ISSUED QUARTERLY 
 
 Vol. I. No. 1. 
 
 PRICE, 25 CENTS 
 
 To tl^e If^cadei's 
 
 6 
 
 of 
 
 Coit)'s Fii^ai^cial SCJ700I 
 
 All ANSWER 
 
 "m 
 
 ^ 
 
 BY 
 
 GEN. JOHN BEATTY. 
 
 Entered accoriHng to act of Coiiffross, in 1895, by H. K. Doiiavin, Publisher, 
 in the oHice of the Librarian of Cotigress, at Washington, D. C.
 
 Mansfield, Ohio, Aug. 17, 1895. 
 
 Jllr. S. K. Donaviri, Columbus, Ohio : 
 
 Dear Sir — I heartilj- commend to the public the clear and 
 excellent answer by Gen. John Beattj' to "Coin's Financial 
 School." General Beatty's writings attracted my attention 
 when published in the current newspapers, and I was much 
 pleased with them. Now that they are published as a whole 
 in pamphlet form, I recommend the largest circulation that 
 can be given to them. They contain, from a business stand- 
 point, full answers to all the fallacies in "Coin's Financial 
 School," and will do much to inform our people of the im- 
 portance and necessity of -maintaining the present standards 
 of value. Every one ought to be familiar with the facts 
 stated in this pamphlet, which I regard as the best presenta- 
 tion that has been made of the sound money side of National 
 finances. Very truly yours, 
 
 John Sherman. 
 
 Hamilton, O., August 24, 1895. 
 My Dear Donavin — I am in receipt of the advance sheets 
 of Gen. Beatty's reply to "Coin's Financial School." It is like 
 all of Gen. Beatty's work, terse, vigorous, interesting and 
 instructive. I predict for it a wide circulation with much 
 resulting good. Sincerely, 
 
 James E. Campbell. 
 
 Treasury Department, Office of the Treasurer, 
 
 Washington, D. C , Aug. 20, 1895. 
 
 Mr. S. K. Donavin, Cohonbus, Ohio: 
 
 Dear Sir — I am in receipt of your esteemed recent favor, 
 also of the copy of the vigorous, sti-aightforward statistical 
 pamphlet " An Answer," by Gen. John Beattj', to which you 
 especially invite the attention of the readers of " Coin's 
 Financial School." 
 
 The subject of the financial question, which is so generally 
 in the public mind, will lead those who desire to understand 
 the bearing of the currency as affecting the welfare of the 
 country to investigate from every standpoint the efl^ect of 
 maintaining a standard of values of coin, or its representa- 
 tives, so that the money of the United States shall go un- 
 challenged as equal in value to that of any country in the 
 world. Our continued prosperity is dependent itpon a sound 
 unquestioned currency. With your suggestion carried out, to 
 add the speeches of Secretary Carlisle and others to General 
 Beatty's papers, it will make a strong combination of facts 
 and figures that must prove convincing to many who are 
 searching diligently on patriotic business lines to serve the 
 best interests of the people generality. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Daniel N. Morgan.
 
 TO THE READERS OF 
 
 '^Coin's Financial School." 
 
 An Answer 
 
 By 
 
 GEN. JOHN BEATTY, 
 
 Of Columbus, Ohio. 
 
 
 # • .1 5 J "> * 
 
 ^ * O 1 t 
 
 • • > : I 
 
 PUBLIBHBD BY S. K. DONAVTN, OF COLnilBUS, OHIO. 
 
 1895. 
 
 .^ftP2P
 
 « I 19 4 
 a Ail 
 
 
 > « C « I
 
 MONEY IN USE FROM ir92 TO 1861. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^EFORE entering upon the consideration of Mr. 
 .^^ Harvey's book, permit me to occupy five min- 
 ^^'^^ utes in a review of the monetary history of the 
 United States from the Revolutionary period to the 
 beginning of the great Civil War. 
 
 The bimetallic standard was adopted in 1792, the 
 relative values of the two metals being fifteen of silver 
 to one of gold — that is to say, one ounce of gold was 
 then esteemed in law and commerce the equivalent of 
 fifteen ounces of silver ; coins of both metals, whether 
 large or small, were made a legal tender in payment 
 of all debts. 
 
 When two metals may be used concurrently as a 
 
 medium of exchange, both endowed with the legal 
 
 >^ tender quality and open to free and unrestricted coin- 
 
 ! age, there is a force affecting them as invariable in its 
 
 )j operation and effect as the law of gravitation. It is 
 
 J known as Gresham's law, and declares that bad money 
 
 ^ or cheap money will always drive dearer or better 
 
 money out of circulation. 
 
 The reason for this is obvious. If gold is worth 
 more elsewhere than here it will be sent away and sold 
 for the profit there is in the transaction, and silver be- 
 ing relatively the cheaper money, will remain to pay 
 debts and facilitate exchanges. 
 
 The bimetallic standard, as I have said, was adopted 
 in 1792, but under the operation of the law referred to, 
 gold began to disappear in 1805 ; by 1810 it had become 
 exceedingly scarce, and before 1820 it had wholly 
 vanished. The country was thus left with a single 
 standard, consisting mainly of the worn and clipped 
 
 i^ftQPOf;
 
 .4 ANSWER TO 
 
 coins of other nations which for a time were by law a 
 legal tender. 
 
 In 1834 the ratio of one ounce of gold to sixteen of 
 silver was established in order to tempt gold back 
 again, and then silver became the dearer metal, and 
 it disappeared, the effect of the change of ratio being 
 simply to substitute gold for silver, and continue the 
 single standard. From that time (1834) to the begin- 
 ning of the Civil War, the country had practically but 
 one standard — one measure of values, and that was 
 gold. 
 
 Bimetallism, or the double standard, during the 
 first half century of our existence as a nation, there- 
 fore, was at best nothing more than a legal fiction, in- 
 operative and void. What we did have in fact were 
 disturbing alternations from the single silver standard 
 to the single gold standard, and this latter, as I have 
 said, was the standard in this country from 1834 to 
 1861, and no living soul during that period of twenty- 
 seven years ever objected to the gold standard, or sug- 
 gested that the silver standard would be preferable to 
 it, or that any man or class of men could be injured by 
 it, either in simultaneous exchanges or in making con- 
 tracts for future payment. It was this gold money our 
 Democratic friends delighted to talk about on the 
 stump. It was the money used by our banks as a 
 basis for circulation. It was this standard by which 
 the value of every piece of our property was measured. 
 How could it have been otherwise than I have stated, 
 for from 1792 to J861 there had been less than eight 
 million and a half of silver dollars coined, and these 
 under the operation of Gresham's law had, after 1834, 
 gone to the melting pot, and thence to the bullion 
 buyers of other countries. 
 
 The suspension of specie payments occurred in 
 December, 1861, and from that date to January, 1879, 
 the country had in circulation neither silver nor gold. 
 During this period of eighteen years the value of com- 
 modities was measured, or guessed at, by an inconvert- 
 ible and constantly fluctuating paper currency — a cur- 
 rency composed of promises to pay dollars at some indefi-
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 5 
 
 nite period in the future. These paper dollars were at 
 one time thought to be worth 35 per cent, of their nom- 
 inal value ; at another 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and finally, eigh- 
 teen years after their first issue, they were redeemed in 
 gold. There was in fact never a contract made in this 
 country between individuals on the bimetallic or 
 double standard basis prior to the passage of the Bland- 
 Allison law of 1878. All we have heard, therefore, 
 about the " dollar of our fathers " is idle chatter con- 
 cerning a dollar which from 1834 to 1879 the fathers 
 never saw and never even thought of in connection 
 with their exchange of products, or the promises they 
 made for the future payment of money. 
 
 The truth is the so-called " demonetization " of sil- 
 ver in 1873 resulted practically from the act of 1834 
 changing the ratio of the two metals, and from that of 
 1853 reducing the amount of pure silver in fractional 
 coins, and limiting their legal tender power. The 
 members of Congress who favored the law of 1853 
 openly avowed their intention to adopt and hold fast 
 to a single standard.* The act of 1873, which silver 
 men so bitterly denounce, simply called attention to a 
 fact that to all intents and purposes had existed for 
 nearly half a century, to-wit : that the standard money 
 of the United States was gold. 
 
 John Beatty. 
 
 * Pages 79-80 Laughlin's History of Bimetallism.
 
 ** Coin's Financial School," 
 
 REVIEW OF FIRST CHAPTER. 
 
 a BOOK containing 155 pages, with many so-called 
 pictorial illustrations, written by a Mr. W. H. 
 Harvey, has been issued by the Coin Publishing 
 Company of Chicago. It bears the title of " Coins Fi- 
 nancial School," and from this one might reasonably 
 infer that it contained valuable facts with respect to 
 monetary matters. A thorough investigation of the 
 contents, however, will show that it is full of misin- 
 formation, half truths, whole falsehoods, absurd assump- 
 tions, and empty but oracular utterances. 
 
 The first chapter is, in part, devoted to the money 
 unit. The Congress of the United States in 1792, the 
 author tells us, " fixed the monetary unit to consist of 
 371i grains of pure silver, and provided for a certain 
 amount of alloy to be mixed with it to give it a greater 
 hardness and durability." Suppose this were true, 
 what does it amount to? The act of one congress is 
 no whit more sacred and binding tlian the act of another 
 congress. Thousands of laws have been repealed, or 
 amended, and for f^ood reasons. If the act of April 2, 
 1792, had remained in full foire we shouhl have had no 
 gold money from 1820 to 18(>0, and not much silver. 
 The old copper cent containinf; 11 pennyweights of 
 copper would liavo still been in circulation, and the 
 alloy for slandanl gold coins and standard silver coins 
 would have remained unchanged.
 
 8 ANSWER TO 
 
 As evidence that the fathers did not regard the law 
 of 1792 as a finality in money matters, we find that by 
 the act of 1834 the gold dollar, or unit, was reduced 
 from 27 grains of standard gold to 25 yV grains; the 
 silver dollar, or unit, from 416 grains standard silver to 
 412^ grains. By the act of 1849 single gold dollars, or 
 units, were authorized, and by the act of 1853 " a coin 
 of gold of the value of three dollars, or units," was 
 coined. 
 
 The idea that any human law must remain forever 
 unaltered or unrepealed is not only the veriest rot, but, 
 if heeded, would be an obstruction to all progress. 
 
 The act of 1792, however, did not "fix the monetary 
 unit to consist of 371^ grains of pure silver," etc. It 
 simply made a monetary unit of silver and called it a 
 dollar, just as previously in the same section of the law, 
 gold coins were authorized of the value of dollars or 
 units. Twenty-seven grains of standard gold under 
 that act constituted a dollar or unit in precisely the 
 same way that 416 grains of standard silver made a 
 dollar or unit. The provision for gold dollars or units 
 in the law preceded the provision for silver dollars or 
 units, and men simply quibble over words and trifle 
 with the good sense of people when they attempt to 
 show that the act of 1792 made a silver dollar the unit 
 and hence the dominating coin in the, original mon- 
 etary scheme of the United States. 
 
 The Spanish milled dollar was the dollar best known 
 to the people of this country in 1792, and hence it was 
 that congress interjected into the act of 1792 an esti- 
 mate or illustration of the value of a dollar which all 
 could understand, by using the words, "of the value of 
 the Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current." 
 As evidence that the law did not intend to prefer silver 
 to gold, or to make coin of the former metal the 
 dominating unit in the measurement of values, I 
 quote from section 11 of the act fixing the ratio of gold 
 to silver: "The proportional value of gold to silver in 
 all coins shall be as 15 to 1. That is to say, every 15 
 pounds of pure silver shall be of equal value to one 
 pound of pure gold." The dollar is the unit in our
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 9 
 
 monetary scheme, for a unit is as indispensible in 
 finance as in mathematics; but this unit may be either 
 a dollar of gold or a dollar of silver, and the act of 
 1792 so provided. , 
 
 Section 20 of that act declares " that the money of 
 account in the United States shall be expressed in 
 dollars or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, 
 mills or thousandths," etc. But it does not say that 
 the dollars and "dismes" which constitute the "money of 
 account" shall have reference only to dollars and 
 " dismes " of silver. 
 
 Hamilton, in the report on vrhich the law of 1792 
 was founded, said, "the unit in the coins of the United 
 States ought to correspond with 24 grains and three- 
 fourths of a grain of pure gold and with 371 grains and 
 one-fourth of a grain of pure silver each, answering to 
 a dollar in the money of account." Jefferson insisted 
 upon the adoption of the name dollar for the unit 
 because this name and the value attached to it had 
 become familiar to the people of the United States 
 through the use of the Spanish milled dollar. 
 
 By the act of February 9, 1793, gold coins of Great 
 Britain and Portugal were made a legal tender at the 
 rate of 100 cents for every 27 grains. It will be 
 observed here that the value of gold was counted from 
 the copper cent and not from the silver dollar. 
 When Mr. Harvey therefore affirms (page 7) that "gold 
 was made money, but its value was counted from these 
 silver units or dollars," he gives expression to an ab- 
 surdity, and when he prolongs this idiotic drivel 
 through ten or twelve pages, he makes even a vigorous 
 man weary. 
 
 Mr. Harvey devotes five pages of the first chapter 
 of his book to a rambling discourse on what lie calls 
 "the crime of 1873." This alleged crime was perpe- 
 trated in a revision and amendment of the coinage laws 
 of the United States. The act of which he complains is 
 popularly but erroneously known as the act demonetiz- 
 ing silver. The minor coins by this law were continued 
 with all the legal tender power they had possessed 
 since 1853. No provision, however, was made lor tlie
 
 10 ANSWER TO 
 
 coinage of silver dollars, for the simple reason that 
 they would then have been worth three or four per cent, 
 more as bullion than as coin, and if coined they would 
 have gone at once to the melting pot and disappeared. 
 In fact, at the time, there were no United States silver 
 dollars in circulation, and had been none since about 
 1834. It would seem to be about as difficult to demon- 
 etize a coin which did not exist as to kill a dog already 
 dead. 
 
 Notwithstanding all Mr. Harvey says to the contrary^ 
 the law to which he objects was deliberately considered. 
 The bill went through both branches of congress, not 
 in haste, but after much discussion. The secretary of 
 the treasury called attention to it in 1870, 1871 and 
 1872, and the printed discussions of the bill cover 140 
 pages of The Congressional Globe. When Mr. Harvey 
 affirms that "the newspapers on the morning of February 
 13, 1873, and at no time in the vicinity of that period, 
 had any account of the change," he accuses them of 
 gross lack of vigilance and enterprise; and if Senator 
 Daniel of Virginia, ever said the bill went through 
 congress "like the silent tread of a cat" he was at the 
 time making a harrangue to his wild-eyed constituents 
 and not giving testimony under oath before a court of 
 justice. The truth is, when the bill was under consider- 
 ation nobody was foolish enough to insist that the gov- 
 ernment should enrich bullion buyers by giving them 
 103 cents' worth of silver for 100 cents, and hence 
 there was no opposition to dropping the silver dollar 
 from the list of pieces to be coined. 
 
 In the concluding paragraphs of his first chapter 
 Mr. Harvey introduces, with much display of incor- 
 ruptible honesty and superior intelligence, a table of 
 an English statistician giving the quantity of gold and 
 silver in the world, both coined and uncoined, at six 
 periods, beginning with the year 1600 and ending with 
 that of 1890. It is just as impossible to tell how many 
 grains of gold and silver there were in the world coined 
 and uncoined in either 1600, 1700, 1800 or 1890 as it 
 would be to number the fleas in Egypt, or the mosqui- 
 toes in the everglades of Florida. AH statisticians
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL," 11 
 
 can do is to make an estimate of the gold and silver in 
 sight — in public banks and national treasuries — and 
 to indulge in rough guesses as to the amounts in the 
 hands of the people. This way of making estimates 
 leaves almost infinite room for the expression of 
 individual preferences. If the statistician desires 
 much or little of either metal to suit his own views, 
 he will make much or little. But what has all this to 
 do with the question of the free coinage of silver in 
 the United States? Nothing, Mr. Harvey is simply 
 pumping wind, not making argument. 
 
 Silver has been assigned to its true position among 
 the money metals of the commercial world, and in 
 this position it is being more freely used to-day as 
 money than it ever was before since time began. Not 
 an ounce of it has been driven out of circulation by 
 what Mr. Harvey is pleased to call demonetization. 
 His pretentious but shallow arguments in favor of the 
 propositions he attempts to discuss might, perhaps, be 
 creditable to the intelligence of the boy of 12, whose 
 likeness adorns the cover of Mr. Harvey's book, and 
 who is set forth as the instructor of '^ Coin's Financial 
 School," but I should suppose a full grown man would 
 blush to own them.
 
 12 ANSWER TO 
 
 REVIEW OF SECOND CHAPTER. 
 
 '^N THE first chapter of "Coin's Financial School" 
 ,^\ Mr. Harvey is supposed to have convinced an 
 ^^"^ imaginary audience of boys that the following 
 falsehoods were truths, to-wit : 
 
 1. That the silver dollar was the dominating unit 
 in the original monetary system of the United States. 
 
 2. That this dominating unit was secretly " assas- 
 sinated " in 1873. 
 
 In the second chapter he congratulates himself 
 upon his success as an instructor, and fancies the 
 newspapers and financiers of Chicago are amazed at 
 his wisdom and overwhelmed by his logic; indeed, 
 throughout the whole book his imaginary triumphs are 
 set forth in such gorgeous colors that a reader is 
 inclined to suspect the capitalists of the Windy City 
 had quietly, but with villainous intent, mixed opium 
 with his chewing gum or firewater with his milk. 
 
 After dwelling quite sufficiently on his own superi- 
 ority to other men, Mr. Harvey proceeds to give us 
 further information about ratios, but as we had in his 
 first chapter all the instruction with respect to this 
 matter an intelligent reader needs, we shall skip his 
 superfluous remarks, and review his sham discussion 
 with Mr. Lyman Gage. Mr. Gage is a real person, but 
 the controversy Mr. Harvey claims to liave had with 
 him never occurred — that is to say, it is wholly fic- 
 titious, or in other words, a plain lie. But Gage is 
 represented to have been in attendance at Coin's 
 school, and is said to have asked the following ques- 
 tion : " How can you have, at any fixed ratio, the 
 same commercial value on two separate metals that 
 are from time to time varying in quantity of each pro- 
 duced ? ^'
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 13 
 
 The answer to this should have been, " The same 
 relative commercial value can not be maintained on 
 two separate metals that are from time to time vary- 
 ing in quantity of each produced." The tables which 
 Mr. Harvey introduces on pages 31 and 34 would have 
 conclusively proven the substantial correctness of such 
 an answer. But Mr. Harvey answers the question in 
 another way, and this is his answer : 
 
 "All commercial values are regulated by supply 
 and demand. The commercial value of any com- 
 modity depends on supply and demand. If the demand 
 for a particular commodity is continuously rising and 
 the supply does not increase, the commercial value 
 will continuously rise." (P. 27.) 
 
 This is in part correct, and was evidently in part 
 taken from some reputable writer on political economj^ 
 but it should be remarked that it is impossible for the 
 demand on any commodity to be " continuously ris- 
 ing;" nor is it possible for the commercial value to 
 continuousl}'" increase, for if it did the commodity 
 would attain a point beyond the reach of even a 
 millionaire. As prices increase demand diminishes, 
 and if prices increased "contii^uously " the demand, 
 instead of " continuously ris'ag," would finally alto- 
 gether disappear. 
 
 Mr. Harvey continues : " When the mints of the 
 world are thrown open, and the governments say ' we 
 will take all tlie silver and gold that comes ' " — 
 
 I break this sentence simply to call the reader's 
 attention to the fact that Mr. Harvey speaks of the 
 " mints of the world " and the " governments " of the 
 world, and not of a few of the mints of the world, nor 
 of the mints of the United States alone. 
 
 " — an unlimited demand is established. Hie sup- 
 ply is limited, and the demand pulls them both plumb 
 up to the point." The point referred to is equal com- 
 mercial value at the ratio fixed. 
 
 Before proceeding to an examination of wliat Mr. 
 Harvey has said about the " power of unlimited de- 
 mand," permit me to call attention to the fact that he 
 does not himself propose to wait until " the miate of
 
 14 ANSWER TO 
 
 the world are thrown open " to the free coinage of sil- 
 ver. On the contrary, as will be seen on many pages 
 of his book, but notably in pages from 130 to 150, he 
 advocates independent bimetallism — free coinage by 
 the United States alone. Thus far, however, he has 
 dodged the issue he finally makes prominent, and 
 throughout his book he distorts arguments which are 
 only pertinent in support of international bimetallism 
 to the maintenance of his scheme of independent free 
 coinage. The reader in this discussion, therefore, 
 should keep clearly in mind the difference between in- 
 ternational free coinage and national free coinage. 
 That is to say, the free coinage of silver by all nations 
 at a ratio agreed upon and the free coinage of silver by 
 one nation or by a few nations. 
 
 If all "the mints of the world were thrown open," 
 and all the governments of Europe were disposed to 
 " say we will take all the gold and silver that comes," 
 it might not be amiss for the United States to become 
 a party to the arrangement, and I should certainly not, 
 as a voter, interpose an objection to it. But while in- 
 ternational free coinage is one thing, and has the sup- 
 port of multitudes of intelligent, honest and patriotic 
 men, independent or national free coinage is quite an- 
 other matter, and means simply a partial repudiation 
 of public and private debts, the annihilation of national 
 credit, and the utter disregard of all considerations of 
 commercial honor. 
 
 In the one case our silver money would be the 
 money of commerce, good here and equally good else- 
 where. In the other case, it would be a local currency, 
 worthless as money in any country but ours. In the 
 one case gold and silver at a reasonable ratio might 
 not greatly deviate from each other in commercial 
 value. In the other silver would circulate as a nom- 
 inal dollar in the United States, and be worth only fifty 
 cents in Europe, In the one case gold and silver could 
 both, perhaps, be kept in circulation together. In the 
 other, gold being the undervalued metal, would, under 
 the operation of Gresham's law, go to some country 
 where it was more highly esteemed. International bi-
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 15 
 
 metallism means substantially the same yardstick — 
 the same measure of values the world over. National 
 or independent free coinage of silver means precisely 
 what Mexico has now, to-wit : a so-called silver dollar 
 worth but fifty cents. 
 
 It is this independent or national free coinage which 
 Mr. Harvey advocates, but in doing so he cunningly 
 weaves into his alleged arguments facts and figures 
 which alone are applicable to the support of interna- 
 tional bimetallism, and thus confuses, misleads and de- 
 ceives those who read hastily or are unfamiliar with 
 the subject. The truth is, he does not want interna- 
 tional bimetallism, for the reason that it would make a 
 better dollar than he desires. It is his avowed purpose 
 to pay a dollar of debts with fifty cents worth of silver. 
 
 To go back now to Mr. Harvey's alleged reply to 
 Mr. Gage's alleged question, it will be observed he 
 affirms that in the contingency he suggests an " unlim- 
 ited demand" would be "established." The words 
 " unlimited demand " are simply trick words. All de- 
 mand for money is limited to the necessity which 
 exists for money to measure the value of commodities 
 or to facilitate their exchange. As these commodities 
 are limited, the demand for money can not be unlim- 
 ited. The idea that there could be an unlimited de- 
 mand for yardsticks to measure a limited supply of 
 cloth is nonsense, and it is equally absurd to say that 
 there could be an unlimited demand for money to 
 measure a limited supply of commodities. When there 
 is no demand for meal, men do not take corn to the 
 mill, and if they did, their grist would be of no com- 
 mercial value, and so when there was no demand for 
 money, men would not take bullion to the mint, and if 
 they did, it would simply add bulk, not value, to the 
 world's stock of coin. The whole of Mr. Harvey's argu- 
 ment, from the beginning of the book to the end of it, 
 based on what he assumes to be " the power of unlim- 
 ited demand," must fall with the rotten premise upon 
 which it is constructed. Indeed, it would be much 
 nearer the truth to affirm that the supply of money 
 metals is unlimited, than to say the demand for money
 
 16 ■ ANSWER TO 
 
 is without limit. This ridiculous chatter about unlim- 
 ited demand, we can not have too much money, etc., 
 comes down to us from the advocates of irredeemable 
 paper money. Men who do not desire to pay their 
 debts in full have always favored a cheaper dollar, and 
 always will. 
 
 Mr. Harvey seeks by lengthy tables of figures (p. 
 31-34) to show how nearly gold and silver kept pace 
 with each other in commercial value at certain ratios in 
 a run of many years. These statistics may possibly be 
 pertinent in an argument favoring international bi- 
 metallism, but they have no relevancy whatever to in- 
 dependent or national free coinage, and he uses them 
 simply to confuse and deceive those who have given 
 monetary questions but little thought. On page 35, for 
 illustration, he says: "From 1687 to 1873 the commer- 
 cial ratio of the two metals was never lower than 1 to 
 14.14, and never higher than 1 to 16.25, a variatiou of 
 only about two points." 
 
 Now, two points, in the parlance of the stock ex- 
 change, means two cents. A stock that has advanced 
 two per cent, on its nominal value is said to have gone 
 up two points. A stock that has declined two per cent, 
 of its nominal value is said to have gone down two 
 points, and hence two points to the general reader 
 seem a matter so trivial as to be hardly worth consider- 
 ing. But is it so in this case ? What does Mr. Harvey 
 mean by two points ? He did not dare to say, for the 
 variation he refers to was a variation of over two ounces 
 of silver worth, prior to 1873, over $1 per ounce in gold. 
 The variation of over $2 between the commercial ratio 
 and the legal ratio of one ounce of gold and 16 ounces 
 of silver is no slight thing to the commerce of the 
 world; and yet when all civilized countries, except 
 England, were on a bimetallic basis, deviations of the 
 market ratio from the legal ratio were constantly oc- 
 curing. It may be true that the divergence at times 
 was not great, but it was great enough to banish gold 
 from the United States from 1810 to 1834 ; great enough 
 to drive silver coin from circulation in this country 
 from 1834 to 1863 ; so great that in 1834 gold sold iu
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 17 
 
 Philadelphia at a premium of from 4 to 4^ per cent. 
 The " two points " referred to by Mr, Harvey would 
 have put a premium on either gold or silver of over 11 
 per cent., and yet in this day a premium of yV of 1 
 per cent, on either gold or silver is enough to carry the 
 higher-priced metal to the melting pot, or to foreign 
 countries, and so take it out of circulation. The reader 
 should bear in mind in this connection that the half of 
 1 cent is 6 per cent, interest on $1 for one month. If a 
 bullion buyer can make his turn of coin at one-half per 
 cent, profit within fifteen days, he will make at the rate 
 of 12 per cent, per annum on his money. If the profit 
 is 1 per cent, he will make 24. If 2 per cent, his profit 
 will be at the rate of 48 per cent, per annum ; and so 
 the "• two points " referred to by Mr. Harvey would 
 mean not only 300 percent, per annum to a bullion buyer 
 who could keep his money actively employed, but the 
 disappearance of the undervalued coin from circulation, 
 and a distressing stringency in the money market of the 
 country where the coin was undervalued. England did 
 not adopt the gold standard until 1816. Prior to this 
 date all civilized countries were on a bimetallic free- 
 coinage basis, and yet even then, as has been stated, 
 the differences constantly occurring between the market 
 ratio and the legal ratio of the two metals, caused much 
 inconvenience and great loss to them. England was 
 compelled to limit the coinage of silver in order to re- 
 tain her needed supply of gold. The United States in 
 1834 was obliged to change the legal ratio to 16 to 1 in 
 order to call back the gold which had disappeared un- 
 der the ratio established by the act of 1792. France, 
 Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, 
 Netherlands, etc., have all in recent years limited the 
 coinage of silver for the very purpose of securing and 
 maintaining a sufficiency of the coin of both metals in 
 concurrent circulation. The free coinage of silver in 
 the absence of an agreement between commercial na- 
 tions, means simply silver monometallism lor some and 
 gold monometallism for others. Restricted coinage of 
 silver is the nearest approach to actual bimetallism 
 attainable witliout an international agreement.
 
 18 ANSWER TO 
 
 It is folly to talk about the quantity and kind of 
 money in circulation 50, 100 or 500 years ago. The 
 vital query is what kind of money is required to-day 
 to facilitate exchanges and carry on the increased and 
 increasing commerce of the world. Civilized nations 
 have made their decision respecting this matter and 
 have chosen to leave their mints open to the free 
 coinage of gold and the restricted coinage of silver, 
 and by this method they have been able to keep a 
 sufficiency of the coins of both metals in circulation. 
 
 In his discussion of the quantity of gold and silver 
 in the world, Jvlr. Harvey says (p. 39) : " The disloca- 
 tion of the parity of the two metals by the demonet- 
 ization of silver and the attempt to maintain our credit 
 in gold has reduced the redemption monev of the world 
 from $7,747,590,215 to $3,727,018,869, or a little less 
 than one -half the original amount." 
 
 There are three assumptions in this statement 
 wholly unfounded. 
 
 1. There has been no " dislocation of the parity of 
 the two metals " except in Mexico and other countries 
 having free coinage and a silver basis. The com- 
 mercial countries of the world, like England, -Germany, 
 France, and the United States, have provided against 
 this " dislocation " by recourse to the restricted coinage 
 of silver, and in these countries gold and silver are main- 
 tained on a parity with each other. 
 
 2. There has been no " demonetization " of silver. 
 The word, though in common use, is a misnomer. 
 There has simply been a limitation of the coinage of 
 silver. 
 
 8. The so-called " redemption money of the world " 
 has not been reduced to the extent of a single farthing. 
 The stock of the world's gold is estimated at $3,965,- 
 900,000 ; silver, $ 4,055,700,000 ; total, $ 8,021,600,000. 
 
 Of this total $7,401,700,000 is a full legal tender in 
 the payment of all debts and $ 619,900,000 is endowed 
 with limited legal tender power. Every dollar of the 
 whole sum is redemption money in the sense that it 
 has itself no redeemer, but is the metal or money in 
 which all substitutes for money are redeemed, and all
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 19 
 
 debts about which there is or is not any controversy 
 legally paid. 
 
 In conclusion let me recapitulate the points which 
 should be thrown out of Mr. Harvey's financial gasbag, 
 for with their dismissal the bag will have shrunk from 
 the handsome dimensions of a balloon to the size of an 
 ordinary bladder. 
 
 1. The statement that the silver dollar was the 
 dominating unit in the original monetary system oi 
 the United States is not true, and hence all the argu- 
 ment founded upon this statement is simply rubbish. 
 
 2. The statement that this alleged dominating unit 
 was secretly " assassinated " in 1873 is incorrect, and 
 hence all the invective -based upon this error is empty 
 and valueless. 
 
 3. The assumption that there can be an unlimited 
 demand for money for the measure or exchange of a 
 limited supply of commodities is a self evident false- 
 hood, and hence the argumentative structure built on 
 it is as unsubstantial as a bubble. 
 
 4. Mr. Harvey and those vdio agree with him seek 
 not international bimetallism, but independent free 
 coinage and a cheaper dollar, hence his tables of statis- 
 tics and arguments in support of international bimet- 
 allism are used with fraudulent intent, and have no 
 relevancy whatever to the question of independent 
 free coinage to which he is committed. 
 
 5. Under modern conditions a premium of one- 
 tenth of one per cent, is enough to carry either silver 
 or gold coins out of circulation ; hence his proposition 
 to open the mints of the United States to free coinage 
 of silver means the loss of from $ 600,000,000 to $ 1,000,- 
 000,000 of gold coin from our currency. 
 
 6. Every commercial country of the world has 
 found that in the absence of an international arrange- 
 ment, a stabler and more abundant supply of money 
 can be obtained by the restricted coinage of silver than 
 by the free coinage of silver, hence independent free 
 coinage would, according to the experience of nations, 
 be not simply a calamity but a curse.
 
 20 ANSWER TO 
 
 7. The redemption money of the world, the money 
 of ultimate j^ayment, primary money, or whatever else 
 coined money may be called, which is its own re- 
 deemer, is more abundant to-day than ever before, and 
 as fully clothed with purchasing and debt paying power 
 as it ever was. 
 
 REVIEW OF THIRD CHAPTER. 
 
 yy'^F THERE were no money and we had to depend 
 
 ^^\ on exchanging property for property, we could 
 
 ^^ find a subsistence, but there would be no such 
 
 thing as our present civilization, or anything like it." 
 
 (P. 44.) 
 
 Certainly not, and neither would there be if we had 
 an inferior money — a bulky and inconvenient cur- 
 rency like that of Mexico, China and Japan. It was 
 for the purpose of getting rid of the vexatious and 
 expensive delays of barter that this thing of money — 
 something of great value in small ocmpass — was 
 devised But under Mr. Harvey's scheme of inde- 
 pendent free coinage, 2,000 silver dollars would weigh 
 124 pounds avoirdupois — more than a keg of nails — 
 and yet be worth only $ 1,000 in the markets of the 
 world. Will any sensible man claim that such cum- 
 brous money would be an aid to trade and commerce 
 or a promoter of civilization ? 
 
 "As stagnation and depression would result from 
 having no money, then a part of these evils can be 
 brought about by having money insufficient in either 
 quality or quantity." (P. 45.) 
 
 True, and it is for the reason suggested, that inde- 
 pendent free coinage would prove to be a calamity to 
 business. By substituting a silver dollar worth 50 
 cents for a silver dollar worth 100 cents, we should get 
 "insufficient quality," and the moment the value of
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 21 
 
 the silver dollar was reduced below its present standard 
 gold would go into hiding or abandon the couiitrv, and 
 thus leave us with insufficient " quantity.'- Hence it 
 is that such a combination of the two metals should 
 be maintained as will keep both of equal value and 
 both in circulation. 
 
 "One (silver) was the monev of the people — the 
 other (gold) of the rich." (P. 46.) 
 
 It is' to be hoped the rich still constitute a part of 
 the people, but whether they do or not it is neverthe- 
 less true that people who labor with their hands and 
 live by the sweat of their faces own the bulk of the 
 money of the country. There are 4,739,194 savings bank 
 depositors alone, and this number is probably greatly 
 exceeded by laboring men and women who have money 
 deposited in other banks or hid away in stocking legs 
 or in their pockets. These industrious and frugal 
 workers and their families constitute one-third or one- 
 half of our whole population. The rich do not, as a 
 rule, hold money or keep it idle. They invest in realty 
 like the Astors, railroads like the Vanderbilts, and 
 manufacturies like the Oarnegies. The money of the 
 people is now good. Shall it be made poor on the 
 false pretext that only the rich would be robbed? 
 
 It is alleged that Mr. John R. Walsh asked this 
 question : " How can the government, by passing a 
 law, add a cent to the value of any commodity ? " 
 (P. 47.) 
 
 Permit me to interject between this question and 
 Mr. Harvey's alleged answer to it, a few questions and 
 answers of my own. Who constitute the government? 
 The people. How does it raise money to pay for any- 
 thing? By taxation. Who pays this tax ? The people. 
 How then can any Itiw authorizing an expenditure, 
 extravagant or otherwise, for liiis or that commodity, 
 add value to the commodities of the whole people? It 
 can not. On the contrary, a law roquiring the con- 
 sumption of horses, food, clothing, etc., as in war, not 
 only adds nothing to the wealth of a nation, but 
 diminishes its rf sources just to the extent of the waste 
 incurred. Mr. Harvey, however, first frames tlie
 
 22 ANSWER TO 
 
 alleged question to suit himself, and then answers it in 
 this way : " Suppose that Congress should pass a law 
 to-morrow authorizing the purchase of 100,000 cavalry 
 horses and the government entered the market to get 
 these horses. Horses would advance in value." (P. 47.) 
 
 Horses would advance not by reason of the law, 
 but by virtue of the fact that the government had 
 become a large consumer of horses. The total value 
 of the horses consumed, however, would be a direct 
 loss to the people, and this loss would more than 
 counterbalance any gain to the country which could 
 possibly result from the general advance in prices 
 which such a purchase by the government would 
 occasion. In other words, while the dealers in horses 
 would get a little more for their beasts, the owners of 
 other commodities would not only pay the increased 
 price, but in time be called upon to pay for 100,000 
 dead horses. This, however, is not all. The advance 
 in prices of horses would be at best temporary. The 
 increased demand would soon create an increased 
 supply, and prices would soon drop back to old figures. 
 To illustrate the folly of attempting, by legislation, to 
 add permanent value to commodities, let me call atten- 
 tion to the fact that Congress, in 1890, authorized the 
 purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver per month. 
 This was a new and extraordinary demand, and under 
 it silver advanced from $ 1.07 an ounce to $ 1.16 ; before 
 the year ended, however, it fell to $ 1.05. In 1891 it 
 dropped to 95 cents. In 1892 it fell to 84 cents, and 
 in 1893 to 73 cents. Thus it is that supply responds 
 promptly to demand. 
 
 "On'its becoming known that the (Congressional) 
 Committee would report in favor of a high tariff on 
 sugar, the market value of the stock of the American 
 Sugar Refining Company advanced 15 per cent." etc. 
 (R 48.) 
 
 The law may now, as in 1862-64, compel a man to 
 accept a 50-cent dollar in full payment of a 100-cent 
 debt. It did authorize the sugar trust to steal some 
 $ 12,000,000 or more from the consumers of sugar. 
 But such laws add nothing to the wealth of the
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 23 
 
 country and nothing to honest men's respect for legis- 
 lators, and yet it is just such robbery as this that Mr. 
 Harvey would have the government sanction by 
 authorizing the free coinage of silver and the payment 
 of a 100-cent debt with a 50-cent dollar, 
 
 " Credit money is a title to commodity money. * * * 
 Credit money does not add anything; it facilitates — 
 makes convenient the transactions of business, just as 
 your wheat certificates add nothing to the exchange 
 value of wheat." (P. 53.) 
 
 Mr. Harvey has told us about redemption money, 
 property money, primary money, and now to confuse 
 the simple minded reader still further, he talks about 
 commodity money, and yet all these things are the 
 same thing and that thing is money. Monej^ is recog- 
 nized by mankind as a thing of value, and by this 
 universally known thing of value the value of other 
 commodities is measured. Money not only serves a 
 similar purpose with respect to value that a yardstick 
 does with respect to cloth, but it has a further attribute 
 not belonging to the yardstick. It will often, if not 
 always, be accepted in exchange for the commodity it 
 measures. In other words, money is a medium of 
 exchange and a measure of values, and maj^ be used 
 solely as a measure, or conjointly as a measure and a 
 medium. As a medium it should be recognized the 
 world over as intrinsically valuable. As a measure its 
 value should be as nearly unchangeable as it is pos- 
 sible for the ingenuity of man to make it. Mr. Harvey, 
 on page 54, tells us that "money is a measure of value 
 and each dollar is a part of that measure ; " but he 
 seems unable to comprehend that this measure, to be 
 an honest one, should be unvarying. 
 
 How, it may be asked, can the value of a commodity 
 be measured by money in the absence of an actual 
 transfer for money? Every intelligent man lias in his 
 mind a conception of the value of a dollar. He knows 
 how much labor it will buy, or how much labor it takes 
 to get it; how much of this or that commodily il will 
 exchange for, and how much annual interest it will 
 bring. By this ideal standard he. measures the value
 
 24 ANSWER TO 
 
 of other things and expresses his estimate of that value 
 in dollars, and yet a million estimates ma}'^ be made 
 and as many exchanges efiected without the actual use 
 of a single dollar of money. The important quality in 
 money, therefore, is its unchangeableness, not its 
 quantity. Activity in use renders quantity a matter 
 of secondary importance. When men have confidence 
 in the capacity and integrity of each other, $1,000 ^c- 
 complish more work than $1,000,000 do in periods of 
 distrust and panic. The threat of free coinage and a 
 cheaper dollar is now doing more to cripple business 
 and keep men out of employ menl than all tiie other 
 evils which afflict the country. 
 
 Notwithstanding what Mr Harvey has said to the 
 contrary, neither a greenback, a bank note nor a prom- 
 issory note of any kind ''is a title to commodity 
 money." It is simply a promise to pay a dollar in 
 money, and this promise may be fulfilled, or may not. 
 Nor is the promise to pay a dollar alwaya based on 
 money. In many instances it is founded on property 
 which may be readily exchanged for money, or used 
 in redemption of the written or printed promise to pay 
 money which has been issued. Nor is it true in all 
 cases that these promises to -pa,j dollars are not valua- 
 ble independently of the thing we call money. They 
 are often a lien on realty or personalty, and hence 
 may be redeemed, and quite often are redeemed in 
 houses, lots, lands, merchandise, etc. 
 
 When Mr. Harvey says what he calls "credit 
 money" "facilitates" exchanges, and "makes convenient 
 the transactions of business," he virtually concedes 
 that in every exchange it facilitates and every debt it 
 pays it performs with respect to the exchange, and 
 the debt the full office of property money, commodity 
 money, redemption money or primary money, and so 
 to the full extent to which these promises to pay 
 money pass from hand to hand in the liquidation of 
 debts, or the purchase of commodities, they discharge 
 the whole duty of what he calls "the money of ulti- 
 mate payment." In other words, in so far as tb ' 
 individuals are concerned who tender and accept thi.<
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 25 
 
 so-called credit money, it effects a complete settle- 
 ment and final discharge of all obligations, and hence 
 is '' ultimate/' 
 
 I think it safe to say that in 999 cases out of every 
 1,000 the promise to pay a dollar is no more based on 
 mone}" than a wheat certificate is based on half-bushel 
 measures. What renders the promissor}"^ note of an 
 individual acceptable is the real estate or the visible 
 personal property behind it, not the money in the 
 man's pockets. 
 
 Mr. Harvey tell us that " three lines of credits are 
 built up on primary money : (1) credit money — paper 
 bills and all forms of token money — all redeemable in 
 primary money; (2) checks, drafts, bills of exchange, 
 and other forms of like paper payable on demand ; 
 (3) notes, bonds, accounts, and other forms of credit, 
 payable at a particular day in the future," etc. (P. 55.) 
 
 How do business men make out a statement of 
 their assets and liabilities ? Do they simply count the 
 money on hand, and then make an estimate of their 
 indebtedness, and because their indebtedness exceeds 
 this money, conclude they are bankrupts ? A farmer has 
 160 acres of fertile land, with houses, barns, and live 
 stock. He owes $100, and perhaps has not in his 
 possession $5 of ''primary money." Is he insolvent? 
 A merchant may have $100,000 worth of merchandise, 
 and his sales may amount to $1,000 per day. If he 
 ■owes $20,000. and has but $500 of "commodity money" 
 on hand, is he unworthy of credit ? If the country had 
 10,000 millions of such " primary money" as Mr. Har- 
 vey would create, the money would be among the least 
 valuable of its possessions. To say that primary 
 money, redemption money, commodity money, the 
 money of ultimate payment, or any other money is the 
 foundation of our credit system, is equivalent to saying 
 that the merchant's line of credit is and should be 
 based on the number of yardsticks in his store; the 
 warehouseman's on his scales; the wine dealer's on liis 
 gallon measures; and the butchers on his steelyards. 
 Pro})erty, real and personal — houses, lots, lands, live 
 Block, agricultural products, railroads, vessels, manu-
 
 26 ANSWER TO 
 
 factories, merchandise, petroleum, coal, iron, copper, 
 gold and silver mines, as well as gold and silver coin, 
 are the true basis of our credit system. Money simply 
 measures the value of these things and facilitates their 
 exchange. The grease on the axle of the wheel is not 
 the most important thing about a wagon, and does not 
 sustain the load. It simply contributes to the easy 
 movement of the vehicle. The panics Mr. Harvey 
 refers to, and notably those of 1837, '57, and '73, re- 
 sulted from over speculation and an inferior currency. 
 The panic of 1893 sprang from the general belief that 
 under the silver legislation of 1890 the country was 
 rapidly approaching a silver basis. The repeal of the 
 purchasing clause of the Sherman law restored con- 
 fidence and ended the monetary fright. On pages 
 from 56 to 64 Mr. Harvey has not only written himself 
 down an ass several times, but by his absurd pictorial 
 illustrations has shown that he holds an indefeasible 
 title to the cognomen. 
 
 In concluding let me call attention to certain facts 
 which Mr. Harvey seems unable to comprehend : 
 
 1. That the abandonment of the money of the civ- 
 ilized world and the adoption of a cumbrous and in- 
 ferior currency would be a step in the direction of 
 barter and barbarism. 
 
 2. The far larger share of the money of any coun- 
 try belongs to the laboring classes, and hence the loss 
 resulting from its debasement would fall most heavily 
 on them. 
 
 3. The law can add nothing to the value of a com- 
 modity without detracting an equal or larger sum from 
 the value of other commodities. 
 
 4. While money substantially measures all values, 
 it comes into actual use in comparatively few ex- 
 changes. " Commerce is an exchange of produce 
 against produce. So much imported, so much ex- 
 ported." 
 
 5. " Credit money," or a " warehouse certificate," 
 to the full extent to which it passes from hand to hand 
 in the liquidation of debts, or the purchase of com-
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 27 
 
 modities, discharges the whole duty of tlie '" money of 
 ultimate payment.'' 
 
 6. The credit system is based on all property, real 
 and personal, and not alone on what John Stuart Mill 
 says is intrinsically the most '"insignificant thing in 
 the economy of society," to-wit : money. 
 
 REVIEW OF FOURTH CHAPTER. 
 
 ^^V%R. HARVEY has hitherto endeavored to beguile the 
 711 reader into the belief that prior to 1873 the 
 differences between the commercial value ol 
 gold and silver at the ratios established had always been 
 so slight as to create no disturbance in the monetary 
 affairs of nations. If this proposition were well founded 
 it would afford no support to his scheme of indepen- 
 dent free coinage, for prior to 1871 the mints of all 
 countries, except England, were open to free coinage 
 of both metals, and tlie result which follovv-ed such a 
 condition of affairs could not be expected to ensue 
 from entirely different conditions. In other words, ail 
 nations might do what one alone could not accomplisli. 
 
 But Mr. Harvey has thus far omitted to notice par- 
 ticularly certain well-known incidents in the history of 
 bimetallism, which if left unexplained were likely to 
 ()verthi-ow even his irrelevant arguments and tal)les o( 
 statistics, and so he now alleges that Professor Laugh- 
 lin asked this question : 
 
 "Is it not a fact that several times prior to .1857 
 silver coin sold at a premium as high as 8 per cent, 
 over gold?" " (Page 68.) 
 
 " Yes, that is true," Mr. Harvey replies, and then on 
 page 69 continues, " We were s])eaking of silver and 
 gold bullion, and not of silver coin." 
 
 In other words, Mr. Harvey admits that silver coin 
 sold at a premium of 8 per cent, over gold, but does
 
 28 ANSWER TO' 
 
 not concede that there was at any time such diiference 
 between the mint value and the market value of gold 
 and silver bullion as would unfavorably affect trade and 
 commerce. He, therefore, undertakes to explain why 
 silver coin attained to so high a premium, and says : 
 
 " A demand often arises for small money, . . . 
 This was the case in New York last j^ear, 1893, wdien 
 silver dollars commanded a premium of 3 per cent— 
 not because of the silver being worth more than a dol- 
 lar, but because factories had to have small bills . . . 
 in paying off their men. They paid the same premium 
 for one and two dollar bills." (Page 69.) 
 
 There are three errors in Mr. Harvey's answer thus 
 far. During the panic of 1893 gold, greenbacks and 
 national bank notes were suddenly withdrawn from 
 banks and from circulation by frightened depositors. 
 So large were these withdrawals and so general was 
 the hiding away of money by the people that there 
 was a currency famine in the land. The banks of 
 New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other large cities 
 practically suspended payment, adjusted their balances 
 by means of clearing house certificates, and declined to 
 honor checks drawn on them in money of any kind. 
 During the latter part of the period covered by this 
 monetary scare, money in New York, whether small or 
 large, paper or metal, commanded a premium, not in 
 exchange for gold, greenbacks, or national bank notes, 
 but in exchange for checks on banks from which at the 
 time no money could be obtained. 
 
 It is not true that this demand for currency came 
 solely from the proprietors of manufactories, for these, 
 as a rule, managed to go through the financial storm 
 with " credit money " of their own making. The de- 
 mand for currency came from those who could use 
 ready money more advantageously than bank checks, 
 on which no money could at the time be realized. 
 And so it came about that men would exchange a 
 certified check calling for $1,030 for $1,000 of any 
 kind of money, small or large. 
 
 It is not true that any one during the panic of 1893 
 exchanged bank notes, greenbacks or gold " for silver
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 29 
 
 dollars and paid a premium of three per cent." for 
 them. The government had not suspended payment, 
 and hence stood ready to pay out silver dollars on de- 
 mand in exchange for either greenbacks, gold certifi- 
 cates, silver certificates, treasury notes or gold. It will 
 be seen from all this that Mr. Harvey'sanswer thus 
 far is at least disingenuous, if not wholly false. He 
 continues: "A great inconvenience had arisen for the 
 want of small money " — 
 
 Where had it arisen, and when? Mr. Harvey does 
 not state, but he is now referring to " several times 
 prior to 1857." 
 
 — " and a premium had to be paid to get it. At the 
 time you speak of" — 
 
 Professor Laughlin is alleged to have referred to 
 "several times prior to 1857," not to any particular 
 time. 
 
 — " nearly all of the small money was made from 
 silver " — 
 
 More small money is now made from silver than 
 ever before in the history of the world. 
 
 — " and on account of the French premium for 
 silver our silver was leaving us " — 
 
 The United States had free coinage then — inde- 
 pendent free coinage, just the sort of free coinage Mr. 
 Harvey now proposes to have the government estab- 
 lish. Why then did our silver abandon the country? 
 Because in the absence of an international agreement 
 the two metals under free coinage can not be kept in 
 circulation together. France took our silver because 
 after 1834 we undervalued it. Independent or national 
 free coinage means, as I have before stated, simply 
 gold monometallism for some, silver monometallism 
 for others, and bimetallism for nobody. 
 
