San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-09-20
LEGAL TENDER.
IT'S RESPONSIBLE FOR MANY WRONGS
DONE III LlBERTY'S NAME.

Its Name Money Is Debased and Private
Contracts Arc Impaired-IfL Legal Tender
Laws Were Repealed the Business World
Would Use Only the Best and Most Con
vcnicnt Money-Free Coinage of Two oil
More Money Metals Would BE Safe with
not ~ Legal Tender Ratio-Evils of Fiat
More, Clearly Presented In Bool
Just Out.
A simple, clear, sound and strong
presentation of the money question is
made by Charles Fl. Swan, Jr., in 8
little book entitled Monetary Prob.
lens and Reforms. 1t is the last num-
Der of Pntnam's Questions of the Day
Series" The author believes that legal
tender laws are great curse and are
responsible for most of our monetary
evils. He makes good case. His
arguments are well calculated to up
set not only 16 to l ideas, but all
belief in favor of fiat or cheap money.
This being the heart of his discussion,
we quote the following extracts from
the chapters on Fiat Money and Legal
Tender:
From an economic point of view
there car be nc difference between an
obligation to deliver what happens to
be medium of exchange and an obliga-
ton to deliver some other article. In
either event the selection has been made
by the agreement of the parties, and the
obligation is as to certain quantity Of
a certain thing. 1t is thus that we may
say that in economic contemplation any
obligation to deliver specified goods is
q debt 1t would seem that the obliga-
ton made by the agreement of the par
ties should be altered only by the agree
ment of the parties. 1t would seem fur
ther that the obligation should not be
altered indirectly by changing the
definition of terms used in the agree
ment. Nor should the fact that the law
looks ON a debt for money in different
light from the way in which it looks on
a debt for other goods make any differ
ence as to impairing the obligation.
"It is nevertheless true that no despot-
ic power of government in disregard of
property has been oftener or more uni.
versally employed than this power of
tampering with contracts, and that,
too, not only by governments professed-
ly despotic, but even by those claiming
to be actuated by the principles of JUS
tice and liberty.
"These, then, are the three ways of
debasing the standard coin of a country
either to reduce the weight of the
piece and make the reduced piece legal
tender for tse old piece, or to coin the
same pieces jas before, but decree that
each shall be legal tender on existing
contracts for more than its old name
implied, or to coin pieces of the same
weight as before, but of a reduced fine
ness and to make them legal tender
with the old However, it is not at all
unusual to find that when one of these
methods is employed in a scheme of de-
basement the others are also associated
with it. Debasement, properly speak
ing, refers simply to applying the old
name to lesser amount Ct metal, and
in order to effect an impai Sug of con-
tract rights must be accomp, pied by a
legal tender law, for otherwise creditors
would not receive the smaller coins for
more than their market value as stamp
ed metal, but the act of debasement is
so universally poisoned with this legal
tender law that the term dCbGSement is
generally used to cover both operations.
1.-THE method above described for
tampering with the money of a country
namely, to debase the coins in weight,
fineness or nomenclature and apply le-
gal tender laws-is so barefaced and
self evident fraud that it is almost
universally denounced, and 1T is of late
years seldom used by civilized govern
ment. There is, however, another meth
cd by which the same nefarious end
can be attained under the plausible pre-
text of regulating the value of money,
as if money needed any other regulation
than to be let alone to find its own mar
ket level. This idea of regulating the
value Of money has its enthusiastic adj
vocates in all countries of the present
day and has permeated to individuals
in all classes of society. 1t is based on
the idea that the order of the govern
ment, the fat of law. gives money its
basic value. 1t is therefore called the
doctrine of fiatism, and money that is
tainted with this idea is called fat
money
"A legal tender law, however,
which makes less an equivalent for
more takes no account of any mans
ability to fulfill his contracts, but with
one fell swoop strikes horizontal re-
duction of debts for all alike and is in
effect universal bankrupt act. When