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SARAH B. HARRIS AsMciat Edilot
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GO V
1 OBSERVATIONS
The people have learned something
6ince that memorable, day when Mr.
Bryan hypnotized the Chicago popocrat
ic convention. The impression has been
generally entertained, where the boy
orator's performances have received any
consideration, tha't bis speeches were
largely impiomptu, delivered on the
spur of the moment. Enthusiastic ad
mirers of Mr. Bryan have claimed that
hey could get up at any timo in any place
and orate eloquently on any subject. It
has been said that there is no end to his
versatility.
As'a matter of fact'Mr. Bryan never
made an improptu speech, in his life
at least none that attracted any atten
tion. It is known that he spent weeks
and months on his two great speeches in
congress, and it has been shown that
the essential' features of biB Chicago
speech have been vsed by him in many
previous speeches. Whenever he has
appeared in this state he has had am pi
time in which to prepare himself and he
has always acquitted himself- welL-But
since the Chicago convention there has
been - ah "unusual 'demand upont'Mr.
Br an. In hisTJoyisTTzeal ,to take his
riomib'aiion out and 6how itto the rest
of the' boys he plunged into a spectacu
lar tour commencing at Salem, III. He
haBSpoken almost, daily since, -so con
stantly that he has not had time for
preparation, and his most ardent ad
mirers will admit that the only thing
'that characterized these addresses was
mediocrity. They .have been monoton
ous and commonplace, full cf platitudes
and ill-considered jests. The people has
seen that Mr. Bryan has' been masquer
a'ding all these years. They have seen
him for the last two weeks, with the
mask removed, and found in place of
what appeared lo be a skillful actor, u
very ordinary man. In what marked
contrast ur Mr. Bryan's post conven
tion speeches with Graver Cleveland's
series of talks in the south, or Presi
dent Harrison's remarkable pjteaking
tour of tho west and smith, or Mxjor
MuKiuley's liriff address in Ca-itou!
In truth the Boy Orator has been
losing his reputation withgrdtriridity
since he made ridiculous ufo nf the
symbols of the crown aud cross in Chi
cago. He will hctve to do snnmhiag
pretty soon, or it will be gone forever.
Probably he will re-establish his repu
tation in Madison Square Gdrden, New
York.
Mr. Bryan, in his Kansas City speech
said that gold and silver coined at the
ratio of 1G to 1 are "the coin ige f the
constitution." it b.is le,ii lepftt'diy
pointedout that the constitution -s-tablishes
no coinage. It simply gave to
congress the power "to coin money, reg
ulate tho value thereof and of foreign,
coin, and fix tho standard or weights
and measures." Its only other refer
ence to the subject is the prohibition
upon the states to coin mone, emit
bills of credit, or make anything but
gold and silver coin a tender in pay
ment of debts. Ab laws for tho collec
tion of debts were to be matters of state
legislation, the latter was intended as a'
sweeping prohibition of making any
paper representatives of value legal
tender, a practice that had been
the source of much disaster "to the
colonies. No power was given to con
gress to make anything a leral tender,
though it could no doubt prescribe the
medium in which payments to and by
the government should be paid.
When the constitution was adopted
the country had no currency or coinage
system. All the coin in circulation was
foreign, and the accepted unit was the
Spanish "milled dollar" of silver. Full
power was given to congress to estab
lish a coinage 8 stem, but what money
should be coinedout of, or what stand
ard, in what denominations and with
what ratio of one material to another
was not prescribed at all. The power
was first exercised in 1792, after the
famous report' of Hamilton and much
discussion of "the subject. Silver was at
that' time the chief mouey iu circulation
not only in this country, but in other
commercial countries. Hamilton fav
ored the bimetallic standard, which was
then nominally prevalent in Europe,
and the chief question to be determined
was the actual relative value of silver
and gold, for this country had no stand
ard. The necessity of coining the two
metals at the ratio of their actual
market value the world over, if both
were to be coined, was admitted by
everybody. Monis, Hamilton, Jefferson,
and all the statesmen of the time were
at one on that point, and nobody
thought of the possibility of the gov
ernment giving any value to either
metal which it did not intrinsically
POBKi 89.
It was finally decided that 15 to 1
was the closest parity of value for silver
and gold; and that, and i.ot 16 to 1. was
th rati- of the act of 1792. But it
provei that sliver was slightly over
valued. It was not worth quite one
tifieenth as much per ounce asgold.and
thu consequencH was that gold would
not circulate with it at tho legal ratio.
Prior to the change of 1834 gold was
unknown in our currency, and none of
tho multiplies of the dollar provided for
in the law were coined. From 1792 to
IP.'il we bad the silver basis on ly,t hough
the disparity in the value of the metals
in a dollar never exceeded three cents.
