Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1897-11-24
FIAT MONEY.
By Hon. Zoe Parker OF Owensboroueb
Kentucky.

The question of silver coinage is
not the money question: is only
small part of it.
The peoples party believes on
money
1. That it is creature of legislation,
and that a dollar may be made of
paper as we'll as of silver or gold.
2. That no dollar should be redeem
able in any other kind of dollar, but
( that the promise of the government to
receive it for all dues, and the legal
tender power are sufficient to make it
good.
3. That the volume of money should
be increased to about $50 per capita.
4. That the government should
issue and control all the money of the
| country, and that no corporation
should have the right to issue money.
The Republican party advocates ma
| tiona1 banks to control our paper mon
ey, and the gold Democratic party
state banks of issue, both of which are
founded on the opposite principles to
ours.
S. The Peoples Party believes the
government should issue paper money
direct to the people, either at low
rate of interest or to employ the idle
upon works of pubic improvement.
6. The Peoples Party believes in
postal safe deposit of the earnings of
the people.
So you see through every important
principle of the money question the
Peoples Party stands as the antagon-
list of Republicanism.
Either Popuhsm is right or it is
wrong. If it is right then both of
these parties are wrong, and you may
as we'll be a Republican as a gold
Democrat, for there is practically no
difference on the money question.
Every thinking man must admit
that either money is made by law or
it is not. There is no middle ground.
Money made by law is fiat money, for
by fiat money we simply mean that
the command of a sovereign power
that certain thing shall be a legal
payment of debt is sufficient. Either
the theory of fiat money is right or it
is wrong. There can be, and there is
no middle ground by which dollar
may be part fiat and part 'intrinsic''
in value.
Either the fiat, or Populist theory is
correct, or the commercial value
theory of the Republicans is right.
Our free silver friends who desire to
make dollar of 40 cents worth of sill
yer must ally themselves with Popu-
lism and become fatists, or they can
not support their cause. They can
make a good dollar of 10 cents worth
OF bullion because the fiat theory is
correct, but when they deny the fiat
money theory they tear down their
cause. When they accept the fiat
theory they should become Populists
in utilization as we'll as in belief.
Twenty-Five hundred years ago there
was long-haired crank who believed
in fiat money. 1t was Aristotle, the
philosopher of Ancient Greece, at the
golden age which produced men whose
thoughts have burned like beacon
lights for centuries. Even the black
ness of the dark age of superstitution,
tyranny and vice have dimmed them
not. Aristotle wrote:
Money exists not by nature but by
law" Twenty-Five hundred years al
ter Aristotle there are men who be-
lieve that money is dug out of the
ground - that money does exist by
nature; that law has nothing to do
with it-and that Aristotle was a fool.
There are men who deny Christ, too,
1900 years after the morning stars
sang together when he was born at
Bethlehem. But from the days of Ar
istotle down to the present, the thought
of the world, the reason and the intel
lect, have all declared with the philos-
opher that money exists by law"
This was strengthened when the SUI
| tA~ NOuA ~ IAiS OhllCo states, w
Wallace $40, declared:
eve repeat, money is not a sub
stance but an impression of legal au-
thority, printed legal Decree"
So says the Populist-and he says
If the law can make as good dollar of
40 cents worth of silver bullion as it
did when the silver in the dollar was
worth 100 cents, it can make as good
dollar of paper as it can of 40 cents
worth of bullion.
The fight is between the Populists
and Republicans on money. 1 propose
to prove by simple illustration that
Populism is right.
If the law does not make money.
then someone can certainly show
money that exists by some other
means. 1 have long made liberal of
fer and it has never been accepted.
will repeat it here: If there is a dis
believer in fiat money, or money made
by law, who has a dollar in his DOS
session that was not made money by
the law of sovereign and response
Die government will give him ten dol
lars for it. Now is your opportunity
my friend, to put ND YOUR dollar and