SILVER IN NEW YORK. 
 
 A Mass Meeting in Cooper Union, October 27, 1890. 
 
 ADDRESS BY GEN. A. J. WARNER. 
 
 LETTERS FROM HON. EDWARDS PIERREPONT 
 AND JOHN THOMPSON. PAPER READ BY 
 E. D. STARK, OF OHIO. 
 
 FREE COINAGE AND PROSPERITY. 
 
 : 103 Fifth Avenue, October 23, 1890. 
 
 To the Grand Mass Meeting, Cooper Union'. 
 
 \ I have been disabled and confined to my room for the last year. 
 . I cannot join your meeting. The unconstitutional, fraudulent bill 
 ' of 1873, devised with much art to deceive and rob the people, has 
 ; left some dying embers, which a few enemies are trying to blow into 
 flame, which the people will surely soon stamp out. When free 
 j[ coinage is given alike to gold and silver, we shall have prosperous 
 i times, and not till then. I rejoice that General Warner, of Ohio, who 
 \ understands this subject, will speak with authority, experience and 
 ^ wisdom. Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 r EDWARDS PIERREPONT. 
 
 JOHN THOMPSON’S LETTER. 
 
 \ Monday, October 27, 1890. 
 
 To the Silver Meeting at Cooper Union. 
 
 I Gentlemen ; Currency is the life-blood of a nation. An abund- 
 ^ .ance of it is as necessary as an abundance of food. The late Thurlow 
 j Weed said that he always had strong intuitions that the leading 
 [: journals had been misleading the people about silver. I have these 
 [ intuitions and also a knowledge that this is so. One of the most 
 
2 
 
 potent admissions in Secretary Windom’s report on his plan is this: 
 " It is freely admitted that the predictions of our wisest financiers as 
 to where the safe limit of silver coinage would be reached have not 
 been fulfilled.” 
 
 Few realize that while we are on a gold standard we are liable to 
 a panic at any time for several reasons. Since 1873 international 
 credits have been based on gold. Before that a debtor in any coun¬ 
 try had practically the option of paying in gold or silver, at a ratio 
 that had long been fixed. All the mints of the world but that of 
 England were open to both metals, and the price of silver, in terms 
 of gold, was quite constant. In fact, it has been a wonder to many 
 that it has been so constant since then in silver-using countries like 
 France. This is the explanation : In France the debtor has always 
 the choice of the metal which happens to be most easily procurable,, 
 and this power of choice creating a demand counteracts the incipient 
 fluctuation. Thus the law of supply and demand, working on 
 gold and silver as commodities, automatically counterbalances any 
 excessive tendency to use one metal in preference to the other. 
 
 But we have dangers that France knows not of, for there business is 
 mostly done with money, while here, as in England, it is mostly done 
 with notes and checks. Our banks, with their 20 per cent, of money 
 to liabilities, should not have much to say about “ 72-cent dollars.” 
 
 In any big financial flurry here, silver and silver certificates will be 
 the only thoroughly available currency. Why? Because gold is 
 our bull’s-eye. Greenbacks are convertible into it. Gold can be 
 got for National-bank notes at Washington. Deposits in banks, 
 trust companies, and savings banks are payable in gold or money 
 convertible into gold. The last two add much to the danger by the 
 fact that though mostly agreeing to pay deposits without notice, 
 they are not forced to keep reserves, relying on the commercial 
 banks. The humming top with the gold peg goes nicely until 
 trouble comes. Then it flops over quick enough. You may be sure 
 that in a panic where gold goes to a premium over all else, green¬ 
 backs and National-bank notes will flee away and only despised ' 
 silver remain. The only way to get much gold for silver certificates, 
 is to induce importers to pay duties with them—a slow process. 
 
 And how much silver have we ? The Treasury statement of last 
 November gives $1,066,000,000 of gold coin, gold certificates 
 greenbacks, and National-banknotes, against $342,000,000 of silve/ 
 We have not even the recourse that England has. Ever since 
 1696 she has had exchequer notes, a sort of greenback issued in time 
 of trouble. I have proposed such a remedy in a resolution sent to 
 Congress to give the Secretary of the Treasury the right to issue as 
 high as $100,000,000 at any time on any Government bonds—the 
 issue to be recalled after the emergency. Our wiser rulers don’t see 
 It. Meanwhile the need of money is great. Our producers are get¬ 
 ting half what they should, because their products are measured in • 
 terms of gold. Those who expect a great return of currency from 
 
3 
 
 the West and South this year will be mistaken. Those regions are 
 getting a little out of debt, and will keep much of the money. It is 
 a scandalous subterfuge to say that free coinage of silver is demanded 
 in behalf of miners. The whole country cries out for it. The cur¬ 
 rency is steadily decreasing, while the demand for it increases. 
 
 But there is a lion in the way—the British lion—who has many 
 whelps in this land. Thousands of years ago Alexander drew the 
 money metals from Egypt and Western Asia. The iron hand of 
 Rome drew them still more thoroughly into Southern Europe, 
 But the outside nations had revenge. Italians, taxed to despair, 
 largely ceased production. The Empire relied on Northern Africa 
 and other untaxed lands for food. Thither went the coin money. 
 Rome was poor again. Depopulation and poverty spread from Italy 
 to Sicily, to hither and further Gaul, to Asia and to Africa, long 
 before a barbarian crossed the Alps. 
 
 Let England, the robber nation of to-day—the bunco-steerer— 
 beware how she allows her gold bugs to further destroy her home in¬ 
 dustries, which starved out, are coming here and going to India and 
 elsewhere. She has been playing very sharp with her two-edged 
 sword of cheap silver—whacking India, America and all silver-using 
 countries. Already in India she is “hoist with her own petard.” 
 The premium on European exchange has acted as a protective tariff 
 against all European merchandise. A wonderful cotton manufacture 
 is growing up there, and trade with all silver countries. 
 
 Gold basis for a time, though making business a lottery, helped 
 England as a whole. Now, none but money-lenders and people of 
 fixed incomes are benefited by it. Edwards Pierrepont said, in the 
 North American Review, that the report of the royal commission on 
 the money question read as if it was made out by retired ex-chancel- 
 lors, thinking only of maintaining the purchasing power of their gold 
 pensions. Holland once ruled the seas; but she became a nation 
 of usurers and their dependents, and who cares for her except to 
 cheat her at her own games ? 
 
 The smart alecks of statesmen think that to go on a gold basis is 
 to insure such success as England’s. But she was ahead of all the 
 nations long before i8i6, when she became a gold bug. Fool Ger¬ 
 many tried the trick and got left, and some say that the reason why 
 silver has fallen so many points is that fool Hungary is to try it and 
 will dump her silver here. Netherlands’ Java tried it and lost the 
 trade of 600,000,000 silver Asiatics. 
 
 But the new silver shoe begins to pinch the British lion’s gouty 
 toes worse than the McKinley bill, and he is fighting mad. He has 
 made us take India prices for wheat and cotton, but just after we got 
 the silver bill our silver went up 14 cents per ounce and wheat 16 
 cents a bushel, and cotton rose, with a prospect of rising 5io a bale. 
 At last we have found a way to protect our agriculture. So the 
 raging lion set our “ best financiers ” to a Chinese beating of gongs, 
 smashed a few weak silver syndicates, and managed in various ways 
 
4 
 
 to bear silver. But though we have no wings, “we’ll get there all 
 the same.” The world’s monopolists have thrown down the gaunt¬ 
 let of war and defiance, and now we are fully ready for free coinage. 
 If we don’t get it this winter I think that many Republican Congress¬ 
 men will be furnished with feather overcoats that won’t blow off, 
 when they reach home. Britannia will no longer rule the wave and 
 the Bourse. The clearing-house of the world is to be in New York. 
 The best thing we can do' now is to side with “all America ” in tell¬ 
 ing Europe to keep on her own side of the dish. 
 
 A new factor is the absorption of gold by India. Asia is still 
 “ the sink of the precious metals.” The slow Hindoos, seeing silver 
 undervalued in the bazaars, are vociferous for gold for ornaments. 
 Sir Hector Hay says that in twenty-one years India has taken 
 $1,250,000,000 of gold—70 per cent, of the new product. 
 
 Who are the losers by the suppression of silver in Christendom ? 
 Besides the producers and manufacturers of Europe and America, 
 the people of Mexico, Bolivia, Peru and Chili are great sufferers. 
 Only money-lenders and some heathens are benefited. It is build¬ 
 ing up Japan; and as China, every steamer leaving San Francisco 
 carries silver bought at its commercial value to be coined at the mint 
 at Canton, and used against us in the terrible Chinese fashion. 
 
 The excuse was made in 1816 and again in 1872, that gold alone 
 must be used because it was the cheaper metal. But Ricardo and 
 his ilk, who gave the advice, knew that the scarce metal was their 
 huckleberry. 
 
 We are threatened with being a dumping-ground for silver. The 
 wisest thing Windom has said is: “ It is safe to say that there is no 
 
 stock of silver coin in Europe which is not needed there for business 
 purposes.” The silver committee has wisely said that the Roths¬ 
 childs and Barings, who bought so many millions of silver here last 
 year, will keep coming here for it. 
 
 Gen. Thomas Jordan has shown that it would cost France 9 per 
 
 cent, to send silver here—from recoining old, light abraded coins_ 
 
 the waste of smelting, transporting, insurance, commission and in¬ 
 terest, or $57,000,000 on her 575,000,000 5-franc pieces. 
 
 In conclusion, I will say that but for the silver we have already, 
 the Wall street panic of 1884, would have spread terribly over the 
 country. The time will come, ere long, when the Government will 
 need money and unless we forestall them with free coinage, the 
 greenbackers will successfully insist that their currency shall be used 
 instead of borrowing on interest-bearing bonds, in the stupid old 
 way in vogue from the beginning of the nation. 
 
 P. S.—The fall in silver to-day to 1.03 is another proof that an 
 immense bluff against free coinage of silver by the United States in 
 December is being worked. A combination of European capitalists 
 could well afford to lose many millions to carry that point. Free 
 coinage is sure to come. Why not bring it about without delay—to 
 avoid disaster ? 
 
5 
 
 LET US DEMAND FREE COINAGE. 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio, October 27, 1890. 
 Gen. A. J. Warner, Astor House, New York : 
 
 Sickness prevents my being with you. Say to the friends of silver 
 for me; Let us demand free coinage from the next Congress, and 
 accept nothing less. 
 
