The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-04-11
Financial Philosophy; or. the Primer.
pies of the Science of Money,
by George Wilson.

1876, on our financial situation. The
twenty years that have passed since
then he devoted To study of The subject,
travelling in Europe and making obser-
vatiOns and studying languages here,
OF which he Is student of about
thirty. During this lime he has been
II practical bank officer, and is familiar
with the details of banking from his
youth, his father having been banker.
He wrote the Principles of the
Science of Money, as the cornerstone
or starting point at which all disputes
on the subject must begin, principles
that every one must acknowledge, or
show that they are not the true prinei-
Piles of the money science.
His knowledge of languages enabled
him to begin at the beginning. His
researches in the remains of the ancient
civilizations of the Babylonian and
kindred cities gave him an advantage
over any financial writer before or
contemporary with him. The Assyrioi-
ogists cared nothing about finance, and
the financial writers knew nothing or
little about Assyrian excavations and
discoveries. This is the first time an
author combined these two branches of
knowledge. 1t is therefore not strange
that he is the first who discovered that
some of the ordinary words that we
use as the terms of traffic and trade
have come down to us but little
changed from the very words that are
found on the writings on clay that were
made in Chaldea and Babylonia four
or five thousand years ago.
In his first chapter he has written
the history of the evolution of the
medium of exchange, and given the
meanings and origin of the word
'smoney" and kindred words.
His second chapter is devoted to
definitions, and the improper use of
terms, such as ssunit of value" &C., is
exposed by what is pronounced by
competent critics the most acute logi-
cal reasoning ever brought TO bear on
these points.
In the third chapter, "Man's Natural
Right to the Natural Medium of Ex-
change" he elaborates and illustrates
the doctrine of Turgot, the finance
minister of Louis XVI, of France. 1t
was by sticking to these doctrines that
France is the one power of the world
that is independent of money sharks
and can borrow all she needs at any
time from her own citizens.
In the fourth chapter, illegal Tender
Acts" the author with his fondness
for getting at the bottom of everything,
goes back to the very foundations, and
in the language of our forefathers in
Northern Europe, in the Old Morse or
Icelandic, gets the true idea of the
words 'law" and ''legal.''
In chapter five the author tackles the
knottiest part of the whole question,
that of the s'Ratio Between Gold and
Silver.'' In this he meets the very
best English writers who have ever
written, notably Henry DunnIng Nc
Creed" for the Nineteenth Century
Magazine, of London. This is the
weightiest and most interesting part of
the whole subject. At home in many
languages, Mr.. Wilson follows the
Englishman through the great treatise
of Nicholas Oresne, the French bishop
and adviser of Charles the Wise, of
France; the first great modern treatise
on money, and exposes the English
mans unfair and dishonest handling
of book written in SO old a style of
it. He shows that there is true and
natural ratio, and what it is and why
it is that.
In chapter sixth the author gives the
most nearly thorough sitting of the
whole matter of paper currency that
has ever been written, whether state
bank, national bank or government
issues. Every farmer, mechanic and
business man ought to read it carefully
and thoroughly. 1t is powerful plea
for natural rights and methods in
finance as against the claims of fiatism,
whether used to try to make something
out of nothing or to destroy the value
that nature and man give to the money
metals, or inordinately increase the
purchasing power of one of them.
In the short seventh chapter the
author clamps and closes the mathe-
matically close reasoning that runs
through the whole work by giving
"The Crucial Test and Absolute
Proof that these are the true princi
Piles of the money science.
In chapter eighth he takes up the
question of Conferences with Foreign
Nations, and not only with American
boldness shows that we need no help
from foreign nations in managing our
own finances, but shows with American
that the only chance that
there is to sssaturate" our country with
coin, as Benton and jackson wanted
it, is that foreign nations do not
silver; that we should hope
that they will not remonetize it; not
them to it.
In the ninth chapter the author
shows that we are fighting q soft
money scheme masked behind gold
pretense. That so-called "sound cur
rency" is Long Island Sound currency,
or a monetizing of the property of the
lords who live on the shores OF Long
Island Sound. He goes farther, and
charges that with the rIng-leaders 1t is
a monarchist plot, that begins by ask
ing us to adopt imperial financial sys-
TENS and will end by trying to make
this republic monarchy. And he
compares the ScOHS viii Wnicu lne
suspects will receive this charge, with
the SCOTS with which Aaron Burr's
friends received the charges made by
his grandsire Street, the Frankfort
editor, who exposed Burr's conspiracy
in his paper, and was nearly murdered
by one of Burr's friends for it.
Chapter ten shows the effect of act
ing on these principles.
In chapter eleven he traces the
attack on the coinage of the constitu-
ton to Rothschild. And this author
claims to be the first person who saw
that it was Rothschild's hand that was
moving Sherman and the other raiders
Of our constitution.
All through the book the readers
nteres increases to the last chapter,
where it redoubles in reading "The
Cure"
1t is at once the most scholarly and
,he most practical book written on the
subject; and it is so thorough a con-
iensation that it makes it above all
)thers the busy mans book about
money and the present conditions, and
makes the reading of others almost
In its-266 pages there is
lot page of "padding;" all Is solid
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