People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1896 — THE ADOPTION OF BIMETALLISM. [ARTICLE]

THE ADOPTION OF BIMETALLISM.

A Few Historical Facts Which Are Particularly Interesting Just Now. Bimetallism and the free coinage of silver was thoroughly discussed before it was embodied in the coinage laws of the country. As early as 1782 Robert Morris made proposals for the establishment of a mint, which proposals were approved by congress. The question as to whether gold or silver, or both gold and silver, should be adopted as the money of the country was thoroughly discussed by Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and other great men of that time. In 1785 the grand committee of tho continental congress made a report' on this subject, in which it said: In France a grain of pure gold is counted worth 15 grains of silver. In Spain 10 grains of silver are exchanged for one of gold, and in England 15 1-5. In both tho kingdoms lost mentioned gold is the prevailing money, because silver is undervalued. In France silver prevails. Sundry advantages would arise to us from a system by which silver might become the prevailing money. This would operate as a bounty to draw it from our neighbors, by whom it is not sufficiently esteemed. Silver is not exported so easily as gold, and it is a more useful metal. The discussion finally culminated in the adoption of a double standard, principally through the exertions of Alexander Hamilton. His and those of Robert Morris and Thomas Jefferson were embodied in the act of April 2, 1792, establishing a mint and regulating the coin of tho United States, the fourteenth section of which says: And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for any person or persons to bring to the said mint gold and silver bullion in order to their being coined, and that the bullion so brought shall there bo assayed and coined as speedily as may be after the receipt thereof, and that free of expense to the person or persons by whom the same ahall have been brought. Under this law gold and silver were coined at the ratio of 15 to 1. There was no change in this law until 1884, when the ratio of 16 to 1 (the present ratioj was. established. In 1853 the weight of silver pieces of less than a dollar was decreased 8% per cent, and their legal tender power was limited to $5. Previously fractional silver currency had been an unlimited legal tender. No change whatever was made in all these years looking to the demonetization of either gold or silver. Both were coined free and in unlimited quantities at the mints. Tho national conventions did not discuss the subject at all. Free silver and free gold wore embodied in the statutes of the country, and there was no desire to demonetize either. There was no more necessity for a national Democratic convention to take a position respecting the free coinage of silver than there was for it to make a declaration in respect of the law of gravitation. Ono was as much a fixed law in the opinions of the politicians and statesmen of those days as the other.— New Orleans Times-Democrat