Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1878-06-04
THE GREAT MONEY POWER.
The Enormous Tribute It Exacts from
the People.

| To the People of the United States:
You have little conception of the fraud
that has been practiced on you by the abuse
and perversion of your great sovereign mon
| ey power. This great power was created by
you for the purpose of exchanging your labor;
| aud the productions of your labor but it
engine of robbery and oppression 1t is in
| fact-perverted as it has beer from the sole
object of its creation, to wit, an exchanging
mediums deadly and destructive power in
the hands of avarice, usury and fraud. and
the sole cause of the present depressed and
| perilous condition of your ruined country.
What is money? 1t is po.cer, simply
pouer. What power, whose power, and how
created or constituted? 1t is the co-opera-
tive power of the people for the sole purpose
of exchanging their labor and productions, as
above stated and it is engendered and
brought into existence simply by their agrees
ment with each other that each of them will
take the stamped token of their cooperative
money poUer for their labor and the produc-
tions of their labor. Now this cooperative
po,cer, and simply because it is power, may
be geared and hitched to any material, it
matters not what. The poaoer is the primary
thing and the materiui is secondary. This
stamped on a cheap material as paper, or on
a costly one as gold but it matters not on
which, for the power is exactly the same
1t had better be stamped on the cheap ma
terial, paper, because then the exchanges will
be cheaper as it is cheaper to measure with
a hickory yardstick than with one of gold.
This cooperative power of the people
this sovereign money po'cer-should be res
tanned in their own hands, and never, no
never farmed out to corporations and banks.
And here, let US see the difference in cost
the immense dlfference-when the exchanges
are made by corporations and by bank notes as
| now, and when the exchanges shall be mado
by treasury notes or greenbacks-as they
will be and should be-aud issued directly by
the government to the people.
| The annual productions of the United
| States are ten thousand millions Of dollars in
worth. The banks now exchange these pro-
ductions at the rate of ten per cent. on the
| average. Ten per cent on ten thousand mH-
lions, would be one thousand millions of dol
larSi This enormous tax-equal to one
half the great ,car debts paid by the peo-
pie of the United States to monied oil
garchy, when retaining their own money
power in their own hands, and issuing Treas
ury notes, or greenhacks, they can effect the
same exchange of the ten thousand millions
of products at one quarter or one-half of one
per cent, instead of ten per cent? Nay at
a mill, or half mill, on the annual products
Only think of it, people of the United
States, that you arc now paying one thousand
millions Of dollars, year after year-that is
annually-to effect the exchanges of your
annual productions when you, yourselves, is
suing your own money, can accomplish the
same exchanges for just what it costs to
stamp your o,Cn money, and to distribute it
Think farther, that you can effect your
exchanges for cdsh-for mo"ey-whch can
not be inflated any more than title deeds to
houses and lands can be infsted-when, on
the other hand, the banks effect their ex-
changes by bank notes, or bank credits,
which can be inRdted and contracted, caus-
ing crises and commissions every eight or
ten years and thus putting all your labor
and property at the mercy of their corrupt
gambling and fraudulent speculations.
Think of this and cut loose, at once, from
all partnership with them. Take back into
your own keeping your o,rn money po11er,
and do your Own exchanges on your O~n dc>
count. Your oton money is thousand fold
better than their bank credits or bank notes.
| Your cash is better than their credit. Re-
lieve yourselves of this annual tax of one
thousand millions Of dollars to this hateful
money o!igarchy; for two years of this tax,
paid to them, will pay of your war debt,
and the country would be restored to its old
prosperity. JNo. A. THOMSON,
of Summit Point, West Virginia.
Washington, April 90, 1878.
P. Snow, you may ask, how is this
thing to be done, and who are to doit7 l
answer, by the instant repeal of the resump>
tion law and the final abandonment of this
faIlacous specie basis or convertible system.
It has always failed, both in this country
and in England, and wherever it has been
tried, and will fail again whenever and wher-
ever tried, and is, in fact, and ever has been,
only "le" and "false preteuce" for swind-
ling and speculation, and lastly, as the final
resort, ''suspensiOn!"
AS to who are to do it. l say Congress,
and this very Congress, and before it adj
journs. Let this Congress obey the iujunc>
tions and wishes of the people promptly and
establish an Ameri can system of finance, an
independent system, and under surveillance
to no nation on the globe. The people must
have relief; this Congress must act, or face
and be responsible for consequences that may
shake the solid foundations of law and order.
j. a. T.
The Newspaper Advertising Agency of
Bates & Locke is this day removed from 81
to Al Park Row, into the premises heretofore
= 4. r.