Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1893-09-27

sOlO. OuCH d LucOi1 Is I1ulCulOuS. w ny.
if the government was to trade gold for
all the silver dollars at the present rela-
tive bullion value it would retirezh
the money of this country from circula-
ton and lose forty-fve cents on each
dollar so redeemed, or total of
S25S, 10000 in the transaction. Brilliant
craftsmanship that. But no such pro-
vision exists, the Cresset to the con-
trary Notwithstanding, and the silver
dollar circulates beside the gold because
the government has decreed it to be
legal tender on its own merits. Don't
allow yourself for moment to be de-
Iuded into believing that silver circu-
lates at par because it is redeemable in
gold. The gold standard men original
ed this way out of a simple question put
by free coinage advocates as to what
constituted the remaining farty-hve
cents in a fifty-five cent dollar, and it
is misleading in every particular. In
presenting the sophistry, however, the
Cresset comes forward with the air of
an inyincible conqueror, and intimates
that 1t defines and settles the question,
once for all. So far from being an an
swer it is simply dodge. the fallacy of
which presents itself after brief IN
vestigation.
| The Cresset's idea of money is nov
ell one. In answer to our claim that the
government stamp is essential to money
it says:
Anything is money that custom and usage
recognize as such. In the broad sense of the
word anything that is bartered or exchanged
is money. Coon skins, shells. beads, slaves,
ETC., have been money in the past and history
does not record that they were stamped.
This is another gIarIng error. Any
thing may be medium of exchange
| that custom and usage recognize as
such; but it is not money unless
stamped. The constitution of the
| United States says congress shall have
the power to coin money and regulate
| the value thereof and to coin money
necessitates stamping it. Imagine
coming coon skin or slave. We are
dealing with America as it exists today
and not as it existed before Columbus,
when money was not used and snail
! shells were used as a medium of ex-
change by the aborigine5. Commerce
was confined to local trades and all
transactions were merely exchanges
agreed upon by the interested parties
According to the Cresset, four hundred
years later, everything used by the red
| skinned savage was money
Webster defines money as a word
| taken from the Latin mOneta, sur
name Of Juno, in whose temple at Rome
money was coined. He says it means
| coin, stamped metal or currency usually
employed as an equivalent, such as
bank notes. etc. Nothing said about
beads and shells. Possibly the natives
Of Central Africa. if they could produce
a dictionary, would define money as the
| Cresset does. Onre possessing the
| greatest and earliest civilization that is
known to history hey fell, as many
| later prototypes, W n first the cOntrac-
| ton and finally the abandonment of
| their money, until they became en-
gcIfed in the sOmbre cloud of barbar-
ism from which they have never
emerged. The history of nations show
that they sprang mp into prominence
! and attained their period of greatest
magnilicence when the supply of money
was the greatest, and as soon as con-
traction was begun and few had cor
nered it a decline in everything began
and continued until the nation passed
from view in the maze OF degeneration
At the time Egypt arose from the
lethargic sleep Of nations the first gold
and silver mines recorded, those of
Nubia and Southern Africa, had begun
to be operated. Later, when Solomon 8
glory amazed the world the new mines
of Western Asia and Eastern Africa
were operated by his subjects. The
Phoenicians sprang into prominence
with the discovery of mines on the
Mediterranean; the Greeks founded a
civilization that has never been recov-
cred, when gold and silver mines were
discovered in the mountains of Thrace
and Macedon, and the Roman Empire
reached the zenith of its splendor when
\ the mines of CASTLE were being worked.
The rise ard fall of all these nations is
defined by their supply of money, which
when it was in general circulation kept
the government strong and healthy but
when contracted until it could be con-
trolled by few, produced disaster and
downfall We are travelling in paths
long known to history and are nearing
the precipice oyer which many other
and stronger nations have gone before.
A single gold standard adopted and the
last prop will be removed, which will
produce the same results that have
been so often demonstrated in other
countries, the only difference being in
that the climax Is reached sooner In our
history. Decay and dissolution are
axiomatical results of contracting the
money of country, its very life blood.
The theory that we must have gold
standard because England has is I'M
patriotic tory!sm. Do we, protesting to
be the strongest nation in the world.
have to crawl and cringe at the feet of
Great Britain? But it is said England
maintains herself better under a gold
standard, and this is even quoted as ar
gumeHt in favor of this country adopt
ing the same. A gold standard is what
England wants. 1t is the creditor ma
ton of the world, and Gladstone in a
recent speech said that the outside
world owed Great Britain ten billion
dollars. mostly based on gold. The
Director of the Mint estimates the
SIS ,6S2, sos 900. or a very little over one
third enoughtop pay the obligations held
by Great Britain. No wonder her