Free silver movement

“ Hardy, adventurous, and skillful miners from the United States, and capitalists from all countries, have ransacked the world in vain for new fields of gold. Why, then, with the knowledge of those facts before us, should we discard from the full money use and function the only metal that gives to the world any prospect of relief from the money famine from which civilization is now suffering and from which, if silver be not speedily restored to its ancient use and function, the world is destined to suffer much more? ”

“ The best authorities agree that there is not enough free silver in the world to even fill the place of our gold, which, you say, would be expelled. And right here is where the advocates of the gold standard contradict every well-established principle of political economy, and every lesson of experience, by declaring that the transfer of all our gold to Europe would not cheapen it there, and that free coinage would not increase the value of silver. ”

“ If I can show that for a period of seventeen years, since its demonetization in 1873, silver has lost none of its purchasing power, none of its command over commodities; that is to say, if I can show that 4121⁄2 grains of silver to-day, uncoined, and shorn by hostile legislation of its principal element of value—the money use—will buy as much as would 4121⁄2 grains of silver in 1873 (when our silver dollar bore a premium over gold) of all the articles that enter into the daily consumption of the people, it must be manifest that silver has not fallen in value. ”

“ It is true that the purchase of silver, under recent laws, involved a heavy loss to the government, but the free coinage of silver, under the ratio of sixteen to one, would exclude gold from our currency, detach the United States from the monetary standard of all the chief commercial nations of the world, and change all existing contracts between individuals and with the government. ”

“ Why, there is not a sane person in the United States or anywhere else who would to-day give one ounce of gold for sixteen ounces of silver, knowing that he can get more than thirty-one ounces of silver for one ounce of gold. What, then, would free silver coinage mean if suddenly introduced to-day? It would mean that any one, American or foreigner, could at pleasure expand our silver currency and thereby increase our public obligation by taking to our mints silver bullion worth about 50 cents and getting back a silver dollar worth about twice as much in its debt-paying power. ”

“ And to pay this vast amount of interest in gold, as these capitalists insist upon, and are trying to compel the people to do by using every means in their power to prevent the free and unlimited coinage of silver, will, in the near future, reduce the producing classes to the condition of serfs. ”

“ We draw on the future, and in no long time it honors our drafts. Nevertheless, in the twenty-three years since silver was demonetized we have had two grand panics, several minor currency panics, hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies with liabilities of billions, and five labor wars in which 900 persons were killed and $230,000,000 worth of property destroyed. Could a silver basis do worse?
You admit, then, that the immediate adoption of free coinage would, for a while at least, drive gold abroad? ”

“ Is it desirable that we should have more money? Does the maintenance of the gold standard involve injustice or hardship to debtors, or to any class in the community? Does it have any ill effects in hampering industry or checking the advance of production? Is the free coinage of silver, or any measure leading ultimately to a silver basis, fairly open to the objections commonly urged against it on the grounds of dishonesty and injustice?... ”

“ If that could be done by a nation with a population of 25,000,000 to 35,000,000, what difficulty could be experienced by a nation of 65,000,000 in accomplishing the same result? Yet we are told that international agreement is necessary to restore silver to its ancient right as a full-money metal. Those who suggest such an agreement forget that while this nation is a borrower of money, the first and principal nation to demonetize silver is the greatest money lender known to history. ”

“ Gold will instantly disappear from circulation to be hoarded or exported. Why will it disappear? Because every sensible person when making a payment will prefer to make it in the less valuable silver dollar and hold the more valuable gold dollar back for more profitable use. Gold will, therefore, quickly rise to a premium, and we shall be on the silver basis long before a free-coinage law can be enacted. What does it mean to be on the silver basis? ”

“ In order to justify their position it becomes necessary for the advocates of continued demonetization of silver to insist that the fall of prices is not due to the rise in the value of gold but to improved methods of production. ”

“ President, the single gold standard is an expensive luxury for our people to maintain.
Those who deride silver as a money-metal indulge in feeble attempts at sarcasm by inquiring why we do not advocate the use of tin and brass as money. They speak and write as though the idea of using silver as money were a recent discovery or invention of people engaged in silver mining. They also ignore the fact that the standard silver dollar of the United States, which, with much satisfaction, they stigmatize as a 72-cent dollar, requires a gold dollar to obtain it. ”

“ We hear it said by the Republicans that free silver would drive gold out of the country; our Democratic friends tell us that free silver will not drive gold out of the country. So we see on that point people seem to differ in opinion. For my part I believe that free silver either will drive the gold out or else it will not. I want to ask the Republicans to acknowledge for the sake of argument that silver would not drive the gold out. ”

“ We declare our steadfast opposition to the free and unlimited coinage of silver. No measure to that end could be considered which was without the support of the leading commercial countries of the world. ”

