The Standard of Value. 



2S1 



gambling." (Hon. A. S. Hewitt, letter to coinage committee, Febru- 

 ary 10, 1891.) 



" The greatest financial evil that could befall the United States, 

 would be to change to the silver standard." (From J. J. Knox, state- 

 ment 21st February, 1891, page 18.) 



It would disgrace us as a nation, as untrue to our honest obligations, 

 as well as failing in sagacity to follow the course dictated by our true 

 interest. We look with hope and expectation to the period when our 

 country shall become the center of the world's exchanges, with all which 

 that implies. That is clearly to be within our grasp in the near future, 

 if wise statesmanship is to govern our affairs. Mr. Gladstone, in that 

 remarkable article of his, entitled " Kin beyond the Sea," written 

 twelve years ago, indicates in explicit terms this probability, and he 

 also instances the disposition "to tamper with the true monetary 

 creed " as one of the chief follies by which this desired consummation 

 may be prevented. 



It is quite clear that no other governmental folly could be more 

 effective than this of free silver coinage, irrespective of the action of 

 the other nations, to defeat our hopes of commercial supremacy, 

 which might otherwise be open to us. No other single measure could 

 be so prejudicial to all true progress of the country. Better, many 

 times better, buy up the entire silver production of the country, and 

 sink it in the middle of the sea, deeper than ever plummet sounded ! 



Most closely allied to the character of a people for integrity, for 

 good faith, for all those virtues which give stability to and inspire 

 confidence in national character, is the estimation in which they hold 

 their standard of value. Considering the important part which credit 

 plays in modern national and commercial affairs, any tampering with 

 the standard of value of a people cannot be regarded as less than a 

 Ugh public crime. It is a crime against the national life and against 

 the national honor, which should be held dearer than life. It is a 

 Wow at the national prosperity and welfare. A nation can do no one 

 act so fatally blighting in its effect, and so all-pervading in its baleful 

 influence, as in the degrading of its standard of value. The only 

 persons benefited are the speculator and the crafty sharper. The 

 honest debtor may imagine he is to lighten his load of debt by it, but 

 in the end he finds even that gain more than compensated by the in- 

 creased cost of all needed commodities. The imagined need of more 

 money, and of cheap money, is mainly a delusion. It is capital, not 

 cheap money, which the needy require, and capital is only to be earned 

 by faithful labor. As Senator John Sherman says in a recent speech : 



