Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1898 — REFUSE SILVER DOLLARS. [ARTICLE]

REFUSE SILVER DOLLARS.

Santiago Shopkeepers Would Accept Them Only at Their Bullion Value. Some of the government officials at Washington are displeased at the conduct 5 of some Santiago shopkeepers who refuse to accept American silver dollars when tendered them by the soldiers for more than their bullion value, which is now about 45 cents. Possibly those shopkeepers are not deserving of censure. They may be rather ignorant men who have handled no American silver dollars, but have handled a good many Mexican dollars, which they know are worth less than half their face in gold. Of late the Cuban-Spanish silver money has been below par and the Santiago shopkeepers may have a distrust of all silver. They will get over that distrust, however, as far as American silver is concerned, when they learn that it is worth its face and that it is always good at its face value in the payment of debts due to American merchants, from whom they buy goods. It will not be necessary for the military authorities to compel the shopkeepers to take silver dollars at their face value. It will be suffiecient to explain the difference between the American and Mexican silver dollars —that the former are kept at gold par and the latter are not. Mexican merchants have long known the difference. Then the soldiers will get 100 cents'worth of goods in exchange for their silver coins. It is a pity that Orator Bryan is not at Santiago. If he were, s'nce he professes to be an expert in silver, Gen. Shatter might detail him to expound to the petty dealers in Santiago the superior merits of the American silver dollar. This would not be an agreeable duty, for Bryan has been laboring hard for some time to break down the silver dollar of the United States, so that it would buy no more than the Mexican dollar. Bryan has a great affection for the latter coin, in spite of or because of its defects, but if his miltary superior were to order him to run down the Mexican dollar andi praise the American one, of course he would have to do it, and to explain to the shopkeepers that the American dollar was the better of the two by more than 100 per cent, because it was not a free coinage dollar It is a pity also that those deluded free silverites who are in Bryan’s regiment or in some of the southern regiments are not at Santiago to see how the first, impulse of tradesmen is to assign to silver its bullion value. They know they are safe from loss if they take silver money on that basis. They accept American gold without demur. They know a $lO piece is sure to be worth its face. They have a wholesome distrust of silver. In order to find how much it is worth (hey put it on the scales. The scurvy treatment of American silver dollars by the! Santiago shopkeepers is due to their ignorance, but if this country were to adopt free coinage its silver dollars would have no greater purchasing power abroad or at home than Is accorded them at Santiago.—Chicago Tribune.