“ The converse is equally true: if it is good policy to construct more railroads, build more steamships, organize more banks and clearing-houses, and make exchanges cheaper, quicker, and easier, then it is good policy to coin more gold and silver. All of these instruments of exchange stand upon the same footing; and there can be no more wisdom in fixing a limit to the money of the world than there can be in prescribing a limit to the employment of its labor, the movement of its products, or the multiplication of its vehicles of exchange. ”

“ If gold, so important a factor in our medium of exchange both at home and abroad, should retire before silver—the cheaper money (and the light of experience surely proves that it would) can any one doubt that we would at once go on to a silver basis? Can any one doubt that the $625,300,000 of silver now used as money in this country would not instantly be cut in two so far as its purchasing power is concerned—that is, shrink from 100 cents, its face or nominal value, to 52 cents, its bullion value? ”

“ But so much more is this true of gold than of silver, that the dependence of modern commerce, and, through it, modern civilization, upon it is almost absolute. If, therefore, free coinage at a ratio unfair to gold were attempted, gold would cease to be offered at the mints, but it would nevertheless continue in use in final settlements, especially in transactions of some magnitude, thus preventing its decline in value. ”

“ The demonetization of silver became a crime, and justice from the Western standpoint demanded the restoration of the dollar to its old value,—the value of its silver. Before 1893 the [Pg 226] discontent was serious, but had not come to be the primary interest of the West. Men were not yet willing to leave their parties for the sake of silver. The panic drove them to the final step.
Through the campaign of 1892 the major parties had dodged the issue of free silver by adopting evasive planks, while the general ignorance respecting the laws of money prevented the evasion from being seen. ”

“ Whether the half billion dollars of new currency, which came into circulation with the Bland and Sherman Acts, are of silver, overvalued to the extent of 50 per cent, or of paper, overvalued to the extent of 100 per cent, does not really affect the principle of the limping standard which keeps silver dollars at par with gold. The idle silver in the treasury vaults represents mere waste, a subsidy given by the government to encourage silver mining. ”

“ Of course, the successful demonetization of gold would have brought about an enormous appreciation of the value of silver, since it would have thrown the whole burden of maintaining the business of the world upon one metal, and equally, of course, we should have had the same attacks upon the owners of gold mines that we now have upon the owners of silver mines. ”

“ It will seem to subsequent ages the height of folly that just at this period, when gold was running short, the chief states of the world decided to close their mints against silver, and cut off, so to speak, one-half the money supply of the world from performing its proper functions. ”

“ I believe that the world is not in a condition, and never will be, for the demonetization of one-third of its metallic money; that both gold and silver are absolutely necessary for a circulating medium; and that neither can be disused without materially increasing the burden of debt, nor even temporarily degraded by artificial means without injurious effect upon home and international trade. But I also believe that gold and silver can only be made to maintain their comparative value by the joint action of commercial nations. ”

“ Then, too, Demand, that is, effective public opinion, does not hold to silver as it does to gold for a standard of Values. The action of England in 1816, of the United States in 1853, of Germany in 1871, of Scandinavia in 1874, and of the Latin Union in 1876, in legally making gold the sole standard of Services and silver subsidiary to that, of course affected more or less the Demand for silver as Money, and thus varied its value. ”

“ To place business upon a silver basis would mean a sudden and severe contraction of the currency by the withdrawal of gold and gold notes and such an unsettling of all values as would produce a commercial panic. I can not believe that a people so strong and prosperous as ours will promote such a policy.
The producers of silver are entitled to just consideration, but they should not forget that the Government is now buying and putting out of the market what is the equivalent of the entire product of our silver mines. ”

“ It is the universal law of political economy that, whenever two metals or two moneys are in circulation, the least valuable will drive out the most valuable; the latter will be exported.
"The third proposition is that the example of several great European nations, as well as of the United States, proves that to prevent the depreciation of silver the tendency of modern nations is to issue it as a token coinage somewhat less in intrinsic value than gold, and maintain its value by issuing it only as needed, at par with the prevailing currency, and to make it a limited legal tender. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The plain truth of the matter is that the time has come for both gold and silver to increase in purchasing power; but by reason of demonetization almost the entire increase has been concentrated in gold, leaving silver almost stationary as to commodities in general, but somewhat enhanced as to farm products. In the name of common, honesty, is it not a high-handed outrage to make the old debts of that period payable in the rapidly appreciating metal, instead of one that has merely retained its value? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still another vague impression has been produced upon the popular mind, that the old silver dollar of the fathers is a sure medicine for all economic ailments, and our Democratic friends are loudly demanding “the removal of all restrictions to the coinage of silver and the reëstablishment of silver as a money metal—the same as gold, the same as it was before its demonetization.” Upon this point I shall permit myself only a very few remarks. Every sensible man will be in favor of silver coin as a part of our monetary system. ”

“ Not only is there now no joint action taken by these nations to place and keep silver on an equality with gold, according to existing standards, but it has been by the treatment it has received from European nations greatly lessened in commercial value. ”