The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-02-21


ible wickedness. heroisms and follies
have been woven into the fabric OF
its romance. The very name illum-
mates duh chronicles.
Ivory, apes and peacocks sill
yer was the stuff with which the swart
Phoenicians freighted their galleys.
Solomon's temple builders, securing
Africa, yearned for the pale thing.
The most frightful treachery since
Adam discovered what may lie be-
hind woman's smile was bought by
handful OF 1t.
Charlemagne thought better of 1t
than Mr. Bryan and gave it gold
related price which today would cause
dellrium in Tonopah. The old east
can never get enough of it and insat-
iably devours the worlds output. Over
vein OF 1t which would stretch in
solid richness from the public library
pistolled each other to vary the mon
otony of draw poker and faro bank
No less than gold 1t advanced the
glory of Spain and inspired the cruel
ties of Pizarro and Cortez
Gallons Seized by England.
Great galleons heavy with plate set
forth from the Spanish main for ports
they never reached, victims of Eliza
beth's sea hawks. Men persisted in
jungles of the new world of fever for
the lust of It, The sea floor is well
Uttered with this argentum of the
Latins, and some of the richest mines
Of antiquity have been lost by the
freakishness of circumstance.
Always and necessarily it has COM
bated with gold for its fair deserts,
and the contest has not always been
record of humiliation for silver. They
meet on splendid terms and with
equal weapons, as Cantillon puts 1t
in his incompatible description: Gold
and silver alone are of small volume.
Invisible without loss, easily guarded,
beautiful and brilliant, and durable
almost to eternity"
Silver Is indeed more durable than
gold. The adversties of mankind
have been silver's opportunities, war
most of all; and this war most Of all
wars. Gold remains king. but silver
5,s become queen indeed.
Metal Locked Up in War.
When men begin to fight each other
they lock up their most precious pos
session for the coming of safer days.
War makes misers of nations. 1t in
duces them to hoard their gold. They
decline to release from their strong
boxes one ounce more than impera-
tive necessity demands But trade
must be carried on, and not altogether
in terms of credit and by fiat paper.
Millions of men must be paid to fight,
and when they are fighting in lands
not trained to an appreciation of the
credit of their own land they must be
paid in coin. hard coin; If not gold
then silver.
Here is one of the causes of the ex-
traordinary position of strength that
silver has assumed in a world which
had worshipped gold-a position so
extraordinary, indeed, that no man
dares venture a prediction as to
what Is coming If the war endures for
some years. There is even talk of the
reconciliation of silver, the mere sug-
gestion of which convulsed this coun-
try twenty years ago, Senator Thomas
of Colorado assuming that when peace
comes gold will have disappeared from
the current Of trade in warning coun-
tries and that it will be necessary to
use silver as the basis for paper cur
rency.
Symmetalism Is Suggested.
There is a suggestion, however fam
tastic. that "symmetalism is
to say the issuing of composition"
coin in the proportions of one part
of gold to ten parts of silver. might
solve trade difficulties. The spectre
of bmetallism raises it's Bryanlike
countenance and affrights veterans of
'96.
Whatever may come of the condi-
lions produced by the boarding of
gold and by the rise in value and i'm
portance of silver, the causes of these
conditions are sufficiently obvious and
set forth without too much weari-
some detail. First of all causes Is
the retirement of gold from trade
channels, forcing governments and in
dividuals to new respect for silver.
Silver itself is being boarded in all
countries by folk of small means.
India, China and the whole Orient alb
sorb silver as sponge takes up
water. 1t Is curious fact that the
movement Of silver for 1000 years has
been from west to east. In India
alone there are 100000 silversmiths
that require two thirds of the worlds
output There is no more interesting
chapter in the whole romance of sill,
yer than this strange devotion dis
played for silver by the old east II
Is a passion. Given a choice between
gold and silver, the Hindu, the Chinese
coolie or lascar sailor will take silver
every time.
Greater Denand in the Arts