Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-07-21
MEDICINE LODGE KANSAS WEDNESDAY, july 81 1sg7
POPULIST MONEY.
taper Bills Representing the Natural Unit
% with Its MultIples and Decimals.

w Win It's muitipleS and Decimals.
Says ex-senator PETER in his paper,
the Topeka CKan.) Advocate:
"The democratic candidate for gov
ernor of Iowa, Mr.. F. E. White, is run
ning ON a silver platform. A Chicago
paper sent reporter to interview him
and get statement from his own lips
giving his reasons for favoring res
soration of silver coinage. Mr. White
is reported in the Chicago Tribune as
saying that he favors silver money be-
cause it will make money cheap; and
when asked what he meant by cheap
money. he answered that, silver bull
lion being cheap, if it be made into
money the money would be cheap and
hence less of other property could be
purchased with it. When asked how
cheap he thought silver might become,
he is reported as saying: No man can
sell what the value of the silver dollar
will be under unlimited coinage at six
teen to one. We do not know how much
silver will be mined or how the pro-
;esses of mining will be improved. If
tremendous amount of silver is
mined. of course the dollar will be very
cheap Asked if the dollar might not
drop to ten cents, he answered: The
value Of the dollar would depend en-
tirely on the production of silver
According to this idea of the value
OF money, the value of everything pro-.
duced, except silver, must be regulated
by the price of silver, and that is to be
governed by the quantity produced.
That idea is relic of barbarism. 1t
puts the price of everything, except
one thing, subject to the price of that
one thing. The farmers grain, his
live stock, everything he has to sell, as
well as the implements, the groceries,
the clothing, the hardware, lumber
and other supplies which he must pur-
chase, all are subject to the value of
silver. If that is cheap, everything
else is dear.
What a queer idea of money that is,
and yet it is exactly the same as that
which is advocated by Grover Cleve-
land, John Sherman, William McKin-
ley, John G. Carlisle and other gold
standard people. 1t is the commodity
idea The labor of the world must be
gagged by the value of one article, and
that has to be dug out of the earth,
cannot be produced by hand, and is
absolutely worthless for any of the es-
sential uses of human life.
''The commerce of the world is made
up of trade in things innumerable
which men and women make to serve
some useful purpose among their fell
lows. The foreign sugar used by the
people of the United States in single
year requires the use of 1000 ships, and
our internal trade employs 1,5OO, 600
people and 1S1, 900 miles of well.
equipped railroads, besides 10, 900 river
and ocean craft; yet the value of all
the articles handled in the worlds
traffic is to be determined by the value
of single article, and that so small in
quantity that it could be carried across
the ocean in single ship. The gold
coin. in the world is estimated to be
less than S4, 600, 600, 900 worth, and that
amount, if collected in one mass, would
not occupy but a small part of a mod
ern steamship, though it would weigh
nearly 5000 tons, and on that account
would alone make sufficient cargo.
"Why not measure the value of prop
erty by its own value and not by the
value of something else? Why not reg
ulate the values of all kinds of property
by their relative value to one another?'
just so, my dear sir. But l wish you
had elaborated the idea just little
further and shown that these property
values after having been measured
and regulated by the relative values
of all kinds of property, as governed
by the law of supply and demand,
should then be expressed by scientific
paper money in denominations of 81
(the legal unit and its multiples and
decimals, such money being a full
legal tender for all debts. public and
private, and not redeemable in any
other kind of money.
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