Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-12-19
THE CURRENCY BILL.
country.

The currency bill which passed the
house yesterday introduces nothing new
into the financial affairs Of the nation,
insofar as the question of the double
standard Of monetary values is con-
cerned. When silver was demonetized,
and deprived of it's place as money of
ultimate redemption, gold became the
standard of values, and the fnancia
transactions of the government, under
both democratic and republican admin
istrations, have been conducted along
that line. The new republican measure
merely confirms to gold the position it
acquired through the demonstration Of
| silver. i
Were business conditions adversely
affected through the pending law, and
public sentiment reversed to such an
extent as to demand it's repeal as the
price of national prosperity, men favor
able to free coinage would doubtless be
placed in control of national affairs. The
same force that would register the will
of the people in favor of free coinage
would carry with it the repeal of any
law calculated to confirm the gold stand
ard. 1t therefore follows that the enact
ing of the pending bill into a law i'm
poses no burden upon the free coinage
movement which it did not originally
sustain.
It does not materially alter the relative
positions taken by the advocates and OPP
ponents of the bimetallic policy, further
than to place the burden of proof Upon
the single standard men. In default of
the pending law, it lay it all times within
the power of the gold men to retrieve to
some extent any national misfortune
growing out of their financial system,
) through the operations of the national
treasury in the redemption of outstand-
ing obligations by the payment of silver.
The new currency bill shuts off this
safety valve, and puts the single stand
ard system on trial on it's merits without
any opportunity for retreat should a ma
tional emergency arise.
NAS S'AS'& osAS
has been in a position to justify itself
through fortuitous circumstances, while
ready to avail itself of the right to rel
deem governmental obliga tions in silver
should that necessity arise. Hereafter,
it must meet all such obligations With
gold, as in the past, with the knowledge
that no set of conditions can arise under
which silver can be used for that purpose.
If unable to sustain its claims, under an
circumstances, it must ultimately give
way to the other financial extreme-free
coinage.
Through their own efforts, and their i'm
tions that may arise in the future, the
gold men have imposed upon themselves
the burden Of proof in trying to dem
o~nstrate the efficacy of their financial sys-
tenn. If they have miscalculated the
effects of the new currency bill, and it
proves inimical to the interests of the
country, they W. Ion more to make
free coinage a possibility than all the
theoretical arguments which silver men
can pile up on the threshold of a new
century. AS a bad law, it will cultivate
a free coinage s~entiment-as a law with
out any visible effect upon existing con-
ditions, it will merely resolve itself into
a congressional approval of a financial
policy which has been recognized in the
affairs of the nation since the demoneti-
l~zation of the white metal.