In order to demonstrate that gold has risen, I will bring side by side
the gold prices of a number of leading commodities of commerce in 1873
and 1889, respectively, and the amount in silver bullion that in 1889
would purchase an equal quantity of the same commodities, by a table
prepared at my request by the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury
Department.
_Average export prices of the following named domestic commodities
for the years ending June 30, 1873 and 1889._
-------------------+----------+---------------------------------------
| | Average price of the year ending
| | June 30--
| +--------------------+------------------
Commodities. | Unit of | 1873. | 1889.
| quantity.+-----------+--------+--------+---------
| | | | | In
| | In | In | In | silver
| | currency. | gold. | gold. | bullion.
-------------------+----------+-----------+--------+--------+---------
Bacon and hams | Pounds | $0.088 | $0.077 | $0.084 | $0.108
Butter | do | .211 | .184 | .166 | .212
Cheese | do | .130 | .113 | .092 | .118
Corn | Bushels | .617 | .539 | .508 | .650
Cotton: | | | | |
Unmanufactured, | Pounds | .188 | .164 | .099 | .127
not sea Island | | | | |
Cloth, colored | Yards | .166 | .145 | .065 | .083
Cloth, uncolored | do | .162 | .142 | .068 | .087
Iron and steel: | | | | |
Bar-iron | Cwt | 5.480 | 4.784 | 3.183 | 4.074
Pig-iron | do | 2.498 | 2.181 | .953 | 1.220
Railroad-bars | do | 4.114 | 3.592 | 2.169 | 2.776
Lard | Pounds | .092 | .080 | .076 | .097
Leather | do | .253 | .221 | .185 | .237
Rice | do | .071 | .062 | .055 | .070
Sugar: | | | | |
Brown | Pounds | .092 | .080 | .056 | .072
Refined | do | .116 | .101 | .066 | .084
Wheat | Bushels | 1.312 | 1.145 | .874 | 1.119
Wheat-flour | Barrels | 7.565 | 6.604 | 4.703 | 6.020
-------------------+----------+-----------+--------+--------+---------
What does an examination of this table show? It shows beyond dispute
that gold has risen in value.
A bushel of wheat that, according to the figures of the Bureau of
Statistics cost $1.14 in gold or silver in 1873, and which, as will be
seen by the table, still commands $1.12 in silver bullion, will to-day
bring only 87 cents in gold.
A pound of cotton that in 1873 cost the purchaser, in gold or silver, 16
cents, and which still commands 13 cents in silver bullion, will bring
only 10 cents in gold.
A pound of cheese that in 1873 cost the purchaser 11-1/3 cents in gold
or silver, and which now brings 12 cents in silver bullion, will bring
only 9 cents in gold.
A barrel of flour which in 1873 cost the purchaser $6.60 in gold or
silver, and which to-day commands $6.02 in silver bullion, will bring
but $4.70 in gold.
A pound of butter that in 1873 brought 18.4 cents in gold or silver, and
now commands 20.8 cents in silver bullion, will bring but 16.6 cents in
gold.
Notwithstanding that 412-1/2 grains of uncoined silver will to-day buy
as much of the leading articles of commerce as the coined gold dollar
would buy in 1873, yet the advocates of the gold standard characterize
it as a 72-cent dollar. Then the gold dollar of 1873 was a 72-cent
dollar. If the gold dollar of to-day be an honest and equitable dollar,
that of 1873, which was worth much less, was a swindling and dishonest
one; and if gold continues to advance as it has been advancing, and with
the declining output of that metal there is no reason why it should
not, it will be but a short time before any other kind of dollar whose
value may be equal to that of the present gold dollar will be
stigmatized as a swindling 72-cent dollar. There never was a dollar
coined that did not legally and practically contain 100 cents. But the
creditors stigmatize a dollar of the value of the gold and silver dollar
of 1873 as a 72-cent dollar. May not the debtors, with much more
propriety, denounce the gold dollar of to-day as a 140-cent dollar?
According to the admissions of the royal commission of England, the gold
dollar of to-day is to the producers of this country, measured by their
products, already at a premium of between 30 and 40 per cent. over the
gold dollar of 1873. The advocates of the gold standard have no sympathy
with our farmers and manufacturers who have to pay, in commodities, a
premium of 30 to 40 per cent. on gold, to meet their engagements, but
express extreme anxiety at the bare possibility that a few importers
might have to pay even a small premium in any form. They insist that the
money system of a population of 65,000,000, shall, like an inverted
pyramid, be made to rest upon its apex in order to enable a few
importers, most of whom are residents of foreign countries, to make
their payments abroad in gold.
Verily, Mr. President, the single gold standard is an expensive luxury
for our people to maintain.
Those who deride silver as a money-metal indulge in feeble attempts at
sarcasm by inquiring why we do not advocate the use of tin and brass as
money. They speak and write as though the idea of using silver as money
were a recent discovery or invention of people engaged in silver mining.
They also ignore the fact that the standard silver dollar of the United
States, which, with much satisfaction, they stigmatize as a 72-cent
dollar, requires a gold dollar to obtain it. It is worth a gold dollar
in London, in Berlin, in Vienna, in Saint Petersburg, in Madrid, in
Havana, and in all countries having commercial relations with the United
States. It can at once be exchanged into the money of any country with
only the slight deduction of cost of shipment to this country--as is the
case in the United States with notes of the Bank of England, which are
redeemable in gold.
Our silver dollar is not money in foreign countries--and it is to our
advantage that it is not--for were it money anywhere else than in this
country, we could not rely on its remaining here to maintain that
steadiness of prices indispensable to prosperity. But if any of our
silver dollars are found abroad, let no one suppose he can get them by
tendering 412-1/2 grains of silver bullion for each dollar. He will find
it will cost him precisely as much gold as it passes for in the United
States.