HE SILVER QUESTION 
 
 FEW EDITORIAL EXTRACTS FROM NEW YORK 
 NEWSPAPERS CONCERNING THE 
 FREE COINAGE OF SILVER AND 
 KINDRED SUBJECTS 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION BY THE 
 
 MASON & HAMLIN CO., 
 
 ' 136 FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK 
 
 1896 
 
THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 -+~+- 
 
 Issue in Silrer Pure. 
 
 Th^ issue of the day will be better un¬ 
 derstood if we drop the confusing figures 
 of 16| to 1, stop talking of gold, which 
 neither party proposes to touch directly, 
 and donsider silver alone. 
 
 This old silver dollar contained 371J 
 grain s of silver. During the fifty years 
 after 1834, when gold became the single 
 standard of the United States, 371| 
 grains of silver were worth more than a 
 dollafc. and hence no silver was coined, 
 silver was “demonetized” in 
 a coined dollar of it was worth 
 As no silver was being coined 
 its demonetization, done in full 
 light' - of long and open discussion, was 
 the mere repealing of an obsolete law. 
 To-d ay, owing mainly to the enormous 
 incre ase in silver production, 871£ grains 
 are worth only fifty-three cents, and the 
 Bry/an issue is to give men the right to 
 call tjhis fifty-three cents’ worth of silver 
 a do! lar. That is square and bare repu¬ 
 diation. 
 
 would be equally proper, equally 
 
 Whe 
 1873 
 $1.0 
 thenj, 
 
 just, and equally honest to call fifty- 
 three cents worth of copper a dollar. 
 
 The Bryan men keep themselves in 
 countenance with the argument that 371£ 
 grains of silver constituted a dollar years 
 ago, and copper never did. Then they 
 undertake to give an air of sanctity to 
 their piratical schemes by inflammatory 
 attacks on gold. Their one hope is so to 
 excite a majority of the public with a 
 sense of hatred against the rich and the 
 financial system under which people have 
 prospered that they will crazily strike at 
 it, even to the paralysis or wreck of indus¬ 
 try in general .—From the New York 
 Sun. 
 
 Bogota, June 17. 
 To the Editor of the World: 
 
 It 
 
 As the money question seems to be the 
 important question in the present politi¬ 
 cal contest in the United States, I 
 thought it might be of interest to the 
 many readers of The World to know 
 what effect silver legislation has had upon 
 the people of Colombia. 
 
 J 
 
 ? 
 
 35041 
 
Twenty years ago, in 1876, gold and 
 silver were coined in the mints of Co¬ 
 lombia, both being a legal tender for all 
 debts, and at that time, owing to the 
 scarcity of the white metal silver was 
 at a premium over gold of about three 
 per cent. 
 
 About 1880 gold was at a premium, be¬ 
 cause the imports exceeded the exports, 
 and as the balance had to be paid in 
 gold it required a small premium to get 
 the gold for the purpose. Up to 1885 the 
 Government continued to coin gold and 
 silver, and at that time gold was at a 
 premium over silver of about 20 per cent. 
 
 In 1885 Congress passed a law that 
 made paper money a legal tender for all 
 debts, the paper to be payable in GOLD 
 OR SILVER AT THE OPTION OF 
 THE GOVERNMENT—this being an 
 attempt to make silver at a par with 
 gold. 
 
 GOLD AT 190 PER CENT. PREMIUM. 
 
 This was an impossibility, for at once 
 the gold all went out of the country, and 
 the Government was on a silver basis m 
 spite of its efforts by legislation to keep 
 gold and silver at a parity. From that 
 time to this there has been no gold in 
 circulation in Colombia. 
 
 The effect of this was to raise the pre¬ 
 mium on gold from 20 per cent, in 1885 
 to 190 per cent in 1895. 
 
 At the present time (June 17) exchange 
 on New York is 140, the price of ex¬ 
 change depending wholly upon the num¬ 
 ber of drafts upon the market and the 
 demand for them. As the coffee crop 
 is being shipped at this time, and the 
 merchants for certain reasons are not 
 importing largely, the price of exchange 
 is low. 
 
 SILVER ALL GOES TO PANAMA. 
 
 In the Department of Panama paper 
 
 money is not used, silver being tl e OD qy • 
 medium of circulation, the result being 
 that silver in the other Departments has 
 entirely gone out of circulation an q 
 paper is the only money used. 
 
 If one goes to market in Bog(,f a an q 
 offers silver for his dinner it is r 3 f use( p 
 As exchange is lower in Panama (ban in 
 other parts of 1 the country, spectators 
 buy all the silver they can find at a pre _ 
 mium of from 5 to 10 per cent, anq S end 
 it to Panama and make a profit. ]ST 0 w 
 to show the effect of this upon the n pnnlp f 
 of Colombia, I will give certain facts 
 that are well authenticated. 
 
 COST OF LIVING MORE THAN DOUB LED> 
 
 In 1885, when gold was at a prelum 
 of 20 per cent., wages of working^n on 
 the plains of Bogota were 40 cen^ s per 
 day, and in the hot country 60 c en fg a 
 day. At the present time wages f bre go 
 and 90 cents respectively, an ad vance 
 of 50 per cent. All provisions ha ve f n- 
 creased in cost about 200 per" ce nt. 
 Meats at that time were selling fo*. from 
 12 to 15 cents per pound; at the present 
 time they sell for 40 and 50 cents, f 
 
 House rents have increased froi n iQO 
 to 200 per cent. Small tenements^ suc b 
 as poor people occupy, could be hr a q 
 1885 for $8 a month; now the sameq ene _ 
 ments bring $8. In 1884 and 188:5 the 
 Protestant minister at Bogota occupj e q a 
 house for which he paid $50am on fb* 
 at the present time the same house lLino4 
 $200 a month. if ® 
 
 POORER GOODS THE RULE. 
 
 In 1885 table board could be had ^t the 
 best hotels for $1 a day; now it is j a 
 day; and the proprietors all say thl»r S f s 
 much less money in the business V£ an 
 when they received $1. Wearing a l iPare i 
 has not increased in price in prop( ^ on 
 
 * 
 
 2 
 
to provisions, but this is because the 
 people are too poor to buy the goods 
 they were in the habit of wearing be¬ 
 fore, and the merchants have placed 
 upon the market the poorest quality of 
 goods, made in Europe for the market. 
 The reason that the ! merchants give for 
 ^ not buying more goods in the United 
 States is that the goods .are too good 
 and the people cannot afford to buy 
 * them. 
 
