The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-07-19

was his f~avorite. as although a railroad
stockholder, the Californian had endorsed
the free silver bill and believed in sub
treasures. As for the vice-presidency what
States Senator Gordon. of Georgia. and
President Polk, of the Farmers alliance.
AS the idea of sub-treasuries is far more
clear in the public mind and the concep-
tlon of them from the standpoint of a New
Yorker might be interesting. l prevailed
sign the following:
In principle the sub-treasury plan pro-
| vides that the volume of money should re-
spond to fluctuations in the demand for its
use. 1t has been and is advocated bv the
greatest economists. 1t is in fact the foun-
dation of our national banking system, and
the reason why that utterly fails is this:
1t makes money for exchange an article of
commerce. Herein lies the vital principle
upon which plutocracy has absorbed the
wealth of labor. Herein is the mighty is
sue. which for the first time in human his
tory has been brought before the iurisdic-
ton of organized society.
The national banks have no other de-
sign underlying them than to furnish more
money than gold or silver, and the ~institu-
tion has had but one excuse for it exist
ence, the same excuse, or cause, which
underlies all banks. and that is, to furnish
credit to double or quadruple the amount
OF exchange. But, at the same time, a
bank issuing credit. cooperative or nation
al. can only do 80 when the seeker after ex-
change wishes to borrow The borrower
takes the bills, or exchange. or money, and
leaves a debt. he takes earth, but leaves
the hole which must again be filled, the
earth-owner charges a price for the dirt. the
dirt then becomes an article measured, and
not measure itself. If society chooses to
supply Il measure of value it can do 80. 1t
requires care and Judgment, but it requires
no more care and Judgment under a direct
national issue, backed by property which
it buys on mortgages, than it does when it
permits an individual or corporation to
issue that measure of va~lus-especially
when that individual or corporation can
transform that measure of value into an
article Of commerce to be measured itself
by the supply which they choose to credit
in other words. to dictate the size of n
bushel or the weight of a pound.
The principle is rs substantial as the
very foundation of intelligence, that the
more property then is to be exchanged, and
the more people then are to do the exchang-
mR--the moro exchange money there must
be-or else a price is at once set on that ex-
change. The utterers thereof then have the
power to modify a measure precisely as If
the bushel and the pound were subject to
their dictation-and human suffering. loss,
poverty is the result. The hole they create
by debt supplies the earth to build tho
money lenders wealth.
Millions of dollars are now required in
the fall of the year to move our crop of
wheat, corn, cotton, otto. A large share of
IL IL borrowed from European bankers at
say six per cent, which makes the dollar
$l.O6, II this necessity for money COM
pels the producer to sell at once. the maj
ket price ia broken and the producer suf-
fers n loss 30 vast that no human mathe-
matician can over ascertain II, and of course
tho loss to the producer il gain to the spec
ulator and money-lender, and thus we have
tho awful. the s%tupendons wealth III the
hands OF spectators II the widespread,
universal poverty over regions too vast to
consider calmly.
THE individual laboror cannot help him
self, II Ill only the organic social structure
that can address itself tn u remedy. Now,
IL there any reasonable person who can
state a reasonable objection to the govern
mont. which is the organic whole, issuing
the credit when ID ~ borrowed. M we'll M
individuals or corporation money lenders.
The money lenders have M security bonds
or stocks having "A value often unjust and
Artificial. Also land, and At times gold, or
silver or warehouse receipts aud bills of
lading. Tn sub-treasury plan is that the