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this. He tries to give the impression here that if the silver dollar was made the unit of value,' this would in itself always hold up the value of the metal in it so that it could never be worth less than a dollar.' A dollar in what-in gold or in shoe leather? A dollar where-in Chicago or in London? The present legal tender silver dollar (of 1878) is just as good as any silver dollar the Government ever did or ever can make, of the same weight, and the moment the holder is unable to get gold for it its value will drop to 50 cents in every European market. But here at home, as legal tender, it will always be passed for a dollar most certainly. Greenbacks in 1864 were passed for dollars; Confederate States bills were always passed in the South for dollars. No one of these dollars has ever been worth nominally less than itself.' But what were they really worth as money to buy with?

THE SILVER LEGISLATION OF 1873.

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"We now come to the act of 1843," continued Coin⚫ "On February 12, 1873, Congress passed an act purporting to a revision of the coinage laws. This law covers fifteen pages of our statutes. It repealed the unit clause in the law of 1792, and in its place substituted a law in the following language:

"That the gold coins of the United States shall be a one dollar piece, which at the standard weight of twenty-five and eight-tenths grains shall be the unit of value.'

"It then deprived silver of its right to unrestricted free coinage, and destroyed it as legal tender money in the payment of debts, except to the amount of five dollars. At that time we were all using paper money. No one was handling silver and gold coins. It was when specie payments were about to be resumed that the country appeared to realize what had been done.

"The law of 1873 made gold the unit of values and that is the law to-day. When silver was the unit of value gold enjoyed free coinage and was legal tender in the payment of all debts. Now things have changed, gold is the unit and silver does not enjoy free coinage."

The writer in the Banker's Magazine answers: "The crime of 1873! How familiar this sounds, how it has been harped upon till our ears have become tired of it. There never was any crime: the bill was passed openly after having been before Congress in different shapes for two years. The facts have been given repeatedly by the New York Evening Post and other newspapers, and the actual debates have been quoted from the Congressional Record. It is quite unnecessary to rehearse the matter here. The silver men have always weakened their cause by alleging 'crime' and 'conspiracy.' Why are they not satisfied to give the plain truth which any one may safely admit-namely, that the subject of coinage had so little interest for the public at that time that many Congressmen paid no attention to the bill and voted for it without knowing its real purport. Grant more, say if you please that the bill would not have passed if they had known that the coinage of silver dollars was dropped. What does the whole thing amount to for our present purpose when that entire legislation was overturned and set aside in 1878, and the coinage of legal tender silver dollars was authorized? And

afterward purchases of silver bullion in 1890, which were carried on till the deadly silver experiment of the United States was stopped by the beneficent law of November 1, 1893, after $570,000,000 of silver dollars and Treasury notes against silver bullion had been put out. Coin omits all this; suppresses the whole fact, and tries to lead ignorant people to think that ever since 1873 the country has been proceeding under the law enacted in that year. Let the pub lic decide which is the greater crime, the passage of the law of 1873 or the suppression of such truths for the purpose of deluding uneducated voters."

HAS SILVER CEASED TO BE A PRECIOUS METAL? The Chicago News had stated time and again that silver had become so plentiful it had ceased to be a precious metal. "There is no truth in the statement," replied Coin. "The United States is producing more silver than it ever did, or was until recently. But the balance of the world is producing much less. They are fixing the price on our silver and taking it away from us at their price. There is in the world now (p. 39), according to the report of the Director of our Mint, $3,727,018,869 in gold, and $3,820,571,346 in silver. The dislocation of the parity of the two metals by the demonetization of silver, and the attempt to maintain our credit in gold, has reduced the redemption money of the world from $7,547,590,215 to $3,727,018,869, or a little less than one-half the original amount."

"I want to know," said Mr. George H. Rozet, a real estate dealer, here interrupting Coin, "why you say silver is demonetized, when it is in circulation every day and handled by us as money?"

"We have seen," replied Coin, "how the commercial value of the two metals were parted. By the same laws that produced this result, silver was made redeemable in gold, and ceased to be redemption money. Silver now circulates like paper money, both redeemable in gold. It is now subsidiary coin or token money.

