Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1897-07-22
UNCLE SANS MILK CHECKS.
A story of a Dairy, Lead Mine. Lead
Coins ana of Some Queer People Who
Wanted Wages Reduced.

Coins ana of Some Queer People Who
Wanted Wages Reduced.
There was once dairyman who did
| a 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
rather unusual character, read a pas
sage in one Of Aristotle'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 4 stamping ma
chine which would stamp out an Eng
/ lish pcnny's worth of lead and was
worth a pint of milk, as lie 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
1 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 We're as
| heavy as Uncle Sans coins. Uncle Sam
said he didn't care how many coins they
made, and he world take them himself
if they were fun 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
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 worllmen 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 MS checks
r.. L. l..
half as much. And Uncle Sam request
ed his friends not to make any of these
checks ont 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 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 or doing
business as if nothing had happened.
There was also some talk to the effect
that people couldn't pay their iebts un-
less they could get some cheap money
TO pay with.
The working people were getting a
penny a day, ard 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
cheap penny which would buy only half
as much as the present penny. with
view of restoring lead to its old price,
50 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 AZ
twice its market value. They we're
confident that If ne should attempt to
de 50 the lead coins would soon pass a.
their junk value This would upset
credits and business and ruin the i hole
community.
When / finish the translation Of this
story ard learn how the tangle was set
tied, | viii write again.-Francis E
Nipher, in St. Louis Globe Democrat.