Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-10-30

Mr.. Bryan voiced good common sense
and the straightest of populist doc
trine on the money question when he
talked as follows to the farmers or
Martinsburg, w. Va, on the 3Oth of last
MONTH
MY friends, our opponents assume
that money is thing creatd by COM
merce and that law has nothing to do
with it. l want to say to you that
money Is a creature of law. You can
have as much or as little money as the
law permits. If the laws are made BY
those who want money to be high priced
they make money scarce in order that
money may be high priced. If you
want money sufficiently plentiful to
keep pace with population and indus
try, the laws have got to be made by
those who believe in having enough
money to keep pace with population.
I(Applause.)
Certainly money is creature Of
law" All populists worthy of the
name know that and have known it
Tor some time. Whether the law de-
clares that the creature" shall be
made of gold, silver, copper, zinc, tin,
paper, leather or any other substance,
1t Ia absolutely certain that 1t could
have no existence but for the
fiat" of law calling 1t into being and
establishing the quantity, character,
shape, size, ETC., of the material OF
which it is composed. Mr.. Bryan evil
IDENTIFY realizes this fact now whether
he ever did before or not, and realizing
this fact the people may safely conlide
IN his ability to shortly discern the
folly of the theory of redemption
money.
The idea that one creature of the
,aw" must be redeemed by another
creature of the same law in order to
make the redeemed as good as the
"redeemer" when it is all alike Gre
ated for the same purpose, is so SUI
premely ridiculous and inconsistent
with good sense that no man of spirit
and judgment will harbor it for a mo-
ment. The people can have money
enough to transact their business prop
erly on the very same terms and in the
same way that they have postage
stamps sufficient to answer their mail
requirements. If the government
should farm out it's postoffices privi-
leges and prerogatives upon the same
terms it does its money furnishing
functions to a few corporations, the
people would have no right to expect
that they would be permitted their
present cheap postal facilities. Under
present conditions the government will
transport one hundred pounds or one
hundred thousand pounds, OF second
class mail matter from New York to
San Francisco at the uniform rate OF
one cent per pound, and it would
charge the same rate if the matter was
to be carried one or one thousand
Miles.
If this same work was done by pri-
waite corporation for private profit, the
public, the great unthinking, burden
bearing public, would readily perceive
the injustice CD to the corporation, in
the demand that it should carry the
poor mans pound as cheaply as it car
ried the rich mans ton or hundred
tons and to bother itself about carry
ing it one mile at as low a rate per
mile as it would the enormous products
of the rich a thousand miles would be
deemed by'everybody as exquisitely abb
surd. 1t is plain enough that If this
business was left to the mercy of pri-
vate corporations, as so much OF the
peoples business is, including the fur
nishing of the paper money necessary
to carry on their trading, postage
stamps and postage facilities would
cost anywhere from five to ten times as
much as at present, and the service
would not be anything like as satisfac-
tory.
The redemption theory of money is
nothing more nor less than a clumsy
attempt to call in the assistance of ma
ture in limiting the supply of money.
II is Clumsy" because the gold, or
gold and silver, of which the theory
holds the redemption money must be
made. while produced in certain linn
tied quantities, may, nevertheless, be,
by the law creating money, divided in
to such infnitesimal money units as to
create an absolutely unlimited supply