A 596601
H
NIV
CH.

ARTES
1837
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E. PLURIBUS UNUM
SQUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAME
CIRCUMSPICE
"THE OFFICIAL BOOK."
-

STANLEY WOOD'S
ANSWER

TO

COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.


ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK BEARD.
Sherwood's Educational Series. Issued quarterly. Price $1.00 a year. Volume 1, Number 1. May, 1895.
TO THE FRIENDS OF GOOD MONEY.
It is true patriotism to urge upon every man who be-
lieves in good money the necessity of advocating that
cause to the fullest extent.
The silver men are making a desperate fight, and are
succeeding in securing many converts through the earn-
estness and the untiring industry of their campaign.
Coin's Financial School is being distributed by thou-
sands, and is making thousands of free silver voters.
Honest money men are too sure that they will win
the day, and this overconfidence is fraught with danger,
The only book that meets Coin on his own ground,
and which shows in plain language, the fallacies and
follies of the free silver craze is " Stanley Wood's
ANSWER to Coin's Financial School."
This book is the best, because :
FIRST. It is interesting.
SECOND. It is straightforward.
THIRD. It has wit as well as logic.
FOURTH. The average reader can understand it.
FIFTH. It is plentifully illustrated.
SIXTH. The pictures were made by Frank Beard, the
famous artist.
SEVENTH. It quotes verbatim from Coin's Financial
School, giving the page, and then meets and
overthrows Coin's arguments.
EIGHTH. It is well printed and handsomely bound.
NINTH. It does not imitate Coin's book in any manner
but is truly original.
TENTH. It is the "Official Book." Friends of true
bimetallism and sound money should push the
circulation of this book.
By addressing the publisher, friends of the good
cause who wish to know how to do this will receive val-
uable suggestions.
Published by
A. B. SHERWOOD PUBLISHING CO.,
341 to 351 Dearborn St., CHICAGO, ILL.
Stanley Wood's ANSWER to Coin's Financial
School is for sale on all news-stands.
Buy a copy and read it.
Then push it along.
"The Official Book.'
STANLEY WOOD'S
ANSWER


ΤΟ
COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
FRANK BEARD
Published by
A. B. SHERWOOD PUBLISHING CO.
341 to 351 Dearborn St.
CHICAGO
Copyright 1895, By
A. B. SHERWOOD PUBLISHING CO.
Chicago, Ill.
All Rights Reserved.

ད་ལྔ
GOLD
2-1-27 m. v. p.
GOLD
ITERNA
ONAL COMMERCE
COMINERCE
TOO MUCH INFLATION
SEE NIE SOAR!.
OLD
مة
TER
SATION.
COMMERCE
گ
UNCLE SAM THIS BALLAST AND THESE ANCHOR ROPES HOLD
:-
ME DOWN. I'LL CUT THE ROPES AND THROW OUT THE BALLAST.
04231
Honesty is the Best Policy.



STATES
OF
en wind we triet
UNITED
AMERICA
ONE DOLLAR
SILVER DOLLAR 100 CENTS.
。
a
SILVER DOLLAR (HAMMERED) 50 CENTS.



GOLD DOLLAR 100 CENTS.
GOLD DOLLAR (HAMMERED) 100 CENTS.
1985
PUT TO THE HAMMER TEST
POSTAGE ON THIS BOOK.
This book is entered as second class matter at the
Chicago Postoffice,, and is mailable at the rate of one
cent for four ounces. It weighs, including wrapper,
about nine ounces, and for 3 cents postage, is mailable
to any part of the United States, Mexico, or Canada,
but the person so mailing it must mark on the wrapper
the words "second class matter."
ΤΟ
HONEST MEN
OF
ALL PARTIES,
ΤΟ
EARNEST MEN
OF
ALL CREEDS,
ΤΟ
EVERY PATRIOTIC CITIZEN
OF
THESE UNITED STATES,
THIS BOOK
IS
DEDICATED.
-By the Author.

PREFACE.


HONESTY
FUTURE PROSPERITY
REPUDIATION
FUTURE RUIN
UNDER WHICH FLAG?
1
INTRODUCTION.
COIN'S SCHOOL PURELY IMAGINARY.
Coin's Financial School is a clever romance.
It is an alleged account of alleged events that never
took place.
It shows how easy it is to demolish a man of straw.
But its writer is a man who understands how to
make fiction appear to be fact and who is bright enough
to know that the association of the names of well-known
men with the name of his imaginary "Coin" would give
the latter a certain amount of standing and authority.
There are many people no doubt, who believe that
Coin actually did deliver a series of lectures on finance
in the Art Institute of Chicago, and then and there did
answer questions propounded by such well-known men
as Messrs. Lyman Gage, H. H. Kohlsaat, L. Z. Leiter,
Phil. D. Armour, Potter Palmer, Samuel Allerton;
Marshall Field, John V. Farwell, Joseph Medill. Frank-
lin MacVeagh, Luther Laflin Mills, Judge Henry G.
Miller, Judge Collins, Jno. S. Cooper, Edwin Walker,
A. S. Trude, and others.
No such lectures were delivered and as a conse-
quence it follows that the gentlemen mentioned could
not have attended the alleged lectures, nor have asked
"the alleged questions.
There is a marvelous mixture of fact and false con-
clusions in Coin's Financial School, and the cursory
xiv
INTRODUCTION.
reader finds himself saying as he reads its pages
"That's true; nobody can deny that," until he gets so
impressed with the apparent integrity of the book that
he is ready to say, "Its all true, every word of it."
To illustrate: A careless school teacher is hearing a
bright pupil recite the multiplication table. The little
pupil rattles off the numbers with the greatest confidence
as follows:
"Ten times 1 is 10
Ten times 2 is 20
Ten times 3 is 30
Ten times 4 is 50
Ten times 5 is 60
Ten times 6 is 40
Ten times 7 is 90
Ten times 8 is 70
Ten times 9 is 80
Ten times 10 is 100."
The teacher smiles appreciatively and says pleas-
antly, "correct."
The little pupil is proud of his knowledge, and the
careless teacher is proud of his pupil. They are both
wrong.
It would not be right, however, to call the little pupil
a "fool" and the teacher a "brazen charlatan." It's
simply a lack of knowledge on one side and a lack of
careful attention on the other.
Therefore I say that we should come to the discus-
sion of the financial questions of the day with no violent
spirit of angry controversy, and, on the other hand, with
no careless assent to statements, however confidently
they may be made.
Professors of political science have a learned language
of their own, and the plain, blunt man is often at a loss
→

THE ART INSTITYTE
• OF CHICAGO.
THEORY
UMANSUN
ART PRACTICE
WIDENINZEL
·HISTORY
DIRECTOR'S OFFICE
Mr Stanley Wood
Dear Sir:
CHARLES L. HUTCHINSON, President
JAMES H. DOLE, Vico-President.
LYMAN J. GAGE, Treasurer,
N. H. CARPENTER, Secretary
W. M. R. FRENCH, Director.
Chicago, May 8,1895.
No such lectures as are described in Coin's
"Finnacial School" were held in the Art Institute in May, 1894,or
at any other time
We have no lecture room that will contain
more than 600 or 700 people -
The great halls used during the
I under-
World's Congresses were torn down in November, 1893
stood the thing to be avowedly fictitious
Yours very truly

M. MR Func
Director
xvi
INTRODUCTION.
to catch the meaning of all that is said. The professors
make a mistake, for while they may understand each
other better when using the language of science, they
are talking over the heads of the people whom they wish
to instruct.
CHAPTER I.
COIN'S APPEAL TO PREJUDICE.
Hard times are with us; the country is distracted; very few
things are marketable at a price above the cost of production; tens of
thousands are out of employment; the jails, penitentiaries, work-
houses, and insane asylums are full; the gold reserve at Washington
is sinking; the government is running at a loss, with a deficit in every
department, a huge debt hangs like an appalling cloud over the
country; taxes have assumed the importance of a mortgage, and 50
per cent of the public revenues are likely to go delinquent; hungered
and half-starved men are banding into armies and marching toward
Washington; the cry of distress is heard on every hand; business is
paralyzed; commerce is at a standstill; riots and strikes prevail
throughout the land; schemes to remedy our ills when put into exe-
cution are smashed like box cars in a railroad wreck; and Wall street
looks in vain for an excuse to account for the failure of prosperity to
return since the repeal of the silver purchase act.-Second paragraph,
chapter first, Coin's Financial School.
When were the lines quoted above written?
Were they inspired by the condition of affairs at the
close of the war between the States, when the net debt
per capita in the United States was $84 and the net tax-
ation per capita $15 and over?
No!
Where were these lines written ?
Were they penned in France, where the net debt per
capita to-day is $200 and over?
No!
Were they written in Great Britain where the net
debt per capita now is $84?
18
SCHOOL.
Wood's
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
No!
Then where and when were they written ?
In the United States of America during the early
part of the year 1894 when the net debt of the United
States was $16 per capita and the net taxation per head
was $7 in round numbers.
Is $7 per capita a taxation that "has assumed the
importance of a mortgage ?"
Is $16 per capita of obligations to pay "a huge debt.
hanging like an appalling cloud over the country?"
Is Coxey's Army of hungry and half-starved men
still marching toward Washington?
I ask these questions and call particular attention.
to the opening paragraph of Coin's Financial School
because the chord which is struck there dominates the
entire book. The plea of hard times, repeated over and
over again, and the promise of good times if the nation.
will only accept Coin's remedy, permeate its pages from
cover to cover.
I can understand how Coin was led into the error of
quoting temporary and incidental occurrences as exist-
ing and permanent evils. Earnest in his purposes,
honest in his opinions, as I believe, Coin saw in Coxey's
army a sign of National disintegration, he saw in the
Chicago riots of '94 the promise of the downfall of our
Republic.
Coxey's army soon disbanded, the Chicago riots are
a thing of the past and the Government at Washington
still lives. There were riots in Chicago preceding those
of '94, other riots will doubtless work more or less havoc
hereafter, but the Nation will live as it has lived and
will prosper as it has prospered.
All the evils that exist in our financial affairs are
ascribed by Coin to the demonetization of silver.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
19
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
Twenty years ago, according to Coin, silver was de-
monetized. Certain evils have fallen upon us during
the last twenty years, therefore says Coin the demoneti-
zation of silver was the cause of these evils.
Forty years ago, according to history, silver was de-
monetized. The nation prospered greatly during the
first twenty years of that period, therefore I can argue
with as much force as Coin that the demonetization of
silver was the cause of that prosperity.
Both conclusions are based on false logic. Post
hoc, ergo propter hoc never proved anything. In other
words "after the event therefore because of the event"
is utterly false. I might as well say that if a man
smokes a cigar on Friday and falls off the dock on Sat-
urday, the smoking of the cigar on Friday was the cause
of his falling off of the dock on Saturday. The smoking
of the cigar may have caused the man to fall off of the
dock, but I must prove that fact after I have stated the
circumstance.
An exaggeration of the evils that are u on us and an
assumption that all these evils are the result of demon-
etization form the basis of Coin's arguments. He first
gives the dog a bad name and then he proceeds to hang
him.
As a refrain to this song Coin appeals strongly, fre-
quently and frankly to prejudice. He asserts that the
United States are dominated by England and he invokes
the shades of Washington, Jefferson and Paul Revere
to rise and rouse the patriotic citizens of this Republic
to throw off this ignoble yoke.
Congress fixed the monetary unit to
consist of 3714 grains of pure silver, and
provided for a certain amount of alloy (baser
metals) to be mixed with it to give it greater
20
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S STANLEY
FINANCIAL COIN'S
ANSWER TO hardness and durability. This was in 1792, .n
the days of Washington and Jefferson and
our revolutionary forefathers, who had a
hatred of England, and an intimate knowl-
edge of her designs on this country.
"They had fought eight long years for
their independence from British domination
in this country, and when they had seen the
last red-coat leave our shores, they settled
down to establish a permanent govern-
ment, and among the first things they did.
was to make 3714 grains of siver the unit
of values." Coin's Financial School, pp. 5-6.
Now as a matter of fact did Congress have no other
motive for fixing the value of the dollar than hatred for
England?
Indeed, was hatred for the mother country the mo-
tive at all?
Of course not.
The original unit of value established in 1786 by the
congress of the Confederation of American States was
the Spanish pillar dollar. It was of silver and was called
a dollar. There was, however, no mint in the country
at that time.
In 1792 the congress of the United States, having
established a national mint, ordered "dollars or units"
to be coined, to be each of the value of "a Spanish milled
dollar." The coins minted under this law contained
3714 grains of pure silver, which was less than the
quantity of silver in the Spanish pillar dollar.
Hatred of England had nothing to do with the fixing
of the value of the dollar. It was fixed as it was for
the reason that the Spanish dollar at that time was the
most common coin in circulation in this country.
f
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 21
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL As to the sacredness of silver as the unit of value on
which Coin lays so much stress, I shall have something
to say in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
WHAT WAS THE UNIT OF VALUE?
#
* * *
Congress adopted silver and gold as money. It then proceed-
ed to fix the unit * * * Among the first things they did was to
make 371 grains of silver the unit of values.
Gold was
made money, but its value was counted from these silver units or
dollars * * * Our forefathers showed much wisdom in select-
ing silver, of the two metals, out of which to make the unit."-Coin's
Financial School, pp. 5,7, 8.
Coin lays much stress on his assertion that the silver
dollar was established by our forefathers as the unit of
value.
What would he gain if he succeeded in establish-
ing his claim ? -
Nothing but a sentimental prejudice in favor of some-
thing done by our forefathers.
To illustrate: Suppose our forefathers were de-
ciding on a standard bushel measure. They would say
the bushel shall contain so many cubic inches and they
might add the measure shall be made of oak.
The result would be that we would have a senti-
mental prejudice in favor of oak as the material for
bushel measures.
But sentiment is not science. Very often it is not
even good sense.
The old oaken bucket that hung in the well was not
22
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
as good for health, was not as light, was not as strong,
was not in any way as useful as the modern bucket of
galvanized iron. But Woodward's poem touches our
imaginations, and we sentimentalize over the old oaken
bucket, but we use the newer and better style, in galvan-
ized iron.
So it would be with regard to the oaken bushel meas-
ure; we might sentimentalize over it as much as we
pleased, but we would use a better, stronger and lighter
material to-day.
Admitting, for the sake of argument, that silver was
declared the unit of value by our forefathers.
What of it?
History shows that our forefathers failed in their
main object, which was to secure a parity between gold
and silver, by a difference of about 3 per cent.

