People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1896 — Grant's Letter. [ARTICLE]

Grant's Letter.

Reference to page 208, Congressional Record, Dec. 14, 1877, will show plainly enough that on Oct. 6, 1873, Grant was unaware of the fact that silver was no longer primary money. He did not know the act he had himself signed had demonetized silver. Under that date he wrote a letter to Mr. Cowdrey, in which he said: “I wonder that silver is not already coming into the market to supply the deficiency in the circulating medium. Experience has proved that it takes about $40,000,000 of fractional currency to make the small change necessary for the transaction of the business of the country. Silver will gradually take the place of this currency, and, further, will become the standard of values, which will be hoarded in a small way. I estimate that this will consume from $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 in time of this species of our circulating medium. I confess a desire to see a limited hoarding of money. But I want to see a hoarding of it in something that is a standard of values the world over. Silver is this. Our mines are now producing almost unlimited amounts of silver, and it is becoming a question, “What shall we do with it?” I here suggest a solution which will answer for some years to put it in circulation, keeping it there until it is fixed, and then we will find other markets. ”