People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1894 — A QUESTION OF FACT. [ARTICLE]

A QUESTION OF FACT.

The Pet Gold Dollar Has Been Driven Oat of Ciaealation bat the Dollar of Our Dads Is Here to Stay. We quoted the other day the assertion of a gold standard newspaper that op to 1878 “there was practically no silver coined by this country, the amount during the whol e eighty-nine years being slightly in excess of SS.000,000.” We took pains to direct attention to government reports showing how false and preposterous was this assertion. We asserted that these reports plainly showed that up to the opening of the California gold mines the government had coined more of silver than of gold. A reference to this report would easily have prevented the repetition of such an ignorant assertion as the one we quoted, but instead of profiting by the opportunity to obtain a modicum of information with very little exertion, we find the same statement repeated with emphasis. There is no arguing with a person in love with his own ignorance, but if any one really desirous of knowing the facts cares to examine the report of the director of the mint, he can easily learn the truth for himself. The report We happen to have before us is that of 1892, and the coinage of the mints by calendar years is set forth on pages 196 at seq. A very little skill in arithmetic will enable any one to add up the figures and learn that from 1793 to 1853 the government coined and put in circulation full weight, unlimited legal tender silver money to the amount of 879,000,000. In addition to this, between 1853 and 1873 the government coined 860,000,000 of light weight silver coin, of limited legal tender. In regard to gold, the facts are that up to the opening of the California mines in 1847 the government had coined just $57,000,000 in gold and no more. But, in addition to the silver coinage we have named, the government had adopted the Spanish-milled dollar (silver) as the standard of the mint, and made it full legal tender, and Spanish dollars were therefore coined in large quantities and circulated in this country. For this reason the government did not coin dollar pieces, either of silver or gold. Up to 1849 not a single gold dollar had ever been coined at any United States mint. But all coinage of silver of all denominations included in the amounts specified was, during the period named, unlimited legal tender for all debts, public and private.. In view of these fifets, known to everybody that has any acquaintance whatever with the coinage laws and coinage statistics of the country, one doesn’t know whether to be most amazed at the colossal ignorance or the unblushing effrontery of persons who make such assertions as the one we have referred to, and then sneer at other people’s lack of information. Another “argument” put forward and reiterated as though there were something in it is the assertion that only a limited number of actual silver dollars are in circulation. The answer is that their representatives, silver certificates, are doing the work. If the gold standard man thinks that it is due to popular prejudice against the silver dollar, what has he to say in behalf of his beloved pet, the gold dollar? So strong and universal was the prejudice of the people against the gold dollar that it would not circulate at all,and the government was compelled in 1890 to discontinue its coinage altogether. Indeed, there has been less than 20,000,000 gold dollars coined in this country from the foundation of the mints to the present time, and there are easily a hundred men in this town who would not sell their property for all the gold dollars that have been coined in the last ten years. The gold dollar is simply an abomination and people won't have it. —Memphis Commercial-Appeal.