The herald., 1896-09-09

into prominence and has been made the
leading political issues of the day.
OF all questions that have ever been
| presented to any people in all the his
tory of the world for consideration, the
money question is by far the most i'm
| portant, because it lies at the very
threshold of civilization.
If our institutions are to be preserved
and the present civilization is to con-
tinue, it will only be through the right
solution of the money question.
No person can conceive of a civiliza
| ton where individual rights and priv
ileges are protected and made secure
! where there is no money.
| Money, of whatever material made, is
the oil of commerce, the blood of trade
and the civilizer of man. Without money
there can be no commerce or trade,
except such as is carried on by barbaric
people; there can be no home except the
home of the savage; there can be no
family ties except the family ties of the
barbarian there can be no personal lib
| erty except such as is secured by brute
force, and there can be no civilization
except the civilization of savagery.
| Money can only be used to distribute
property and to pay debts, and without
it neither can be done without the great
est inconvenience to the people of civil
lied communities.
Money is the creation of law, and
| without law there can be no money ex-
cept such as is used by common consent.
| The value of money! as such, in no sense
toy io1 Of h IN
it is made, but entirely upon the guam
tity of it in circulation with respect to
population
Money is purely domestic in it's char
acter, and it cannot perform the func-
tion of money outside the limits of the
country where it is made except by
common consent, regardless of the ma
| terial out of which 1t is made.
When the gold and silver coins of the
| United States pass beyond our borders,
they nor only case to be money, but are
bought and sold by weight and in all re-
spects are treated as commodities and
not as money.
John Sherman and others of his ilk say
that they want our money to be so good
that it will circulate everywhere where
money can do that except such as is
made out of gold, and therefore they are
in favor of the gold standard because
gold is the money of the world. There
is no money of the world. There never
was and never will be any money of the
world until all the nations of the earth
become consolidated into one nation, a
thing that is never likely to happen.
Each nation must have money of it's
! own and it is a matter of no consequence
to any nation what all the money of an
other nation is. The money of one ma
ton will sell for just as much in any
other nation on earth where the money
| is used as it is worth in the country it
is made in, less exchange.
The price of gold and silver bullion in
the United States under free coinage de-
pends entirely upon the rate at which
it can be coined at the mint.
| Whenever a nation permits gold and
| silver to be coined into money free of
| charge at a certain rate, the price of
| those metals in that country is fixed and
| determined by that rate and by no pos
sibility can either metal fall in that ma
tion below the price established by law
| Silver cannot be coined into units of
money in any country of Europe. Sill
yer, therefore is treated entirely as a
! commodity and the price of it is fixed and
determined by the same law that fixes
and determines the price of other COM
modities.
If the United States should give back
to the people the right that was taken
from them to have silver coined into
units of money at the ratio of 16 to l. the
price of silver bullion would instantly go
| to $1.29 an ounce, because that is the rate
at which silver under free coinage could
| be coined into units of money and that
rate would fix absolutely the price of sill
! yer, not only in the United States but in
the world
If the volume of money in circulation
in a country be contracted by law, ire
parable injury will result to the people
/ of such nation. The volume of money
in this country since 1866 has been enor-
mously contracted under the laws pass
| ed by congress and as result the people
| have suffered incalculable loss
| The great mass of the people have been
| ruined financially and the misery and
suffering consequent upon such con-
traction is beyond the comprehension of
| man.
| The debts contracted by the govern
mcnt have been enormously increased
thereby, because it requires vastly more
of the products of the country to pay
| the present debts than was required to
pay the debts when originally contract
ed. The action of our government in de-
/ stroying the paper money that was is
| sued during the war and which saved
| this republic from destruction and in
taking from the people the right to have
silver coined into money free of charge
cannot be too strongly condemned Ian
guage Is inadequate to properly charac-
terize the acts passed by congress I'M
| der which the money volume has been
enormously contracted in this country.
| The contraction of the money volume
| in circulation during the past thirty
years has wrought more misery and suf-
! fering and financial loss to our people
| than all the wars, famines and pestilen-
| ces that have afflicted this country from
the beginning.
Lincoln said that if the government
contracts a debt with a certain amount
of money in circulation and then con-
tracts the money volume before the debt
was paid it is the most heinous crime
| that a government could commit