Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/327

Rh dollars likewise. It will, therefore, be a mere question of special convenience whether they take it to the mint or to the market. And in the market, according to all human reason and experience, its price will, temporary fluctuations notwithstanding, remain on the whole very near to the figure of the cost at which it can in large quantities be produced. Mr. Bryan's strange imaginings have, therefore, proved only that when he speaks of Government purchases of silver, and fixing prices and creating a demand greater than the supply, he simply does not know what free coinage is.

The theory that free silver coinage will make and keep the silver dollar equal in value to the gold dollar rests upon absolutely nothing but Mr. Bryan's incessantly expressed personal belief. Fixed belief is a happy state of the mind. One of the strongest cases of belief I ever met with was a man who inflexibly believed that he was the Pope of Rome and could, if he would, fetch down the moon. He was under treatment by a specialist for mental peculiarities.

Every sensible person, I trust, will now admit that free silver coinage in the United States alone will make bimetallism—the equal use of both gold and silver as money—utterly impossible, here as well as abroad. It will confirm Europe in gold monometallism and condemn us to silver monometallism—the exclusive use of silver as money, and of paper based upon silver. No doubt this is what the silver men are really aiming at.

Let us now consider how it will affect the various interests of the people. The first blessing we are promised will flow from free coinage is a general rise of prices. This means that the silver dollar will buy less than the gold dollar did, and this for the reason that it is no longer worth as much as the gold dollar. Evidently the promise of bimetallism, of silver rising to its old price on the one