 It seems to me that if the workingmen 
 r * of the United States will study this ob¬ 
 ject lesson they will readily see that 
 what they want is an honest dollar that 
 will buy as much in the markets abroad 
 as the dollar of any other nation. 
 
 MUST PAY TWO DOLLARS FOR ONE. 
 
 If silver is coined in the United States 
 at the rate of 16 to 1, while the gold in a 
 gold dollar is worth 100 cents in any 
 country in the world, and the silver in 
 a silver dollar is only worth fifty cents, is 
 it not plain that the experience of Co¬ 
 lombia, and in fact all South American 
 countries where it has been tried will be 
 the experience of the United States ? 
 
 The gold will all leave the country, and 
 it will require two dollars of silver to 
 buy one dollar’s worth of goods in the 
 markets of the world, where gold is the 
 standard. 
 
 The next question is, will the wages 
 of labor be increased in proportion to 
 the increase of the cost of living ? The 
 price of labor will always be governed by 
 the law of supply and demand, while the 
 cost of living will be governed by the 
 value of the. dollar that the laborer re¬ 
 ceives for his toil. 
 
 ;'V \ t* 
 
 FREE SILVER MEANS POVERTY. 
 
 Sjilver legislation in every country 
 
 where an effort has been made to make 
 a silver dollar equal to a gold dollar has 
 * resulted in poverty to the* man who la¬ 
 bors, and the attempt in the United 
 States can but give the same results. 
 
 Three years in this country has given 
 me some practical knowledge of the ef¬ 
 fects of a silver and paper currency, and 
 I send you the above facts, as they are 
 well known to the people’here. 
 
 luthur f. mckinney, 
 
 United States Minister. 
 —From the New York World. 
 
 SILVER TALK. 
 
 Between a Farmer and a Trades¬ 
 man. 
 
 Farmer.—Glad to meet you, friend, 
 for I’ve been wanting to ask why you 
 and so many in your line of business are 
 not with us on this 16 to 1 question. 
 Storekeepers make their living out of 
 the farmers, and it seems to me that 
 what’s good for us ought to be just as 
 good for them. As I understand this 
 16 to 1 argument, it means that we are 
 to have 16 times as many silver dollars 
 as we have gold dollars; and just think 
 what that amounts to. The editors tell 
 us that the United States has more than 
 600 millions of dollars of gold; and, mul¬ 
 tiplying that at the rate of 16 to 1, we 
 should get by this plan 10,000 millions of 
 silver dollars, which would be an in¬ 
 crease of 9,500 millions over our present 
 
 3 
 
circulaton of silver coin. Think what a 
 stock of money that would give us. It 
 would make ours the richest country, and 
 give us the biggest circulation of money 
 in the world. Talk of “booms”; this 
 would give us the liveliest ever seen. I 
 should like to know why you should’nt 
 be as much benefited by this increase of 
 trade as we farmers would by the 
 doubling of the prices of all we raise. 
 
 Tradesman.—Will you explain to me 
 why the silver leaders have allowed you 
 and millions more of their innocent dis¬ 
 ciples to get into your heads such silly 
 notions about the meaning of this 16 to 
 1 ? They print the motto on their ban¬ 
 ners, and you all marshal as proudly as 
 if you understood it; but, to this day. 
 they have failed to tell you what it really 
 means. Each dupe is left to put his own 
 interpretation on the mysterious pap- 
 words, and not one in a hundred of your 
 crowd knows the true meaning of the 
 thing you are making so much noise 
 about. Now “ Sixteen to One ” means 
 no more and no less than that the silver 
 dollar shall continue to be what it now is 
 —sixteen times the weight of the gold 
 dollar. I should like you to explain 
 what great benefit there is in that, either 
 to the farmer or anybody else. The 16 
 to 1 dollar has only a fraction more than 
 50 cents worth of silver in it. If your 
 leaders had proposed to put into a real 
 dollar’s worth of silver, by making its 
 weight 32 times that of a gold dollar, 
 then they could boast that they were 
 providing for you a true and honest dol¬ 
 lar. But their plan is to mint a dollar 
 containing only 50 cents worth of silver, 
 and to compel you by law to accept it in 
 payment for your products. Do you 
 consider that an honest and fair exercise 
 of the power to make law ? 
 
 Farmer.—You tell me the present dol¬ 
 
 lar contains only 50 cents worth of silver, 
 which is true, and yet, as you know, it is 
 just as good as the gold dollar for paying 
 debts. Why should’nt ik continue as 
 good as gold ? 
 
 Tradesman.—I will tell you why. In 
 this country the silver dollar passes at the 
 same value s^the gold one, because the 
 law has pledged the Government to keep 
 the value of the two kinds of dollars 
 equal. .The silver dollar is thus backed 
 by the credit of the Government, and its 
 value may be said to be made up of one 
 half silver and the other half national 
 credit. With the present amount of sil¬ 
 ver in circulation, the Government has so 
 far been able to keep its promise to sup¬ 
 port the value of the silver dollar. But 
 it cannot make that engagement good 
 for an unlimited circulation of silver dol¬ 
 lars, such as the silver leaders propose to 
 issue. There is a limit to the credit of 
 the Government, and a still closer limit 
 to the extent to which it should be 
 strained. The large amount of gold we 
 have had to borrow for the last two 
 years shows that we are already danger¬ 
 ously near to the point at which the 
 Treasury might lose its ability to keep 
 silver circulating at the same value as 
 gold. There is great danger of the Gov¬ 
 ernment being unable to keep this pledge 
 unless the stock of gold is much larger 
 than that of silver; and, if the unlimited 
 coinage of silver were permitted, its 
 value would immediately fall, gold would 
 go to a premium and cease to circulate 
 and must go to other countries. This is 
 the invariable rule in all such cases. 
 There are other nations besides the United 
 States in which silver is kept on an equal¬ 
 ity with gold for home payments#but, 
 in order to keep their stock of gold con¬ 
 siderably above that of silver, they have 
 long since stopped the coinage of legal 
 tender silver, which is the simple and 
 
safe policy we sound-money advocates 
 propose to enforce. Just look at this 
 list of the stock of gold and of legal ten¬ 
 der silver held by the leading countries 
 of Europe: » 
 
 Gold. Silver. 
 