 — ".Small money was scarce" — • 
 
 Where ? 
 
 — " and frequently commanded a premium " — 
 
 Here or in France ? 
 
 — " Not on account of the value of silver bullion, but 
 upon the demand for small money."
 
 30 ANSWER TO 
 
 This as a whole is about the most senseless and 
 indefinite statement it has ever been my luck to en- 
 counter. Does Mr. Harvey mean that France bought 
 u p our silver coins and paid more than bullion prices 
 ior them? The French people had never used our 
 silver money ; but even if our coins had been familiar 
 to them, why should France pay eight per cent, more 
 for our coin than for our bullion when at a cost of less 
 than one-half of one per cent, her mints could have 
 converted bullion into franc or five franc pieces? 
 Nonsense ! American silver left America not because 
 there was a scarcity of small money abroad ; not be- 
 cause our silver coin was worth more in France than 
 silver bullion, but because having lost our gold under 
 the 15.1 ratio of 1792, we sought in 1834 to tempt it 
 back by fixing the ratio at 16.1. By this change of 
 ratio we induced gold to return, but drove silver to 
 countries where it was more highly esteemed. Under 
 the act of 1792 we had silver monometallism ; under 
 that of 1834 we had gold monometallism, and finally 
 by the restricted coinage of silver since 1873, we have 
 secured bimetallism, the very thing Mr. Harvey pre- 
 tends to want, and yet foolishly objects to. 
 
 It may be possible, however, that Mr. Harvey in- 
 tended the reader to infer it was in this country and 
 between our own people that " silver coin sold at a 
 premium as high as eight per cent, over gold prior to 
 1857,"'' and that this premium was due not to an under 
 valuation of silver by the law of 1834, and the conse- 
 quent exportation of silver bullion to countries where 
 :t was more highly valued, but solely " to a scarcity of 
 small money." Let us, therefore, give him a toss on 
 ihis horn of the dilemma and see where he lands. 
 
 Under the act of 1792 any person could take his 
 silver bullion to the mint and have it coined into small 
 money for nothing. If, however, he was in great need 
 of money, as men often are for meal, and could not 
 wait his turn to have the bullion coined, the law pro- 
 vided that he might, by consent of the director of the 
 mint, exchange it without delay for coin at a cost of 
 one-half of one per cent, of its value. Under the ope-
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 31 
 
 ration of this law, therefore, there was no good reason 
 why silver money should be scarce when silver bullion 
 was abundant. Under the act of 1853 the minor coins 
 were heavil}'^ alloyed for the very purpose of keeping 
 them at home and in circulation. This law provided 
 that any person could take gold money to the mint 
 and get in exchange for it — dollar for dollar — silver 
 halves, quarters and dimes. From 1853 to 1861 gold 
 bullion was relatively cheaper than silver bullion and 
 gold coin was more abundant in the United States 
 than silver coin, and so long as gold coin continued 
 abundant and the government stood ready to receive 
 it in exchange for its alloyed minor coins, there would 
 naturally have been no scarcity of the latter, and in 
 truth there was not. When Mr. Harvej^, therefore, 
 seeks to account for the fact that silver coin prior to 
 1857 sold for a premium as high as eight per cent, over 
 gold, by attributing it wholly or in part to a trivial 
 scarcity of small money, he betrays a readiness to re- 
 sort to an}^ subterfuge in order to uphold his cause. 
 
 Mr. Eustis is now said to have asked what nations 
 constituted the Latin Union. Mr. Harvey answers, 
 " France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Greece." 
 (P. 70.) 
 
 " Then," said Mr. Eustis, " the Latin Union, Ger- 
 many, and the United States had by free coinage 
 maintained the commercial value of silver (?) at par 
 with gold." 
 
 " Yes," replied Mr. Harvey. 
 
 The alleged question of Mr. Eustis should be dis- 
 missed for indetiniteness. Nobody claims the com- 
 mercial value of gold and silver were ever the same. 
 What Mr. Harvey intended to ask himself was whether 
 the Latin Union, Germany, and the United States had 
 at a fixed ratio maintained silver and gold at equal 
 commercial value — that is to say, worth dollar for 
 dollar the world over. 
 
 To this question Mr. Harvey answered " yes," and 
 yet he must have known that his answer was untrue, 
 (1) by his own tables of statistics; (2) by his state- 
 ment, page 10, that silver in France was "worth $1.03^ 
 when exchanged for gold"; (3) by his statement on
 
 32 ANSWER TO 
 
 page 19, to-wit, " at the time the United States de- 
 monetized silver . . silver as measured in gold was 
 worth $1.02-'; (4) by his admission on page 68 that 
 silver coin had sold at a premium of eight per cent, 
 over gold; (5) by the statement on page 69 in which 
 he says '■' on account of th€ French premium for silver 
 our silver was leaving us"; (6) by his assertion on 
 page 135 that " France and the Latin Union main- 
 tained a premium on silver for forty years.'' When 
 an individual is convicted of lying out of his own 
 mouth it can not be either unparliamentary or unjust 
 to brand him a liar. It is in this manner, at any rate, 
 that ministers of the Gospel characterize Satan when 
 he wilfully indulges in falsehood. 
 
 The truth is, from 1810 to 1834 gold virtually 
 abandoned the tJnited States, because it was under- 
 valued, and hence for 24 years was at a premium, 
 occasionally as high as 4 to 4^ per cent. From 1834-5 
 to 1861, substantially, all American silver, except the 
 heavily-alloyed minor coins, provided for by the act of 
 1853, left the country, and during this period silver 
 bore a premium over gold. 
 
 Mr. Eustis, still eager for more falsehoods, asks : 
 " And the United States was the first of these to 
 attack silver and demonitize it? " (P. 70.) 
 
 " Yes," Mr. Harvey answers. 
 
 This " yes " was as untruthful as the other. There 
 was not an American silver dollar in the United States 
 to be either demonetized or attacked in 1873, and 
 practically had not been one for nearly 40 years. 
 Silver here was worth more as bullion than as coin, 
 and hence the only circulation a silver dollar could 
 have had was from the mint to the melting pot. But 
 on still another ground Mr. Harvey's answer would 
 have been false. Germany took the preliminary steps 
 toward limiting the coinage of silver December 4, 1871, 
 and completed the work July 9, 1873. The first attack 
 by the countries mentioned, therefore, was made on 
 silver in 1871. 
 
 What Mr. Harvey has to say (pp. 70-71-72) as to 
 the probable or possible value of gold and silver in 
 case they were not used as money, has no relevancy
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 33 
 
 whatever to either the question of national free coin- 
 age, or international free coinage, and hence in this 
 discussion is of no consequence to anj^body. His 
 pages 73 and 74, as to the cost of producing silver, are 
 simply tilled with ridiculous verbiage. The idea that 
 the money wasted by Chicago speculators on mining 
 ventures should be counted in an estimate of the cost 
 of silver production is as preposterious as it would be 
 to say that the monej'- paid for the bogus bricks which 
 swindlers sell to ignorant countrymen for gold should 
 be counted in the cost of producing the yellow metal. 
 His reply to a greenbacker (pages 75-76) is a weak 
 attempt to discuss an abandoned issue, but in it he 
 accidentally stumbles on an actual fact, which is to a 
 certain extent just as applicable to his independent 
 free coinage 50-cent silver dollars as to paper money. 
 He says : " When the danger became imminent that 
 the government was not able to enforce its legal tender 
 character, having no commercial value, it (the paper 
 money) would become more or less worthless." He 
 might truthfully have added that in the same exigency 
 the silver dollar would drop to its commercial value — 
 50 cents. 
 
 In fact, a currency endowed by law with legal 
 tender force beyond its commercial value often becomes 
 worthless, or comparatively worthless, while the 
 government has full power to compel its acceptance 
 in the payment of debts. The assignats of France, 
 the continental currency of the fathers, the money of 
 the Confederate states fell, and continued to fall, and 
 while this gradual extinction of value was in progress 
 continued a legal tender in the payment of debts at 
 the nominal or face value. When legal tender money 
 like that of the Confederate states becomes nearly, if 
 not absolutely valueless, debts are easily paid and 
 every payment is an act of robbery authorized and 
 enforced by law. 
 
 As specimens of Mr. Harvey's financial slush let 
 me present to the reader two paragraphs from page 77 : 
 
 "Paper money always takes its (redemption 
 money's) place at such times (war times) the people^ 
 however, are not injured by it" —
 
 34 ANSWER TO 
 
 This depends wholly upon whether the paper 
 money issued is kept at par with the money of the 
 world. If it falls below par somebody must be injured 
 by it, and if it becomes altogether worthless, multi- 
 tudes are ruined by it. 
 
 — " They (the people) store away their good money, 
 and have it in their possession ready to use at any 
 time " — 
 
 How much gold and silver did our people "store 
 away " during the war of the revolution and during 
 the great civil war ? How much was found stored 
 away in the South when the rebellion collapsed ? Not 
 a dollar. 
 
 — " and it becomes especially useful if the other 
 money should become entirely worthless." 
 
 Of course good money would be "especially use- 
 ful " if there were any, but there would be compara- 
 tively none. During long periods of depreciated paper 
 money the better money does not simply go into hid- 
 ing, but the bulk of it goes abroad. In war times 
 imports exceed exports, and the balances are paid not 
 in paper money, but in the money of commerce. In 
 this way in part, and by the activity of tJie bullion 
 buyer in part, during a great war a country is often 
 stripped of its better money and left to depend mainly, 
 if not wholly, upon its paper currency. When this 
 currency becomes ••' entirely worthless " the wealth of 
 the nation is diminished to the full extent of the orig- 
 inal value of the currency lost, for every dollar of this 
 currency represented at one time or another 100 cents 
 worth of labor or of commodities. The continental 
 currency of the fathers and the paper money of the 
 Confederate states will suggest the extent of the losses 
 sustained by the people by reason of the gradual decay 
 of their paper money. The financial condition of the 
 fathers at the end of the Revolution, and of the Con- 
 federate states at the end of the civil war, will show 
 that no good money had been stored away to take the 
 place of paper money when its value should disappear. 
 Indeed, the financial condition of the North at the 
 close of the war will fully sustain all I have said with
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 36 
 
 respect to the scarcity of gold and silver in the country. 
 
 — "As the paper money fluctuates from day to day 
 all are taking chances alike '' — 
 
 False. The old who are living on the interest of 
 money earned in their more vigorous years ; the widow 
 and orphan for whose support provision has been made 
 by investment in bond or note ; the workingman who 
 depends for subsistence upon his daily wages ; the 
 corporation which is restricted by law to certain rates 
 or charges for its services ; the endowed churches, col- 
 leges, hospitals, etc., whose incomes are derived from 
 interest-bearing securities; the soldier to whom pen- 
 sion money is due; the man, whether rich or poor, 
 who has loaned money on mortgage, or otherwise ; the 
 man who has sold a farm or house and lot, and 
 accepted promissory notes for the deferred payments ; 
 all these and multitudes of others have no chance at 
 all at such a time, except the chance to be robbed, and 
 this, soon ceasing to be a chance, becomes a certainty. 
 
 — '' If it (the paper money) becomes wholly worth- 
 less, all have suffered more or less proportionately" — 
 
 " More or less proportionately " is at least some- 
 what indefinite, if not entirely meaningless. A man 
 sells a farm, receiving one-third down and notes for 
 the deferred payments. When the notes mature they 
 are paid in paper worth 5 or 10 cents on a dollar. Do 
 the buyer and the seller in this case, and in a million 
 other similar cases, suffer " more or less proportion- 
 ately?" No. The seller experiences all the suffering, 
 and the buyer, who gets the farm for comparatively 
 nothing, kicks up his heels for joy. In fact, there is no 
 " more or less proportionately " involved in the trans- 
 action. I fear Mr. Harvey's mental apparatus at this 
 point in his lecture needed readjusting. His likeness, 
 on page 26, indicates that the wheels in his head are 
 " more or less proportionately " large and small, and 
 hence not at all unlikely to get " more or less propor- 
 tionately" out of whack. 
 
 — "And primary money immediately takes its 
 place." —
 
 SQ ANSWER TO 
 
 Was this the case when John Law's paper money 
 bubble exploded in France in 1720 ? Not at all. Gold 
 and silver had abandoned the country, and hence could 
 not immediately take the place of the worthless paper. 
 I quote from a history of that time : "A few individuals 
 acquired large fortunes while thousands of families 
 were ruined, and the nation sustained a shock which it 
 did not recover from for many years." How was it 
 when the continental currency became valueless ? Did 
 primary money rush in dollar for dollar to take its 
 place ? ' Peletiah Webster said the continental currency 
 had killed more men, destroyed more property, and 
 impaired the patriot cause more than all the arms and 
 arts of the enemy combined. How was it when the 
 Confederate money became worthless, did gold and sil- 
 ver immediately take up the burden for which it had 
 become unfitted ? Nonsense. If there had been a live 
 animal exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair Mr. Harvey 
 would have been decorated with the blue ribbon for 
 being the biggest financial ass in the United States. 
 
 What Mr. Harvey says about money based on labor, 
 pages 78, 79, 80, I shall skip. It is simply thrust in to 
 pad out a thin book, and has no relevancy to any known 
 issue alive or dead. His statement (p. 81) that the sil- 
 ver States and the owners of silver mines would not be 
 specially benefited by a scheme which would enable 
 them to convert 67 cents worth of bullion into money 
 enough to pay 129 cents of debts, is so obviously un- 
 true that I pass it without comment. What he says of 
 the relative value of silver, wheat, nails and calico 
 (p. 81) I shall answer in due time, and shall then have 
 something to say also about improved facilities for pro- 
 duction (p. 84). The tariff proposition (p. 85) I leave 
 to Mr. Harvey and Mr. Kohlsaat, and should be pleased 
 to see the contention between them end like the fight 
 of the Kilkenny cats. But Mayor Hopkins is said to 
 have asked a question (p. 88) to which I desire to give 
 a moment's attention. The question is this: 
 
 *' What effect (had) the adoption of the gold stand- 
 ard (by governments) on those nations using a silver or 
 bimetallic standard ? "
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." g7 
 
 Mr. Harvey's answer in part, but substantially in 
 whole, is as follows (p. 89) : 
 
 " Take our South American republics. During the 
 last thirty j^ears they have been getting deeper and 
 deeper into debt to England " — 
 
 Is it not strange that Englishmen who lack the wit 
 to comprehend and apply Mr. Harvey's so-called prin- 
 ciples of finance should still have wit enough to outwit 
 our South American free coinage silver republics? 
 
 — "And during the last twenty-five years these 
 debts have been made payable in gold " — 
 
 England has been on a gold basis not for twenty-five 
 years only, but for seventy-five, and during this time all 
 debts have been paid to her either in gold or in what was 
 equivalent to gold. There has been no shortening nor 
 lengthening of her measure of values. If independent 
 free coinage has plunged these South American repub- 
 lics into distress, would it not be well for us to avoid 
 independent free coinage? If gold and the restricted 
 coinage of silver has given England access to all ports 
 and made lier the foremost commercial nation of the 
 world, would it not be well for us to draw a lesson from 
 her experience and adhere to the free coinage of gold 
 and the limited coinage of silver? Shall we follow the 
 example of the successful or the unsuccessful ? 
 
 Now to recapitulate : 
 
 1. Mr. Harvey's attempt to account for the pre- 
 mium on silver coin on the pretense that there was " a 
 scarcity of small money," is a failure. 
 
 2. His statement that the Latin Union, Germany 
 and the United States had at a fixed ratio maintained 
 silver and gold on a parity with each other, is shown to 
 be false by his own statements. 
 
 3. The danger and loss which he alleges might en- 
 sue from governmental issue of paper money, would re- 
 sult as certainly but with simply diminished force from 
 the independent free coinage of silver. 
 
 4. Paper money may become, and often has be- 
 come, almost wholly worthless, while the government 
 issuing it still exercised power to compel its accept- 
 ance in payment of debts. 
 
 389206
 
 38 ANSWER TO 
 
 5. When depreciated paper money is a legal ten- 
 der in the payment of debts at its face value, better 
 money leaves the country, and this would be the case if 
 independent free coinage were adopted and silver dol- 
 lars issued worth less than 100 cents in the markets of 
 the world. 
 
 6. When the money of a country depreciates in 
 value, the people of the country sustain a loss equal 
 at least to the full amount of the depreciation. In 
 other words, if $1,000,000 of currency should decline 
 from par to nothing, the direct loss to the people would 
 be $1,000,000, and the indirect loss resulting from em- 
 barrassed trade, etc., might amount to a still larger 
 sum. 
 
 REVIEW OF PART OF FIFTH CHAPTER. 
 
 yy^^^HE TOTAL value of the properly of the world is 
 \J ^ about 450,000 million dollars. The available 
 ^"^ gold and silver money of the world combined 
 is about 7,500 million dollars. The available gold 
 money in the world is about 3,700 million dollars." 
 On page 98 Mr. Harvey concedes that the amount of 
 gold money may be 3,900 million dollars — "Their pro- 
 portion in values to each other is represented by these 
 three globes . . . the large one represents the value 
 of all the real and persoiuil property in the world, 
 the larger of the two small ones represents the face 
 value of the silver and gold in the world available 
 for use as money. The large one is sixty times as large 
 as the one representing silver and gold." (P. 95.) 
 
 No one can know definitely the money value of the 
 real and personal property of the world. Statisticians 
 give the land value, house value, and other values for 
 the better known portions of the globe, but Asia, Af- 
 rica, sections of South America, and many of the islands 
 of the seas afford no data upon which anything like ac-
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 39 
 
 curate estimates can be founded. When Mr. Harvey, 
 therefore, says the total value of all the property of the 
 world is about 450 billions, he may or may not have 
 erred to the extent of 50 billions either way ; but this 
 insignificant sum is of course of no consequence to one 
 whose marvelous genius can double the value of the 
 property of the world by simply endowing 50 cents with 
 the name and legal tender power of a full dollar, and 
 as I am myself not disposed to higgle about trifles, I 
 shall accept his estimate, and count the earth and its 
 contents worth 450 billions of gold and silver money. 
 
 How much gold and silver there was in use as 
 money prior to 1493 it is impossible to tell. We know, 
 however, the metals have from time immemorial been 
 considered precious, and that they are comparatively 
 imperishable, and hence likely to accumulate. Cyrus's 
 booty from Asia in gold and silver amounted in value 
 to $40,000,000. Alexander took I'rom Persia $400,000- 
 000. Julius Cassar seized in the Roman treasury 520 
 tons of gold and 700 tons of silver, together worth 
 $375,000,000. What amount of gold and silver of 
 that old time descended to the people of modern days, 
 no statistician can determine. From 1493 to 1850, 
 however, we have estimates, not altogether well 
 founded, as to the amount of gold and silver produced, 
 which for lack of anything more reliable, statisticians 
 accept, and and from 1850 to the present time the esti- 
 mates of gold and silver production are substantially 
 correct. The figures for these periods are as foliows : 
 
 From 1493 to 1850 
 
 I Gold $3,314,553,000 
 
 • ■ ] Silver 7,378,450,000 
 
 t? i«^n. i«Q^ jGold 5,484,473.000 
 
 From 1850 to 1893 | gjj^^^ 3,381,017,000 
 
 Total . $19,558,493,000 
 
 How much of the gold and silver produced prior to 
 1493 and su})sequent to that year is now being used as 
 money must he loft mainly as a matter of conjecture. 
 Men do not (endanger their lives by boasting of their 
 treasures, jior encourage tax inquisitors by exhibiting 
 the contents of either stocking legs or strong boxes.
 
 40 ANSWER TO 
 
 The amount of the precious metals coined into money 
 within the past 200 years may perhaps be a matter of 
 record, but this, even if certainly known, would not en- 
 lighten us as to the amount now in circulation, for coin 
 is often smelted for use in the arts, or reduced to bullion 
 and recoined. It is known, of course, how mu ch gold 
 and silver there is in governmental depositories and 
 public banks ; but further than this it is impossible to 
 speak with certainty. According to recent estimates, 
 however, the stock of the world's gold and silver money 
 is as follows : 
 
 Gk)ld coin 1 3,965,900,000 
 
 Silver coin 4,055,700,000 
 
 Total ; . . . $ 8,021,600,000 
 
 Having said this much by way of preface, permit 
 me to call attention again to Mr. Harvey's globes (p. 
 95) and to his statements with respect to them. 
 
 The property of the whole world, real and personal, 
 is by the globes represented as 60 times more valuable 
 than money, and yet on pages 56, 57 and 58 Mr. Harvey 
 seemed oblivious to the fact that there existed a broader 
 and more substantial foundation for the credit system 
 than money. In other words, he then erroneously as- 
 sumed that money and not the property of the world 
 was the basis of the credit system, and that it was too 
 limited in quantity to afford that system the necessary 
 support Now he seeks to show that the quantity of 
 money is too small to measure the value of the world's 
 commodities and facilitate their exchange. His first 
 proposition had. as I have shown, no leg to stand upon ; 
 and the last, as I shall show, has not even a shadow to 
 sustain it. 
 
 On page 54 Mr. Harvey said : " Money is a measure 
 of value, and each dollar is a part of that measure." 
 Now, as a measure of value, let us see whether the gold 
 and silver of the world are sufficient to measure the 
 property of the world. If the farmer's crop of wheat 
 were but sixty times larger than his bushel measure, it 
 would be less than an hour's task for him to measure it. 
 If the amount of wheat were even 500 times larger it
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 41 
 
 would perhaps require two days to measure it with one 
 bushel measure. The merchant does not require as 
 many j'^ardsticks as he has yards of cloth ; nay, one 
 yardstick is more than sufficient for 60 or f)00 or 6,000 
 yards of cloth. It would be preposterous to suppose 
 that the wine merchant required one gallon measure 
 for every sixty gallons of wine in his cellar. If Mr. 
 Harvey's statement is correct that the property of the 
 world is but sixty times larger in value than the money 
 of the world, it would indicate that the measure of 
 value would have not only a light task to perform, but 
 much leisure. 
 
 The measuring quality of money, however, is not its 
 only attribute. It is also a medium of exchange ; but 
 before we consider whether the money of the world is 
 sufficient in quantity to facilitate the exchanges of the 
 world, let us examine the property globe, which is sixty 
 times larger than the money globe, and see just how 
 much of its contents requires the use of money. 
 
 In the first place, money itself is a part of the prop- 
 erty of the world, and yet needs no money to facilitate 
 its exchange; by excluding this from the property 
 globe, the latter will shrivel somewhat. In the second 
 place, the lands, houses and lots of the world seldom 
 change hands, and hence make comparatively little, if 
 any, demand on money; these will amount in value to 
 over 200 billions. Withdraw this sum from Mr. Har- 
 vey's larger globe and it is left limp and lopsided, like 
 a balloon from which the gas is rapidly escaping. But 
 this is not all, the value of the railroads, ships upon in- 
 land and outland seas, the contents of museums, gal- 
 leries of art, libraries, the looms, spindles and imple- 
 ments of manufacture, furniture in offices hotels and 
 houses, the silver and gold plate, pictures and statuary 
 of all the homes of the world, the products of farms and 
 gardens consumed by those who raise them, beasts of 
 burden, milch cows, and animals kept for breeding pur- 
 poses, and hence, as a rule, not offered for sale, farm 
 implements, etc.; all these would amount in value to 
 probably 40 billions. We have then 8 billions of money, 
 200 billions in lands, houses and lots, and 40 billions
 
 42 ANSWER TO 
 
 consisting of railroads and personalty of various kinds ; 
 altogether 248 billion dollars worth of property, which 
 should be withdrawn from Mr. Harvey's property 
 globe, because not on the market and hence neither in 
 need of money to measure values, nor facilitate ex- 
 changes. 
 
 The property in the property globe for the exchange 
 of which money may be required, is now only about 
 half as large as it was, and but thirty times greater in 
 value than" money. But there is still another impor- 
 tant factor in this problem, which Mr. Harvey failed 
 to take into account, to- wit : the fact that in commercial 
 iountries ninety-five per cent, of the exchanges are 
 effected by means of checks, drafts, bills of exchange, 
 and the other commercial instrumentalities which 
 hanks supply, and that actual money is only needed 
 to adjust balances. One day last month drafts callinar 
 for one hundred and forty-eight million dollars went 
 through the New York Clearing House, and yet nine 
 million dollars in greenbacks, treasury-'notes. national 
 bank notes, or gold and silver coin adjusted the bal- 
 ances, and was the only actual money needed in the 
 payment of drafts or other obligations calling for one 
 hundred and forty-eight million dollars. The checks 
 on banks of Columbus which go through the Clearing 
 House aggregate three to four million dollars a week, 
 and yet they offset each other so nearly that often a 
 whole week, and sometimes a whole fortnight, passes 
 without a single dollar of paper or metal money chang- 
 ing hands. The balances involved being small, the 
 creditor banks do not go to the trouble of collecting 
 them, and hence run their Clearing House checks 
 through the Clearing House until in the course of 
 business they are cancelled. In this way $3,000,000 
 or more of debts are paid or commodities purchased 
 without the actual use of a dollar of any kind of 
 money. 
 
