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Show WHAT IS A DOLLAR? Some Elementary Facts for the Gold Bags to Consider. The New York bankers cannot find words to express their detestation of "a silver dollar worth only eighty-five cents," and one furious advocate of gold as the only metal money goes so far as to say that "a Government that will stamp eighty cents as a dollar ia rascally to the core, and the quicker it sinks the better." bet-ter." The suggests the question, whit is a j dollar? Worcester says: "Dollar A silver coin of Germany, Holland, Spain, the United States, Mexico, etc., of differents values; that of the United States dollar is 100 cents." And all other dictionaries give the word the same meaning mean-ing a silver coin of the United States worth lOO cents. " It 'is asserted that silver sil-ver is cheaper'than it once was, and the silver dollar is not worth now 100 cents. But this is not true, and cannot be true. The dollar existed before the cent. Tho silver dollar was the first coin issued by the United States, in 1790. The cent was not coined until several years afterwards, and the gold dollar not till fifty years afterwards. af-terwards. " The word dollar therefore, originally meant and still means, a silver coin worth 100 cents, and this meaning has become so deeply imbedded in the popular mind, "and in the habits of business, busi-ness, that it cannot be rooted out. The silver dollar is our unit of money. All coins below it are multiples of it. Gold eagles and half-eagles were coined after the silver dollar, and were meant, respectively, re-spectively, worth ten and five silver dollars. dol-lars. Eagles and half-eagles were intended in-tended to be measured by the gold dollar for the very reason that when they were first, coined the gold dollar was not in existence ; it had not even been thought of. Silver has never been demonetized in this country. The coinage of it was suspended sus-pended from 1873 to 1878 but that was all. Even during this five' years' period silver was still a legal tender for all debts, fiublic and private. The present silver aw did not receive the money quality of the silver dollar; it only received the coinage of it." . There has never been a day, nor an hour since 1790 when silver dollars were not worth 100 cents and payable as lawful tender for all debts, public and private, in the United States. The lawful value of the silver dollar has never changed, and never will. It was at the beginning and it is now, just 100 cents exactly It i3 gold that has changed its relative value. It has become be-come comparatively- scarce in proportion to the enormousiricrease of wealth in the world and this scarcity, together with the demonetization of silver in Great Britain and Germany, lias given it an increased in-creased artificial value. 11 |