Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-23
GOLD VERSUS THE FARMER
NonsensicaI Figure of Speech to Compare a Gold Dollar to Yard
 Stick.

Below is given another of the admirable articles by MT. B. B. Conner on very per tinent phase of the money question, the second of the series which have been pub lshed in the Eufaula Times:
 Money is the last measure of every product of man. Money is subject to all the vic.sstudes of supply and demand, just as every other product of man. The value of primary money, not fiat, is fixed by the interchangea ble commerce of na- tions just as wheat corn or cotton, and the value of that money is tested by weight, and not by any stamps that the nations for their own convenience may place upon it.
 The value of our currency is what we make it, and the man who compares gold dollar to yard stick talks non- sense. The one is as elastic as the rub ber that goes into a pair of gallusses. The other is a fixed abstract fact which is the same forever. And the statement that the free coinage of silver was taken from our currency for the purpose or making our money valueless, changeable and anchoring it at one value forever is false and has entered like sneak thief the farmers home for the purpose of rob bery and unholy gain. Gold metal is mined or gotten into commerce just as silver Iron or cotton, by the laborlng man, and the demand for same affects
  and that paper stultifies itself when, while advising the farmer to plant less cotton, that the smaller the crop the big ger the price, will at the same time state that the demonstration of silver did not affect gold, that gold values are un- changeabIe and the restoration of silver as primal money would drive out all cur- rency bringing on panics, chaos and what nots.
 A farmer buys his money just as he does mule, COW or pig, and by helping to bid up the price of gold by sequester- ing silver would be just as sensible as if he were to help enact law that horses should not be used for any manner or work, not foreseeing that just as soon as the horses places were filled by mules that there would be a larger demand and higher prices for mules. It is tomfoolery to ask him to help enact monopoly in gold on the statement that 1t makes sounder money and 100 cent dollars.
 The scarcer you make the metal out of which you coin money the higher priced you make it, and just as you increase the demand so do you increase the price. If it were possible to enact a law that only half of the gold mined should go in to commerce you would at once double the value of money, and by parity of req son it would be just that much sounder. The capitalists of the world at an un- guarded moment secured a law-not a. natural law, but statute law--demon- etizing one-half of the money metal of the world, thus as any sane man can see, increasing their holdings double, and this. too. at the expense of that great ma- jority of people, the laborers.. the farm CTS. the debtors and all who derive their living from the prosperity of these. And now. ike the Pharisees. they stand In their temples and palaces, sending us their advice and prayers, hurling anathe- mas and charging with iunacy and dis l honesty all who would go back to the