 Prance.$825,000,000 $434,000,000 
 
 Germany.. 625,000,000 . 105,000,000 
 
 Italy..’ .. 96 000.000 10,000,000 
 
 Austro-Hungary ... 140,000,000 81,000,000 
 
 Russia .. 460,000,000 48,000,000 
 
 Spain. 40,000,000 126,000,000 
 
 Total.$3,186,000,000 $804,000,000 
 
 You will see that these six countries 
 have nearly three dollars in gold to one 
 in silver, and yet they think it unsafe to 
 make any further additions to their issue 
 of silver money. In our own country, 
 the stock of silver coin and bullion equals 
 the stock of gold; and yet your silver 
 leaders propose to increase the coinage of 
 silver without limit, using both the home 
 product and whatever may come from 
 other countries. Do you think it wise to 
 undertake such a revolution in our money 
 system in opposition to the judgment, 
 the experience and the fixed policy of the 
 most civilized nations of the world ? Do 
 you think it safe or prudent for you far¬ 
 mers, as users of money, to leave it en¬ 
 tirely to the interested producers of the 
 metal to dictate what shall be done in 
 this matter ? Have you any sufficient 
 reason for believing that the Silver Kings 
 are above suspicion of using your vote 
 to increase the market for their mining 
 products? Don’t you think there is 
 reasonable ground for distrusting their 
 motive? 
 
 Farmer.—I confess I’ve been so im¬ 
 pressed with the promises of more cir¬ 
 culation that our leaders have held out. 
 that** have not cared to trouble myself 
 aboutji where their interest in the plan 
 comes in. 
 
 Tradesman.—That is what I supposed; 
 but it may be worth your while to look 
 into this side of the subject more closely. 
 Just see what this matter of unlimited 
 coinage means for the Silver Kings. At 
 present, they sell their silver at the rate 
 of 70 cents an ounce. An ounce equals 
 the weight of fine silver contained in a 
 dollar and about 30 per cent more; so 
 that if the miner could get his metal 
 coined by the Government for his own 
 account, the mint would turn over to 
 him nearly $1.30 of coin for every ounce 
 of silver he deposited, thus making a 
 profit of 60 cents an ounce over and 
 above what he gets when the Treasury 
 buys and coins the silver on its own 
 account, as it has done hitherto. The 
 profit made by the Treasury on coining- 
 silver has hitherto gone to the public 
 Treasury, and the whole country has had v 
 the benefit; but your silver leaders 
 would have it go to them; and that, at 
 the present price of silver and with a 
 home product of 50,000,000 ounces as at 
 present, would bring.them in $65 000,000 
 for their year's product, instead of the 
 $35,000,000 which they are now getting 
 for it. Do you suppose this fact has 
 nothing to do with the mine owners 
 being advocates of free coinage? Now, 
 they can afford to produce silver at 70 
 cents an ounce; they have persuaded you 
 farmers to vote for a scheme that would 
 yield them $1.30. Of course, they are 
 strictly silent about this motive, and 
 tell you that as the prioes of your pro¬ 
 duce have fallen because the coinage of 
 silver has been stopped, therefore free 
 coinage is necessary to protect the far¬ 
 mer. 
 
 Farmer—Yes; and that is just where 
 they are right, as nobody can deny; for 
 is not wheat selling for 30 to 40 cents a 
 bushel less than it did a few years ago? 
 
 Tradesman.—I don’t in any measure 
 
dispute the fact of the fall in prices. 
 What I do deny is that the fall in wheat 
 and other farm products is due to the 
 fall in the value of silver, or the discon¬ 
 tinuance of its coinage. It is true, the 
 two things occurred at the saihe time; 
 but it does not therefore follow that the 
 one was the cause of the other. Other 
 things happened within the same time, 
 which have had an effect on prices that 
 no man of candid sense will question. 
 There has been an enormous increase in 
 the wheat crops of the world within late 
 years. Argentina. Chili, Russia, India, 
 Australia and Algeria have made im- 
 mence additions to the world’s yearly 
 supply. The introduction of steamships 
 and railroads has cheapened the cost of 
 transportation on both land and ocean, 
 which has naturally tended to reduce 
 prices, and without correspondingly hurt¬ 
 ing the farmer. And you must remem¬ 
 ber that articles of food, and especially 
 wheat, are much more sensitive to in¬ 
 creases of supply than most other arti¬ 
 cles. On most articles, a decline in their 
 price increases the demand for them, 
 which checks the downward tendency.. 
 But human stomachs can take only a 
 certain quantity of bread; and, when 
 the supply exceeds the limit, there is no 
 relief from increase of demand; and the 
 surplus has therefore an exceptionally 
 depressing effect upon prices. Besides 
 this cause, farm products have suffered, 
 in sympathy with all others, from the 
 doubling of the world’s products conse¬ 
 quent upon the introduction of steam 
 and machinery and labor-saving contri¬ 
 vances. This change in the costs of pro¬ 
 duction has been attended by a decline 
 in general prices averaging fully 30 per 
 cent within the past generation. It is in 
 accordance with the inevitable working 
 of the natural laws of trade that these 
 causes should produce such effects as we 
 see in the universal fall of prices and es¬ 
 
 pecially of farm products. There is 
 therefore no occasion to lug in the fanci¬ 
 ful theory that the cheapness about 
 which there is so much vague complaint 
 has been caused by a dearth of silver 
 money.— From the New York Journal of 
 Commerce , July 28th , 1896 
 
 The Real Cause of Low Prices. 
 
 One of the principal stock arguments 
 of the advocates of free silver coinage is 
 that the demonetization of silver in 1873 
 is responsible for a steady decline in the 
 prices of commodities since that time, 
 and consequently the restoration of sil¬ 
 ver coinage will cause an appreciation of 
 prices. To quote from the apostles of 
 free silver coinage: 
 
 “The full restoration of silver in this 
 country is demanded * * * because 
 
 even both gold and silver, linked to¬ 
 gether as full legal tender money, would 
 not maintain prices at a greater level 
 than would be necessary to guarantee 
 profit to productive enterprises or secure 
 prosperity to our country. * * * 
 
 This scarcity of gold is shown by the 
 steady decline of all commodities and 
 property since the demonetization in 
 1873 — R- P. Bland, in the Journal . 
 June 30,1896. 
 
 “But they (the bimetallists) * * * 
 are agreed that only a prompt return to 
 bimetallism can check the appreciation 
 of gold and stop the disastrous fall in | 
 prices.”— Wharton Barker, in the Jour¬ 
 nal, July 1, 1896 . 
 
 ‘ ‘Disaster has come year by year under 
 the single gold standard. "With falling 
 
 . - . 1 , 
 
 I 
 
prices over the world investment and en¬ 
 terprise have been paralyzed.”— 0.6. 
 Vest, in the Journal, July 3, 1896. 
 
