STACk 
 
 pie, pointed, clear, and candid 
 jld be widely circulated.". 
 
 Hew York Times. 
 
 price, 2 C 
 
 "No man need be financially learned 
 to understand what It says." 
 Evening News, Saginaw, Mich. 
 
 OR 
 
 " ' Dollars or What' is by far the best 
 thing that has been published on the 
 sound money side of the question." 
 Editor Cincinnati Timos-Star. 
 
 O 
 
 WHAT? 
 
 BY W. B. MITCHELL. 
 
 Mr 
 
 HOOKER, GA., July 23, 1896. 
 W. B. MITCHELL: 
 
 Dear Sir I want to thank you for writing "Dollars or What." It is the only 
 thing I have seen that we farmers can understand. * ' ' It has converted nearly all 
 of my free silver neighbors who have read it. I am still passing it around. * * The 
 book I have Is nearly worn out and I want another ccpy. ' ' ' Everybody can under- 
 derstand it as easily as a primer." J. WESLEY SMITH. 
 
 Published by H. C. ADLER, Chattanooga, Tenn.
 
 A Bright and Breezy Pamphlet. 
 
 A strong and very readable argument against the 
 free coinage of silver is to be found in a pamphlet 
 entitled " DOLLARS, OR WHAT," written by W. B. 
 Mitchell, president of the Third National Bank of 
 Chattanooga, Tenn. Mr. Mitchell is the master of a 
 sharp pen and lucid style. There is not in his 
 pamphlet a dull page or an obscure sentence. In 
 saying this, we give it high praise, for writers on 
 financial matters are too apt to forget that the cur- 
 rency is a ponderous subject and that in handling 
 it they must take special pains to be interesting if 
 they are to make an impression on the popular mind. 
 
 Mr. Mitchell's arguments against silver are devel- 
 oped in a breezy, Western way, with a manifest 
 intention to hit hard, tempered by an honest pur- 
 pose to fight fairly. He make no assertions in 
 which he does not sincerely believe, and is always 
 willing to do justice to the pleas of his opponents. 
 We welcome his brochure as a valuable contribu- 
 tion to the discussion of the silver question from an 
 honest money point of view. 
 
 J. H. Holmes, Editor Boston (Mass.) Herald, April 3, 1895-
 
 DOLLARS, 
 
 OR, WHAT? 
 
 ieb 10 Silbtr as 
 
 By W. B. MITCHELL. 
 
 NEWSPAPERS AT LIBERTY TO QUOTE FREELY, IF CREDIT IS GIVEN. 
 
 TIME SPRINT, CHATTANOOGA. TEN N.
 
 COPYRIGHTED, 1895, BY W. 8. MITCHELL.
 
 The articles in the following pages are, many of them, 
 particularly suitable on account of brevity, for newspaper 
 clipping and quotation. It was the writer's purpose to 
 make them acceptable to the general reader by reason of 
 simplicity of statement as well as brevity. He trusts that 
 enough merit may be found in them to induce liberal quo- 
 tations, which all journals are at liberty to make, if credit 
 is given for same, it being through this source partly that 
 he- has hoped to reach the masses with the sound doctrines 
 he endeavors to teach. And 
 
 tbe IRewspapers of the Xanb 
 
 THIS LITTLE WORK IS 
 
 2(303523
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 has occurred to the author of the following pages that nearly all 
 writers on financial questions assume that readers generally under- 
 stand the salient principles of finance and banking, and they 
 therefore fail to reach the understanding of the masses. And 
 though these principles are few, and not mysterious, many of our 
 most intelligent and capable men, particularly in professional life, have given 
 scant attention to such matters; and many men of abundant sense in agricul- 
 tural and other pursuits have had little opportunity to study them. With the 
 view of appealing to these good citizens, who are always desirous of forming 
 correct opinions on important public issues, but who have not the time nor pos- 
 sibly the patience to carefully wade through conflicting newspaper comments 
 and reports, the author has written a number of short articles on the most im- 
 portant question that has come before the American people since the days of 
 slavery. He has not gone extensively into statistics, nor into a scientific dis- 
 cussion of the subjects he handles, but has merely grouped a few simple facts 
 and principles and presented them in a plain, direct manner ; such as will, he 
 trusts, make them understood by all who may read them. He appeals directly 
 to the common sense of the people. He does not believe the financial question 
 a complicated or a difficult one, as it is generally supposed to be; but on the 
 contrary, quite understandable and easy of solution if the people were agreed on 
 the main issue; and he attempts in plain language to make it as plain to others 
 as it appears to him. 
 
 Although a banker, where he owns one dollar in bank stock he owns ten 
 dollars in other property. Pie believes that a bank cannot prosper unless the 
 customers and the community prosper, and that the prosperity of these depends 
 upon the prosperity of the country as a whole; but if it were possible that the 
 prosperity of the bank he manages lay in one direction and the prosperity of 
 the people and the country lay in another direction, his self-interest would 
 oblige and compel him to go with the people and the country. He therefore 
 speaks, not as a banker, but as an American citizen. He speaks, also, as a 
 Southern man, concerned for the future of the South. He believes that the 
 South has a great future under right conditions. He believes that the agitation
 
 of free silver is a blight upon the South, and that its industries and enterprises 
 must, in a measure, await the settlement of the free coinage issue. 
 
 The chief and only serious plea the free silver advocates make for the favor 
 of voters is that "demonetization" of silver has been the cause of the steady 
 decline in most values since 1873, and that its free coinage would restore values 
 and advance silver to the prices of former years. Particular care is taken in 
 the following pages to show the error of this view. 
 
 An effort is also made to show the danger of inflation in any form, and 
 that stability and confidence are the basis of all prosperity. 
 
 Statistics given are taken from the 1894 United States government reports, 
 unless otherwise specified, approximate figures being generally used. 
 
 Certain repetition is used in some intancess, with the view of making each 
 article more forcible and a more complete argument within itself, the writer 
 believing that short articles are more likely to be read and understood than any 
 long and continuous exposition of the questions involved. The writer appeals 
 witli earnest purpose to the voter, and begs a careful, thoughtful reading of 
 what he -ay>. We all live in the same country, and our interests in this matter 
 are the same. If calamity befalls us, none can dodge its shadow ; if prosperity 
 smiles upon us, all alike are filled with gladness. 
 
 W. B. MITCHELL. 
 
 Chattanooga, Tenn., April 16th, 1895.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 1 Voters Right Minded ... 7 
 
 2 The Financial Question 8 
 
 3 Divisions of Sentiment.. 10 
 
 4 The Government Stamp on Money 12 
 
 5 Difference Between Demand and Time Obligations 15 
 
 6 A Double Monetary Standard 16 
 
 7 Inconsistency of Free Coinage Advocates 17 
 
 8 Volume of Money Needed 19 
 
 9 Issuing Paper Against Silver 21 
 
 10 "Discrimination" Against Silver 23 
 
 11 "Demonetization" of Silver 24 
 
 12 "The Appreciation" of Gold 25 
 
 13 Gold the "Money of the People" ! 27 
 
 14 The General Decline in Prices 30 
 
 15 Old Time Prices 32 
 
 16 Silver and Wheat 33 
 
 17 Silver and Coffee 35 
 
 18 Silver, Wheat and Coffee . 35 
 
 19 Silver and Cotton 36 
 
 20 Silver in France 37 
 
 21 Free Coinage in Mexico 38 
 
 22 Train Loads of Silver 39 
 
 23 Gold and Silver Production 41 
 
 24 Fluctuations in the Silver Dollar 43 
 
 25 The Eatio Between Gold and Silver 45 
 
 26 Exports of Silver 48 
 
 27 Obstacles in the Way of Free Silver 48 
 
 28 Do We Want Bimetalism 50 
 
 29 Free Silver Not Free Distribution.. 54 
 
 30 Gold Standard and Prosperity 55 
 
 31 The Losses of 1893 58 
 
 32 The "Money Power" 60 
 
 33 "Privileges" of National Banks 63 
 
 34 Bank Note Circulation 65 
 
 35 Our Indebtedness Abroad 67 
 
 36 How to Get More Money 69 
 
 37 "Coin's Financial School" 71 
 
 38 The Rise in Coal Oil (and Beef 76 
 
 39 "Coin's" Unit of Value 77 
 
 40 "Coin's" Unlimited Demand 78 
 
 41 "Coin's" Fatal Admission 79 
 
 42 The Danger of "Coin's" Logic 80 
 
 43- The "Silver Bug" 83 
 
 44 Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire 84 
 
 45 International Bimetalism 85 
 
 46 "Friends" of the People 87 
 
 47 Sound Money Clubs 88 
 
 48 A Word to the East 89 
 
 49 Present General Condition 91 
 
 50 Which Do You Prefer?.... 94
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 VOTERS RIGHT MINDED. 
 
 It is a mistake to charge that all the free silver people 
 an- fanatics, lunatics and repudiationists. A misiai- 
 great as it is To say that sound money men are "conspira- 
 " anil "gold bugs." Many of them are among our most 
 useful and intelligent citizens, and are perfectly horn-si 
 ami patriotic. They have not seriously studied the merits 
 of the doctrines they embrace, but they are as anxious as 
 any of us to do the right thing and put the country in the 
 way of prosperity. They are open to argument and to 
 conviction. They somehow have an idea that there is a 
 "conspiracy" to drive out silver and to "contract'' the 
 currency. The metal has been "demonetized," and that 
 to t hem is an ominous and misleading word. They do not 
 know ihat much more silver has been coined and circu- 
 lated since the alleged "demonetization" than before, and 
 that we have fully seven times as much now as in 1873. 
 Tliey do not understand that free silver means the driv- 
 ing out of gold, and leaving silver and paper only as 
 money. They do not understand that such calamity would 
 suddenly contract the currency more than if all the silver 
 in the country were dumped into the sea. Their feelings 
 and their sentiments have been played upon by dema- 
 gogues, and it is these men who deserve the severest con- 
 demnation. Most of these have had opportunities of infor- 
 mation, and know the falsity of their statements. But 
 their business is politics. They are after fat berths in 
 government service. They are. or want to be Congress- 
 men and Senators, at salaries they could not earn at 
 home, even if they were willing to work. They deceive 
 and misrepresent for a selfish purpose. It pays them in 
 dollars ami cents to do it. Some of them are high in party 
 and national councils, and the people, respecting high 
 station, have learned t<> respect them and to be guided 
 by them. What is here said does not apply to all free 
 silver politicians, nor to all politicians of any parly or 
 faction, but, as must be owned, it applies truthfully to 
 the great majority of them. A ml the free silver advocates 
 are now making moiv false statements, and doing more
 
 8 DOLLAKS, OR WHAT? 
 
 mischief than any other class of office seekers. And there 
 is but one way to checkmate them. That is to give the 
 people the facts in such way that they may be under- 
 stood. When this is well done the day of the free coinage 
 trickster is done. 
 
 The road to financial ruin will not be followed when 
 the sign-boards are well posted. Sensible men and most 
 voters are sensible do not rush into pitfalls when the 
 marks are clear. These can, and should be made clear as 
 day. 
 
 THE FINANCIAL QUESTION, 
 
 The money question is now the most vital issue in 
 American politics, and it is one on which the demagogue 
 can get in his most effective work. He needs no experi- 
 ence, practical ability, nor brains, to belabor the "gold 
 bugs," and the "money power," and to talk about the 
 "dollar of our daddies," and the "money of the constitu- 
 tion." 
 
 Whether he be a brilliant but deluded theorist, a 
 shrewd and designing ow r ner of Western silver mines, or 
 a cheap politician who takes the shortest cut to get votes, 
 he is a dangerous agitator, because he appeals to popular, 
 though mistaken, prejudices. 
 
 A combination of adverse causes and conditions de- 
 pressed values and trade throughout the world, and the 
 fear of a silver basis has intensified that depression in 
 America. The free silver advocate, if he be a misguided 
 theorist, believes, and if he be a silver mine owner or a 
 mere demagogue, pretends to believe, that these condi- 
 tions are the direct result of what he calls "demonetiza- 
 tion" of silver. He attributes all legislation "unfriendly" 
 to silver, the world over, to the "gold bugs," thus appeal- 
 ing to the prejudice of those who do not think and reason 
 for themselves. His false doctrines are the more readily 
 accepted because the government itself, first from sup- 
 posed necessity during the rebellion, and since under the 
 direction of unwise and compromising politicians, has 
 upheld the vicious theory of fiat money and inflation. It 
 first became a bank of issue, and undertook to furnish 
 the people with fiat paper money, and then for purposes
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 9 
 
 of individual gain it was saddled with the product of the 
 W< -stern silver mines, and soon began. to issue fiat silver, 
 continuing this dangerous experiment till the world be- 
 iMii HI doubt its solvency, and gave its strange system 
 and money the cold shoulder. Foreign investors began to 
 withdraw from the country, and the panic of 1893 was 
 the result. The Sherman law was repealed, and the issue 
 <f tiat money was stopped. But the weakness and folly 
 of our financial system had been laid bare, and recovery 
 was slow. Our slender gold reserve, which supported 
 our great volume of fiat money, and our thousands of 
 millions of credits of all kinds, was in evident danger. 
 Tlic danger was intensified when the Fifty-Third Con- 
 gress an incompetent, free silver body assembled. And 
 during the existence of that Congress the country was 
 kept in a state of feverish anxiety and uncertainty. 
 
 It is a matter of great concern to us all that we get 
 back to a safe and sensible financial policy. Whether we 
 toil at the desk or in the workshop, behind the counter or 
 on the farm, we are each and all directly concerned in 
 having a stable financial system, in the permanency and 
 safety of which we, and outsiders, have absolute faith. 
 
 We want to be paid for our labor in good money, which 
 we i an put by with confidence. If we buy anything with 
 it we want the full worth of good money; if we put it at 
 interest, put it in the bank, or invest it in securities or 
 life insurance, \ve do not want it returned to us or to our 
 families at a discount. We want to make safe, and not 
 speculative investments with our savings. We earn good 
 dollars, and we do not want to see them depreciate and 
 become bad dollars, whether in our own or in other 
 hands. We lock up a hundred cents, or we put out a hun- 
 dred cents, and we want it to remain a hundred cents. 
 \\'e do not want it to shrink to seventy-five cents or to 
 fifty cents while we are about our work or our business. 
 \\V do not want to go io tied at night with a dollar and 
 .uet iij in the morning with less than a dollar. We do 
 not want an uncertain or a fluctuating currency. If we 
 are wise we want the standard of all great civilized na- 
 tions. 
 
 We li; d investments to offer. We have a new 
 
 country with great natural resources. We want the con- 
 fidence of people all over the world want their brains 
 and enterprise and money to aid in developing these
 
 10 
 
 DOLLARS, UK WHAT? 
 
 resources. We have now, in a measure, lost that confi- 
 dence, and can obtain it again only by manifesting the 
 clearest purpose of future integrity in our national 
 finances. If we tend an ear to the delusive harangues of 
 the free silver advocate, it is hopelessly gone from us. 
 
 We of the South in particular ,are vitally concerned in 
 a financial policy that will insure the confidence of every- 
 body. AVe have the richest undeveloped section of the 
 country. The eyes of investors everywhere are turned 
 toward us. Give the country safe financial legislation 
 and within ten years the idle accumulation of money of 
 the East and of other countries would come to us by the 
 hundreds of millions. But give us free coinage of silver 
 and we shall invite the ridicule and contempt of the civ- 
 ilized world. We should take a backward step of half a 
 century in our industrial growth. Under such condition 
 there would be no hope at all for the present generation 
 in the South. The East, w r ith its generations of savings 
 and large accumulations, might, in a way, survive such a 
 calamity, largely, too, at our cost; but we should flounder 
 in poverty. 
 
 Without regard to political ties or associations, let us 
 of the South, aye, and of the North, and the East, rise and 
 stand together against this proposed and monstrous blun- 
 der. Let us make it clear that no man, of any party, can 
 have our votes unless he squarely defines himself for hon- 
 est money and honest financial legislation. 
 
 DIVISIONS OF SENTIMENT. 
 
 Bimetallism means the use of both gold and silver as 
 money. It does not necessarily mean a double standard, 
 which is an impossibility, unless an equal intrinsic mar- 
 ketable value of metal is put in each kind of dollar. That 
 is, 100 cents' worth of marketable gold in the gold dollar 
 and 100 cents' worth of marketable silver in the silver 
 dollar. This would make a double standard, but to remain 
 so there must be no fluctuation in the market value of 
 either metal. 
 
 The use of gold alone as a money metal is gold mono- 
 metallism. 
 
 The use of silver alone is silver monometallism.
 
 DOLLARS, OK WHAT? 11 
 
 The silver mining states of the West want and have 
 long been striving for silver monometallism. 
 
 The remainder of the free silver people want bimetal- 
 lism. 
 
 The distinction is vital, but not generally understood, 
 or recognized. 
 
 There is really wider difference of real sentiment be- 
 t \\ een the mining camps of the West and the silver people 
 of other sections than there is between the latter and 
 the sound money men. 
 
 Silver men east of tin' Mississippi have no interest in 
 the silver product as an industry, and only desire to pro- 
 mote its wider use as money; but generally, unlike their 
 \V< -stern allies, they would oppose its use to the exclu- 
 sion of gold and the great consequent reduction in the 
 volume of our currency. 
 
 They have a mistaken theory that gold and silver can 
 both become standards of money on a basis of 16 to 1, 
 and it is that -theory for which they are earnestly fight- 
 ing, in the honest but erroneous belief that it would work 
 in practice and restore old time prosperity. It is simply 
 a theory, because it is an idea or scheme that has never 
 been put to the test. There is no record in history that 
 any nation has attempted to make standards of two 
 metals at a ratio of greatly different values. 
 
 The silver people assert that free coinage would raise 
 the value of silver to that of gold on a basis of 16 to 1, 
 but that is also a mere theory, with everything against it 
 and nothing in favor of it, excepting the bare assertion, 
 and that, like the other, is a most dangerous theory in 
 view of the calamities its test would precipitate. 
 
 The sound money men oppose both these theories, and 
 also oppose the scheme of the Western silverites to put 
 the country on a silver basis, with silver as the only me- 
 tallic currency. They are not gold rnonoinetallists, as is 
 n charged. There is no public sentiment favoring 
 gold monometallism in this country. They are bimetal- 
 lists, differing from the free coinage bimet allisis in that 
 they favor our present gold standard of value, and desire 
 to keep all the silver that can be safely used, and all the 
 paper circulation as good as gold, on which both are 
 based. 
 
 I'nlike the free coinage bimetallists, they advocate no 
 theories. They adhere to precedents and tried principles.
 
 12 DOLLAES, OR WHAT? 
 
 They believe that the experiences and practical financial 
 tests of other nations, at the present day and in former 
 periods, are a safe guide. They have the record of a 
 thousand years of financiering, and find no instance 
 where a bold and generally distrusted financial theory, 
 put to a practical test, has not wrought disaster. Al- 
 though they greatly admire the genius of young America, 
 and are partial to some of her statesmen, they are unwill 
 ing to follow the lead of men who would make such radi- 
 cal departure from all known and tried methods of finan- 
 ciering. 
 
 The writer believes this to be a true and candid state- 
 ment of three important divisions of sentiment on the 
 financial question. 
 
 Is the reader a bimetallist of the theoretical school? Is 
 he a bimetallist of the practical school? Or is he a silver 
 monometallist of the school of the mining camps? 
 
 If he is a bimetallist of the theoretical school, there is 
 great hope that he may join the practical school. It is 
 assumed that he is a sensible, right thinking man, earn- 
 est in right purposes, really afraid of mere theories; and 
 if he will take the pains to investigate this important 
 matter he can ascertain that his present views AEE the- 
 oretical to the extent that they have never been tried by 
 ANY nation that history makes mention of. 
 
 !, however, he belongs to the school of the mining 
 camps, there is little hope of him. They have silver to 
 sell out there, and the only lessons taught are how to sell 
 it. This is a selfish doctrine, and the man who embraces 
 it is hard to reach. There are a few politicians east of 
 the Mississippi who belong to this school, but they have 
 outlived their day and usefulness. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT STAMP ON MONEY. 
 
 It is a popular error of free coinage people, and other 
 advocates of fiat money, that the stamp of the government 
 makes money perfectly good. This false idea is at the 
 bottom of most inflation theories. 
 
 The United States, or any other government, might 
 stamp a dollar mark on a paper bill and it would not pass 
 for 5 cents, nor for 1 cent, if the bill were drawn without
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 13 
 
 any promise to pay. This is a simple fact, not at all un- 
 derstood by many intelligent people. 
 
 There must be a promise of final redemption, accept- 
 ance for customs, or other substantial promise to pay, 
 and its value, as money, depends entirely on the kind of 
 payment promised, and on the solvency and ability of the 
 government or institution issuing the bill. In Mexico, 
 or any other country on a silver basis, the promise to pay 
 would be in silver, and the bill, therefore, granting the 
 solvency and promptness of the maker, would be worth a 
 Mexican silver dollar, about fifty cents of our money. 
 
 In the United States the promise to pay on such bill 
 means payment in gold, because the United States main- 
 tains a supply of gold for the special purpose of paying 
 any of these bills that may be presented. 
 
 Another mistaken idea of many uninformed people is 
 that the government issues these bills, and that they pass 
 from hand to hand indefinitely, and nobody ever asks to 
 have them redeemed. 
 
 The fact is that the government is often called on for 
 the redemption of its bills. This has been made quite 
 clear and become pretty generally understood during th'> 
 past two years. Business men require gold for commer- 
 cial purposes, and when it suits their convenience thev 
 exchange their paper money for it. But if such exchange 
 seldom, or never, actually occurred, the fact that it could 
 at any time be made would make the paper money as 
 good as gold. 
 
 A man may have $100 to his credit in bank, and let it 
 remain there year after year, because he does not need it, 
 and believes if he should need it he could go to the bank 
 and get it 
 
 Under our system the government represents the bank, 
 and the holder of any bill, or piece of money other than 
 gold, represents the depositor, and the bill or money h<- 
 holds is a certificate of deposit. As long as he can go to 
 the government bank and get this certificate cashed, lie 
 is satisfied to hold it; or the man he owes, or deals with, 
 willingly accepts it. In other words, if the government 
 clearly shows its purpose of maintaining, and its ability 
 to maintain, its gold reserve for redemption purposes, no 
 large volume of paper, or fiat money, is presented for re- 
 demption. But if the government wavers in that purpose, 
 or if it puts in circulation too many promises to pay, either
 
 14 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 in paper dollars or in silver dollars if it thus increases 
 its demand obligations out of proportion to the gold re- 
 demption reserve, then people lose confidence in the in- 
 trinsic value of its dollar marks on paper and silver, and 
 large amounts of the money are taken to the treasury 
 and exchanged for gold, as was the case after the passage 
 of the Sherman law, and notably in 1893. 
 
 During the ten years preceding the passage of the Sher- 
 man act the total withdrawals of gold from the treasury, 
 in exchange for paper money, were less than twenty mill- 
 ions of dollars; but during the four years the Sherman 
 law was in force these withdrawals of gold exceeded two 
 hundred and sixty millions of dollars. Had that law not 
 been repealed in 1893, there would not have been a. dollar 
 of gold in the treasury within six months, and there would 
 soon have been none in the country. We should have 
 wholly lost more than one-third of the money in circula- 
 tion, and the remaining two-thirds would have been on a 
 silver basis, possessing only one-half its former purchas- 
 ing value. 
 
 The United States has no more immunity from distrust, 
 if it manages its finances badly, than an individual or a 
 corporate institution. If conducted on unsound princi- 
 ples, its treasury is as liable to a run as a bank. If people 
 have paper bills with dollar marks on them, for which 
 they can get gold today but may not be able to get it to- 
 morrow, they are apt to make the exchange today. If 
 they have silver pieces worth really only 50 cents, but 
 which, by reason of the government stamp, and promise, 
 they can now convert into gold, but may not be able .to 
 do so to-morrow or next week, they are likely to convert 
 it now. And it is not bankers only who make the ex- 
 change. 
 
