Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-03-04
A RIDICULOUS FRAUD.
THE ARGUMENT OF Ex"SENA-
TOR EDMUNDS.
The Attorney for the GOldbugs Claims
that Gold Has Fixed Value When
He Knows 1t Has Doubled In r .>rchas-
ing Power Since 1873.

Before the committee of the house
on currency and banking, ex-senator
Edmunds made the following argu-
ments on the standards
The commission felt that such a
thing as a double standard had never
existed in the world through natural
operations. There have been double
standards established by law, but never
m fact. When it comes to an actual
standard, there can be but one. BY
law, the United States has a double
Standards silver coin and a gold
coin-established on the theory that
they could be maintained at an exact
equality.
Mr.. Edmunds then referred to the
experience of the great nations OF the
world, all showing, he said, that a
single standard meant stability and
safety, while legal attempts at double
standards meant disaster and panic.
From this universal experience, Mr..
Edmunds said he and his associates
had come to the conclusion that the
first principle on which to base cur
rency was to have one standard, that
gold is the best standard because 1t Is
the most stable of all standards OF
value, subject to the least fuctuation
from year to year and from century to
century.
Thus the commission was brought to
the gold standard as their first PROPOSE
ton. That, however, did not exclude
the idea of bimetallism, for it did not
exclude the use of silver or any other
metal to the largest extent that they
could be maintained on an equality
with the one fixed and invariable stan
dard of gold.
THAT conclusion was reached" Mr..
Edmunds added, with no prejudices,
with no private political considera-
tions, but solely from the conviction
Of those of the commission represent
ing the various sections of the coun-
try"
The idea of a man like Mr. Edmunds
pretending to be puzzled over
double standard" of money, Is enc
of the most ridiculous frauds ever at
tempted by the gold standard con-
spirators. 1t would be just as diff
cult for him to find a single standard,
because there is no such thing as
standard of value. Standard of value
Is what is assumed by double and
single standard. Value is an imagi-
nary thing, and cannot be reduced to
substance. Value is comparative
term and expresses the difference in
price between two or more pieces OF
property. That price or value is con-
stantly shifting, and is unstable as the
the sands on the sea shore. 1t is ut
terly impossible to have a standard for
anything that is constantly changing.
There is no single standard Of value,
and this is the reason there can be
no double standard. Had Mr.. Ed
munds been asked to define a single
standard of value his argument would
have refuted itself. There is nothing
that has substance and can be created
but can readily be duplicated.
To claim that gold sis subject to the
least fluctuations from year to year and
from century to century, is absurd.
The same amount of gold will pur-
chase today twice the amount Of staple
products of hundred or five hundred
different kinds, that it would twenty
five years ago. The five hundred
things have kept on the same level of
prices, bearing the same, or nearly the
same percentage of value to each other
that they had twenty-five years ago,
while gold has gone away above and
beyond them.
The falsehood of this assumption
it has not the dignity of an argument
has been pointed out hundreds of
times, but they keep repeating it in the
hope that maybe it can be made to
stick. If gold could be made STAN
dard of value" and anchored securely
SO that it were impossible for it to
vary, there would be no difficulty in
adjusting silver to it, and two sub
stances fixed and stable, they would
stand as firmly as two stone walls.
For thousands of years before 1873
silver money had been a recorder of
price the same as gold. 1t was then
demonetized by the great powers of the
world. In every country for thousands
of years the silver coin bearing the
same face or mint value that gold coin
bore, would purchase the same guam
tity of goods, and pay the same amount
of debt. And the silver coins today
are doing the same work. 1t is worse
than folly, it is an insult to common
sense, to claim that gold "is the most
stable of all standards of value, sub
jeot to the least fluctuations from year
to year and from century to century"
But what falsehood is too brazen for
one of these old hoary senate lawyers
to tell with solemn face-if he is
paid to do it?
When Senator Edmunds or anybody
else succeeds in making a single STAN
dard Of value out Of gold, or any other