The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-10-15
INTRINSIC VALUE.

Strange that these words as applied
to none should hold the American
people in letters, s%pellbound, as it were,
while the Juggernaut Car of P~lutOcracy
rolls over the intrinsic value they have
coined into property, says Labor's
Tribune. Labor is all crushed out and
the mass of laboring people p~auperizad
by holding to such intrinsic folly. You
will hear the intrinsic plutocrats say
that law gives no value to money, that
money is value without the law to back
it. that the functions of government
are simply to test it's pureness and
weight, that the intrinsic value is al
ways inherent in the thing or metal
used as money. Now let us reason to-
gether and see how intrinsically foolish
this intrinsic fool is. We will take
4121 grains of silver as an illustration.
We will say that A has secured an ex
act mould of the United States stand.
ard silver dollar; his silver bullion has
been assayed by the United States as
sayer and moulded into standard silver
bars. A concludes to change his bars
into money. He uses the Government
mould and m0ulds his bars into coins.
He starts out the next day to use his
coin in payment of debts or purchase
of labor, when a United States Marshal
arrests him for counterfeiting United
States coin. Now AS coin has the
same intrinsic value that United States
coin has, the same weight fneness;
and yet not one of his coins a be used
to pay a debt. Why's Because the
party issuing them has not the author
ity of law at his back, and every nj
engaged in passing such coins Can be
arrested for passing counterfeit money.
Will my intrinsic fool tell us what has
become of the intrinsic value that is
inherent in the metal if the law has
nothing to do with the value Of money.
Take another test. AS standard silver
dollar, containing 412b grains of stand
ard silver will pay 100 cents worth OF
! debts anywhere the Uaited States flag
| floats. Obliterate the stamp and then
it becomes a commodity, and its value
rests on it's intrinsic or inherent value.
Well, says the intrinsic fool, Obliterate
the United States stamp on a god coin
and it's intrinsic value is the same as
before it was obliterated. Why is this9
Because the holder of said coin can
take it to the peoples factory (mint)
and have it recoined, hence the In
trinsic or inherent value of gold is kept
permanently fixed by the authority of
law, just as silver was before it was as
sassinated in the house of its friends,
for be it remembered that a majority
Congress was friendly to silver when
foxey John Sherman succeeded in fool
ing Congress in 1873 to stab the silver
dollar. And again in 1890 a majority
of both houses of Congress were in ia
vor of giving silver the same privilege
at the public mint that gold had, that
a free coinage bill had passed the Re
publican Senate and the Democratic
House was ready to do the same when
foxey John again came to the rescu
and fooled the silver representatives
again by making believe that if the
G government would buy the American
output or silver the price or CONNER
cial value of silver would remain as
steady as though placed on ar equal
footing with gold at the public mint.
The authority of law or fat of the peo-
pie is the only power that will hold the
two metals together and break the gold
trust that has blinded u representa-
tives through John Sherman's Internal
scOundrelism.