214 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lion price of silver is subject to great and continual fluctuation, 

 all values would be uncertain, commerce would be restricted, 

 manufacturing retarded. And it is obvious that the objections 

 to tlie too extensive use of silver apply also to the use of paper 

 representatives of value based upon silver. 



But it must be recognized that the taking of such a step, dis- 

 astrous as its total consequences would be, would not be absolutely 

 without warrant of justice. Because of improved appliances and 

 improved methods of i^roduction and distribution, the prices of 

 nearly all the great staple products — clothing, shoes, furniture, 

 grain, nails, tools, watches, drugs, glass, carpets — have in the last 

 generation fallen in about the same degree that the price of silver 

 has fallen. Therefore a silver dollar of four hundred and twelve 

 and a half grains, taken at its bullion value to-day, will now buy 

 about as much of the most needed results of human effort as a 

 silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and a half grains thirty- 

 five years ago, taken at its bullion value then, would buy of the 

 most needed results of human effort at that time. Therefore a 

 debt of one hundred dollars incurred thirty-five years ago, if paid 

 to-day in gold, would inure to the creditor double the amount of 

 benefit that the borrower obtained at the time the debt was in- 

 curred. Apply this reasoning to the indebtedness of the United 

 States. It is claimed that, notwithstanding the great reduction 

 in this debt since the war, the decrease in the prices of staple 

 commodities, as measured by gold, has been so great that the 

 amount of gold necessary to pay the present indebtedness would 

 purchase at this time as much of the staple commodities as gold 

 to the totalof the indebtedness at the close of the war would have 

 purchased at that time. That is, although the indebtedness of 

 the Government, as expressed in gold dollars, has been vastly 

 reduced, that indebtedness, as expressed by universally desired 

 results of human effort, has not been reduced at all. In this con- 

 nection it is significant that the depreciation in the price of silver 

 has not led the people of Mexico to adopt other than the silver 

 standard. Indeed, the depreciation has scarcely been noticed by 

 them, largely because of the greater depreciation in the value of 

 other commodities. 



But as there are two sides to every question, so also are there 

 two sides to every phase of every question. Wages, salaries, and 

 incomes of all sorts, on the average, are far higher to-day than 

 they were a generation ago. In many a pursuit it is easier for a 

 man in a given time to earn two hundred dollars in gold to-day 

 than it would have been for a man in the same pursuit to have 

 earned one hundred dollars in gold then. So that the payment of 

 a debt of one hundred dollars incurred then, in its gold equiva- 

 lent now, would work no injustice to him. But this is not the 