LAR
STATE
UNDER THE UNIT OF VALUE.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
23
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
Shall we, for the sake of sentiment, cling to the error
when the existing difference is about 100 per cent?
Certainly not.
But as a matter of fact it was not a question of silver
or gold that our forefathers were discussing. It was a
foregone conclusion with them that the materials of their
measure should be both silver and gold. As Professor
J. L. Laughlin says: "The whole purpose of the discus-
sion at that time in regard to a unit had to do only with
selecting some name for counting with, fixing on its
size and discovering one familiar to the public. As
Morris said (p. 430): In order that a coin may be per-
fectly intelligible to the whole people, it must have.
some affinity to the former currency.' That is, the
question was, shall the unit be a shilling, or a dollar,
or a crown, or what not? The issue was not, in this
place, whether the unit should be of silver or gold. It
was exactly as if we were to discuss whether we should
adopt the pound avoirdupois as a unit of weight or the
metric gram. Therefore, when we find that the name
dollar was adopted in the new system, the question.
still lay open as to what weight that dollar should be
in gold or silver. The name appears in the law of 1792,
just in the sense that a pound Troy or pound avoirdu-
pois would appear. Now, the name of the unit was in
itself very unimportant; but whether the coins should
be of both gold and silver, or gold alone, or silver alone,
was important. That was the real issue. If the law of
1792 adopted coins of both gold and silver that is a
simple fact; and it is a howling absurdity to talk as if
silver alone were used, or that only silver was the unit."
Let us look at the proposition from Coin's point of
view. The dollar shall contain 3714 grains of silver,
therefore the silver dollar is the unit of value.
:
24
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
Let us look at the proposition from another point of
view there are 2434 grains worth of gold in a silver
dollar, therefore gold is the unit of value.
But what did the law of 1792 enact? Having se-
lected a unit and called it a dollar, then the relative
weights of gold and silver in the coins being fixed at
15 to 1, the various denominations in the coins were fixed
upon. The former currency contained silver of all
kinds and weights. A new weight of 371 grains of
silver was fixed, because it was fifteen times 2434 grains
of gold. A dollar piece of gold would as every one
knows, be too small for convenience; therefore the
cheaper and heavier material of silver was used for the
smaller coins from five cents up to the dollar piece;
above that gold was used. To claim that the unit was
silver when we had both gold and silver coins at a ratio
of 15 to 1 is wholly absurd, as the law of 1792 herewith
shows:
"Section 9. And be it further enacted that there
shall be from time to time struck and coined at the
said mint coins of gold, silver and copper of the follow-
ing denominations, values and descriptions, viz.:
Eagles, each to be of the value of ten dollars or units,
and to contain two hundred and forty-seven grains and
four-eighths of a grain of pure, or two hundred and sev
enty grains of standard gold. (Half eagles and quarter
eagles of corresponding weights and fineness.) Dollars
or units, each to be of the value of a Spanish milled
dollar, as the same is now current, and to contain three-
hundred and seventy-one grains and four-sixteenth
parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen
grains of standard silver. (Half dollars, quarter dol-
lars, dimes and half dimes of corresponding weights and
fineness)."
STANLEY
WOOD'S
25
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
Observe, the act reads that the dollars shall be "of
the value of a Spanish milled dollar;" it does not say
the unit shall be of silver. Just above it says the eagles
shall be of the value of ten dollars or units.
It does not say the unit is to be of silver, but of the
value of a certain Spanish coin; and that Spanish coin
was worth so many grains in silver and so many grains
in gold.
Where did we get this sacred American word "dol-
lar ? "
The word dollar is derived from a German word
which means valley, and was first applied to coins in
consequence of this circumstance: In the mining region
of Bohemia, at a place called Joachimsthal (Joachim
valley) siver pieces of one ounce weight were coined and
came into circulation about 1520, and was called the
Joachimthaler, and then its name was shortened to
thaler. This became dalera in Spanish, and in English
dollar. The thaler was the German money of account
until after the Franco-Prussian war, when in 1873 the
unit of value for the German empire became the mark.
The Spanish milled dollar became so famous in the
world of commerce and so familiar to our forefathers
through their dealings with the West Indies and the
Spanish American colonies, that our Congress adopted
it as the best known and most convenient unit of money.
To some it appears strange that while the dollar in
this country is the unit of money and the mark in Ger-
many and the franc in France, yet there isn't any of
these units in gold.
The explanation is simple.
The coin would be far too small if made in gold.
We know from experience that in this country a dollar
gold piece was so small that it was rarely found in cir-
culation.
26
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
Coin's love for the "dollar of our daddies" is mis-
placed, for it isn't our "forefather's dollar" that he
loves, but the Spanish milled dollar. It is a case of
mistaken identity. The Congress of 1792 was a regular
Little Buttercup, and "mixed the babies up" so
effectually that Coin has been deluded into lavishing his
affection on the wrong infant.
CHAPTER III.
THE "CRIME" OF "73.
"An army of a half million of men invading our shores, the
warships of the world bombarding our coasts, could not have made
us surrender the money of the people and substitute in its place the
money of the rich. A few words embraced in fifteen pages of
statutes put through Congress in the rush of bills did it.
The pen
was mightier than the sword."—Coin's Financial School, p. 16.
Strong language is always useful in advocating a
weak cause.
Assertion is often mistaken for argument.
It is alleged that lawyers have an axiom to the effect
that when your case is weak abuse your opponent's
attorney.
The reason why Coin so strongly insists that
silver was the only unit from 1792 to 1873 is that it all
leads up to an emphasis of the supposed damage done
by the "demonetization" of the silver dollar piece in
1873.
If silver was not the only unit selected in 1792, then
this demonetization in 1873 has less importance. And
if, also, before 1834 our coins actually in use, and on
STANLEY
WOOD'S
27
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
which contracts were based both in law and fact, were
silver, but after 1834 were gold, then any legislation in
1873 about silver coins not in use and which had never
been seen since 1840, has still less importance.
The fact is that after 1834 silver dollars and all small
silver pieces were driven out of use by the cheaper gold.
Gold was worth more as coin than as bullion, hence
it rushed to the mint.
Silver was worth more as bullion than as coin, hence
it rushed to the melting pot to be changed to bullion.
A difference of 38-100 of an ounce is more than suf-
ficient profit to drive one metal out of circulation. Now,
as gold became cheaper by reason of the increased
product from Russia, and later from California and
Australia, the ratio in the market was kept less than 1 to
16 for a long time. And this explains why silver dis-
appeared wholly from circulation.
As Professor Laughlin says: "So entirely had silver
disappeared before 1850 that all possible shifts were
resorted to to make change. Shillings, bits, levys, etc.,
were taken up. This became so intolerable that in 1853
the question of the coinage was again raised and thor-
oughly discussed. It was realized that the ratio of 15
to 1 from 1792 to 1834 had resulted only in a silver
currency, and that the ratio of 16 to 1 since 1834 had
resulted only in a gold currency. Now the act of 1853,
which resulted, was the practical abandonment of the
attempt to keep both gold and silver coins in circula-
tion by trying another change of the ratio. They let
the silver dollar alone; it was then out of circulation.
So they then and there gave up trying to keep the
silver dollar in use; they had the gold standard and gold
in abundance, and were satisfied.
"This, then, was the thing usually supposed to have
28
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
been done in 1873.
The real demonetization of silver dol-
lars took place in 1853, twenty years before the alleged
demonetization of 1873.
"The act of 1853 tried and condemned the criminal;
and, after twenty years of waiting for a reprieve, the
execution only took place in 1873. The use of silver as
an unlimited legal tender equally with gold was practi-
cally abandoned in 1853.
So it seems that the "crime" of '73 was committed
in '53, and that it was not a crime at all, but a yielding
to the logic of events.
But Coin is not satisfied with charging Congress.
with committing a crime. He adds another count to his

BAN
BANG!!!
(BANG'
TORPEDO
13
FORPEDO
૨.
BANG!!
"LIKE THE SILENT TREAD OF A CAT"
STANLEY
WOOD'S
29
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
indictment, and alleges that it was a "secret" crime.
He says:
"In the language of Senator Daniels, of
Virginia, it (the coinage act of '73), seems
to have gone through Congress "like the
silent tread of a cat."-Coin's Financial
School, p. 16.
When the "crime" of '73 was committed by demon-
etizing the silver dollar, there were no silver dollars in
circulation to demonetize.
More than this, there had been no silver dollars in
circulation for a period running back more than a quar-
ter of a century.
In the discussions in congress no opposition what-
ever was manifested to the omission of the 112½ grain
silver dollar; because it had not been in circulation
since 1840. The omission attracted no attention, for
one reason, since no such coins were in use. The silver
dollar was dropped simply because, being worth more
than 100 cents in gold, it had not been possible to keep
it in circulation with gold.
From 1853 to the suspension of specie payments,
Dec. 31, 1861, we had only gold as a standard in this
country. And the land prospered and waxed fat, without
any of the silver dollars.
Being worth more than 100 cents in gold, no one
was clamoring for silver dollars with which to pay debts.
It was only after 1876, when their value had fallen below
100 cents in gold, that the cries went up to heaven for
silver dollars with which to scale down indebtedness.
That is a significant historical fact.
A great interest centers in the act of 1873, because
not only has the cry been raised that it was a great
crime to "demonetize" silver, but it is also alleged to
30
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO have gone through congress "like the silent tread of a
cat."
Is that so?
Of course not.
The bill was submitted to congress by the Secretary
of the Treasury, April 25, 1870, and after having been
printed thirteen times, after having been discussed to the
extent of 144 columns of the "Congressional Globe," it did
not become a law until Feb. 12, 1873.
Now one cat might have gone through congress
surreptitiously and with "silent" tread, but thirteen
cats would assuredly have indulged in more or less
"conversation," during their progress, and there is no
individual, be he city man or country man, who is igno-
rant of the colloquial powers of a cat-or a congressman.
Again, it took these thirteen cats three years to go
through congress. Who ever knew even one cat that
could keep silent for three long years?
But Coin says:
"It was demonetized
secretly, and since then a powerful money
trust has used deception and misrepresen-
tations that have led tens of thousands of
honest minds astray."-Coin's Financial
School, p. 20.
assertion that
The earnestness of Coin in the
silver was secretly assassinated, and the circumstantial
account of that proceeding, reminds me forcibly of the
circumstantial account Koko gives in the comic opera of
The Mikado, of the manner in which he beheaded
Nankipoo. I beg leave to quote Koko's own words:
The criminal cried as he dropp'd him down
In a state of wild alarm,
With a frightful, frantic, fearful frown
I bared my big right arm,-
STANLEY
WOOD'S
31
ANSWER TO SCHOOL.
FINANCIAL COIN'S
I seized him by his little pigtail
And on his knees fell he,
As he squirmed and struggled,
And gurgled and guggled,
I drew my snickersnee.
Oh, never shall I forget the cry
Or the shriek that shrieked he
As I gnashed my teeth,
When from its sheath
I drew my snickersnee.

تار
HOW SILVER WAS BEHEADED.
ILVER
32
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO CHORUS-We know him well,
He cannot tell
Untrue or groundless tales;
He always tries
To utter lies,
But every time he fails.
Now no one could doubt for a moment that Koko
had actually beheaded the unfortunate Nankipoo after
hearing his thrilling account of the affair and, especially
after the strong confirmation of the chorus, but the fact
remains that Koko was entirely mistaken as to his facts
and that Nankipoo had not suffered as described.
And yet I can imagine that I can hear Coin relate.
the story of Silver's beheading and the response by
the chorus of Silverites:
"We know him well.
He cannot tell
Untrue or groundless tales,
He always tries
To utter lies
But everytime he fails."

CHAPTER IV.
THE RATIO BETWEEN GOLD AND SILVER.
"When the mints of the world are thrown open and the govern-
ments say, 'We will take all the silver and gold that comes,' an un-
limited demand is established. The supply is limited. Now with an
unlimited demand and a limited supply, there is nothing to stop the
commercial value of the two metals going up in the market, except
the governments saying-'Hold on-these metals are for money-
we fix the value at which they circulate. This unlimited demand is
for silver at $1 for 3714 grains, and $1 for 23 2-10 grains of gold-
we stamp these into dollars respectively in those quantities.”—Coin's
Financial School, p. 27.
"When the mints of the world are thrown open a
great many things will happen, but the one thing that
will not happen is the one thing that Coin says will.
happen.
But the mints of the world are not thrown open.
However, let us suppose that the mints of the world
were thrown open, how can we arrive at a conclusion as
to what effect that would have on the commercial value
of gold and silver?
The only way to judge of the future is by the past.
Our forefathers resolved that gold and silver should
be on a parity, and in 1792 fixed the ratio at 15 to 1.
What was the result?
We lost our gold.
In 1834 a sincere attempt was made by Congress to
amend the error made by our forefathers and the ratio
was changed to 16 to 1.
What was the result?
We lost our silver.
33
-9
34
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
(Page 50 from U. S. Statistical Abstract 1892.)
RATIO OF SILVER TO GOLD.
COMMERCIAL RATIO OF SILVER TO GOLD FOR EACH YEAR SINCE 1687.
[NOTE. From 1687 to 1832 the ratios are taken from the tables
of Dr. A. Soetbeer; from 1833 to 1878 from Pixley and Abell's tables;
and from 1878 to 1892 from daily cablegrams from London to the
Bureau of the Mint.]



ear. Ratio.
Ratio. Year.
Year. Ratio. Year. Ratio. Year. Ratio. Year. Ratio. Year. Ratio. Year. Ratio.
atio.
15 19
15.29
15.50
15.35
15.92
16.17
16.59 Z
1687 14.94 1722 15.17 1757 14.87 1791 15.05 1825 15.70 1859
1688 14.94 1723 15.20 1758 14.85 1792 15.17 1826 15.76 1860
1689 15.02 1724 15.11 1759 14.15 1793 15.00 1827 15.74 1861
1690 15.02 1725 15.11 1760 14.14 1794 15.37 1828 15.78 1862
1691 14.98 1726 15.15 1761 14.54 1795 15.55 1829 15.78 1863 15.37
1692 14.92 1727 15.24 1762 15.27 1796 15.65 1830 15.82 1864 15.37
1693 14.83 1728 15.11 1763 14.99 1797 15.41 1831 15.72 1865 15.44
1694 14.87 1729 14.92 1764 14.70 1798 15.59 1832 15.73 1866 15.43
1695 15.02 1730 14.81 1765 14.83 1799 15.74 1833 15.93 1867 15.57
1696 15.00 1731 14.94 1766 14.80 1800 15.68 1834 15.73 1868 15.59
1697 15.20 1732 15.09 1767 14.85 1801 15.46 1835 15.80 1869 15.60
1698 15.07 1733 15.18 1768 14.80 1802 15.26 1836 15.72 1870 15.57
1699 14.94 1734 15.39 1769 14.72 1803 15.41 1837 15.83 1871 15.57
1700 14.81 1735 15.41 1770 14.62 1804 15.41 1838 15.85 1872 15.63
1701 15.07 1736 15.18 1771 14.66 1805 15.79 1839 15.62 1873
1702 15.52 1737 15.02 1772 14.52 1806 15.52 1840 15.62 1874
1703 15.17 1738 14.91 1773 14.62 1807 15.43 1841 15.70 1875
1704 15.22 1739 14.91 1774 14.62 1808 16.08||1842 15.87 1876
1705 15.11 1740 14.94 1775 14.72 1809 15.96 1843 15.93 1877
1706 15.27 1741 14.92 1776 14.55 1810 15.77 1844 15.85 1878
1707 15.44 1742 14.85 1777 14.54 1811 15.53 1845 15.92 1879
1708 15.41 1743 14.85 1778 14.68 1812 16.11 1846 15.90 1880
1709 15.31 1744 14.87 1779 14.80 1813 16.25 1847 15.80 1881
1710 15.22 1745 14.98 1780 14.72 1814 15.04 1848 15.85 1882
1711 15.29 1746 15.13 1781 14.78 1815 15.26 1849 15.78 1883
1712 15.31 1747 15.26 1782 14.42 1816 15.28 1850 15.70 1884
1713 15.24 1748 15,11 1783 14.48 1817 15.11 1851 15.46 1885
1714 15. 13 1749 14.80 1784 14.70 1818 15.35 1852 15.59 1886
1715 15.11 1750 14.55 1785 14.92 1819 15.33 1853 15.33 1887
1716 15.09 1751 14.39 1786 14.96 1820 15.62 1854 15.33 1888
1717 15.13 1752 14.54 1787 14.92 1821 15.95 1855 15.38 1889
1718 15.11 1753 14.54 1788 14.65 1822 15.80 1856 15.38 1890
1719 15.09 1754 14.48 1789 14 75 1823 15.84 1857 15.27 1891
1720 15.04 1755 14.68 1790 15.04 1824 15.82 1858 15.38 1892
1721 15.05 1756 14.94||
17.88
O
17.22
17.94
18.40
18.05 <
18.16 N
18.19
18.647
18.57
19.41
Ш
20.78 Z
21.13
21.99
22.09 Σ
19.75
20.92
ليا
23.720
STANLEY
WOOD'S
35
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
I reproduce the table quoted by Coin on page
34 of his Financial School, showing the ratio of silver
to gold from 1685 to 1892.
What does this table prove?
Does it prove that the ratio was kept always the
same ?
Of course not.
It shows constant fluctuations up and down, and the
logic of events has demonstrated that legislation has
never been able to adjust the ratio so accurately that
both gold and silver could be kept in circulation at the
same time.
Neither gold nor silver is constant in price to the
unit dollar, but like a pound of iron or a bushel of wheat
they fluctuate from the standard, and it sometimes pays
to export gold and sometimes to import it.
Legislation cannot fix the value of gold and silver.
Every experiment in that direction has been a failure.
Silver is just as reluctant to be ruled by law as is gold.
They are both as independent as Tryphena Puffy in the
play, who, being warned by the constable that what she
proposed to do was contrary to law, exclaimed:
"Law! What has law got to do with me?”
What did gold do when the law declared the ratio to
be 15 to 1?
It exclaimed: "Law! What has law got to do with
me?" and took itself out of this country.
What did silver do when the law declared the ratio
to be 16 to 1 ?
It exclaimed: "Law! What has law got to do with
me?" and took a vacation. It defied Congress, and
successfully asserted its right to be worth 3 per cent.
more than the value as fixed by law.
Any attempt to make two kinds of currency equally
36
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
the standard of value inevitably results in the cheaper
currency driving out the dearer. There is no such thing
as generosity in commercial transactions between men.
No man in his right senses will pay $1.03 or even $1 and
a fourth of a cent if he can discharge his debt by paying
$1, and therefore it is a universal rule that the poorer
always displaces the better currency.

15 to I=Result NO Gold.
16 to 1=Result NO Silver.
TRYING TO FIX THE RATIO.
This is history, not theory; fact, not fiction; truth,
not romance; therefore, as proved by Coin's own statis-
tics, law cannot hold silver and gold at a parity.
I do not say that law has no effect in giving value to
money. That would be untruthful on its face, for there
is no intrinsic value in a dollar bill, and law can uphold
the standard of value to a large extent of both silver and
gold; but I do say that law cannot make gold and silver
of equal value, because, in obedience to the higher law of
STANLEY 37
WOOD'S
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
commerce, they are constantly fluctuating. In the mat-
ter of parity between gold and silver it must be "all in
all or not at all," and that consummation is exactly the
thing which cannot be secured.
Coin illustrates his idea of the effect of free coinage
on the ratio by presenting a drawing representing two
reservoirs filled with water and connected with each
other by a pipe.

SILVER
GOLD
4
WATER
FREE COINAGE
5
WINE
HOW FREE COINAGE "MAINTAINS A PARITY,"
He begs the question when he fills the reservoirs with
water.
Gold and silver are different things, always have
been different things and always will be different things.
To make the illustration honest, call the fluid in one
reservoir wine, and that in the other reservoir water.
Which shall be wine and which water depends on the
commercial ratio. Then let your feed pipes run.
What will be the result?
38
SCHOOL.
STANLEY WOOD'S
FINANCIAL COIN'S
ANSWER
TO QUANTITY OF Gold and Silver.
After discussing the ratio and proving that there has
always been a fluctuation of values between gold and
silver, although he was trying to prove the contrary,
"Coin" takes up the question of the quantity of redemp-
tion money and says:
"Before demonetization both metals
constituted the redemption money of the
world; and as both metals existed in about
the same quantities, it gave us twice as
much money of redemption as gold alone
will now furnish us. There is in the world
now, 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."—Coin's Financial School
p. 39.
Admit it for the sake of argument.
Would the adoption of free coinage help matters
any?
It has been shown that with free coinage of both
metals at a fixed ratio, the slightest variations of the
market will deprive us either of gold or silver.
Poor money drives out good and with free coinage
the United States would be on a silver monometallic ba-
sis.
As it stands now, with the only practical form of bi-
STANLEY
WOOD'S
39
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
metalism in force, the United States has money as fol-
lows:
Gold.
Silver.
Paper..
Present stock of money
•
$ 626,000,000
625,000,000
475,000,000
$1,726,000,000
This statement is from the bureau of the mint, re-
port for 1894.
Under free silver the gold would leave us and the ac-
count would stand as follows:
Silver....
Paper..
Total stock of money
$ 625,000,000
475,000,000
$ 1,100,000,000
As this value would be depreciated one-half we would
really possess money with a purchasing power of $550,-
000,000.
In order to make this comparison still more clear let
me say that under the existing system we have $25.00
per capita.
Under Coin's system we would have nominally $16.-
00 per capita, actually $8.00 per capita with daily fluc-
tuations.
Is not the remedy worse than the disease ?

THEORY.

