CHAPTER IV. 



FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 



FOR the reasons set forth in the preceding chapters 

 the want of a sufficient volume of money "we demand 

 the free coinage of silver. " It is useless to enter into an 

 extensive discussion, why we should have unrestricted 

 coinage of silver. The whole ground has been gone over 

 in the chapter devoted to the subject of contraction. It 

 might not be out of place, however, to show that the 

 restricted coinage of this metal has contributed largely 

 towards the hard times everywhere prevalent. We give 

 below a series of resolutions presented by Senator Stewart, 

 of Nevada, and adopted by the Industrial convention 

 recently held in Washington, D. C. : 



"Resolved, That the value of a dollar in money 

 depends upon the number of dollars per capita in circula- 

 tion, and not upon the material of which the dollar is made. 



"Resolved, That it is the duty of the government to 

 furnish the people for circulation the same number of dol- 

 lars per capita at all times, and thereby avoid the evils of 

 expansion and the calamities of contraction: 



"Resolved, That gold and silver were used for more 

 than two thousand years previous to 1875 to limit the 

 amount of money in circulation, and for no other purpose, 

 and that the only excuse for the use of the precious metals 

 was that governments could not be trusted to place a limi- 

 tation upon a circulation, but that the quantity of gold 



