"free Coinage" Demand Is Misleading

If any advocate of the free coinage of silver dollars or copper dollars or iron dollars at any ratio, 16 to 1, more or less, will agree to stop there and ask nothing more, I for one am prepared to meet him, and in that way to stop the present contest. Whowould want them? Not one of these men will consent to free coinage on those terms. Not one of them would be satisfied. Not one of them would then get what he is after under the pretext that free coinage and "equal rightsof gold and silver" are all that he wants. I challenge any one to find an advocate of free coinage at 16 to 1 on these simple terms - that both gold and silver should be treated alike; that both gold and silver coinsshall be made for any one who takes the bullion to the mint to any number that he wants. I challenge any advocate of free coinage to deny that free coinage, pure and sjmple, is not what he demands, and not one of them will dare to meet this challenge. This demand for free coinage is a cover intended to conceal the true purpose of those who ask it. Most of those who support this measnre have been deceived and misled. Let such men put the question to any owner of silver mines, to any senator or representative in congress or to any and every candidate on the free coinage platform in the following terms: "If we grant free or unlimited coinage, without charge for the coining, will y ou demand nothing more?" Not a man who knows what the true purpose is will answer "Yes" to that question. - Edward Atkinson.