The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-09-15
the very fabric of popular govern

y
is purchasing power over things in gem
eral; and IL the value of a money unit
consists in the amount IL possesses of
this purchasing power; and If falling
prices are, in the ways we have seen,
inimical 10 Industrial progress and So
cial happiness and thus ultimately
destructive of liberty; il follows that a
money system that furnishes such a
unit is both unsound and dishonest;
and. If during any given period, the av-
erage level of general prices undergoes
progressive fall. this fact itself is an
Indictment of the money system in op-
GRAFTON. The gold standard dating ap-
proximately from 1873, has furnished
the nations attempting to use IL with
money unit which since that date,
in spite of short temporary periods of
relative stability. and with even slight
occasional declinations toward it's for
mer commodity equivalents, has, upon
the whole, constantly risen in value
until the purchasing power of a unit
weight of gold is to-day approximate
ly 100 per cent greater than in 1873.
This indisputable and portentous
fact, of the tremendous appreciation of
gold, is the central point of this great
controversy. Rightly apprehended II
is alone absolutely destructive of all
claims on the part of the gold standard
TO be considered a satisfactory money
system. Any such claim is confronted
with the insuperable fact that during
the existence of that system ii has
given the gold-using world most un-
stable measure of value, one that has
nearly doubled in 25 years. The gold
standard and permanently higher prices
are impossible companions. The con-
tinuance of that system means a con-
tinued increase in the purchasing pow
er of the dollar, and. which is identi-
cslly the .ame thing, a protracted fall
of general prices.
AT present the experiment Of the
gold standard is in a state of incom-
pleteness. To go on with it to the log
ical conclusion of the gold valuation
system is practical impossibility,
while it is equally out of the question
for the world to remain in its present
monetary condition. The gold stand
ard in its simplicity contemplates the
abolition of every other kind of money
of full debt-paying power except gold
alone, and the use of various forms of
credit based on gold i'm the ordinary
transactions of business. We may see
an indication of this intended consum-
nation in the various schemes of
money reform recently proposed and
now pending in congress, the so-called
Gage plan, that of the indianapolis
sound money convention and that
embodied in the McCleary bill, all of
which share the aim so distinctly an
nounced by the secretary of the treas
ury, To commit the country more
thoroughly to the gold standard and
agree in their essential provisions.
They contemplate the retirement of all
forms OF government paper money, or
'greenbacks and treasury notes, and the
reduction of our standard silver dollar
into mere promise to pay in gold.
The inevitable result of such a course
would soon be the absolute disuse of
silver for money except as small
change, the melting and sale for use
silver dollars, and the contraction of
our circulation to such a quantity as
should be furnished by our distribu-
tive share of the worlds gold. plus
such a paper circulation as the banks
could keep actually redeemable i'm gold.
The par of exchange among ma
tions can be restored in only one of
two ways: Either by the universal
adoption of the gold standard so that
all nations shall use a common meas
ure of one metal, or by the restorat tion
of genuine bimetallism so that all ma
tions may possess a common measure
composed of the joint volume of both
gold and silver. But the universal
adoption of the gold standard is inn
possible. To say nothing of the folly
of attempting it's extension to India
its establishment in all its rigor, even
in Europe, would produce such a cat
aclysm of disaster and misery due to
the enforced annihilation of hundreds
of millions of dollars of silver and sill
yer supported paper, with their super
imposed credit, that social chaos
would supervene compared to which
the Dark Ages would seem like an Ar
cadian era.
I'VE therefore reach the conclusion
that the only way to bring back a par
of exchange between gold and silver
is by restoring to silver the full money
opportunities of which IT has been de-
prived by laws; by again authorizing
the coinage and use of silver as stand
ard money coordinate with gold.
I'VE contend that by opening the
mints of the United States to the free
coinage of silver as well as of gold at
16 to l the fall of prices would be stop
ped. This is admitted by our oppon-
ents. Their fear is of an alleged so
cent dollar, and a '5O-cent' dollar is
only another name for a 100 per cent
rise of prices. But the rise would not
be so high, nor anything like il. The
'50-cent' dollar cry is only a campaign
catch phrase. No economist would So
berly endorse it, The introduction of
silver into competition with gold would
deprive the latter of its monopoly of
values and registering prices.
The endowment of silver with all the
dignity and power of gold would great
ly add to its demand. The effect would
be that gold would fall towards silver
and silver would rise towards gold,
the result being a gradual elevation of
average prices that would eventually
reach a compromise about half way be-
tween their present level and that
from which they fell, or an advance of
about % per cent.
But we are told that all the gold in
the country, estimated at more than
5000 900. .00O, would be driven out of the
If the mints were opened to
silver. There is no more grotesque fig
ure of speech in frequent use to-day
than this Of the gold advocates which
the alleged expulsion OF
gold. 1t is as If the first few silver
dollars taat should percolate through
the mint were instantly to seek out