The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1892-01-08
WORDS, AND NOTHING BUT WORDS.


The Journal prints the second letter
of DIR. Taylor on fat or no value money.
1t is the same old story-the threshing
over of straw threshed hundred times
before, which never had grain of wheat
in it. He admits that piece of paper
upon which is printed "ten dollars" is of
no value, but asks If Congress should
order that there be printed on the same
paper "This shall be full legal-tender
at its face value for all dues public and
private" if it would not perform all the
functions of money wherever the laws
of the United States extendf No; such
substitute for money has never full
filed all the functions of money. Ma
ton after nation has tried it and failed.
DIR. Taylor, as an intelligent man, should
know this. John Law tried what DR..
Taylor proposes, in France, in III,
and in five years involved the ma
ton in financial disaster. Again, legal
tender notes were issued in France,
based upon the confscated lands of the
country. worth millions, by the element
then in power, and the most stringent
laws enacted to compel the people to
take them as money, yet in six years
they fell from nearly par in coin to have
no value whatever, but filled the cities
of France with starving people. The
Continental Congress- tried paper money
with promise to pay, attempted to
compel people to take it for their goods,
and punished Tories who would not,
and yet, with an issue of about $780,
000, 900 as the highest estimate, and with
only portion of it in circulation, it be-
came utterly worthless, and could not
be given value when the success of the
American cause was assured. To these
can be added the recent experience of
the United States and the disasters In
the Argentine Republic, fresh in the
minds of all intelligent readers. With
out single exception, every nation
which has issued paper money based up
on land or with promise Of redemption
in coin which it did not keep, has ended
in financial disaster. These facts
OF history have taught average
practical men that fat, no value
or irredeemable paper money, no
matter by whom issued, will end in
financial disaster or ruin to the people
resOrting to it. The mass of people be-
lieve that experience is the best teacher.
The fat money of which DR.. Taylor
speaks, issued by Congress, could be
forced upon creditors. who, for the most
part, are the depositors in savings banks,
the holders of life-insurance policies
and investors in the shares of loan and
building associations, and upon labor,
which must live, but the capitalist, who
takes care of himself, has his obligations
made payable in gold. The masses
would be swindled. Such is the lesson
of history.
The legal-tender silver dollar, DIR.
Taylor says, is one-ffth fiat money.
Under certain conditions it would be,
but as the issue has always been limited
and has now been stopped, the quantity
issued can be used in the country upon
the gold basis; but make the coinage of
silver free. and the silver dollar
would then be on its own intrin-
sic value, and while the creditor
could be made to take it where he has
not taken the precaution to have gold
written in his contract, the silver dollar
would purchase but four-ffths as much
wheat, sugar, ETC.. as would the gold
dollar if the present difference in the
values of the metals should hold.
DIR. Taylor lie pleased to call going
over aud over these matters, the max
ing of absurd statements about the Bar
ings, disputing about the quotations OF
stocks when there is nothing to dispute
over and would not bear upon the sub
| ject If there was, discussion but to
| people who have learned from the ex-
perience of nations that money. to per-
form its functions in civilization, must
be limited to the worlds stock of gold
and silver, or paper Immediately re-
deemable in them, it is wearisome
| chatter. That the precious metals and
| paper redeemable in them or based upon
them are money, is the conviction of the
4 WOAAus ohu hSCNo w OO VIC
cussed when an argument is necessary
to sustain the axiom that straight line
| is the shortest distance between two
| points. Furthermore, if the subject
of money were open to discussion
it would be waste Of time
and space to argue with one who
| denies that the confederate treasury
notes were legal tender. when upon tn.
face of all of the earlier issues it II
stated that they are receivable in pay
ment of all dues except export Dues" o.
with one who AYERS that Secretary Win
dom redeemed SEQ, GOO, 600 of four-and-a
half-per-cent. bonds during the strin
Rency of November, 1890. to aid JAY
| Gould. when, as a matter of fact, Mr.
! Gould's interests would have been bette
served by a continuation of the strin
geney; and moreover, nothing can b,
arrived at in a controversy in which one
| is so unmindful of accurate statemen
as to declare that "the Journal has sal,
that the rate of interest was 1876 pc
cent?" when the full statement of tn,
| Journal Waa that "epeculative interes