People's voice., 1894-09-14

. y
until the liberties OF the people and
the life of the nation itself, are in
danger If congress has not the right
to delegate its control over the coin
age of gold and silver, where does it
OBJ ain its authority to delegate its
control over coined substitutes? Con-
gress could not grant the substitute
prerogative to the banks unless it first
possessed it. If it ever possessed it it
was held as trust 10 exercise for the
benefit OF the people as their agent
If it never possessed the substitute
prerOgative, it could not confer it
upon the banks, hence they exercised
usurped power Congress has no
more right to delegate its powers to
issue one kind of money than another.
If congress has right to confer the
monetary function Of sovereignty
upon an hereditary succession,
it has right to dispose
OF any kind and all sovereign powers
in the same manner. The national
bank system is a step toward the
establishment of a sovereignty based
upon hereditary succession and is the
corner stone OF Imperialism.
The bank act conferred and perpet-
uating delegated power upon foreign
ers and aliens is a gross betrayal of a
trust delegated by the people to con-
gress by the constitution, and is trea-
son against the people. The national
bank act is a usurpation of power
not warranted by the constitution.
The question arises, if bank notes
are money, where do they derive their
money functions, and if the govern
ment can create money for the banks,
why not for itself and the people? If
the debts of nation are good security
on which to base its money, is not its
wealth better security? Why should
the government pay interest on
its bonded debt and issue cur
rency for nine-tenths Of its
face value without receiving credit
on the bond, and stopping interest to
that extent? Nearly all nations rec
ognize the sovereign right of a gov
ernment to make treasury notes a
legal tender. The universal expert
ence of all governments is that gold as
the exclusive'legal tender money is not
sufficient to enable the people to carry
on their domestic and foreign trade,
and where the quantity of full legal
tender is not added to gold in great
quantities, or is excluded altogether,
there must be an issue of legal lender
paper.
What is the basis OF gold and silver?
During the financial crisis in England
in lS47, when lega, tender debt pay.
ing money was in urgent demand, no
one could borrow a five pound note on
$1,000 worth OF silver because the ba-
sis of silver coin had been removed
by demonetization. Although its
intrinsic value was as much
as ever, it did not rep.
resent any money function. In Cal.
cutta, where only silver is a legal
tender, during a money stringency in
1904 it was impossible to borrow
dollar on gold, and merchants who
had hundreds Of thousands OF dollars
in gold coin, were obliged to allow
their notes to go to protest because
they could not borrow $40 in silver on
bushel of gold.
The question is not What kind "a
the money" but What will it do? Is
it full legal tender basis and does it
repre- ent debt paying funetion?"
Henry cernwiscbi, an eminent
French writer on finance, says:
money is value created by law, its
basis is legal and not material 1t is
perhaps not easy to convince one that
the value of metallic money is created
BY law; it is, however, a fact II you
suppose that gold and silver are not
money-are not a legal -tender-their
value is lost"
How many tariff speakers can tell
the difference between Bill McKin.
ley's Mckinley bill and Bill Wilson's
Wilcar hillO