The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-02-03
THE GOLD STANDARD.

For a people who claim to be bright, prac-
| teal and progressive the American people.
| at least a large portion OF them, have been
remarkably slow, if not stupid, in recognize
| ing the fact that there is and can be but
| one standard of money value, and, to all in
| tents and purposes, that standard has al
| ways been gold. Whenever and wherever
| silver and gold have been coined freely or
| have circulated together it has been at q
| legal ratio of value, based upon the com
mercial ratio, which as nearly as possible
measured the cheaper metal by the more
valuable one Whether the ratio was 1872
to l, Is to /, 15lz TO 1, Is to l. or. it is now
in Mexico, 1919 to /, it was always some
thing to l. The one was gold, the real
standard of the world frem the beginning
and for many years past in all civilized na-
| tions the only standard recognized. The act
| of 1873 establishing the gold standard in
| the United States, simply recognized by
| legislation what had always been an eco
nomie fact. 1t changed the legal but not
| the real status of gold and silvIg,, and Gid
not confer any new dignity on a metal
| which, from time immemorial, hau been the
nations. The passage of an act affirming
| the law Of gravitation or declaring that
from and after a certain date twice two
shan be four would not establish any new
| principle or add any weight to those truths.
Yet it took Congress a long time to discover
| that scientific truths and economic facts
We're not proper subject of legislation. and
| that all the legislative "monkeying'' of the
| ages in the attempt to create a double
| standard of value out of two metals of
widely different values had been labor lost
and time wasted. Even now, twenty-five
years after Congress passed n law making
gold what it always had been, the standard
of value, and after all civilized nations have
| burned their silver bridges behind Them a
great many Americans who consider them
selves as bright as the average cling to the
obsolete and world-discarded theory of a
double standard of value composed of two
metals which, God having put them
I asunder, human legislation can never join
| together in any ratio of enduring parity
That the idea of a double standard as
now held by the advocates OF free silver is
of recent origin is shown by the fact that
the words they use i'm discussing it are COM
! paratively new coinages. ANY person who
| will look in an English dictionary published
twenty years ago will find that the words
| bimetallism bimetallic and bimetallist are
not there. They were coined by a French
writer about 1870. and did not make their
appearance in any English dictionary until
after 1856. They came to supply a demand
They were not needed until school of
| alleged economists sprang up who insisted
| that there could be two measures of value
themselves of widely different and fuctuat-
Ing value, and that their equality could be
maintained by law. amended every now and
! then TO meet new fluctuations in the cheaper
metal. To maintain this view they had 10
ignore the lesson of history, taught many
times in many countries, that the so-called
parity of the two standards thus estab-
lished was no parity at all, that II was a
state of perpetual hostility, and that one
always did and always would drive the
other out of circulation.
IT is time for the American people 10
recognize these facts. If we are TO main
tain our claim u progressive people We
must accept the results of experience and
evolution. and move forward with tho