The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1897-07-10
UNCLE SANS MILK CHECKS.
A story of n Dairy. q Lead Mine, Lead
Coins and of Some Queer People Who
Wanted Wages Reduced.

: Wanted wages Reduced.
I There was once a dairyman who did
! q large and prosperous business. He
was known and respected by large
community, and nearly all the people
/ who knew him did business with him.
do not know what his real name was,
but they called him Uncle Sam. At the
early day when these things happened
there was very little money, and people
used bar lead, bullets and tobacco for
change. Finally Uncle Sam, who was q
rather unusual character, read pas
sage in one of Aristotle's works in re-
gard to the invention of money, that "it
was afterward determined in value by
men putting a stamp on it in order
that it may save them the trouble Of
weighing it"
So Uncle Sam built q stamping ma
chine which would stamp out an Eng
lish pcnny's worth of lead and was
worth a pint of milk, as he was then
selling milk. These checks proved to
be quite convenient. People found
them all full weight, and Uncle Sans
workmen and servants took their pay
in them. People also sold him their
cows for them, and Uncle Sam sold milk
for them. Sometimes the people used
the lead coins for bullets and for
weights, but Uncle Sam didn't care very
much. Although it did cost him some
thing to coin them. he had passed them
at their lead value. In fact, Uncle Sam
would exchange coins for bar lead at
any time, weight for weight, as matter
Of public convenience. Some other peo-
pie made coins in a mold occasionally,
but people generally weighed them IN
order to find whether they were as
heavy as Uncle Sans coins. Uncle Sam
said he didn't care how many coins they
made, and he would take them himself
If they were full weight.
A lead mine was discovered not very
far from Uncle Sans, and lead went
down in price to about half what it had
been. A great many people who had
some of Uncle Sans lead began to
wonder what he was going to do about
the matter The checks were worth
only halfpenny now. They discovered
SuSlC was sum
them for penny's worth of milk and
that he was continuing to pay them out
to his workmen Just as before.
His business was enlarging. and he
was stamping out these checks in larger
numbers than ever. People sold him
hay and cows for them at the same rate,
for he had said that he intended to main
tain the parity of his checks and the
penny. People didn't use his checks
for bullets now, for bar lead cost only
half as much. And Uncle Sam request
ed his friends not to make any o! these
checks out of bar lead, for he tiGn't
like to accept halfpenny checks for
penny unless he had passed them off on
the public for u penny's worth of labor.
The next thing of note that happened
to Uncle Sam was this: The people who
owned the lead mine heard about his
scheme, and they got up convention
in order to see if something couldn't be
done for lead. They wanted to get the
good old prices. They proposed that
Uncle Sam should coin the whole out
put of their mine free and let them cart
away the checks, since they owned the
lead. They tried to make Uncle Sam be-
lieve that this would double the price
of lead and he could go right or doing
business as if nothing had happened
There was also some talk to the effect
that people couldn't pay their debts un-
less they could get some cheap money
TO pay with.
The working people were getting
penny a day, and many of them thought
these lead pennies they were getting
were too good and would buy too much
at the stores. They joined the free
coinage movement in order to get a
cheap penny which would buy only half
as much as the present penny, with 4
view of restoring lead to its old price,
so people could pay their debts in cheap
money. They said they would trust to
luck to get their wages doubled.
Some of the wiser ones shook their
heads and said Uncle Sam certainly
couldn't carry the whole lead output at
twice its market value. They were
confident that if he should attempt TO
do so the lead coins would soon pass at (
their junk value. This would upset
credits and business and ruin the whole |
community.
When I finish the translation of this
story and learn how the tangle was set
tied. viii write agaia.-F'rancis z
Nipher. in St. Louis Giol,e-Dcuocrat