 There are to-day tens of millions of gold hoarded in the 
 stockings of the free silver coinage advocates of the 
 United States. The writer knows a man in his own city, 
 prominent in public life and a pronounced free coinage 
 man, who in 1893 promptly converted his bank account 
 into gold and locked it up. He knows scores of other 
 strong free silver men who did the same thing. 
 
 In practice these people appear to know the difference 
 between a dollar mark and a real dollar between a gold 
 basis and a silver basis; but in theory the "money of the
 
 "K WHAT? 15 
 
 Dilution" is good enough for anybody, and a gold 
 standard is infamous. 
 
 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEMAND AND TIME 
 OBLIGATIONS. 
 
 
 
 I Vrsonx who do not reason, and have given small atten- 
 tion to business principles and financial matters, do not 
 -U'nize the di (Terence between demand and time obliga- 
 tions, particularly as applied to governmental affairs. 
 
 They know that the United Stales is a grear and rich 
 country, and that it is abundantly able to pay all its debts. 
 They reason thai such a great country, with such unlim- 
 ited resources, ran put out unlimited quantities of paper, 
 or depreciated silver, and circulate them at full face 
 value as money. But, as stated elsewhere, such money 
 must be promises to pay; and to make the promise good 
 -ovei iinient must be ready to pay. It must be ready 
 n. pay on demand. If not, the promise means nothing. 
 Its j to pay must be in something of intrinsic value. 
 
 i. if on a gold basis, and silver if on a silver basis, and 
 this redemption money must be in hand and in sight. It 
 must be in good proportion to the money it puts in circu- 
 lation. If it is not, nobody has confidence in the money. 
 I5ut the ability of any government to accumulate and 
 -lock of coin for such purpose is limited, and con- 
 sequently its circulation of money must be limited in pro- 
 portion. 
 
 Time obligations are less directly limited. These are 
 d on the resources and wealth of the country; on its 
 :me. or possible revenue. They may be paid at ma- 
 turity, or funded and extended indefinitely. They bear 
 interest, and can be tloated as long as there is no decline 
 in the resources of the country. 
 
 Demand obligations, in the form of money, bear no 
 interest, and are therefore of uncertain value, whether 
 issued by a government or by an authorized corporation, 
 unless good on demand. 
 
 The I'nited States can tloat its 10, 1>0 or 30-year inter- 
 est-bearing bonds in very large sums, without injury to 
 ^t, but floating money, payable on demand, and
 
 16 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 on which payment is being constantly demanded, is quite 
 a different thing. 
 
 The distinction is vital. There would be less clamor 
 for flat money if it were generally better understood. 
 
 An individual with good resources may put out |10,000 
 of his interest-bearing time notes and carry such indebt- 
 edness for years. 
 
 Before they mature he prudently arranges for renewals, 
 r places them elsewhere. If these obligations were pay- 
 able on demand they would be a constant menace, liable 
 to bankrupt him at any time. 
 
 Fundamental principles of business and finance arc 
 inexorable, and apply relentlessly alike to men or nations. 
 
 Any scheme to issue large amounts of fiat money U 
 wholly chimerical. Wherever undertaken the result has 
 been failure and bankruptcy. No people can grow rich 
 on promises to pay that cannot be made good. 
 
 A DOUBLE MONETARY STANDARD. 
 
 The only way a double standard of money can be main- 
 tained is to put the same commercial value of metal in the 
 coin of each standard. If an actual dollar's worth of sil- 
 ver be put in the silver dollar, and a dollar's worth of gold 
 in the gold dollar, then the gold dollar and the silver dol- 
 lar w r ill both become standards. Commercial laws will 
 make them such without any reference to legislation. 
 Commercial law is superior to legislation in the fixing of 
 values. 
 
 It is a wholly mistaken and visionary theory that legis- 
 lation (either by one government or by all the govern- 
 ments in the world) can make a double standard of money, 
 or of anything else. Is it reasonable to suppose that the 
 United States and all Europe combined could pass laws 
 that would make the prices of wheat and corn the same 
 in the world's markets? And yet the prices of these com- 
 modities can as easily be regulated as the values of gold 
 and silver. If 50 cents or 75 cents, or even 99 cents' worth 
 of silver be put into the silver dollar, and both the gold 
 dollar and the silver dollar are made a legal tender 
 (without a gold redemption feature), it ought to be easy 
 enough to see that people would use the cheaper dollar,
 
 DOLLARS, OK WHAT? 17 
 
 and either sell or hoard the dollar of greater intrinsic 
 value. The silver dollar would be as good as the gold 
 dollar to pay debts with, but the gold dollar would sell in 
 the market by weight for a premium. Therefore, the 
 gold would go out of circulation. It is simply impossible 
 (]> two moneys of different intrinsic values both in 
 circulation, unless the cheaper money is made redeem- 
 able in the more valuable money. 
 
 Ami an unlimited amount of cheap money cannot be 
 redeemable in good money. 
 
 Up to twenty years ago the ratio of value between the 
 two metals had been for about two centuries between 
 14 1-2 and Ki of silver to 1 of gold. Running thus evenly 
 it was not impossible to have a double money standard, 
 and such standard did exist in mau3 r countries. 
 
 But at times one metal or the other increased or de- 
 creased in value, and at such times the more valuable in 
 ry instance went out of circulation. 
 
 This is the record of history, and many instances may 
 be cited. It is only within comparatively recent years 
 that any country conceived the plan of making the 
 cheaper metal redeemable in or interchangeable with the 
 more valuable metal. And when silver began to be so 
 abundant, and to decline so greatly, all countries, except- 
 ing the 1 'nited States, abandoned or greatly modified 
 that plan. 
 
 INCONSISTENCY OF FREE COINAGE ADVOCATES. 
 
 The worst inconsistency of the advocate of free coin- 
 age is the ratio at which lie insists silver must be coined. 
 lie wants it coined at 16 to 1. That is, he would put If, 
 I lines as much weight in a silver dollar as is put in a gold 
 dollar. < )n t his basis, before either piece of metal is con- 
 verted into stamped money, the piece of gold would sell 
 in any market in the world for llll) cents, whereas the 
 piece of silver would bring but little over .~>0 cents. 
 
 It is clear that the silver ."iO-ceni piece must be made 
 by law interchangeable with and practically redeemable 
 by the government in the full value gold dollar; other- 
 wise the two dollars would not circulate side by side. Yet 
 this silver theorist rails at the government for keeping a
 
 18 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 gold reserve to make this 50-cent silver money pass for 
 100 cents. 
 
 If silver advocates want to coin all the silver in the 
 world why do they not propose to put 100 cents' worth of 
 silver into the silver dollar? It would then stand alone, 
 and until silver declined they could, without disturbance, 
 give the metal the "wide use" to which they claim it is 
 entitled. 
 
 The writer does not believe in nor advocate the prac- 
 ticability of this policy, but speaks from the silver stand- 
 point. And such policy would be more honest, and some 
 what less dangerous than the plan proposed, though it 
 would doubtless soon result in the disasters of the Sher- 
 man law. 
 
 In former ages and periods silver was in great request 
 as a money medium, because the supply was very limited. 
 But modern discoveries, appliances and inventions have 
 so increased and cheapened the product that it is fast 
 ceasing to be of value as a money metal. While in former 
 ages it was turned out by the pound, it is now turned out 
 by the ton and by the ship load. At one period of the 
 world copper was used as money, and would doubtless 
 have continued in use to the present day but for the fact 
 that it became so abundant that it ceased to be a precious 
 metal. 
 
 It is not easy for people now to accept the idea that 
 silver may for the same reason eventually cease to be 
 useful for monetary purposes. That time has not yet, 
 and may never come, but it cannot be said to be a remote 
 possibility. 
 
 It is foolish to go on theorizing about the cause of its 
 decline, and the methods that would raise its value, when 
 it is becoming so abundant that warehouses, instead of 
 strong boxes, must be provided for its storage. The com- 
 mercial law of supply and demand regulates its price 
 exactly as it regulates the price of every other known 
 product, and it is not within the power of all the legisla- 
 tive bodies in the world to permanently and materially 
 raise or depress its value. Whether they all "demone- 
 tize" or "remonetize" makes in the long run small differ- 
 ence. The law of supply and demand has small respect 
 for the edicts of legislative solons. 
 
 Happily, however, for other nations, and for the gen- 
 eral good of mankind, the United States is the only coun-
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 1',) 
 
 try on earth dominated by the mine operators of a few 
 sparsely settled stares. Kngland, France and Germany 
 may have a few visionaries, but their legislative bodies 
 arc nor bullied by a powerful lobby of millionaires with 
 train loads of silver for sale. 
 
 All efforts looking to free coina.gr bimetallism by inter- 
 national agreement are wasted. The credits of Europe, 
 amounting to thousands of millions of dollars, are based 
 on a safe and permanent standard. Its disturbance would 
 result in disaster and calamity, such as would shake to 
 the foundations every throne and government on the con- 
 tinent. No step will be taken in the direction of such 
 danger. And it is probable that even some of our free 
 silver mine owning Senators are not quite so blind as to 
 be unable to see the folly of expecting any move abroad 
 in that direction. But they will clamor all the more for 
 renewed and enlarged "recognition" at home, on a basis 
 of 10 to 1, for their beloved metal. 
 
 VOLUME OF MONEY NEEDED. 
 
 Owing to the great number of banks, and the system 
 of credits throughout the United States, we need less 
 actual money per capita than is needed anywhere else in 
 the world. There are few towns of five hundred popula- 
 tion that have not a bank. Less than 5 per cent, of all 
 payments are made in actual money. The bank check 
 does the remainder. A gives his check to B; the bank 
 transfers A's credit to B's account, and B checks in favor 
 of C, and so on through the alphabet. This system of 
 ready credits does the work of a great volume of money. 
 It is not merely a convenience, but it increases profits in 
 prompt conversion and quick settlements. 
 
 Our money per capita of about si' } is, ::nder our bank- 
 ing system, equal to a per capita of 100 in many coun- 
 tries. \\V can make quicker turns and do more business 
 on si actual money than can be done on s.~> in a country 
 that has few banks. 
 
 The banking Capital of the Tinted States exceeds one- 
 third of that of all the countries of Kurope. It amounts 
 to $1,400,000,000, against s:;,r,n<UMM),iM)0 in Kurope. 
 
 The proportion of hank deposits in favor of this conn-
 
 20 DOLLARS, OE WHAT? 
 
 (TV is much greater. These are, in round figures: The 
 United States, $4,000,000,000; Europe, $6,500,000,000. 
 
 It may be seen that we have about $60 per capita in 
 deposits subject to call; and an immense volume of checks 
 are in constant circulation. The total clearing house 
 exchanges of the United States in 1894 amounted to S4.V 
 615,000,000.* This is an incredible sum, and these ex- 
 changes supply the place of a gre>at volume of money. 
 Considering the aid of this circulation, we have much 
 more money per capita than any other country. France, 
 with $36 actual money per capita, has only about $20 per 
 capita in bank deposits. 
 
 Another advantage we have is in the great number of 
 small banks, widely scattered, and a corresponding num- 
 ber of small deposits, a large per cent, of which are, in 
 the form of the bank check, constantly on the wing; and 
 one must be a banker to know how much money people 
 get the use of by sending checks all over the country be- 
 fore deposits are made to cover them. Many business 
 firms constantly keep out thousands of dollars of checks 
 with never a dollar of their own money in bank. They 
 send these checks from Maine to California, making care- 
 ful estimates as to how long it takes them to get round 
 to the banks they are drawn on, and deposit money, or 
 similar checks (the greater per cent, of deposits being- 
 other checks), in time to make them good. The volume 
 of such checks, drawn against blank bank balances, is 
 immense, and this class of checks alone answers for a 
 large circulating medium. 
 
 We have an abundance of money in this country, if it 
 were more evenly distributed as to sections. It unduly 
 accumulates in the centers under our present currency 
 system, and will continue to do so as long as the bulk of 
 the money is issued directly by the government. 
 
 The great need of the South and other sections remote 
 from the centers, is a flexible bank note currency. Xot 
 an issue by banks of the wildcat order, but a currency 
 as good as the national bank note, though more flexible 
 than that now is, and adapted to the varying seasons and 
 conditions. The South has no interest in the Western 
 silver mines. It has nothing to gain by unloading the 
 product on the government And it should turn its atten- 
 
 *Monetary Systems of the World. Muhleman.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? _'! 
 
 tion to its own practical needs, the most important of 
 which is a safe bank note currency. And particularly 
 so since a part of that plan would take the government 
 out of the banking business, relieve the treasury of its 
 disturbing einbarrasments, and so hasten good times thai 
 the Western miners would become a hopeless and a help- 
 less minoritv.* 
 
 ISSUING PAPER AGAINST SILVER. 
 
 One of the theories of the free silver advocate is that 
 the government can buy silver at about CO cents an ounce, 
 and issue paper money (generally called silver certiti- 
 cates) against it on a basis of 1C to 1 of gold; which 
 would make $1 of the silver certificate represent less than 
 ;o rents worth of silver held against it for its redemption. 
 In other words, if the government should buy say x.V, 
 worth of silver, it would be required to issue and put into 
 circulation $100 in silver certificates. (The exact cost of 
 the silver would depend on the market price at the time 
 of purchase.) The $55 worth of silver would be coined 
 into one hundred silver dollars, and any holder of the 
 < ertificates would be entitled to exchange them for the 
 coined silver. This was in part the principle of the Sher- 
 man law. 
 
 P. ut as the writer has elsewhere clearly shown the mere 
 stamp of the government on paper gives it no value, un- 
 less there be a promise to pay, and to make the promise 
 trusted, it must be a promise of full payment. 
 
 Now these silver certificates put out under the Sherman 
 law were made payable in silver dollars, and as silver 
 declined, and these silver dollars declined in intrinsic 
 marketable value till they were worth little more than 
 fifty cents each, the silver certificates would have been 
 worth just the same but for the fact that it was the policy 
 of the government, regardless of the law, to keep all of 
 its money on a parity. It was its policy to make its prom- 
 ise, as was originally intended, fully good to make all 
 of its dollars redeemable in 100 cents good money; there- 
 fore, the government accepted the silver certificates and 
 silver dollars as well, for all dues, made them interchange- 
 
 - an article in this book, " I.ank N<.u- < 'in illation."
 
 22 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 able with and practically redeemable in gold. Otherwise 
 we should have had moneys of varying values. The silver 
 and silver certificates would have been worth 55 or 60 
 cents, varying with the market value of silver, and other 
 money actually based on gold would have been worth 100 
 cents. 
 
 So it may be seen that paper money cannot be issued 
 against silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, and be full face value 
 money, unless it be interchangeable with gold. And, as 
 elsewhere clearly shown, the gold reserve is not strong 
 enough to carry any increased volume of money. 
 
 Moreover, the government has directly lost an incredi 
 ble sum making such experiments. Since 1873 it has 
 bought for monetary purposes silver costing five hundred 
 and nine million dollars. (See report, 1894, Bureau of 
 the Mint.) The shrinkage in value from the average cost 
 of $1 per fine ounce has been enormous. 
 
 These experiments were forced on the government as 
 "compromises" by advocates of free silver coinage. 
 
 The Xew York Times, in a series of carefully prepared 
 articles, based on actual statistics, lately showed that the 
 losses to the government on fiat paper money and silver, 
 have cost it more than two thousand millions of dollars. 
 And the policy that prompted such money has cost the 
 country more than five thousand millions of dollars. This 
 estimate is far within the true loss. 
 
 The financial policy of the United States, dictated for 
 twenty years by the mining camps of the West, would 
 have beggared and bankrupted both the government and 
 the people, if the country had not been new, and the most 
 resourceful on earth. 
 
 Theorizing is well enough for dreamers, but in matters 
 of business, common sense and well know T n principles are 
 the only safe guides. 
 
 Free silver politicians who want votes, and Western 
 mine owners who want other peoples' money at any cost, 
 to the other people, have a theory never tried under like 
 conditions in any country in the world, and they would 
 commit us to that theory in complete disregard of conse- 
 quences.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 "DISCRIMINATION" AGAINST SILVER. 
 
 I have before me the T. S. Treasurer's report for 1894, 
 in which it is estimated that in June, 1878. there was in 
 the count i-y a total silver circulation of only *87,(>9.' : . 
 
 The free silver advocate claims thai since 1*7:; ijuM-e 
 has been unrighteous and criminal "discrimination"' 
 against silver, i'.'.it what are the facts? Up to 187*, tho 
 entire coinage oi' the country for a centur;. had given us 
 a total accumulation of only about eighty-seven miHions 
 of dollars; but since 1878 the coinage has been so great 
 Thai \ve have now an accumulation of six hundred and 
 twenty-five millions of dollars. 
 
 In other words, seventeen years ago we had about one- 
 iith as much silver money as we have today. Our 
 stock has increased live hundred and thirty-eight millions 
 in seventeen years. And by far the largest annual in- 
 crease was in the years 1890-1893, when prices were fast 
 declining. 
 
 Does this look like discrimination? Not only has there 
 this incredible increase, but the entire stock of sil- 
 ver dollars is made a full legal tender; and notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that the intrinsic and marketable value of 
 this mass of money has been for sometime at a discount 
 of nearly 50 per cent, from its face value, and its legal 
 tender, or debt-paying value, it is made as good as any 
 other money for all practical purposes. This parity has 
 been maintained at a. cost to the country of tens of 'mill- 
 ions of dollars of gold, and also to the great disturbance 
 of all business and commercial relations. 
 
 The truth is, that all financial legislation for twenty 
 years has tended directly to the vastly enlarged use of 
 silver as money, increasing its use as shown seven times 
 in seventeen years. The effort has failed in so far as con- 
 cerns its actual circulation as money, owing to the fact 
 that people will handle but small quantities of it. They 
 turn it into the banks, and the banks turn it into the 
 treasury and get other money in exchange for it; and 
 there it lies idle and useless, serving only to disturb confi- 
 dence in our financial system. As stated elsewhere, there 
 are now only fifty-six million silver dollars actually in
 
 24 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 circulation, this being all the country appears willing to 
 use. Then why should \ve want to coin any more silver? 
 Why should we want free coinage or limited coinage? 
 
 Inasmuch as little more than one legal tender dollar in 
 ten of the present stock of silver can actually be put into 
 the channels of business, would it not be better to quit 
 agitating its further coinage, and quit disturbing confi- 
 dence in the basis of our financial system? 
 
 It is pertinent in this connection to suggest, that if the 
 increased or decreased use of silver as money has any- 
 thing to do with "prices," as the free coinage advocate 
 claims, prices ought to have been going up at a rapid rate 
 during the past seventeen years. 
 
 The ingenious author of "Coin" has figured to a nicety 
 that the decline in w r heat has been almost exactly the 
 same as the decline in silver. 
 
 From the same point of view, "prices" ought to react 
 with the increased use of silver; and if wheat was w^orth, 
 say (for easy illustration), f 1 per bushel in 1878, it ought 
 now to be worth f 7 per bushel, since w r e now have seven 
 times as much silver money as then. Coffee was worth 
 11 cents per pound in 1878, and ought therefore now 
 bring 77 cents. 
 
 All such figuring and reasoning are the foolish strain- 
 ing of a foolish theory, and have no basis whatever in fact. 
 And yet upon this idea rests almost the entire claim for 
 unlimited coinage of silver. 
 
 " DEMONETIZATION " OF SILVER. 
 
 "Demonetization" is a word used in this connection 
 with much looseness, and is generally misunderstood. It 
 is a favorite word with writers and speakers careless of 
 what they say, or who intentionally deceive and misrep- 
 resent the facts. And many persons are led to believe 
 that "demonetization" means an attempt to abandon the 
 use of silver for monetary purposes. 
 
 All silver dollars now in circulation are a legal tender 
 for the payment of all debts, public and private, and the 
 government makes no discrimination whatever against 
 silver money. All legislation has been directly in favor 
 of the metal in the attempt to support it, and in conse-
 
 DOLLAKS. ni: WHAT? 
 
 qu.ence, the "discrimination" has really and seriously 
 been against gold. 
 
 (The old Trade Dollar is not a legal tender, and for that 
 reason went out of use. It is not supported by the gov- 
 ernment gold reserve, and consequently it cannot be ex- 
 changed for a gold dollar nor for a legal tender silver or 
 paper dollar. It is, therefore, worth only about 50 cents,- 
 although it has the dollar stamp of the United States on 
 its face. This is clear proof of what our silver money 
 would be worth if it were not interchangeable with gold. 
 The mere stamp of the United States, or of any other 
 country, could not make it worth, in purchasing power, 
 more than about 50 cents, its commercial value in weight.) 
 
 The repeal of the Sherman law did not in any way 
 affect the 625,000,000 of silver now in the treasury, and 
 in circulation, unless, indeed, it strengthened its value 
 and its position as good money. The "gold bugs" are not 
 trying to destroy the use of silver. On the contrary, all 
 advocates of sound money want to continue it in safe 
 quantities in use as good money. 
 
 The government has merely quit making any more sil- 
 ver dollars. That is all the "demonetizing" that has been 
 done. The silver w r e have is as good, as money, as it ever 
 was, and will remain so, unless the free coinage people 
 succeed in putting us on a free silver basis, in which 
 event it would not be worth more than half its present 
 value, if, indeed, it would eventually be worth that. 
 
 And it would, for a time at least, be a good deal harder 
 to get one of the cheap silver dollars under free coinage 
 than it is to get a good silver dollar now, because all gold 
 would go out of circulation, and we should have much 
 less money than now, to say nothing of its greatly reduced 
 purchasing power. 
 
 There is absolutely no "demonetizing" of silver in the 
 sense the word is understood by the mass of voters. It is 
 1 merely to deceive and mislead. 
 
 THE "APPRECIATION" OF GOLD. 
 
 The free coinage people assert that gold has u appre- 
 ciated" in value, and that its appreciation has depressed 
 all other values. This, like very many other loose asser-
 
 2fi DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 tions from this source, has no foundation in fact. On the 
 contrary, gold is vastly more abundant, and more readily 
 obtainable, than ever before in the world's history. Its 
 production and circulation have increased within thirty- 
 five years more than twenty times the ratio of the increase 
 in the world's population. This estimate is based on 
 actual statistics of production. 
 
 About one-half the world's production of gold during 
 the past 400 years has been produced within the last 
 thirty-five years.* This fact, and the well known increase 
 of gold as money within the memory of comparatively 
 young men, completely refute the claim that gold is and 
 has been "appreciating." Things or commodities do not 
 "appreciate" when they become more plentiful. 
 
 Cotton has depreciated greatly in value because the 
 crop has from year to year largely increased. Planters 
 have attempted to secure a general agreement to reduce 
 the acreage, believing that by so doing, and thus mate- 
 rially reducing the supply, they could "appreciate" its 
 value and advance its price. The same general law must 
 apply to gold. 
 
 It would be hard to demonstrate just what relation the 
 volume of stable money has on prices, since they often 
 decline or advance without apparent reference to mone- 
 tary conditions. Supply and demand are more important 
 factors than the volume of money. But common sense 
 teaches that no particular kind of money can "appreci- 
 'ate" in value when the supply is largely increased, as in 
 the case of gold. Through its large production only, sil- 
 ver has depreciated. And men now living may possibly 
 see a depreciation in gold from the same causes. 
 
 With the present annual gold production, and the out- 
 look for increased production, it is safe to say that the 
 output for the next twenty years will equal the total pro- 
 duct for five hundred years preceding 1860. 
 