 To state it mildly, it is simply an as¬ 
 sumption that the demonetization of sil¬ 
 ver is responsible for falling prices. How 
 do these gentlemen know that one is 
 cause and the other effect? How do 
 they know that the two are not simply 
 coincident? Before they undertake to 
 launch this country upon a cause of the 
 most doubtful experiments, leading, as 
 the most experienced financiers believe, 
 to certain and terrible disaster, they 
 should offer something more than as¬ 
 sumptions and theories as the basis of 
 their plan. If they are wrong in their 
 assumption, the only possible justifica¬ 
 tion for a trial of their plan is swept 
 away: That their assumption or theory 
 is absolutely and radically wrong is ap¬ 
 parent to every reasoning mind, and is 
 the teaching of all experience. The 
 price of any article or commodity is 
 fixed simply and solely by the propor¬ 
 tions of such articles produced and con¬ 
 sumed—in other words, by supply and 
 demand. This is an axiom so plain and 
 indisputable that it seems incredible that 
 any sensible man can be found who will 
 believe that prices can be fixed in any 
 other way. If in any year the entire 
 world produces 25 per cent more wheat 
 than the entire world consumes, the 
 price will fall and the producers of 
 wheat will have to exchange their pro¬ 
 duct for a proportionally smaller amount 
 of other commodities; if in any given 
 year the entire world produces 25 per 
 "cent less wheat than the entire world 
 consumes, the price will rise, and the 
 producers of wheat will be able to ex¬ 
 change their product for a proportion- 
 * ally larger quantity of other commodi¬ 
 ties, and these results will follow inevi- 
 - tably, whether the United States mone¬ 
 tary system is the single gold standard 
 
 or the single silver standard or bimet¬ 
 allic. 
 
 Bringing experience to demonstrate 
 the truth of this principle, let us take ' 
 cotton as an illustration. 
 
 In 1890, compared with 1870, the in¬ 
 crease in cotton production in the United 
 States was 131 per cent; the increase of 
 population in the same time was 63 
 per cent. It is generally conceded that 
 the increase in population in the United 
 States has been more rapid than the gen¬ 
 eral average increase of the rest of the 
 world, and it is therefore evident that 
 the production of cotton has far out¬ 
 stripped the demand and fully accounts 
 for the fall in prices, from 23.98 cents 
 per pound in 1870 to 11.07 cents per 
 pound in 1890. 
 
 Take another illustration from experi¬ 
 ence—bicycles. The bottom seems to be 
 dropped out of the market; wheels can 
 be bought to-day for about one-half the 
 price which was charged for the same 
 grade of wheels a year ago. What is 
 the cause? Simply that so many people 
 rushed into the business of making them 
 that the market is glutted and the in¬ 
 evitable result, a break in prices, has 
 followed. 
 
 Will any of our free silver friends be 
 bold enough to contend that the single 
 gold standard is responsible for the fall 
 in prices of bicycles? It is just as much 
 responsible for that as for the fall in 
 prices of wheat, or cotton, or pig iron, 
 and no more so. The principle is the 
 same in either case. 
 
 The mistake the silverites make is in 
 regarding money (gold or silver) as 
 wealth, instead of regarding it as what 
 it is, viz., the representative of wealth. 
 The farmer in Dakota who sells 4,000 
 bushels of wheat for 1,000 gold dollars 
 is just as well off as the farmer in Ar¬ 
 gentina who sells 4,000 bushels for 2,000 
 silver dollars. One can get just as much 
 
of the necessaries of life in exchange for 
 his wheat as the other, provided other 
 conditions are equal. If the Dakota 
 farmer received his pay in silver dollars 
 he would find that he would have to 
 pay out two dollars every time where 
 now he pays out one. So where would 
 he be bettered by free silver? The 
 Western farmer seems to have gotten it 
 into his head that free silver coinage 
 would make money “cheap” and that by 
 some unexplained process he could get 
 and hold on to a great deal more of it 
 than he can now; but he forgets that 
 his wealth must be produced from his 
 farm and weather money is “cheap” or 
 “dear, ” a certain quantity of farm pro¬ 
 duce can be exchanged in any given 
 year only for a certain amount of the 
 necessaries and luxuries of life. 
 
 If these considerations were brought 
 forcibly home to the deluded farmers of 
 the West, it is difficult to see how intel¬ 
 ligent men could continue to look- to free 
 silver as the “cure all” for their hard 
 conditions. JAS. W. COOKE .—From 
 the New York World. 
 
 The Crime of 1873* 
 
 Less is said at present about the so- 
 called ‘ ‘crime of 1873” than there was a 
 few years ago, but it is still occasionally 
 denounced by ill-informed silverites, and 
 therefore it 'may be useful to set forth 
 the facts relating to it. 
 
 The first coinage act passed by Con¬ 
 gress became a law in 1792. In subse¬ 
 quent years this act was repeatedly 
 amended, until in 1873 a dozen or more 
 acts on the subject were on the statute 
 
 book. To consolidate and systematize 
 them the Committee of the House of 
 Representatives on Coinage, Weights 
 and Measures prepared a comprehensive 
 bill, which was reported to the House by 
 the Hon. W. D. Kelly on Jan. 9, 1872, 
 debated at that session, laid over for a 
 year, and finally passed Feb. 12, 1873. A 
 This act, now known as “the Mint act of 
 1873,” dropped as obsolete from the list 
 of coins of the United States the silver 
 dollar of 412| grains, and, consequently r'„ 
 took from private owners of silver bullion 
 the privilege which they previously en¬ 
 joyed, of having their bullion coined into 
 dollars in unlimited quantities and free 
 of expense except for refining and al¬ 
 loying the metal This is what is called 
 the “crime” of 1873. 
 
 It is a notorious fact that, in 1873, the 
 privilege of having silver bullion coined 
 into dollars, as given by the earlier Mint 
 acts, was of no value whatever, and had 
 not been for years. The silver in a silver 
 dollar was worth more than a dollar, so 
 that coining it would have resulted in a 
 loss. Besides, we were not then using 
 either silver or gold as money, but green¬ 
 backs exclusively, and the resumption of 
 specie payments was not even proposed 
 until 1875, or two years later. Conse¬ 
 quently nobody, either in the House or 
 in the Senate, paid any attention to the 
 dropping of silver dollars from the pro¬ 
 visions of the act, and it was not dis¬ 
 cussed in debate. 
 
 An absurd story was for a time cur¬ 
 rent that this suppression of the silver 
 dollar was procured by Mr. Ernest Seyd 
 of London, as the agent of British bank¬ 
 ers. and that he expended $590,000 in 
 bribes for the purpose. The refutation 
 of this story speedily came from Mr. 
 Seyd’s son, who testified that his father h 
 had not been in this country sinqg 1856, 
 and a reference to the letter book of his 
 firm showed that he was in London con- 
 
 8 
 
 t . 
 
