The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1892-06-25

tdluC, anu Ihh hopiAh6 SAoS SSa's ~
real, scientific money. In reality he
knew very little about his subject; but
most of the bankers bought his book,
and treasured it as a pearl of great
price. But what is the crucial test
whether a man is actually scientific or
a false pretenderP"
l had never thought of this test and
could not think what to reply. Final
ly, l said with much dignity, that l
failed to see any use in answering such
queer questions. To this my opponent
replied that s'he had often heard of
persons in a corner growing dignified
and having nothing to say. But" said
he, 81 have something to say. The
true test of a mans scientific attain
ments is his power to make accurate
predictions. A scientific astronomer
can predict an eclipse just to the min
ute long before it ccurs A scientific
chemist can predict what results will
follow the mixture of certain chemicals.
A scientific engineer predicts the
strength of a bridge before he builds it.
The men who built the Brooklyn bridge
were scientific because they knew be-
forehand what the result of their plans
would be. They did not have to wait
for the bridge to fall down OF its own
weight or from light loads and be re-
built several times before they knew
how much load it would carry; that
was all accurately computed before
hand.
s1In chnrt a man with a nnnnina
scientific knowledge of a particular sub
ject, a always make a reliable pre-
diction relative to that subject and the
accuracy of his predictions constitutes
an unfailing test of the extent and pre-
cision of his scientific attainments.
ssBut the men you call scientific
financiers' have been constantly max
ing predictions which events have
shown to be false. Nearly all the
prophecies of these pretended 'scien-
lists have been steadily refuted by the
passage of time for the past twenty
years. Soon after the enactment of the
Bland Silver law in 1873 a well-known
schoolmaster made a speech in which
he predicted that, as an inevitable re-
suit of the Bland bill, business would
be in chaos in few months, and every
finance paper in the whole country
eulogized this foolish speech as the ut
terance of a profound scientist
''Hon. Chas. Foster, Secretary of the
Treasury recently made a speech in New
York, wherein he had the candor to ad-
NIT that the authorities on finance
had all made an unbroken series OF
false predictions for a long time, but,
apparently, 1t had never even dawned
upon him that these predictions were
the inevitable and logical fruit of the
false and fundamental premises held by
the authors of those predictions in com
mon with himself and his official chief
elf man should predict an eclipse
of the moon which did not occur, we
would at once dismiss him from con-
sideration as a charlatan. Ought we
not to regard those who make false
financial predictions as quacks and I'M
postorsp"
/ then reminded the silver mar that
even if all he had said about the true
test of a mans scientific attachments
were true, he had not yet touched the
vital truth that gold coins Measure val,
ne precisely as we measure length with
a yardstick.
"My dear sir" said he abe patient.
We have only just now got ready to
dissect the yardstick humbug. The
often-repeated assertion that gold coins
measure value, just as a yardstick does
length, always reminds me of what fire.
quently appears in newspapers, print.
ed in large headlines, Important, II
True
"There is only n trouble with the
yardstick statement. 1t is not true, as
stated and understood. There is q
faint resemblance between the use oil
money and the use of yardsticks. We
use the yardstick as an instrument tc
compare the length of one thing witt
the length of various other things. We
use money to help compare the value
of one thing with the values of various
other things. An important difference
in their similarity exists, to wit; a yard.
stick once verified ic generally constant,
ly used thereafter, year after year
without any re-examination of it.
length, because none is needed. Bul
every time we use money in d consider.
able amount, if some time has elapsed
since last using it, we consciously OF
unconsciously re-examine its value
We may, in a limited sense and in 8
narrow sense, regard money as a inca.
sure of value, provided we remember
this measure Is not fixed, like a ward
stick, but in constant need of itself be
ing compared and retested. And the
true test of what money measures al
different times and places is the aver,
age amount of a large number OF differ.
ent commodities for which it can bt
exchanged. In other words, the aver,
age market price.
"a brainless clerk can use Il yard
stick as well as an A. L. Stewart, but
money ordinarily needs sound judgment
for Its successful use. The length of q
yardstick is not changed by transport,
hight from place to place. 1t is always
the same length it every quarter of the
g,obe. But money is constantly shipped
from one country to another, for the
simple reason that it frequently has u
higher value at n place than at an
other. Neither news of war nor peace,
famine o plenty, bankruptcy mol
prosperity, political revolutions, socia,