Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation htfp://www.archive.org/details/crashofgoldcombiOOreedrich JAN 1896. THE DAWN QUARTERLY. VOL.1. NO. 1. f 17 BR§Jt)Xlll|uarterly by'theDAWN Pubi^ishing Co.. Chicago. Price $1.00 per -^-- ^ It Annum. Single Copies 25 cents. GIVE LIVING WATER IN LOVING KINDNESS TO SUFFERING MEN. The yoke of Ti-uth is easy. The burden of Love is light. tvxxtk sTtalt malue v^on fvtt. IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS It Has Become Necessary for the People to Dissolve the Legal Bands Which Unite Them to Monetary Despotism. To Prove This These Facts Are Submitted to a Candid World. A question is never settled till it is settled right.— B. Disraeli. (Notico next pace.) SUBSCR/PT/ONS WANTED, ADVERTISEMENTS WANTED. AGENTS WANTED, LIBERAL TERMS GIVEN, A popular book on the right side and at the right time, and a good seller. Sells equally well to members of all parties, for in it there is not a line of hatred. At the same time it is fearless, true and full of information. Big wages made by agents. EVERY VOTER SHOULD HAVE A COPY. NOTICE. — By making a hole of the proper size in a piece of cardboard or thick paper a 25-cent piece may be inserted, thin paper pasted on, and thus sent in a letter, or you can get a postal money order. Send 25 cents to George P. Reed, manager of The Dawn Publishing Company, 655 Sixty-second street, Chi- cago, and receive, postpaid, a copy of "The Crash of the Gold Combine." Send a dollar bill and receive four copies. Send a dollar and receive a copy elegantly bound. Send your quarter or your dollar and help disseminate knowledge vital to every patriotic citizen. That's the way to carry on a campaign of education and spread terror into the ranks of the money monop- oly. Victory is only a matter of patience, persistence, and time- not long, either. We want the assistance of every man and woman who believes there is something wrong somewhere. We want every faithful shoulder to the wheel. GEORGE P. REED, Author of "The Crash of the Gold Combine." THS ^ .\ CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE, OR GOOD GOLD CHEAP. THE GAUNTLET THROWN DOWN — at the — FEET OF SINGLE GOLD STANDARD ADVOCATES. THE FINANCIAL QUESTION SETTLED AND SETTLED RIGHT. From Cover to Cover this is a Work that with Reason Appeals to Reason and is Bold, True and Free. HEBE Ton GET] MANY FOLD TOUR MONEY'S WORTH OF WINNOWED GRAIN WITHOUT BEING ENVELOPED IN CLOUDS ^OF POWDERED CHAFF. A New and Absolutely Invincible Argument is Presented and the Whole Scope of the Financial Question Indicated. -By- -- GEORGE P. REED. 7BEsr?rl Publishers: THE DAWN PUBLISHING CO., 655 62nd St., Chicago. ysji^ Copyright, 1896, By GEORGE P. REED. CONTENTS. Page. Preface 1 Introduction to Modern Political Economy 5 Gold and Silver 8 Money 10 An Account Unit 11 What is an Account 14 What is a Coin 16 Coins 18 U. S. Cannot Make Money 19 Charges for Coining '. 20 Coining Metals , 23 Paper Money 25 The Paper Money of the U^ S . , 27 The U. S. Treasury 34 The Clearing House System 37 Barter 39 The Mechanism of Exchange 44 Time 48 Debts 51 Political Economy 54 The Mechanism of Spoliation 59 A World's Example 68 Salaries 70 Force and Power 73 The Vital Force or Valic Force 79 Price 84 A Free Silver Money 87 The Eagle 89 Law Expedient to be Enacted 90 Ratio Between Silver and Gold 93 Relative Value 95 Sj^stems of Standard Weights 98 The Crash of the Gold Combine 101 Sixteen to One 106 Bimetallism 110 An International Monetary Congress Ill Demand and Supply 112 Fiat 113 Money and Coinage of the U. S 115 Some Clear Conceptions 121 A Few Facts 122 Ratio, Relative Price and Relative Value 127 Leaves for the Professors 133 The Garden of Eden 142 Politics 144 Bric-a-Brac ► 153 THE MODERN HERCULES-HIS BOBS AND THEIR MASTER. PREFACE, Our system of money and trade is wrong and we have endeavored to show wherein the wrong consists. We have kept reasonably near our subject and advanced prin- ciples that will bear the light of reason. We have not incorporated tables of statistics, knowing how dangerous and misleading they often are. The great purpose of statistics is frequently, to show how well the people are doing and that they are getting a great return for their unremitting toil, or to show how lightly they are taxed and how much more they can stand. It does not affect the wealth of the nation, the happi- ness, prosperity, power or glory of the country in the least, whether it be valued at one dollar or one billion billion dollars. There is no narrow, partisan bias in this work. It, therefore, furnishes a true political guide to men of all parties, appealing equally to the East, the West, the North and the South ; for it is a fact plain to many that the "Financial Question" has come to stay, and must be settled by the intelligence of the people of the U. S. or of the world before any other great question can take its place. 2 ' - - •- TREFACR There is something wrong somewhere. What is wanted now i^ not bitterness, hatred, abuse, nor blind partisanrv, but a clear conception of the question and a sensible plan whereby our people may get honorably and honestly out of their difficulty. This we have shown, and more than this, we have advanced the study of Political Economy and laid the foundations that will support it as a true science. •We hope hereby to merit the regard of true students of this science, as well as the gratitude of the rest of man- kind, especially of those who constitute the Wealth of Nations, that is, of workingmen, men of enterprise, genius and industry. By workingmen we mean useful men everywhere. We mean every toiler, man or woman, upon, above, or below the surface of the earth, whether in learned directions or in those that are not so much so. It was written, therefore, for true patriots, and is sub- mitted to electors and the makers of law the world over. It was written by a soldier. For the right against the wrong. For the slaves who've waited long, For the brighter age to be. For the truth, Against superstition, For the faith against tradition, For the hope whose glad fruition, Good patient eyes shall see. The work is all entirely new, and simple as it may «eem, the labor has been arduous. It has been written PREFACE, S under the weight of deep mental distress; may this ex- tenuate its faults in construction and style. Nevertheless, the argument is utterly stable, and we defy any gold monomonetist, or any other man on the face of the earth, of whatever financial school, to over- throw it. Founded upon the eternal rock of truth, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it No assault can make the least damaging impression upon it. The argument can- not be jostled, much less shattered. ^^ The Crash of the Gold Combine. INTRODUCTION TO MODERN POLITICiv ECONOMY. Value is the Vital Energy of Man. The strength of men. Value is also called purchasing power. It is the purchasing power of men. It is as much a power as the electric power, may be said to pervade commodities, and is to be investigated scientifically. Political Economy is the science of this power or force. The value of any commodity, to be a standard of value, must, it follows, be a standard of relative value, as its value is compared with the value of other commodities. By despotic legislation the standard of relative value in the U. S. has been made to be the value of the minted gold of the U. S. Gold is a cornered commodity in the hands of, comparatively, a very few, who may be called con- spirators against the welfare of the world, and the earth is cultivated for their benefit. The world is enslaved and the earth mortgaged to the Gold Combine. A standard of relative value is a money. The account unit of the money of the U. S. is 25.8 grains of the minted gold of the U. S. and is the IT. S. dollar. Its value or purchasing is the unit power of purchasing power. Its value is the unit of value. 6 tHB CRASH OF THE GOLl> COMBINE. Its delivery is the unit task of indebtedness, and the obligation here has naught to do with value but with material. It is the body that is contracted to be delivered, not the soul. Trade is the interchange of vital energy. The minted gold of the U. S. is made to be the standard by arbitrary and despotic law unworthy a, free people. Taxes are a contribution of vital energy, and always paid by industry, or the workingman, as are also interest and debts. All labor is mental effort. Gold gets its value from the brain or mind of man. It gets its high present value because labor is paid-in it. On account of immense unsatisfiable contracts for de- livery, which are increasing, this value is made ultra intense and is constantly intensifying. Supply comes from man and material, the earth and power. It is born of the vital spark and mother earth. Every power used by man is of the mind, or a servant of the mind. Such are the expansion of steam, the weight of falling water, etc. The material may be called instruments or instru- mental of the mind. The human hand is an instrument, so is a trowel, a hammer; the steam engine, the waterwheel, the pen, are all of the same category of tools or instruments. Even, perhaps, the brain itself may be called an instru- ment of the mind. Here may be considered as seated or centered the mind, or spiritual nature, or the soul of a man, and here Heaven and Earth may be said to meet or be joined. The so-called capital never lifted a weight, parted a particle, drew a design, designed a machine, sewed a THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 7 seam, penned a line, or invented anything of any kind. It never thought, felt, heard, saw or labored, nor hath any political economist ever described it clearly. The power of the Mind of Man, we believe to be of the Mind of the Creator of Heaven and Earth and of that temple not made with hands. The earth was given by God to Man and is his heritage. The mind of man, or the tree of knowledge, has its root in Eden of the seed planted there from on high, and must grow till its top reach the Heavens and bear fruit in the Kingdom of God, when universal justice will be done, and the mind of man expanding, reach almost the Infinite, and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. The Gold Combine, or money monopoly, or gold mono- metallism, is an indefensible fraud upon the Son of Man, a swindle upon humanity, a child of the devil. It is a whited sepulchre, and we defy the gold gang of Europe and America to produce a man who can prove that the theory is not false, a fraud, a humbug, a delusion and a snare. Gold monometallism is organized hypocrisy, a beggar, a thief, and a liar. It is the robbery of the beauty to feed the beast. It is the enslavement of industry. The sublime duty of break- ing these chains devolves upon the Congress of the patri- otic citizens of the United States of America. This standard of value is of the vital energy of man. The vital energy may be considered as incorporated in the material money and diJffused through it as if it were a storage battery. This is no reason why the Congress, in its merciless savagery, should command that a certain metal should be used as money to the exclusion of all competitors, and this to please the most brutal and accursed foreign con- 8 THE CRASH OF THE) GOLD COMBINE. spiracy that ever tyrannized over a suffering world. This conspiracy is foreign to every principle of truth, reason or justice. This conspiracy is robbing our worthy people of their substance and brutalizing mankind. This is a campaign of education, and this fraud of gold monometallism is what confronts our people. How long, O Man, how long! GOLD AND SILVER Kre metals and both chemical elements, that is to say, simple substances. When pure, any given quantity of either is exactly the same as any other such quantity of the same. The gold or silver of Africa, America or Australia, is exactly the same. To think otherwise is to follow a very erroneous, popular impression. Gold is gold, and silver, silver, the world over. Considered in this light they are commodities, or merchandise, very definite and account- able merchandise, but subject in trade to the same funda- mental laws of trade as are other commodities. Each of these commodities is exchanged the world over by weight. As the object of trade is gain, either of them will naturally be taken to the best market, whether in bars or ingots of various fineness or impurity, or as coins of uniform fineness or impurity. This is all there is to the clumsily expressed and much vaunted law called Gresham's, which is as follows; "Bad money drives out good money, but good money cannot drive out bad money." THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 9 It is simply a consequence of tbe fact that men trade for gain and are inclined to take their goods to the best market. Coins are but certified ingots, containing a certified pro- portion and weight of gold, or silver, or other metal, as the case may be, and usually or always stamped by gov- ernmental authority. Coinage or mintage by government is but the weigh- ing, mixing and stamping of metal. As each coin contains a definite quantity of metal, then a number of such coins contains as many times as much metal as does one coin. The advantage is security as to quantity and quality, and it naturally follows, convenience in accounting, which after all should be the only object. A trader should know exactly what and how much of a valuable commodity he is dealing with. It may be well to remember that the list of metals up to, and long after the discovery of America contained only seven. The same were known to the most ancient Greeks. This number has greatly increased with the advance- ment of chemistry, and some of them are rare and very high priced, but the only precious metal in this country and nearly or quite all of Europe is gold. By precious metal I mean a metal in which accounts are forced to be kept or prices of other commodities expressed. A pre- cious metal, therefore, is a pricious metal — a metal of prices. This diversion in favor of gold has been brought about by the most colossal, cruel and unrighteous legisla- tive conspiracy that the world has ever known or can ever know. It is the purpose of the author to destroy this unnatural supremacy of gold in trade. There never has been a single sound argument advanced for this forced gold standard, 10 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE, MONEY. A money is anything in which accounts are kept or reckoned, and, therefore, it naturally follows, in which debts are contracted, for the balance of an account is a debt. One side of an account in these United States is ex- pressed in a weight of the minted gold of the United States. The "money of account" of the United States is the minted gold of the U. S. The money of account in England is the minted gold of England. The first is 9-10 gold and 1-10 copper, the sec- ond is 11-12 gold and 1-12 copper. The first is weighed out in dollars of the U. S., which is the account unit of the U. S., and accounts are expressed in terms of dollars and cents, or dollars and hundredths. In England it is weighed out in pounds or sovereigns, shillings and pence. The difference is in fineness and in the weight and method of subdivision of the account unit. Gold, however, in both cases is of the legally privileged money of the country and upheld by arbitrary and des- potic legislation. Gold is a cornered commodity, and "business'^ is a struggle to wrest gold from the masters of the trade and political situation, or rather to wrest labor from the industry of the country in suflScient quantity to satisfy the demands of the gold combine, for small portions of a pampered and specially privileged commodity. Gold monometalism is a fraud sustained by blood and iron, and tolerated by industry and ignorance. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 11 AN ACCOUNT UNIT. Tlie dollar of the United States is the account unit of the United States. The material of which it is made is the money of the United States. The dollar of the United States is 25.8 grains of the minted gold of the United States. It is not 23.22 grs. of pure gold, as some say. It is 9-10 fine, and contains 23.22 grs. of pure gold. The dollar of the U. S. is of the money of the U. S. It is 25.8 grs. of the money of the U. S. as minted by the government of the U. S. This is absolutely the law. There is none other modify- ing it in any degree. This is from Sec. 13 and 14 of the law of 1873. Do not go on with the idea that a dollar is simply 23.22 grs. of gold. If you do you will stick hopelessly in the bog. A good account unit must count up accurately, and has always been a definite quantity of something definite. It is always measured merchandise, or if you like better, as metals have always been for various reasons selected as the material for money, it is a weight of metal. It is usually a definite weight of a definite alloy. The cheaper metal alloyed being of very small relative value has usually been disregarded as not furnishing an appreciable factor in monetary argument. For instance, one-tenth by weight of both the gold and silver coins of the U. S. is copper. This has been added to improve their hardness, espe- cially the 'hardness of gold. It makes the coins better, or more durable. It does not make the money better. The United States did not designate a certain number of grains of pur*^ i^'^ld to be its "unit of value," 12 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. It might have done this and alloyed its coins to suit the circumstances, always being sure to put the right quan- tity of gold in them. Had the U. S. done this it would have been too plain. There would not have been enough smoke about it. A pure gold account unit would have been better, more simple, and more explicit than an alloy. The cheaper metal alloyed is of no trouble to the gold interest. It comes out in the wash of account and only serves to befuddle the inquiring mind. You and I might use a pound of copper or a weight of anything else as our account unit, and copper, therefore, as our money. It would then fulfill the exchange mission of money, at least in that particular account. If a pound of copper were specifically and arbitrarily designated as the "unit of value," or account unit of the U. S., then copper would be the money of the countrj- and a pound of copper the account unit. It would then be the only thing in which debts could be conveniently contracted, or accounts kept, or for which labor could be conveniently sold or made solid. Its de- livery would be the solution or liquidation of indebted- ness. The task of delivery would be the weight or burden of indebtedness. The delivery of a pound of copper would be the unit task or the unit measure of tasks of indebted- ness and the purchasing power of a pound of copper would be the measure of values or purchasing powers. It would be the unit of value. The gold dollar of the U. S., the gold sovereign of England, and the gold mark of Germany, by force of arbitrary law, to-day enjoy that proud distinction. Even though the latter as a single coin be not minted, still it is counted, and coins containing multiple quantities of it ^re minted by Germany in large quantities. The goW THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. IS franc of France is not minted, nor is the gold half dollar of the U. S., nor the gold cent of the U. S., still there is no trouble in counting them and they are passed from hand to hand by representative coins or counters. These vari- ous gold moneys and account units respectively enjoy the peculiar and special privilege of being the money and account units of those countries to the exclusion of all competitors. This is brought about by arbitrary legisla- tion, unwarranted by any principle of justice, humanity or reason. We do not mean to say that a copper account unit would be as good as, or better, or worse, than a gold one, but simply to make the point that the gold ones are arbitrarily maintained. If the gold account units or money were better than any other, it seems to me that it would need no special law in its favor, but could sustain itself by the law of natural superiority. That it could do so is exceedingly doubtful, in fact it is almost absolutely certain that it could not do so. The Great Gold interest is certainly of this opinion, for it moves heaven and earth to maintain this special privilege, accorded by pliant government and an ignorant people to this specially petted commodity. The Gold Monometallists or Monomonetists are un- doubtedly the least deserving and the most importunate, arrogant, insolent and successful thieving beggars that in the history of the world ever beset the temple of Govern- ment. They seem to be in utter control, and to be privileged to insult, abuse and rob with immunity, the industry whose nerves and sinews built, sustain, and maintain the whole fabric. The question is how long can this progress of Gold Despotism and Robbery and Industrial Poverty with- 14 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. ^' '^ SO long as some of our confident goldists think, and tliT*publi cation of this book will shake this principal tower of Babylon till it totters to its final fall. Wo do not attack gold or any other metal, but we do protest against the special governmental favoritism whereby any metal or metallic alloy shall be posted as the God of Commerce, or any account unit, or money forced upon a people by despotism, for the purpose of making the Gold interest the master of Trade, Govern- ment, Politics, and Progress, and the autocratic arbiter of the destinies of mankind. WHAT IS AN ACCOUNT? An account is a record of mutual exchanges. One side of it is kept by weights of a commodity. This commodity is money. These weights are unit weights or account units of this commodity. In fact it is kept in money which is weighed and counted by account units. The delivery of this account unit is the unit task of indebtedness. The value of this account unit is what we estimate or mentally weigh values in. It gets its value from the fact that labor is sold in it. Every item in an account is the result of an agreement A trade is the balance of two commodities in exchange. Trading is the balancing of commodities in exchange. As value resides in, or vital energy may be said to per- vade these commodities, it may also be said to be the equilibrium of vital energy. When the balance is struck the commodities are exchanged and the record becomes an itr»m in an account. If the goods be not then and there 1?HE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 15 delivered the contract for their delivery becomes a debt. A debt is a contract for the delivery of goods. The goods not delivered are debited to the man who owes and credited to the man who owns the commodity. This is done back and forth and credits offset debits. Debits never offset anything but credits. Remember we are talking of the same man. It is a very great mistake to say that debits offset each other. If the balance of an account is settled by the tender of a check against a bank remember that the check did not pay the account, but that the gold or money for which it called did pay it. Here we have the beginning of the check system. If two strang- ers get on a street car and one gives the conductor a dime and the other gives the first a nickel and the conductor gives back nothing, that is an example of the clearing house system. If he had given him a check where he could go for his nickel then you would have the check and clearing house system. This system does not argue for or against gold. It could be carried on with a silver, copper, nickel or any other money just as well. It is a Quaker gun utterly useless in the war of mone- tary argument. The Goldists have not one true argu- ment. U. S. Gold money in this country is the clearing house commodity and the dollar the clearing house weight. We could extend the clearing house system to any other metal, but somehow we do not. Our Congress and people are too much affected with the gold craze and gold heresy for that. If we selected any other account unit but gold, the price of gold would fall, for this other would be used to pay labor with, and right here is where gold gets its high value, and the high momentum or intensity of that value is rapidly increased, to the fearful sacrifice of all the industry of the country, except the one of the golden tiger. 16 THE CRASH OF THE GOL BINS. Tlie price of gold is too high and *t »s too hard to get. It is too hard to earn a dollar. Too mucn blood is sold or solidified to make a gold dollar. The process is dreadfully wastefu is sapping the vitality of mankind. ' ""^^ This is on account of the many gold debts of the world, or immense contracts for the delivery of gold, whose fulfillment is transferring the property of the world with fearful rapidity, as if on an endless belt, from the worthy camp of Genius, Labor and Enterprise into the useless camp of the ungrateful, arrogant, and utterly worthless gold gang. This fetid lily of Gold Monometallism toils not, neither does it spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. WHAT IS A COIN? A coin is a legal ingot. Coins are of two kinds: 1st. Legal ingots of money stamped with their own weight or quantity. 