The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-10

And in those honest days no one attempted to
pass off part Of an animal for whole one.
or to impose lean or diseased one upon
the currency as fat and healthy. There were
no nat sheep. Neither ewes nor wethers
half weight and half dead, were stamped In
God We Trust" and pushed into the NUT
ton circulation as Of full weight and fine
ness. No one then reasoned so delusive-
ly as to advocate that a government stamp
could confer value upon an animal or upon
any other exchangeable thing, though gov
eminent might certify as to avoirdupois and
quality.
Statute can no more fix the purchasing
power Of coin than it can fix the price Of
corn and wheat. If an alleged statesman
should propose to establish, by statute, a per-
manent value for all farm products. or to
institute an infexible ratio between corn
meal and wheat flour, without regard to any
otner appetite, stomach or brain on earth
but his own, even Populists would doubt
his sanity And yet legislation to make
constant the price of all earth products the
whole world over would be as effective as that
winch proposes to fix permanently the value
OF mat one earth product known silver in
all parts Of the world.
The power to liquidate debts is conferred
upon money by law. This much legislation
can DO for currency. 1t cannot how
ever, create value any more than it can
create health. 1t cannot eradicate the bad
and institute the good in human nature The
theory that the dollar is valuable only be-
cause OF the law and that a metal may be
doubled In value for monetary uses by a
statute is absurd. Value depends upon de-
mand. Demand depends upon desire. and
lawmakers may create value for silver in
Che arts and for ornaments equal to that of
gold Just as easily as they can create value
Tor silver as money equal to that of gold as
money. Unequal desire and demand for sill
yer make silver the inferior Of gold in the
arts and in the currencies
Strip gold Of the legal tender quality Who
would not then take for his dues demonetized
goid when the chance offered instead of
| legal tender silver? But if the power exists
| in legislation to make two metals equal as
money, then the same power can make silver
| and gold equal in the arts and for iewelrv
! Thus silver watch would become as de-
sired and generally demanded as a gold one,
ana silver rings set with bits Of brick-bats
| as valuable as gold rings set with rubies and
diamonds. If the United States can double
the price of the worlds silver by enactment.
wny can it not also double the price of gar
nets or wheat or pork or any other exchange
able thing by the same necromancy?
why labor, why toll, If wealth value and
the substance OF things can be legislated into
being? Why not plow the fields by preamble.
harvest crops by joint resolution garner
them by enactment and subsist mankind at
large Dy that creative power which Populism
vests IN lawmakers? And how can an inter-
national conference fix in gold the price of
silver? And, il agreement between nations
can maintain stable prices for silver, why
not Ior otner commodities?
But we are told that the farmers "are dis
contented and distressed" And eructatory
orators say all this comes from the unsatis-
prices for farm products. But these economic
oracles confound terms and make desire and
demand synonymous. Nearly all men desire
more money. But no man can make law
ful demand for more money except he offer
some valuable in exchange therefor. Going
over the fruitful states of the Northwest
one may see many attractive and productive
farms which he can hardly help desiring
though his ready money may preclude his
demanding any Of them. But we are told
that the money of the gold standard has too
potent purchasing power and buys too
much OF the products of these farms. Why
then. do the farms themselves constantly en-
hance in value? And if-as has been stated
by the highest authority Of Populistic can
didature-"the dollar which rises in pur-
chasing power is dishonest dollar" why is
not an acre of farm land with which one can
today buy $50 and with which one could
thirty years ago buy only S. also dishonest9
And is an acre which in New England was
capable thirty years ago of purchasing $50
and will now only buy $40, an honest acre
of land because less dollars and therefore
poorer people can buy 1t now than then? If
dollars grow better for the plain people as
they diminish in the purchasing power Of
land is not land better 1t declines in the
purchasing power Of dollars?
Thirty-four years ago de facto govern