 The output in 1894 was about one hundred and seventy- 
 five million dollars; in 1895 it promises to reach two hun- 
 dred millions. That is to say, the world will produce as 
 much gold in 1895 as was produced in fifty years about 
 the time America was discovered; or to come to more re- 
 cent years, double as much as was produced in ten years 
 from 1821 to 1830; nearly as much as was produced in 
 the ten years 1831 to 1840; one-half as much as was pro- 
 
 *See table of world's production in report of Director of the Mint.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 27 
 
 duced in the ten years, 1841 to 1850; more than a third 
 as much as was produced in five years from 1871 to 1875; 
 nearly half as much as was produced in five years from 
 1881 to 1885; and double as much, lacking a few millions, 
 as was produced in 1887. Since 1887 the production has 
 been more remarkable than during any other period of 
 the world's history. 
 
 Recent gold discoveries in Africa, South America, Aus- 
 tralia and other parts of the world, are many of them rich 
 beyond computation. We are in a gold era, such as our 
 fathers, nor even we, ever dreamed of. 
 
 Inasmuch as more than one-half the gold production 
 for four hundred years has been within the memory of 
 comparatively young men, and inasmuch as that produc- 
 tion is in a fair way to double before they become very 
 old men, the talk about the "appreciation'' of gold is very 
 foolish; so foolish, indeed, that it will not be indulged by 
 well informed persons, unless for purposes of deception. 
 There is the greatest abundance of gold in all channels 
 of business in the great nations of Europe, and more than 
 one-third of the money of the United States is gold, 
 enough for all practical purposes if the free silver people 
 should cease to threaten to drive it out with cheaper 
 Drone v. 
 
 GOLD THE "MONEY OF THE PEOPLE." 
 
 One of the theories of free coinage advocates is that 
 silver should hold its place with gold as money because 
 there is about the same amount in value of each in the 
 world. But they overlook the fact that it cannot be made 
 to circulate as money in considerable quantities. There 
 is. in the United States, $9 in silver per capita. But ex- 
 cepting the fractional silver used for change, there is only 
 about 80 cents per capita outside the treasury vaults, and 
 probably little more than half of that, say 50 cents per 
 capha, is in active circulation. The people find it too 
 heavy to carry about, so they use other money, and the 
 silver all drifts back to the government storage vaults. 
 The greater part of the gold of ihe country, however, has 
 always been in circulation. It is used largely in the set- 
 tlement of bank balances, and it is a favorite money with
 
 28 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 tens of thousands of the common people who put by small 
 savings. A few gold pieces may be carried in the vest 
 pocket, or put in a secret place without attracting atten- 
 tion or the danger of discovery; silver, more bulky and 
 heavier, is less easily carried or concealed. Rarely is sil- 
 ver secreted if the holder has enough to exchange for -i 
 gold piece. Gold is really the "Money of the People," as 
 is clearly evidenced by the fact that the people are now 
 using about nine times as much gold as silver, silver 
 change excepted, notwithstanding the fact that silver 
 and gold exist in the country as money in abtfut equal 
 quantities. 
 
 In November last (see page 42, Eeport Bureau of the 
 Mint) there was |500,381,380 gold coin in the hands of 
 the people. On the same date there was only $56,443,670 
 in silver dollars in the hands of the people. On the same 
 date (see page 41, Eeport of Director of Mint) the stocks of 
 the two metals in the country were: 
 
 Gold !? 126,632,068 
 
 Silver 625,335,551 
 
 The following table shows the amount of silver dol- 
 lars in actual circulation each year since 1885. (See Mint 
 Eeport for 1894, page 23) : 
 
 1886 661,000,000 
 
 iss? 62,000,000 
 
 1888 59,000,000 
 
 1889 60,000,000 
 
 1890 65,000,000 
 
 1891 62,000,000 
 
 1892 61,000,000 
 
 1893 58,000,000 
 
 1894 56,000,000 
 
 Eound figures are given. This includes the silver dol- 
 lars held by the banks, and handled by them at a loss. 
 
 These statistics are significant, and might be studied 
 to advantage by "Coin," and others who preach free silver. 
 
 The simple figures show that gold and not silver is 
 the people's favorite money metal. 
 
 On July 1st, 1894, the national banks which are popu- 
 larly supposed to own all the gold in the country, held 
 only |125,051,677 net gold coin (see report Bureau of the 
 Mint, page 40), and only $34,023,000 gold certificates. 
 That is to say, that out of $626,000,000 gold in the coun- 
 try, the national banks held about one-fifth. 
 
 It is a mistaken notion that there has ever been any 
 "combination" among these banks to corner gold, and
 
 DOLLARS, OK WHAT.' -.' 
 
 the simple figures make that fact plain without argu- 
 ment. The figures also show clearly that it is the people 
 themselves who own and control the bulk of the coun- 
 i ry's supply of that metal. And it is largely held in smaii 
 sums by the common people. Gold is indeed the money 
 of the masses, and if the people are given the simple truth, 
 and get to understand the facts elsewhere stated, that it 
 is the single purpose of a large element of the free silver 
 {arty to drive gold out of the country and leave only sil- 
 ver, they will turn a mighty cold shoulder to the decep- 
 tive pleas of the free silver advocates. 
 
 There is no doubt at all of the fixed and determined 
 purpose of the Western mine owners, represented by their 
 partners in Congress, to force the country to the single 
 silver standard, with silver as the only coin in use. Any 
 man who has carefully followed their course for ten years, 
 in and out of Congress, sees and understands this as clear 
 as dav. They are playing a desperate game for what they 
 hdieve to be large personal gains. They have been an 
 absolute unit in aim, purpose and organization, stand- 
 ing shoulder to shoulder in every emergency, subverting 
 all other public questions and interests to their ow r n sin- 
 gle common purpose of making the government the uu- 
 led purchaser of the products of their mines. With 
 an organization compact and intensely sellish and power- 
 ful, they have long practically held the balance of power 
 in the Senate, kept the government w r avering between 
 sound and unsound financiering, wholly preventing a 
 sa !'e, consistent policy. They have for years pursued their 
 end with restless and untiring vigilance and tenacity, 
 hanging up important measures and blocking the public 
 business at every step. Their complete organization and 
 defiant attitude has time and again cowed and demor- 
 alized both houses of Congress. They have misled many 
 good, able and honest law-makers and very many good 
 citizens. They have inlluenced in their favor whole sec- 
 tions of country that would be impoverished if they should 
 succeed in driving out the real "money of the people" and 
 giving the people for money only such metal as they 
 
 Themselves have to Sell. 
 
 The people have no time to study finances, nor to set a 
 
 \vaich upon these ingenious, scheming and greedy agita- 
 tors 10 discover their motives and plans; but they should 
 _iven the facts, plainly stated.
 
 30 DOLLARS, OK WHAT? 
 
 Several Western millionaires are now reported to be 
 negotiating for one or more New York newspapers with 
 which to influence people to vote additional millions into 
 the pockets of the mine owners. These men care nothing 
 about the welfare of the people. They merely want to 
 sell silver at high prices to the government. 
 
 THE GENERAL DECLINE IN PRICES. 
 
 There has been a steady and persistent decline in prices 
 since 1865, and the alleged "demonetization" of silver in 
 1873 neither checked nor hastened that decline. We 
 emerged in 1865 from the greatest war in modern times. 
 War is a great destroyer as well as a great consumer. 
 During the war period the demand had greatly exceeded 
 the supply in all lines. The sources of production had 
 also been cut off, or reduced, and prices had gone sky 
 ward. Decline was inevitable and immediately set in. 
 Any one in the mercantile business during the period from 
 1865 to 1878 w^ill remember distinctly the difficulty of 
 selling at a profit any stock that lay a few months on the 
 shelves. 
 
 The tremendous march of modern progress began about 
 this time to become a great factor in the reduction of 
 prices. During the period since 1870 the forces of civil- 
 ization have developed more power and progress than in 
 five hundred years, or even a thousand years, before that 
 time. The great alleged "crime" of "demonetization" in 
 1873 did not create a ripple in the resistless sweep of 
 modern ideas, invention, enterprise and development. 
 Kailroads have belted the earth, reaching thousands of 
 miles into wonderfully rich and formerly unexplored re- 
 gions, enlarging and cheapening beyond computation 
 the production of every cultivated thing that grows from 
 the ground, and equalizing (with cheap transportation, 
 which has grown cheaper every year) all supplies in all 
 parts of the world. Ocean tonnage has also been largely 
 increased and carrying rates largely reduced. Steam has 
 supplanted the sail; the six months' voyage of thirty-five 
 years ago is now measured by days or weeks. Where 
 capital was formerly tied up for weeks in an ocean ship- 
 ment, it is now released within a few days. Where sales
 
 LABS, OR WHAT? 31 
 
 and purchases were made through months of correspoud- 
 
 ty letter, the telegraph and cable now do the work 
 
 in a few hours. The cost of doing a given volume of busi- 
 
 is reduced by 50 per cent. All of these things have 
 
 iributed to the steady and swift reduction of prices. 
 
 It should be needless to direct attention to the mar- 
 velous improvement and development in mechanical ap- 
 pliances within twenty-live years a development prob- 
 ably exceeding that of all time from the days of Adam. 
 The cheapening of all manufactured products has been 
 in direct ratio to the increase and perfection of these ap- 
 pliances. And, they have also greatly reduced the cost 
 of growing and harvesting wheat, corn, cotton and other 
 agricultural produ- 
 
 The unlimited coinage of silver could no more have 
 stayed the effect of these forces than a bunch of straw- 
 would turn Niagara. They have simply developed new 
 ami si range conditions, whether for the good of mankind 
 IT ih" inverse remains yet an unsolved problem. But i r 
 would seem that in the end great good must come from 
 the cheapening of the cost of all the necessities, comforts 
 and luxuries of living. Labor problems, and many vex- 
 ing i|iiestioits and issues not now quite clear, must be 
 adjusted. But silver has no place whatever in these ad- 
 justments. 
 
 We have had a transformation since the "demonetiza- 
 tion" of silver. We are living in a new age. And the free 
 silver advocates have as yet been unable to comprehend 
 or accept the conditions. They have eyes but do not see. 
 They cling to the dead past, and live on a pleasing but 
 foolish memory. Some of them are garrulous ami mis- 
 erable. Others are spiteful and venomous, because they 
 foolishly believe that the great marching procession has 
 conspired" against them and against the idol they have 
 so long cherished with singleness of heart and pathetic 
 devotion. They are mischievous, because some of ;hem 
 have tilled high places. Many people an- impressed with 
 the tenacity of their devotion: others are attracted by the 
 noise t hey make. Hut they are as unsafe guides as an old 
 man in his dotage with a host of imaginary wrongs.
 
 32 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 OLD TIME PRICES. 
 
 Who has not heard his father or his grandfather talk 
 about prices in the days when there were no railroads 
 when every neighborhood was a market unto itself, and 
 the silver "dollar of the constitution" was good enough 
 for anybody? 
 
 How the dear old fellows like to talk of the good old 
 days when farm hands got $GO a year and a potato patch 
 thrown in for good count*; when corn sold at 20 cents a 
 bushel, sheep at 50 cents a head, and fine beef cattle, 
 sleek and fat, at $8 and f 10 each, average, for the "bunch ;" 
 when a strapping young fellow, brimful of vim and high 
 hope, thought himself in luck and the envy of his fellows 
 if he got a place in the village store at $75 a year and 
 "found" himself; when the smart, lusty "chap" went to 
 serve at a trade at $20 a year, a few coarse clothes, and 
 a cot in the garret "to boot." Not many years ago the 
 writer was wont to smoke a cigar after supper with a fine 
 old gentleman who never tired in the recital of incidents 
 of those days of good will and good cheer. And how he 
 loved to dwell on the time when he entered the biggest 
 store in his part of the state at $100 a year, being re- 
 warded for faithful service with an additional $50 when 
 Christmas came. Ah, those w r ere piping times of peace 
 and plenty! There were no "gold bugs" then. There 
 were no national banks, with hated privileges. Anybody 
 who could start a printing press could go into banking 
 and issue money. True, the money had to be pretty well 
 sorted before the old fellows started on a journey, and 
 they were never quite sure it would be good when their 
 destination was reached, but such inconveniences were 
 good-naturedly accepted. There were no "conspirators" 
 then to vex Uncle Sam and other honest folks. There 
 was no "contraction" of the currency. The few millions 
 of gold and silver were so widely and sparsely scattered 
 that the most wicked ingenuity could get but little of it 
 together; and as to the paper, the "bankers" who put it 
 out, it being their own product, were never in a hurry to 
 get it back; and so great indeed was their reluctance to 
 call it, that much of it is out to this good day.
 
 OR WHAT? M 
 
 The great "crime'' of the age had not then been com- 
 mitted. Silver had not then been "demonetized." And 
 I have sometimes thought what a happy circumstance it 
 would have been if some of the "friends" of silver had 
 lived at that time, when nobody had ever thought of "dis- 
 criminating" against their cherished metal. But the 
 prices then would have been harrowing to their souls, 
 free coinage and silver at a premium considered. "Prices" 
 are a great worry to the "friends" of silver, as, indeed, 
 they are to all the rest of us. Even corn at 45 cents a 
 bushel and labor at 90 cents a day, with "demonetized" 
 silver, vexes them beyond measure; and it would not be 
 safe to say what might have been the effect of Peffer, 
 Stewart and Bland, for instance, if they had seen free 
 silver, with farm wages $5 per month and corn 20 cents a 
 bushel. But the writer trusts he may be pardoned the 
 wish, which ought not be an unkind one, that these three, 
 and a few others, had indeed been of that generation. 
 1'iissibly some of them were living in those days; but if 
 si,, free and high price silver and corn at 20 cents must 
 have cost them many serious and painful reflections, 
 which, however, they have doubtless forgotten. Silver at 
 10 to 1 was more valuable than gold (there being mined 
 then several thousand million dollars less than now), but 
 there were no sky-scraping prices of farm products, which 
 is a curious circumstance, from the Stewart-Peffer point 
 of view. 
 
 SILVER AND WHEAT. 
 
 The world's production of wheat has grown from two 
 thousand four hundred and thirty-three million bushels 
 in 1 N'.I 1 to two thousand six hundred and forty-five million 
 bushels in 1894. This is a gain in supply of two hundred 
 and twelve million bushels. But a more significant fact, 
 and one of greater concern to American agriculturalists, 
 i- that the wheat exporting countries of South America 
 and Russia have in this period gained two hundred and 
 fifty-six million bushels in wheat production. That is to 
 say, in 1SH-1 Russia and South America had two hundred 
 and fifty-six million bushels more wheat to sell in compe- 
 tition with the wheat of the Tinted Slates than they had 
 in 1891. And a matter of still greater significance and
 
 34 DOLLARS, OK WHAT? 
 
 concern is that the large export surplus of fifty million 
 bushels of the Argentine Kepublic last year was produced 
 at a cost estimated not to exceed thirty-four to thirty- 
 seven cents per bushel laid down at the seaboard shipping 
 point.* Considering these facts, and the enormous crop 
 harvested in the United States in 1894, is it necessary for 
 the American farmer to puzzle his brain for an explana- 
 tion of the low price of wheat? Is silver somehow at the 
 bottom of it, as is foolishly stated in "Coin's Financial 
 School," or is it a tremendous overproduction and a com- 
 pletely glutted market? Is it the "crime" against the 
 product of the Western silver mines, represented by Stew- 
 art, Peffer, and associates, or is it the result of the open- 
 ing up and cultivation of vast new tracts of the Lord's 
 bountiful earth? 
 
 There w r as more coined silver and more idle money of 
 all kinds in the United States in 1894, when wheat touched 
 its lowest price, than ever before. The New York Times, 
 of March 25th, 1895, from which the statistics are taken, 
 commenting on the effect of over-production on prices, 
 says : 
 
 "The natural effect of such increase, in exporting coun- 
 tries, on prices, can easily be seen. It may be noted, 
 also, that Russia has an export surplus of 192,000,000 
 bushels of rye, against 70,000,000 bushels a year ago." 
 
 This item of 122,000,000 bushels increased surplus of a 
 cereal largely substituted for w r heat in many countries 
 has been an important factor in determining prices. 
 
 The depression of business and the blocking of all kinds 
 of enterprise on account of silver agitation has also con- 
 tributed something toward depressing wheat People 
 cannot buy bread freely unless they have work. Capital, 
 too, has been timid of investment in wheat, as in every- 
 thing else; and the withdrawal of this sustaining influ- 
 ence has been an important factor in the sagging of prices 
 of all commodities. 
 
 ^Estimates by the New York Times.
 
 lK)I.I..\l:s. oil WHAT? 
 
 SILVER AND COFFEE. 
 
 Reversing the order of wheat and cotton, coffee has 
 advanced gradually and enormously during the past ten 
 years. 
 
 The writer, being at the time in the wholesale grocery 
 business, remembers that about 1885 he bouqht coffee in 
 Xew York at about 7 cents per pound for fair grades. It 
 is now worth about 18 cents per pound. 
 
 Silver was worth $1.06 per ounce in 1885. It is worth 
 a little over 60 cents per ounce now. If the price of sil v-r 
 regulates the prices of other things, why has coffee gnu;- 
 up nearly 300 per cent, in ten years and silver gone down 
 nearly 50 per cent.? 
 
 The explanation is simple, and is the simple explana- 
 tion that applies to the rise and fall of wheat, corn, cotton 
 and all other products, whether of the mine, the mill ov 
 the farm. 
 
 The production and supply of coffee in 1885 was ex- 
 cessive. More coffee was produced than the world could 
 well consume. High prices in former years had greatly 
 stimulated its production, and an undue number of peo- 
 ple went into coffee growing. The increasing supply 
 overstocked the markets, and prices gradually declined. 
 
 And when they got so low that coffee production be- 
 came unprofitable, the industry was abandoned by many 
 producers. The supply was gradually reduced, and stim- 
 ulated by short crops, coffee went up. Another period 
 of low prices in coffee, brought about from the same 
 causes, is likely after a time to set in. 
 
 The decline or the advance in the price of silver has no 
 more influence on the marketable value or prices of things 
 than the remotest star in heaven on the tides of the ocean. 
 
 SILVER, WHEAT AND COFFEE. 
 
 Brazil produces a large per cent, of the coffee grown. 
 The Argentine Republic produces a large amount of 
 
 wheat.
 
 36 COLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 Xo\v in Brazil coffee has advanced in ten years from 
 say (> cents per pound to say 16 or 17 cents per pound on 
 the Brazilian seaboard. 
 
 But note the contrary course of wheat in the Argentine 
 Republic. In 1885 the cost of wheat in that country ex- 
 ceeded $1.50 per bushel. It is now about 40 cents. The 
 greater" part of the crop of 1894 was sold by Argentine 
 farmers at about 38 cents.* 
 
 In other words, the wheat product of Argentina, and of 
 the world, /radually grew till it exceeded the demand, 
 while, on the contrary, the supply of coffee in Brazil and 
 other coffee countries grew less till the demand exceeded 
 the supply. 
 
 Silver had nothing whatever to do with the rise or the 
 fall of either. 
 
 SILVER AND COTTON. 
 
 For the five years, 1890-1894, inclusive, the total pro- 
 duction of cotton in the United States was, in round fig- 
 ures, 44,000,000 bales. For the previous five years, it was 
 a little above 34,000,000 bales. That is to say, in the 
 years 1890 to 1894 we grew nearly 10,000,000 bales more 
 cotton than in the preceding five-year period. The pro- 
 duction also increased in other countries. 
 
 With such tremendous gain in supply, with an actual 
 and substantial falling off in consumption during part of 
 this period (the falling off amounting to about 500,000 
 bales in 1893), need we look up the market price of silver 
 to account for the price of cotton? 
 
 If the w r orld grows more cotton than it can sell to the 
 spinners and other manufacturers, what is to be done 
 with the surplus? People cannot eat it, build houses 
 with it, or otherwise use it. Somebody must hold it; put 
 money into it; pay interest, storage and insurance; give it 
 time and attention. The contingencies of future con- 
 sumption and supply must be taken account of. The sur- 
 plus becomes purely speculative, at greatly reduced 
 value. And it brings down the price of the entire supply. 
 With a large surplus on hand, and a production of ten 
 million bales per year in the United States (an excess of 
 
 *E6timates made on gold rallies.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 37 
 
 two million bales per annum abore legitimate demands 
 from this country), with no certainty, or even reasonable 
 probability, of decreased production, can anybody fail to 
 see why cotton is lower than ever before? The state of 
 Texas alone grew last year nearly half as much cotton a.< 
 TV as grown in the entire South ten years ago; and the pro- 
 duction in that state can be largely increased at a proiit, 
 cvtMi at present prices. 
 
 If silver were 30 cents, 75 cents, $1.00 or $2 per ounce, 
 would the present large surplus of cotton and the over- 
 production in the United States of two million bales pet* 
 annum disappear? It would if the decline in silver has 
 been the cause of the decline in cotton, as the fertile au- 
 thor of "Coin," and other visionaries have figured; but a 
 practical man would say that the crops must be reduced 
 f>\ o million bales, or new uses must be found to consume 
 two million bales more than the world now consumes, if 
 the old standard of prices are again to prevail. 
 
 SILVER IN FRANCE. 
 
 Free coinage orators point to France as a country that 
 has done wonders with silver. But when silver began to 
 decline, and its coinage ratio to go below the gold value, 
 France closed her mints to silver. 
 
 A recent statement of the Bank of France* showed 
 specie holdings as follows: 
 
 Cold $4,SO,000,000 
 
 Silver 225,000,000 
 
 Showing $205,000,000 more gold than silver. 
 The November statement of the United States Treas- 
 ury showed specie holdings: 
 
 Silver ^508,000,000 
 
 ti..ld 128,000,000 
 
 Showing $382,000,000 more silver than gold. 
 
 So it appears that the Bank of France held nearly $2 
 in gold to every dollar in silver, while the United States 
 Treasury held only $1 in gold to every $4 in silver. 
 
 The Bank of France, on the date referred to, held nearly 
 double as much gold as the Bank of England; and France 
 is as firmly a gold standard country as England, and will 
 
 *See 1894 Report of the Director of the Mint.
 
 38 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 always remain so. And it was wise enough to stop the 
 coinage of silver before it endangered its gold supply. 
 There is no free coinage party in France, nor, indeed, in 
 any other great civilized country, excepting the United 
 States. 
 
 France has a total of $825,000,000 of gold and $492,000,- 
 000 of silver, nearly double as much gold as silver, while 
 the United States has almost equal quantities of each. 
 
 FREE COINAGE IN MEXICO. 
 
 Our next door neighbor, Mexico, has produced more 
 silver than any country in the world. The mines of Chi- 
 huahua alone have produced more than five hundred 
 million dollars. Sonora, Zacetecas and others have 
 yielded even more. Coinage is free in Mexico. And yet 
 the people are poor beyond the conception of the common 
 American laborer. All labor \* poorly paid. The writer 
 spent some time in Mexico some years ago, and made par- 
 ticular inquiry as to wages paid in agriculture and min- 
 ing, the principal industries of the country, and found 
 them varying from 10 to 36 cents per day, which is equiv- 
 alent to 5 to 18 cents in American money. 
 
 The average for the farm laborer did not exceed 20 
 cents per day, or about 10 cents in our money. The peo- 
 ple live in huts, subsist on the coarsest food, and $2 in 
 American money would buy the average outfit, from head 
 to foot, in clothing. 
 
 This is the condition in a free coinage country that has 
 produced more than four thousand million dollars of sil- 
 ver, and which is still producing silver at a larger ratio 
 per capita than anv other country in the world, its exports 
 of the metal in 1893 being $51,000,000, and in 1892, $49, 
 000,000. I have not the statistics for 1894. Mexico has a 
 population of 12,000,000. If the United States produced 
 silver in the same proportion or the same rate per capita, 
 counting Mexico's exports only, our production would be 
 $300,000,000 annually, yet who would say that the people 
 of that country are better off than we? 
 
