Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/325

Rh Bimetallism? What is bimetallism? It is a monetary system in which the two metals circulate together for all the purposes of money on a parity with each other upon a fixed legal ratio, which in our case is 16 to 1. Evidently, to have bimetallism gold must be on hand as well as silver. As I have shown, between Mr. Bryan's supposed election and his extra session of Congress our gold will have run away from circulation. Part of it has been privately hoarded, and another, by far the larger part, has gone to Europe, where it finds profitable employment. Thus it turns out that Mr. Bryan's election will have served to possess the American and still more the European “money powers” of most of the gold which he needs here for his bimetallism. This is one of the troubles which the really sincere European bimetallists foresaw when they almost pathetically implored their less sincere American brothers not to think of the free coinage of silver in the United States alone, because it would drive almost all the gold to Europe and attract silver to America, which would make bimetallism impossible in Europe as well as here.

How will Mr. Bryan get the gold back from the “money power”? Evidently he must offer an inducement. What inducement? To be sure, the mints will be open to gold as well as silver. But who will offer gold bullion to have it coined into dollars for circulation when he can have silver dollars with the same legal-tender power at half the price? Only an idiot would do that. Of course gold will be offered only when the silver dollar is up again to the gold standard. There is the rub. But here Mr. Bryan steps in with a theory which is a curiosity in statesmanship. He said in his New York speech: “Any purchaser who stands ready to take the entire supply of any article at a certain price can prevent that article from falling below that price. So the Government can fix a