Roger Q. Mills

“ When prices are low, it is because there is little demand for the products of labor, and the decreased demand is the result of the want of money with which to purchase and pay. Those who have money hoarded will not buy to sell again in a falling market. If the things cannot be sold, then production will be limited or stopped altogether. This throws labor out of employment, not only in production, but in transportation. The millions who live by labor can buy but little because they have little with which to pay. The car of progress slows up and the hum of industry grows faint. ”

“ We must not only keep our present mileage of railroads and telegraphs, but build more; not only keep all our present vehicles of transportation, but increase them. As our population increases and its labor multiplies its products for exchange, all the means for effecting that exchange must keep pace with the national growth; and it is just as essential to the national prosperity that our circulation should increase as it is that railroads, telegraphs, steamships, and wagons should. ”

“ Money is a more subtle and potent factor in exchange than either of the others. Without it the value of each commodity to be exchanged would have to be measured by another commodity, and the adjustment would have to be made between new parties every time the article changed hands. Money, therefore, levels a vast field of obstructions over which commerce is to move, and, having done that, it enters the list with other agencies and powerfully aids in carrying and distributing throughout the world the products of labor, and delivering to each one at his own door the things that his wants demand. ”

“ Only for such things as can be produced cheaper in other countries than here, or such things as cannot be produced here at all, or if at all, not in sufficient quantities to supply the demand—such as coffee, tea, sugar, and some other products of manufacture. But for these we export cotton, breadstuffs, and provisions, which are cheaper than gold, and which must go to foreign markets or be a total loss to the producers. Gold, by an inexorable law, has remained here with the limited, and by the same law it will remain with the unlimited, coinage of silver. ”

“ This is the supply with which we are threatened if we open our mints to unlimited coinage. This large stock of silver, when it passes the boundary of its own country, ceases to be money and becomes a commodity. It ceases to carry with it the value given to it by law, and only retains the value given to it by commerce. It is worth to-day seventy-two cents in the dollar in the open markets of the world, while it is worth at home more than one hundred cents to the dollar. ”

“ The things that satisfy human want must be procured by labor, and transported from producer to consumer by the vehicles of exchange. Labor without exchange is insufficient, because no one can satisfy all his own wants by his own labor. He must have the means of reaching his fellow-laborers and exchanging services with them. He must have railroads, steamships, steamboats, wagons, drays, merchants, bankers, bills of exchange, gold, and silver. ”

“ Since 1878 we have had a limited coinage of silver of two millions per month, from which we have now in the country $426,000,000. During the last thirty-seven years we have taken from our mints more than $800,000,000, the greater part of which had to be exported to foreign countries, instead of being thrown into the volume of our home circulation. Why should we not have had the whole product of our mines added to our stock? Why should we not begin now, and open our mints to the silver of the world? ”

“ Gold remains here because it has a higher commercial value than it has elsewhere, and our coined silver remains here because it has a legal value higher than the commercial value in the open market elsewhere, and because the mints which give it higher commercial value are closed against it.
If our gold leaves the country, it is important to understand what we are to receive in exchange for it. We have seen that it is impossible to obtain the silver of the world, except the raw material, and of that we are the largest exporters at present ”

“ Gold is adapted to large transactions; silver to small. When values are to be exchanged which amount to thousands and millions, told is the convenient money; but for the tens of thousands of small transactions that are daily occurring outside the banking circle silver is the convenient coin. In the growth of our civilization and business, we have found that convenience has forced ns to adopt the paper dollar, as well as the metal dollar, and even in the fractional money it is a mooted question if it was not a step backward when we dispensed with the paper half- and quarter-dollar. ”

“ If it is wise statesmanship to decrease the volume of money, it is equally wise to decrease the railroads, steamships, and all other agencies of commercial exchange. If it is wise to stop the coinage of silver, it is wise to stop building railroads, organizing banks, and issuing bills of exchange. ”

“ If sixty thousand millions be taken as the public and private debts of the world, the annual interest at 5 per cent. would require the sum of three thousand millions, and to pay it would require the labor of ten millions of men working 300 days in each year at one dollar per day. The burden of the principal of the debt is made to rest more lightly upon the country when prices are high and money is cheap. It requires less labor and property to pay at high, and more at low, prices. ”

