Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-09-16
.IRREDEEMABLE CASH.
Subject That Occupied the Last
Day of the Omaha Cur
rency Convention.
eEa. WARNER STATES HIS VIEWS.
Believes in the Original Greenbaek Prin-
cipIe That All Money Must Be Issued
and Controlled by the Government-Ex-
Gov. Boies' Plan for the Solution of the
Problem Under Consideration Base
Thereof Is the Window Idea

Thereof Is the Window Idea
Omaha, Sept. 16.-The third and last
day of the national currency convention
began with a paper in support of an
unlimited issue of irredeemable cur
rency by the government by General
A ]. Warner. president of the Ameri-
! can Bimetallic union. General Warner
said the debate would be divided into
first, the advocacy of bank currency;
| second, a plea for a governmental cur
| rency to circulate concurrently with
the metals. and third, an affirmation of
an irredeemable government paper cur
rency, or absolute fiatism. AS to the
| defense of falling prices made by the
gold standard advocates, he said he
concurred in their opinions except as to
farm products. for which the labor cost
| had not decreased, and with the further
| qualification that there had been no
reduction in the fixed charges such as
transportation rates, debts and taxes.
Quantity the Key of the Situation.
Warner said in part: The measure
| of the effect of paper money on prices
and on other mSney does not depend
upon whether or not it is covered by
| coin, dollar for dollar. any more than
upon the color or texture of the fiber
| of the paper on which the insignia of
| money is stamped. but entirely on the
quantity of such money put into cir
culation. The principle is the same
whether applied to paper money or to
gold and silver coin or to gold alone.
The idea that gold or standard money"
is unaffected by the issue of paper, al
though put forward anew by the In
dianapolis sound money commission, is
among the exploded fallacies that rest
upon the intrinsic value" theory of
money. The broad truth is. there is no
such thing as a purely gold standard
anywhere.
Maintenance of a Gold Standard.
THE gold standard can be maintained
in this country only by limiting the
paper currency to an amount less than
we would have of gold If there were no
paper, to which may be added our dis
tributive share of the gold that would
be displaced by the paper and then
making the paper vary a purely gold
currency would vary. In that way the
gold standard can be maintained if a
debtor nation can maintain it at all, but
in no other. a national currency issued
by the general government should be
legal tender-that is. should be money
in the fullest sense. 1 hope some one
here will explain just how a paper cur
rency is made better by depriving it of
the power of legal tender and what the
public is to gain by the substitution of
non-legal tender notes of banks in the
place of our present legal tender green
back currency.
The General States the Issue.
THE issue is fairly presented between
a currency issued by thousands OF
banks, scattered all over the county, as
their interests alone may dictate-for
they will be governed by no other prin-
ciple: they can be governed by no other
and a currency issued and controlled
by the government in the interest of all
the people. and with the view of secur-
ing at all times stability in the value of
money and prices, thereby producing
conditions most favorable to Industrial