Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-05-20
LAND CURRENCY.

BILE paper a synopsis and discussion of
plan or system of finance, denomi-
mated by you for want of a better
name, ''the Hill banking system"
Again, in your issue of March 2s, you
do good work for the cause of human
ity and fire hot shot into the ranks Of
the mo ey mongers, when you use the
following terse and explicit language:
We do hereby affirm our belief that the
wealth creators of a great nation who trade
more among themselves than they do with
foreign countries should make a money sys-
tenn that has a first regard for the interests
of the majority of the people and the bulk
of traffic.
Furthermore, we do declare and believe
that it is not only wildly fallacous but also
dangerous to the public veal to insist upon
a gold and silver basis for paper currency.
Gold and silver lack the primary essentials
to just basis of currency. which must be an
unvarying stability in value, with an elastic
fuctuation in quantity, which are absolutely
impossible in the case of these metals.
There is not, and cannot be, equitable
currency system based gold and silver
until it can be determined with mathematic-
al exactness just how much OF said basis we
need day by day, because the amount abso-
lutely required must be inflexibiy deter
mined by the increase or diminution in the
sum total of the daily financial and CONNER
cial transactions of the country in their to-
tality.
The above is sound doctrine, couched
in plain and brave words, which / am
sure are used by their able writer ad-
visedly and with a full knowledge of
their exact scope of significance.
1t is not the use of the metals gold
and silver as money that takes the
form of oppression to a people, but
their use as basis for other money.
If all money is acknowledged to be
money equal with any other money,
both in the eyes of the law and in its
| attributes functions and powers, then
the use of gold and silver as money is
simply foolish but harmless extrava-
gance which merely lessons the amount
of these metals used in the arts and for
ornamental purposes by increasing the
| price of jewelry and ornaments
Had the greenbacks been made full
legal tender for all debts, public and
private, they would have remained at
! par while gold would not have been
artifcially appreciated in value because
| of special and exclusive functions or
privileges impaired and accorded to it.
But we are far, very far, from ap-
| preaching discussion of the essence
of the land-currency safety fund sys-
| tenn when we waste breath in handy
| ing words about gold and silver and pa
per, and their respective merits and de-
merits as material upon which to stamp
or coin money. What we want to reach,
and having reached to destroy, is ''the
power of money to oppress," which is
its. interest-drawing powers in the
hands of individuals, coupled with the
possession and ownership Of the total
volume of money by few individuals
and corporations.
It matters not of what material
money may be made, whether 1t be
| gold, silver, paper or leather, SO long
! as counterfeiting is a crime, and gov
ernments arbitrarily limit and restrict
its volume while allowing corporations
to farm it out for profit; just so long 1t
remains only a matter of time as to
when those who own the money shall
own the total material wealth of the
nation. If money Is loaned for as much
as three per cent. it will absorb as
interest the total annual increase
in material wealth. If it is loaned
for more than three per cent.
the overplus must come out of the prin-
cipal, or existing wealth. at the begin
ming of the term. 1t is by the operation
of this law that the prevalent high rates
of interest have accumulated in the
hands of 81, 900 Individuals, $50, 900, 00O,-
600, or six-tenths of the wealth of the
nation, while 1880, 900 persons own and
have possession of $40, 500, 600, 600, or
$37, sou each, and the remaining 81, $780,
900 persons have but SIS, 500, ,000, 900, or
$3.50 each.
An able bodied man is worth if he
can subsist on air, go naked and with
out shelter, and finally bury himself)
the sum of S., ,OOO because that is the
sum per cent. upon which amounts to
$3.50. the average annual earnings of the
wage workers of America. And yet
under and by operation of the law of
usury or interest the sum of s., 900,
compounded annually at ten per cent,
will amount to as much in fifty years
as the entire total earnings of ten men
for the same length of time. In this
connection it must not be forgotten that
hundreds of millions of dollars of bank
ing capital, with its accruing interest, Is
kept annually compounded at greater
rate than ten per cent. Labor produces
all wealth and must, in the last an
alysis, pay all interest. Hence money
accumulated by productive and indus
trial labor, by virtue of the practice of
the abstemious parsimony and frugal
economy inculcated by ''Bean Soup At
kinson," David A. Wells and political
economists of that ilk, does but agpra-
vate and intensity the power of money
to oppress" and add to the burden under
which labor is already groaning. Not
only does labor pay the interest upon
its own savings, promised by the banks
and other safe repositories, but it actu-
ally pays upon its own money the COM
mission-interest charged by these
bankers and money mongers-and in
effect literally builds the palatial resi-
dences and magnificent business blocks
and bank buildings ostensibly erected
by capitalistic bankers and loan and
trust men.
1t is useless to try to restrain or coun-
teract this tendency by enacting laws
against usury, as such laws are con-
stantly evaded and defied, while the
cruel necessities of the borrowers them
selves force them to become criminal
participants in an infraction of law,
from which infraction they themselves
are the sufferers. And yet shame to our
civilization that IL should be said, these
men have the wealth, (security) and
suffer only for lack Of large instru-
ment of exchange called money" Be-
sides, aside from usury, the legal rate
of interest will average seven per cent,
which upon our more than thirty
billions of interest bearing private In
debtedness, II more. much more, than
sufficient to absorb the total annual in
crease of national wealth.
Now as to the land currency savings
bank system and the effect It would
have toward rectifying the evils of the
abominable system of finance under
which we groan and suffer.