Coin's theory is that a silver dollar is
just as good as a gold dollar.
He says
silver is the "money of the people."
Actions speak louder than words, and
in the Associated Press dispatch given on
the next page we discover what Coin
really thinks of silver. The story of the
burning of Coin's summer residence is
as true as the story of Coin's Financial
School.
40

PRACTICE.

COIN'S HOUSE BURNED.
He is Shrewd Enough to Save His Silver.
Associated Press Dispatch.
RICHMOND, Ind., May 9.-An insurance ad-
juster was here to-day, coming from Philomath,
a village in an extreme part of this county,
where he had been to adjust the loss caused by
a recent fire. The author of Coin's Financial
School was the owner of a handsome summer
residence which was burned, and during the fire
he poured water in only one place, a particular
corner of the room. The neighbors remon-
strated with him, telling him that he was doing
no good, but he still persisted in pouring the
water on that spot.
As soon as the fire was over he raked away
the ashes and took out an old rusty box and
opened it. Inside were five shot sacks full of
silver coins. The sacks were too heavy for one
man to carry. The author of Coin's Financial
School declined to say just how much was in
the sacks. After the find the sacks and the
contents were taken to Connersville and de-
posited in a bank.
41
CHAPTER V.
GOLD AND SILVER MONEY.
"The merit of these two metals is that neither will rust, corrode
nor stain, and both are odorless. As compared with other property,
both are very durable. Of the two, silver is the more durable.
Abrasion causes more loss to gold than to silver, and the latter may
be carried in the pocket and subjected to great use with but little
loss.
One was the money of the people-the other, of the rich."-
Coin's Financial School, p. 46.
There are certain pretty phrases that are rightly
called "glittering generalities."
"The money of the people" is one of these phrases.
It sounds well to say that silver is the money of the
people-but is it a true statement?
A simple experiment will settle the question. Let
one of the people take a ten dollar bill (and most of the
people have ten dollar bills, more or less frequently, in
their vest pockets) and buy twenty-five cents worth of
some commodity. Let the shopkeeper give this repre-
sentative of the people nine silver dollars, a fifty cent
piece and a quarter of a dollar in change. What will
this representative of the people say?
It depends a good deal on the amount of reverence
he has for the commandment "Thou shalt not swear.”
Silver has never been popular as a circulating
medium. The dollars are too large and too heavy for
convenience.
How often do we hear clerks say apologetically,
"I'll have to give you silver."
42
STANLEY
WOOD'S
43
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
On the other hand, how frequently do we hear the
purchasers say, "Can't you give me bills? I don't want
to carry all that silver."
The people don't want the alleged "money of the
people," and they are responsible for forcing it out of
circulation.
As Secretary Morton says: "What is the sense of
clamoring still for unlimited coinage,' when the treasury
cannot get rid, by hook or crook, of the tithe of the dollars
already coined and lying in useless heaps? They are well
minted, of just weight, nine-tenths fine, are legal tender
for all debts and bear the legend' In God We Trust.'
"What ails them? I answer, and so must you, on
reflection, there is no 'demand' for them and therefore
no 'use' for them. What more can the law do for
them ?"
But let us turn to the statistics, because they will
show exactly how this matter stands.
The number of silver dollars in circulation each year
since 1885 was as follows:
NUMBER OF SILVER DOLLARS IN CIRCULATION.
1886...
1887
1888..
• •
•
1889.
1890..
1891..
1892...
1893..
$61,000,000
62,000,000
59,000,000
60,000,000
65,000,000
62,000,000
61,000,000
58,000,000
56,000,000
1894..
I give round figures but I don't guess at them.
They are taken from the report of the mint for 1894,
page 23.
Remember that there are more than four hundred and
thirty millions of silver dollars in the United States
44
10
IS SILVER THE MONEY OF THE PEOPLE.
09

་
STANLEY
WOOD'S
45
ANSWER TO SCHOOL.
FINANCIAL COIN'S
Treasury, and the government "pays the freight" on
all you want of it, and yet only a paltry fifty-six mil-
lions were in circulation last year.
Is silver the money of the people? Plainly, by their
actions, they say, "No."
In reading Coin's Financial School, and in trying to
follow his argument chapter by chapter and page by
page, I am reminded of the man who started in to read
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
"First
A friend asked him, "How do you like it?”
rate," replied the man, "it's a rattling good story, but
the author changes subjects too often."
So it is with Coin. He jumps jauntily from one
subject to another without the least regard to the rela-
tions they may hold to each other, and like the wood-
chuck, he is more likely to come out of the same hole
he went in at than to go forward in a direct line.
The "Crime of "73" bobs up serenely again in
Chapter III. of Coin's book, while he is showing in
quite a lucid manner the rise and progress of panics in
general. He says:
"For some time it was not generally
known that silver was demonetized, and
for many years since then its true position
in our currency was disputed.
It slowly dawned on the country that
silver was neither fish nor fowl; that like
Mohammed's coffin, it swung half way be-
tween the floor and the ceiling."-Coin's
Financial School, p. 56.
The "crime" was committed in 1873. "It slowly
dawned on the country" that a "crime" had been com-
mitted, and not until 1893 were its effects made mani-
fest.

46
FREE
CAPITAL
FOR
ENTERPRISE
THE ROAD
PROSPERITY
تم
THE FEAR OF FREE SILVER AND A FIFTY CENT DOLLAR-
STANLEY
WOOD'S
47
ANSWER TO SCHOOL.
FINANCIAL COIN'S
How interesting!
One of our humorous poets relates in verse the case
of a most expert executioner. The victim kneels before
him. His bright sword circles swiftly in the air.
Why don't you strike?" asks the victim.
"The executioner makes no reply, but takes out his
snuff-box and gives the victim a pinch of snuff. The
victim sneezes and his head rolls off into the basket.
The keen sword had done its work, but the victim
didn't know it.
So with silver.
If it was actually beheaded in '73 it had been dead
twenty years and didn't know it.
Coin's argument seems to be as follows: Silver was
demonetized in '73; we had a panic in 1893; therefore
the panic was caused by the crime of '73.
A conclusion false in logic and false in fact.
What did cause the panic?
The fear of silver and a fifty cent dollar.
One of its chief causes was the fear on the part of the
creditors of the United States that our obligations would
be declared payable in silver. They demanded pay-
ment, and everybody had to come down to a cash basis.
First one bank, then another failed, until the crash
became general, as when a row of bricks are set on end
close together and the first brick is tipped over; one
brick knocks another down, so the fall of one financial
institution produced the fall of another.
The memory of some men is short, and when I go so
far back as 1893 and say the fear of silver payments
brought on the panic they will not be able to remember
the fact. Therefore, to prove the effect that this fear of
being paid in cheap money has upon the minds of cred-
itors, I quote the following from the standard authority
48
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
entitled Monetary Systems of the World: "During the
calendar year (1894) that closed with December the ex-
cess of exports of merchandise and silver over imports
was fully $186,000,000; nevertheless, it was necessary to
export $81,000,000 more gold than was imported, indi-
cating a steady return of American securities from
abroad and the general withdrawal of credits, ostensibly
due to the fear of silver payments here."-Monetary Sys-
tems of the World, p. 190.


3
NOTES
BONDS
MORTGAGES
AND
ACCOUNTS
2
૨
3
NOTES
BONDS
MORTGAGES
AND
ACCOUNTS
2
CHECKS
DRAFTS
AND
BILLS OF
EXCHANGE
CHECKS
DRAFTS
AND
BILLS OF
EXCHANGE
1
1
CREDIT
CREDIT
MONEY
MONEY
PRIMARY
MONEY
NATIONAL
PRODUCIVE
RESOURCES
First Lesson.
True Lesson.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
49
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
In other words the ghost of free silver produced the
panic.
What misery then would the reality produce?
Coin bases all his arguments as to the evil wrought
by the act of "73, on an assumption, and that assump-
tion is that every line of credit rests upon the foundation
of primary money. He illustrates this idea by the dia-
gram marked First Lesson. The true basis of credit is
the national productive resources which is illustrated
by the diagram marked True Lesson.
The basis of Coin's argument is false, therefore hist
conclusions are false.
Common sense and the everyday experiences of the
average man can settle a question of this kind bet-
ter than all the fine spun theories of the man of words.
What is it that makes you trust your neighbor? Is it
because he has primary money in his cellar ?
Of course not.
You trust him because First: You believe him to be
honest.
Secondly: You know him to be industrious.
Thirdly: You know him to be shrewd, sharp, intel-
ligent.
Fourthly: You know he has a farm that is produc-
tive; a store that is doing business; a manufactory
that manufactures, or he may have none of these but
simply an active inventive brain.
Knowing these things you lend him money and you
are not afraid that you will lose it.
It's the same with a goverment.
common sense acknowledges it.
History proves it,
The United States didn't have any primary money
at the end of the war but she had resources, she had
the confidence of the world and she prospered.
-4
50
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
In confirmation of what I say I quote the words of
Mr. Sigmund Zeisler. He says, speaking of the free.
silver idea: "Confidence, that leaven of commercial
prosperity, would be wanting. The capital of the
world which is now attracted to this country to em-
bark in commercial and industrial enterprises and to
help make this country greater and richer will shun us.
It was exactly this lack of confidence, brought about
by our paying out gold with one hand and buying in a
stock of useless silver with the other, endangering the
ability of the government to preserve the integrity of
our currency, which brought on the panic of 1893, from
which we are still suffering. That this last panic was
brought about by nothing else except the fear that we
were fast approaching a silver basis was proved beyond
the shadow of a doubt by the fact that after the repeal of
the silver purchasing clause of the Sherman law money.
came immediately out of its hiding places, returned into
the channels of trade and became so plentiful as to be-
come a drug upon the market. How much more serious
would be a panic resulting from an avowed intention to
entirely take the support of gold from our silver circula-
tion, and to pay our public and private debts at 50 cents
on the dollar, cannot possibly be imagined. Was not the
lesson of 1893 plain enough? In the name of every
principle of fair dealing, in the name of patriotism, in
the name of the preservation of the honor of this coun-
try, in the name of common sense and common honesty,
I plead for the maintenance of an honest currency."
So much for Coin's theory as to the cause of the
panic of 1893.
کر
CHAPTER VI.
COST OF MINING SILVER.
ounce.
"It is not a fact that silver can be mined for fifty cents an
In some particular mine, for a time, it may be mined for
fifty cents an ounce, or less; just as gold has been mined for a time
in Australia and California for 10 per cent of its value "—Coin's Fi-
nancial School p. 73.
Probably no one can tell exactly what is the average
cost per ounce of mining silver.
The fact remains that in 1894 the silver miners pro-
duced and sold abroad $39,555,875 worth of the white
metal. It is not at all probable that these mines were
worked at a loss.
As an illustration of the degree of reduction in ex-
pense of mining, I quote the following from Advance
Thought for May, 1895, edited by Mark M. Pomeroy and
free silver to the backbone: "W. F. Kendrick, well
and ever honorable known in Colorado as one of the
leading business men in Denver, as well as being the
owner of ranches, blooded horses and valuable mines,
thus speaks of the great difference between then and
now, as relates to the mining and treatment of ores con-
taining the precious metals. Being a practical man
who keeps the figures to prove all his statements his
testimony is of much value to those who have capital
and a disposition to invest to more profit than ordinarily
follows labor given in any other direction.
As he says:
The mines that could be worked only at a heavy
51
52
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO loss twenty years ago, can be worked at a large profit
to-day.
'My first experience in practical smelting and handling
of gold and silver ores was in 1874, when I entered the
employment of the Golden Smelting Company, of Gold-
en, Colorado, as assayer, and later on as ore buyer. In
those days, the Boston and Colorado Smelting Com-
pany, then of Black Hawk, now of Denver, and the Gold
Smelting Company were the two principal smelting
works of this State and of the West, the smelting charges
were $35 per ton and 20 per cent discount for loss.
Nothing but high grade ores could then be handled un-
less it was something needed for mixtures. Freight
charges were also high, as, for illustration, the mines of
Alma, Fairplay, and Breckenridge paid from $15 to $25
per ton freight where to-day it is a nominal charge; at
Alma on ore carrying $100 per ton, 20 per cent for loss
was first deducted, $35 for smelting charges, $20 for
freight and $5 for crushing and sampling, making $80,
leaving $20 for the miner. In 1875, these charges were
reduced and have been gradually cut down until to-day
$100 ore from Alma can be figured as follows: Smelting
charges $8, freight $5, discount for loss $5, making $18,
the miner receiving $82.
'The smelting charges in Denver are now $3 to $10
per ton, owing to the kind of ore.
'Freight rates have been reduced as follows from
Alma and many points. On ore carrying $12 per ton $1
per ton freight; on ore carrying $35 per ton $3 per ton
freight above the $35 limit, $5 per ton.
The smelting rate of $4 on the low grade gold or
silver ores, carrying iron, manganese or lead, gives the
miner returns on $12 ore as follows: Smelting charges
$4, freight $I, discount 5 per cent or sixty cents,
making $5.60, and leaving $6.40 for the miner.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
53
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
In high grade mines here is considerable low
grade ore which is now marketable, adding largely to
the profits. Alma is taken as the basis of figuring as it
was a large silver producing district twenty years ago
and is 120 miles from Denver, having about medium
freight rates. Mr. Kendrick's address is Mining Ex-
change building, Denver."
This article was written to encourage investment in
mining and not as an argument in favor of free coinage.
If nearly forty million dollars' worth of silver were
mined and sold in 1894 by the United States at a rate
of about sixty cents an ounce, the conclusion must be
that the cost of its production was less than sixty cents
an ounce.
Coin gives a number of poor portraits of rich men
whom he alleges have paid all the way from $100 to
$50,000 an ounce for silver.
He might as logically try to prove the high ex-
pense of mining coal by giving portraits of men who
have lost money in that business.
Coin denies that the silver producers would be en-
riched through the adoption of free coinage.
He says: "Silver men are not benefited
by demonetization except in common with
others. Silver is now worth about 60
cents an ounce as measured in the new
standard-gold. It was worth $1.29 under
free coinage. The owner of silver bullion
can now buy as much with an ounce of sil-
ver as he ever could.
"An ounce of silver bullion would buy
a bushel of wheat in 1873, and it will buy
a bushel of wheat now. Two ounces of
silver bullion would buy a day's labor in
54
SCHOOL,
STANLEY WOOD'S
FINANCIAL COIN'S
ANSWER
TO 
ONE
A 1 1,
DOLLARS
WHAT
GOES
UP
GOLD
STANDARD
CAN HE DO IT? OF COURSE-
1873, and two ounces will buy a day's la-
bor now. Three ounces of silver bullion
would buy a keg of nails in 1873, and two
ounces will buy a keg of nails now. An
ounce of silver bullion would buy 16 yards
of calico in 1873, and it will buy 16 yards
of calico now."-Coin's Financial School,
p. 81.
Coin has proved too much.
What is he grumbling about?
He is grumbling because he can't get his sixty cents'
worth of bullion stamped by the Government with the com-
mercial lie that it is worth 100 cents.
That's what Coin is grumbling about.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
55
ANSWER
SCHOOL.
FINANCIAL TO COIN'S

KITED
א
ONB
STA
JUSA
DOLKAR
малышел
COLD
STANDARD
MUST COME
DOWN!
16
15
14
12
10
ham2 -
-NOT!
CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL DEMORALIZATION.
Coin spends much of his time in Chapter Fourth of
his "School" in trying to prove that the "crime" of "'73
is the cause of low prices, low wages and industrial de-
moralization.
In the first place he greatly exaggerates the evils
that are upon us, and in the second place he misstates
the cause. Says he:
"You increase the value of all prop-
erty by adding to the number of money
units in the land. You make it possi-
ble for the debtor to pay his debts;
business to start anew, and revivify all the
industries of the country, which must re-
main paralyzed so long as silver as well as
56
WOOD'S
STANLEY TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
ANSWER
all other property is measured by a gold
standard.". Coin's Financial School, p. 83.
The pith of the statements made in the above quota-
tion is contained in the words, "You make it possible
for the debtor to pay his debts."
And how?
Simply by giving the creditor half the amount of
money you owe him.
The rest of Coin's proposition is false. Business


100
CENTS
1865
GOLD DOLLAR
50
CENTS
SILVER DOLLAR


50
CENTS
THIS IS A GOLD DOLLAR
50.
CENTS
THIS IS A SILVER DOLLAR
HOW COIN PROPOSES TO PAY HONEST DEBTS.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
57
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
could not start anew; none of the industries of the coun-
try would be revived, for the reason that the free coin-
age of silver would destroy confidence and send down
upon us an avalanche of debts to be paid on demand,
with what result?
National bankruptcy !
As Mr. W. B. Mitchell truthfully says: "When we
agitate and approach free coinage all the people lock
their money up.
Home money lenders and investors
are alarmed, and foreign capitalists look upon us with
contempt. Industrial progress comes to a standstill.
We may fuss and fume and beat the air all we are a
mind to, but our impotent fury merely closes the money
chests tighter. The people we rail at are not merely the
Rothschilds, a few great financial concerns in England,
and a few thousand bankers in America. That vague,
greatly abused and little understood thing, the "money
power," is a mightier force than even the silver men
claim that it is. It is the PEOPLE-the millions of in-
telligent, thrifty and prudent people who have put aside
the accumulations of their industry. Every man who
has saved and owns money, whether the sum be $100 or
$100,000, or who holds the notes of his neighbor, or who
is an investor in securities, State bonds or mortgages, is
one of the "money power." If his hoard be only $100
he is as easily frightened and runs to cover as quickly as
the man with a million. He is, indeed, more apt to lock
his money up and put it entirely out of sight and out of
reach than the larger and broader holder. If you have
anything to sell, you cannot sell it to him. Price counts
for nothing. If you ask him to join you in an enterprise,
he laughs at you. If you would borrow of him, he shies
at your collateral. He may not be learned in the sci-
ence of money; he may tell you that he knows nothing
58
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
about financial questions, but he knows how to make you
pay if you owe him; he knows how to lock up his
money and to keep it."
There was a time even in the memory of the present
generation when we had neither gold nor silver in com-
mon use; the paper dollar filled all the wants or require-
ments of business of the people, and had this paper
dollar been full legal tender, as it should have been,
not one of them would have ever been of less value than
gold or silver. We got along comfortably then, for
business was good and labor in demand.
The values of all things have fallen, not because sil-
ver was demonetized but from the action of natural
laws. The cost of production has been reduced and
this has stimulated operations and increased the supply,
while the demand or consumption in many things has
not increased. Take wheat for example. The invention
of the reaper and self-binder diminished the cost of cut-
ting grain and made possible the great wheat fields of
Dakota, California and Argentina, and the price of wheat
has kept pace with the conditions; before these inven-
tions it cost $1 to raise a bushel of wheat which was
raised in small fields. When Kansas and Minnesota
began with improved appliances to raise wheat in large
fields they brought the cost of production down to 75
cents a bushel. Then the still larger fields of Dakota
with better facilities produced wheat at 50 cents a
bushel. Then California produced it at 40 cents a
bushel. Then the Argentine Republic produced it at 25
cents a bushel, and finally the ryots of Asia produced it
for 15 cents a bushel, and the supplies of the world
were greatly increased. Values are controlled by the
law of cost of production, supply and demand, and this
value is equalized by commerce.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
59
ANSWER TO SCHOOL.
FINANCIAL COIN'S
So it seems that it is not the want of gold or sil-
ver that causes our present hard times, and it is folly
to say that "demonetization of silver in 1873 caused
it by striking down one-half the dollars that make up
our standard of values, and reduced silver and all
other property, except debts, one-half." Gold and sil-
ver as commodities will both fluctuate in price, ac-
cording to the law of cost of production, supply and
demand, and that an ounce of silver will purchase the
same amount of wheat and several other things that
it formerly did only shows that silver has fallen in
price about the same as these other commodities and
for just the same reason.
Suppose it were possible for free coinage to restore
the lost value to silver.
Could it restore lost value to iron, dry goods, wheat
and agricultural products?
If so, for what reason?
Would it change the cost of production, supply or
demand?
Would it make water run up hill?

