Birmingham state herald., 1897-06-22
WITH THE STATE EDITORS.
OUR POSITION CONSISTENT.

Ibac OUR POSITION CONSISTENT. Our friend, the Advertiser, often charges us with inconsistency for ad- tvocating free trade, with free coinage at 116 to 1. We are still unabls to ses. the grounds of such charges. It's argument, we presume is that recognizing stlVef as E a money metal, the government would immediately raise it's value, and furnish Isjnga home market for silver at all en- ,hanced price. would thereby protect sthe silver miner. IT this be true, how much greater is the Advertisers incon- sisteEcy when it strikes down, silvlr, the last and only competitor of gold. and gives the yellow metal a complete mo- nopoly of al moIey tlarSaetions? This he Advertiser favoIs We claim at least | the merit of choosing ths lesser of two evils, thus far
 But free coinage viii give no part ru|ar silver country pr]ority over another. We want the hints open to the wor for both gold and silver. The people will there- fore. get their money as cheap as the chea pest in the world and low priced money means high priced labor in ali it's forms. Why should labor be high ard money bow? Because only these who la bor are worthy of reward; because the great majority are laborors ard because we thereby assure the greatest good to the greatest number With the whole word free for us to draw silver and gold from, as with free. coinage Is there any protective inconsistency in our posi- tion? f
 But if America produces lib rally in sll- yer and her miners thereby reap more of the benefits of free coinage than other countries, are we to deplore the fact? Only the spirit of envy can complain at an act which in doing the best fer ali incidentally assists deserving few. more than the average. We insist that frse coinage destroys the monopoly which the single gold standard has where all rivals as money are taken from the financial field. Instead of gold being the only debt paying money and therefore having dou- ble duties to perform and by reason of the excessive demands for It.. becoming too high in price. We wart free trade in money as in all else. We want silver re- esta blished as equal in all debt paying powers of gold, so that when gold owners ask too much cotton, corn or labor in any form for their gold with which we must pay our debts, silver owners can sell us just as potent moriey at a reasonable price.
 The Advertiser may say the silver men will hold their money, too, at the gold standard. If it does. it will refute it's argument that law can not raise the price of money If it does it will deny the I1- exorable law of supply and demand When a dollar Is worth two days labor where there are two days labor to one dollar. If you doubls the number of dol lars without altering the number of days a days labor and dollar will be equal If dollar has given value where there are only six hundred million debt paying gold dollars in the country. be sure the value of that dollar will decline when you double the number of debt paying dol lars by adding six hundred million of debt payirg silver dollars.
 Gold dollars are too high; it takes too much labor product to buy them We want the free competition of silver dollars