are as good as gold. But, and
here comes the first difficulty, the silver in the silver dollar
is not worth as much as the gold in the gold dollar. The nickel
in that coin is worth but a small part of five cents' worth of
silver. And the copper in the cent is not worth one-fifth of the
nickel in a five cent piece. How then, you may ask me, can these
coins be made equal to each other? The answer is that coinage is
a government monopoly, and though the copper in five cents is not
worth a nickel, and the nickel in twenty pieces is not worth a
silver dollar, and the silver in sixteen dollars is not worth
sixteen dollars in gold, yet, as the government coins them, and
receives them, and maintains them at par with gold coin, they are,
for all purposes, money equal to each other, and wherever they go,
even into foreign countries, they are received and paid out as
equivalents.

"The reason of all this is that the United States limits the amount
of all the coins to be issued except gold, which, being the most
valuable, is coined without limit. If coinage of all these metals
was free, and any holder of copper, nickel, silver or gold could
carry it to the mint to be coined, we would have no money but copper
and nickel, because they are the cheaper metals, worth less than
one-fourth of what, as coin, they purport to be. For the same
reason, if the coinage of silver was free at the ratio of sixteen
of silver to one of gold, no gold would be coined, because sixteen
ounces of silver are not worth one ounce of gold.

* * * * *

"The one distinctive, striking feature of the law of 1890 is, that
the United States will not pay for silver bullion more than its
market value. And why should we? What is there about silver
bullion that distinguishes it from any other product of industry
that the government needs? When the government needs food and
clothing for the army and navy it pays only the market price to
the farmer and manufacturer. The value of silver produced is
insignificant compared with the value of any of the articles produced
by the farmer, the miner and manufacturer. Nearly all the silver
produced in the United States is by rich corporations in a few new
states, and its production at market price is far more profitable
than any crop of the farmer, and yet it is the demand of the producer
of silver bullion that the United States should pay him twenty-five
per cent. more than its market value that lies at the found