People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1894 — “A Silver Lunatic." [ARTICLE]

“A Silver Lunatic."

Pomeroy's Advance Thought. A friend sends us a copy of the Register, of Sandusky, 0., in which we find the following, which appears to be worthy of consideration and reply: “A silver lunatic.” “ ‘Brick’ Pomeroy, who has not been heard of for many years, reappears in the columns of the Plain Dealer as an advocate of the unlimited and free coiuage of silver as well as of gold. In his communication to that valuable Democratic organ, he says: ‘Say that those of us who have trold or silver in other form than coins, or who, by digging and trading, can get gold and silver, can take it to the mint and there have it made into coins, incarnated with the government fiat that it is from that moment full legal tender for debts, then we can run back to our friends and our creditors, bearing the coins with us, tender the same to those •ve owe, and they will be more than glad to see us coming and to have us unload into their muds the money we owe them.’ Why limit the coinage to gold and silver? If the fiat of the Government will make a piece of silver a legal tender for debt, when the intrinsic value of the coin in the piece is not more 45 or 50 cents, why will not the fiat of the government make a piece of wood or a piece of iron, worth 50 cents or Scents, a legal tender for a dollar, or a piece of brass, or a piece of lead, or a piece of leather, or a piece of paper? Suppose that we put the point this way: Say that those of us who have lead mines, or iron mines, or who have lead or iron in other form coin, or who, by digging and trading, can get iron and lead, can take it to the mint and there have it made into coin, incarnated with tfye government fiat, that it is from that moment full legal tender for debts, then we can run back to our friends and creditors, tender the same to those we owe, and they will be more than glad to see us coming, ready to pay into their hands the money we owe them.

Why not, with just as much reason, put it this way? Why restrict the glorious privileges of an American citizen to cheat his creditor by requiring him to furnish silver worth fifty cents and stamped a dollar by the government? If, in the pursuit of happiness, we find it convenient o use iron, or lead, or brass, or copper, cr leather, why restrict as to the use of gold and silver alone? The value placed by the Government on a piece of silver is fictitious. The markets of the world give to every article its real value, and in the markets of me world an American silver dollar is worth less than fifty cents. Every cent of legal tender value, over and above the

market value, which the government places upon anything; is a ictitious value, a forced value, * fraud on the creditor. Now, it so happens that in the •usiness of this world, our credlors are not always our friends mp neighbors. It so happens iat the people of the United States puichase every year from #<300.000,000 to $1,000,000,000 worth of foreign goods, and it ias happened for many years in uccession, that they were comidled to pay for the excess of ur imports over the exports to uen who were not our friends. They lived in England,, in Geri.uiy, in China, in Cuba, in ou:.li America. They cared nothing for us except so far as could make money out of is, and by money they mean v hat is good in their own countries for the payment of debts, vlr. Pomeroy cannot take twenty silver dollars to the city of London and there purchase a suit of

lothes for which the London merchant asks S2O. The London merchant will not take his twenty silver dollars in payment for that suit of clothes. He would take twenty of the American gold dollars, and gladly take them, and he would Welcome Mr. Pomeroy to come again and again and buy clothes without number, provided he would pay for them in what he, the London merchant, knows to be money in the London market. The same is true of France, of Germany, or any other country with whose people Mr. Pomeroy* might trade. The difficulty with him, 1 and with ail other advocates of I free and unlimiten coinage, isj their inability to comprehend the' great fact that the American people buy and sell abroad. They sell the goods to foreigners and they buy of foreigners, and if there is a balance due the foreigner at the end of the year’s , trade, the foreigner demands the

difference in what he regards as money. He does not care the snap of his finger for the fiat of the American Government. If the President of the United States, aud all the members of his cabinet, and the justices of the Supreme Court, and all the members of both houses of Congress, should sign their names, if such a thing were possible, on a piece of silver, declaring that it was a legal tender for one dollar, the foreigner would say. ’We do not care for the signature of those gentlemen; their signatures do not make it worth a d|llar.”’ REPLY. Coinage is not limited to gold and silver. Here is a nickel. The commercial value of the metal used to form the coin is one-sixteenth of a cent. The stamp of the government—-or its fiat thus expressed, if you please —makes its value to bo five cents for debt-paying purposes. We can sell nickels in London at 90 cents on the dollar, because they are legal tender here, and can be sent back here and sold, or on ocean steamers sold to those coming to America. Are you onto it? Would you sell the nickel for the commercial value of its metal, or at the fiat value given by the government,, from whom somebody purchased it and sent it into the world on its nimble mission to pay debts? Here is a copper coin large enough to hold down the brains of the editor of the Register. The fiat of the government says that this great big coin is odo cent for debt-paying purposes. It gives it no power to purchase, nor does the Government give to any coins power to purchase. Here is a copper coin oneeighth or less in weight and size than the big one, and the fiat of the government says the smaller one is the exact equal of the larger one for debt paying purposes. Are you onto it? Should the Government say the

smaller copper coin is legal tender for one dollar, it would be as valuable as a gold dollar coin. You are not by law compelled to cheat your credito.i by giving him a nickel w’lien you owe him five cents, nor to cheat, him when you owe him a dollar by tendering him a silver dollar which may have but one cent's worth of commercial value. We presume you now pay your creditors in silver dollars at their fiat value, and then throw in half a dollar more to bring the weight up to your ideas of the value of silve r ! Of course you would not sock your creditor by tendering him.a nickel for his live cent, claim, nor rob or swindle him by tendering him a silver dollai coin for a dollar of debt! You would get up in the night and bellow around like a lost bull calf, till you found the difference to make up to him. Wouldn’t you? Of course you do this now. unless you are a swindler! The government places no value on its coina except to say what amount of debt each coin will cancel. You are not obliged to sell the coins at any price. Not one-of them has any power to purchase. The Government simply undertakes to say that if you and your creditor cannot settle your little differ; nc.es without recourse to money, that the stuff called money, all of which is Government fiat and creation, will settle the dispute if you want it settled in money. Otherwise go your way.

