The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1892-08-20
A SINGLE SILVER STANDARD
In Argument on the Money Question
Showing Its Relation to Labor.
u Money Commodity or Creation
ofLaw! Silver Is the Peoples Money
and Should be the Standard.
Money, rightly considered, is a

MOiIey, ''6"'Ay
commodity.
"Paper money" rightly under
stood, is not money. 1t stands in
the place of money and is used as
a medium of exchange on the belief
that it is just as good as money,
and that money could be gotten
for it if wanted. That is all the
"credit" it is built on and there is,
or can be, no other.
In the form q promise to pay
it is very unsafe substitute. In
the form of an order, like check,
upon bank, or order to deliver, or
pay, it is a much safer one and is
all right if there be no fraud; that
ia, if the money be where it is pur-
ported to be and is ready to be paid
over or delivered. This is the po-
sition of the United States at pres
emit. 1t has agreed to keep all
these various moneys at par and
could not do it if called upon; that
lie, it has built up most danger
GUS and illogical system of finance
on "credit" and which only lives by
sufferance. There is very little
wheat to the great mountain of
chat. It is the great humbug
known as keeping the parity of its
money and is built on that most
illogical system of finance known as
the bi-metallic system. This there
is not time here to prove, but any
man who will carefully study it
will soon discover it's weakness.
It is born of the great mistake that
money is the creature oflaw. This
however, we have not time here to
discuss. We advise all silver men
to study bi-metalIism and parity
get a thorough understanding of
our present system-but l can not
lengthen my argument here.
Money is the form in which la
Dor is preserved. A laborer bar
ters his services for money and bar
tiers the money for his wants. The
excess in money he "salts down."
or ''lays up" for future use. 1t
represents the labor, or "unem-
ployed capital" he still has on
hand. The rest of his labor he has
"swapped OFF, for commodities that
pleased him. This represents the
labor expended, or the reward he
got for it, or at least that part of it.
Money. therefore, is of no good to
the world till it is spent. This is
why times are good when money is
plenty.
The laborer has produced money
as far as he is concerned by earn
ing it, that is, by swapping labor
for 1t.
Now then, as to the money or
commodity stored away, whether
that shall buy more or less of any.
thing as potatoes, cotton, corn,
wine, or iron in the future than it
did when it was laid away is some
thing that is practically impossible
to tell. That is, he has to-does
take his chances; there is
no fixity of value to it and it is the
victim or subject of demand and
supply like every other commodity !
but as it is physically indestructi-
BILE it will probably be more stable
than most other commodities. We
could not do much in that line
with apples or with grass, (which
today is and tomorrow is cast in
the oven" That is, the supply is
more constant and the amount less
liable to tluctuation; but let no
man suppose that it is absolute
fixity of value that makes it me-
dunn of exchange for there cannot