 E. J. FARMER. 
 
 The following resolutions, were unanimously adopted: 
 
 Whereas, Stability in the value of money is essential to industrial and com¬ 
 mercial prosperity and of vital importance to labor, and 
 
 Whereas, Stability in the value of money can be secured only by constancy 
 and certainty in money supply. Therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That we favor the restoration of silver to its place as a money metal 
 with the right to unlimited coinage and full legal tender, the same as gold, as it 
 was from the foundation of our government till silver was displaced by the unfor¬ 
 tunate act of 1873. 
 
 Resolved, That in electing representatives to Congress we recommend that those 
 only be voted for, who, if elected, will carry out these views. 
 
 SPEECH OF GEN. A. J. WARNER, CHAIRMAN OF THE 
 NATIONAL SILVER COMMITTEE. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Silver League of New York : 
 
 In a country with a population of 64,000,000 of people, with ac¬ 
 cumulated wealth amounting to 560,000,000,000, with an annual 
 production of 5 i5jOoo, 000,000, with an internal commerce of 
 530,000,000,000, and with obligations in untold sums dischargeable 
 in money, the supreme importance of constancy in money supply 
 and stability in the money standard is at once apparent. 
 
 The slightest variation or the least uncertainty in any unit of 
 weight or measure would introduce such confusion into commercial 
 transactions as to make commerce, as now carried on, well-nigh im¬ 
 possible. Hence, no pains have been spared to secure the utmost 
 precision and certainty in all weights and measures. Indeed, courts 
 would quickly interfere to compel equity where any measure had 
 been changed. But how much more important is it in transactions 
 as vast and varied as modern commerce and modern systems of 
 credit involve that the value of money—the standard by which the 
 value of all other things is measured—should be itself as stable and 
 unvarying as possible ? What could be more important ? 
 
 But how is stability and constancy in money secured, and how is 
 the money standard changed ? That is the highest problem in eco¬ 
 nomic science. McLeod says the chief end of political economy is 
 to secure the proper regulation of money. 
 
 The common opinion seems to be that gold constitutes a fixed and 
 unvarying standard of value, and that whatever changes may take 
 place in lands or commodities, gold itself never changes. A com¬ 
 mon notion, even among intelligent people, is that the value of gold 
 is intrinsic and cannot change. Of course, if value in anything were 
 
6 
 
 intrinsic, like color or any other quality, it would necessarily be the 
 same everywhere and at all times, which is not the case with the 
 value of anything, and no more the case with gold than with any¬ 
 thing else. If gold did constitute a fixed and unvarying standard of 
 value nothing more, of course, would be required, and it would be 
 not only unwise but criminal to substitute anything else for money. 
 
 But what is the real truth about gold ? The world’s money is 
 made up of some $4,000,000,000 of gold, $3,500,000,000 of silver, 
 and $2,500,000,000 of paper. Now suppose the silver and the paper 
 to be suddenly destroyed, leaving only the gold, would its value be 
 unchanged? Would gold continue to be the same standard? Or 
 take the money of the United States at, say, $650,000,000 of gold, 
 $450,000,000 of silver (or silver notes) and $400,000,000 of paper, 
 or atout $1,500,000,000 in all. 
 
 Now suppose the silver and the paper to be taken away leaving 
 only the $650,000,000 of gold, would the value of the gold remain 
 the same ? 
 
 Our accumulated wealth, rated at $60,000,000,000, with a volume 
 of $1,500,000,000 of money, would stand at about $24,000,000,000 
 with a volume of but $650,000,000. Prices generally would range 
 at but about 40 per cent, of present prices. In that case, would the 
 change be in the standard—in the gold—or in the goods—in the 
 measure—or in the things measured? 
 
 The problem is a simple one. In either case the value of the 
 total volume of money is the same. But each unit of the volume, 
 in the one case represents twice as much wealth as in the other case. 
 The same would be true if our money were all gold and should be 
 suddenly reduced from $1,500,000,000 to $650,000,000. 
 
 Nor is there any difference in this respect between gold and silver? 
 The destruction of gold, or loss of gold, can have no other and no 
 greater effect on prices than the loss of so much silver. This is 
 shown by supposing silver and gold, instead of being coined 
 separately, to be fused together in the proportion of 16 to i, or for 
 that matter, on the French ratio of 15^ to i, and coined as a com¬ 
 pound metal into the same number and kind of coins as the two 
 metals are now separately coined in, and were in circulation in that 
 form, is it not plain that the value of the whole and of each piece 
 woxild be the same as now? In that case, which would be the stand¬ 
 ard, the gold part or the silver part of the coins ? Or would it be 
 the two together? Can there be any difference in the unit 
 value of the money volume, or in the value of the whole whether the 
 metals be coined separately or melted together and coined ? The 
 silver part of our money, therefore, contributes just as much per 
 dollar or unit to the formation of the money standard as does the 
 gold. The value of gold, like anything else, depends upon its 
 quantity as compared with its use, and the value of gold as money 
 depends on the units, or dollars of gold, and the associated units, or 
 dollars, of other money circulating with it. 
 
7 
 
 If, with the two metals fused together and coined into gold-silver 
 coins, half of such coins should be destroyed, everybody would 
 understand how the money standard was changed; but the effect 
 would be precisely the same to drop the silver from a volume of 
 money consisting of like proportions of gold and silver coined 
 separately. 
 
