Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-07-12

monetary system, tnereI0fo thai has q fear OF
this kind inhering in It IL defective and should
be remedied II the drawing Of few hundred
millions from this country shall awaken
the people to this truth it will be good
thing. Perhaps the blessing will not be ex-
per1enced to-day, but II will surely give all
those who believe in unlimited paper money a
setback to their theories- But As we have al
ready said this experience Is not peculiar We
are just as we'll on as England, Austria and
other nations: the same thing may happen to
them at any time Tho lesson to be needed is
we should form larger metallic basis, and If
the quantity OF gold cannot be increased, then
silver should be used OF course, we do not
mean to imply that the present silver policy
should be continued; but we do mean to assert
that the world cannot safely discard the use OF
silver as the basis of fits paper issues and If it
thinks il can and persists in doing so, we have
no doubt whatever that disarrangements and
depreSSlons and panicS will follow. Perhaps
the time may come when the use OF silver may
be discarded, and gold also, but that time is
not yet, and the present hutter caused by the
exodus OF our gold to Europe and the futter
on the other side when few millions is with
drawn from their banks, is unanswerable proof
OF the f1ct that nations and banking institu-
uons are trying to sustain paper currency on
too small means Of payment In other words
there is an ever present fear that they cannot
maintain their obligations The remedy which
every one clearly enough sees is larger use of
the two metals
1t will be observed that there is no
mention here of the Sherman law as
the cause of the financial flutter or the
outflow of gold; authorities like the
Bankers Magazine leave such false
statements to certain politicians and
newspapers that might be named.
The plea of the Bankers Magazine
is that which has often been made by
the Journal 1t is that the gold basis
alone is too narrow to carry the vast
superstructure of paper money and
credit, and that the two metals are in
dispensable to that security which a
broad and ample metallic basis can
alone impart.
1t is often said that silver is largely
used now in this country. That is
true, but how is it used? Not as money
of redemption, sharing with gold, as
the Bankers Magazine says is neces-
sary, the work of redemption of paper
issues, but as mere token money, itself
to be redeemed in gold. The words of
the article quoted are strong plea for
free coinage of both metals.
In view of these words, how does the
cry for wildcat state bank issues ap-
pear? Aside from their insecurity they
would only add to the superstructure
of credit which the Bankers Magazine
says in the article quoted is already too
large for the existing metallic basis.
What is needed is more money to re-
deem with, and not more so-called
money to be redeemed The necessi-
ties of the situation can only be met by
large increase of the metallic basis,
and inasmuch as the gold supply of the
world cannot be increased the cure can
only come by drawing silver and gold
together as coordinate money of ulti-
mate redemption on fixed ratio, which
was the position they occupied toward
each other and toward the paper money
and the business Of the world for CEN
turies prior to 1873. kansas City Jour-
nal.
The words in the quotation from the
bankers Magazine possessing the most
significance and upon which the most
emphasis should be laid are these:
Perhaps the time may come when the
use of silver may be discarded, and gold
also, but that time is not come yet"
The ideal of Bartholdi's statue, Lib
erty Enlightening the World" can in
no wise more nearly approximate a
glorious realization then by the stamp
ing out in the United States of the hui
manity enslaving fallacies ''specie
basis" and specie redemption" What
is needed is not more money to re-
deem with" but a sufficiency of money
that needs no redeemer. Civilization
must retrace its steps and grope back
ward until the suffering and toiling
masses of humanity regain the liberty
once enjoyed but lost with the first
coinage of silver coins by the Roman
empire 2G6 years before the Christian
era.
In the report of the monetary COM
mission of 1876 are found these words:
At the Christian era the metallic money of
the Roman empire amounted to 81, 800 COX, 900. BY
the end OF the fifteenth century il had shrunk
to less than S30O, 900. During this period a
most extraordinary and baleful change took
place In the condition OF the world. Popula-
ton dwindled and commerce. arts wealth and
freedom all disappeared The people were re-
duced by poverty and misery to the most de-
graded conditions of serfdom and slavery The
o1sintegration OF society was almost complete
The conditions OF life were so hard that indi-
vidual selishness was the only thing consistent
public spirit, all generous emotions all the
noble aspirations CT man shriveled and disap.
peared as the volume Of money shrunk and as
prices fell
History records no such disas trous transition
as that from the Roman empire to the dark
ages. Various explanat tions have been given of
this entire breaking down of the frame work Of
society, but 1t was certainly coincident with
Shrinkage in the volume of money which was
also without historical parallel. The crumbling
OF institutions kept even step and pace with
the shrinkage in the stock of money and the
falling of prices All other attendant circum-
stances than these last have occurred in other
historical periods unaccompanied and unfol-
lowed by any such mighty disasters 1t is a
suggestive coincidence that the first glimmer
OF light only came with the invention Of bills of
exchange and paper substitutes, through which
the scanty stock Of the precious metals was in
creased in efficiency.
But it was during the period from $50
+. c. to $50 Il. c. that the Roman en-
pire made her greatest, grandest and
most wonderful progress and attained
the topmost pinnacle of national glory
and the zenith of her power. During
this period her monetary system was
what is known as the numerary system,
under which money was not considered
as commodity and possessed no COM
modify value, but was simply the uni
versai numerator, representing by eer-
tain legal stamps and signs the unvarv-
ing and ever constant monetary unit
the numeral or figure with its multi
pies and fractions. It was in the year
266 b. C., with the coinage of the first
silver coins, that the destroying serpent
metallism first set its poisonous fangs
In the body polite, and human liberty
commenced to wither and die. The
money unit ceased to be looked upon as
the universal conventional denominant
and passed from the abstract and ideal
into the real and material, becoming a
certain quantity of a certain commod-
ity. The unit of account became the
standard of value" The world had
changed its monetary system from the
numerary to the commodity" and
tOaV 49, Il