 Mexico has a money circulation of $4.71 per capita. 
 
 A low rate per capita exists in nearly, if not quite all, 
 silver countries.
 
 DOLLAKS. oil WHAT? :','.) 
 
 Tlie people who advocate free coinage in the United 
 States claim that low prices and depressed trade condi- 
 tions are due to our gold standard, and insist that free 
 coinage would bring an era of prosperity. If any of 
 them will move across the border into Mexico their opin- 
 ions will undergo a decided change. A move merely to 
 the border will have a wholesome effect. 
 
 On the Mexican side there is small progress and un- 
 favorable conditions generally, while within the United 
 States line there is activity, growth and fair prosperity. 
 All the cities and villages near the line are built and are 
 building on the American side. 
 
 Free silver coinage can make no country prosperous; 
 on the contrary, the mere apprehension of it is quite suffi- 
 cient to depress business and arrest enterprise in any en- 
 lightened, prosperous nation. 
 
 TRAIN LOADS OF SILVER. 
 
 "Coin," with a stick twenty-two feet long, deftly meas- 
 ujes off a space which he says would hold all the gold in 
 the world; which, it may be said, in the strongest argu- 
 ment he could have made in favor of gold as money. 
 
 He then neatly disposes of the world's silver money by 
 saying that it could all be stored in a Chicago banking 
 room and basement. 
 
 1 1 is idea is original, but he does not put it in a way that 
 his pupils quite grasp the enormity of the pile. It would 
 be a little more understandable if he had said that there 
 is enough coined silver to load fairly well three hundred 
 trains of twenty cars each, or a total of six thousand car 
 loads. He might have explained further that there arc 
 eight hundred and forty-four car loads of silver held for 
 monetary purposes in the United States; and also ex- 
 plained that it is impossible to keep more than seventy- 
 six car loads of that outside of the Treasury, of which 
 probably forty or forty -five car loads are stored in bank 
 vaults; showing that thirty or forty car loads are as much 
 as the people are willing to carry about in their pockets 
 and secrete in their homes. 
 
 The United States produced in the single year 1893, 
 one hundred and four car loads of silver, almost three
 
 40 DOLLARS, OR WHAT ? 
 
 times as much as the people will carry about with them, 
 and more than twice as much, excepting silver change, 
 as can be kept in circulation outside the Treasury. 
 
 In 1893 the world produced two hundred and eighty-two 
 car loads of silver. The production had since 1874 in- 
 creased in every year, excepting one ; and would have con- 
 tinued to increase more rapidly but for the fact that it be- 
 gan to decline in price because it became so abundant it 
 could not be utilized either as money, or in the arts. 
 
 Owing to the improved methods of mining within very 
 recent years, and discoveries of new mines and mining 
 regions in different parts of the world, it is perfectly safe 
 to say that if silver had remained at even the greatly de- 
 preciated price of f 1.00 per ounce, not less than $300,000,- 
 000 or say four hundred and five car loads, would have 
 been mined in the year 1895 about ten times as much 
 as the people of the United States keep in active use. 
 
 At this rate of production 22,500 car loads would be 
 turned out in an ordinary lifetime. All the locomotives 
 on the largest system of railroads in the world could hard- 
 ly haul it. 
 
 And the capacity of production is unlimited. If its 
 value could be raised even to 84 cents an ounce, its price 
 in 1893, its output would now far exceed the two hundred 
 and eighty-two car loads mined in that year. But in the 
 face of unlimited quantities in sight, and unlimited re- 
 sources for getting it out of the mines, no great or perma- 
 nent rise in its price is possible. And under such condi- 
 tions its constant fluctuation in value is inevitable. If 
 the price is so low that little is mined, it will go up; if it 
 advances enough to show a profit enterprise and capital 
 will at once increase the output, and it will go down. The 
 output is limited by the price only. 
 
 The principle is the same as in pork production. If 
 hogs are high, farmers everywhere go to raising them; 
 and soon glut the market. Then the price of pork de- 
 clines till hog raising becomes unprofitable; and the 
 farmer tries his hand at something else. 
 
 Does anybody want a currency based on such a metal, 
 a currency that a lot of miners put up or down as their 
 interests prompt? Today you have Dollars, tomorrow 
 vou have What?
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT.' 41 
 
 GOLD AND SILVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 The world's total stock of metallic money is approxi- 
 mately $8,600,000,000, the proportion of gold and silver 
 being not far from equal, there being about one-tenth 
 more of the latter; say $4,100,000,000 gold and $4,500,000,- 
 000 silver. 
 
 This is the total money accumulation of these metals 
 from the date of their use to the present time. 
 
 And it is interesting to note that the world's production 
 of the money metals within the last thirty-five years has 
 been approximately $7,300,000,000, of which about $3,950,- 
 000,000 was gold and $3,350,000,000 silver. 
 
 Much more gold than silver was consumed in the arts; 
 and several hundred millions more silver than gold was, 
 in that period, available for coinage into money. 
 
 This immense increased supply of the precious metals 
 became the property of a few countries, since it was 
 through the agencies of the progressive, civilized nations 
 only that it was produced. 
 
 ^ The gold was readily absorbed, owing to its great 
 value in small compass; but these enterprising countries 
 suddenly accumulated more silver than they could use as 
 money. For instance, the silver of Mexico is mined large- 
 ly by Americans and Englishmen, and its large output 
 goes mainly to England and the United States. This is 
 the simple reason why certain countries limited the coin- 
 age of silver. It is the reason why there can not be free 
 coinage without involving these countries in hopeless 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 In former periods the supply of the metal was limited, 
 and the people had no more than they could handle and 
 carry about, but the largely increased stock could not be 
 circulated. 
 
 It is shown elsewhere that only about 80 cents of silver 
 per capita can be actually circulated in the United States, 
 and the same condition exists in all other countries where 
 a lighter and more convenient currency is available 
 
 Its "demonetization" by any country was not from 
 choice, but from necessity. It was not done because any 
 particular class of men or legislative body wanted it done, 
 but because the people, in effect, said to the lawmakers:
 
 42 DoLLAKS, OK WHAT? 
 
 "You are giving us too much of this kind of money; it 
 is too bulky and heavy; ten or twenty dollars weights the 
 pocket; we cannot hide it; when we have money we do not 
 want everybody to know it; you can coin it if you want to, 
 but if you do so you must keep it; if you give it to us we 
 will give it back to you in exchange for more convenient 
 money." 
 
 Any great change in the laws of any country has its 
 source in the people. The people of certain nations of 
 Europe decreed by their acts that the coinage of silver 
 must stop. 
 
 The people of the United States have passed a similar 
 decree. And in this decision, all the silver bugs as well 
 as the gold bjugs, have joined; the free silver advocate is 
 no more willing than the sound money man to accept 
 pocketfuls of silver in payment of accounts. If he gets 
 $50 of the metal he strikes a bee line for a bank and con- 
 verts it into paper or gold, or places it to his credit, and 
 draws out paper or gold as he wants it He has directly 
 aided in its "demonetization," and in depressing its com- 
 mercial value. Although he cries "free silver," he carries 
 bills or gold in his pockets, and leaves the silver for the 
 government to hoard in idleness. 
 
 And the United States Treasury's hoard of silver is ab- 
 solutely idle and useless. The 1894 report of the Bureau 
 of the Mint places the sum at $514,000,000. It is almost 
 worthless as an asset, because there is no possible way to 
 use it. Pensioners, contractors, and employes of the gov- 
 ernment, whether free silver advocates or otherwise, re- 
 fuse to accept it in payment for services and bills. 
 
 For the same reason it is worth nothing as a support 
 to the credit of the government. On the contrary, it is, 
 for good reasons, a peril and a menace. 
 
 Any other government would melt much of it down and 
 sell it; but the Western mine owners hold the balance of 
 power at Washington, and they do not want it put on the 
 market in competition with their product. 
 
 If gold could be obtained for a good part of it, the whole 
 country would soon have great cause to rejoice. Such a 
 deal would be a great bargain and a great blessing. Our 
 fiat money would have substantial support, and our na- 
 tional finances could be handled with ease and confidence. 
 
 Furthermore, the stability it would give would soon
 
 !X)LLAi:s. OK WHAT? 43 
 
 largely increase our supply of good money, and our rate 
 per capita. 
 
 The facts here stated and the statistics given make 
 plain the causes of the decline in the prices of silver, and 
 <if the largely increased ratio of value between gold and 
 silver. 
 
 FLUCTUATIONS IN THE SILVER DOLLAR. 
 
 The following table shows, in the years named, the 
 fluctuation in the intrinsic value of the silver dollar: 
 
 YEAK>. HKMIKST. I.uU 
 
 1876 W cents 7H centa 
 
 1878 <J3 cents s:l cents 
 
 <>1 cents 82 cents 
 
 7!) cents 71 cents 
 
 5)2 cents 74 cents 
 
 1892 74 cents tit cents 
 
 189o t>5 cents 50 cents 
 
 Only years are given in which the change was most 
 striking. Fluctuations, however, have been marked each 
 year since the large overproduction of silver began to glut 
 th market. 
 
 If the country had been on a silver basis in the year 
 1876, for instance, a dollar of any kind of money would 
 have been worth in July, 187<>, 7!> cents, and in December, 
 9!) cents. In the following year it would have been worth 
 about 90 cents, and down again in 1878 to 83 cents; up 
 again in 1879 to 91 cents, and so on through each year 
 down to the present time. In 1893 it dropped from (\r, 
 cents to about 50 cents, a change in value of --'5 per cent. 
 in a single year. 
 
 The capacity of production being now practically unlim- 
 ited, its fluctuation will inevitably continue. 
 
 (treat hardship and uncertainty would result if wages, 
 salaries, the products of labor, contracts and credits were 
 based on such money. 
 
 And the poor man, who earns his living by the s\veat of 
 his brow, would suffer most. While at times the dollar 
 of !>.". or '.! cents might keep him in comfort, his wife and 
 little ones would be sorely pinched when the dollar 
 dropped to <>5 or to 50 cents. His wages would not go up 
 and down with the dollar, but his food and clothing would 
 do so.
 
 44 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 And furthermore, the uncertainty of values would so 
 disturb the business of his employer that work would be 
 precarious. His employment and subsistence would fluc- 
 tuate with the output of the silver mine. He would be 
 constantly on the ragged edge, and at the mercy of ad- 
 venturous mine operators and speculators. 
 
 The wage earner, above all other men, is vitally con- 
 cerned in a fixed, unchanging standard of money. His 
 living is too slender to admit of the risk of change and 
 speculation. He can not afford to base it on the chance 
 of any industry, especially not that of silver mining. 
 
 The silver dollar appears to be a mighty good dollar 
 now, since it buys anything that can be bought with any 
 other kind of a dollar; but this is simply because it is 
 braced up by, and made interchangeable with, the gold 
 dollar. 
 
 But if it stood alone, without a law or a policy that 
 makes it exchangeable for 100 eents in gold, its purchas- 
 ing value would be as uncertain as the wind and weather. 
 
 It cannot be that any man who understands this matter 
 favors free coinage of silver, which means a silver basis 
 and' unsteady money. 
 
 On a silvet money basis all market values in the United States 
 would change with the tising and setting of t)u sun. 
 
 STANDARD OF GRAIN MEASURE. 
 
 A bushel is the standard measure of grain. Contracts 
 of sale and purcha.se are made on this basis. And it is 
 a stable measure, because it does not change. 
 
 But suppose it were a fluctuating measure, a little more 
 today, a little less tomorrow what confusion would re- 
 sult! When the farmer sold his wheat he would be 
 obliged to do a complicated sum in mathematics to find 
 out how much he got for it. 
 
 Yet there would be less confusion in a changing grain 
 measure than in a changing money measure, because the 
 effect of the latter would be more general. 
 
 And a silver standard would be such a money measure 
 because silver is a commoditv of uncertain market value.
 
 <>K WHAT? 45 
 
 \Vith a silver basis, <n- measure of money, the farmer 
 would be al as great loss to know what he got for his 
 wheat, barley, com, oats and rye as if the bushel basis or 
 measure of grain changed every day. 
 
 i lold is now the unchanging measure of money- just as 
 the bushel is the unchanging measure of corn. 
 
 Can any practical man desire to change either? 
 
 RATIO BETWEEN GOLD AND SILVER. 
 
 "Coin" has a good deal to say about the commercial 
 ratio of silver to gold. He goes back a century or two 
 and shows that this ratio was fairly steady through the 
 period he goes over. This is true, and there were a num- 
 ber of good reasons for it, the chief being that the produc- 
 tion of gold and silver were happily in about the propor- 
 t ions needed. 
 
 But it suits his purpose not to go further back than 
 ir,x7. Prior to 1680, covering the period from 1493, there 
 had been a change of 50 per cent, in the ratio. 
 * The "appreciation" of gold and the depreciation of sil- 
 ver through this period is a very interesting circumstance 
 in connection with the silver doctrine. 
 
 And the cause of the decline in silver was the same 
 as now, namely, a largely increased production, though 
 it worked more slowly for two reasons. First, owing to 
 the fact that in former times there was a scarcity of both 
 gold and silver, and it was not difficult to absorb as money 
 all that could be had of either; secondly, all movements 
 were slow a few hundred years ago; what is now accom- 
 plished within two or three years then required a cen- 
 uiry. The increased production of silver was slow, and 
 though the quantity was comparatively small, the per 
 cent, compared with production in former periods was 
 at. 
 
 The commercial ratio of silver to gold in the 15th cen- 
 tury was a fraction over 10 to 1. In the 17th century it 
 was a fraction over 15 to 1. This was in 1680. 
 
 "<'oin." conveniently, begins his table in 1*!S7, and com- 
 pletely ignores the most remarkable change that ever oc- 
 curred between the metals, the most remarkable owing to 
 the general scarcity of money of all kinds, and particular-
 
 46 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 ly of the precious metals. And the change is clearly di- 
 rectly traceable to the ratio of production between the 
 metals. 
 
 On pages 174 and 175 of the report of the Bureau of the 
 Mint, 1894, may be found a table showing the production 
 of both in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. In the early 
 part of the 15th century the per centage of silver pro- 
 duced was very small, being from 1493 to 1520 only $54,- 
 703,000, while the production of gold in the same period 
 was |107,931,000. The ratio at that time was not far from 
 10 to 1. But the output of silver soon began to largely 
 increase, and after 1544 the production of gold began to 
 fall off. The following table from page 175 of the report 
 shows the relative production in value of the metals dur- 
 ing the period referred to : 
 
 Per Cent, of Production. 
 Year, A. D. Gold. Silver. 
 
 1493-1520 66 33 
 
 1521-1544 55 44 
 
 1045-1560 30 69 
 
 1561-1580 26 7:; 
 
 1591-1600 22 78 
 
 1601-1620 : 24 75 
 
 1621-1640 25 74 
 
 1641-1660 27 72 
 
 1661-1680 30 69 
 
 In 1680 the ratio of values stood at something over 
 15 to 1. 
 
 The above table explains the cause of the decline in sil- 
 ver in that period, and no argument is needed. 
 
 Its production largely increased, and that of gold large- 
 ly declined. There was no "demonetization," or "un- 
 friendly" silver legislation in that day. It could have 
 been affected only by the natural laws of supply and de- 
 mand. Considering the conditions then prevailing the 
 decline was even more remarkable than the decline of 50 
 per cent, in the value of silver since 1873. In the latter 
 period its output became so great that, owing to its bulk 
 and weight the currency systems of the world could not 
 absorb it. 
 
 The table referred to extends down to the present time, 
 and, if considered with reference to general conditions 
 and influences at different periods, is an interesting study. 
 It gives convincing proof that a double standard of money 
 value has at all times been uncertain. No proof ought to 
 be needed that such a standard, on any basis, is now im- 
 possible, owing to the fact that there is now a real sur-
 
 Ini.I..U:s, <>IJ WHAT? -17 
 
 plus of silver; and anything of which there is a surplus is 
 of unstable value and purely speculative, subject to sud- 
 den and violent fluctuations. No such thing can furnish 
 a safe financial corner stone. 
 
 No country can prosper on a money basis bobbing up 
 and down. There could be no certain profit in business, 
 nor any steady or satisfactory remuneration for labor, 
 with dollars worth 60 cents today, and 55 or <>5 cents to- 
 morrow. 
 
 A silver standard in America would make it necessary 
 for a man each day to wait the silver quotations from t he 
 London market to ascertain how much money he had, how 
 much his neighbor owed him, or IIOAV much he owed his 
 neighbor. ATS to wages, or the cost of living a month or 
 year in the future, he could form small estimate. No 
 equitable scale of wages could be agreed on between em- 
 ployer and employe. The money would be liable to go 
 down in purchasing value till the workman could not live 
 on his pay; or it might go up till it would bankrupt tin* 
 employer. There could be no confidence between t lie men 
 who jiive work and those who work. Frequent adjust- 
 ments would be a necessity. Strikes and grievances 
 would multiply; uncertainty in pay and profit, and dissat- 
 isfaction would become general. 
 
 If a man insured his life for the benefit of his family, he 
 could make no estimate on what they would really get at 
 his death. The sum might be more than he counted, or 
 it might be a great deal loss. 
 
 If he sold his house, or his farm, for a given sum, the 
 note lie took in payment would be in the nature of a lot- 
 tery ticket; the money might go up, and the tinal payment 
 be more than he expected, or it might go down and be less 
 than ho expected. If he w r ere in debt the rise might en- 
 able him to square act-omits with ease; or the decline 
 might embarrass or cripple him. lie miiiht draw a ]>ri/.-- 
 or a blank. 
 
 it is doubtless unfortunate for mankind that silver has 
 become so abundant that it is unsteady in value, and con- 
 sequently uncertain and unsafe as a basis of money. I 1 
 is als-o unfortunate for the farmer that overproduction and 
 competition have so greatly reduced the price of wheat: 
 but these facts exist, and it is more sensible to look them 
 squarely in the face, than to theorize, worry, and u 
 thinjrs irer.erullv, in a vain effort to change them.
 
 48 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 It may be unfortunate that gold is now the only money 
 metal that has a safely steady value on which present or 
 future obligations can with equal safety be based, but 
 such is the case; and it does no good to fret and rail about 
 it. Natural and irresistible agencies, controlled by no 
 class of men, brought about this condition; and, if the 
 condition ever changes, natural, and not unnatural agen- 
 cies must bring the change. It can not be done by legis- 
 lative edicts at Washington. 
 
 EXPORTS OF SILVER, 
 
 The production of silver in this country continues to 
 add to our money circulation an amount equal to the mar- 
 ketable value of all the metal mined, less the amount 
 used in domestic arts. The surplus is exported, and 
 either brings an equal amount of gold into the country 
 or keeps an equal amount of gold from going out. In 
 1894 we exported and sold abroad f 39,555,879 of domestic 
 silver. This silver either added or saved to our currency 
 an equal amount of money. If it had been coined into 
 money and kept at home, we should have been obliged to 
 send abroad an equal amount of gold, unless we had in- 
 creased our indebtedness to foreign lenders. The United 
 States does not destroy silver when it quits coining the 
 metal. It is sold, and our circulation increased that 
 much. The increase creates no apprehension and is sub- 
 stantial. It is gold, and each dollar has an intrinsic value 
 of 100 cents. If the silver were coined into dollars they 
 would add more to the volume of circulation, but would 
 possess an intrinsic value no greater than the export value 
 of the metal; and its coinage would drive out more gold 
 than the gain in silver circulation. 
 
 OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF FREE SILVER. 
 
 If the currency of the United States were not on a gold 
 basis, and there were no gold in circulation, the free coin- 
 age of silver could be accomplished without sudden shock 
 and disaster, because no large part of the money would be 
 withdrawn from circulation, suddenly contracting the 
 currency; and also because there would be no sudden and
 
 DOLLARS. .)K WHAT? 49 
 
 violent unsettling of credits and values, and sudcfen with- 
 drawals of foreign capital. Under a well arranged note 
 system, based on silver, there would be a gradual increase 
 in the volume of money, and possibly a general rise in 
 values; thomgh so long as the paper w r ere within safe 
 limits higher prices would result rather than from the 
 cheapening of silver, the basis of the money, from in- 
 creased over supply, than from the actual volume of cur- 
 rency put out. Under such circumstances the free silver 
 advocates could obtain their desire an immediate in- 
 crease in the money supply. 
 
 There are good grounds, however, for the belief that t ho 
 United States would, under any system OB a silver basis, 
 be under serious disadvantages as a progressive nation, 
 and that owing to these disadvantages its enterprises 
 would languish; but if we were not on a gold basis, it 
 could by free coinage doubtless make money, such as it 
 would be, abundant, without the danger of serious dis- 
 turbance for the time being, its fluctuation in value not 
 considered. (This assumption, however, it may be said 
 is theoretical.) 
 
 This is what the free silver people desire to accomplish. 
 But they overlook the fact that $626,000,000 of our money 
 is~gold, and that this part of it would immediately dis- 
 appear, and by sudden contraction, disastrously defeat 
 their purpose. They ignore our foreign indebtedness of 
 probably about $2,000,000,000, a large part of which 
 would have to be settled, and soon take all the available 
 gold, and much silver besides. 
 
 These arc some of the difficulties in the way of free coin- 
 It would seem that they are simple and clear 
 enough for reasoning men to see them. They are so ap- 
 palling that if we should ignore them we should become a 
 nation of bankrupts and the wonder of the world. 
 
 Free coinage of silver means a silvet basis, with silver as the 
 only metallic money, and a loss to the currency of $626,000,000 
 "old.
 
 .V) DOLLARS, OK WHAT? 
 
 DO WE WANT BIMETALLISM ? 
 
 There was in the United States on November 1st, as 
 elsewhere stated, approximately $625,000,000 silver and 
 1626,000,000 gold. 
 
 Shall we use both the silver and the gold, or shall we 
 use only one, and get rid of 1626,000,000 of the other 
 money? 
 
 To use both is bimetallism; to use one is monomet- 
 allism. Are we birnetallists, or are we nionoinetallists? 
 
 England is practically a monometallic country, since it 
 uses but 1112,000,000 of silver, all told, and that as a lim- 
 ited legal tender. China, Japan, Mexico and most South 
 American countries are also monometallic countries, 
 since they use only silver. France and Germany are bi- 
 metallic countries, both using gold and silver; the latter 
 in larger quantities than England, and a large per cent 
 of it as full legal tender. 
 
 France, next to the United States, uses more legal ten- 
 der silver than any other bimetallic country, the amount 
 being $434,000,000. 
 
 Germany uses $215,000,000, all told, only $105,000,000 
 being legal tender. 
 
 The United States has $549,000,000 full legal tender sil- 
 ver, $626,000,000 legal tender gold, and $76,000,000 silver 
 half dollars, quarters and dimes, which are limited legal 
 tender. Both kinds of money, under our present laws 
 and policy, are good, and both (excepting the fractional 
 coin) a full legal tender for the payment of debts to indi- 
 viduals and of dues to the government. 
 
 Are we satisfied to keep and use them both in safe 
 quantities or are we partial and obstinate, and shall we 
 determine to use but one and drive the other out of circu- 
 lation and out of the country? 
 
 I believe these are needless questions. 
 
 It would be hard to see what the country could gain and 
 asy to see what it would lose by such a course. The 
 masses of the people of the South and North ninety-nine 
 in every hundred are straight out bimetallists. The 
 writer is a birnetallist. He believes with the ninety-nine 
 in every hundred Southern and Northern men, in the use 
 of both gold and silver, and all other good money we can
 
 get; but. he does not believe in using more silver than ran 
 be handled with convenience to the people, and safety to 
 the Government He believes also that the coinage of 
 silver should be regulated by its absorption as a circulat- 
 ing medium by the amount the people are willing to 
 take and use, and keep in circulation its idle accumula- 
 tion in large sums in the treasury vaults being useless 
 and dangerous at the present ratio. lie does not how- 
 ever believe in schemes to force the increased and in- 
 convenient use of silver by the withdrawal from circula- 
 tion of small denominations of paper money. 
 
