People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1893 — Whose Option, the Creditor’s or the Debtor’s? [ARTICLE]

Whose Option, the Creditor’s or the Debtor’s?

We have in this country five or six different kinds of money issued directly by the govern ment and current among the people; gold and silver coin, gold and silver certificates, treasury Notes arid Greenbacks.

It is highly important that so long as these are used as money that they be current side by side, one having no favors shown it which the others do not have. One of the greatest objections urged against silver is that it tends to accumulate in the treasury of the U. S. and will not freely circulate. We believe this state of things to exist because of a preference granted to the creditor by the government to which he is not entitled. This preference grants him the option of the kind of money in which he shall receive payment. Invariably he chooses the scarcer or dearer money, which tends to make it still scarcer or dearer. We believe it wrong to grant him such option and insist that herein lies one of the chief troubles of the monetary situation. We further insist that this option should belong and does of right belong to the debtor. The creditor exercises and is rightfully entitled to this option when he loans money to the debtor,whether such borrower be the government, a corporation or a private individual. He can pay over to him any kind of legal tender money he chooses—whether it be silver, gold, treasury notes or greenbacks and the borrower has no option in the matter nor is he entitled to any. But when pay-' ment is to be made the option should pass over to the debtor and he should have the right to pay in any kind of current funds he may elect. Of course it would be natural and right for him to pay in the kind of money v>f which he had the most at the time of payment. This doubtless would equalize and regulate the circulation ©f all, kinds of money and obviate the accumulation of silver in the treasury. But the government has pursued an exactly different policy. The payments made to the treasury have beeD made in the kind of money the payor might elect and the disbursements from the treasury have been made in the kind of funds .the payee might elect so. As it was natural + o

choose the scarcest it has resulted in draining the gold from the treasury and leaving the silver piled up in its vaults. Let the government exercise the debtor’s option and pay out its silver as well as gold and this will not only put its silver into circulation but also protect its gold reserve.