Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1897-10-14
Some Mistakes Corrected.


The Washington Post. Republican, rela-
tive to certain statements, which it as
sumes have been 'ignorantly made by the
gold standard organs says
1.-THE fact about silver is that so long as 1t re-
mains excluded from the worlds mints its bull
lion value must depreciate, but it is not true-it
is absurdly and impudently false-that the value
of the stamped coin has declined, or that it can
decline SO long as the nation which has stamped
it continues to be solvent The silver dollar will
buy just as much now as it would ten years ago.
1t will buy leo cents worth.
Copying this statement, the GLOUCESTER
COUNTY DEMOCRAT comments as follows:
cit is refreshing to ind newspaper advocate
of the gold standard possessing sufficient knowl-
edge OF our monetary system to be able and VIII
ing to give intelligent information to its readers,
and to acknowledge that money is created by
law not by trusts. !"
There are some misstatements Of facts or
some misrepresentation of them, IN thefOre-
going paragraphs which it is well to point
out and correct. In the first place, it is
well to call to mind the fact that the bull
/ lion value of silver declined whilethe minis
of the United States, Of India of the South
American states, of China aud Japan were
still open to the coinage OF silver. More
over, when under the Blrnd-Allison and
the Sherman acts. the United States
were purchasing the surplus silver product
OF the United States in order to check the
falling price of silver bullion, il still con-
tinned to decline Il Trenton True 4meri
can Oct. 9.
Mistakes" can hardly be corrected" by
misstatements.
II is not fact that under the Bland
Allison and Sherman acts" OF any other,
the United States ever purchased silver "in
order to check the falling price of silver
bullion" and as to the True americans
other "fact that the bullion value of silver
declined while the minis of the United
States were still open to the coinage of
silver it is even a worse misstatement
than the other when used for the purpose
TO which that paper puts it, for the real.
whole truth as to that point is that silver
had declined" less frequently and to a
less degree than gold had done during the
long period of American free coinage of
both at the ratio fixed by law, and was
higher than gold in the bullion market at
the very time the act of '73 dishonored it.
And yet on these two very palpable
mistakes" our able Trenton contemporary
argues through more than whole long
column. concluding with the yet holder
statement that ''silver was excluded from
the minis because of its depreciation as an
article OF commerce." which is the logical
result of arguing from error, since it causes
the True american to forget that heretofore
the only excuse ever given for the act of
'73 was the high bullion price of silver at
the time preventing its circulation as
money.
After that the True american very fit
tingly closes its chapter on mistakes" by
saying for second time:-
"ADd the GLOUCESTER DEMOCRAT is
wrong in its idea that money is creation
of the law"
Indeed? Then what about this def
milton of MONEY" which we find in the
latest and completest of English lexicons,
the Standard Dictionary, Funk and
Vaginal, 1895 ]:
81. standard of value and medium of pay
ment established BY Law; legal tender.''
And what about this plain provision of
the American Constitution
1.-THE Congress SHALL have power to coin
MONEY, regulate the value thereof. etc.
Surely the Tr1e american would not
have Congress make money" otherwise
than by LAW, would it?
But to go back to the main question,
since that paper makes our mistakes" its
text for discussing it: Will the True Ameri-
can deny that the larger part OF the bullion
market value of either gold or silver, now
or at any time in ali history, has come from
its coinage into money? Or that gold
would 60 down to less than half its present
price Gas measured in other products) if it
we're denied the recognition of law and the
stamp of legal money, and were made to find
its only market with goldsmiths, for sale as
ornaments, even in the "best" of times? In
days of prosperity ~ such as the pres
ent, the boasted "unchanging standard OF
value" would indeed be found very sun
changing" if the only demand for it came
by way of the shopkeepers' shelves.