Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1878-10-30

IOWA,
II AN EXTRACT
: Of Col. Robert G.. Ingersoll's Gre,
: Speech ct Music Hall, Boston,
Il October 81, 1878.
Il THE CRASH.
Suddenly there came crash. ia
Cooke failed, and have heard thOl
sands of men account for the subs>
lquent hard times from the fact this
Mr.. Cooke did fail, As well Nigh
, Iyou account for the smallpox by say
Ing that the first pustule was tn
cause of the disease. The failure {
Jay Cooke & Co. was simply a symE
tom of the disease universal. mo Ian
lguage can describe the agOnies tina
have been endured since 1873. N
language can tel. the sufferings of tn
men that have wandered over tn
dreary and desOlate desert of bank
ruptcy. Thousands and thousand
supposed that they had enough, =
enough for their declining years
enough for wife and children ,-ans
suddenly found themselves pauper
and vagrants. During oil these year,
the bankruptcy law was in force, ant
whoever failed to keep his promise
had simply to take the benefit of thi
law. As q consequence there coult
be no real, solid foundation for bust
ness. Property commenced to decline
that is tOsay, It commenced to resume
that is, 1t began to be rated at its real
instead of it's speculative value. LanG
Is worth what 1t will produce and NJ
more. 1t may have a speculative
value, and, If the prophecy is fulfill
ed, the man who buys it may become
rich, and If the prophecy Is not full.
filled, then the land is worth simply
what it will produce. Lots worth
from $5, 600 to $40, 900 apiece suddenly
vanished into farms worth $25 an acre
These lots resumed; the farms that
before that time had been considered
worth 800, that are now $40 to $50,
have simply resumed. Magnificent
residences, supposed to be worth $780,.
600, that can now be purchased for
VI, 900, have simply resumed. The
property in the United States has not
fallen in value, but its real value has
been ascertained. The land will pro.
duce as much as ever it would, and is
as valuable to-day as ever 1t was; and
every Improvement, every invention
that adds to the productiveness of the
soil or to the facilities for getting that
product to market, adds to the wealth
Of the nation. AS matter of fact,
the property kept pace with what we
were pleased to call our money. As
the money deprecated, property ap-
preciated; as money appreciated,
property deprecated. The moment
property began to fall speculation
ceased. There Is but little specula-
tiOn on q falling market. The stocks
and bonds, based simply upon ideas,
become worthless; the collaterals be-
come, SO to speak, dust and ashes.
At the close of the War, when the
Government ceased to be such vast
purchaser and consumer, many of the
factories had to stop. When the cri-
sis came the men stopped digging ore,
they stopped telling the forest, the
fires died out in the furnaces, the men
who had stood in the glare of the
forge were in the gloom of despond-
ency. There was No employment for
them. The employer could not sell
his product, business stood still, and
then came what we call the hard
times. Our wealth was delusion
and illusion, and we simply came
back to reality. Too many men were
doing nothing, too many men were
traders, brokers, speculators. There
were not enough producers of the
things needed, there were too many
producers of the things no one wish
ed.
FIAT MONEY.
Many remedies have been proposed
and chief among these is the remedy
of fiat money. Probably no subject
in the world Is less generally under
stood than that of money. So many
false definitions have been given, so
many strange, conflicting theories
have been advanced, that it is not at
all surprising that men have come to
imagine that money issomething that
can be created by law. The defini-
tions given by the hard-money men
have been used as arguments by those
who believe in the power of Congress
to create wealth. We are told that
gold Is an instrumentality or a device
to facilitate exchanges. We are also
told that gold Is measure of value.
Let us examine these definitions
"Gold or money is an instrumentali-
ty or device to facilitate exchanges -
That sounds well, but do not believe
it Is correct. Gold and silver are
commodities. They are the products
of labor. They are not Instrumental
tiles, they are not devices to facilitate
exchanges; they are the things ex-
changed for something else, and other
things are exchanged for them. The
only device about it to facilitate ex-
changes Is the coming of these met
ais, so that you can truthfully saw
that coming of gold and silver is a de-
vice to facilitate exchanges, and the
exchanges are facilitated in this
way: Whenever the Government
or any Government certifies
that in q certain piece of gold or
silver there are certain number of
OF grains of certain fineness,
then he who gives it knows that
he is not giving too much, and he
who receives that he is receiving
enough, so that will change the de-
fnition to this: The coming of the
precious metals Ia a device to facili-
tate exchanges, but the precious met
als themselves are property they are
merchandise, they are commodities,
and whenever one commodity ia ex-
changed for another it is barter, and
gold and silver are the last refinement
Of barter. The second definition is !:
Gold and eilver are the measures of
value. We are told by those who be-
lieve in fiat money that gold is meas
ure of value just the same as
half-bushel or yard-stick.
l deny that gold is .
measure of value. 1t ia . measure Of
value precisely as half-bushel is, or
as q yard-stick is, but no other way.
1t measures cloth worth fifty dollars
. yard precisely as it does calico
worth four cents; it measures $lOO
lace % 1t does cent tape and In NO
other way. 1t 10, therefore not
measure Of value, and consequently
this yard stick can be made of silver,
or gold, or wood. It measures simply
quantities. The same with the half
bushel. The half-bushel measures
wheat precisely the same, whether
that wheat 10 worth s. or 81. It sim
ply measures quantity, not quality,
not vslue. The yard-stick, the half
bushel, and the coming of money are
eli devices to facilitate exchange.
The yard-stick assures the man who
sells that he has not sold too much |;
It assures the man who buys that he
has received enough and in that way
It facilitates exchanges. The coming
Of money facilitates exchange, for tho
reason that were Il not coined, each
man who did business would have to
carry . pair Of scales and be chem
ist. II gold and silver are not the
measure Of value, what is? Ianswer
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