60
BEFORE.
SILVER ELEPHANT: "I'M A POOR HOMELESS ORPHAN, WON'T YOU TAKE ME IN?"
UNCLE SAM: "TEW BE SURE. STEP RIGHT IN AND MAKE YEWRSELF TEW HUM.

AFTER.
SILVER ELEPHANT: "THANKS, DON'T CARE IF I DO."
7. 8.
61
CHAPTER VII.
QUANTITY OF GOLD IN THE WORLD.
*
* * * "The world has, as reported by the director of the
U. S. Mint, about 3,750 million of dollars in gold. Under any calcu-
lation it will not exceed at the present time 3,900 million dollars.
"But let us take the larger figure, 3,900 million dollars, and see
what this amount means.
In
"The population of the world in 1890 was about 1,400 million.
It is a per capita for the population of the world of about $2.50.
bulk it is about one-half the size of this nickel I hold in my hand."
And as Coin said this he held up a 5-cent piece between his thumb
and forefinger."-Coin's Financial School, p. 98.
Coin "held up" more than the five cent piece when
he made that illustration.
He "held up" Truth and robbed her by statistical
sleight of hand.
He compares the amount of gold in the world with
the population of the world-but nearly one-half of the
population of the world don't use gold and those indi-
viduals wouldn't know what to do with the two dollars
and a half which Coin's division of the world's stock of
gold would give them.
He might as well say that the world's stock of palm
leaf fans is only 700 million while the population of the
world is 1,400 million and exclaim, with tears in his
eyes: "What will the poor Esquimaux do for palm leaf.
fans ?"
As proof that I am not making a guess at the figures.
62
STANLEY
WOOD'S
63
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
I quote the following statistics, compiled by M. Four-
nier de Flaix, as to the number of followers of various
creeds:
Confucianism...
Mahommedanism
• ❤
Taoism....
Shintoism.
Polytheism.
Total
803,241.960
176,834.372
43,000.000
14,000.000
117,000.000
654,076.000
Now we know that the peoples named in the table
given above do not use gold as currency.
Then what's the use of Coin's including them in his
division of the world's stock of gold?
He wanted to make a point.
What is the conclusion ?
It can't help being to the effect that, for all the pur-
poses of honest comparison, there is twice as much gold
in the world as Coin says there is.
Coin's theory of finance is always original.
Original because it defies logic.
He has discovered a method to make everybody rich.
It is as follows:
"We e express values in dollars, the unit
of our monetary system. That unit is now
the gold dollar of twenty-three and two-
tenths grains of pure gold, or twenty-five
and eight-tenths grains of standard gold.
If we were to cut this amount in two and
make eleven and six-tenths grains pure
gold a unit or dollar, we would thereby
double the value of all the property in the
United States, except debts."-Coin's Finan-
cial School, p. III.
£
64
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
Would cutting the gold dollar in half double the
value of property?
Certainly not.
I will not argue this point further than to call atten-
tion of the reader to the illustration showing how a man
can increase the value of his watch.



XI
STATES
ANY
A
ΝΙ Π
OF
AUER
XI
XI
XI
XI
2
3
MYCALLO
ON
I N
IV



BIA
C
B
HOW TO INCREASE THE VALUE OF PROPERTY.
FIG. 1. Is your gold watch worth 20 of the gold dollars marked A.
FIG. 2. Is the same gold watch worth 40 of the gold dollars marked B.
FIG. 3. Is the same gold watch worth 80 of the gold dollars marked C.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 65
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL Is it necessary to say more?
With the agility of an acrobat Coin leaps from one
point to another, and in the midst of an argument as to
increasing the value of property by decreasing the size
of the measure of value he begins an argument about the
fall of prices. He says:
'Nearly everything except gold has de-
clined largely in the last two years-the
average is about twenty-five per cent-and
it may be said that little or no improved
facilities have come into use during that
time. Demonetization and the collapse.
of our financial system seems to have par-
alyzed the hand of even the inventor, and
yet values continue to decline."-Coin's
Financial School, p. 84.
Is this true?
By no means. Some things have fallen in price and
other things have risen. Coin is careful to refer only to
those things that have fallen.
Take farm products, for instance. Some of the most
important farm products have risen in price at the same
time that silver has been going down. For example,
corn, which brought 49.8 cents a bushel in the New York
market in 1879, cominanded 50.9 cents in 1894, the
prices mentioned being the average for the years named.
For oats the average of the earlier year was 37.1 cents,
and of the later 37.2 cents. The same lard which sold
for 6.62 cents in 1879 brought 7.75 cents in 1894; and
the pork which in 1878 was sold for $9.88 was in 1894 up
at the $14.13 mark. These are the figures presented in
the Statistical Abstract, which is prepared by the Bureau
of Statistics af Washington. The year 1879 is selected
-5
66
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
here for comparison because that was the year in which
specie payments were resumed by the treasury.
During a time in which silver has been rapidly de-
clining--for its average price was $1.12 in 1879 and only
about 50 cents in 1894-corn, oats, lard and pork have
advanced. Consequently if the decline in silver has sent
wheat and cotton down, it must have sent corn, oats,
pork and lard up. The relation between silver and both
sets of farmers' products must be the same if there be
any relation at all. If "silver demonetization" is re-
sponsible for the changes in the prices of agricultural
products, it must operate in opposite directions at the
same time.
If it does, then it has not been a very bad thing for
the farmer, for all that he has lost on wheat he has made
up on the immensely more important product, corn, and
the advance in pork, lard and oats, puts a nice balance
on the right side of his profit and loss account.
The truth is, of course, the so-called silver demoneti-
zation has had nothing to do with the changes in the
prices of these products. It did not send wheat down.
or corn up. The fluctuations in supply and demand in
each article, are the chief causes of the change in price.
Wheat, corn, pork and the rest of the commodities; rise
and fall without any regard for the condition of the sil-
ver market. A glance at any table of prices of leading
articles of necessity for a series of years will show that
the prices of no two of them ever bear the same ratio to
each other or to silver for two years in succession.
Wheat, for example, was higher in 1891 than it was in
1890, but the reverse was true of silver. The cheapen-
ing in the processes of production and transportation
has been one of the causes of the reduction of prices of
commodities in the last dozen or score of years, and the
STANLEY
WOOD'S
67
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
increase of production without a corresponding increase
of demand has done the rest.
It cannot be denied that invention has had a great
influence in the reduction of prices and in shifting lines
of business.
The Denver Daily News is a champion of free silver
but it is also a live newspaper and keeps up with the
times. The New's says:
"Bicycles have wrought havoc with the street railway
business of Denver. They have made inroads into the
business of the Omaha surface lines and those of St.
Paul and Minneapolis. The cities of a population of
less than 200,000, from all evidence obtainable, have
suffered from the incoming general use of the bicycle by
the people who otherwise would go to business and
return home from it by means of street cars.
"The enormous number of bicycles in use in Denver
has at last compelled the Tramway company to reduce.
expenses to meet the great reduction in their income
and the first place they began to cut was in the wages of
the men. Yesterday morning as each man took his car
he was handed the following notice:
MR. C. K. DURBIN, Superintendent:
Dear Sir: Please notify the trainmen-motormen and conduc-
tors-that on and after May 1, 1895, and until further notice, the
wages paid them by this company will be twenty cents an hour,
which is practically the same as paid by the Denver City Cable Rail-
way company.
Please advise the men that this action, ordered by the board of
directors, has been delayed as long as it was practicable to do so,
but that the general and continued depression in business, of which
they must have taken notice, renders it necessary.
You may also advise them that it is not proposed to modify the
agreement of March 7, 1894, but that the further depression in busi-
ness which has occurred is such as is referred to in that agreement.
By order of the board of directors. Yours truly,
RODNEY CURTIS, President.
68
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
To Trainmen-In accordance with the above, your wages will be
at the rate of twenty cents an hour on and after May 1, and until
further notice.
C. K. DURBIN, Superintendent.
"The notice was not altogether unexpected. Never
since the company was fairly on its feet have the daily
receipts been so low as they are at present. That the
drop is caused entirely by the introduction of bicycles
is beyond a doubt. During the recent stormy days
when the wheels could not be used the receipts per car,
it is reported, were almost invariably over $30 per
day. As soon as the streets dried off sufficiently to per-
mit riding, the cash receipts took a drop of over one-half.
On the clear days, when the receipts of the company in
days gone by were usually augmented by the large
number of invalids and pleasure seekers who rode about
the suburbs for an outing, the receipts were if anything,
even less then expected. Instead of taking an outing on
the cars, the people now ride about on wheels and the
tramway has suffered in consequence.
"Estimating on the basis of 10,000 wheels in actual
daily use on the streets of Denver, the cut in the
receipts of the company can be easily computed. Dur-
ing the past year 4,000 wheels have been sold in the
city alone by the local dealers, and this does not include
a large number which were shipped in by individuals.
At this rate the estimate of 10,000 wheels in use would
be exceedingly low.
"Some of the dealers claim that these wheels will
average between twenty cents and thirty cents a day
each from the pockets of the Tramway company, while
others place the amount and the number of wheels at
higher figures. But taking the low estimate of twenty
cents each day for the 10,000 wheels, the amount would
reach $2,000 a day, or $730,000 a year. To this should
STANLEY
WOOD'S
69
ANSWER TO SCHOOL.
FINANCIAL COIN'S
also be added the amount which was formerly received
from the crowded cars which ran to suburban resorts,
and which now barely take in enough on pleasant days.
to leave a surplus over the expenses of the crews."
It will be observed that the News does not allege
that the loss of street car business is owing to the
demonetization of silver.
This is only one illustration. They could be multi-
plied indefinitely. If the bicycle has cut down the use
of street cars, the street cars have cut down the use of
the horse, just as the reaper and the mower have super-
seded the older and cruder machines for harvesting.
Sickle, scythe, cradle, reaper, twine-binder-such
are the steps of progress in grain harvesting devices.
Fifty years ago a man who had ventured to prophesy in
any gathering of bent-backed farm hands that a ma-
chine would soon be invented entirely to supersede their
slow going cradles would have been laughed out of
countenance. But the miracle has been wrought. A
man may sit in the harvester seat and go clicking
through the grain with only an occasional chirrup to his
horses, and at the end of the day he will have cut eight
or ten times as much as the brawniest cradler could have
done. Besides that the wheat has not only been cut
but gathered up and tied with twine in neat bundles,
ready for the hands who loiter along behind to do the
shocking. All of the exhausting work of hand binding
has been done away with, together with the necessity of
preparing heavy harvest dinners for the workers.
The kind of currency, the amount of currency, pri-
mary money and credit money have little or nothing to do
with the case. The great laws of supply and demand
and the cost of production are at work in producing
low prices; what is the remedy?
70
ANSWER
WOOD'S
STANLEY
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
Find new fields of labor, and make the best use of
the older fields. The reader will find some suggestions
on this point in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
PRICE OF WHEAT AND A MARKET FOR COTTON.
A note executed five years ago which 1,000 bushels of wheat
would then have paid, now takes about 1,500 bushels to pay.-Coin's
Financial School, p. 118.
True, and not true.
True as to the number of bushels of wheat, not true
as to the cost of producing the wheat which is the test
of its value.
If a farmer can produce two bushels of wheat to-day
as easily as he could produce one bushel of wheat when
he contracted his debt, then he pays no more to-day
though he gives up two bushels of wheat now instead of
one bushel then.
But let us see how wheat stands.
The Washington Bureau of Agriculture gives statis-
tics of average annual prices for wheat on the farm in
the United States for a series of years past. A grouping
of the figures shows for the five years ending with 1887,
a price of about 74 cents per bushel, and for the next
five years ending with 1892, it was 782 cents. The
average for 1890 and 1891 was nearly 84 cents, which
was higher than that of any single year since 1883.
These statistics are important as showing that the ten-
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 71
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL }
dency of prices for wheat on the farm was upward ·
rather than downward till recently. The price weak-
ened in 1892 on the big crop of 1891, and fell off further
as a consequence of the severe business depression that
set in a little more than two years ago.
The decline could not be due to the course of silver
or anything connected with silver, and it is fair to sup-
pose at least a part of that decline may be recovered if
the country resumes the measure of prosperity which its
people enjoyed previous to 1892. After making allow-
ance for the effect of that there is nothing to forbid the
conclusion that the price of wheat on the farms of the
United States tends to steadiness through a long course
of years, with minor variations due to relative abun-
dance or scarcity in different seasons.
There has been a decline in prices paid by the con-
sumer which is not shown by these figures. It is due to
decreasing cost of transportation. It now costs less to
bring wheat to Chicago than it used to do from the same
distance, less to take it from Chicago to New York, and
less to send it across the Atlantic from New York to
Liverpool. This because almost every year brings im-
provements of some kind which tend to a reduction in
the quantity of fuel and the amount of handling by
human labor to move the bushel of wheat a named dis-
tance. And owing to this the consumer gains an advan-
tage which is not taken out of the producer. There is
room to question the right of the latter to take all this
advantage for himself even if it were possible for him
to command it, which it is not, as the cheapening of
transportation processes is progressing in other parts of
the world as well as in the United States. This is no
cause for complaint by the American farmer and consti-
tutes no reason why the currency should be altered in
72
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
order to give him more money for his grain if that were
possible.
The fact that prices on the farm have not been re-
duced except as mentioned is, however, kept in the
background by the free silver men, who are trying to
make other people believe that the farmer is getting less
for his goods than he ought to obtain or than he would
obtain if the United States were induced to cut the cur-
rency unit in two by adopting "free coinage at sixteen
to one without waiting for the aid or consent of any
other nation."
The condition of the low price of cotton has faced
the farmer of the South.
What has he done?
Has he laid his troubles all down at the door of
"demonetization," and shouted for free silver?
Not altogether.
Mr. William E. Curtis, the well-known newspaper
correspondent says: "In the State of Mississippi to day
the farmer is more independent than he has been for
years before. Owing to the low price of cotton the last
two or three years his credit at the stores has got down
to such a notch that he has been compelled to grow his
own corn, hogs, sorghum and other things necessary for
the support of his family. As a result the shipments of
meats into Mississippi have shrunken fully 60 per cent
and the corn crop last year was 10,000,000 bushels in
excess of any crop ever grown in the State before. To
continue this good work the storekeepers in different
parts of the country have entered into agreements by
which they will refuse to sell on credit to farmers
articles that they can produce upon their own farms for
the support of their people, thus compelling them to
STANLEY
WOOD'S
73
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
continue in the road of prosperity that they have already
entered upon.
"The merchants throughout the State in 1894
reported that they were selling more and better goods.
than they had ever done before, and that the farmers
were paying cash for what they bought. Owing to the
low price of cotton last winter this condition has had
a temporary setback, but it is more than doubtful if the
farmers, with this one taste of prosperity, will ever get
back into the old rut of paying two or three prices for
things they can grow themselves.”
"There are several companies contemplating the
erection of mills in Mississippi, and I think a good deal
of capital will be invested in that form of industry within
the present year. Cotton mill experts who have made
investigations of the conditions requisite to their busi-
ness, speak very highly of the character of the operatives
that are found in the Mississippi mills. They are intel-
ligent, industrious and contented. Strikes have never
occurred and are not likely to occur. The cotton mill
at Wesson, a few miles south of Jackson, Miss., is one
of the largest and most successful in the United States.
It was established a little over twenty years ago with
$344,000 capital stock. Since then it has paid its capital
many times over in dividends, and represents to-day a
capitalization of $1,800,000."
The increase of the cotton weaving industries of the
South will enable the American manufacturer to control
the markets of all those countries where cotton goods.
chiefly are used for clothing, and these include all the
tropical and sub-tropical countries. The trade in cotton.
goods is rapidly increasing. Africa, Siam, southern
China, and northern South America are large consumers
of cotton fabrics. With the increased output of fine
74
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
cottons from Southern mills this country can also supply
the world's demand for fine goods. Perhaps cotton
will again be king in American agriculture.
This is only a hint, but it's a hint in the right direc-
tion.

