Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-09-14
LEGAL TENDER LAWS.
Vigorously Attacked in the Cur
rency Convention at Omaha
by Edward Atkinson.
NO USE TO HONEY THAT IS GOOD,

He Says, and Their Only Purpose the
Forcing into Circulation OF Money That
Is Bad-"Born in Fraud and Nursed in
Corruption" He Declares-Bartine Re
plies and Insists That Ali Money Is the
Creation of the Law.
Omaha. Sept. 14.-One OF the most
| distinguished gatherings of financial
| students that ever assembled opened a
three days session at the Nebraska
building, exposition grounds, yesterday
morning. Scarcely a well known name
on either side of the great currency
problem which has been so long before
the American people but is represented
on the programme for a set paper or a
part in the running debate. Hon. ].
Sterling Morton presided yesterday.
Horace White, of New York; Edward
Atkinson; Representative Fowler. of
New Jersey; Editor p. H. Robinson, of
The Railway Age; Louis r. Enrich. of
Colorado Springs; former Senator Car
ey, of Wyoming, and Governor Leslie
II. Shaw, of Iowa, are to take part in
the programme. Atkinson is not here,
owing to illness, his paper being read
by Morton. Warner, Towne, Bartine,
Weaver. Reynolds, and other leaders
Of the silver ard paper money sides are
on hand and taking part in the fray.
Atkinson Attacks Legal Tender.
Shortly after 10 o'clock Morton called
the convention to order, ard without
any formality beyond a few words of
explanation and welcome, and then read
Edward Atkinson's paper entitled
Force Bills. or Legal Tender" This
paper was the most notable of the day,
as it attacked q thing that many gold
men consider a necessity the legal
tender quality of money. He said that
good money needs no act of legal tender.
Only bad money calls for an act of
force or legal tender to make people
take it whether they want it or not
He held that the so-called free coinage
act proposed in 1893 was nothing but a
preteXt. Coinage consists in the manu-
facture of round discs of metal certified
in weight and quality by the stamp of
the government. That exhausts the
word. Free coinage could be admitted
of gold, silver, copper or nickel if that
were the end of the matter.
"Born in Fraud. Nursed in Corruption"
The vice of the free coinage policy is
hidden under the name of legal tender.
Legal tender acts were born in fraud
and have been nursed in corruption ever
since. That is the record from the
dawn OF financial history to the present
day All legal tender acts or DEGREES
with the exception of those relating TO
subsidiary coin have been intended
for one of two purposes. They have
either been the acts or DEGREES of abso-
lutte rulers or despotic governments for
the purpose of cheating their people and
defrauding them of their earnings, or
else they have been acts for the col,
lection OF Il forced loan in the conduct
of a war, like our legal tender acts OF
1SG1-62; or else for the collection of a
forced loan for the purchase of silver
under the Bland and Sherman acts.
Real Unit of Value.
The writer declared weight to be the |
real unit of money. and continued: THE |
whole international commerce of the |
globe is conducted in that way by the |
weight measure of a pound sterling. |
There is no lawful coin known as |
pound sterling. We bartered American |
cotton, wheat and other products of our |
farms last year for $500, 000, 900 worth of |
gold coin measured by weight in pounds |
sterling. If any farmers are fools |
enough to want silver money, or cattle |
or skin money, they can get it; |
silver in Asia, cattle money in Africa, |
fur or skin money in Nova Zembla. The |
free coinage of silver of full legal tender
is almost grotesque in it's folly and |
audacity. The sincerity of its
Illegal tenderl promoters can only be
justified at the expense of their repute
for common sense"