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 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