People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1893 — THE SILVER DOLLAR. [ARTICLE]

THE SILVER DOLLAR.

History of Its Coinage and Circulation Previous to 1873—The Integrity of the Standard Dollar Has Ever Been Proserved. The argument is advanced and persistently harped upon by the gold monometallists that inasmuch as we did not have silver currency in any considerable amount, and, that between 1792 and 1873, although there was a total coinage of silver amounting to 1157,500,000, there was coined during that period only about eight millions of standard silver dollars; and, that the reason of so scant coinage was because the people did not want silver coin, and consequently no wrong was done in demonetizing silver in 1873. Let us see what the facts are covering this matter and we will thereby discover what store was set upon silver coin during that period. We will premise by saying that the citizen now of middle age can little understand the comparative poverty of our country in the earlier years of our history. Our nation had struggled on from the beginning through great trials and had done the best possible to provide coinage for the people, and let it be remembered that we produced no silver and had practically none to coin until about 1870, at which time it was discovered that the Rocky mountains from the British possessions to Mexico was a treasure vault abounding in both gold and silver. The knowledge of this fact was known to the bullion dealers and capitalists of the old world before our citizens themselves came to know the value of our mountain country, for the reason that at that time our people were using paper currency exclusively, and our production of bullion was immediately shipped to the world’s market For a dozen years the people as a whole were giving no attention to coinage and were completely off their guard. Crafty legislation inspired by those who held our war bonds and witnessed our wonderful powers of recuperation; who saw us forging ahead in industrial prosperity, and who feared that we would dig too much money out of our mountains, actually got the start of the people by securing the passage of the law of 1878, which prohibited the coinage of the standard dollar, and which changed the standard of our money of account from silver and gold to the gold dollar alone. Now let us see what the government had done to provide silver coinage to help us out in our years of poverty. .. _

The historical dollar is the Spanish) milled dollar. It was the coin in most common use when in 1785, one hundred and eight years ago, the American congress adopted it as the basis unit of our money, making it the lawful dollar and standard. This action antedated our mine laws. The beginning of our coinage system was the act of 1792. It confirmed and perpetuated the standaid of 1785. This dollar contained 371 Jx grains of pure silver. The dollar of today is exactly the same in its portion of pure silver, haring never been changed. In 1806 congress made the French and Spanish silver coins full legal tender, and in 1834 congress extended the legal tender to the silver dollars of Mexico, Peru, Chili, Brazil, Central America and the five franc pieces of France, in order to draw the silver to our country. The gold coins of several countries were also legalized. In 1843 congress provided for the use in payment of customs of the silver coins of Prussia, Portugal, Russia, British America, and other foreign mints. This condition obtained up to 1857, at which date, owing to the influx of gold to our mints by reason of the heavy production in California, it was deemed advisable to restrict the legal tender quality of all foreign silver coins except for the payment of duties and tha purchase of public lands, excepting only certain Mexican and Spanish coins which continued a legal tender until 1873, and this for the greater part was the source of our government’s silver supply. Another factor governing the coinage of standard dollars should be noted. In 1809, Mr. Jefferson peremptorily ordered the silver coinage to be confined to fractional coins that the people might be the better served thereby,and not from any hostility to the dollar itr’ self, but on account of the scarcity of silver, and no standard dollars were thereafter coined until 1836. Another fact should bo noted that in 1834 the rati* of silver to gold was changed from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1, or in other words, the weight of gold coins was reduced about 6 per cent., and the European ratio being 15X to 1, it made our silver coins worth about 3 per cent more than our gold coins, and this caused our silver to be sold for use in the arts and to be exported. In 1853, the weight of our fractional silver coins was reduced in order to keep them in service, all previously coined having been exact fractions of the standard dollar. These light weight silver coins were limited in their legal tender qualities to payments in sums of five dollars only, and only for this reason were their legal tender qualities abridged. The integrity of the standard dollar has ever been preserved, and change in quantity of pure metal has always been made in the gold coinage. The spirit of this whole matter is that the gold monometallist desires to restrict our money stock to gold alone, and if he is informed as to these facts he is unscrupulous as to the argument advanced regarding the slight use of silver previous to 1873.—Junius, in Chicago Coin.