People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1896 — What Demonetization Was. [ARTICLE]

What Demonetization Was.

Demonetization is the act of taking the legal tender quality away from that which has been money. That is exactly what congress did .in 1873 when it passed a law whjeh said that the Of the country should b® » legal tender for all sums NOT FIVE DOLLERSIN ANY PAYMENT. It did not exempt the coins already in circulation, but included all that had been struck and all that might be struck in the future. Those few words demonetized silver, and the effect was to exclude silver frsm all large transactions. If a man'owed a hundred dollars at the bank he could not pay it when it was due in silver. That is what demonetization means, and though our.rOpublican friends tell us that silver has been remonetized, we would call your attention of the fact that yofi can’t pay your note at the bank now ih silver if It happens to be payable in gold. The silver dollar is still demonetized, and the law that demonetized silver also demonetized treasury notes, by legalizing contracts to pay in some specific kind of money, thus making the gold clause in your note at the bank binding on you though you got no gold for your note when given. It should be made unconstitutional that any contract could dishonor or discriminate against any of the monies of the country. It is not denied that silver was demonetized iu 1873 and all the silver advocates now ask is to have it placed back just >as it was then. They do not propose to make the silver dollar larger or smaller than it is now. In 1873 the' law that demonetized silver also left dollar out of the list of coins that should in the future be coined. This action cut off the silver miner and he could no longer take his bullion to the mint ard have it made into dollars. The great silver, movement is simp’ly to repeal the law of 1873 and adopt the old law* wh’c'i with slight change, governed the coinage of gold and silver for 81 years. The gold minnercan now take his bullian to the mints and it will be melted up and stamped into money, The silver miners desire only fair treatment when they ask for the same privilege. No new venture is proposed, and inasmuch as the whole producing people will be benefited, it is a good guess that they will vote to adopt it.