her mints open to
both at the ancient ratio.

Thus ended the scheme to drive gold out of circulation and base the
business of the world upon one metal, and that the dearer metal, silver.
But suppose the scheme had succeeded; suppose France had been less firm;
what a wonderful flood of wisdom on the virtues of silver we should have
had from the monometallists! How arrogantly they would have denounced
us--who should, I trust, in that case have been laboring to restore gold
to free coinage--how arrogantly they would have denounced us as the
advocates of cheap money, dishonest tricksters, repudiators! How they
would have rung the changes on "dishonest money," "fifty-cent gold
dollars!" What long, long columns of figures should we have had to prove
the stability of silver, the fluctuating nature of gold! What
denunciations, what sneers, what gibes, what slurs would have filled the
New York city papers in regard to those Western fellows who want to
degrade the standard! How glib would have been the tongues of their
orators in denouncing all who advocated the remonetization of gold as
cranks, socialists, populists, anarchists, ne'er-do-wells, and
Adullamites, kickers, visionaries, and frauds! Is there any practical
doubt that we should have witnessed all this? None whatever; in fact,
something of the same sort was heard in Europe at the time of the
demonetization of gold. It all goes to show that self-interest blinds the
intellects of the best of men so that they readily believe that which is
to their interest is honest, but that the farmer who seeks to raise the
price of what he has to sell thereby throws himself down as dishonest. Of
course, the successful demonetization of gold would have brought about an
enormous appreciation of the value of silver, since it would have thrown
the whole burden of maintaining the business of the world upon one metal,
and equally, of course, we should have had the same attacks upon the
owners of gold mines that we now have upon the owners of silver mines. As
the withdrawal of silver from its place as primary money and its reduction
to the level of token money has thrown the burden of sustaining prices
upon gold, so unquestionably would the reverse process have occurred had
gold been reduced to token money in place of silver. All this we know
would have taken place from what actually did take place, and this makes
important the history of the demonetization of gold.

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