Coin's Financial School/Appendix
APPENDIX.
It will be noticed that during the lectures, Coin was never asked to answer the proposition of "over-production." His attention was afterward called to this, and he replied: That he was not surprised; that under-production was now conceeded by all who had investigated it, and the newspapers seldom mentioned it. That over-production could not be claimed so long as tens of thousands were going hungry; and that the only over-production admitted by all, was millionaires.
Coin used in his lectures the phrase "1 to 16" in speaking of ratio. This was used for convenience. The exact ratio is 1 to 15.98, but, as by common usage, the term 1 to 16 is used, the correct figures 1 to 15.98 would have been confusing.
The assessed valuation of all the property in the United States, as given by Census Bulletin No. 192, issued June 4, 1892, is $24,651,585,465.
In giving the debts of the United States, public, corporate and private, Coin has used in part the report of the Census Bureau, as far as completed, and has added to it an estimated amount for maritime debts, accounts, pawn shops, private debts not on record, rentals, and other debts due on contracts, none of which is included in the census report. Among the larger items of our debts, as far as officially reported, are the following: National debt of the United States (U.
S. Census, 1890 $ 891,960,104
State and Municipal debt (U. S. Census,
1890) 1,135,210,442
Railway bonds on 171, 866 miles railway,
1892 (Poor's Manual, '93) 5,463,611,204
The average farm and home debt shown
by tabulation of partial returns from
counties distributed throughout the
Union, is $1,288 for farm and $924 for
homes. If this average holds good for
the United States, there is an existing
debt in force, on the farms and homes
of the United States occupied by owner
(R. B. Porter, Supt. nth Census, in
North American Review, Vol. 153,
page 618) of. 2,500,000,000
Mortgaged Indebtedness of Business
Realty, Street Railways, Manufactories
and Business enterprise (estimated from
partial reports of i ith Census) 5,000,000,000
Loans from 3,773 National Banks (Sta- tistical Abstracts of the United States ) 2,153,769, 806 Loans from 5,579 State, Saving, Stock
and Private Banks and Trust Com- panies (Statistical Abstracts of the
United States) 2,201,764,292
��If the same progressive ratio of increase is added to these figures that maintained from 1880 to 1890, over 5,000 million should now be added to the items above given.
�� � Taking the figures used by COIN in the Fifth Chap- ter, we find that the actual ratio between the two metals is i to 15^4.
The following is the calculation :
��THE RATIO.
��No. cubic feet gold in the world,
9796
No. ounces in a cubic foot gold, 19258
78368 48980 19592 88164 9796
��188651368
��No. cubic feet silver in the world,
282085
No. ounces in a cubic foot silver, 10474
��1128340
1974595 1128340 282085
��2954558290 188651368
1068044610
943256840 124787770 188651368
��= 2 A
��The ratio of the two metals as they exist in the world available for money is i to 15%.
By making gold the only primary money, the natural result is to depress the commercial value of silver ; this depression now marks a commercial ratio between the two metals of i to 33 ; sooner or later, on account of the large gold interest-bearing debt in this country, money will be concentrated in the money centers ; values of all property will be further depressed, until the commer- cial ratio between gold and silver can be expected to go to I to 40 or more.
�� �
On page 18, Coin refers to the published report of the Director of the Mint as giving the world's production of silver for 1893 as $143,096,239. This was the report as published in the newspapers at the time. Since then, however, the report of the Director of the Mint as now published gives the amount as $208,371,100. From the fact that so much hostility and prejudice has been shown by Mr. Cleveland's administration to silver, and considering the unreliable sources from which this information is frequently obtained, there is some doubt as to the fairness of the last figures given. This doubt is further increased when it is considered that Mr. Cleveland has set the example to his subordinates to disregard a faithful observance of laws and customs, and has exhibited a zealous desire to make everything bend to his will. We refer to his having the coinage of silver stopped before the repeal of that law; to his appointment of a minister plenipotentiary to Hawaii without the consent of the Senate then in session; his infamous use of patronage with which to buy the votes of congressmen in the passage of the bill repealing the silver purchase act, and other acts now fresh in the mind of the reader. Any figures now given out on silver by his administration may be regarded as unreliable. There is not in the world to-day a more avowed and zealous gold monometallist than Mr. Cleveland.