KARANG YAAANNNULESOMIEN NA
AGMAN NAMÄ
CHAPTER IX.
PRESENT PROSPERITY OF THE UNITED STATES.
The coinage act of 1873 was: A crime because it has brought
this once great republic to the verge of ruin, where it is now in im-
minent danger of tottering to its fall."-Coin's Financial School,
p. 112.
Is this great Republic on the verge of ruin?
Is it now in imminent danger of tottering to its fall?
Assuredly not.
Then why does Coin assert that it is?
Because his whole argument rests upon an appeal
to the fears and prejudices of men.
Is his argument based on fact?
No.
It is based on the existence of temporary evils,
their magnifying, and an assumption that demonetiza-
tion has been the cause of all the trouble.
Let us examine the statistics :
NET DEBT PER CAPITA 1895.
France..
Great Britain.
.$200
84
16
UNITED STATES.
To recapitulate: The net debt April 1, 1895, was a
-fraction over $1,400,000,000. That debt, disregarding
small fractions, was approximately $20 per head. We
may assume that with the lessening product of silver
and the increasing demand in the silver-using nations.
the price of silver has touched bottom and that what we
have in stock, which has cost an average of $1 an ounce
75
76
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
for the whole purchase under both the Bland and the
Sherman acts, may be worth 60 per cent of its cost or
thereabout. In other words, we may ultimately realize
$4 a head upon the sale of silver bullion for which we
have no use. That would reduce the net debt on April
1 to $16 per capita.
Compare the financial standing of the United States
with that of Great Britain the "Creditor nation of the
World" and then read the following and tell me if
your reason prompts you to say "that is true."
"In the impending struggle for the mas-
tery of the commerce of the world, the
financial combat between England and the
United States cannot be avoided if we are
to retain our self-respect, and our people
their freedom and prosperity.
"
The gold standard will give England.
the commerce and wealth of the world.
The bimetallic standard will make the Uni-
ted States the most prosperous nation on
the globe."-Coin's Financial School, p.
£35.
Now what has been the record of the United States
for the last thirty years. The rate of taxation is a fair
measure of a nation's financial condition.
how the United States has stood the test.
NET TAX PER CAPITA SINCE 1865.
Net tax in the United States 1865...
Let us see
"
4
#4
"
"
C
"
"
=
=
$15+
1870.
10+
1882...
8-
1885..
6-
#
1890..
5-
•
1893..
1895.
6-
•
=
"
1896 estimated 5.50
STANLEY
WOOD'S
1777
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
Deduct from the estimate for 1896 the revenue from
liquors and tobacco, together with the miscellaneous
permanent receipts, which will amount to $3 per capita
and the account stands NET TAX in the United States
1896, $2.50.
The United States is more prosperous than any
other nation; its people are better off than the people
of any other country, as proved by the amount of the
tonnage carried in their borders. This internal com-
merce is possible because the people of the United
States are one people, of one country and one union.
The whole of the tonnage on the oceans of the world
last year was about 140,000,000 of tons, while the ton-
nage of the railways of the world, carried 100 miles,
was about 1,400,000,000 of tons. There are 400,000 miles
of railroad in the world of which 180,000 are in the United
States. Of the 1,400,000,000 of tons carried 100 miles
last year on the railways of the world, 800 000,000 of
tons were carried on the railways of the United States.
You take the 600,000,000 of tons carried 100 miles on
the railways of the world outside of the United States
and then you add to it 140,000,000 carried on the ocean
in the commerce of the world upon the seas, and we
still have in the 800,000,000 of tons carried on the rail-
ways of the United States 60,000,000 of tons more than
on all the railways of the world outside of the United
States and in all the ocean commerce of the world put
together.
In order that these statements may be apparent at a
glance, I have tabulated them as follows:
78
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY WOOD'S
ANSWER
FREIGHT TONNAGE FOR 1894.
Ocean tonnage.
Foreign tonnage.
• •
Total foreign tonnage
United States R. R. tonnage.
Total foreign tonnage
140,000,000
600,000,000
740,000,000
800,000,000
740,000,000
60,000,000
Balance in favor of the U. S.,
This great balance in favor of the United States,
shows the vastness of her commercial enterprises and
is the best argument against the assertion that the act
of 1873 was:
"A crime, because it has brought this
once great republic to the verge of ruin,
where it is now in imminent danger of tot-
tering to its fall.” Coin's Financial School,
p. 112.
And there is another
the greatest significance.
factor in the case, which is of
I refer to the rates that were
paid on this freight by the countries of the world. Again
for the sake of clear appreciation I have made a table
which tells the story without words:
FREIGHT RATE PER TON PER MILE.
Great Britain..
France.
Germany
Russia..
Italy....
*
United States
.
28 Mills.
22
26
24
25
8
To recapitulate: This traffic is carried by the Ameri-
can railways at an average of eight mills per ton per
mile, while the railroads of Great Britian charge two
cents and eight mills, France two cents and two mills,
STANLEY
WOOD'S
79
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
the government-owned roads of Germany two cents and
six mills, of Italy two cents and five mills, and Russia
two cents and four mills.
What do these figures show?
They show that this internal commerce of the United
States makes our country the most wonderful market
this globe has ever known.
I cannot better close the discussion of this branch of
the question than to quote the language of Mr. Chauncey
M. Depew, who truthfully and eloquently says:
"Our internal commerce is so vast and so beneficent
that the sum of the traffic of Rome when she com-
manded the world, of Genoa when she was queen of the
Mediterranean, and of Venice when she commanded the
seas are, compared to it, but as rivulets to the Father of
Waters. This internal commerce is the breath of our
national life. With it in prosperous condition, we can
successfully compete in the markets of the world. We
have advanced beyond the boundaries fixed for us by
Washington in his farewell address, and have become a
factor in the affairs of nations. Our white fleet, carrying
the flag into every sea and protecting the honor of the
Nation and the safety of the citizen in every port, and
the American line of steamers, making it possible for the
American citizen to go to and fro between the United
States and Europe under his own flag, are the illustra-
tions of our changed conditions."

80
THE SILVER ELEPHANT IS A GOOD SERVANT BUT A BAD MASTER.
CHAPTER X.
WHO DEMAND FREE SILVER?
"
Helpless children and the best womanhood and manhood of
America appeal to us for release from a bondage that is destructive
of life and liberty. All the nations of the Western Hemisphere turn
to their great sister republic for assistance in the emancipation of the
people of at least one-half the world."-Coin's Financial School, pp.
130, 131.
Do the helpless children and the best womanhood
and manhood of America appeal to have the value of
their deposits in savings banks cut down one-half?
Do those who have insured their lives for the benefit
of their loved ones appeal to have the amount of their
insurance reduced fifty per cent?
Not if they realize what their appeal means.
Who, then, demand silver?
The same men who forced the passage of the Sher-
man law in 1890, which in four years drove 500 million
dollars of foreign capital out of the country.
The same men who, in the midst of these withdraw-
als, and of a consequent run on the treasury, with gold
going to Europe in a stream, fought the repeal of that
law with desperate tenacity.
The same men who insisted that the Secretary of the
Treasury should redeem government money in silver,
and thus bring the country to a silver basis, and reduce
us to silver monometalism, with its attendant contrac-
tion of credits and currency.
81
-6
82
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER
COIN'S
TO 
FREE
SILVER
COLD
RESERVE
HOLD UP YOUR HANDS.
7 B
These are the men who "appeal to us" through Coin
for unlimited free silver at 16 to 1.
The country was never in a stronger, more prosper-
ous or more progressive condition than in the years 1891
and 1892, so far as all the facts making for prosperity are
concerned, except for the condition of the currency.
Measures were under way for reducing taxation under
the tariff and for promoting domestic industry by reliev
ing the materials therein used from taxation. Then
came the silver craze, promoted mainly by the owners of
silver mines and smelting furnaces.
STANLEY WOOD'S
83
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
ANSWER
What proportion to the population of the United
States do the producers of silver bullion hold?

O
SILVER PRODUCERS:
"WE DEMAND FREE SILVER BECAUSE WE
THE OTHER PEOPLE:
PRODUCE IT.'
31
Signed, 33,000 PEOPLE.
"WE DON'T PRODUCE SILVER. MUST
WE YIELD TO YOUR DEMAND?"
Signed, 69,967,000 PEOPLE.
I illustrate it by the two squares in the cut with the
explanation that the second square should be 2,000
times larger than the first square, or I might make it
still clearer by saying that the silver producers are to
the rest of the population of the United States as is an
acorn to the dome of St. Peter's church at Rome.
This silver industry gave employment in 1890 to a
84
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
force of only about 33,000 men, half of whom derived
the silver from lead or copper ores.
But with an auda-
city in inverse proportion to their importance, being in
control of a number of seats in the senate in inverse
proportion to the number of persons represented, they
have spread abroad the delusion that the people need
cheap money.
What do the producers of silver wish to do?
They are attempting to put bad money upon the
people by acts of legal tender; that is to say, money
which will not stand the hammer test. The test of true
money is the hammer. If gold coin be placed upon an
anvil or in the melting pot and reduced to bullion, it is
worth as much after it is hammered smooth or melted
as it purports to be worth in the coin. If silver be ham-
mered smooth or melted it is worth only half as much
as it purports to be worth in coin.
<<
By their fruits ye shall know them." What they
have done is a hint of what they will do.
Their effort to put this country upon the single
standard of a fifty cent dollar, these men suddenly
brought doubt and discredit upon the nation. The panic.
ensued; credit ceased; constructive enterprise stopped.
Credit and confidence are now reviving.
The balance of trade is coming our way.
Home industries are showing new life.
Shall we risk all this? Peril all this? Jeopard all
this to make a dangerous experiment?
Remember the homely proverb uttered by Abraham
Lincoln, and "don't swap horses while crossing a
stream."



STATES OF
On mind we trut
CHALIND
ONE
AMERICA
DOLLAR
SILVER DOLLAR 100 CENTS.
SILVER DOLLAR (HAMMERED) 50 CENTS.



D
1965
GOLD DOLLAR 100 CENTS.
GOLD DOLLAR (HAMMERED) 100 CENTS.
PUT TO THE HAMMER TEST

Wages of the Workingman.
In order that the matter of wages may be
clear at a glance I give a diagram, illustrating
the subject, on the next page.
Take 1860 as a starting point and let the
circle 100 per cent represent the purchasing
power of a day's work, then the circle marked
66 per cent will represent what a day's work
would purchase in 1865, and the circle marked.
172.1 per cent represents what a day's work
would buy in 1890.
The circle marked 50 per cent shows what
free silver wages would do for the workingman,
and that pittance might shrink to the size of
the circle marked 25 per cent.
SEE A LESSON IN HISTORY
NEXT PAGE.
86
A LESSON IN HISTORY.
BEFORE THE WAR.
DURING INFLATION.


100 %
66%
WAGES IN 1860.
50%
WAGES IN 1865.
ON A SOUND MONEY BASIS.

172.1%
WAGES IN 1890.

25%
Free Silver Wages, which may shrink to this.
87
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUESTION OF WAGES.
Oppression now seeks to enslave this fair land. Its name is
greed. Surrounded by the comforts of life, it is unconscious of the
condition of others. Despotism, whether in Russia marching its
helpless victims to an eternal night of sorrow, or in Ireland where its
humiliating influences are ever before the human eye, or elsewhere;
it is the same.
"It is already with us. It has come in the same form that it has
come everywhere-by regarding the interests of property as para-
mount to the interests of humanity. That influence extends from the
highest to the lowest. The deputy sheriff regards the $4 a day he
gets as more important to him than the life or cause of the workmen
he shoots down."-Coin's Financial School, pp. 145, 146,
Appeals to prejudice.
Appeals to class feeling!
Flaming phrases!
These are the favorite methods by which Coin en-
deavors to convince his readers.
He does not have much to say directly about wages,
because he knows that the facts are against him, but by
indirection he carries the idea that the "crime of '73"
has enslaved the working man, impoverished the laborer,
and reduced wages to the lowest terms.
To show the facts in the case, and to demonstrate
that there is no foundation for Coin's assertions, I cannot
do better than to quote the statistics given by Prof. J. L.
Laughlin, published in the Chicago Times-Herald, May
9, 1895. Prof. Laughlin says:
88
STANLEY
WOOD'S
89
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
*
(C
*
*
"The withdrawal of permission to coin silver dollar
pieces in 1873 one would not think could stop all pro-
duction. As money is a means of exchanging goods.
already produced, it is hard to realize how a matter of
exchange can affect all production. But Coin has made
the discovery! He says the act of 1873 was a crime
because it has made thousands of paupers.
A crime, because it has brought tears to strong men's
eyes, and hunger and pinching want to widows and or-
phans. A crime, because it is destroying the honest
yeomanry of the land, the bulwark of the nation.”
(P. 112.) In short, the laboring class are ground down.
by the act of 1873, according to Coin. Again, let us
confront Coin's statements with the facts, and it can be
seen once more how utterly untrustworthy he is.
Wholesale Prices and
Wages reached a high
After 1873 there was a
"The Senate report on
Wages' (Vol. 1, p. 177) says:
point in the years 1871-1872.
marked falling off. The ground then lost was gradually
regained, until to-day wages are at about the same point
as they were in 1871-1872.' Coin must have overlooked
this point. But he was probably too much engaged in
arranging for his triumphal procession to his hotel to
look up the facts correctly. So it will be well to get
this matter perfectly clear before the public. Taking
100 as the basis in 1860, the Senate report (Vol. 1, p. 180)
gives the wages, reduced to gold, relatively to 100 in the
years from 1840 to 1891, using two different methods:
1860..
1861
1862
1863
•
Average ac-
cording to
importance.
Simple
average.
100.0
100.0
•
100.3
100.7
100.4
101.2
76.2
81.9
90
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER
**
COIN'S
TO 1864...
1865
1866
+
80.8
86.2
66.2
687
108.8
111.1
1867
117.1
121.8
·
1868
114 9
119.1
•
1869
119.5
123.5
•
1870
•
133.7
136.9
1871
147.8
150.3
1872
152.2
153.2
1873
148.3
147.4
1874
145.0
145.9
1875
140.8
140.4
•
1876
135.2
•
134.2
1877
136.4
135.4
1878
140.5
139.0
1879
139.9
139.4
1880.
141.5
143.0
1881
146.5
150.7
•
1882
149.9
152.9
1883
152.7
159.2
1881.
152.7
155 1
1885
1886.
•
150.7
155 9
150 9
155.8
1887
1888
1889
1890
•
1891
153.7
156 6
155.4
157.9
156.7
162.9
158.9
168.2
160.7
168.6
"The fact that this table goes back to 1860 allows
us to call attention to the verification of an economic
truth that in times of paper inflation wages do not go
up as rapidly as the paper depreciates. Hence the gold
value of wages in the years 1863-1865, fell in a striking
way. And if laborers are ever approached by men who
advocate more money as a benefit to them, let them ap-
peal to the period of too much money in the paper
issues of the civil war as resulting in a reduction of
their wages. The reason of it is plain enough; a rate of
STANLEY
WOOD'S
91
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
wages gets customary, when expressed in dollars, as,
for instance, $2 a day, without regard to what can be
bought by the $2. Then, if the money gets cheaper
and prices go up, it is a long time before the laborer can
convince his employer that he should raise his wages.
Prices of the goods go up quickly enough, while his wa-
ges lag. And just here is the reason the laborer does
not care to see free coinage of silver, because by free
coinage the prices of the laborer's goods would go up to
double what they are now. But under the present situ-
ation the laborer has been gaining. He has no interest
in seeing prices go up. And yet Coin is constantly
lamenting that prices have fallen since 1873. Does
he think it a crime if workingmen can thereby buy more
than in 1873? Why does he lament at something
which is of decided advantage to the laborer?
"In brief, as compared with gold, a laborer could
command in wages more in 1891 than in 1873, for every
$148.3 he got in 1873 he gets $160.7 in 1891. But the
laborer is mainly concerned with how much his wages
will buy. In 1891 he gets more gold for his day's work
than in 1873, but of still more importance to him is the
fact that his money buys more food and comforts.
far as goods have fallen while wages have risen, he
gains doubly.
So
"Food fell nearly 10 per cent since 1873, clothing 32.2
per cent, fuel 23.7 per cent, metals 35 per cent, lumber
nearly 20 per cent, drugs 31 per cent, house furnishing
goods 27 per cent, and miscellaneous articles 10 per
cent. This indicates the gain to the laborer, but not
the whole gain, for not only have all the goods he buys
fallen in these percentages, but his money wages have
risen since 1873 by 8 per cent. The free silver advo-
cates have nothing to offer the workingman.
92
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
"On the contrary, the panic of 1893, which threw so
many persons out of employment these past two years
and from which we are just recovering, was caused by
the silver legislation that threatened to bring in the
single silver standard.”
The laborer is worthy of his hire.
Every sane man who loves his country and who desires
true prosperity rejoices that the laboring men of the
United States are not serfs; rejoices that our institutions
are such that they never can become serfs; rejoices that
in spite of the panic of '93, the laborer is far in advance
of the position he occupied in 1860, and that history
shows a steady improvement in his condition.
At the opening of this chapter I give an explanation.
and a diagram illustrating the situation as to wages.
The statistics are up to 1890. Since then there has
been a reduction in wages but not nearly so severe as
Coin implies.
Manufactories are starting up, internal improve-
ments are being made, the demand is increasing and
wages are recovering.
The diagram given on the preceding page is based
on the following statistics:
From
EDWARD ATKINSON'S TABLES,
Battle of Standards and Fall of Prices," Forum, April, 1895
Taking the wages of 1860 as 100, Mr. Atkinson gives the follow-
ing table to show the average wages in 1890 of persons engaged in
principal employments:
Books and newspapers..
Building trades...
Carriages and wagons.
Cotton fabrics.
Illuminating gas.
Lumber..
· •
•
148.0
.172 5
202.4
..165.1
•
167.7
177.9
WOOD'S
STANLEY
93
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
ANSWER
Metals and metal goods..
Railway service.
Stone workers.
Woolen fabrics.
All industries..
•
•
Salaries city teachers.
Prices of all goods..
Purchasing power of all wages..
148.6
148.4
..165.2
167.8
.160.7
186.3
92 3
.172.1
?