But during this period only about 334.
000,000 in silver had been coined, and
only 814,000,000 remained in circulation.
Foreign silver coins, which were gener
ally worn and a trifle cheaper, were
more common.
In 1834 congress, in the exercise of a
power which the constitution neither
presented nor restricted, but merely
granted, passed a new coinage act,
changing the ratio to 16 to 1. This un
dervalued silver slightly, and it ceased to
circulate, save in the form of wonand
cheapened foreign coins, which old men
of this generation will remember. Oold
was now the sole standard, and silver
dollars became a curiosity. Halves and
quarters, being of TuII value and worth
more to export than to keep, would no1
stay in circulation, until after the act
of 1653, which reduced their value and
limited their legal-tender qu iltty. That
act ignored the silver dollar as a depart
ed coin, und intentionally retained the
gold standard.
From that time to 1873 gold contin
ued the standard and silver was coined
only in the fractional pieces. Silver
was practically demonetized by being
undervalued in 1834, its demonetiza
tion wat deliberately continued in 1853,
and was simply recognized and legal
ized in the act of 1873 after full discus
Bion and deliberation because the silver
dollar vrds still worth mi re thin a gold
dollar and would not circulate. Nobody
proposed to give it life by anot'her
change of ratio. Jt was only when the
greatly increased production reduced
the value of silver a few years later that
the agitatiou began for its restoration,
aud wb began to hear of ''the crime of
1873." We know what has followed in
the Bland-Allison limited coinage act
and the Sherman bullion purchasa act,
which have inflated our currency with
more than fifty times as many silver dol
lars as it ever contained prior to 1878,
and have produced the disorder in our
finances of the last three years and the
delusion that now rages.
Gold and silver coin at 16 to 1, or at
any other ratio, is not the money of the
constitution. Congress established the
first ratio in 1792 at 15 to l.and changed
it in 1834 to 16 to 1, which became
slightly modified to 15.98 to 1 ty the
change in the alloy of 1837,. and nut till
after the greenback inflation of the war
and the unsettling of established princi
ples by making paper a legal tender did
anybody pretend that the two mctats
could be kept at a parity, except by
coining them at tho exact ratio of their
intrinsic values iu the marketB of the
world. Nobody supposed that a legis
lative fiat ora government stamp could
add toor subtract from the value of
either. In point of fact, their parity
has never been maintained in this coun
try, and never under free coinage Jiave
they circulated together. Only the re
stricted coinage and the perilous scheme
of roundabout redemption, maintained
with difficulty and ata great cost, have
held our silver coin .ir a par these last
seventeen ears, and only the sujpe'ision
nf coiiiagi-iind of purchase preventol a
break nf the whole currency system tn
the stiver basis. Freo coir.tsfrt wor,i
precipitate it there with a crash, spreid
in: disaster aud ruin from which it
would tukeotir industriesand commerce
years to recover amid stres anI nurtur
ing such as thiscnuntry has never yet
known in time of peace.
THE EDITOR.
PURCHASED FAME.
Vfliy nslUh wppr Alwyr Ailrei
tUe Ob.iore Society People.
During the recent upheaval in the
Pall Mall Gazette office one Interesting
bit of information that came to the sur
face was that Mr. Astor's editors and
reporters were accustomed when
among themselves to refer to a certain
department of the paper as "the tittle
tattle column," says the New York
Times. It contains divers short para
graphs In which are recounted thc
doings, social and other, of notabilities
of various grades, including always
many titled nonentities and occasion
ally professional persons like doctors,
lawyers and diplomats. Most of the
other London journals have similar
columns and ther are all equally trivial
and snobbish. It now appears that
what has always seemed to be merely
an amusing illustration of the extent to
which the British public carries its In
terest in the "upper classes" Is In real
ity something quite different.
A Manchester doctor recently got In
to trouble with his confreres because
he allowed himself to be advertised as
connected with a certain ranitarium.
One of .lis friends, noticing that the
movements of other medical men. all of
whom had been vociferously scrupu
lous in regard to the ethics of their
profession, were constantly recorded b
the press, proceeded to the office of
the Thunderer Itself with a similar
Item exploiting a Journey of his own.
There he was Informed that announce
ments of that class were inserted at
the rate of 1 guinea for three lines and
10 shillings 6 pence for every addition
al line. Continuing his investigation
he learned that the society peopl?. too,
bought fame at the same high price
and that the so-called "tittle-tattle"
was published not because the British
public yearned for It. but because the
lesser lights of society and science
yearned for notoriety and were willing
t pay for It.