“ A very large part of the fourteen hundred millions outside the Treasury never enters the markets, and exerts no influence on the prices of articles seeking exchange. If the amount of actual circulation is small compared with the business to be done, prices will be low; if the condition is reversed, they will be high.
Before we decide that our circulation shall be increased by adding silver to the present volume, we must determine whether it will promote the general prosperity to have high prices. Some persons are easily alarmed by the danger of inflation ”

“ There can hardly be a surer test of the civilization of a people than that which is shown in their facilities and conveniences for transacting their daily business. In that respect we are ahead of all others, not only in the amount of trade carried on among ourselves, but in the means which we have created for its easy and expeditious movement. ”

“ The miner would be glad to exchange his coal for corn, and the farmer his corn for coal; but the low prices of the products make it impossible to overcome the obstructions in the way of exchange. If it were in the power of the government or of the man to restrict the wants of the body for food, clothing, and shelter, then we might accommodate ourselves to the restricted condition of the circulation without enduring the privations and sufferings which it entails ”

“ When prices are so low that products cannot pay the cost of transportation to the consumer and be sold for enough to pay the cost of expenses, then a farmer in Kansas may freeze for want of coal to burn, and at the same time a miner in Pennsylvania may starve for want of bread to eat. ”

“ If from want of sufficient employment we are not able to obtain a sufficient amount of the necessaries of life to make us comfortable, but only enough for a meagre subsistence, then we may continue to exist, but it will be an existence in daily contact and companionship with hunger and want. ”

“ High prices are a centrifugal force that throws out and distributes the wealth of the country among the laborers who produce it. Low prices are a centripetal force that concentrates the wealth of the country in the coffers of the large capitalists who live on bonds and stocks and fixed incomes. ”

“ The demand for its consumption in the arts and for limited coinage does not keep pace with its production, and it is still declining when it is measured by gold. Whether it is keeping pace in its decline with other commodities, or is decreasing faster, is a mooted question. ”

“ As there is no prospect that we shall at any time in the near future have the aid of any of the European powers to accomplish this beneficent reform, it becomes necessary for us to examine the subject closely and ascertain if we cannot, without their coöperation, put the silver of the world into its monetary circulation. The mints of the commercial world being practically closed against silver and the annual output still being large, its price is greatly reduced below the standard of 1870, when it began to decline. ”

“ High prices build more railroads, erect and operate more factories, establish more banking-houses, build more hotels, move and sell more goods, feed more months, and clothe more backs. High prices make it easier to pay taxes to national, State, and local governments; for the demands of government are for so many dollars for annual support, and if increased prices bring excess of revenue, the tax-rate will be reduced. High prices lessen the burden of debt, and make easier the payment of principal and interest ”

“ Where, then, are we to get the large importation of silver with which we are threatened? There is a considerable stock in the arts. Its amount cannot even be approximated; but it is far more valuable than the coined silver, and it would be a still greater loss to melt it down and send it to us to be coined into dollars. ”

“ A vast volume of the business of the world is done on credit. The national debts exceed thirty thousand millions of dollars. No one can tell the amount of private debts, but it must be much in excess of that sum, large as it is. ”

“ It is the fineness of the rix dollar of the Netherlands, of the five-peseta piece of Spain, of the pesos of the Central American states, of the Argentine Republic, of Bolivia, of Ecuador, of Peru, and of Venezuela. To do this and retain the ratio of 15.50 to 1, we must decrease the fine gold in our dollar to 22.43 grains and the standard weight to 24.90. Having done this, if all the mints were opened in all these countries, there would be no disturbance of our monetary circulation. Our silver would be worth no more in Europe than it is at home, and our gold would be worth no less. ”

“ As we cannot induce the commercial people of Europe to join us in establishing a uniform relation, we can, at least, conform to that already established by the chief silver-using countries of Europe. These countries have adopted the relation of 15.50 to 1, and by changing ours from 15.98 to 15.50 we can prevent the exodus of our silver in case the mints of the Latin Union should be reopened, which may be done in the future. ”

“ After thousands of years they still retain their places without a challenge. Some nations have one for their standard; some have the other; but both are used in every country on the globe where civilization has a seat. ”