Show i IHE DOLLAR UMT The report of the decision made by Judge W A Vincent on the question submitted to him as to what was them the-m t of value in the United States from 1792 to 1S7S may be satisfactory E as to financial conditions during that period but is entirely unsatisfactory as a matter of law Of course the g decision is not judicial That is to ii say It is not official in any sense I Judge Vincent merely gave his learned f opinion as a private individual requested t re-quested to decide a dispute The Herald previous to that decision t de-cision quoted from Jefferson and Hamiltons remarks on that subject showing that they agreed upon the idea that the dollar should be the unit whether in silver or in gold and that both metals were in their view L essential as money But The Herald I showed thatthe opinions of those eminent em-inent authorities were not the lav and the question to be decided was < X Vhat did the law provide as the unit of value previous to 1S73 Judge Vincent instead of going to be law and sLowing definitely what 1 it provided wen off into a disquisition disquisi-tion as to the opinions of the great e0 statesman of early times and decided L de-cided on the ground of what became 1 the practice 12 this country What Q 5d he quoted and what he decided was all right as a matter of fact but the truth remains that the law made the silver dollar the unit of values previous pre-vious to the act of 1S73 as it made the gold doilar the unit of values by the act of 1873 Coin therefore was right the opinion of Judge Vincent to the contrary con-trary notwithstanding It is true that the gold dollar as well as the silver dollar was practically regarded regard-ed as the unit as the silver dollar would be even now if silver was received re-ceived at the mints as gold Is for free and unlimited coinage But the absolute ab-solute fact remains that the law previous pre-vious to 1873 did provide for dollars containing 37ty grains of pure silver I sil-ver or 416 grains standard as the unit The free and unlimited coinage of gold as well as silver placed the gold dollar on a practical equality with the silver dollar as money but still the silver dollar was the unit declared de-clared by the law That was the real question submitted to Judge Vincent and that is the only point he was called upon to decide But he did not answer the question directly And if it was to decide a bet as alleged the loser ought not to be required to pay for really the umpire dodged the vital issue There is some confusion of mind in relation to the act of 1873 in its de monetization of silver The question is sometimes asked Where is the clause or section of the law which demonetized de-monetized silver The truth is that the act of demonetization was one of omission rather than of commission It omitted to provide for the coinage of the silver dollar when it did provide pro-vide for the coinage of the gold dollar dol-lar It also made the gold dollar the unit of value which was an actual change of law in respect to the unit That however would not have mattered I tered so much if the coinage of the I silver dollar had not been dropped The dollar whether of gold or of silver sil-ver would be the practical unit and the silver and gold dollar coins would be equal as money whether one or the other was declared tne unit by the law if both were coined without limit on the same terms at a prescribed ratioCoin Coin has made some minor mistakes mis-takes but we cannot see wherein there is any error in the statement that the silver dollar was the monetary mone-tary unit from 1792 to 1873 for the law plainly made it so and the law itself is the proof |