mere commodity, but the point is not well taken, inasmuch as the mint offerings are transmuted into paper currency, which is virtually making silver, money; moreover, the silver itself is retained in its present form of subsidiary coinage. Silver is not a moral being possessed of rights and sensitive to insults; it is a mere thing whose function it is to serve us in any way we may deem most conducive to our interests. If under the system of natural bimetallism it does this best, the question as to its money or commodity character is vain. Moreover, under Gresham's law, one metal under the fixed ratio is not only "reduced to a commodity," but is absolutely expelled from circulation and as a basis for circulation; and we have also seen that in the last analysis both silver and gold are commodities under any system of specie payments.

Under a republican form of government, where frequent and extreme changes from one policy to another must be guarded against, that policy should be adopted which most nearly conforms to justice, and which the sense of the largest majority commends. What proposition, then, could be fairer and more apt to commend itself to the general intelligence than that the metals should be monetized at their commercial values from day to day, or what policy more likely to remain unaffected by the mutations of parties and politics?

In conclusion let me sum up the salient points: We have seen (1) that the chief weakness of the present system is the non-availability of silver for final redemptions; (2) that “currency reform" is inadequate because of its unpopularity and in failing to increase the primary basis of money by the addition of silver; and (3) that the principle of the fixed ratio is fallacious and impracticable. On the other hand, we have discovered Natural Bimetallism to be the application of the principles of everyday business to that business which underlies all others, -national finance, and that the advantages resulting therefrom are: It dispenses with the necessity of an international agreement with its attendant uncertainties, perils, and delays, and at the same time points out the way to a sound and permanent home policy upon which all our factions could unite. It practically restores to silver its unlimited coinage at its just market rate, injects a healthy stimulus into the languishing sil

ver industry, preserves our admirable system of subsidiary coinage, and utilizes both metals as companion pillars of our national credit. It coaxes gold to the mint, keeps it there, and does away permanently with bond issues. It provides for the retirement of the greenbacks, supplies their place with currency equally sound but less hazardous, and insures the absolute parity of every dollar in circulation with every other, and with gold. In fine, as every true principle must, and as only a true principle can, it answers every condition of the problem to which it applies, and commends itself as the best, if not the only, way out of our financial embarrassments.

II. BIMETALLISM EXTINGUISHED.

BY JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.

The article on "Bimetallism Simplified" by Mr. George H. Lepper is open to one serious criticism: the title should be changed to "Bimetallism Extinguished;" for, when the argument is translated out of its sophistical form, that is its precise meaning. We are obliged, in such a matter as this — even at the expense of courtesy to break through the thin film of plausibility, and at one stroke to lay bare what is in the bottom.

It is a marvellous thing that they who engage in excogitating this kind of double-meaning literature about bimetallism, should suppose that the people can any longer be deluded with it. The agents of the money-power and the fuglemen of the dominant political party seem to think that a certain species of casuistry and complicated makeshift of argument can still be forced into currency, as it has been in the past, and that the great American democracy can be persuaded thereby to accept fallacy for truth and thus to perpetuate the reigning Dynasty of Robbers. Messieurs, you can perform this feat no longer.

Mr. Lepper admits in the outset that the McKinley administration is doomed unless it can provide the country with a sound and popular system of bimetallism. As a matter of fact, a sound system of bimetallism is simply bimetallism. A popular system of bimetallism is simply bimetallism-neither more nor less. In this vital matter, the popularity will take care of itself, and so will the soundness.

In the next place, we observe that if the McKinley administration depends upon the adoption by it of any system of bimetallism, then the administration is doomed, deeply and darkly doomed, already. Let the world know that the McKinley administration will not provide, and has never intended to provide, the country with any kind of bimetallism. The administration has no notion of such a thing. It was not created for such a useful and honorable destiny. It was created to prevent bimetallism by treacherously pretending to be in favor of it. They who created the administration, they who determine and will continue to determine its action, openly sneer at any system of money except the gold-based system of monometallism.

Mr. Lepper must be aware of this fact. Indeed it is to be hoped that there is not any longer one man in the United States so far gone down the slopes of delusion and idiotic infatuation as to imagine that the hollow pretensions of this administration in the direction of bimetallism by international agreement, or by any other method, have ever been anything else than cunning subterfuge and treachery.