2d. Legal ingots stamped with the money quantity of which they are representative. The first we shall call weight coins, the second we shall call face coins. Examples of the first are all the gold coins of the U. S. and of the second are all the silver and other coins of the U. S. The first are of the money itself. The second work on the principle of a poker chip or a trunk check. That is, they are chips for gold coins made good at the treasury of the U. S. The pesos of Mexico are weight coins. The THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 17 silver dollar of the U. S. before 1873 was a weight coin. What is called the silver dollar now is another thing en- tirely. It is merely a chip for a gold dollar made good by Sam. Its use is to circulate gold, and it is made good not by the fiat but by the deed or do it of Uncle Sam. As far as being in trade is concerned, it might just as well be of paper, while its body lay peacefully in Uncle Sam's tombs for silver at Washington. However, there is one immortal fact in favor of silver, which is that silver is, and always has been, the pre- ferred coin of the world, a fact which no amount of suc- cessful Gold bugism has been able to quench. So as a mater of fact, besides greenbacks we have silver graybacks and silver certificates and treasury note gray- backs. The only difference between a silver dollar and a paper one is the price of the material, for neither of them are dollars. The name dollar as well as its right to being used as money was robbed completely from silver in 1873. The sign | is a contraction of p or pp used for pesos, which were the "Spanish milled dollars" of our great dads, and the sign was in common use long before an Englishman ever settled in the territory of the U. S. These pesos were made to a large extent in Mexico, a colony of Spain, and there was no difference between a Mexican and a Spanish milled dollar except in the cMfference of significant mint letters. They all bore the pillars of old Castile and were of equal power as soap. They were frequently called pillar dollars. The silver dollars we have now are not of money, but they are good because Sam has been able to put up for them dollar for dollar at the U. S. Treasury. Sam is now a bondsman bossed by his beloved gold bond- holders. As a slave he ia a lanky dandy. It Is an ioteresting group, but mixi^v miqm flor aa- 1$ THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. cient Greek. We paj for the show and many of us seem to be proud of the grotesque arrangement. If the paper money of the U. S. or the silver chips of the U. S. may fairly be considered as checks or drafts against itself, what w^ould you think of giving a bank power to force its own checks upon people by law. Paper money is usually caHed "credit money." This is a great misnomer. It is in fact "debit money." When the "great financiers" are speaking of "credit" they usual- ly mean debit. When they speak of our vast system of "credit" they mean our vast system of debit, of which they are the beneficiaries. They are generally howling out its praises and asking workingmen to sustain it. Working- men have sustained it. Workingmen are getting tired. Different forms of "credit" are different classes of debit or debt. Voters in this game can generally gain a pointer by coppering the advice of the great financiers. The handwriting on the wall for the yellow king and his haughty lords is Mene Mene Tekel. COINS. The gold coins of the U. S. are 9-10 gold and 1-10 copper. The silver coins are 9-10 silver and 1-10 copper. The nickel coins are 3-4 copper and 1-4 nickel. The bronze or common cent is 95 per cent copper and 5 per cent tin and zinc "in such proportions as the director of the mint may determine." It may be noticed that our gold bug friends do not object to the use of other metals as coins, but are ver^ particular that no other shall be THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 19 designated as money. I believe that it is true that no other metal has been in use as money besides gold and silver since before the discovery of America, at least by any civilized nation. It is true that other metals have been used for making coins. Among these, platinum was coined by the Russian 'Government into face coins for 12, 6 and 3 rubles, but platinum was never money in Russia. Their coinage was discontinued on account of the cost of making them, for platinum fuses with diflSculty. The subject of alloys and metals is an extensive one, well worthy of the attention of our Congressmen. Chem- istry throws some light on this subject, and it would be well for them to look it up, rather than to swallow gold bug juice cold and raw. The theory of the single gold standard is an unspeakable fraud and sustained by the weakest and most shameless sophistry or simply defended by the blindness of ignorance. UNCLE SAM CANNOT MAKE MONEY . The United States cannot make money. It can only make debts. On the other hand it can and does prevent certain commodities from being used as money. It can and does arbitrarily designate a certain commodity and command that it shall be used as money to the exclusion of all other. Government used to do this for religion. Kings also used to, and still do, stamp nobility on the back of a man with a sword, which act went down his blood through the future generations. In many cases the one blackguard ennobled the other. This noble gold black- guard owes his title only to despotism. The one piece of 20 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. Divine RigM is no more defensible than the other, in fact the latter is incomparably more unjust than the former. Sam runs his shop for the benefit of the Lords of the Golden Ring. You sweat for your money and Sam makes you sweat for his when he gets any. He wants you to sweat more and more, or at least that is what the gold monometallists want him to make you do. Remember that Sam does not make money. He makes debts and sweats the money out of you. The coining of metals is simply the making of coins. It is either the turning of crude money into manufactured money, or the certifying to a debt on some sort of metal. The making of paper money is kite flying or note shoving. It does not help you Mr. Workingman. CHARGES FOR COINING. The Government of the U. S. will not carry a letter, however important that letter may be, without charging for it, which is perfectly right It performs an honest service, and should make an honest charge for it. Why should it take your dirty gold or any other metal and coin it without charging for it? There is no reason in the world. Of course gold monopoly gets no favors. Gold monopoly runs on merit and merit alone. Now again, if the government coins gold and makes an honest charge for it, it should do exactly the same, if asked, for any other metal. But our gold men will answer: "O no, that will never do; gold money is the only money." "No other metal is fit to be money and should not be allowed to com- pete." Of course, these are splendid reasons. The U. S. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. «1 might better have an established church than an estab- lished money. Of course, these blessed gold patriots have never re- ceived any favors; they are the boys that accord them to Sam. "Don't do justice to that low-down silver." "This is a sound money country run on British principles, and the public be damned." After all there is something in sound. Did you hear the voice of the West and the South? The volume of that sound will swell as it rushes over the plains of Illinois back to the Atlantic Ocean. Patriots are going to vote solid against gold despotism. We will see if a campaign cannot be carried on against gold supremacy in the East as well as the West, and we can vote Faneuil Hall to the last patriot. A true cam- paign of education will burst the Gold Combine. Silver in our opinion would make a much sounder money than gold, but that is a matter of opinion. We are not working against gold but for justice, and we defy the "sound money league" of the Chamber of Commerce of New York to put up a man who cannot be downed in argument in short order. This applies to any party. It is a nice travesty on logic to talk free trade and protect gold, to protect the tin miner and slaughter the western silver miner. As to "Sound Money." Silver is harder and more so- norous than gold. The knell of gold monometallism is about to be rung in this country. We forgot to say as to face coins that face coins for obvious reasons are always coined on government ac- count. S. A., the Orient and the Antilles are developing, and a silver money would be vastly to our advantage in trade with those wonderfully important parts of the world. 22 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. With a silver money we could command their trade in the twinkling of an eye and Europe would be left in the back- ground in such manner as hardly to know when the belt slipped off. Surely the Gold Combine is inflexible, but that does not trouble us. We propose not to bend it but to break it. If the government should charge for coinage it should make its charge in gold, as it needs gold in its business of paying off debts, and should try to get that gold as cheap as possible. fGold bullion is crude money. Gold coins are manufactured money. The only difference between U. S. standard gold bullion and U. S. standard gold coins is Sam's weighing and "laying on of hands." Seignorage was originally a toll collected for coinage and in the nature of a steal made from the miner, for it was excessive. It is the same as la quinta del Rey or the king's fifth in Spanish. As there was no competition in coinage it was looked upon by government as an important source of revenue. The "seignorage" so much talked of in the U. S. was simply the excess of silver which was left after the required number of silver chips for gold were coined. It could in no wise be looked on as profit to the IT. S., al- though sometimes called by that name. Seignorage comes from the word seignor, meaning a lord, and was something taken by virtue of sovereign pre- rogative. The Spanish conquerers had to give the king's fifth over to the crown. The king stole from the con- querors and the conquerors from the Indians. Afterward the miners in America were the victims. We do not urge that government claims the right of stealing in these modern days. We do claim that the Government of the U. S., as well as that of England and Germany, upholds the gold interest in stealing from the "Wealth of the Nation," THB CRASH OF THIS GOLD COMBINE. n What is stolen is toil and the results of toil. It is stolen vital energy that flames in the magnificence of the courts of kings and blazons from the red shield of the Bond Syndicate. COINING METALS. Coining metals is not making money. It is making coins. Sam weighs out his standard gold or silver into chunks and neatly stamps them into elegant coins, bear- ing very pretty designs, which do not add to their value any more than in that they are his particular trademarks, and serve as brands to denote the genuine goods. In the case of weight coins they are then usually no longer his. •He has parted company with them and can only get them back through the toil of the industry of the country. These coins, though they travel on their weight, cannot be truly said to travel on their merit, for they are not allowed to have competitors in the field of money. Gold is a monopolistic money upheld by the fiat of Sam. The representative or face coins of this country are the prop- erty of the U. S. Government. A rise in the price of silver would not inure to the special benefit of the silver miner, but to the benefit of the general people. Besides the coins there is an immense quantity of silver bullion in Sam's coffers. In gold mintage Sam is simply a refiner, mixer, weigher and stamper. In gold money force law Sam is an ignorant and un- principled despot, whose motto is the public be damned. He does this labor free for the gold bug humbug, but will not do it for any other metal. 24 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINK. Gold coins are bad because they suffer so from abra- sion. A pure gold coin could not compete with a pure silver one. The Divine superiority of a gold money is nowhere. It is only a relic of the Divine Right of kings. Gold travels in silver shoes. T\Tien it is little, it is babied by copper; when it is bigger it is carried around by silver, while it bosses the shanty. Gold travels on silver legs. Take them away and the little yellow old man of over the sea would be done for forever. Gold has been called the rich man's money. It is the poor devil's money, for by the arbitrary law of gold mono- metallism it is forced upon him. Gold monometallism is undoubtedly the greatest instrument of pauperization ever commanded by the mind of Despotism or wrought by the hand of Ignorance. Fortunately in these United States the conquest of gold is not yet complete. Ignorance on this subject is becom- ing less dense here than in England and Europe. It will not be long before the gold craze will dissipate before the light of reason. If free trade from the shores of England put is good, why is not free trade in metals within her borders good? We ask an answer to the question from some British free trade and gold single standard economist. It is a fit question for the sound money free trade leagues. In argument they have not a leg to stand on. Gold monometallism is a heavy idol with feet of clay. It is upheld by Ignorance on one side and Industry on the other, both laboring under the command of Despotism. Remember all you true patriots that you don't belong to any party. Parties belong to you. .We are only carry- THfi CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 25 !ng on an argument that no gold monometallist on tlie face of the earth can break. We are working for justice and truth, and appealing to the reason and patriotism of every good American citizen, without distinction of party. The money question must not be ignored. Gold mono- metallism must go. PAPER MONEY. Debts are never paid with paper. If you settle your account with a check or pay a debt with a check as you might say, it simply means that you paid it with the money that the check called for. If you pay a debt with a $10 U. S. bill it means that when you had the bill Sam owed you |10. When you passed it to the other fellow Sam owes him $10 and you are out or clear. The |10 in gold is now in the treasury for the other fellow, who can go there and get it or pass it on as you did. Paper money is simply proof of debt. If Sam can pay spot cash on his notes then they are called "convertible," if not they are called '^inconvertible." This cash is always sweated out of Industry. There is no such thing as paper money. There never was any such thing in this country as paper money. Suppose I owe you |10 in gold. I have a paper bill that is inconvertible and for which you can only get ?5. You do not want to take it but must on account of legal tender law. That is simply a swindle gotten up by Sam. Millions of dollars of this have been done. It would take up too much space to go into the multitudinous woes of an irredeemable paper. Suppose 26 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. a war was going on and Sam's gold lias gone up to 200, that is, paper has fallen to 50. At these false prices Sam has to pay for things, for which he afterwards has to settle dollar for dollar. We never have been on a "paper basis" either during the war or at any other time. "The price of gold" during the war was really the price of greenbacks in gold. It meant what a dollar in gold would do for greenbacks. It was what the own- ers of gold would give for them. Like sensible men they always tried to trade and did trade on the safe side. They were on the make and as far as that goes it was all right. They did not want to lose their good gold. So on account of risk the price of greenbacks was generally less than they were really worth, for gold then as now, was a cornered commodity. In this business, the gold men made tremendous profits out of the industry of the country. So much for inflation. Now, some people want an "irredeemable" paper money and some sort of a "per capita" regulation. It would be a splendid thing for swindling creditors. It could do nothing else. When creditors w^ere swindled out of their dues, it would be worth nothing. At first if they were in any wise scarce 'they might bring something. It means government assistance in private repudiation and if extended to the obligations of government would mean a repudiation of all debts public and private, in the United States. There is no honesty nor good sense in it, but it does indicate that the peo- ple feel the burden of debt grievously. Gold at 200 meant greenbacks at 50, or $2.00 green- backs for 11.00 gold. Gold at 150 meant ?1.50 green- backs for |1.00 gold. It meant that a greenback dollar THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 27 was worth 66 2-3 cents gold. So as we said before, we were never on a "paper basis." As to fiat. Let justice be done tliougb the heavens fall. I^i'a^ jusiicia mat coelum. It is not the fiat of Sam that counts. It is what he does that counts. He makes his word good by his acts and that, in the money business, can only be done by making Labor sweat. Industry is in a sweat over this gold monopoly and will vote the old fraud out of power. The gold craze is a fearful humbug. It is the Berserker rage of the nineteenth century. If people were not ^always frightened as to what an ignorant and meddlesome government might next do, a wonderful amount of confidence would be restored. It might be well to remark here that government can float a large amount of notes on the same principle that a bank can lend one-third of its deposits, but that is no ex- cuse for a legal tender law, rather very much to the con- trary. Legally tender is morally tough. THE PAPER MONEY OF THE U. ». Before going further we will remark that no sort of paper can be used as an argument for or against gold or silver or anything else. Whatever may be done for one commodity by the use of paper, may be done for any other. The following are the varieties of the paper money of the U. S. Of course, the reader understands that none 28 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. of them are reallj money, but in one way or other stand as counters for money or representatives thereof. First — Gold notes. Second — Currency certificates, act of June 8, 1872. Third — Silver certificates. Fourth — Treasury notes. Fifth — United States notes. Sixth — National bank notes. Gold notes are simply U. S. warehouse receipts for gold coin. What special advantage there may be to the U. S. Government in warehousing gold goods free of charge, except to the industry of the country, we are unable to say. Sam ought, by the same rule, to warehouse my wheat, copper, nickel, aluminium and other goods, free of charge, after cleaning or refining it for me and putting it up in weighed sacks or stamping it into weighed ingots, free of charge to me. He then ought to give me nice ware- house receipts of the right denominations, so that I could trade my stuff among the boys. One advantage of the business is, that it protects gold from abrasion. Of course the gold gang gets no favors. They run their shop on merit and merit alone. It would not do for Sam to do this for anything else, as nothing else is money — and Sam will not allow any- thing else to become money. Sam is in league with the greatest piece of thievery on earth. Remember a government cannot steal. It can only assist men in stealing. We do not know why Sam runs his shop for the gold gang. Some of them sustained the government during the war because it was a "good thing." It was "business." Will Uncle Sam never get that fact through Ms wool? THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 29 There was no patriotism in them then and there is none now. We have nothing to say about them for this. It was what they call "business." Nevertheless nobody can howl sentiment louder when it goes their way. I suppose this latter is "business" too. Gold bared no breasts to deadly bullets and labor pays all taxes. CURRENCY CERTIFICATES. Are special warehouse receipts for U. S. notes or green- backs. They were issued for the benefit of the national banks in denominations of not less tlian five thousand dollars (|5,000), and counted as part of their legal reserve. These U. S. notes are held in the treasury as special deposits and only to be used for the redemption of such cer- tificates. However, I believe that even this does not prevent our worthy Treasury from sometimes counting them as money in the treasury. For ways that are dark, the U. S. Treasury Department is peculiar. A currency certificate, therefore, is a U. S. note or greenback writ large. When it comes to dealing with the gold gang Sammy is very accommodating. Even Prof. Andrew's immacu- late and infallible Supreme Court can be made to pass a legal tender law and declare that thievery is consti- tutional. They can be made to countenance any sort of money deviltry even unto the theory of gold monomet- allism, which is utterly against public policy, simply be- cause it is wholesale thievery. The gold gang rules the pulpit, the bench, the press, the bar, the court, the camp, the field and the campus. 80 THE €RASH OF THE GOLD COMBINS. SILVER CERTIFICATES. The TJ. S. silver certificate is practically a warehoase receipt for silver dollars. It is a consequence of the act of Feb. 28, 1878, where the Secretary of the Treasury is directed to buy from two to four millions of dollars worth of silver bullion per month and coin it into a like number of silver coins or chips for dollars, which chips were to be of the weight and fineness of the dollar of the dads, but were not the dollar of the dads by a long shot. They were the dollar of the dads emasculated. The dollar of the dads was a weight coin and a very potent dollar and that's why he was emasculated. The excess of silver was ''paid" into or stored, in the treasury. It was called "seignorage" or "gain." Sam was simply to hoard it and suck his thumbs. For a large portion of the silver dollars coined under that act treas- ury certificates were issued. They have the power of silver dollars. TREASURY NOTES. !^re practically the same as silver certificates and have equal power. They are a consequence of the law of July 14, 1890, which was practically only an extension of the law of 1878, with some unessential modifications, such as the manner in which the bullion was acquired and that he did not have to coin more of the bullion than enough to redeem all treasury notes. Of course, the expense of this interesting operation was borne by the people. Congress has no scruples when it comes to binding burdens grievous to be borne upon industry. The financial policy of John Sherman has not THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 31 been changed. It is easy. It is, more bonds, more taxes, more blood for the b^ll-liound of tlie gold standard. We have been surfeited with silver, simply because we can- not have a silver money, but only silver chips whose mis- sion is to circulate gold and keep our dear gold bug government in a stew. By the law of Nov. 1, 1893, silver buying was repealed. By !his law of 1893 the U. S., as in 1890, again solemnly pledged itself to maintain the "parity" and "equal pur- chasing power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts." If this be true, it is not to the interest of the U. S. to be a bull-headed gold bull, nor to forc^ down the price of silver. The U. S. seems to take fiendish delight in sweating workingmen and robbing Industry for the benefit of the gold clique. THE UNITED STATES NOTE Is a descendant of the greenback. It is now converti- ble. There were $346,000,000 of them in circulation and Congress, May 31, 1878, forbade any further reduction of them. The greenbacks could be exchanged for gold at the U. S. Treasury on Jan. 1, 1879, and since then have been convertible. However, the premium on gold disap- peared Dec. 17, 1878, on account of the fact that it was known that this soon would, and could, be done. The status or position of the greenback at present is different than of yore, because the government has solemnly pledged itself to always maintain the equal purchasing power of all its dollars. As the number of them can- not under present law be reduced, they make a con- venient means of taking gold out of the U. S. Treasury, 82 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. but for that matter, all of the dollars but the gold one may be used for that purpose. The greenback was born of the villainous idea of legal tender law, by which a man may be forced to take some other thing than that in which a debt is contracted. The true law is, let a man deliver what he contracts to deliver and let the people trade as they will. The U. S. note says it will pay bearer five dollars. It does not say when. The treasury note says it will pay the bearer in coin. It does not say when, but has the silver dollars in the treasury ready all the time. The silver certificates will pay the bearer silver dollars on demand. The national bank note will pay the bearer five dollars on demand. So it comes down to the fact that all the paper moneys of the U. S. are redeemable in gold coin and nothing else. For if they should give you silver you have only to go to the other window for your gold. THE NATIONAL BANKNOTE. "This note is receivable at par in all parts of the U. S. in payment of all taxes and excises and all other dues of the U. S., except duties on imports, and also for all sal- aries and other debts and demands owing by the U. S. to individuals, corporations and associations within the U. S., except interest on the public debt." This note is secured by bonds deposited in the treasury and is issued to the extent of 90 per cent of the face value of those bonds. Now, suppose you should meet Uncle Sam and should say: "Sam, you owe me ?100,000, and I hold your in- terest-bearing note for that sum. Now, I want to leave THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 33 fhat with you simply on deposit and get it cut up into small notes, whicli I will hold." Suppose Sam answers, saying: "WTiat I want is confidence and that's the kind of a game we will work on the outsiders. "We will establish a great banking system and we will have the cheek to call those notes the ^national cur- rency' or the 'national bank currency.' ''That will give them a big send-off as far as sound is concerned and the fact that you leave the bond here will make them good, as good as the blood of Industry. Besides, I will help you shove the queer by printing what you have read above upon it. You can shove it as shin- plaster, while I pay interest on it as debt The public be damned will take it as money, while you work it for interest. We will stand in with each other. I furnish the cash while you furnish the experience and rake in the profits. It will be a fine piece of flim-flam work and great gold-bug financiering. "That little clause relating to taxes, excises and other dues will run me a little short on gold, but then, you see, that is nothing to me, as I extend from sea to sea and the stamp of the government is money. I need gold to pay my debts with and keep up my "parity," but, then, I am the boss and running this shop in the interest of the gold combine and I have millions of men and suffer- ing women to work for me, whom you may drive to abject poverty and distress, without their knowing how the game works or how these unseen forces play." If you were a national bank man, you would probably attend the bankers' convention. There you would fill up on champagne, bubble with monometallism, spout with patriotism, whoop up the financial policy of the govern- ment and sound money, gold money, of course. The next day's papers would be filled with the idiocy of your 34 Ttlfi CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBIN®. driyeling, your food for the gullible, your traps for tlie unwary, your vain Pharisaical hog-wash. Mr. Patriot, this sound gold-money fraud, in a short time, has made comparatively few to be owners, body and soul, of the great Republic of America. A large portion of these few do not live in this country, but they hold the reins that are driving it to hell. It matters little, however, where the home of the despot be. It is better that he be a foreigner, for if he lived among you, you might mistake him for one of you. You are making the laws and the business of confiscation goes on here. These laws brought the tall form of Sam, down on trembling knees, before the paunches of a dude syndi- cate. The gold villainy is a colossal steal of vital energy. The national banking system is an unutterable fraud upon the industry of the country. It is only one of many of the children of the single gold standard thievery. THE UNITED STATES TREASURY. The U. S. Treasurer says that on June 1, 1895, he had of gold in the treasury |94,265,611, and that there was in circulation |483,770,430 of gold. Now, if this gold in the treasury was not in circulation, where was it? Is it not, in fact, over circulated? Are not our shares in it very badly watered? He could not come anywhere near putting up the gold for his "parity" obligations payable on demand, or de- mand notes, such as silver certificates, silver dollars, treasury notes, greenbacks and national bank notes. iWhat has the treasurer to do with the gold that he says 011A«H #r THE »OLD ©©MBlNfl. S3 is in circulation? It does not belong to the TJ. S., and Sam cannot get it without making workingmen sweat for it. That is what you and your children's children will have to do under this system of monogoldism. You can never pay the U. S. debt under this thieving system, nor does the European conspiracy want you to pay it. They simply want to retain forever the bonds of your servitude. So you can vote for gold and remain slaves or vote against gold and have a chance for free^ dom. The U. S. is really getting deeper into debt in spite of this heavy robbery of the nervous energy of the people. The U. S. owes mighty near two billion now. They have simply shifted interest-bearing bonds into non-interest bearing demand notes, which this blessed government calls money, but which, in fact, are only evidences of debt. The U. S. Government has nothing to do with the gold in circulation, unless it be to show up the visible supply, or rather invisible supply, for even that is doubt- ful, for Sam simply subtracts the amount of gold in the treasury from the general stock coined or issued and calls the rest, gold money in circulation. There is a discrepancy between this statement of the general stock coined or issued and some other statements of the U. S. Treasury, but we cannot stop to bother about that. There is too much that is not clear in Sam's finance statements, treasury reports, and other money jugglery. He counts his paper in the treasury as money in the treasury, when it is worth exactly zero to the U. S. He counts his paper in circulation as money in circulation, when it is is debt and representi a very large minus quantity to the U. S. Government and to the people a large task of sweatery. Especially large to the people who must pay it by labor. More bedeviling things than the 36 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. statements of the U. S. Treasurer cannot be imagined. Besides, tliej are frequently very tricky in their make-up. It looks as if they were gotten up to deceive the people. The author really believes that to be their principal pur- pose. He counts his paper, silver, and invisible supply of gold in circulation and adds it to the gold, silver and paper in the treasury, divides the sum by the population of the U. S. and says there is |35.40 of money in the U. S. per capita. He simply lies. He divides all the stuff in cir- culation by the population and says we have |24.30 per- capita of money. Here he lies again. We have proba- bly less than one-third of that per capita. The govern- ment of the U. S. alone owes enough to make us a per capita bankrupt. Counting all the debts together we are the worst kind of a per capita bankrupt slave, with no hope of redemption, except in the slaughter of the Euro- pean gold combine. The treasurer ought to make a statement intelligible to the farmer, artisan, workingman and scholar. Let him open the door and expose this closeted skele- ton. He ought to tell us where we are and show up this great American what is it, so that plain people could see it. As a guide to anyone who wishes to sift a public debt statement, we will say that all the paper in the treasury is zero. All the silver and paper out of the treasury is debt. All the silver in and out of the treasury should be lumped together as an asset. The U. S. Treasury would be hopelessly broke, but for the taxes wrung from the people to keep up the ^audy gold fraud. Offset the gold in the treasury against the debt of the treasury or the -U. S. and you will have the happy result Add all this THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 37 to the interest-bearing debt and you will see where our wonderful gold-bug financiering lias brought us to after years of toil. It has simply enslaved the nation. What we want now is cheap gold. Plenty gold for little labor. THE CLEARING HOUSE SYSTEM. Suppose thirty merchants form themselves into an asso- ciation and agree at a certain place to settle their demands against each other every day by a certain time. The man who owes to any other member or members, deposits his cash there by that time, the man to whom money is owed by any member or members makes his claim. It is clear that the claims will be equal to the debts or the cash deposited. They are paid out of this cash and the association has cleared, or, rather, the members have cleared as among each other. Now, there may be many of these associations who may clear at a common place as respects demands owed by individuals of one association to individuals of others and all the claims of the individuals of an association may be lumped as the claim of the association considered as an individual. Of course, only differences in money need be transferred and certified checks count as money. In fact, they are the title and warehouse receipt to money. Any bank does the clearing for and among the individuals who patronize it. Banks form themselves as individuals into a clearing house system. The whole system of a country may at last clear at a common clearing house, if it be extended as it really is. We have only shown the principle. We have not gone S8 THE CRASS OP THfi GOLD COMBINE. into detail, but it is as easy as falling off a log and once started to work it moves like clock-work. It is a mag- nificent thing, as hereby an immense amount of the un- necessary carriage of gold is avoided. It does not facil- itate the carriage of gold, but avoids the unnecessary carriage of gold. It facilitates exchange but it does not make gold or pay gold debts by a long shot. Gold debts are paid with gold, or with vital energy. The sin of debt is washed out in blood. It is no argument for or against gold or gold mono- metallism. It could be done for silver, copper, or any other metal or stable substance. If it were done so, it would change our petty, snobby banking system into a great and noble warehouse system. There is no reason why the gold hog should lay iiji the trough and waste the swill. IWhat is wanted is a fair deal for the whole pen. Copper checks could be cleared as well as any other and the account unit might be a pound of copper. So could silver be used, which wouW be incom- parably a better money than gold. One wonderful advantage of silver is, that it owes practically no debts. It would be vastly more economical to the wealth of the nations, engaged as it now is, in sweating out gold debts or of transfusing its blood into the veins of the gold gang, or rather, of giving its power or substance over to the gold monopoly. Banks could carry on as perfect a clearing house system as they now do, without special government support, nor the privilege of shoving shin- plasters as money and receiving interest on them as debt. What we want is to make the burden on Industry as light as possible. We want cheaper gold. We need to reduce the purchasing power of gold, which will be to THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 39 increase the purchasing power of men. It will mean universal prosperity. We want a pound of gold to repre- sent less life force, less vital energy, less nervous power, less blood of man than it now does. Banks can afford to do our clearing free and go to con- siderable expense in clerk hire, rent, etc., because they make certain deals in exchange, etc., and as a large por- tion of our money is sure to be there all of the time, they, lend a certain safe share of this at interest and herein are paid for the trouble besides a certain profit. It is a great favor to us, but must be a somewhat greater favor to them, or they could not afford to do it. We are no enemy to bankers, but we certainly are to the system of gold monometallism, for it is a system of despotism unworthy of this age of Edison and Tesla. The crash of the gold combine is necessary to the prog^ ress of civilization. The clearing house system is a gold .warehouse system. BARTER Is a word closely akin to the Spanish word barato, meaning cheap. The old English word cheap meant to buy. Buyers cheapen what they wish to purchase as much as they can. They chaffer. Schaf is a German sheep. Eastcheap and Cheapside were markets. A chapman is a cheapman or merchant. Cheap, sheep, shape, shift, ship, chip, chaffer, skip, kip, cover and many other words are sheep and goat words from very early times, when sheep and goat skins were money and salt, also, was money, or rather, perhaps, the skins were bar- tered and salt was money. A chip was cut out of a skin, 40 a'SE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. long before it was cut off a block, or before man had a decent chopping instrument. I belieye a cut, a goat and a coat are the same word. These small cattle cut a great figure in the history of the earlj human race and language, and were domes- ticated contemporaneously with the dog, or, perhaps, a little later and long before the horse came into general use. We disagree with Webster, who sajs that barter and barratry are practically the same word, for they do not convey the same meaning, though they may have the same phonetic origin. According to him an old-time merchant must have been looked on as a thief. This is utterly wrong, for a trader is always a welcome man among primitive men. With a bar we break in and steal and with a bar we keep thieves out. Anything so barred, guarded, or warded, was of value, generally of trade value. A man barred his goods and bartered or exchanged his barter. He does it yet. A barn was a bar-in^ where what was wanted was barred safe in and what was not wanted was barred safe out. By the way, safe is a salt word. Earth was a cattle shelter, possibly a bar-out, probably same as berth, a safe place, a safe place for sleeping. The word bar is at the bottom, possibly, of all language. Ba probably orig- inally meant the branch of a tree, and is the fruitful father of a host of labials. The very first labor of man was to break the branch of a tree. A bar was first made from the branch of a tree. Bar is the resolute warning word of a bar-bearing warrior. A barbarous man is a man with a heavy club or bar. The man of Barbary, after he rode horseback, still fought the Christian with a mace or club. A book could be written on this word, which pervades THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 41 and permeates the languages ancient and modern of Europe. A door was barred with a bar; also, with a heavy stone. The Greek baros means a weiglit, from which we get barium and barometer. The Spanish vara is a light bar. A brick is a bar-ick, or small bar, so also, probably brake. To break is probably to bar-ick, for verbs spring from nouns and ick is an old diminutive. We have many, many bar words; for instance, barrel, barley, beard, bread, beer, branch, bring, barrow, brush, burst, brackish, bracken, bruise, baron, war, etc. Gentle reader, do not bother yourself about the fool's maze on barter, written in so many works on political economy. It is generally used as an argument for gold despotism. It argues for nothing. Barter means trade. We trade now, always have and always will. All we can do is to improve our methods and facilities for trading. We could use a silver account unit, quite as well as a gold one. Money is as old as accounts. To keep a de- cent account, you must have a decent account unit, which is always a weight of money. The standard of relative value is the money or the value thereof; the unit of value is the purchasing power of the account unit. As a mat- ter of fact you are only adding up the nervous energy of man as stored in your account unit commodity. In this pernicious system of gold monometallism we are only corroding the mechanism of exchange and wasting the blood of the wealth of the nation. Remember as to coins, in connection with this money business that a weight coin is always an international coin. The above is a scientific fact which it would be well to impress upon your memory and a fact which no interna- tional congress can change. Among great trading nations the barter of dismalism 42 THH CRASH OF THIS SOLD COMBINE. was gone long ago. Even so at the time of the sale of the cave of Machpelah, which happened further on the other side of the manger than we are on this and is recorded in the 23d chapter of Genesis. Abraham bought the field of the cave for 400 shekels of silver. The payment was witnessed by the sons of Heth. The property was "made sure," probably marked, described and delivered in the presence of witnesses. The transaction was a solemn one and properly published and recorded, as it were. "And all the trees that were in the field, that were in the borders round about were made sure." That is, the line trees were marked and more than that, probably on the outside, so that they belonged to Abraham, in case of being cut down for posts or wood. Remember, we had then but seven metals and as many as at the time of the discovery of America. I make out that the silver paid for the field, counted as pure silver, was equal to the pure silver contained in 241 1-3 American silver dollar pieces. A shekel is counted as 224 grains. "Abraham weighed to Ephron 400 shekels of silver, current money with the merchant." That is as we take it, customary money among merchants. We have no idea of the relative purchasing power of silver in those days. It seems to me quite a large sum for those old times. That silver, we suppose, came originally from the mines of Italy or Spain, but we do not know. You know what direful historical consequences are supposed to have been brought about by the failure of the mines of Spain. The world at the time of the discovery of America was hungry and thirsty for gold and silver. It acted like a revivification. Like the transfusion of blood into an emaciated civilization. Christopher Columbus, the scholar, dreamer and crank, whose immortal soul beat itself out from a body loaded down with chains, within the four walls of a Spanish dungeon, brought about a wonderful reawakening in this world. Our world's gold mines have practically failed, but we are in no wise at the mercy of the gold despotism as it so confidently thinks. A little campaign of education will show that there is «uch a despotism and a slight twist of the wrist in mone- tary law^ will free us of the despot. The case of Europe is hopeless now. The heel of the despot is upon her neck, but as soon as we free ourselves, then freedom will come there. Westward the course of empire takes its way. Eastward the light of freedom advances. The world's civilization can get along very nicely with- out any increase in the world's stock of gold, but not, however, under this iniquitous system of gold monomet- allism. We will show you how later. We are not, as many suppose, at the mercy of the gold money kings, nor their army of lickspittles, either in parliaments, congresses, colleges, boards of trade, or cabinets, or out of them. These men are mistaken. They are blind leaders of the blind. 'Seeing the truth they will change their opinions. Just such men made Galileo recant, but the world moved just the same. It was a wholesome thing for him to do, but it is not a wholesome thing for any patriot to cast his ballot in favor of the gold gang. Boys, vote against them hard and strong. Tou clean out their candidates and I will engage to rout their big medicine men. All they preach, is purge, bleed and clyster. We can U THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. drive the golden geese across tlie world with a mullen stalk. Gold monometallism is a goose that eats the wealth of the nation and lays eggs for the gold monopoly. We propose to kill that goose for Christmas, 1897. The boys were right in '76. Vote against the gold gang and you will be right in'96. THE MECHANISM OF EXCHANGE. Now, gentle reader, suppose that you and I sit down under an immense tent, a blue canopy, as it were. We have an imaginary line between us. You have an im- mense amount of goods on your side and I the same upon mine. We are supposed to have caught the idea of money and of an account unit. It will be a definite quantity of some commodity that we both prize, that with both of us has trade value or purchasing power. This value is of the vital energy of man. Now, suppose we swap on the purchasing power of a definite quantity of this money, which we have selected. It does not matter so much what the commodity may be, for it takes two to make a bargain and we are free to select. We have none of Sam's despotism to contend with. Now, we have money and begin to trade with great success. I begin to sell goods, that is, to buy money. I exchange my goods for your money. Every time you want a thing we chaffer on the price and as soon as agreed upon, our servants carry it to you and bring the money back to me,' which is placed in a pile, THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 45 while the goods bought with it are taken over to your side. Here we have the next thing in barter, that is, cash trade, a thing we do every day at the shops. Notice very par- ticularly that with other goods I was buying money. Suppose we had selected a gold money. Is it not true that I was buying gold by money weights. Is it not true, indeed, and in fact, that wit-h various commodities I was buying the single commodity — gold? The counting of good weight gold coins is but the weigh- ing of gold and a gold coin in these U. S. is a counter for its own purchasing power. Not so with a silver coin, that is a counter for a definite quantity of gold. A silver dollar is the counter for the purchasing power ;of a gold dollar and so with paper, copper and nickel. Now suppose our trading* goes on. My pile of gold is getting big. You say to me: "Look here, that kind of money is getting scarce with me and for several reasons it is inconvenient for me.'^ I answer: "There is nothing mean about me. I will trade it back to you." So we trade back and forth thou- sands of our money unit's worth of goods. On the even- ing of this day, all the money thaf I had placed in a pile, of the money that all started from your side, was back again on your side. The place w^here my pile of money had been, was absolutely bare of money. Now, suppose that the account unit w^e selected had been an American gold dollar. Then our money would be of the minted gold of the U. S. It would be what is sometimes called U. S. gold specie and our account unit the gold dollar. Now, in the above trading we see thousands or millions of dollars' worth of goods exchanged and every dollar back where it was when we began. We did not say that the dollars had not been exchanged, for they had, per- haps hundreds of times. We bartered various goods for 46 THE CRASH 0^ THE GOLD COMBINE. a definite weight of a definite goods. Or in the grand round-up, we bartered various goods for a single goods of definite quality. With the value of an account unit we traded goods. Now, that was the good old way, still very much in vogue. We have brought it out just to show how the old thing works. The next morning we come to the old seat and you unfold to me a brilliant plan that occurs to you during the night. You say: "This packing of money back and forth is a deal of trouble. Suppose we just mutually agree to owe it while this trading is going on, and I will have a clerk and you a clerk to keep account of it and any man who carries goods can take a list of the goods he carries, with the prices we have agreed on; that is, a bill of goods or an invoice, and he can bring a re- ceipt back. Our clerks will keep a record. These accounts ought to agree, and if they do not, the mistake can be easily traced and corrected. These clerks will keep a record both of goods and money bought. The accounts will be kept in money counted up by our account unit, which will be a definite quantity of one commodity or a definite quantity of money and each lot of goods will be balanced in trade by a definite quantity of our account unit goods, or money, or by a definite number of our account units, which is the same thing. The account unit goods is money and our standard of relative value. The account unit is a definite weight of money. These clerks, by putting your debit of money against my debit of money can tell exactly at any time what either of us owes to the other." So we exchanged that day millions of dollars^ worth of goods on each side> and at night we were square.^ Not a dollar moved out of your locker to me nor out of mine to you. .THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 47 What passed back and fortli was the purchasing power of money as measured in account units. We bartered through the medium of the purchasing power of an ac- count unit or dollar. Here is where we get the definition of money being a medium of exchange. This definition is imperfect. It is the purchasing power of an account unit that is a medium of exchange. This purchasing power may vary greatly and still be a medium of exchange. The proof is the fluctuation of prices. In this regard there is no more treacherous thing than gold, for it is an utterly treacherous cornered com-" modify. The "fixity of value" theory is utterly worthless as a defender of gold monometallism. If it is good for anything, all its power urges against the continuance of gold money despotism. Under gold monometallism or money monopoly, all times are hard, but some times are harder than others. In this the "sound money" theory is very sound. The system blows in industry to suit itself. It is a colossal scheme of silent confiscation, utterly in^ defensible and has done more to retard the progress of civilization and of humanity than anything else. It is the cause of wars and of man's inhumanity to man. It crucified Christ and has kept the "Son of Man," the "wealth of nations" enslaved. It shall not last forever, for we believe we see the budding of the fig tree, the Son of Man in the distance on the right hand of power. What we want is cheap gold. We propose to pay the gold debts of the world easy and take this burden off of a suffering world. We propose to feed the gold gang gold till it is sick unto death. We purpose to hit the gold monopoly an immortal blow. Gentle reader, with your help and our little knife we will butcher the great red dragon. We will cut his throat from ear to ear. 48 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. TIME. Whether time can be best eonsicTered as sometbing moving toward us and in wbicb we stand as in a flood of silent, swift, invisible wings, or whether it can best be considered as a vast level over which we are traveling with equal pace toward that bourne from which, it is said, no traveler ever returns, are questions, not to my mind solved. The two conceptions are only relatively different. There is another, more amazing and probably more correct conception of time. It is the prophetic or possibly Divine One to whom all is light. In this we neither move nor does anything move toward us. This we cannot now discuss, how interesting soever it might be, for it is an intensely logical scientific specula- tion. In this the space about us is illumined by the light within us. These are rapid times compared with the dark ages. This light, is the light spoken of by Christ, the intelligence of man, or perhaps glints from the mind of the infinite, from the divine spark within us, which in man is now comparatively rapidly increasing. The compass of the mind of Christ is to my mind im- measurable. Was it infinite? The reason that people do not fill the churches is that the preachers do not fill the people. Preachers must, like Moses and the Divine Master, be- come teachers. The laws of Gad cannot be broken, the rules of man may. Science and religion are one. You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free. I believe that we are near the era of peace on earth and good will toward men and that the air is ripe for great THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 49 moral and political revolution. But this can never be till we accomplish the death of money monopoly, out of which hydra the other heads spring. The struggle is already beginning. The sharp crack of the desultory rifle may be heard on every hand. The embattled farmers and workingmen are out and patriots have fired another shot that will be heard round the world. The first shot brought many things. This shot will bring us more free- dom and prosperity than you have ever dreamed of. It will take the lines out of your suffering faces and the look of frightened apprehension out of your troubled eyes. It will give you peace of mind and such happiness as you have never known. Vote right. We must clear the last vestige of this iniquitous oppression of monogoldism from the face of the earth. We had not intended to give a religious, or directly patriotic character to this discussion. Still it is essen- tially of the theme. We are no suppliant at the feet of money monopoly, but a warrior with a knife at his very heart. It is a case of bigotry, oppression, tyranny, theft, cruelty and fraud upon one side and of science and truth and of the elementary and the grand tactics of ethics upon the other. It is a holy war upon one side and a dark, villainous, criminal strife on the other. Gold mono- metallism must go. We want and can easily get cheaper gold. The first conception of time is perhaps the poetical one, wherein we "take no note of time but from its loss." Time comes, time goes, time passes. Was it a dream? was it a World's Fair vision or was it reality? Whatever it was it is gone. The second conception is probably the philosophical one. /'The march of time.'' "Footprints in K0 TITS eEASH 0F THS ftdL9 00MBIK9. the sands of time/' In both perhaps, filled with fear and with hope, we peer with straining eyes into the dim, or judging from the past, speculate into the dark future. For our devils come out of the night and we can never know when our angels may appear. The second concep- tion, that of a road over a plain, is the one we shall adopt. Across this road are certain lines, plainly to be seen, but from the road upward they may be considered as solid and invisible, like walls of solid, absolutely transparent glass. These walls are solid, however, for only those for whom they are intended to be solid. Others walk through them without the least resistance, but the mark in, or by the side of the road may always plainly be seen. We there have received so much time, have endured for so much duration. The traveler there comes at length to the solid wall, without ever having seen it, though he may have feared or known that it was near. He there pays the debt of nature. His account with man is settled. He has left his tools and his work. Here we must leave him with no other requiem but the hope that he may have been strong and true, "A good and faithful servant," who unde- terred by pain, fought the good fight of faith with unflinching courage, whether it seemed to him to be suc- cessful or not, for verily he shall have his reward. Here we must leave our traveler, otherwise we would enter upon the discussion of the ages. We will say, how- ever, that as we believe in the indestructibility of forces, as well as of matter, we believe that he has only left his tenement of clay, his adobe hut, and gone over the divide and that this is not the end. These marks in the road are debtor marks, they are, the time, such as is kept by our watches or our celestial dials. They are dates. .You can crush neither a man nor an eggshell by pressure THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 51 :only in one direction. Many a man has been crushed against a solid wall of hard time. .We only brought up the subject of time because it is a very essential thing, never considered by the common Political Economist. They take no note of time but from its loss. We cannot go further with this for we intend to keep reasonably near the main trunk of our discussion. It takes time for laws to work out results, and given time these results will ever be plainly seen in the light of a clear mind. What is the practice of the doctrine of monogoldism 'doing for the world? What has it done for this country since 1873? Is it not draining it of its life blood and wantonly wast- ing it? (DEBTS. Debts are contracts for the delivery of goods. We shall only consider contracts for the delivery of gold ]goods, or money debts, for the contracts of the world for the delivery of other goods are utterly insignificant. These are all alike in the fact that they are sweated out of Industry. Under this view, National, State, County, Municipal and private debts should be added together as belonging to the same category. It is a well-known fact that the people of the gold standard world cannot even sweat out their National Debts, and the others are collectively much greater. Gold bug philosophy has invented the saying, "A na-* tional debt is a national blessing," as if personal shackles ,were a personal blessing. All this means that the pro^ 52 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. ductive or industrial interests of tlie world are enslaved to the Gold Combine. We must find relief somewhere. We must either pay, repudiate, or stay slaves. We must shoot or give up the gun. The heroic choice between the two evils of enslavement or repudiation is what confronts our people under the tyranny of Gold Monomonetism. Instead of repudiating the debts, we propose to re- pudiate money despotism. Gold Monomonetism is the in- strument of Thievery. It is the jimmy that is cracking the public crib. If this be broken many other evils will remedy themselves. The so-called struggle between Capital and Labor is the struggle between labor and specially privileged labor. Take away the special wrong- ful privileges and the struggle ends. The greatest of these is gold monometallism. As we said before, all debts in a greater or less degree may be called national. They all rest on the same ass, Labor. The bonds of the U. S. are notes. The obligation is the delivery of gold, and that is all the obligation. The only thing that binds a free government is the honor of its people. The bonds of the U. S., as well as all other debts of the U. S., are payable in U. S. minted gold as weighed out in dollars. This gold by unnecessary and arbitrary legislation is made to be the money of the country, and these dollars are weights of this money. This legislation is simply a piece of brutal despotism, and the fact that the same or a similar law obtains in many other countries is no argument in favor of this colossal piece of folly and ignorance. Gold monometallism is foisted on fools by knavery. Bonds may be called bonds because they are bonds of servitude and assign a task to the industry of the country, which task is the delivery of a quantity of a certain quality of a metallic alloy known as the gold coin of the U. S. Up- THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 53 on the point of what a dollar should be the U, S. bond men have been very particular, and it has been settled by law as they desired. Gold monometallism sneaked in without our invitation, and to our infinite relief, it will leave without our regret. The bond men were very par- ticular as to what they should be paid in, and they were right to be particular. For with the howl of the Money-is-the-stamp-of-the-Gov- ernment man heard everywhere in the land they were afraid they might not be paid at all. These people have somehow gotten the idea that the government has everything to do with money and labor or trade nothing. A greater mistake could not be made. Sam does not make money with his little stamp, but he establishes the system of Gold Monometallism with his rascally little law. What we need to do is to give other metals a chance in this business of being conductors for the vital energy of man. The interests of the farmers and the railroads is a com- mon one. These excessive freights are simply profits paid over as interest to the Gold Combine. We want to pay railroad debts cheap. We want to pay them easy. We do not want to rob the hearts of our people of this con- tinuous and tremendous current of vital energy. The heart of the man who thoroughly understands this iniquitous system, and at the same time desires a con- tinuance of it, must be filled with a flood of poison and his soul must be a spot of ethereal venom. This subject of debt deserves more attention than we have been able to give it here. hi THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. POLITICAL ECONOMY. Is the science of power. It is the science of sciences. It takes into consideration the economical use of power as well as the economical application of all of the powers of nature. We want all of these loafers to work in the most economical way for the happiness of man. The quickest and least wasteful way of doing a thing is the best way. This, also, and above all, brings into con- sideration economy in the consumption of the life force of man, or rather, perhaps, the divine spark, the thinking, hopeful, fearful, suffering, enjoying, aspirmg power, that will lead us from Earth to Heaven, and wherein only fs there an essential difference between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. Plants have life and all but thought It is in this thought or thinker that the thought of the Political Economist should be particularly interested. It takes a great deal of blood to run this thinker, as about one-third of the blood of the human body goes to the head, and perhaps, a good deal more in some strong cases. What have our College Political Economists been doing these hundred years with their precious high paid blood? They must show up something better for the money than intricate excuses for the money despotism. The vital force is the noble force, and not to be ruth- lessly consumed. "Thou shalt not kill." No true science ever builds a wall or law against the laws of Nature or of Nature's God. Scientists are ever trying to ascertain what those laws may be. They look for further light, and for this purpose scaf- fold theories, which they abandon when found to be un- serviceable. A description of these abandoned theories THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. K may be found everywhere in the history of the wreckage of science. In some cases they served a very good pur- pose, in others a very bad one. This ignorant humbuggery of the idea that there is any necessity for a governmentally protected money has dom- inated the world for a longer time and done more to retard the science of Political Economy than did the phlogistic theory to retard the science of chemistry. The Political Economists may start their science on the rule, 'Thou shalt not steal." Its corollary is, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." It is a direct command to every scientist. The ten commandments are these two. Stealing is the depriving another of life force or vital energy. It comes near murder; is less only in degree or violence, for in the latter he is deprived of all. Gold Monometallism is the lowest kind of high-toned stealing, the highest kind of low-down sneak-thievery. It is the meanest kind of wholesale murder. Nothing is ever stolen but vital energy, or the purchas- ing power of men. Political economy as taught in colleges is hardly a science. It is a review of mal-government, or mis-govern- ment, interspersed with certain w^heyey speculations. The Malthusian Doctrine shows the cause of nothing. It is a result that falls as the leaves do fall. The population question regulates itself. We are not asking for help for the sons of men who never appear. Help those who are here and the others will naturally show up in due time. We do not need any lectures as to what our sons and daughters ought to do. They will probably do as they used to do. Wherever prosperity is there children will be, and hard times has the contrary effect. In illogical minds, the doctrine of Malthus is used for the purpose of playing the prayer of the Pharisee as a trump card. 5(3 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. We hear a great deal about the Division of Labor. It is a cause of nothing, but is a consequence of the easiest way, as is also the clearing house system. They are natural consequences. We hear a great deal about pro- duction, but the word as used by them has never been clearly defined. The science is in fact a maze of muddled conceptions and of mental murkiness, or in fact no science at all. In manufacture there are two elements, power and material. Manufacture ceases when it does not pay, but men will live and labor for generations on the very verge of a mis- erable existence. Life seems to be sweet, and a man and a Vv^oman v/ill lock arms and go thus for generations, but all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We- get no principles. Is Political Economy the only unprincipled science? Has it no ends, no aims? Is not its object to increase the happiness, the wealth, the welfare of the human race? Gentlemen, what we want is peace and justice, and we want to see the color of your science. Do not quote China and Mexico as an argument in favor of monkey monetism. The trouble with these countries is again a question of force and power. They do not use as many foot-pounds per man as we do. We probably use 500 times as many per man. Mexico is improving rapidly. One of her great troubles is the English gold debt forced upon her when the U. S. was drenched in fraternal blood. See what Japan has done in a day, because of the application of a few advanced methods, all pertinent to the question of the use of power. The business of a true Political Economist is not that of a special pleader of any old political god, but it is to teach the truth to all the world. College Political Econ- THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 57 omy is too often a pathless, painful journej^ in the nigM, over dry gulches and across rugged starless, sterile wastes. Hence the name, the dismal science. Gentlemen of the colleges, we make an appeal. We have said little about suffering, but the suffering there has been in this world and in this land on account of the Gold Combine, or this theory and practice of Gold Monometallism, would move the heart of almost anything but the golden tiger. Still it does not seem to have affected the comfortable rhythmic beating of the cardiac nerve of the college Political Econ- omist. Will you never open your bosoms to the dove? Now, as men and brethren, we appeal to you in the name of Truth, Justice and Mercy, in the name of Man and Woman, in the name of humanity, and in the name of God, to come and lend the power of your influence and intelli- gence toward the destruction of this Horrific Vulture, voracious beyond compare, which is consuming the vitals of the human race, faster in action than they can be replaced in repose. Come with your club. Kill the monster and unchain the man. Political Economy is the science of vital energy. It is the vitalic, or valic science. It is interested especially in the expenditure of the vital force of man, and in its increase and upbuilding. It is interested in the facile interchange of com- modities. Political Economists are not the pet monkeys of a gang of thieves doing business under the sign of the Golden Ring. QUXBT. WmCB If THE fiUCSEB? THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 59 THE MECHANISM OF SPOLIATION. Suppose the debts, public and private, of this world amount to sixty billion dollars (|60,000,000,000). Sup- pose this debt draws interest at the average rate of 3 1-3 per cent, then the interest for one year would be two billion dollars (|2,000,000,000). Now suppose the annual product of the mines of this world be two hundred million dollars (|200,000,000), the annual production does not amount to anything like that, and no account is here taken of the abrasion of coins, the wearing away in the arts, or any other diminution of the stock, not one ounce of which loss is sustained by the holders of gold obliga- tions. Now, we have an annual deficit of |1,800,000,000 (eighteen hundred million dollars), with no way to make it up, for all of the gold in the world, outside of the annual product, coming out of the mines, through the operation of this same law of interest is practically in the hands of this same gold interest or monopoly. The capital of the world is Labor. The interest of the world is robbery. The African gold mines are failing, and although the annual production is being sustained it is because of an immensely increased number of miners. Suppose the share of the U. S. in this indebtedness amounts to one-sixth of the whole, it probably amounts to more, but we put it at ten billion dollars. Certain conservative estimates of the U. S. Government have put it at from fifteen to eighteen billion dollars, and ultra bimetallic men, for instance Mr. W. H. Harvey, at 140,000,000,000 (forty billion dollars). The above suppo- sition of ten billions is probably, then, far under the truth. Now then, the share of the United States in this deficit would amount annually to three hundred million dollars, 60 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. but as our annual interest is nearer 7 per cent than it is 3 1-3, and as the estimate of indebtedness is so exceedingly low, we call it just |600,000,000. That is, the United States is short annually six hundred million dollars, to be furnished annually by industry for the benefit of the Gold Combine. It has to pay over thi» value or the value of this q[uan- tity of gold to the Gold Combine. It amounts to a sort of confiscation. It is, in fact, a legal, -silent confiscation. This money monopoly gets this property, this result of the labor of the brain and brawn, at the very lowest price, in fact at its own price. This operation goes on continually, and all the good things are thrown into the maw of this pampered monster, the Gold Interest. It is, in effect, a broad, endless belt carrying the wealth of nations into the camp of the Golden Tiger. The game has its governmental license, its steerers, its cappers and its cads. Industry sustains all this machinery of confiscation and allows it to go on, but she now screams in pain and her blood cries to Heaven. This costs the hard labor, genius and industry of enter- prising and useful mankind, and the most of it, as it were, is thrown into a great fire and utterly consumed. It is like a great wound in the side of Industry, from which her blood rushes in torrents. It is our purpose to stanch this useless waste of human power. The amount of power thus annually wasted, misapplied, or stolen, must of necessity increase if the present policy of special favoritism of gold be maintained. The obligation of government to the gold interest is no more than the delivery of the gold goods. tTHE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 61 It is no part of the business of government to make the delivery of gold goods more burdensome to the industry of the country. Government never pays debts. The industry of the country sweats them out. They are washed out in the blood of the Son of Man, the Wealth of the Nation. Our government and others persist in making gold more 'diflScult of acquisition. They care not for the vast amount of energy drawn from the brow and sweated from the back of Labor except to see that it be given to the Gold Monopoly? Under this system the Wealth of the Nation is being all but crucified. The industry of the world is thus enslaved to the Gold Combine. Its blood is offered up as a sacrifice to this horrid Moloch. This blood cries to Heaven, and it is the purpose of the author to break the Gold Combine, and in this effort he will yet be successful. Under such a dreadful system the laborer can never get the hire of which he is worthy. Let statisticians furnish the. figures and political econ- omists expand, finish and explain the problem. A world or a nation cannot be called progressive, just or intelligent while it upholds this great mistake, not to isay iniquity of a specially protected money. Every honorable man should make war against it. Workingmen, throw other questions to the dogs till this one be settled. No straddling, no beating the devil around a bush, one question at a time. Strike boys, strike, but strike at the heart of the Gold Combine. It is not the corporations and the railroads that are 62 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. eating up the farmer. It is the Gold Combine that is eating all up. Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. The devil hath his victories. And Uncle Sam is the "middleman" who passes jour wealth over to fatten the Golden Calf. Let the next campaign cry be, "Anything to beat gold.'' Line up at once all you workingmen and vote solid against the Gold Combine. I can whip their red, white and blue orators, who are a set of mountebanks that preach patriotism to cloak thievery. Their theories are humbug, and when it comes to argu- ment they have not a leg to stand on. Their single standard economists are not worth a nickel a bunch. In the above problem we have not said a word about the principal, and these debts are to be paid principal and interest. The principal of this world is labor, the interest robbery, at least under the gold bug system. The theory of gold monometallism is sustained on the principle of thievery. In their so-called arguments there is not the least consistence. You will find in this gold standard propaganda that sauce for the goose is not proper sauce for the gander. It is now an inspiring spectacle to these U. S. to see their government cringing with trembling knees and sup- plicating hands before half a dozen big bunco financiers of haughty finance, and to think that at the same time it persists in extending this robber's license to a specially privileged gold money. Of course it is self-denial that put these sharps where they are, and it was extravagance that brought the people down. Such is the teaching of gold bug Political Economy. THE CRA«H or THE GOLD COMBINE. G3 Suck is the doctrine promulgated in many colleges. Here we will take occasion to say that we believe Mr. Carlisle and Cleveland to be honest men, who look with horror upon repudiation. Mr. Carlisle was honest enough to have his shameful contract with the gold gang written and published. Let this be said to his honor. Previous secretaries have not done as much. Our plan is not one of repudiation. It proposes to de- liver the goods contracted to be delivered and it proposes to get it cheap. The Belmont, Drexel, Morgan, Eothschilds syndicate, having but recently acquired this country, are disposed to be lenient. Not because these gentlemen know any mercy, but because, thanks to the western silver miner, they are not so sure of their acquest. If they were, our magazines would not be filled with gold bug articles on the "Bond Syndicate, Its Excellent Work." It is excel- lent, of the sort. Hold the fort, boys. Silver will make a much better money than gold. The farmers were right in 76, and they will be right in '96. The cry then was "down with the king's despotism." It will be the same cry in '96. This is only a Valley Forge. A few or a few million more or less bloody tracks in the snow will not count for so much in the vast waste of time, but they will count for millions each in the future happiness and prosperity of the nation and the world, for freedom is catching. But look at England; look at our good friend the British workingman. Let him swig stout and stoutly sing "Britannia Kules the Waves" till the rafters ring, but let him draw it very, very mild when it comes to "Britons never, never will be slaves." •The bound lion lays supine before the Gold Monopoly. Gl THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINfi. He has been there so long that he licks tlie hands of his captors. Don't forget, however, that there is an anti-gold monopoly party in England. It lacks much of being weak. If we succeed here, a little "Campaign of Education" there and the gold monopoly will be kicked from the "Eight little, tight little island" into the sea. Is it a thought to swell the heart of the patriotic Briton that his pliant government will allow in her domain no money but gold money and that but to increase the bur- den on the back of the British workingman? He is the man on British soil from whose ankles the shackles never fall. If John Bull would allow a silver money the British workingman would pay his debt so fast that the world would be astounded. In short order he would roll the tide of Russian ad- vance back of the Caspian and the Caucasus. The Irish peasantry alone could clear Asia of the do- minion of the Russian bear. Englishmen tamely look on and see their government the ready tool of wholesale thievery. Nor are speakers of English alone. French, German, Russian and other blood is by the same rule wasted in torrents, spouted in floods. In the above problem we have not said a word about hard times, though anybody after considering the problem would naturally suppose that we would have them. We have them and so has the rest of the world. The Crash of the Gold Combine must not be delayed. There is but one remedy under this system of special privilege to gold and it is hardly to be called a remedy. It is Universal Repudiation. There is another remedy under another system and that means Cheap Gold, ^HE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 65 It is : First, the coinage of all metals by government at a charge that will repay the cost. Second, the adoption of sensible and logical weights as account units. Third, the abandonment by government of any interven- tion by law into the matter as to what commodity people may please to select'as their money, for that is a matter that will -settle itself by natural selection or the untram- meled law of trade. The government should pay its debts in whatever it agreed to pay them and comply with its contracts in an honorable, sensible manner, and retire from the business of intermeddling with the use or price of gold or any other metal. We do not need a specially privileged money any more than we need a specially privileged creed. The cool effrontery of certain gold monomonetic politi- cal economists is something astounding, but all in line with their customary brazen impudence, or let us be charitable and attribute it to the arrogance of ignorance. Among these are some of the foremost advocates of mon- key mundane monetism. These men say that gold debts are paid witK other goods. I suppose they mean that other goods may be exchanged for gold and this gold be used to pay a gold debt with. This is not the same thing by any means. Contracts for gold delivery are complied with by the delivery of gold. They may mean that the owner of a gold debt may take something else and release the man owing it. This he may do at his option, and such may be said in the case of contracts for the delivery of any other goods. 66 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE!. Here is wliere the squeeze of "liquidation" comes in. The holder of a gold debt has a right to demand gold. The ower of a gold debt has not the right to pay in any- thing else. Contracts for the delivery of gold are complied with by the delivery of gold. These gentlemen cannot turn any other commodity into gold. If they can, let us see this philosopher's stone. If they had said that all debts are paid in vital energy ^e could not have made this point. The sin of debt is washed out in blood. Taxes are a contribution from the vital energy of the nation, and are to a great extent used for the purpose of paying interest on public debt. A gold debt, or contract, for the delivery of a million 'dollars can never rise above the obligation to deliver a million dollars. But the production of that million may cost industry ten times as much vital energy in one case as in another. !We do not want to intensify the purchasing power of gold. We want more gold for the labor performed. We want cheap gold. We want good gold cheap. It is heavy. Nobody eats it, and there will be no trouble about its falling power when once we get it started. Use another money. Cut off the current that connects gold with the heart of man and down it will go. Kick out the bedizened bastard and let the true heir come to his own. •^s>ir 68 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. A WORLD'S EXAMPLE. We propose to show you somethiug about this popular gold craze, this gold heresy before we get through. See how it has paralyzed Australia and the Great Amer- ican Republic. See how it has ruined the great Argentine Republic. See how it has oppressed India, saddled a gold debt upon a silver-using country, demonetized her silver and disowned it, all for the ^^benefit of trade," for the benefit of gold bug thievery, for the benefit of their trade of colossal legal stealing. They have brought her into deeper poverty and woe in spite of improved methods and machinery. Shall such benefits inure only to the fattening of the Golden Calf, or shall they fall upon the earth like the gentle rain from Heaven? Do you want our country to become like Egypt, with a bonded indebtedness of |509,000,000? Egypt has an agri- cultural population of 7,000,000 (seven million people); where labor is worth from 15 to 20 cents a day; 9,000 (nine thousand) square miles of tillable soil, an area a trifle less than ]S\ H. or Vt. There is no jugglery about these figures. They come from an article called "Contemporary Egypt," in the July, '95, X. A. Review, by Frederic C. Penfield, U. S. Diplomatic Agent and Consul General to Egypt. Some of these people pay a land tax of |8.20 per acre, and the average is |4.5G per acre. Now that is the road we are on under this accursed system of monogoldism. Something like this is where we are bound to under this system of gold monkeyism. Of '>'^'\rse they are pract?^*^^'^ '^'^"^aved forever* Theyj THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. (iO are kept on the verge of subsistence by tbis benign con- spiracy. Do you like it? Prior to the canal concession Egypt owed no debt. The canal was opened in 1869. How is that for high? There was no silver craze, no silver heresy in Egypt. The people there dare not say boo to a- goose. The poor FellaJis have been dragooned into humble ser- vitude by tyranny too long for that. They have roped the poor Fellahin whenever they pleased too long for that. Like the humble Ryot of India he is too weak, ignorant and subservient to kick up a riot. That's where you will be, you gold theory sucker, if we keep for many years in the rut this golden car of Jugger- naut is making. Egypt is too weak and ignorant to get out of this muddle. Are you weak and ignorant? If not, vote against the gold monometallists first, last, and all the time. Anything is better than the present system. Repudiation is better. Sixteen to one bimetallism is better. Silver protected monometallism is better. But silver needs no protection. All she wants is a fair ohance. Silver is the best conductor of electricity known, and under just conditions would be the best conductor of vital energy known. She is not the Universal Money to-day, simply because she is a legislative outcast Christ, Galileo, Samuel Adams and John Hancock were legislative outcasts. The plan we propose is just to all. It is simple, logical, sensible, practical, plain and honest. It is free monetism, or a free selection of money, or the 70 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. SALARIES. Salaries and wages are the same. Tihey are pay for personal services. Very few of these contracts last for more than a year, and nearly all are subject to change at the end of every month. Salaries are contracts made in open market, where the seller of labor gets as much as he can and the buyer gets it as cheap as he can. If gold goes down in purchasing power the tendencies are for salaries to go up as paid in gold, that is, gold buys less labor; this has always made good times, and explains the prosperity brought about by large discoveries of gold in the mines. The political economist who says it is all the same, whether a laborer gets |2 or |1 per day, given that all prices as reckoned in gold are just double in the first case what they are in the second, is not^ fit to teach political economy in a crossroads doggery. It would then be as easy to pay |2 debt as it now is |1 and the burden of indebtedness would be one-half. A dollar debt does not swell above a dollar. Anything that means cheap gold means cheap debts. Mortgages would become easy to pay and hundreds of men now slaves would become free. Railroads would be freed, freights cheapened, and stocks would go up with a boom. Thousands of men if they ever become free will have to thank the author for having made the first really deadly assault upon their captor, for having delivered the stroke that will lead to the severance of the bands of their bondage. Everybody knows that we are on the verge of a tre- mendous electrical revolution, which cannot be put into opcrntion bornn^o of thoso immpusp irold dobts. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 71 The trouble with our business men is not too many; wheels in their heads but that they have not enough. If they had, they would never think of supporting the gold gang. By this gold gang they are being bankrupted. We expect at the next elections to see the business men voting solid against the gold crowd. Taxes are taken from business and come out of profits and salaries. Profits are the business man's salary. Interest is taken from salaries. It used to be thought by some that a workingman, who owned no property, should not vote, because he paid no taxes. It just exactly happens that the workingman is the man who does pay taxes. The loafer of any kind, high or low, pays no taxes. The workingman may think that because his wool grows no longer that he is not a shorn lamb. It grows but is kept neatly trimmed next the skin by money monopoly, which tempers no wind. He is a plucked goose that doesn't squawk, or at leasif: did not formerly. All that used to be needed to quiet him was a little claptrap pseudo-patriotic gold bug oratory. Beloved Chauncey, this has played out some time Depuis (since). Apropos of salaries, we will say that they are pay for the use of vital energy. We will also say that nothing is ever sold, that is made solid, but labor or vital energy. Other things, solid things, or commodities, are exchanged at a trade balance. Language curiously bears out this true conception. Sell, sale, sold, salt, salary, solidus and solid are the same word. In very old times, laborers were paid with salt. Salt in fact was used as money, as the conductor or carrier of nervous energy or vital power. n whe crash of the gold combine. A man's wages was not something to buy his salt with, but was in fact his salt, his salary. A long time after the truly original old gold was found by a man monkey in the bed of a stream, and when men were advanced enough to make copper and tin and to mix them into bronze, a man was paid, especially a soldier, note the name, he came from the common herd, he does yet, with a solidus, a coin made of copper and tin. This took the place of the salt salary. His labor was made solid in, was sold for this alloy, which before was made solid with salt, was preserved or stored in salt. It is now made solid in the U. S., and other countries ruled by gold bug despotism, in an alloy of gold and copper. This is very ancient history, and the Saxon salt and sold are the Latin solid and solidus. The Saxon sell and sale are the Latin salis as well as salus. Save, salve, solution, halo, hale, whole, holy, halidome, health, and a thousand other words you might never dream of, in the languages ancient and modern of Europe are from this wonderful salt record. The halcyon days are a reminder of the days when men made salt on the shore and lived off of the abundance of the seas, while traflS eking with the people of the interior. We want the workingman, every useful man, to get these facts solid in his mind. He is the solid Muldoon. We want him to discover at last that he is the Atlas that holds up the world. We propose to form him into a solid phalanx at the ballot box and to charge the Gold Combine from Heaven to Hell. The expression "not worth his salt" meant not worth his salary, and is almo.st as old as language itself. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 73 It was used before the time of the cave man. The cave woman was a dandy beauty, with a skin about her loins, the mother of our modern dress skirt. The modern trade baby, though bigger, is in a worse swaddle than it was then. The "Salt of the Earth" by a figure of speech was the laborer, the workingman, the useful man, the man we are trying to convince of the iniquity of that old fraud and destroyer of nations and of men, the money monopoly. It means the monopoly of the services of the "Salt of the Earth,'^ of the "Son of Man," of the "Wealth of Nations." "Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" If you become ignorant, brutal, false, cruel and de- graded, what hope is there for you ? The Kingdom of God is sown in peace of them that make peace. Because vital energy is sold is no reason why the worker should be sold, which he certainly is, and always will be, if he does not by his vote put a veto on this public robberj^ of private power. yote against the money monopoly. vWhip out the Gold Gang. Drive them from the temple. FORCE AND POWER. We cannot go into this subject further than to beg of the reader to disassociate the idea of force or power from that of material things. An iron bar breaks under a heavy stone. The weight of the stone overcomes the cohesion uj mv 74 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. iron. The force of the attraction between the stone and the earth parts the particles from each other. The weight of the stone overcomes the cohesion between the particles of iron. The one force at that point is superior to the other. The sun pulls the earth surely, powerfully, but with no material chain. The forces of the unknown God are all silent, invisible, unerring, but none the less powerful. A bolt of nothing from the sky with ethereal fingers tears the tall pine into splinters. We believe the bolt started from the pine tree, for if electricity moves faster than light its movement would seem to be reversed, it would seem to turn time backward in its flight. The blow of the pugilist is more a stroke of the mind than of the arm. A strong arm indicates a strong brain. If it be true that some people can lift a table by simply touching it from above it is an interesting, a startling fact in the study of this vital force. This the author has never seen. Why can they not lift it without touching it at all? We see a wire stretched above the street and intense with power, which with the simple connection of the trol- ley, etc., causes heavily laden cars to move rapidly. This is brought about by the desire of imprisoned noth- ing to escape. It is the ransom he pays for his freedom. The progress of civilization is simply advance in the science of power. The power for the car was taken from the dynamo fed by the expansion of steam, or usually run by a steam engine. The intense agitation of particles of burning carbon was transformed into electrical intensity and set to work. A dollar will bring fruit from California or Italy to THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 75 Tour door. It cultivates, gathers and carries that fruit for you. It represents the power with which man will go for that dollar, for action is equal to reaction. This power was taken from the brain and sustained by the heartbeats of man's great engine. He works among other things for the purpose of feed- ing his boiler, but then man shall not live by bread alone. This money question which has puzzled so many must be settled by correct theory. You will notice that the so-called practical methods for settling the question are either unpractical or malprac- tical. They always mean either repudiation or robbery. Correct theory, correctly applied, is always correct prac- tice. Disconnect the power applied through the steam engine to the wire and the car will not run. You break the con- nection between gold and the heart of man and you will soon have gold almost to throw at the dogs. It is almost the most useless metal known. A little of it goes a long ways even where it is useful. Gold as things are now, is a bad conductor of human energy. There is too much resistance, too much waste of power. It is not economical. It is to the interest of the human race to discard this conductor and emplay a better and less wasteful one. We wish to impress upon your mind that gravitation is a force, that the purchasing power of money is a power and of the nervous power of man. The current of nothing in an electric wire is a power. It can be proved that the law of valuation or valitation and the law of gravitation and the law of Ohm are of the same, 76 ITHB CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. But here it would be well enougli to remark that dis- tance has nothing to do with the true law of gravitation, but a great deal to do with the ratio of the dissemination of the gravic force through space. The gravic force maj be considered as situated at the center of a sphere of attraction or gravic influence, like the earth, and as radiating out from that point like rays of light. What those rays do not hit, they do not pull and there is no gravic shadow. For it may itself be called shadow. Sop that in with your gravy. All natural forces or powers seem to be correlated and in fact seem to be of one. All scientists have been struck with amazement as they came up against this irresistible, immovable, ethereal wall. Josiah P. Cooke, a very devout scientist, has even ad- vanced the idea that it is the will of God. For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever, and forgive us our sins as we forgive every one that is indebted to us. See the two versions of the Lord's Prayer, Matthew and Luke, 6 and 11. The power of Money Monopoly is the divine force made devilish. It is the keystone of the devil's arch. It is the king bolt of the monopoly wagon. It is the backbone of the all-hog system. Debt, sin, darkness and ignorance are of one. Mr. Workingman, we wish to impress it upon your mind that the purchasing power of money is as much a power as that which runs along the electric wire, or rather fills it with power or intensity. Moreover, this power is drawn from your dynamo, or brain, and sustained by your engine, or heart. .We will say this about power: It is never forced. It is always drawiL tttE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 11 It ever goes in the direction of least resistance. The wind that drives a windmill is sucked, not blown. Quit being a sucker for gold bug theory, or it will blow you into poverty. In Nature, power seems to be the search for an equi- librium, or a rest which is never attained, but which is always maintained. This seeming paradox is utterly true, and the divine power has so ordered things that these worlds of ours may go on forever and ever, and motion, not rest, is the law of the universe. The suns and the planets revolve and traverse the heavens in a celestial balance. Nature and Nature's God always work in the easiest way. This law of least resistance is the fundamental law of all natural science. The vital power, or rather the mind of man, or this valic force, is distinct from other forces in that it has not yet attained its destiny. It is expanding. It is independent of the others. It seems to be drawn directly from the eternal fount, to be a glint of that celestial light or power that formed these "worlds on worlds in phalanx deep, as well as the daisy fresh from winter's sleep." In the beginning of this study it seems to us as if it did directly countervail the gravic force, and was destined to have dominion over all other forces. The words power and force are used almost interchangeably. It were bet- ter to call the steady forces of Nature forces, and those where any personality intervenes, powers. Among men applied forces are powers. They come directly or indirectly from the brain of man. They may be called diverted forces. 78 TTHE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. The power of money monopoly may be called a pervert- ed force. It is the vital energy of man misapplied. It is the wholesale robbery and waste of the vital energy of man. The force of steam expansion. The force of water falling which is of the force of gravitation. The power of a water-wheel. The power of a work- horse. The purchasing power of gold or of Sam^s 9-10 alloy thereof. The power of the mind of the infinite, the author of the forces of nature. When Chicago went up in flames, there was no loss of gold dollars. The loss was of the vital energy of man. This energy is measured in dollars, and the loss was said to be so many millions. A loss equivalent to so many times the vital energy which may be said to be contained in a dollar. It was vital energy of the genuine sort that went up in the smoke of the Prairie Belle. Besides the dead timbers there was one who saw his duty a dead sure thing. He was a workingman. He went for it then and there, and Christ is hot going to be hard on men who died in saving men. His sacrifice was sacrament, a libation of the genuine juice. It found favor. The body of Christ was the earth. His blood was power. By these are we nourished. The wine refers to the spiritual nature of man, to the vital spark. The flourishing vine was an emblem of prosperity. To the mind of man must we look for power, happiness, wealth or prosperity. We can never have it under the system of colossal rob- THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 79 bery and waste of vital energy known as Gold Monometal- lism. The amount of vital energy or nervous power annually stolen and wasted under this system would build complete many cities like Chicago. Vital energy is the only thing that can be taxed, and this is the single tax paid over to money monopoly. The single tax is paid over to the wrong man. This is the rental that Industry under this system pays over to Arrogance and Profligacy or Despotism for the privilege of living on this earth. A gold dollar is the counter for its own vital power or nervous energy, or rather for so much of the nervous power of man. It gets its great intensity from the fact that labor is paid in it, or that labor is sold for it or by it. It comes from the brain of man. It is an emanation from the vital spark of man. This high intensity is energy misdirected or perverted by the operation of monogoldism. Its continuance by govern- ment is fraud and folly. The theory is the theory of thievery. Because it is old is no argument that it is not rotten. Vote against it. THE VITAL FORCE OR POWER OR VALIO FORCE. This power we bring, we think, for the first time to the strictly scientific attention of Political Economists. The science of Political Economy has directly to deal with this force. Its rules are as discoverable as are those of the electric force. 80 THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. The fundamental rule is the same as the law of Ohm, or inversely the same as the Newtonian law of gravitation. It is this. The vital force is inversely proportioned to weight. This is true also in exchange. What is commonly called value is the vital or valio force of man. It is also called purchasing power. Newton caught this idea when he said that gravity or the gravic force is directly proportioned to mass. It is not mass, but is directly proportioned to mass. Now value, or vality, or the valic force, or the vital power of man, is inversely proportioned to mass. It follows then in trade that the valic force or value is inversely proportioned to weight or the gravic force. It follows then that all the rules of the balance are ap- plicable to the valio force. The purchasing power of money or of anything else is the vital force of man, or what we have termed the vitalio or valic force. We can only speak here of subjects exchanged by weight. We can here only indicate, not develop our idea. We leave its full development to better brains than ours. For from here in beauteous perfection springs the sci- ence of Political Economy. We are content with having turned the whole subject over to the province of demonstrable science, and herein the physical philosopher may work in conjunction with the Political Economist. Political Economy, like all other sciences, is a moral, progressive and relative science. It is of the great moral science and may be brought to absolute perfection. Suppose in trade that two subjects be exchanged by weight for each other. It follows that though the weights be different that the purchasing power or vital force ex- changed may be considered as the same. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. Si They are of equal value. Now this means that this valic force was more intense in the one than in the other. Its relative purchasing power was greater or stronger. This relative purchasing power we shall call valence from a participle of the Latin valere, to be strong. The word is no invention of ours. It is one of the English language to-day. Suppose you take a weighed lot of wheat and exchange it for a weighed lot of potatoes. Now the pur- chasing power of the lot of wheat is equal to the purchas- ing power of the lot of potatoes. Now potatoes are usual- ly cheaper than wheat. If you divide the weight of the lot of potatoes by the weight of the lot of wheat you will get the relative purchasing power of wheat as com- pared withi the purchasing power of potatoes. This is the valence of wheat as compared with the valence of potatoes. The valence of potatoes is here taken as unity. Also if you put the potatoes on a balance or bar poised at the center, at the distance one from the fulcrum, it will be balanced by tlie wheat on the other side at the distance indicating the valence or relative purchasing power or relative value. This is true of every possible trade by weight. This is true in the exchange of gold money for any other commodity. But in these United States accounts are reckoned on one side in gold money. It follows that gold money is our standard of relative value. It is our standard of valence. It is by law made to be our standard of valence or rela- tive value. This is what we wished to show. Gold money, therefore, or the minted gold specie of the U. S.J is our standard of relative value. 82 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. As a matter of fact and strictly speaking, the valence of gold money is our standard of relative value. Now tlie valence of gold money is taken as unity, and the valence of all other commodities is compared to it. As an example and apropos of this and to illustrate, we will say that the relative weight of water is taken as unity and this relative weight of other materials is compared to it and called their specific gravity, or density, or rela- tive gravity. This valence of gold is a very treacherous one and con- stantly fluctuating in a most exasperating manner, for gold is a cornered commodity. The "fixity of value" theory, though true in instinct, is not true as regards gold, but in reality when properly understood is a powerful argument against that insuffer- able curse to humanity, known as the single gold stand- ard. The gold of England's mint is her standard of relative value. This is also, as in the U. S., the result of despotic legis- lation. The qualities necessary to the material money all clus- ter about the words accountability and value. But as any thing of no trade value is not worth account- ing, it follows that they all cluster about the word account- ability. It also follows that an alloy of gold and copper is an unscientific standard of valence because it is a mixed one, and the one commodity of copper may be varying in value independently of the other commodity, gold. A rise in the price of a commodity means that its pur- chasing power is intensifying. It means that its valence is becoming greater* It the Political Economist, will tako a balapced ba4? THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 83 graduated from the pivot outward and not forgetting that he is dealing with this force will look up the theory of the balance and add perhaps a few problems of his own he can deduce unerringly and exactly the whole theory and all the laws of money, value, trade and prices, and at once place political economy in the roll of true sciences. Bemember that every trade indicates a balance of this power. This balance will also work when things are worth 'less than nothing or have a minus value. This represents labor not yet performed or vital force to be subtracted. : The weights, then, are minus weights. They pull up like balloons. I owe you $50, a minus value to me. You owe me |50, to you a minus value. They both pull up with the game force at the same distance from the pivot; balance each other and we wipe them off the slate. One may have a minus and the other a plus, value, they then both get on the same side of the pivot. The earth to be removed from a ditch has a minus value per cubic yard. You have, in fact, all the levers or purchasing powers of mechanics. Time also enters in the pendulous swaying of the bal- ance, etc. One arm multiplied by its weight is equal to the other arm multiplied by its weight. We always trade even. That is the balance of trade. It will show a mixed standard, like Sam's alloy, to be unscientific. It works in a most wonderful way and shows every theory of trade in a wonderful weigh. 84 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. PRICE. You never heard one price without hearing two, and the one was the price of the other. You never heard of more nor less at one time. Prices come to you by pairs in succession. We are going to deal with things exchanged by weight as the other cases come by easy gradation to this and our scope is immense and space limited. When it is reflected that the products of the earth are mostly exchanged by weight it will be seen that we have nearly included all commerce. Account prices are weights. Every item in an account is a balance in trade. A closed account is a completed list of balances in trade. The weight of any item in an account divided by the weight of its counterpoise gives what is usually called the relative price, we prefer to call it the relative value or val- ence, for we wish the reader to distinguish between value or purchasing power and the thing valued or valed or exchanged. We prefer, to use price as the name of the material, or to distinguish the material itself. In any such exchange the lighter weight one will be the higher priced one, will have the greater valence or rela- tive value. Values then vary inversely as prices or weights. If a man buys a bushel of wheat for a dollar from an- other, they are both buyers. TVIiere then is your rule caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. As they are both buyer® their rights are equal and should by law be so treated. THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 85 This is only another instance of legal favoritism to gold. There is no reason why unsuspecting farmers should be made to pay notes by guilty scoundrels fraudulently got- ten. This is only another instance of a robber's license to gold. Because a gold dollar is a fixed weight our gold defend- ers think it has a fixed value, but it has not. Moreover, you know it is getting too high, too hard to earn a dollar. Now let us see the price relationship between a bushel of wheat and a gold dollar. For the first case we will throw the copper overboard and call a dollar 23.22 grains of gold. There are 7,000 grains in an avoirdupois pound, which is the weight we usually use for dealing in all commodities except silver and gold. The grains troy and avoirdupois are the same. Divide 7,000 by 23.22 and we get 301 1078-2322, or 301 539- 1161, a very inconvenient number, which is the number of these sort of dollars of pure gold to the pound avoirdu- pois. Multiply this by 60 or the number of pounds in a bushel and we have 18^087 993-1161, which is the relative pur- chasing power of gold as compared to wheat in this ex- change. Now let us take the true dollar of the U. S. Divide 7,000 by 25.8 and we have 271 82-258, or 271 41-129 of Sam's dollars to an avoirdupois pound of Sam's alloy. Multiply this by 60 and we have 16,279 9-129. That is one pound of U. S. gold will buy 16,279 9-129 pounds of U. S. wheat at |1 per bushel. It will also balance it at that ratio of distance on a iscale or the balanced bar which we mentioned. We might have taken any other weights of wheat or gold or anything else and shown the same thing. Our sil- yer men's ratio of 16 to 1 are account weights in the forced 86 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. balance they wisli to establish. Tliey wish Sam to put his hand on this trade scale or to make up the difference on either side in case they do not naturally balance. The gold men want the earth, and they have it. Sixteen to 1 means that the valence or relative value of gold to silver shall be as 16 to 1. Space is limited, we will not go further but simply announce the law. 1st. Account prices are weights in a trade balance. 2d. Relative prices, or rather relative values vary in- versely as weights. They are in fact the inverse expres- sion of the weights. This law is the same as the law of Ohm and the law of gravitation. It does not tell what these forces are, but simply gives a rule of their action and also indicates that for every force there is an opposing force. As the one grows greater the other grows less. For every plus there is a minus. For every fear there is a hope. The law of duality pervades all nature. The trinity must be the father, the mother and the child. Force has been called the will of God, if so the high price of gold is of the will of 'his mistaken image. In the case of Gold Monomonetism man is pulling for poverty, not for wealth, and under such a system progress must always be the Progress of Poverty. Stop this fraud of money monopoly and he will pull for blessings that will drop upon the earth as the gentle rain from heaven. This will be brought about by absolute freedom in the choice of money. We do not need any government- al force law in this case any more than we do in the mat- ter of religion. As the above laws are true, we should have a system of money and coinage or weights that would THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 87 sliow relatively at a glance. We exchange most commodi- ties by the avoirdupois system of weight. We should exchange or interchange gold and silver by the same. It is not common sense to use the very unique weights of metallic alloys which governments have usually adopt- ed as account units. It is not liberty to command that any metallic alloy or any metal shall be used by a people as money or their standard of relative value, to the exclusion of all other, or as the only storage battery for their nervous power. Money in the United States and in England and the world generally when passed from hand to hand is weighed by an isolated weight, by another isolated sys- tem when brought in bulk as bullion, and then compared .with a different and general system when traded for other commodities. There is no halo about gold and silver that prevents their mingling among other commodities by sensible weights. We buy commodities by avoirdupois weight. We should exchange other commodities like gold and silver by the same and use an account unit that will show relativity at a glance. Tyrants have been uncrowned. It is time to dethrone gold. ^Js: FREE SILVER MONEY. We propose that the U. S recognize the claim of silver to the right of being used as money and adopt for it a sensi- ble account unit. What would popularly be called a sen- 88 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. sible money. Let it be the 1-20 part of an avoirdupois pound of pure silver, to be called an Eagle. Gold lias practically no further use for the word. Gold has stolen the name Dollar and the sign |, which is an abbreviation of p or pp for the Spanish peso or pesos. The word Dollar is the German word Thaler, given originally to a silver coin. For a sign for our Eagle let us use the letter E. At first glance it looks a little queer, but not half so queer as a fishing pole looked on a street car some years ago. In coinage it may be subdivided into halves and quar- ters, tenths and twentieths, and you may issue all the alu- minum bronze or aluminum steel or other cents you please. We may call this cent! a plume if it is necessary to dis- tinguish it from any other. A cent, as you know, simply means 1-100. Now suppose a bushel of wheat should be worth one eagle in trade. A bushel of wheat is 60 pounds. It takes 20 eagles to make a pound, as it is 1-20 of a pound. Multiply both sides by 20 and we have 1 to 1,200, which would be the relative value of silver to wheat at that ratio or rate in trade. Or simply multiply the pounds of wheat by 20 and we have 1,200. Suppose we take another weight, say 78 pounds, multi- ply it by 20 and we have 1,560, relative value and account price, both in a twinkling. A cent means 1-100. In our accounts we only use dol- lars and cents, and in this we use eagles and cents. Sup- pose we use the word plume, and wheat is worth 85 plumes per bushel. The relative value will be according to this proportion : 85 :100 : :1200 : X or 17 :20 : :1200 : X. We find this to be 1411 13-20, which is the relative value of wheat THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 89 To silver at tliat rate. This is as difiScult a case as can be presented, but is solved in an instant. The reader will liave no difficulty with any case, and a farmer or meroliant with this system of money could see exactly at any time where wheat or anything else stood. From relative value, if such only w^ere quoted, we could have account prices instantly. For statistics and a guide to trade and the markets, foreign and domestic, these relative prices or values would be exactly what is wanted. It would save worrying over intricate systems of coin- age. It would save the printing of tons of bosh. Some of these college political economists could by way of ex- planation get up a table of relative values, but they do not seem to get up anything but incantations for this voodoo of the gold standard. They doff the ever ready cap to the Golden Tyrant. THE EAGLE. The sort of an eagle to stamp on our coins would be the Great American Bald Eagle. Turn to the word Bald Eagle in Webster^s latest and there you will find a con- templative boss-of-the-situation eagle, resting on a rock or the peak of a cliff. Curiously coincident you will see that he is drawn on the scale of 1-20. That's the triumph- ant eagle for our silver money. Turn to the word eagle and you will see an overgrown, scared-looking sort of an eagle resting on a rotten limb. That is the Imperial Eagle of Europe. Another eagle of Europe very much like him is the Golden Eagle of Europe. You will notice that this 90 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. imperial eagle is drawn on the scale of 1-16. We don't want him. Is it possible that Webster thinks this fellow more of a bird than the other? Noah Porter never tells us what a silver coin is, whether it is a face or a weight coin, nor its composition. Does Noah Porter run his definition shop for the benefit of the gold gang? Is he also steeped in stale bug juice? We do not plume ourselves on the word plume. We don't care a cent what word you use. But we will say that there is nothing ignoble about it. The pen, they say, is mightier than the sword. We hear of flights on the pinions of the mind, of plumed knights, of the white plume of King Henry of Navarre, etc. So taken altogether the word is not without some title to high degree. LAW EXPEDIENT TO BE ENACTED. Be it enacted, etc.: 1st That the U. S. government hereafter will buy^ sell or deal in silver by the system of weight known as the avoirdupois. Being 7,000 grains to the pound and equiva- lent to 14 280-480, or 14 7-12 ounces troy, as the troy and avoirdupois grains are the same. The U. S. government for convenience of computation when dealing with silver will subdivide the pound in accordance with our common or Arabic system of enumeration. 2d. The word eagle hereafter will be taken to desig- nate the silver account unit of the U. S. and will no longer THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 91 apply to gold except where tlie word gold be specifically prefixed to the word eagle, in which case it will mean cer- tain gold coins of the U. S. For instance, the gold eagle will mean the gold ten dollar coin of the U. S. The doable gold eagle the twenty dollar coin, the half gold eagle will mean the five and the quarter gold eagle will mean the two and one-half dollar piece. 3d. The silver account unit of the U. S. shall be the 1-20 of a pound avoirdupois of pure silver, or 350 grains thereof. It shall be called an eagle and designated by the sign E. 4th. The U. S. under its mint regulations will coin sil- ver into these account units of 1-20 of one pound, or 350 grains, and the alloy of this coin shall in no case be great- er than 1-10 of the whole weight. It is clearly expressed and understood that there can be no deviation in the quantity of pure silver, which must be 350 grains. This account unit may be coined into con- venient submultiples of the above, being |, i, 1-10 and 1-20 eagles, and respectively bearing the said relationship to the eagle. It being plainly understood that the coined eagle must contain 350 grains of pure silver. 5th. The 1-100 part of an eagle may be called a plume, or a cent, according to the text. The word plume specific- ally meaning 3J grains of silver, or the 1-100 part of the eagle. 6th. The Secretary of the Treasury may coin and issue face or representative coins for the 1-20 and the 1-100 part of the eagle or the one and five plumes, to consist of some appropriate metal or alloy for that purpose as he may after proper investigation decide. These face coins will always be instantly redeemed by the Secretary of the Treasury when presented for that purpose in quantities of one eagle op any whole number multiple thereof. 92 THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. These face coins will always be accepted by the U. S. in any transaction as equivalent to their representative value in silver in any quantity in the payment of silver dues to the U. S. The Secretary of the Treasury is em- powered to select appropriate devices for these coins and directed to stamp clearly upon them their true import and the date of their coinage. 7th. These silver coins of the eagle and its submulti- ples shall be impressed with the figure of the American Eagle resting upon a rock or the peak of a cliff or crag, also with the year of coinage and mint letters and the words or appropriate abbreviations thereof, 350, 175, 87.5, 35, 17.5, grains of silver, as the coin may be, and with its fineness and with such other devices as to the Secretary of the Treasury may seem advisable after due considera- tion. 8th. The Secretary of the Treasury may also coin in- gots containing one pound avoirdupois of pure silver, al- ways stamping upon them their weight and fineness and the words, ^Contents one pound avoirdupois of pure sil- ver'^; also the device of the eagle and the words "U. S. 20 Eagles," and such other devices as to him may seem to be appropriate. He may also accordingly coin J and J pound silver ingots. 9th. The U. S. hereby abandons all coercion over its citizens or any of them as to the selection of their money or standard of relative value, and any law contrary to this is hereby abolished. The eagle may be used by the citi- zens of the U. S. as an account unit and silver as money and debts contracted in, silver are payable in silver. 10th. The obligations of the U. S. expressd in dollars are payable in dollars of the minted gold of the U. S. and the U. S. will accomplish this as fast as practicable through the collection of revenues. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 98 The silver dollar will be redeemed in gold as fast as con- yenient, and the obligations of the U. S.' will be carried out in full and its monetary and commercial honor fully protected. The custom and other dues of the U. S. will be collected in dollars as they are so expressed, for the U. S. needs gold in her business of satisfying gold obligations. Her representative paper dollars will be retired as fast as prac- ticable, and the equal purchasing power of all her repre- sentative dollars will be sustained with every effort at her command. RXTIO OP SILVER TO ?3fOLD. Tear. 012345678 9- 168 14.94 14.94 15.02 169 15.02 14.98 14.92 14.83 14.87 15.02 15.00 15.20 15.07 14.94 170 14.81 15.07 15.52 15.17 15.22 15.11 15.27 15.44 15.41 15.31 171 15.22 15.29 15.31 15.24 15.13 15.11 15.09 15.13 15.11 15.09 172 15.04 15.05 15.17 15.20 15.11 15.11 15.15 15.24 15.11 14.92 173 14.81 14.94 15.09 15.18 15.39 15.41 15.18 15.02 14.91 14.91 174 14.94 14.92 14.85 14.85 14.87 14.93 15,13 15.26 15.11 14.80 175 14.55 14.39 14.54 14.54 14.48 14.68 14.94 14.87 14.85 14.15 176 14.14 14.54 15.27 14.99 14.70 14.83 14.80 14.85 14.80 14.72 177 14.62 14.66 14.52 14.62 14.62 14.72 14.55 14.54 14.68 14.80 178 14.72 14.78 14.42 14.48 14.70 14.92 14.96 14.92 14.65 14.75 179 15.04 15.05 15.17 15.00 15.37 15.55 15.65 15.41 15.59 15.74 180 ■ 15.68 15.46 15.26 15.41 15.41 15.79 15.52 15.43 16.08 15.96 181 15.77 15.53 16.11 16.25 15.04 15.26 15.28 15.11 15.35 15.33 182 15.62 15.95 15.80 15.84 15.82 15.70 15.76 15.74 15.78 15.78 183 15.82 15.72 15.73 15.93 15.73 15.S0 15.72 15.83 15.85 15.62 184 15.62 15.70 15.87 15.93 15.85 15.92 15.90 15.80 15.85 15.78 185 15.70 15.46 15.59 15.33 15.33 15.38 15.38 15.27 15.38 15.19 186 15.29 15.50 15.35 15.37 15.37 15.44 15.43 15.57 15.59 15.60 187 15.57 15.57 15.63 15.92 16.17 16.59 17.88 17.22 17.94 18.40 188 18.05 18.16 18.19 18.64 18.57 19.41 20.78 21.13 21.99 22.09 189 19.75 20.92 23.72 26.70 32.58 The reader will easily understand this table by bearing in mind that the first three figures of any year may be 94 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. found in the left hand column and the fourth at the top of a vertical row. At the intersection of the two is the ratio for that year. For instance, for the year 1691 the ratio was 1 to 14.98. It will be noticed how rapidly the ratio has changed since the demonetization act of 1873. These figures, except for the last two years, are from the U. S. abstract of 1892. For '93 and '94 they were copied from an article by Prof. Laughlin in the Times-Herald of Chicago. From 1687 to 1832 they were taken from the tables of Dr. A. Soetbeer. From 1833 to 1878 from Pixley and Abell's tables, and from 1878 to 1892 by the U. S. Mint from the London Market. These tables show what is called the ratio of silver to gold, that is the trade price equivalent by weight. It is the relative value taken inversely. Silver at 16 to 1 by weight means at 1 to 16 in value. We have no other table of relative prices brought through the centuries and the above is faulty and not one of free conditions. It has always been influenced by gov- ernmental intermeddling or special monetary laws. Under free conditions it is very likely that the ratio would sink to three or four to one. This is, however, a matter of opin- ion. Account prices are mass or material. Gravic force varies as mass. The valic force or value varies inversely as mass. Neither of them are mass. We owe the Gold Combine gold mass. The vital energy belongs to man» It is ours. Contracts for the delivery of any goods are simply con- tracts for the delivery of those goods. They do not, nor cannot, specify how great the task of that delivery shall be. We propose to relieve gold of by far the greater part of its valic intensity or relative value in order to make the task of its delivery easy. TMB3 CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 95 RELATIVE VALUE. The table given before indicates tlie relative value, or what we have called the valence, of gold and silver. If other commodities were compared in this way we would have most invaluable statistics of price or value. The relativity of trade would be shown at a glance. They could all be compared to one commodity which would then be a standard of valence or a standard of rela- tive value or a money. If this became customary and were kept up for years, we would have an absolute record of prices or values. Everything wanted would be shown at a glance. Suppose the standard of valence were silver, the rela- tive price of anything in gold could be gotten by multiply- ing by the price or valic relationship between silver and gold. That is, the table could be quickly changed from one standard to another standard, just like a table of specific gravity can be changed. Prices current could be shown by giving the relative price as related to some standard of relative value. When once understood it would be a quick and easy plan. By this relative system we could understand the prices of any other country instantly, if they were given to us in that way. This, among other things, is what we are trying to bring about and what would be instantly brought about by any logical system of money or trade. Any account price could be instantly deduced and the world would be saved the trouble of worrying about the coins or account units or money of other nations. We would be no more worried about exports of gold than we are about exports of wheat. It would be a step in trade worthy the electric century 96 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. about to dawn. All this could be brought about by the adoption by the U. S. of the laws proposed. This law would in no way debar gold nor drive it from the country. Business would boom everywhere as being on a sound basis. There would be no more panics, no more fear and trem- bling as to what an unreliable or intermeddling govern- ment might next do. Our great statesmen at Washington would no more have a money question on their hands. Tliat question would be settled, and settled right. Our representatives would have time to discuss other questions. For instance, the Nicaragua or some other inter- oceanic canal, which' the world needs, and that now. They could probably prevent a monopoly of that water way by some company and another steal. We would at once begin to bid for that most tremendous trade of the Orient as well as that of Latin America, which is only just now opening. We would be flooded with blessings and wealth such as no country has yet known. Our factories would run with straining belts and happy hands, and we would take on the progress of a happy, hopeful, advancing, solvent, saved and busy world. No devils could come out of the night to ruin and bank- rupt our enterprising business men as is the case under the gold despotism. There would be no government force as to what money should be used. That matter would settle itself. The West could build the Nicaragua Canal with the silver mines and the laborers of the West Indies. We could have it under the control of the U. S. and for THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE). St the use of the East and of the world. There would be no contentions in Congress on the question of money. There would be no wholesale confiscations as happen every few years. Gold is too small and tricky for the business of the great 'U. S. Hard and grinding times would be a thing of the past. Under gold despotism all times are hard, but some much harder than others. The beauty of the thing is that it can be adopted by the U. S. without consulting any other country and without setting an arbitrary price on any man's goods. The adop- tion of this system by the U. S. would be followed by the world and the gold government debts paid with pleasing rapidity. England could adopt this system by coining a 1-20 of a pound piece of silver and calling it a lion or a unicorn, to bore hole through the vitals of the great gold dragon, to free her suffering people from debt and at once to come to a monetary peace with all her colonies. British economists dare not attack this theory expect- ing to come off alive, nor dare any gold bug of the U. S. Its adoption by England would advance her greatness to a point never before dreamed of. As to ourselves there is no computing the tremendous advance we would make. We would be a free people in a few years and prosperity would be the overwhelming rule. Not as is now the case, the striking exception. Under such a system such improvements and advance- ment in transportation would take place as we cannot now imagine. A struggling railroad system would soon pay its debts, and the war between the farmer and the R. R. would end, for they both have a common interest in each other's wel- fare. d8 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. Their great enemy is a common enemy wlio robs them botli. But the stronger squeeze comes out of the farmer, being nearer the bosom of the earth, the source of supply. The gold combine or gold single standard is the cause of all the trouble. Let them both unite to crush it forever. Shoot it full of ballots at the next election. We want a deep water way from Chicago to the sea. We want an interoceanic canal. We can never have them under the robbery of gold monometallism. We want an electric system of railroads from ocean to ocean. We can not have them under the mono gold hum- bug. SYSTEMS OF STANDARD WEIGHTS. We have in the U. S. three systems, viz., the Apothecary, Avoirdupois and Troy. The Avoirdupois is the one used for weighing nearly everything but gold and silver. The Apothecary is one almost out of trade and used by druggists in compounding prescriptions. This system is in decadence. The Troy system is used in w^eighing gold and silver and that in bulk, but for the purpose of paying working- men and of exchange in common trade, they have always passed by unique, peculiar and inconvenient weights and in alloys which have been both decreed by law. The grain in all these systems is the same. The pound Apothecary and Troy are the same. The ounce Apothecary and the ounce Troy are the same, but are differently subdivided THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 99 Here are the tables: APOTHECARY WEIGHT. 20 grains make one scruple or 20 grains. 3 scruples make one dram or 60 grains. 8 drams make one ounce or 480 grains. 12 ounces make one pound or 5760 grains. TROY WEIGHT. 24 grains make one pennyweight or 24 grains. 20 pennyweights make one ounce or 480 grains. 12 ounces make one pound or 5760 grains. AVOIRDUPOIS WEIGHT. 27 11-32 grains make one dram or 27 11-32 grains. 16 drams make one ounce or 437^ grains. 16 ounces make one pound or 7000 grains. The gold dollar weight is 25.8 grains of an alloy of gold and copper 9-10 fine as minted by the U. S. Before mint- age this alloy is known as U. S. standard gold and the money of the U. S. is of this gold. It is by legislative en- actment the only money of the country. The gold dollar contains 23.22 grains of pure gold. The silver dollar weight is 412.5 grains of a silver alloy 9-10 fine as minted by the U. S. Like gold it never was aJ dollar until properly stamped and minted. Up to the year 1873 it could be used as money, but only at an equivalence with the gold dollar mentioned above, whereby the U. S. wa.s under the monetary system known as bimetallism. 100 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. This of course meant that the material of the cheaper account unit would be used as money and the dearer ex- ported to where a better reMive price might be obtained for it. It is logically certain that such must be the rule under such circumstances and such has always been the case in practice. It pays to do so and men trade for gain. That is all there is to Gresham's law. The silver dollar weight is now of no particular signifi- cance and is not now used in trade, but only employed by the U. S. government as the uniform weight at which silver tokens or chips for the gold dollars are coined. This coin is called a silver dollar just as a paper bill is called a paper dollar, but it is not a dollar at all. For the only dollar of the U. S. is the gold dollar mentioned above. It will be noticed how inconveniently the pound avoirdu- pois is subdivided. It would be much better to subdivide it so that it would be capable of decimal expression, and nothing could be better than for the U. S. to commence doing so in the case of silver. For a silver account unit and a silver money we should adopt pure silver. A mixed money is the same as if we should use silently or imper- ceptibly changeable weights. A coin is not the same thing as a money and a coin if deemed advisable may contain some alloy over and above the money metal contents. Such a system would at once make the money question easily understood. Our present system of money serves but to repress the expansion of human progress. It is a barbarous incubus. This chain of despotism should be at once removed from the neck of Industry. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 101 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE Would be the effect of the legislation proposed. It would be the smash of the Great European Money Monopoly, the giant British and Continental fraud of gold freebootery and industrial slavery. Our good protection- ist friends could come out and vote against this foreign yellow fraud and in favor of the American industry of sil- ver mining. Our good free trade friends cannot consistently vote to protect the foreign yellow despot. So we propose to vote them altogether against gold monometallism. The effect of the legislation proposed would be the fall of the money monopoly. Business can be done upon silver as well as gold. All the paper devices for facilitating trade can be used in the case of silver or anything else as well as for gold only. Silver could at once become a "primary money," or, indeed, money, and that without violating any contract or any law of trade or government or of the constitution. "The image and superscription of Caesar" would no longer mean despotism. This would be in fact but the carrying out of the true natural law of trade and a most astounding advance be- yond any theory of money that has ever yet been proposed. It would be found that the whole round of trade, from the earth back to the earth, could be made in silver and the power of dictation taken from the Gold Combine. Our government would not tremble before the banking firms of certain loafers about the thrones of Europe. Not a dollar of gold would be driven from the country. iWe would have the poor little yellow devil right here 102 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. among us. Not a dollar of gold would be driven from the country. Panics would be a thing of the past, for it would be known that every dollar obligation could and would be paid in gold. Panics are simply the fact that somebody cannot put up gold for paper promises. The government would reduce its debt rapidly upon an easy gold market. Stringency in the money market would be over. The great halo over gold and over money would disap- pear. It would be found that there is no extraordinary natural sanctity about it. The nations of Europe would be taken at a great dis- advantage, for we could talk to all foreigners, whether of gold or silver countries, in their own money language. Every city of the U. S. within a year would double its business. The western silver mines would open with a boom. Prosperity would come to farmers and railroads alike. Railroads, farmers and business men generally should unite in promulgating this theory, for it shows how they may be quickly and honestly relieved of this burden of in- debtedness and taxation that is grinding them through the operation of gold interests to industrial death. People would be free to select the money most suited to their wants. The spirit of bitterness, discontent and unrighteous op- pression would be calmed forever. It would bring on the era of peace and good will toward men. What we want is cheap gold, good gold cheap, plenty of gold for little work. A shirt costs labor. Money costs labor. Suppose a shirt is exchanged for a dollar. It probably costs you four times as much labor to get that THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 103 dollar as it costs to make that shirt. The other three shirts do not go as profit to the merchant nor to the cot- ton raiser, for they get little enough. They go in the form of stolen vital energy over to the gold gang. Gold would no longer be a necessity in business or trade. It would only be needed to pay debts with, and as the industrial world pays debts every time, it would not be anxious to do anything to enhance the price of this be- loved little debt-paying commodity. As fast as debts were paid the demand for it would weaken. As gold would be on a declining market the holders of it would be anxious to unload, which would still further depress its price, that is, make booming times. Ask any man on any board of trade in the U. S. or any gold blatherskite of Wall or Lombard street what big offerings on a declining market mean. They mean a slump. The crash in the price of gold that would follow would be something sublime, for there are no millions to eat gold as in the case of wheat, and that sustaining quality would not exist. Gold could be gotten easy. We could cut off the wire from the dynamo or brain of man to gold and its purchasing power would at once begin to ooze or dissipate. The enormous contracts for its delivery would begin to be paid at once. Gold would cheapen in accelerat- ed ratio and the debts of nations would lighten at once find soon be paid. This would be worth more to the human race than the discovery of one hundred times the African, Australian and California gold mines combined. The tremendous re-- fiults we cannot here discuss. Figure them out for your- self. A suffering and enslaved world would be freed. We do not propose that the "Son of Man/' the Salt of the 104 fTHE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. Eartli," tlie "Wealth of Nations/' shall be a slave before a contemptible, arrogant little coterie of European gold owners. These are new days. The air is intense with change. New forces are at work. We have the new woman. May heaven bless her. We throw her a kiss. It's the same old girl taking to independent thought. It shows that mankind is advancing. She will know that what is robbing her father, brother, sweetheart, husband or son is robbing her. The gold gang is crowding her into slavery and destitu- tion. The new woman and the new man together, by a well known economic law cannot earn any more than the old man could alone. She is, as a rule, only squeezing into places already full by out-bidding her natural helpmeet and supporter. She simply pushes him off of this rotten old gold craft to drown in the water. These new days are electrical days, but before we can enter upon this transcendent career we must unchain mankind. The first task is to work off these tremendous gold debts, or contracts for the delivery of gold, which are only paid by the consumption of sanguine power, the production of blood. We do not propose that the gold gang shall have a halter on the future, a chain on the neck of Industry, shackles on the ankles of the living present and the millions unborn. These contracts are payable in the blood of man. It is not stated how much blood this shall take, except that it shall take enough to procure the gold. We propose to use that blood economically. We are not a gold bug professor fo stand out for the THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 105 slaughter of Progress, Civilization, Industry and Inno- cence. It is the scalps of such men that we propose to wear under our belt. Blood is the money of "Ultimate Redemption.'' In this are the sins of debt washed out. These new woman, Edison, Tesla, Bell, Telautograph, Congress of Religions and Horseless Carriage days cannot longer stand any such humbuggery as this old fetich of a special- ly privileged money. We are urging that governmental aid shall not be ex- tended to the most despicable and gigantic scheme of rob- bery and murder of which the human mind can conceive. We are in this arena to win. We have started out with a short knife, but it is plenty long enough to kill the tiger of the theory of gold mono- metallism. With unfaltering feet, a steady hand and the courage of faith, we will fight this battle to a successful finish. Boys, we told you we were out for big game. We will yet have the hide of the remorseless European Hydra stretched out on our back fence. We will noose him and show him to you and you can kill and skin him. We claim the hide. You can fry out the fat and take the flesh. He will cut up grandly, and just think of the soap. Now we have one thing more to say, and this to the sil- ver miner of the West. It is that we have in our mind another and a colossal plan whereby the price of silver relative to gold may be more than doubled in five years and the gold combine broken to smithereens. We can do this without asking Uncle Sam for any special legislation. It is no wild plan, is easy to put into operation and will work to a charm. The above may have a startling sound, but is absolutely irne. 106 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. SIXTEEN TO ONE. *'We are in favor of the coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 and their equal value and use as money." What does the above mean ? First take the proposition, "We are in favor of the coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1." Now, as a matter of fact, the gold and silver dollar do now about bear that proportion bj weight. Sixteen times 25.8 grains is 412.8 grains, not 412.5 grains, which is the weight of the silver dollar. It seems to us that a miss is about as good as a mile, for there never was a ratio in the U. S. between gold and silver of sixteen to one. Now we will take the second proposition, "And their equal value and use as money." This refers not to the size or weight of coins, but to the relative value of gold to silver. We suppose that our silver friends mean that the silver dollar may be used interchangeably with the gold dollar in payments by the government and individuals of the U. S. or that a silver chip dollar shall go in every way as the equivalent of the gold or true dollar. That is, to put it plain, that one pound of gold shall be equivalent in these U. S. to 16 pounds of silver, though the true price in the markets of the world is one pound of gold for about 30 pounds of silver. There is no getting around the argument that the gov- ernment by doing this would be taking a dreadful step. It would be saying that it can violate the law regarding tlie obligation of contraQts, THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 107 The proposition is clearly unconstitutional, and the Su- preme Court would flnd< no diflSculty in adjudging it so. It would be equivalent to saying that the government at its own option could pay in one thing when it had agreed to pay in another. For the dollar of the U. S. is the gold dollar. Moreover, the power that made it the dollar and the specially priv- ileged money of the country is the same power that is invoked to pass this silver legislation. There is no doubt but that this first legislation of 1873 was legal, however much it may be attempted to prove the contrary. A thou- sand things may be urged against it. It may be proved that it was exceedingly inexpedient, probably the result of a great European monetary con- spiracy, etc. That it was deftly engineered and that our ignorant con- gressmen did not know its true import. It may be kicked at in a hundred ways, for it deserves to be kicked at. The law of 1873 may be modified or annulled as to its future operation, but not as to its past. It cannot be ex- post factoed out of existence. Our good silver men must understand that whenever the latter even threatens, depositors rush to the banks for their gold and gold owners push their collections urgent- ly. Panics ensue, for the banks surely will give out paper and gold hustles and hides, and we have a confiscatory squeeze. Uncle Sam cannot redeem his paper. He is a bankrupt. Every one is appalled. Business stops and the silver men are at once blamed for it. Their cause is thus weakened. The country is distressed and alarmed, and the silver cause quickly loses prestige. Every 16 to 1 wave has broken at this point. The silver men must know that even the danger of such a law being 108 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. passed brings about a fearful state of bard times and "lack of confidence.'* It bas done it before and it will do it if tried again. Tbe silver cause is just and bas power enougb if properly pre- sented to sweep everytbing before it. A suffering country is tired of tbis arrogant gold dom- ination, tbis colossal system of barmonious tbievery. Votes by tbe millions may be easily gotten to put it down. Gold monometallism is a fraud, a craze, a curse and a beresy. Let our silver friends place tbemselves wbere tbeir arguments against it are impregnable, wbere it cannot be urged tbat tbey are witbout principle. Tbe metbods of tbe gold gang are and bave been tbose of a sneak tbief. Tbe citadel of gold argument is easily taken. Tbere is notbing impregnable in tbe position. It can be razed to tbe ground or ground to powder witb very little mental effort. Sixteen to one in a fair field is no price for silver. It would easily go to 7 or 8 to one. Tbe best of it all is tbat silver owes no debts. We propose to feed tbe gold men gold till tbey are sick. All tbe world is used to silver coins. Very little of it knows wbat gold coins are. As a world's money gold cannot compare witb silver. Remember tbat a weigbt coin is an international coin. Tbe argument tbat tbere is about sixteen times as mucb silver as gold to be mined is probably altogetber untrue, but were it true and tberefore tbat sucb sbould be tbe ratio or price is a puerile argument. It is an argument to prove tbat it is some sort of a God- given ratio. It is on a par witb tbe gold bug argument tbat gold is tbe God-given money. As argument; it is in trutb arrant nonsense. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 109 Manufactured aluminium at that rate of argument ought to be several hundred times as valuable as copper. But then if we should take into consideration the unmined aluminium of the earth then copper should be thousands of times as valuable as aluminium. There might be ten times as much silver coin and bullion in the world as there is now and the amount of gold the same, and still the price of silver be as four or five to one as' compared with gold, instead of 16 to 1, that is, under the system which we pro- pose. Tables of ancient price will not do, for the world was a bimetallic world until England demonetized silver in 1816, and practically has been since then, till the success- ful issue of the great European money conspiracy, of which the law of 1873 of the U. S. was probably a part. The argument as to quantity is utterly worthless. Be- cause there is a hundred times as much pine lumber as oak in this country it does not follow that oak should be a hundred times as dear. Prices do not go by that rule. It is no rule at all. Boys, I am with you and your best friend. I want you to go in to win and fight your battle on secure ground. The people are tired of the constriction of this Golden Con- strictor. It is ruining the U. S. and has ruined every coun- try in Europe. To claim special privileges for silver is only showing the white feather. It is an admission that it dare not compete with gold in a fair field and no favor. As a matter of fact, in an even field gold would not have the least chance with silver. The market for silver under this plan would at once become unlimited. Indus- try would take a tremendous bound in advance. The advantages would be so many and so manifold that they could not begin to be shown in a book like this. 110 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. Under the system proposed in this book Columbia would 'become the mistress of the trade of the world. South America, the Orient and all the isles of the sea would with lavish hands at once pour untold treasures into her lap. BIMETALLISM Is the declaration by government that one metal may be used as money instead of another metal, at a certain fixed ratio or price. The fact is that it is always the metallism of the cheaper bi, or the cheaper of the two alternatives. It is always the monetism of the money of the cheaper account unit. This is an inevitable consequence. It has always hap- pened so and always will. If it pays to export one of these, that is, if the price of one of them is greater out of the country than it is in the country, then out it goes. The dearer money is taken to where it is dearer. Of this there can be no doubt whatever. It is one of those silent little unerring laws. It is useless, my good silver friends, to argue otherwise. Give up this line once for all. Reason and fact are against it. The truth and nothing but the truth must be brought out. This is a campaign of education, and people are anxious to study it upon its merits. Studied thus, there is no merit in gold bossism. Their theory is simply nowhere. There certainly is something wrong somewhere. We are trying to show where It is. If the question be studied on its merits this book sounds the death knell of that antiquated murderer, fraud, con- *rHE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. Ill fidence man and all-round crook^ known as Gold Mono- metallism. In conclusion we would ask, why do we not hear of Tri- metallism? Why does not government attempt to fix other prices? Why should this be the only shining excep- tion to the general rule? We want to see free silver, we want to hear the glorious peal of the free silver bell ringing out monetary liberty to a suffering world. Remember that such a money would be sound money. This "honest money," gold money, "sound money," is a thieving money. Silver has every advantage as to true sound over gold. It is harder and more sonorous. We do not care to hear the dull thud of the dispropor- tioned 16 to 1 dumb bell. Silver would always be down and gold on top. It would be swinging silver with a gold handle. It will not win. The other will, and quickly. Gold is heavy, yellow, soft and foreign. Silver is bright, white, strong and native. Boys, fire genuine, bright, free silver balls at the gold gang. This wobbly sort of 16 to 1 bar shot is not the thing with which to kill the Gold Combine. It is simply a club for the merciless savage. AN INTERNATIONAL MONETARY CONGRESS For the purpose of fixing a world's price between gold and silver is about as nonsensical a proposition as could be advanced. The scope of its powers should be extended. It should fix the price that shall ever obtain between 112 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. wheat and barley, or between oats and corn, or between copper and iron, or between aluminium and platinum. It should be empowered to fix all prices and give us a terrestrial price equivalent list so that when we contract a debt in gold, for example, we may know just how much copper, iron, silver, wheat, potatoes or hay we may give as legal tender in case we do not have the gold or it pays us to pay in something else. The last one was run by Rothschilds, so will be the next. This wonderful monetary international congress should be a universal price setter for all commodities. We will not go further with this. Pages and pages might be writ- ten to show the utter worthlessnoss of the plan. No doubt the Gold Combine will soon be clamoring for this congress in order to gain time and to save their metal from the utter rout it would experience under the system of free monetism which we propose. A patriotic people should repudiate the idea of such a congress. Our system relieves government of the proud prerogative of appraising other people's property. It al- lows a free people a free choice in the selection of money. DEMAND AND SUPPLY. Demand and supply as generally used are demand and countermand. Supply must in reality come from labor and material, from man and the earth. Of the first men- tioned there is always a supply of anything in the mar- ket, at a price. Desire with nothing to buy with does not influence price. A beggar with nothing may desire some- thing all his life and never influence its price. He may THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 113 have tlie disposition to pull, but lie has no hold. If he has nothing to buy with he may desire and be damned before ever becoming demand. Nothing kills the price of any- thing so much as nobody buying it. The more there are to buy, the keener the competition and the stronger the influence upon price. You will influence the market ac- cording to your ability to purchase and the price to which you will go before you quit. In the wheat pit it is a ques- tion between wheat and gold. Gold being a cornered commodity in great demand, al- ways wins. On account of so many debts and at the same time on account of gold monometallism, the world is forced to keep accounts in gold, contract debts in it, do business upon it, pay labor in it, and therefore the gold gang has the world in a vice with their cornered com- modity, and well do they turn the screws. Gold Monomonetism is false in theory and pernicious in practice, and must go with slavery, religious persecu- tion and press censorship. It is the worst relic of the Divine Right of Kings. It is a relic of barbarism unsup- ported by reason and accursed of justice. FIAT. Fiat justitia ruat coelum is the true law. Government can not by simple fiat or say so, do anything. It is a good deal like the aforementioned beggar in this respect. It is only what it may do that counts. It can do nothing except by sweating the wherewithal out of workingmen. The fiatists have at least hazily gotten hold of the idea 114 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. that value is intangible, an unseen force or power, and as the world was begun with fiat, why should not govern- ment, being some sort of a big man, make money in the same way? The fiatists, recognizing that value is some- what of a power residing in the money material, would divest the soul of the body, but it does not follow from thence that value is wind or sound or print any more than that the brand U. S. is a mule. The mule is apt to belong to the government, the money is likely not to belong to it. Representative coins or paper are chips or checks for gold dollars. They might be checks for mules, but they are not. If they were they would probably be branded Mules. The fiatist feels that Sam has repudiated him for Gold- bugism. Whj not repudiate Goldbugism for the fiatist? Turn about would seem to be fair play. The fiatist is ahead of the goldist in the fact that he knows that an unseen thief is silently robbing him of his powers. He knows of the thief and attempts a remedy. The goldist denies this robbery, and says that Industry is poor and weak, and Arrogance rich and strong, because it is good for them, was so ordained by an all-wise gold- bugism. The idea of the fiatist may be born of the fact that the government stamps gold, which is money. If this were all it would not be much. But government goes much further. It declares that the gold account unit shall be the only one, and gold money therefore the only one. It says that gold shall be the only thing in which the round of trade shall be completed from the earth back to the earth. Without reason or mercy it stamps silver moue£ ouii THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 115 of existence. This through its pernicious favoritism to gold money monopoly. It allows silver to be coined only as a servant to gold. If it were not for this servitude of silver to gold the lat- ter could by no means command any prestige as a world's money. If we had a free money system our "basis" would be greatly increased. Tubs, government, and trade, should rest on broad bot- toms. Turn the chained silver giant free and there would be a tremendous bound in the progress of mankind. Let every man vote against the gold gang. We have marked delenda on the red shield and indelebilis on the base of the Statue of Liberty. MONEY AND COINAGE OF THE U. S. All of the gold coins of the U. S. have been weight coins. Of the silver coins of the U. S. some have been weight coins and some face coins. All of the silver coins up to Feb. 21, 1853, were weight coins. At that time all of the silver coins of the U. S. except the silver dollar were made to be face, or chip or representative coins. That is, two half dollars were no longer a whole dollar. Two half dollars of the law of 1853 bore the ratio to a gold dollar by weight of 1.14 1026-1161, or 1 to 14 38-43. The half dollar now weighed 192 grains. Twice that is 384 grains fineness 9-10. The weight of the half dollar was changed in 1873 to 12J grammes, which would be 25 grammes for the weight of tbe new chip dollar, This is the weight of the French." five-franc piece, which is also a chip or representative coin. 116 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. A gramme is 15.432 grains, wliicli would make the new chip dollar, or two half dollars of 1873, to be 385.8 grains, or the half dollar to be 192.9 grains, which is the weight of our present half dollars, quarters and dimes in propor- tion, and so with those of 1853. Bimetallism, however, was in full legal force until 1873, and these chip silver coins of 1853 had legally nothing to do with the fundamental monetary law of the U. S. In 1873 silver was demonetized by the most extraor- dinary piece of destructive legislation that perhaps has ever been known in the history of the human race. Panics followed the laws of 1834, 1853, 1873, and also the British law of 1816. We will not waste pages in denunciation, but will say that instead of simply doubling the burden of indebtedness it did much more. There can hardly be any calculation of its evil effects. Still the cloud that has hung over the country since then has a silver lining, and the bright sun of truth will with silvery light yet lift the black pall of darkness and * norance. If the present system of monogoldism inaugurated in 1873 is to continue it practically enslaves us forever. What our people want is to get out of these dreadful bonds of slavery. As to Mr. Sherman, if he were fully cognizant of the evil that would follow he is probably as desperately wicked a man as lives on the face of the globe, but we do not believe this, for practically every famous political economist on earth spouted the beauties of the system of gold despotism. Mr. Sherman may well be pardoned if he was carried away by the mummery of mummified money. The worst of it is that most political economists at all THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 117 our fountains of learning to-day still swab on this bosh to large classes of annual graduates. These young men and women go out into the world with minds poisoned by the robber rot of Auroran despotism. The question of the day is not then, but now. We pro- pose to give, not what the dads thought, but what they did. We will give the weight of the gold coins of the U. S. We give only the weight of the eagle, for from this the rest may be quickly deduced: The eagle of 1792, weight 270 grains, 11-12 fine; gold contents, 247.5 grains. The eagle of 1834, weight 258 grains, 232-258 fine; gold contents, 232 grains. The eagle of 1837, weight 258 grains, 900 fine; gold contents, 232.2 grains. The eagle of 1873, weight 258 grains, 900 fine; gold contents, 232.2 grains. In 1873 the weight of the gold coinage or dollar was not changed, but its character was. It may be seen by the above that we have had what may be called three different gold dollars or account units. The silver dollar of 1792, weight 416 grains, 371.25-416.00 or 14.85-16.64 fine; silver contents, 371.25 grains. The silver dollar of 1837, weight 412.5 grains, 900 fine; silver contents, 371.25 grains. By the law of 1873 the gold money of the country was declared to be the money or only money of the country and silver money abrogated. The silver trade dollar was ordered to be coined legal tender up to five dollars, and afterwards its legal tender character was taken away and it was legislated out of existence by as rascally legislation as can be conceived. The weight of the trade dollar was 420 grains, 9-10 fine. Its silver contents 378 grains. W"e have had two different 118 THE CHASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. dad dollars, but the silver contents was never changed. Not so in the case of gold. By the law of 1792 an eagle or ten dollar piece was made equal in value to ten silver dollars or units, and to ten '^Spanish milled dollars," which had been and still was the money of the country. As the new American dollar contained less silver than the Spanish dollar and was in comparison a debased coin, it follows that the good full weight Spanish dollar gave little trouble, and when silver was undervalued in 1834 they were the lightest to skip ahead of the other fresh American silver coins, leaving only badly worn Spanish coins, especially minor coins, which were used as change. The ratio in 1792 was placed at exactly 15 to 1 and fif- teen pounds of silver declared to be equal in value in these U. S. to one pound of gold. In 1834 the ratio was changed to about 16 to 1, and from then trouble began. Silver being undervalued, as will be seen by a reference to our table, left the country and there was trouble about change. In 1853 Congress, to remedy this, made the chip halves, quarters and dimes, or light weight subsidiary coinage, and discontinued the full weight silver halves, etc. It may be seen by a reference to our table that these light weight coins staid in the country. Let it be plain to your mind that at that time and up to 1873 the silver dollar was more valuable than the gold dollar. Was a better dollar, as the gold bugs say. Things were getting about even, that is, it was getting near to the ratio of 16 to 1 when the gang legislated silver out of monetary existence. The change of 1853 may have been to a great extent impelled for the purpose of protect- ing the gold mining industry of the South, which, for those times, had assumed very respectable proportions. So much so, that mints were established on this account at THE CRASli OF THE QOLD COMBINE. lid Charlotte, Dahlonega and N. O. Witli the discovery of gold in California still further impetus was given to the movement. The western silver miner does not seem to impress our solons at Washington so favorably, but his voice is heard and his strength felt and scared Presidential candidates don't know which way to look for Sunday. In this book we give them a chance. No gold was ever called a dollar in the monetary laws of the U. S. until the authorization of the coinage of the gold dollar March 3, 1849. The word dollar was originally a word for silver and not used for gold in 1792, nor for a very long time-after. The dads called the silver dollar the unit, but as they also made the eagle equal in value to ten units, it follows that 1-10 of the eagle was equal in value to one unit. We were then declaredly under the system known as Bimetallism. We do not stand much on this unit argu- ment, but will say that silver has the advantage over gold in argument, historically or at any other point, but that of possession Gold is a bastard usurper who has stolen both the name and the game. The gold dollar was authorized March 3, 1849, the figure of the eagle was omitted. Our solons are heavy on the stamp of the government. The three dollar gold piece was authorized Feb. 21, 1853, and the Secre- tary of the Treasury was to select a device which, I believe, was the plumed head of an Indian warrior. The double eagle was authorized March 3, 1849, a double eagle in every respect. All of these coins were exactly conformable to the gold coinage of the U. S. The three and one dollar piece, though approved by the law of 1873, are no longer coined, probably as being un- necessary. The one dollar piece served the purpose of the gold gang 120 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. most materiallj in getting in their fine work of tlie law of 1873. The milk in the cocoanut was only a few lines, though the law takes sixty-seven long articles. Outside of the demonetization clause it is a slovenly botch. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth. Bv the law of 1873 silver as money was kicked by Con- gress out of the U. S. to its great suffering, misery and woe. Silver is sustained now by being money in a larger part of the world and there serving as a true conductor or car- rier of vital power. Gold is sustained in its present high place by the autocratic despotism of the governments of Europe and the U. S., who may all be said to be absolutely under the control of the gold gang, but, thanks to the efforts of patriots, that hold in the U. S. cannot last for- ever. What we should do now in order to be utterly consistent is to kick out our Congress and put three immense gilt balls on the capitol at Washington, install a representa- tive of the Rothschilds, Drexel, Morgan Co. to take charge of the shop and collect the rents of this very profitable grant wrung out of enslaved industry, through the opera- tion of this beatified gold money monopoly. The present silver dollar was authorized in 1878, and is of the weight and fineness of the dad dollar of 1873, but not of the character. This dollar of 1878 is a chip or check for a gold dollar payable at Sam's shop. It works on the principle of a trunk check or cloak check. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 121 SOME CLEAR CONCEPTIONS. Tlie money commodity of the U. S. is United States Standard Gold, 9-10 fine. It is made to be so by virtue of arbitrary and despotic legislation which commands that the account unit of the U. S. shall be 25.8 grains of its minted gold and an account unit is of money. Its value is a unit of value. Labor is everywhere paid or sold or made solid or preserved in this commodity, and that's where it gets its excessive value. Money is not inaptly called a universal solvent. It is as if power were dissolved in it, as if the spirit of the power of man had entered it. This commodity in the U. S., or in the world, is cornered by the Gold Combine or European boodle gang. We are heavily taxed to pay this commodity to govern- ment. It costs blood or vital energy. We have, or the government has, immense contracts for the delivery of this commodity which are increasing every year. The people holding these contracts naturally, legally and justly have the right to demand gold. They have not the right to demand anything else, nor have we the right to demand that they should take any- thing else. This commodity is sweated out of Industry. It is to our interest to get it cheap, to sweat as little as possible for it. The same for like reasons may be said of every country in Europe. It is to our interest to burst the Gold Combine and make gold to be cheap. So it is with the whole world. There- fore, to break the Gold Combine is to the interest of Progress and Civilization. Cheap gold is what we want 1^2 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. It can be gotten, and patriots sliould set about it at once. Crold monometallism is despotism. It is the excessive purchasing power of gold that makes it so valuable. Purchasing power or trade value is of the nervous power of man. Gold is like the soft electro-magnet, kept alive by a current of power. Take away the current and the magnet loses its power. Take away the vital current of the heart or brain of man from gold and it loses its excessive power. This is carried to it by the pernicious law of Gold Monometallism or the Single Gold Standard protected by Sam. We should, according to Ohm's law, or any sensible concep- tion, use the method that offers the least resistance that accomplishes the most for the steam used. Ask any elec- trician if these ideas are not correlative. Ask Edison or Tesla after they have read this book if the theory of Gold Monometallism is not a howling popular craze. We want all the great scientists on our side, and what's more we can get them. We propose to puncture this in- flated fraud and let the gas out of the gaudy, guilty bubble. We cannot build up a true society on the worthless crust of law that forms the film of gold inflation. Boys, you shall see the great collapse. We don't need any more failures in business to have all the business men voting on our side. Boys, vote dead against the goldists all the time. Goldism is cowardly, governmental assistance in thiev- ery. A FEW FACTS. A cubic foot of water weighs 52.321 avoirdupois pounds. Multiply this by 19.5, which is the specific gravity of pure THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 133 gold as referred to water, and we have 1215.2595 pounds, whicli is the weight of a cubic foot of pure gold. Multiply this by 301 161-387, and we have 366,357.2997 161-387, which is the number of dollars that would be used in mak- ing a cubic foot of pure gold. We take the gold of that number of dollars and throw the copper away. To a million dollars there are 2.7295 285685-366357 such cubic feet. To simplify and favoring the goldists we will call it 2.73 cubic feet to the million dollars. In these United States taken altogether there are prob- ably not more than 400 million dollars in gold. This would make a cube a shade over ten feet (10 feet) each way. Suppose it were eleven feet each way, that would b6 1,331 cubic feet. Suppose we leave out the cents and say that a cubic of gold contains $366,357, then this cube of eleven feet would contain the gold of |487,611,- 167, which is probably far more than there is in the coun- try. The U. S. Treasurer puts it at something under |484,- 000,000 for June, 1895. The gold strong boxes are in Europe at the centers from where this gold conspiracy radiates. The sweat boxes are here. As there are many thousand banks in the country no wonder the gold men say it might take more room to store silver or something else. Our blessed government is not troubled as to how the farmer may store his wheat. It is none of its concern as to how the gold man stores his gold. Let us make this gold into an overgrown calf. Bow down and worship, farmers, business men and working- men. A billion dollars is a thousand million dollars. So there are 2,729 cubic feet to a billion, or call it 2,730. Say there are five billions of this gold stock in the world. There is, we think, no more. The gold crowd is awfully 124 THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. given to exaggeration in this regard. Now five billion dollars would be 13,650 cubic feet of gold, a mass of gold 136.5 feet long and 10 feet square. A great purchase on the world. It is a big thing. iWhat if it should sink out of sight? This would be a cube of something less than 24 feet each way, for such a cube would contain 13,824 cubic feet. This is some A B C of money. Remember that the nation- al debts alone amount to six times this sum, and the other debts are at the very least probably ten times greater. ;Who are the slaves? According to the rule of the British mint 20 pounds troy of British standard gold, 11-12 fine, should be coined into 954 sovereigns and J sovereign. If you perform the proper operation the result will be 123.27447 319-623 grains to the British sovereign. Old Jevons, the much- vaunted gold sharp, says that it does not matter whether the ordinary Briton knows how many grains there are in a sovereign. In the first place it would take a fairly brigM ordinary Briton to find this out. In the second place, if it were not for the hell fire clause, we should be inclined to call Jevons a fool and be done with it. That is the sort of medicine men who run the corro- borees of gold bug savagery. Jevons is almost if not quite incapable of reason, an overrated man in every respect, who wrote a pettifogging plea for gold and had the con science, or lack of it, to call it ^'Money, or the Mechanism of Exchange." There are 113.001 377-623 grains of pure gold in a sov- ereign. A troy ounce of standard British gold is equal to £3 17s. lOJd. There are 7.3224 plus grammes of pure gold in a sovereign. The German mark is a weight of 6.1465 plus grains of gold, fineness 9-10. The principal coin is the 20-mark piece weighing 122.92 plus grains^ or 7.96494 :THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 125 plus grammes, and containing 7.1G84579 plus grammes of pure gold. Tlie gold 25-franG piece of France contains 7.2581 plus grammes of pure gold. There is nothing decimal about the French system of money except the alloy of the coins. At the U. S. mint 387 ounces trOy of pure gold are mixed with 43 ounces of pure copper and are coined into |8,000. Hence an ounce of pure gold is used to make 20.671834 plus gold dollars, the number being a continued decimal. This is the way an ounce of pure gold is calculated by assayers. We happen to know, having made assays when a boy. Ninety-nine ounces of pure silver were mixed by the U. S. government with 11 ounces of pure copper to make 128 silver dollars. So there are 128-99 of a dollar in an ounce of pure silver, or an ounce of pure silver makes 128-99 of a dollar. It is also mixed in that way to make the same sized modern chip. That is why an ounce of pure silver by bimetallists of the U. S. is asserted as being worth |1.29 per ounce, 128-99 being reduced decimally is 1.2929 plus, the number being a continued decimal. So the bimetallists again are not exact. This $1.2929 was the old rule before 1873. Are not all these muddled numbers and continued fractions dandies? This idea of silver being worth |1.29 per ounce comes from the rules before the gang succeeded in their con- spiracy of 1873. We can make silver worth at least |2 per ounce in gold, and that in a short time. Silver nowadays is worth all the the way from 60 to 70 cents per ounce. We do not want to swap silver for gold; we want to swap labor for silver and let gold sink to its natural level. Austria and some other countries use coins exactly like the French, but with different names. 