The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-01-14
REMEDYING LAST DEFECT.

REMEDYlNG LAST DEFECT.
The republican majority or the
house committee on coinage, weights
and measures shows c~ommendable
promptness in it's efforts to remedy
the last remaining defect in the mon
etary laws of the nation by making
provision for the redemption of the
silver dollar and placing the currency
Of the country on an absolute gold
basis. The committee has agreed to
report the Hill bill for the mainten-
ance of the silver dollar on a parity
with gold and for the increase of the
silver subsidiary coinage.
The bill authorizes the coinage of
subsidiary silver coin without regard
to limit, the only limitation
placed upon such coinage being the re-
quirements of public necessity. In
other words the advocates of silver
are to have their wish of free and
unlimited coinage of silver" only in
a modified form. 1t removes the last
remaining objection to the existing
coinage laws, in that it provides for
the ultimate redemption of the silver
dollar by the gold dollar, for
which it is made interchange
able. In order that this end
may be secured the secretary of
%h~ fy,oo c,yrxy fc 1Spo1fnI fn nv01oro0
gold for legal tender silver dollars
when the latter are presented in the
sum of IS or any multiple thereof.
To make the law effective and COM
| plete the bill provides that all pro-
visions of law for the use or main
tenance of the reserve fund in the
treasury relating to United States
notes at the discretion of the secretary
are made applicable to the exchange
of legal tender silver dollars. In
other words, the silver dollar is to be
made real money in that it may be ex-
changed for an equal value Of the
standard, basic money of the nation.
The contention of the democratic
members of the committee that the
act is calculated to rob silver of the
last vestige of monetary value, except
for subsidiary coinage" is not we'll
taken. AS the law now exists the
American silver dollar is an anomaly
in the coinage of the world. The value
,onrncnrfn1 INV II is Eofifi1,,c ,r1 tic
acceptance by the people as none of
actual and intrinsic value equal to it's
face value is due 10 a pleasing fiction
that it's issuance is based upon the
o.her and more valuable coinage metal
gold, the standard money metal of
the nation and the world. 1t is only
the belief in the nations s%olvency that
causes it to be accepted for it's face
value, the same as are accepted the
treasury notes and other token money
By making it interchangeable with
gold and placing it on a parity with
gold it receives the value it now pos
sesses only through courtesy. In
other words, the Hill measure pro.
poses to give it in reality what it now
has only by brevet.
Of course, it was to be expected
that democrats of the Bryan and
Altgelt stripe, represented in congress
by Shafroth of Colorado, and a few
others of that school of financial doc
trinaires, would oppose the bill and
seek to compass it's defeat in com
mittee. In order that silver might
continue to figure in the monetary
system of the nation, even in it's pres.
ent anomalous and 'discredited posi-
ton, they We're willing that the old
condition of things continue indefinite
ly, caring nothing for the fact that
the proposed measure gives to the
silver dollar all the essentials of real
money, which it now lacks.