Why Not?

The advocates of free silver coinage on the basis of 16 to i, roll as a sweet morsel under the tongue such expressions as "constitutional money," "dollar of the fathers," "infamous crime of 1873," etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The purpose of all this is very transparent. It is simply to deceive the people into a support of their crazy notions by arousing their spint of reverence for that which is old, and thereby making them believe that a real wrong was perpetrated by the demonitization of the white metal in 1873. Now as a matter of fact, there is absolutely no forcé in all this. It is nothing but sound. In all the years of so called "constitutional currency" silver cut a very small figure in the monetary affairs of this government. For years before the demonitization, it had been practically out of circulation, and some of the most loud-mouthed free silver advocates of the present day were in congress at the time the "infamous crime" was perpetrated, and voted for it. Their motive may be judged when it is understood that the silver in the silver dollar was then worth more as bullion than for coinage. Again, granting all that the friends of 16 to 1 silver coinage claim as to the hoary age of the silver dollar, what has that to do with the question of the monetary needs of the commercial world today? Because the fathers found the oíd A drag of pioneer days a useful farm article, is that any reason why it should continue in use now under entirely different circumstances? Or because the old time stage coach met the demands of former days, is there any reason in that for discarding the railway carriage of today? As well demand the reinstatement of these articles in the economy of the present as to attempt to re-establish silver on a ratio that has become thoroughly unnatural. Such an attempt would be a step backward from the standpoint of evolution, and would be doomed to failure. There was a time when the natural valué of the silver in the silver dollar was worth its coined value, but that is not true today, and any attempt to make it so by the fiat of legislation would result in millions of advantage to silver mine owners and a corresponding disadvantage to everybody else. The inevitable result would be silver monometalism with its attendant two-forty gait of increase in prices of everything the peopie have to buy, or what is the same thing, the lessening of the purchasing power of the dollar. All values twould make haste to adjust themselves, as is now the case in Mexico, on the basis of a 50 cent dollar. This thing has been proven by sad expeiience again and again. The only way to secure free and unlimited silver coinage on an honest and safe basis, is to put a dollar's worth of silver into it.