exists between the sister republics. But I do think that until
France shall copy more closely the Constitution of the United States,
the stability of the third republic cannot be regarded as assured.

HONEST MONEY; OR, A TRUE STANDARD OF VALUE:

A SYMPOSIUM.

I. BY WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.

We hear much about a "stable currency" and an "honest dollar." It is a
significant fact that those who advocate a single gold standard have
for the most part avoided a discussion of the effect of an
appreciating standard. They take it for granted that a gold standard
is not only an honest standard, but the only stable standard. I
denounce that child of ignorance and avarice, the gold dollar under a
universal gold standard, as the most dishonest dollar which we could
employ.

I stand upon the authority of every intelligent writer upon political
economy when I assert that there is not and never has been an honest
dollar. An honest dollar is a dollar absolutely stable in relation to
all other things. Laughlin, in his work on "Bimetallism," says:

Monometallists do not--as it is often said--believe that gold
remains absolutely stable in value. They hold that there is no
such thing as a "standard of value" for future payments in either
gold or silver which remains absolutely invariable.

He even suggests a multiple standard for long-time contracts. I quote
his words:

As regards national debts, it is distinctly averred that neither
gold nor silver forms a just measure of deferred payments, and
that if justice in long contracts is sought for, we should not
seek it by the doubtful and untried expedient of international
bimetallism, but by the clear and certain method of a multiple
standard, a unit based upon the selling prices of a number of
articles of general consumption. A long time contract would
thereby be paid at its maturity by the same purchasing power as
was given in the beginning.

Jevons, one of the most generally accepted of the writers in favor of
a gold standard, admits the instability of a single standard, and in
language very similar to that above quoted suggests the multiple
standard as the most equitable, if practicable. Chevalier, who wrote
a book in 1858 to show the injustice of allowing a debtor to pay his
debts in a cheap gold dollar, recognized the same fact, and said:

If the value of the metal declined, the creditor would suffe