Now, it so happens that, in the commercial relations of the world, one man goes from homo with something to sell. The man from America sells wheat in exchange for india rubber. He gives so much of one product for so much of the other p-oduct. -Now, if one man in this • >• irxtry goes to Europe and there buys articles,he pays in the produce of this country or in the money of that country. When comes the settlement at the end of an agreed season, the man in this country owes a certain amount Ito the man in the other coun-

try. Then he obtains for him the amount in whatever the fiat of the other country declared to be legal tender, and by this tender settles the bill. Or he sends abroad more of something that will pay the debt. He can send in gold or silver, all of which ceases to be money the moment it passes the boundry of this country, and is there sold by weight at the market price for the metal, or his debt can I e paid in legal tender of that country.

If we make a note or bond payable in this country it can I e settled legally, fully and honorably in whatever the fiat of that, country has declared to bo legal tender money in that country. Are you onto it? Now all this does not prevent you sending gold bullion or silver bullion abroad to sell for the payment of your debts abroad. We have seen thousands of dollars of debts paid in London and in Paris with American gold coins and American silver coins. Iu every case the coins were weighed, not counted. The bul lion value was reckened on sil ver coins, and when a ked why. we were told that it was because they were not, legal Lender in America, and therefore their face value did not count. Cold coins being legal lender in Amer-

ica, ai biieu* j' acts value, limy were thus enabled tu tell wi at they could get for ile.ii coins in case they relumed tuem for ; reduce, as well as what ihov could gel by recoining them there. We have sola American gme aback money in Louden and Paris a) one per cent, premium n.mr gold coins of America, and - hen we asked the banker why, he said that as the paper money was legal tender for its fact /.due in America it was worth just as much as gold American c >ius for paying of debts in Airieri -a, and tne premium thereon wa on account ol‘ ils convenience over gold in the matter of transportation.

Last summer in London we were in the largest dry oods house in the world. Tin manager said he would sell n.-, oods at the same price for gold . oins, silver coins, or paper money, or anything under Col's high heavens that was legal tender at its face for the payment of debts in America, as they were ill the time buying goods from A merica and making notes p -.••• >| o j n New York, and that \ ythieg that was legal tender : n America was just as good as Muythii g else that was lega 1 tender in America. The London. merchant will take twenty dollars in silver at the same rate that he vv'dl take twenty dollars ho gold, for anything he has to veil. if such coins are only legal tender in this or any other country where he is doing hits'ness. Just as

did take Amor’man silver coins' at their Fa o value, till, in 1873, they were de uonetized, and as he took silver coins ofEu-lh.h minting till England demonetized silver. American gold coins are not money in the London market, or in the markets of any other

country. We have frequently tendered American gold in London and in Paris, and other European cities, in payment fer hotel bills, and had them refused. simply because they were not money in that place. Then we had to go out and find some one who would buy our gold coins and pay us the price he offered, and pay us in the money of that country, and then we would go back to the hotel and with the legal tender of tin t country pay our debts aud • o our way in peace.

The assertion of the Rogisb r man that the signatures of the Presidents and People of this country, if they should sign their names on a piece of silver or gold, stating it to be legal tender in this country, would not make it worth a dollar in that country over there, is true. Aud if the piece of silver weighed a ton, such declaration as to its American legal tender quality would not count in another country for use in that country. We found that out years ago. Therefore why send' American coins abroad? Why not send the gold and silver in bullion a? d let it be sold at its market value as well as silver, just as it is sold entirely regardless of its legal tender quality or debt paying power in this country. We want money for use at home, aud are willing to give just as much of labor, or property. or gold or silver, for a piece of paper duly stamped by wile Uuveruureut as icgai teud< • at its face value, as we would give for any other kind of money. What we say is, whatever the Government of the United States, through an act of Congress, followed by the President’s signature, says is legal tender, becomes so from the moment of its creation.

Does the Register deny Lb s plain understandably quest in ? Legal tender for the pay met, of debts in this country, and we do not. care a tinker’s dam f>r any other country. When \ e go there we will pa.v our wav in the money of that country, as when a man comes here he pa s his way in the money oft s country, to obi am watch hese.,.s the money of another enuidy i y the best price he can obtain. Meanwhile \v itch and see h w much the editor of the Regis er adds tii the nickels, or to In * silver dollar- wiem ]•>(. , them me, as we wish to give him credit for more honesty is possessed by any other man n the world, as surely he would not cheat a debtor, even if t ■ .* law gives him the privilege! The law was made by tho.ee • " his party, not of our.-*, and i.e hurrahs for his party.