The record-union., 1898-09-14

| coin; coin for goods; credit money con-
vertible into coin by weight serving its
| true purpose
| The whole international commerce OF
| the globe is conducted in that way by
| the weight measure of pound sterl-
| ing. There is no lawful coin known as
| a pound sterling. We bas ,ered Ameri-
can cotton, wheat and ether products
| OF our farms last year for $500, ZOO O0(
| worth of gold coin measured by weight
IN pounds sterling. If any farmers are
| Iools enough to want silver money, Oh
cattle money, or skin money, they car
| get it; silver in Asia, cattle money in
Africa, fur or skin money in Nova
Zembla. The free coinage of silver OF
| full legal tender is almost grotesque in
| its folly and audacity, asking farmers
in the great Mississippi Valley, so pei
| cent. of whom are free of any mort
gage whatever, and are thus the credit
| ors of the world, to give their principal
customers in Great Britain the power
to force British silver, costing % cents
| an ounce or less, upon them under an
act of legal tender at 81. .291a an ounce
| or IL to L. The force of folly could &C
| no further
Mr. Atkinson then dealt with the his
| tory of coinage. He pointed out that
the gerat bimetallist, President Fran
els A. Walker, defined money as "that
which passes freely from hand to
hand" Therefore his theory of bimetal-
lism was wholly opposed to his own
| principle; the only kind of money that
| passes freely throughout the world
being money made of gold.
Cernuschi defined money as 1.-The coin
OF which the bullion is worth as much
| after 1T is melted as it purported to
be worth in the coin; all else bad
money" The only kind of coin in the
worlds market which is worth as much
after it is melted is gold coin
| The advocates of free. silver bimetal-
| lism and greenbacks are alike misled by
the fallacy that all money is the crea-
| ton of law and that it is law that gives
1t monetary force. They have never
studied economic history. They appear
| to be incapable of dealing with the
great facts of commerce. They sub
| stitute theories and fallacies which
have been exposed over and over again
in the history of the world, and which
have brought disaster whenever and
wherever adopted.
He ended with the quotation from the
| words of Pelatiah Webster, the patriot
merchant of Philadelphia, who resisted
the issue of the continental legal tender
paper money, traced all the disasters
which it caused and which were nearly
| fatal to the patriot cause, and who
after 1T died wrote of it's evil effects
and the benefit derived from it's final
death. Yet as Mr.. Atkinson said. there
| are men apparently of sincerity and
ability that propose to renew all these
evils by forcing fiat money on an un-
willing community; winding up as fol-
lows: The vice of legal tender is that
1t deprives men of their right to free
contract; that it enforces fraud upon
an unwilling or ignorant community
whether its members desire to cheat
Zach other or not. 1t is a bar to the
integrity Of nation and to the people
alike The sincerity of its promoters
can only be justified at the expense of
their repute for common sense.
There was no debate of Atkfnson,s
paper, and Editor Horace White of
/ the New York Evening Post" opened
| the conference proper with a paper on
The History of the Gold Standard
Mr.. White said that he had treated
the history of the gold standard at the
Worlds Congress of Bankers and FL
nanciers at Chicago in 1893, bringing
it down to that date He should not
repeat what he said then. The world
| had advanced in knowledge since that
time, and the subject was not SO in
teresting now as it was then. The his
of ha
| rative of attempts on the part of gov
| ernments and peoples to make two met
ais, variable in their nature, stable in
reference to each other These attempts
were honest but futile The pursuit Of
bimetallism was like the pursuit of an
ignis fatuus. The nations, one after
| another, had abandoned it, so that in
1893 all countries of any commercial
Importance except four had adopted
the single gold standard. The four
were India, Chile, Japan and Russia.
All four We're then silver-standard
countries. All have since adopted the
gold standard, or have taken steps to
that end. The only nation that has
gone back from gold TO silver is Spain,
and this has been in consequence of her
recent misfortunes. Mexico and China
are the only countries of any magnitude
that voluntarily preserve the silver
standard. There We're no bimetallic
countries now. As to international BIZ
metallism Mr.. White thought that Sen
ator Wolcott had preached it's funeral
sermon after he came back from his
fruitless mission some six months ago.
Mr.. White next considered the com
mon saying that there is not gold
enough in the world to do the busi-
ness of the world. He could prove that
there was enough gold to do our bust
ness. At the present time the banks
of New York and Boston had three dol
lars of gold to one dollar of paper in
their vaults. The reason for this was
that the West and South had drawn
nearly all their paper currency away
from them. Gold had flowed in from
abroad to take its place. If the West
and South thought there was not gold
enough to- do their business, let them
send this paper back to New York and
ask for gold in exchange. The coun-
tenances Of the New York bankers
would be wreathed in smiles while
handing it over to them. The reason
of this plethora of gold was easy to
understand. The large crops of the
last two years, coinciding with partial
failures abroad, had turned the balance
of trade in our favor. Accordingly we
had imported one hundred and eleven
millions of gold during the fiscal year
ending June 30. 1898. We had pro-
duced fifty-eight millions in our own
country which we had retained, and
we had received somewhere from five
to ten millions from the Klondike. Our
stock of gold had increased about one
hundred and eighty millions in little