I;. 
 
 tinuously from October, 1872, to March, 
 1873. Moreover, a letter is extant, 
 written by Mr. Seyd to Mr. Hooper of 
 Massachusetts in 1872, declaring him¬ 
 self in favor of retaining the silver dol¬ 
 lar as one of our coins. 
 
 1 ^ A full account of the preparation and 
 passage of the Mint act of 1873 will be 
 found in Prof. Laughlin’s “History of 
 Bimetallism in the United States,” chap¬ 
 ter VII., and to that book we refer read- 
 J ers-who desire fuller information on the 
 subject .—From the Neiv York Sun. 
 
 -i* -M . > . v ■ .. ' . * • 
 
 The Crime of 1873. 
 
 It is probably useless to try to cor¬ 
 rect the impression fixed in the minds of 
 free-silver advocates that a “crime” was 
 committed by the “surreptitious de¬ 
 monetization of silver in 1873.” Yet, as 
 The World is frequently asked to ex¬ 
 plain what really did happen and how it 
 was done, it will state again the essen¬ 
 tial and indisputable facts: 
 
 . 
 
 1. Silver dollars had demonetized 
 themselves long before 1873. Only 
 $6,591 721 had been coined by the Gov¬ 
 ernment in the eighty-one years of its 
 existence up to that time. For twenty 
 years and more they had been worth 
 more than the gold dollar, and so 
 did not circulate as money. Not even 
 the most silvery-haired of the advocates 
 of “the dollar of the daddies” ever saw 
 % a silver dollar up to 1878, except as a 
 curiosity. Dr. Linderman, formerly 
 Director of the Mint, in recommending 
 the daw passed in 1873, said: “Having 
 
 a higher value as bullion than its nominal 
 value, the silver dollar long ago ceased 
 to be a coin of circulation, and being of 
 no practical use whatever, its issue 
 should be discontinued.” 
 
 2. The Coinage act of 1873 was pre¬ 
 pared in the Treasury Department in 
 1869-70 by John J. Knox, then deputy 
 Comptroller of the Currency It was 
 transmitted to Congress and its passage 
 recommended by Secretary Boutweil, 
 who said that “there has been no re¬ 
 vision of the laws pertaining to mint 
 and coinage since 1837,” and that such 
 a revision was much needed. The bill 
 was submitted to and received the j udg- 
 ment of more than thirty experts on 
 coinage and currency. It related only 
 incidentally to the silver dollar, but 
 revised and codified all the coinage 
 laws of the nation. Prominently in the 
 list of “proposed amendments” was this: 
 “Discontinuance of the coinage of the 
 silver dollar.” Another capital head¬ 
 line read: “Silver dollar, half dime and 
 three cent piece discontinued.” The 
 dropping of this then useless coin was 
 also mentioned in the tables and foot¬ 
 notes of the report. There was no 
 motive for concealing it and no thought 
 of concealing it. The silver dollar was 
 then worth nearly $1.04 in gold. The 
 mine-owners had no desire for free coin¬ 
 age. Their bullion was worth more iu 
 the market than at the mint. 
 
 3. In the discussion of the bill in both 
 houses of Congress the fact of the omis¬ 
 sion and the reason for it were plainly 
 stated. They were mentioned and en¬ 
 forced by Representatives Kelley, 
 Hooper, Potter, McNeely and Stough¬ 
 ton, and agreed to by Senators Sherman, 
 Scott and Bayard. Representative 
 Kelley, Chairman of the House com¬ 
 mittee, said: 
 
“It has received as careful attention 
 as I have ever known a committee to 
 bestow on any bill. We proceeded with 
 great deliberation to go over the bill, not 
 only section by section, but line by line 
 and word for word.” The bill failed for 
 want of time in the Forty-first Congress, 
 but was again considered in the Forty- 
 second and passed the house by a vote of 
 110 to 13. All the Pacific coast mem¬ 
 bers voted for it. After consideration 
 by a conference committee it was agreed 
 to by both houses Feb. 12, 1873. 
 
 And this open, regular, long-consid¬ 
 ered and well-understood discontinuance 
 of the coinage of a non-circulated silver 
 dollar, together with the half-dime and 
 three-cent piece, was the terrible ‘ ‘crime 
 of 1873 .”—From the New York World, 
 Aug. 7,1896. 
 
 A Workingman’s Questions. 
 
 W. L. Timberlake, a conductor on the 
 Mobile (Ala.,)- street railway, addressed 
 these queries, through the Mobile Regis¬ 
 ter, to the gentlemen announced' as 
 speakers at a Byran ratification meeting 
 • held in that city Saturday night last: 
 
 (1.) Will the free coinage of silver at 
 a ratio of 16 to 1 increase the rate of 
 wages now paid the workingmen in 
 the United States? If you say it will, 
 please name me some free-coinage coun¬ 
 try in which the workingmen are paid 
 wages as high as they now receive in the 
 United States. 
 
 (2.) We are not hnly interested in the 
 rate of wages, but also in the purchasing 
 
 power of the money in which wages 
 are paid. Is there a free coinage coun¬ 
 try in the world where a yorkingman can 
 buy as much for a dollar as he can now 
 in the United States ? 
 
 (3.) Mr. Bryan and other advocates of 
 free coinage claim that it will increase 
 the price of all commodities. If it should 
 increase the price of the things which 
 the workingman has to buy and does not 
 correspondingly increase his wages, will 
 he not be most seriously affected by the 
 change ? 
 
 (4.) Is it true that between 1860 and 
 1865, when the currency was inflated 
 with paper, the price of all commodities 
 rose 116 per cent., while wages only rose 
 43 per cent. ? 
 
 (5.) If wages only increased about one- 
 third as much as the price of things for 
 which wages had to be exchanged be¬ 
 tween 1860 and 1865, when hundreds of 
 thousands of laborers were in the field 
 as soldiers, do you believe wages would 
 increase so much under conditions that 
 would follow Mr. Bryan’s election? 
 
 (6.) The railroads of the country de¬ 
 rive their incomes exclusively from 
 freight and passenger tariffs that are 
 practically fixed by laws enforced by 
 state and interstate commissions. If 
 free coinage increases the price of all 
 the commodities necessary to the opera¬ 
 tion of railroads, and their income is 
 kept down by law, can the large body of 
 men employed m the service hope for an 
 increase of wages? As a matter of fact, 
 would not a cut in wages be about the 
 only way in which the railroads could 
 meet the increased cost of operation? fh, 
 
 (7.) The street railway systems of the - 
 city are operated under municipal ordi- 
 
 L ' v * 
 
 / . 
 