CHAPTER XII.
ARE BANKERS A PRIVILEGED CLASS.
"Citizens the integrity of the government has been violated. A
Financial Trust has control of your money, and with it, is robbing
you of your property. Vampires feed upon your commercial blood.
The money in the banks is subject to the check of the money lenders.
They expect you to quietly submit, and leave your fellow citizens at
their mercy. Through the instrumentality of law they have com-
mitted a crime that overshadows all other crimes. And yet they ap-
peal to law for their protection. If the starving workingman commits
the crime of trespass, they appeal to the law they have contaminated,
for his punishment. Drive these money changers from your temples.
Let them discover by your aspect, their masters-the people."-
Coin's Financial School, pp. 143, 144.
Coin is a "friend of the people."
But not, of all people.
He hates the banker.
Why?
Because the banker is trained in finance and exposes
the errors of Coin's theories.
Also because he wishes to appeal to prejudice and to
oppose class to class.
Politicians and men with axes to grind always shout
from the house-tops that they are "friends of the peo-
ple." They strive to succeed by destroying the influ-
ence of conservative men who have prospered in busi-
ness.
Josh Billings describes this class of men in one of his
short pithy sentences, more forcible than elegant, but
94
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 95
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL none the less true, when he says: "The man who trize
to rize by pulling another man down iz a limited kuss."
Coin asserts that bankers are vampires that feed on
the commercial blood of the people and are a privileged
class.
Let us see what the national banker has to pay for
his privileges.
Mr. W. B. Mitchell in Dollars or What, p. 30, says:
"National Banks have no 'privileges' in the sense
that they are a favored class of institutions. During,
and for a time subsequent to the war period when gov-
ernment bonds were low priced, and bore high rates of
interest, there was a good profit in National banknote
circulation, but that day has passed; and there is now a
well-defined loss to the national banks in the exercise of
their privileges.' This has been the case for a good
many years.
"To issue $45,000 circulation now, a bank must
invest $57,000 of its capital in United States bonds, to
be deposited with the U. S. Treasury to secure the cir-
culation. This estimate is based on 4 per cent bonds at
1.14, about an average price for eighteen months.
"The bank must then deposit $2,250 with the Treas-
urer to the credit of a fund known as the 5 per cent
redemption fund, leaving it the use of only $42,750 on
an investment of $57,000. Therefore it loses entirely
the use of $14,250 of its capital. Money is worth 8 per
cent throughout the South and West, and in other locali-
ties. Counting interest at 8 per cent the loss on this
item annually is $1,140.
"The 4 per cent bonds mature in 1907-twelve years
hence. At maturity the face value only will be paid.
Therefore in twelve years the bank loses $7,000 premium
it paid for the bonds. The annual loss on this item is
$583.
96
SCHOOL.
WOOD's
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
"There is a tax of 1 per cent on the circulation.
The loss on this account is annually $450. These three
tems constitute the cost of the national banking 'privi-
leges.'
"There is but one item of profit, which is the interest
on the bonds. This for twelve months is $2,000.
"Therefore at the end of the year the account stands
as follows:
Interest on the $14,250 item.
Annual loss on the $7,000 premium item...
Tax on circulation..
...$1,140
583
450
Total loss.....
Less interest on $50,000 bonds.
Net loss to the bank..
$2,173
2,000
$173
>
(C
Counting the $14,250 item on a basis of 6 per cent
there would be an apparent profit of $112; but it would
be only apparent. Other items of expense incident to
the system would much more than wipe it out. But we
base our estimate on 8 per cent, as it is only in the East
and in the money centers that lower rates prevail.
"Other items of cost are national bank examiner's
fees, say $50 per year, if two examinations are made; the
advertising of five annual statements; the exchange, and
express charges in keeping intact the $2,250 redemption
fund, and in transportation of new issues of notes; loss
in circulation while new notes were in process of sub-
stitution for old, or mutilated notes; attention and labor
in making various reports, and other items of direct or
indirect cost. It is safe to say that the" privilege" costs
a national bank, issuing $45,000 currency, directly not
less than $350 per annum."
Coin says
"The money in the bank is subject to the
check of the money lenders."
STANLEY 97
WOOD'S
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO Does he imagine that the people will believe that all
a bank is used for is as a place of deposit for money
lenders?
It is sometimes difficult to tell what Coin thinks.
One is often forced to believe that he merely thinks he
thinks.
And yet Coin has no patience with people who don't
think as he thinks he thinks. This seems to be

COIN'S MOTTO
THINK AS I THINK
OR
OFF GOES YOUR THINKER
Now let us see who are the people that deposit
money in banks in addition to Coin's "money lenders.”
They are from every class and condition of men and
women; merchants, laborers, manufacturers, in fact all
who have saved money, much or little, and seek a safe
place in which to keep it.
Coin must have forgotten the savings banks.
Surely the money lenders are not the only patrons of
these institutions and the money in them is not subject
to their checks.
If Coin has this motto hung on his wall:

GOD SAVE OUR HOME.
Let him hang another by its side and let it read:

SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS
$1,739,000,000
-7
98
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO Rhetoric got the better of logic when Coin wrote
the paragraph quoted at the head of this chapter.
Fact was sacrificed and reason routed for the sake of
making an appeal to prejudice.
In all justice Coin should not have written those
lines. They are unworthy of an earnest man and must
weaken all his arguments by casting a shadow on his
sincerity.

CHAPTER XIII.
MEXICO AND FREE SILVER.
"The farmer in Mexico sells his bushel of wheat for one dollar.
The farmer in United States sells his wheat for 50 cents. The
former is proven by the history of the world to be an equitable price.
The latter is writing its history, in letters of blood, on the appalling
cloud of debt that is sweeping with ruin and desolation over the
farmers of this country. What is said of wheat may be said of
all our property."-Coin's Financial School, p. 142.
Coin is full of surprises.
It is surprising that he should quote Mexico and
Mexican dollar wheat.
But as the boys say, "it's the name and not the
game" that he is after.
Do intelligent, industrious citizens of the United
States envy the people of Mexico?
Does the farmer of this country desire to be com-
pared with the farmer of Mexico?
If so let him take a trip to Mexico and see an illus-
tration of the workings of unlimited coinage of the
white metal, he would soon become a convert to the
honest money standard. The traveler from the United
States may find his American dollars worth more or less
in Mexican dollars, according to the status of the silver
agitation in the United States.
Here is the experience of a gentleman who has just
returned from a trip to Mexico: One day he took his
letter of credit to a banker in the City of Mexico and
99
100
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
obtained 202 Mexican dollars for 100 of Uncle Sam's
dollars. The next day he had occasion to make the
same demand at the bank. That time, however, the
202 Mexican dollars were not all forthcoming-not quite
all. When he presented his letter of credit he was
given but 201½ Mexican dollars. This fluctuation was
not large, it is true, but it was sufficient to indicate the
possibilities. The values in Mexico are in no degree
certain.
Mexico is a silver country and its finances are in a
bad state. The country is a sort of a dumping ground
for the silver product from various districts. It has
left the currency of the republic in a woefully unstable
condition. Were the Mexican plan to be tried by the
United States, it would bring untold disaster-as it has
brought to the Mexicans. But it is extremely unjust to
institute any comparisons between Mexico and the
United States. The former is a fourth rate country,
while ours is decidedly a first rate country. Mexico
furnishes an object lesson for the silver men every day
in the year.
But Coin says:
"The farmer in Mexico sells his wheat for $1 a
bushel" and yet his silver dollar is worth one-half as
much as our silver dollar, so our farmer gets as much
money after all for his wheat as does the Mexican far-
mer.
To recapitulate: Mexico has free coinage of silver
and is on the silver basis; wheat brings there $1 a
bushel.
But is she any better off for it ?
If she should send that wheat to the marts of the
world she would get but fifty cents for it.
Her dollars are quoted in San Francisco and New
·
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 101
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL York at forty-nine to fifty cents in American dollars.
You can also get two Mexican dollars for one American
dollar across the line, and you can get a meal of vic-
tuals or pay any debt of fifty cents with an American
dollar, and get a Mexican dollar back in exchange.
The fact is the Mexican unit of value which she calls
a dollar, is fifty cents, while the American unit of value
called the dollar is twice as valuable, or 100 cents.
How would Mexico suit the laborer?
The average wages for the farm laborer are about
fifty cents a day in Mexican silver. Equal to twenty-
five cents of our money.
The people live like the lower animals in huts
that disgrace the name of home. Two dollars of our
money would buy all the clothes one of these poor peo-
ple wear, and their food is of the most meager quantity
and inferior quality. Yet this is in a country that mines
more silver than any other country on the globe. In
1893, it exported silver to the amount of $51,000,000.
The population of Mexico is 12,000,000 and if the
United States produced as much silver per capita as
Mexico, she would have an annual output of $300,000,-
000.
Isn't it strange that Coin should quote Mexico? A
country that has produced over $4,000,000,000 worth of
silver, whose dollars are worth only fifty cents, and
whose people are serfs in fact, if not in name !
Mexico has plenty of silver but she has no financial
standing among the nations of the world.

I AM
STARVING
SILV
DOLL
ស
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING.
102
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW TO MAKE EVERYBODY RICH.
"The unlimited demand for silver, and its free use by the gov-
ernment will appreciate its value. If necessary, fire a man bodily
into the street to teach him his place. Gold needs this lesson.'
Coin's Financial School, p. 137.
Unlimited demand sounds well.
But is it good business? Where would a shoemaker
land who made an unlimited demand for leather?
He would be swamped in an unlimited supply.
The people of the West have an unlimited supply of
prairie dogs but unfortunately there is not an unlimited
market for the animals.
The people of Australia have an unlimited supply of
rabbits but they can't find an unlimited market for their
unlimited supply.
Enough is as good as a feast, and there is such a con-
dition as having too much of a good thing.
It would please the western people, for some eastern
firm to announce an unlimited demand for prairie dogs.
But what would the eastern firm do with the dogs?
It would please the Australians for the government
at Washington to declare an unlimited demand for rab-
bits.
But what market could the government at Washing-
ton, find for the rabbits ?
The quotation given at the head of this chapter is
from Coin's argument in favor of the United States, un-
103
104
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO aided by other nations, undertaking the task of placing
silver on a basis of 16 to 1. It is not and cannot be
denied that such an attempt would make this country
the dumping ground of all the silver in the world.
Coin is a great juggler with figures. Let me call his
attention to some figures, larger than any he has handled,
made by Col. Pat Donan. The point lies in the appli-
cation and bears on the question of finding a market for
an unlimited supply. I quote them from the Colonel's
pamphlet entitled Utah:
"Great Salt Lake is a hundred miles long, and has
an average width of 27 miles; that gives an area of
2,700 square miles. There are 27,878,400 square feet in
a mile; so the lake has an area of 75,271,680,000 square
feet. Take 20 feet as its average depth; then 20 times
75,271,680,000 will give us 1,505,433,600,000 cubic feet
as the contents of the lake. Now 1623 per cent, or one-
sixth of this, according to the analysis of eminent chem-
ists, is salt and sulphate of soda.
"That is, the lake contains 250,905,600,000 cubic feet
of salt and sulphate of soda. Of this vast mass one-
eighth is sulphate of soda and seven-eighths common
salt. So there are sulphate of soda, 31,363,200,000 cubic
feet; and of common salt, 219,542,400,000 cubic feet.
These figures seem astounding, but they are hardly a
beginning. Proceed a little farther.
Proceed a little farther. A cubic foot of
sulphate of soda weighs 50 pounds, and a cubic foot of
common salt, 80 pounds; so we have, as the contents,
in part, of this unparalleled reservoir of wealth, 1,568,-
160,000,000 pounds, or 784,080,000 tons of sulphate of
soda; and 17,560,339,200,000 pounds, or 8,780,169,600
tons of salt. Allowing ten tons to a carload, that
would be 78,408,000 cars of soda, and 878,016,960
cars of salt. Taking 30 feet as the total length of a
STANLEY
WOOD'S
105
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
freight car and its couplings, we would have a train
of soda 445,500 miles long, or nearly to the moon and
back, and a train of salt 4,988,730 miles in length,
or long enough to reach 196 times around the earth,
and leave an 8,000 mile string of cars over on a side
track. Running 20 miles an hour and never stopping
night or day, it would take the salt-laden train 28 years,
5 months and 23 days to pass a station.
"When figures mount, as these do, into billions and
trillions they become too vast for any careless handling.
These are, thus far, correct and reasonable, though
almost incomprehensible. Carry the computation one
step more. The ordinary valuation of sulphate of soda
is one cent a pound, or $20 a ton; so our 784,080,000
tons of it would be worth, in the markets of the world,
$15,681,600,000. Common salt at a low estimate, is
worth a half cent a pound, or $10 a ton; our 8,780,169,-
600 tons of it would consequently have a money value of
$87,801,696,000. That is a gigantic, almost inconceiv-
able total for salt and soda, of $103,483,296,000; or
enough, in two ingredients of this watery wonder of the
new world, to pay all the national debts in Christendom,
and leave a pretty fair fortune for every man, woman,
child and other person in the hemispheric republic of
Yankee-Doodledoo.
"The entire assessed valuation of the United States,
including real estate and personal property, under the
census of 1880, was $16,902,993,543; so the salt and
soda of this one mountain-girt lake are worth more than
six times as much as the whole forty-nine States and
Territories of the Union, as shown by the national
assessment books ten years ago. Do these figures seem
astounding? The facts are astounding, and the figures
but do them justice. The conclusions are inexorable,
HorM
106
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
and the figures, though overwhelming, are absolutely
accurate and trustworthy."
Now all that is needed to make Col. Donan's hint
a practical solution of how to pay all the debts of the
whole world is to find a market for his salt and soda.
All that is needed to make Coin's theory of unlimited
free coinage of silver a success is to find a market for his
silver.

CHAPTER XV.
FREE AND UNLIMITED COINAGE BY THE UNITED
STATES.
Free coinage by the United States will at once establish a par-
ity 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.-Coin's Financial School p. 135.
That is the milk in the cocoanut!
Every chapter in Coin's Financial School leads up
to the demand for free and unlimited coinage of silver
at 16 to 1 by the United States, unaided by other na-
tions.
Every line in Coin's book was written with this end
in view.
Every word points to this conclusion.
Is it a wise conclusion? Can the United States
bear this burden?
When we reflect that never in history under the
most favorable circumstances, have the nations been
able to hold gold and silver at an exact parity, the prop-
osition seems presumptuous.
Admitting that from 1816 to 1873, the combined forces
of the United States, Germany, France, and the Lat-
in union held silver within two or three points of parity,
while England was adding her weight to the burden,
does it stand to reason that the United States alone can
sustain the white metal unaided by Germany, France,
107

GOLD
GOLD
INDUNU
RNATIONAL COMMERCE
COMINERCE
TOO MUCH INFLATION
SEE ME SOAR!
OL
2
INTER
COMMER
(
گ
UNCLE SAM THIS BALLAST AND THESE ANCHOR ROPES HOLD
:
ME DOWN. I'LL CUT THE ROPES AND THROW OUT THE BALLAST.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
109
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
and the Latin union and with their influence against
silver?
The illustration shows the situation as it was and as
it would be now.
The reader will observe that I have represented sil-
ver as being sustained by the four strong arms of the
United States, Germany, France, and the Latin union.
To make the drawing strictly accurate, I should have


SILVER 1816-1873.
SILVER 1873-1895.
FRANCE
GERMANY
NITED STATES
LATIN UNION
AS IT WAS.
TATES
AS IT WOULD BE NOW.
represented the arms upholding silver, as those of
the United States, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy,
Switzerland, and Greece, but I have grouped the
smaller States in the one term Latin union.
Strictly the Latin union consists of France, Bel-
gium, Italy, Switzerland, and Greece.
It is nothing new to have absurd theories of finance,
which live for a time, but like all untruths, flourish only
a little while. The greenback craze is a sample of
110
SCHOOL.
STANLEY ANSWER TO WOOD'S
FINANCIAL COIN'S
financial fallacies.
Since it has died, very few of its
adherents are willing to acknowledge that they enter-
tained such unsound views.
The advocates of free coinage of silver at the ratio
of 16 to 1 are anxious to have this government coin all
the silver that may be mined in this country, and even
brought from Europe, and receive silver dollars for the
same.
What is the situation now?
Every one of our silver dollars though worth as bul-
lion only 50 cents passes current for 100 cents gold
value. All that we have already coined will continue
to be of that value, provided the government does not.
undertake the free coinage of silver. Congress was
wise enough to repeal the Sherman silver purchase act,
and stop piling up silver in the United States treasury.
Had that not been done, gold payments would have
been suspended long ere this, which would have been
followed by a panic, which compared to the panic of '93,
would have been as a cyclone is to a zephyr.
With what result?
All the bank and savings banks deposits and life in-
surance policies would have been paid in depreciated
money, the wage-earning class and the widows and
orphans that are living on a small income would find the
buying power of their money greatly reduced, hence the
cost of living would be greatly increased.
If congress should pass a free coinage of silver bill
it would be impossible to keep on a gold basis. This
country could not keep silver on a parity with gold,
and it is very doubtful if it can be done for a very long
period by the leading nations. We certainly ought not
to try to do it with ut an international agreement.
Should this country be forced to a silver basis gold
STANLEY 111
WOOD'S
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO would cease to circulate as money. It would become
merchandise, as it did during the war, and the heavy
contraction in the volume of circulating medium would
cause a great panic and depreciation in values. It
would be impossible to have $625,000,000 of gold with-
drawn from circulation without serious consequences,
as it would take the mints of this country many years
to replace with silver dollars the vacuum made by
the withdrawal of gold.
What have we gained by advocating free coinage?
Nothing.
What have we lost?
Much.
We have lost the full confidence of the investors of
the world and thereby lost untold millions of dollars that
might have been busy in the channels of trade, that
would have prevented the panic of '93, that would have
kept the laboring man busy and have driven the wolf
from his door.
If the silver bought by our government under the
acts of 1878 and 1890 was sold at the present price of
silver, the loss would be over $150,000,000. France
and other nations that compose the Latin union saw that
when Germany stopped coining silver they had to do like-
wise if they wished to keep step in the forward
march of the nations.
The continued agitation for free silver coinage, since
the repeal of the Sherman act, has caused Europe to
withdraw capital invested in America, and thereby led
to large exports of gold, as Europeans feared receiving
payment in silver.
Coin proposes three remedies for the evils that are
upon us.
**
112
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
They are heroic remedies, and, stated in plain words,
are as follows:
REPUDIATION!

