Now our gold standard men are in the position of those who first refuse to look at anything beyond the two things, gold and silver, to see what has happened, and who, when it is finally demonstrated that all other things retain their former relations to silver, still persist that the law which makes gold an unchanging standard of measure is more immutable than that which holds the stars in their courses. If they will compare gold and silver with commodities in general, to see how the metals have maintained their relations, not to one another but to all other things, they will find that instead of a fall having taken place in the value of silver, the change that has really taken place is a rise in the value of both gold and silver, the rise in silver being relatively slight while that of gold has been ruinously great. And those who do not shut their eyes to the truth must see that the change of relation between the metals has been effected by depriving silver of its legal-tender function, as the want of accord between the clocks was brought about by depriving the silver clock of a portion of its motive power—the weights. The only thing that has prevented a greater divergency between the metals is the limited coinage by the United States—the single weight that, withheld from the gold clock, prevented its more ruinous gain.
THE PURCHASING POWER OF SILVER IN 1873 AND 1889.
If I can show that for a period of seventeen years, since its demonetization in 1873, silver has lost none of its purchasing power, none of its command over commodities; that is to say, if I can show that 412½ grains of silver to-day, uncoined, and shorn by hostile legislation of its principal element of value—the money use—will buy as much as would 412½ grains of silver in 1873 (when our silver dollar bore a premium over gold) of all the articles that enter into the daily consumption of the people, it must be manifest that silver has not fallen in value.
I present a table which I shall ask to have inserted in the Record as part of my remarks, showing the purchasing power of 412½ grains of silver, nine-tenths fine, in 1873 and 1890, respectively, so far as concerns several leading articles of daily consumption.
The table is as follows:
Comparative purchasing power of 412½ grains silver, nine-tenths fine, in 1873 and 1890, respectively.
| 412½ grains silver would buy— | 1873. | 1890. |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat bushels | 0.87 | 0.88 |
| Corn do | 1.84 | 1.97 |
| Cotton pounds | 5.32 | 6.71 |
| Beef, mess barrels | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Pork, mess do | 0.07 | 0.06 |
| Lard pounds | 12.89 | 11.75 |
| Butter do | 5.40 | 4.63 |
| Cheese do | 8.69 | 6.94 |
| Sugar do | 9.80 | 10.34 |
| Eggs dozen | 4.27 | 5.38 |
From this table it conclusively appears that while in 1873 the standard silver dollar of 412½ grains, which then bore a premium over the gold dollar, would purchase four-fifths of a bushel of wheat; to-day the same quantity of silver, without the advantage of coinage and merely as bullion, will also buy four-fifths of a bushel of wheat—the only difference between the figures for the two years being that at the present time 412½ grains of silver bullion, as will be seen by the table, will buy a fraction of a bushel more than would 412½ grains of coined silver in 1873.
If, then, silver has fallen, it is manifestly not in its relation to wheat.
By the same table it is shown that the silver dollar of 1873, containing 412½ grains of silver, nine-tenths fine, would purchase one and eight-tenths bushels of corn; in 1890, a like number of grains of silver, uncoined and estimated at its gold value, will purchase one and nine-tenths bushels of corn. Here again the advantage is slightly in favor of the 412½ grains of silver bullion of 1890. This shows conclusively that silver has not fallen in its relation to corn.