 / 
 
 10 
 
 l 
 
nances which fix their incomes at 5 cents 
 per passenger carried. If Mr. Bryan is 
 right in saying free coinage will 
 increase prices of all commodities 
 used by street railways, can you advise 
 the conductors, motormen, and other 
 street railway employees of this city to 
 vote for free coinage with the hope of im¬ 
 proving their condition ? 
 
 (8.) As I understand it, your party has 
 * for years made war on a protective 
 tariff because it increased the cost of 
 the necessaries of life. If Mr. Bryan is 
 right, will not free coinage in this respect 
 be just as bad? Will it not also create 
 a gigantic trust and make a market by 
 law for the property of the silver-mine 
 owner at double its value ? 
 
 (9 ) Is it true that on the Santa Fe 
 Railroad, operated partly in the United 
 States and partly in Mexico, the laborer 
 on the American side receives an Amer¬ 
 ican silver dollar, while just across the 
 imaginary line, on the Mexican side, the 
 paymaster with the American silver dol¬ 
 lar buys two Mexican silver dollars with 
 which he pays for two days’ work? 
 
 (10.) Why is it that 371|- grains of 
 silver with the stamp of gold standard 
 America on it will buy 754 grains of sil¬ 
 ver with the stamp of silver-standard 
 Mexico on it? 
 
 (11.) If you say it is because the silver 
 dollar in America is maintained at par 
 with gold by the government, when the 
 credit of the government is removed by 
 free coinage, and silver stands on its 
 v merits, will not the American silver dol- 
 jref lar sink to the value of the Mexican 
 dollar, and will not the American work- 
 * ingman who receives it be put upon the 
 low level of the Mexican laborer? 
 
 ■ # B " 
 
 (12.) Mr. Bryan says that gold has 
 appreciated, that under the gold standard 
 the gold dollar has grown in value from 
 100 to 200 cents. Wages in this country 
 are paid in gold or the equivalent. The 
 rate of wages has risen since 1873. If 
 the American workingman receives as 
 many dollars for a day’s work now as he 
 did prior to 1873, and these dollars have 
 grown in value from 100 to 200 cents, do 
 you not think he would be unwise to 
 swap it for a dollar that Mr. Bryan frank¬ 
 ly tells him would be worth only half as 
 much? 
 
 (13.) Will the workingman, under free 
 coinage, have to work as hard and as 
 many hours for a dollar as he does now ? 
 
 Upon your answers to the foregoing 
 questions depends the vote of myself and 
 a large number of workingmen of this 
 community who have made up their minds 
 that the interest of themselves and their 
 families is superior to any question of al¬ 
 legiance to party .—From the New York 
 Evening Post, Sept. 5th, 1896. 
 
 Little Rock, Ark., July 30. 
 
 A statement was widely published by 
 the press a few days ago that President 
 G. L. Green of the Connecticut Life In¬ 
 surance Company of Hartford and the 
 heads of other life insurance companies 
 had issued circular letter to policy¬ 
 holders notifying them that in the event 
 that the Government adopts the free 
 coinage of silver the company would be 
 compelled to pay all claims in depre¬ 
 ciated silver coin. 
 
 F. W. Alsop, of this city, sent a clip- 
 
 11 
 
ping of this statement to Secretary of 
 the Treasury Carlisle, with a request for 
 an expression on the subject He has 
 received a reply from Mr. Carlisle, which 
 is in part as follows: 
 
 ' ‘ In case free coinage of silver should 
 be established in this country, I pre¬ 
 sume insurance companies and all other 
 institutions would continue to make their 
 payments by checks and drafts on banks 
 as heretofore; in my opinion the whole 
 volume of our currency would sink at 
 once to the silver basis, and these checks 
 and drafts would be paid in silver dollars 
 or their equivalent instead of gold or its 
 equivalent, as is now the case. 
 
 “I presume no one supposes for a mo¬ 
 ment that it would be the duty of the 
 Government to attempt to keep the 
 standard silver dollar coined free for 
 private individuals and corporations 
 equal in value to a gold dollar—or, in 
 other words, that it would be the duty 
 of the Government to attempt under a 
 system of free coinage to maintain the 
 parity of the two metals. 
 
 “The dollars would be coined on pri¬ 
 vate account and delivered to private in¬ 
 dividuals and corporations as their own 
 property, the Government having no in¬ 
 terest whatever in them, and being, 
 therefore, under no obligation to sustain 
 them by guaranteeing their value. 
 
 “Under our existing system all silver 
 dollars are coined on account of the 
 Government, and are issued by the Gov¬ 
 ernment in payment of its expenditures 
 and other obligations, and it would be 
 an act of bad faith, therefore, to permit 
 them to depreciate. 
 
 “ Very truly yours, 
 
 “ J. G. CARLISLE.” 
 
 —From the New York World , July 31st, 
 1896. 
 
 CERNUSCHI'S CONFESSION. 
 
 The Great Silver Champion’s 
 Views upon America’s Ad¬ 
 option of Free Silver. 
 
 To the Editor, of the Sun — Sir: Mr. 
 Bryan and his followers on the currency 
 question, in setting up the 16 to 1 pro¬ 
 paganda, claim to be bimetallists; in 
 other words, they claim that under a 
 free and unlimited coinage of silver by 
 the United States at a ratio of 16 to 1 
 gold and silver will circulate side by 
 side in our currency, that gold will not 
 be expelled, that we will not go to a 
 silver monometallic basis, but that the 
 commercial ratio between gold and silver 
 bullion—now about 30 to 1—will become 
 identical with the 16 to 1 coinage ratio. 
 
 Mr. Bryan has declared himself in sev¬ 
 eral recent speeches a“ bimetallist” on 
 this basis. 
 
 Much has been made of the supposed 
 support of the European bimetallists. 
 Chief among these, both in written and 
 spoken argument, has been Mr. Cemuschi 
 of Paris. So eminent has been his pos¬ 
 ition on this question of bimetallism that 
 he was called upon for his testimony by 
 the Congressional Commission on the 
 silver question, whose report® was pub¬ 
 lished in 1877 under the title of “Nom- 
 isma or Legal Tender.” No more 
 thoroughgoing “friend of silver,” nor 
 one with wider knowledge of the history 
 and theory of coinages and currencies, 
 has anywhere appeared. He has liter¬ 
 ally been a text book for silver advocates U 
 the world over. His “friendliness” 
 being known and conceded, therefore, f 
 his testimony should surely bear weight 
 
 12 
 
 I 
 
with those who claim to be bimetallists 
 —not silver monometallists. 
 
