People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — GOLD AND SILVER DOLLARS. [ARTICLE]

GOLD AND SILVER DOLLARS.

The Parity Extats To-day and Would Ba Disturbed by Change of Ratio. What does the world understand by ‘‘parity,” as the term is used in. financa? Is it equality of intrinsic value, as a pound of lead for a pound of lard? Or does it mean equality of power in es- • fecting exchanges or credits, commod- ■ ities and corporeal things? Since the world began the latter definition of parity has had full acceptation in every system of finance among civilized men, until modern greed and cunning devised the scheme of demonetization, whereby through legislation alone any part of a people's money may be discredited and robbed of its equal power in the currency system. This was done in the United States in 1873 by the demonetization act and fixed as the indisputable cause of our present system by the failure of congress to pass remonetization acts. What is the condition, then? We have a conglomerate system of seven or nine kinds of money forms and only one money of redemption—which is gold. This leaves us strictly on a gold basis, with a confessed paucity pf gold to redeem one-ninth even of our silver and paper issues. So that our "gold basis” is a sham in fact, a scheme of robbery in effect, and altogether a matter of credit and a fiat "promise to pay in gold.” Where, then, is the solid substance of this much esteemed parity argument? Why can we not agree to come back to the terms of common sense and Common honesty, and stand on the ancient and true democratic principle? You ask me what that principle is? I answer that it is this: "Parity in the currency implies equal debt-paying and purchasing power in every form of currency authorized by the government in every market where the stamp and certification of the government makes the coinage current as money, or an instrument of exchanges.” That is the original and everlasting creed of true American democracy. That has been the contention of our party and platforms since 1867, at least, against all forms of discriminations in and favors to particular forms of American money. This is the true reading and meaning of the Chicago platform of 1892. as to its currency plank, and that was the clamorous and certain claim made for it on every stump in the south and west during the campaign. If not "adjusted through international agreement” (now known to be impossible), the “dollar unit of coinage of both metals” must be either equal by natural commercial ratio, or (and here’s the true condition that demands action) by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts.” There you have the true democratic doctrine—parity, even by the force of legislation, in power to purchase and pay debts —not parity in commercial price of the metals, nor parity in weight by ounces and pounds, nor parity in the estimation of the sharks of Wall street and the wolves of Lombard street. What legislation can give this parity of power to the two metals? The legal tender function, which it is both the right and bounden duty of the government to bestow on all its issues of currency. Legal tender quality is power. Weight and fineness fix mere market values. What the people want is an adequate volume pf money, the gold and silver standard money of the constitution, equal in legal tender power in the markets and in the payment of debts. The ratio of 16 to 1, it is admitted by leading writers on finance, who are not gold specialists, is as safe a ratio for that object as any other—just as little liable to fluctuations and more nearly equitable with the ratios subsisting in other gold and silver using nations. As it is, we have been frauduledtly brought to a false and swindling "gold basis,” by which the money of the people has been divided and half of it double discounted, and by which the labor cost of every debt payment has been doubled, trebled or quadrupled. What thb country needs and what the people will hereafter demand, is the free coinage of silver, at 16 to 1, with parity, through legal tender power, between every dollar of money issued by authority of their government. This parity exists to-day between the gold and silver dollar. —“Old Democrat,” in Atlanta Constitution.