The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-11-04
THE MONEY QUESTION.
How to Make Nation Prosperous
THE MONEY! OJ1USTTON

now TO Make Nation prosperous
THE MONEY QUESTION.
hope no Populist will be deluded with
the idea that the prosperity or adversely
of the people in any nation Is owing to
the kind of money they use. The solu-
ton of the problem does not depend
upon the kind of legal tenuer currency a
nation has, but upon the quantity.
Either gold, silver or paper money,
viii make and nation prosperous if the
quantity is large enough, but paper mon
ey is much more convenient than metal
money.
Paper money will not be exported or
used in the arts and cannot be cornered
NY money. mongers. Paper money,
therefore, is the only kind which can be
controlled and regulated by the govern
ment, and Is truly the only honest and
scientific money.
nearly all the nations in the civilized
world use gold and silver coin and legal
tender paper money but we find but lit
tie prosperity anywhere except in
France? Why. Because the other ma
tons do not posses an adequate supply
o. legal tender currency.
Years ago. when discussing the ques-
ton of hard times, and business depre-
sion, Gen. John A. Logan, of Illinois,
said the trouble with us was that We
didn't have currency enough and after
the panic Oh 1873 President Grant said
in message to congress that our exper-
fence in that panic had satisfied him that
the legal tender treasury note was the
bes. money which had ever been devised.
Ben Franklin said it was the best money
the world ever saw. And Edward
Kellogg, of Connecticut, the author of
famous book entitled, Labor and Capt.
tai" being so much impressed with the
superiority of paper money over metal
money, said that in view of this fact it
woulu not be wise for any nation to ac-
cept the metal money system, even II 1t
could get, as an absolute gift, an ed
eQuate supply of metal money for cur
rency.
The great battle for industrial free
dom must be fought in every nation un-
der the sun is battle between paper
money and metal money.
In this country the Populist party is
the champion of paper money, and it has
been truly said by one of the wisest
thinkers who ever lived, who was finan-
ciA minister in France in 1920, that ''if
we establish money "a legal tender cur
rency), which has no intrinsic value, or
WuOSc IElTluSlC value Is SuCu IudI IL Will
never be exported, and the quantity Of
which shall never exceed the demand,
we shall have reached wealth and
power"
me histories of France, England, and
America furnish conclusive evidence Of
the ruth of this proposition.
Louis Blanc, a famous French histor-
ian, says: while Laws system pre-
vailed, manufactures increased, beggars
found employment, industry had wings,
interest fell, usury was crushed, and
smiling plenty reigned upon every hand"
The irredeemable paper money system
prevailed in England from 1897 to 1919,
and Sir archibald Allison, in his history
of Europe, says: "The suspension Of
specie payment by the BANK of England
in 1897, led to the use of an enormous
amount of irredeemable paper money.
The result was magical 1t terminated
in blaze of glory and a food of pros
perity, which has never before since the
beginning of the world descended upon
any nation. But the resumption of spe-
Gle payments in 1919 was ruinous to all
the industries of England"
The great superiority of irredeemable
paper money over coin is shown also by
the experience of the American people.
Our colonial ancestors used legal tender
treasury notes for a circulating medium,
and had no use for metal money or bank
notes. The American system o. finance
lifted them upon the bounding pillows of
prosperity, and Edmund Burke said of
them in the British parliament, that
nothing in the history of the world was
like their progress.
But the national constitutional con-
Of 1927 Ofly11U dpnriyyp6 fh u
states of the power to issue a local cur
rency of legal tender treasury notes;
left it doubtful whether congress possess
ed the power to furnish the people with
a national currency of legal tender pa
per; and force I the American people to
adopt the metal money and bank note
system, the English system of finance.
And what was the result? We learn
from John M. Bright, of Tennessee, who
was a distinguished Democratic member
of congress for ten years since the late
war. In a speech in the house he said:
about once in every nine years since
1893 bank panics in the United States
have rocked the land with financial con-
WILSON'S They have become historic
as the panics of 1893, 1910, 1919, 1926,
1897, 1S47 1857, and 1873, each one leav-
ing an attendant loss of at least one
billion dollars"
Is there anything in that record for
metal money advocates to be proud OF?
Did free coinage of both gold and silver
prevent any of those financial convul-
sions?
On the other hand, look at the glorious
record of legal tender paper money.
Look at the uninterrupted prosperity of
the Italian republic of Venice for more
than 600 years with it's irredeemable pa
per currency commanding a premium
over gold coin and look at the prosperity
Oh France, England and America, when
ever these countries had an adequate
supply of legal tender paper money.
Are we always to be cursed with the
metal money and bank note system?
Are we always to stand upon Mount
Pisgah in view of the happy land of in
dustrial freedom, and never be permitted
to enter it? Are we always to know
that an adequate supply OF irredeemable
paper money could convert this land of
ours into an earthly paradise, and never
be permitted to have it?
The metal money system affords no
adequate relief for the financial distress
of the world.
Estimating the Inhabitants of the globe
at 1,5O0, 000, 900, and the whole amount of
gold and silver coin at $500, 000, 900,
there are only IS per capita of metal
money, not enough, it is said, to do more
than five per cent of the business.
Where is the money to do the other
95 per cent of the bushes to come from?