The Dickinson press., 1896-08-15
HORTON BURNS A HOTEL.
Tho Secretary Of Agriculture Gives q
l6 to 1 Object Lesson.


ling 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 a fiction
of the law. The commodity value
of the material out of which money
is coined or created is of no c0nse.
quence in a currency
In Wyoming, Otoe county, Neb.,
there lives q 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 l6 to l. And now he ad.
vertises 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 the
hotel Wyoming the night before the
sale to be on hand when the bidding
begins at 8 o'clock next morning.
During the night the hotel is burned
to the ground. Sixteen of the would
be purchasers, each having 1000 sill.
yer dollars melted in the conhagra-
tion SO that the Godd ess of Liberty
and "In God we Trust" are erased
and swallowed up in ragged chunks
of bullion, awake to find that the
commodity value of money is of con-
sequence. For, 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 $1.29 an
ounce. Sixteen thousand dollars of
silver coin accidentally melted into
bullion brings its owners less than
$4,000.
But there was also one would be
purchaser who had melted in that
same fire 81, 900 of gold coin, so that
the Goddess and I'm God we trust'
were lost to view in lump of vel.
low bullion without single sign of
governmental stamp thereupon.
And this one who held gold finds
that the commodity value of his
bullion is nearly if not quite equal
to that stamped upon it as coin by
the United States mint. He has
learned at least that the bullion val
} ue and the mint value of gold are
very much the same, and therefore
gold is by tar the best metallic mon.
ey.
It is safe to wager 16 to l that the
gold coin owner feels Is times a:
much consolation when selling ir
bullion his gold Thousand dollars a!
. does any one of the other selling his
thousand dollars of silver reduced tt
bullion. And the poor mans bes
money is that which loses least il
value when by fire or otherwise il
loses the stamp of the government.
81 And if at that fire some fiat none!
advocate lost few thousand paper
promises to pay dollars he also will
rise up and dispute the popular falla
!: cy that ''money is a mere fiction o.
t the law" and vehemently denounc
: the vagary that ga commodity valu!
in money is unnecessary and useless.
Gold and silver were money before
any law made them so-befOre an!
government coined them or any min
| stamped them. And then each wa
, valued by the demand for each, an,
. now also the relation of the supply o
: gold to the demand for gold regulate
8 its value. And the relation of tn
t supply Of silver to the demand fo
r silver regulates its value.
But you further say that the gov
eminent, not taking silver for coir
age at 18 to l, has destroyed the d.
u mand for silver.
a In government like ours. whic
l. ~ an entity is simply "all for US,
o there can be no demand created ei
). ther for silver or anything else 9,
. cept the integral parts of the comp'
:; sition evolve that demand. Only th
O people of the United States by the
e generally expressed desire for thin
!. can create q demand for it. Your
1 faithfully. ]. STERLING MoRTo1