Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-07-21
The Monetary Problem.
seeeeeeeeeseeeeseeeese seeeeeeeeseeesssssses
TYPICAL GOLDBUG LIAR.
False Statements Made by am IgnO-
rant BungIer-ShOwed Up Ina
His True Light.

1t does not seem possible that SO
much asinine ignorance of the first
principles of monetary science, or
shameless mendacity, could be
crammed into a brief newspaper arti-
Gle, as that in the News of this city
entitled Dishonest Money" Either
the writer of this article is pitiably ig-
norant of the subject upon which he
essays to write, or else he is guilty of a
cold-blooded and mendacious misrep-
resentation of the facts in the case.
The article in question complains
that the new revenue law proposes to
| coin an ounce of silver worth $1.25 in
! to legal tender dollars, while the coins
so printed are worth, intrinsically, but
| Is cents each. An ounce of silver at
| the present coinage ratio is worth
| S1.29, and not SIPS, as stated by the
writer of this article; but suppose the
metal in a silver dollar, as metal, is
| worth but As cents, what on earth has
! that to do with the exchange value of
/ a silver dollar? A coined silver dol
| lar being legal tender, primary, debt
| paying dollar, has an exchange value
| of 100 cents in gold, and that is all
| anyone wants any dollar for, not to
sell the metal in the dollar, whether
| of gold or silver, but to exchange the
| coined dollar for 100 cents worth of
| debts or property or necessaries of
| life, and it is utterly immaterial to
them, and no one ever thinks about it
or cares about it, what the metal in
| the gold or silver dollar is worth as
| metal.
This shameless liar also has the
braZen assurance to say that nobody
will take" these silver dollars when
coined under the new law, and that
mo one wants silver dollars now"
Does this reckless falsifier of the plain
everyday facts and experiences and
observations of every sane person ex-
pect to be believed when he says that
nobody will take" these legal tender,
debt-paying dollars? VIII he not take
them himself, and does he not take
them every day in the ordinary bust
ness transactions of his own news
paper office, or silver containing exact
ly the same amount of silver and metal,
and having the same legal tender debt
paying power as gold dollars, as every
silver dollar now in existence has, and
every silver dollar to be coined under
this new law will have? Does the
News make a business of giving these
legal tender, debt-paying silver dollars
away to those who want them with
out exacting for them 100 cents worth
of labor and debts and property and
This ignorant bungler, or worse, also
IL, ~
silver dollars, and that we can only
keep 100000 of them in circulation,
thus conveying the impression that
450,000,0G0 of them are piled up in
the United States treasury, while
it is an official fact, and SO shown
by the books of the treasury de-
partment, that not more than So,
100000 of these legal tender, debt
paying dollars are actually in the
treasury, and that practically all of
them are kept there to redeem silver
certificates under the Bland law of
1878, and the Sherman law of 1890, and
that practically every one of these
500, 100000 silver dollars are doing
business as legal tender, debt-paying
money, either in the form of silver
dollars or as silver certificates and
Sherman notes, and besides, that
something like SSO,OOO,OOO in frac-
tional silver currency are also doing
business as legal tender debt-paying
money il this country. Does not this
writer know that fully seven-tenths of
all the money actually in circulation
among the people consist of silver dol
lars, silver certificates, Sherman notes
nd fro oil Siirar- JEn RI
not think that there was a man in
Springfield, and especially an editor of
a newspaper, who would be guilty of
making such a mendacious statement |
as this. If he believes it himself he
is a fit subject for a lunatic asylum, |
and if he knows better, but still feeds |
his readers with such stuff, he falls |
far short of being an honest man. |
This writer also speaks of benefiting |
the mine owners by coming ounces of |
silver into legal tender money, thus |
increasing the purchasing price of |
their product. Well, what of it? 1t |
was the demonstration of silver in |
1873, and constantly discriminating |
against it since then, that has reduced |
the bullion value of the metal in a sill /
YER dollar from S1.03 in gold, as it was
lin 1873, to IS cents, and if the govern
ment has thus legislated the value out |
of the product of the silver miner, to
his absolute ruin, in most cases, would
there be anything unjust, or morally
wrong, in the government blish-
ing the equilibrium between the sill
YER producer and the debt owner and |
money manipulation by reestablishing
the price of silver bullion, and espe-
cially so, when it can be done to the
great advantage of 90 out of every 100
people in this country, including the
mine owner. But we do not want to
argue the money question here. We
simply started out to show up a little
of the asinine ignorance or reckless
mendacity of the article. In the
language of the Spanish proverb, it
may he a waste of lather to shave an
ass, but the good of the beast and es-
peeially when he takes to braying such
nonsense of this News article, makes
it necessary, seeing the public good,
to do so.-Illinois State Register.
Look Back.
In 1872, the year before silver was re-
fused free coinage, wheat ranged about