 Xow, Low are we to continue bimetallism? The silver 
 dollar circulates in the same channels as the gold dollar, 
 of equal purchasing and debt-paying value. 
 
 But the gold dollar has an intrinsic and marketable 
 ^alue nearly double the silver dollar. It can be melted 
 down and sold at the rate of about $20 per ounce, or for 
 one hundred cents, in any country in the world, but if the 
 silver dollar be melted down it can be sold for only about 
 sixty-two cents an ounce (the present market price), or 
 something over fifty cents. Then why does the gold dol- 
 lar circulate with the silver dollar? Why do not the peo- 
 ple "melt down their gold dollars and sell them, and keep 
 the dollars with less marketable value for use in paying 
 obligations and making purchases? 
 
 Is it because the United States has put its dollar stamp 
 on the silver piece? 
 
 Xo. That stamp, of itself, does not add the fraction of 
 a cent to the value of the silver piece. 
 
 It is because the affirmed policy of the United States 
 makes its silver dollar interchangeable with its gold dol- 
 lar; and because it undertakes to keep not less than 
 8100,000,000 in gold on haud, so that it may have an abun- 
 dance of the dollars of one hundred cents marketable 
 value to maintain the interchangeable quality of its 
 cheaper, fluctuating silver money, and its otherwise 
 worthless paper money. Thus we have bimetallism a* 
 the word is generally understood. 
 
 But it ought not to be hard to see that this $100,000,000 
 gold reserve is already subject to considerable strain. 
 It supports all the silver, either in the form of coined sil- 
 ver or paper silver certificates, and all other forms of 
 paper, making a total of about eleven hundred million
 
 52 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 dollars directly dependent on that reserve for its full 
 face value. 
 
 Now, if under our present financial system we coin any 
 more silver we increase the strain on the gold reserve, 
 which alone makes all our money good. It is compara- 
 tively a small sum, say one-eleventh of the money it sup- 
 ports and gives value to. It could not have been kept 
 on hand a week at any time since it was established but 
 for the confidence the world has in the promises and in- 
 tegrity of the Government. One-eleventh of the fiat 
 money taken to the Treasury window would have taken 
 it all out. But trusting the Government's integrity of 
 purpose, and its ability to maintain that gold reserve, 
 none of it was ever drawn upon, except for purely com- 
 mercial purposes, till the Sherman law was passed in 
 1890 providing for increased coinage of silver at the rate 
 of $54,000,000 per annum, thus increasing by that amount 
 annually the strain on that gold reserre. Serious finan- 
 cial disturbances followed. The gold reserve declined 
 rapidly. The danger became so great and so imminent 
 that the Sherman law was repealed in 1893, though with 
 great difficulty, owing chiefly to obstructive measures of 
 Senators from the mining districts of the West, who 
 wanted to put the country on a silver basis. Full confi- 
 dence has not yet returned. It was retarded by the 
 appearance of a strong and determined free coinage ele- 
 ment in the Fifty-third Congress. 
 
 Now, with these simple facts before him, stated in a 
 straightforward way, the writer is sure that any candid 
 man (though he may have advocated free coinage) must 
 admit that the United States cannot coin any consider- 
 able quantity more silver without wiping out that gold 
 reserve. 
 
 Admitting this, we get back to the question: Do we 
 want bimetallism? Do we want to use both gold and 
 silver as now, and have about $24* per capita good, full 
 value money, or are we willing to drive out the gold for 
 the sake of coining the product of the Western mines, 
 and have, for a time at least, only about $16 poor money 
 per capita, worth really only about f8 full value per 
 capita? We would increase the $8 per capita as the 
 Western mines turned out silver and as other countries 
 
 1894 government reports estimate about S'25 per capita.
 
 DOLLABS, <>K WHAT? 53 
 
 might sell us their accumulation of the unwieldy metal. 
 But we should be so hopelessly bankrupted that those 
 of us now living would not feel much concern as to the 
 future supply of the uncertain and cumbersome money. 
 
 That supply would probably eventually be abundant, 
 though depreciating and fluctuating, and therefore con- 
 stantly unsettling values and trade. But in the mean- 
 time, with money on the basis of $8, present purchase 
 value, per capita, what would become of the people and 
 industries of the United States a people accustomed 
 t<> >'2 per capita, and enjoying credits to the extent of 
 probably f 15,000,000,000 or $20,000,000,000* b*aed di- 
 rectly on that $24 per capita and on that f 100,000,000 
 gold reserve? 
 
 Is there a man In America whose imagination would 
 not stagger under an attempt to conceive the conse- 
 quences of such a calamity? 
 
 While Mexico and the Western silver mines rehabili- 
 tated our currency with a metal which the people now 
 absolutely refuse to accept in any quantity, and of which 
 only about fifty-six million full legal tender dollars can 
 possibly be circulated (a great part of that lying idly in 
 ttie bank vaults), what would become of the idle, penni- 
 less men, women and children of the United States, with 
 creditors like wolves swarming about them? 
 
 Is there any man who can read the plain, truthful 
 statements here made and not understand them? And 
 if he understands them, is he a bimetallist, or is he for 
 free coinage and silver monometallism? 
 
 Of what avail are such sophistries, catching cartoons, 
 ingenious illustrations, questionings and deceptive rea- 
 sonings as are contained in "Coin's Financial School" 
 when set against the serious tacts and simple, naked 
 truths of the real situation? It is little less than criminal 
 to deal in sophistries and artful deceptions when suck 
 momentous interests are at stake. 
 
 We want bimetallism, and not silver monometallism. 
 
 'Including individual indebted ne>* credits ;uv estimated at ? 40,000,000,000.
 
 54 DOLLAKS, OK WHAT ? 
 
 FREE COINAGE NOT FREE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 Suppose it be admitted that the free coinage of silver 
 would be a blessing, and would at once increase the vol- 
 ume of money in the country as a whole in what way 
 would it increase the supply in individual pockets? 
 
 How would it even increase the supply in non-silver 
 producing sections? 
 
 Free silver does not mean that the government would 
 coin and send it about the country on pack horses and in 
 wagons inviting every man to help himself. There will 
 be no "forty acres and a mule" distribution, unless it be 
 to the Western miners, at the end of this free silver fight. 
 no matter how it may terminate. 
 
 The metal is produced in the mining sections of the 
 West. The people who mine it would have the privilege 
 of sending it to the government mints and getting it 
 coined into money. When coined it would belong to 
 them. 
 
 They would not scatter it around among their friends 
 in Georgia, South Carolina and Illinois. They would 
 take it back to Montana and Colorado. 
 
 If vast quantities of silver were mined the people out 
 West might accumulate vast quantities of money. The 
 "silver bugs" of that section might become as rich and 
 obnoxious as the "gold bugs" of the East. Denver might 
 become a great money center, but what advantage would 
 that be to the people of Alabama or Michigan? 
 
 There is already idle money by the hundreds of millions 
 in some sections of the country, but the people of other 
 sections cannot get it because they buy about as much 
 as they sell, and have no favorable balance of trade to 
 bring it to them. 
 
 If the silver barons of the West were multiplied by the 
 score, and if all the followers of the mining camps were 
 to grow rich and great, it is not easy to see how the 
 farmers of Mississippi or Ohio would be benefited any 
 more than they are now benefited by the vast accumula- 
 tions of money stored in the vaults of Eastern banks. 
 
 If every tenth man in Colorado were made a million- 
 aire, and the fortunes of all were in cash, that accuinula-
 
 S. oil WHAT? r>-> 
 
 tion of money could no more put up prices than does the 
 present hoards in the East. 
 
 The truth is that the supply of money has little to do 
 with prices, which are based on the cost of production, 
 but regulated by supply and demand. They are affected 
 also by the state of credits. 
 
 Prosperity, which stimulates prices, depends upon safe 
 .-red its more than upon the volume of money. 
 
 Money may be abundant, and prosperity wholly lack- 
 ing: but credit cannot be abundant without prosperity. 
 
 Confidence, which is the basis of credit, increases the 
 use and active supply of money. It is also a great dis- 
 utor of money, a great equalizer of its circulation. 
 
 The advocates of inflation, whether by free coinage of 
 silver, or other methods, destroy confidence and thus de- 
 si i-oy the only rational means of securing what they real- 
 ly want, an active increase of the volume of money in the 
 channels of trade. 
 
 They get hold of the wrong horn of the dilemma. They 
 propose an artificial and consequently unsafe increase 
 :n the money supply, believing that they can thus in- 
 rease the circulation and put up prices. 
 
 The plan inevitably works the wrong way. Too many 
 distrust the scheme. 
 
 The money is locked up, nobody wants to invest, or to 
 luy beyond actual needs, and prices go down instead 
 
 up. 
 
 ' Then the stump orator comes upon the scene, abuses 
 the "gold bugs/' and lays the consequences of this folly 
 at the door of the "money power." 
 
 Fice silver would reduce by half the value of all pensions, 
 :S, life insurance payments, bank deposits, and other evidences 
 of credit. 
 
 GOLD STANDARD AND PROSPERITY. 
 
 Free silver orators and writers claim t hat we have tried 
 the gold standard since 1STS, and thai things have gradu- 
 ally grown woi-se, and that it is now time to try some- 
 thing else, meaning free silver. This statement is untrue
 
 56 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 in every particular. The period from 1878 to 1890 was 
 in all respects the most prosperous in the history of the 
 country. The increase in population, the industrial 
 growth, the influx of foreign capital and the expansion 
 of enterprise was not merely extraordinary, it was mar- 
 velous. It was a development never equaled, or even ap- 
 proached, in any country in the history of the world. In 
 1878 the West was practically unsettled and undevel- 
 oped. Since then its broad acres have been brought un- 
 der cultivation, and its hamlets have become populous 
 and prosperous cities. In 1878 the South practically had 
 neither capital nor manufacturing industries. Its iron 
 and coal were almost untouched; its railroads were lack- 
 ing in traffic, in bad repair, without substantial equip- 
 ment or organization, and for eighteen years there had 
 been little new construction. In those twelve years three 
 and a half times as many cotton mills were built in the 
 South as were built during the previous one hundred 
 years. The increase of spindles was more than 350 per 
 cent. More capital was invested in mining and iron pro- 
 duction, ten times over, than in the previous history of 
 the country since its settlement. The same activity and 
 energy prevailed in all lines of industry. The develop- 
 ment of the West and Northwest was not less wonderful. 
 Denver, Kansas City, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Detroit and 
 Milwaukee grew from townships to big cities; the popu- 
 lation of Chicago grew from a few hundred thousand to 
 a million of inhabitants. The North also enjoyed un- 
 equaled prosperity. In that period our stock of gold in- 
 creased from $213,000,000 to f 690,000,000, a net increase 
 of $477,000,000; our stock of silver increased from $87,- 
 000,000 to $440,000,000, a net increase of $353,000,000. 
 Deposits in State and National banks increased from 
 $800,000,000 to $2,200,000,000, showing in twelve years 
 the unprecedented increase of nearly 300 per cent, in the 
 savings and accumulations of the people. And in the 
 same period the bonded debt of the United States, about 
 which the free silver men make so much noise, was re- 
 duced from nearly $1,800,000,000 to about $600,000,000, 
 a great reduction of two-thirds or say, about $1,200,000,- 
 000 of the interest bearing debt of the country. The 
 credit of the nation was so improved that the rate of in- 
 terest on government bonds was reduced from a five per 
 cent to a three per cent, basis. Throughout the country,
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 57 
 
 as a whole, prosperity reigned, and if the people were 
 not satisfied with the condition it was because content- 
 ment is not the lot of humanity. 
 
 It is certain that the Western silver barons were dis- 
 gruntled through all these years, the brightest in the an- 
 nals of any people, and they were persistently and surely 
 undermining the confidence which made such magnificent 
 growth and prosperity possible. Their movements were 
 watched with keen and anxious interest the world over 
 by the men of capital and enterprise, who had set the 
 busy wheels of progress in motion. In 1890 they forced 
 the passage of the Sherman law, the baneful effect of 
 which almost criminal blunder is fully explained in other 
 articles in this work, and is known to the whole world. 
 Prosperity and progress were soon at an end. The coun- 
 try was no longer safely on a gold basis. Distrust, un- 
 certainty and stagnation supplanted hope, confidence 
 and activity. 
 
 The free silver people claim that if the Sherman law 
 was the cause of these misfortunes that its repeal in 1893 
 ought to have removed them. Such argument is extreme- 
 ly foolish. It is a fact well known to the world that the 
 Fifty-third Congress was practically a free silver body. 
 The failure of a bill to sustain the faith and credit of the 
 government was greeted with cheers from members in 
 the lower house. It is also loudly and vociferously her- 
 alded by free silver advocates that the doctrine is spread- 
 ing and taking deeper root in all parts of the land. With 
 our gold standard so vigorously assailed since the day 
 the Sherman law was repeapled, and its very existence 
 in such grave doubt, no well informed, well balanced man 
 would argue that the country is, or has been since 1893, 
 in position to further test the merits of the gold standard. 
 But as any candid man must admit, its merits were fully 
 tested from 1878 to 1890, and with results that amazed 
 mankind. But in 1890, as stated, its existence was threat- 
 ened, and that folly also amazed mankind, excepting only 
 the advocates of free silver.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 THE LOSSES OF 1393. 
 
 It has been claimed that the banks "combined'' to raid 
 the Treasury and bring on the panic of 1893. It ought 
 not be necessary to combat. this absurd contention, but 
 so many people believe it to be true that it may not be 
 amiss to show who sustained the losses of that calamity. 
 
 The New York Herald estimated, from actual market 
 quotations, that within a short time the shrinkage in the 
 value of stocks and bonds listed on the New York Stock 
 Exchange was $700,000,000. These stocks were largely 
 owned or held by banks as collateral for loans. Scores 
 of operators in Wall street were beggared. Nearly 700 
 banks throughout the country, many of which afterward 
 became wholly insolvent from sudden shrinkage of as- 
 sets, were forced to close doors. Capitalists and investors 
 suffered in proportion. The total losses directly and in- 
 directly sustained by the monied interests of the country 
 amounted to thousands of millions. Banks that did not 
 fail, lost heavily, suffering in many instances serious im- 
 pairment of capital. Deposits shrunk from 25 to 75 per 
 cent, and banking for a time, to say nothing of losses, 
 was wholly without profit; and owing to general stagna- 
 tion and uncertainty, there has since been no money in 
 the business. 
 
 Even the free silver advocate does not claim that the 
 bankers and capitalists of the country are fools. Yet this 
 is the only conclusion if they really "combined" to bring 
 on that panic. Such losses surely follow all panics, and 
 nobody understands this so well as the man who handles 
 money. 
 
 To stay the general disaster at the time, the New York 
 banks imperiled their own safety by loaning money to 
 banks in every part of the Union. I doubt whether there 
 w r ould have been a dozen banks with open doors in Ten- 
 nessee if aid from the New York "gold bugs" had been 
 refused, and the ruin of business men and borrowers of 
 all classes would have been complete. What is said of 
 Tennessee was true in greater or less degree of all South- 
 ern and Western states. The "gold bugs" used clearing 
 house certificates at home, and at great risk sent good 
 money throughout the land in answer to the general cry
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 59 
 
 <>f distress. These facts are well known to every well 
 posted man. The writer believes that these bankers have 
 made some mistakes in policy, as all men do; but what- 
 ever their errors of judgment, they have never "con- 
 spired" against the government or people, and the free 
 silver sections of the South and West owe them a debt 
 of gratitude that must remain long unsettled. 
 
 It may be added that the reason bank men, almost as 
 a unit, oppose free silver, is not that they w r ant to "con- 
 spire" against anybody, but because they so thoroughly 
 understand the disaster that would follow. They know 
 that its increased coinage under the Sherman act brought 
 the panic of 1893. TJhey do not guess or think that this 
 was the cause, but they know that it was. And they do 
 not want any more silver panics, particularly not a free 
 silver panic, which they also know would be the worst 
 of all. They know that they could not stand the conse- 
 quent losses, and they know that the people could not 
 stand them. The only selfish motive they have in trying 
 to maintain the present gold standard is to restore pros- 
 perity to the country, and consequently to restore their 
 former earnings and profits. This is a kind of selfishness 
 common to all men. 
 
 "This article is not intended in any sense as a vindica- 
 tion of hankers and monied men, but merely to remove 
 mistaken notions which are in the way of sound money 
 legislation. 
 
 Men send for a doctor when they are sick, a lawyer 
 when they want legal redress, a preacher when they want 
 spiritual comfort, a plumber when the water pipe bursts; 
 they go to an architect when they want to build a house, 
 send the horse to the blacksmith when they want him 
 shod, engage a gardener to turn the ground and plant 
 -<M'd, and hire a rail splitter when the farm needs fencing; 
 but when finances get out of joint, they abuse and turn a 
 deaf ear to the men who handle the money and know 
 most about it. Thej"e is a flaw somew r here in this general 
 > ay of doing things. It might be well for awhile as an 
 experiment to have the lawyers shoe the horses and the 
 rail splitters dose the sick. If the shoes pinched and the 
 patients languished, these things would be in keeping 
 with the clumsy tinkering and patching by novices of the 
 ion's fina in
 
 60 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 THE MONEY POWER. 
 
 Suppose, for the sake of argument, we admit the false 
 notion that the "money power" is unreasonably preju- 
 diced against silver. Is a remedy possible if applied only 
 in the United States? And how can any legal remedy 
 be applied? Money cannot be legislated out of bank 
 vaults at home and abroad, and out of the pockets of the 
 people, and put into circulation in the United States. We 
 are not necessarily a borrowing people, and whether that 
 policy be right or wrong we are not in condition, nor in 
 position, to put a stop to borrowing. We must have for- 
 eign money, and also the use of home accumulations, to 
 carry our obligations and to develop our resources. But 
 can we pass laws to make Englishmen send over money 
 to build our railroads; to make home capitalists build 
 and operate furnaces, mills, open mines and buy our sur- 
 plus lands, and to make lenders discount our notes and 
 accept our bills? 
 
 When we agitate and approach free coinage all these 
 people lock their money up. Home money lenders are 
 alarmed and foreign capitalists look upon us with con- 
 tempt. Industrial progress comes to a standstill. We 
 may fuss and fume and beat the air all we are a mind to, 
 but our impotent fury merely closes the money chests 
 tighter. The people we rail at are not merely the Roths- 
 childs, a few great financial concerns in England, and a 
 few thousand bankers in America. That vague, greatly 
 abused and 'little understood thing, the "money power," 
 is a mightier force than even the populists claim that it 
 is. It is the PEOPLE the millions of intelligent, thrifty 
 and prudent people who have put aside the accumula- 
 tions of their industry. Every man who has saved and 
 owns money, whether the sum be $ 100 or $100,000, or who 
 holds the notes of his neighbor, who is a depositor in a 
 savings bank, or who is an investor in securities, state 
 bonds or mortgages, is one of the "money power." If his 
 hoard be only $100 he is as easily frightened and runs to 
 cover as quickly as the man with a million. He is, indeed, 
 more apt to lock his money up and put it entirely out of 
 sight and out of reach than the larger and broader holder. 
 If you have anything to sell, you cannot sell it to him.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 61 
 
 Price ronnts for nothing. If you ask him to join you in 
 an enterprise, he laughs at you. If you would borrow of 
 him, he shies at your collateral. He may not be learned 
 in the science of money. He may tell you that he knows 
 nothing about the financial question, but he knows how 
 to make you pay if you owe him; and if you scare him, 
 In- knows how to lock up his money and keep it. 
 
 He may be a populist or a free silver advocate many 
 of these I have observed grip the purse strings tightest, 
 and they generally grab for gold when they put money 
 into holes or stockings but whatever he be, he is one of 
 that mighty army composing the "money power." There 
 are some six or eight millions of them. They fill every 
 vocation and avenue of life. They are lawyers, doctors, 
 artisans, merchants, laborers, farmers, preachers, beg- 
 gars, guardians, trustees, executors, capitalists, men and 
 women, old and young. They own the stocks of the sav- 
 ings banks, the national banks, trust companies and other 
 corporations; own the money deposits; and the officers 
 of these institutions are merely the paid instruments 
 used by them. If they heap money upon bank counters, 
 these custodians of their earnings must use great care 
 and discretion in the keeping and disposition of their 
 funds. If they want the money they have committed i 
 the care of the banks, whether to invest or to hoard, it 
 must always be ready for them. The banker is branded 
 with incompetence and disgrace, or with dereliction of 
 duty and sent to prison, if he cannot pay. This is the 
 "money power" that cornered money and brought on 
 1 lie money panic of 1893. Whatever may be the precipi- 
 tating cause, it is the "power" that brings on all finan- 
 cial disturbances. It is the "power" which now dis- 
 1 1- lists the financial policy of the United States. It is the 
 "power" which believes there is more silver in the mines 
 of the world than can be safely used as money by the 
 United States without driving out its better money 
 uold and which fears great disaster from further silver 
 legislation. It is a "power" which cannot be driven nor 
 legislated into buying and selling, lending, building and 
 developing. It will stand stock still till it -els ready 
 to move. Kailery, threats and denunciation do not budge 
 it. It is the power of human avarice and self-preserva- 
 tion. Show it gain, confidence, stability, and it welcomes 
 you. Threaten it with free coinage of silver and depre-
 
 62 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 elated money and it draws away in alarm, yet grim and 
 resolute. 
 
 Since this almighty "money power" is afraid of free 
 silver, and will again and indefinitely arrest every in- 
 dustry and enterprise in the country if that heresy be 
 threatened or instituted, what folly and madness to fly 
 in the face of it! 
 
 We want prosperity, and we cannot have it unless we 
 fully satisfy the people who have money to invest, 
 whether in small or large sums. 
 
 The free silver people do not look at the practical con- 
 dition and situation of things. They have a theory, and 
 reason in the abstract They block progress and distress 
 the country exploiting that theory. They would with- 
 draw the corner stone of thousands of millions of credits 
 and topple the whole financial and commercial structure 
 experimenting with that theory. Practical men know 
 that it is a mere theory, vicious and dangerous. It is a 
 catching theory, because with it is coupled abuse of the 
 "money power," which so many voters fail utterly to 
 comprehend. The voter himself may be an important 
 factor in the "money power," yet unable to understand 
 it be filled with prejudice and resentment against it 
 Any of us who are industrious and thrifty, and who Jiave 
 saved money, are part of that much abused and really 
 potential "power." 
 
 Will a large per cent of the voters of the country con- 
 tinue to blindly follow these free coinage theorists, or 
 have they had enough of them and of the disasters that 
 follow in their wake? 
 
 If we want to start our mills and give life to our enter- 
 prises, they furnish us no money w r ith which to do these 
 things. The worst and loudest of them merely want our 
 votes and the fat offices we can give them. It is to the 
 "money power" we must look for the means of paying 
 our labor and handling our products. If we want to sell 
 a farm, a horse, a crop of wheat, a bale of cotton, a town 
 lot, we never think of the free coinage orator, but go to 
 some person who belongs to the "money power" and 
 strike him for a trade. Let us make friends w r ith these 
 people, and cast out utterly the theorists and designing 
 demagogues, who would destroy us, professing (for our 
 votes) to love us, and to be infinitely concerned for us.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? M 
 
 "PRIVILEGES "OF NATIONAL BANKS. 
 
 National Banks have no "privileges," in the sense that 
 they are a favored class of institutions. During, and for 
 a time subsequent to the war period, when government 
 i.:>nds were low priced, and bore high rates of interest, 
 there was a good profit in National bank note circula- 
 tion, but that day has passed; and there is now a well 
 denned loss to the National banks in the exercise of their 
 "privileges." This has been the case for a good many 
 years. 
 
 To issue |45,000 circulation now, a bank must invest 
 $57,000 of its capital in United States bonds, to be de- 
 posited with the United States Treasury to secure its 
 circulation. This estimate is based on four per cent, 
 bonds at 1.14, about an average price for eighteen 
 months. 
 
 The bank must then deposit $2,250 with the Treasurer 
 to the credit of a fund known as the five per cent, redemp- 
 tion fund, leaving it the use of $42,750 on an investment 
 of $57,000. Therefore it loses entirely the use of $14,250 
 of its capital. Money is worth eight per cent, throughout 
 theJSouth and West, and in other localities. Counting 
 interest at eight per cent the loss on this item annually 
 is $1,140. 
 
 The four per cent, bonds mature in 1907 twelve years 
 hence. At maturity the face value only will be paid. 
 Therefore in twelve years the bank loses $7,000 premium 
 it paid for the bonds. The annual loss on this item is 
 $583. 
 
 There is a tax of one per cent, on the circulation. The 
 loss on this account is annually $450. 
 
 These thro;' items constitute the principal cost of the 
 National banking "privileges." 
 
 There is but one item of profit, which is the interest 
 on the bonds. This for twelve months is $2,000. 
 
 Therefore, at the end of the year, the account stands 
 as follows: 
 
 Interest on the $14,250 item $1,140 
 
 Annual loss on the $7,000 premium item 
 
 Tax on circulation... 450 
 
 Total lo,< >::. 17:i 
 
 -30,000 bonds 2,0<>0 
 
 Net loss to hank 17:'.
 
 64 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 Counting the $14,250 item on a basis of six per cent., 
 there would be an apparent profit of $112; but it would 
 be apparent only. Other items of expense incident to 
 the system would much more than wipe it out. But I 
 base the estimate on eight per cent., as it is in the East 
 only and in the money centers that lower rates prevail. 
 
 Other items of cost are National bank examiners' fees, 
 |50 per year, if two examinations are made; the adver- 
 tising of five annual statements; the exchange and ex- 
 press charges in keeping intact the $2,250 redemption 
 fund, and in transportation of new issues of notes; loss 
 in circulation while new notes are in process of substitu- 
 tion for old, or mutilated notes; attention and labor in 
 making various reports, and other items of direct or in- 
 direct cost It is safe to say that the "privilege" costs a 
 National bank, issuing $45,000 currency, directly, not 
 less than $350 per annum. 
 
 If the bank has a large line of deposits the cost is much 
 more, owing to increased work in making examinations 
 and reports 
 
 In reserve cities banks are also required to carry 
 twenty-five per cent, reserve, their own notes, and other 
 specified moneys and sight exchange not counting as 
 part of this reserve. The class of assets they carry and 
 the kind of paper they discount is also prescribed by law 
 or regulation. 
 
 A State bank, with equal capital and deposits, can 
 make more money than a National bank. As at present 
 constituted, the National banking system is a decaying 
 system, and no new National banks would be organized 
 but for the reason that the people trust them more than 
 they do State banks, and the more readily patronize 
 them. And this is an anomaly, considering the general 
 prejudice against them. 
 
 It is readily seen that it is a mistaken prejudice. It 
 is one that would soon disappear if the facts were known. 
 As recently stated by the New York Journal of Commerce 
 and Commercial Bulletin, this prejudice has much to do 
 with the free silver sentiment of the South and other 
 sections, and if pains were taken by the press to publish 
 the simple facts, and make them generally understood, 
 the most serious difficulty in the way of a simple and 
 proper revision of our currency system would be removed.
 
 DOLLARS, (ill WHAT? 
 
 The great "crime"' of the age had not then been com- 
 mitted. Silver had not then been "demonetized." And 
 I have sometimes thought what a happy circumstance it 
 would have been if some of the "friends" of silver had 
 lived at that time, when nobody had ever thought of "dis- 
 criminating" against their cherished metal. But the 
 prices then would have been harrowing to their souls, 
 free coinage and silver at a premium considered. "Prices" 
 are a great worry to the "friends" of silver, as, indeed, 
 they are to all the rest of us. Even corn at 45 tvnts a 
 bushel and labor at 90 cents a day, with "demonetized" 
 silver, vexes them beyond measure; and it would not be 
 safV to say what might have been the effect of Peffer, 
 Si cwart and Bland, for instance, if they had seen fre" 
 silver, with farm wages $5 per month and corn 20 cents a 
 bushel. But the writer trusts he may be pardoned the 
 wish, which ought not be an unkind one, that these three, 
 and a few others, had indeed been of that generation. 
 Possibly some of them were living in those days; but if 
 so, free and high price silver and corn at 20 cents must 
 have cost them many serious and painful reflections, 
 which, however, they have doubtless forgotten. Silver at 
 l&to 1 was more valuable than gold (there being mined 
 then several thousand million dollars less than now), but 
 i here were no sky-scraping prices of farm products, which 
 is a curious circumstance, from the Stewart-Peffer point 
 of view. 
 
 SILVER AND WHEAT. 
 
 The world's production of wheat has grown from two 
 thousand four hundred and thirty-three million bushels 
 in 1891 to two thousand six hundred and forty-five million 
 bushels in 189-1. This is a gain in supply of two hundred 
 and twelve million bushels. But a more significant fact, 
 and one of greater concern to American agriculturalists, 
 is that the wheat exporting countries of South America 
 and Kussia have in this period gained two hundred and 
 fifty-six million bushels in wheat product ion. That is to 
 say, in 1*9 I Kussia and South America had two hundred 
 and fifty-six million bushels more wheat to sell in compe- 
 tition with the wheat of the Tinted States than they had 
 in 1891. And a matter of still greater significance and
 
 34 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 concern is that the large export surplus of fifty million 
 bushels of the Argentine Kepublic last year was produced 
 at a cost estimated not to exceed thirty-four to thirty- 
 seven cents per bushel laid down at the seaboard shipping 
 point.* Considering these facts, and the enormous crop 
 harvested in the United States in 1894, is it necessary for 
 the American farmer to puzzle his brain for an explana- 
 tion of the low price of wheat? Is silver somehow at the 
 bottom of it, as is foolishly stated in "Coin's Financial 
 School," or is it a tremendous overproduction and a com- 
 pletely glutted market? Is it the "crime" against the 
 product of the Western silver mines, represented by Stew- 
 art, Peffer, and associates, or is it the result of the open- 
 ing up and cultivation of vast new tracts of the Lord's 
 bountiful earth? 
 
 There was more coined silver and more idle money of 
 all kinds in the United States in 1894, when wheat touched 
 its lowest price, than ever before. The New York Times, 
 of March 25th, 1895, from which the statistics are taken, 
 commenting on the effect of over-production on prices, 
 says: 
 
 "The natural effect of such increase, in exporting coun- 
 tries, on prices, can easily be seen. It may be noted, 
 also, that Russia has an export surplus of 192,000,000 
 bushels of rye, against 70,000,000 bushels a year ago." 
 
 This item of 122,000,000 bushels increased surplus of a 
 cereal largely substituted for wheat in many countries 
 has been an important factor in determining prices. 
 
 The depression of business and the blocking of all kinds 
 of enterprise on account of silver agitation has also con- 
 tributed something toward depressing w^heat People 
 cannot buy bread freely unless they have work. Capital, 
 too, has been timid of investment in wheat, as in every- 
 thing else; and the withdrawal of this sustaining influ- 
 ence has been an important factor in the sagging of prices 
 of all commodities. 
 
 Eetimatee by the New York Times.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 35 
 
 SILVER AND COFFEE. 
 
 Reversing the order of wheat and cotton, coffee has 
 advanced gradually and enormously during the past ten 
 years. 
 
 The writer, being at the time in the wholesale grocery 
 business, remembers that about 1885 he bought coffee in 
 Xew York at about 7 cents per pound for fair grades. It 
 is now worth about 18 cents per pound. 
 
 Silver was worth $1.06 per ounce in 1885. It is worth 
 a little over 60 cents per ounce now. If the price of silver 
 regulates the prices of other things, why has coffee gun.- 
 up nearly 300 per cent, in ten years and silver gone down 
 nearly 50 per cent.? 
 
 The explanation is simple, and is the simple explana- 
 tion that applies to the rise and fall of wheat, corn, cotton 
 and all other products, whether of the mine, the mill or 
 the farm. 
 
 The production and supply of coffee in 1885 was ex- 
 vc. More coffee was produced than the world could 
 well consume. High prices in former years had greatly 
 stimulated its production, and an undue number of peo- 
 ple went into coffee growing. The increasing supply 
 overstocked the markets, and prices gradually declined. 
 
 And when they got so low that coffee production be- 
 came unprofitable, the industry was abandoned by many 
 producers. The supply was gradually reduced, and stim- 
 ulated by short crops, coffee went up. Another period 
 of low prices in coffee, brought about from the sa nit- 
 causes, is likely after a time to set in. 
 
 The decline or the advance in the price of silver has no 
 more influence on the marketable value or prices of things 
 than the remotest star in heaven on the tides of the ocean. 
 
 SILVER, WHEAT AND COFFEE. 
 
 Brazil produces a large per cent, of the coffee grown. 
 The Argentine Republic produces a large amount of 
 wheat.
 
 36 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 Now in Brazil coffee has advanced in ten years from 
 say cents per pound to say 16 or 17 cents per pound on 
 the Brazilian seaboard. 
 
 But note the contrary course of wheat in the Argentine 
 Republic. In 1885 the cost of wheat in that country ex- 
 ceeded f 1.50 per bushel. It is now about 40 cents. The 
 greater part of the crop of 1894 was sold by Argentine 
 farmers at about 38 cents.* 
 
 In other words, the wheat product of Argentina, and of 
 the world, gradually grew till it exceeded the demand, 
 while, on the contrary, the supply of coffee in Brazil and 
 other coffee countries grew less till the demand exceeded 
 the supply. 
 
 Silver had nothing whatever to do with the rise or the 
 fall of either. 
 
 SILVER AND COTTON. 
 
 For the five years, 1890-1894, inclusive, the total pro- 
 duction of cotton in the United States was, in round fig- 
 ures, 44,000,000 bales. For the previous five years, it was 
 a little above 34,000,000 bales. That is to say, in the 
 years 1890 to 1894 we grew nearly 10,000,000 bales more 
 cotton than in the preceding five-year period. The pro- 
 duction also increased in other countries. 
 
 With such tremendous gain in supply, with an actual 
 and substantial falling off in consumption during part of 
 this period (the falling off amounting to about 500,000 
 bales in 1893), need we look up the market price of silver 
 to account for the price of cotton? 
 
 If the world grows more cotton than it can sell to the 
 spinners and other manufacturers, what is to be done 
 with the surplus? People cannot eat it, build houses 
 with it, or otherwise use it. Somebody must hold it; put 
 money into it; pay interest, storage and insurance; give it 
 time and attention. The contingencies of future con- 
 sumption and supply must be taken account of. The sur- 
 plus becomes purely speculative, at greatly reduced 
 value. And it brings down the price of the entire supply. 
 With a large surplus on hand, and a production of ten 
 million bales per year in the United States (an excess of 
 
 *P^etimates made on gold Tallies.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 37 
 
 two million bales per annum above legitimate demands 
 from this country), with no certainty, or even reasonable 
 probability, of decreased production, can anybody fail to 
 see why cotton is lower than ever before? The state of 
 Texas alone grew last year nearly half as much cotton as 
 was grown in the entire South ten years ago; and the pro- 
 duction in that state can be largely increased at a profit, 
 even at present prices. 
 
 If silver were 30 cents, 75 cents, $1.00 or $2 per ounce, 
 would the present large surplus of cotton and the OVT- 
 I production in the United States of two million bales pei 1 
 annum disappear? It would if the decline in silver has 
 been the cause of the decline in cotton, as the fertile au- 
 thor of "Coin," and other visionaries have figured; but a 
 practical man would say that the crops must be reduced 
 two million bales, or new uses must be found to consume 
 two million bales more than the world now consumes, if 
 the old standard of prices are again to prevail. 
 
 SILVER IN FRANCE. 
 
 ~Free coinage orators point to France as a country that 
 has done wonders with silver. But when silver began io 
 decline, and its coinage ratio to go below the gold value, 
 France closed her mints to silver. 
 
 A recent statement of the Bank of France* showed 
 specie holdings as follows: 
 
 (iold .fl:;n.iMM).iMiu 
 
 Silver L'-Jo.OOO.iM.i 
 
 Showing $205,000,000 more gold than silver. 
 The November statement of the United States Treas- 
 ury showed specie holdings: 
 
 Silver $508,000,000 
 
 dol.l 126.000,000 
 
 Showing $382,000,000 more silver than gold. 
 
 So it appears that the Bank of France held nearly $2 
 in gold to every dollar in silver, while the United States 
 Treasury held only $1 in gold to every $4 in silver. 
 
 The Bank of France, on the date referred to, held nearly 
 double as much gold as the Bank of England; and France 
 is as firmly a gold standard country as England, and will 
 
 *See 18U4 Report of the Director of the Mint.
 
 38 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 always remain so. And it was wise enough to stop the 
 coinage of silver before it endangered its gold supply. 
 There is no free coinage party in France, nor, indeed, in 
 any other great civilized country, excepting the United 
 States. 
 
 France has a total of $825,000,000 of gold and $492,000,- 
 000 of silver, nearly double as much gold as silver, w r hile 
 the United States has almost equal quantities of each. 
 
 FREE COINAGE IN MEXICO. 
 
 Our next door neighbor, Mexico, has produced more 
 silver than any country in the world. The mines of Chi- 
 huahua alone have produced more than five hundred 
 million dollars. Sonora, Zacetecas and others have 
 yielded even more. Coinage is free in Mexico. And yet 
 the people are poor beyond the conception of the common 
 American laborer. All labor 1st poorly paid. The writer 
 spent some time in Mexico some years ago, and made par- 
 ticular inquiry as to wages paid in agriculture and min- 
 ing, the principal industries of the country, and found 
 them varying from 10 to 3<> cents per day, which is equiv- 
 alent to 5 to 18 cents in American money. 
 
 The average for the farm laborer did not exceed 20 
 cents per day, or about 10 cents in our money. The peo- 
 ple live in huts, subsist on the coarsest food, and |2 in 
 American money would buy the average outfit, from head 
 to foot, in clothing. 
 
 This is the condition in a free coinage country that has 
 produced more than four thousand million dollars of sil- 
 ver, and which is still producing silver at a larger ratio 
 per capita than any other country in the world, its exports 
 of the metal in 1893 being $51,000,000, and in 1892, $49, 
 000,000. I have not the statistics for 1894. Mexico has a 
 population of 12,000,000. If the United States produced 
 silver in the same proportion or the same rate per capita, 
 counting Mexico's exports only, our production would be 
 $300,000,000 annually, yet who would say that the people 
 of that country are better off than we? 
 
 Mexico has a money circulation of 4.71 per capita. 
 
 A low rate per capita exists in nearly, if not quite all, 
 silver countries.
 
 DOLI.AKS. >i; WHAT? :;<) 
 
 The people who advocate free coinage in the United 
 States claim that low prices and depressed trade condi- 
 tions are due to our gold standard, and insist that free 
 coinage would bring an era of prosperity. If any of 
 them will move across the border into Mexico their opin- 
 ions will undergo a decided change. A move merely to 
 the border will have a wholesome effect. 
 
 On the Mexican side there is small progress and un- 
 favorable conditions generally, while within the United 
 States line there is activity, growth and fair prosperity. 
 All the cities and villages near the line are built and are 
 building on the American side. 
 
 Free silver coinage can make no country prosperous; 
 on the contrary, the mere apprehension of it is quite suffi- 
 cient to depress business and arrest enterprise in any en- 
 lightened, prosperous nation. 
 
 TRAIN LOADS OF SILVER. 
 
 "Coin," with a stick twenty-two feet long, deftly meas- 
 ures off a space which he says would hold all the gold in 
 the world; which, it may be said, is the strongest argu- 
 ment he could have made in favor of gold as money. 
 
 He then neatly disposes of the world's silver money by 
 saving that it could all be stored in a Chicago banking 
 room and basement 
 
 1 1 is idea is original, but he does not put it in a way that 
 his pupils quite grasp the enormity of the pile. It would 
 be a little more understandable if he had said that there 
 is enough coined silver to load fairly well three hundred 
 trains of twenty cars each, or a total of six thousand cat- 
 loads. He might have explained further that there are 
 eight hundred and forty-four car loads of silver held for 
 monetary purposes in the United States; and also ex- 
 plained that it is impossible to keep more than seventy- 
 six car loads of that outside of the Treasury, of which 
 probably forty or forty-five car loads are stored in bank 
 vaults; showing that thirty or forty carloads are as much 
 as the people are willing to carry about in their pockets 
 and secrete in their homes. 
 
 The United States produced in the single year 1893, 
 one hundr-'d and four car loads of silver, almost three
 
 40 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 times as much as the people will carry about with them, 
 and more than twice as much, excepting silver change, 
 as can be kept in circulation outside the Treasury. 
 
 In 1893 the world produced two hundred and eighty-two 
 cur loads of silver. The production had since 1874 in- 
 creased in every year, excepting one; and would have con- 
 tinued to increase more rapidly but for the fact that it be- 
 gan to decline in price because it became so abundant it 
 could not be utilized either as money, or in the arts. 
 
 Owing to the improved methods of mining within very 
 recent years, and discoveries of new mines and mining 
 regions in different parts of the world, it is perfectly safe 
 to say that if silver had remained at even the greatly de- 
 preciated price of $1.00 per ounce, not less than f 300,000,- 
 000 or say four hundred and five car loads, would have 
 been mined in the year 1895 about ten times as much 
 as the people of the United States keep in active use. 
 
 At this rate of production 22,500 car loads would be 
 turned out in an ordinary lifetime. All the locomotives 
 on the largest system of railroads in the world could hard- 
 ly haul it. 
 
 And the capacity of production is unlimited. If its 
 value could be raised even to 84 cents an ounce, its price 
 in 1893, its output would now far exceed the two hundred 
 and eighty-two car loads mined in that year. But in the 
 face of unlimited quantities in sight, and unlimited re- 
 sources for getting it out of the mines, no great or perma- 
 nent rise in its price is possible. And under such condi- 
 tions its constant fluctuation in value is inevitable. If 
 the price is so low that little is mined, it \vill go up; if it 
 advances enough to show a profit enterprise and capital 
 will at once increase the output, and it will go down. The 
 output is limited by the price only. 
 
 The principle is the same as in pork production. If 
 hogs are high, farmers everywhere go to raising them; 
 and soon glut the market. Then the price of pork de- 
 clines till hog raising becomes unprofitable; and the 
 farmer tries his hand at something else. 
 
 Does anybody want a currency based on such a metal, 
 a currency that a lot of miners put up or down as their 
 interests prompt? Today you have Dollars, tomorrow 
 you have What?
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT.' 41 
 
 GOLD AND SILVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 The world's total stock of metallic money is approxi- 
 mately $8,600,000,000, the proportion of gold and silver 
 being not far from equal, there being about one-tenth 
 more of the latter; say 4,100,000,000 gold and $4,500,000,- 
 000 silver. 
 
 This is the total money accumulation of these metals 
 from the date of their use to the present time. 
 
 And it is interesting to note that the world's production 
 of the money metals within the last thirty-five years has 
 been approximately $7,300,000,000, of which about $3,950,- 
 000,000 was gold and $3,350,000,000 silver. 
 
 Much more gold than silver was consumed in the arts; 
 and several hundred millions more silver than gold was, 
 in that period, available for coinage into money. 
 
 This immense increased supply of the precious metals 
 became the property of a few countries, since it was 
 through the agencies of the progressive, civilized nations 
 only that it was produced. 
 
 -The gold was readily absorbed, owing to its great 
 value in small compass; but these enterprising countries 
 suddenly accumulated more silver than they could use as 
 money. For instance, the silver of Mexico is mined large- 
 ly by Americans and Englishmen, and its large output 
 goes mainly to England and the United States. This is 
 the simple reason why certain countries limited the coin- 
 age of silver. It is the reason why there can not be free 
 coinage without involving these countries in hopeless 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 In former periods the supply of the metal was limited, 
 and the people had no more than they could handle and 
 carry about, but the largely increased stock could not be 
 circulated. 
 
 It is shown elsewhere that only about 80 cents of silver 
 per capita can be actually circulated in the United States, 
 and the same condition exists in all other countries where 
 a lighter and more convenient currency is available. 
 
 Its "demonetization" by any eonntry was not from 
 choice, but from necessity. It was not done because any 
 particular class of men or le^islat ive bodv wanted it done, 
 but because the people, in effect, said to the lawmakers:
 
 42 DOLLAKS, OR WHAT? 
 
 "You are giving us too much of this kind of money; it 
 is too bulky and heavy; ten or twenty dollars weights the 
 pocket; we cannot hide it ; when we have money we do not 
 want everybody to know it; you can coin it if you want to, 
 but if you do so you must keep it; if you give it to us we 
 will give it back to you in exchange for more convenient 
 money." 
 
 Any great change in the laws of any country has its 
 source in the people. The people of certain nations of 
 Europe decreed by their acts that the coinage of silver 
 must stop. 
 
 The people of the United States have passed a similar 
 decree. And in this decision, all the silver bugs as well 
 as the gold bugs, have joined; the free silver advocate is 
 no more willing than the sound money man to accept 
 pocketfuls of silver in payment of accounts. If he gets 
 S~>0 of the metal he strikes a bee line for a bank and con- 
 verts it into paper or gold, or places it to his credit, and 
 draw's out paper or gold as he wants it He has directly 
 aided in its "demonetization," and in depressing its com- 
 mercial value. Although he cries "free silver," he carries 
 bills or gold in his pockets, and leaves the silver for the 
 government to hoard in idleness. 
 
 And the United States Treasury's hoard of silver is ab 
 solutely idle and useless. The 1894 report of the Bureau 
 of the Mint places the sum at $514,000,000. It is almost 
 worthless as an asset, because there is no possible way to 
 use it. Pensioners, contractors, and employes of the gov- 
 ernment, whether free silver advocates or otherwise, re- 
 fuse to accept it in payment for services and bills. 
 
 For the same reason it is worth nothing as a support 
 to the credit of the government. On the contrary, it is, 
 for good reasons, a peril and a menace. 
 
 Any other government w^ould melt much of it down and 
 sell it; but the Western mine owners hold the balance of 
 power at Washington, and they do not want it put on the 
 market in competition w^ith their product. 
 
 If gold could be obtained for a good part of it, the whole 
 country would soon have great cause to rejoice. Such a 
 deal would be a great bargain and a great blessing. Our 
 fiat money would have substantial support, and our na- 
 tional finances could be handled with ease and confidence. 
 
 Furthermore, the stability it would give would soon
 
 InU.I.AKS, <>R WHAT? 4:', 
 
 largely increase our supply of good money, and our rate 
 per capita. 
 
 The facts here stated and the statistics given make 
 plain the causes of the decline in the prices of silver, and 
 of the largely increased ratio of value between gold and 
 silver. 
 
 FLUCTUATIONS IN THE SILVER DOLLAR. 
 
 The following table shows, in the years named, the 
 fluctuation in the intrinsic value of the silver dollar: 
 
 VICAR.-. HHiHKST. J,0\VF.ST. 
 
 187(5 <)! cents 71) cents 
 
 1878 9:5 cents s:; <-ent> 
 
 1S7!' <il cents S-J mils 
 
 79 cents 71 cents 
 
 1 92 cents 74 rent- 
 
 1892 74 cents 04 cents 
 
 189o 65 cents 50 cents 
 
 Only years are given in which the change was most 
 striking. Fluctuations, however, have been marked each 
 year since the large overproduction of silver began to glut 
 the market. 
 
 If the country had been on a silver basis in the year 
 18TG, for instance, a dollar of any kind of money would 
 have been worth in July, 1876, 79 cents, and in December, 
 '.Mi cents. In the following year it would have been worth 
 about 90 cents, and down again in 1878 to 83 cents; up 
 again in 1879 to 91 cents, and so on through each year 
 do\vn to the present time. In 1893 it dropped from iT, 
 cents to about 50 cents, a change in value of 23 per cent. 
 in a single year. 
 
 The capacity of production being now practically unlim- 
 ited, its fluctuation will inevitably continue. 
 
 Ureat hardship and uncertainty would-result if wages, 
 salaries, the products of labor, contracts and credits were 
 based on such money. 
 
 And the poor man, who earns his living by the sweat of 
 his lirow, would suffer most. While at limes the dollar 
 of !/.~> or 1)9 cents might keep him in comfort, his wife and 
 little ones would be sorely pinched when the dollar 
 dropped to 65 or to 50 cent?. His wages would not go up 
 and down with the dollar, but his food and clothing would 
 do so.
 
 44 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 And furthermore, the uncertainty of values would so 
 disturb the business of his employer that work would be 
 precarious. His employment and subsistence would fluc- 
 tuate with the output of the silver mine. He would be 
 constantly on the ragged edge, and at the mercy of ad- 
 venturous mine operators and speculators. 
 
 The wage earner, above all other men, is vitally con- 
 cerned in a fixed, unchanging standard of money. His 
 living is too slender to admit of the risk of change and 
 speculation. He can not afford to base it on the chance 
 of any industry, especially not that of silver mining. 
 
 The silver dollar appears to be a mighty good dollar 
 now, since it buys anything that can be bought with any 
 other kind of a dollar; but this is simply because it is 
 braced up by, and made interchangeable with, the gold 
 dollar. 
 
 But if it stood alone, without a law or a policy that 
 makes it exchangeable for 100 eents in gold, its purchas- 
 ing value would be as uncertain as the wind and weather. 
 
 It cannot be that any man who understands this matter 
 favors free coinage of silver, which means a silver basis 
 and unsteady money. 
 
 On a silver money basis all market values in tJie United States 
 would change with the tising and setting of t/te sun. 
 
 STANDARD OF GRAIN MEASURE. 
 
 A bushel is the standard measure of grain. Contracts 
 of sale and purchase are made on this basis. And it is 
 a stable measure, because it does not change. 
 
 But suppose it were a fluctuating measure, a little more 
 today, a little less tomorrow what confusion would re- 
 sult! When the farmer sold his wheat he would be 
 obliged to do a complicated sum in mathematics to find 
 out how much he got for it 
 
 Yet there would be less confusion in a changing grain 
 measure than in a changing money measure, because the 
 effect of the latter would be more general. 
 
 And a silver standard would be such a money measure 
 because silver is a commodity of uncertain market value.
 
 . I IBS, "R WHAT? 45 
 
 \Vitli a silver basis, or measure of money, the farmer 
 would be at as great loss to know what he got for his 
 wheat, barley, corn, oats and rye as if the bushel basis or 
 measure of grain changed every day. 
 
 Gold is now the unchanging measure of money just as 
 (he bushel is the unchanging measure of corn. 
 
 Can any practical man desire to change either? 
 
 RATIO BETWEEN GOLD AND SILVER. 
 
 "Coin" has a good deal to say about the commercial 
 latio of silver to gold. He goes back a century or two 
 and shows that this ratio was fairly steady s through the 
 period he goes over. This is true, and there were a num- 
 ber of good reasons for it, the chief being that the produc- 
 tion of gold and silver were happily in about the propor- 
 tions needed. 
 
 But it suits his purpose not to go further back than 
 HIST. Prior to 1680, covering the period from 1493, there 
 had been a change of 50 per cent, in the ratio. 
 ~ The "appreciation" of gold and the depreciation of sil- 
 ver through this period is a very interesting circumstance 
 in connection with the silver doctrine. 
 
 And the cause of the decline in silver was the same 
 as now, namely, a largely increased production, though 
 it worked more slowly for two reasons. First, owing to 
 the fact that in former times there was a scarcity of both 
 gold and silver, and it was not difficult to absorb as money 
 all that could be had of either; secondly, all movements 
 were slow a few hundred years ago; what is now accom- 
 plished within two or three years then required a cen- 
 uiry. The increased production of silver was slow, and 
 though the quantity was comparatively small, the per 
 cent, compared w r ith production in former periods was 
 great. 
 
 The commercial ratio of silver to gold in the 15th cen- 
 tury was a fraction over 10 to 1. In the 17th century it 
 was a fraction over 15 to 1. This was in 1680. 
 
 "( 'oin," convenient ly, begins his table in KJST, and com- 
 pletely ignores the most remarkable rhsingr that ever oc- 
 curred between the metals, the most remarkable owing to 
 the general scarcity of money of all kinds, and particular-
 
 46 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 ly of the precious metals. And the change is clearly di- 
 rectly traceable to the ratio of production between the 
 metals. 
 
 On pages 174 and 175 of the report of the Bureau of the 
 Mint, 1894, may be found a table showing the production 
 of both in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. In the early 
 part of the loth century the per centage of silver pro- 
 duced was very small, being from 1493 to 1520 only $5-1,- 
 703,000, while the production of gold in the same period 
 was 1107,931,000. The ratio at that time was not far from 
 10 to 1. But the output of silver soon began to largely 
 increase, and after 1544 the production of gold began to 
 fall off. The following table from page 175 of the report 
 shows the relative production in value of the metals dur- 
 ing the period referred to: 
 
 Per Cent, of Production. 
 Year, A. D. Gold. Silver. 
 
 1493-1520 66 33 
 
 1521-1544 55 44 
 
 1^45-1560 30 69 
 
 15G1-1580 26 73 
 
 1591-1600 22 78 
 
 1601-1620 24 75 
 
 1621-1640 25 74 - 
 
 1641-1660 27 72 
 
 1661-1680 30 69 
 
 In 1680 the ratio of values stood at something over 
 15 to 1. 
 
 The above table explains the cause of the decline in sil- 
 ver in that period, and no argument is needed. 
 
 Its production largely increased, and that of gold large- 
 ly declined. There was no "demonetization," or "un- 
 friendly" silver legislation in that day. It could have 
 been affected only by the natural laws of supply and de- 
 mand. Considering the conditions then prevailing the 
 decline was even more remarkable than the decline of 50 
 per cent, in the value of silver since 1873. In the latter 
 period its output became so great that, owing to its bulk 
 and weight the currency systems of the world could not 
 absorb it. 
 
 The table referred to extends down to the present time, 
 and, if considered with reference to general conditions 
 and influences at different periods, is an interesting study. 
 It gives convincing proof that a double standard of money 
 value has at all times been uncertain. No proof ought to 
 be needed that such a standard, on any basis, is now im- 
 possible, owing to the fact that there is now a real sur-
 
 IK.LLAKS. UK WHAT? 47 
 
 plus of silver; and anything of which there is a surplus is 
 of unstable value and purely speculative, subject to sud- 
 den and violent fluctuations. No such thing can furnish 
 a safe financial corner stone. 
 
 Xo country can prosper on a money basis bobbing up 
 and down. There could be no certain profit in busi;, 
 nor any steady or satisfactory remuneration for labor, 
 with dollars worth 60 cents today, and 55 or 65 cents to- 
 morrow. 
 
 A silver standard in America would make it necessary 
 for a man each day to wait the silver quotations from the 
 London market to ascertain how much money he had, how 
 much his neighbor owed him, or how much he owed his 
 neighbor. As to wages, or the cost of living a month or 
 year in the future, he could form small estimate. Xo 
 equitable scale of wages could be agreed on between em- 
 ployer and employe. The money would be liable to go 
 down in purchasing value till the workman could not live 
 on his pay; or it might go up till it would bankrupt the 
 in j (lover. There could be no confidence between the men 
 who give work and those who work. Frequent adjust- 
 ments would be a necessity. Strikes and grievances 
 would multiply; uncertainty in pay and profit, and dissat- 
 isfaction would become general. 
 
 If a man insured his life for the benefit of his family, he 
 could make no estimate on what they would really get at 
 his death. The sum might be more than he counted, or 
 it might be a great deal less. 
 
 If he sold his house, or his farm, for a given sum, the 
 note he took in payment would be in the nature of a lot- 
 tery ticket; the money might go up, and the final payment 
 be more than he expected, or it might go down and be less 
 than he expected. If he were in delu the rise mi gin en- 
 able him to square accounts with ease; or the decline 
 might embarrass or cripple him. He might draw a ;n i/e 
 or a blank. 
 
 it is doubtless unfortunate for mankind that silver has 
 become so abundant that it is unsteady in value. ;md con 
 sequently uncertain and unsafe as a basis of money. It 
 is also unfortunate for the farmer that overproduction and 
 competition have so greatly reduced the price of wheat; 
 but these facts exist, and it is more sensible to look them 
 <jqnarely in the face, than to theorize, worry, and n: 
 things generally, in a vain effort to change them.
 
 48 . DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 It may be unfortunate that gold is now the only money 
 metal that has a safely steady value on which present or 
 future obligations can with equal safety be based, but 
 such is the case; and it does no good to fret and rail about 
 it Natural and irresistible agencies, controlled by no 
 class of men, brought about this condition; and, if the 
 condition ever changes, natural, and not unnatural agen- 
 cies must bring the change. It can not be done by legis- 
 lative edicts at Washington. 
 
 EXPORTS OF SILVER. 
 
 The production of silver in this country continues to 
 add to our money circulation an amount equal to the mar- 
 ketable value of all the metal mined, less the amount 
 used in domestic arts. The surplus is exported, and 
 either brings an equal amount of gold into the country 
 or keeps an equal amount of gold from going out. In 
 1894 we exported and sold abroad $39,555,879 of domestic 
 silver. This silver either added or saved to our currency 
 an equal amount of money. If it had been coined into 
 money and kept at home, we should have been obliged to 
 send abroad an equal amount of gold, unless we had in- 
 creased our indebtedness to foreign lenders. The United 
 States does not destroy silver when it quits coining the 
 metal. It is sold, and our circulation increased that 
 much. The increase creates no apprehension and is sub- 
 stantial. It is gold, and each dollar has an intrinsic value 
 of 100 cents. If the silver were coined into dollars they 
 would add more to the volume of circulation, but would 
 possess an intrinsic value no greater than the export valuo 
 of the metal; and its coinage would drive out more gold 
 than the gain in silver circulation. 
 
 OBSTACLES IN THE WAY OF FREE SILVER. 
 
 If the currency of the United States were not on a gold 
 basis, and there were no gold in circulation, the free coin- 
 age of silver could be accomplished without sudden shock 
 and disaster, because no large part of the money would be 
 withdrawn from circulation, suddenly contracting the 
 currency; and also because there would be no sudden and
 
 . OK WHAT? 4!) 
 
 violent unsettling of credits and values, and sudden with- 
 drawals of foreign capital. Under a well arranged note 
 system, based on silver, there would be a gradual increase 
 in the volume of money, and possibly a general rise in 
 values; though so long as the paper were within safe 
 limits higher prices would result rather than from the 
 cheapening of silver, the basis of the money, from in- 
 creased over supply, than from the actual volume of cur- 
 rency put out Under such circumstances the free silver 
 advocates could obtain their desire an immediate in- 
 crease in the money supply. 
 
 There are good grounds, however, for the belief that th<> 
 United States would, under any system OB a silver basis, 
 be under serious disadvantages as a progressive nation. 
 and that owing to these disadvantages its enterprises 
 would languish; but if we were not on a gold basis, it 
 could by free coinage doubtless make money, such as it 
 would be, abundant, without the danger of serious dis- 
 turbance for the time being, its fluctuation in value not 
 considered. (This assumption, however, it may be said 
 is theoretical.) 
 
 This is what the free silver people desire to accomplish. 
 But they overlook the fact that $626,000,000 of our money 
 is* gold, and that this part of it would immediately dis- 
 appear, and by sudden contraction, disastrously defeat 
 their purpose. They ignore our foreign indebtedness of 
 probably about $2,000,000,000, a large part of which 
 would have to be settled, and soon take all the available 
 gold, and much silver besides. 
 
 These are some of the difficulties in the way of free coin- 
 age. It would seem that they are simple and clear 
 enough for reasoning men to see them. They are so ap- 
 palling that if we should ignore them we should become a 
 nation of bankrupts and the wonder of the world. 
 
 Free coinage of silver means a silver basis, li'ith silvct as the 
 only metallic money, and a loss to the currency 0/ 626,000,000 
 gold.
 
 50 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 DO WE WANT BIMETALLISM ? 
 
 There was in the United States on November 1st, as 
 elsewhere stated, approximately $625,000,000 silver and 
 1626,000,000 gold. 
 
 Shall we use both the silver and the gold, or shall we 
 use only one, and get rid of $626,000,000 of the other 
 money? 
 
 To use both is bimetallism; to use one is monomet- 
 allism. Are we bimetallists, or are we monometallists? 
 
 England is practically a monometallic country, since it 
 uses but $112,000,000 of silver, all told, and that as a lim- 
 ited legal tender. China, Japan, Mexico and most South 
 American countries are also monometallic countries, 
 since they use only silver. France and Germany are bi- 
 metallic countries, both using gold and silver; the latter 
 in larger quantities than England, and a large per cent, 
 of it as full legal tender. 
 
 France, next to the United States, uses more legal ten- 
 der silver than any other bimetallic countrv, the amount 
 being $434,000,000. 
 
 Germany uses $215,000,000, all told, only $105,000,000 
 being legal tender. 
 
 The United States has $549,000,000 full legal tender sil- 
 ver, $626,000,000 legal tender gold, and $76,000,000 silver 
 half dollars, quarters and dimes, which are limited legal 
 tender. Both kinds of money, under our present laws 
 and policy, are good, and both (excepting the fractional 
 coin) a full legal tender for the payment of debts to indi- 
 viduals and of dues to the government. 
 
 Are we satisfied to keep and use them both in safe 
 quantities or are we partial and obstinate, and shall we 
 determine to use but one and drive the other out of circu- 
 lation and out of the county? 
 
 I believe these are needless questions. 
 
 It would be hard to see what the country could gain and 
 easy to see what it would lose by such a course. The 
 masses of the people of the South and North ninety-nine 
 in every hundred are straight out bimetallists. The 
 writer is a bimetallist. He believes with the ninety-nine 
 in every hundred Southern and Northern men, in the use 
 of both gold and silver, and all other good money we can
 
 DOLLABS, OK WHAT? r,i 
 
 get; but lie does not believe in using more silver than can 
 be handled with convenience to the people, and safety to 
 the Government He believes also that the coinage of 
 silver should be regulated by its absorption as a circulat- 
 ing medium by the amount the people are willing to 
 take and use, and keep in circulation its idle accumula- 
 tion in large sums in the treasury vaults being useless 
 aud dangerous at the present ratio. He does not how- 
 ever believe in schemes to force the increased and in- 
 convenient use of silver by the withdrawal from circula- 
 tion of small denominations of paper money. 
 
 Xow, how are we to continue bimetallism? The silver 
 dollar circulates in the same channels as the gold dollar, 
 of equal purchasing and debt-paying value. 
 
 But the gold dollar has an intrinsic and marketable 
 \ alue nearly double the silver dollar. It can be melted 
 down and sold at the rate of about $20 per ounce, or foir 
 one hundred cents, in any country in the world, but if the 
 silver dollar be melted down it can be sold for only about 
 sixty-two cents an ounce (the present market price), or 
 something over fifty cents. Then why does the gold dol- 
 lar circulate with the silver dollar? Why do not the peo- 
 ple melt down their gold dollars and sell them, and keep 
 the dollars with less marketable value for use in paying 
 obligations and making purchases? 
 
 Is it because the United States has put its dollar stamp 
 on the silver piece? 
 
 Xo. That stamp, of itself, does not add the fraction of 
 a cent to the value of the silver piece. 
 
 It is because the affirmed policy of the United States 
 makes its silver dollar interchangeable with its gold dol- 
 lar; and because it undertakes to keep not less than 
 $100,000,000 in gold on hand, so that it may have an abun- 
 dance of the dollars of one hundred cents marketable 
 value to maintain the Interchangeable quality of its 
 cheaper, fluctuating silver money, and its otherwise 
 worthless paper money. Thus we have bimetallism as 
 the word is generally understood. 
 
 But it ought not to be hard to see that this $100,000,000 
 "old reserve is already subject to considerable strain. 
 It supports all the silver, either in the form of coined sil- 
 ver or paper silver certificates, and all other forms of 
 paper, making a total of about eleven hundred million
 
 52 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 dollars directly dependent on that reserve for its full 
 face value. 
 
 Now, if under our present financial system we coin any 
 more silver we increase the strain on the gold reserve, 
 which alone makes all our money good. It is compara- 
 tively a small sum, say one-eleventh of the money it sup- 
 ports and gives value to. It could not have been kept 
 on hand a week at any time since it was established but 
 for the confidence the world has in the promises and in- 
 tegrity of the Government. One-eleventh of the fiat 
 money taken to the Treasury window would have taken 
 it all out. But trusting the Government's integrity of 
 purpose, and its ability to maintain that gold reserve, 
 none of it was ever drawn upon, except for purely com- 
 mercial purposes, till the Sherman law was passed in 
 1890 providing for increased coinage of silver at the rate 
 of $54,000,000 per annum, thus increasing by that amount 
 annually the strain on that gold reserre. Serious finan- 
 cial disturbances followed. The gold reserve declined 
 rapidly. The danger became so great and so imminent 
 that the Sherman law was repealed in 1893, though with 
 great difficulty, owing chiefly to obstructive measures of 
 Senators from the mining districts of the West, who 
 wanted to put the country on a silver basis. Full confi- 
 dence has not yet returned. It was retarded by the 
 appearance of a strong and determined free coinage ele- 
 ment in the Fifty-third Congress. 
 
 Now, with these simple facts before Mm, stated in a 
 straightforward way, the writer is sure that any candid 
 man (though he may have advocated free coinage) must 
 admit that the United States cannot coin any consider- 
 able quantity more silver without wiping out that gold 
 reserve. 
 
 Admitting this, we get back to the question: Do we 
 want bimetallism? Do we want to use both gold and 
 silver as now, and have about $24* per capita good, full 
 value money, or are we willing to drive out the gold for 
 the sake of coining the product of the Western mines, 
 and have, for a time at least, only about $16 poor money 
 per capita, worth really only about $8 full value per 
 capita? We would increase the $8 per capita as the 
 Western mines turned out silver and as other countries 
 
 1894 government reports estimate about S'25 per capita.
 
 1HU.I.AKS, ni: WHAT? 
 
 might sell us their accumulation of the unwieldy metal. 
 But we should be so hopelessly bankrupted that those 
 of us now living would not feel much concern as to the 
 future supply of the uncertain and cumbersome money. 
 
 That supply would probably eventually be abundant, 
 though depreciating and fluctuating, and therefore con- 
 st antlj unsettling values and trade. But in the mean- 
 time, with money on the basis of $8, present purchase 
 value, per capita, what would become of the people and 
 industries of the United States a people accustomed 
 to s24 per capita, and enjoying credits to the extent of 
 probably $15,000,000,000 or $20,000,000,000* based di- 
 rectly on that $24 per capita and on that $100,000,000 
 gold reserve? 
 
 Is there a man In America whose imagination would 
 not stagger under an attempt to conceive the conse- 
 quences of such a calamity? 
 
 While Mexico and the Western silver mines rehabili- 
 tated our currency with a metal which the people now 
 absolutely refuse to accept in any quantity, and of which 
 only about fifty-six million full legal tender dollars can 
 possibly be circulated (a great part of that lying idly in 
 the bank vaults), what would become of the idle, penni- 
 less men, women and children of the United States, with 
 creditors like wolves swarming about them? 
 
 Is there any man who can read the plain, truthful 
 statements here made and not understand them? And 
 if he understands them, is he a bimetallist, or is he for 
 free coinage and silver monometallism? 
 
 Of what avail are such sophistries, catching cartoons, 
 ingenious illustrations, questionings and deceptive rea- 
 sonings as are contained in "Coin's Financial School" 
 when set against the serious facts and simple, naked 
 truths of the real situation? It is little less than criminal 
 to deal in sophistries and artful deceptions when such 
 momentous interests are at stake. 
 
 We want bimetallism, and not silver monometallism. 
 
 'Including individual indebtedness credits arc estimated
 
 54 DOLLARS, OR WHAT ? 
 
 FREE COINAGE NOT FREE DISTRIBUTION. 
 
 Suppose it be admitted that the free coinage of silver 
 would be a blessing, and would at once increase the vol- 
 ume of money in the country as a whole in what way 
 would it increase the supply in individual pockets? 
 
 How would it even increase the supply in non-silver 
 producing sections? 
 
 Free silver does not mean that the government would 
 coin and send it about the country on pack horses and in 
 wagons inviting every man to help himself. There will 
 be no "forty acres and a mule" distribution, unless it be 
 to the Western miners, at the end of this free silver fight, 
 no matter how it may terminate. 
 
 The metal is produced in the mining sections of the 
 West. The people who mine it would have the privilege 
 of sending it to the government mints and getting it 
 coined into money. When coined it w r ould belong to 
 them. 
 
 They would not scatter it around among their friends 
 in Georgia, South Carolina and Illinois. They would 
 take it back to Montana and Colorado. 
 
 If vast quantities of silver were mined the people out 
 West might accumulate vast quantities of money. The 
 "silver bugs" of that section might become as rich and 
 obnoxious as the "gold bugs" of the East Denver might 
 become a great money center, but what advantage would 
 that be to the people of Alabama or Michigan? 
 
 There is already idle money by the hundreds of millions 
 in some sections of the country, but the people of other 
 sections cannot get it because they buy about as much 
 as they sell, and have no favorable balance of trade to 
 bring it to them. 
 
 If the silver barons of the West were multiplied by the 
 score, and if all the followers of the mining camps were 
 to grow rich and great, it is not easy to see how the 
 farmers of Mississippi or Ohio would be benefited any 
 more than they are now benefited by the vast accumula- 
 tions of money stored in the vaults of Eastern banks. 
 
 If every tenth man in Colorado were made a million- 
 aire, and the fortunes of all were in cash, that accuniula-
 
 DOLLARS "I; WHAT? 
 
 tiou of money could no more put up prices than docs the 
 pres.-:it hoards in the East. 
 
 The truth is that the supply of money lias little to do 
 with prices, which are based on the cost of production, 
 but regulated by supply and demand. They are affected 
 also by the state of credits. 
 
 1'rosperity, which stimulates prices, depends upon safe 
 credits more than upon the volume of money. 
 
 Money may IK- abundant, and prosperity wholly lack- 
 ing'; but credit cannot be abundant without prosperity. 
 
 < 'untidence, which is the basis of credit, increases the 
 use and active supply of money. It is also a great dis- 
 tributor of money, a great equalizer of its circulation. 
 
 The advocates of inflation, whether by free coinage of 
 silver, or other methods, destroy confidence and thus de- 
 si roy the only rational means of securing what they real- 
 ly want, an active increase of the volume of money in the 
 nnels of trade. 
 
 They get hold of the wrong horn of the dilemma. They 
 propose an artificial and consequently unsafe increase 
 in the money supply, believing that they can thus ru- 
 < :-'-ase the circulation and put up prices. 
 
 -The plan inevitably works the wrong way. Too many 
 distrust the scheme. 
 
 The money is locked up, nobody wants to invest, or to 
 buy beyond actual needs, and prices go down instead 
 
 ap. 
 