 The value of money of any kind, then, may be changed by 
 •changing its quantity relatively to its use. Metallic money may be 
 •changed in value by increasing or decreasing the weight of coins or 
 by increasing or decreasing money supply. 
 
 THE DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER. 
 
 It follows, as a consequence, that the demonetization of silver in 
 1873 operated directly to increase the value of gold and to decrease 
 the value of silver. What was the object of that act, and what motive 
 inspired it ? 
 
 In 1873 we had neither gold nor silver in circulation ; our money 
 was all paper. We had not then taken any step looking to a return 
 to the metallic level of money. We had created an enormous debt 
 on a paper basis. That debt was payable, if not in the paper money 
 by which scale it was created, at any rate, in either gold or silver, at 
 the option of the debtor. To propose to increase the debt outright 
 by raising the bonds, could not, of course, be thought of. To ask 
 that the weight of coins of either gold or silver be increased for the 
 special benefit of creditors would not be considered. 
 
 But there was a way just as effective as either of these modes, and 
 •one that could be so disguised that the very elect (those elected to 
 Congress) would be deceived. Simply change the money scale from 
 gold and silver to gold alone, and the end would be accomplished 
 as effectively as if the weight of coins had been increased, or all 
 debts had been directly raised by an addition of 50 per cent. 
 
 There is nothing in the history of monetary legislation to compare 
 with the jugglery by which silver was demonetized in this country 
 and in Germany. 
 
 It is probably but just to say that it is doubtful if half a dozen of 
 the members of the two Houses even knew that the bill, as it passed 
 Congress, demonetized silver. It is almost certain that no one in the 
 Senate but the chairman of the Finance Committee, Mr. Sherman, 
 ■so much as knew that the coinage of the old dollar was prohibited, 
 and it is but charitable to presume that he had but the faintest com¬ 
 prehension of the economic effect of the fraud his hand was used to 
 perpetrate on the people of this country. 
 
 A citizen of New York, Mr. Knox, has laid claim to the author¬ 
 ship of this scheme; but while he and Dr. I.inderman and other 
 Government officials were evidently used to procure this legislation, 
 I have never accused him or any of them of knowing what they were 
 •doing. Mr. Sherman was possessed with the idea that gold con¬ 
 stituted a fixed and invariable standard of value. The truth is there 
 
 e 
 
was almost no knowledge at this time, in this country, on the money 
 question. Pretty much all knowledge of monetary science and 
 monetary literature was at this time lost to this country. There 
 would be but one fitting place for an American who would knowingly 
 perpetrate upon his country such a gigantic swindle as the act of 1873, 
 and that would be in the grave with Benedict Arnold. But some¬ 
 body not only knew what the act contained, but knew also what its 
 far-reaching consequences would be. Whoever it was possessed Sa¬ 
 tanic genius, and would be a good subject for Milton’s pen. For no 
 such scheme of spoliation was ever before devised. The scheme 
 was no doubt loaned to us. The evidence is that England, after the 
 war kindly undertook to manage our finances for us, and she did it 
 effectually—for herself. Cyrus, by force of arms, gathered to Persia 
 the wealth of the far East, Alexander plundered temples and palaces 
 to enrich Macedonia. The all-conquering legions of Rome in turn 
 plundered Macedonia and Greece, but their united spoils did not 
 equal the wealth noiselessly wrested from those to whom it belonged, 
 for the benefit of those who had no right to it, by the change in the 
 money standard brought about by the demonetization of silver in 
 
 1873- 
 
 As proof that the act was surreptitiously put through Congress I 
 will read a few admissions since made by members of the House and 
 Senate. 
 
 Referring to the act of 1873, in the debate in the Senate on the 
 Bland-Allison act of 1878, Mr. Thurman said: 
 
 I cannot say what took place in the House, but I know when the bill was pend¬ 
 ing in the Senate we thought it was a bill simply to reform the mint, regulate 
 coinage, and fix up one thing and another, and there is not a single man in the 
 Senate, I think, unless a member of the committee from which the bill came 
 who had the slightest idea that it was even a squint toward demonetization. * 
 
 Senator Howe, in a speech delivered in the Senate February 5, 
 1878, said: 
 
 Mr. President, I do not regard the demonetization of silver as an attempt to 
 wrench from the people more than they agreed to pay. That is not the crime of 
 which I accuse the act of 1873. ^ charge it with guilt compared with which the 
 robbery of §200,000,000 is venial. 
 
 Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, who was chairman of the committee 
 which had charge of the bill, in a speech made in the House of Rep¬ 
 resentatives March 9, 1878, said : 
 
 In connection with the charge that I advocated the bill which demonetized the 
 standard silver dollar I say that, though the chairman of the Committee on Coin¬ 
 age I was as ignorant of the fact that it would demonetize the silver dollar or of 
 its aropping the silver dollar from our system of coins as were those distinguished 
 Senators, Messrs. Blaine and Voorhees, who were then members of the House, 
 and each of whom a few days since interrogated the other: “Did you know it 
 was dropped when the bill passed?” “No,” said Mr. Blaine; “did you?” 
 ‘‘ No,” said Mr. Voorhees. I do not think there were three members in the 
 House who knew it. I doubt whether Mr. Hooper, who in my absence from the 
 Committee on Coinage and attendance on the Committee on Ways and Means 
 managed the bill, knew it. 
 