 Take ninety-five per cent, therefore, from the 202 
 billion dollars "^still remaining in Mr. Harvey's globe 
 and we have left but little over 10 billion dollars'
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 48 
 
 worth of property for the exchange of which actual 
 money may be required. 
 
 Again there is another factor in this problem which 
 Mr. Harvey has ignored, to-wit, the element of time. 
 Commodities are not all offered for sale on any single 
 day, week, month or year. The value of money is not 
 extinguished when it extinguishes a debt or facilitates 
 an exchange. One thousand dollars may in the course 
 of a month pay a million dollars of indebtedness, or 
 facilitate exchanges aggregating a million dollars in 
 value, and still be as fresh and useful as before this 
 work was accomplished. If all the 450 billion dollars' 
 worth of property of the world were sold and bought 
 each year it would be quite possible for the present 
 supply of money under present conditions of credit, 
 rapid transit, and telegraphic communication to per- 
 form the work with ease. 
 
 Let us for illustration make a somewhat violent as- 
 sumption, to-wit, that 8 billion dollars of the world's 
 metallic money could be made available in the settle- 
 ment of 8 billion dollars' of balances in a single day. 
 By multiplying 8 by 300 business days in a year we 
 should then get the total of the balances which this 
 8 billion dollars would adjust, 300x8 = 2,400 billion, 
 or over five times more than the estimated value of all 
 the property of the world. This 2,400 billions, how- 
 ever, being only five per cent, of the total transactions, 
 we should add to it ninety-five per cent., the latter 
 being the percentage of means which banks and sub- 
 stitutes for money supply in effecting exchanges, and 
 we have the sum total of exchanges possible to be 
 made under this assumption on a basis of 8 billions of 
 primary money, to-wit, 48,000 billions. Mr. Harvey's 
 beggarly 450 billions of property, therefore, sinks into 
 insignificance when contrasted with the possible power 
 to effect exchanges possessed by money supplemented 
 and directed by the commercial genius of the age. 
 But let us assume that the 8 billions of the world's 
 metallic money would adjust but 8 billions in balances 
 each week, the sum total of balances adjusted in this 
 case would be 416 billions. An adjustment of 8
 
 44 ANSWER TO 
 
 billions per month would be 96 billions per year, and 
 this would represent transactions aggregating 1,900 
 billions. Mr. Harvey should, therefore, multiply his 
 22 cubic feet of gold (p. 101) and his 66 cubic feet of 
 silver (p. 104) by 300, by 52 or by 12, and so obtain a 
 reasonably correct notion of the power of money not 
 only as a measure of values, but as a medium of ex 
 change, and if his brain is large enough to allow a 
 robust idea to develop in it he will in the way sug- 
 gested get to understand the true function of money 
 and the relation it bears to the commodities of the 
 world. 
 
 Money never becomes scarce while the honesty and 
 solvency of men remain unquestioned. In times of 
 fear and distrust occasioned by threats of repudiation, 
 or an absence of high commercial honor, it goes forth 
 eagerly but cautiously, as the dove from the ark, to 
 see if there is any solid ground on which to alight. 
 Money was never so abundant in the history of the 
 world as it is to-day. Since 1873, the world's stock of 
 gold has been increased to the extent of $ 2,382,000,000, 
 while the silver coin of the world is also greater than 
 it was then. 
 
 Suppose a self-assumed wise man should make the 
 discovery that the wheat, corn, beans, rice, potatoes, 
 turnips, and onions of the world amounted altogether 
 to 450 billion bushels, and that there were only 8 
 billion bushel measures to measure these products in, 
 would you become apprehensive that there was a lack 
 of measures in the world ? But now suppose this 
 alleged wise man were to tell you the only way to 
 avoid starvation was to double the number of bushels 
 of the products named, and that this could be done by 
 cutting the old bushel measure in two, and thereafter 
 calling a half bushel a bushel; what would you say to 
 the proposition? You would say the man who made 
 it was a fool. This is substantially what Mr. Harvey 
 proposes to do for the United States. He proposes to 
 call a half dollar a dollar and so double the value of 
 the property of the United States, " as expressed in 
 dollars." (P. 96.) Would there be more property
 
 •' COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 45 
 
 after it was done than before? Not a cent's worth. 
 No more farms, no more grain, no more merchandise, 
 no more trade or commerce, no more of anything. 
 If Mr. Harvey thinks the name of a thing is the 
 essence of the thing, why not go to the logical end of 
 his tether by endowing a cent with the name and legal 
 tender power of a dollar, and so elevate the prices of 
 commodities a thousand per cent, instead of one hun- 
 dred ? If he seeks some metal for use as money that 
 will occupy more space than gold and silver, let him 
 adopt iron. He could fill a forty-acre lot with pig 
 iron and pile it twenty-two feet high, or even one 
 hundred feet high. Steel dollars would be durable, 
 and by the change of one letter they could be made 
 to designate the purpose Mr. Harvey seeks to accom- 
 plish, to-wit, steal dollars. 
 
 Money is money, and our money should be the 
 money of the world, good at home and abroad. Wher- 
 ever on the globe an American dollar might find its 
 way, it should represent a sturdy people — disposed to 
 toe the mark, to do as they agreed, to pay their debts, 
 and ask odds of nobody. Mr. Harvey would make 
 Americans sneaks, swindlers and thieves, indifferent 
 alike to the honor of the nation and their own personal 
 obligations. He talks about war with England and 
 tells us what a good thing it would be. This was Dick 
 Turpin's style, and that of the late Jesse James. 
 Every bandit and robber seeks a war with somebody 
 because he wants to plunder somebody. 
 
 In conclusion permit me to call attention to a para- 
 graph which is suggestive of either inebriety or insanity : 
 
 " In what language can we characterize the men 
 behind the scenes, who knowingly are directing the 
 world to the gold standard ? . . . . Imps of Hell 
 unchained, banqueting in selfish glee upon the heart's 
 blood of the world." ( F. 103.) 
 
 If there are any benevolently disposed persons in 
 Chicago, I trust they will keep an eye on Mr. Harvey ; 
 he evidently needs at times either the admonitions 
 of a police magistrate, or the straight jacket of an 
 asylum for lunatics.
 
 46 ANSWER TO 
 
 FIFTH CHAPTER —Continued. 
 
 *NTiL 1873 the primary money of the world was 
 both silver and gold at a parity." ( P. 106.) 
 I have already shown that this statement is 
 untrue, but in a few words, and by Mr. Harvey's own 
 admissions, its untruthfulness will be exposed a second 
 time. That gold and silver were not *'at a parity" Mr. 
 ilarvey admits on page 10, when he says, " silver in 
 France was worth $1.0S| when exchanged for gold"; 
 page 19, "silver measured in gold (in the United 
 States) was worth $1.02"; page 69, "on account of 
 the French premium our silver was leaving us"; page 
 136, "France and the Latin Union maintained a pre- 
 mium on silver for forty years." 
 
 — " They were virtually one metal " — 
 
 He has himself shown they were virtually two 
 metals in the sense that under independent free coinage 
 they could neither be maintained at a parity nor kept 
 in circulation together. 
 
 " The demand for primary money was met by both 
 metals" — 
 
 Prior to 1873 the demand for primary money was 
 not met by the coin of both metals. On the contrary, 
 it was always met by the cheaper metal — by the metal 
 which was a legal tender for more than its commercial 
 value. 
 
 — "The relative valuations of property to money, 
 and money to property, adjusted themselves accord- 
 ingly "— 
 
 If Mr. Harvey means that the value of commod- 
 ities was always estimated in gold and silver, and 
 neither in gold alone, nor in silver alone, nor in green- 
 backs alone, nor in irredeemable paper money alone, 
 he knows little of the monetary history of his own
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 47 
 
 country and less of that of the world at large. In the 
 United States from near 1792 to 1834-5 the value of all 
 property was measured in silver, because it was the 
 cheaper money. From 1834-5 to 1861 the standard of 
 measurement was gold because gold was, during this 
 period, the cheaper money. From 1861-2 to 1879 
 greenbacks constituted the currency in which the prices 
 of commodities were quoted in the north, and for a 
 part of this time Confederate money was the measure 
 of value and the medium of exchange in the South. 
 It should be remarked in this connection also that 
 England limited the coinage of silver in 1816, and that 
 India, Austria-Hungary, Persia, China, Japan, and 
 Mexico were on a silver basis prior to 1873, and that in 
 the countries named gold and silver could not possibly 
 have been "virtually one metal," and hence the 
 sentence we are considering must be either false or 
 wholly meaningless. 
 
 — "Then we had dollar wheat and sixteen cent 
 cotton in bimetallic measurement." — 
 
 In the United States we have often had dollar 
 wheat and once before the war 15:^-cent cotton; but we 
 never had either dollar wheat or cotton at any price in 
 bimetallic measurement prior to the resumption of 
 specie payments in 1879. 
 
 The work of pointing out line by line Mr. Harvey's 
 inaccuracies of statement, erroneous conclusions and 
 general disregard for truth, would not onl}'^ be almost 
 endless, but exceedingly dull and wearisome. The gist 
 of his contention now is that since the so-called de- 
 monetization of silver in 1873, wheat and cotton 
 ( p. 108-113), cut nails ( p. 114), pig iron ( p. 114-115), 
 wool ( p. 115 ), have fallen in price and that " all other 
 values have declined like " the values of the commodi- 
 ties named, and that " prices were not as low in 1859, 
 or prior to the war, as they are now." (P. 116.) 
 
 This alleged general decline in prices Mr. Harvey 
 attributes wholly to the appreciation of gold since 1873. 
 Before we seek to ascertain whether his contention is 
 well founded, or otherwise, let us state the question 
 clearly. It is this : Have prices declined since 1873,
 
 48 ANSWER TO 
 
 and, if so, is this decline attributable wholly or in part 
 to the so-called demonetization of silver and the 
 alleged appreciation of gold ? 
 
 In the outset it is admitted that some things have 
 declined in price by reason of the use of improved 
 machinery, the lessened cost of production and more 
 abundant supply. On the other hand, it is affirmed 
 that some things have not declined in price at all, and 
 it is emphatically denied that anything has declined 
 in price on account of an alleged appreciation of gold, 
 or that there has been, since 1873, any appreciation in 
 the value of gold by which prices could be affected in 
 any degree whatever. 
 
 Wheat is the commodity to which Mr. Harvey calls 
 special attention. Is it not just as fair and reasonable 
 to attribute the high price of wheat to a depreciation 
 of gold as to attribute the low price of wheat to an 
 appreciation of gold ? If not, why not? Wheat, within 
 the past thirty days, has advanced 30 cents a bushel, or 
 60 per cent. Has gold, within the past thirty days, de- 
 preciated 60 per cent? The truth is, Mr. Harvey is 
 untruthful, inconsistent, and illogical. He talks much 
 about the law of supply and demand, but in argument 
 does not recognize its influence on business, trade or 
 commerce. He is crazy on the subject of money. Wars, 
 pestilences and famines ; fruitful and unfruitful seasons 
 abundance and scarcity ; improved methods of produc- 
 tion ; cheaper and quicker means of distribution have- 
 in his perverted judgment, no effect on prices. In 
 brief, he is a conspicuous member of that class of men 
 who are a curse to their friends and a blessing to their 
 enemies. The farmers of the Western States who 
 were beguiled by the empty verbiage of his trashy 
 book into the belief that the price of wheat in some 
 way depended upon the price of silver bullion, and 
 who, on the strength of thiis absurdity, hurried their 
 wheat to market, must now realize that they have lost 
 from 60 to 70 per cent, of the value of their crop ; 
 while those who put no dependence upon Mr. Harvey's 
 rotten nonsense, have made what the farmers lost, 
 to-wit : Fifty million or more dollars worth 100 cents
 
 '• COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 49 
 
 each. No. 1 wheat is quoted in New York to-day at 
 85f cents a bushel ; in Milwaukee at 82^ cents, and No. 
 2 is quoted in Toledo at 80 cents. Wheat is now over 
 19 cents per bushel higher than it was in December, 
 1860 ; 20 cents per bushel higher than it was in Janu- 
 ary, 1862. In real money it is 25 per cent, higher than 
 it was in December, 1865, and in real money it is as 
 high as it was in November, 1872, four months before 
 the so called "crime of 1873 " was perpetrated. 
 
 Prices are at times either temporarily depressed or 
 elevated by the operations of reckless speculators ; but 
 as a rule prices rise and fall in unison with men's 
 estimates of the present and prospective supply and 
 the present and prospective demand. If since 1873 
 property has been standing still and gold going up 
 (p. 109) the evidences of it should be apparent in the 
 market quotations of every year subsequent to the one 
 named, and in every year, also, prior to that time. Let 
 us, therefore, take the highest and lowest prices at 
 which wheat was sold in Chicago during certain years, 
 and see whether the prices and the fluctuation in 
 prices indicate that gold is and has been appreciating 
 in value 
 
 BEFORE THE WAR. 
 
 In April, 1860, wheat sold for $1.13 a bushel. 
 
 In December, 1860, wheat sold for 66 cents a bushel. 
 
 WAR PRICES. 
 
 In January, 1862, wheat sold for 65 cents a bushel. 
 In August, 1862, wheat sold for 92^ cents a bushel 
 
 AFTER THE WAR, IN DEPRECIATED PAPER MONEY. 
 
 In February, 1866, wheat sold for 77 cents a bushel. 
 In November, 1866, wheat sold for $2.03 cents a 
 bushel. 
 
 In April, 1870, wheat sold for 73^ cents a bushel. 
 In July, 1870, wheat sold for $1.31^ a bushel. 
 In July, 1873, wheat sold for $ 1.46 a bushel. 
 In September, 1873, wheat sold for 89 cents a bushel.
 
 50 ANSWER TO 
 
 IN MONEY AT PAR WITH GOLD. 
 
 In January, 1879, wheat sold for 81f cents a bushel. 
 
 In December, 1879, wheat sold for $ 1.33^ a bushel. 
 
 In January, 1880, wheat sold for $ 1.32 a bushel. 
 
 In August, 1880, wheat sold for 86^ cents a bushel. 
 
 In January, 1881, wheat sold for 95f cents a bushel. 
 
 In October, 1881, wheat sold for $1,435 a bushel. 
 
 In April and May, 1882, wheat sold for $ 1.40 a 
 bushel. 
 
 In December, 1882, wheat sold for 91^ cents a 
 bushel. 
 
 From these figures two conclusions are unavoidable. 
 First, that the prices of wheat do not follow the rise 
 and fall of silver ; second, that the prices of wheat do 
 not indicate any appreciation in the value of gold. 
 
 THE world's production OF WHEAT IN BUSHELS. 
 
 1889 2,137.000,000 
 
 1890 2,304,000,000 
 
 1891 2,425,000,000 
 
 1892 2,438,000,000 
 
 1893 2,621,000,000 
 
 1894 2,566,000,000 
 
 The increase since 1889 has been constant. Europe 
 needs but 140,000,000 bushels more than she raises to 
 feed her people, and yet in 1894 there was an increase 
 in the wheat crop of the world of 429,000,000 bushels 
 over the abundant crop of 1889, and at the same time 
 large amounts had been left over from the plentiful 
 crops of 1892 93. How could we expect wheat to be 
 iiigh under such conditions ? 
 
 I have not the statistics before me to prove the fact, 
 but I doubt not it is a fact susceptible of proof that 
 the farmers of Ohio and of the Western States have 
 made much more money on their wheat crops since 
 1873 than they realized from their wheat crops for the 
 twenty-two years prior to 1861. With the help of 
 recently invented or improved machinery, such as 
 ^rain drills, reapers, binders and threshers, etc., they 
 ire not only enabled to raise more wheat than they
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 51 
 
 did in the earlier time, but to raise it at much less cost 
 per bushel, and to transport it to market at from one- 
 sixth to one-half the old freight charges. The freight 
 rate now on American railways is about 8 mills per 
 ton per mile, and transportation by water is still 
 cheaper. At one time in Ohio, within my recollection, 
 farmers of Marion, Delaware, Morrow and Knox coun- 
 ties would haul wheat to Sandusky, and with the 
 proceeds of a wagon load get barely enough money to 
 buy a side of sole leather, a barrel of salt and a bolt of 
 brown muslin. Much of what appeared in the quoted 
 prices of wheat in New York and Baltimore during the 
 forties and fifties, was made up of freight charges and 
 commissions to middlemen. To indicate how little the 
 cost of transportation to the seaboard affects prices at 
 the present time, I give the following quotations of 
 sales on May 22, 1895 : 
 
 In New York, No. 1 Wheat 85f 
 
 In Milwaukee, No. 1 Wheat 82| 
 
 It is a fact that the farmers of the United States as 
 a whole can raise two bushels of wheat now with no 
 more labor and at no greater cost than was required to 
 produce one bushel prior to 1860. In other words, when 
 wheat was lowest in 1893-94, it took less labor to pro- 
 duce a dollar's worth of wheat than it did before the 
 war, and hence it is that a debt which might have been 
 paid in 1860-62, or at any time prior to these years, by 
 the proceeds of 1,000 bushels ol wheat, can at the pres- 
 ent time be paid with greater ease, even if the proceeds 
 of 1,500 bushels are required to pay it. It is true that 
 crops in every year are not alike abundant in all sec- 
 tions of the Union; but what the farmers of New Eng- 
 land lack is not money, but more fertile soil ; and what 
 those in the far West stand in need of is not fifty cent 
 silver dollars, but a more abundant rainfall, and an ab- 
 sence of hot winds that destroy vegetation. Mr. Har- 
 vey's book would have been dropped in the waste 
 paper basket unnoticed but for the fact that it appeared 
 during the business depression resulting from the silver 
 panic of 1893. His statements with respect to the
 
 52 ANSWER TO 
 
 hardness of the the times and the scarcity of money 
 would have been twofold more pertinent and forcible 
 after the panics of 1857 and 1873 than at this time, and 
 yet he claims that in 1873 and for some time thereafter 
 nobody knew silver had been " demonitized," and we 
 all know that for forty years prior to 1873 and for five 
 years subsequent to that year there was not a silver dol- 
 lar in circulation. 
 
 I shall in my next paper consider Mr. Harvey's 
 statements with respect to corn, cotton, wool, cut nails 
 and pig iron, and show what sheer nonsense it is to 
 affirm that gold has appreciated in value since 1873, 
 when the hire of it, or rent of it, or interest of it, is 
 now, less than it was ever known to be before in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 FIFTH CHAPTER - Continued. 
 
 ^y^^HE DEMAND for com now, with nearly double 
 \J our population, is greater than it was in 1873, 
 
 ^■^ and yet in 1873 the corn crop was fifty- 
 seven million bushels greater in this State (Illinois) 
 than it was last year. The overproduction in 1872 
 accounts for its low price in 1873. The gold standard 
 accounts for its low price now." (P. 116.) 
 
 The point Mr. Harvey seeks to establish is that 
 overproduction in 1872 made the price of corn low in 
 1873, and that underproduction and a greater demand 
 did not make the price of corn higher in 1893 than it 
 had been in 1873. But Mr. Harvey has so framed his 
 statement as to permit his readers to infer a falsehood. 
 There was no overproduction in 1872, and no underpro- 
 duction in either 1892 or 1893. The corn crop of the 
 State of Illinois, to which he refers, constitutes but a 
 small part of the corn crop of the United States, and 
 for the past ten years has not controlled the price of
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 53 
 
 coru either in Chicago or elsewhere. A bushel of shelled 
 corn weighs but four pounds less than a bushel of 
 wheat, and hence since the advent of competing lines 
 of railway and fast steamships, corn does " seek distant 
 markets like wheat " (p. 116), and is in fact exported, 
 but the export demand for corn and its use for food by 
 the people of the United States do not fix its price. 
 Pork is the producfcof corn, and in this condensed form, 
 under present conditions of railway and steamship ser- 
 vice, corn will " always stand the freight " to England, 
 France and Germany. 
 
 The total corn crop of the United States in 1872 was 
 but 1,092,719,000 bushels, while in 1893 the total crop 
 amounted to 1,619,486,000 bushels, an increase over 
 1872 of 526,777,000 bushels. It was the total number 
 of bushels accessible to markets however which controll- 
 ed the price in 1893, and not simply the crop of Illinois. 
 A portion of the corn crop of 1872-73 never reached 
 the market, either as grain or pork. It is not many 
 years since the value of a bushel of wheat or corn would 
 have been consumed in carting it from Omaha to Chi- 
 cago, and even as late as 1870-72-73 corn was burned 
 for fuel in Nebraska, Iowa and other Western States, 
 because freight charges were so high it could not be 
 shipped at a profit. Now competing lines of railway 
 penetrate every nook and corner of the corn belt, and 
 freight rates have been so reduced that every bushel of 
 corn not used on the farm in the production of pork, 
 etc., may find a quick market and ready sale. Mr. Har- 
 vey's attempt to account for the low price of corn in 
 1873, therefore, by the abundance of the crop in Illi 
 nois, is not only unsuccessful, but absurd, and was evi 
 dently intended to deceive. 
 
 CORN. 
 
 As further evidence that the prices of farm products 
 have not been affected by the alleged appreciation of 
 gold and scarcity of money, I shall call attention to cer- 
 tain quotations of corn, swine, and cotton, for which I 
 am indebted to the New York /Sn/i, of April J5, 1894.
 
 54 ANSWER TO 
 
 In July, 1878, corn sold in New York in terms of 
 " gold for 48 cents a bushel ; 1875, 87 cents ; 1878, 48 
 cents ; 1882, 84 cents ; 1886, 46 cents ; 1888, 66 cents ; 
 1889-90, after an enormous crop, 37 cents ; April, 1890, 
 37 cents; 1891, 80^ cents. May 24, 1895, corn was 
 quoted in New York at from 57^ to 59 cents, and money 
 on call at 1 per cent, per annum, while prime mercan- 
 tile paper found ready takers at 3 to 4 per cent. The 
 price of corn is low when the crop is abundant, and 
 high when the crop is short. A similar rule obtains 
 with respect to money. When abundant, rates of in- 
 terest are low ; when scarce, rates of interest are high. 
 Government bonds bore 6 per cent, in 1873 ; now the 
 government can borrow money on sl2^ or S per cent, 
 basis. Corn is 10 cents a bushel higher to day than it 
 was in July, 1873, and gold is 3 per cent, per annum 
 lower to-day than it was in 1873. 
 
 In the presence of these facts the man who talks 
 about " the crime of 1873 " and affirms that it " brought 
 tears to strong men's eyes and hunger and pinching 
 want to widows and orphans" (p. 112) must be very 
 dangerously off his mental equipoise. 
 
 SaV'INE. 
 
 In the winter of 1872-73, just before the " crime of 
 1873 " was perpetrated. Western packers bought swine 
 for an average of $3.40 per 100 pounds. In the winter 
 of 1875-76, they paid an average of $6.35 per 100 
 pounds. In 1878-79 the price averaged $2.80. In 
 1881-82 the average was $6.06. In "1889-90 $3.54. 
 1892-93, $6.54. 
 
 In view of the facts presented what becomes of 
 the absurd notion that farm products rise and fall 
 with the price of silver? Hogs are selling to-day for 
 $1 per 100 pounds more than they sold for in 1873. 
 The dollar of 1873 was worth 86 cents; that of 1893 
 was worth 100 cents. The per capita of money in the 
 United States in 1873 was $18.58; the per capita of 
 money in 1893 was $34.75. The per capita of money 
 in circulation in 1873 was $18 04; the per capita of 
 money in circulation in 1893 was $23.87.
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 55 
 
 COTTON. 
 
 In 1864 cotton sold in New York at 80 cents per 
 pound. In 1873 it had fallen to 16 cents, a decline of 
 6-1 cents per pound, and yet at the latter date Mr. 
 Harvey says nobody knew silver had been "demonet- 
 ized." " From 1879 to 1890 the prices of cotton fluctu- 
 ated between 9^ and 13 cents, as the crop happened 
 to be full or short. The aver^Ige of the twelve years 
 was very close to the average of the twelve years end- 
 ing with 1860, although in 1856-57, owing to the short 
 crop, prices rose to 15^ cents per pound. The crops 
 for the ten years ending with 1894 averaged twice as 
 many bales as for the ten years prior to 1860. The 
 greatest crops raised were in 1891, 8,655,518 bales, and 
 in 1892. 9,038,707 bales. The crop in 1872 was only 
 one-third in quantity that of 1892, to-wit: 2,974,315 
 bales. It will be seen from all this that the low prices 
 of cotton have resulted from abundant crops and not 
 from scarcity of money or any alleged appreciation of 
 gold. There has been very recently an advance in the 
 price of cotton of over 30 per cent. 
 
 WOOL. 
 
 In 1870 the United States produced 162,000,000 
 pounds of wool and in 1893, 303,000,000 pounds. The 
 world's supply of wool in 1870 was 1,295,000,000 
 pounds ; in 1891, 2,456,773,000 pounds. The world's 
 clip for 1891 was 831,000,000 pounds greater than in 
 1880. With such rapid increase in the production of 
 wool and cotton and the great improvements in ma- 
 chinery for the manufacture of these raw materials, 
 combined as they are with flax, hemp, jute, hair and 
 shoddy in the woven fabric, is it surprising that the 
 prices of wool and cotton are low and that clothing is 
 cheap ? Is it possible that lessening prices should be 
 regarded as a curse and ascribed to an alleged ap- 
 preciation of gold and not as a blessing to those born 
 naked and attributed to the bountifulness of the earth 
 and the increasing industry and intelligence of man? 
 Would you have clothing dearer than it is and more
 
 56 ANSWER TO 
 
 difficult to get? Should we murmur because prices 
 are not as high as they were forty years ago and our 
 people not as poorly clad? But it is said these low 
 prices indicate that low wages aie paid to workingmen. 
 This, however, is emphatically denied. In a table 
 compiled by Edward Atkinson, from the report of the 
 Finance Oommittee of the United States Senate, a 
 comparison is made of the wages of 1860 with those of 
 1890, and also of the purchasing power of a day's wages 
 in 1860 with that of a day's wages in 1890. According 
 to this table of wages and the purchasing power of 
 wages the workingman obtained 58 per cent, more 
 money for his day's labor in 1800 than he did in 1860, 
 and the purchasing power- of this day's wages was 72 
 per cent, greater in 1890 than in 1860, and from 50 to 
 58 per cent, greater in 1890 than in 1873. Shall we 
 join the independent free coinage fanatics because 
 wages are higher than they were, the necessities of 
 life cheaper and the money of the country better and 
 more abundant ? 
 
 NAILS. 
 
 With respect to nails it is only necessary to say : 
 
 1. That ''from 1881 to 1881 the nail producing 
 power of the country nearly doubled, while the con- 
 suming capacity increased only about 20 per cent." 
 (Wells's Recent Economic Changes.) 
 
 2. American inventors have enabled us to excel 
 the world in the manufacture of this article and, as a 
 consequence, nails are now being exported to all coun- 
 tries Rf^cpntl y a single order from Birmingham, Eng- 
 land, for 20,000 kegs, was filled by an American nail 
 mill. Nails are low, hut this results from great com- 
 petition, improved methods in manufacture, and less- 
 ened cost of production, and not from either a reduction 
 in the wages of workingmen or an alleged appreciation 
 in the value of gold. 
 
 PIG IRON. 
 
 Mr. Harvey tells us, page 115, that " the average 
 price of pig iron in 1859 was $23.88 per ton, now it is 
 about $12." This fall in price he, of course, attributes
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 57 
 
 to an alleged appreciation of gold. A man who can 
 see no other cause for a decline in the prices of iron 
 and steel since 1859, than the one assigned by Mr 
 Harvey, must be either stone blind or exceedingly 
 anxious to deceive his readers. I have not the figures 
 at hand to enable me to compare the amount of iron 
 produced in 1859 with the amounts produced in every 
 year since that time, but the few facts I am prepared 
 to submit will be sufficient to suggest the true causes 
 of the decline in the prices of pig iron and its products. 
 The United States produced in 1860 987,000 tons 
 of pig iron ; in 1880 the production had swelled to 
 3,835,000 tons. The American Iron and Steel Asso- 
 ciation reported that ''the year 1881" — eight years 
 after ''the crime of 1873'' — ''was the most prosperous 
 year iron and steel manufacturers had," up to that 
 date, " ever known," and yet a few years subsequently, 
 to- wit, " from 1885 to 1887, we increased our produc- 
 tion of pig iron 85 per cent. ; our production of besse- 
 mer steel ingots 93 per cent., and our production of 
 open hearth steel ingots 119 per cent." In 1859 not a 
 ton of pig iron was produced in Tennessee, Alabama, 
 and Georgia. The great Mesaba ore beds of the North- 
 west, where high grade ore is lifted by steam shovels 
 directly from the earth and loaded into cars, were, in 
 1859, unknown, and in 1873 unworked. The discovery 
 and operation of these beds has reduced the price of 
 iron ore more than 50 per cent. In 1870 the average 
 
 Froduct per man in the furnaces of Great Britain, and, 
 think, of this country also, was estimated at 173 tons ; 
 but in 1884 the product per man had increased to 261 
 tons. By the Gilchrist-Thomas process four men can 
 make as much steel, with less cost of material, as it 
 took ten men ten years ago to accomplish (D. A. 
 Wells). A ton of steel rails can now be made with 
 one-half less coal than was required in 1868. The 
 steam engines of the world supplv power equiva- 
 lent to that of 200,000,000 horses. Fonr-lifths of these 
 engines have been constructed since 1805. The appli- 
 cation and use of steam has more than trebled man's 
 working ]xnver ( D. A. Wells).
 
 ^ ANSWER TO 
 
 But in talking of prices Mr. Harvey ignores the in- 
 ventive genius of the age, and will not take into ac- 
 count the reapers, mowers, binders, and threshers ; the 
 machine that makes a shoe or fashions a hat, or sews a 
 garment, or knits a stocking ; these are all thrust aside. 
 Steam and electricity, which a child may direct in the 
 performance of the most intricate of tasks, are counted 
 of no importance. He speaks of a few articles which, 
 on account of great abundance, have been low in price, 
 but is discreetly silent with respect to pork, beef, hay, 
 rye, barley, oats, potatoes, fruit, poultry, butter, lard 
 and cheese, and does not allude to the fact that the 
 people of this country obtain more money annually for 
 eggs than for the product of our silver mines, and that 
 eggs were never so high as they have been since 1873. 
 
 The fact is, Mr. Harvey writes like one who had 
 been an unsuccessful speculator in silver mining stock, 
 and who now seeks to attribute his losses to something 
 besides his own defective judgment. But whether he 
 has or has not been defrauded of good money by de- 
 signing rascals, who in the mining regions are always 
 on watch for the tenderfoot, it is nevertheless evident 
 from his reckless statements, incorrect conclusions, and 
 illogical chatter about money that he should be con- 
 demned as " a bad egg," and cast aside. 
 
 FIFTH CHAPTER — Concluded. 
 
 s DEBTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 CHOSE who look upon the author of " Coin's Finan- 
 cial School" as a heaven-born financier, and hence 
 regard his statements as accurate and his conclu- 
 sions infallible, have indeed good reason to tremble with 
 anxiety and alarm. If Mr. Harvey is correct in his esti- 
 mate of the resources and liabilities of the United 
 States it is evident that the country, if sold out by the 
 sheriflf, would not pay 60 per cent, of its indebtedness,
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 59 
 
 and if by any possibility it should make an assignment, 
 the probabilities are that the assignee and his lawyer 
 would gobble all the property and not leave a farthing 
 for distribution among importunate creditors. Here are 
 the words and figures which tell the humiliating story 
 of the great republic's insolvency : 
 
 " The total debts of the United States, national, mu- 
 nicipal, state, county, corporate and private, is now es- 
 timated at $40,000,000,000" (p. 119). By turning to 
 the appendix of Mr. Harvey's book, on what should be 
 page 157, we find that " the assessed valuation of all 
 property in the United States is $24,651,585,465." 
 Now, if the value of all the property of the United 
 States as given by Mr. Harvey in the appendix referred 
 to were deducted from the total debts of the United 
 States as estimated by Mr. Harvey on page 119, an un- 
 paid balance of indebtedness would remain amounting 
 to fifteen billion three hundred and forty-eight million 
 four hundred and twenty-four thousand five hundred 
 and thirty-five dollars ($15,348,424,535). The financial 
 outlook, therefore, is exceedingly disheartening to the 
 people of the United States, and yet there is one broad 
 streak of silver lining the sombre cloud which hangs 
 over us, to-wit : the fact that our creditors will lose at 
 least 40 per cent, of the money we owe them, and if by 
 chance the countr}^ should conclude to make an assign- 
 ment, the condemned rascals will not get anything at 
 all out of the hands of the assignee and his attorney. 
 This last reflection is very comforting. 
 
 Before I proceed to a consideration of the subject 
 of debts, permit me to ask and answer a query of my 
 own. Who are the creditors — the extortioners who 
 seize guileless people by the throat and compel them 
 to borrow money ? Mr. Harvey tells us " everybody, 
 except the money lender, is in debt" (p. 119), Who 
 then are the money lenders? In answer to this it may 
 be said that the banks are money lenders, but this 
 would suggest but half the truth. Banks borrow and 
 lend, and between the rate of interest they give and the 
 rate they get, manage to make salaries for employes 
 and dividends for those who assume the risks of busi-
 
 60 ANSWER TO 
 
 mess. The fact is, banks are among the greatest bor- 
 rowers in the world. The 3,650 national banks in the 
 United States owe 1,929,340 people the sum of $1,647,- 
 017,129. This amount is not loaned to the banks by 
 rich men, but in the main by merchants, shopkeepers, 
 contractors, manufacturers, mechanics, laborers — men 
 engaged in the active and necessary concerns of life, 
 whose average deposit is but $853.67. Savings banks 
 without capital stock do business wholly on borrowed 
 money, or, in other words, they belong exclusively to 
 those who deposit in them, and the depositors receive 
 in the way of interest all the net profits of the business. 
 They are emphatically poor men's banks. The sav- 
 ings banks of the United States owe 4,739,194 depos- 
 itors $ 1,739,006,705. The life insurance companies of 
 the United States will owe their policy holders, at 
 death, $12,486,803,990; in this vast sum provision is 
 made for widows and orphans. How much the private 
 banks of the country are indebted to the people I. do 
 not know, but the sum total must be very large. The 
 truth is the money of the country belongs, in the main, 
 to the poor men oi" the country. Some of these men 
 loan it directly to their neighbors ; some put it in 
 building and loan associations; some use it with life 
 insurance companies to make provision for wives and 
 children; some lodge it in savings banks, and still 
 others deposit it in national, state or private banks. 
 Now let us make aii estimate of the number of money 
 lenders in the United States : 
 
 Those wlio lend to national banks 1,929,340 
 
 Those who lend to savings banks .. 4,739,194 
 
 Those who lend to life insurance companies 10.983,91/ 
 
 Those who lend to building and loan associations. . . 1,745,725 
 Those who lend to State and nrivate banks, estim- 
 ated ' 1,000,000 
 
 ThoKf nho lend directly to neig^hbors, estimated. . 1,000,000 
 
 Total 21,398,176 
 
 These, then, are the money lenders of the United 
 States " who are going to eat the propertv owner up." 
 (P. 119.)
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 61 
 
 " Everybody except the money lender is in debt." 
 (P. 119). Very well ; in excepting the moneylender 
 and his or her family fully two-thirds of our popula- 
 tion is excepted. Where does the money come from 
 with which mortgage loans are made? From life 
 insurance and trust companies, savings banks and 
 building and loan associations. Seventeen million 
 people own them ! 
 
 Where does the money come from to make loans to 
 men in active business? From national, state and 
 private banks, and in these banks three million of 
 business men are interested either as stockholders or 
 depositors, and the larger interest is that of the de- 
 positors. Mr. Harvey evidently thinks that if his 
 scheme of independent free coinage were adopted the 
 banks would be compelled to accept 50 cent silver 
 dollars in payment of their loans, and so they might 
 be if they had any loans outstanding at the time. But 
 boys who go hunting for weasels rarely find the beasts 
 asleep, and the graduates from Mr. Harvey's tinancial 
 school, in their hunt for money lenders, would find 
 they were a year or two too late to bag the game. The 
 more direct, and probably more successful way for Mr. 
 Harvey and his friends to reach the end proposed, 
 would be to equip themselves with the tools and appli- 
 ances of the professional burglar, and begin work be- 
 fore the banks had knowledge of their approach. 
 
 In what relation do the creditor and the debtor 
 stand with respect to each other ? Simply this : The 
 one owns what the other uses. The thing owned by 
 the one and used by the other may be money, farm, 
 house, cart or horse. The contract signed by the 
 debtor to return the property to the creditor at the 
 expiration of a certain time does not diminish the prop- 
 erty of a country nor does its strict fulfillment leave 
 the debtor in any worse condition than he was when 
 the agreement was entered into. Assume, for the sake 
 of argument, that the money, land, house, cart or 
 horse has, by reason of increased demand and lessened 
 supply, appreciated in value while in the custody of 
 the debtor. This fact could not change his right to use
 
 62 ANSWER TO 
 
 for a definite time and then return, into a right to hold 
 forever any part of what never belonj^jed to him. But 
 it may be said the debtor has lost money by the trans 
 action, and so it may be said the creditor has lost 
 money by the transaction. If this were true, however, 
 in either the one case or the other, the loss resulted 
 from defective judgment in the bargaining, and to pro- 
 vide against this by law, would be a denial to freemen 
 of tLe right to make their own contracts and an ob- 
 struction to the rapid flow of business. Public policy 
 demands, therefore, that men competent to exercise 
 the right to make contracts, should assume whatever 
 risk of loss there may be in their fulfillment. To 
 establish any other rule would leave every transaction 
 unsettled, and result in a total paralysis of business. 
 But Mr. Harvey may say that when the debt for money 
 was incurred the debtor had reason to expect he would 
 be permitted to make payment in silver. In reply to 
 this it is only necessary to suggest that there are 
 500,000,000 of legal tender silver dollars in the coun- 
 try with which payment can now be made, and that 
 there never was a time in the history of the world 
 wlien silver dollars were either more abundant or more 
 easily obtained than at the present moment. 
 
 If by a provision of law men were denied the right 
 to lend, or borrow, or to buy, or sell on credit, the busi- 
 ness of the country w^ould be brought suddenly to a 
 standstill and millions of men would be unable to find 
 employment. The credit system, when wisely used, 
 is the business man's best friend. It places within his 
 reacli not only the commodities he needs and can not 
 himself produce, but the accumulated capital of cen- 
 turies. It enables him to do in a day, week, or year 
 what in its absence would require a lifetime to accom- 
 plish. It has built over 176,000 miles of railway iu 
 this country, and without these great artei'ies of inland 
 commerce the products of the farm would have scanty 
 market; farms in certain sections would be compara- 
 tively worthless, and great cities impossible. The 
 debts of the United States may seem large, but they 
 indicate neither lack of products nor diminished pros-
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 63 
 
 perity. Every debt wisely incnrrecl is offset by a credit 
 or by property abundantly sufficient to cancel it; and 
 debts are never larger than when business is most 
 active and remunerative. During panics and the years 
 immediately succeeding panics, when confidence has 
 been stricken down and distrust and fear are over- 
 whelming, indebtedness is rapidly reduced, business 
 stagnant, times hard, workingmen unemployed and in 
 distress for the necessities of life. The moment con- 
 fidence is restored and credits freely given, private and 
 corporate debts increase and multiply, and then it is 
 that commerce, agriculture and manufactures get on 
 their legs again, and with new vigor bound like an 
 antelope on another round of prosperity. The man 
 who looks simply at the public or private indebtedness 
 of a country and never at the things upon which it is 
 based, is like one who turns his back upon a store 
 house filled with riches and persists in looking at its 
 shadow. 
 
 "* But this ball that represents debts will not de- 
 crease any." (P. 118). The contents of the bail are 
 constantly changing, and are never for two full days 
 the same. The ball is like an elevator in which grain 
 is received on storage. In times of prosperity and 
 generous harvests, it is full to overflowing in years of 
 adversity and scanty crops, :t is but partly filled, and 
 then only with the poorest grain. When there is a 
 large cotton, wheat or corn crop to be gathered in and 
 marketed, the volume of indebtedness is increased. 
 On the oJher hand, when the seasons are unpropitious 
 and fields unproductive, the volume of indebtedness 
 is diminished. 
 
 Let us see how debts are created and how they are 
 rnncelled. The workingmen of the country have, in 
 round figures, loaned $2,000,000,000 to the savings 
 banks, and by doing so a debt of $2,000,000,000 has 
 been created. Now the savings banks reloan this 
 money, or these credits, to state, countv, city or to 
 individuals, and another debt of $2,000,000,000 is 
 c-reated. making a total indebtedness of $4,000,000,000. 
 In time the bonds or notes which the banks hold are
 
 64 ANSWER TO 
 
 paid off and the indebtedness reduced $2,000,000,000. 
 With the money or credits so obtained the banks now 
 pay their depositors and all the indebtedness is can- 
 celled. Nobody has been harmed by these transac- 
 tions ; on the contrary, we have good reason to believe 
 that all the parties to them have been benefited. 
 
 B buys a (arm of A for $ 15,000 on the usual terms 
 of payment, to-wit : One-third down, one-third in one 
 year, and one-third in two years, deferred payments 
 secured by mortgage. Here an indebtedness of $10,000 
 is created. Now A finds a farm in some other neigh- 
 borhood, county or state, which suits him better than 
 the one he sold, and so he buys a farm of C for the 
 same money and on the same terms of payment and 
 the indebtedness is increased to $20,000. C repeats 
 the operation and so farms change hands and debts 
 increase through all the letters of the alphabet, until 
 finally a million dollars of indebtedness may have be- 
 come a matter of official record. Mr. Harvey looks 
 upon this aggregate of mortgage debts and pretends 
 to see in it evidences of approaching bankruptcy and 
 ruin; but the parties most interested are no whit 
 alarmed; they are men of common sense and know 
 what they have been doing. B finally pays his debt 
 of $ 10,000 to A, and A, with the money received from 
 B, pays his debt to C, and C cancels his indebtedness 
 to D, and so this $10,000 runs through the whole 
 alphabet of buyers and sellers until it cancels a million 
 dollars of indebtedness ; leaves every man who bought 
 and sold the owner of an unincumbered farm, and 
 somebody at the end in possession of $10,000 which 
 he is exceedingly anxious to invest. 
 
 Again the national. State, and private banks owe 
 their depositors say $3,000,000,000. This money or 
 these credits are in part loaiied by the banks to traders 
 and manufacturers, and thus $5,000,000,000 of indebt- 
 edness is created — $ 3,000,000,000 representing the 
 debts of the banks to depositors, and $2,000,000,000 
 being the debts of traders and manufacturers to banks ; 
 but the chain of indebtedness does not end here. 
 The manufacturer to whom a part of the sum has been
 
 "^O-NS x'i:NAxNv:iAL SCHOOL." 65- 
 
 loaned invests in raw material and then sells the 
 iinislied product on time to the wholesaler. The latter 
 sells on the usual terms ol* credit to the retailer, and 
 he on the usual terras to the planter, stockman, farmer, 
 contractor, etc., and thus the amount of indebtedness 
 based on original loans aggregating $3,000,000,000 
 may swell to six or eight billions. But see how easily 
 this vast sum is cancelled. The planter, stockman, 
 farmer, etc., pays the retailer; the retailer pays the 
 wholesaler; the wholesaler pays the manufacturer; 
 the manufacturer pays the bank and the bank pays 
 off its depositors and so the ball of debt, which was 
 wound up to 6 or 8 billions with profit to everybody, 
 is unwound without injury to anybody, and the orig- 
 inal three billions of money, credits, or property is 
 once more in the hands of those who own it, ready to 
 go forth again upon a journey similar to that from 
 which it has just returned. It is true that men who 
 borrow money to buy lottery tickets, or bogus gold 
 bricks, or watered stocks, or salted mines, may never 
 pay their debts, and hence inflict a loss upon their 
 creditors. Still by these unwise investments nothing 
 is lost to the country. The money or property in such 
 cases simply passes from the hands of honest men 
 through the hands of a fool into the hands of a rogue. 
 It is also true that honest men often make injudicious 
 investments, or engage in pursuits for which they have 
 no skill, or confide in people who betray and despoil 
 them, or are stricken down by sickness, or over- 
 whelmed by some unexpected calamity, and hence are 
 unable to pay their debts. But none of these causes 
 of failure are properly chargeable to either the credit 
 system or to the circulating medium of the country. 
 
 Mortgage indebtedness always appears to be much 
 greater on official records and in tables of statistics 
 than it is in fact. Mortgages are never cancelled by 
 the mortgagee until the last dollar they wero i!;iven to 
 secure has been fully paid. In thousands of instances 
 it will be found that three-fourths of rtn incumbrance 
 on farm or city property has been removed, while the 
 mortgage still remains on record for tho full amount
 
 QQ ANSWER TO 
 
 of the original debt. In other instances the whole 
 sum has been paid and by neglect or design on the 
 part of the mortgagor, public record of the fact has not 
 been made. In still other instances one mortgage is 
 simply a link in a long chain of mortgage debts., and 
 when it is paid the money runs down the line and 
 pays the whole. Building and loan associations have 
 thousands of mortgages on record for the full amounts 
 of the original loans, and yet they have for years been 
 receiving fortnightly or monthly payments on the notes 
 the mortgagee were given to secure. The same is true 
 of mortgages held by sellers of city and suburban lots. 
 The bonds of a railroad or of a manufacturing enter- 
 prise, or of some wildcat mining company, or of some 
 boom town venture may be on record at their face 
 value, and not be worth in the market five cents on 
 the dollar. Speculators often build railroads and open 
 coal, iron or silver mines, not with a view to operating 
 them, but for the purpose of issuing stocks and bonds 
 to palm off on to unsuspecting people. 
 
 Our courts have recently been struggling with a 
 case involving $8,000,000 of railroad bonds, which, it 
 is alleged, were not issued for the betterment of the 
 road, but for the enrichment of those who temporarily 
 controlled it. The country is well supplied with mort- 
 gage bonds on coal lands at fictitious values, on silver 
 mining property, on oil lands, on iron furnaces and 
 iron mines, on boom town manufacturing plants, on 
 railroads unable to pay operating expenses, on those 
 in process of construction, and on proposed roads that 
 never will be built. It does not cost much to record a 
 mortgage for a million or more on a hill supposed to 
 contain iron, on a ridge supposed to contain coal, on a 
 hole supposed to have silver at the bottom of it, or on 
 a field which taints the air with the smell of gas or oil. 
 For the payment of such sham indebtedness, however, 
 no demand will ever be made on either the money or 
 the products of the country. Mr. Harvey's item of 
 railroad indebtedness should be cut down one-half. 
 His item of mortgage indebtedness of business realty, 
 street railways, manufactures, and business enterprises
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." (Jf 
 
 in several billions too high. His estimate of the mort- 
 gages on farms and homes should suffer a reduction of 
 two-thirds. The money loaned by the banks to the 
 people represents the money borrowed by the banks 
 from the people, and the one indebtedness will, in 
 time, offset the other. The estimate he gives of the 
 value of all property of the United States is at least 
 35 billions less than it should be. It may have been 
 taken from official reports, but personal property of 
 both town and country, and farms, lots, and houses 
 are assessed for taxation at less than fifty per cent, of 
 their true value in money. 
 
 REVIEW OF SIXTH CHAPTER— In Part, 
 
 ^'V^R. Harvey begins an alleged speech on page 130, 
 ^11 and in its delivery never fails to applaud himself 
 when he gives utterance to a sentence or a sen- 
 timent intensely silly or wholly false. " In the midst of 
 plenty we are in want." In want of what? " Helpless 
 children and the best womanhood and manhood in 
 America appeal to us for release from a bondage that is 
 destructive of life and liberty." What bondage ? " The 
 Orient, with its teeming millions, and France, the cradle 
 of science and liberty in Europe, look to the United States 
 to roll back the accumulated disasters of the last twenty- 
 one years. [Applause] " (p. 131), What disasters ? Not 
 those resulting from lack of money, for in this country 
 we have one thousand millions more money than we 
 had in 1873; better money and a larger amount per 
 capita. Not disasters resulting from diminished crops 
 or scarcity of products of any kind, for the fields have 
 yielded plentiful harvests; the output of our manufac- 
 tories has been abundant ; the commerce of the countrj'' 
 increasing, and the workingman better paid than he 
 ever was before. Not disasters resulting from either
 
 68 ANSWER TO 
 
 domestic or foreign wars, for we have been at peace 
 among ourselves and on friendly relations with all the 
 nations of the world. During the twenty-one years re- 
 ferred to, our sales of products to other countries ex- 
 ceeded our purchases from them by about 2,000 million 
 dollars, and in 1894 our exports were over $200,000,000 
 in excess of imports, whereas in 1873 our imports ex- 
 ceeded exports by more than $1] 9,000,000. 
 
 — " If it is claimed we must adopt for money the 
 meta! England selects" (p. 131 ). Nobody ever made 
 such a claim or ever thought of making it. England 
 does not care whether our money is gold, silver, brass, 
 copper or irredeemable paper. Mexico's silver dollars 
 are worth but fifty cents, but the circulating medium of 
 Mexico affects neither our business nor that ol" England. 
 It is a burden which the people of Mexico must bear 
 alone. — "A war with England would be the most 
 popular ever waged on the face oi' the earth " ( p 132 ). 
 Why should a war with England be popular? Her 
 people are not only our kindred, but they are our best 
 customers in the purchase of food stuffs and cotton. 
 War means the expenditure of money, the waste of 
 property, the sacrifice ol life, the grief of parents, the 
 breaking hearts of wives, and the homelessness of 
 children. The people of the United States will never 
 go to war with '" repudiation " and •' fifty-cent dollar" 
 inscribed upon their battle flags. 
 
