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Lesson In Bryanism

Lesson In Bryanism image
Parent Issue
Day
28
Month
October
Year
1896
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Q. Why do the free coiners cali them selves bimetallists? Wouldn't the clieap er nioney drive out the dearer - drive ou gold? A. Bryau says that opening our mints to silver "will raise tue value o; silver bullion to $1.29 an ounce through out the world" - that is, make 41214 grains of silver in. the silver dollar eooi mercially equal to the 25.8 grains of gok in the gold dollar. Silver is now 68 cents an ounce. Free coinage in the United States, if Bryau is right, woult about doublé the commercial value o. silver everywhere. Q. Then the 50,000,000 Mexican dol lars wóuld be worth twice as much as thev are today? A. Yes; they would be brought right up to gold. So would al the silver pieces in existence, in every country, where the ratio of silver to golc in the coinage is 16 to 1 or thereabout. Q. How much silver is in use as money in Europe? A. $1,661,500,000. Q. How much in Asia? A. $1,953, 500,000. Does Bryan hold that this huge volume of silver would be doubled in uoramor cial value by the adoption of free cuin age in the United States? A. That's what he professes to think. Moreover the entire mass of uncoiued silver, in al its various forms, would likewise at once advance 100 per cent. in market price aud the anuual production of 175, 000,000 omices would also jump from 68 cents to $1.29 an ounce. Q. This would follow free coinage by the United States alone, according to Bryan V Then what would happen il France and Germany and England should also open their mints to silver? A. Acceptnig the Bryan theory, the logical conclusión must be that silver would advance to at least $3 an ounee, the cost of production remaining the same - not more than 50 cents an ounce. Q. What support for bis idea of the effect of ffée coinage does Bryan find in the esperience of this country? A. None whatever. Free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold in 1792, when silver was over-valued in the ratio for coinage, and when the difEerence between the bullion value of the silver dollar and the gold dollar was less than two cents, did not raise the bullion value of silver to that extent, This is one of several historical demonstrations of the faet that comáis one metal or the other does not incrëaae its relalive commercial value. Q. Do Bryan and the other free-coinage propagandista point to any experience of any nation which tends to sustain the proposition that changing silver bullion into coius enhauces the commercial value of silver bullion? A. No. Q. Then the result they prediet is tuerely evolved out of their own minds? A. It is theory - nothing more than theory. They would make this tremendou9 experiment without being able to cite a single instance in the financia] history of the world which gives the color of validity to their professed opinión, -

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier