A Silver Symposium.
against silver which they claim has depressed its price, still continues. If it had been corrected by the acts of 1878 and 1890, they would have no present ground for complaint. It is, therefore, pertinent to extend the statistics over the whole period before and since 1873 in order to perceive the actual workings of the conspiracy. They are as follows:
Total silver coinage, 1792-1872 $143,833,000
Total silver coinage and bullion purchased, 1873-95 705,683,000
Annual average prior to 1873. 1,792,000
Annual average since 1873... 31,017,000
In these figures we have lumped the total of bullion purchased under the act of 1890, and remaining uncoined, at $155,000,000. The total purchased under that act was of the nominal coinage value of over $217,000,000, but as nearly as can be learned from the reports, about $50,000,000 of it has since been coined. We thus find out that the discrimination against silver induced by the money lords consisted of coining nearly five times as much silver in the 22 years succeeding 1873 as in the 80 years preceding it. The annual mint demand of the United States for silver has been since 1873 more than 17 times that prior to 1873; which again resolves the "striking down" of silver by legislation into one of the most unique curiosities of the century.
This exhibits the total demand of the United States for silver during the periods contrasted. They afford the most complete commentary not only on the claim that the United States has discriminated against silver, but on the claim that the United States can by itself restore the gold price of silver to $1.29 per ounce. But this is not all. The silver men's claim is that it is the silver dollar that has been discriminated against. They make no attack on the laws under which half-dollars, quarters and dimes are coined, which were the same before 1873 as after. But their grievance is on the silver dollar. That coin is discriminated against. That coin was struck down by the conspiracy of 1873, and when it is restored to its place it will raise the price of silver to the parity with gold. Let us see what the facts are:
Fractional silver coined before 1873 $185,787,000
Silver dollars coined before 1873 8,045,838
Fractional silver coined since 1873 121,894,000
Silver dollars and bullion purchased since 1872 584,289,000
In other words, the fact appears in these figures that the much praised period when the silver dollar stood side by side with the gold dollar, simmers down into an actual coinage of those beloved dollars of $8,045,000. Before 1873 just about one-eighteenth of the silver coinage was in standard dollars, and seventeen-eighteenths was fractional silver. Since 1873 nearly six-sevenths of the silver coinage was in standard dollars, and only a little over one-seventh in fractional silver. Before 1873 the annual average coinage of the standard dollar was $100,573; since 1873 it has been $25,363,000. That is, the Government has coined 250 times as many silver dollars per year as it did before the conspiracy against silver struck it down; and the fact that this coinage did not really begin till 1878, shows that for 16 years the United States used each year 300 times the amount of silver for the purposes of standard legal tender than the annual average before 1873.
These statistics may begin to impress on the mind of the reader not only that the allegation of silver having been struck down and depreciated by denying it access to the mints is a product of cheap invention, but that the allegation of silver having stood side by side with gold prior to that act is no less a figment of the imagination. That there may be no doubt on that point we add the following figures:
Coinage. Before 1873. After 1873.
Gold $795,091,000 1,017,129,000
Silver dollars... 8,045,000 429,289,000
Bullion certificates 155,000,000
Frac. silver.... 135,833,00.0 121,394,000