 — " England is the creditor nation of the globe, and 
 collects hundreds of millions of dollars in interest an- 
 nually." Did England ever compel anybody to borrow 
 monev of her? Does she drag Americans across the 
 sea and force them to take gold ? Nonsense ! Eng- 
 land has held to the gold standard for eighty years, and 
 has prospered ; in the meantime her rivals have been 
 alternating from silver to gold, and from gold to silver, 
 and have suffered losses and been subjected to embar- 
 rassments at every change. 
 
 — •' The money lenders of the United States, who 
 own substantially all our money, have a selfish interest 
 in maintaining the gold standard" (p. 133). The 
 money lenders of this country, numbering as they do
 
 ' COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 69 
 
 over 20,000,000, with families dependent on them, 
 numbering 40,000,000 more, are interested in maintain- 
 ing an honest standard — a standard that will not shrink 
 and swell in response to the wishes of those who seek 
 to borrow as much as possible and pay back as little as 
 they can. 
 
 — '' With silver remonetized and gold at a premium, 
 not one-tenth of the hardships would result that now 
 afflict us. First it would double the value of all prop- 
 erty" (p. 133). How? Would one bushel of wheat 
 become two bushels ; one yard of cloth two yards : one 
 acre of land two acres ; one horse two horses ? No. 
 The only value affected would be the value of the dol- 
 lar. This would be cut in twain. 
 
 — " Second, only -i per cent, of the business of the 
 people of this nation is carried on with foreign 
 countries " ; a solid reason for keeping 3ur money 
 good. Shall we reduce the value of our money in 
 order to inflict a loss upon those with whom we trans- 
 act but 4 per cent, of business, when by so doing we 
 should inflict a loss twenty-four times greater upon our 
 own people ? 
 
 — " Is it not better to legislate in the interest of 96 
 per cent, of our business than tbe remaining 4 per 
 cent?" Certainly, and this is just what the United 
 States has been doing. An inferior currency would un- 
 settle values, embarrass trade, diminish the purchasing 
 power of wages, rob the savings bank depositor, reduce 
 the soldier's pension, banish gold, give us silver mono- 
 metallism and a fifty-cent dollar. Such money would 
 do injury to us, but harm to no one else, for other na- 
 tions could not be compelled to use it. 
 
 — '' In the impending struggle for the mastery of the 
 commerce of the world the financial combat between 
 England and the United can not be avoided " (p. 135). 
 What indications are there of a prospective struggle ? 
 None. England and the United States are on friendly 
 terms. The seas are open to our merchant ships as well 
 as to hers. The annual balances of trade are largely in 
 our favor. The per capita of our national debt is $73.16 
 less than that of Great Britain, and $101.72 less than
 
 7« AKWWBR TO 
 
 that of France. Why. therefor©, should our souls W 
 disquieted within xis ? 
 
 — '' The gold standard will give England the com- 
 •merce and wealth of the world " (p. 135). Why should 
 not this standard be erery whit as good for the United 
 States as for England ? Americans and the people of 
 the British islands are very much alike. They speak 
 the same language, and are of the same blood. If an 
 experience of eighty years has shown that the gold 
 standard is a good thing for them, may we not reason- 
 ably conclude it would be a good thing for us ? 
 
 — **The bimetallic standard (obtained through the 
 unlimited coinage of silrer) will make the United States 
 the most prosperous nation on the globe " (p. 135). 
 The restricted coinage of silver, Mr. Harvey tells us, 
 " will give England the commerce and wealth of the 
 world," and the free coinage of silver " will make the 
 United States the most prosperous nation on the globe." 
 What does he mean ? If wealth is not prosperity, what 
 is ? And, if prosperity is not wealth, what is it ? Why 
 should the United States prosper under free coinage, 
 and England grow rich under restricted coinage ? Men 
 are men, commerce is commerce, and money is money 
 the world over. What is good for one should be equally 
 good for another. We know the gold standard has 
 helped England. We do not know, and have no reason 
 to suppose the independent free coinage of silver would 
 benefit us. 
 
 — "Free coinage in the United States will at once 
 establish a parity between the two metals" (p. 135). 
 That parity is now established by restricted coinage, 
 and Mr. Harvey's statements and tables of statistics 
 prove that it never was established by independent 
 free coinage, either here or elsewhere. 
 
 — "Any nation that is big enough to take all the 
 ■ilver in the world and give back merchandise and pro- 
 ducts in payment for it, will at once establish a parity 
 between it and gold" (p. 135). No nation has ever 
 yet been big enough to do this. England was not big 
 enough, and so she restricted the coihage of silver in 
 1816. Germany was not big enough, and she made
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 71 
 
 the preliminary arrangements to restrict coinage in 
 1871. Tiie United States restricted the coinage of 
 silver in 1853, and again in 1873; France and the 
 Latin Union were not "■ big enough to take all the silver 
 in the world and give back merchandise and products 
 in payment for it," and hence they restricted the coin- 
 age of silver in 1875, Spain and Belgium in 1876, Aus- 
 tria-Hungary in 1891, and India in 1893. In brief, no 
 single nation is big enough to do successfully what Mr. 
 Harvey desires to have done. Independent free coin- 
 age means more silver and less gold, more work and 
 less wages, more metal and less money. Mexico is now 
 in the act of trying Mr. Harvey's experiment, and by 
 his own confession she is going on the double-quick to 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 — " France and the Latin Union . . . maintained 
 a premium on silver for forty years" (p. 135). Why 
 did they not continue to maintain a premium on silver? 
 Why abandon the struggle in 1875? Because they 
 found they were becoming the dumping ground for all 
 the surplus silver of the world ; that gold was going to 
 other countries and that silver was no longer the favor- 
 ite money metal of commerce and of mankind. 
 
 — "The bankers of the great money centers must be 
 given to understand that they must take their hands 
 from the throat of the government*' (p !36). When 
 did they ever have their hands on the throat of the 
 government? Time and again in periods of distress 
 and peril the bankers of the United States have rallied 
 to the assistance of the government. The 20,000.000 
 people directly interested in the moneyed institutions 
 of the country, and the 40,000,000 dependent upon 
 them for support, constitute a large part of the gov- 
 erned, and each one of these 60,000.000 of people has 
 just as much right to say what the money of the 
 country shall be as Mr. Harvey. 
 
 — "The unlimited demand for silver and its free use 
 by the government will appreciate its value, etc. " 
 (p. 137). There can be no unlimited demand for either 
 silver or gold to measure the value or facilitate the ex 
 change of a limited supply of products. Sixty million sil
 
 72 ANSWER TO 
 
 ver dollars are now in circulation, and probably $400,- 
 000,000 are stored asvay in the vaults of the treasury. If 
 the demand, were unlimited there would be no idle dol- 
 lars. Silver is received for customs dues, for internal rev- 
 enue taxes, for every debt due the government. What 
 freer use could it make of silver and mamtain it on a par- 
 ity with gold ? An effort to force silver on the people, or 
 the coinage of an additional 500,000,000 of silver dol- 
 lars, would not depreciate gpld. It would banish it to 
 other countries and leave us with silver dollars worth 
 simply what silver bullion might sell for in the market. 
 — "With both metals as primary money property 
 advances to bimetallic prices, whether gold goes to a 
 premium or not." In 1864 the coins of both metals 
 were what Mr. Harvey calls primary money. Under 
 the law both metals were entitled to free coinage, and 
 yet the prices current were prices established in a 
 paper currency, worth 40 cent^ in gold, and still less 
 in silver, ll is the money in circulation which fixes 
 the prices ol commodities, and not the money which 
 no one sees or handles, i he instant go.d gees to a 
 premium it ceases to circulate, ceases to be u sea in 
 the payment of debts or the purchase ol commodiiies, 
 and we have thenqeijarth,. either si>ei; prices or paper 
 money prices. , ; ',;.', 
 
 , .j-T-"' There should be a aw making it a forfeiture of 
 the debt to discriminate m favor of one form of national 
 currency against another' ^P 138;. Such a law 
 would be at va-iance with the constitution of the 
 United States ; an abridgement of the personal liberty 
 of the citizen ; a denial to h.m ot the righ^ to make 
 contractb for whatever property or money he saw fit. 
 But if this were not the case a iaw such as Mr. Harvey 
 suggests would increase the difficulty aimed at instead 
 ol overcrming it. He .s by no means the firs^ man 
 who has sought to compel men to accept in exchange 
 for their commodities what they did not want and 
 would not have. The history oi France wiil afford 
 interesting and useful lessons on th's ooint. Arbitrary 
 and unjust raws, having in view the end suggested, 
 have never in a single 'nstance becE successVlly en-
 
 "COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 73 
 
 forced, and they never will be so long as men are free 
 and able to distinguish between right and wrong. 
 
 — " Put less gold in the gold dollar. Bring the 
 weight of the gold dollar down till they (silver and 
 gold) are on a parity." (P. 138). The end which Mr. 
 Harvey seeks has been apparent from the outset. He 
 desires a cheap dollar — a 50-cent dollar with which to 
 pay 100-cent debts. He is a little too timid to break 
 into another man's strong box, but evidently not too 
 good. He therefore seeks legal authority to commit a 
 larceny. "Put less gold in the gold dollar" — return 
 less money than you borrowed — less than you agreed 
 to pay. Lie and then steal; promise and not fulfill; 
 get possession of your neighbor's property by hook or 
 crook and then hold to it with the grip of a vise. This 
 is the philosophy of satan, and hell is the only region 
 where a scheme of finance based on Mr. Harvey's 
 theories will ever be approved. 
 
 SIXTH CHAPTER— Concluded. 
 
 yy^r s it not a fact that no estimate has been placed on 
 ^^\ American ( United States ) bonds held in Europe 
 ^ at less than 5,000 million dollars." (P. 139.) 
 If it were a fact, what of it ? The promise to pay 5,000 
 millions is just as binding on the honor and consciences 
 of men as the promise to pay 500 thousand. The 
 amount of our indebtedness is not in this connection a 
 pertinent question for discussion. The issue is. Shall 
 we do as we agreed and pay our debts in as good 
 money as we borrowed, or shall we repudiate one-half 
 of what we owe, and stand disgraced in the eyes of 
 the civilized world? 
 
 It is not, however, a fact that the United States 
 bonds held in Europe amount to 5,000 million dollars. 
 Railroad bonds and stocks, mining bonds and stocks,
 
 74 ANSWER TO 
 
 and what are known as industrial bonds and stocks 
 have been held abroad in large amounts — in much 
 larger amounts than at present, and all are included 
 under the head of American securities ; but there is a 
 wide difference between a stock and a bond. Th« 
 foreign owner of the former is a part owner of th« 
 railroad, mine or industrial enterprise. If it earns no 
 dividend he gets none. In brief, he simply shares 
 with the American stockholders in the losses or the 
 
 Srofits of the property his money helped to create. 
 londs, on the other hand, represent borrowed money 
 and are secured by mortgage on the property or prop- 
 erties referred to. In case the principal or interest of 
 these bonds is not paid according to the terms of the 
 contract, the property may be sold. If sold for enough 
 to pay the debt the creditor loses nothing. If the pro- 
 ceeds of the sale are insufficient to pay the debt the 
 foreign as well as the American bondholders sustain 
 a loss ; but in either case the great mass of our people, 
 including farmer, laborer, tradesman, mechanic, lose 
 nothing whatever. The road, mine or manufactory 
 does not cease to exist when sold and resold, and the 
 country not only has all it ever had, but much more 
 than it would have had if the foreign capitalist had 
 not put money into the enterprise and so helped to 
 start it, I think it will be found that foreign capitalists 
 have not made large amounts of money by their invest- 
 ments in American properties and the purchase of 
 American securiiies. The old Atlantic and Great 
 Western Railway and many other lines which persons 
 familiar with the history of the railroads of the country 
 can readily call to mind will suggest instances in which 
 foreign investors put millions into American enter- 
 
 6 rises and took little or nothing out. The fact is, 
 ncle Sam's nephews have pestered, bulldozed and 
 swindled the British lion until the venerable beast has 
 grown somewhat reluctant to gambol for their amuse- 
 ment and profit in the great jungle of American 
 securities. It will be remembered, also, with some 
 degree of satisfaction to Mr. Harvey and his friends 
 that a few years ago the old beast's tail was so cruelly
 
 ' COIN'S PINANCIi-L SCHOOL." 7g 
 
 twisted in our neighboring Republic of Argentina that 
 the world was startled by his howls of anguish. The 
 promoter of railroad, mining and industrial schemes, 
 who now takes American securities to the English or 
 German market, as a rule, finds no demand for them 
 and returns to his own country, saddened by the reflec- 
 tion that for individuals as well as nations " honesty i« 
 the best policy." 
 
 The national banks are required by law to buy and 
 deposit United States bonds with the government as 
 security for their circulation and public deposits. But 
 by far the larger part of these bonds are held by sav- 
 ings banks and life insurance and trust companies as 
 low interest investments which may, if need arises, 
 be speedily converted into money. These institutions 
 also nold the bulk of the State, county, and municipal 
 bonds of the country. The probabilities are that at 
 least three-fourths of the bonds of the general govern- 
 ment and of the bonds of the States, counties, and 
 cities of the United States as well are held by our own 
 people, and that at least half of the interest accruing 
 on them is distributed to depositors in savings banks 
 and the beneficiaries of trust funds. 
 
 But let us waive all this and for the sake of argu- 
 ment assume what we know to be untrue, to-wit : 
 That United States bonds representing not less than 
 5,000 million dollars are held in Europe. Now, what 
 shall we do with respect to them ? We borrowed the 
 money and used it for our own purposes ; shall we do 
 as we agreed and pay the debt like honest men, or 
 shall we repudiate the whole or the half of it? In 
 1892 we sold commodities abroad amounting, in value, 
 to over 1,000 million dollars. Suppose the people to 
 whom we sold this vast amount had, by a legislative 
 trick, compelled us to accept in payment dollars worth 
 50 cents each, and so cheated us out of 500 million 
 dollars, what would we have said of them ? Shall we 
 do unto others what we would not have others do 
 unto us? 
 
 " We have put our head into the mouth of the 
 English lion." (P. 140.) Did we carry our head to
 
 76 ANSWER TO 
 
 England to do i* ? If so, let the lion "chaw"; the 
 fewer such heads the better. 
 
 " What she i P]ngland) failed to do with shot and 
 shell in the eighteenth century she is doing with the 
 gold standard in the nineteenth century." (P. 140.) 
 This is simply the jingoism of fools. England is at- 
 tending strictly to her own business, and not troubling 
 herself about ours. It matters not a farthing to her 
 what money we use at home, or what we do, so long 
 as in our dealings with her we do as we agree, and if 
 she were to fail to fulfill her promises to us we would 
 denounce her as a repudiator and have some reason to 
 talk of war. 
 
 " It is a fixed law in the science of money that 
 when both metals are primary money — whether at 
 the time seeking the mints or not, and whether in cir- 
 culation or not — bimetallic prices prevail." (P. 141.) 
 There is no such law. There is a law, however, known 
 as Gresham's law, recognized as operative the world 
 over, by which cheap money, if endowed with the 
 legal tender quality always drives the dearer or better 
 money out of circulation. The man who has a debt 
 to pay pays in the cheapest and poorest money he can 
 use; the man who desires to buy buys with the cheapest 
 money he can give, and hence this cheaper money 
 fixes the prices of commodities. From 1810 to 1834 
 silver was the cheaper money in this country; gold 
 abandoned us, and values were estimated in silver. 
 From 1834 to 1861 gold was the cheaper money and 
 the prices were gold prices. From 1861 to 1879 we 
 had paper money prices. From 1879 to the present 
 day we have, by limiting the coinage of silver, kept 
 the two metals on a parity at the ratio of 16 to 1. 
 Since 1879, therefore, we have had bimetallic prices, 
 and these are the prices we propose to continue. 
 
 " All we would have to do would be to put an ex- 
 cessive tarifi" on all imports coming from her (England) 
 and all other countries having a gold standard until 
 they adopted a bimetallic system with the same ratio 
 as ours." (P. 142.)
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 77 
 
 Mr. Harvey does not at heart favor an international 
 agreement. He desires a cheaper dollar than interna- 
 tional free coinage would give him, and if he has any 
 practical business sense at all, he probably has enough 
 to know that the method he suggests would render the 
 consummation of an international arrangement impos- 
 sible. Neither England, Germany, France, nor any 
 other nation, entertaining a decent regard for its honor, 
 could be forced to abandon its own monetary system 
 and to co-operate with us by the imposition of exces 
 sive tariffs upon its products, or by threats of war. 
 Commerce is mainly an exchange of products ; " so 
 much exported, so much imported." Suppose we were 
 to prohibit the importation of the products of other 
 nations with a view to coercing them into an abandon- 
 ment of the gold standard, would they not at once re- 
 taliate by excluding our wheat. Hour, beef, pork, etc., 
 from their markets? What would these products be 
 worth to the farmers of the United States if Europe 
 were to refuse to buy them? Russia, India, Australia. 
 South America, and British North America are now our 
 strong competitors in the production of food stuffs, and 
 if we retain the balance of trade in our favor, we must 
 be guided by better counsel than that given to us by 
 the free silver cranks of the United States. 
 
 " Reduce the number of grains in the gold dollar 
 until it is the same value as the silver dollar. We can 
 legislate the premium out of gold " (p. 143). It is pos- 
 sible to do a great many unwise things by legislation, 
 but nothing more foolish and more detrimental to the 
 business of the United States and the commercial 
 honor of its people could be done than the shameful 
 act suggested. 
 
 " Give the people back their favored primary money 
 Give us two arms with which to transact business" (p. 
 143). Mr. Harvey wants a long arm to buy and borrow 
 with and a short arm to sell and pay debts with. If he 
 simply desired arms of equal length he would now have 
 no reason to complain. In this country we have some 
 500 millions of silver dollars, and 600 millions or more 
 of gold dollars, and the silver dollars are just as good
 
 78 ANSWER TO 
 
 in the payment of debts and the purchase of property 
 as the gold. The truth is, the people now have what 
 Mr. Harvey calls " their favored primary money " in 
 greater abundance than they ever had it before — 1,000 
 million dollars more of it than they had in 1873. 
 
 Products, to all intents and purposes, constitute the 
 primary money of the world; they not only redeem 
 each other, but they redeem the gold and silver coin, 
 the checks, bank notes, and all the modern devices of 
 the merchant for the rapid and convenient transaction 
 of business. The minted metal, or the printed paper, 
 derives its value as a medium of exchange solely from 
 tlie fact that it is redeemed on demand in the original 
 primary universal and ultimate redeemer of all things, 
 to- wit ; the commodities which men desire ; and when 
 Mr. Harvey speaks of silver or gold as property money, 
 commodity money, primary money, and the money of 
 ultimate payment, as if it were at the base of the world's 
 commercial structure, he talks the silliest nonsense. 
 
 " The farmer of Mexico sells his bushel of wheat for 
 one dollar " — a dollar worth fifty cents — " the farmer of 
 the United States sells his bushel of wheat for fifty 
 cents '' — and obtains for it as much money as the Mex- 
 ican gets for his — " the former is proven by the history 
 of the world to be an equitable price." The history of 
 the world is silent on this subject; Mr. Harvey is doing 
 the lying just now, not history — "The latter is writing 
 its history in letters of blood,'' etc. (p. 142). The writ- 
 ing referred to is being done in Mr. Harvey's redhot 
 imagination, not elsewhere, for in the case cited the 
 United States farmer and the Mexican farmer get ex- 
 actly the same value in money for their respective 
 bushels of grain. 
 
 " We are now the ally of England." (P. 145). On 
 page 135 we were just about to engage in a struggle 
 -vrith England " for the mastery of the commerce of 
 the world," and this " combat " could not "be avoided." 
 On page 140 "our head was in the mouth of the 
 English lion," but now we are " the ally of England." 
 The rapidity with which Mr. Harvey changes the rela- 
 tions existing, or supposed to exist, between great
 
 " COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL." 79 
 
 nations, is marvelous. On one page we have threats 
 of war. in the next deadly peril, and in still another 
 peace and amity. Such sudden transitions from ferocity 
 to friendliness, without apparent cause, leave us 
 amazed at the fickleness and foolishness of nations. 
 
 "Our people are losing each year hundreds ol 
 millions of dollars." (P. 145). How? Simply by pay- 
 ing their honest debts — by not stealing the money 
 they borrowed, or the farms they bought on time, or 
 the merchandise they obtained on credit, or the rail- 
 roads they built with other people's money The enter- 
 prising young man in our penitentiary who made $ 100 
 by stealing a watch, lost $100 when the cruel law got 
 its clutches on him. Instances like this must be some- 
 what discouraging to Mr. Harvey and his friends 
 
 *' The deputy sheriff regards the $ 4 a day he gets 
 as more important to him than the life or the cause of 
 the workmen he shoots down." (P. 146) If so, he is 
 a bad deputy sheriff and would come high at $ 1 a day. 
 Why do not the people of Chicago insist upon a more 
 competent man for the place? This is a matter they 
 can control without an international agreement or even 
 an act of Congress. 
 
 " The Pullman Palace Car Company recently re- 
 duced the already low wages of its employes." (P. 146). 
 Would the independent free coinage of silver and a 
 fifty-cent dollar render it impossible for the Pullman 
 Car Company to reduce wages ? Would not the fifty- 
 oent dollar in effect reduce the wages of workingmen 
 one-half without any action whatever on the part of 
 the employer ? 
 
 " We are forced to take independent action ; to 
 hesitate is cowardly." (P. 146). Mr. Harvey's utter- 
 ances remind us of the fighting instinct, flowing dic- 
 tion and business habit of Ancient Pistol, who, when 
 dunned for eight shillings, exclaimed : 
 
 " Base is the slave that pays ! " 
 
 John Biatty.
 
 [Bt Permission of thk Honokablr Secrktaky of thb TreaswrtJ 
 
 OP 
 
 Hon. JOHN G. CARLISLE, 
 
 AT 
 
 Memphis, Tenn., Thursday, May 23, 1895. 
 
 3fr. Presideyit and Gentlemen of the Convention : 
 
 ^ DO NOT think the importance of the questions you 
 ,^\ are called to consider can be overestimated, or that 
 the f2;ravity of the situation can be overstated. The 
 proposition to revolutionize our monetary system and 
 thus destroy the credit of the government and the people 
 at home and abroad, violate the obligations of all con- 
 tracts, unsettle all exchangeable values, reduce the 
 wages of labor, expel capital from our country, and 
 seriously obstruct the trade of our people among them- 
 selves and with the peoples of other countries, is one 
 which challenges the intelligence, patriotism, and com- 
 mercial honor of every man to whom it is addressed. 
 No matter what may be the real purposes and motives 
 of tliose who make the proposition to legalize the free 
 and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, 
 tliese are the consequences involved in their scheme, 
 and, in ray opinion, they can not be avoided if it should 
 be adopted. In no part of the country will the conse- 
 quences of such a policy prove more injurious to the 
 material interests of the people than in the undevel- 
 oped and progressive South. When the great civil
 
 82 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 war closed your industrial system was destroyed, your 
 commercial relations were all broken up, your currency 
 was worthless, your farms were devastated, your mines 
 were closed, your forests were untouched, j^our water 
 power was useless, and your railways were unsafe and 
 inadequate, even for the limited service they had to 
 perform; but your great natural resources were still 
 unimpaired, and upon that foundation you have con- 
 structed, and are still constructing, a system of 
 diversified industries and interstate and international 
 commerce which, if not disturbed by unwise experi- 
 ments in financial legislation, must attract to your 
 section of the country all the active capital and skilled 
 labor necessary to make it the most prosperous part of 
 the continent. Your magnificent deposits of coal and 
 iron, your fertile soil, adapted to the growth of cotton, 
 sugar, and many other products which no other part 
 of the cowitry will yield, your unrivaled facilities for 
 the manufacture of iron and steel, cotton goods, lumber, 
 oil, furniture, and almost innumerable other articles 
 which can be cheaply produced from the raw materials 
 within your limits, constitute the elements of a mar- 
 velous growth and prosperity which nothing can pre- 
 vent if the people of the South will continue to exhibit 
 in the future the same spirit of conservatism and the 
 same devotion to principle that have always character- 
 ized them in the past. The world has never witnessed 
 a grander exhibition of courage and fortitude than was 
 presented here when a defeated and impoverished 
 people, without money or credit, and almost destitute 
 of the tools and implements necessary to the per- 
 formance of manual labor, went uncomplainingly to 
 work to re-establish their social order, renew their 
 commercial relations, and reconstruct their industrial 
 system ; and I am unwilling to believe that the same 
 people can now be so discouraged by a temporary 
 business depression, or so moved by appeals to their 
 prejudices, that they will hastily resort to new and 
 hazardous experiments with the currency in which all 
 their transactions must be conducted.
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 83 
 
 ARGUMENTS, NOT MOTIVES, IMPEACHED. 
 
