The Clarksburg telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1874-1926, 1900-09-21
Free Coinage Of Silver
At The Rate Of 16to 4.
What II Means and What it will do.
Plain Truth for Plain People.
BY rnASxR. LAWRENCE.

The words 16 TO H. as now used,
mean that sixteen parts OF silver are
tobe made to equal one part Of gold.
Those who favor free coinage Of sill
yer at the rate Of 16 to / mean that
they want Congress to pass laws that
shall make sixteen grains OF silver
worth as much as one grain OF gold,
and sixteen ounces of silver worth as
much as one ounce Of gold.
Why should this not be done Sim
ply because sixteen grains Of silver are
not worth one grain of gold and their
values cannot be made equal 10y law.
One grain of gold is worth BIZ grains
OF silver; one ounce of gold is worth
3l} ounces of silver.
The proof of this is that you can
take one grain of gold and buy 3li
grains OF silver with it, or you can
take one ounce OF gold and buy 3lf
ounces OF silver with 1t, and you can
do this either at San Francisco, or at
New Orleans, or at Denver, or at
Washington, or at New York, or at
any city in this country, or at any city
in Europe.
You can do this with every grain or
ounce Of gold that you have got or
that you can get hold Of.
You can get for any quantity of
gold, much or little, not merely six
teen times as muck silver as you have
gold but 3l4 times Us much.
There is not a man in the country
who would give up one ounce olgold
for sixteen ounces OF silver, because he
would be getting only half the value
Of his gold, only half what lie can get
for it In any market where gold and
silver are dealt in.
Yet that is what those who favor
"l6 to l" are trying to make the Gov
eminent do: they are trying to get
laws passed that shall declare sixteen
ounces of silver equal to one ounce Of
geld.
Suppose this is done, what then {:
Well, then we shall have silver dollars
that contain only about tifty-two cents
worth of silver, and II that takes place
1t Is quite certain that those who have
gold dollars won't pass them away in
exchange FOR silver dollars worth half
the money.
Those who have gold will hoard it,
keepit out OF sight and put 1t away,
because of its greater value.
People who have things to sell-the
butcher, the grocer and others-will
insist on getting just as much money
as before for their goods. They will
put their prices up and will sell their
goods so that it will take two of the
new fifty cent dollars to buy as much
as one OF the old one hundred cent dol
lars would buy.
The price of labor will not be doub-
led. Nobody claims that the man who
now gets $50 month will get $50
month when we have free silver.
The man who gets one dollar a day
now will get one dollar a day under
the new order Of things: perhaps tri-
fle more, perhaps little less. The
real difference to him will be that his
dollar won't go rs far; won't buy us
much as his present dollar does, and
so it will be the man who works for
wages on whom the loss must fall II
"16 to u wins, and II man is elected
President of the United States who
stands pledged to make The Govern-
ment take a piece of silver that is
worth tifty-two cents in the market,
and stamp it as being worth dollar,
and pass it of on the people as being
wortha dollar.
1t is easy to see who will lose by this
change-it will be the working people.
Now, who will gain by this change,
if it is made ? Why, the men who
have got silver to sell-the owners Of
the silver mines.
They will gain vast sums at the ex.
pensc Of the rest of the country. They
will be the only gamers, and even their