9 
 
 I will read the entire colloquy between Senators Voorhees and 
 Blaine in the Senate in 1878 : 
 
 Mr. VOORHEES. I want to ask my friend from Maine, whom I am glad to 
 designate in that way, whether I may call him as one more witness to the fact 
 that it was not generally,known whether silver was demonetized. Did he know^ 
 as Speaker of the House, presiding at that time, that the silver dollar was demon¬ 
 etized in the bill to which he alludes ? 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. I did not know anything that was in the bill at all. As I have 
 before said, little was known or cared on the subject. [Laughter.] And now I 
 should like to exchange questions with the Senator from Indiana, who was then 
 on the floor and whose business it was, far more than mine, to know, because by 
 the designation of the House I was to put questions. The Senator from Indiana, 
 then on the floor of the House, with his power as a debater, was to unfold them to- 
 the House. Did he know ? 
 
 Mr. VOORHEES. I very frankly say that I did not. 
 
 The testimony of many others, including Mr. Garfield and Gen¬ 
 eral Grant, might be added, but I will not take time now. 
 
 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 
 
 The same game, if reports in foreign journals can be credited, is 
 to be tried on poor Austria-Hungary. Will these legislative bunco- 
 steerers find Austria, in 1890, as easily duped as were Germany and 
 the United States in i872-’3? It is hardly possible. Austria, it is true, 
 is loaded down with debt, and if she can be persuaded to change her 
 money standard to gold and to sell bonds to buy $100,000,000 of 
 gold, she will prove another rich spoils ground. But Austria will 
 find that she has no thousand millions of indemnity to fall back on 
 as Germany had, nor has she a new continent behind her to draw 
 upon, as we had. The attempt on the part of Austria to dispose of 
 her silver and buy $100,000,000 of gold would almost certainly carry 
 her into bankruptcy, and I do not believe her statesmen are fools 
 enough to undertake it. No possible good could come to Austria 
 from such a policy, while such a new demand for gold would increase 
 its value the world over. 
 
 The report is more likely started to influence the price of silver 
 legislation here—a part of the silver speculation of the day. 
 
 GOLD SUPPLY. 
 
 The annual gold production of the world is about $100,000,000, 
 and is slowly decreasing. It is estimated that $85,000,000 of this is 
 consumed in the arts and in dentistry, leaving about $15,000,000 for 
 money for the whole world. I think it doubtful, however, if there 
 is any gold left for money after the demand for the arts is supplied 
 and losses of various kinds are made good. As population and 
 wealth increase the consumption of gold for other purposes than 
 money increases. It is not likely, therefore, to be long before the 
 present money stock of gold will be drawn upon for the arts and den¬ 
 tistry. Without silver, therefore, or some other kind of money, gold 
 must steadily appreciate in value. With gold only, then, instead of 
 constancy and stability in money we would see the standard of money 
 constantly rise and prices constantly fall. 
 
10 
 
 To insure stability in the value of money, money supply must go 
 "hand in hand with increase of population and wealth. 
 
 As the number of things to be exchanged and the number of people 
 to make exchanges increase, money, the means by which exchanges 
 are effected, must increase, or prices will decline and business suffer. 
 
 SUBSTITUTES FOR MOXEV. 
 
 We are told that checks and other things now-a-days take the place 
 of money. Checks save handling money, but they are in no proper 
 sense money. They do give rise to bank credits, but such appliances 
 can not do away with the need of actual money. If they did or could, 
 why did not the merchants and bankers of New York a few weeks 
 ago, when they were on the eve of a panic from the scarcity of money, 
 allay the danger by drawing more checks and increasing bank cred¬ 
 its ? I surmise that one of the causes of the alarm was that too many 
 of these credit devices were already in existence. No, it was more 
 money—money that would discharge obligations and that would be 
 accepted as the equivalent of everything else—that was wanted, and 
 nothing but the regular and constant supply of such real money will 
 suffice. 
 
 AUTOMATIC REGUL.\TION OF MONEY. 
 
 The superiority of metallic money over other money lies in auto¬ 
 matic regulation. Without that the chief advantage in a metal cur¬ 
 rency is lost. Until the act of 1873 gold and silver were set apart 
 from all other things and designated as money material. This had 
 been their condition from earliest times, and, in making both gold 
 and silver money-metals in our Constitution, our fathers but adopted 
 what by common consent of mankind had been long established. 
 
 Automatic regulation for gold has never been questioned, nor should 
 it be for silver. In that case the supply of money is limited only by 
 the production of the mines and the requirements of the arts. 
 
 The metal itself is potentially money. . Coinage in that case is but 
 'Government certification of unit value. When coinage is free it is 
 easy to see that there can be no difference between silver or gold be¬ 
 fore and after being coined. 
 
 If everybody can have silver changed from bars or bullion to coins 
 for nothing, how can there be a difference between the value of an 
 ounce or a pound of silver in one form or the other ? And yet half 
 the members of the House of Representatives, and particularly the 
 chairman of the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, were 
 burdened with the idea that free coinage would let everybody bring 
 75 cents’ worth of silver to the mint and have it made $i for them. 
 Ought such ignorance or stupidity, whichever it is, be excused in 
 those who assume to make the laws ? 
 
