The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-07-24
A NEBRASKA LETTER.

EARNEST AND SENSIBLE-WHAT IS
MONEY-THE INTRINSIC HUMBUG
EXPOSED.
To The Representative:
Every citizen should learn to write,
read and figure. Learn to write short, in
teresting letters with one or more points
of interest. Learn to read matters of in
terest Understandings, and if they con-
tain anything contrary to public policy be
able to see what it is. Learn to figure
what is good for us as citizens of a repub-
lie, always remembering that if something
is seemingly good for us as individuals
wholly at the expense of others it may
not be good for the public and thereby not
good for us.
Mr.: Editor yuo are a great teacher and
your paper is lesson leaf.
The man who has chance to pay dol
lar year for your teaching and profits
by it is more fortunate than the sons of
the rich who go to college and learn the
false political economy Of the dead past.
AS citizens of this republic every voter is
a sovereign or king unto himself. Some
of US make very poor kings and none of us
any too good. The better sovereigns we
become the better our republic. By long
years of suffering and fighting we learned
to become republic politically-we must
now learn to establish a commercial re-
public to fit in with our political republic.
Our civil liberty is now threatened with
destruction because we try to retain a
commercial monarchy.
Political affairs in republic demand
that 'sold folks go to school and keep 60
ing.
1t was Victor Hugo who wrote Destroy
the cave of ignorance and you destroy the
mole Of crime. The great mass Of man
kind is honest and but few are in favor of
crime.
Political economy is one of the largest
caverns in the cave Of ignorance. None of
us but would glandly destroy mole of
crime to give birth to child of wisdom.
One of the moles of crime is the idea
that a gold dollar has 100 cents of intrin-
sic' value in it. Intrinsic means inter-
nal, or value within itself.
In your issue of July 10 on page 5 in an
article Relative Cost of the Production
of Gold and Silver" you quote Mr.. F. W.
Hendricks, OF Denver, we'll known Col
orado miner, as saying that the cost of
producing one dollar in gold at the indie
pendence mine is but cents and at the
Victor mine for the past two years 20 1-3
cents; the Portland mine 80 cents; the Is
abella mine 311a cents
have met so many we'll informed peo-
pie who have had intrinsic" gold dollar
drilled into them until they think a gold
dollar has 100 cents of value within itself,
without the nations fiat OF free coinage
value which is price set by law.
To such have asked do you think the
gold miner works for love alone? The
fact that the bullion in a gold dollar is
now worth 100 cents is because of the free
coinage law. Every article of commerce
has intrinsic value and that value is made
by the uses man puts it to-
Money is that upon which the nation
sets its fiat or command of legal tender.
The nation can use anything with which
to make money that will carry the least
danger of being counterfeited Our ma
ton should not be pauper as it is now,
depending upon taxation for its support.
The nation should issue it's money on the
cheapest and best material-paper-a
thus become self-susta:ning. That would
destroy the business of the money-loaner
but all other lines of livelihood would be-
come prosperous. A. ]. GUSTIN.