new use for the land. Value inheres in
use when the thing used can be bought and sold. Whatever creates a use
creates value, and a great increase in use forces an increase in value,
provided that the supply does not increase equally fast; and with silver
that is an impossibility. If you think government cannot add value to a
metal, consider this conundrum: What would be the present value of gold
if all nations should demonetize it? It can be calculated approximately.
There is on hand enough gold to supply the arts for forty years at the
present rate of consumption. What, then, is the present value of a
commodity of which the world has forty years' supply on hand and all
prepared for immediate use?

Take notice, also, that in the decade 1850-60 Germany, Austria, and
Belgium completely demonetized gold, and Holland and Portugal partially
did so, thus depriving it of its legal tender quality among 70,000,000
people, and that this added very greatly to its then depression.

=Free coinage would bring us to a silver basis, and that would take us
out of the list of superior nations, and put us on the grade of the
low-civilization countries.=

That is, I presume, we should become as dirty as the Chinese, and as
unprogressive as the Central Americans, agnostics like the Japanese, and
revolutionary like the Peruvians. And, by a parity of reasoning, the gold
standard will make us as fanatical as the Turks, as superstitious as the
Spaniards, and as hot-tempered and revengeful as the Moors. If not, why
not? They all have the gold standard. You may say that this answer is
foolish, and I don't think much of it myself, but it is strictly according
to Scripture (Proverbs xxv. 5). The retort is on a par with the
proposition, and both are claptrap. The progress of nations and their rank
in civilization depend on causes quite aside from the metal basis of their
money.

We must remember that for many years after the establishment of the Mint
we had in this country little or no coin in circulation except silver, and
were just as much on a silver basis then as Mexico is now. Were our
forefathers, then, inferior to us, or on a par with the Mexicans and
Chinamen of the present day? Even down to 1840 the silver in circulation
greatly exceeded the gold in amount.

By the way, where do you goldites get the figures to justify you in
creating the impression on the public mind that Mexico and the Central and
South American States are overload