 PARITY OF SILVER WITH GOLD. 
 
 Whether silver under free coinage at the ratio of 16 to i will 
 remain at parity with gold, is a different question and depends on 
 other laws, and monetary laws are as fixed and certain as physical laws. 
 
11 
 
 Whether gold and silver, under free coinage, will remain at parity 
 at the ratio of i6 to i, rests on a simple law. 
 
 If the only money in the world were gold and silver this would be 
 distributed among the nations according to the wealth and trade of 
 €ach. This law is modified by paper money taking the place, locally, 
 of metallic money. For instance, our greenbacks and National-bank 
 notes fill the place of so much gold and silver, and if we did not 
 have this kind of money we would have a large share of gold or sil¬ 
 ver and other countries would have less. 
 
 As trade conditions now exist, our distributive share of the world’s 
 money is some $1,500,000,000. 
 
 That is, • that volume stays here as necessary to maintain the 
 equilibrium of prices between this and other countries. 
 
 The tariff, undoubtedly, has something to do with the quantity 
 of money that falls to us, or that stays here. 
 
 Now, if free coinage of silver should result in providing us with 
 more silver than our share of the world’s money, then gold will 
 gradually leave us, and silver will take its place. But the two metals 
 will not “ part company” until substantially all our gold has left us, 
 and that will not be, and cannot be, till an equal amount of some 
 other money has taken its place. 
 
 . The notion that gold will go away and leave us at any time with 
 less than our distributiv^e share of the world’s money, is preposterous, 
 and utterly absurd is the other notion that $650,000,000 of gold, if 
 we have so much, will suddenly take its flight, leaving us with a 
 smaller volume of money, which smaller volume will fall to the 
 silver level. That is, the unit in a smaller volame of money will 
 have less value than the unit of a larger volume ! Now, do you 
 believe it possible that a dollar of a volume of $900,000,000 could 
 be worth less—have a lower purchasing power — in the same country 
 £Lt the same time, than a dollar of a volume of $1,500,000,000? 
 
 That is as absurd as it would be to say that if the bushel measure 
 were made larger it would hold less ! 
 
 But to return to the effect of free coinage. Would free coinage 
 of silver afford a supply of money greater than required to provide 
 for the increase of population and wealth, and meet the require¬ 
 ments of the rapidly-expanding business of the country? If not, 
 then it will not even begin to expel gold. 
 
 But the two metals will not lose parity, I repeat, till the whole 
 ^650,000,000 of gold is expelled, or subslantially all expelled. 
 
 For until then we will not have acquired, exclusive of our gold, 
 the proportion of the world’s money necessary to maintain prices 
 here at the international level of prices, and until prices have risen 
 here above the international level, there is nothing to carry gold off. 
 And further, only by a rise in the prices of those things internation¬ 
 ally dealt in, will international trade be adversely affected. A rise 
 in the price of lands, or in-the price of commodities, not the subject 
 of export trade, but which may and do constitute the bulk bf our 
 
12 
 
 internal trade, will not influence the flow of gold; but such a rise of 
 prices would absorb a large volume of national currency. 
 
 These are simple monetary principles, which, I think, no one will 
 undertake to controvert. And if they be sound, where is the harm 
 to come from free coinage and automatic regulation of silver the same 
 as gold ? 
 
 But I will say, without hesitation, if the choice lies between tieing; 
 ourselves rigidly to gold, with no money supply, and with gold con¬ 
 stantly increasing in value, and money supply proportionate to in¬ 
 crease of population and wealth without gold, then I say, by alt 
 means give us constancy of supply and stability in value, rather than 
 scarcity and an increasing standard ; for there is no source of wrong 
 and injustice like that which springs from a changing money stand¬ 
 ard. Nothing contributes more to the unequal and unjust distribu¬ 
 tion of products and of wealth than a money that is constantly 
 changing in value. The best money is that which is most constant 
 and stable, whether it be of the white or the yellow metal. 
 
 PRODUCTION AND ABSORPTION OF SILVER. 
 
 In 400 years the American continent has yielded to the world 
 some $9,000,000,000 of both gold and silver. This includes the 
 vast accumulations of the Incas and the Montezumas, wrested from* 
 them by the Spanish soldiery, as well as the production of the mines 
 of Mexico and Peru, worked by slaves under the lash, under which 
 system whole races have been exterminated. 
 
 Of this production about $4,500,000,000 has been silver and the 
 rest gold. 
 
 The world has absorbed the entire yield and has never suffered 
 from over-supply. 
 
 In a paper read at the last meeting of the British Association for 
 the Advancement of Science Mr. Ravenstein showed that the prob¬ 
 able increase in the world’s population in fifty years will equal its 
 entire population four centuries ago. 
 
 Our own population is not likely to be less a century hence than 
 450,000,000. 
 
 Hence four times the average rate of production for the last 400 
 years will be required to keep up the world’s supply of the two 
 metals; and to supply the population of the United States during the 
 coming century with the same amount of money per capita we now 
 have will require a sum equal to the entire production of the Amer¬ 
 ican continent in 400 years; and taking the silver production alone, 
 eight times the average production of the whole continent since its 
 discovery will be required to keep up the supply. 
 
