People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1894 — SILVER DOLLARS. [ARTICLE]

SILVER DOLLARS.

TreMury Officials in New York Are Glad to Take Them. The deputy sub-treasurer at New York has discovered not only that silver dollars are money, but that they are in demand at this time. The steady revival of business has created a demand for small bills. This is manifested in all parts of the country. In addition to the natural contraction of our currency, a large portion of it is in the form of bills of very large denominations —8100 and over —which, of course, do not enter into the circulation to any great extent. The policy of the treasury has been to furnish small bills in exchange for gold only. This was to enable the treasury to perform what has apparently been its principal function, namely, to furnish gold to the agents of the foreign bankers. But the banks at home have at last compelled at least a temporary recognition of the right of the American people to some benefit from the “uniform currency” provided by congress as required by the constitution. They clamored for an exchange of large greenbacks for small ones until they obtained it. Says the deputy subtreasurer at New York, in an interview with the New York Herald: “We have paid out from the subtreasury during the last four days small notes aggregating 81,058,000 in exchange for those of large denomination. That is a greater sum than has been exchanged during the entire preceding month.” It seems incredible that there shonld be a rule in the treasury department preventing the exchange of large bills for small ones for the accommodation of our people, and providing that small bills shall be exchanged only for gold, when it is notorious that there is no home demand for gold coin. The deputy sub-treasurer continues: “The demand was so tremendous that some banks were even glad to take silver dollars, so you may form some idea of its extent.”

What sort of language is this to be applied by a treasury understrapper to the coin of the United States, which the law declares to be a full legal tender for all debts, both public and private? Objectionable, however, as is the form of his expression, he is an unwilling witness to the truth that the bankers are glad enough to get silver dollars for use among their customers. Whenever the treasury pays out silver dollars, instead of silver certificates representing the dollars, there is always an unpleasant suspicion that it is done to inconvenience the public and make silver dollars unpopular. Gold coin is much scarcer among the people than is silver coin. It would be absolutely impossible for the government to keep anj’ considerable amount of gold coin in circulation, because the people do not like the weight of it. The treasury official above referred to concludes his interview in the following words: “We cannot give one and two-dollar bills to anj r great extent, because they cannot be printed fast enough, and never has there been a sufficient quantity of them. But we hope to catch up with the demand before long.” Why has there never been a sufficient quantity of small bills? Why has the treasury department denied the people the benefit of even the contracted currency volume? Greenbacks might as well be retired as to be pointed in denominations of from one to ten thousand dollars. It will be well for congress to inquire into this subject, and see to what extent our limited volume of currency is still further contracted by the methods of the treasury department. Referring to the silver dollar, the administration is showing some signs of grace by slowly coining the bullion in the treasury, and by substiiuting silver certificates for the Sherman coin notes which have hitherto been improperly treated as gold obligations. Every dollar of bullion in the treasury should be coined. Fifty-five millions of the dollars so coined will belong to the government. The remainder will be held for the redemption of silver certificates substituted for Sherman coin notes. This will put an end to the infamous suggestions made in some quarters that the silver bullion for which w r e have issued Sherman notes is only so much “pig metal,” to be sold on the market.. It will also silence the convulsive laughter of the witty fellows who told us that the coining of fifty-five millions of seigniorage would be “coining a vacuum.” Mr. Carlisle’s course is smply obedience to the law of the land, and, though very tardy, we hail it as evidence that the president has at last felt impelled to yield to the public demand for the execution of the existing silver coinage laws. As the coinage proceeds but slowly with the present mintage capacity, appropriations will be in order at the next session of congress for the erection of new mints.—Cincinnati Enquirer.