consequence of the supposed scarcity, a gold standard gives to the East a monopolistic power over the West and South; nor, that it is because of this supposed advantage that the moneyed interest of the East is contesting for the gold standard. But to reject the views of the Silver party, does not prevent our perceiving that it has more sincerity in its composition than either of the two national parties ; while it has pressed its claims with persistent courage, both the Democratic and the Republican party have evaded the issue until the country has been brought into such distress that compromise or postponement of action is no longer possible.

It must be acknowledged that the South and West have been overtaxed by monopolistic money; but this chiefly because it is government money. It is undoubtedly a disadvantage to be forced to use gold in a locality where silver is more adaptable, and vice versa; yet no special advantage can accrue to either locality from compelling the other to adopt its money. As all sections of our country are interdependent, the prosperity of one contributes in some measure to the prosperity of all; hence money found to be most effective in a given locality is the money that should be used there, and it is also the money

that will be used if not arbitrarily interfered with. With freedom there can be no monopolistic money.

None of the Silverite leaders has attempted to state specifically in what way the country would be benefited by the change advocated; in undertaking so serious a work as the adoption of a new monetary standard, these leaders should substantiate their claim that gold is monopolistic money and that silver is not, and should also clearly define what other monetary advantages they believe to belong to silver. If instead of a change in the standard of values they had proposed a change in the standard of lineal measurement,-as for example to shorten the yard-stick to twenty inches,-they would have felt under obligation to state their reasons for wanting the change, and to state them in terms that ordinarily intelligent people could understand. They are doubtless sensible of the fact that before they could succeed in changing the yard measure, they would have to show that a yard-stick of thirty-six inches is not adapted to the arm's reach, and that one of twenty inches would facilitate the measurement of cloths, and thus save time and labor. Why then have they not clearly demonstrated how time and labor could be economized and productiveness

increased by a change in the monetary standard,for that is the essence of the whole question? If they had attempted to show this, they would have found that one is no more susceptible of demonstration than the other, yet both questions are equally susceptible of practical, common-sense treatment. If gold money is monopolistic, there should be no trouble in showing specifically why it is so, for money of any kind is not a mystery; it is as much a tangible, every-day, working implement as the yard-stick.

The truth is that in the popular discussion of the Silver question, money and capital have usually been treated as one and the same thing, and the mystical idea of money has so obscured the general perception as to prevent the application of the commonest rules of logic to the subject. Upon this idea our whole monetary legislation is based, and from it has sprung such a crop of complexities and inconsistencies that it is no wonder people who have not time to make a special study of the subject cannot realize that the natural law of money is very simple. But though our people may be behind in monetary science, they are quick to learn, and now that popular interest is thoroughly awakened in the subject, we may look with confidence for a full solution of the problem. Justice requires that we

should not forget that a whole generation of education on this subject was lost to the people of the United States while slavery, and the adjustments growing out of its abolishment, occupied the forum of public debate to the exclusion of all other questions. It was during this period of strife and pressing need of capital that our medium of exchange passed from its natural channels of development into the control of the national government, where it has ever since been held in political bondage.

PROJ

United States in the summer of 1893 were conscious that a great commercial crisis had arrived, but many of them may not have realized that this crisis included two distinct panics referrible to quite different causes. The first of these occurred in May, the second in July. The May panic was the culmination of a long-continued drain upon the capital of the country by foreign investors who distrusted our ability, under existing legislation, to maintain the gold standard; there was no scarcity of money at the time. Gold had already disappeared from general circulation, and was paid out only at the United States Treasury; but, notwithstanding the withdrawal of gold, the money in circulation, had it possessed the requisite elasticity, would have been sufficient in quantity to effect all exchanges in all