 The fear, therefore, that the world will be overstocked with the 
 precious metals is baseless and comes from a contracted view of the 
 world’s vast and growing needs. The question in the near future 
 will be rather what to do for money when the supply of the metals 
 falls short, than what to do with the metals. 
 
13 
 
 ^Miatever the money of the future may be other than the precious 
 metals, we may rest assured that it will not be the creation of banks 
 and will not be left to supply and regulation as private interests may 
 <iictate. The British act of 1S44, and the discussions that preceded 
 and ^w out of it, settled that question for England and English- 
 rspeaking people. Our own experience with uncertain and fluctuat¬ 
 ing bank issues has been quite sufficient. 
 
 The most inconstant and unstable of all money s)-stems is that 
 which pri\ate interests control. 
 
 \Mien, however, England, in 1844, took from the banks the right 
 to control the volume of money by issuing or retiring bank notes as 
 their interests prompted, she adopted a rigid sj'stem founded on gold, 
 with no pro\'ision for growing wants. 
 
 THE XEW SILVER LAW. 
 
 By our new silver law the necessity of constancy and certainty in 
 money supply, commensurate with increasing population and wealth, 
 is recogniz^. 
 
 .\nd this is the first time in the history of monetary legislation that 
 this principle has been enacted into law; but it is a perfectly sound 
 principle. It is a recognition of the quantitative theorj' of money. 
 Under it silver bullion, it is true, may go up or go down, but the 
 sil\*er notes issued on it do not vary in value, and they flow con¬ 
 stantly and regularly from the treasury into circulation, in a volume 
 of from $4,500,000 to $5,000,000 a month. If, in addition to this, 
 pro\'ision were made to supply, dollar for dollar, the national bank 
 notes retired, so as to prevent contraction, our monetary sj-stem 
 would be as good, perhaps, as possible under artifical or legislative 
 r^ulation. 
 
 BIMET.ALLISM AX ALTOMATIC REGULATIOX. 
 
 I am one of those who believe, however, that as things now stand, 
 the greatest d^ee of stability in the value of money will be secured 
 by re-establishing bimetallism and then leaving the money to automatic 
 regulation through the mines. 
 
 But I insist, if we are to have automatic regulation at all, it shall 
 be complete and automatic as to silver as well as to gold, and at the 
 end as well as at the beginning of a year or a century. I believe 
 that in such a money the vast equities involved in time obligations, 
 as well as in ever)' day transactions, will be best secured. 
 
 Nor do I believe in depending longer on other countries for our 
 financial sv-stem. We had a sample of foreign domination in the act 
 of 1873, and I think we can get along without further advice, of that 
 sort, at any rate. Why should a countr)* with nearly twice the popu¬ 
 lation of England and that leads all others in commerce and the power 
 to produce—a country with half the railroads of the world, and that 
 prepuces three-fourths of the cotton, two-thirds of the com, two- 
 
14 
 
 thirds of the petroleum, half of the silver and a fourth of the wheat 
 consumed by the world—longer tie its financial system to England 
 or to Europe ? 
 
 Our population already nearly equals that of England and Ger¬ 
 many combined. In three or four decades more it will exceed that 
 of England, France and Germany, and our wealth will probably 
 equal them all. 
 
 Let us, then, adopt that monetary policy best suited to our own 
 wants. All the States of the American continent are in accord with 
 us as to the use of silver for money. Gold monometallism would be 
 our ruin. With bimetallism, constancy in money supply is secure 
 for the immediate future, at least. Let it be re-established, and then 
 let it be counted a high crime to again wantonly alter the money- 
 standard. 
 
 PAPER READ BY E. D. STARK, OF CLEVELAND, OHIO. 
 
 There is no public-spirited or philanthropic man who is also an 
 intelligent student of the money question but must profoundly rejoice 
 in the growing popular interest which this gathering indicates and 
 forecasts. 
 
 In the popularization of the great principles of ^tte free govern¬ 
 ment we have made, are making, a satisfactory progress. We read 
 in the grand old literature of the “ Divinity that doth hedge a king.’^ 
 Well, a better theory of the social organism is fast transferring that 
 divinity to the ballot box. When the purity and sanctity of that 
 rightful source of political power shall command the dearest action 
 of the free man’s mind and heart, and not till then, will our theory 
 of government be vindicated. On these lines, however, our future 
 is reasonably assured. But in another department of social interest 
 scarcely less sacred the public mind abides in medieval darkness and 
 apathy. We have fallen into the baleful superstition of believing 
 that bankers, manipulators of money, and security mongers are the 
 divinely-appointed guardians of the economic welfare of society, and 
 that the subject of a legal constitution of money is too high for com¬ 
 mon minds. These guardians have accordingly assumed the role of 
 taking care of the national honor, but, like all privileged classes, their 
 thinking is pitched upon a key of their own class interest. They 
 verily believe that this vast commercial and industrial fabric would 
 dissolve, would go down in a common ruin, if what they please to 
 call a high standard of money is not maintained. Having fooled 
 themselves into that belief, they have subjugated the conscience of 
 the people to that heartless doctrine. 
 
 Yet I affirm that the road to competent thinking and sound con¬ 
 clusions upon the money question is much easier traveled than that 
 of the tariff, upon which every voter is supposed to have his individ¬ 
 ual opinion. 
 
15 
 
 The dogma of the high standard for money is a shallow imposture. 
 It has no ingredient of honesty or honor in it. It is a high-sounding^ 
 phrase calculated to catch the conscience of well-meaning people. 
 
 I make bold to affirm that the ingenuity of man never concocted a 
 more cunning device of fraud and extortion than the dogma of “ best 
 money,” meaning by that, a money that has the utmost possible 
 purchasing power. As well pretend that the best yard is the one 
 that scores off the feeirts:loth to every length unit, or that is the best 
 bushel which measures out twice the amount of wheat at every empty¬ 
 ing, as against one that delivered, every time, the old customary 
 amount, and then foist “ these best measures,” by force of law upon 
 untold volumes of contract obligations. 
 
 To the man who, in the slang of exchange, is “ long ” in dollars, 
 and must buy things for consumption, the best money is that which 
 has the greatest purchasing power. To him who is long in goods 
 which he must sell for money to meet his obligations, the dollar 
 easiest got is the best money. But high over that competitive 
 scramble of each to get the most for the least, presides a spirit of 
 equity and fair play whose voice the statesman will heed. 
 
 Only a little thinking in that receptive mood will reveal that an 
 equitable distribution of the products of toil, the encouragement of 
 enterprise and wealth-creating activity and the just discharge of con¬ 
 tract obligations, demand a dollar that stands constant, stable ai^d 
 uniform, in the great office of measuring out commodities for trans¬ 
 fer—constant, I mean, not any one commodity, but to the aggregate 
 of the great staples of life. 
 
 J « Th e stability is precisely the same fact as stability of prices. I 
 affirm without fear of successful contradiction, that the great fall of 
 prices in gold standard countries is itself impeachment of gold stand¬ 
 ard money. The money misnamed “ best money ” is an extortion 
 upon debtors and a chronic spoliation of enterprise. The recent 
 movement towards a silver standard has put some check upon that 
 spoiling process, but we shall never attain to the best possible legal 
 constitution of metallic or primary money until silver is again re¬ 
 stored to its historic primacy in the valuing office of standard money. 
 
 There is no obligation that was ever incurred in this country to 
 pay a dollar which the silver dollar will not legally, equitably, 
 honorably discharge whatever commercial value it may take on. 
 All this cry of dishonor and degradation in silver payment is a sham 
 honor, false law and foggy intelligence, all aggregated into an im¬ 
 posture which, thank God, the farmer and mechanic are beginning 
 to see through. 
 
 We challenge our adversaries to meet our arguments, to answer 
 our claim of superiority for silver as a measuring or valuing metal. 
 For proof we point to the fall of prices over the entire area covered 
 by the single-standard policy, over a period now of eighteen years 
 on one side, and on the other stable and normal prices in silver- 
 standard countries. We denounce as a misnomer the calling of the 
 
16 
 
 •departure of the two metals from their customary market equivalence 
 a “ fall of silver.” Rather is it, in the view of science and states¬ 
 manship, a rise in the value of gold, caused by legislation intended 
 to effect that precise result in the interest of great creditors. 
 
 I must presume further on your patience to expose just one more 
 mischievous fallacy. It is assumed, and over and over asseverated 
 in high quarters, that falling prices is a necessary effect and sure in- 
 •dex of industrial progress. They tell us that money is not dearer, 
 but it is only that other things are cheaper—as though it were possi¬ 
 ble for one horse to get ahead in the race without the other falling 
 behind, or one end of a scale beam to go up without the other going 
 down. 
 
 They tell us that stability in the value of a dollar demands and 
 consists in its taking on an increasing command over goods, when 
 goods increase in consequence of improved methods of production. 
 I deny that proposition in toto. I affirm that the present depression 
 of prices has come upon the country by vicious legislation and not 
 at all as a necessary consequence of those cheapening agencies. 
 
 As between human energy or the aggregate productive force of 
 society, on the one side, and the forces, bounties and possibilities of 
 nature on the other, our increasing command over them is at once a 
 5ign and reward of advancing civilization—that progress is an un¬ 
 qualified beneficence. As to human endeavor—the inventive and 
 industrial genius of society—let all things be perpetually cheap¬ 
 ening ; all goods and the money that values them, on parallel lines; 
 but remove the mint restrictions and let these great cheapening 
 agencies have free play upon the volume of primary money, the same 
 as that which compels the soil, the sea, and the air to yield up their 
 inexhaustible bounties for the satisfaction of man. As between the 
 producer*and the consumer, a fair and full compensation to those 
 who feed and clothe us should be a wakeful solicitude of statesman¬ 
 ship. 
 
 As between money on one hand and goods on the other, in the 
 interest of enterprise and wealth-producing energy, it will see to it 
 that there shall be no general or continuous fall of prices. There 
 are no considerations of public policy to justify legislation to put up 
 or keep up the value of primary money to meet expectations of 
 creditors. It is incumbent upon the legislature to foster stability in the 
 price of farm products. As between debtor and creditor, it will aim 
 to secure constancy in the exchanging rate of money with commodi¬ 
 ties. For service as a vehicle of distribution and all the equities and 
 beneficences of economic intercourse of society, it will maintain sta¬ 
 bility of money as an instrument of valuation, without departure 
 from established definitions, and to that end will establish the free 
 and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold.