J-NRLF mi. I.I HKAK V , ni- THJ-: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 01 KT OK Deceived Jccessums N . ., ^ i ^ i FRIGE 25 GENTS Scientific floney AN flMERIGflN DOLLflR Should Have Only These Qualities FIRST : It is a standard fixed by the nation for and as a measure of the value of all other things. SECOND : It is a legal tender for all debts. THIRD : It is any substance without commodity value and in convenient form for use in exchanges. FOURTH : It is redeemed when debts are paid and exchanges are effected by it. TAYLOR ROGERS : . CO., J. 3333 Washington Street, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. COPYRIGHTED. practice, a Californian since 1852 and a political speaker since 1876, my ignorance on this momentous question was a positive fact. Stung with his taunt and ashamed of his accusation, my investigations were commenced and prosecuted with the sole aim of reaching the truth. The results are presented herein. By necessity much is condensed. The reader may expand and apply the ideas suggested in this pamphlet. Its ideas, whether stated or sug- gested, are not new to the fearless, thinking world, but they will be new to a man who has imbibed his notions from the daily Press, and has obtained his financial knowledge from those benefitted by the present system. Their interests are special, yours is general. Their pur- poses are to retain their peculiar privileges. Your aim should be to bring happiness and equality to all citi- zens. Don't misunderstand me. There can be no equal- ity in the mind and strength of different people, but there can and should be equality in the conception and execution of our general laws. The present Finance system has neither. Hence it should be abolished. This pamphlet is published to aid in bringing this "equality," and for the expansion of our money to our needs. Therefore, in the name of our illustrious ancestors, in the name of the toiling, weary and hungry millions of to-day, in the name of the unborn generations, whose future environment we are now fashioning, you are entreated to study the currency issue and to deter- mine whether patriotism does not demand that this nation shall adopt a scientific money, having certain essentials which may be expressed as follows: A Dollar should have these qualities : First It is a standard fixed by the nation for and as a measure of the value of all other things. Second It is a legal tender for all debts. Third It is any substance without commodity value and in convenient form for use in exchanges. Fourth It is redeemed when debts are paid and ex- changes are effected by it. In our sublime National drama, two acts have been played. Now the curtain is up again and new actors appear. But it is the same old story. For to me Jef- ferson's democracy, as embodied in his first Inaugural, and Lincoln's Republicanism, as uttered in his speeches and shown in his life, and REFORM are a Trinity, being one and the same thing, seeking to measure out justice to the rich, to insure equality for the poor and to be- stow happiness upon all. The first organization DEMOCRACY at the dawn of the Century, met and overturned the Monarchical sentiment, embodied in the Alien and Sedition Laws, and brought the government back to the People. Fifty years later the next movemene REPUBLICAN- ISM drove the Slave Power from our limits, and thus decreed that our flag could wave over freemen only, be- cause our soil is too holy for the foot of the slave. Catching the spirit of these two mighty impulses for human liberty, and antagonizing the same old man- owning tendency in its third incarnation in this coun- try, the regenerating Reform at the close of this won- derful century, bares its breast for a mortal combat with the Money Power, and trusts to American Man- hood for victory. To aid in gaining this triumph for the "Plain Peo- ple" and if not too late and if possible to get it through ballots, is the Mission of this Pamphlet. Your friend in truth, SCIENTIFIC MONEY. Certain fundamental ideas have governed the rise, growth and strength of our nation. A true compre- hension of them leads to conclusions consistent with the genius of our institutions and places our people in harmony with that basic philosophy, which has been tested for a century, and sanctified by our common sorrows. These ideas are the foundation principles on which our Government rests, concentrating in one con- ception, God, Nature and Man. As to Deity, the answer of Theology and Evolution is practically the same. Self-existent, His attributes are omniscience, omnipotence, eternity and mercy. Each system ascribes to Him all created things. One affirms an instantaneous act, described in Genesis; the other declares certain Laws were set to operating, and that the universe is their fruitage, consuming un- counted years in its production. But in each process Law is present and controls. It is seen in the star's soft light, in the sun-painted lily, in the wild energy evolved from burning coal, in the crude effort of man, finally crystallizing into our civilization. For the significant reason that no definition is pos- sible, our Constitution is silent as to God, yet it builds a civilization in every way based on moral accounta- bility to Him. In unison with what one said : "All are but parts of one stupetiduous whole Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." and another sang: "Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply, And weave the garment which thou seest Him by," Nature is the visible manifestation of these laws of be- ing, coming from the first Greac Cause. They are con- stant and uniform. The studious knowledge of them is Science. The comprehensive application of them re- sults in all our inventions and implements. Man's origin is in doubt. If in the Garden, then the historic chain is complete. If in the Protoplasm, then Science has not yet found all his upward steps. He is a fact. His home is the earth. All his needs may be resolved back into his use of and access to these four gilts of Nature Land, Air, Water and Sunlight. He is always under the domain of law. It wraps him in its^folds as a mantle. His mind has its limita- tions and rules of action. His body is at all points subject to its environment. His moral nature links his soul to the universe and crowns him with immortality. Without this use and this access to these four gifts, life is impossible. Deprive man of either or its equivalent, and death ensures. Then, it is evident that in the economy of nature, man must have liberty to use what he requires of these for his maintenance and development. In a pure state of nature this liberty he enjoys. His home is the broad earth without rent. His wealth is his product, taken from Nature's bounty without a tax therefor. He can labor without a master and keep all of his effort. All capital springs from the brain and brawn of labor. It is not distinct from labor. In wealth there are in truth but two factors Land and Labor. Our material civ- ilization exists, because the omnipotence of the worker has willed is being. All capital would perish or its value would vanish if the giant hand of the toiler were withdrawn. The conceptions of the architect, glorifying in the visions of the Pyramids, of Solomon's Temple, of the Parthenon > remained but conceptions, till patient Toil touched the stones and bade them be immortal. Out of this trinity God, Nature and Man comes Society. It is the bringing of two or more men within the circle of each other's influences. The circles touch or intersect. In a contact there is one influence. In an in- tersection there are two influences. With the increase of men the effects are multiplied, their circles crossing and recrossing many times. These effects are mani- fested by modifications of each man's unrestrained liberty to use the providences of nature. As the devel- oping from the free to the social condition progresses, one liberty is enlarged and another restrained, the changes touching alike each and all. This enlargement or restraint of natural liberties in this country grows out of the consent of all our people, gain in one direction compensating for loss in another. This consent is the only basis for law, and every law must be construed with reference to its effect upon man's natural liberties as specified. Therefore, before the tribunal of Reason, any law that operates to curb the right of man to en- joy these fcur opportunities is unjust and in conflict with natural rights. It should be repealed. This should be effected by the means provided in the organic law. The reason for this compliance arises out of the fact, that consent makes the law and the like consent is necessary to its repeal. The vital element in our society, whether based on consent or force, is that the majority shall rule and ex- press the will of the whole. In this case, from necessity, the value of the law is to be measured by its effects upon the greater part of the people, counting them only by numbers. Hence, as freedom of the individual is the great and supreme end of government, it may be asked, how are his rights to be conserved, it he must bend to the ultimatum of the majority? There are three answers. 6 He must leave the State and cease to be a citizen, or he must submit to the will of the greater part, and appeal to reason for the endorsement of his views, or he must rebel and overturn by force the ruling power. In the first place, he abandons the field and is estopped from complaint. In the next place, within the means sanctioned by law, he may arouse the public conscience to the assault against his rights and seek to have his own views incorporated in the organic law. This is a conquest of intellect here are the laurels of mind the empire of reason. In the last place, according as he succeeds, his reward is the chaplet of the patriot or the halter of the rebel. Here is the arena of Force. In this final contest of the citizen for supremacy there are no other methods of decision. It is leave, yield or fight. It may be wrong. That is to say, the effect on the majority may turn out bad. The transcendent will of the majority is restrained partly by our Constitution. Even that must change at the dictation of the many. To Time vindication is committed. In the scales of Logic and Reason the defeated must place his cause and wait for the future to measure it. Within the lim- itations imposed by our Constitution, the voter may labor, speak and vote to change any fundamental Act. His liberty in this respect is not to be restrained, nor his activity curbed. Against this effort all may unite to defeat his purposes. Herein lies the true sphere of the American citizen. As mere iliustrations of the principle just asserted, it may be suggested that, acting within the restraints of existing laws, the Anarchist may cry for "general upheaval," so that his scheme, phoenix-like, may rise from the ashes, the Mormon may declare for polygamy as a right, the Jew may vote for the Mosaic as the national creed, the non-American Papist may assert the supremacy of the Church; the Puritan may want God in the Constitution; one may cry for Single Tax, and another may declare for Pro- tection or Free Trade; and every other American, if so mindedf may legitimately oppose him, claiming that such ideas are inconsistent with the genius of this gov- ernment and tending to its overthrow, or he may com- bine with his neighbor for their advocacy, and, gaining enough votes, may incorporate his doctrines into our laws. While the Constitution rightly forbids Legislation in matters of religion, and declines to define certain opinions as qualifying one to be an official, yet in the fact that each person is entitled to unrestrained liberty of thought, the American can decide in his own mind that the possession of a certain "set of opinions" by an aspirant is a good reason for voting against him. If he may oppose a candidate because he is a Protectionist or Mono-met allist, or otherwise, he may likewise op- pose another candidate because of his opinions on Morals or Labor, or Strikes or Capital, or because the candidate entertains fixed opinions on such questions, he may endorse and vote for him. In other words the last analysis leads to this state- ment: The American voter is an uncrowned sovereign in his suffrage, accountable only to his own manhood. In every case the individual complying with the law in form and spirit, must have his liberty to speak and vote for his views regardless of their radical tendency. To the crucible of the ballot-box all must submit their opinions and take the dross or metal, as the test re- sults. Thus every one has liberty of thought, of wor- ship and of suffrage. This is a practical application of the Golden Rule, the sublimest Law ever pronounced. Our forefather's Declaration under its inspiration, says: "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, gov- ernments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of go 'government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its founda- tion on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Within this, the grandest human definition of man's rights, the individual may keep his life, enjoy his liberty and seek his happiness. But jthese can be obtained only when his natural opportunities are unhampered and when all the fruits of his labor are applied to his own wants, and without division w T ith any master. He has capacity out of Nature's abundance to supply his needs. In a free condition he w r ould rely solely on himself to supply all his demands, but in a social envi- ronment he depends on an exchange on an exchange of his labor effected by money. This brings us to our main question : WHAT IS MONEY? Man is prior to money or its idea. The conception thereof comes to him only in those times when the rudi- mentary elements of society appear. As this is univer- sally conceded to be true, then, to get a clear concep- tion of money we must revert to those periods in his- tory when it did not exist. Strip off the habiliments of our civilizatiod and place man in primeval conditions. To sustain life he must labor to supply his daily needs. If nature is not prodigal enough in fruits, grains, etc., he must then cultivate them and preserve them for use at the times w r hen they are out of season. The trophies of the chase he converts into weapons, tools, and cloth- ing. The usufruct of his productions or captures is his absolutely, because he is their sole creator. In their enjoyment no one has a right of participation. By in- dustry earth yields to him more than he needs. This is the earliest form of over-production. There is an over- plus. What will he do with it? When there are neigh- bors he will give it to them or exchange it with them for their overplus of products. The result is trade. One by his industry has obtained all he ne^ds of a cer- tain article and has some to spare. His neighbor is in like condition. Each wants the overplus of th^ other. They meet, exchange views and inquire the time spent in the production of each one's article. The trade is made on that basis. There is no method of measuring the value of labor bestowed except by counting the time employed. In all the earlier forms of society, the hours or days spent in making a thing furnished the sole test of its value. This principle obtains to-day practically in all valua- tions. For in skilled and professional callings, the pro- duct is still measured largely by the prior time con- sumed in acquiring the knowledge requisite for its creation. The mechanic, in computing his wage-price, considers the hours spent in college, the days used in ex- periments the years devoted by him to the blending of brain and hand in the thing desired. In the lawyer's fee is condensed the failures and triumphs of a lifetime. With the physician's prescription is compounded the diseases, sorrows, pains, and restorations of all his preceding patients. Now, as the abstract is the realm of logic and mathematics, so the concrete appeals tojsense seeing, feeling and touching. Therefore, let the picture become a reality to your mind let the marble become a sen- tient beiag, speaking and showing its hands to dispel your doubts. Here is a scene that may be imagined. This beau- tiful valley at the sea is garlanded with flowers, threaded by a flowing river, blessed with fertility of soil, suitable to all human wants and gladdened with the sunshine, radiant all the year. The gigantic forests stand there, vocal with the song of bird, being the shady home of fauna, useful for food and clothing. That stream teems with fish, and here where it cuts the 10 hill stand out the veins of coal, and yonder show the iron rocks. The theologian says, "This is for man;" and the scientist adds, "Here all conditions are fit for his highest development." Here are found lour men. Each, with his family wagons, tools, animals, etc., selects a home and trusts to nature and his labor for sustenance. In the group are a Farmer and stockman, a Blacksmith and oper- ator in metals, a Mechanic and builder of mills and a Tanner and worker in leather. The antecedents of these people are immaterial. The purpose is to im- agine a condition where a new society is planted with- out a government and without finances, and investing them with certain advances in knowledge. Being without money and without the possibility of purchase from any stranger, each must and does rely upon him- self. Hence, each family must follow all the callings needed to their wants. Each must combine in himself all the vocations of the others just named. This re- sults in waste of time and renders manifest the imper- fections of each, when outside his own specialties. When this appears, then it becomes the tacit, if not ex- pressed consent of all, that the farmer shall devote his labor to raising cereals, fruits, cattle and horses for all. The tanner prepares all the leather in any way used and converts it into the manufactured article for the little group of people, and the blacksmith melts his iron ore, and fashions it to their various utilities, while the machinist supplies all with their requirements in his line. Now, referring to the time involved in the produc- tion as a measure of value, the farmer exchanges a sack of wheat with the tanner for a pair of shoes, and a bar- rel of fruit with the blacksmith for an iron hoe, a load of timber with the machinst for the grinding of a grist at his mill. Each has parted with his own product for the handiwork of his neighbor. The condition of each 11 is bettered. A gain has accrued to both. The labor of the farmer, applied to the earth by this simple alchemy, has been transmuted into shoes, hoe and flour. By the magic thus evoked, the tanner has seen his labor, exhib- ited in the shoes, before his vision materialize into the golden grain, and at command, the blacksmith has noted his hoe instantly transformed into the luscious fruit. The machinst turns his skilled service into a sub- stantial pile of lumber. How have the marvels been effected? Is it by leger- demain? Nay! Two human wants meet two human products appear two consents as to their ownership become manifest. There is no unseen mystery. All the vast exchanges of men and nations rest on this simple basis. Now, so long as each of the four settlers has produced the exact thing that his neighbor wants there is no difficulty in their exchanges. But in the unfolding of their labors an obstacle presents itself. The farmer has a surplus of grain and wants leather for a new harness. The tanner, although anxious to trade, has no suitable leather prepared. It is still in his vats. Months are required for the completing processes. It is evident that the farmer must place his grain with the tanner and wait for the leather, That is, he must ex- tend credit. The tanner agrees, and to his neighbor hands a token inscribed, ''Good for a tanned hide." It is accepted. Why? Because human faith has been pledged and is regarded sacred. On what do.es the value of this token rest? Ransack the treasures of Philosophy torture Logic upon the rack question the priests of Reason- cross-examine the prophets of Finance, and the simple answer of all will be condensed into the single, truth- ful, but grandly eloquent response, ' 'consent." Now, the same obstacles are continually met to the ex- changes of these people and solved in like manner the giving and receiving tokens bearing "inscriptions," and 12 being representations of value, yet possessing none in- trinsically. A token issued by one is received by all and their products are transferred in consequence thereof. The circulation of the token rests upon this proposition : That the holder has in the token, an order on each and all of his neighbors for their surplus products. By common consent they pass from one to another, and thus facilitate the easy transmutation of one man's labor into something else desired by him. But is this not the exact purpose of all trade, local, national, uni- versal? Can Commerce find any other design for her varied million dailv exchanges, except that one set of men prefer, above their own, the manual creations of their neighbors? The final analysis of the motives for all trading leads to this simple fact, that each finds his advantage in the transfer of his surplus product. Now, the "token" has performed a business func- tion for the farmer and tanner these two settlers of the embryonic State. What is this function? Its nature is fourfold and is thus briefly described : 1st. "It is a medium of exchange " That is, it has enabled the farmer to transfer the title and possession of his wheat to the tanner. For without the token, the transfer would not have been consummated. 2nd. "It is a measure of value." For through its means the wheat is transferred. The "token" is re- ceived in lieu of the leather, which will have an intrinsic value or use for harness. Whatever may be the capac- ity of the leather as a utility, it is transferred to the "token." The latter in the hands of the farmer be- comes the representative of the leather that is to be made, and, at the same moment, of the wheat that has been delivered. If the "token" were not the measure of the value of the wheat, the farmer would not have recived it and stripped himself of his product. His act was volun- 13 tary. It was based on his opinion of the significance of the "token." The ''token" standing fer the leather, is therefore the measure of the value of the wheat, as determined and recognized by the parties to the trans- action. 3rd. "It is a standard by which a future obliga- tion is determined." In the illustration used above, the leather will not be perfected for months. The tanner has promised that, using all his craft, he will produce a good tanned article and deliver it at the time named. This promise is made to the farmer and in considera- tion thereof he has delivered his grain, and in its place holds the "token." But this denotes that the tanner must do something to the green skin. His skill and labor must change it into an article perfected to har- ness requirements. This skill and labor, though to be applied at different times, have been sold to the farmer. The "token," then, in the hands of the latter, stands as the contract expressing all the things promised by the tanner. In consideration of the immediate use and ownership of the wheat, he has agreed to do a future thing, and as a memento of that solemn engagement, he has deposited this symbol or pledge. If this be true, then it is the standard by which his obligation is meas- ured. 4th. "It is a storehouse of accumulated products." The truth of this is exhibited when you consider that the "token" in the keeping of the farmer is the repre- sentative of the wheat, just delivered, and the leather to come, and of everything else in the possession of any settler already produced and condensing the same labor involved in either of those designated products. By this is meant, that the blacksmith and machinist would willingly part ownership with any of their sur- plus things involving a like period of time in labor, and would transfer any of them to the farmer for the "token," for it will be taken for anything of the value 14 of the wheat or leather. It is therefore the treasury of so much wealth already in existence. This is a more skeleton of the argument, relative to the nature of this "token" in this transaction. If it harmonizes with the truth for these four men, it is true then for all men. For such is the quality of truth, that if a thing is good or right for a few persons, then it is good and right lor millions of persons similarly circum- tanced. Truth is eternal and unchanging. She will not lead one to triumph to-day and mystify him to defeat to- morrow. She stands erect, calm, brave in conscience, holding the sunlight in her hands, breaking the fetters of slavery, lifting up innocene, suiting error, crowning Liberty. When weighed in the scales of Logic and tested by the mathematics of Finance, if this "token" has these four assigned functions, then it is money. Why? For the reason that it possesses all the essen- tials ever attributed by financiers and economists to the money, known among nations. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its article, "Money says: "Some writers attribute a fourth function to money, inasmuch as they regard it as being a means of easily storing up value. Doubt- less it does supply this need, which is a specially pressing one in early civilizations, owing to the insecurity that then exists, but with the progress of settled government the need becomes less extreme. Other forms of investment grow up, and the habit of hoarding away money becomes unusual. It is therefore better to regard the func- tions of money as being only three in number, viz; to furnish ( 1 ) the common medium by which exchanges are rendered possible, (2) the common measure by which the comparative value of those exchanges are estimated, and (3) the standard by which future obligations are determined." Appleton's Encyclopaedia says : "Anything which freelf circulates from hand to hand, as a com- mon acceptable medium of exchange in any country, is in such coin- try money, even though it ceases to be such, or to possess any value in passing into another country. In a word, an article is determined to be money by reason of the performance by it of certain functions, without regard to its form or substance.'' 15 Bastiat, the French Economist, says : "You have a crown piece. What does it mean in your hands? It you can read with the eye of the mind the inscription it bears you can distinctly see these words: 'Pay to the bearer a service equiva- lent to that which he has rendered to society. Value received. and stated, proved and measured by that which is'on me.' " Aristotle proclaimed to the Greeks twenty-two hundred years ago : "Money by itself * * * * has value only by law, and not by nature; so that a change of convention between those who use it is sufficient to deprive it of all its value and powerto satisfy our wants. "But with regard to a future exchange (if we want nothing at present) money is, as it were, our security that it may take place when we do want something." The profoundest logician of modern times, John Stuart Mill, says : "The pounds or shillings which a person receives are a sort of ticket or order which he can present for payment at any shop he pleases, and which entitle him to receive a certain value of an}- com- modity that he makes choice." Prof. Francis A. Walker, sayg of pebbles, beads, shells, feathers, etc. : "They were good money, though serving no purpose but orna- ment or decoration. They were desired by the community in gen- eral; men would give for them the fruits of their labor, knowing that with them they could obtain most conveniently in time, in form, and in amount, the fruits of the labors of others." Senator Jones, in May, 1890, said: "The money of a country is that thing, whatever it may be, which is commonly accepted in exchange for labor or property and in payment of debts, whether so accepted by force of law or by uni- versal consent. Its value does not arise from the intrinsic qualities which the material of which it is made may possess, but depends en- tirely upon the extrinsic qualities which law or general consent may confer. "Money is of transcendent importance to civilization. It is the physical agency to which society has assigned the function of meas- uring all equities, and it is the sole agency upon which that incom- parable function has been conferred It is in terms of money that society computes the material value of all human sacrifice, alike the highest effort of genius and the daily toil and sweat of the millions who labor." McCulloch, in his edition, Adam Smith's ''Wealth of Nations," says: 16 "Money is not a mere commodity; it is also the standard or measure by which to estimate and compare the value of every thing else that is bought and sold, and if it be, as it undoubtedly is, the duty of Government to adopt every practicable means for rendering all foot-rules of the same length, and all bushels of the same capacity, it is still more incumbent upon it to omit nothing that may serve to render money, or the measure of value, a measure which is undoubt- edly of the greatest importance, uniform or steady in its value." To this Senator Jones adds : "In its ultimate analysis money is the yard-stick, the bushel and the pound-weight of commerce. When you shrink the value of money, and so increase the measuring power of the dollar, you lengthen the yard-stick, enlarge the specific gravity of the pound and the cubical contents of the bushel in violation of all equities." These authorities sustain the proposition that the "token", passed by the tanner to the farmer, has all the qualities ever attributed by any thinker to money. Among things equal in uses and alike in character, there is a perfect similitude a practical identity. This "token" is therefore money. If so, then it is demon- strated that money need not possess an intrinsic value. It must follow that if money does not need to have an intrinsic value, then it ought not to have it. This is manifest, because when an article used as money, has any function or use outside the money character, then there comes in an extrinsic attribute as a factor to af- fect the value. Money is a mere measure. Its su- premest quality is certainty. It cannot have this cer- tainity when it has a commodity value. It is like mak- ing the yard-stick depend for its length upon the tide or rain or sunshine, or the quantity of the wheat crop. These two cases will exemplify the point. If wool is plentiful in Australia, then the bushel in this country shall be enlarged so that the producer shall bring more grain to fill his contract. If the iron mines of Missouri yield abundantly, then the number of ounces in a pound shall be lessened throughout this nation, not- withstanding the effect is, that all buyers having con- tracts based on the old number will thus be defrauded and be compelled to accept a less quantity than that 17 for which they bargained. Laws thus changing the yard-stick, or bushel or pound, would and do involve absurd consequences. But effects, a million times in- tensified, are linked with our practice of having a money with an intrinsic or commodity value. Then, gold and silver, being admitted commodities and hav- ing commercial uses, are not fitted for money. They should be abolished as such for these three reasons. They maybe denominated the ECONOMIC, the LEGAL, and the POLITICAL. FIRST. ECONOMIC : Use is the sole and supreme test of value. A thing is valuable when it has capacity to satisfy some human want. When the want is gone, then you cast aside the instrument of its satisfaction. All implements fashioned by man are estimated by their power to meet some special requirement. In certain conditions a thing may have unmeasureable value, then by a mutation of environment, may become worthless. Thus, the pack-saddle is superseded by the cart, it by the wagon, and it by the steamboat or loco- motive. These last cumbersome instruments will soon surrender to electrical appliances and air-boats. The reaping-hook lost its potency in contest with the scythe. The latter yielded the palm to the header. The kindergarten "blocks" give place to mental and spiritual conceptions. This principle runs through all human wants. The demonstration comes, therefore, that the potentiality and desirability of anything and everything and all things rests upon their ready, easy and efficient uses to an end. But it is already demonstrated that all the func- tions of gold and silver as money, have been and can be perfectly performed by a "token" adopted by common consent or created by law itself being the most em- is phatic embodiment of consent. Therefore all labor be- stowed in obtaining HARD money, is labor lost to humanity as a unit. This is not disproved nor contra- dicted by the fact that the work done in mining, mint- ing, etc., benefits the worker. It is so admitted, but it is contended that this result is too narrow, too con- tracted and special to economically justif} r its continu- ance as a national policy. That a particular benefit accrues to individuals does not prevent the law forbid- ding its enjoymt-nt. The artisan who shapes burglary tools, reaps his living from their sale. The anarchist bomb manufacturer supplies his needs by his craft. The chemist, mastering the dynamic force of a poison, so as to compound death in his potion, must live, and so braves the rigors of the statute. Here, then, is a personal benefit to each and his dependents. But does the law consider this? If the State or Nation could be so estopped, the criminal code would be abrogated. Through its police power the government controls or forbids many kinds of labor, although often innocent and supporting its doer. This argument is more vividly presented if the waste of energy be contemplated. If this State at an expense of a thousand dollars a mile could, efficiently, for commerce, clear and dredge the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, would it be sane to spend a hun- dred times as much? If the nation could build its ships for a million apiece, could or would the public justify the extravagance of ten millions for each? If a Trans- continental Governmental Railway from San Francisco to New York could be built and equipped for $30,000 per mile, would the tax-payer thank Congress for mak- ing the appropriation run to $150,000? No. Why? Because the burden to the people is greater than neces- sary to the purpose in view. But why should this principle be disregarded in selecting a material to use for money? A certain end is sought. It may be at- 19 tained in an easier way and with less labor by discard- ing gold and silver as money. For while labor is individual, yet in economic prob- lems, it is the aggregated labor of all the people that is considered. It is surely apparent that a medium for pecuniary purposes ma}^ be created by the people, which does not cost so much labor-force as the metals. Its quality as a measure is its supreme and only power. A money created by law and having no intrinsic or commodity potency, is safe for all daily uses. There- fore, gold and silver, being commodities, should be abandoned on account of their "dearness," which is synonymous with 'lack of safety." Reason commands that there should be adopted that medium having all money functions, which medium entails in its creation the least work and in its circulation the minimum of trouble, and carries in itself the guaranty of safety. While money yields a benefit to the individual, it has at all times been conceded that the issuance of it is one of the most commanding attributes of sovereignty, keep- ing in view the security of its citizens. Therefore, our People in their majesty alone should create it. For the sake of economy, they should make it out of something costing themselves, as a unit, the least waste of energy and from something having, when thus used, a value for no other purpose. That is to say, if our people made their own money out of paper stamped with their sovereign will they, for instance, would save to themselves the difference between the toil requisite to the minting of Thirty-five Hundred Millions in currency and the toil demanded in digging and coining the same sum in gold and silver, counting for each dollar in the latter one day's work. The ' 'plant," skill, etc., for the issuance of the currency would not exceed an amount represented by one or two hundred thousand day's employment. But in the metallic money would be embodied the soul-deadening 20 blows, and crystallized the hot lava-like tears of thirty- five hundred million davs of hard toil. If this vast force, wasted, misused, agonized away in desperation, were turned to real industry, in procuring food, cloth- ing and homes, fire, medicine and education, the hag- gard hand ot want would be withdrawn, the piteous cry for work and bread would no longer load the air with the lamentations of the * 'Inferno." The mind is staggered in contemplation of this stupendous miscal- culation. As there are about t \velve million voting citizens, il this gigantic job of mining and minting that amount of metallic money were equally apportioned to each one, he would be compelled to sweat for about three hun- dred days to fill his allotment. The sum used in this comparison represents a per capita of fifty dollars to seventy millions of people. It disregards our poverty, as exhibited in our National mintage for a hundred years $2,063,000,000 and sets a figure commen- surate with the needs of an increased population. The United States have produced since 1848, $1,870,000,- 000 in gold and $1,072,000,000 silver, aggregating $2,943,000,000. According to the oracles of the gold standard, each dollar of this vast sum represents a day's work, and is thus stored up wealth. If this effort had been applied by the rules of economic Truth, would this country present, as the tragedy of this century, the crowning of a few millionaires, while at their chariot wheels straggle an army of tramps, ragged, heart- broken and without hope? To gather this pile of metal required more work than it cost to win the grandeur of peace at the close of the Rebellion, for on July 1, 1866 our debt run to the highest, $2,773,000,000. The war was a necessity. Black slavery died the Union lived. The debt was justified. But the white slavery, that has groaned to death for this money, 21 gold and silver, was self-imposed. It is a monument reared to financial error, devoted to private greed and dedicated to National sin. The present financial sys- tem requires that all the voters in this country, even if gold and silver mines were open for use, should con- tinously toil for one year to produce what might be ob- tained for perhaps one-twenty-thousandth part of the same effort. Is this in harmony with our civilization? Have not all the erudition of science, all the tri- umphs of invention, all the skill of manual craft been concentrated for centuries IN ONE NEVER-ENDING WORK OF MAKING THINGS CHEAP? For the whole of our era, man has been struggling to master nature, so as to make his products with the least labor. Here lies the ambition of the trader here is realized the skill of the inventor. A "cheap coat" does not signify a "cheap man," but it is a monument, attesting the sublime economic truth, that man has further triumphed over the forces of Nature, and with smaller effort appropriated to him- self her benefactions, leaving him more time for the cul- tivation of his moral and mental faculties. This is the dream for whose realization the philanthropist has as- pired, the poet touched his harp, the pulpit zealot pointed to in his enthusiasm, and the legislator pro- claimed his code. If for all these weary ages, this "cheapening process" in the creation and distribution of products has been the distinguishing trait of our civ- ilization, by what right is made or justified an excep- tion in money, the universal measure of all equities and all wealth? SECOND LEGAL : The Second reason for the aboli- tion of metallic money is, that their adoption as such is a vicious governmental discrimination in favor of a private industry. The National Constitution, as to Congress, is silent as to what may be the materials for 22 money, not naming either paper, gold or silver, al- though confining State moneys to the two latter. But this silence is significant. The three kinds were then and had been in use, and were so to the general know- ledge of all members of the community. Hence, as the new Government was formed with powers limited by the organic Act, the fact that the Constitution ^eft to Congress full freedom to select and issue money, shows that gold and silver are not the sole materials, out of whose mercurial, elusive and fluctuating qualities were to be made the constant, fixed and unalterable meas- ures of value for all things. Since history showed that many substances had been used for money, and since the Constitution selected no substances, designating them therefor, it must be and is the logic of the position that the Constitution never designed that Congress should be limited to a particular material. For, by so limiting Congress, the inevitable result would be for our legislation, in making the selection, to run into dis- crimination. But this is not tolerated nay, it is for- bidden. For, while the Constitution is reticent, the Preamble thereto is the sun, in whose light is revealed the purposes of the Government. It says: "We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, in- sure domestic tranquility, provide for the common de- fence, promote the general welfare, and secure the bless- ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do or- dain and establish this Constitution, for the United States of America." Here, on evolving from the Confederation "a more perfect union," there were five distinct ends in view, to be accomplished by the law : Justice should be equal to all, none above authority none too obscure to be noticed. Peace should hold over every one her spear and shield. The humble should stand protected by the majesty of the many. The welfare of the entire people 23 was the supreme test of each and every public act. Liberty was not to be an idealized abstraction a dream for poet or model for sculptor but it was to be a divine reality, sacred in every home, a presence stand- ing by each citizen to guard him from danger and to lead him to happiness. But none of these specified purposes could be at- tained if there were not an honest equality in the con- ception and spirit of the Law and its execution. It would be abhorrent to all the canons of construction to claim that a public act intentionally extended a privilege to one, denying it to another alike circum- stanced. The selection of gold and silver, declaring them sacred for money uses, is to antagonize the principle just enunciated. For it is within common knowledge that the mining of gold and silver is a mere private industry, conducted for individual profit and held in personal ownership. All mines are private property in the same sense that tools, cattle, railroads, banks and lands are. They are subject to sales, taxes, liens, judgments, succession and wills and have no ex- emption or rights not conferred on all other property existing in private ownership. The Government works no mines, and until recently sold them with the land bought as homesteads, pre-emptions, etc., disregarding all their existing mineral value. Even where mines are known to exist, the United States will issue patents therefor. These facts show that mines are not National, but purely private concerns. The next fact for consideration in this argument, is that the Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 8, confers on Con- gress the right and duty "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;" forbidding in Art. 9, the States to "coin money," or to make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. These two limitations on the States are very significant, and 24 will hereafter be considered. Under this authority to "coin money," the United States have established mints and forbidding the States and individuals to do like- wise, they have always exercised the august and sov- ereign power of issuing money. To get it an owner takes his bullion, produced in private ownership, to a Mint. On paying charges, it is coined for and issued to him. By this act a legal decree is impressed on it, con- verting it from a mere commodity to a general debt solvent. That is to say, by carrying on its face the sovereign expressed Will of the People, it is no longer bullion, left to the hazard of competition and declen- sion in value by use. It came to the Mint a commodity, like wool, cotton, grain or iron. Up to that time its value was deter- mined by supply and demand, extending over the coun- try and the world. Then it had no sanctity no holy national chrism had washed its sin-dross away no magic for debt-cleansing lay within it. It was merely a dull metal a product of the earth a thing of trade. It had no quality or character as a measure of all val- ues. It was a metal then; it is a coin now it was a commodity then; it is now a talisman, by which all human products are listed and weighed, measured and priced for the world. What has wrought this change? Why, the com- mand of the Government. But what is its effect? It necessarily is that the Government has, by its almight- iness, given to the product of a distinct class of citizens miners a certain and absolute value, and so declared to the world; forbidden its own citizens to dispute that valuation, and has forced them to accept it in satisfac- tion of the obligations due them. This is gross dis- crimination. It does not extend these weighty priv- ileges to the other products of its citizens. It leaves them to the LIFE AND DEATH HEAVEN AND HELL strug- gle of competition at home and abroad. 25 Excluding Tariff effects from our consideration, it leaves ALL OTHER THINGS UNTOUCHED. It says to the farmer, whose wheat has fallen from $1.31 per bushel in 1873 to 32 cents in 1893 "Go, compete in the Lon- don market with the lowest priced labor the Indian fellah and the Russian peasant." It says to the planter, whose cotton in the same time has fallen from 18 cents to 6 cents per pound: "Grapple with India, Egypt, Smyrna and Brazil for your prices." It says to the herder: "There are Australia and South America ready in hides, wools and meats to undersell you at home. Go, enter the arena your overthrow is none of my concern." It says to the manufacturer: "Tramp the oceans and win your market from free England, cheap India, thrifty France, scientific Germany and im- itative China." It says to the laborer : "Soothe your hungry babe and kiss your tearful wife, then turn to the world for the sale of your body and brain. Into your grave this Government casts no accasia with up- lifted finger, emblematic of your immortality." Is not this selection of the metals for money then full of discrimination? On the view here advanced, the criticism may be presented that the metals have for centuries been used for money and were so used when this Nation established its Constitution and adopted its fiscal policies, and that it is therefore consistent with its genius for these metals to receive this disting- uished approval, and that any change is forbidden by wisdom. The age or aristocracy, the universality or alleged morality of a thing is no evidence that it is right. Scan the ages for change in thoughes and acts. The Egyptians once worshipped Cats and Onions as divine. Into a wilderness, because they would be a burden, the Greeks threw their sick and deformed chil- dren. By the appearance of the entrails of sacrificed birds, the Romans determined for war or peace. The Peruvians adored the Sun as a God. For centuries the 26 Chinese believed the world as created and resting on the back of a turtle. On a high altar before the multi- tude, the Aztec priests annually cut out the heart of a youth as a propitiation for sin. The Church in the six- teenth century pronounced this earth FLAT. English freemen within lour hundred years inflicted the death penalty for one hundred and sixty different kinds of crimes. The Puritans signalized their idea of freedom by burning witches for their opinions; and their Blue Law neighbors made it a crime for a loving mother to kiss her innocent babe on Sunday. Science, through its chosen apostle, a Boston professor, in a printed book, proclaimed it impossible to run a steamboat, and Fulton was crowded with ridicule. Morse, standing in Washington, prayed for aid to thrill the world with the first electric message, "What hath God Wrought." Though Congress granted him $40,000, it was with doubt as to the possibility of the invention. Slavery was expressly recognized in the Constitution and in many of the laws of this country. It was intrenched in the public conscience, upheld by the pulpit and declared right by economics. Although maintained March 6, 1857, by the majesty of the Dred Scott decision, ren- dered by the U. S. Supreme Court, it was on April 9, 1865, cut from the Nation's heart at Appomatox, the victor's sword recarving the declaration, "That all men are created equal." These acts, opinions, customs and policies were the expressions of the highest culture and purest morality of their several centuries. Although hoary with age, they were abandoned or destroyed by the omnipotent powers of Truth, ever struggling to emancipate the body, to unchain the mind of man. A few disciples saw the real errors and, "trumpet-tongued," fearlessly fought for their abolition. So in this struggle, the sun- light of freedom has already touched the morning hori- zon and cheered the weary watchers, \vhose visions 27 have caught glimpses of the coming industrial equality. Now, while the question, as to whether or not the use of gold and silver as money is a discrimination, has not been determined by the highest court, yet the prin- ciple against discrimination has been announced. It is found in Loan Association vs. Topeka, 20 Wal- lace's Report, page 655, decided Feb. 1, 1875, by the U. S. Supreme Court. The case involved these facts : Under Kansas State laws, the city of Topeka issued and donated one hundred $1,000 bonds to a company to aid it in there establishing bridge shops. The com- pany sold the bonds and began operations. The city, from its funds raised by taxation, paid one year's inter- est on them. The plaintiff in good faith and for value, bought the bonds, and afterwards sued the city to recover interest due. The Circut Court decided in favor of the city, holding the statute unconstitutional. On appeal, it was conceded that the State could not enact the laws, unless it could confer on Topeka the power to tax for their payment. Therefore the purpose of taxa- tion became the central question. Justice Miller in the opinion, in part, said: "The power to tax is therefore the strongest oi all the powers of the government, reaching directly or indirectly to all classes of the people. It was said by Chief Justice Marshall in the case of McCulloch vs. Md., 4 Wheat., 431, that the power to tax is the power to destroy. A striking instance of the truth of the proposition is seen in the fact that the existing tax of ten per cent imposed by the United States on the circulation of all other banks than the National Banks, drove out of existence every State bank of circulation within a year or two after its passage. This power can as readily be employed against one class of individuals and in favor of another, so as to ruin the one class and give unlimited wealth and prosperity to the other, if there is no implied limit- ation of the uses for which the power may be exercised. 28 "To lay with one hand, the power of the govern- ment on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms." *********** "But in the case before us, in which the towns are authorized to contribute aid by way of taxation to any class of manufacturers, there is no difficulty in holding that this is not such a public purpose as we have been considering. If it be said that a benefit results to the local public of a town by establishing manufactures, the same may be said of any other business or pursuit which employs capital or labor. The merchant, the mechanic, the inn-keeper, the banker, the builder, the steamboat owner, are equally promoters of the public good, and equally deserving the aid of the citizens by forced contributions. No line can be drawn in favor of the manufacturer which would not open the coffers of the public treasury to the importunities of two-thirds of the business men of the city or town." The Court of Maine forbade, (60 Me. 124) where the Town of Jay proposed to loan $10,000 credit to a proposing Mill erector. In the fire of 1872, the legislature passed a law for Boston to loan $20,000,000 to lot owners whose build- ings had been burned. It was held by the Court of that State (111 Mass. 454) that it was a discrimination and not valid as a taxing power. To aid Jefferson Liberal Institute a certain town was authorized by a statute. But the Supreme Court of Wisconsin (24 Wis. 330) declared it invalid, not- withstanding it was to aid a school of learning. The power to tax is the most potent of all the attributes of any government and is its heart and brain. 29 Now, then, if in using it, discrimination in the burdens it imposes destroys its validity, what can be said to justify the government's favors to one class of producers against all other classes? The principle that sustains this Topeka case and the philosophy that sanctions the anathema of a special or class taxation as "a fraud," are the very foundations of our governmental struct- ure, whose four corner stones are Equality, Justice, Truth and Fraternity. Will Equality tolerate discrim- ination? Will Justice dispense partial favors? Will Truth stand sponsor where favoritism is baptized? Will Fraternity smile where vice is married to greed? Instead of the domination of discrimination, wrong, ignorance and hatred, as shown in metal money, the true patriot must ever pray that Equality shall bruise the Serpent's head, Justice shall hold up the hands of praying labor, Truth shall make all men free, Fraternity shall never dip a brother's coat in blood. Equality, Justice, Truth and Fraternity forbid That one shall eat another's bread. THIRD POLITICAL : The third reason for the aboli- tion of gold and silver as money is political. This em- braces necessarily much that has been presented under the two foregoing heads; but it also in its realm in- cludes many other considerations. Some may now be discussed : A. The chief function of money is as a ' 'measure" for human effort. Therefore where "men most do con- gregate" the money should be abundant. Yet this is not the fact. Why? Because the supply is limited. Before the supply can be had you must find the mines, profitable for development. But these are often very difficult to discover, and when found are generally situ- ated in the hearts of mountains, or desert plains, both long distances from settlements. Therefore the labor of securing and distributing the "measure" is great and 30 beyond necessity. The men employed in this mining and its accessories could be more advantageously used for the well-being of society, in this, that their energy could be turned to genuine productive utilities in making food, clothing, medicine and education for the citizenship. B. The present supply of the metals is not ade- quate to the needs of society. This is shown in that at no time in the history of this government has the pro- duction of metallic money kept pace with the increase of population. This is demonstrated by official re- ports. The combined product, in round numbers, of gold and silver, from 1850 to 1860 was $556,000,000 1860 to 1870 " 555,000,000 1870 to 1880 " 747,000,000 1880 to 1890 " 735,000,000 for 1890 " 103,000,000 " 1891 " 109,000,000 " 1892 M 108,000,000 Total $2,913,000,000 Counting $37,000,000 for the period from 1793 to 1840, and inserting $50,000,000 as the official amount for the decade to 1850, the grand agregate for gold and silver produced in this country since the beginning is about $3,000,000,000. This far exceeds the mintage in that time. From 1793 to 1892 the gold coinage was $1,596,009,143 Silver coinage, same time was... 663,906,471 Nickle and copper coinage " ... 24,908,422 Total $2,284,824,036 Now, in round numbers, the population has stood as follows : 31 In 1810 7,000,000 " 1820 10,000,000 " 1830 13,000,000 " 1840 17,000,000 " 1850 23,000,000 " 1860 32,000,000 " 1870 38,000,000 " 1880.. 50,000,000 11 1890 62,000,000 The rate of increase has been about 30 per cent for each decade. Therefore, disregarding all the time prior to the discovery of the Pacific Coast mines, but com- mencing at an era when their output became marvel- ous and established, the amounts of money requisite to keep in march with increasing population, counting the same percentage for each decade, would have been as follows: In 1860 there were $556,000,000. Add thirty per cent thereto, and in 1870 there should have been $722,000,000. With percentage added thereto, in 1880 there should have been $938,000,000. In 1890 there should have been $1,220,000,000. For the years 1890-91-92, add percentage and the result is $349,- 000,000. This would make a grand total from 1850 to 1893 of $3,785,000,000,000. But the real amount produced is not over $3,000,000,000. Therefore the deficiency is the difference. This has come, notwithstanding that everybody has agonized and prayed, toiled and cursed, to discover these metals. All the subtle arts of chemistry, all the stupendous energies of mechanics, the dynamite blast and diamond drill, the mule-pack and railway train, were all applied to the developing of our mines. In this mad race for money the laborer touched elbows with the Senator, poverty jostled capital scarce not- ing the comedies that marked the course, and indiffer- ent to its tragedies, ever seeking the goal. It is ap- parent, then, that all the civilization of the United 32 States cannot create metallic money as fast as the race grows herein. C. The arts use a large part of the annual yield of these metals. In 1889 the Director of the United States Mint placed the sum so used in this country at $25,464,000, out of a production oi $97,446,464, s~tat- in<^ the annual average was greater, and he claimed that about one-half of the world's production was thus consumed. Dr. Soetbeer places the withdrawls for other than money purposes at least one-third of the en- tire mining product of the earth. The appropriation for dentistry, jewelry, plate, watches, gilding, etc., goes on here continually, and will continue with the growth of the people. The stocks of metals lor money thus grow less Irom this encroachment, and from losses in fires, shipwrecks, accidents, abrasion, etc., and from the constantly worked out and failing mines. For it is a ^ettl d historical fact that the world's product is gradually tailing off each ye <r. In the 1860 decade, gold ran" to $137,000,000." In the 1890 decade it ran to about $107,000,000, while silver mining is now practically abandoned, bv the general demonetization of the metal. This failure in supply can hardly be helped. The mining fields have been scraped bv the prospector and weighed by science, till Speculation has left but two spots untouched by the avaricious pick the heart of Africa and the North regions. If humanitv must perish without gold and silver, then let lervent praycss rise, like holy incense, that our patriotic metal \\orshipers will soon invade the pene- tralia of the tropic jungle and tie the miner's pan to the icy pole. Aye, let the prayer be deep, that their search may be measured lil-e "The wounded siiake ihat slowly drags its length al iiu," and enduring as the heavens, "With cycle and epicycle scribbled o'er, 1 ' and patient as the martyr, "Wrapped in his pale robe of fire." It is true that the untrammeled manners of the Northmen 33 and the rude virtues oi the Equatorians may suffer on contact with the triune characteristics of our civiliza- tion liquor, competition and private banks yet the world will be compensated in seeing its foremost Fi- nanciers at the foot of their hard idol, placing their un- selfishness on the Altar of Public Good. What matter if the secrets of the Borealis are opened to the vulgar gaze silver has been found there and the race has been saved ! What difference if the mysteries of the fierce Amazons are seen gold has been discovered in their domains and humanity has been redeemed ! D. If these metals are" to be continued as dedicated to money purposes, then their application for other uses should be prohibited by law. But this has never been done, and opposition would be aroused to any limitation imposed by statute. Yet its prohibition is strictly logical, as hereinbefore demonstrated. If for- bidden for all other uses, then the Arts would suffer and the imperious command of fashion would be dis- obeyed. The great American laborer may well stagger or die for the want of these metals for money to aid in his exchanges; but that is immaterial so long as the epicurean table of plutocrac}' sparkles with the solid silver plate and dazzles with the chased golden service. The beautiful and esthetic dude may make the street resplendent with his silver headed cane and ogle beauty with his gold-rimmed glasses, and be entirely uncon- scious that his vain-aping royalties are starving the needle-girl to death, because she can find no medium for the exchange of her product. Forgetting that all pure worship is spiritual, the Church has sought to appease heaven by consecrated metal vessels, and thereby in the name of morality violated the great law of Finance, that has devoted these substances to money. With a desire for vulgar ^display, the Saloon has trespassed against the same economic statute. The Plutocrat, Dude, Church and Saloon have all thus contributed to 34 "contraction," and thereby thrown obstacles to the easy exchange of labor's products. E. Metallic money is most peculiarly liable to de- terioration by use or crime. It is a conceded fact that coins suffer a large diminution by daily wear, soon ceasing to be exchangeable. This WEAR, the last holder who presents it for re-minting, must bear. In- variably the government that issues them refuses to re- deem them at the STAMP value but at their weight value. This wear is estimated at a certain per cent per year. Then, the diminution of coins by crime is great. Coins are "bored," "sweated," "gouged," "rimmed," "clipped," "cut," and "bathed in acid," and so on through the vernacular of the counterfeiter. Science and finance both are compelled to admit that counter- feiting is much more efficiently done, with less chance of discovery, where coins instead of paper are subjected to the skilled manipulation of the professional. F. Where coins are lost or destroyed, their replac- ing is impossible, save at the expenditure of immense labor. As tha. mines become scarcer or exhausted, this labor is proportionately incrt-ased. To show that this is important, it is but necessary to remember the fact that at the full, splendid acme of Roman grandeur, two centuries before our era, there were in use $1,800,000,- 000 of gold and silver. This in seventeen centuries had dwindled to $300,000,000 or less. With this declen- sion, Liberty had grown palsied and Civilization was tottering, when this hemisphere revealed her treasures. In 1888 a statistician, McCarthy, says on the same point : "All the gold and silver in the world, known to . have been mined previous to 1492, amounted to $8, 691,- 374,000; yet the existence of only $170,000,000 could be traced. In 1809 there was estimated to be $1,843,- 000,000 of gold and silver in circulation, although America alone had added (between 1492 and 1809) $6,000,000,000 to the world's store of the precious 35 metals. The grand total of gold and silver produced in the world, down to June 1884, is estimated to be $23,14-8,762,501, of which $12,709,425,520 was gold, and $10,439,336,981 was silver. The total amount of gold and silver (in coin and bullion) in circulation at this time in the world does not exceed $7,600,000,000." To show the world's production, Spofford, Librarian of Congress, in 1881 made this statement of the precious metals estimated to have been obtained from the sur- face and mines of the earth from the earliest times to the close of 1879 : GOLD. SILVER. TOTAL. B. C. $1 ,415 ,000,000 $2 ,913,000.000 $4,328 ,000,000 A. D. to 1492 .. 3 ,842 ,374,000 521, OnO, 000 4,363 ,374.000 1493 to 1842 .. 2 ,726 ,000,000 5 ,800,000,000 8,526 ,000,000 184-3 to 1879 .. 5 .085 ,000,000 2 ,081,000,000 8,176 ,000,000 Grand Total, $14,063,000,000 $11,315,000,000 $25,383,374,000 Now mark the contrast ! The Director of the Mint for 1892-3 approximated the world's money Gold $3,582,605,000 Silver 4,04^,700,000 Total $7,635,305,000 What has become of these seventeen and a half billions? They represent labor forever lost to mankind. The loss of metallic money, then, is important, stupendous, overwhelming, irreparable. It is one that the whole civilized world has fought to avert. It has never parted with one dollar without a desperate struggle. Every lost coin has been lamented in tears, and its epitaph penned in blood. G. In the National Constitution, in Article 8, it is declared : "The Congress shall have power to * * * coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures." It is under these simple words that our ill-fated financial system is created. The incorporation of gold and silver therein as factors is impolitic for the reason that their 36 commodity value makes them fluctuating as measures, In all ancient lands there were standards fixed for weights and measures. The English is more or less the outgrowth of all these. Or, if not, it is the arbitrary order of the Sovereign, as shown in the traditi >n that the foot rule was the length of royalty from heel to toe. The -Metric system, established in 1799, is a most accurate and scientific measurement of the quadrant of the earth passing through Pans. The English and French are the principal standards of the world, and are legalized in this country. These are carefully kept in the vaults at Washington and by law enter into all affairs of business. Now, suppose our government should abandon its rights and duties and should invest private individuals wit lithe discretion to change the length of the yard, the heft of the pound and the capacity of the bushel, as suited caprice or profit. Would this be tolerated? Is it more dangerous to grant this extraordinary plenti- tude of power to modify the weights and measures, than to allow the same necessary and illogical uncer- tainty to exist in money itself the omnipotent measure of all things? The speculator contracts to buy land by the }^ard, grain by the bushel and meat by the pound. Then, to increase his profits, he has legislation change the standards. Here you say, "No." But he gains the same end by the sliding scale of metallic money. Congress has the power to establish a national currency. The language of the Constitution is "shall." Should it use its discretion or leave the uncer'ainty to continue? Clearly it should act. The rule is absolutely settled by the U. S. Supreme Court, that whenever it is to the benefit of an individual or society that a discre- tion should be exercised, th^n the "may" or "shall" of the law is mandatory, and the authority must be used to consumate the intended beneficence. It is therefore the duty of Congress, heretofore neglected, to eliminate 37 gold and silver from our money sources, because as long as they are used, possessing also a commercial value, so long will the financial equilibrium be unsteady, up and down, carrying death and ruin or fame and wealth at each oscillation. From July 1776 to this date, the Nation has succes- sively trod through the poisoned deserts of "inflation" and "contraction." Along the track of financial disas- ter the shining skeletons of ruin glisten. Grim and heroic was the Corsican's retreat. It was marked by the song of many a demented soldier, dying amid the snow the wounded torn by hungry wolf, the living left in chaos and rout. But that was over in one campaign, and sinks to a dwarf, compared to the ruins of our appalling march. The Spirit of the ten or more panics, that like Tornadoes, have swept over this country, seems the embodiment of the verse : "I am the rider of the Wind,' The Stirrer of the Storm, The hurricane I left behind, Is yet with lightning warm." In all the crushing, tumbling fortunes of Congres- sional battles, did you ever hear an v uncertainty getting into "pounds," and "bushels" and "yards?" Why have not campaign "foemen w r orthy of each other's steel" met "in battle array" over the ever-changing pound? Why have not Congressional candidates been solemn and ponderously wise in pledging undying loyalty to the bushel? It was to enlarge that cubic measure, that a "pious disciple" of Protection "iried the fat" out of its recipi- ents and in consideration of $300,000 contributed for the conversion of infidel voters received a Cabinet seat. The muse of history is modestly silent in her penning of this fact. Why has not some Presidential candidate been 38 elected on a platform pledging a stable relation between the } r ard, 36 inches long, and the metre, 39.37 inches long, and then, when entrusted with power, forgotten his platform and used his executive prerogatives to force Congress to adopt a single standard? It is chron- icled on the historic tablet in letters of gold that a President onCe gave $1,000 to a Virginian Fund for the sole purpose of changing the length of the yard-stick, and for the like object promised an embassy if the recip- ient would donate $50,000 to a National Committee. They might have been engraved on silver, but the same autocracy, with an 'anchor to wind ward, "had decreed that silver was too "debased," "cheap," and "lacking intrinsic value," for such a holy use. The simple truth is, these contests as to pounds, bushels and yards have not happened, because the fixing of weights and measures is purely arbitrary and a mere decree of authority, and they have no intrinsic or commercial value. Gold and silver have such values, and therefore, as money, have furnished ambition a ladder to climb up to ugly eminence, and cupidity a club to beat defenseless labor into subjection, through controlling the volume of the circulating media. H. The most important political reason for the non-use of the metals as money is found in the fact that the system being without a philosophic basis, and resting solely on accident, enables a few people to control the laws and labor of the country by contract- ing or expanding the volume of the specie in use. The determination of the amount of metal money held by one people at one time, rests upon the accident of paying mines within their borders, or upon their exchange of their products. Hence, in the nature of things, there can be no stable basis for the amount of money. Nor can the government ever have any control over the volume. This is left entirely to private enterprise. The nation is powerless to meet an emergency. It may 39 make guns and sacrifice lives for defense, but it must not invade the sacred temple of Finance. That has been dedicated to the Magicians. It cannot pay its debts to its honest, patient, trusting creditors, because it cannot get the coin. They mu*t wait till some mine is discovered and its product coined. The government does not own any mines, and cannot compel its citizens to be prospectors for or workers of them. It has granted bounties to the rollicking hunter for killing the dangerous '"gopher," to the sugar grower for his luscious "sorghum," to the bravelv chivalric manu- facturer for his "notions," to the sedate inventor, in the patent of his machine for esthetic "clothes-pins," to the scientist, in his copyright on the erudite book, "Are fleas immortal?" and offered a fortune for a "tin mine." These are fit subjects for statecraft. But legislation as to the per capita of money, is an undreamed heresy. It is contrary to the orthodoxy of economy for the gov- ernment to deal with or consider this question. The amount of money must be left to "chance." In the meantime, Labor mu^t rest content with the declaration that Providence, decreeing that nought else can be money, has wisely distributed gold and silver all over the earth, and so concealed them that no "divining rod" shall ever discover too much of them. In the open sunlight, Divinity may paint the lily or feed the sparrow, but he hides the precious metals in the deeps, that man may discipline his soul in poverty, ere the enjoyments of plenteous comfort are at this command. This creed is kin to the theology that reveled in "infant damnation," or believed in the sweet ministrations of "torture" as efficacious to righteousness This impu- tation to an all-wise and merciful Father is an error, because it ignores the entirely human origin of money. That origin plutocracy endeavors to conceal. The purpose is t(> keep the citizenship in ignorance. This is done by surrounafr^ it with solemn mystery, forbidding 40 curiosity to any profane eye. The people are taught from every financial pulpit in the land that a special priesthood is dedicated to touching the Altar of public credit. This priestly ministration began to assume peculiar importance in the early days of the Rebellion. To mee^t the stupendous calls of the war money was needed. The Banks refused to respond. It may be partly attributed to greed, but mostly to the lack of coined money. The Government called into activity the dormant creative force of the Constitation and issued $60,000,- 000 demand notes, and finally invested them with legal tender power. Within three days after the passage in the House of the Bill for Greenbacks, thirteen bankers from New York, Philadelphia and Boston, met in Wash- ington city. They keenly saw the potent energy thnt slept in that despised greenback, and with a wierd, witch-like incantation invoked "spells" to make that sleep immortal. They called to them all the beings "Black spirits and white, Blue spirits and gfnV,'' that obey the wand of special privilege, and "about the earth in forty minutes" went thegirdle of their influence. One came from over the "vasty deep." In 1862, Haz- zard, a London banker, came from England to thi& country and placed himself in communication with the American potentates of finance. This is his confidential circular to them : "Slavey is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This. I and my European friends are in i'avor of,, for slavery is but the owning- of labor, and carries with it thecarefof the laborers; while the European plan, led on by England, is for cap- ital to control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The GREAT DEBT that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a measure to control the volume of monev. To accomplish this, the bonds must be used as a banking basis. We are now waiting to get the Secretary of the Treasury to make this recommendation to Congress. It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money for any length of time, FOR WE CANNOT CONTROL THAT." Ransack the drama, search history, exhaust litera- ture, condense oratory, and you will fail to find 148 words, containing so great a conspiracy and fraught with such dreadful spoliation. It was no mean concep- tion. It embraced the earth. It brought within its awful clutch all civilization. It had been said that the soil of England was too holy to bear the tread of a slave. Its touch emancipated him bv the genius of its free institutions. By the indomitable pluck of a free soldiery, the Ameiican Slave was about to step forth to freedom. This the circular saw. Indifferent to the immorality of slavery, the new mastership was glad to be released- from its care. By the intuition ol their profit-gaining souls, they wanted no ownership of man that imposed on them the possibility of loss by death, accident or escape. But this was avoided by their plan. The slavery was to continue, but for euphony it was to be denominated "wages." Its universality was to be limited only by the race. Beneath the tyranny of this system all labor was to be yoked in fellowship with /poverty chained in servitude. Noconditionof employ- ment was to escape its thraldom. The old grandmother, seeking consolation in her Bible, while resting a moment from her toil, the rosy- lipped youth, running his errand, the healer b} r the couch of sickness, the lawyer, pleading for injured right, the soldier, by the sword sustaining the law, the teacher, leading childhood to knowledge, the tenant farmer, staggering under his debt, the laborer, begging for a job, the widow, with her un-coffined dead, must all feel the thorns, be spit on, and drag their crosses on to crucifixion. Debt is the name of the new master, .and wages are the bonds of his captivity. MONEY is THE LASH. To get a clear conception of the magnitude of this scheme, let the mind grasp the thought, that there are about 1,500,000,000 of people on this earth. Ninety- 42 five per cent of these are either directly hired or in an equivalent condition. These are all to pass into indus- trial subjugation. By getting the right and the power to name the amount of money that may get into circu lation, these minority masters are to own the rest of mankind. America's peril was the deadly moment for her patriot bankers to Jorge her shackles. Rent by war, trembling from her shock of battle, \vith death at every home, the debt must be made. Let freedom die, leave the dead unscpulchercd, abandon the sick, con- done treason, but the debt must go on, grow, expand, increase, develope, till the limit of their security is reached. The debt is the new lever for overturning this people the sword of their conquest. The Banks must rest on this adamantine base. Congress must legitima- tize the crime and give it the semblance of law. Doubt- less the angels, that watch with tender solicitude over human sorrows, must have wept while they s^aw the Treasurer yield to their waiting and grant them the "recommendation." But so omnipotent is Truth, that she compelled Hazzard to surpass his preceding brutal frankness, and to crystalize his unvarnished meaning in the last sen- tence: THE GREENBACK MUST NOT CIRCULATE. "WE CANNOT CONTROL THAT." That is to say i The metals have commodity values and their supply is limited, and hence they are subject to our will. We allow them to go into circulation, and * 'times are good." That means expansion. We have now made our trades on a high market and turned our profits, and to "squeeze stocks" it is now our dictate to hoard this money, push down prices and make new investments. That is contraction. We cannot pursue this process with the "greenback." Its debt-paying competency is determined by the law of its creation. Its quantity is fixed by the statute, to be expanded in an emergency. For these two reasons competency and quality it was beyond the control 43 of the bankers. Therefore they began to get legisla- tion, limiting its usefulness and curtailing its powers. This Circular unified the Bankers, photographed their pathway and gave them a shibboleth. Their first triumph was in getting all future greenbacks bastard- ized. They were, when issued, discredited, birth- marked, dwarfed and lampooned with contempt. They had all monev functions except two they would not pay interest to the bondholder, nor duties on imports. For these two sanctified purposes, gold was sacred. It was too cowardly to fight for Union or Liberty, but it was brave enough to come out when with salety an immense profit could be realized. Here, then, was a market for this evanescent gold. By depreciating the greenback, caricaturing it as a "rag-baby, "decrying the public faith, declaring there was national bankruptcy, the bankers succeeded, July 1864, in advancing gold to $2.85, and lowered the paper currency to 35 cents. That is, it took $285 in currency to buy $100 in gold, or $1.00 in currencv was only worth 35 cents in gold. While this process was unfolding, their plan of action was simplicity intensified. The interest on the National bonds must be pnid. Coin was needed it was in thi ir vaults. It must be bought by the Treasury. They traded to the Government their gold at high prices for greenbacks at low prices. They took their green- backs and at their face value bought bonds. Their interest matured every six months. So the game with the magnetic dice was played again. How simple! It deserves the encomium of being "the best system on earth." With solemn music, amid an awful hush, the game was played with the same beautiful, trusting simplicity, when an importer wanted to pay custom duties. He went on "change" and left his pound of flesh green- backs and bought the beautiful gold and paid the Government the duty on the imported goods. The 44 faithful and patriotic Banker took the "rags" and bought more bonds. He was ever punctual in present- ing his coupons for annual interest, and always claimed exemption from all taxes. In the meantime, under the hallowed influence of this syndicate of philanthropists, the soldier in swamp, pit, hospital and battle, was compelled to take the depreciated greenbacks as the price of his blood, or be branded with treason. The test was severe, but grand WMS his endurance. The currcncv might be poor, but little he cared, for patriotism was a holier thing in his soul than interest. The *'Star< and Stripes" to him a holv symbol of the national life must float again in every State, and every acre of our country must be a fit place for the Altar of Liberty. With the Highlander, well might he crv "Come one, come all. this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I." There he stood for four years, till the night of defeat closed, and the morning splendors of victory broke. The Banker, in his solitude wrapped, sat amid his bonds. The Soldier, in his vigils engaged, 'mid bullets stood. Let History paint the two one sordid, one grand. Let Drama portray the two one coward, one hero. Let Sculpture cut the two one traitor, one patriot. The poet's words, perhaps, came to the soldier amid Tiis struggles, showing that Truth carries her vindica- tion : " For time at last sets all thines even And if we do hut wa^ch the hour. There never yet was human power Which could evade if un forgiven , The patient search and vi^il lonq- Of him who treasures up a wron.ij." With the inspiration born of thisHazzard Circular, the Bankers again approached Congress lor more legis- lation. It came in 1863 in the National Bank svstem. Its operation is not mysterious. By the two limitations already placed on the greenback in the ' 'exceptin g cl ause" there had been made an absolute market for gold and silver. With these, their owners bought greenbacks at heavy discount. Then with them at their face value, they purchased government bonds bearing interest pay- able semi-annually in gold. Now the new Act permitted them to deposit these bonds in the U. S. Treasury and in their lieu the National Banks could issue their notes to ninety per cent of the deposit. As the Statute pro- hibited the starting of a bank without a capital of $50,000 at least, it is apparent that any poor man could take advantage of the government's generosity. By the above means a Bank would proceed, depending on the difference between gold and currency about as follows: With $40,000 in gold they would buy $100,000 in greenbacks and then exchange them for $100,000 U. S. Bonds. On depositing these they would semi-annually draw as interest, say $6,000 in gold, escaping all taxes at the same time. This is fifteen per cent on the original investment. Then the confiding and indulgent Govern- ment authorized them to issue in the name of the Bank $90,000 in notes with which to transact business and reap interest thereon. This, at the rate of ten per cent, would make $9,000 aggregating $15,000 straight profit on a $40,000 in vestment, being 37^ per cent, per annum. They had actually found the long-sought secret of the alchemist. They had poured into the alembic $40,000 in gold and by the magic word now brought forth $90,000 in notes and $6,000 governmental inter- est on the deposited bonds, and $9,000 on their general banking business, making $105, 000. This will explain why on March 1, 1893, there were 3759 National Banks, with a capital of $686,874,375, and a surplus of $245,714,438. In these thirty years, wherein these banks had expanded, the same moral and loving government, under the whip of the money masters, had imposed a tax on the farmers and laborers and others, on a list of 4,200 articles in daily use, and reaching the appalling average of 45 per cent. This, when applied, means that to support his family, out of every $100 spent the citizen has to pay $45.00 in taxation. In spite of the shallow hypocrisy of th* foreigner paying the import tax, it is ultimately borne by the con- sumer. This is true for both imported and domestic goods. To illustrate how under the claim of protection for labor, the Tariff has operated to the advantage of the Money Power, this quotation will suffice in part : "The Secretary of the Treasury, in preparing his annual report of 1886, applied to Worthington C.'Ford, Chief of the Bureau of Sta- tistics of the State Department, E B. Elliott, the United States Government Actuary, and Professor Simon Newcomb, Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, Navy Department, severally, for an estimate of the number of persons in the United States engaged in gainful occupations, classified as those who cannot be subjected to foreign competition and those who can in part be subject to foreign compe- tition. Each of these statistical experts made a report. Mr. Ford stated that the total number of persons engaged in gainful occupations in the United states, according to the census of 1880 was 17,392,099, divided as follows. Agriculture. 7,670,493 ; Manufactures, mechanics, and mining, 3,837,112: professional and personal, 4,074,238; trade and transportation, 1,810.256. Setting aside the last two classes as not being subject to foreign competition, Mr. Ford arrived at the foil owing result: Population of the United States in gainful occupations not subject to cempetition, 16,564,914 Population of the United States in gainful occupations subject to competition 827,484 the percentage being 4.7 per cent. " Mr Elliott by a different process, reached the conclusion that the number of persons who were directly subjected in part to foreign competition was 825,000, or about 4% per cent. "Professor Newcomb reported that his estimate of the persons subject to foreign competition was 905,585, or 5 2-10 per cent of the industrial population, concluding with the observation: If trade were entirely iree, the fraction of our present industrial population injuriously subject to foreign competition would not exceed 7 per cent.' In other words, 93 per cent of the people are taxed to protect and enrich 7 per cent." The World Almanac 1894, p 969. 47 The enormity of the burden imposed on labor will further appear in its naked hideousness when this com- parison is studied : In 1890 the dutiable imports were $507,571,763.95 and the tax collected was $225,317,- 075.65. This is an average of 44.4-1 per cent. There is some palliation in the facts the government got the above tax money and at the same time permitted im- portation of free goods valued at$266,103,047.87. But in the same year, according to the Census, the home manufactured goods were valued at $9,500,000,000. Now, casting the 45 per cent on this total product, and the stupendous load of $4,275,000,000 was meekly carried by the laborer and consumer of this country. This sum, or its approximation, depending on the annual product, has been the yearly levied tribute. Under the bayonet of necessity, and solaced by the thought of per- fect freedom from "competition with the pauper labor of Europe, "the exalted American Freeman laid it down safely within the vaults of the money power. It must nave gone there, for labor is in dire distress and all industry is paralyzed, and has not received this annual excess of sale price overthe cost of production, including therein a reasonable profit. This excess is about all profit, for the difference between the foreign and home cost of "necessities " is infinitely less than the tax rates. This is fully understood by the Money Power. In demonstration of this wealth trend to one section, capsed by discriminntion in taxation, interest on bonds, transportation and telegraph monopoly, trusts, etc., the following figures from the Census of 1890 are pre- sented : States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania : Total (9) Wealth States- Area square miles 168,665 Population in 1880 14,507.407 Population in 1890 17,401,54-5 Gain in population 2,894,138 48 Assessed value 1880 $7,559,928,915 Assessed value 1890 $10,614,691,637 Gain in wealth $3.054,762,722 Paupers in Almshouses 31,143 Convicts in Penitentiaries 14,477 Prisoners in Jails 6,764 Infants in Juvenile Reformatories 7,388 Total United States- Area square miles 2,954,450 Population 1880 50,155,783 Population 1890 62,560,416 Gain in population 12,404,633 Assessed value 1880 $16,902,993,543 Assessed value 1890 $24,249,589,804 Gain in wealth ': $7,346,596,261 Paupers in Almshouses 73,045 Convicts in Penitentiaries 45,233 Prisoners in Jails 19,538 Infants in luvenile Reformatories 14,846 To the economist this is a portentous commentary, showing dangerous wealth concentration. To the patriot it is a sad testimonial that the laws have dis- tributed the benefits and burdens without equality, as is proved when the Census shows that the average daily pay of the wage earner is $1.15, while the value of his daily product is $10.50 thus leaving for capital $9.35 as a fund for cost of material and profit. The above table shows : In comparison with the whole of the United States, these nine states have one- seventeenth of the area and 27 per cent of the people. They have gained nearly one-half of the wealth , and have nearly half the paupers, one-third the convicts and prisoners and one-half the Reformatory Juveniles. Here then is the conclusive test of a malodorous system concentrated wealth and disseminated social negligence. In harmony with this deduction, Thomas G. Shear- man, in The Forum, said : ''Let us inquire whether there is any excessive concentration of wealth going on in the United States of America. Leaving mere clamor and unsupported assertion out of consideration on either side, let us look into facts. As lately as 1874 there was but one man in this country- who was reputed to be worth more than $5,000,000; and although some estimated his wealth at $20,000,000, there is no 49 good reason for believing it to have been so great. At the smallest reasonable estimate, there must now be more than 250 persons in this country whose wealth averages over $20,000,000 for each. But let us call the number only 200. Income tax returns show that the number of incomes, when arranged in large classes, multiplies by from three to five fold for every reduction in the amount of one-half. For extreme caution, however, estimate the increase in the number of incomes at a very much lower rate than this. At this reduced rate, the amount of wealth in the hands of persons worth over $500,000 each in the United States, would be as follows: 200 persons at $20,000,000 $4,000,000,000 400 1,000 2,500 7,000 20,000 10,000,000 4,000,000,000 5,000,000 5,000,000,000 2,500,000 6,250,000,000 1,000,000 7.000,000,000 500,000 10,000,000.000 31,100 ' $36,250,000,000 This estimate is far below the actual truth. Yet, even with this basis, we are confronted with the startling result that 31,100 persons now possess three-fifths of the whole national wealth, real and personal, according to the highest estimate ($60, 000, 000, 000) which any one has yet ventured to make of the aggregate amount. Nor is this conclusion at all improbable.'' George K. Holmes, U. S. Census expert, says : " Seventy-one per cent of the wealth is owned by nine per cenfof the families ; 20 per cent of the wealth is owned by 27 per cent of the families, and 9 per cent of the wealth is owned by 64 per cent of the families." To add to this picture, a clipping from the San Francisco Examiner of Feb. 10, 1894, in answer to an inquiry, is presented : "There are no official lists of millionaires. The following is the result of a canvass of the States bv the New York Tribune in 1892, giving those owning a million or more : STATES. NUMBER. STATES. NUMBER. Alabama 10 New Hampshire ..'. 14 Arkansas 6 New Jersey 127 California 162 New Mexico 3 Colorado 17 New York 428 Connecticut 79 North Carolina 14 Delaware 16 North Dakota 1 District of Columbia 31 Ohio 174 Florida 6 Oregon.... 18 Georgia 11 Pennsylvania 399 Idaho 3 Rhode Island 47 Illinois 349 South Carolina 10 50 Indiana 37 South Dakota Iowa 28 Tennessee 25 Kansas 11 Texas 55 Kentucky 24 Utah 16 Louisiana 35 Vermont 13 Maine 17 Virginia 26 Maryland 59 Washington 24 Masssachusetts 259 West Virginia 7 Michigan 104 Wisconsin.. 64 Minnesota 85 Wyoming 1 Mississippi 2 New York City 1,275 Missouri 85 , Montana 25 Total 4,204" Nebraska 15 From this it appears that for the same fateful nine States, our laws have created, decorated and patented with nobility, 2,658 millionaires, leaving for the honor and delight of the rest of the nation only 1546. As if Destiny were using the same nine States for a prophetic warning, the Census further shows that in 1880 they had 958,772 farms and in 1890 905,958 a loss of 53,389 or 5.57 per cent. Decay of agriculture, in its employing less hands, is a sure index of a con- centrating wealth. Again, as distinctly germain to the subject of wealth concentration in these nine States if you bring within your vision the Telegraph System of the country, you will find its actual cost approximates $25,000,000." But its capitalization is $110,000,000. The rates thereon for public service are so apportioned that they yearly become at least twenty-five per cent on the real investment. Is the farmer realizing a like percentage? Is the mechanic getting rich at this rate? This Telegraph System is another traffic that the Money Power has made tributary to its enrichment. Thelikepolicv of inflation in values is pursued by the same power as to the railroads of the country. They are capitalized at $10,000,000,000. This is at least two and a half times more than their cost. But the trans- portation rates are based on the "watered" value. 51 And this in turn becomes an immense percentage on the actual investment. This sum ought to be saved to the people by the nationalization of these great carriers. These Manufacturing, Telegraph, and Railroad ven- tures are mere feeders to the Money Power, centered in New York city and its section of our nation. At any rate it is clear, that these $4,275,000,000, taxed on home industry that these profits on Telegraph and Telephone appliances, and the vast incomes of the railroads, never went to the Government, else on Nov. 1, 1893 it wouldn't have been in debt $1,549,556,- 356.63, and it would never have paid $2,733,000,000 for interest to its bondholders from 1861 to 1893, averaging each year about $82,000,000 -for interest alone. This annual pilgrimage to the East, this free voter has been making for these three eventful decades always returning to find the hydra of Tax coiled around everything from the cradle to the coffin always return- ing to vsleep beneath the roof more heavily mortgaged, ever listening for the sheriffs hammer ever becom- ing more familiar with the multitudinous tramp and oftener seeing the privileged bondholder. This discrim- ination in favor of the Banker and Manufacturer has nowhere been balanced by compensation to the farmer and laborer. It never will or can be until the voter carries his conscience and intellect and freedom into his ballot. But to prevent this is the ambition of the privilege holder. Hence, still under the wizard spell of the Hazzard Circular, the National Batik sought its own perpetuation and labor's thralldom, when it sent to the other banks its private circular, dated Oct. 9, 1878. "DEAR SIR: It is advisable to do all in your power to sustain such daily and prominent weekly newspapers, especially the agri- cultural and religious press, as will oppose the issuing of greenback paper money, and that you withhold patronage or favor from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the government issue ol 52 money. Let the government issue the coin and the banks issue the paper money of the country, for then we can better protect each other. To repeal the law creating national banks ; or to restore to circulation the. government issue of money, will be to provide the people with money, and will therefore seriously affect your individual profits as banker and lender. See your member of Congress at once, and engage him to support our interests, that we may control legis- lation. JAS. BUELL, No. 147 Broadwa3 r , Room 4, New York. Secretary." The soul of this is laid bare when it says, "to restore to circulation the government issue of money will be to provide the people with money." That is, gold and sil- ver are scarce and under our keeping. But, greenbacks are beyond our grasp. To prevent their beneficence we must "control legislation." Alliances and Unions are nefarious, and breeders of anarchy, if they discuss or combine for legislation conducive to the amelioration of their industrial slavery. But it is transcendent patriotism for the Banker and Manufacturer to coerce Congress and suborn religion to moral treason to its sublime creed. The People must not have money, because that strikes off their bonds, makes plenty on hunger's table, clothes shivering childhood, soothes dying want, moralizes manhood, retains for the virgin her purity and enobles the race. This must not be done. If so, the Throne of Mammon will tremble, the reins of control will be dropped. Oh, hated Green- back ! that would perform miracles for the people. Oh, mighty gold ! that has done prodigies for capital. Ah ! The bitter humiliation that burnt the lips of Chase, when he later confessed : "My agency in procuring the passage of the National Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed. But before this can be accomplished, the People will be arrayed on one side and the Banks on the other in a contest such as we have never seen in this country." In the fascinating, wonderful valley of old, the sorrow-laden slave in bond age made his brick and toiled along its river banks, rearing mausoleums to vulgar -53- greatness. Ever across his vision flitted freedom ever over his shoulder fell the lash. Darker grew his soul. Harder grew his task. Mud and straw were plenty, and toil would make the required number of bricks each day. But'remorseless ran the order for each to gather his own straw and make his tale as before. So began the tragedy that has hung on human lips for thirty-three centuries the master perishing, remembered only in monolith and hieroglyphic the slave lived founding kingdoms, overturning empires, writing all succeeding history, moulding civilization and to-day potentially incorporating his commandments in the laws of all Christendom. Its prophetic meaning reached not the modern task- masters. For, not content with increasing the power of gold and silver, through the "excepting clause," and doubling taxation by the tariff and founding their Bank system, they soon began to clamor for less money. Deaf to patriotism, heedless of economy, and sinning against destiny, Congress listened once more to the syren's voice and enacted its decree. On April 12, 1866, the law was made for destroy- ing the greenback. This law commanded the Treasury, that instead of re-issuing greenbacks and other paper currency, it should burn them up and thus take them from their money circulation. When the law was passed the U. S. paper currency of all kinds was $1,- 732,811,195. This excludes $185,000,000 National Bank Notes and $60,000,000 State Bank Notes. The contraction may be thus tabulated : YEAR. WITHDRAWN. FAILURES. Loss. 1866 520 $ 17,625,000 1867 2,386 86,218,000 1868 $473,000,000 2,608 63,774,000 1869 500,000,000 2,799 75,054,900 1870 67,000,000 3,551 88,242,000 1871 35,000,000 2,915 85,250,000 1872 12,000,000 4,069 121,058,000 54 1873 1,609,000 5,183 228,499,000 1874 171,000,000 5,832 153,239,000 1875 40,000,000 7,740 201,060,000 1876 85,000,000 10,000 300,000,000 Total, $1,384,609,000 47,603 $1,422,019,900 Here is a period of profound peace. Wise statecraft of course has full opportunity for action. Therefore, the law is the quintescence of financial prudence. Good for the people is its benign touchstone. Its beneficence to them should be manifested in the fact, that as the contraction goes on each year, so the failures and losses of business should gradually diminish. Of course this was the evident intent of Congress. This was an honest hypothesis for the law's enactment. But, true to the sinister philosophy that dictated its being, clearly perceived bv its privilege-holding pro- genitors, the law did not exhibit its goodness in decreasing failures and losses. Nay, thev climbed with giant steps. Instead of being five or six thousand, as indicated by the number for 1866; they ran to 47,603. This is the army of militant bankrupts that surrendered in dispair. The spoils laid at their conquerors' feet were $1,422,019,900. By what strange fatality does the contraction and loss run, contesting for supremacy? From the Nation's heart was drawn this arterial blood, and thereby the body staggered and fainted. Fear sat on the counters of trade poverty was capping at the professional door-commerce reefed-he.r sails- birds built nests in the furnaces riot sang its ribaldry and touched its torch labor, once erect, _now stooped, became idle, anxious, distracted, ejected from home, passed from respectability to the diabelrie of trampdom. Was there any necessity for this vast miser}' ? None. Did the people demand this legislation? No. Why was the spear thrust into the popular heart ? That green- backs, the preserver of the Union, might die in ignominy. The earth quaked, the sky darkened, the sun vanished 55 darkness entered all places, ruin was abroad and sor- row was in all hearts. Amid this financial gloom, the bondholder walked unharmed, panoplied in statutory safety. His ambition was realized. Gold and silver should again reign supreme and be obedient to his com- mand. The people's money the paper currency called into being by their omnipotent fiat was destroyed, and private money once more became a minister to his avarice. For this he desired to and did " control legis- lation." Count the tears, mark off the groans, figure the suicides, number the deserted homes, tally the hungry babes and wasted mothers, enumerate the vagrants, paupers and criminals, all directly attributable to this " contraction." Marshal them before the tribunal of your own patriotic conscience and demand a verdict. Against this assassination of American citizenship it falls "Guilty," " More Guilty," " Most Guilty." Thus reads the record as penned by Truth. But its damning force is augmented when you note at the date of the law, April 1866, the population was about 35,- 000,000 and the per capita was about $60, and in 1873 the population was about 40,000,000and the per capita was about $30. There was one-eighth more people and one half less money among them. There ought to have been $2,400,000,000. There was $1,212,131,510. What a spectacle is presented ! An expanding pop- ulation, with multiplying wants for all things, solemnly deprives itself of the money to buy those things, cement- ing their poverty in the adamant of a national decree. Is this the crowning wisdpm of statecraft ? Judged by the canons of common sense, it would seem that the true policy would have been to expand the volume of money, rather than to contract it. For, as there are more men more clothes must be had more money is needed to buy them ; as there are more women to brighten homes, more money is needed to make them 56 temples of wifely love; as there are more children to rear to intelligent citizenship, more money is requisite to feed, clothe and educate them for life's responsibilities. Would Grant stand as a grand chieftain, if with a swelling army he had piled and burned over one-half of his muskets ? Ditch-encircled Vicksburg and evacuated Richmond may answer. Would Lee wear the chaplet of a famed captain, if when concentrating his veterans for immortal Gettys- burg, he had spiked one-half of his cannons, and then staked his cause on the battle? The muskets and can- non made the soldiers effective. So in business and social contests, money is the effective weapon with which man fights the enemy Want. With it he wins victories. Without it he suffers defeat. But the last table only exhibits one decade. The same bleeding, starving, thirsting, sleepless, lacerating, inquisitorial medication of the sick body politic has continued until to-day. Instead of the transfusion of new blood, the weakened patient has been bled periodi- cally by the Secretaries of the Treasury. The bond- holding physician has- felt its pulse and ordered more blood to be drawn. Quick the lancet has cut. The clovse of the war saw the Nation full of lusty life, with its circulating blood $1,732,811,195 currency (exclud- ing coin) bounding in its veins. On Nov. 1, 1892, that same blood was measured as $346,681,016 currency-, $55,648 Demand Notes, and $15,279,397 fractional currency total, $362,016,061. This total is the Treas- ury book record the real amount in use is much less, owing to losses, fires, etc. In 1865 the population stood about 35,000,000, and the per capita was a bout $60.00 counting in all the Southern States. In 1890 the population was num- bered at about 63, 000, 000 and the per capita is claimed to be $23.00. Conservatively estimated, it is not more 57 than $10. 00 and perhaps much less in daily use. To this mostly may be referred the 101,000 failures since 1881, including 1892. For the year 1893, the most ruinous panic in our history may- be epitomized : 15,000 Commercial failures for $330,000,000 100,000 Mortgage and other failures for 200,000,000 641 Bank failures for 210,000,000 26,000 miles of Railroad failures for 1,212,000,000 Total $1,952,000,000 This stupendous diminution of the volume of the National currency is directly traceable to the effect of this Act oi April 1866. For its crushing tyranny, Plutocracy is responsible. Mammon had won three trophies depre- ciated greenbacks, national banks and con- traction. Surely the vision of the new Financiers is not searching for more conquests. ' Their ambition must be now satisfied. The white slave may rest his weary limbs and sleep in peace, with sweet memories and merciful prayers. UNCLE TOM NEED NOT LONGER FEAR LEGREE. Not so wills the wily master. He held in reserve a new torture ''the Credit Strengthening Act." It passed March 1869 in Congress. The statute required the Treasury to pay in coin the out standing Bonds and Treasury Notes at their face value. By this the Government waived the right to pay them in its other "lawful money," good by law for its other public debts and for all private obligations. As there were then about $1,500,000,000 Bonds, unpaid, and they had been bought at an average of sixty cents or less on the dollar, their cost to the holders was about $900,000,000 or less. These holders did not care for the paltry bauble of $600,000,000, that was to pass to their ownership by this legislation. No I No ! This was beneath their exalted view. But they did profoundly feel a painful solicitude for 58 the honor of the U. S. Government. Though not "nom- inated in the bond "that payment should be in coin, and not so anticipated by any purchaser, the holders now felt the supreme mortification, that so-called repu- diation would bring. The Nation could not afford to suffer that degradation. They said, "Only by coin payments can Congress save our people from the ridi- cule of Europe." Besides 'these two sentiments, they contended that labor was rich and patient under the forty-five per cent Tariff, and loved to pay its tax on the 4,200 articles, listed in the Revenue Law. It could pay this insignifi- cant $600,000,000 as a new principal and its annual interest of $36,000,000, and not feel conscious of the modification of the contract. Taxation is the high way for national progress, and more bonds are a sure insignia of a steady development. But their last and eloquent argument was, that the nation was only discharging its moral obligations to them/ Behold ! what immense sacrifices they had made in staying at home during the war and guarding the gold. They had kept it safe and beyond reach. Greenbacks \vere a mere " war measure^ and fit ior such emergencies. But at infinite cost, and amid the fierce dangers of crashing markets, they had preserved the divine metals, gold and silver. Now the nation should discharge its currency me re emergency defenders and give the old and immemorially worshiped coins their sole sway in debt paying. So before Congress prayed these saintly veterans, scarred in battles fierce "on change." So plead these meek disciples, who had reaped such meagre benefits from the Rebellion. Though by earnest entreaty they implored the preacher to leave his pulpit, the smith his anvil, the farmer his plow, the merchant his counter and the toiler his task, and come to Wash- ington and aid in passing this bill to strengthen the -59- credit, all these" citizens were too much engrossed to come. So, alone, single-handed, poor, dejected and un- organized, this phalanx of credit-savers, above lobbies, without "influence," timidly massed at the Capitol, de- termined to save the honor of their glorious country. Congress magnanimously yielded to their entreaty- solaced their tears, soothed their sorrows. Hallelujah ! The nation's credit was saved. The Bondholders, with sweetly chastened resignation, pock- eted $600,000,000, and left this generation the precious privilege of paying the face value of the bonds and their annual interest. For this consummation, Oh Patriots ! your consolation is, that the sainted Sherman, speak- ing from the unique experience of becoming a twenty- fold millionaire from a small salary, and piously con- verted to this law, said in 1879 of its condemners: "To refuse to pay the bonds in gold would be repudia- tion and extortion, and would be scoffing at the bless- ings of Almighty God." Oh ! " what fools these mortals be," else how^could Hazzard have conceived, planned and directed his triumph to such far and vast results. To-day the Amer- ican voter sits in the ashes of dessolation, paying pen- ance for the momentous folly of his past franchises. On naked knees he must continue to make his pilgrimage to the shrine of gold. He cannot be relieved from his vows of folly, until he revolts from the domination of the putrid past, and "dares to look the omnipotent tyrant (gold) in his face and tell him that his evil is not good." For the sake of his liberty for home, wife and babes let that voter imitate him of old, when "He took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire and ground it to powder and strewed it on the water and made the children of Israel drink of it." By annihi- lation came their purification. So here, only by utterly destroying the money functions of gold and silver, can the American Government hope for a reformation. 60 " Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; For Loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrow dulls the edge of husbandry." Who can deny the wisdom of the poet? Yet strange to say, while freedom from debt is the dearest wish of every honest man and firm, corporation and Nation, the Hazzard Circular was the progenitor of another and opposite policy for this people. On July 14, 1870, the Refunding Act was passed. By it certain outstanding bonds were called in and new ones were issued with the innocent and modest proviso that $750,000,000 cannot be paid until 1907. Notwith- standing th*e U.S. Treasury all the time has this sum on hand, in reality applicable for any honest purpose, this sum must run, with its $30,000,000 annual interest. No surplus can be appropriated to the satisfaction of these cormorants. With leech-like tenacity they cling on and refuse to be filled. To eat out that "surplus," wrung out by taxation, the world, in 1891, stood as- tounded in contemplation of a Billion Dollar Congress. Thus, the people must pay for extravagant legislation and endure taxation, robben r , and burn incense to the metallic God for weary years to come. These unpaid millions must be exempt from all taxation. They are too sacred for the profane inventory of the Assessor. But the laborer must pay tribute upon the cradle where sleeps his babe, or failing to have so much, he may some- what compensate for his cumbering the earth by paying the price of his head, as a poll-tax. He may rest con tent with the knowledge that in case of war, if he did not freely stake his life, he would make "good food for powder," called thereto tinder the solemn ceremonial of a "draft," or appearing as the "substitute "of his mas- ter, whose time is wholly devoted to finance. But the point was gained. "The government was stable." It had an unredeemable debt, based on long-time bonds. 61 Free Trade England has received infinite maledictions from American politicians, yet the latter have modelled the fiscal polity of this government directly in slavish imi- tation of England. Why? Simply because, though Tariff is a potent factor in business life, it is laughably insig- nificant in comparison with the influence of a single metalic standard. British gold, with the bond system, has accomplished certain definite results for the money aristocracy there, and it was hoped for the same suprem- acy here ; and the realization has tragically come. Deathward the curse of metals works its way, With dire great sins already past ; The next shall close the blackest day Crime's vilest offspring is the last. The poet did not so tune his lyre. What matters that ? In the light of the next historic scene, is not the parody true? Peer into the night ! Behold the " charmed pot " and its weird attendants! as they dance their " antique round." Well may the mortal say, " Let this pernicious hour stand aye, accursed in the calendar." For the cauldron, has boiled and bubbled. There rises a form. Now those attendants clothe him in flesh and his Master breathes on him. His commission commands him as Gold's representative to speed on to Washington. Gaze on his face. Those are familiar features. Those lips have once spoken eloquently for bi-metalism, and won for him an honorable place as a financial authority. This is Ernest Seyd. Is his mission diplomatic? He is not so accredited in an exequator. Is he a military emissary ? No ; Eng- land once trusted to arms and lost her colonies. Is he a philanthropist ? He bowed not to Pentatuech, Bible nor Koran at his departure, and brought no moral ben- dictions. He was charged with none of these high responsibilities. Not since the clay of Hazzard, had a man touched America whose foot so cursed her 62 soil. He was a foreigner and owed no- allegiance to our nation, and yet his purpose here was to make our laws and leave an imperious mandate for their execution. He did not come in the attitude of a conqueror, yet he conquered by the commanding potency that was so clear to the crownless wanderer "Plate sin with gold, and thestrong lance of Justice hurtless breaks. Arm it with rags, and a Pigmy's straw doth pierce it." He came with the express design to demonetize silver. Did he use bribe money? Was his pocket-change $500,000 needed to make donations to Sunday Schools? or to "soap" Congressmen in "blocks of five" to a comprehension of the purchasing power of appreciating gold ? The denial of this charge of bribery is tried to be supported by the fact, that he had published a book in favor of silver, and was its firm friend. Betrayal of a cause is not unsung. A disciple wronged his Master in the Garden. A Revolutionary soldier forgot duty and took dishonored pelf to pay for his treason. So here the antecedent standing of SEYD peculiar!}' fitted him for his mission. Suspicion was disarmed. His knowledge was desired and gratefully received. Once introduced to the Legislators, and he had ample scope for the most diplomatic villainy ever used against an honest people. But explanation is futile and denial is vain. Here is a public record Congressional Globe, page 2304: Chairman Hooper, in presenting the Bill, April 9, 1872, said: "Ernest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer and bullionist, who is now here, has given gren, attention to the subject of mint and coinage. After having examiner the first draft of this bill he made various sensible suggestions, which the Committee adopted and embodied in the bill." Judge Kelly, later, declared the Demonetizing Bill was penned in the hand-writing of Seyd. G3 In 1873, the Banker's Magazine for August admits the European motive, the contemplated crime, the fund supplied, the perpetration, his agency and his principals, and describes them in these words : "In 1872, silver being demonetized in France, England and Hol- land, a capital of $500,000 was raised and Ernest Seyd of London was sent to this country with this fund, as agent of the foreign bond- holders and capitalists, to effect the same object (demonetization of silver), which was accomplished." It is a familiar rule of evidence that great value is to be given to the admission of an opponent. It cannot be presumed that the Magazine would have so spoken against the interests of its class, if truth had not com- pelled the utterance. But these two facts are admitted : Seyd was present, assisting the Committee, and silver was demonetized. The proof shows that he wrote the Bill, and came here as the agent of foreign, capitalists, bringing an immense fascinating fund. The most prominent Congressmen have publicly stated that they did not know that the Bill contained the demonetizing clause, and that had it been known, it could not have passed. Mr. Richardson, Treasurer, afterwards, in 1873, recommend kd specie payments in silver, and President Grant advocated silver payments, saying there ought to be $300,000,000 in circulation. They either did not know of or did not understand the law. These statements become of monumental importance, when the fact is considered that the Press, the Rostrum and the Party Platforms had been silent on the point. No discussion among the people, no demand from poli- ticians, no declaration of candidates had been heard. The hush of the tomb rested on the matter. Not till years had cycled on did the public learn that in the chalice nestled poison; in the harmless horse was con- cealed destruction ; in the grassy plain was the fatal ditch. The secresy of the act is the unbroken and elo- quent testimony of its criminal intent. 34 Among all the crimes that have burned their history into the last thirty years, this act has the isolated sig- nificance of being the most treasonable. In a general sense, depreciating greenbacks making necessities dearer was a misdemeanor ; the National Bank system was obtaining money under false pretenses ; contraction was robbery; payment of the bonds in coin was a forgery of the contract ; the refunding was a larceny of the bread garnered for unborn generations. They were all grave sins, and meant degradation for the individual. But this Seyd Act was treason, because it was a feloni- ous assault on the purity of Congress a theft of legis- lative conscience and the uprooting of a fundamental governmental policy. Why so, and how as to the latter? While the Con- stitution does not limit Congress to gold and silver as the sole substance for money, it must be remembered that these two were in general use in colonial days and so continued at our national formation, and on to 1873. Each held a definite fixed place under the law. If gold was devoted to large dealings, silver was sanctified to a myriad of daily small uses. If the rich man trusted gold, the poor one loved silver. If gold paid for lands and ships, silver bought bread and coal. As they had come in loving union down the centuries, our people received them with equal regard. Before the law and the public, they stood each as a legal tender for all debts. Now, this Seyd Act proposed to and did destroy the legal tender power of silver as a debt-payer for all sums exceeding $5.00, practically reducing it to mere change. As a vantage stand for a clear vision', an extended quotation will serve : "The production of gold and silver has advanced by long waves, first one metal running ahead and then the other. At the time of the discoverv of America, the European stock of the precious metals was almost exhausted. It probably amounted to less than $200,000,000 in all. The ratio of value between silver and gold then was 11.3 to 1. In the next fifty years gold was produced to the amount of $230,000,- 65 000, and silver to the extent of $150,000,000, the ratio remaining almost stationary at 11.2 to 1. Then the mines of Potosi, the great- est bonanza ever uncovered in the world, together with those of Mexico, Chile and Peru, gave silver an impetus. For the 300 years from Potosi to Sutter's Mill, the production of silver steadily outran that of gold. During that period the mines yielded about $6,000,- 000,000 worth of the former metal and $2,600,000,000 of the latter, and the ratio slowly went down from 11.5 to one in 1543 to 13 in 1600, 14.81 in 1700, 15.68 in 1800, and 15.85 in 1848. When our first coinage law was adopted, the annual production of silver in the world was fifty times as great as that of gold, by weight, and more than three times as great by value. The disparity was much greater than it is now, the present excess in the world's production of silver being less than twenty-four times by weight and nothing by value. The discovery of the mines of California and Australia made a change in the situation. In twenty-eight years after 1848 the amount of gold poured into the channels of commerce was $3,215,000,000, or much more than the whole stock in existence at the beginning of that period, and nearly a fourth more than the entire output for the entire 330 years from the discovery of America until that time. In other words, the world's stock of gold was doubled in less than twenty-six years, and the greater part of the increase came within ten years. No such sudden deluge of one metal had ever been known before. To appreciate its overwhelming nature we may cite the fact that in 1853 the mines of the United States turned out $65,000,000 in gold and only $50,000 in silver; while in 1873, when the fear of a flood of silver from Nevada was alleged as a reason for closing the European mints to that metal, we produced $35, 750, 000 in silver and $36,000,- 000 in gold. It is not surprising that this avalanche of gold from California and Australia should have terrified financiers. Nobody knew what might happen next. Fears were entertained that gold might cease to be a precious metal, just as they are now expressed with regard to silver. In France the noted economist, Michel Chevalier, vehemently defended the ancient and inalienable right of every French bondholder to demand payment in silver 5-franc pieces instead of in depreciated gold, and he urged the government to put the country definitel}' on a solid silver basis before it was too late. Germanj-, including Austria, adopted the single standard of silver in 1857. But the fear of an indefinite depreciation of gold proved unfounded . ' ' Mr. S. E. Moffit in Examiner, July 21, 1893. Now, having the world's situation, the following words of Mr. Warwick Martin are pertinent: "In 1816, for reasons arising out of her wars with France, to prevent the exportation of silver from the country, England demone- tized silver in large sums. In 1871 and 1872 Germany. Derm ark, Sweeden and Norway demonetized silver and made gold the only full legal tender. This was done to relieve themselves of the conflicting coins of the nations with which the German Empire and Scandinavian 66 Union were affiicted. This caused a demand for $1,000,000,-OOO of gold, -which had to be supplied by the sale of silver. The sales of sil- ver and the purchase of goid enhanced the price of the latter and depressed that of the former. This fall in the price of silver and rise of the price of gold made the holders of United States bonds, which were payable in silver, uneasy. They wished silver demonetized. Money of Nations, page 225. With this condition in Europe, this incentive . to action, the bondholders looked to this country 'and turned their financial microscope on the poisonous silver, and their telescope on the beautiful gold, and became alarmed as they watched the annual produc- tions as shown in this table : YEAR. 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 GOLD. $40,000,000 50,000,000 55,000,000 60,000,000 65,000,000 60,000,000 55,000,000 55,000,000 55,000,000 50,000,000 50,000,000 46,000,000 43,000,000 39,200,000 40,000,000 46,100,000 53,225,000 53,500,000 51,725,000 48,000,000 49,500,000 50,000,000 43,500,000 36,000,000 SILVER. $ 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 50,000 500,000 100,000 150,000 2,000,000 4,500,000 8,500,000 11,000,000 10,250,000 10,000,000 13,500.000 12,000,000 12,000,000 16,000,000 23,000,000 28,750,000 TOTAL. $40,050,000 50,050,000 55,050,000 60,050,000 65,050,000 60,050,000 55,050,000 55,050,000 55,050,000 50,500,000 50,100,000 46,150,000 45,000,000 43,700,000 48,500,000 57,150,000 64.475,000 63,500,000 65,225,000 60,000,000 61,500,000 66,000,000 66,500,000 64,750,000 Totals $1,182,750,000 $153,700,000 $1,336,450^00 Just about this time, it is a well known fact in this city, although unpublished, that an intelligent and scientific agent of the Rothchilds came to Nevada and with the consent of Macka}-, investigated the .Corn- stock Lode. 67 Concealing his purpose, he measured its extent and of all the mines there took accurate notes. On his return, these were submitted to his Master. Soon after this, the infamous conspiracy against Silver began to unfold itself reaching its climax with Seyd. Now you can see why it was necessary for the Seyd Bill to eliminate the words " standard dollar" from the old law. If it had been openly proclaimed that it was a national policy to demonetize silver, this increasing annual production would have formed an insuperable objection . So by stealth it was accomplished Strangely, this legislation fits into England's policy. This is an- other piece for the mosaic the European gold barons have for years been cementing together, as they gather them from tributary nations. So if it now be asked, what has this to do with the proposition that metallic moneys should be abolished, the answer comes like the lightning's flash. Here in 1857 Germany and Austria strip the chivalrous Knight, Gold, of all his old-time habiliments, utterly ignoring that from ancient days he had been bestowing his gifts on kings and people. Even the French experts stood ready to pronounce a benediction on the dishonoring. There was going to be too much money, and hence too many freemen. The old world financiers were about to carry a holy crusade against the hated infidel, Gold. But England, ever as eager to kiss the " Crescent" as the " Cross," where her interest lays, would not send her chivalry, notwithstanding the "indulgences" prom- ised with fervid eloquence. As it had stood for a thou- sand years, so stood the "sea-girt isle," and touched with her influence, induced new thought and pointed out other pathways, and finally won with her matchless leadership. Thereafter, in less than sixteen years, this same Ger- many had restored Gold to his inheritance, and subjected to disgrace, Silver that other money whose historic 68 birth is too early for authentic date, and can only be found in tradition. Despite this venerable descent it must go into "debasement." Other European countries joined, and the United States must calumniate her ante- cedents and enroll herself on the side of legalized robbery. That there may be no question in its political aspect as to the fall of silver and rise of gold, produced entirely by legislation, the testimony of Sherman in the U. S. Senate, April 11, 1876, is advanced. Speaking of the act of Germany, passed July 9, 1873, he says: 'The enormous effect of this law in Germany, and as a conse- quence the partial demonetization of silver coins, I suppose is felt by every man, woman and child who buys or sells ariy thing. I suppose there is no act of Parliament that has so wide-reaching effect as this act of the German Parliament. The amount of coin in the world is estimated by Mr. Seyd and other technical writers at $3,200,000,000 silver and $3,500,000,000 gold. So the effect of the act of Germany, aided no doubt somewhat by the large supply of silver by our mines, has been to reduce the purchasing power of the whole of this enor- mous sum of thirty-two hundred millions of silver fully 10 per cent. The fall of the silver trade dollar in this country has been from 103 to 91. ****###* A struggle for the possession of gold at once arose between all the great nations, because everybody could see that if $3,200,000,000 of silver coin were demonetized and $3,500.000,000 of gold coin made the sole standard, it would enormously add to the value of gold, and the Bank of France, the Bank of England and the Imperial Bank of Germany at once commenced grasping for gold in whatever form. Therefore what we have observed recently is not so much a fall of silver as it is a rise' of gold, the inevitable effect of a fear of the demon- etization of silver; and now the Bank of France has in its vaults the enormous amount of $300,000,000 of gold in coin and bullion ; the Bank of England has $170,000,000, and the Imperial Bank of Ger- many has $125,000,000. So in these three depositories there is over $600,000,000 of gold, or nearly one-fifth of the supply of the world.'* This was said in 1876, when the conspiracy was as to results in chrysalis. But all then faintly predicted is now sculptured on the tablet of fact in just twenty years. This is the indictment of one metal against the other as to its political moves. It rang out yesterday : / -69- DENVER, April 23, 1894. A. C. Fisk, president of the Pan-Ameri- cah Bimetallic Association has issued the following call: ''Believing the present an auspicious time to accomplish some- thing for silver, thereby restoring the prosperity and contentment among the people, confidence in our rulers and institutions and con- ferring untold blessings on the human race, a meeting is hereby called to. assemble in Washington, D. C., on May 22d, composed of repre- sentatives from the United States, South and Central America, and Old Mexico and all the States thereof, to memorialize the Congress of the United States to restore silver to its ancient right at a ratio not to exceed 16 to 1. At the bidding of a power that has blotted out civilization in all ages, the law-making and executive branches of the government have stricken down one-half of the metal money and debased and partially demonetised the paper currency, compelling the people of the United States to pav unnecessarily in the past twenty-five years $20,000,- <000,000 in interest, principal and discount, and by the vicious laws Ihave burdened the nation with a real estate mor.gage debt of $20,- '000,000,000, and other debts aggregating as much more, and now seek to reduce the country to a gold basis, and expect the people to pay $40,000,000,000 oi debt with $500,000,000 in gold to pay $80 of debt with $1 in money reducing the price of farm products 66 per cent, and taking from the debtors the power to pay their debts. The last census said there were $65,000,000,000 worth of prop- erty in the United States. The gold oligarchy has depreciated it in value one half, rendering the nation insolvent for $7,500,000,000. Twenty thousand people now own three-fourths of the property of the nation ; 10,000,000 people are involuntarily idle, and the property of the nation is rapidly being confiscated. Fields, factories and mills are deserted. Every industry is stricken as with a plague. Strong men, refined women and innocent babes are starving in the land of plenty, while our rulers are rioting in luxurious living, and frenzied with their successes in the past, are inventing new schemes of robbery and plunder. When Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Netherlands went down, about two per cent of the people owned practically all the wealth. Are we not hastening to the same end ? <Is there not patri- otism, manhood and womanhood enough among the people to call a halt from our rulers ? Let the brain and sinew meet at the Capitol of the nation. Let petitions be circulated in every precinct of the land and forwarded to the Convention, until the voices of 40,000,000 of people shall resound in the ears of Congress that we may ascertain whether this is in fact a Government of the people. Our demands should be respectful but firm. No written credentials will be required, and any one favoring the objects of the association or call will be recognized as delegates. This is a great and patriotic task. If we but seek divine aid and guidance our efforts will be crowned with success." On the trial of this gigantic crime, thus charged, the verdict must be against gold Guilty. 70 To show this transfer of silver's value to gold, a homely illustration will suffice : In California there are a definite number of horses and a certain number of mules engaged at all kinds of work and necessary thereto . Could the horse owners secure from the Legislature a law restricting the use of the mules or entirely prohib- iting their labor, does not every one know the immediate effect would be to make the horses more valuable? They would command better prices, because of the increased demand for their capacities. The same analogy might be supposed between wagons and railway cars. If the former were forbidden, cars would be more needed, and freights would rise to "all the traffic would bear." All the money in the country is needed. If by a national decree all were destroyed but gold, does any thinker not know that the latter would at once, owing to its increased duties for exchange, assume greater value in purchasing power, and substantially appro- priate the value of the silver and paper demonetized? This conspiracy of the leading Christian nations is an anamoly, utterly at variance with all moral profes- sion. For though less than one-fifth of the race, they propose at this time to blot out of existence for humanity $4,042,700,000 and destroy its accumulations as ex- pressed in silver, and to transfer its value by a decree of confiscation to gold standing at $3,582,505,000 (Re- port of Mint Director, August 1893.) Theeffect of this is to increase the purchasing power of gold from a hun- dred to five hundred per cent. Having by outside manipulation lost ownership of it, the weaker and more scattered nations are, by banking coercion and political debauching, to be made vassals of the international gold syndicate. Can morality approve such spoliation ? Through all the ages the command has been thundering, "Love thy neighbor," and while the missionary goes out to make the proclamation, the Christian nations through 71 their money laws spit on the message and set up hard money images for the listener's idolatry. Can statecraft, for stable standards, longer depend on metals, whose commodity values so debacuh whole peoples, and lead to the death of all ideas of honesty ? Can the imagina- tion picture a stronger reason for their overthrow ? It is solely dependent upon their supply that all values must rest. Likewise, all values must and do vary with that supply. If chemistry and invention could gather the impal- pablyfine gold dust that sleeps on the earth, or if vastly richer mines could be found, in less than one year there- after, these same civilized, praying, immortality-hoping financiers would be in abject lamentation, and kiss the toe of the money Father for a new excommunication against Gold. It would then be seen that Silver was the only true measure for value, and God would receive new Te Deums that he had not scattered it in too much negligence. This gradual demonetization of silver shows how- heartless metallic money is. It is quite clear how and why the metallist should antagonize a paper currency. But that Gold, after four thousand years of friendship, knit together through a myriad struggles, should turn on Silver and stab it in the dark, is a picture to which the future historian will point as the darkest conquest of modern nations. Poland and Ireland may stand weeping and for sympathy, but greater wrongs than theirs are to-day being written in the blood of many lands. Notwithstanding that the world has been at peace, and exempt from all great devastations of flood, pesti- lence, fire and drouth, and science has made numerous triumphs over nature in production and transportation, and hence tending to cheapen all things material, the nations have not decreased their debts. As coral islands 72- grow, so this mountain of world indebtedness has risen higher in the last twelve years. Following Spoftbrd, for 1881 the figures were $26,- 757,899,396, and according to Geo. F. Plumbe (statis- tician Chicago Daily News), for 1893 they were $34,- 456,574,000. Here is an ominous portent an increase of $7, 698,674,604. Thus a false system has exhibited its viciousness in two directions. Regardless of increased labor supply more men and improved machinery the debt has grown, and at the same time the property in existence, though perhaps greater in quantity, has de- creased in value, measured by gold. Hence the world stands amazed at its obligations. After thirteen years of remorseless toil, told in tears, written in blood, it finds itself deeper in despair. This multiplying debt, this diminishing product, like some terrible pestilence, is everywhere, at all times, in all lands. The nations, with hardly a notable exception, are imposing heavier rates of taxation on labor and on industries, to raise interest money to pay on their debts. Wages have fallen to the point of bare sub- sistance the pittance given by masters to chattel slaves. Above this, the surplus product is con- tributed to the bond and debt-holder for the stately object of pampering a financial nobility. How has this knighting of the garlanded few been accomplished? By the nations, to a large extent, strip- ping themselves of their sovereignty and turning it to a self-consecrated priesthood and permitting them to make metallic money in their own interest and against the prosperity of all otheis and by placing in their hands the dangerous power to expand or contract the volume of money, as may suit their selfish policy this being done through the commodity value of the prec- ious metals. It was a keen perception of the effects of this power that brought Hazzard and Seyd to America. They well knew if the "greenbacks" were issued, then 73 accursed as if a child of sin, and silver were "demone- tized," that the kingdom of Plutocracy would be further fortified. It was equivelant to the disarma- ment of two strong opponents. It was the secret massing of munitions of war, to be used for cajoling Legislation, and holding in check the daring thoughts of labor, by decreeing its daily compensation and thereby welding the chains of its industrial bondage. This money kingdom, scorning the petty lines of nations, was to embrace all tongues, all peoples, all lands. Has its dream been realized? Yes. On yonder throne of gold sits the king with the earth at his feet. There "without the boast of heraldry or pomp of power," is the one whose word makes rulers tremble and peoples ''bend the knee." Without office or royal ancestry, he speaks and Senates record his will in statutes. Without command he declares war or peace. Above the Vatican, commanding the Kremlin, touching the Reichstag, subordinating queens, ruling presidents, this man writes the history of current civilization. He sways the destiny of more human beings than any ten rulers or their legislators. He reaches out his hands and sorrow touches millions of homes, for money at his word, becomes scarcer, that is out of circulation, and more sacrifice must be made to live. He sends out the dreaded ukase, and banks close, manu- factories stop, and toil offers up its ceaseless prayer for work, ever seeing starvation. The man, whose potency circles the globe, rules by the "divine right" conferred by the god, "gold." He has gained this "bad eminence," because his family , through values falling from wars, and from loans and interest, has accumulated the most collosal fortune of modern times, undoubtedly reaching hundred of millions, and embodied in gold. These are loaned to various govern- ments. Thereby they become his puppets. It is claimed that he owns about two billions of Money equal to 74 one-fourth of all the money known in the world. Concentrated by intermarriage and commencing about 100 years ago the Mayer family has held these millions together under the conquering sign of the "Red shield" located in every capital. On the chess board of the world with nations as pieces, its head plays for universal supremacv using want on the one hand and gold on the other hand. Alexander in his unchecked triumphs Cassar in his march for man's mastery Napoleon in his defiance to the caste of Europe, were warring against mere men, but this modern dictator the embodiment of a cruel system, leads his armies against innocent women, helpless babes, and old age, hospitals, churches, and schools- nothing sacred when assaulted by the myrmidons under his black flag. His ministers in all zones obey his behests and by the cohesiveness of self-interest to him remain loyal, forgetting creeds, annihilating dis- tance and discarding nationality. Swing the censers, 0, gold worshippers, at the feet of your master, Rothschild autocrat of the world by reason of metal money but rest assured that despite the anger of his omnipotence the bard of truth will yet sing of him " Purity, Justice and Freedom, he has made of our homes their graves, And planted within our children the seed of a race of slaves- Slaves in the rich man's mansion, slaves in the poor man's home, Slaves in the senate chamber, a slave of slaves on the throne ; Slaves in the halls of learning, slaves at the helm of State, And helpless slaves of labor in the helpless markets wait. Thought -fettered press and platform, selling truth for bread, And worse than slaves in the pulpit, profaning the noble dead." The pendulum of Time swung off the dark and crime- laden years from 1873 to 1893, each in turn marking more ruined industries, more closed banks, more business failures, more mortgage foreclosures, and each year closing with the spectacle that to open a palace for one 75 millionaire, it was only necessary to close or tear down a thousand homes and turn their inmates to the freedom of trampdom. But the relentless purpose of further aggrandizement nestled in the soul of the gold-master. So in the last decade in turn, like an octopus of finance, he clutched Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, Argentine, Peru, Chile, and others, and crushed them in debt until their credit failed and panics ensued. From his throne, in 1893, the master looked East and West, and the very earth quaked. Once more his orders ran to waiting subordinates. One flashed to India, with its population of 288,000,000. Its money circulation was $3.64 per capita, and embraced $28,- 000,000 of uncovered paper and $900,000,000 in silver. In 1891 it coined in gold $117,411, and in silver $32,- 670,498. The former was not a factor in its system, for silver had been its sole money for all the recorded centuries. Of all countries, India held it most in rever- ence as a very part of her national soul a precious in- heritance of ancient days. But for the purpose of adding that much more to the vastly increasing buying power of gold, its advocates without remorse, brought ruin to these defenseless millions, and by a decree confis- cated their property as stored in silver. The worst feature of this demonetization was that it involved a change of the nation's policy, and was effected, not by the Indian people themselves by their own legislative forms, but by the dictate of a Privy Council, only owing responsibility to England. Without benefit to the. coun- try, and against its wish, there was a vast political act, enacted at the instigation of one metal owner, to cripple or destroy the wealth of the owners of the other metal. So mystic India passed under the galling yoke of Eng- land's gold oligarchy. To the United States an order also came, calling for action. Prompted by the spirit of Hazzard and Buell, a circular was issued March 12, 1893, by the American 76- Bankers Association to all National Banks : " DEAR SIR : The interests of national bankers require immediate financial legislation by Congress. Silver, silver certificates and treas- ury notes must be retired, and national bank notes upon a gold basis made the only money. This will require the authorization of from $500,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 of new bonds as a basis of circula- tion. You will at once retire one-third of your circulation and call in one-naif of your loans. Be careful to make a money stringency frit among your patrons, especially among influential business men. Advocate an extra session of Congress for the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law and act with the other banks of your city in securing a large petition to Congress for its unconditional repeal, as per accompanying form. Use personal influence with Congressmen and particularly let your wishes be known to your senators. The future life of National Banks as fixed and safe investments, depends upon immediate action, as there is an increasing sentiment in favor of government legal tender notes and silver coinage." Here again is the same old dominant intention to "control legislation." It must be had in favor of one metal gold and against the other silver. How is it to be effected ? By the one ever omnipotent method con- tractio.n. This policy made a lasting testimonial in the fact that the National Banks, from May 4th to July 12, 1893, called in $136,000,000 of their loans, retir- ing also jmmense sums of their notes. In the same time every bank in the United States locked up its gold and would not part with it even for Bonds. The most astounding spectacle! Clamoring for these solemn promises to pay for thirty woeful years and yet these same patriotic Banks would not recog- nize a Government Bond as a good security for the loan of their gold . No lover ever gazed on his sweetheart with more idolatry, no devotee ever revered his relic with- more veneration, 110 soldier ever touched a weapon with more confidence, no miser ever gloated over his treasures with more avarice, than this Banker did for his gold, as he stood at his counter and safely saw the money Famine strike with death the whole land. When business was prostrate, labor idle in rags, and the press demoralized in its utterances, he was in his supreme triumph for these were the means by which 77 he was moulding public opinion to force Congress to enact his demands, debase silver further, issue more bonds and appreciate gold. Money was not scarce. But in greater quantities than ever known before, it was in those vaults, guarded by steel, watched by arms, protected by legislation, sanctified by a fanatical reverence for, and absurd worship of coin, specie. True to the letter of a national platform, but false to its Spirit, Congress obsequiously struck another blow at silver, tending to its ultimate debasement. At whose command? No party had demanded it in its platform. At whose instigation? The People by an overwhelming voice were against contraction. There is but one answer to these questions and it is forever firmly fixed in the adamant of history. It was the merciless, godless, cruel and infamous war of gold on silver. For as the latter fell in price, the other rose. The verification of which is found in the ratio between them, standing from 1800 to 1872 at 15.68 and thereafter slowly rising under adverse legislation to 23.72 in 1892 and on September 30, 1893 to 25.97. In nine months the advance was 2.25 in favor of the yellow metal, a pure act of legislative confiscation. By the same baneful decree in twenty years, gold had so appreciated in value that one ounce of it in Septem- ber, 1893, was worth 25.97 ounces of silver having gained 10.29 ounces in that period. This increased value came from speculative legislation and from no other sources. What a commentary upon the morals of a people, who by official action deliberately take property from one class of citizens and bestow it as a pure gift upon another class. Is a system just that permits such a distinction? Does a law harmonize with Christianity that allows such robbery? If a gold owner took by force 10.29 ounces of silver from its owner it would be a felony. Is it less so, measured by logic or ethics, if he corruptly 78 secures a Congressional Act authorizing him to com- mit the same specific crime? Americans Study the unfolding cycles of our civil- ization. Look backward : for Liberty has fought many a battle for you, though then unborn. In yon arena there stands the Christian devoted to fagot, or sword or beast. A little later in time the Jew suffers till he wears the martyr's crown There sinks down the faithful Mohammedan, beneath oppression's strokes. While the ages roll on, the pious Catholic, as heretic charged, consecrates his faith on wheel, or rots in dungeon. Here, at that stake, bound by his* fellow dissenter, is chained a Protestant, who, amid flames, attests his right to think and robes himself in immoral- ity. Thus, for eighteen centuries, the right for free thought and free worship and free action has battled and at least won partial triumphs. It has not mat- tered, whether Christian, Jew, Mohammedan, Catholic or Protestant has suffered for his faith, or turned oppressor of his neighbor's creed, Liberty has fought that every man might walk the earth erect, with nothing between him and his God. It was for the establishment of this sublime doctrine of Man's self-ownership, that Jefferson asked his State to let him free his slaves. From the impulse of this divine principle, Lincoln declared: "I admit man is competent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern any other person without that other person's consent." At another time, speaking of the slave and obedient to economic Justice, he said : "In the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of every living man." Moved by the inspiration born of all these struggles in the ages, and in deep consciousness of what is true fame, the older patriot himself might well put forward as his own noblest achievements, more .enduring than monumental 79 stone, the three facts, which are said to be in letters cut upon his tomb: ''Here lies Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, Father of the Statu te for religious freedom, and Founder of the University of Virginia" thus constituting the Trinity: Freedom of body, soul and mind: Now, fellow citizen, turn to this day. All the mise- ries of these long ages of wrong are surpassed in this concentrated effort of Money to shackle humanity. The Autocrats of Wall and Lombard streets, to point out the blessings of a single standard, have put every citizen upon the financial rack, and call for his profession of lo} r alt}r to the Supreme Master of Gold Rothschild. The dynamic force of that diabolic rack is felt through- out the world ; in untilled fields, empty shop, silent fac- tory, bankrupt business, broken railroads, and all industries stilled; and all done by one metal money against the other metal money. The movement thus inaugurated has culminated in the crime so graphically described by John G. Carlysle, as Representative, Feb. 21, 1978: "I know that the world's stock of precious metals is none too large and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever become so. Mankind w^ll be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase of population, commerce and industry. According- to ray views of the subject, the conspiracy^ which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic money of the world, is the most gigantic crime of this or an other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ulti- mately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilences and famines that ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction of half the entire mova- ble property of the world, including houses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for candying on commerce, while it would be felt more sensibly at the moment, woiild not produce anything like the pro- longed distress and disorganization of society that jrnust inevitably result from the permanent annihilation of the" metallic money of the world." An amazing transformation has been wrought in the mind of the same statesman, since in 1893 he aids 80 in the ' 'disorganization of society" and helps to "entail more misery" than "wars, pestilences and famines" have caused. The yellow-haired syren wooed him to this apostacy. At her smile, instead of issuing $50,000,000 legal tender notes, he issues $50,000,000 of bonds and decrees that Americans shall pay more than $25,- 000,000 of interest thereon and still owe the principal. The inflamed Toombs swore he would count his blacks at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument, and failed; but Carlysle has listed the Americans as his slaves and counted them in Wall Street. The blacks were once owned the whites are now owned. Some of the political aspects of the metallic money system have been set forth in the pages immediately preceding. It is believed that no candid and intelligent mind, asking only for truth and justice, can investigate the question, without coming inevitably to the convic- tion that the metallic system is antagonistic to the good of the people, and that for the reasons given and sug- gested in the three foregoing heads, classified as the "economic," "legal" ^nd "political," should at once be abolished. But the abolition of the specie plan involves the substitution of something better. What is it? The remainder of this argument shall be devoted to its expo- sition. For fear of a varying standard, the States, by the Constitution, are forbidden to "coin money," "emit bills of credit," "make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts," and therefore the whole jurisdiction over the currency is exclusively exer- cised by the United States. The National Constitution says: "The Congress shall have power * * to coin money, to regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins." Under these SI seventeen commonplace words the finances of this gov- ernment are fashioned. The position is boldly assumed that the true and philosophic construction of this power is, that a. currency without a commodity value is the only one that can be issued equal to all emergencies. For a lucid view of such a currency, the solemn, patriotic and revered dead may speak : Franklin said : "No methods have been hitherto formed to establish a medium of trade equal in all respects to its bills of credit made a legal tender." Jefferson wrote, Sept. 11, 1813: "Bank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium must be restored to the nation, to whom it belongs ; it is the only re- source which can never fail them, and it is an abundant one for every necessary purpose. Treasury bills, bottomed on taxes, bearing or not bearing interest, as may be found necessary, thrown into circulation, will take the place of so much gold and silver, which last, when crowded, will find an afflux into other countries, and thus keep up the quantum medium at its salutary level." Calhoun, in 1837, declared : "That a paper issued by the Government, with simple promise to receive it for all duties would form a perfect paper circulation which could not be abused by the Government ; that it would be as uniform in value as the metals themselves ; and I shall be able to prove that it is within the power of Congress to use such a paper according to the most rigid rules of construing the Constitution." Clay affirmed : ' ' Whatever the Government agrees to receive in pay ment of the public dues is money, no matterwhat its form may be, treasury notes, drafts, etc. Such bills or paper, issued under the authority of the United States, are money." To these declarations may be added the happy words of a living thinker : "The Government should have no money but its own Treasury notes, issued to the extent of its annual requirements for revenue, receivable in payment of its taxes in all forms, and made legal tender in the course of business, on an equality with the kind of money in which such taxes are levied. This would do away with all struggles for business advantages to debtors and creditors and mine owners, by the alternate contraction and inflation of currency through acts of Congress. It would do away with the periodical appeals on the part of business, this year to contract the currency in order to 82 strengthen securities and strengthen confidence in the stability of our money ; next year to inflate the currency in order to afford a sufficient circulating medium to meet the requirement of commerce."; Judge J. G. Maguire, Congress, August 23, 1893. In deepest philosophy, Mr. T. V. Cator recently said in a speech : " Money is like railroads, a mere implement of exchange. Scien- tifically it ought not to be a commodity. As it is a mere medium to effect exchanges, its volume should be regulated with reference to the value of products in course of each exchange. This could never be done by taking a commodity of extremely limi.ed volume in nature, like gold or silver, and stamping it as money." ** Money, for the purpose of effecting exchanges, may be whatever sovereign power determines, providied- it prohibits all other legal tender." These definitions are in harmony with the profound- est insight into our organic Act, expressed by Chief Justice Marshall : "The United States is a Government, and consequently a body politic and corporate, capable of attaining the objects for which it was created, by the means necesssary for their attainment. This great corporation was ordained and established by the American people, and endowed by them with great powers for important pur- poses. Its powers are unquestionably limited ; but within those limits it is as perfect a government as any other, having all the facul- ties and properties belonging to a government, with a perfect right to use them freely, in order to accomplish the object of its institution." Now, the Constitution committed the Finance power solely to Congress, and to execute this trust, authorized it 4 'To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. ' ' Xo wonder the U. S. Supreme Court said in Mc- Culloch vs. Md., 4 Wheaton, 421 : "We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the Government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the National Legislature that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution, which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are 83 appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitu- tion, are constitutional." The same Court has dealt in many cases with the issuance and validity of a paper currency. In Julliard vs. Greenman, 110 U. S. Reports, page 421, it finally rendered a decision, covering the whole subject, and standing to-day as its last and exclusive exposition thereon. The facts are briefly stated, The plaintiff in New York had sold to defendant 100 bales of cotton for cash, $5,122.90. Defendant offered in payment $22.90 in coin and two legal tender notes $5000 and $100. The cffer was declined and suit brought to enforce coin payment. The sole question was could Congress make a paper note equal to gold and silver in paying a debt? The decision, written by Justice Gray, was made March 3, 1884, by a full Court (Field alone dissenting). It says in certain parts : The power "to borrow money on the credit of the United States," is the power to raise money for the public use on a pledge of the pub- lic credit, and may be exercised to meet either present or anticipated expenses and liabilities of the government. It includes the power to issue, in return for the money borrowed, the obligations of the United States in any appropriate form, of stock, bonds, bills or notes; and in whatever form they are issued, being instruments of the National Government, they are exempt from taxation by the governments of the several States. Weston vs. Charleston, 2 Pet. 449; Banks vs. Mayor, 7 \Va11. ^6 (74 U. S. XIX, 57) ; Bank vs. Supervisors. 7 Wall. 26 (74 U. S. XIX, 60) Congress has authority to issue these obliga- tions in n form adapted to circulate from hand to hand in the ordinary transactions of commerce and business." #***** "The Constitutional authority of Congress to provide a currency for the whole country is now firmly established. In Veazie Bank vs. Fenno, Chief Justice Chase in delivering the opinion of the Court, said: "It cannot be doubted that uuder the Constitution the power to provide a circulation of coin is given to Congress. And it is settled by the uniform practice of the government and by repeated decisions, that Congress may constitutionally authorize the emission of bills of credit." ********** "By the Constitution of the United States, the several States are prohibited irorn coining money, emitting bills of credit, or making 84 anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of. debts. But no intention can be inferred from this to deny to Congress either of these powers." * ********* "It appears to us to follow, as a logical necessary consequence that Congress has the power to issue the obligations of the United States in such form and to impress upon them such qualities as cur- rency for the purchase of merchandise and the pax-ment of debts, as accord with the usage of sovereign governments. The power as in- cident to the power of borrowing money, and of issuing bills or notes of the government for money borrowed of impressing upon those bills or notes the quality of being a legal tender for the pa3 r ment of private debts, was a power universally understood to belong to sov- ereignty in Europe and America, at the time of framing and adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The governments of Europe, acting through the monarch or legislature, according to the distribu- tion of powers under their respective constitutions, had and have as soversign, a power of issuing paper money as of stamping coin. This power has been distinctly recognized in an important modern case, ably argued and fully considered, in which the Emperor of Austria, as King of Hungary, obtained from the English Court of Chancery an injunction against the issue in England without his license, of notes purporting to be public paper money of Hnngary. Austria vs. Day, 2 Giff. 628, and 3 DeG. F., and J., 217. The power of issuing bills of credit and making them, at the discretion of the legislature, a tender in payment of private debts, had lon^ been exercised in this country by the several Colonies and States; and during the Revolutionary War the States, upon the recommendation of Congress of the Confed- eration, had made the bills issued bv Congress a legal tender. See Craig vs. Mo. 4 Pet. 435, 453; Briscoe vs. Bank of Ky. II Pet. 257, 313, 334, 336; Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 557, 558, 622 (79 U. S. XX, 335); Phillips American Currency, passim. The exercise of this power not being prohibited to Congress by the Constitution, it is in- cluded in the power expressly granted, to borrow money on the credit of the United States." ********** " We are irresistably impelled to the conclusion that the impress- ing upon the treasury notes of the United States the quality of being a legal tender in payment of private debts is an appropriate means, conducive and plainly adapted to the execution of the undoubted powers of Congress, consistent with the letter and spirit of the Con- stitution, and therefore within the meaning of that instrument, ' necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States.' "Such beingour conclusion in matter of law, the question whether at any particular time, in war or in peace, the exigency is such, by reason of unusual and pressing demands on the resoueces of the gov- ernment, or of the inadequacy of the supply of gold and silver coin to furnish the currency needed for the use of this government and of the people, that it is, as a matter of fact, wise and expedient to resort to this means, is a political question, to be determined by Congress when 85 the exigency arises, and not a judicial question, to be afterwards passed upon by the Courts." These very extended quotations show how Congress is vested with full authority in the premises as to cur- rency, and beyond the control of the Courts, should it demonetize both gold and silver, and rely solely on "paper?" Justice Field signified his coin idolatry, and con- densed the strongest possible argument against paper currency, when he closed his dissenting opinion in these words : "From this decision of the Court I see only evil likely to follow. There have been times within the memory of all of us, when the legal tender notes of the United States were not exchangeable for more than one-half of their nominal value. The possibility of such depreci- ation will always attend paper money. This inborn infirmity no mere legislative declaration can cure. If Congress has the power to make the notes a legal tender and to pass as money or its equivalent, why should not a sufficient amount be issued to pay the bonds of the United States as they mature ? Why pay interest on the millions of dollars of bonds now due, when Congress can in one day make the money to pay the principal ? And why should there be any restraint upon unlimited appropriations by the government for all imaginary schemes of public improvement, if the printing press can furnish the money that is needed for them." These lines raise several objections to such notes : 1st. Their past depreciation is a portent of evil. 2nd. The possibility of their depreciation is ever attendant. 3rd. Their inherent infirmity is beyond legislation. 4th. If issued, these notes could be used to pay bonds, stop interest and inaugurate public improve- ments. 5th. Let the Printing Press be "anathema," or in the more classical and graphic euphony of a Money Prince in speaking of sovereign rights "Let the People be damned." The falacy of these propositions may be shown: First. "Their past depreciation is a portent of evil." 86 That evil must follow, is an assumption purely gratuitous. No single civilized nation has yet tried the experiment of a paper currency solely and thus proven the falsity of its claim to surpassing excellencies. There- fore nothing in history can be found for such a declara- tion. The prophecy is without inspiration from any fact. But instead of history being an argument against paper currency, it is the most eloquent ad vocate thereof, speaking from the impressiveness of its past triumphs. Although there are many instances where " paper" has been issued as mone}', only a few will be noted here : Queen Catharine, of Russia, in 1770, in her war with the Turks, for a while relied on copper and silver; but only gained success by creating paper money equal in amount to her needs. % From 1797 to 1823, England issued " paper" and according to the historian, Allison, reached, her greatest prosperity, notwithstanding the drain of a great war. In 1813 Russia, Prussia and England issued their joint "paper," and by its omnipotence conquered Napo- leon. Their coin led them to defeat, but their "paper" carried them to victory. Why? Because at home it set all industries at work, facilitating exchanges, by its rolume and thus supplied the munitions of war. In 1848, on the abdication of Louis Phillippe, France was in great distress for money, as everything was prostrated. Through the Bank of France the Govern- ment issued $600,000,000 legal tender notes and brought immediate prosperity to all. Instead of losing coin, it flowed in until it reached $1,200,000,000, and "France was better off financially than any other na- tion on earth." "The financial experience of France in 1870 and 1871 was similar to that of 1848 and 1849. In these years France was conquered by Germany and compelled to surrender to Germany two of her most valuable provinces and pay $1,100,000,000. The contract was that German troops should remain on French soil until the greater part of the debt was paid. The Bank and the country were in much worse 87 condition than in 1848. But the French remembered the success which had attended their financial policy in 1848, and they adopted it in 1870 and 1871. They stopped the flow of coin from the Bank by making the notes full legal tender and b3 T increasing the circulation some $200,000,000. The result was the same as in 1848. All the industries of the country were put into active operation. The people were actively employed, The money of the country was diffused among the people and in the business of the country. The notes of the Bank were at par with coin. France sold to Germany enough manufactured articles to pay three-fourths of the debt to Germany. The financial policy is still continued by the French. The French have what is called an irredeemable currency, which is par with coin, because the law makes it so. and because it is by law made receivable for everything for which coin is receivable. The Bank of France now has some $450,000,000 coin, which exceeds that of any other bank in the world, and is double that of all the banks in England. There are to-day fully $1,500,000,000 coin in the nation. But the Bank does not profess to pay coin. Coin is not wanted by the people." Warwick Martin, "Money of Nations," 1880. But let the examination be confined to this country. At the end of the Revolution and before the Constitution, North Carolina issued $500,000 legal tender Treasury notes and received them for taxes. They were for twenty years at par with coin, during their return to the State Treasury. So declared Calhoun in the U. S. Senate. In 1690, 1703, 1712, 1717 and 1720 Massachusetts issued her Treasury Notes, entirely independent of coin and resting on Public credit. Being the money of ac- count and legal tender, their value was not affected by the variations of coin. She was prosperous, and when her "farmers fired the shot heard around the world," she was out of debt and ready with her invincible free- men to delend Liberty, though u at the canon's mouth." Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and South Carolina insured their colonial prosperity by legal tender Treasury notes those having most in circulation being most happy in morals, prepared in men and prompt to repel tyranny. In order to render the people more subservient the Eng- lish Parliament declared these notes void as money. 88 They were the decrees of freemen, hence they were fit objects of monarchy's hate. A crash touched England in 1733 and the Bank of England suspended. The coin of the Pennsylvania Col- ony was wanted for resumption and was transferred for that end to the mother country. To recall it, the local laws of Pennsylvania increasing its value were passed without success. In this destitute condition the Colony, calling out the reserved energy of its people, created a paper currency. For all these years these notes remained equal to coin. They rested on the sovereign decree of the Government, and being received for taxes they discharged every function of metallic money, until 1763 the Crown declared them void. It is no wonder, with this period of beneficence be- fore his vision, that Franklin affirmed " That Bills of credit made a legal tender" were the supreme advan- tages to trade. The Confiscation Act of Parliament in 1763 ran against the Bills of the entire country in America. It was one of the main causes of the Colonial discontent and a factor leading to the Revolution. Notwithstanding it is a pet subject for the metallic cartoonist to represent the Continental money as sov- ereignty in rags and tatters, yet it is the solemn testi- mony of hist ory that through the potency of the * 'paper ' ' so issued our Independence was won. There w r as not enough of gold and silver to meet the emergency. This arose from their actual scarcity and from the cowardice which has always led them into some holy sanctuary during danger, But, though lacking many things to impart to it stability, this "paper" money, in amount, accordingtoSpofford, $359, 546,825, or $119 per capita, in those seven terrible years, animated the soldiers on to success. These notes read: "This note entitles the Bearer to receive Spanish Mill dollars, or the value thereof 89 in gold and silver, according to the resolution of Con- gress of the 10th of May 1775." Their depreciation may be accounted for by these briefly stated reasons : The contest was most unequal. England had all resources and the colonies had few. Therefore success was doubtful. Nothing was due to Congress, because the States laid and collected taxes and all customs on imports. Prior to 1779 the faith of Congress was not pledged to these notes. They were made payable in coin, and in the whole country there was not over $5,000,000, and that was not enough for their redemption. The time of redemption was extended nineteen years after 1779. Owing to poor printing they were easy of counterfeiting. England resorted to this, and in vast blocks issued the spurious notes, imitating the good ones, and thus leading to confusion and doubt. A boat load of these counterfeits was captured near New York. These continental notes were not legal ten- der in payment of private debts. This and their redeem- ability in coin were their chief defects. Regardless of these facts, they gained our freedom, for they were the main stay until 1781, when Congress chartered the Bank of North America as a national in- stitution, and with a part of the $5,000,000, received from France, made these continental notes legal tender for all debts to the Confederation. That our fathers revered them is shown in that on September 17, 1787, when our Constitution was adopted, these old debts of the Continental Confederation were assumed and de- clared sacred in Article 6. At the close of the war, the cost of it was reckoned at $135,000,000. A great part of this was paid by the United States, as our debt in 1791 was about $75, 463,746.52. Counting those redeemed by the States, and those destroyed in all ways, the truth probably is that all those outstanding at that time and duly presented were 90 redeemed at their face value. Thus the faith was kept, and the criticism falls before their final triumph. In 1791 the Treasury reported that there were not $10,000,000 coin in the entire country. Being about $3.00 per capita, it was not sufficient for use. A Na- tional Bank was created with power to create $30,000- 000 notes made legal tender for all dues owing to the Government. In the estimation of the people, for daily use they had preference over coin. To "fight the second war with England, $57,000,000 Treasury notes were issued, clothed with full legal ten- der capacity. They remained the preferred medium of all exchange, until denuded of their power in 1822, or rather, called into the United States Treasurv in order to give place to the U. S. Bank notes. In 1814, when the State Banks suspended specie payment, it was proposed to issue $25,000,000 of Treasury notes. This was defeated in 1816 by the charter of the National Bank. Its capital was $35*000,- 000, based on less than one-fifth of coin. It issued $105,000,000 notes. As behind these stood the credit and command of the United States, they performed sat- isfactorily all the functions of money. Its charter ex- pired in 1836. President Jackson in 1832 vetoed its re- incorporation, saying in effect : ' ' Instead of bank notes, however, he urged upon Congress the right of the United States to issue all the paper money as well as the hard money of the country. He wished the "paper money," instead of having a professed specie basis, which was always a 'false pretense and a fraud,' should be based upon the 'credit and revenues of the nation.' ' This was in alignment with Jefferson, when he said Treasury notes should be "bottomed on a tax." For the power to tax is the most absolute force of the Gov- ernment and brings to its command and support the entire property of all the people. By this varied "paper money," the United States in 91 1835 passed to the sublimest epoch in its history and to one standing alone in its grandeur. It was out of debt, the sum of $37,513.05 charged upon its books being insignificant. In 1837 the banks suspended specie payments, ow- ing$40,000,000to the Government. To supply a ready circulation, Treasury notes were again issued. From then to 1848 $100,000,000 millions were sent out to do the business exchanges of the people. In 1846 the law was enacted that only gold, silver and Treasury notes should be received for Government dues, all bank issues being excluded. These Treasury notes were legal ten- der and supplied the lack of coin. In 1857 another specie suspension occurred, and once more the almighty command of the Nation ex- pressed itself, and spoke'into being $20,000,000. This it did because coin was inadequate to public need. It never has been in a crisis. True to its antecedent proclivities, when the Rebel- lion came, coin vanished "melted into air, into thin air," and like an "unsubstantial pageant faded." It disappeared. It could not be had. Secession must be successful or else the only alternative known to higher civilization must be brought into play. The rugged intellect of Lincoln was equal to the "crisis that tried men's souls." The all-powerful metals, to money uses dignified by law and evading their responsibility, saw their place supplied by the potentiality of a genuine government. By its fiat the base flight of coins was rendered harmless. By its fiat the South was subdued and the Nation preserved. By its fiat industry, commerce and prosperity came like trooping spirits to pour balm on our gory wounds. By its fiat the soil of this land be- came too holy to bear the tread of a slave. By its fiat, as expressed in greenbacks, "papar currency," all these things were done, and they stand as grave witnesses, 92 contradicting the proposition that only evil can follow ircrm their use and extension, as suggested by the dis- senting judge. Second. The next proposition of Justice Field, that "the possibility of the depreciation of 'paper' is ever present," is denied. Its depreciation is always relative, the value being measured by some fixed standard, based on a legal unit. The relation of each kind of money in use is dependent upon the law of its creation. If the law confers identical powers on each, there will be no variation. But if there be no other money than " paper," then there can be no depreciation. The error lies in the assumption that gold and silver must be the standard. Their failures as such have been before de- monstrated. If there is no other money than paper, then it would have stability as long as the government existed and continued to sustain it by receiving it in payment of its obligations and decreeing it a solvent of private debts. Venice for six centuries dealt with a paper credit system, and was to all surrounding nations, dependent on metals, a model of prosperity and happiness. This case, and that of certain Dutch cities, together with those glanced at in the previous head, are notable ex- amples, showing in every instance that where "paper" is made a full legal tender for both public and private debts, that its circulation is not attended with l4 depre- ciation." Third. The Jurist's next proposition, that "the infirmity of paper is natural and beyond the scope of legislation," will now be considered. In the first place it must be candidly admitted that money is a creature of man and not a growth of nature. It is a representa- tive of value, because society has so ordained it. This is axiomatic. There is evidence in every land, in every age, that law makes and destroys money. Perhaps a hund- red different articles, some with value for use and some 93 without, have been endowed with the circulating func- tion. When the law, that dignified them as a meastfre, was withdrawn, they at once became worthless, passed into financial oblivion. This rule has always applied to metals, products, chattels and cattle, when used as money, with the same uniformity as to " paper." In fact when the latter has been invested with full legal tender power, it has remained as stable as the metal moneys, each being under the dominion of law. Our coins change their money values when the law so determines. In the mintage prior to 1834 there was a fixed num- ber of grains in a twenty dollar piece. By an amend- ment then made by Congress, there was a change in the number. Hence, as to the gold contained, $960 of the old mintage equalled to $1000 ot the new, as thus declared by the Supreme Court in the Legal Tender cases decided in December 1870, 12 Wallace 548 : " Whatever power there is over the currency is vested in Congress. If the power to declare what money is is not in Congress, it is anni- hilated." "The Constitution does not ordain what metals ma3 r be coined, or prescribe that the legal value of the metals, when coined, shall correspond at all with their intrinsic value in the market." "No one ever doubted that a debt of $1000, contracted before 1834, could be paid by one hundred eagles coined after that year, though they contained no more gold than ninety-four eagles such as were coined when the contract was made, and this, not because of the intrinsic value of the coin, but because of its legal value. The eagles coined after 1834 were not money until they were authorized by law, and had they been coined before, without a law fixing their legal value, they could no more have paid a debt than uncoined bullion, or cotton, or wheat. Every contract for the payment of money, simply, is necessarily subject to the constitutional power of the government over the currency, what- ever that may be and the obligation of the parties is, therefore, as- sumed with reference to that power." ****,*** " It is hardly correct to speak of a standard of value. The Con- stitution does not speak of it. It contemplates a standard for that which has gravity or extension ; but value is an ideal thing. The Coinage Acts fix the unit as a dollar ; but the gold or silver thing we call a dollar is in no sense a standard of a dollar. It is a representa- tion of it. There might never have been a piece of money of the de- nomination of a dollar. There never was a pound sterling coined 94 until 1815, if we except a few coins struck in the reign of Henry VIII, almost immediately debased, yet it has been the unit of British cur- rency for many generations." " The gold dollar is not a commodity, having an in- trinsic value, but money, having only a statutory value. Every dollar has the same value, without regard to the material." Iowa Reports, Vol. 16, page 246. By the Act of 1873 the value of silver has been grad- ually depressed because its character as * 'currency "was was modified, leaving it largely as a "comodity," mak- ing it in comparison with the gold standard a "fifty cent dollar." That History is an irreverent iconoclast of the ven- erable theory that gold and silver have inherent values, is shown by two examples, separated in time and dis- tance : " On the testimony' of Thomas Baring -we are assured that it was found impossible, during the crisis of 1847 in London to raise any money whatever on a sum of 60,000 Pounds in silver. But during a similar crisis in Calcutta in 1864 it was equally impossible to raise even a rupee of paper money on 20,000 Pounds of gold. The silver in London was not a legal tender above 40s., while the gold in Cal- cutta was not so for any sum whatever." In each case the metal was valuless as clay, because no Sovereign power into it breathed life. Take away the monetary function of gold and silver and in comparison with iron, or copper, place them, and their value would drop, according to Senator Cockrell, fifty per cent, and according to Senator Stewart, ninety per cent. If these two precious and venerated idols should be annihilated and their memory obliterated, the onward march of humanity would not be perceptibly halted, but no con- ception can grasp the magnitude of the disaster if iron and copper were lost to civilization. The law effected these foregoing changes in the value of gold and silver. But the like majesty of statute that modifies the one and emasculates the other also gives to greenbacks their stability. The most unparalled case is found in the first issue in 1862 of $60,000,000 95 so-called demand notes. As soon as they were dressed in the habiliments of full legal tenders, they came to a "parity" with gold and retained it through all the "tips and downs" of that fratricidal slaughter. When gold touched its zenith at $1.00 in gold equal in worth to $2 85 in the ordinary greenbacks, debilitated with the excepting clause, these demand notes stood at the same high figure. Why ? Because the law had so decreed. The potency that was impressed on the postage stamp, that unfurled the flag as a national emblem, and by invitation or "draft" collected and organized, fed and clothed, transported and armed a million veterans, was attending as a com- manding presence and stood by that demand note, say- ing, "I am the voice of a mighty people." If through the furnace of that awful conflict this note passed un- harmed, then it would seem to be proof against all assnults save the annihilation of the Government. Just as long as the nation issues its " paper" with- out redeemability in coin and declares it a debt-payer, so long will it remain "a good money, "enshrined in the love of its people. Its redeemability is accomplished every time it enables products to be exchanged. The exemplification of this may be easily seen, thus : To build a postoffice the Government needs materials worth $100,000. For them its " paper" is exchanged in payment, to the purchaser. The latter owes the whole- saler and turns in the "paper" to balance his account. The merchant, to pay his custom dues, returns the "paper" to the Government. In succession, the latter, the material owner, the merchant, has paid a debt and transferred property. Could coin be more efficacious? As long as exchanges are freely made through "paper," the redemption is perfect. The public is satisfied when its debts are paid and its trade readily consummated. This is the supreme use and end of money, "Paper's redemption," instead of being outside of the law, is the 96 very creature of law fashioned in the image of its crea- tor. Its receivability by the Nation is the highest stamp of its money value and enough to maintain it all times and in all adversities. The truth of this permanence is perceived in the fact that owing to the lack of coin the nations have been compelled under the dictation of necessity to enlarge their currency by vast quantity of "paper." It was to exhibit this that Senator Cockrell in Congress, on Jan- uary 12, 1891, presented the following letters : Treasury Department, Office of Comptroller of the Currency, WASHINGTON. D. C., June 6, 1890. DEAR SIR: In reply to your telegram of this date I have the honor to state that the following is an estimate of the paper money in circulation in the different countries of the world : United States $938,728,000 United Kingdom 190,000,000 France 594,000,000 Germany 275,000,000 Belgium 75,000,000 Italy 260,000,000 Switzerland 25,000,000 Turkey 2,000,000 Australia 25,000,000 Mexico 10,000,000 Central American States 2,000,000 Argentine Republic 150,000,000 Rest of South America 175,000,000 Greece 18,000,000 Spain 145,000,000 Portugal 7,000,000 Austria-Hungary 330,000,000 Netherlands 80,000,000 Scandinavian Union 40,000,000 Russia 475,000,000 Japan 125,000,000 India 60,000,000 Canada 50,000,000 Cuba and Hayti 50,000,000 Total $4,201,728,000 Very Respectfully, E. S. LACEY, Comptroller. Hon. F. M. COCKRELL, United States Senate, City. -97- P. S. I am indebted to the Director of the Mint, who has taken much pains to ascertain the amounts of coin and paper in circulation ki foreign countries for his forthcoming report, which is not yet in print, for the figures given above." What stands behind this " paper " $4,201,728,000? What decrees value to the world's gold $3,582,605,000 and silver $4,042,700,000? All the centuries can syl- lable but one answer * 'Popular Will." The thunders of denial cannot confuse the utterance, clear and con- vincing. It is all the People speaking with one mighty voice majestic as the song of the sea. They say to any chosen substance "Obey!" and, Lo! there comes obedience at the People's word. This will is crystallized into one command, expressed into an official decree Law. Whatever comes from the su- preme and sovereign Power of a Nation, bearing its stamp indicative of its selection as money, is, in truth, money. It was a profound recognition of this principle that inspired the question: "Whose is this image and super- scription?" They say unto him, *' Caesar's." Then saith he unto them, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caeesar's and unto God, the things that are God's." Through all the ages this answer has stood and stands to-day, the august ultimatum of wisdom affirming that man makes money. Its corol- lary is that its value, whatever its material, depends soiely on his will and that it has no innate infirmity beyond the cure of his law. So affirms the thorn-crowned Peasant, Christ. So denies the silk-robed Jurist, Field. Which will you choose for your philosopher and friend ? The one teaches fraternal justice as the very soul of our civilization. The other advocates selfishness as a fundamental in our law, and bids patriotic Labor patiently bear incense to the altar of Mammon. Fourth. The fourth position of Justice Field is em- -98- braced in the question. "If it is proper to issue legal ten- der paper money, then why not use them to pay the national debt?" That is what ought to be done. In all cases where the National obligations are by statute expressly PAYABLE IN COIN, then if required by the holder the payment should be so made. That is contract. Yet even here, so far as money is concerned, each con- tracting party understands that the Government is supreme as to the substance and functions of money and, under the Constitution, may change the " money of account." Hence in every case the liquidation may be in " lawful money." There are the three following facts that imperatively demand the adoption of this policy at this time : A. The People have a national debt of about $1,550,000,000, and an average running expense, aver- aging about $300,000,000 or more. B. There is an absolute money famine, because there are not enough gold and silver and greenbacks for daily use. C. Congress has the legal right to issue legal ten- ders, or ''lawful money." Hence, as the occasion exists, the means at command and the right conceded, it becomes the moral duty to act for the public benefit. There can be no escape from this responsibility. For, it is a rule of Equity Jurispru- dence, that when a discretion is conferred on a public official, that it shall be exercised whenever the interests of the public demands. This demand for relief has been rising, like a piteous wail, for years. The voice has grown louder, less pleading, more exacting, and to-day is becoming the prelude to revolution. Is not Fate pointing its gory and significant finger at this trinity of following conditions, and demanding Reforms? For thirty years nature has been prodigal of her benefactions to this country, sparing it all visita- tions of drouth, flood, famine and pestilence. That the 99 United States can with glowing pride array her immense natural resource, varied soil, abundant water, infinite capacity for production, perfection of machinery, skill, pluck, push and brains of her labor, and political equal- ity of its citizens. These two great premises should log- ically call for a conclusion, showing all the insignia of happiness and prosperity. But the reverse is true. The people are neither happy nor prosperous. A societ} 7 is here exhibited with WANT everywhere, millions in rags, in idleness and in hunger with the telegraph forever ticking its "strikes," "riots," "lockouts," "suspensions," "cuts in wages," "half-time," "industrial armies," and "municipal con- tributions forced to stop death or blood." Out of this woe comes up the sigh, whisper, cry, wail, lamentation for more money. It may fairly be conceded that land, tariff and transportation monopolies, are all factors in this depression. Still, if all needed and wise reforms in these were at once effected, they could only bring par- tial and slow relief, whereas a plenteous currency would be instantaneous in its blessings. Hence, as Congress should at once issue legal tender Treasury notes, the amount of them becomes the most profoundly important consideration. At the present time there is no stable nor scientific basis for the amount of metallic money. The amount is always limited by the discharge of the mines and the cost of their working, including mintage. This limitation is such that even the Government is powerless before it. Perhaps it might follow the example of some old English sovereigns, and recoin our metals into dollars having less grains to each making a fourth, or a tenth, or a hundredth of the present number a dollar and investing it with legal tender power. But instead of this expensive and hazardous meth- od, Congress should circulate a paper currency and loo base its quantity upon a percentage or per capita prin- ciple. Asa supposed foundation for the percentage system, this citation will serve at least as an approximation. It is the answer of the Examiner, Feb. 20, 1894, to a "query," and is based on the figures of the census: " The estimated true value of all kinds of property in the United States on January 1, 1891, was: Real estate in c : ties and towns $14,000,000.000 Real estate in other than cities and towns 13,000.000.000 Personal property (not hereinafter specified) 7, 3OO, 000,000 Railroads and their equipment 7,000,000,000 Manufactures, product of 5,000,000,000 Manutacturies, capital invested in 3,000,000.000 Productions (including wool) 3,500.000,000 Property owned and money invested in foreign countries 3,100,000.000 Animals (domestic) on farms 2,480, (>00 000 Animals (domestic) in cities and towns 1,700,000,000 Public buildings, arsenals, warvessels. etc 2,200,000,000 Money. gold and silver coins $1,10,000,0<)0 Money, U.S. currency and bank notes 992,000,000 Money, foreign coins in II. S 32,000,000 2,130,000,000 Public domain (at $1.25 per acre) 1,000.000,000 Mineral products (all descriptions) 590,000,000 Total value of all property : $66.000,000,000 Population in 1890. 62.622,250; property per capita, $1,047.62. Assessed valuation of all property, $24,250,000,000; property per capita of asse>sed valuation, $384.92." Now, having the valuation, $66,000,000,000, what percentage th-Teof shall Congress determine is the proper one? The answer, though surrounded by diffi- culty at the start, would gradually become easier, as experience enlarged, observation grew keener and the Census became more accurate. As a preliminary guide, tnis consideration might aid : All experience focalizes to the conclusion that at least from five to ten per cent, of the volume of business done must be on hand as a cash investment. It will require on an average from $5,000 to $10,000 cash for a person to transact an annual business of $100,000. But the entire wealth of the nation is the capital or investment by which the 101 whole people pursue their callings and gain their liveli- hood. This calculation at five per cent would give $3,300,000,000 and twice that at the higher per cent age. Again: The table of property valuations shows that there is about $1,000 of property to each citizen. Then, treating that sum as the citizen's capitalization, he ought to have the same percentage of cash in order to handle himself or his capital to an advantage. This would provide for each person from $50 to $100 as cash in general circulation for him to use in the man- agement of his own valuation or his average share of the entire wealth. Therefore, the same general result would be attained, since $50 each for 65,000,000 of people would be $3,250,000,000 as the necessary and probably adequate volume of currency for use in our daily transactions. But disregarding all property as a direct factor in the calculation, the number of people may be treated as the sole basis. Since no nation has ever had a currency confessedly based on population, it is admitted that this is an ocean of experiment, where no plummet has sounded all the depths, and no chart has yet been issued. Yet it is not entirely an unknown sea. There are some data for sailing. They would indicate that the compass will still be true. Dropping the metaphor, let two examples be viewed as affording some deductions. The following table takes ten nations, embracing two-thirds of the human race, and displaying the push of the Occident and the conservatism of the Orient ; bringing into vision the lights of Christendom and the shadows of Paganism and offering the wisdom of old nations and the experience of new commonwealths. The figures are from the Director of the Mint, Aug. 16, 1893. Other statisticians might vary them nota- bly making the per capita circulation in France higher and in the United States lower : 102 Cotmtries. Population. France.... 39,000,000 U. States 67,000,000 Germany 49,500,000 G Britain 38,000,000 Italy 31,000,000 Gold. $800 000,000 604,000,000 600,000,000 550,000,000 93,605,000 Silver. $700,000,000 615,000,000 211,000,000 100,000,000 50,200,000 Paper. $ 81,402,000 412,000,000 107,000,000 50,000,000 163,471,000 Russia.. ..113,000,000 India 255,000,000 Turkey... 33,000,000 China 400,000,000 C. Amer.. 3,000,000 250,000,000 50,000,000 60,000,000 900,000,000 45,000,000 700,000,000 500,000 500,000,000 28,000,000 2,000,000 Totals, 998,500,000$2,947,605,000 $3,381,700,000$1,343,873,000 PER CAPITA. Gold. Silver Paper. Total. France $20.52 $17.95 $2.09 $40,56 United States 9.01 9.18 6.15 24.34- Germany 12.12 4.26 2.16 18.54 Great Britain 14.47 2.63 1.32 18.42 Italy 13.01 1.62 5.27 9.91 Russia 2.21 .53 4.42 7.16 India 3.53 .11 3.64 Turkey 1.52 1.36 2.88 China 1.75 1.75 Central America .17 * .67 .84 Average per capita, $12.80. The average for each is $12.80. Now six are below and four are above the average. But as there is an im- mense money ' 'stringency" in this country, Germany and Great Britain, having an average per capita of $20.43, it would not do to consider the sum of $12.80 as in any way commensurate with the currency needs of the ten nations named. The rejection of both these low averages $12.80 and $20,43 is incontrovertably jus- tified, since the volume of money in circulation is an index, almost mathematical in its certainty, of the hap- piness and progress of a nation. Which is the more stable government, France, with $40.56 a head, or the Central American States, with 84 cents a person ? Which pays its laborers more this country or China? Which is more inventive and scien- tific Great Britain or India ? Hence, there can be no wisdom in selecting the low percapitas. Nor can reason 103 choose the United States, Germany and Great Britain as standards, as they, with their present volumes of currency, having an average per capita of $20. 43, do not exhibit "good times." France alone remains for consideration. As the most recent statistics establish, a per capita of $51, or as some claim, $58, is to-day circulating among the forty millions of the great French Republic. It has paid to Germany, quickly and in full, the most enormous war tribute $1,100,000,000 known to modern ages. It has evoked from the ashes of her conquest the flower of order, and from the bloody soil of the Commune the fruits of internal peace. Out of the broken and disgraced elements of a monarchy, it has rebuilt a stable govern- ment, embellishing it with all the ornaments of modern civilization. The constantly employed labor of the 11 sunny land" has, out of shop and field, long since dis- charged and satisfied the extravagant debts of support- ing a dazzling royalty, and though crippled with its loss of Alsace and Loraine, it has beaten Germany in the keen battles of trade and manufactures. These triumphs have been won by giving French labor a plen- teous currency, so that the exchanges of its products have been easily effected. The facts do not offer nor nor permit any other philosophic and economic explan- ation. If therefore this is true, then our Congress has this $51, the French per capita, as a sure guide for fixing the volume of our national currency. At $50 per head the circulating medium would be established at about $3,250,000,000 for the United States. The next example is furnished by our own history. As our majestic rivers rise and fall as there are light or heavy deposits of snow and rain, so here the streams of national prosperity have always depended on the plen- titude of our currency. For confirmation of this, "strong as proof of holy -104 writ," the subjoined table stands a witness, with elo quent oratory, preaching a sermon calling a crusade to rescue Liberty. It displays ten epochs, of the United States : Money in Poulation, Per capita, Year circulation. (about ) (about.) Condition. 1810 $ 28,000,000 7,250 000 $ 4.00 hard times 1816 110,000,000 8,250,000 13.00 good " 1818 4-00(10,000 8,500,OoO 4,50 panic. 1837 150,000 000 13,000,000 11.50 fine 1843 58,000,000 18,O()0,OoO 3.50 panic. 1857 215,000,000 30,oOO,()00 7.00 fair 1858 150,000,000 30, 000,000 5.00 panic. 1865 1,863,000,000 35,000,000 52.00 best " 1873 652,000,000 42,OoO.OOO 15.50 panic. 1893 350,000,000 68,000,000 5.15 wor>t " In giving the volumes of money at the various years, the reserves held in the United States Treasury and in banks are deducted. They are not in actual use, pass- ingfrom hand to hand, and cannot, in a potential sense, be said to be in circulation. To illustrate this for 1893, Mr. Dunning presents this statement of reserves : "The followingded actions are made from thevolume of outstand- ing currency. We consider them Conservative and correct : Amount held in U. S. Treasury $142,107,228 Amount held as reserves in National Banks 412,54-1 ,723 Amount held as reserve in State, private and savings banks, etc., 460,569,402 Amount held in banks not reporting 36,470,000 Amount deducted for loss on paper money 67.0oO,000 Amount deducted for loss in gold coin and certificates 21S,nOO,OoO Amount deducted for loss in silver and certificates.. .. 51,500,000 Total $1,388,688,355 "The total amount paced as outstanding, $1,738, 954, 057, less $1,388,688,355, gives $350.266,702. Divided by the population given by the Treasury Department, 68, 0< '0,000, and it gives $5.15 per capita. While this small per capita may seem unreasonable or absurd to many, a careful revision of these figures is suggested before hasty conclusions are made. The subject will bear a very close inves- tigation, and as nearly every economist declares that the volume of currency in circulation establishes the level price of products, these tables may be of service in locating the difficulties which at the pres- ent time surround every species of industry." National Watchman, March 16, 1894. -105 Reverting to the last table of money volumes from 1810 to 1893 and now under consideration, there are some remarkable phases for comment. In 1816, al- though terminating the second English war, business was brisk in every direction. In two years seventy millions were annihilated by contraction. Slowly expe- rience forced expansion. The year 1837 is the year usually pointed at as one of disaster. But that disaster cannot be attributed to overmuch money, but to a general contraction, precipi- tated by the Banks, and to a failure in specie payment. The increased currency stimulated enterprise and specie contraction strangled it. This same criticism may be applied to the years 1857-1858. Although from 1843 to 1857, covering the Mexican war, a vast expense in blood and coin had been incurred, yet there was no strin- gency. And, among the profoundest blessings of the Century, the low Tariff of 1846 (Walker) had come and left its imprint upon industrial life with the people fast approaching Free Trade as shown by the New England manufacturers demanding further reductions, and all Presidential platforms in 1856 being silent on the question of Tariff. But the miasma of contraction spread, and 1858 saw a panic. The people, sickened with its disease, obtained a partial remedy in the issu- ance of $20,000,000 U. S. Treasury Notes. Next came the besom of destruction, sweeping our land with its terrible marks for four mournful years. The most gigantic war in the world's history presented its tragedies of woe. The Angel of Death, passing over the fields, found few homes with lintels marked, sacred from his touch, and so he left a million epitaphs. Yet, notwithstanding this calamity, at the close of the war in 1865, "times" were good emphatically good in the sense of employment for all in field and shop. Wages were remunerative and products sold for high prices. In truth the vision of the prophet was realized, for 106 swords were turned to ploughshares and plenty was at every board for honest toil. What magician waved his wand? From what hand did the '* manna" fall? Summon the dead and mighty past to the bar. Bid Truth speak from the tomb of buried dynasties. Unroll the scrolls of the World's finances. Read the peans of national triumphs and the epics of their ruins. There is from them all but one answer to the question: "There was plenty of money in daily use." Halt. Reader ! Stand there ! See the great military army resolve into the victorious industrial army and start along its National march. The Banners were resplendent in 1865, and now they are tattered. Then hope and opportunity made the step elastic and the eye brilliant, and now hope is dying and opportunity to work is decreasing. Then the average money per capita was $52.00 ; now it is $5.15. One meant plente- ous comfort- the other means cruel want. Enough, sir, the vision is gone. Returning to the same table for its last lesson, it is found in the fact that a per capita basis is furnished by the amount of the currency in business at the close of the war. It is given above at $52 a head, although some authorities fix $60 as the true figure at that date. If Congress should fix the rate at $50 on a population of 68,000,000, our currency would to-day be $3,400,- 000,000. Therefore, if gold and silver were demone- tized, that would be the initial sum, to be increased with the population. With that sum Congress should at once pay the annual running expenses of the Nation, being about $300,000,000, or at least, whatever part thereof is not expressly required to be paid in coin. By this method interest would stop, and in the course of five years the whole would get into the hands of the people, not as gifts, but in payment of the obligations of the Government. Thereafter, as the Constitution has 107 committed the subject of currency exclusively to Con- gress, it could enlarge the volume as the exigencies re- quired. This power is already, in practice, now, exer- cised by Congress. Knowing that gold and silver fur- nish an inefficient volume of currency, Congress resorts to " paper" to get the supply, and by " Greenbacks" and National Bank Notes determines the amount of our circulating currency. Hence, in adopting a scientific money no new law is needed no new practice is to be invented. The difficulties that have always attended a non- commodity money has been that its quantity was not limited and fixed by any settled policy or scientific prin- ciple, and that it has not had impressed upon it at its birth nobility as a legal tender for public and private debts, and non-redeemability in specie. These objections may, can and ought to be entirely obviated by Congress. With $3,400,000,000 so guarded and scattered among the people, does any one believe, that as shown by Waite, Census statistician, the funded railroad debt would have jumped from $2,320,000,000 in 1879 to $5.464,000,000 in 1892, or that lonns from National Banks would have increased from $994,000,- 000 to $2,171,000,000, or those of Commercial banks from $378,000,000 to $1,189,000,000 ? Does common sense affirm that with an abundant currency, the farm mortgages would have bounded from $2,500,000,000 in 1880 to $6,000,000,000 in 1890, or that comparing 1889 with 1892, that the figures $4,547,000,000 could have mounted to the appalling altitude of $8,000,- 000,000. Does any honest citizen think that with $50 a head this condition, as stated by Waite, would or could exist? He says: "The total net private indebtedness of the American people equalled in 1880 but $6,750,000,000, and last September it amounted to $19,700,000,000, 108 an increase of $13,000,000,000 in the short period of twelve years." What ecomomist dare stake his reputation in affirming that if, commencing with 1866, there had been no " contraction," but a constant "expansion" com- mensurate with our growth, that the condition revealed In the ensuing quotation from Dr. Soetbeer could have come to reality : "Taking the whole one hundred articles together, we find that the general level of prices was higher in 1866 than in 1847-185O by 4.96 per cent. The case is very different if we compare the average prices of 1886 with those of the period of 1871-1875. This becomes plain if we compare the prices of different groups in 1871 '75 and in 1886. Taking one hundred at the prices in 1871-'75, we find that a fall in prices had taken place, as follows : per cent. Group I. Agricultural products 31 Group II. Animal products 23 Group III. Southern products 7 Group IV. Tropical products 12 Group V. Minerals and metals 40 Group VI. Textile material 24 Group VII. Miscellaneous 32 For all the one hundred articles the comparative prices show a fall in 1886, compared to 1871-'75 of 22 per cent. This shows conclusively the fall in prices of commodities." The learned German is discussing the world effects of a contracted currency arising from silver's disabilities. But his deductions are applicable to our own territory, tending to show the falling prices of all products, w r hen measured by the single gold standard. If the compari- son were brought from 1866 to this date, August, 1894, the American decline would most surely reach 50 per cent. Does not the patriot tremble at the political dyna- mite wrapped up in this bundle of facts, presented by Dunning ? : "Here is a table showing the debt of the United States on the first day of July, 1866, and 1884, including non-interest-bearing green- backs, expressed in dollars, and also in the things working folks have to produce in order to get the dollars with which to pay debts and interest : 109 Debt in 1866. 1885 Dollars 2,773,000,000 1,830,000,000 Beef, barrels 129,000,000 135,000,000 Corn, bushels 2,000,000,000 3,000,000,000 Wheat, bushels 800,000,000 1,740,000,000 Oats, bushels 3,262,000,000 4,357,000,000 Pork, barrels 82,000,000 96,000,000 Coal, tons 213,000,000 400,000,000 Cotton, bales 12,000,000 34,000,000 Bar iron, tons 24,000,000 40,000,000 Almost everv product of labor shows the same result. We paid, from 1866 to" 1884, on the public debt: Interest, $1.870,000,000 and principal, about 12 hundred millions; yet we find what there is left of it, when measured by labor or the products of labor, is fifty per cent greater than the original debt. This is equally true with regard to State, city, corporation and private debts, which reach a sum estimated at twenty billions of dollars." Philosophy of Price, Edition of 1887. If the Bi-metalist, or the divinely anointed devotee of the single gold standard, will condescend to substitute the prices of 1894 for those of 1885 in the table, he will face the most terrible array of figures and facts that ever betokened human woe, and prophesied of coming calamities. If he can stand in their presence and assert that "all is well," he will, if weighed by patriotism and scanned by morals, become of all the ages the most per- fect type of the " whited sepulchre." This falling of prices, or control of wages by control- ling the volume of currency, is the luscious fruit of the tree planted by Hazzard in 1862. After thirty years of galling servitude, the citizen finds the debt greater and sees the day of deliverance but dimly through the dark- ness. He sweats for bread by day and at night seeks solace on a class-taxed pillow, and wakes to find more interest bonds issued for the autocrat and more indus- trial bonds for the plebian laborer. But perhaps he can find supreme consolation in this comparison between the relative prices of his commodi- ties in 1866 and 1894, as exhibited by this table, show- ing the Increase of the National Debt if paid in Farm Products : 110 "Debt in 1866, $2,783,000,000. Debt in 1894, $1,071,979,527. Products necessary to Amount Amount Showing actual pay the debt as per Ig66 Igg4 increase in. prices at that time. Beef, barrels 129,000,000 178,663,254 49,663,254 Pork, barrels 87,000,000 107,197,952 20,197,952 Wheat, bushels 1,007,000,000 2,143,959,014 1,136,959,014 Oats, bushels 3,362,350,000 4,287,918,028 1,025,568,028 Corn bushels 2,218.000,000 3,970,294,174 1,752,294,174 Cotton, Ibs., (1867) 7,092,000.000 15,313,993,242 8,221,993,242 Coal, tons 213,307,000 267,994,881 54,687,881 Bar iron, tons 24,110,000 26,145,842 2,035,842 National Watchman, April 7, 1894" After twenty-eight years of honest toil, with a population doubled in numbers and its productive force vastly augmented by mechanical inventions, and after paying two-thirds of the debt, this gentle American still finds that he has to raise more cattle, plough for more cereals and dig more metals to pay this nation's debt than when he started. But then, beyond the delightful contemplation of a lofty statesmanship, accountable for this standing, he can spend his odd time in answering this conundrum : "Does this condition show that gold has risen in value, or that commodities have fallen in price?" But let him not dare intrude his vulgar presence among the financial elect, in demanding an answer to this other foolish question : " If gold has risen in value, how has the gen- eral producer of commodities been bene fitted thereby?" To-day the condition of this patient American may be summed up in one awful sentence : He owes a Na- tional, State, Municipal, corporation and private debt of $30,000,000,000 equal to $2,500 for each voter. Mr. Walker, a Massachusetts Representative, in Con- gress, estimates the general debt of the people at $32,- 000,000,000. On this sum at six per cent, the annual interest is $1,920,000,000. The crops of corn, wheat, oats, gold and silver in 1892, in valnewere $1,340,000,- 000. This leaves $580,000,000 of interest still unpaid at the end of each year. In the face of this most infam- 111 ons record, for the man who in derision would ask the question : " Why not issue Treasury notes and pay our debts ?" let the answer be : "Put a whip in every honest hand to lash the rascal naked through the world." Fifth : The last proposition Justice Field impliedly urged in the case cited ( Julliard vs. Greeman 110 U. S. Reports 421) is that the Printing Press should be repu- diated as a moneymaker. The proof has been presented that gold and silver pass from their baseness as com- modities to the dignity of money solely by and through legislative sanction, and when that is withdrawn they immediately fall in value to their market price as com- modities. It is certain that their monetary value is created by the statute. Hence, whenever their currency value is higher than the market price, the increased value is imparted by force of the law. Thereby, it becomes, at least as to the excess, FIAT money. That is, the Government, as it were, has taken the Latin word "fiat," meaning, "Let it be made," and translated it into the Anglo-Saxon of our times, by saying to a mass of gold, costing thirty -two cents, or silver costing forty-one cents each in labor for produc- tion, "Be thoua Dollar," and Lo ! as the olden mandate ran, "Let there be light, and there was light," so, when the all-potent sovereign, Uncle Sam, prints on one side of that metal the word " Liberty ," and on the other side, "In God we trust," it becomes a Dollar in value and carries in that stamp the intellect, conscience and command of seventy millions of Free Americans. It has been contended that the metals had stability because they cost for production a value in labor equiv- alent to their money value. This cannot be true, for no miner would spend a dollar in labor for a dollar in money. The labor costis always less than the money value. Therefore there is in every coin a fiat value. In gold, taking a general average of producing in the United States, costing thirty-two cents for mining, 112 or as some claim, only twenty-two cents, to the dollar, the remainder is pure fiat. In one hundred Nickels, worth $5.00, there is less than seventy cents of gold value. From where does the money value of $4.30 come ? The law creates it. Why! the $55,000,000 of silver bullion resting at this moment safely in the Treasury at Washington is an absolute example of ''fiat." The grandiloquent and mystify ing term "seinorage" means, that the Government bought silver at the market price, paying for it a net sum of money, and that the same bullion so bought will coin up into $55,000,000 more than the cost and be a clear gain. But if the Government can constitutionally apply its " fiat "to gold, nickel and silver, does there seem to be any legal, economic or moral reason why it cannot apply the same "fiat" to paper? If not, then the printing press is as fit to spread light and hap- piness now, as it was when it gave the human soul power to dispel the gloom of the "Dark Ages" and gave civilization its luminous wings to rise from the degrad- ation of the Fifteenth Century. Again, the printing press is now the ready instru- ment of Finance and performs the greater part of the world's business. "Did it ever occur to you that" nearly the whole volume of exchanges is consummated, not by coin, but by paper ? The Comptroller of Currency, in his Report for 1890, shows that he addressed 6,922 Banks, and received replies from 6,838, as to the kinds of money handled by them. He says : " By consolidating the several items into two classes, we find that 8.96 per cent was in cash, and 91.04- per cent in checks, drafts and other substitutes for money. Our attention is at once drawn to the fact that the total receipts for September 17 are $94,546,475 less than for July 1, 1890. This is undoubtedly due to the great stringency in the money market prevailing at the latter date. Of this difference $92,678,085 is found in the items which represent substitutes for money The Report further shows on July 18, 1890, the Nation- al Banks owed $2,030,997,143, and 4515 other Banks 113 owed $2,640,355,620, and that they had, counting all kinds of money, $478,316,694. They could thus easily pay their debt in cash, excepting the insignificant frac- tion of 90 per cent thereof. But, on July 12, 1893, (Comptroller's Report, 240), a much more felicitous condition is exhibited : State Banks owed debts $1,130,725,537 Savings Banks owed debts 2,013,775,14-7 Private " " 107,843,343 National " " 3,109,563,284 Loan & Trust Companies owed debts 726,664,506 Total $7,088,571,817 Now, dividing this insignificant debt by the money, $5 15, 987,740, then in their banks, there comes a halting consciousness that the creditors would get their hungry souls satisfied with seven per. cecit on the dollar. The other ninety-three per cent would rest securely on that beautiful thing called " confidence." In other words, as the coin is entirely insufficient in quantity, they transact nine-tenths oi their business in "substitutes for money." When the cyclone of a "stringency" comes in at their doors they hang out the dulcet word "sus- pended," or in plain violation of law they issue sixty- three millions of clearing-house certificates, as in 1893, and urge Congress to issue more bonds, and to sustain labcr and agriculture by a further contraction of the ncy. The same necessity produces the like effect in Eng- land, as is revealed by this table : Coin. Notes. Checks Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. Lcnclon 73 2.04 97.25 sbure 55 12.67 86.78 Dublin 1.57 8.53 89.90 Country banks in 261 places 15.20 11.94 72.86 The London Economist, on November, 1890, tabu- lated eleven Banks as owing $848,000,000, and having cash on hand $87,000,000. This shows they had 10.3 114 cents to pay on each dollar of liability. Now the same pertinent question comes again for answer. If from necessity the business of this country is done on an average of ninety-five per cent paper, what is the reason that at the command of the august law, it cannot all be so done ? It would be individual suicide and public death to attempt to make all exchanges in coin. Industrial par- alysis would instantly ensue. Serious contemplation by Congress of the effort to do so in coin would be re- garded as insanity by all classes of our people. Neces- sit}' has therefore defied the limitations of coin, and by common consent has created a business currency in checks, etc. Therefore custom, the child of necessity, has .bestowed upon the printing press the exalted pre- rogative of a money-maker. What is this custom but a solemn protest against the slavery of the barbaric past? Because, along the centuries, gold and silver have been dignified with mone\ r functions, does that imply that this civilization is forbidden to march out of the realm of the material into that of the mental, moral and spirittial? This worship of the visible is one of the old forms of man's ignorance, when he fashioned his God in stone, because his mind was too poor to grasp a spiritual conception. The pagan sees the object of his worship in his idol, but the philosopher mentally recognizes the omnipresence of God and com- munes in silent reverence. So here, in the early days man accepted the metals as visible symbols, and has not yet broken away from the influence of primitive times. In this as in other matters his growth is an evolution, each century unfolding some new represent- ative advantage. It was first pure barter of one thing for another. Then an exchange of one product for an agreed " visible medium" carue to be recognized. This in turn evolved 116 into a note or check, the representative of a value that was vested in some other material object, a house, ship or land. Still advancing from an individual liability, based on personal knowledge or power of coercing payment, a person parted with value and received the obligation of a partnership, a corporation, city, State or Nation, based in the last two cases on public faith. The creditor well knew that he was powerless against repudiation by a whole people, and yet he preferred their promise to pay above all other investments. From individual hiding places, the possessor gradu- ally removed his coin or bullion and deposited it in Banks, again trusting to honor. Still expanding in lines of co-operation, the ideas have slowly grown that public Banks are the safest depositories of one's treasures. That Nations should establish all Banks and issue all money, is the only step to be taken. Against this consummation there are arrayed the idolater of the musty past and the special privilege holder. Every progressive step in the unfolding cycles of known history has been bitterly opposed by them. As a rule no man holding a special franchise has been willing to surrender it. No matter how obtained, by fraud or force, he has clung to it and cried out "It's sacred hands off." The Fuedal Baron summoned his train and by stealth or sword took the product that another had made, claiming his ownership in man and soil, and that same fuedal grandee, once in Scotland, Hungary, France and elsewhere, could sanctimoniously go from swinging censers to and occupy the bridal couch of a dependent tenant on his first marriage night, and be upheld by society in the desecration. Where now is the custom's defender? By the alleged imposition of heavenly hands, every monarch of the Old World once held his crown, and the "divine right'' was conceded, and the people most 116 affected were ignored. Still the heresy has been over- turned. Slavery, which is but the taking all of another's labor, was once as firmly imbedded in society as the present ownership of land. Since the passion of Geth- semane the fight for its abolition has been on among Christians ; and yet this generation alone has seen the victory. It was once declared with awful solemnity that the sun swung in space around our earth as its center. With equal emphasis it was cried that the principles of gravitation put Deity out of the universe, and hence could not be true. Who now proclaims these dogmas ? The hand of Truth has wiped them off the tablet of accepted fact, and has reared the tributes of love for its devotees. The like narrowness would not read aright the ciphers on the rocks, attesting the nameless antiquity of man, and has stood ever set against all the facts of evolution as shown by science, for fear the Almighty would be dethroned from the soul of man. The World said Columbus was a dreamer, and jogged on its beaten track, with an ever decreasing currency binding its brawn and brain. Yet he dreamed a hemisphere into being, and broke the stagnant sleep of fifteen centuries by finding more money. That same world wondered at the kite of Franklin, and little thought that in its string ran the electric current that but yesterday chained Niagara, and will yet light and carry all mankind. Since the first fig-leaf garment was sewed, woman has stitched away, and would have laughed at the folly of him who had said that the needle's eye should be at the point, and yet now so it is. Science has changed its attitude as to the circulation of the blood, vaccination, bleeding, denial of water in fevers, treatment of insanity as a disease instead of a 117 crime, contagion of consumption, and plagues arising from lack of sanitation and not from the imperious displeasure of the Great Father. Many positions, assumed as safe and wise in agriculture, transportation, war, State, National and International affairs, have been abandoned as no longer tenable. Education is slowly turning from the classics as essentials to indus- trial knowledge as necessary for the life combat. Even Religion most remarkable of all is losing its hold on the battlements of denominational creeds and, meeting unarmed on a level plain, ;s learning to recog- nize a common fraternity in origin, relations, life, duties, mission and immortality of man. The Great Creeds, dropping their quarrels at the Manger, ceasing their polemics as to the origin of evil and as to incarnation, etc., and joining in a world-wide Parliament of religions, are uniting in the general belief of the one motherhood of earth, the one brotherhood of humanity and the one fatherhood of a Merciful Creator. These things and a thousand others like them, and of which they are partial examples, have come into man's consciousness slowly, painfully and only been accepted by degrees. Here and there, Fate has dropped the crown of martyrdom for their advocates. At all times Conservatism has turned fiercely on the innovator and dubbed him CRANK. Yet that despised Crank, taught by the past, dissatisfied with the present and scanning the future, has ever been the pathfinder for progress, the projector of enterprise, and the architect of each civilization. The world's benefactors have been hissed to scorn in one age and in the next crowned with honor for their worth. So in this contest, involving man's ownership of himself, the privilege-holder will contend for every inch, and at last fall before and beneath the tread of a triumphant democracy, that will grant and consecrate for every child of man lull, free and equal access to the 118 opportunities of nature. That child must know no master between himself and his Maker, no home but his broad country, no air but that of freedom, no sunlight that is dimmed with industrial or political slavery. Against this equality, so dependent for its realization upon the printing press, in obeying the majesty and sovereignty of a mighty people in making and controll- ing the currency, Justice Field has arrayed himself, as did the Tory of our olden days against the march of self- government, and when the triumph shall come in the freedom, born of a free money, he will be admired as was the " silly Thracian shooting his harmless arrows at the thunderbolts of Jove." To "paper money" there still remain some objections for a brief consideration. It is gravely asked, "How can we pay foreign debts without gold ?" So far as the Government is concerned it does not owe one cent of foreign debt. Its obligations are all incurred on its soil and payable here, and contracted with the well under- stood legal reservation that it can pay them in "lawful money." As it has the right and power to make money, vested by the Constitution, and so declared by its Supreme Tribunal, and has the men, resources and arms to enforce its laws, the creditor must accept its money or go unpaid. With scarcely an exception its bonds were bought with "paper money, "for its debts w^ere not based on gold but on Treasury notes. This is put on the authority of Senator Sherman, who wrote to A. Mann, March 20, 1868, this letter: "I think the bondholder violates his promise when he refuses to take the same kind of money he paid for the bonds. If the case is to be tested by law, I am right ; if it is to be tested by Jay Cooke's advertisements, I am wrong. I hate repudiation, or anything like it, bat we ought ncft to be deterred from doing what is right by fear of undeserved epithets. If under the law as it stands the holders of five-twenties can only be paid in gold, then we are repudiators if we refuse to pay it otherwise. If the bondholder can legally demand only the kind of money he paid, then he is a repudiator, an extortioner, to demand money more valuable than he gave." 119 It was in harmony with his speech of Feb. 27, 1868, saying : " Equity and justice are amply satisfied if we redeem these bonds at the end of five years in money of the same kind and of the same intrinsic value existing at the time they were issued. Senators are sometimes in the habit, in order to defeat the argument of an antag- onist, of saying that this is repudiation. Why, Sir, eve^ citizen of the United States has conformed his business to the legal-tender clause. He has collected and paid his debts accordingly. Every State in this Union, without exception, has made its contracts, since the legal-tender clause became law, in currency and paid them in currency." There never has been any consideration passed to the Government for any. of its subsequent legislation, whereby it promised coin payment. As a bond is a simple contract for payment of money, it should be so construed, and hence the subsequent promise being without a new consideration paid by the creditor, is voidable at the option of its maker. -At the time of the passage of the modifying legislation, the status of the purchaser had not been changed, therefore it was a mere governmental gratuity, and as the bondholder has still his same and orfginal status, he cannot complain of bad faith or suggest repudiation, if the Government should now return to its original policy of paying in its "lawful money. 9 ' But it is said that there are private debts that do not fall under this category. The municipal law is pre- sumed to enter into the terms of all contracts made in this country, unless they specifically provide otherwise, and such contracts are executed always with the implied legal understanding that the laws may be changed. Therefore all private contracts made here are fully com- plied with if payments are made in the lawful money of the realm. If the contract is silent as to the kind of money, then the subject is beyond the qontrol of the creditor who must come here and submit to our juris- diction in order to enforce payment. But it is and will be said that foreigners will not 120 sell to us unless we pay in gold. This is a pure assump- tion, based on neither experience nor probability. If the foreigner found paper currency in this country performing all gold coin functions and capable of pur- chasing as much of any product, there would be no object for his refusal. Trade is always reciprocal and deals with products. If he sold his goods for "^aper" and immediately converted it into American goods, suitable to his home market, he would be satisfied without speculation as to the philosophy of the currency. But overlooking this plausibility, there is nothing of merit in the proposition. When the foreigner in exchange for his merchandise* receives our gold coin, the sweetly beautiful faith of the single metal standard advocate passes into the delirium of ecstacy. But let the blissful believer push his inquiry to finding out how the wily foreigner treats his adored gold, and he will see it con- sidered as a commodity. The United states stamp will be simply taken to say there are so many grains of gold of a certain fineness. By this determination it passes to a bullion value. Into that value the market price of the world has entered. Inestimatingits payingcapacity it is no longer coin, but plain bullion. It is now on the level with wheat or iron the law of supply and demand operating to fix its value. Its legal tender quality is gone. It is mere native gold, purified of its dross and derives no significance from its stamp, except indexing the number and fineness of its grains. In foreign trading it is not now and never has been received as coin. As bullion, with value fixed by the world's markets, it has paid for the foreign goods, and when it arrives at its destination, its old and idolized stamp is destroyed by remintage abroad. For there is no such thing known as international money. Each nation in this, as in all other internal policies, makes its own laws, and does not as a rule recognize a foreign stamp as fixing a legal tender quality -121 to a coin. On the contrary, they in general expressly decree by law that foreign money shall not circulate as legal tender. There is deep philosophy in this restriction policy, as this leaves- to each nation its own sovereign attributes unimpaired as to fixing the volume of its currency. _ Every nation should reserve the same auto- nomy over its money that it does over all other matters cf domestic concern, As it is enough for each country to legislate for its own people, the claim for an interna- tional money is a hallucination. It would simply transfer sovereignty from the many to the one. As the Financial world stands to-day in humble adoration at the throne of the Gold Power, the latter would by an international combination acquire unmeasured dominion over all humanity by the usual and potent energy of contraction and expansion. So long as each nation is master of its own finances it can meet an emergency. But let this capacity, or rather veto on such discre- tion, be transferred to a central authority for limitation and each nation would become helpless and pass beyond extrication. There are no means so certainly prophetic of Labor's complete degradation as the adoption of this policy. It would be the ultimate realization of Hazzard's dream "for the world's conquest" by doling wages. All men would then bow the knee to one master. Empires would shake, tremble and fall. Re- publics would forget loyalty to their own citizens in paying homage to the Power, that in effect, by controll- ing the currency, could grasp the sword and purse. In substance, though not in name, national boundaries would be obliterated, for money would then gain universal sway. It would pass in majesty over the wishes of individual nations, nullify their legislation and veto their policies. Chieftains have planned and fought for dominion by the sword, and found their possessions broken by 122 rebellions or overturned by death. Friends of their fellow men have pushed out enterprizes of love, and failed to overcome the obstacles raised by creed or igno- rance. But in this strike for supremacy by the gold standard there lurks no rebellion and comes no death- there bristles no creed and stammers no ignorance. The most dazzling social capacities, profoundest financiers, keenest intellects, and daring nerve, are all united in a phalanx, with one thought, one hope, one purpose, one instrument and one end. If our Nation is to retain its independence and dis- charge its responsibilities to its citizens, then let it for- ever dash "this poisoned chalice from its lips." If liberty for man is a reality and not " an irridescent dream,' 1 then it can only be preserved by our country following the good and time-sanctioned policy of Jefferson, by avoiding "all entangling alliances with foreign na- tions." In relation to foreign Trade, for which it is said coin is essential, it must be remembered that the domestic use of money is vastly greater than its foreign use. This is shown by a brief comparison. In 1893 the Imports to the United States were $866,400,922. The Exports were $831,030,785. If no barter intervened, $1,697,431,707 were required to effect these exchanges. This represents the whole foreign trade. The total Bank Clearances in the sixty-nine American cities having Clear- ing Houses, for 1893 were over $100,000,000,000. For the same period it is surely a low calculation to place all the dealings of our whole people, where money is used, at fifty times as much as the Bank Clearances reach. This makes $5,000,000,000,000 handled. (Five Trillions being five millions multiplied by one million.) It is a sum beyond all comprehension. Which should be the object of the Government to supply a currency for this bagatelle of the foreign trade, or for this immense sum used in domestic exchanges ? These figures in gen- 123 eral show that to one dollar used in foreign trade, we use in home business twenty-five hundred dollars. If you counted $500,000,000, gold and silver coin, as being in active daily circulation, each dollar of this sum would have to be handled Ten Thousand times yearly in order to do its share in our home exchanges. This would be about twenty-eight exchanges for each dollar for each day. As each government is supreme over its own subjects, it can furnish the volume, kind and denomination of its own money for their use. Therefore it can say and enforce what money will satisfy the terms of the con- tracts between its own citizens. To make effective its declaration, it can limit the time of suits and following the analogy of the Statute of Limitations, it can refuse to permit its Courts to consider the original merits of any case, where the defense of tender and refusal of paper as lawful money is plead and proved. Nay, it can go further and attach penalties to that refusal. For the same jurisdiction exists as to money, as calls out armies and punishes crime and treason. The Constitutional power to make money and penalize counterfeiting is left wholly to Congress, and it may clothe its currency with terror as well as beneficence. It would redeem all torn or worn currency by its surrender and the issuance of more in its place. It becomes a pertinent inquiry, "What will become of the gold and silver when demonetized by oftr law and paper substituted ?" The question presents very super- ficial difficulties for solution. The Government owes some obligations payable in gold, and the metals could be so employed. The bullion value would still remain and so long as other nations retained the metals as money, they would enter into business as factors and at their market prices. If a contract were payable in gold it would be a compliance with its provisions, if gold of the fineness and weight specified and implied 124- were paid the creditor. If he were dissatisfied with such payment then he would be a repudiator, because not willing to observe his contract. For the latter is always made and delivered with the Sovereign power reserved by the nation to make and change its money, without regard to its effect on the transaction. But, waiving all rights, and dealing with its citizens in good conscience, the Government in demonetizing the metals and substituting 'paper, 'could, and doubtless would, on application exchange its ' 'paper" money for the bullion, represented by the coin received. Within a decade coins so taken would find their way by exchange into the metallic circulation of other nations or pass into the uses of Science and Art. In this method there would be no loss to individuals in the exchange. If any detriment should fall, the nation should bear it, even to the extent of totality if necessary. This system would soon eliminate the coins, and place the money, as to denomination, volume and tender power, in the hands of all the people, speaking through Congress. Its vol- ume would be based on the per capita or percentage plan. It would and should circulate in paying the annual expenses and the debt, consuming at once $2,000,000,000. The remainder, fixed in amount by Congress, should be issued within a short period for necessary governmental purposes. National industrial enterprises would furnish an illimitable field for its use. To perfect the system of a sole and exclusive paper currency and retain supreme control thereof, the aboli- tion of all bonds and banks dependent on them would inevitably be consummated. In their place the Govern- ment would institute in nearly all Post offices its own banks, accepting personal deposits. Thefr would not be run for profit or speculation, but for the accommo- dation of the surrounding people and with interest so low as to merely cover expense. They would not pursue the policy of loaning their Deposits and tru -125- on such a rate of interest as to earn from fifty to a hundred per cent on the actual capital invested, or upon the average cash circulating through them. In other words, as all private Banks now do, they would not take a given sum of money as a capital and then loan it from ten to twenty times and charge full interest, say counting discounts, etc., ten per cent on the amount loaned. For this practice results in the Bank's receipt of fifty to one hundred per cent as annual interest on its original cash investment. Government Banks would offer no inducements lor deposits beyond absolute safety and instantaneous payment on demand, and would not like all present Banks, speculate upon an indebtedness due to their depositors. This beautiful aptitude for accumulation on debts due to its creditors may be illustrated by the examples of the two most prominent Banks inSan Francisco from their figures as found in the Bank Commissioner's Report for 1893. The German Savings & Loan Society on a capital of $1,000,00^ paid up in coin, had on hand January 1, 1893, money, $1,478,155. and therefore had a large excess over its original investment. At the same date it owed depositors $30,327,159, and had loaned on security $25,4-06,655. Now including $4,960,289 for real estate, bank premises, and bonds owned by it, and at an annual rate of seven per cent on this combined outlay, the interest would be $2,129,- 806, and from this deducting four and a half per cent for depositors, $1,369,212, and there remains $760,674 for profit, and again sub- tracting their expenses $317,502, and the esthetic and infinitisimal sum of $4-43,172 confronts the original and daring stockholders for the annual gain on the million investment. As the Bank had on hand $1,478,155, none of its money was in circulation, and its business was transacted on its debts due to others. The Bank of California, on July 1, 1893, had a capital of cash paid in of $3,000,000 end had on hand $1 407,726 money avid demands from other banks $1,477,434 due on call, and thus equiva- lent to cash, $2,885,160, and leaving $114,840 out in use. Its loans and investments amounted to $9,042,726. Ten per cent on this is $904,272, and Chis is about thirty per cent on the original t)i:t3 million investment, treating it all as in circulation. But it must be remembered that the Bank had of its own money on'y $114,840 out in acttuJ circulation, and yet it was collecting on $9, 04^,726, an annual interefjt, and this in effect became the profit on an actual out- put of $114,840. -126- Is it a wonderful feat of financial necromancy, or is it trading on one's debts? What careful business in San Francisco can make a showing of like profits in the same period. The same analogies and deductions are the invariable characteristics of all private banking in the whole country. Here is an estimate by Dunning of National Bank profits : Interest on circulation at 8 per cent at an average of $250,000,000 for thirty years, compounded $3,200,000,000 Interest on deposits average $1,000,000,000, for thirty yeais, 6 percent, (compounded) 4,500,000.000 Interest on bonds for thirty years, at 5 per cent. (Weaver) 337,500,000 Profits on bonds bought (Weaver) 137,500,000 Total -.$8,175,000,000 This is corroborated by Vest (Senate, Oct. 15, 1888) as to the First National Bank of New York City : From 1875 to 1888 inclusive, the Dividends were $ 2,535,000 ; ' Surplus 34,586,000 Profits 8,888,100 He says : " It is a fact that commencing with $200,000 capital, -which increased in April 1864 to $500,000, this bank has realized in net profits over $10,000.000, which is 80 per cent per annum for tv five years on $500,000." Mr. English, candidate in 1880 for Vice-President, on retiring as President of the First National Bank of Indianapolis, reported as follows: "I congratulate the stockholders of our enterprise. The bark has been in operation fourteen years under my control, v.'ith a c stock of $500,000. In the meantime it has voluntarily ret $500,000 of capital stock back to its stockholders, besides paying, them in dividends $1,496,250, part of which was gold, and I now turn it over to you with capital unimpaired, and $327,000 of the undivided earnings on hand. To tliis might be added the premiums of United States bends at present prices amounting to $36.000, besides quite a large amount for lost or destroyed bills." The items of profit are as follows : -127- Returned to stockholders $ 500,000 Dividends to stockholders 1,496,000 Undivided earnings 327,000 Premiums on bonds 36,000 Lost or destroyed bills 24,000 Total ...$2,383,250 These profits reach over $160,000 a year, netting more than thirty per cent annually on the original in- vestment of $500,000. Have the Indiana farmers and mechanics grown in wealth at the same ratio? Most likely, since in this year they cry for " bread or work" in the dulcet hoarseness of mobocracy. In the meantime the generous banker feels deep commiseration for the neg- lected heathen and is so touched in his profoundest sym- pathies that he would hold a sunshade over the jolly crow while picking the farmer's corn . To perpetuate the sweet- est tone of once loved songs-to weigh the odor of a flower to see the sunlight turned into the luscious peach, or to know if Eve had sun-kissed bangs to comply with Huntington's monopolizing request to bottle up our sunlight for sale to compare in the scales of conscience the hardness of Carnegie's heart towards his employees and the hardness of his armor plate sold to Uncle Sam for his ships, or to master the secrets of dreams, sleep and death to get well acquainted with the first atom of matter to measure thought's last wildest sweep in space, would be triumphs to which the grandest mortal could aspire. The doing of any one of them would be glory enough for any man. Yet these, and all of these, that same farmer would doubtless willingly forego and lack their accomplishment, if he could be resolved in conscience at which to shoot as his greater enemy the crow or the banker. By imitating the Postal Banks in successful working in many foreign countries, and in following the wisdom of our Money Order system, the line of present use and future improvement in the proposed Government Banks 128 is marked .with clearness. In supplying the people with loans upon recognized financial security, interest would be low. It would be fixed at a figure so as only to make the Department self-sustaining. Beyond this it would not go, for the philosophic reason that taxation in no way .can lawfully or morally exceed governmental needs. The following form would embody all that is essen- tial for the paper currency to express : "This is a dollar. It is issued by the Government of the United States of America as its lawful money. It is a legal tender for all debts, public or private, and shall be received in payment thereof. Washington, DC., August 1894. .. Secretarv of the Treasury.' 1 * This would be the command of a Nation, vested by its sel '-created Constitution with potency to say "This is my money.'' It would come without any commodity value and be independent of bullion markets for its pur- chasing power. Its volume would not be dictated by a foreign autocrat, nor fixed by a self-consecrated priest- hood of home financiers, makingit to contract or expand at their selfish greed. By this dollar would stand the fighting strength of our manhood. Behind it would stand the entire property of our whole people. In it would inhere the command of the Constitution and highest law made thereunder. Over this Dollar would float "Old Glory," claiming the love of our mighty millions and compelling the respect of the united world. Yet to such a Dollar there is one valid, natural and powerful objection. This money is good (or all contin- gencies save one and only one and this one: It would be worthless if this Government became destroyed with the possibility of its successor annihilated, together with the honesty and intellect of each and all of its citi- zens forever blotted from the face of the earth. 129- The preceding argument may be briefly recapitu- lated. 1st. As all our people by natural law are equal in their rights, our Government is instituted for the control and protection of those rights, and being based on con- sent, it may be changed, as experience justifies, to produce human happiness. 2nd. As the heritage of history, gold and silver came to us as coin money and were adopted as such for the purpose of promoting wealth and contentment among our people. 3rd. As money is an arbitrary standard, adopted by law, for and as a measure of the value of all other things, it should have absolute certainty and permanence as a measure. 4th. The experience of the ages and the solemn confirmation of present conditions conclusively show that gold and silver are wanting in the qualities of steadfast fixity, and this defect arises from their com- modity value as affected by the market price of their bullion and their uncertainty of production, and that therefore they should be disrobed of all money functions, and this for the three fundamental reasons following. 5th. The costs of mining and minting gold and silver are very great and may be obviated by other infinitely cheaper methods for the people as a whole. 6th. The Nation has neither legal nor moral right t to select the industry of one citizen and by its stamp impressed on his product create a value therefor above its natural and market-price, or above the labor involved in its production. Gold and silver mines are private enterprises and their products should not receive any discrimination in their favor and one not accorded alike to all other enterprises. 7th. By the commodity value oi gold and silver and the limitation of their quantities and their private ownership, they become sure instrumentalities for effect- ing and controlling legislation to the advantage of their owners. 8th. The Government has an inherent legal right and a positive moral duty to provide a stable currency for its people and "fix its quantity and power according to our immense needs and to wisely control its volume, so as to avoid sudden, dangerous and unnecessary con- traction and expansion. 9th. Philosophy, Law and Experience combine to show that a paper currency, limited in quality by a per capita or per centage plan and endowed with absolute legal tender power for all public and private debts, may and should be issued by the United States Government, as its sole and exclusive and lawiul money, and that it will when so issued accomplish its mission as the perfect money of the grandest people. There remains one general reason for the radical change of our fiscal system, and it derives its cogency from the mighty and eloquently silent dead. This earth has been one great arena, where each nation, now dis- appeared, has spent youth, maturity and decay. They have fallen under the foot of the Despoiler Time and along their ruin-scattered tracks they have left testimo- nials, speaking to us with the awful meaning of death. From atom to Star, from man to seraphim, from tribe to nation, there hasdominated thesway of cause and effect. This principle has run through all national histories from their birth to death. If there is a similarity of manifestations in the final collapse, it is logical to impute a similitude of influences tending to the dissolu- tion. On the other hand, if like influences are present in active operation, then it may be justly expected that their results will have the same character. Now, keeping these principles in view, an analysis of the histories of buried dynasties will lead to a percep- -131 tion in each and every case of the same influence s, as destroying and of likeeffects as their results. Although thedata of correct information for early peru c*s are few and often vague, yet the truth may be affi.mel that when their national life began, the supren e gifts of nature Land, Water, Air and Sun-bine wire free to all the citizens of the commonwealth. Hcnte, having equal opportunities to take all th< se natural benefac- tions, they were in substance equal in product and enjoyment. In the piny of passion, greed and ambition, this equality began to disappear, and one set of men secured a monopoly of either the land or water and therel)y of air and sunlight. By force or fraud or ignorance, the special privilege of taking comj L>te control of land was vested in one and the many were excluded therefrom, or admitted thereto by yielding tip a part of their rights for the alleged concession. The same practice extended to the streams and bays, lakes and oceans. To cool the thirst at this spring, or sail on that water, was pur- chased by paying tribute to some alleged master. This choice spot, where balmy air and electrifying sunlight spread their health-bestowing blessings, is grasped by asserted special ownership and the many are forced to less favored localities. These methods slow.y effected a change in the social and political relations of the people. In the earl y stage each owned himself and thereby owned all of his product. In the advanced nation, the maker of the product merely owned enough of himself and kept enough of his labor to get a bare subsistence, and the remainder of his toil went to satisfy the demands of the special privilege holder, who had parted with nothing of his rights and added nothing of his labor to the thing taken. Gradually this process unfolds its innate vicious- ness. The odor of this flower monopoly floats into the walks ot individual and public life. No spot so obscure, no place so august, that distinction in rights 132 and enjoyment is not manifested. The usual insignia of this baleful distinction are wealth and office. One is a direct monopoly of natural opportunities, and the other is a monopoly of legisla- tion. Following the policy of selfishness, these two aristocracies have fraternized. Wealth has supported the decrees of office and the latter has fashioned legisla- tion to maintain and increase the special privileges of the former. The ultimate effect of these influences ope- rating for centuries in a given nation has been to concen- trate the wealth ai d the power in a designated cla^s a id in turn to chain the arm of the laborer to hopeless toil, and f jrbid his brain to queation his inferiority and order him to recognize the latter as a divine dispensation. As a sure means of the perpetuation c f this exaltation for a few and the degradation of the millions, the or- ganised fraternity Wealth and Office has always with an iron and inflexible hand grasped the money- making power as its sole prerogative. In addition to holding all the land and water in its control, the fraternity has fixed the quantity and value of the currency, so as to makeit an instrumentality for further enrichment. Now, Nature has set its signet on man to this unva- rying rule, that he must labor to maintain his manhood and integrity. By possessing wealth not created by his own honest toil, his moral nature is perverted and his soul becomes the temple of evil thoughts, eventuating in cruel acts. On the other hand, when man finds himself deprived of his labor forever and is curbed in all his honest aspirations to impYove his circum- stances, his moral nature, too, is blunted, and having nothing to lose by a change of his social and political condition, he loses his patriotism. Thereby honor is driven from his being and becomes a discarded angel. In this condition, with vice intrenched in power, with brutality imbedded in labor, the nation has grown to 133 moral rottenness, and decay is its doom. The confirmation of these observations is amply evidenced by examples: "When Egypt went down, 2 per cent of her population owned 97 per cent of her wealth. When Babylon went down, 2 per cent of her population owned all her wealth. When Persia went down 1 per cent of her population owned the land. When Rome went down, 1800 men owned all the known world. There are about 40,000,000 people in England, Ireland and Wales, and 100,000 people own all the land in the United Kingdom." Ignatius Donnelly. The same Satanic spirit in France, before her great democratic and levelling Revolution at the end of the last century, had placed all land ownership in the Nobility and Church, and the State was a docile servant of their wills. The civilization of the higher society was symbolized in the crime-stained Bastile. The masses had passed to vassalage. Their rage, the slow growth of ages of wrong, found a fitting expression in the guil- lotine and the Commune. That Revolution swept a thousand years of villainy away in one swift tidal wave of blood one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery, the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder iu hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood ; the one lasted three months, the other lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hun- dred millions; but our shudders are all for the " horrors " of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; Whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with the life-long death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake ? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to s..iver at and mourn over; but ail France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us have been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. Mark Twain in " A Yankee at King Arthur's Court." -134- Notwithstanding these calamities, so pregnant with warning, this country has deliberately set up a precise imitation of the methods of these dead nations and of those still so pathetically working out their destiny in tears, misery and blood. For the past thirty years, the imitating figures, set forth by onr American citizens, are projected on the canvass of history and stand in mocking pathos Here is the tabulation : Vear. Assessed value. True Value (Eat., i Owned by Capital (about). 1850 $ 6.065,413,193 $ 7.135,780,228 37}/ 2o j or$ 2,675.917.585 1860 12.119,712,051 16,159.616.068 50 " " 8,079,808,034 1870 14,734,774,068 30,068,518,50760 " " 18.041,111,104 1880 16,902.993,543 43.642,000.000 72 " " 31,422,240,000 1890 24,249,589,804 66,000,000,000 90 ' " 59,400,000,000 [These fi^urse are taken from the Census, except as to the wealth owned by capital in 1880 and 1890 they, are estimated.] If the foregoing table be substantially correct, then the Capitalistic appropriation of our wealth is very rapid and great. This raises a question "What is Capital?" A fair answer is this: A man must either live on his own labor or upon the income of his invest- ment. If he can do the latter, then he is no longer a laborer, but is a capitalist. Mr. Shearman, (the Statis- tician, in his Forum article) in 1890 estimated there were 31,100 persons who each had $500,000. But at the present purchasing power of gold, expressed in com- modity prices, the yearly income on $50,000 is ample to support a family in decent luxury. Then using $50,000 as a quotient for the estimated wealth of capital, $59,- 400,000,000, the result is 1,185,000 persons who each own $50,000 or more and add nothing by labor to the common stock. This is the true capital class. The remaining wealth, distributed ratably among our other people, about sixt\--eight millions, would probably reach one hundred dollars for each person. Is this not treading the old path marked byepitaphed nations? The search among their archives for the one -135 potent cause of their overthrow, will find it to be this "The overmastering and overwhelming domination of monopoly, potentially expressed in one word MONEY." Thereby the perfumed Patrician could, from his dainty feast on nightingale's tongues, step across tie street and buy the imperial crown from a corrupted g lard itself despising the plebians. But on the morrow came internal strife and by proscription crosses every- where made roadsides ghastly with bleeding victims. The old Mistress of the World knew not that by her wealth concentration and by the degrading of her laborers, she herself opened her gates to the rough barbarians. When a presidential nomination is the debt paid back for patronage bestowed ; when it is the bargained for dictation of the one money center of the Country ; when corporations place their stockholders and attor- neys in Senates and Cabinets; when Labor is forbidden to approach the Capitol to present a petition for redress of grievances, as permitted by the Constitution ; when $25,000 are offered as a bribe for a Senator's vote on the Wilson Tariff; when a Senator votes himself $31,000 as a sugar bounty, and then dons the ermine; when a "Blind White Devil Boss" buys votes at $2.50 each to elect a public debauchee in the guise of a philan- thropist to Congress ; when the most gigantic spoliator of the age silences adverse criticism by vast educational benefactions ; when the richest single organization on the continent collects usury-rent from poverty and prostitution to spend tor $100,000 Church doors; when a Nabob buys a royal crown for $300,000 for his wife and lets the needle-girl across the street die for want of food ; when an absentee draws $27,000 each day as rent in one city and yet produces nothing; when a con- dition exists whereby one man can gain $200,000,000 and in the same block dwells a mother, who works daily for eighteen hours to live and cannot spare time enough 136 to bury her dead baby ; when one-third of the working strength of the nation is unemployed ; when the Met- ropolitan Press is dumb and the Pulpit is silent ; when all these things exist and when they come into being largely through a -vicious money system, what is the difference between the Nineteenth and the early centuries ? If this pursues the courses of the old nations how can it expect to escape their fate? Hence the conclusion comes, there must at once be a halt and a retreat, and a march along new lines. These "hard times" indicate a money reform, that is imperatively demanded. When this Government breaks away from the idol- itry of the past, strikes down all commodity money, and out of her beneficent Sovereignty creates a logical and honest paper currency, then it will in truth leave the one beaten road of death and ruin and start out to a realization of the grandeur of its peculiar mission among the nations. Already the United States, with 70,000,000 of people, in a single century have marched among the nations to the place of first importance. Russia, with 118,000,000, India, with 288,000,000 and China, with 412,000,000, alone surpass us in numbers. The first is semi-barbaric ; the next is locked in the sleep of ages ; and the last is in the vassalage of tyranny. Thus in reality, even these three are trailing America in the race for world supremacy. The march toward that suprem- acy is heralded by the growth of our language. In a hundred years, the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian languages have in comparative ratios stood still, while the English, counting the pop- ulation of these seven nations all together, has passed from a 12 per cent ratio of the whole number and is now used by 27 per cent of the same combined popula- tion, and under the silent guides of trade and religion will soon be in all this wide world the sole speech for its -137- commerce, science and diplomacy. Who can doubt that the hand of a grand purpose led our ancestors to this land and isolated them, so as to build on manhood the sublime structure, wherein indi- vidual liberty is guaranteed by the legal sanction? This is in harmony with a great law peculiar to every people, each having a central thought in its life. Juda- ism had Deity's nearness to its people; Greece developed art and intellect ; Rome dreamed only of martial con- quest, as grand pivotal ideas. France loves agriculture, England spends her energies for trade, China reveres the past, but America has as her central thought in the sweetest word in the language Home. All our laws if, true to our theory, get their philosophy and their inspir- ation from their contemplated operation on the home. Our Judicial decisions apply those laws in sole reference to their effect on the home. Our social and public life is regulated to the ordinances of the sacred institution, Home. But how can this ideal be preserved if all its guardians are debauched, if all moral influences are contaminated, if all political movements are regulated by the selfishness and crime of a tyrannic money creed? How can the Golden Rule be the guide of life, if the nation in its financial legislation is ever striking at the mother and child with the lash of want and ever striving to bind the father to industrial slavery ? It is contrary to that Gospel, whose message is "good will to men." " The Sepulchre of Christ is not in Palestine. He rose from that burial place more than eighteen hundred years ago. He is crucified wherever his brothers are slain without cause; he lies buried wherever man, made in his Maker's image, lies entombed in ignorance, lest he should learn the right, which the Divine Master gave him." Oliver Wendall Holmes, Oration, July 4, 1863, Boston. This uplifting fraternity becomes the very spirit of all men when they breathe the air of Freedom, untram- melled by dogma, unawed by Force, undenied Nature's gifts. By Nature's decree men love their native lands, 138 the springs and rivers radiant to their youth, the cots and temples of their manhood. They glory in their country's history, and at its altars pour out their blood for its preservation. Every land has its heroes. They have walked in the shadow of dispair aye, triumphed in death that their brothers might be free. And so along the centuries the patriot has fought for wife and babe* and for the land where sleep his sires. If one dropped, a comrade grasped his sword ere it fell; one defeat became the inspiration for a grander effort. " For Freedom's battle, once begun. Though baffled oft, is ever won." This spirit of Freedom led the Pilgrim foot to Plymouth Rock. It reared the pioneer's cabin, and hallowed it with woman's love. It touched with celestial sweetness the lips of Patrick Henry, and taught Washington the art of war. It bade Jefferson and his peers condense the world's political history into one mighty volume, and then embody it in our National Constitution. At the close of this wonderful century the American voter stands a Sovereign in his religious and political rights, and, since no crown can stain his brow,nor mitre crescent or ark above the Constitution claim his love, he must in the future ever stand in his industrial priv- ileges equal in dignity to any other man. It is one of the supreme attributes of our citizenship, that each owns himself within the civil law question- ing science, religion, government and all things, deny- ing and affirming at his- own dictation, and owing mastery to none save God. Aye, since Democracy is with us a fact, this voter is and must ever remain the peer of an}-, e'en though with crown uncapped or mitre decked. He is the genuine apostle of liberty, who, whatever his birth, is loyal to the genius of this country, but he is a traitor, though native born, who acknowledges over our domestic affairs the sovereignty of any foreign 139 autocrat, or who bends the supliant head at the bid- ding of a financial hierarchy, though entrenched at Wall Street or at the Capitol. In spite of the maledictions of that defiled priesthood, if an American voter, though ever so poor, be honest, no earthly power can add to his true dignity; if he be loyal to truth and inspired by a love for his home, no mere money influence can sway him from standing by the Constitution and in this dark hour demanding the exercise of its omnipotence in the issuance of a currency commensurate with our needs and in unison with the destiny of our beloved country. For in the unfolding cycles of the race it is by example to lead in the liberation of the oppressed, and by its progress to aid in the moral and political illumin- ation of the world. Our nation touched the problem of self thought and self action, and Lo! the race felt the change. By its blood-bought victory, dedicated to freedom, it became the inspiration for all peoples, and set the pattern in its constitution that humanity has loved to copy. Behold our two triumphs! By the sword of " Sev- enty-Six " we won a single empire. But by an IDEA we have since brought all humanity under tribute. For the one sublime and economic truth, that proclaimed the birth of a Nation, "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL," has been surely undermining every throne in Christendom, overturning the principle of " rulership by divine right," and forcing into recognition the plan of self-government, which is but man's triune ownership of his own labor his own mind his own body. Americans ! awake to your responsibilit}- and duty. Put away arms and force, and turn to the invin- cible and safe ballot-box. Concentrate there and strike for industrial freedom, not with bullets, but with those nobler things Ballots. -140- "A weapon that comes down as still As snow-flakes fall upon the sod ; But executes a freeman's will, As lightning does the will of God." When intellect and morals, condensed in your votes, have failed and wholly failed to bring relief, then, Oh! my Countrymen ! and not till then, catch the drum- beats that rang out at Bunker Hill, and again feel the valor that thrilled the world at Gettysburg, and taking new courage, enlist in the august movement, pushing on for the self-ownership of man. Cast a way prejudices and resolutely face the coming conflict, whose victory shall bring a true-loving and co-operating democracy, under whose sway the provi- dences of Nature shall be free for all to use. Doubt not, Fellow-citizens! that largely through an ideal and exalted currency, created out of our own national sovereign will, American in name, American in its legal powers, American in the lesson of finance taught, this, our American civilization, shall push its mission : On ! Till only Truth is worshipped at every shrine. Up! Till Liberty has left no man bound in body or mind, or denied free access to nature's opportunities. Ahead ! Till the Government hails all her children with equal love. Forward! Till the proudest title in all this world, is to say, 'I AM AN AMERICAN." YC 14970