The politicians who worked out the St. Louis platform knew what they were about. They knew that they were creating a hypocritical document with which to deceive and ensnare the American people. They fixed their net and made their haul. They succeeded to this extent that they elected their ticket and gained possession of the government. Lo, the day of judgment has already come! Now, in the endeavor to postpone the judgment, they prepare arguments under captions that have a friendly sound but are at bottom bitterer than cassia and more mockful than the laughter of Mephistopheles.

The next stage in the policy of these gentlemen is to invent something that shall seem to be bimetallism, but is not. This something they seek to palm off on the world and to distract mankind with it until the money sharks who are chuckling behind the gold-vaults of two continents shall be enabled, in the confusion and mêlée, to shuffle off to covert with their incalculable loads of booty.

Mr. Lepper's paper is a document of the kind described. The general purport of it is this: "People of the United States, I am a physician. I belong to the silver school. I am

a graduate of the Bimetallic Institute. This pill which I give you is out of the silver pharmacopoeia. It will heal all your diseases perfectly." But when you examine the pill which he exhibits, you will find it to be a solid bolus of gold, filmed over with tin foil.

In

Mr. Lepper enters upon the discussion of the subject with the following statement: "The vast stores of silver purchased by the United States under the laws of 1878 and 1890 are a dead assest of the Treasury, and cannot be utilized for purposes of redemption until sixteen ounces of silver shall again be equivalent to one of gold." Observe what becomes of these propositions under a truthful analysis. In the first place, our "vast stores of silver" are not vast stores. They are not nearly as vast as they ought to be. There are no bursting vaults of silver in the Treasury of the United States and never were. the next place the stores of silver are not a dead assest of the Treasury. They are just as much a living asset of the Treasury as is the accumulation of gold therein-and in the same sense. These stores cannot be used for purposes of redemption because they do not exist for that purpose. A bimetallist who is not a bimetallist is always strong on redemption; and he knows only one redeemer-gold. The redeeming business in our financial plan of salvation has been altogether overdone. In the name of wonder, what is it we want to redeem? Is it the greenbacks? Is it any of our legal tender? The greenback is already constitutional money. Does Mr. Lepper know that the greenback has been declared constitutional money by the Supreme Court of the United States-this with only a single dissenting vote? Does he know that every national bank bill in the United States is finally redeemable in greenbacks? Does he know that in our scheme of redemption, the people have only a paper redeemer, while the banks, with the connivance of the government, have a redeemer of gold? Our "vast stores of silver" have only to be coined into silver dollars; to be used as primary money, just as gold is used; to be paid out just as gold is paid out in the transaction of national business, and in particular in the payment of the national indebtedness. If this is freely done, the exaggerated purchasing power of the latter metal would at once be reduced to the normal standard. This

reduction would immediately express itself, or begin to express itself, in a general rise of prices, in a revival of business, and in a universal restoration of prosperity. Everything would again be well in the great Republic. All this would happen without financial sin and without a redeemer.

Mr. Lepper very properly says that international bimetallism and independent bimetallism "are founded upon the same errors and misconceptions." He should have said that they are founded upon the same truths and necessities. For errors," read truths, and for "misconceptions" read necessities. The writer of "Bimetallism Simplified" next goes on to say that whatever value may be created by monetization is not a commercial value. Well, then, what kind of value is it? Is it a social value, such as a man attributes to his child that is not for sale? Or is it a political value, such as a party manager attributes to a vote that is for sale?

Let us see whether monetization does, or does not, create value. We will not quibble about the phrase "commercial value," but come directly to the issue of value in general. Take the case upon which the goldites so greatly rely, that of the safe burned in a fire with a bag of gold coin and a bag of silver coin fused within. The triumphant gold sophist says, "The ten gold dollars fused into a lump will still be worth just ten dollars, while the silver dollars fused into a lump will be worth only five dollars." Of course the lump of fused gold will be worth ten dollars when it is coined and measured by itself! Suppose that the lump of fused silver be coined into dollars again; how much will that be worth? Everybody who has a premonitory symptom of common sense knows that the lump of fused silver will—if coinable again into dollars—be worth just as much as the lump of fused gold. It is because the lump of fused gold is coinable again into dollars that it retains its value. It is because the lump of fused silver is not coinable again, under the present order, that it is not worth ten dollars.

What makes the difference? It is the fact of monetization for one of the metals, and demonetization for the other. Does anybody suppose that ten dollars of silver fused into a lump would not still be worth ten dollars if the lump were re-coinable? Does anybody suppose that ten gold dollars fused into