THE FREE-COINAGE SCHEME IS IMPRACTICABLE AT EVERY POINT[1]
The Program.
IN two former articles I have discussed some points which are presented by the advocates of the free coinage of silver, on the assumption that their project was feasible and their conception of its operation correct. They have laid out a program; free coinage, silver standard, great demand for silver, rise of prices, rise in the value of silver, cancellation of debts, prosperity. They now admit that this program would involve a panic, but it would come out, they say, at the desired result in two or three years. They denounce the gold standard as having caused hard times, but they plan a program with a panic as an incident on the way to a silver standard as if it was a trifle.
There is not a step in this program which could or would be carried out as planned.
Free Silver Means Fiat Paper Money.
The amount of circulating cash of all kinds in the hands of the people at the present time is about nine hundred millions. If the dollar was reduced to half its present value, and if allowance was made for reserves, two thousand million silver dollars would be the specie requirement of the country. We already have nearly five hundred millions of such dollars. Hence the country could not use at the utmost, if the new silver dollar was worth not more than half the present gold dollar, and if the total circula-
- ↑ Leslie’s Weekly, September 10, 1896.
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