The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-09-04
VALUE OF THE SILVER DOLLAR
Financial System of the World on a
FIimsy Foundation.

From the Washington Post.
In recent editorial utterance, refer
ring to certain current falsehoOds
touching the silver dollar, the Post had
occasion TO say: ''The fact about silver
Is that SO long as it remains excluded
from the worlds mints its bullion value
must deprecia e, but it is not true-it
IL ahsurdly and impudenily false-that
the value of the stamped coin has de-
clIned, or that ii scan decline, so long
az the nation which has stamped it con-
tinues ia he solvent. The silver dollar
will buy Just us much now as it did ten
years ago. 1t will buy 100 cents
worth. These New York newspapers,
with the possible exception of the
World. know that it will, and are
striving only To confuse the public
mind and to disseminate lie
Commenting upon this and upon the
general proposition contained IN our
article, the Cincinnati Enquirer re-
marks:
"The propositions in this paragraph
are sound. They lead naturally and
inevitably to still other truths. The
silve dollar is worth 100 cents, and
will buy as much as gold dollar, not
because-as the goldites may claim-it
Is sustained ut par by the gold redemp-
ton policy, but because the law, which
is all powerful in determining what
shall be money, says it Is a dollar 1t
Is not gold redemption that sustains
the silver dollar, because it would be
an utter impossibility TO even make an
approach 10 redeeming the silver circu-
laIiori in gold. The government, under
the terms of treasury order and not
by law, tires to keep a reserve of $780,
10000 in gold, primarily against
S346, ,00G, 900 of greenbacks; but il the
theory of the gold advocates is tenable
at all it must be considered as standing,
in addition, against ;he $3.50, 200, 900
of paper issued under the Sherman sill
yer purchasing act, and against the
" hole circulation of silver dollars and
silver certificates. This would be, of
course, simply nonsense. If the great
bllk of our circulating medium were
on SO flimsy foundation, the country
would indeed be in Chaos
Nevertheless, the gold monometallic
hypothesis as concerns the money of the
civilized world, amounts to something
very much like this, nonsense though it
be. Gold is the money of final redemp-
ton. All the business of the nations is
transacted upon the basis of the yellow
metal. All the commercial paper is
drawn against it. All debts are sup
posed 10 be discharged and all balances
to be made good in gold. And yet, if
the Uuited States government could
not, as the Enquirer shows, redeem
more than 10 per cent of its obliga-
tions in gold today, how much less
could the gold supply of the world
meet the paper now current and theor-
etically redeemable IN that metal.
The simple fact of the matter is that
our ''circulating medium" is upon ex-
actly this ''ilimsy foundation," and
that the financial system of the world
Is similarly established and conducted
The monome.alhsts have discarded oil
yer and made gold the only money of
final redemption; yet there rs not
enough gold in sight at this moment to
pay a per cent dividend on the drafts
that have been drawn against it.
This IS what Mr.. Cleveland calls
''sound finance" and perhaps it is.
The SILVER dollar Is worth only 43
say. Well,
what then, measured by the same
standard, is the gold mans paper
dollar worthP