Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1877 — THE SILVEB QUESTION. [ARTICLE]

THE SILVEB QUESTION.

Another Letter from Thorlow Weed—He Explain* How the Demonetizing Fraud Was Perpetrated—Gen. Grant on Silver a* a Standard. To the Editor ot the New York Tribune: I find myself unexpectedly stigmatized as an “ Inflationist” and “ Repudiator.” I say unexpectedly, because, during considerably more than half a century of journalism, my efforts were uniformly in favor of a sound currency and against repudiation. Conscious only of a desire to be useful, I can afford to be misunderstood, or even misrepresented, especially so while advocating a silver standard, the authority for doing so being derived from the constitution of the United States. Under that authority the Government has borrowed and paid thousands of millions of dollars in ooin. No one questioned the money value of silver. It was equally precious with gold, until in 1873 it was secretly demonetized. A bill ostensibly intended to regulate the Government mints contained a clause demonetizing silver, but so cautiously drawn as to conoeal its purpose. Nothing appears in the debate showing that any member of Congress was aware that a bill, apparently harmless, not only deprived the country of one-half its monetary power, but was in violation of the constitution. The title of the law of 1873, as will be seen, furnished no intimation that it contained such a sweeping clause: “An act revising and amending the laws relative to the mints, assay offices, and coinage of the United States. ” The conspirators, however, did not accomplish all they desired by the act of 1873. The following section found its way into the Revised Statutes, which were enacted in bulk in 1874: The silver coins of the United States shall be legal tender at their nominal value, for any amount not exceeding 15 in any ono payment. The Chairman of the committee, who submitted the report, assured the House that it contained nothing but what was found in the special and separate enactments of Congress. And yet there was nothing in any act of Congress giving the semblance of authority for the section above quoted. The double frauds were perpetrated without the knowledge of those who voted for them, and without attracting the attention of newspaper correspondents. Nor did the President, in approving the bills referred to, know or suspect that either struck a fatal blow at the interests of the country and the welfare of the people. In a letter written by Gen. Grant, dated Oct. 3,1876, seven months after the passage of the law relating to mints, etc., he said :

I wonder that silver is not already cojning into the market to supply the deficiency in the circulating medium. * * * Experience has proved that it takes about 940,000,000 of fractional currency to make the smaller change necessary for tho transaction of the business of the country. Silver will gradually take the place of this currency, and, further, will become the standard of values, which will be hoarded in a small way. I estimate that this will consume from 9200,000,000 to 9300,000,000 in time, of this species of our circulating medium. * * * I confess to a desire to see a limited hoarding of money. But I want to see a hoarding of something that is a standard of value the world over. Silver is this. * * * Our mines are now producing almost unlimited amounts of silver, and it is becoming a question “What shall we do with it?” I suggest here a solution, which will answer for some years, to put it in circulation, keeping it them until it is fixed, and then we will find other markets. The President did not know that he had approved and signed a bill prohibiting the coinage of a currency he valued so highly! It was not until 1874, when the Code was adopted, that the coinage of subsidiarv silver was authorized, and became a legal tender for $5. And finally, when these frauds, perpetrated to keep gold at a premium for the benefit ol bondholders, became known, no word of reprobation has been heard. The press, generally alert., vigilant, and outspeaking, has no word of condemnation against a conspiracy to cripple and oppress the industries and labor of the country. On the contrary, our leading Eastern journals bitterly assail those who labor to restore to the country a money standard of which it was fraudulently deprived. We are stigmatized as silver inflationists for asking the Government to re-establish a financial basis under which the country and people were prosperous and happy for more than eighty years. This question, stripped of sophistry and verbiage, presents a naked issue of capital against labor. Shylocks, ever rapacious, are struggling to “keep up the rate of usance.” In maintaining the one standard—thus narrowing our specie basis one-lialf—they will strengthen and perpetuate their advantages. There has been, as there must be, between the thousands who labor and the hundreds who enjoy the fruits of such labor, an irrepressible confliot. It is the duty of governments to see that the faces of those who labor are not held too closely to the grindstone. The country is threatened, as is usual when capital takes an alarm, with the return of the bonds held abroad, should the holders be asked to reoeive their interest “in coin.” If foreigners choose to return bonds because we offer to pay them in the precise currency they agreed to receive, I do not see that either our character or our pocket will be seriously affected. Foreigners, during our civil war “ made haste slowly” in the pur •hase of our bonds. Nothing of friendship or patriotism was manifested. Capital, ever cautious, doubted and waited a long time in Germany, and still longer in England. Most of their investments were made when their bonds cost them but 60 cents on the dollar. They have been receiving their interest in gold, until it is proposed to pay “in coin.” If for this reason they choose to send home our bonds we can afford to reoeive them, having large amounts of money seeking profitable investments. Nor is this the only method of intimidation resorted to. We are told that if the money standards of the constitution are restored the Syndicate will suspend its negotiations. How far this threat will be carried remains to be seen. The Syndicate is not a benevolent institution. It will go on with its funding operations, or discontinue them, according to the interests of the parties conoemed. If, by a return of specie payments, upon a basis broad enough to meet the requirements of our commercial and manufacturing enterprises and industries, prosperity should follow resumption, the lamentations of bondholders at home and abroad would no longer be heard. I perceive that Mr. Wm. E. Dodge and Mr. A. A. Low, eminent alike as merchants and as citizens, were among the distinguished gentlemen who went to Washington to oppose the passage of the bill remonetizing silver. My respect for these highly intelligent gentlemen is so great that I should be gratified to learn whether, during their Tong and creditable oomiwiwiaf life, they were embar-

rassed in the acquisition of their large fortunes by the use of silver in common with gold as a standard ? The experience of Mr. Low upon this question would derive a special importance from the circumstance that his commercial relations existed with nations whose currency was almost exclusively of silver. In their raid against silver, our Eastern bankers and journals find their strongest argument in the circumstance that the silver dollar is not worth even as much as the greenback dollar. None of them, however, seem to remember that the greenback has the protection of the Government, while silver was deprived of that protection by deception and fraud. When, by the repeal of the law of 1873, silver, like gold, becomes a standard, the relative value of each will approxi-mate-silver going up and gold ooming down. If, for any reason, a law restoring the financial policy of the Government under which the country enjoyed unparalleled prosperity to the disastrous hour that slaveryjsought the destruction of the Government and dismemberment of the Union, the responsibility and the consequences will rest upon the aggressive, rapacious, uncompromising spirit of the worshipers of gold, supplemented, I am constrained to add, by the bulldozing course of the press. T. W.