The herald., 1895-12-01

| Ucon dQueu W tu0 W0ditu OI tu0 COuHhy,
for money is not wealth, but represents
wealth. The creation of that many dol
lars woalo not even stimulate business,
for the dollar is not a tool of production,
but tool of exhange, and Its use, or cir
culation. depends ON the activity oi
trade, and trade is active in the uegree
that production and exchange are free
and unrestricted. The freedom of pro
duction and exchange Is bound up in the
| question of taxation and not in that of
money. The belief that liberal increase
in the amount of money would beget
prosperity is a fundamental error and
rests on the failure to grasp the very es-
sential proposition that money is potent
only as tool of exchange and circulates
only in response to the demands Of trade,
| just as tool of production finds employ
ment in proportion to the needs OF the
! producer.
Third-The Iaboring man and producer
is just as much in principle, though not
in degree, a capitalist as the bondnolder.
Every man with something to sell,
whether 1t be labor or goods, is the pos
SCISSOR of capital, and is in real sense a
capitalist and should only receive for his
capital whom he disposes OF it, money
that Will at all times and under all condi-
| tions represent the value of what he has
| parted With. As matter of fact, the
| terms laboring man, producer, capitalist
| and bondhulder are m isleading and con-
| fusing; they indicate distinctions which
| in an economic sense, at least, have no
existence. AS an eminent political
| economist, the clearest and most logical
of his day, has expressed it, there are but
three kinds of men-worS en-, beggarmen
and thieves. ALI men who serve the
world by contributing either their labor
or the results OF their labor in the form
of goods or the money which represents
goods, are workmen. And thers should
be but one kind of money for workmen,
whether they be hod Carriers, carpen ters,
physicians, lawyers or financiers- and
that should be the best.
No nation fixes the value of money by
itself any more than it fixes tue value of
wheat. If it is intrinsic money, that is,
a money composed of commodity like
gold or silver, the law OF supply and de-
mand will determine the value of it IN
relation to other commo odities. If it is
fat money. its value will be determined
py the contiden ce the world has in the
government issuing it.
1.-The legal tender silver dollar Of today"
is not n danger of being 'dem onetizeo or
abolished simply because England don't
want it," We have not yet heard of any
body or country, not even England, de-
manding the abolition of the legal tender
silver dollar of today. The "demone:i.
zation'' our contemporary has in mind
is probably the omission in the coinage
act of 1873 of any provision for the fur
ther coinage OF that dollar. This omis.
sion was not made at the demand of Eng
land or any other country, and at the
time it occurred the silver dollar was OF
doing the Duik of the business of the
people; the greenbaok-a promise to pay
was performing that function. From
the beginning of the government down
TO 1878 only about S, 800, 900 standard silver
dollars were coined and the circulation
was insignificant. Since 1873 under the
Bland Allison and Sherman acts. about
421, 900, GOO silver dollars have been turn ed
out. So the legal tender silver dollar does
not seem to have been ABOLISHED to any
noticeable extent.
The greenback had nothing to do with
the prosperity which the Standard alleges
occurred during the greenback era. The
spirit OF industrial activity it refers to was
the result of the tremendous demand for
labor to repenish the stocks that had
been deplsted during long, exhausting
war, and TO till the fields neglected during
that unfortunate conflict When political
reconstruction was started in the south,
commercial and industrial reconstruction
commenced in the victorious north. At
the same time the resources and ad-
vantages of the then new west as de.
veoped to the world by the recently COM
pleted Pacific railroads, drained the sur
plus population of the large cities and
towns of the region east OF the Missis-
sippi and north of the Ohio. This era OF
activity would have been, regardless of
the kind Or quantity of the money in use,
SO long as people took the latter for what
it really was, and no deception was
practiced as would be the case in coming
so cents worth of silver and stamping it
as one dollar. There was real or a sup
posed demand for things, for goods, and
that stimulated production, with the re-
suit of calling for labor and enhancing
wages until nearly everybody desiring
work in the north and west could get it.
But money as money had nothing 20
do with whatever prosperity existed at
that time.
If the quantity of money determne
the degree of prosperity country should
enjoy. Australia, Belgium, France and
the Netherlands should DC more prosper
Gus than the United States, and wages i n
the former countries higher than in this.
A Great Paper