 The^ following letter Mr. Cernuschi 
 wrote Trom Paris to his friend, Mr. B. 
 F. Nourse of Boston, during the agita¬ 
 tion at the time of the introduction of the 
 ■a Bland Free Coinage act in 1878 and the 
 subsequent substitution of the Bland - 
 Allison Silver Purchase act. The Bland 
 bill, of course, was a 16 to 1 free coinage 
 act, exactly similar to the Bryan plat- 
 31 form proposition. 
 
 ' / 
 
 Here is the letter: 
 
 “It appears that the United States 
 Government has made some engage¬ 
 ment with the syndicate of the four per 
 cents, and possibly the President will 
 veto a bill reopening the Mint to the free 
 coinage of silver. But let us suppose 
 that the Congress resists the veto, and 
 that the old silver dollar is inhabilitated 
 in full. What the consequences ? 
 
 All the new silver of Nevada and the 
 old silver of Germany would be brought 
 to the American Mint for coinage, and 
 all gold would be exported from America 
 to Europe. Against this assertion the 
 Cincinnati Commercial quotes France, 
 where silver and gold circulate side by 
 side, and from where silver is not ex¬ 
 ported. That is true but why is gold 
 not exported from France ? Because 
 silver is not coined, and consequently no 
 silver is introduced in France. Should 
 France reopen her mint to silver she 
 would absorb the American and German 
 silver and lose her gold. But with the 
 United States coining silver at the ratio 
 16, France cannot reopen her mint for 
 coining five-franc pieces, which are at 
 the ratio 15and then the United 
 States will sell at a premium all her 
 . 'I gold dollars against silver. In fact the 
 United States will become a silver mon- 
 * ometallic country, just the same as 
 English India. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Here it is asked what will then be 
 the relative value of gold and silver on 
 the general market, especially London? 
 1 answer, always fluctuating. While 
 America has gold to give in exchange for 
 silver, the value of silver can be high. 
 When the American gold shall be ex¬ 
 hausted the value of silver will be weak. 
 Various foreseen and unforeseen circum¬ 
 stances will later determine continuous 
 changes in the respective value of gold 
 and silver. Without a bimetallic law 
 fixing the same legal ratio in the principal 
 countries, the relative value of gold and 
 silver cannot be more stable than the 
 relative value of sugar and coffee.” 
 
 This statement, directly to the point, 
 from a genuine bimetallist, not a silver 
 monometallist in disguise, is a deadly 
 blow to the proposition that the free 
 coinage of silver at the false ratio of 16 
 to 1, false, because it is not the market 
 ratio, can establish bimetallism in the 
 United States. An international agree¬ 
 ment would have an almost impossible 
 task upon its shoulders, because running' 
 counter to world-wide commercial prices. 
 How can one country carry the load ? 
 
 The metal undervalued in an unlimited 
 coinage invariably disappears from cir¬ 
 culation as coin or a basis of currency 
 values. Why? Because when under¬ 
 valued as coin in an unlimited coinage, 
 it nevertheless retains its value as bul¬ 
 lion, and naturally flows to the market 
 wheXe it is not undervalued. This law, 
 known as Gresham’s law, applies both to 
 gold and silver, and has had many exem¬ 
 plifications in the coinage of nearly all 
 civilized nations. 
 
 The 16 to 1 proposition means silver mono¬ 
 metallism, pure and simple, and cannot 
 possibly mean anything else unless all 
 experience belies itself. Our going to 
 that basis involves the scaling down of 
 at least one-half of all our values creat¬ 
 ed upon a gold basis, and, worst of all, 
 
the repudiation of one-half of the obliga¬ 
 tions assumed by us nationally and indi¬ 
 vidually. The repayment, whether to 
 Europe or among ourselves, with a fifty 
 cent dollar of invested values worth gold 
 when placed in our hands, can justly 
 have no other name than robbery, and 
 legislative enactment can in no wise 
 change the true character of the act. 
 
 JOHN J. ROONEY, 
 
 66 Beaver Street, New York. 
 
 —From the New York Sun. 
 
 The Workingman’s Dollar. 
 
 The workingmen do not want- a de¬ 
 preciated orja dishonest dollar. The 
 great majority of the letters to The 
 World on this subject prove this. They 
 favor an increase in the volume of cur¬ 
 rency, ignoring or disbelieving the fact 
 established by the history of our own and 
 every other country—that the cheaper 
 money will drive the betteiynoney out of 
 circulation, and hence that free coinage 
 would deprive us of over $500,000,000 
 in gold and gold certificates now in use 
 as money. 
 
 Not only has free coinage at the ratio 
 of 16 to 1 never given us gold and silver 
 money at a parity, but the two metals 
 have never circulated upon equal terms as 
 full legal-tender money with free and 
 unlimited coinage . So much is history, 
 not theory. 
 
 But the workingmen catch at the mine 
 owners’ claim that free coinage will at 
 once raise silver to $1.29 an ounce, and 
 thus make the standard dollars “as good 
 
 as gold.” Again we cite to them the 
 facts of experience. 
 
 Under the Bland-Allison act of 1878 
 the Government purchased from $2,000,- 
 000 to $4,000,000 worth of silver bullion 
 per month for coinage into full legal- 
 tender silver dollars Up to 1891, when 
 this law was superseded by the Sherman 
 act, the Government had purchased 
 291,272,018 ounces of fine silver. It 
 coined during this time over 400,000,000 
 standard dollars. The total production 
 of our mines during this period was 
 about 450,000,000 ounces. The exports 
 amounted in value to about $200,000,000. 
 So that, with the amount used in the 
 arts, all the available silver product of 
 the country was marketed to the Gov¬ 
 ernment. 
 
 Did this sustain the price? When the 
 purchases began the bullion value of 
 371£ grains of pure silver was 89 cents. 
 When they ceased it was 76 cents. 
 
 The next attempt to sustain the price 
 of silver at the expense of the people 
 was by the Sherman act of 1890. Under 
 this the Government was compelled to 
 buy 4,500,000 ounces of silver per month 
 and issue Treasury notes therefor, to 
 “make money plenty” and supply a mar¬ 
 ket to the mine-owners who are to-day 
 busy at the Populist Convention. Up 
 to the repeal of this disastrous law in 
 1893 the Government had purchased 
 168,674,682 ounces of silver—practically 
 all the bullion not required for export or 
 for the arts. The bulk of it is stored 
 now in the Treasury vaults awaiting the 
 slow call for coinage to redeem the 
 Treasury notes standing against it. 
 
 When these purchases began the bul¬ 
 lion value of 371J grains of silver was 80 
 cents' In 1891 it had fallen to 76, in 
 '1892 to 67, in 1893 to 60, in 1894 tjo 49, y 
 in 1895 to 50. The Treasury notes ifesued 
 during this period added to the currency 
 quite as fast as the mints could turn out * 
 
silver dollars under free coinage, and 
 had the advantage of being redeemed in 
 / gold or silver. Yet silver still went 
 down, money became “scarce” (escept 
 in the banks), and a monetary panic 
 followed. 
 
 The workingmen may not be versed in 
 monetary science, but they are able to 
 understand the lessons of history and the 
 ' teachings of actual, practical and recent 
 experience. If they profit by them they 
 will stand firm for the best money.— 
 From the New York World. 
 
 HEjf' , v 
 
 | 
 
 -- 
 
 The First Fruits of Free Silver. 
 
 r 
 
 I _ 
 
 There is another stronger and more 
 logical reason why the support of free 
 silver in the pending campaign will be 
 disastrous to wage earners. Should free 
 silver prevail at the November polls the 
 contest will be continued in the Sen¬ 
 ate, and under no circumstances could 
 that body pass a free coinage bill under 
 two years, or until a radical change has 
 been made in its organization. During 
 that time the new Administration would 
 find itself without money. A financial 
 panic would have ravaged our business 
 interests, and millions of working 
 people would be thrown out of employ¬ 
 ment and be without homes or means 
 to support their families. This is no idle 
 prophecy, but is a statement of the actual 
 experience of every country that has in 
 modern times attempted to adopt a de- 
 ,'j based monetary standard, and, in view 
 ' of the already depressed conditions of 
 . working people, is it right to force them 
 ' 5 to njiake such a sacrifice ? 
 
 On the other hand, there is good rea¬ 
 son to believe that a defeat of free silver 
 will start up the wheels of commerce and 
 give increased employment to wage- 
 earners. With an improved trade our 
 revenues would be sufficient to obviate 
 the necessity of further bond issues, and 
 the money question would soon settle 
 itself. That out of the way, organized 
 labor could then devote its efforts to the 
 further amelioration of objectionable con¬ 
 ditions, and for that reason certain labor 
 leaders should cease their attempts to 
 mislead their followers .—From the Wash¬ 
 ington Times. 
 
 Andrew Carnegie in the North 
 American Review. 
 
 But 1 am now to tell you another qual¬ 
 ity which this basis-article of metal has 
 proved itself to possess, which you will 
 find it very difficult to believe. The 
 whole world has such confidence in its 
 fixity of value that there has been built 
 upon it, as upon a sure foundation, a 
 tower of “credit” so high, so vast, that 
 all the silver and gold in the United 
 States, and all the greenbacks and notes 
 issued by the government, only perform 
 8 per cent of the exchanges of the coun¬ 
 try Go into any bank, trust company, 
 mill, factory, store, or.place of business, 
 and you will find that for every one 
 hundred thousand dollars of business 
 transacted, only about eight thousand 
 dollars of * ‘money” is used, and this only 
 for petty purchases and payments. 
 Ninety-two per cent, of the business is 
 done with little bits of paper—checks, 
 drafts. Upon this basis also rest all 
 the government bonds, all State, county, 
 
 15 
 
and city bonds, and the thousands of 
 millions* of bonds the sale of which has 
 enabled our great railway systems to be 
 built, and also the thousands of millions 
 of the earnings of the masses deposited 
 in savings-banks, which have been lent 
 by these banks to various parties, and 
 which must be returned in “good money” 
 or the poor depositor’s savings will be 
 partially or wholly lost. 
 
 The business and exchanges of the 
 country, therefore, are not done now 
 with “money”—with the article itself. 
 Just as in former days the articles them¬ 
 selves ceased to be exchanged, and a 
 metal called “money” was used to effect 
 the exchanges, so to-day the metal itself 
 —the “money”—is no longer used. The 
 check or draft of the buyer of articles 
 upon a store of gold deposited in a bank 
 —a little bit of paper—is all that passes 
 between the buyer and the seller. Why 
 is this bit of paper taken by the seller or 
 the one to whom their is a debt due? 
 Because the taker is confident that if he 
 really needed the article itself that it 
 calls for—the gold—he could get it. He 
 is confident also that he will not need 
 the article itself, and why ? Because for 
 what he wishes to buy the seller or any 
 man whom he owes will take his check, 
 a similar little bit of paper, instead of 
 gold itself; and then, most vital of all, 
 every one is confident that the basis- 
 article cannot change in value. For re¬ 
 member it would be almost as bad if it 
 rose in value as if it fell; steadiness of 
 value being one. essential quality in 
 “money” for the masses of the people. 
 
 ‘£When, therefore, people clamor for 
 more “money” to put in circulation,— 
 that is, for more of the article which we 
 use to effect an exchange of articles,—you 
 see that more * ‘money” is not so much 
 what is needed. Nobody who has had 
 wheat or tobacco or any article to sell 
 
 has ever found any trouble for want of 
 “money” in the hands of the buyer to 
 effect the exchange. We had a very 
 severe financial disturbance in this coun¬ 
 try only three months ago. “Money,” it 
 was said, could not be had for business 
 purposes; but it was not the metal itself 
 that was lacking, but “credit,’’confidence, 
 for upon that, as you have seen, all 
 business is done except small pur¬ 
 chases and payments which can 
 scarcely be called “ business” at all. 
 To-day the business man cannot walk the 
 street without being approached by peo¬ 
 ple begging him to take this “ credit^’ at 
 very low rates of interest: at 2 per cent, 
 er annum ‘ ‘ money ” (credit) can be had 
 ay by day. There has been no consid¬ 
 erable difference in the amount of ‘ ‘ mo¬ 
 ney” in existence during the ninety 
 days. There was about as much money 
 in the country in January as there is 
 in March. It was not the want of 
 money, then, that caused the trouble. 
 The foundation had been shaken upon 
 which stood the ninety-two thousand dol¬ 
 lars of every one hundred thousand dollars 
 of business. The metal itself and notes— 
 real “money,” as we have seen—only 
 apply to the eight thousand dollars. 
 Here comes the gravest of all dangers in 
 tampering with the basis. You shake 
 directly the foundation upon which rests 
 92 per cent of all the business exchanges 
 of the country,—confidence, credit,'— 
 and indirectly the trifling 8 per cent, 
 as well which is transacted by the ex¬ 
 change of the metal itself or by govern¬ 
 ment notes; for the standard article is 
 the foundation for every exchange, laoth 
 the ninety-two thousand dollars and the 
 eight thousand dollars. So, you seje, if 
 that be undermined, the vast structure, 
 comprising all business, built upoiji it, V 
 must totter. 
 
 f 
 
 16 
 
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