“If you will show me a system which gives absolute permanence, I will take it in preference to any other. But of all conceivable systems of currency, that system is assuredly the worst which gives you a standard steadily, continuously, indefinitely appreciating, and which, by that very fact, throws a burden upon every man of enterprise, upon every man who desires to promote the agricultural or the industrial resources of the country, and benefits no human being whatever but the owner of fixed de

Return to Table of Contents Silver is too bulky for use in large sums. That objection is obsolete. We do not now carry coin; we carry its paper representatives, those issued by government being absolutely secured. This combines all the advantage of coin, bank paper, and the proposed fiat money. A silver certificate for $500 weighs less than a gold dollar. In that denomination the Jay Gould estate could be carried by one man. But silver certificates would not remain at par. At par with what? Ever

Return to Table of Contents Gold has an intrinsic value, says the monometallist, which makes it the money of the world. It is sound and stable, while silver fluctuates. See how much more silver an ounce of gold will buy than in 1873, but the gold dollar remains the same, worth its face as bullion anywhere in the world. But suppose there had been a general demonetization of gold instead of silver, how would the ratio have stood then? Would not the same reasoning prove silver unchangeable, and gol

Return to Table of Contents Among the many plausible pleas of the monometallists, the most plausible, perhaps, is the plea that the great divergence between the metals since 1873 has been due entirely to the increased production of silver. A very brief examination, I think, will show its falsity, and that it is equally false in fact and fallacious in logic; for, first, there has been no great “depreciation” in silver, that metal having almost the same power to command commodities, excepting gold

Return to Table of Contents Can this great nation coin silver and gold on the same terms, at the ratio of 16 to 1, and maintain a substantial parity? This question, like all others in political economy, may he argued theoretically or on the basis of actual experience. The monometallists say that one metal or the other always has been and always will be the cheaper at any ratio; that if both be freely coined, the dearer will be more valuable as bullion than as money, and will therefore go out of

Return to Table of Contents Many monometallists start with the assumption that what they call the “silver craze” is a mere fad, temporary and local; that the advocates of bimetallism are confined chiefly to the United States, and to the western part of it, and that, if they are thoroughly defeated at the November election, the discussion will be at an end. “Mistaken souls that dream of heaven.” They do not realize that, although it has not taken the same popular form, the discussion is quite as

Return to Table of Contents All the world will dump its silver on us if we adopt free coinage, says the monometallist. How much, and where will it come from? asks the bimetallist. Oh, the world has billions of it ready for us, is the vague general reply; but when we ask for a bill of particulars we get instead a fine confusion of prophecy. One answers that it will come from Spanish America. But we have already shown that all nations from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn have but $100,000,000 for thei

Return to Table of Contents Among the many errors which distort men’s opinions on the so-called “silver question” is the belief that the gold supply of the present and near future need be considered merely as it may affect Europe and America. Asia and Africa are in most men’s minds entirely excluded from the calculations. The popular belief in the United States may be briefly stated thus: Asia is and is long to be the land of stagnation. Asiatics are unprogressive and will remain so. In contact