People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1893 — THE NEED OF BIMETALLISM [ARTICLE]

THE NEED OF BIMETALLISM

The Recognition and Coinage of silver Will Make More Money and Consequently Better Price* for Commodities. Mr. Morris M. Estee contributes a carefully prepared article to the Californian for September, in which he argues that it requires no great knowledge nor exhaustive study of financial problems to see that if the large sum of money represented by silver and silver certificates is retired from use as money it will cause the failure of many of the best business concerns of the country, and shatter national and individual credit, and thus paralyze the industries of the whole nation. Indeed, it is impossible to overrate the results of such an awful catastrophe in the United States. There does not appear to be any reasonable cause for disturbing the relations between gold and silver, or the use of both as money metals, and there does appear to be a necessity for the continued use of both. It is a striking fact that as silver depreciates in value, commodities also depreciate in value. Observe the price of silver for the past ten years, and then note the prices of the products of the factory and the farm; as a rule, they run parallel Money becomes dear and scarce when the country approaches a gold standard, and we approach a gold standard whenever silver is talked down or driven out of circulation. This condition of things has existed in our country for many years. The only two articles in America which have risen in value are gold and United States bonds —the one because the creditor class has talked all money but gold out of confidence; the other, because our country persists in paying all the interest on our bonds in gold, w’hen, under the law, and of right and in common fairness, some of it should be paid in silver—because the interest is payable in coin, and silver money is coin as much as gold. Gold and silver being the most valuable metals that are produced in sufficient quantity are the natural money of the world. Every civilized man knows both metals as money. It is the common law of mankind to look upon them as money metals. The tradesmen and producers all over the world receive either coin in exchange for their commodities; arid as the use of money is increasing the demand for it becomes a greater necessity. Without it, no enterprise, great or small, can be successfully established or carried on, and therefore any contraction of the monetary circulation would result in a monetary crisis, affecting not only the stability of great banks and banking houses, but the stability of governments themselves. It is a mistake, says Mr. Estee, to •uppose a banker different from other people—he is simply a keen dealer in money, and the man who deals in money is like any other man who has •omething to sell. He wants his goods (money) to bring a good price—to be in demand; and whatever will make money scarce and difficult to get increases its value, and thus apparently benefits him. He knows, as every intelligent man knows, that when there are two kinds of money in the world, and an equal amount of each, if he can destroy one kind, what remains will be more valuable; and so, many of the moneyed men of the world are for monometallism, because if a single gold standard is adopted by all the nations of the earth, and silver is demonetized, there will be only one-half the present amount of money in circulation; and he knows that this alone would double the value of the money that is left, because it would double the purchasing power of gold, and in a like proportion lower the value of all other commodities, because the commodities would necessarily increase in amount, whUe the means to purchase them would decrease. In a word, we would then have dear money and - cheap commodities; the men who have money would be richer by half; the men who have commodities would be poorer by half. But the latter are as one hundred to one. Labor is a commodity and would go down in the general fall. The result necessarily follows that as money becomes scarce, there will be a lowering of prices; land becomes cheap as money gets dear; the products of the factory and the farm suffer alike; and, as people have less money for use in the purchase of needful articles, less of those articles are consumed. And then come poverty, suffering and unrest, with an increase of crime and a lowering of the moral standard. The answer made to these arguments Is that as money would be worth more, the relative value of commodities would not change, because one dollar then would be worth two dollars now. If. the gold men think this is true, why not double the price of commodities and double the amount of money, and cheapen its value, and thus make two dollars worth but one dollar? If the rule is correct, why will it not work both ways? No, the fact is, the argument in favor of dear money is a narrow policy. If successful, it only creates misery, want, unrest —it is not a creative, but rather a destructive theory. It will benefit the few and destroy the many. It is admitted that the intrinsic value of silver is less than gold—it always was less. Our laws make the coinage value of gold sixteen times greater than that of silver; but, owing to the fact that some of the nations, which are the money powers of the world, are demonetizing silver, the difference in the commercial value between the two metals is much greater now than heretofore, and so the same power that cheapened silver now demands its demonetization as a money metal, because It is cheap. The creditor classes, who are interested in making money dear, are doing this and will continue to do it, until the communism of organized wealth endangers the peace of society. Indeed it has already imperiled the business industries pf the world. Money cannot become dear if silver is continued as one of the circulating mediums of the world, because the supply will more nearly equal the demand; but the supply of gold is not largely increasing, while the demand for money is increasing as the wealth and

commerce of the world increases And? so, on the one hand, it is a contest for good money and more money and fair prices for commodities; while on the other, it is a contest for less money and dear money and cheap commodities; and this contest will continue and increase in force while these conditions continue, and they will continue until actual and practical bimetallism is restored.—Albany (N. Y.) Times-Union.