Editorial: The Foolish Ideals of William Jennings Bryan
by Nikita Atrash October 18th – October 22nd
As a nation, we as a people must band together to solve common issues within our states. It is only through a combined efforts which our greatest accomplishments come to pass. Then why should it be that our country is locked in such turmoil? Surely, the economy is to blame, what with bimetallism in the forms of the Gold Standard and Free Silver, as well as the economic depression left over from the Panic of 1893. With the Presidential Elections on their way, we as a country must pick a man to lead us through these times… and that man is not William Jennings Bryan.
The belief that we can trust in his ‘Free Silver’ is abhorrent, ridiculous, and just plain silly. Those in support of Free Silver often say that, because we have more silver than gold, it is more efficient to use as money. However, this is exactly why we cannot use silver. When it comes to the creation of money, you are allowed to create as much money as you have the resources for. Because there is much more silver than gold, a 16-1 ratio, as those in support would brag, much more money than we already have would be created. However, when a lot of money is created in a very short amount of time, as is generally culture when trying to create more money, the value of that money will go down, and in turn, inflation will go up, resulting in an even worse situation than the country was in to begin with.
The idea of 16-1, which is used to boast the effectiveness of free silver, is also yet another reason why free silver is a bad idea. 16-1 means that 16 ounces of silver were to be equal in value to one ounce of gold. If free silver were instigated, we’d suddenly have 16 times more money than we did before, and we’d have absolutely nothing to do with it, because the sudden amount of money would make said money completely worthless. And what happens when we run out of silver? We’ll suddenly have a blatant shortage of inflated money, and the value of it will suddenly go skyrocketing, resulting in an even bigger economic crisis than we had in the first place.
The belief behind free silver is that it will cure our economic crisis and allow the people who are poor to make a living in these harsh times. However, this would also mean that the people who have the money and are already rich would become poor, and then they would be able to find money to make them rich while the people who became rich become poor again. The cycle would continually repeat, until we inevitably run out of money to become rich with, and end up with one group of rich people and one group of poor people all over again… most likely with the people who were rich in the first place being the group with all the money and power once again.
William Jennings Bryan has supported Free Silver as the means of fixing all of our economic-related issues. However, in praising it, he has forgotten to check it for even the simplest of errors. Bryan has ensured his loss in the election by praising an idea that simply will not work and will only get the economy into a worse state than it was to begin with. By proposing quick-solve ideas, Bryan has proved his incompetence as a financial manager and therefore shown that he is in no position to be running the country in these times of great crisis. So when election day comes around, and you are looking at your ballot before you vote, please think of our future as a country and do not vote for William Jennings Bryan.
Sources:
-Frank Atrash
-http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/currency.html
-http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h763.html
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