Show WHAT SIIWER1XES BELIEVE There are professional silverites who pretend they believe free coinage of their precious metal would make the coin of silver equal in value intrinsic and ex changeable to the old mark of the ratio of 16 to 1 They all should and nearly all do know better and if the belief prevailed pre-vailed in the silver regions politically that free coinage would raise the market value of silver to 129 cents an ounce the silver propaganda would perish This is clipped from an article in a New York daily and reflects the views of many people in the east It contains an ungracious un-gracious and mistaken insinuation and avery a-very evident absurdity The I professional silverites by which we suppose is meant the ardent advocates of silver money both in and out of Congress Con-gress have advanced such potent reasons for their belief as we should think would protect them from any accusations of insincerity But it seems that some people and some papers on either side of this great question cannot argue it without with-out imputing something evil to those who take opposite ground from theirs Tho silverites not only believe what they say but they offer arguments In support of their belief which the goldites do not refute but in place of counter arguments they offer such insinuations as that contained in the quoted paragraph above Is it not clear to an unbiased mind that if the government stamps a piece of silver as a dollar and makes it legal tender for debts public and private this use of the metal endows it with a quality added to its value as mere bullion And if 4122a grains standard silver are declared to constitute con-stitute a dollar is it not evident that this will restore silver to that value or thereabouts there-abouts in the market as metal For if it can be coined at that rate at the mint will any considerable quantity be sold for a lower figure in the market If gold were deprived of its status as money and reduced to the position of mere metal as an article of oommerce would not any considerable increase of the product immediately reduce Hs price in the market And if the advocates of gold were to contend that its restoration as money at the ratio of 1 to 16 with silver sil-ver would bring up its market price to the former rate would they be counted as foolish or insincere It is well to look at this question from both sides The belief does prevail in the silver regions re-gions politically and industrially that free coinage at 16 to 1 would raise the market valueto 129 and this does not cause the nronaeanda to perish but keeps it alive and makes it to them the one thing needful Why should that belief cause the propaganda to perish Is not the very suggestion that it would a positive absurdity Let some eastern goldite writer come out west and mingle with the masses of the silverites Let him go to the mining camps or talk with people in the towns Let him listen in banks in hotels in stores in places of public resort and anywhere where men do congregate and he will find that the belief in these effects ef-fects of the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1 is the dominant popular faith tile orthodox or-thodox silver creed And that there is so much confidence in its absolute integrity integ-rity that its propaganda is urged as invincible in-vincible to fair minds when they onco comprehend it It is clear to genuine silverites that many of their eastern adversaries have never seriously considered the money question except from one standpoint and that they have only viewed it through yellowtinted goldbowed spectacles If they would change their point of observation ob-servation and look with the naked eyes of unprejudiced observation they would see that the financial shield has a silverside silver-side as well as a gold side and that both are essential to its perfectness and permanency per-manency And they would also find out that the ratio between them proposed by the true bimetallists is the natural proportion pro-portion and best calculated to maintain the parity which is essential to sound finance |