WAR!
REVOLUTION!
Do the people of these United States believe that
these are the remedies that will cure the disease?
Let us first see what Coin says:
THE REMEDY OF REPUDIATION.
"The government should exercise its
prerogative as of old to pay in either metal
as it sees fit. Gold must be given to un-
derstand that it is not indispensable to the
currency of the country.
The
selfishness of the few must submit to the
interests of the many."-Coin's Financial
School, p. 136.
* * *
"No estimate has been placed on
American (United States) bonds held in
Europe at less than 5,000 million dollars."
Coin's Financial School, p. 139.
**“We can, if necessary, by act of con-
gress, reduce the number of grains in a
gold dollar till it is of the same value as the
silver dollar. We can legislate the pre-
mium out of gold. Who will say that this
is not an effective remedy."-Coin's Finan-
cial School, p. 143.
What does Coin mean?
He means that no matter what the contract has been
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 113
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL the payment must be in silver, even though silver shall
have depreciated in value.
What would be the result?
No nation whose record is tainted by repudiation can
contest the commercial supremecy of a people which
"keeps unbroken and undeviating faith with public and
private creditors." The free coinage of silver under the
present legal tender law, is an attempted repudiation of
half of our debts, public and private. By such an act
we surrender our position among first-class nations and
place the United States on a commercial level with
Mexico and China. Proclaim as we will, that sixteen
ounces of silver are worth an ounce of gold, the World's
negative, uttered every day in all the great marts of
commerce, overthrows every proposition based on that
false utterance.
Since 1834 gold has been the basis of our currency.
Since 1873 the gold dollar has been the standard of
value, the measure of exchange expressed or implied in
every contract. It is proposed by the double iniquity
of a legal tender act and a debased currency to author-
ize the payment of every debt at half its value.
That is a moral as well as an economic error.
To realize the full meaning of this repudiation we
must know the character and the extent of the debt of
this country which this free silver movement affects;
a debt contracted almost entirely since the passage of
the act of 1873.
The bonded debt of the railroads of the United
States is $6,000,000,000.
The State, county and municipal debt is $1,100,000,-
000.
The building and loan association debt, due deposi-
tors, is $450,000,000.
-8
114
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO The savings banks owe their depositors $1,739,000,-
000, and the other banks owe their depositors $3,000,-
000,000.
These constitute the great debtor class of which we
hear so much at this time; these railroad corporations,
these building and loan associations, these great banking
institutions, which our free silver friends would furnish
with cheap money to meet their obligations.
Who are their creditors?
Largely the estates on which the widows and or-
phans depend; men and women among the poor; the
laborers laying up money for a rainy day; fathers and
mothers who are teaching their children thrift in the
building and loan association.
Examine the reports of these banks of the poor,
these house-building and home-saving associations, and
you find that the average holdings of the members is
$270.
Turn to the reports of the national banks and you
find that, instead of belonging to the rich, the stock is
divided among 300,000 persons and that the average hold-
ing is $2,300. In national banks 70,000 women are stock-
holders and own 19 per cent of the stock. In State banks
23,000 women own twelve and one-half per cent of the stock.
These figures show a state of things entirely lost
sight of by Coin.
They show what classes are most affected-most in-
juriously affected-by any alteration of our standards,
by any financial disturbance, by any law impairing con-
fidence in our commercial future; they show that the
sufferers from this proposed change belong to what,
commercially speaking, are called the helpless class.
Who is it, then, that is making war on the poor man,
the laborer, the women and children?
STANLEY
WOOD S
115
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
Is it Shylock or is it Coin?
The rich man is trained to protect himself from com-
ing disaster. To the rich man profit would come if
profit could ever come from such a plan. The rich man
has stored in his warehouses or elevators grain and mer-
chandise waiting for an advancing market. The rich
man has something to sell besides his home, and when
the silver tide rises high enough he will let his property
go, get all the legal tender silver dollars he can, and pay
his debts to the banks.
But how would it be with the farmers of the West
and South?
What have they to sell in the face of an advancing
market?
Nothing but their homes.
And how are they benefited by doubling the assessed
value of those homes?
It merely doubles their taxes, for they cannot afford
to part with them.
So much for the remedy of repudiation.
But Coin has another remedy. He does not boldly
advocate its application, but he suggests it and approves
it. I will call it
THE REMEDY OF WAR.
"A war with England would be the
most popular ever waged on the face of the
earth. If it is true that she can dictate the
money of the world and thereby create
world-wide misery, it would be the most
just war ever waged by man."-Coin's
Financial School, p. 132.
England is the scapegoat for the sins of the whole
*
116
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
COIN'S
ANSWER TO world, so far as Coin is concerned. British gold ex-
presses all that is bitter in Coin's language.
Why "British gold" any more than German gold,
Scandinavian gold, French gold, Spanish gold, Italian
gold, Holland or Belgium or Swiss gold, Austrian gold,
Russian gold, Canadian or Australian gold?
All these countries employ the gold standard for
measuring the value of all kinds of property. All of
them use more or less silver money; but it is secondary
to the gold unit for estimating values. Several of them
use, depreciated paper currency. It is at a discount, and
its purchasing power or discount is quoted in its current
worth in gold. And that has been the practice in the
United States for more than a hundred years. The
other kinds of currency, such as American and foreign
silver, bank notes, greenbacks, national bank notes, sil-
ver certificates-in short, the value of all sorts of our
currency since Washington was President has always
been reckoned at their value in gold or the per cent of
gold they would pass or exchange for or sell to the
bankers and brokers for.
Therefore why suggest a war with England?
Why not suggest a war with all the gold standard
nations of the world?
But do the people of the United States want war?
Do the fathers and mothers of this nation want the
scenes of the war between the States repeated. Is life
so cheap, is peace so poor a thing, are homes so value-
less and the ties of love so weak that they must all be
swept into one red burial of blood to wreak Coin's venge-
ance on the holders of "British gold?"
But the darkest page in Coin's book is the page on
which he records a threat that if the United States does
not make haste to declare for free silver revolution will
result.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
117
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
i
Let us consider for a moment his third remedy.
THE REMEDY OF REVOLUTION.
"To avoid the struggle means a sur-
render to England. It means more- -it
means a tomb raised to the memory of the
republic. Delay is dangerous.
At any
moment an internecine war may break out
among us. Wrongs and outrages will not be
continuously endured. The people will
strike at the laws that inflict them.-Coin's
Financial School, p. 135.
This goes beyond the bounds of legitimate argu-
ment.
It is the cry of a Robespierre.
It is the culmination of Coin's attempts to set class
against class, the legitmate outcome of the logic of rule
or ruin.
Coin's three remedies need but a statement to meet
with rejection. No sooner does the American citizen
read them than they are tried in the balance of reason
and found wanting.
But to return to the direct question as to the ability
of the United States to undertake the task of free and
unlimited coinage of silver at 16 to 1 without the aid of
any other nation.
Coin says:
"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.
"But we alone would not have to main-
tain it. We know that Mexico, South and
118
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
Central America, the Asiatic governments
and France would be with us from the
start. The nations that would immediately
support bimetallism are stronger in 1894,
than those were in 1873 that maintained it
then. Of all those that we had then, we
would start with only the loss of Germany
and Austria, and a few lesser principali-
ties."-Coin's Financial School, pp. 135, 136.
How much assistance Mexico could give us is shown
by the present condition of that country.
South and Central America are worse off than
Mexico.
Perhaps France would help us, and perhaps she
wouldn't.
The probability is that she wouldn't.
But the proposition is that the United States could
perform this task alone. In other words it is a proposi-
tion that this country shall endeavor to establish a
"corner" in silver.
Can she do it?
There have been a great many wheat corners at-
tempted by individuals and combinations quite as confi-
dent that they had "unlimited means" for such a
purpose as the silver men are that this government is
strong enough to corner the silver market and make 50
cents in silver worth $1 by sheer muscle. Observation
and experience teach us that while it looks easy on
paper to run a wheat corner, results are usually disas-
trous and involve the participants in ruin. To refresh
the memory a few instances may be mentioned.
"Jim" Keene, who is still on earth to verify the
story, swung across from San Francisco in 1879 with
$15,000,000 and a determination to break Jay Gould.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 119
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL While waiting for a chance to get under Jay's fifth rib
he took a shy at Chicago wheat. He had no trouble in
buying wheat. There seemed to be no end to it. But it
was different when he tried to sell out at a corner price.
The tides of trade washed the base of his wheat pyra-
mids and left him high and dry. It took him three
years and cost him $5,000,000 to get rid of his cornered
property. And he never did break Jay Gould.
Then came Harper, the Cincinnati bank wrecker.
Harper had a national bank behind him and unlimited
resources in other quarters. The bank and a great
chunk of the other resources went-something like
$7,000,000 in all, besides wreckage piled two stories.
high on the floors of the Chicago Board of Trade. So
thoroughly satisfied was Harper that he could corner
wheat with the resources at his command that he bought
all the wheat "in sight" and 30,000,000 bushels of
"wind" wheat besides.
About the same time Mackay, Flood and other
bonanza millionaires attempted a comprehensive corner
in wheat extending from San Francisco to Liverpool.
The bonanza crowd had "unlimited credit and boundless
resources," and Boulanger besides to foment a Euro-
pean war. They lost a fabulous sum, but failed to
corner wheat.
And yet it is easier to "corner" wheat than it is to
"corner" silver.
Wheat is one of the necessities of human life.
Silver is not.
"Cornerers" could rely with certainty that wheat
supplies would sooner or later go into consumption.
No such assurance could go with silver.
Suppose we see how much of a task the United
States would undertake in attempting to "corner" the
120
SCHOOL.
STANLEY FINANCIAL WOOD'S
TO COIN'S
A
}
ANSWER silver market of the world single-handed, by taking all
offerings and coining the metal so purchased into dollars.
The director of the United States mints reports the
world's production of silver since the discovery of
America, 402 years, to have been $9,909,000,000, of
which $4,055,700,000 was coined into money.
That would leave an uncoined balance of $5,853,300-
000. Since 1873, a period of twenty years, the silver
production amounted to $2,010,000,000, a yearly aver-
age of a little over $100,000,000. It has been steadily
increasing of late years, however. In 1891 it was $177-
352,300, in 1892 it was $197,740,700 and in 1893, $209,-
165,000. Statistics for 1894 are not yet complete, but
the total will probably reach $200,000,000. The quan-
tity now being coined into money has run down from
$156,000,000 a year in 1892 to less than a year rate of
$100,000,000 at the present time.
The report of the director of the mint shows that the
world's silver coinage for 1891 was $138,000,000, for 1892,
$156,000,000 and for 1893, $135,000,000. Since the re-
turns of 1893, coinage has been practically stopped in
the United States and India, two of the leading manu-
facturers.
To make the United States a market for the world's
silver, with the pledge to coin it into dollars would in-
volve a liability for the purchase of the total yield of the
United States amounting in 1893 to $77,530,000 and an
unknowable proportion of the outside production which
is seemingly in the neighborhood of $132,000,000 a year,
besides whatever might be available from an apparent
world's reserve of $5,853,300,000, the difference between
the world's product and the world's coinage during the
last 400 years, which is as far back as the government's
statistics go.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 121
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL There is nothing in sight upon which to sell insur-
ance that the United States in the role of a "cornerer"
of the world's silver market would not be called upon to
take and pay for $200,000,000 worth of the metal or
$300,000,000 worth every year, or that the production
under the stimulus would not increase from $200,000,-
000 to $400,000,000 or $500,000,000 a year.
Can this government do it ?
No!
Just hear a word as to what Coin would do with
the dollars under unlimited coinage.
Coin says:
"Suppose," said Mr. Gage, "the free
coinage of silver by the United States
should flood us with silver? What would
we do with it?"
"Put it in the pockets of the people,"
replied Coin. "Put it to work; put it in
the channels of trade. If we desired to
store it, we could put it all in your bank."
-Coin's Financial School, p. 138.
Another glittering generality.
How could silver dollars be put into the pockets of
the people?
Does Coin propose that the United States shall run
a great gift enterprise?
Does he propose that this money shall be sown
broadcast like grass seed all over the land?
His words are words of folly and only uttered to de-
lude.
Coin knows that the money could not be put inte
the pockets of the people except in the regular course
of business, but he wishes to make an impression which
can best be expressed by the illustration showing how
Coin proposes to put money in the pockets of the people.

ناله
}
COA
11/11
SILVER
DOLLARS
BUTCHE
کہ
HOW COIN PROPOSES TO PUT MONEY IN THE POCKETS OF THE PEOPLE.
FARMER
CHAPTER XVI.
BIMETALLISM, PURE AND UNDEFILED AND THAT
PASSETH NOT AWAY.
There is no quotation to be found in Coin's Financial School upon
which to base an argument in favor of bimetallism. Coin is a silver
monometallist and therefore says nothing in his book in favor of
bimetallism.
Gold and silver must be on a parity to secure true
bimetallism.
The United States alone cannot maintain such a
parity.
The nations of the world using gold and silver
could approximate such a condition.
The only way to secure bimetallism pure and unde-
filed and that passeth not away, is to secure an interna-
tional agreement at a universal ratio.
Can this be done? There is hope that it can.
In any event it is certain that bimetallism can be se-
cured in no other way.
What is the situation now?
Upon the invitation of the German government to
hold shortly an international conference to adjust the
difference in value between silver and gold the principal
nations of Europe have signified their assent and some
have already appointed commissions. The United
States has also consented.
There is one method, and one only, by which silver
can be made to play a beneficial part in the pecuniary
123
124
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
organization of trade. That one method lies in an in
ternational governmental agreement to be maintained
with the fidelity which is demanded in the observance
of all other treaties between governments.
Patriotism, wisdom, even enlightened selfishness,
should inspire American silver men to abandon their
scheme for making silver the substitute for gold in the
money of the United States, and should inspire them to
coöperate with the real bimetallists toward hastening
such a conference.
President Andrews, of Brown University, is one of
the most consistent and constant of friends to silver,
but he is also a logical and true bimetallist. I cannot,
therefore, be charged with quoting the opinions of an
enemy to silver when I quote the following from Pres-
ident Andrews:
"I yield to no man in the United States in the sin-
cerity of my desire to have silver reinstated in its old
office as full money. * * * The question is whether,
in planning to secure the rehabilitation of silver, it is
best for the United States to proceed alone, irrespective
of the acts and policy of other nations, or to wait a
reasonable time longer in hope of securing the coöpera-
tion of a number of the great countries of Europe.
"For my part I believe in the latter policy, and should
deprecate an effort at the present time on the part of
the United States alone to accomplish so enormous a
task."
After discussing the attitude of the gold standard na-
tions of Europe at some length, President Andrews con-
tinues: "It should also be remarked that nations like
Austria and Russia, wishing to get upon a hard money
basis, who would gladly join in a general scheme of bi-
matallism if a chance were offered, must choose gold as
STANLEY
WOOD'S
125
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
their basis if, and so long as, Europe as a whole conțin-
ues upon this basis. And they would be likely to make
final their gold policy the moment they heard that we
were taking up silver. Japan, with a vast war indem-
nity, much of it gold, might, perhaps, strike into the
same line of policy, making the retention of gold by us.
more difficult still. These considerations do not, I ad-
mit, absolutely prove that free coinage by us would
drive out gold, but is it not clear that they make such a
proceeding exceedingly risky? It seems to me alto-
gether likely, almost certain, that gold would be forced
from us, and that we should be driven after a time to a
financial basis much like that of Mexico at present.
say "much like that of Mexico," instead of "just like
that of Mexico," because it is certain that the adoption
of silver as ultimate money by this immense country
would a good deal elevate the gold price of silver. Still,
if gold leaves us, our monetary basis will, of course, be
silver, however much value the bullion in a silver dollar
may then have beyond what it has at present.
I
"But, some will interject, what, suppose gold does.
leave us? What harm would come if we were to go
over to a silver basis? Why wait for other nations?
Are we not strong enough to have a monetary policy of
our own? Is it not weak and unpatriotic to postpone
action until rival nations please to do what we desire,
when we have no power to influence their action? I
reply that it is not weak or unpatriotic to do what is
best for our country. I would not wait for other coun-
tries in order to please them if we were in the long run
to suffer thereby. The question is: What is the best on
the whole for the people of this United States? Is it
best for us by ourselves to proceed freely to coin silver
so long as there is good hope that within a reasonable
{
126
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
time international free coinage may be brought about,
making the restoration of silver easy and absolutely safe
for all? I think not.
"If we take up the metal alone, and that course re-
sults, as I should anticipate, in the expulsion of gold, we
shall have in the first place a financial crisis worse than
any ever suffered in the country. This because we can-
not in a long time, even by working our mints day and
night, coin silver enough to take the place which would
be vacated by gold. Prices would sorely fall. Im-
mense numbers of failures would
of failures would occur. Laborers
would be thrown out of work. Altogether a dreadful
paroxysm in our business would be precipitated. Slowly
the gap left by gold would be filled by the mining and
coinage of silver. Prices would then gradually rise. At
last they would become higher than now, more and more
approaching the Mexican and Japanese level. Some
advantages would doubtless spring from this elevation
of prices, but it is a mistake to suppose that it would re-
dress the iniquity caused by the fall of prices since 1873,
because the rise and the fall would in the overwhelming
majority of cases not apply to the same parties. In
most instances the very men who have profited by the
fall would manage to profit again by the rise. More-
over, wages would rise more slowly than values at large.
"But a consequence far worse than any of these
would be that our passage to a silver basis would erect
against foreign exchange between Europe and the
United States just such a barrier as now exists between
Europe and Mexico. It would annihilate all fixed par
between New York and London, repeating the terrible
inconvenience in our European exchanges which we
suffered in war times, when we were upon the paper
basis. * * * So long as European governments
STANLEY
WOOD'S
127
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
thought that we were on the verge of going to a silver
basis they did nothing, and if they could to day be
assured that the United States would soon vote to
espouse alone the cause of silver money they would at
once relapse into their old apathy. * * * Some will
say that we cannot afford to wait for Europe any longer;
that we must act at once and by ourselves. I reply
that we cannot have a noninternational free coinage
law during the next two years anyway.
* * * Now,
unless some very pronounced demonstration in favor of
domestic free coinage is made in this country, then, be-
fore these two years shall have elapsed a number of the
greatest States in Europe will be ready to join hands.
with us in this important cause, making its victory abso-
lutely sure."

