human selilshness and self protection that,
If you have two things, either one of which
will pay debt, and one Is not as valuable
as the other, you are sure to give the least
valuable one. 1t is just upon the principle
that man who can pay n debt with one
dollar won't give two-precisely that; so
that, unless these two things maintain APP
proximately the relative value, so that 16
ounces Of silver are worth ounce OF gold,
you cannot make such dollars circulate to-
gether. The one that is moro valuable the
man will keep In his pocket or he will sell
1t to bullion broker, and everybody will
use the other.
1t Is an old law, proclaimed years ago
in England by Gresham, that the cheaper
dollar drives the better one out 1t has
been illustrated in our history repeatedly.
1t has been illustrated In the history of ev-
cry commercial nation in the world, and
anybody of half sense could see why it is
so. You might just as well say that If we
had two kinds of bushels, if the law should
declare that 60 pounds of wheat was n
bushel and 30 pounds of wheat was u bushel
well, what farmer would deliver wheat
by the 90 pound measure If he had sold 1t
by the bushel?
In Calculating the Ratio.
Now, so nice were our people about this
in trying to adjust 1t, that they went
into decimal fractions. We say 16 to 1. In
fact that Is not the ratio. 1t Is 1895
plus. Now, that Is the actual ratio. 1t is
SO near 16 that we call 1t 1G, but the men
who made our silver dollar and our gold
dollar were so nice In their calculation
that they went into decimal fractions, into
thousandths, to adjust 1t accurately. Now,
what do these people propose TO dor To
take any account of thousandths2 No
When the markets of the world fix the rel
ative value of silver and gold Mt 81 ounces
of silver TO ounce of gold thov propose