The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-08-09
THE MONEY QUESTION.


five Us Inconvertible Legal Tender Paper
Money and Government Banks.
have been much interested and con-
siderably perplexed in perusing an
article from the pen of Mr.. ]. F. Clark,
under the caption, ''The Money Cues
tion," in the March number of the
Arena. should wish that Mr.. Clark
might have explained why he thinks
that the money unit, or unit of ac-
count" should have standard of
value" or, for that matter, any value
at all, any more necessarily than our
Roman numerals possess value Money,
as Mr.. Clark admits, is but a measure
of comparison by which we differen-
tiate the comparative value of the
several commodities in which, and not
in the money, the value inheres. It is
only in settling international (foreign)
balances that the value of the metal is
taken cognizance of and then by weight
at its commercial value. Very few of
cept bankers) care how much metal
constitutes standard unit. They sim
ply use the dollar as counter or nu-
merator, and, comparing one with the
other, say horse is worth 100 units
and COW Is units, which en-
ables man who wishes to turn horse
into four COWS to sell the horse for count
ers to man who wants a horse, but
has no COWS, and then give the count
ers for four cows to man who has
them but does not want a horse
Neither of them would want gold or
silver, except to exchange for horse
or cows. The superstitious idea that
the money unit must be a set and GER
tain amount of valuable commodity is
the basic fallacy or corner stone upon
which the money power" is rapidly
erecting the temple Of industrial serf-
dom.
The value of a representative money
unit depends upon the number of such
units in circulation. The money
standard" (so-called) is quantitive,
not of value. The true money unit, or
unit of account" is the imaginary,
ideal and abstract figure l. All moneys
are but the material embodiments or
representatives of the figure with it's
several fractions and multiples. The
substitution of the term standard of
value" for the term unit of account
and the legal enactment that some GER
tain quantity of some rare metal shall
constitute the standard of value, are
the potent instrumentalities through
which the Shylocks of the world en-
slave the toiling masses of humanity.
It is pity that Mr.. Clark did not
elaborate more fully the nature of the
creation he calls multiple standard
dollar" which to me, at least, seems to
be wonderfully constituted and fearful
~ made. He says: 1.-THE present mon
etary difficulties of the commercial peo-
pie of the world are not going to be
overcome by the remonetization of sill
yer, but by the demonstration of gold,
belong among all other commodities to
be exchanged at their commodity value
thus far he is right and adopting by
law a multiple standard composed of
not less than fifty articles of utility
and prime necessity, by which the
value of the money unit shall be estab-
lished. If the United States were to
act alone in adopting multiple stand
ard, then they should take the average
price of not less than fifty articles
of utility and necessity in New
York for the last fifty years,
as expressed in dollars and
cents, and then, taking such
quantity of each as would represent
one dollar during all these fifty years,
take fiftieth part of each, and COM
bining these, declare by law that the
dollar was equal in value to these
several quantities of these fifty articles
and thenceforth nothing but paper
should be used to receive the money
stamp. Congress should appoint
committee to select the articles that
shall constitute the multiple standard
of value of the dollar, and to ascertain
their average price in the city of New
York for the past fifty years, and at
the earliest practical moment gold and
silver should be demonetized and the
multiple standard of value for the
money unit be adopted"
Processing to discard and demonetize
gold and silver, he yet arrives at his
multiple standard" by taking the
mean average price of fifty standard
commodities as affixed by the varying
and uncertain ratios of gold and silver
for term of fifty years, without TAX
ing into consideration, as a factor, the
labor cost of the fifty commodities. He
thus retains as permanent feature in
his new creation, all the artificial value
given to gold and silver, by all the
class legislation in favor of such
metals, against which he inveighs so
bitterly. And, after all, what has he
obtained as result, and what does
his new economy mean? Does he mean
that the money of final redemption"
shall be the one-fiftieth part of a ton,
heavyweight, pound, ounce, bushel,
peck, yard, ETC., of fifty different kinds
of commodities? This is what one
would infer from his proposition. Or
does he mean to discard ''final redemp-
tion?" And, if yes, why go to so much
pains to evolve standard, be it ''mul-
tiple" or single or double? Money
needs no redeemer, the only excuse for