Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-10-06
There is no property except matter

There is no property except matter
that has been vitalized by human in.
telligence. The farm that can pro-
duce harvests under your culture is
valuable. The crops that you pro
duce by the agencies of nature are
valuable! The chair, the bureau, the
sofa, the couch, that the mechanic
makes, is valuable. The horses that
you raise and train are valuable
Why are they valuable? Because
they are products of the brain, as well
as of the soil and the elements. The
production of property is the bring
ing OF some parts of nature into use
by imparting to them the vital force
Of the human mind. Nothing is
property which has not undergone
this process.
1t is said that gold is property, and
that paper is not. No, that is not
true. Gold Is no more property than
paper is. Gold, and silver, and cop
per, and iron, are none of them prop.
erty. A mans house, and COW, and
horse and field are property, because
they hold some direct relation to hui
man uses. Paper is not property,
though it may represent property
Neither is gold or silver property,
though they may represent property.
"A man cannot sleep on gold; he can
not eat it; he cannot dress himself
with 1t. He can subsist on real prop
erty, but cannot on mere represent
atlve of property. But how could
you deal with each other, if you had
not something that should represent
property? If you have house, and
you want to dispose of it, that you
may move to some other part Of the
country, you do not want to take in
payment another house, or horses
and cattle, or corn and wheat and
barley, swapping one commodity for
another; for these things would not
be convenient enough; exchange by
means of them would be very diff
cult; but if you can agree through
out the community, to have some
substance that shall represent prop
erty, and that shall have uniform
value, you can take that and use 1t
to pay for houses, horses and wagons,
and ships, and everything that you
want to get in exchange. SO gold
has been selected. Why gold? Be-
cause 1t is oneof the more indestruct-
ible metals. and because, on account
of its scarcity, there is no danger of
its exceeding an amount which shall
be fair representative standard of
the property which exists in the com
munity.
Well, paper represents property,
too. Yes. Is it not as good as gold?
No. Why? For this one single
reason; its fatal facility of multipli-
cation. There is no machinery of
legislation, there is no device, by
which you can prevent its being null
tiplled as representative of proper
ty far beyond the actual property to
be represented. One paper-mill and
one printing-press will boat all Cali
fornia in the production of money.
1t is said, ''You must control It,"
That YOU cannot do. One legisla-
ture cannot bind another. A Demo
cratic Legislature comes in and says,
"We won't have paper" and when Il
Republican Legislature comes in, it
says, "They said they wouldn't have
it, and so we will" There is much
politics that goes upon the principle
upon which a man acted who went
into the Presbyterian church, and
said he came there because he hated
Methodists, and legislatures some
times change things for the sake of
being different from the party to
which they are opposed. Then leg
islatures are subject more or less to
the influence of their constituents;
and in times of fever and anxiety
men put on the pressure, and say,
"Give us more currency; increase the
issue of money; have more banks;
let there be more paper;" and the re-
suit is, you have such scenes as were
witnessed in the West in old wildcat
times, when every day bank was
created, and paper money was issued
in such quantities that it came to be
worth hardly as much as the basket
it was carried in. This fatal facility,
which nobody can restrain, of increas-
ing paper circulation, is the reason
why, as promise to pay, paper is
not as good as gold-for gold is
nothing but promise to pay. 1t
simply represents property.
l now come back to what l was
discussing. Ministers, you know,
are so given to money matters that
they cannot help talking about them
once in a while! was saying that
confidence would be restored and
business would be stimulated us soon
as men could calculate on firm
basis
l once had occasion to travel much
in Indiana; and there was nothing
that | dreaded so much as fords in
crossing rivers. If l could only have
depended Oh finding the fords always
III the same place | should not have
minded them; but to go to the place
where a ford had been and find that
it had shifted, was not so pleasant
To find that instead of crossing rlv
er here, l must go up there, or down
yonder, and so by changing back
wards and forwards, was a little ag-
gravating.
And it is good deal so with If
regularities in business affairs. a
merchant goes to New York to buy
goods. He finds that cottons arc tit-
teen cents. He says, eff things are
going down to a specie basis, ought
not to pay fifteen cents for these cot
tons. | wish l knew whether they
are or not" He pays as little as he
can get them for, but he buys them
at risk, because he is uncertain as
to what changes may take place in
the market; but it there were a gold
currency, it would be stable, and he
would feel safe in buying. Whatwe
want is currency that will not shift
like ford, that will remain tirm,and
that will enable man to calculate
what to do. The trouble to-day, in
Naw York. and BOSTON. and Phila-