COIN'S IDEA OF BIMETALLISM.
་་་་་་་༤

50
GOLD
& Q
SILVER
GOLD:
IS IT A FAIR GAME?
"YOU SAY THIS IS TO BE AN EVEN GAME, BUT I SEE YOU HAVE FIFTY
POINTS ALREADY IN YOUR FAVOR.
128
CHAPTER XVII.
SHALL THE UNITED STATES BUILD A CHINESE WALL?
11
With silver remonetized, and a just and equitable standard of
values, we can, if necessary, by act of Congress, reduce the number
of grains in a gold dollar till it is of the same value as the silver
dollar. We can legislate the premium out of gold. Who will say
that this is not an effective remedy? I pause for a reply ! "—Coin's
Financial School, p. 143.
Coin lacks the courage of his convictions.
Perhaps I am wrong in saying "convictions," for if
he were convinced that free and unlimited coinage of
silver at sixteen to one would bring about a parity of
gold and silver he would not say "if necessary reduce
the number of grains in a gold dollar till it is of the
same value as the silver dollar."
Such a suggestion admits Coin's disbelief in the se-
curing of a parity by means of free and unlimited coin-
age of silver at sixteen to one.
What he proposes is a procrustean method.
Procrustes was a classic character, who believed in
reducing all men to a "parity."
He had a bed, and he required all who visited him to
lie upon that bed.
If the visitor was too short to fill the bed, Procrustes
put him to the rack and stretched him until he was the
correct length.
If the visitor was too long he chopped him off.
129
-9
130
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
In both cases he killed his visitor, but he secured a
"parity."
So with Coin. He stretches silver or he chops off
gold, but he secures a "parity."
Procrustes was not popular.
His number of visitors grew less and less and before
long this classic gentleman ceased to receive friendly
calls.
Do the people of the United States desire this gov-
ernment to play the role of Procrustes?
The result would be that the nations of the world
would decline to lie upon our bed and we would become
an isolated country as completely shut in from the rest
of mankind as was China surrounded by her famous
wall.
Shall the United States build a Chinese wall?
In answer to this question I quote the words of
Chauncey M. Depew: "The necessity of the continu-
ance of our commercial relations with foreign countries
for the disposal of the surplus of our farms and factories
in a trade which has reached fabulous figures, imposes
upon us also the duty of keeping inviolate the laws by
which trade with other countries of the world is possible,
and impresses upon us the lesson that we cannot disre
gard those laws without suffering the most serious conse-
quences.
How are we to preserve our pros-
perity and continue our progress ?
* * *
"The drastic lesson of the last two years has taught
us that this enormous internal commerce of ours, which
includes all the productive elements which go to make
it up, can be destroyed by distrust. Confidence and
credit are the factors of American prosperity and prog-
With confidence the spindles hum, the furnace
is in blast, the miner is at work, the farmer is happy,
ress.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
131
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
labor has full employment, capital is active, and the
wheels of the freight car are perpetually revolving.
"With confidence a business of incalculable magni-
tude can get along with notes, checks, warehouse re-
ceipts, telegraphic orders, and other commercial appli-
ances, and with very little currency.
“Without confidence there is not money enough in
the world to conduct the business of the United States.
We are all business men. Business men care nothing
for feather-heads, whose stock in trade is epithet or
phrases. By business men I mean every man who uses
his money, his hands, or his brains in any capacity.
The time has come when, without regard to temporary
madness, or prejudices, or hard names, business men
should calmly consider the dangers of our situation.
We have been at the bottom, and we are on the up-
grade of prosperity, but it is purely tentative so far
because of doubt and distrust.
"Doubt and distrust about what?
"About the things concerning which among a com-
mercial people there should never be any doubt or any
distrust. * * * There never should be any doubt
as to the currency of the people. Their currency should
be such that the world would recognize it upon a com-
mon standard.
"It is said that the debtor can pay his debts more
easily in depreciated currency.
"There is an easier and quicker way, and that is to
not pay them at all. The United States are a debtor,
national, municipal, railway and individual, to the ex-
tent of about $14,000,000,000. We have developed our
marvelous resources with this borrowed capital. Of
this sum one-third is held abroad. A well-defined
policy to pay our debts at 75 cents or at 50 cents on the
132
SCHOOL.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO FINANCIAL COIN'S
dollar would lead to $2,000,000,000 or $3,000,000,000 of
securities coming home here for us to take. The presenta-
tion of them in our markets would endanger the stability
of every bank, derange every exchange and paralyze every
industry in the United States. The fiat of the govern-
ment cannot make paper of value, nor silver of value,
nor copper of value, nor gold of value, though it may
compel any or all of them to be taken in payment of
debts within the limits of the United States."
This is the Chinese Wall.
"There can be but one standard of value, and that is
a metal which will bring the same price whether it is in
the bar or has the stamp of the government upon it.
If the promise of the government to pay a dollar is to
be redeemed at the treasury in a coin which is worth
100 cents anywhere in the United States, and worth 100
cents any where in the world, then the dollar which
pays the laborer for his work and the farmer for his
wheat and the merchant for his wares represents the full
value of the labor and of the product for which it is paid.
Anything less, as money ruins our trade with foreign
countries, robs the wage-earner and producer and
makes us a nation of speculators."
It is a good thing to bear those ills we have, rather
than fly to others that we know not of.
It is a good thing to know and to understand and to
believe that confidence is a plant of slow growth, and
that without confidence there can be no material pros-
perity.
By declaring for the free and unlimited coinage of
silver at 16 to 1 the United States would destroy confi-
dence and prosperity at a single blow.
One word more as to our foreign commercial rela-
tions.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
133
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
How does the account stand with Great Britain, the
nation which Coin hates so bitterly.
The fact is that 47 per cent of all our exports of dɔ-
mestic merchandise during the fiscal year ending with
last June went to Great Britain, while only 16 per cent
of our imports came from that country.
We sent in grain, cotton, meats, and other products,
427 million dollars' worth, and received in return but
little more than 107 million dollars' worth of the goods
which "the hated Britishers" have to sell. If our for-
eign commerce were only with the British Isles we
should receive from them more than 100 million dollars
in gold each year in excess of paying the 200 millions
which Coin claims we have to pay to them in interests
annually.
For the same fiscal year our imports exceeded our
exports by 56 millions of dollars with Brazil, 55 millions
with the West Indies, 15½ millions with Japan, 11½
millions with China, and 4 millions with the countries
of Central America.
Is it not evident that anything that impairs confi-
dence in our money will injure our prosperity?
Not only prosperity in our commercial relations
abroad but also at home.
I have referred in a preceding chapter to the effects
that free and unlimited coinage of silver at 16 to
1 would have at home, but the question is of such vital
importance that it deserves especial emphasis.
What securities, what property, what money would
be depreciated by the adoption of free silver by the
United States? Let us see:
134
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY WOOD'S
ANSWER
}
SECURITIES AFFECTED BY A DEPRECIATED CURRENCY.
Silver dollars and silver certificates.$ 377,000,000
Small silver coins..
United States coin bonds.
60,000,000
Treasury notes of 1890.
Greenbacks.
• •
•
•
121,000,000
294,000,000
714,000,000
140,000,000
293,000,000
1,135,000,000
• •
•
5,600,000,000
Pacific railroad debt..
National bank notes.
State and Municipal bonds.
Railroad bonds..
Mortgage debts, Corporations,
Farm and Home mortgages..
Bank deposits.....
Savings Bank deposits.
Loans and Discounts.
Total.
•
etc.. 5,000,000,000
2,500,000,000
2,872,000,000
1,739,000,000
*
4,140,000,000
24,895,000,000
The loss of half the 4,611 millions of bank deposits
would fall on 4,777,000 depositors in the savings banks.
and 3,400,000 of depositors in other banks and trust
companies. To the extent that these deposits are offset
by the loans and discounts the banks would not lose by
receiving pay in depreciated money and paying out the
same to those to whom they are indebted. But it is im-
portant to remember that the borrowers from the banks
are few in number as compared with the depositors, and
they already own property worth more than the face of
the loan, so that these few borrowing capitalists would
gain by the depreciation and do so at the expense of the
poorer people, whose bank accounts constitute most, if not
all, of their capital.
Of course the banks would lose half of the millions of
difference between their circulation and the bonds which
"secure" the redemption of their notes.
The street railroads, business corporations, and own-
ers of business property would gain just twice as much
STANLEY
WOOD's
135
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
as those of the farmers and city residents who owe
money on their farms or homes.
The people would lose directly half the value of all
the silver, silver certificates and treasury notes, with
such of the greenbacks as were in their possession.
The Government would be a nominal gainer to this.
extent, having to pay less, but would be menaced with
bankruptcy, owing to the impossibility of paying its way
with the depreciated money till the taxes had been doubled
to meet the difficulty, because each dollar at its com-
mand would have only half the working power the dol-
lar has now.
So, here again the people would be the losers.
In fact, they would be the losers all through, and the
direct losses here indicated, enormous as they are, repre-
sent much less than the total of what the people must
suffer from yielding to the demand of the free silver
men.
The terrible contraction of money capital would ren-
der it impossible for employers to pay for much more
than half the labor they now employ, so that the toilers
would find themselves in a slough of stagnation to which
that of the last two years was but as the shadow to the
substance.
The free silver men hold that the void would be
filled by silver, and hope for this, but they carefully
avoid letting the people know that several years must
elapse before the gap could be filled under the most
favorable circumstances, during all which time the labor
market would be intensely paralyzed.
To attempt free coinage in this country alone, when
silver thus coined would not be purchased by the Gov-
ernment and would not be taken out of the market, and
when the immense supply of the whole world would
136
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
من
more than fill all the possible demands for years to
come, would be at best an experiment fraught with the
most serious danger to the prosperity of this country.
There can be no question in the minds of any think-
ing person that this experiment would immediately give
this country practically absolute silver monometallism.
Interchangeability of the silver dollar with our gold
dollar would then be simply out of the question, for we
would have no gold dollars.
Take from the silver dollar its free interchangeability
with our gold dollar, and it would then become worth
just the value represented by the amount of pure silver
contained in it. In other words, while we would con-
tinue to call the coin a dollar, its real value would be 50
cents or a trifle more.
The dollar thus depreciated would still continue to
pay a dollar of indebtedness, but its purchasing power
would be cut in half. In other words, all debts falling
due after the establishment of free coinage will be legally
paid and discharged at 50 cents on the dollar.
Should congress propose to reduce the weight of the
gold dollar by one-half, and to declare that such reduced
coins should be a legal tender for public and private
debts to the same extent as before their reduction in
weight, the moral sense of the people of this nation
would be so outraged and shocked as to indignantly re-
ject the proposition, and the people of the world would
stand aghast at the dishonesty of such a proceeding.
And still, the practical result will be exactly the same.
if by the adoption of free coinage we make the de-
preciated silver dollar the only standard of our cur-
rency.
It would be downright dishonesty and would con-
STANLEY
WOOD'S
137
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
demn this great nation to infamy in the eyes of the
whole civilized world.
Let it not be said that the term dollar, as used in
public or private evidences of indebtedness, means 412½
grains of silver of standard fineness, or 25 8-10 grains
of gold of standard fineness, at the option of the debtor.
For forty years prior to 1873 the silver dollar contain-
ing that amount of silver was entirely out of circulation;
the dollar of the daddies could then be seen only in the
cabinets of coin collectors. During all those forty years,
and certainly ever since 1873, the word dollar, even
with the addition of the words "in coin," had a definite
and well understood meaning in every contract and in
every public and private evidence of indebtedness in
which it was used. It was a value equal to that of
25 8 10 grains of gold of standard fineness. That is
the meaning of the term dollar in every bond of the
United States outstanding at this time, in every State
and municipal bond, in every treasury note, in every
national bank note, and in every private contract. That
this is true of every obligation made since 1873, even
the silver advocates must admit. And even as regards
the United States bonds issued prior to 1873, their
present holders who acquired them since 1873 bought
them upon the faith of our present monetary system
and confiding in the honor of the nation to keep its oft
repeated pledge to maintain the parity of all dollars
issued, which means payment in the best currency.
Now is the time to make haste slowly.
The outlook is favorable for a resumption of business
activity and national prosperity.
If the 70,000,000 of people in the United States were
to begin to supply one-half only of their normal needs,
138
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
ANSWER
merchants would be busy and the mills would run day
and night.
Building of all kinds has, for two or three years, been
almost suspended.
It is now reviving.
If the people were to start to building the houses
they want, these men would return to the old work busy
as bees.
No railroad in the country has its normal supply of
equipment. It would be safe to say that there are 100,-
000 to 150,000 broken down and side tracked cars in the
country, and a need for half as many more new ones.
Other equipment, including rails, is in similar condition.
Twenty-five to thirty thousand miles of new lines, sur-
veyed or projected, are awaiting construction.
Says Mr. W. B. Mitchell: "Money by the hun-
dreds of millions lies idle in the money centers of the
country. Its owners are chafing little less than the idle
workmen. They are anxious to put it into the channels
of trade and industry. The general situation never had
a stronger backbone.
"But the free silver nightmare stands in the way.
"Men will not put out dollars this year with the
probability that they may be returned next year in frac-
tions of dollars. They will not lend or invest on a gold
basis while there is a prospect of payment and return on
a silver basis.
"This does not apply only to the large owners of
money, but to the small holders as well. And it is the
small holders who give life to all enterprise and
industries.
"Nor will anybody invest in the face of a growing
doctrine that would, if it should prevail, involve the
country in general calamity. This is indeed the great-
STANLEY
WOOD'S
139
ANSWER
TO COIN'S
FINANCIAL SCHOOL.
est deterrent to any movement of money. Its effect is
much greater than even the well-defined apprehension
of returns in cheap dollars.
"The only reason that there is anything at all doing,
and the only thing that saves the country from com-
plete financial collapse, is the faith of a large part of the
people that there is too much hard, common sense in
the country to permit further silver legislation."
I quote the following from the New York Times of
April 13:
"Oil was selling around 53 cents a barrel about two
years ago, and the supply was so much greater than the
demand that production fell off on account of the low
prices. Things have changed wonderfully since then
and oil has been gradually creeping up in price. The
dollar mark was reached at the opening of the present
year. Oil sold yesterday for $1.80 per barrel. The
decrease of the stocks and the continued drain of pro-
duction had begun to excite comments, and the world
awakened to the situation. It was seen that an enor-
mous demand had been created for Pennsylvania oil,
which demand had exhausted the supply, outgrown the
ability of the country to satisfy, and on the heels of a
failing production."
The New York Herald, of the same date, commented
on the advance in price of beef as follows:
"Beef is now higher than it has been in the
recollection of dealers since war times. It is said by
the butchers that the rise in beef, as well as in mutton,
will continue until June 1. Our Chicago dispatch this
morning gives some interesting data respecting the pres-
ent supply of cattle, and states that during the first
four months of 1894 the prices at the yards ranged from
6½ to 7 cents; now they range from 9 to 10 cents."
140
SCHOOL.
STANLEY
WOOD'S
FINANCIAL ANSWER TO COIN'S
It may be seen that within two years coal oil has ad-
vanced 350 per cent, and beef cattle have within a few
months advanced nearly 100 per cent. These are both
great staple productions of the country.
As I write come dispatches announcing that the
great iron manufacturers of Pittsburg, have raised the
wages of employes 10 per cent.
I do not quote these facts to prove that a gold basis
of currency is the cause of this effect.
I quote them to show that there are signs of return-
ing confidence and to say a word of warning to the effect
that the forcing of the silver issue will dispell this con-
fidence and bring back the cloud of depression from
which we are just emerging.
Coin closes his discussion with the following
words:
"How will this contest end?"
"No one can tell. In the siruggle of
might against right, the former has gener-
ally triumphed.
"Will it win in the United States ?
Coin's Financial School, p. 149.
This is the gospel of despair not taught by the book
of history.
Is it true that, "In the struggle of might against.
right, the former has generally triumphed ?"
Are not the words of Tennyson nearer the truth:
"Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
The triumph of might against right is transitory.
The truth is mighty and will prevail.
Slavery destroyed itself; it carried within itself the
seed of its own destruction; so it is with all economic
delusions. They flourish for a day and then perish.
WOOD'S
STANLEY ANSWER TO 141
SCHOOL.
COIN'S
FINANCIAL But, alas! men lack courage in the face of a great
multitude and dare not say "no" when a discontented
people, led away by false doctrines and under the delu-
sions of false ideas, are crying "yes! yes! yes!"
It suited Coin's purpose to leave the impression up-
on the minds of his readers that he is engaged in a con-
flict with the hosts of evil, that his cause alone is just
and that all who oppose his theories have only "might"
on their side while he represents the "right."
The highest courage is the highest wisdom.
If men who believe, and know why they believe,
that fiat money in all its forms is a deadly delusion, will
face the multitude and proclaim the truth, the intelli-
gence and the conscience of the country will awake and
the American people will trample down the false doc-
trine of repudiation, just as it trampled out forever that
other false doctrine which advocated African slavery.
Professor Rogers, of Oxford, reviewing the history
of the Roman empire, says the vices which weakened
and destroyed that empire were economic vices.
No error, moral or economic, has done more to check
the progress of man from poverty to plenty than errors
in regard to money.
Every cheap money device, every scheme for repudi-
ating a just debt, every statute for maintaining a false
system of exchange has failed, and the failure has car-
ried disaster alike to the just and the unjust.
<
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