oney when measured by itself.

It is thus that Mr. Lepper creates a bimetallic system of money. He
proposes to keep it up in the same manner. He simply assumes that gold
is an unfluctuating, eternal standard, and that silver is a fluctuating,
impossible standard. He agrees that silver may be used as money and even
coined on a basis which assumes that it shall not be used as money and
not be coined at all, except by the measure of gold! His factitious and
absurd device is therefore not bimetallism, but monometallism on a basis
of gold. He might substitute pewter for silver in his scheme, and it
would be just as good; he might substitute putty or plaster of paris,
and his plan would work as well.

Such a scheme is not bimetallism at all. It is monometallism pure and
simple. I have, in a private way, pointed out the fact to Mr. Lepper
that his plan is not what it pretends to be. I have tried to show him
that what he proposes is simply a delusion of goldite hocus-pocus. As a
matter of fact, THE ARENA has not the space to be devoted to the
dissemination of such literature as Mr. Lepper's article. I did not wish
to subject the writer of "Bimetallism Simplified" to this castigation,
but he would have it so. It is no doubt an entertaining business with
Mr. Lepper to work his elaborate scheme for pretending to do a thing,
and not doing it. Practically, I might urge upon his attention the fact
that what he proposes will satisfy nobody; certainly it will not satisfy
the McKinley administration. That administration does not propose to do
_anything_. It proposes to stand still, in the midst of much bluster,
hoping all the time that the gold standard will become more and more
fixed on the American people, and that the "silver delusion" will
subside.

Mr. Lepper will have his labor for his pains. His system will be laughed
to scorn by all the goldites proper, and it is certainly rejected as
spurious, impossible, and absurd by all genuine bimetallists. I wish to
remark in this case, that the term "goldite" applied to the
monometallist, is not a misnomer or an unwarranted epithet; for
monometallists advocate the establishment of gold money only, as the
primary money and money of ultimate redemption. On the other hand, the
term "silverite" is a misnomer; if accepted, it misleads, for it implies
that he who is characterized as a silverite is a believer in silver only
as the primary money and money of ultimate redemption. There are no
p