Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1895-08-23
THE RIGHT RING.
ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM M.
STEWART.
The President of the Organization
known as the s. Rights of Siiver''
Addresses the American People.

Science, in all its branches, is found
ed on indisputable axioms. Monetary
science, which is the controlling ele
ment in political economy, rests on
the following automatic propositions
L. The exchange of the products o.
labor are essential not only to associa-
tions but to human existence. The
man who could exist alone for any
considerable length of time without
the aid of what others could do would
be phenomenal savage. Men must
exchange their products, or, in familiar
language, swap or die.
2. Money is the instrument of swap,
and in civilized society it is also the
measure of deferred payments.
3. Deferred payments are exchanges,
or swaps, or things in existence at the
time of the contract, with things
which may be in existence at the
time OF payment. An honest instru-
ment of swap would satisfy the debt
at the time OF payment by things
costing the same sacrifice or labor
that the acquisition of such articles
would have required at the time the
contract was made. In other words,
the instrument of swap should not
change until the contract is consum-
mated, but should be the same at all
times. If all transactions were paid
in cash. the difficulty of maintaining
an honest instrument Of swap or ex-
change would be less complicated.
But production of property involves
time, and if money, or the instrument
of swap, is changed after investments
are made, great Inconvenience is pro-
duced, and ii the instrument of swap
has increased in purchasing power,
the profit of the enterprise is reduced.
4. The decay of civilization follows
the continuous increase of the pur-
chasing power OF money, or the in
strumsnt Of swap, with as much GER
tainty as night follows day. History
demonstrates this truth. Since gold
and silver have been used as money
the nations of antiquity have risen
and decayed. In each instance civil
ization developed and progressed while
the mines of the precious metals were
productive, and lapsed into decay
and barbarism when the mines were
exhausted.
Many other things affect the growth
and decay of civilization, but nothing
has ever reduced the people of any
country, who had been once civilized,
to misery and slavery but constantly
shrinking volume Of standard money.
There can be no doubt that if some
other material besides the precious
metals had been discovered in the be-
ginning, indestructable in quality,
easily divisible and limited in quantity,
gold and silver might have been dis
pensed with without any detriment
to the human race; and, if the guam
tity OF that material could have been
increased to keep pace with popula-
ton and business, the civilization OF
the ancients would have been pre-.
served. But no other material has
yet been discovered from which to
coin standard money which would
answer the purpose IS we'll IS the
precious metals. Among the nations
which have attained civilization when
the mines we're productive and which
lost it when the mines gave out, the
following may be named: Egypt,
Babylon, Israel, Greece and Rome.
Rome, according to Jacob and Gibbon,
had 81, 800, 600, 900 of gold and silver
in circulation at the time of the zenith
OF her power. The mines then failed,
and for fourteen hundred years no
mining of any consequence was done.
This period was called the Dark Ages
because civilization decayed under the
blighting influence of the constant in
crease of the purchasing power Of
money. Gold and silver from Mexico
and South America started the new
civilization in Europe and America.
That civilization is about to be de.
stroyed, not by the failure of the
mines but by legislation, which denies
the use of silver as money, and the in
creased use OF gold in the arts, where.
by all material supplies of new money
are cut off. The baleful effect of this
sudden stoppage OF the money supply
are sorely felt in every gold standard
country in the world. Suppose that
twenty years ago three young men
had each possessed $4,000 in money ;
that two of them had each bought a
farm, worked on it and Improved it to
the present time and that the third
had put his $40, 900 in a safe. To-day
the latter could buy both farms. If
he had loaned his money at five per
cent. per annum, simple interest, he
could have bought four such farms.
If he had compounded the interest, it
il difficult to compute the number OF
farms he might have bought.
5. The volume OF money, or the in
strument of swap, is measured by all
the property for sale. In other words,