Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-08-17
HARD MONEY.
The History Of the United States from
the Earliest Period to the Pres
ent, and its Legislation Touch
ing the Money Question
A Brief but Comprehensive Review Of Demo-
cratic Policy and Action on the
Question.
EVIDENCE SHOWING WHAT HAS BEEN
AMERICAN MONEY FOR ONE
HUNDRED YEARS.


AMERICAN MONEY FOR ONE
HUNDRED YEARS.
1. We aliege that at no time for
more than one hundred years have
the American people had hard mon
ey currency.
2. That at no time during that
period has there been sufficient hard
money in the country to make a ma
tional currency.
8. At no time for 100 years would
the american people have been salts
fed with hard money currency if it
could have been furnished.
4. Commercial nations and peop-
les will not endure the inconvenience
OF hard money currency. They al
ways devise some means Of freeing
themselves from it's use.
5. A hard money currency belongs
TO the savage, barbarous and half
civilized state of nations and peoples.
1t is the toy of infant men and ma
tions. They are delighted with its
ring and glitter; but when they be-
come men they put away such child
ish toys; and use some kind of paper
to represent values.
6. The real contest now is, wheth-
er this paper representative of values
shall be issued by the corporations,
or by the government.
2. Hard money is the most costly
money ever used. 1t will make the
people of any nation poor who con-
tinue its use as q circulating medium.
If used in bushes it looses by fric-
tson one half of one per cent. per al
mum. In time it will wear out as it
has done in the old countries. 1t is,
therefore, always an uncertain STAN
dard of payment as money. Agreat
part of the silver coin in circulation
in Great Britain. from use and wear,
is, from 10 to IS per cent light in
weight, yet in retail trade, among the
people, it passes at par.
We will go back briefly into our
history and learn what our currency
has been. We allege, and shall prove
that coin has never performed any
great work for the American people;
but that all our great achievements
have been accomplished with paper
money Of some kind, much of which
has been of the most Objectionable
character. The question is not now
whether we shall have hard money
or soft money. For more than 1O(
years the voice of the American PEG.
pile has been in favor of paper money
The question remaining to be decid
ed is whether the paper money shall
be issued by the banks, or by thu
government of the United States, ant
whether this paper money shall false
lyaud fraudulently profess to be baset
upon coin, with about one dollar o
coin to twenty dollars of liabilities
or upon the credit and revenues o
of the nation, as both Jefferson AM
jackson insisted il should be. Blu
we now 60 to the history of the cour
try, to learn what American histor
has been, and we invite hard none
men Of all parties to attend, to rea
I and listen.
/. Long before the American reve
luton coin had left most of the co
onies. Laws were passed by thel
raising the legal value Of the coin t
almost double its face value to attrat
1t back, but it did not come. Til
people were compelled to rely upo
barter or an exchange of commoditi'
This was so inconvenient they wei
forced to provide their own mediul
Of exchange. Money, of whatev'
comprised, is only the tool Of trad
and commerce; and that which cos
the least is the best money for q stat
nation or people using it. The Anne
lean colonies prepared and used the
own paper money. 1t was mad
lsgal tender in all payments and fe
all taxes and dues Of the government
It was, therefore, the money of a.
count by which the value Of all con
moditles was measured. includin
gold and silver. It WAS not based VI