People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1893 — WHAT IS BIMETALLISM? [ARTICLE]

WHAT IS BIMETALLISM?

The Tower of Legal Tender Matt Be Given to Both Metals. Bimetallism rests upon the right of the payor to make use of the more abundant metal, or the metal that tends to become cheaper, and by thus increasing the use of this metal to lessen the use of the other, and through this compensating principle, like the two metals in the pendulum of a clock, maintain the parity of both. No one ever claimed that bimetallism could exist if the taker, and not the payor, had the option. Bimetallism, without the power of legal tender behind it, giving the option to the payor, could not be permanently maintained even if all the nations of the earth would unite on a common ratio. Bimetallism falls to the ground if the power of legal tender is taken from either metal, or if the option, which amounts to the annulment of legal tender, is given to the payee. Could France maintain the parity of her 1600,000,000 of silver coin, coined on the ratio of 15}tf to 1, with her gold coins, if the payee* were given the option to take either kind of coin? No more can the secretary of the treasury of the United States maintain the parity of the two metals, or the parity of the coins of the two metals, if he gives the option as a right to the taker. The option, under legal tender, necessarily lies with the one who pays, whether it be a private person or a government; and the parity of the metals, or bimetallism, can be maintained in no other way. The two metals can be maintained at a parity only by admitting both to a coinage on exactly equal terms, and the coins of the two metals can be kept at a parity only by conforming to the fundamental principles of bimetallism, and legal tender, and by paying out that metal which, for the time being, is most convenient or most abundent.—A. J. Warner, President American Bimetallic League.