Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1896 — ABOUT CHEAP DOLLARS. [ARTICLE]

ABOUT CHEAP DOLLARS.

We hear a good deal from the MeKinleyites about the wickedness of paying debts in 53-cent dollars, as if the Democratic party really proposed doing such a thing. That the bullion in the present silver dollar is worth only about 53 cents measured m gold is true enough, but the whole silver contention is tha<. the price has been forced down by the demonetization of the white metal by act of Congress In 1873. In that year the silver in a dollar was worth one dollar and three cents in gold, and it has gone down to its present Value steadily since The hope and the expectation of the silver men is that when silver can be again taken to (he mints and coined as it was before 1873 the price will again go up to near, if not quite, where it was. Silver has been mined In greater abundance of late years than It was formerly, but in nothing like the quantity to justify the fall in its value as compared with gold. Twenty years ago there were produced in all the world 67,000,000 ounces of silver, while last year the total was about 160,000,000 ounces—considerably more than double. Gold production has increased alsz>, however, from 5,000,000 ounces la 1876 to probably close on to 7,000,000 ounces this year. This is not so great an increase as the increase in silver production, but it is much more valuable and goes a greater way. By ceasing to use silver on an equality with gold as money, this country alone has decreased the demand for silver by many millions of ounces which, of course, had to be sold in the world’s markets and which forced the price down to its present figure. Let the demand be restored and the price is sure to go up again, and money will be more plentiful, for we sha.l not have to depend entirely on our gold supply to keep our credit good.

What Their Grievance la. The real reason for the Bourke Cockcan meeting in New York City, for the Indianapolis gathering, and for the defection of a few newspapers from the Democratic party, may probably be recognized in the following resolutions, which are part of the Chicago platform upon which Mr. Bryan stands before the American people; We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering to the holders of the obligations of the United States the option reserved by law to the Government of redeeming such obligations in either silver or gold coin. We are opposed to the issuing of inter-est-bearing bonds of the United States in time of peace, and condemn the trafficking with banking syndicates which, in exchange for bonds, and at an enormous profit to themselves, supply the Federal Treasury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometallism. Congress alone has the power to coin and issue money, and President Jackson declared that this power could not be delegated to corporations or individuals. We therefore demand that the power to issue notes to circulate as money be taken from the national banks, and that all paper money shall be issued directly by the Treasury Department, be redeemable in coin and receivable for all debts, public and private. This, it will be perceived, Is pure Jeffersonian doctrine. It Is a demand for the preservation of their rights to the people, instead of the wholesale bestowal of them upon money lenders and rag barons. It is a claim of government for the benefit of the masses, and a denial of the trafficking in legislation by which corporations and individuals grow rich, and the people grow poor. At the Madison Square Garden oration of Mr. Cockran there were two thousand bankers and money lenders present. They were there to join in the protest against punty in government, and against the rights of the people I New York News. Belongs to John G. A correspondent asks the New York Recorder; “Who first invented the phrases, ‘Crime of 1873’ and ‘Conspiracy against silver’?” We cannot say positively, but we think the honor belongs to Hon. John G. Carlisle, the present Secretary of the Treasury. Speaking in Congress in 1878, Mr. Carlisle denounced the movement to destroy silver money ms “a conspiracy,” and, further, as “the most gigantic crime of this or any other age.” We know of no earlier use of these pet phrases of the free silver men, and believe Mr. Carlisle first put them in circulation. American Silver in Canada. The opponents of silver are making much of a recent of the Montreal street railway companies against the acceptance of United States silver coins in the payment of fares. This order, however, cannot be construed as an attack upon the credit of this country. Our own railways and poetoffices have