The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-14
General Butler's Financial Scheme and
Speech.
from ne N. Y. World.

From he NJ Y. World.
General Butler is at last delivered of the
new financial scheme which he has been so
long gestating. His plan is not without
ingenuity and certain sort of architectural
symmetry, but it is built upon ridiculously
unstable foundation, and supported by sophis-
tries (we cannot call them arguments) which
could be generated only in the brain of dema-
gogue. He advocates a currency permanently
irredeemable; a currency which boldly cuts
loose from the precious metals, and is anchored
in nothing possessing any intrinsic value.
General Butler does not trouble himself about
the resumption Of specie payments; he scouts
metallic money as a relic of barbarous ages
and the prop of despotic power. "What l
do DESIRE" he says, sis that the currency
shall not be redeemable in gold and silver.''
He calls "gold and silver the ever-ready ad-
junots of despotic power in all its forms and
degrees" He says that "coined gold and
silver has ever been the handmade Of despot-
ism; the prop of monarcbical power; the sup
porter OF thrones; the upholder of nobilities
and priesthoods the engine by which the
privileges and pretensions OF aristocrats have
always been sustained in trampling down the
rights, devouring the substance and absorb
ing the unrequited labors Of the masses.' He
stigmatizes it as one of the devices of king
craft and oppression with which the people
are governed by class;' as "the instrument
Of tyrants;" as "the money alike of the bar
bari&n and the despot." His speech consists
mainly OF empty sOphistries in support Of this
strange thesis.
space in refutiDg such extravagant, erratic
stuff as this, which contradicts alike the doc
trines of scientific economists and the common
sense of mankind. Money has double office;
one as measure of value, and the other as
the instrument of exchange. Its capacity to
+ -I..A e.
ment OF exchange; the first of these, therefore,
is it's fundamental characteristic. Even in
barter, where commodity is exchanged against
commodity without any intervening medium
we determine the quantity of this which
shall be exchanged Tor quantity Of that by
estimating the value OF each in money,
which thus enables us to equate
values though no actual money is used
in the particular transaction. Now,
q measure must necessarily possess the
attribute of the thing measured Length
can be measured only by something which
has length; a standard of weight must possess
weight: a standard of value, vaIue. But Gene
raj Butler proposes standard of value which
has no intrinsic value in itself. As soon as
you undertake to determine how much paper
is proper as currency, you feel the necessity
of some principle, or some rule, to gude you.
But in the very nature of the subject, no
rule is possible unless it be founded on a COM
parisOn with some exchangeable commodity
which has intrinsic value. The paper itself
can measure values only as it is proportional
TO something else with which other values
can be compared. The value of paper is
merely representative; and, unless it represents
something, it is a solecism By the value o
what commodity, then, shall paper money be
fegulateds AS General Butler proposes no
substitute for the precious metals, 1t is not
law In, Iafe Aafa
suflices to show that there must be some stand
-" as rule for regulating paper
nations should do what General