 I do not charge that our fellow-citizens who propose 
 to revolutionize our monetary system by a sudden 
 change in the standard of value really desire to see 
 the business of the country ruined, or even injured, 
 or that they believe any injurious consequences would 
 follow the adoption of their policy; but, in my judg- 
 ment, the results would be most disastrous to the 
 material interests of all the people in every part of 
 the country; and, therefore, I shall appeal to them 
 carefully to review the grounds upon which their 
 opinions have been formed before it is too late to cor- 
 rect a possible mistake upon a subject of such supreme 
 importance to themselves and to their posterity. It is 
 not necessary to impeach their motives in order to 
 answer their arguments, nor would it be wise or proper 
 to underestimate the intellectual and material forces 
 behind this great popular movement in the South and 
 West — a movement which now seriously threatens 
 to disrupt existing political organizations and reform 
 party lines ; but, no matter what may be the motives 
 or the present numerical strength of our opponents in 
 this controversy, the merits of the policy they propose 
 to inaugurate must be subjected to the tests of reason 
 and experience, and if it is shown to be impracticable, 
 or fundamentally wrong in principle, we may be con- 
 iident that it will not finally command the support of 
 a majority of our people. 
 
 METAL FIXES VALUE OF COIN, NOT COIN OF METAL. 
 
 Before proceeding to the discussion of the main 
 question presented, it may be advantageous to state as 
 briefly as possible a few admitted or well-established 
 facts having an important bearing upon it. From the 
 earliest times gold and silver have been used as money, 
 not because there was at the beginning any law declar- 
 ing them to be money, but because, by reason of their 
 limited and regular supply, their great value as com- 
 pared with other things in proportion to weight and
 
 g4 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 bulk, and their durability, they were more stable and 
 convenient than any other commodity as measures of 
 value in making exchanges. Consequently, these 
 metals were used as money by common consent of the 
 people for centuries before there was any law upon the 
 subject or any coins in existence ; they passed by 
 weight, and their values in effecting exchanges were 
 determined by the quantity of pure metal contained in 
 each piece. Each metal had a distinct value of its 
 own, and when it was used in trade neither the buyer 
 nor seller troubled himself about the ratio between it 
 and the other metal. The laws of trade fixed and 
 regulated the actual and relative values of both metals 
 in the purchase and sale of other commodities just as 
 they do now. They had been used as money several 
 centuries before any government undertook, by royal 
 proclamation or statute law, to establish a ratio be- 
 tween them, and when this character of legislation was 
 first begun the public authorities did not attempt to 
 establish new values or new ratios, but accepted those 
 already fixed by the laws of trade and the custom of 
 merchants. Coins were made, not for the purpose of 
 attempting to add anything to the intrinsic or exchange- 
 able value of the metal contained in them, but for the 
 purpose of attesting, by public authority, its weight 
 and purity, thus avoiding the delay and uncertainty 
 resulting from the practice of weighing each piece as 
 it passed from one to another. That the coinage of the 
 metals does not now add anything to their actual value 
 in the commercial world is conclusively proved by the 
 facts that in all the great transactions between the 
 people of different countries the coins are accepted 
 only at their bullion value, determined by their actual 
 weight and fineness, and that bullion itself is still used 
 in making payments, just as it was thousands of years 
 ago. Whatever effect legislation upon the ratios, in con- 
 nection with legal tender laws, may have had upon the 
 use of the two metals in the payment of antecedent 
 de-bts, it has never had the slightest effect upon the 
 jictual or relative values of the two metals in national 
 or international trade. For many centuries, even after
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 85 
 
 the commerce of the world had grown to enormous 
 proportions, the propriety of making any given quantity 
 of bullion, or any particular coin, a legal tender was 
 not even suggested, and up to the present time there 
 is no legal tender in international trade. Whether 
 payments are made in gold or silver coins, or in gold 
 or silver bullion, actual intrinsic value determines the 
 amount or quantity to be delivered, no matter what 
 may be the legal tender laws of the different countries, 
 and no matter though they may have the same or 
 different ratios of value between the metals within 
 their respective limits. The law of France, for in- 
 stance, places a higher value upon silver relatively to 
 gold than is placed upon it by the laws of the United 
 States, the French ratio being 15^ to 1, and ours being 
 16 to 1 ; but if sixteen pounds of our silver, coined or 
 uncoined, were sent to that country to be used in the 
 paymeni of a debt or in the purchase of commodities, 
 it would net be accepted at the ratio of 15^ to 1, or at 
 the ratio of IG to 1 as compared to gold, but only at 
 the ratio of about 32 to 1, which shows that neither 
 our ratio nor the French ratio has any effect whatever 
 upon the value or purchasing power of the metal itself. 
 Coinage is free in Mexico, and the dollar, which is full 
 legal tender, contains 377.17 grains of pure silver, 
 while our dollar contains only 871.25 grains of pure 
 silver ; yet Mexican silver dollars are sent into the 
 United States and other parts of the world and sold at 
 the price of the bullion contained in them, which is 
 about one-half their nominal or legal value in their 
 own country. The legal tender laws affect the debt- 
 paying power of the coin itself in the country where 
 the laws prevail, but the laws establishing ratio do not 
 affect the value of the metal contained in the coins 
 either at home or abroad, because it is the metal tliat 
 fixes the value of the coin, and not the coin that fixes 
 the value of the metal. 
 
 RATIO OF COIN TO CREDIT. 
 
 For a long time, during the early history oT the 
 world, and even during the medieval age, gold and sil-
 
 83 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 ver, in bullion or in the form of coins, constituted 
 almost the entire circulation among the people, even in 
 the nations most advanced in trade and civilization, 
 and consequently the quantity of these metals that 
 could be procured and kept in use was a question of 
 far greater importance then than it is now or ever can 
 be in the future. When life and property had been 
 made reasonably secure by the establishment of stable 
 governments, and regular processes were authorized 
 for the enforcement of pecuniary obligations, credit or 
 confidence largely took the places of bullion and coin 
 in the commercial transactions of the people, and a 
 much smaller amount of metallic money was required 
 in proportion to the whole volume of business done 
 than had been required before. The use of credit in 
 the form of bank notes, checks, bills, and other evi- 
 dences of debt had so increased in modern times that 
 in all highly organized commercial communities the 
 use of coin, except in making change, had been almost 
 entirely dispensed with. The percentage of coin ac- 
 tively employed in conducting business in this country 
 is so small that it is almost inappreciable; so small, in 
 fact, that its disuse in our transactions would not be 
 felt if we had a substitute for, or a paper representa- 
 tive of, the subsidiary pieces. In England, France, and 
 some other countries a larger amount of coin is used, 
 because they have no very small notes. 
 
 Although we have the gold standard, or measure of 
 value in this country, our actual stock of gold bullion 
 and coin amounts to only about one-third of our actual 
 currency — a condition of afi'airs which would have 
 been inconceivable a few centuries ago. We have 
 about $ 625,000,000 in gold, $ 397,652,873 in full legal 
 tender silver, $346,681,000 in old United States notes, 
 $ 149,584,471 in Treasury notes issued in the purchase 
 of silver bullion, $ 209,719,850 in national bank notes, 
 and $ 76.169,569 in subsidiary silver coin, making in all 
 $ 1,804,707,763, exclusive of the minor coins, and every 
 dollar of this vast volume of currency is kept equal in 
 value to the standard established by law, so that every 
 man who receives a silver dollar or paper dollar in ex-
 
 THE MONEY ^^UESTION. 87 
 
 change for his products, or in satisfaction of a debt, 
 gets just as good a dollar as the man who receives gold. 
 This is the monetary system and this is the financial 
 condition which the advocates of free coinage at the 
 ratio of 16 to 1 now propose to revolutionize at once by 
 a change in the standard of value, so that the whole 
 mass of circulation left for the use of the people would 
 be reduced to about one-half the purchasing power it 
 has now ; or, in other words, so that it would require 
 about double the amount of currency that is required 
 now to perform the same service in the exchange of 
 commodities. But the consummation of such a policy 
 would produce results more far-reaching and disastrous 
 than the mere reduction of the standard of value; be- 
 cause, for a long time, at least, credit, which constitutes 
 by far the most important factor in our financial and 
 commercial transactions, would be substantially de- 
 stroyed by the confusion and uncertainty necessarily 
 following such a great and sudden change in our mon 
 etary system. 
 
 A PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL ABSURDITY. 
 
 But it is contended by a large number of the advo- 
 cates of free coinage — perhaps a majority of them — 
 that the effect of their policy would be, not to abolish 
 the present standard of value, and substitute the single 
 silver standard in its place, but that it would establish 
 what they call bimetallism and a double standard. I 
 confess my inability to understand what is really 
 meant by a double standard or measure of value ; the 
 idea is incomprehensible to my mind, because I can 
 not conceive how it is possible to have two different 
 legal and authoritative measures of the same thing in 
 use at the same time, as, for instance, a pound weigh- 
 ing sixteen ounces and a pound weighing eight ounces, 
 or only half as much, and both declared by law to be 
 legal pounds. 1 agree entirely with Gen. Jackson's 
 Secretary of the Treasury, who said : " The proposition 
 that there can be but one standard in fact is self-evi- 
 dent." The proposition to establish and maintain two
 
 S8 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 different measures of value to be in use at the sam« 
 time, and to be applied to the same things at the sam« 
 time, embodies a physical and metaphysical absurdity, 
 and this is so evident that the ablest thinkers and 
 writers upon the subject have been at last forced t© 
 abandon it. Prof. Francis A. Walker, one of the most 
 distinguished bimetallists in the United States or in th« 
 world, in a carefully prepared paper recently published, 
 says: 
 
 " But one thing more remains to be said in this connection ; 
 that is, in reply to the allegation of the monometallist writers 
 that the course of events in France which has been recited, did 
 not constitute a genuine case of bimetallism. If these writers 
 may be permitted to impose their own definition upon us, their 
 contention can, to a considerable extent, be made good. What 
 they say is, that France from 1803 to 1873 did not enjoy the con- 
 current circulation of the two metals, but only an alternate cir- 
 culation, now of one and now of the other ; and this, they de- 
 clare is not bimetallism at all. Therefore, according to their 
 view, there is no great historical instance of the success of bi- 
 metallism. 
 
 " If, on the other hand, we maj' be permitted for ourselves 
 to say what we. mean and propose by bimetallism, the criticism 
 in question does not touch our case at all. We flatly deny that 
 bimetallism necessarily involves the concurrent circulation of 
 the two metals. There is some reason to believe that the 
 French statesmen of 1803 really expected that concurrent cir- 
 lation would result ; but no bimetallist nowadays makes the 
 concurrent circulation of the two metals in the same country a 
 necessity of that system. If it results only in establishing an 
 alternating circulation, the chief results of bimetallism will 
 still be achieved, as they, were by the action of France." 
 
 This is intelligible, for we can all understand how it 
 is possible to have an alternating standard and circula- 
 tion, sometimes gold and sometimes silver, and the 
 monetary history of the world proves that this is just 
 what happens wlienever the two metals are freely 
 coined in any country and made full legal tender. 
 Values will always be measured by the kind of money 
 in actual circulation, no matter what the law may de- 
 clare, and, therefore, if the free and unlimited coinage 
 of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 should drive out gold 
 and substitute silver and paper redeemable in silver 
 in its place, we should have a single silver standard
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 8t 
 
 and actual silver monometallism. Instead of using 
 both gold and silver as we do now in larger amounts 
 than ever before in our history, we should instantly ex- 
 pel the more valuable metal from the country and 
 make the other the sole basis of our currency. We 
 have now practical bimetallism — the use of both 
 metals as money ; we should have then practical mono- 
 metallism — the use of only one metal as money. This 
 is neither speculation nor prophecy, but a conclusion 
 based on facts established by the experience of all na- 
 tions in all ages. 
 
 THE FREE COINAGE PROPOSITION STATED. » 
 
 In order to eliminate all irrelevant matter and 
 simplify the argument, allow me to state exactly what 
 the proposition now pending before tlie people is: 
 It is proposed that the United States, v/ithout the co- 
 operation or assistance of any other government, shall 
 provide by law that all the silver bnl.Uon, or foreign sil- 
 ver coins, that may be presented at the mints by indi- 
 viduals or corporations, foreign or domestic, shall be 
 coined, at the public expense, into silver dollars, at the 
 ratio of 16 to 1 with gold — that is, that sixteen pounds 
 of silver shall be considered equal in value to one 
 pound of gold, and the weights of the coins shall be 
 adjusted accordingly — and that the coins so made at 
 the public expense shall be delivered to the owners of 
 the bullion or foreign silver coins, as the case maybe, 
 and all the people of the United States, but noljody 
 else, shall be compelled by law to receive them as 
 dollars of full value, in the payment of debts due to 
 them from their own fellow-citizens and from the citi- 
 zens or subjects of other countries. It is not proposed 
 that the citizens or subjects of other countries, with 
 whom our people trade, shall be compelled to receive 
 these silver dollars in their transactions with us, be- 
 cause that can be done only by international agree- 
 ment, and our impatient free coinage friends declare 
 their determination to proceed at once independently 
 of all other governments. All who are indebted to us
 
 90 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 are, therelbre, to have the privilege of paying in silver, 
 wnile all to whom we shall become indebted are to have 
 the privilege of requiring us to pay in gold. 
 
 Measured by their purchasing power in the markets 
 of the world, which is the only real test, the relative 
 value of silver bullion to gold bullion is about 32 to 1 ; 
 that is, it requires in all countries, silver standard 
 countries as well as gold-standard countries, about. 32 
 pounds of silver bullion to procure the same quantities 
 of commodities that one pound of gold bullion will 
 procure, and, therefore, the proposition to authorize 
 the free and unlimited coinage of silver into full legal 
 tender money at the ratio of 16 to 1 means, under 
 existing conditions, that the intrinsic value of the 
 silver dollar shall only be half, or about half, the in- 
 trinsic value of the gold dollar. My own opinion is 
 tliat after we had passed a certain limit the more silver 
 dollars we coined the less they would be worth, be- 
 cause the inflation itself would still further diminish 
 their purchasing power. Such legislation by the United 
 States alone would not reduce the value of the gold 
 dollar to any extent whatever, because, as already 
 stated, the value of that metal in commercial transac- 
 tions all over the world is estimated according to its 
 weight and fineness, and will continue to be so esti- 
 mated, and consequently the only way in which this 
 country alone could diminish the value of its gold 
 dollar would be to reduce the weight of the pure metal 
 contained in it. 
 
 THE WORLD-WIDE FAILURE OF RATIOS. 
 
 he attempt to coin the two metals without limit 
 as to amount in full legal tender money and keep both 
 in circulation at the same time has been made by 
 nearly every civilized nation in the world and has 
 failed in every one of them. It has failed because in 
 every instance it has been found impossible to estab- 
 lish and maintain a legal ratio corresponding at all 
 times with the intrinsic or commercial ratio between 
 the two metals contained in the coins, and because
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 91 
 
 whenever either of the metals was undervalued rela- 
 tively to the other in the coinage laws it was expelled 
 from' the country. England persisted in the attempt 
 for nearly five hundred years and, notwithstanding the 
 enactment of most severe penal statutes against the 
 exportation of coins or bullion, was at last forced to 
 abandon the efi'ort and adopt the single standard. 
 France, in her efforts to keep the coins of the two 
 metals in circulation at the same time, changed the 
 legal ratio between them more than one hundred and 
 fifty times in a single century, and finally, in 1878, 
 finding that gold was leaving her and that in ten years 
 her net imports of silver had amounted to $280,000,000, 
 stopped the coinage of legal tender silver, and for 
 seventeen years the attempt has been abandoned in 
 that country. Many other nations in Europe and other 
 
 f)arts of the world have subjected their people to great 
 OSS and expense by their adherence to monetary sys- 
 tems based upon the theory that a double standard 
 could be maintained, but in no case have they suc- 
 ceeded in keeping the coins of the two metals in use 
 at the same time, except for very short periods. Our 
 own country is not without experience upon this sub- 
 ject, and the results here were just the same as they 
 have been everywhere else. By the act of 1792, which 
 was our first coinage law, the legal ratio between gold 
 and silver was fixed at 15 to 1, when in fact the true 
 commercial ratio was or soon became about 15^ to 1, 
 and the result of this very small overvaluation of silver 
 in the coinage was that gold went out of circulation 
 and we had practically silver monometallism until 
 after the passage of the Act of 1834. For the purpose 
 of restoring gold to the circulation, Congress in 1834 
 changed the ratio from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1, and as this 
 was an overvaluation of gold in the coinage, silver left 
 the country, and from that time on until 1878 we had 
 practically gold monometallism, whenever we had any 
 metallic basis at all for our currency. 
 
 It would be a useless consumption of time to go 
 into a detailed account of the monetary legislation of 
 this and other countries, or to show at length how it
 
 92 . THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 affected the movements and use of the two metals by 
 its repeated failures to conform the legal ratio to the 
 actual commercial ratio between them. The great and 
 important fact conclusively established by the history 
 of that legislation and its eifects upon the circulation 
 of the coins of the two metals is, that whenever one of 
 them is overvalued relatively to the other in the coin- 
 age laws, with free coinage or coinage upon equal 
 terms, and both are made legal tender, the coins of 
 the undervalued metal will be driven out of circulation 
 and out of use as money in the country where the une- 
 qual valuation is made. The reasons for this are per- 
 fectly plain. Both being legal tenders, the least 
 valuable coins will always be used in making pay- 
 ments, and will become the measures of value in the 
 exchange of commodities, and consequently the more 
 valuable coins will be hoarded or sent out of the 
 country into a market w^here their real value will be 
 recognized. Now, as this is just what has always 
 occurred — at least in modern times, w^hen commercial 
 relations between different countries are so intimate 
 and the means of transportation are so rapid and 
 cheap — even when the undervaluation or overvalua- 
 tion amounted to only one or two per cent., I think we 
 are fully justified in concluding that if the United 
 States alone should adopt the policy of free and un- 
 limited coinage of legal tender silver at the ratio of 
 16 to 1, which would be an overvaluation of that 
 metal to the amount of 100 per cent., all the gold in 
 the country would be immediately hoarded or exported 
 or be held as a commodity by speculators engaged in 
 the business of buying and selling it at a premium. 
 If this should be the result, the free coinage of silver 
 would not for a long time add anything whatever, even 
 nominally, to our stock of money ; on the contrary, the 
 immediate effect of such a policy would be a contrac- 
 tion to the extent of fully one-third of our present 
 volume of currency by the expulsion of about $625,- 
 000,000 in gold, and it would require more than fifteen 
 years to supply its place with silver dollars, even if 
 our mints coined nothing else.
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 93 
 
 CONTRACTION, FLUCTUATION AND DEPRECIATION. 
 
 All who have been or may be induced to give their 
 support to this revolutionary policy, upon the assur- 
 ance that it will give the country more money for use 
 in the transaction of business, will be greatly disap- 
 pointed, for they will find, when it is too late, that 
 instead of having more money they will have less, and 
 that it will be depreciated in value besides. The in- 
 troduction into the currency of a country of any kind 
 of money about which there is the least doubt will 
 always operate to drive out the same amount, or about 
 the same amount, of better money, and thus leave the 
 people with substantially the same volume of currency 
 they had at the beginning. The act providing for the 
 purchase of silver bullion and the issue of legal tender 
 Treasury notes in payment for it was passed on the 
 14th day of July, 1890, and the purchasing clause of 
 that act was repealed November J, 1893. While it 
 remained in force, United States Treasury notes were 
 issued to the amount of $ 155.931,002, and there were 
 many people who believed that this was making a 
 material and permanent addition to the volume of our 
 currency ; but the official records show that during the 
 same time the net exports of gold from this country 
 amounted to $103,419,491, so that the real addition to 
 our circulation accomplished by the issue of nearly 
 $ 160,000,000 of new notes was about fifty-two and a 
 half million dollars during a period of more than three 
 years. The mere apprehension that the government 
 would not be able to maintain the parity of the two 
 metals under the policy inaugurated by that act not 
 only discredited the new Treasury notes themselves, 
 but the whole volume of our currency, and gold went 
 out about as fast as the new notes came in. While, 
 therefore, it is not at all certain that free coinage would 
 ultimately make any considerable addition to our cir- 
 culation, it is absolutely certain that it would give u» 
 a depreciated and fluctuating currency, and the ques- 
 tion is whether the producers of cotton, wheat, corn, 
 beef, pork, oil, lard, cheese, and other exportable
 
 94 THE MONEY QUESTIOIC. 
 
 articles will be benefited or injured by such a result. 
 It is an axiom in trade that the prices of exportable 
 products are fixed in the foreign market where the sur- 
 plus is sold, and are fixed in the currency of that 
 country according to the nominal value there. If sold 
 in England, for illustration, the prices are fixed and 
 paid in pounds, shillings and pence, and not in dollars 
 and cents, and, consequently, it makes no diiference to 
 the foreign purchaser what kind of currency the pro- 
 ducer has at home. The character or value of the 
 currency in use in the producing country does not affect 
 the price of the article abroad to any extent whatever, 
 for the purchaser there trades in his own market and' 
 uses his own currency in measuring values. The 
 establishment of a silver standard here could not 
 possibly increase the price of cotton or wheat or any 
 other American product in Liverpool, London, Paris, 
 or Berlin, whatever effect it might have upon the 
 nominal price in 1')is country. If our monetary system 
 were so ch.anged liiat it would require tw^o dollars to 
 purchase here the same quantify of commodities that 
 one dollar will purchase now, it v.'ould not affect the 
 value or purchasing power of the English pound sterl- 
 ing, the French franc, or German mark in the least. 
 The only effect would, be that the exchange would be 
 doubled, and the pound sterling instead of being worth 
 $ 4.866 in our currency, as it is now, would be worth 
 $ 9.732, and when our people wanted to make a re- 
 mittance to pay a debt abroad the3^ would have to pay 
 twice as much in our money for the same number of 
 pounds as they pay now, while the foreigner who 
 wanted to make a remittance to pay a debt here would 
 pay only half as much in his money for the same num- 
 ber of dollars as he pays now. But the exchange 
 would be in a constant state of fluctuation, just as it 
 has been between (xreat Britain and India on account 
 of the changes in the prices of silver from day to day ; 
 and the American producer would ])e compelled to pay 
 for the risk taken on account of the fluctuations by 
 receiving a less price for his cotton, wheat, beef and 
 other articles. The farmers and planters do not export
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 95 
 
 their own products, but they sell them at home to 
 somebody else, who sends them abroad, and if the ex- 
 change is steady and the money in which he is to pay 
 for the products has a fixed value relatively to tne 
 money in use in the country where he expects to sell 
 them, the purchaser here can afford to pay the highest 
 price that would leave him a reasonable margin of 
 profit in view of the conditions existing in the market 
 abroad. In other words, he has to incur but one risk — 
 the possible fall in the price of the products abroad ; 
 but if the currency here is depreciated and fluctuating^ 
 if our money has no fixed and certain value relatively 
 to the money in use abroad where he expects to sell 
 the products, there is an additional risk to be incurred 
 which will have great influence in determining the 
 price he can afford to pay the producer. In addition 
 to the risk of a fall in the price of the products abroad 
 he must incur the risk of a rise in the price of silver 
 between the time of his purchase and the time when 
 he receives the proceeds of his sale, for if silver rises 
 in the meantime he may not get back as many dollars 
 as he paid out. The producer must pay for both of 
 these risks by receiving a smaller price lor liis com- 
 modities, and hence his prices will never increase in 
 proportion to the actual depreciation of the money in 
 which they are paid. To illustrate my meaning, when 
 silver is worth 60 cents per ounce, the bullion con- 
 tained in a silver dollar is worth 46.4 cents, but if the 
 price of silver should advance to 62 cents per ounce 
 the value of the bullion contained in a silver dollar 
 would be 48 cents — an increase of over 3 per cent. 
 Now, the price of cotton or wheat will not rise in pro- 
 portion to the depreciation of the dollar in which it is 
 to be paid ; that is, the purchaser for export will not 
 pay for it at the rate of 46.4 cents for each dollar when 
 bilver is worth 60 cents an ounce, because he knows 
 that silver may rise to 61 or 62 cents per ounce before 
 he can sell the product abroad and get his money for 
 it, and he knows that if this happens the gold he re- 
 ceives abroad can not be exchanged for as many silver 
 dollars as he paid the producer here. He will not take
 
 96 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 all this risk upon himself, but will compel tne producer 
 t6 bear it by receiving a less price for his cotton or 
 wheat; and this argument applies with equal force to 
 all other articles. It is impossible to estimate accur- 
 ately the amount of loss which this would inflict upon 
 the American producers of exportable products, but it 
 would undoubtedly be very great, as the value of our 
 exports of domestic merchandise is nearly $ 870,000,000 
 per annum, and a small percentage upon this large 
 sum would very materially affect the incomes of our 
 producers. 
 
 THE " DEBTOR CLASS '' ARGUMENT. 
 
