Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1900-08-31
The Free Coinage of Silver.
what the Keystone OF che Democratic
Platform Means, aud what Its Results
Would Re-

what the Keystone OF che Democratic
Platform Means. aud what Its Results
Would BE.
by Thomas Hitchcock an eminent authority on
American financial questions
The Democratic party proposes now to
throw the coinage of silver at the old ratio
of 16 to l open to everybody, aud let every
body who chooses bring to our minis What
is now AZ cents worth of silver and get
back for it a silver dollar. There is in the
world already enough silver to make 4 ,000,-
100000 OF our dollars. The bank of
France alone has enough for $50 0OO, 900;
Germany enough for 100000, 600, and the
silver mines of various countries are al
ready producing 165, 900, 600 ounces year
which would add over 100000, 600 dollars
to the mass, to say nothing of the increase
of their output which would follow the
offer to coin the metal without limit into
dollars as available for the payment of
debts as gold dollars are.
That the effect of the coinage of this i'm
mense amount of silver dollars would be to
reduce their value to that of the metal in
:hem, that is to say, to A. per cent of the
value of the present dollar, is evident.
Wrgs-EHrners Would suffer.
The man who had lent out 1000 in
gold, or taken notes to that amount for
properly sold by him, would get back 81, )
600 in money which would enable him to
| buy no more than he could have bought
with $470 when he lent the 81, 900 or sold
the property on credit for $1,000. In the
same way the mechanic, the laborer the
! clerk and every man, woman and child re-
ceiying pay for services would find his or
her compensation, though apparently the
same, really cut down by the rise in the
prices of everything that they had to buy
food fuel, clothing, especially-to less than
one-half of what they had been In order
to live as well as they did before they
would have to insist on higher wages, and
though they would get them in the end,
they would have to fight for them and so
go through all the misery and turmoil of
strikes
| V.
The immensely of the values which the
Unlimited coinage of the silver dollar would
destroy can hardly be computed. The
government bonds alone which would
be payable in silver amount to 500, 600,
900; the bonds of railroad companies to
50, 900, 100000; the bonds secured by mort
cages on real estate to $4,000, 600, 900; the
notes held by banks to s., 600, 900 ,OOO-be-
sides book debts, and things of that kind
to an unknown extent. Above all, the
$500, 100000 of deposits in saving banks
due to 100000 depositors, would be re-
duced more than one-half, sweeping away
the savings of years. What privatons,
suffering and general misery would follow,
any one can judge for himself
The unlimited coinage of the silver dol
lar would, therefore, benefit no one but
those who happened to owe money when
it began, and even these, as soon as their
debts were paid, would be in the same con-
dition as the rest Of the community. Cred
itors and wage-earners would on the other
hand, be robbed of millions and never get
them back, While the change, too, from
gold to silver was going on business would
be in confusion, there would be no end of
quarrels between debtors and creditors,
and we might even have a financial panic,
worse than any which the country has here
tofore experienced.