both silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand that the standard silver dollar shall be a full legal tender, equally with gold, for all debts, public and private, and we favor such legislation as will prevent for the future the demonetization of any kind of legal-tender money by private contract. We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering to the holders of the obligations of the United States the option reserved by law to the government of redeeming such obligations in either silver coin or gold coin. We are opposed to the issuing of interest-bearing bonds of the United States in time of peace, and condemn the trafficking with banking syndicates which, in exchange for bonds and at an enormous profit to themselves, supply the federal Treasury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometallism. Congress alone has the power to coin and issue money, and President Jackson declared that this power should not be delegated to corporations or individuals. We therefore denounce the issuance of notes intended to circulate as money by national banks, as in derogation of the constitution, and we demand that all paper which is made a legal tender for public and private debts, or which is receivable for duties to the United States, shall be issued by the government of the United States and shall be redeemable in coin. JOINT-METALLISM vs. BIMETALLISM AND MONOMETALLISM.1 "Bimetallic money is formed by admitting gold and silver to free coinage and making each an unlimited legal tender at a certain relation in value to the other." PRESIDENT ANDREWS. Monometallic money is formed by admitting one precious metal alone to free coinage and making it the only unlimited legal tender. Joint metallic money is formed by coining silver coins of the same weight as gold coins, admitting gold and silver both to free coinage when presented together, in quantities of equal value, according to a 1 See preface to Second Edition. 2 Under "free coinage" a small mintage charge (seigniorage) is made. This amounts on gold to about one sixth of one per cent. in England, more than one fifth of one per cent. in the Latin Union, and one half per cent. (maximum) in Germany. It amounted to two thirds of one per cent. on silver dollars in the United States prior to 1873. Government ratio declared periodically, as being that integral number of standard silver coins which, in the market value of the silver they contain, most nearly equals a standard gold coin of like weight; and making a gold coin, plus such number of these standard silver coins as shall be equal thereto, according to the current Government ratio, legal tender as twice the amount of the gold coin, for all debts contracted after a fixed future date.1 In the United States the Treasury would receive these silver coins and gold coins, when presented together in quantities of equal value, according to the current Government ratio, and issue therefor Joint Legal-Tender Currency Certificates, payable half in gold and half in such quantity of these silver coins as may be equal thereto, according to the Government ratio current at the time of presentation. Joint-metallism would continue the decimal system here, and permit a continued use of our present silver coins. These are now token money. When 1 See page 5. |