Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1895-08-24
MORTON BURNS A HOTEL.
The Secretary of Agriculture Gives o 16
to i Object Lesson.


to i Object Lesson.
Secretary Of Agriculture ]. Sterling
Morton not only has clear ideas about
money, but he is ever ready with some
striking illustration or pat parable to
make his thoughts clear to others. On
July % he wrote the following letter:
DEAR SIR-Returning from small furlough,
! find your letter. In it you state: "Money,
whether made Of metals or paper, is merely
q fiction of the law. The commodity value of
the material out Of which money Is coined or
created Is Of no consequence In a currency"
In Wyoming, Otoe county, Neb, there lives
a good citizen who on the field and in the
United States senate has been conspicuous
figure. He has in his time advocated nearly
all kinds Of money, including of course the
''poor mans money" meaning silver at 10 to
]. And now he adyertises for sale for cash in
hand to the highest bidder half mile square
of his large domains. Many thrifty citizens Of
Otoe county arrive at tho Hotel Wyoming the
night before the sale to be on hand when the
bidding begins at 6 O'Clock next morning.
During the night tho hotel is burned to the
ground. Sixteen Of the would be purchasers,
each having 1000 silver dollars melted in the
confederation SO that the Goddess of Liberty
and 'In God we trust" are erased and swal-
lowed up in ragged chunks Of bullion, awake
to find that the commodity value of money is
OF consequence. Tor, placing their bullion Of
silver on the market they find it worth only
66 cents, whereas they bought it at a mint
value, with labor and labor's products, at 81. 20
an ounce, Sixteen thousand dollars of silver
coin accidentally melted into bullion brings
its owners less than $780,
But there was also ono would be purchaser
who had melted in that same fire 81, 900 Of gold
coin, so that the goddess and "In God we
trust" were lost to view in lump Of yellow
bullion without a single sign Of governmental
stamp thereupon.
And this ono who held gold finds that the
commodity value of his bullion is nearly IL
not quito equal to that stamped upon IL as
coin by tho United States mint. lie has learn
ed at least that the bullion value and the mint
value of gold are very much the same, and
there therefore gold is by far the best metallic
money.
1t is safe to wager 10 to that the gold coin
owner feels 16 times as much consolation when
selling in bullion his gold thousand dollars as
does any one of the other selling his thousand
dollars OF silver reduced to bullion. And the
poor mans best money is that which loses
least in valuo when by FIRE or otherwise 1t
loses the stamp Of the government
And if at that fire some fiat money advocate
lost few thousand paper promises to pay dol
lars he also will rise up and dispute the pop
ular fallacy that "noney is mere fiction Of
lu6 1GM anu hSHS4ISHtlJ dSl4OuICS lu6 hdSdTy
that "a commodity value in money is unnec-
essary and useless"
Gold and silver were money before any law
made them so-before any government coined
them or any mint stamped them. And then
each was valued by the demand for each, and
now also the relation of the supply Of gold to
the demand for gold regulates its value. And
the relation Of the supply Of silver to the de-
mand for silver regulates its value.
But you further say that the government
not taking silver for coinage at 16 to l, has de-
stroyed the demand for silver.
In q government like ours, which as an en-
tity is simply 'all of us, there can be no de-
mand created either for silver or anything else
except tho integral parts Of the composite
evolve that demand. Only the people of the
United States by their generally expressed de-
sire for thing can create a demand for It.
Yours faithfully, J. STERLING MORTON.