 It is argued that the existing standard of value 
 ought to be abandoned because since 1873 prices of 
 commodities have fallen, and will continue tc fall, if 
 the standard is maintained, so that it has been, and will 
 continue to be, more and more difficult each succeeding 
 year to pay debts; that this fall in the prices of all 
 commodities is attributable to the appreciation of gald, 
 and that the appreciation in the value of gold has been 
 caused by the alleged demonetization of silver in Ger- 
 many in 1871 and 1873, the omission of the standard 
 silver dollar from the coinage of the United States in 
 1873, and the suspension of the coinage of silver by 
 France in 1878. It is true that the prices of many 
 things have fallen since 1873, but it is true, also that 
 the prices of many things had fallen long before that 
 date. The assertion that the fall in prices since. 1873 
 is due to the appreciation of gold alone is based upon 
 the assumption that the relations between supply and 
 demand have not changed; that there has been no dimi- 
 nution of the cost of production and distribution ; that 
 the facilities for effecting financial exchanges have not 
 been improved, and, in brief, that the world has made 
 no progress in the conduct of its industrial and com- 
 mercial operations for more than twenty years. This 
 assumption is so inconsistent with well known economic 
 and historical facts that it seems scarcely worth while 
 to give it a serious consideration. Reductions in the
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 97 
 
 prices of commodities are generally due to so many 
 diiferent causes that it is scarcely ever possible to as- 
 certain the extent of their separate influences. I pre- 
 sume, however, that even the most ardent advocates of 
 free coinage would be willing to admit that the inven- 
 tion and use of labor-saving machinery, the extension 
 of our railroad systems, .the improvement of our water- 
 ways, and the great reductions in the rates for carrying 
 freight, the employment of steamships, the use of the 
 telegraph on the land and under the sea, the applica- 
 tion of electricity in the production of light, heal, and 
 power, the utilization of by-products which were iorm- 
 erly wasted, the introduction of more economical meth- 
 ods in the processes of' production, the wonderful 
 advance made by our laborers in skill and efficiency, 
 the greatly reduced rates of interest paid for the use of 
 capital, and many other things which it would require 
 much time to enumerate and explain, have affected 
 prices in some measure, at least, and yet they ignore 
 all these great influences in their argument uponthe 
 subject and attribute the lower prices of commodities 
 to a single alleged and inadequate cause — the appreci- 
 ation of gold. I presume, also, that our free coinage 
 friends will admit that if the change in prices has been 
 caused entirely by the appreciation of gold, the reduc- 
 tion would have aff'ected all things alike, because it can 
 not be denied, that in the absence of other influences, 
 gold must bear the same relation to the price of one 
 article that it bears to the price of another. But we do 
 not find that the prices of all things have been reduced 
 in the same proportion, nor do we find that the prices 
 of all things have in fact been reduced. It would re- 
 quire far more time than could be devoted to the sub- 
 ject upon such an occasion as this to discuss the subject 
 of prices in all its details, nor is it necessary to do so 
 for the purpose of this argument, because a very few 
 illustrations will serve to show the weakness of the 
 contention that the decline is due alone to the appreci- 
 ation of gold.
 
 98 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 SOME PACTS CONCERNING WAGES AND PRICES. 
 
 In 1891, 1892, and part of 1893 I had the honor to 
 serve on a sub-committee charged by the Senate of the 
 United States with the duty of ascertaining the course 
 of prices of wages of labor for as long a period as au- 
 thentic records would enable us to embrace in our in- 
 vestigation, and, after a most thorough and impartial 
 examination of the subject, a report was made which 
 fills four large volumes and embodies a mass of infor- 
 mation upon these subjects which can not be found in 
 any other official form. As to the course of prices and 
 wages the committee was unanimous, though there 
 were differences of opinion among the members as to 
 the causes that had from time to time produced the 
 changes. The prices of many articles and the wages of 
 labor in many occupations were ascertained during each 
 year as far back as 1840, and for the purposes of com- 
 parison the prices of commodities and the wages of la- 
 bor in the year 1860 were adopted as the standard. 
 The sufficiency of the reasons for selecting that year 
 rather than any other will not, I think, be questioned. 
 There were no great financial or other disturbances 
 during that year, business was in a normal condition in 
 all parts of the country, no changes had been made in 
 the monetary systems of the world for many years, the 
 United States was using gold as the measure of value, 
 just as it is now, except that there was no legal tender 
 silver in circulation as there is now, the people were 
 prosperous and the prices of commodities and the 
 wages of labor were fairly adjusted with relation to each- 
 other. At the time when the investigation w\as made 
 all the legislation in regard to silver now specifically 
 complained of had been accomplished, and if prices or 
 wages had fallen, there was as much reason to attribute 
 the reduction to that legislation then as there is now. 
 Ample time had been afforded for its effects, if it had 
 any, upon prices and wages to be felt, and the fact that 
 the investigation was not made for the purpose of influ- 
 encing legislation upon the silver question adds to the 
 value of its results.
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 99 
 
 In the first place, the committee iiiianimously selec- 
 ted 232 articles in common use which it was agreed 
 constituted the great bulk of the consumption and ex- 
 penditure of the people, and these articles were sepa- 
 rated into eight classes or groups ; that is, clothes and 
 clothing, fuel and lighting, metals and implements, 
 lumber, and house-building materials, drugs and chem- 
 icals, house-furnishing goods, and miscellaneous com- 
 modities. It was found that the prices of articles used 
 for food, taking them altogether, had fallen less than 10 
 per cent, since 1873, while the prices of clothes and 
 clothing had fallen 32 per cent. ; fuel and light nearly 
 24 per cent.; metals and implements 35 per cent. ; 
 lumber and building materials, nearly 20 per cent. ; 
 drugs and chemicals, 31 per cent. ; house-furnishing 
 goods, 27 per cent. ; and miscellaneous articles, 10 per 
 cent. The prices for the year 1860 being taken as the 
 standard, were represented by 100, and increases and 
 decreases were shown by deviations from that number 
 up or down, as the case might be. The investigation 
 showed that at the time it was made articles of food 
 stood at 103.9, or nearly 4 per cent, higher than in 1860 ; 
 clothes and clothing at 81.1 ; fuel and lighting at 91 ; 
 metals and implejnents at 74.9, lumber and house- 
 building materials at 122.3; drugs and chemicals at 
 86.3; house-furnishing goods at 70.1; and miscellan- 
 eous articles at 95.1. These results of the investigation 
 establish three facts which have an important bearing 
 upon the present controversy. The first fact estab- 
 lished is that the present prices of articles of food 
 which are the products of the farms, gardens, orchards. 
 and dairies of the country, were about 4 per cent, 
 higher than they were in the year 1860, long before the 
 silver legislation now complained of; the second is, 
 that the fall in the prices of these farm products since 
 the year 1873 has been much less than the fall in the 
 prices of the commodities the farmers have to buy ; 
 and the third is, that the reductions in prices have not 
 been uniform, either as to particular articles or groups 
 of articles, and therefore can not be attributed to one 
 and the same cause — to the appreciation of gold for
 
 100 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 instance. The conclusion is inevitable that various in- 
 fluences have operated to produce these changes in 
 prices, some aifecting one group of articles and some 
 another, and doubtless some affecting all, but to no one 
 influence can the whole result be attributed. Cotton 
 and wheat are the commodities most frequently re- 
 ferred to by those who contend that the fall in prices 
 is due to the appreciation of gold, but there is nothing 
 whatever in the methods of producing those articles, or 
 in transporting or selling them, or in the character of 
 the money received for them, which would make the 
 appreciation of gold affect their prices more than it 
 would afiect the prices of other commodities produced 
 by our people. In addition to the various causes 
 which have more or less affected the prices of all arti- 
 cles, the prices of these two products have been seri- 
 ously affected by the enormous increase in their pro- 
 duction since the year 1872, which was the last crop 
 year preceding the legislation in regard to silver. The 
 production of cotton in this country in 1872-73 was 
 2,971,351 bales, containing an average of 439 pounds 
 net weight, while the production in 1893-91 was 7,549,- 
 817 bales, containing an average of 474 pounds net 
 weight, or an increase of nearly 200 per cent, in this 
 country alone, besides the great increase that has taken 
 place in competing countries ; and in 1894-95 the pro- 
 duction here was much larger, being nearly 10,000,000 
 bales. According: to the statistics of the Agricultural 
 Department the production of wheat in this countrv in 
 1872 was 249.997,100 bushels, and in 1894, 460,267^16 
 'mshels, or nearly twice as much, and there has also 
 been an enormous increase of production in competing 
 ■ountries. But, gentlemen, notwithstanding the great 
 increase in the production of cotton and wheat, here 
 nid in other countries, and the consequent decline in 
 rheir prices, a given quantity of either of them will 
 now purchase in our own markets and in the markets 
 abroad a larger share of many other useful commodi- 
 ties than it would have purchased in 1872 or 1873; so 
 that, in fact, as compared with many other things, the 
 values of cotton and wheat have appreciated.
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. lOl 
 
 ' WAGES INCKEASED. 
 
 The one thing which has been less affected by the 
 changes in the relation between supply and demand, 
 by improvements in the methods of production and 
 distribution and by the other influences which produce 
 fluctuations in prices of commodities generally, is 
 labor, and it is by far the most important single source 
 of income possessed by our people, a much larger 
 amount being expended every year in the payment of 
 wages than for any other one purpose. The cost of 
 labor in the manufacturing and mechanical industries 
 alone during the census year 1889 was $ 2,283,216,529, 
 which was nearly two and one-half times the value of 
 all the wheat and cotton produced in this country ; and 
 if we add to this the amounts paid for farm labor, for 
 clerical and other work in mercantile establishments, 
 for domestic service and for work on railways of all 
 kinds, on water craft, on streets and other improve- 
 ments in the cities, and in the many other occupations 
 which give employment to our people, we would have 
 a sum almost, if not quite, equal to the value of all our 
 agricultural products. It is evident, therefore, that if 
 the alleged depreciation of gold alone has caused a 
 reduction of prices, the wages of laoor, the greatest 
 commodity in the market, should have fallen since 
 1873; but exactly the reverse is true. The investiga 
 tions of this subject by the sub-committee covered a 
 period of fifty-two years and embraced all the occupa- 
 tions in which our people were engaged, and the fact, 
 unanimously found, was that, although eighteen years 
 had elapsed since the silver legislation, the wages of 
 labor were higher than in 1872 or 1873. Wages were 
 found to be nearly 61 per cent, higher than in 1860, 
 which was thirteen years before the silver legislation, 
 and more than eight per cent, higher than in 1873, 
 when thai legislation was adopted. 
 
 ALTERNATING MONOMETALLISM — REDUCTION OP REDEMP- 
 TION MONEY. 
 
 The argument that the reduction of prices is due 
 to the appreciation of gold is necessarily based upon
 
 102 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 the further assumptions that the legislation in regard to 
 silver has produced a scarcity of redemption or metallic 
 money in the world, and that prices are fixed and regu- 
 lated by the amount of such money in circulation, or 
 available for circulation. Neither of these assump- 
 tions is justified by the facts. The most exhaustive 
 efforts have been made from time to time by the 
 Treasury Department, through the Director of the 
 Mint, by careful examinations of the monetary statis- 
 tics of other countries, by correspondence with our 
 diplomatic and consular representatives abroad and 
 with foreign financial authorities, and otherwise, to 
 ascertain the actual amount of gold and silver used 
 as money in the world, and the result shows that there 
 is now more gold and silver in the aggregate, and more 
 of each one of them, in use as full legal tender money 
 than there ever was at any other time in the history of 
 the world. The gold in use as money amounts to 
 $ 3,965,900,000, the full legal tender silver amounts tO' 
 $3,435,800,000, and the limited legal tender silver 
 amounts to $ 619,900,000. The policy of maintaining^ 
 or rather attempting to maintain, the so-called double 
 standard never succeeded in keeping so large an 
 amount of full legal tender silver in circulation in the 
 world as there is at this time, and one of the principal 
 reasons for this is that the effect of that policy was to 
 drive first the coins of one metal and then the coins of 
 the other into the coff'ers of the hoarders or into the 
 melting pots, because they were undervalued in the 
 coinage laws and would not remain in use as money. 
 
 PER CAPITA ; REGULATING THE CURRENCY BY THE CENSUS 
 
 RETURNS. 
 
 I attach very little importance to the per capita 
 argument, because the amount of currency required 
 in a country depends mainly upon the volume of busi- 
 ness to be transacted and the customs of the people in 
 conducting their exchanges, and not at all upon the 
 number of men, women, and children residing in it ; 
 but, as there are a great many who believe that the 
 circulation should be regulated by the census returns,
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. i03 
 
 it may be worth while to state that the production of 
 gold alone in 1890 — and it is much larger now — was 
 nearly two and one-half times greater than the average 
 annual production of gold and silver both during the 
 decade which closed with the year 1800. In 1800 the 
 population of all the countries in Europe and America 
 was 197,505,895, and the production of gold and silver 
 amounted to $24.49 for every hundred inhabitants, 
 while in 1890 the population of the same countries was 
 466,789,341, and the production of gold alone was 
 $118,849,000, which amounted to $25.46 for every 
 hundred inhabitants, or ninety-five cents more for 
 each hundred people than was furnished by both 
 metals during each year in the former decade. In 
 1894 the population of these countries was 485,180,841, 
 and the production of gold alone was $157,228,000, 
 being $32.41 for each hundred inhabitants, or $7.92 
 more for each hundred people than the total of both 
 metals during the last decade of the last century. If, 
 therefore, the people of Europe and America had used 
 as money all the gold and all the silver annually pro- 
 duced in the world one hundred years ago, they would 
 not have received as large a per capita addition to 
 their stock of money as they would receive now by 
 adding the gold alone. In view of these facts, I sub- 
 mit that the silver legislation of 1871 and 1873, and in 
 1878 has not diminished the world's supply of metallic 
 money as compared with former times and prevented 
 the single gold-standard countries from making as 
 great an annual addition to their stock of metallic 
 currency. 
 
 Official monetary statistics show that in the gold 
 standard countries of the world the stocks of money 
 are much larger per capita than in the silver standard 
 countries. Taking the large gold standard countries 
 and the large silver standard countries, it appears that 
 in 1894 the stock of money in the United States was 
 over $25 per capita, in the United Kingdom nearly 
 $20, and in Germany, nearly $19, while in Mexico the 
 per capita was $4.71. in Russia nnd Finland $8.32. and 
 in China .*3.2(). The 'j<>]<] ^^t«ndard countries use large
 
 104 THE MQ^EY QUESTION. 
 
 amounts of silver as money, but the silver standard 
 countries use no gold as money, and c^n not do so for 
 the reasons 1 have already endeavored to explain. 
 But, gentlemen, for the reasons already stated, the 
 commercial nations of the world do not now require 
 the same proportion of metallic money in the transac- 
 tion of their business that they required a few centuries 
 ago, or even one century ago. Credit has been vastly 
 extended and the use of paper in the form of notes, 
 checks, and bills has almost entirely displaced me- 
 tallic money in the daily business ol' the people, and 
 as long as these forms of credit are kept equal in value 
 to tne metallic standard, the effect upon the prices of 
 commodities is precisely the same as if the whole 
 volume of circulation consisted of standard coin, for, 
 as long as equality in their value can be maintained, 
 the paper representatives of the dollar perform exactly 
 the same office in the exchange of commodities that 
 gold dollars themselves would perform ; but if this 
 equality is destroyed, the paper is discredited, its pur- 
 chasing power is diminished, and the people have no 
 longer a stable measure of value. 
 
 " CHEAP MONEY " FOR DEBTORS, INDIVIDUAL AND 
 
 CORPORATE. 
 
 One of the most eifective arguments maae by the 
 advocates of free coinage, in some parts of the country 
 at least, is that the people are in debt, and that it is 
 the duty of the Government to relieve them by such 
 legislation as will enable them to procure cheap money 
 for the purpose of discharging their obligations, and in 
 support of this argument the most exaggerated state- 
 r-.cnts are made as to the depressed and suffering con- 
 dition of our farmers, wage earners, and other produc- 
 ing classes. This argument concedes that under the 
 proposed system of free coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1 
 all the various kinds of currency in use by the people, 
 including the silver dollar itself, would be worth less 
 than it is now, for, of course, if this is not to be the 
 result money w;ould be no cheaper than it is now. To 
 assert that the people are in debt is simply to say that
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 105 
 
 they have traded with each other on credit, that one 
 part of our fellow-citizens, relying upon the integrity 
 and financial standing of their neighbors and acquaint- 
 ances, have lent them money on time and sold property 
 to them without demanding immediate payment in 
 cash, and that in this way they have enabled many 
 people to carry on a useful business and live in com- 
 fortable homes who otherwise could not have doiie so. 
 If it is a crime to lend money to a man who wants to 
 borrow it, or to sell property on credit to a man who 
 wants to purchase it and has no ready money to pay for 
 it, let the perpetrators be properly punished, but let us 
 not involve the whole country in confusion and disaster 
 and immolate the innocent and guilty alike in order to 
 punish the real offenders. If our people are in debt 
 they owe each other, and. consequently, about as many 
 would be actually injured as would be apparently 
 benefited by scaling the obligations down to a silver 
 standard. The indebtedness of the farmers, mechanics, 
 and other laboring classes of our people, although large 
 in the aggregate, is quite small in comparison with the 
 whole indebtedness of the great railroad and manu- 
 facturing corporations, the national and State banks, 
 savings institutions, trust companies, insurance com- 
 panies, building associations, and other organizations 
 engaged in financial and commercial enterprises. These 
 various organizations are indebted to the people to the 
 extent of many billions of dollars, and while it is true 
 that many of the people are also indebted to them, 
 their debtors and creditors are not the same persons, 
 and, therefore, the debts can not be set off against each 
 other and extinguished in that way. 1 deny that there 
 is any such thing as a distinct '' debtor class " in this 
 country, for, while nearly every one owes some debts, 
 large or small, nearly every one has also some debts 
 owing to him ; in other words, he is both debtor and 
 creditor. The laboring people, as a general rule, owe 
 very little at any one time, while their employers are 
 always indebted to them, because wages are not paid 
 in advance; and besides, many of them have small 
 deposits in savings and other banks, in trust companies,
 
 106 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 in building associations, and large numbers of them 
 have their lives insured for the benefit of their wives 
 and children, and consequently- they are creditors of 
 the banks and the insurance companies. The savings 
 bank depositors in this country last year numbered 
 4,777,687, and the wives and children of the depositors 
 who depended upon these accumulated earning for 
 future support doubtless numbered 10,000,000 more. 
 There were 1,925,340 depositors in the national banks 
 last year, and 1,724,077 of them had deposits of less 
 than $ 1,000 each, while State and private banks and 
 loan and trust companies held deposits for 1,436,638 
 people. Our life insurance companies, to say nothing 
 of companies insuring property against loss by fire and 
 otherwise, had 7,505,870 policies outstanding last 3^ear, 
 upon which the premiums had been paid, or were be- 
 ing paid by the people, and the mutual benefit and 
 assessment companies had 3,478,000 members. The 
 building and loan associations had nearly 2,000,000 
 members, all of whom had paid their money in as 
 required by the rules of the body to which they be- 
 longed. Here, then, are about 21,000,000 of our people^ 
 generally poor, or, at least, people of moderate means, 
 who have given credit to these great corporations and 
 companies, and, in my opinion, it would be a grievous 
 wrong to adopt any policy which would deprive them 
 of the legal right to demand and receive just as good 
 money as they parted with when they made the deposits 
 in the banks or paid the premiums on their insurance 
 policies. The hard earned savings of the poor ought 
 not to be sacrificed to the avarice of the wealthy mine 
 owners or the ambition of aspiring politicians, and if 
 the people who have a substantial interest in the wel- 
 fare of the country and a just appreciation of their 
 responsibilities as citizens will exert their proper influ- 
 ence in public aff'airs this great wrong can never be 
 perpetrated. 
 
 BANKING AND CURRENCY PROBLEMS. OUR HIGHEST DUTY. 
 
 Mr. President, but little remains for me to say be- 
 fore bringing these remarks to a conclusion. It is not
 
 THE MONEY QUESTION. 107 
 
 my purpose to discuss upon this occasion the various 
 propositions which have been made from time to time 
 for the improvement of our banking system, or toi* ihe 
 retirement of United States notes, because the ques- 
 tions involved in them are so important and so large 
 that they can not be properly considered in connection 
 with the subject to which my time has been devoted. 
 We have an abundance of money in this country for 
 all the purposes of trade, and the disturbances and 
 hard times of 1893 and 1894 were not caused by a 
 scarcity or contraction of the currency, but by a con- 
 traction of credit resulting from a loss of confidence in 
 the stability and value of our currency. So far as the 
 mere volume of our currency is concerned, we had 
 then and have now an ample supply for all necessary 
 purposes, but under the existing system it is not prop- 
 erly distributed and is not sufficiently elastic to meet 
 all the changing requirements of business at different 
 periods of the year. The United States should go 
 entirely out of the banking business by the withdrawal 
 of its arbitrary and compulsory issues of notes and 
 afford the people an opportunity to supply their own 
 currency based upon their own means and credit, thus 
 enabling every community to utilize its own resources 
 when necessary, and adjust the circulation from time 
 to time to the actual demands of legitimate commerce. 
 In what way this shall be accomplished is a question 
 which has already engaged the serious attention of the 
 people and public authorities, and it will no doubt 
 continue to be investigated and discussed until a plan 
 is formulated which, if not perfect, will at least have 
 the merit of being a great improvement upon the 
 existing system. In the meantime our highest duty is 
 to preserve the present standard of value, maintain 
 the parity of the two metals, and keep all the money 
 in circulation among the people, whether it be gold 
 anid silver coins, or paper based upon them, equal in 
 purchasing power, so that no discrimination will or can 
 be made between those who receive silver or paper and 
 those who receive gold. A great government should 
 do nothing to discredit its own obligations or diminish
 
 108 THE MONEY QUESTION. 
 
 the value of the money in the hands of its citizens, 
 nor should the people of a great country ever consent 
 to the adoption of a policy, through experimental 
 iinancial legislation or otherwise, which would vitiate 
 the obligations of their contracts, interrupt the regular 
 course of their business and destroy the foundations 
 upon which their industrial and commercial systems 
 liave been constructed. The spirit of conservatism is 
 still strong among our people, and, notwithstanding 
 the delusive promises and selfish appeals that are now 
 largely intluencing their opinions in some parts of the 
 country, the truth will ultimately prevail, and I have 
 no doubt of the result when the time for final action 
 comes. 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you for your polite attention 
 and for the opportunity you have given me to say 
 something on this great subject to an audience of 
 Southern men. We are all Americans, all citizens of 
 the same great Republic, and while it endures the 
 fortunes of the North, South, East and West will be 
 bound indissolubly together. There can be no antago- 
 nistic interests, no prosperity in one section at the ex 
 pense of another; but we must all stand or fall to- 
 gether. So believing, I have spoken to you to-day 
 without reservation or exaggeration in behalf of that 
 policy which, in my judgment, will most certainly 
 promote the welfare and preserve the credit and honor 
 of our whole country.
 
 What Senator Brice says: 
 
 Senate Chamber, 
 Washington, D. C, August 30, 95. 
 I have read with care the articles of Gen. Beatty in reply 
 to '"Coin's Financial School." They are terse and forcible, 
 logical and clear. Starting with sound premises, he arrives at 
 conclusions which can not be successfully controverted. They 
 should have a wide circulation and thus aid greatly in the dis- 
 sipation of the untenable views which are now being circu- 
 ated in pamphlet and book form. 
 
 Calvin S. Brice. 
 
 Treasury Department, Office of the Secretary, 
 Washington, D. C, August 28, 1895. 
 
 Gen. John Beatty, Columbus, Ohio: 
 
 My Dear Sir — I have read the advance sheets of your 
 reply to "Coin's Financial School" with much interest, and 
 it affords me pleasure to say that, in my opinion, it is one of 
 the best, if not the very bast, publications yet made upon the 
 subject. It is clear and accurate in its statements of fact, and 
 logical in its conclusions. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. G. Carlisle. 
 
 Columbus, O., August 30, 1895. 
 
 S. K. Donarin, Esq., Columbus, Ohio: 
 
 Dear Sir — I have just iinished reading Gen. John Beatty's 
 Answer to "Coin's Financial School." It is one of the clearest, 
 strongest, and most entertaining pamphlets that has appeared 
 against the unlimited free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 
 to 1 by this government alone. Those who have read Mr. 
 Harvey's book should now read this answer to it. It clears 
 away the mistatements, refutes the so-called arguments, and 
 cuts up by the roots the appeals to the prejudices of "Coin's 
 Financial School." The numerous pertinent facts presented 
 by Geii. Beatty and his strong common sense way of putting 
 things in favor of sound money, makes his little book of great 
 value at this time. Very truly yours, 
 
 Jos. H. OUTHWAITE. 
 
 The following is the opinion of Gen. Charles H. Grosvenor, 
 member of Congress from Athens district, on Gen. Beatty's 
 answer : 
 
 Oakland, August 28, 1895. 
 
 " It is far and away the best thing of the kind that has so 
 far ajjpeared. It is in a shape to be read and understood, and 
 is a complete reply to all the vagaries of 'Coin's Financial 
 School.' It should go into the hands of every intelligent 
 voter." Yours truly, 
 
 ClIAl{Li;S II. (iRO.SVENOR.
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 S. K. DONAVIN, COLUMBUS, OHIO, 
 
 AS SECOND CLASS M-ATTER.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
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