"Strictly speaking, nothing is money but redemption money-all other forms of so-called money are money only in the sense that certified checks are money.

"In the sense in which you say silver is money, nickel and copper are money, but they form no part of our stock of redemption money. Gold now takes the place formerly occupied by both gold and silver, and is our only redemption money. Silver, as now treated, cuts no figure in our currency that could not be substituted by paper or other metals. What is meant by demonetization is, that silver has been destroyed as primary money." (p. 40.)

Answer: "As to the assertion, a hundred times repeated in this book, that silver was demonetized in 1873, and (by inference) remained so till 1894, let the answer now given suffice to meet the allegation as often as it is made, Coin says above, We have seen how the commercial values of the two metals were parted. By the same laws (those of 1873) that produced this result, silver was made redeemable in gold and ceased to be redemption money. Silver now circulates like paper money, both redeemable in gold.' This statement is absolutely untrue, but how can any one expect the farmer, the farm laborer, the factory hand, the colored workman of the South, or the coal miner of Illinois to know just what the laws provide? But what are the real facts? Granting, for

the sake of the argument and to avoid hair-splitting in this discussion, that the act of 1873 by dropping the further coinage of silver dollars, 'demonetized' silver, that whole legislation was deliberately revised in 1878, and a full le al tender silver dollar was authorized. Not only this, but our Government was compelled to purchase at least 2,000,000 ounces of silver a month and coin it into such dollars, whether they were needed or not, and went on so coining till 1890. In that year the famous Sherman law was passed compelling the monthly purchases of silver bullion and the issue of coin notes against them, and operations under this law were continued till November 1, 1893, when it was repealed under pressure of the silver crisis of that year, leaving $150,000,000 of these Treasury notes against silver thus issued and outstanding. Up to April 1, 1895, there had been issued of legal tender silver dollars $423,000,000; of the Treasury notes against silver purchased $150,000,000; of subsidiary silver coins $76,000,000, making a total of $649,000,000 silver and notes, issued up to that date-nearly the whole of it since 1878. The statement that silver dollars are not now "redemption money " is absolutely untrue. These dollars are equivalent to gold as redemption money, they are a full legal tender for any amount, they have never by law been made redeemable in gold, and it is only by the policy of the government in maintaining the 'parity of the two metals' that they are now kept interchangeable at the old ratio of 16 to 1. This is the only true bimetallism, when the silver that is actually coined and outstanding can be exchanged for gold; the free coinage of both metals does not make bimetallism if one of them is permitted so to depreciate as to drive the other entirely out of circulation. If Mexico coins gold as well as silver does that make her, in practice, a bimetallic country, if not a single piece of gold is in circulation and it is impossible.to exchange any gold coin for silver at the old ratio?

"As if to leave no possibility of doubt as to his false assertion, Coin finally says: "In the sense in which you say silver is money, nickel and copper are money.' This is simply untrue, the silver dollars are legal tender and are what he calls 'redemption money' for any amount, while nickel and copper are thoroughly subsidiary and only legal tender for a trivial sum. Throughout his whole book Coin conceals from his readers the main silver facts in the history of this country, namely, that between 1878 and 1893 the United States alone, without international agreement, tried the silver experiment; that, aside from subsidiary coins, our government issued in those fifteen years no less than $570,000,000 of silver and notes against silver bullion; that in spite of this immense demand the commercial value of silver declined from $1.15 in 1878 to 78 cents in 1893. In the face of these facts, and the laws of 1878, 1890 and 1893, Coin tries to give his readers the impression that there is no silver now in circulation of full legal tender value as redemption money, and that we have always been and are yet proceeding under the law of 1873."

LATIN UNION, GERMANY AND UNITED STATES.

Mr. P. S. Eustis, General Passenger Agent of the C. B. & Q. Railroad, wanted to know what nations constituted the Latin Union, that Coin had referred to (p. 69), as having a ratio of 15% to 1 prior to 1873.

"France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Greece," was the reply.

"Then," said Mr. Eustis, "the Latin Union, Germany and the United States, by free coinage had maintained the commercial value of silver at par with gold?

"Yes," was Coin's reply.

Answer: "The discussion above opens with the statement that the Latin Union embraced France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Greece. These nations had agreed to keep their mints open to silver at a certain ratio, and they, together with Germany and the United States, all had their mints open to silver, which was always practically exchangeable for gold in France. This was what maintained the parity of gold and silver, such as it was, and this general consent of the nations to keep their mints open to silver coinage in some shape is what all true bimetallists are seeking for."

PRICES OF WHEAT, ETC.

To a newspaper statement that wheat in 1859 was as low as it is now, and that corn in 1873 was about the same price (38 cents) that it is now, Coin replied (p. 114): “The statement that wheat in 1859 was as low as now is not true. The average price of No. 2 red winter wheat for 1859 was $1 10 per bushel. The average price for the month of May, 1859, was $1.35." "We will take some other things," continued Coin. "I now hold in my hand the statistical abstract of the United States, issued in 1892. On page 341 we see that the average price of cut nails in 1859 was, per 100 pounds, $3.86. In 1892, $1.83. Now they are about $1.00. On the same page the average price of pig iron in 1859 was $23.38 per ton. In 1892, $15.75; now it is about $12.00. On page 334 we find that the average price for 1859 of cotton was 12.08 cents per pound. In 1892, average price 7.71 cents per pound; now it is about 7 cents. On page 335 we find the average price for 1859 of fine washed clothing, Ohio fleece wool, was 60 cents. For 1892, 30 cents. All other values on an average have declined like these I have just read. What you say about the price of corn in 1873 is true; but I want to call your attention to the cause of it (p. 116).

This

"Corn does not seek distant markets like wheat. is partly on account of its small price per bushel. It can not always stand the freight. Its use is not so general as wheat, and it seeks the home market. On p. 215 of the report of the Chicago Board of Trade for 1892, you will find that the corn crop of the State of Illinois, for the year 1872, which controlled the market price for the spring and summer of 1873, was 217,628,000 bushels; while by this year's report the crop for 1893, which controls the present price, was 160,550,470 bushels. The demand for corn now, with nearly double our population, is greater than it was in 1873, and yet in 1873 the corn crop was fifty-seven mill. ion bushels greater in this State than it was last year. This overproduction in 1872 accounts for its low price in 1873. The gold standard accounts for its low price now." Of the farmer testing this question, Coin says after paying his taxes he starts for the depot, and to get there he takes a street car. He finds the fare the same as in 1873. He gets on a Pullman car to find the cost the same

"that

as in 1873. He registers at a first-class hotel. He finds the cost about the same as in 1873. He sends a telegram, and finds it costs the same as in 1873. He gets a shave, with the same result. He buys tea and coffee, with the same result. He gets back home and goes to his bank to borrow money. He finds interest, except in cities on first-class loans, about as high as in 1873."

Answer: "The subject embraced in this part of Coin's school is admitted by all thinking men to be most serious. The great decline in wheat, cotton, wool and some other farm products in the past few years has been such as to cause great distress among the agricultural classes. This decline has amounted to a public calamity, and it has been one of the chief obstacles to a more rapid recuperation from the silver crisis of 1893. Coin, however, misrepresents as usual. Take his farmer journeying to Chicago,he says that he pays the same for a telegram that he did in 1873, the same fare on a Pullman (rather luxurious farmer to travel on a Pullman), the same price for tea, etc. These are positive untruths, for it is well known that rates for telegraphing, railroad fares and the price of tea, are all vastly lower than in 1873. But there has been no connection between the decline in silver and the decline in products, and this may be satisfactorily established by a consideration of the following points:

"1. The decline in silver. It may fairly be conceded that the closing of the mints of Europe, the United States and India to the coinage of silver has been the principal cause for the decline in the value of that metal. At the same time, the product of silver up to 1893 had steadily and largely increased, thus throwing on the markets of the world an increased supply to be absorbed by the silver standard countries alone, after the United States discontinued their monthly purchases in accordance with the repeal law of November, 1893. The effort is made by Coin and all his followers to show that the decline in silver has caused the decline in wheat and other products, merely because the decline in both has occurred somewhat contemporaneously during the past few years. There is no argument in this, although to the unthinking man it is very plausible to say silver has declined and at the same time caused the fall in wheat, cotton, wool, &c. It is the old fallacy, known to every scholar as the reasoning of post hoc ergo propter hoc. The deceptive assertion is repeatedly made by Coin that an ounce of silver will buy as much as it ever did, and therefore that silver has held its price on a parity with merchandise. But this claim in the first place is positively untrue, because it is only of a few articles like those above named that silver will purchase as much as ever, while of a host of others such as corn, beef, pork, lard, butter, cheese, coffee, etc., and especially of day's wages, an ounce of silver will not buy nearly as much as it formerly did. Let any one look to the ruling prices of merchandise in Mexico for a confirmation of this statement. Merchandise is very high there, though wages have risen but little, showing that every one gets the benefit of the silver prices sooner than the poor workman. If it is correct to

say that an ounce of silver will buy as much wheat and cotton as ever, it is just as true to say that a ton of iron will buy just as much of those articles as ever, and the price of silver bullion has no more relation to the price of wheat than the price of iron has. What Coin and his disciples now fear more than anything else is a substantial rise in the price of wheat within the next year. A healthy and non-speculative advance to 80 cents in Chicago would knock the main argument out of his whole book.

"2. How, then, is the large decline in prices of merchandise to be accounted for? In the first place, this decline so much talked about is by no means universal, and many articles are now as high or higher than they were in former years. The extreme decline in a few prominent articles, such as wheat, cotton, wool and iron, serve to lower the whole average of prices. No better examples could be selected for a discussion of the entire subject of low prices than the four articles above named. Suffice it to say, that a candid examination of the whole subject shows very clearly to all reasonable men who are desirous of getting at the truth, that the depression in these great articles of commerce has been largely due to a vast extension of production through the opening of new fields, together with the improved facilities for production and lower prices of transportation. At the same time there has been in progress, since the Baring failure in November, 1890, a prodigious commercial crisis that has extended throughout the civilized world. Australia, Argentina, the United States and India (the two last named through independent silver coinage) were the countries most acutely affected, but all of Europe has felt the severe shock.

FREE COINAGE BY THE U. S. ALONE.

If it is claimed we must adopt for our money the metal England elects, and can have no independent choice in the matter, let us make the test and find out if it is true. It is not American to give up without trying. If it is true, let us attach England to the United States and blot her name out from among the nations of the earth (p. 132). [Applause.] A war with England would be the most pop ular ever waged on the face of the earth. [Applause.]

Free coinage by the United States will at once establish a parity between the two metals. Any nation that is big enough to take all the silver in the world, and give back merchandise and products in payment for it, will at once establish the parity between it and gold (p. 135). If France could lift the commercial value of silver above that fixed by the other nations of the world, and at a premium over gold, the United States can hold its commercial value at a par with gold (p. 136).

Answer: "The sixth and last day of Coin's School embraces a general harangue to those who are in debt or in financial distress to get free coinage of silver in the United States at all hazards. Make war with England if she ventures to insist on the same standard of money that has existed there since 1816! Reduce the quantity of gold in a dollar so as to bring it down to the level of silver, however low silver may fall! This is not only repudiation, but repudiation of the worst and most hypocritical sort, as it would be dishonesty under the pretense of honesty. There

is no argument to be answered in all this; the matter is open for the judgment of all; let those accept it who think such a course would be for the national good and the national honor of the United States.

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"The assertions in regard to the effect of free coinage by this country alone are simply a bundle of contradictions. It is said 'free coinage by the United States will at once establish a parity between the two metals.' Then it is said further on, with both metals as primary money, property advances to bimetallic values, whether gold goes to a premium or not. Gold may go out of circulation, but its doing so does not disturb the practical effect of bimetallic prices.' Again, 'the unlimited demand for silver and its free use by the Government will appreciate its value. To that extent the disuse of gold will depreciate its value.' What answer can be made to such nonsense as this? In one breath the claim is made that a parity between the metals will be maintained, and that bimetallic prices will not be disturbed, though gold has gone to a premium and is no longer in circulation. These are palpable contradictions. The parity of gold and silver is merely the ability to exchange one for the other at the established ratio, and bimetallic values mean practically the same thing. Then what sense or reason is there in saying that the parity and bimetallic values will be maintained when gold is entirely out of use, and can only be purchased at a high premium?"

Summing up, the writer in the Banker's Magazine says: "A careful analysis of Coin's Financial School' quickly enables one to see that every assertion of the book which has any direct bearing upon the question of free coinage by the United States alone, without international agreement, may be refuted under one of the heads following:

"1. He takes advantage of the low prices prevailing for wheat, cotton and some other products, and the consequent distress among farmers, to urge upon them that free silver coinage would double the money of the country and raise prices, adroitly suppressing the fact that this would be in a debased currency, that $567,000,000 of gold would immediately go out of circulation, and that all laborers would inevitably lose by it.

"2. All his arguments throughout the book tending to show that silver could be kept near its parity with gold are based on the experience of the nations prior to 1873, when all except England had their mints open to silver. Then, without permitting his readers to see the fallacy, he changes off and uses this as a basis for advocating unlimited free coinage by the United States alone.

"3. In a bravado style he sets up men of straw, in the persons of leading Chicago financiers, taking great liberty in thus using their names without consent, puts words in their mouths, and then makes an answer which he pretends convinces and silences them. This method, with the interspersion of ‘[applause]' very frequently, may do well enough in a pamphlet intended to catch the votes of ignorant inen, both white and black, but as an argument ad

dressed to business men, it is too small to require further notice.

4. Lastly, and chief of all, Coin has the unspeakable audacity to omit entirely from his book any mention of the silver legislation of 1878-93, and the great panic which followed. He conveys the idea to his unlearned readers that the use of silver as legal tender money was terminated forever by the act of 1873, when only about $8,000,000 in silver dollars had ever been coined, ignoring and concealing the gigantic fact that in 1878 this legislation was all reversed, that silver dollars were made unlimited legal tender, and that from 1878 to 1893 the enormous sum of $570,000,000 in silver dollars and notes against silver bullion purchased by the Government were put in circulation and are now outstanding. This suppression of the truth in regard to the great silver experiment tried by the United States for fifteen years ought to stamp the false character of Coin's book to every one who loves fair play or fair argument."

THE SECRECY OF THE LEGISLATION AGAINST SILVER.

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EGARDING the secrecy of the legislation against silver in 1873, Mr. George Gunton, in the Social Economist, says: "At the time the United States passed the act of 1873 she had not been offered a pennyworth of silver for coinage in twenty years. What she coined had been coined by the mint itself from European silver received in the collection of duties in order to get the benefit of the fact that in our ratio of 16 to 1 we valued silver lower than Europeans did in theirs of 151⁄2 to 1.

"On March 30, 1876, the famous cross-examination of Senator Sherman by Roscoe Conkling occurred, which has furnished support ever since to the charge of the free-silver party that the act of 1873 when passed was but little known or noticed. This is true. It was not, however, because Wall Street and the creditor class were laying a deep plot to wrong the debtor class by adopting a dear dollar. For in 1873 silver was still the dear dollar. At that time and for the six years previous, Wall Street and the New York bankers had been desiring to substitute gold as the unit for silver, as will be shown in this article. They were, therefore, laboring for the cheap dollar.

"That there was the motive of secrecy which the free silver party now allege-viz., that the moneyed class were trying to secretly and furtively force a dear currency on the debtor class-is rendered impossible and absurd by the fact that gold was then the cheaper of the money metals. It was the one in which, on all human calculations, it would continue to be to the advantage of the debtor class to make their payments, if any serious parting of the metals should occur The act was secret only because it was felt to be so inoperative and vacuous at the time that no proclamation of it on the housetops could secure anybody's attention to it. But that it was secret through the worthlessness of the privilege of

coinage it purported to give admits of no denial. Gen. Francis A. Walker, the representative of the United States at the Paris conference in 1878, told that conference that it was so quietly passed that he did not know of it. Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts, who reported to the House the very act of 1873, which was afterward discovered to have destroyed the legal tender power of silver for more than $5, voted in 1874, along with ten other Massachusetts representatives, for a joint resolution of Congress declaring that nothing but gold and silver coin of the United States should be legal tender in payment of public debts. This shows that Hooper did not know in 1874 that he had aided to disestablish the silver dollar as legal tender by his own act. President Grant wrote a letter and sent a special message to Congress recommending the creation of new mints sufficient to enable us to coin up silver dollars enough to aid the country in resuming payment of its notes in coin. This message clearly showed that the mints then existing were inadequate to coin up the bullion that was seeking coinage into trade dollars; that Grant had not noticed that the coinage of full legal tender dollars had been stopped by the act of 1873, though he had signed it, and that no public sentiment had yet arisen which made it questionable whether a payment of the debt in dollars coined of silver would violate any standard of national honor."

THE CASE OF THE BIMETALLISTS.

MR. GEORGE GUNTON, who has well defined

views on all the great economic questions of the day and who is always clear in expressing these views, gives right of way in the May number of his Social Economist to his opinions on bimetallisin. He says: "There is only one general economic law of value, and that law governs the value of gold and silver coined and uncoined in the same way as it governs the price of wheat, of iron or any other commodity.

"It is generally assumed by bimetallists and not a few gold monometallists, that the value of money is governed by its volume, rising as the volume diminishes and vice versa."

"There is an element of truth in the idea of supply and demand, but not in the conclusion that values are governed by the ratio between the supply and the demand. All values are created by demand, but they are regulated by the cost of the supply that is to say, demand, or the market, is the force that brings the product into existence. The cost of supplying the product is the indispensable condition on which it will be continuously furnished, so that primarily and permanently the cost of production is the force which regulates the value, because it equals the lowest price at which producers will continue to furnish the supply, and the highest price competition will permit.

"If the silver coins are issued on the basis of 16 to 1 of gold, and the bullion value of the silver dollar is

greater than that of the gold, then the purchasing power of the gold and all the others will be governed by the bullion value in the silver dollar, and if the bullion in the gold dollar costs more than the bullion in the silver dollar, then the purchasing power of all will be equal to and determined by that of the gold.

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That is exactly what is true to-day; 3714 grains of pure silver are to-day worth about 50 cents, but when coined into a legal tender standard dollar, it has the 'debt paying power' equal to a gold dollar, which costs 100 cents, or twice as much. The reason for this is that both being legal tender, they circulate with a purchasing power equal to the dearer, which is gold. If, for any reason whatever, the gold were withdrawn, nothing could give the remaining coin a greater purchasing or debt paying power than the equivalent of the bullion in the dearer remaining dollar, which would be the silver dollar. In that case, the purchasing power of a dollar in other commodities would necessarily drop 50 per cent., or whatever was the difference in the bullion value of silver and gold.

THE IMPORTANT QUESTION.

Now the question for bimetallists to answer is: What, under these circumstances, would be the effect of the free coinage of silver in a single country or in all countries? Gold monometallists declare that if it were adopted in this country it would immediately put the United States on a silver basis, and some go so far as to insist that it would do so even if a number of countries united in adopting the free coinage of silver. Whether this would or would not be the effect, would depend entirely upon whether the dearer metal, gold, was rendered unnecessary to the currency and driven out of circulation, and that would depend upon whether enough silver was supplied to fill the entire demand for coin circulation. Bimetallists insist that this would be obviated by the fact that free coinage of silver would at once send the price of silver up with gold. Monometallists often make themselves ridiculous by flatly denying this

statement.

"It needs only a moment's reflection to see that if all governments, or if any one government, should agree to take all the silver that was presented and make 3714 grains into full legal tender dollars equal to gold dollars, the price of all the silver in the world would immediately rise to that level, which would be $1.29 an ounce. It would rise to that level for the simple reason that nobody would be fool enough to sell his silver for less than $1.29 when there was a party standing ready to give that price for all he would bring.

"But what will happen when the silver does thus rise is the question. It is obvious that the first effect of such a rise in silver would be greatly to increase the supply of silver. Nor is there anything peculiar in this; 20 or 50 per cent. profit would multiply the supply of any product capable of production. This increased production would lead to the opening of

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