Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1897-05-15


1873. assert that half the money of the country
was destroyed and hold. out the idea that our
money has been contracted to that extent In
1872 our population was 40. 5S6. GO and per
capita of money was $1S- 80 In 1884, after the
country had been suffering with gold standard
for 81 years. our population is 81, 275, 900, and
our per capita of money is A. and we have
much better money now than he had then
The adoption of the gold standard q meas
of value did not increase the demand for
gold for use to any great extent Alcohol is
the standard for measuring the strength of all
spirituous liquors, yet that fact has never been
found to be very straining on alcohol.
A Surfeit of Silver.
Fourth proposition. that the free and unIira-
tied coinage of silver at 16 to l would create
unlimited demand for silver ind restore it to
a par. How the mere coinage of silver can in
any way increase it's among the people
am unable to understand. II there was not
enough of it for money and the govern
ment was limiting the coinage of it and there
by denying the people of the use of it as
money then there would be force in the prop
osition to increase the coinage Of silver But
our condition Is exactly the reverse OF that
The amount of coined and uncoined silver in
the treasury is S5l2, 0Jo.oOJ while the amount
in circulation is about sl01, UoJU00.
To encourage the use of silver by the people
the government exchanges coined silver at its
mints for gold legal tender currency and
pays the express charges on the silver to any
part of the country inns coined silver is all
good money The dollars are legal tender for
all debts i'll any amount, AMI the halves quar-
tiers and dimes .e1change;ihle of
so for gold other legal tenders. Notwith
standing the induC,11lent offered by the gov
eminent to promote the use of silver, it has
hitherto been unable TO force into circulation
more than about one-Hfth Of its stock on hand
Then, why all this clamor for more coinagef If
a man had five times much blood in his body
IS his arteries and veins would circulate and
four ffrhs of it was lying idle around his
heart, would any say that such a
needed free and unlimited infusion of blood?
"A government can no more in, uce people to
> SO money ,.ey do not want than it can induce
,Irr1 To Pat hat do of iIya no f1.11a
flace of silver is a change money. It is indis-
pensable for that purpose and unsliued to any
other. and all the silver tongued orators in the
land cannot change this fact. The 81, $3.50 and
S3 goldpieces were too small and We're unpop-
ular change money. and the government
stopped the coinage of them.
On the other hand. silver is not debt pay
ing money in any considerable amount,
the money of commerce. for the reason that it
is too bulky ard too heavy. When man gets
over IS or SO of it. he unloads on the first
bank he comes to, and the bank unloads on
the treasury Thus the circulation of it is linn
tied to just what the people will use. When
the people get enough of thing, they know
it, and You cannot argue with them about it.
They are gullible on theories, but intensely
practical in business.
1.-THE Great Crime of 1873"
We have heard a great deal about demoneti-
cation of silver. Let see the extent of ''the
great crime of 1873 In 1853, in order to pre-
vent the subsidiary coin frcm going abroad,
the silver half dollar was reduced in weight
from 20614 to 192 grains, and the quarters, dimes
and cent pieces were reduced in the same
proportion. These coins We're then made
legal tender for only IS in amount, and the
coinage of them for private account was stop
ped, but the government purchased the silver
bullion and coined them they were needed.
So. no crime was committed in 1873 against
the halves. quarters, dimes and half dimes.
That crime was committed under Willard Fill
more In 1879 these coins were made legal ten
der for sums not exceeding $40.
In 1873 the standard silver dollar of 4121<
grains was left out of the coinage act and the
trade dollar of 420 grains substituted for
it. This was done at the request of the Pacific
SLOPE to enable our dollar to compete with
the Mexican dollar of about that weight. in
China and Japan. The standard dollar was
not legal tender from Feb. IL, 1873. to Feb.
%, 1878, at which time its recoinage was provid-
ed for, and it was reinstated a legal tender
for all debts, in whatever amount But S. co.,,
600 of this daddy dollar was coined prior to
1873. out of u total coinage of LOCO, OOO. 600.
jefferson stopped the coinage of it in 1905 and
Tor ~ years not one or them was coined, and
the datdies never complained. They did not
have sense enough to see that jefferson had
sold out to Lombard street, These dollars
were not in fact legal tenders prior to 1873.
because the people did not tender them in pay
ment of debts nor in purchase of goods. They
had not been in circulation since Andrew
jackson was president. and hardly any middle
aged man had ever seen one of them. The peo-
pie had demonetized them by melting them
down by sending them abroad for that
purpose, and to this good day they have never
been demonetized in any other way.
The act of 1878 simply recognized what the
people had done anu Tor nve years continued
the policy that the people had been pursuing
for nearly half a century. The legal tender
faculty of this dollar was restored to it II
years ago. The government has $3.50, O00, coo
of it on hand now, and has stood ready at all
times to furnish it to any body who wanted it,
This is the biography of the decentralization
mouse that has been evolved from a mountain
of denunciation- The poor little thing never
lived but five brief years and has been dead
door nail for II years. While it lived it
was SO harmless the people paid no attention
to it. Shakespeare says, ''The evil that men
do lives after them But it is even worse in
the case of this mouse. The evil that it did
not do lives after it in the shape of grasping
mine owners, two ply editors and unscrupu
lous politicians.
Thriving Assassination.
We are told that the standard dollar is not
primary money 1t is not promise to pay,
it is legal tender for all debts, and it does
not have to be redeemed in anything on the
face of the earth. If any man can give a bet
ter definition of primary money than this. I
would like to see it.
This government is the fast friend of silver
money and of the people who use it, rather
than of the American and English corpora
tions who mine silver and would coin it at a
fictitious valuation. Prior to 1873 this govern
5 ment coined sl44.0oO.000 of silver: since then,