126 THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. The Latin Union includes France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Greece. Gold despotism is the rule in the U. S., England and Colonies, Germany, France, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Scandinavia, Greece, Russia, India and some other countries held by the octopus. No wonder the world is sweating, pu£Qng, poverty-strick- en and discontented. .We mean the industrious and worthy world. The Great Gold Combine is O. K. It is loud in its praises of the "bond syndicate and its excellent work." The industrious world is being robbed by gold despot- ism. Governments cannot steal. They may furnish the means whereby some men may steal from others. If we permitted a silver money we would not have to coin all the silver into coins, not by a jugful. We can use paper for silver as well as for gold. All the gold in the world is not in the shape of gold coin, not by a very large jugful, even if they do coin it free. The gold gang is putting up bars of bullion and mighty particular they are that they shall not lose by abrasion. They are very particular on the point of weight, and they are right. We propose to pay them full weight gold. Gold notes are also issued, I understand, against bars of bullion. How is that for high? However, we may be mistaken. The Secretary of the Treasury could tell us. He might take a day off from campaigning for gold bug- ism and give us a little information. Let us hear something more than bugle blasts for "sound money." This eternal tatto for patriots to return to the tents of the gold camp and to be ready to vote for their yellow josh on the morning of election makes us tired- THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 127 We count things even when not coined. We can count a thousand pounds of potatoes without weighing them out by the pound. The German mark as a single piece is not coined. Still accounts kept in the Ger- man mark are too common for remark in Germany. A shilling of gold is not coined; however, that does not pre- vent its being counted, and Johnnie coins silver chips for it. The gold franc is not coined as a single piece. We can just as well be free in the choice of money as not, and the time has come. Debts are contracts for the delivery of goods payable in the goods contracted to be delivered. Let the people within the lines of a free country trade how they will. The theory advocated here is free monetism. The silver men should demand a free silver money. The Congress of the United States cannot prohibit free interchange be- .tween the States, nor could a true free silver bill be de- feated in Congress. It would leave the octopus to flounder in the mud. But as we said before the U. S. government is in the hands of the gold gang and we can beat them without ask- ing for a single vote of the gold bug gang which has kept the tree of liberty so well denuded of its foliage and so grievously repressed its growth. RATIO, RELATIVE PRICE AND RELATIVE VALUE. Suppose that in exchange 16 pounds of silver, 300 pounds of copper, 2 pounds of platinum and 50 pounds of aluminium are worth one pound of gold. 128 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. We have then this table of ratio or account price : Oold to gold, 1 to 1. Silver to gold, 16 to 1. Copper to gold, 300 to 1. Aluminium to gold, 50 to 1. Platinum to gold, 2 to 1. We have also the following table of relative purchas- ing power or relative values or valences: Gold to gold, 1 to 1. Gold to silver, 1 to 1-16. Gold to copper, 1 to 1-300. Gold to aluminium, 1 to 1-50. Gold to platinum, 1 to J. It follows that the relative price is only another ex- pression of the account price. The account price therefore always gives the relative price. It is always the expres- sion of the weight of the one commodity divided by that of the other. But when gold is taken as the standard of value, it being a very high priced commodity or one of high valic intensity or strong purchasing power, it fol- lows that the relative value or relative purchasing power or valence of others will be generally expressed by proper fractions. Two trees are always in line, and we can hardly be said to have a standard except by comparing more than one thing or power wath a single one. This we do in an account. Also this is done in any price list or market report. Trade unerringly seeks its level. This idea we cannot stop to develop. Were it undisturbed by arbitrary mone- tary law and had we conformable weights, this would be very apparent. Here arises the contention of the author for sensible weights for gold and silver. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 129 There can no more be an average of prices in the popu- lar sense than there can be an average of specific gravi- ties. The level sought is one of power, not of mass. It is an equilibrium. In the search for or tendency to this equilibrium merchants get their profits. It is the custom among people in ordinary language to give what we call ratio rather than relative price. They give the ratio of weight rather than of power. That is, people usually say silver at 16 to 1 when it is rather silver at 1-16 to 1. However, the idea of power is not lost sight of, and it is upon this that thousands of mental lights are now turned. People are more accustomed to whole numbers than to fractions, more impressed by mass than by power. The science of trade is the science of the exchange or inter- change of the valic force or nervous energy of man, and is an exact relative science. All science is exact. It is the exact summation of definite things and the exact rela- tion of relative things. In this money business gold ma- terial. is a definite thing, its value a relative thing. These relative things may be called forces. A point describing a regular curve or any law governed line may be said to move in the resultant of two forces which act upon it. Its equation or expression is the state- ment of their relativity. A table of specific gravity is com- parable to an account or price list. In the first case the gravic force is compared, in the second the valic force is compared. It is only lately in the history of the world that power in the abstract has been scientifically studied. The mind of Newton was among the first to disassociate the idea of power from that of material. He did this in the study of the gravic force or weight, which he said varied as the mass, but is not the mass. 13© THK CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBIKE. The valic force of commodities may be said to vary in- versely as tlie mass. It seems to be a natural enemy of tlie gravie force. There seems to be put an enmity between this force and this ''seed of the serpent" of the gravie force. Power has impressed the mind or spiritual or powerful nature of man from the beginning, and in fact all the re- ligions of the world have been more or less adorations of power. The God of man has advanced the man of God. Science is invariably the study of powers and forces and is with- in the province of religion, nor can it be otherwise. We have only indicated the subject of purchasing power, or valic force. We leave the full development of its discus- sion to others, especially to the professors of Political Economy in our colleges, whose noble mission it is. We have shown that value may be considered as a force. It is of the vital energy of man. It resides in commodities and relative value is the statement of their comparative purchasing power. The valic force is a power pervading gold and diffused through it in exact homogeneity. In parenthesis we remark that the power pervading copper is of different intensity, wherefore our contention for a pure money. This power in gold, therefore, in any particular trade may be said to be exactly proportioned to the mass. This is the popular impression, therefore, that value varies as weight, but it is not exactly true, for value really varies counter to weight. The valic force varies counter to weight. This, it seems to me, brings the question almost, if not quite, into the domain of religion. As the power of man increases the gravie force may be said relatively to decrease and man was given dominion THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE. 131 over tlie earth, being in tlie image of the Creator. By the strength of our minds exerted through steam, etc., we carry weights much easier than formerly. The natural sequence of this reasoning is surprising. It means that mind, as it were, shall overcome matter and transportation become relatively or entirely free. Does this refer to this world, or the next, or both? The field opened here is immense and the weapon a double-edged sword. It is true of the past which offers itself as testimony, and for the future it is upheld by the power of reason. As the power of man increases the resistance of what is called nature decreases, for as the valic force of man increases so does his dominion. The gravic force is opposed to the valic force. Hence the expression what is the matter, meaning the mass, the weight, the trouble. This discussion we cannot continue, but even in the case of money it may easily be said the greater its weight the less its value. For if to a mass of gold we add to its gravic force, or rather add more gold without increasing its purchasing power, it may be said that its relative purchasing power has decreased or be- come weaker. It has gone down in price. Its valic in- tensity is not so great. If we add to its purchasing power without increasing its weight, it may be said to have in- creased in intensity and the gravic force relatively to have decreased. We can pursue no further. We leave the subject to Political Economists, to Valic Scientists. In any single exchange this is not so apparent as there is no comparison, and value seems to vary directly as weight. Although the valic force of man is increasing with his intelligence, it can no more make a pound of gold out of nothing than it could in the time of Moses. It can no more pay the Gold Combine under the system of Gold Mono- 132 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. metallism than it can make a pound of gold out of nothing. No amount of sweat under that system can relieve it from the grasp of the Gold Monopoly, from the tenacles of the European Octopus. The only relief lies in the destruction of money mono- poly or the Single Gold Standard. It is an artificial sys- tem productive only of evil. The remedy will be as silent, eflScacious and benign as the malady is silent, pernicious and malign. The cost of mining gold and silver is no more a subject for governmental solicitude than the cost of mining po- tatoes. We had intended in a separate chapter to review some of the recent works on money. The very meritorious ones are those of Mr. W. H. Har- vey. We will not stop to take even a cursory glance at the others. Mr. Harvey has pointed out the appalling iniquity of the gold standard. He is a patriot and a philanthropist, and will live in the grateful memory of mankind when his censors are frozen in forgetf ulness. But, Brother Har- vey, why not have free silver? Why Siamese this white giant to that contagion-colored pigmy? Sixteen to 1 sim- ply would prevent silver from rising away above 16 to 1, which it could easily do under free conditions. Sixteen to 1 is John preaching in the wilderness. Let us throw this yellow devil overboard and sail the silver ship to victory. It was said, probably of nations or of mankind, that they who take the sword shall perish by the sword. Of nations it may as well be said that they who take up thiev- ery shall die by thievery. They that plow iniquity and sow wickedness shall reap the same. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 13^ Gold Monometallism is thievery, and if tMs nation per- sists in this thievery it must die. Were it not for the tremendous and increasing strength of the anti-gold element, we should fear that decay had already set in. Industry has no favors to ask of anybody. If she will stop governmental assistance in stealing she will get the reward of which she is worthy. Vote against the gold gang and for struggling silver and Cuba free. LEAVES FOR THE PROFESSORS. Suppose the weight or gravic force of a standard weight be called a Grav. That is the weight of the weight is the Grav. Suppose the weight of any subject as compared with this be called its gravism and relative weight or rela- tive gravism be called Gravence, usually called density or specific gravity. The gravism of the grav would be unity. A standard of gravence or graventic standard might be selected and its gravence would be unity, as water is fre- quently taken as a! standard of gravence. A table of the gravences of chemical elements would be a table of pure gravences. An ordinary table of specific gravity is a table of gravences as compared with a graventic standard. A subject may be graved or its gravism ascertained or weighed as we say. Were its volume at the same time known we would at once have its gravence. They vary inversely. The more the volume to the gravism the less the gravence. Valence then varies as volume. Does it show that as the volume of the mind of man increases gravism may be said relatively to decrease? Other words 134 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE, may be used symmetrically such as gravid, grave, grav- able, etc. Now we propose to present a force and a new problem to scientific investigation. Suppose we take an account unit such as tlie dollar of tbe U. S., 25.8 grains of minted gold, and call its purchasing power a val. It is the value of the val that is the val. The purchasing power of any subject will be its valism. That is, value and valism are the same. The valism and the value of the val are unity. Any subject may be valed or valued, or its valism ascertained, as is done in the mar- kets. Relative purchasing power will be valence. Remember it varies inversely to gravism. Purchasing power to be strong is light. Gravism to be strong is heavy. We can have a table of valences like a table of gravences. We can have a valentic standard which in the imperfect system of the U. S. is 9-10 gold. You might much better be ordered to have an alloy of gold for your graventic standard. The elject would be much less harmful. All the rules of other forces apply to the valic force or purchasing power residing in money or any other valuable thing. If our standard of valence or rather the material which we use to carry our standard of valence or our money should be weighed by a weight which is conformable to our standard of gravism or weight, we have a problem or study to develop. We leave the full development of the above to scien- tists. Valism is not gravism, but varies inversely with it. Gravism varies directly and uniformly as mass, that is, in the case of any single subject like gold. We owe the gold monopoly gold mass. We propose to pay it gold mass. A THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 135 debt is a contract for the delivery of specific mass. Will «ome scientist please to get tlie correlation or anti-relation of the above forces clear and to express it in clear, popu- lar form so that it may be grasped by anybody ? The proof of well expressed truth generally is that it is milk for babes and meat for strong men. We have finished our work, as far at least as money is directly concerned in this book, but a consideration of the problem of money has led us into some reflections whicH we give merely as theories without afiSrming their truth. Now, then, what causes the gravic force? Though it reside in matter, its cause, like that of the valic force, must come from without. Suppose that density is gravio intensity due to pressure among atoms, or rather, perhaps, weakness, among or of atoms. Natural power and natural weakness go together. Wherever there is relative power there is relative weakness. It is a question of relativity every time. Suppose that equal weights mean equal num- ibers of atoms. Atoms weigh the same under similar rela- tive conditions. Atomic weights that are exact multiples of hydrogen are under multipularly relative conditions. Intensity is always power in confined space, or confined power. Intensity varies inversely with volume. The more vol-^ ume to the same power the less intensity. Suppose that all free atoms are of the same size, that free matter may exist in smaller size than a free chemical atom, but picks up its own with avidity, but no more, and before entering into chemical union is atomically perfect. Suppose that atoms never repel each other, but rather struggle to get free and then touch each other tangent and rather attract each other. This is the gravic force which has been concentrated in spheres or centers of attraction. This is the attractive force which may be said to b€s 136 ITHE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE!. •concentrated at the centers of the earth, suns and planets. The other is the repulsive force and planets move in orbits that are channels of repulsion as are the beds of rivers. These orbits, usually elliptical, are situated in planes. In this discussion we regard atoms as spherical. Suppose you consider hydrogen as the strongest atom known, and a table of atomic weights to be a table of potentivalents taken inversely. Where, then, do specific heats and atomic weights come in? WTien one arm of a scale expresses a constant quantity, where is the other arm? Suppose we assume that chemical union is the assump- tion of concentricity between two or more atoms, and that two or more substances may occupy the same space at the same time, forming a third or chemical compound, or are they but different powers of atoms of the same sub- stance, and if so, to what does it at last resolve itself? To what does it ultimately dissolve? Are we deceived on the subject of matter, and is it also of the Divine Will? "In the beginning God created the heavens and the :earth." Atoms step in and step out according to the rule of the easiest way, not forgetting the chemistry of different tem- peratures, and there may be a difference in compounds of the same material due to the different order in which different atoms stepped in to make a compound atom. The cause of the force of gravity as it resides in the earth, etc., has to do with chemism. Were there no such thing as chemical union our earth, such as it is now, had never been formed. Free atoms touch each other as even sized spheres, just friendly like, no agitation, as they have full room and their tendencies are utterly satisfied. It may be, however, after all, that the atomic theory will have to be abandoned for (me of defiiiite relativity. THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 137 It is hardly logical to speak of an atom as the smallest portion of matter that can reside by itself, but if so, then all atoms are of the same size, though of different gravic intensities or weight, hereby we get the correct chemical law of definite proportions. With this enters the problem of intercellular or inter- atomic space, not a satisfactory supposition when free atoms or untrammeled gasos are considered. Intensity is agitation or power in confined space. The motion of the planet in its orbit is not the agitation of the particle. It possibly quiets that agitation. The sun appears to be a iilowing mass, being the center about which planets move iLy orbits. The orbital motion may possibly be traced to that agitation as the motion of the street car may be traced to electrical intensity. The movement of the suns and planets about their axes and in their orbits complete a celestial balance, and the rule of the universe is motion, not rest. These atoms in this old airy world that we are describ- ing would be serene. The temperature might even be that of absolute cold, but no frost. These free atoms all to- gether weighed nothing. If it were possible to put ail the worlds into one ball it would weigh nothing. No place to weigh it from. It would be impossible to put it in one ball, resting aev- enely in space, except by an ultra action of the Divine Mind. If the motion of planets and suns about their axes and in their orbits were suddenly stopped, matter would instant- ly fly out into the world we are describing. That old, cold, dark, inert expansion was changed lulu this active world with heat and light and life, solid spheres :iud motion orbital and axial. Heat and light were the first manifestation^ -'' • ' ^' ' This must come from chemical union. 138 THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. *^Let there be light." "The world was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep." A gaseous, formless, dark immensity. As this world cooled, as thej say, but rather warmed and solidified, the curtain went up and the fun began. You cannot cool a world or celestial sphere, no place to cool it to. The sun does not lose the heat of the power of the value of a cent, and will continue at equal rate to glow forever, warming the earth and working for man, world without end. Free atoms have no disposition to enter into chemical union. They only do that when they cannot do otherwise. Chemical union began, oxygen stole carbon, and prob- ably the usual order was reversed. If you are a perfect <5hemist you can tell exactly what happened as the process of solidification went on, for there was a regular order. There is one sure thing, there is no carbon nor carbonic compound far from the surface of the earth. There are several other sure things too numerous to mention here. lYou may make a list. Has this carbonic fact and many others anything to do with Design ? We are for Design. Anybody that is anybody will be on one side or the other, and the Titanic battle will be fought to the foot of the throne. There are no mysteries in nature. It is an open book. The unknown is knowable and to man will yet be known. The suns and planets did not fly off from anywhere. Nature's God does not deal in convulsions, is neither a violent nor an angry God. He takes- the easy way. These various planets took their right amount of atoms and their right distance from the suns or fixed stars as easy as mnid cracks and assumed their positions for the THE CRASH OF THE GOLD COMBINE. 13d dance. We may suppose that the "morning stars sang to- gether,'^ while the planets kept time to the music. In heavenly harmony this universal frame began. From har- mony to harmony through all the compass of the notes it ran. The gravic force of the earth is like a light at its center, but there is no gravic shadow, and what its rays do not hit they do not pull. The sun and earth pull each other prob- ably with far less force than is commonly supposed. The sun and earth are concerned in two long cones. One cut out of the earth by rays.from the center of the earth to the edge of the sun's disk. The other cut out of the sun by rays from its center to the edge of the earth's disk. This forms a double cone with apices at these respective cen- ters and bases in space. Distance or time has nothing to do with the exertion of the gravic force of the earth or the sun. It acts instantly at unutterable distances, like the Divine Will. Time and distance are one in a mental science not yet unfolded. Distance has something to do with its dispersion through space from a gravic center. Like light this force is dispersed through space by the rule of cubes and over sur- faces by the rule of squares. The disks of the celestial spheres we call surfaces. We have much to say, but no space. We have not considered the force of repulsion or eentripetal force whose beginning dates from the same time ; that is, as we understand it. For both forces exist- ed in this airy world, but their operation is now different. There is much to say, and all forces, including the valic force, may be considered as drawn from the same fountain. We do not conceive our earth when formed as having stewed for Eons, but as being ready for business almost at once. We had an atmosphere supercharged with carbon, which was laid away in sea shells, lime-beds and vast de- 140 THE CRASH OP THE GOLD COMBINE posits of coal. For a rank vegetation soon began, and we have now establislied tlie equilibrium between animal and vegetable life. Animal life began and we are told of tlie development of the valic force in the story of the Garden of Eden, wld and is drawing on the vitality of mankind to its full ability to produce vital energy or value. In fact it is a noxious and destructive parasite that is poisoning and killing the tree. Or it is a deadly vampire that is silently bleeding mankind to death. It is the province of science and true patriotism to awaken this innocent sleeper and to destroy this merciless Blood- sucker. In the wasting of the blood of men, He revels, Array your hosts to protect him then, Ye devils, The Just have raised Freedom's ting again. As rebels. iHe ly^K po^(jQa)^\ tKt* '^-^; "1*3% fr9n\ fl\fcir seats £,, ^«o^^ ""^l ^ j^ expired fKen\ ofl9