Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-03-17
"ToADY" BAYARD.
tmpeached by His Own WOrds-EcitheI
Dishonest or Ignorant.

Impeached by His Own WOrds-Etther
Dishonest or Ignorant.
Thomas F. Bayard, famous for his
love of aristocracy and his contempt for
the common rabble of America, drivels
in the Wilmington Every Evening in
the following pompous style:
ITO create values is not political or
governmental power-to attempt to dele
gate it would be impious and absurd-and
all such efforts would prove as futile as his
tory everywhere has proven them to be.
The illusions of alchemy are not better at
tested than the illusions which have led
to the attempts to advance the CONNER
cial value of silver for the past 20 years by
congressional legislation. in the face of
which it has steadily declined"
If Mr.. Bayard was not totally and ir-
retrievably ignorant of the decisions of
the highest courts of all civilized coun-
tries he would not talk such nonsense.
1t was decided in Elizabeth's time, in
the mixed money case, that it was a
necessary attribute of the sovereignty
of every independent government to
create full legal tender money in pay
ment of all debts, public and private,
and that all contracts were made with
q view to such power. Consequently,
the money current at the date of pay
ment is the money of the contract. The
supreme court of the United States held
the same doctrine in the legal tender
cases and declared that congress can
make paper money legal tender in pay
ment of public and private debts in
time of peace as well as in time of war.
Mr.. Bayard contends that legal ten
der money created by the government
has no value. We would like to see Mr..
Bayard or any other driveler attempt
to get it in any honest way without
paying for it. If he was in a tight
place Shylock would make him think
it had value, or he would not let him
have it. We will inform Mr.. Bayard
that he is not too old to learn that all
legal tender money is the fiat of law;
that gold is emphatically fat money.
It is the law written or stamped on gold
which makes it legal tender in pay
ment of debts. While gold is used to
bear the sovereign stamp making it
legal tender, it cannot be used for any
other purpose. It can perform but the
one function at time. Silver per-
formed the money function just as
well as gold for thousands of years
end until the conspirators, against the
rights of the people, closed the minis
against silver. This proved that it was
the law making it legal tender and
not the metal that gave it value.
The metal in either gold or silver for
other purposes than money, if neither
were used as money in any part of the
world, would probably be cheaper than
steel, because neither of them would
have as many uses as steel. The money
value of gold piece is given it by the
stamp. Any other material will per-
form the same function that gold does
if you will apply the same law to it,
give it the same legal rights and
powers.
Why, then, is gold or silver used?
They are used to regulate the quantity
of money, not the quality. The quality
depends upon the quantity. If there
was enough of gold there would be no
necessity for coming silver, or if there
was enough of silver there would be no
necessity for coming gold. The bust
ness of the world was based upon the
quantity of money furnished by both
metals when the rascals demonetized
silver and deprived the people of the
use of silver. This destroyed the foun-
dation upon which all property values
rested and reduced the value of the
property of the great mass of the peo-
pie more than one-half, for the sole and
exclusive purpose of increasing the
value of money.
Thomas F. Bayard was on the COM
mittee on finance when the silver dollar
was left out of codifcation bill, and
he ought to have known when it was
done, and he ought to have stopped it.
He did not stop it, but if he was as ig-
norant of the money question as the
stuff he publishes would indicate that |
he is, it may not be regarded as entirely |
fair to charge him with wrong-doing, |
because if he is really as ignorant as APP
pears from his interviews he could not |
possibly have anticipated the result of |
the clandestine act of demonetizing sill |
YER, to which he was a party. We pre-
fer to deal charitably with this mis-
guided man and to forgive him for the
evil he has done, because it is evident he
did not know what he did. = Silver
Knight-Watchman.