 Then the stump orator comes upon the scene, abuses 
 the "gold bugs," and lays the consequences of this folly 
 at the door of the "money power." 
 
 Ftec silver -would reduce by half the value of all pensions, 
 'Cliffs, life insurance payments, bank deposits, and of her evidences 
 of credit. 
 
 GOLD STANDARD AND PROSPERITY. 
 
 ee silver orators and writers claim that we have tried 
 the gold standard shire ISTS, and that tilings have gradu 
 all-. ufov:n worse, and that it is now time to try some- 
 thing 'ise, meaning free silver. This statement is untrue
 
 56 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 in every particular. The period from 1878 to 1890 was 
 in all respects the most prosperous in the history of the 
 country. The increase in population, the industrial 
 growth, the influx of foreign capital and the expansion 
 of enterprise was not merely extraordinary, it was mar- 
 velous. It was a development never equaled, or even ap- 
 proached, in any country in the history of the world. In 
 1878 the West was practically unsettled and undevel- 
 oped. Since then its broad acres have been brought un- 
 der cultivation, and its hamlets have become populous 
 and prosperous cities. In 1878 the South practically had 
 neither capital nor manufacturing industries. Its iron 
 and coal were almost untouched; its railroads were lack- 
 ing in traffic, in bad repair, without substantial equip- 
 ment or organization, and for eighteen years there had 
 been little new construction. In those twelve years three 
 and a half times as many cotton mills were built in the 
 South as were built during the previous one hundred 
 years. The increase of spindles was more than 350 per 
 cent. More capital was invested in mining and iron pro- 
 duction, ten times over, than in the previous history of 
 the country since its settlement. The same activity and 
 energy prevailed in all lines of industry. The develop- 
 ment of the West and Northwest was not less wonderful. 
 Denver, Kansas City, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Detroit and 
 Milwaukee grew from townships to big cities; the popu- 
 lation of Chicago grew from a few hundred thousand to 
 a million of inhabitants. The North also enjoyed un- 
 equaled prosperity. In that period our stock of gold in- 
 creased from $213,000,000 to f 690,000,000, a net increase 
 of $477.000,000; our stock of silver increased from $87,- 
 000,000' to $440,000,000, a net increase of $353,000,000. 
 Deposits in State and National banks increased from 
 $800,000,000 to $2,200,000,000, showing in twelve years 
 the unprecedented increase of nearly 300 per cent, in the 
 savings and accumulations of the people. And in the 
 same period the bonded debt of the United States, about 
 which the free silver men make so much noise, was re- 
 duced from nearly $1,800,000,000 to about $600,000,000, 
 a great reduction of two-thirds or say, about $1,200,000,- 
 000 of the interest bearing debt of the country. The 
 credit of the nation was so improved that the rate of in- 
 terest on government bonds was reduced from a five per 
 cent to a three per cent, basis. Throughout the country,
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT.' 
 
 as a whole, prosperity reigned, and if the people were 
 not satisfied with the condition it was because content- 
 ment is not the lot of humanity. 
 
 It is certain that the Western silver barons were dis- 
 gruntled through all these years, the brightest in the an- 
 nals of any people, and they were persistently and surely 
 undermining the confidence which made such magnificent 
 growth and prosperity possible. Their movements were 
 watched with keen and anxious interest the world over 
 by the men of capital and enterprise, who had set the 
 busy wheels of progress in motion. In 1890 they forced 
 the passage of the Sherman law, the baneful effect of 
 which almost criminal blunder is fully explained in other 
 articles in this work, and is known to the whole world. 
 Prosperity and progress were soon at an end. The coun- 
 try w r as no longer safely on a gold basis. Distrust, un- 
 certainty and stagnation supplanted hope, confidence 
 and activity. 
 
 The free silver people claim that if the Sherman law 
 was the cause of these misfortunes that its repeal in 1893 
 ought to have removed them. Such argument is extreme- 
 ly foolish. It is a fact well known to the world that the 
 "Fifty-third Congress was practically a free silver body. 
 The failure of a bill to sustain the faith and credit of the 
 government was greeted with cheers from members in 
 the lower house. It is also loudly and vociferously her- 
 alded by free silver advocates that the doctrine is spread- 
 ing and taking deeper root in all parts of the land. With 
 our gold standard so vigorously assailed since the day 
 the Sherman law was repeapled, and its very existence 
 in such grave doubt, no well informed, well balanced man 
 would argue that the country is, or has been since 1893, 
 in position to further test the merits of the gold standard. 
 But as any candid man must admit, its merits were fully 
 tested from 1878 to 1890, and with results that ania/.<><l 
 mankind. But in 1890, as stated, its existence was threat- 
 ened, and that folly also amazed mankind, excepting only 
 the advocates of free silver.
 
 58 DOLLARS, OR WHAT ? 
 
 THE LOSSES OF 1893. 
 
 It has been claimed that the banks "combined" to raid 
 the Treasury and bring on the panic of 1893. It ought 
 not be necessary to combat this absurd contention, but 
 so many people believe it to be true that it may not be 
 amiss to show who sustained the losses of that calamity. 
 
 The New York Herald estimated, from actual market 
 quotations, that within a short time the shrinkage in the 
 value of stocks and bonds listed on the New York Stock 
 Exchange was $700,000,000. These stocks were largely 
 owned or held by banks as collateral for loans. Scores 
 of operators in Wall street were beggared. Nearly 700 
 banks throughout the country, many of which afterward 
 became wholly insolvent from sudden shrinkage of as- 
 sets, were forced to close doors. Capitalists and investors 
 suffered in proportion. The total losses directly and in- 
 directly sustained by the monied interests of the country 
 amounted to thousands of millions. Banks that did not 
 fail, lost heavily, suffering in many instances serious im- 
 pairment of capital. Deposits shrunk from 25 to 75 per 
 cent., and banking for a .time, to say nothing of losses, 
 was wholly without profit; and owing to general stagna- 
 tion and uncertainty, there has since been no money in 
 the business. 
 
 Even the free silver advocate does not claim that the 
 bankers and capitalists of the country are fools. Yet this 
 is the only conclusion if they really "combined" to bring 
 on that panic. Such losses surely follow all panics, and 
 nobody understands this so well as the man who handles 
 money. 
 
 To stay the general disaster at the time, the New York 
 banks imperiled their own safety by loaning money to 
 banks in every part of the Union. I doubt whether there 
 would have been a dozen banks witll open doors in Ten- 
 nessee if aid from the New York "gold bugs" had been 
 refused, and the ruin of business men and borrowers of 
 all classes would have been complete. What is said of 
 Tennessee was true in greater or less degree of all South- 
 ern and Western states. The "gold bugs" used clearing 
 house certificates at home, and at great risk sent good 
 money throughout the land in answer to the general cry
 
 DOLLARS, OK WHAT? 59 
 
 <>f distress. These fads are well known to every w r ell 
 posted man. The writer believes that these bankers have 
 made some mistakes in policy, as all men do; but what- 
 ever their errors of judgment, they have never "con- 
 spired" against the government or people, and the free 
 silver sections of the South and West owe them a debt 
 of gratitude that must remain long unsettled. 
 
 It may be added that the reason bank men, almost as 
 u unit, oppose free silver, is not that they want to "con- 
 spire" against anybody, but because they so thoroughly 
 understand the disaster that would follow. They know 
 that its increased coinage under the Sherman act brought 
 the panic of 1893. THiey do not gness or think that this 
 was the cause, but they know that it was. And they do 
 not want any more silver panics, particularly not a free 
 silver panic, which they also know would be the worst 
 of all. They know that they could not stand the conse- 
 quent losses, and they know that the people could not 
 stand them. The only selfish motive they have in trying 
 to maintain the present gold standard is to restore pros- 
 perity to the country, and consequently to restore their 
 former earnings and profits. This is a kind of selfishness 
 common to all men. 
 
 This article is not intended in any sense as a vindica- 
 tion of hankers and monied men, but merely to remove 
 mistaken notions which are in the way of sound money 
 legislation. 
 
 Men send for a doctor when they are sick, a lawyer 
 when they want legal redress, a preacher when they want 
 spiritual comfort, a plumber when the water pipe bursts; 
 they go to an architect when they want to build a house, 
 si -iid the horse to the blacksmith when they want him 
 shod, engage a gardener to turn the ground and plant 
 seed, and hire a rail splitter when the farm needs fencing; 
 ir.it when finances get out of joint, they abuse and turn a 
 deaf ear to the men who handle the money and know 
 most about it. There is a flaw somewhere in this general 
 way of doing things. It might be well for awhile as an 
 experiment to have the lawyers shoe the horses and the 
 rail splitters dose ihe sick. If the shoes pinched and the 
 {atients languished, these things would be in keeping 
 with the clumsy tinkering and patching by novices of the 
 nation's finances.
 
 60 DOLLARS, OK WHAT ? 
 
 THE MONEY POWER. 
 
 Suppose, for the sake of argument, we admit the false 
 notion that the "money power" is unreasonably preju- 
 diced against silver. Is a remedy possible if applied only 
 in the United States? And how can any legal remedy 
 be applied? Money cannot be legislated out of bank 
 vaults at home and abroad, and out of the pockets of the 
 people, and put into circulation in the United States. We 
 are not necessarily a borrowing people, and whether that 
 policy be right or wrong we are not in condition, nor in 
 position, to put a stop to borrowing. We must have for- 
 eign money, and also the use of home accumulations, to 
 carry our obligations and to develop our resources. But 
 can we pass laws to make Englishmen send over money 
 to build our railroads; to make home capitalists build 
 and operate furnaces, mills, open mines and buy our sur- 
 plus lands, and to make lenders discount our notes and 
 accept our bills? 
 
 When we agitate and approach free coinage all these 
 people lock their money up. Home money lenders are 
 alarmed and foreign capitalists look upon us with con- 
 tempt. Industrial progress comes to a standstill. We 
 may fuss and fume and beat the air all we are a mind to, 
 but our impotent fury merely closes the money chests 
 tighter. The people we rail at are not merely the Roths- 
 childs, a few great financial concerns in England, and a 
 few thousand bankers in America. That vague, greatly 
 abused and little understood thing, the "money power," 
 is a mightier force than even the populists claim that it 
 is. It is the PEOPLE the millions of intelligent, thrifty 
 and prudent people who have put aside the accumula- 
 tions of their industry. Every man who has saved and 
 owns money, whether the sum be f 100 or f 100,000, or who 
 holds the notes of his neighbor, who is a depositor in a 
 savings bank, or who is an investor in securities, state 
 bonds or mortgages, is one of the "money power." If his 
 hoard be only f 100 he is as easily frightened and runs to 
 cover as quickly as the man with a million. He is, indeed, 
 more apt to lock his money up and put it entirely out of 
 sight and out of reach than the larger and broader holder. 
 If you have anything to sell, you cannot sell it to him.
 
 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 61 
 
 Price counts for nothing. If you ask lii-m to join you in 
 an enterprise, he laughs at you. If you would borrow of 
 him, he shies at your collateral. He may not be learned 
 in the science of money. He may tell you that he knows 
 nothing about the financial question, but he knows how 
 to make you pay if you owe him ; and if you scare him, 
 lie knows how to lock up his money and keep it. 
 
 He may be a populist or a free silver advocate many 
 of these I have observed grip the purse strings tightest, 
 and they generally grab for gold when they put money 
 into holes or stockings but whatever he be, he is one of 
 that mighty army composing the "money power." There 
 are some six or eight millions of them. They fill every 
 vocation and avenue of life. They are lawyers, doctors, 
 artisans, merchants, laborers, farmers, preachers, beg- 
 gars, guardians, trustees, executors, capitalists, men and 
 women, old and young. They own the stocks of the sav- 
 ings banks, the national banks, trust companies and other 
 corporations; own the money deposits; and the offi< -ers 
 of these institutions are merely the paid instmments 
 used by them. If they heap money upon bank counters, 
 these custodians of their earnings must use great care 
 and discretion in the keeping and disposition of their 
 ~funds. If they want the money they have committed to 
 the care of the banks, whether to invest or to hoard, it 
 must always be ready for them. The banker is branded 
 with incompetency and disgrace, or with dereliction of 
 duty and sent to prison, if he cannot pay. This is the 
 "money power" that cornered money and brought on 
 the money panic of 1893. Whatever may be the pre< -ipi- 
 tating cause, it is the "power" that brings on all finan- 
 cial disturbances. It is the "power" which now dis- 
 trusts the financial policy of the United States. It is the 
 "power" which believes there is more silver in the mines 
 of the world than can be safely used as money by the 
 United States without driving out its better money- 
 gold and which fears great disaster from further silver 
 legislation. It is a "power" which cannot be driven nor 
 legislated into buying and selling, lending, building and 
 developing. It will stand stock still till it gets ready 
 to move. Railery, threats and denunciation do not budge 
 it. It is the power of human avarice and self-preserva- 
 tion. Show it gain, confidence, stability, and it welcomes 
 you. Threaten it with free coinage of silver and depre-
 
 62 DOLLARS, OR WHAT? 
 
 elated money and it draws away in alarm, yet grim and 
 resolute. 
 
 Since this almighty "money power" is afraid of free 
 silver, and will again and indefinitely arrest every in- 
 dustry and enterprise in the country if that heresy be 
 threatened or instituted, what folly and madness to fly 
 in the face of it! 
 
 We want prosperity, and we cannot have it unless we 
 fully satisfy the people who have money to invest, 
 whether in small or large sums. 
 
 The free silver people do not look at the practical con- 
 dition and situation of things. Theyhave a theory, and 
 reason in the abstract. They block progress and distress 
 the country exploiting that theory. They would with- 
 draw the corner stone of thousands of millions of credits 
 and topple the whole financial and commercial structure 
 experimenting with that theory. Practical men know 
 that it is a mere theory, vicious and dangerous. It is a 
 catching theory, because with it is coupled abuse of the 
 "money power," which so many voters fail utterly to 
 comprehend. The voter himself may be an important 
 factor in the "money power," yet unable to understand 
 it be filled with prejudice and resentment against it. 
 Any of us who are industrious and thrifty, and who have 
 saved money, are part of that much abused and really 
 potential "power." 
 
 Will a large per cent of the voters of the country con- 
 tinue to blindly follow these free coinage theorists, or 
 have they had enough of them and of the disasters that 
 follow in their wake? 
 
 If we want to start our mills and give life to our enter- 
 prises, they furnish us no money with which to do these 
 things. The worst and loudest of them merely want our 
 votes and the fat offices we can give them. It is to the 
 "money power" we must look for the means of paying 
 our labor and handling our products. If we want to sell 
 a farm, a horse, a crop of wheat, a bale of cotton, a town 
 lot, we never think of the free coinage orator, but go to 
 some person who belongs to the "money power" and 
 strike him for a trade. Let us make friends with these 
 people, and cast out utterly the theorists and designing 
 demagogues, who would destroy us, professing (for our 
 votes) to love us, and to be infinitely concerned for us.
 
 DOLLARS. OK WHAT? 153 
 
 "PRIVILEGES "OF NATIONAL BANKS. 
 
 National Banks have no "privileges," in the sense that 
 they are a favored class of institutions. During, and for 
 a time subsequent to the war period, when government 
 bonds were low priced, and bore high rates of interest, 
 there was a good profit In National bank note circula- 
 tion, but that day has passed; and there is now a well 
 defined loss to the National banks in the exercise of their 
 "privileges." This has been the case for a good many 
 years. 
 
 To issue $45,000 circulation now, a bank must invest 
 $57,000 of its capital in United States bonds, to be de- 
 posited with the United States Treasury to secure its 
 circulation. This estimate is based on four per cent, 
 bonds at 1.14, about an average price for eighteen 
 months. 
 
 The bank must then deposit $2,250 with the Treasurer 
 to the credit of a fund known as the five per cent, redemp- 
 tion fund, leaving it the use of $42,750 on an investment 
 of $57,000. Therefore it loses entirely the use of $14,250 
 of its capital. Money is worth eight per cent, throughout 
 the South and West, and in other localities. Counting 
 interest at eight per cent the loss on this item annually 
 is $1,140. 
 
 The four per cent, bonds mature in 1907 twelve years 
 hence. At maturity the face value only will be paid. 
 Therefore in twelve years the bank loses $7,000 premium 
 it paid for the bonds. The annual loss on this item is 
 $583. 
 
 There is a tax of one per cent, on the circulation. The 
 loss on this account is annually $450. 
 
 These three items constitute the principal cost of the 
 National banking "privileges." 
 
 There is but one item of profit, which is the interest 
 on the bonds. This for twelve months is $2,000. 
 
 Therefore, at the end of the year, the account stands 
 as follows: 
 
 Interest on the S14.2"*) iu>in Sl.l In 
 
 Annual loss on the $7,000 premium item 
 
 Tax on circulation -Ion 
 
 Total loss Sl',173 
 
 Less Interest n $50,000 bonds 2,000 
 
 Net loss to hank 17:1
 
 64 DOLLARS, OR WHAT ? 
 
 Counting the $14,250 item on a basis of six per cent., 
 there would be an apparent profit of $112; but it would 
 be apparent only. Other items of expense incident to 
 the system would much more than wipe it out. But I 
 base the estimate on eight per cent, as it is in the East 
 only and in the money centers that lower rates prevail. 
 
 Other items of cost are National bank examiners' fees, 
 $50 per year, if two examinations are made; the adver- 
 tising of five annual statements; the exchange and ex- 
 press charges in keeping intact the $2,250 redemption 
 fund, and in transportation' of new issues of notes; loss 
 in circulation while new notes are in process of substitu- 
 tion for old, or mutilated notes; attention and labor in 
 making various reports, and other items of direct or in- 
 direct cost It is safe to say that the "privilege" costs a 
 National bank, issuing $45,000 currency, directly, not 
 less than $350 per annum. 
 
 If the bank has a large line of deposits the cost is muca 
 more, owing to increased work in making examinations 
 and reports 
 
 In reserve cities banks are also required to carry 
 twenty-five per cent reserve, their own notes, and other 
 specified moneys and sight exchange not counting as 
 part of this reserve. The class of assets they carry and 
 the kind of paper they discount is also prescribed by law 
 or regulation. 
 
 A State bank, with equal capital and deposits, can 
 make more money than a National bank. As at present 
 constituted, the National banking system is a decaying 
 system, and no new National banks would be organized 
 but for the reason that the people trust them more than 
 they do State banks, and the more readily patronize 
 them. And this is an anomaly, considering the general 
 prejudice against them. 
 
 It is readily seen that it is a mistaken prejudice. It 
 is one that would soon disappear if the facts were known. 
 As recently stated by the New York Journal of Commerce 
 and Commercial Bulletin, this prejudice has much to do 
 with the free silver sentiment of the South and other 
 sections, and if pains were taken by the press to publish 
 the simple facts, and make them generally understood, 
 the most serious difficulty in the way of a simple and 
 proper revision of our currency system would be removed.
 
 >ress Comments. 
 
 "I regard it as an unusually clear and forcible exposure of the errors of 
 the silverites." Editor New York Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin. 
 
 "You tell the truth and nothing but the truth about the currency question 
 in a way that is informing, interesting and convincing." / '/er to 
 
 Author) from Francis B. Loomis, Editor-in-Chief Cincinnati Tribune. 
 
 "The most comprehensive and best condensed exposition of the general^ 
 topic of sound currency that has come under our notice since the disci i 
 began two years ago." Chattanooga '1 
 
 " One of the best exposes of the free silver craze we have seen from any 
 quarter." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 "Dollars, or What? presents fairly and cogently some important points on 
 the money question which the friends of silver should carefully consider. We 
 bespeak it a general reading." Springfield (Mam.) Republican. 
 
 What is needed now is a simple, straight forward and temperate presenta- 
 tion of the case against the free coinage fallacy. " Dollars, or What," will do 
 good. Louisville Courier- Journal. 
 
 I have found nothing that I consider as clear cut, and to the point, and so 
 easily understood as your little hook, Dollars, or What. I have named it the 
 "A. i'>. C. of Sound Money." Charles E. Waters, Secretary Nebraska Bankers Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 "The author of Dollars, or What, has rendered a patriotic service in pre- 
 paring a work which states the case so plainly that it can be generally under- 
 stood. > * It * * should be in hands of every voter." J. C. 1, 
 
 hill, Editor Charleston News and Co'/ritr. 
 
 " We expect to use a great deal of its contents as clippings for the A>' 
 tiser. It should be on the desk of every sound money newspaper man in the 
 
 ' < 11 1 nt ry." Montgomery * idiwtiser. 
 
 " The writer is forcible without being offensive and his book must do good 
 in whatever part of the country it shall circulate." Philadelphia Record. 
 
 " The best presentation of the subject in popular form that we have re- 
 i." The (Lexington, Ky.) Press- Transcript. 
 
 "A cursory reading makes it appear the finest exposition of the true finan- 
 cial theory yet made." Dallas ( . - Herald. 
 
 "It is first-class from start to finish. It will attract the attention of the 
 whole country and will prove a wonderful seller." The ( 
 
 "Where ' Dollars, or What,' follows the track of 'Coin ' we guarantee' that 
 it will close the Financial School." The Sun, Columbus, Go. 
 
 "'Dollars, or What/ should be read by every voter in the United 
 
 States." lova State Register. 
 
 "There is no doubt of there being a great popular demand for the work." 
 Kansas City Mail. 
 
 "The best work yet written on the financial question." Paris (Texas) 
 Daily News.
 
 Press Comments. 
 
 "Dollars, or What, contains the soundest and most candid presentation of 
 the financial question that we have yet seen, and it is sure to be a salutary 
 antidote to the poisonous stuff put forth in 'Coin's Financial School,' and sim- 
 ilar publications. * * * It ought to be in the hands of every voter." 
 Rhodes' Journal of Banking, N. Y. 
 
 " 'Dollars, or What,' not only answers 'Coin,' but completely annihilates 
 the very basis of 'Coin's' argument." Sioux Oil;/ (Iowa) Tribune. 
 
 "It meets Harvey effectually in a direct, simple way, which anybody can 
 understand." Hartford (Conn.) Times. 
 
 "Mr. Mitchell is a biraetallist of rare financial and literary ability." 
 Bonfort's Wine and Spirit Circular, N. Y. 
 
 "The book is undoubtedly a valuable contribution to the literature of the 
 currency question." The (Chicago) Israelite. 
 
 "A brief and practical statement of the effect of unlimited coinage." 
 
 Atlanta (Go.) Journal. 
 
 "Its language is simple, plain and temperate, its arguments clear and con- 
 cise, and its exposure of some of the financial fallacies of the day complete." 
 Farm and Fireside, Springfield, Ohio. 
 
 "A strong and very readable argument against the free coinage of silver." 
 Philadelphia News. 
 
 "Dollars, or What, takes all the wind out of 'Coin's Financial School.' " 
 New York Mail and Express. 
 
 "A valuable contribution to the currency controversy." Rochester (N. Y.) 
 Herald. 
 
 The Argus, Portland, Me., referring to extracts from Dollars, or What, 
 says: "They are readable ; they are exact; they are as full of meat as an egg." 
 
 "Dollars, or What, most clearly sets forth the whole system of finance." 
 Chattanooga Press. 
 
 "Mr. Mitchell is an interesting writer, and though his views are entirely 
 opposed to those of the majority of the people of the South, his treatment of 
 the question bespeaks his ability." Atlanta Constitution. 
 
 "A forcible exposure of the errors of the eilverites." The Herald, Utica, 
 N. Y. 
 
 "Mr. W. B. Mitchell * * has taken time to give a set of clear, forceful 
 arguments in behalf of sound money, that can be * * * easily under- 
 stood." Daily Stale Gazette, Trenton, N. J. 
 
 "Written in an easy, attractive style that will make it popular with the 
 people." The Financier, N. Y. 
 
 "This little book is bound to be of great service to the cause of sound 
 
 money." Financial Index, Atlanta, Oa.