modities generally, it is not a just medium by which to express the standard of value.

Silver has increased more than most other commodities, and it is, therefore, not a just medium for this purpose. The excessive increase has been caused largely by the legal ratio between silver and gold having been permanently fixed, and below the relative costs of production.

But gold and silver together, half of each, at values always based on market prices, make the best medium for expressing the standard of value, the most suitable medium for measuring and storing up energy.

The history of civilization shows that they have been used about equally as the money of the world.

Burke perhaps furnishes an illustration of a compound standard when he says: "A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a Statesman.'

Believing that facts and plain statements are more needed than rhetoric, I have thrown together in the Appendix a

Prominent Monometallists.

73

number of facts and statistics with the declarations of those whom American monometallists claim as their best friends, and the admissions of such leading monometallists as

Dr. Robert Giffen, author of Essays in Finance, The Case against Bimetallism, The American Silver Bubble, etc.;

Hon. David A. Wells, LL.D., D.C.L., etc., etc., the most distinguished of all our political economists and a champion of monometallism;

The London Statist, that stalwart monometallist ;

And I claim that these prove the necessity of using both gold and silver together as the basis of our currency.

If the people have a right to demand that all money shall be a just and true measure of value, or the representation of a just and true measure of value, according to Secretary Carlisle,1

And if labor itself is the real standard of value, as stated by Doctor David A. Wells,2

1 See Appendix, page 84.

See Appendix, page 85.

And if labor is continually increasing its power of producing all products except gold, as shown by Doctor Robert Giffen,1

Then it is obviously unfair and dangerous to make gold alone the metallic basis of our currency.

If President Cleveland was right when he said, "I hope a way will present itself in the near future for the adjustment of our monetary affairs in such a comprehensive and conservative manner as will afford to silver its proper place in our currency," then I may reasonably ask all reasonable monometallists and all reasonable bimetallists fairly to consider the plan I have proposed, for I claim that it is precisely what the President hoped for.

I am not now debating any question. regarding debts already contracted. My plan refers only to providing a currency on a just and safe basis for contracts to be made after the passage of the act.

Safety and equity lie in wedding the two metals together as in that clever ar

1 See Appendix, page 88. 2 See Appendix, page 79.

What the President Hoped For. 75

rangement of the brass pendulum supporting glass tubes containing quicksilver. Increase of heat lengthens the brass arm, and at the same time raises the quicksilver so that the centre of weight in the pendulum is maintained at a constant distance from the point of suspension.

Both our great political parties at their conventions have declared, in the most distinct manner, in favor of preserving the parity of gold and silver, and using both metals together in our currency.

The President and the Secretary of the Treasury and both Houses of Congress have all most distinctly committed themselves to this policy.1

The only difficulty is to find some plan to accomplish this in an honest, safe, and permanent way. Such a plan I have endeavored to set forth in my first Letter on Joint-Metallism.

2

ANSON PHELPS STOKES.

NEW YORK, April 26, 1894.

1 See Appendix, page 84.

2 See page 5.

See also page 121.