Of this outrageous fraud we will have no more. We spew it out of our mouths. We spit on the proposition, under whatever garb it comes, to compel the debtors of this nation to discharge their obligations in a dollar differing from the dollar of the law and the contract. We do not propose to “supplement” gold money with silver money—meaning the subordination of the silver to the gold. We do not propose to “supplement” silver money with gold money—meaning that the gold shall be absolute and the silver only token. There is no “supplement” about it. It is a simple proposition to have our money in two kinds, and not in one kind. It is like laying a foundation of stone and brick. The stone is not more dependent on the brick than the brick is dependent on the stone. They are both built into one abutment; they both contribute alike to its solidity and magnitude; they both enter into its composition and are part of its structure; and they both shall stay there, gentlemen of the gold craft, in spite of your efforts to take one constituent part of the abutment away!
I now come to the next essential division of Mr. Lepper’s article. I call particular attention to what he proposes. He says:
“In order to make my plan as clear as possible, I shall run the risk of seeming elementary by running through, step by step, a typical transaction under it: Let us fancy that the reader, bearing a nugget of gold in his left hand and another of silver in his right, and desiring to convert them into money, repairs to the Philadelphia mint. He applies there to the proper clerk, who, for simplicity’s sake, we will suppose performs all the operations. The clerk weighs and assays the two pieces of metal, and finds the gold one to contain 25,800 grains of standard gold, worth precisely $1,000, which are counted out in bills. A similar operation reveals that the lump of silver weighs 35,500 grains, but the clerk is observed to consult a table before saying: ‘The market equivalent of a gold dollar is to-day 710 grains; consequently your 35,500 grains are worth $50;’ and he then proceeds to count out the money in bills precisely like those given in payment for the gold. Upon examining these at his leisure, the reader discovers imprinted thereon a contract running as follows: ‘This note entitles the bearer on demand to [the denomination of the bill] dollars in gold or to the market equivalent thereof in silver.’”
This paragraph needs only to be critically examined in order to show forth the material of which it is builded. Mr. Lepper takes his two nuggets, the one of gold and the other of silver. He goes to the mint. The gold nugget weighs 25,800 grains; the silver nugget weighs 35,500 grains. Mr. Lepper adroitly slips in the clause that the gold nugget is “worth precisely a thousand dollars!” In what units is the gold nugget worth a thousand dollars? Why, in gold units. He says that the 35,500 grains of silver are found to be worth $50. In what units is that amount of silver worth $50? Why, in gold units! That is, beginning with the gold standard, and ignoring the silver standard, Mr. Lepper reaches bimetallism! That is good. He assumes, to begin with, the thing he is trying to prove! He assumes it in his major premise, implies it in his minor premise, and reaches it in his conclusion. I say that is very good. Twenty-five thousand eight hundred grains of gold are “worth precisely $1,000,” in gold dollars at the rate of 25.8 grains to the dollar. Well, I should say so. The same would be true of tin, of leather, or tree-molasses. Only assume that something is a standard, and then measure that something by itself and you will get there. Mr. Lepper gets there. Then again he assumes that the market equivalent of the gold dollar at the date referred to, is 710 grains of silver; therefore, 35,500 grains of silver are worth just $50 in gold. Forsooth, it requires a philosopher to tell us that; though a country schoolboy might make it out just as well. It is only a problem in the rule of three. We assume that silver is worth so much in gold; therefore, so much silver will be worth so much in gold! That is, gold is the standard; but we are a bimetallist, and we will write a paper on “Bimetallism Simplified” showing how we can create a mono-bimetallic standard. The “mono” is the essence of Mr. Lepper’s scheme; the bimetallic part of it is sophism and green cheese.
In his argument Mr. Lepper simply proposes to measure gold by itself; and to measure silver by gold! That is all there is in it. He seems not to know that anything measured by anything other than itself is not primary money, and cannot be. Gold, when coined and made legal tender, is primary money when measured by itself. Silver when coined and made a legal tender is also primary money when measured by itself. Anything coined and made a legal tender is primary money when measured by itself.
It is thus that Mr. Lepper creates a bimetallic system of money. He proposes to keep it up in the same manner. He simply assumes that gold is an unfluctuating, eternal standard, and that silver is a fluctuating, impossible standard. He agrees that silver may be used as money and even coined on a basis which assumes that it shall not be used as money and not be coined at all, except by the measure of gold! His factitious and absurd device is therefore not bimetallism, but monometallism on a basis of gold. He might substitute pewter for silver in his scheme, and it would be just as good; he might substitute putty or plaster of paris, and his plan would work as well.
Such a scheme is not bimetallism at all. It is monometallism pure and simple. I have, in a private way, pointed out the fact to Mr. Lepper that his plan is not what it pretends to be. I have tried to show him that what he proposes is simply a delusion of goldite hocus-pocus. As a matter of fact, The Arena has not the space to be devoted to the dissemination of such literature as Mr. Lepper’s article. I did not wish to subject the writer of “Bimetallism Simplified” to this castigation, but he would have it so. It is no doubt an entertaining business with Mr. Lepper to work his elaborate scheme for pretending to do a thing, and not doing it. Practically, I might urge upon his attention the fact that what he proposes will satisfy nobody; certainly it will not satisfy the McKinley administration. That administration does not propose to do anything. It proposes to stand still, in the midst of much bluster, hoping all the time that the gold standard will become more and more fixed on the American people, and that the “silver delusion” will subside.
Mr. Lepper will have his labor for his pains. His system will be laughed to scorn by all the goldites proper, and it is certainly rejected as spurious, impossible, and absurd by all genuine bimetallists. I wish to remark in this case, that the term “goldite” applied to the monometallist, is not a misnomer or an unwarranted epithet; for monometallists advocate the establishment of gold money only, as the primary money and money of ultimate redemption. On the other hand, the term “silverite” is a misnomer; if accepted, it misleads, for it implies that he who is characterized as a silverite is a believer in silver only as the primary money and money of ultimate redemption. There are no people of this class of whom we have heard.
Bimetallists believe in the use of both moneys freely and on terms of perfect equality; they will be satisfied with nothing less. They know that they are in the majority, and that they cannot be ultimately defrauded of their purpose. They intend to restore our coinage to what it was before the Act of 1873. By such restoration they propose to break the corner on gold and to reduce the exaggerated purchasing power of that metal to the normal standard. They intend that this reduction in the purchasing power of gold shall be answered—as they know it will be—with a corresponding rise in the prices of all the products of labor. They intend in this way to achieve prosperity; they intend to wrong no man—not even the bondholder; they intend that every man shall have his rights according to the law and the contract; they intend to break faith with none; they intend to march right on to the achievement of this result; in doing so, they intend to consult themselves. They know full well that the so-called “great commercial nations” will be glad enough to trade with us, and to take our money in both kinds too. If not, we hold the rod! If any nation under heaven proposes to discriminate against the United States of America because of our bimetallic standard of money, let that nation try it! We shall see who comes out best in that contest.
When the weak-kneed, the time-serving, and the cowardly shall be expelled from power; when American patriots are in the high places of authority; when the people’s voice shall be heard as the voice of many waters,—all men shall then be assured that the great republic is able to do its own business in its own way, asking favor of none, menacing none, and fearing none! When that good day comes with the end of the century, such literature as Mr. Lepper’s “Bimetallism Simplified,” read in the retrospect and in the light of a better verdict of the people, will seem to the thoughtful student of history to have been the product of some humorist, indulging a sarcastical disposition at the expense of the very theory which he sets forth in his article.