Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1897-07-08
UNCLE SANS MILK CHECKS.

d STORY OF a Dairy, a Lead Mine. Lead
coins and of Some Queer People Who
Wanted Wages Reduced.
There was once a dairyman who did
q large and prosperous business. He
was knowp and respected by a large
community, and nearly all the people
who knew him did business with him.
l do not know what his real name was,
out they called him Uncle Sam. At the
early day when these things happened
tnere was very little money, and people
used bar lead, bullets and tobacco for
change. Finally Uncle Sam, who was a
rather unusual character, read a pas.
sage in n of A~ristotle's works in re-
gard to the invention of money, that sit
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 a stamping ma
chine which would stamp out an Eng
lish penny's worth Of lead and was worth
a pint OF milk, as he was then sell
ing milk. These checks proved to be
quite convenient. People found them
all full weight, and Uncle Sans work.
men 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 something to
coin them, he had passed them at their
lead value. In fact, Uncle Sam would
exchange coins for bar lead ae any time,
weight for weight, as a matter of pub
lie convenience. Some other people
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 i'll 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 on
ly a halfpenny now. They discovered
that Uncle Sam was still receiving
them for a 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 Md said that he intended to
maintain 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 of these
checks out of bar lead, for he didn't
like to accept halfpenny checks for a
penny unless he had passed them off on
the public for a 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 a 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 on doing
business as if nothing had happened.
There was also some talk to the effect
that people couldn't pay their debts IN
less they could get some cheap money
to pay with.
The working people were getting a
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 on
ly half as much as the present penny,
with a view of restoring lead to it's 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 o o pass at
their junk value. This would upset
credits and business and ruin the whole
community.
When / finish the translation of this
story and learn how the tangle was set.
tied, l will write again. Francis e.
Nipher in st. Louis Globe Democrat.