Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-06-30
HOW VALUES ARE FIXED.
They Depend Upon the Law of supply
and Demand-MOney Absolutely
Necessary to Civilization.

silver, and are anxious to part with them
for gold. Others have gold, and are anxious
to exchange it for these or other articles.
The market price of aluminium in gold, or,
the market price of gold in aluminium, is
established by the competitive bidding in
the open market of those who seek to make
such exchanges. And each man must de-
termine for himself, by an act of his own
Judgment, the relative value which things
have for him. Congress cannot do this
for any one of us, and certainly not for
all of u.s. Congress has adopted the value
of 1922 grains of gold as the unit of value,
the length of a certain bar as the unit or
length, and the weight of a certain mass
as the unit of weight. That action does
not fix the value of e. q grains of gold,
but merely determines that whatever that
value may be, it is to be the legal unit OF
value. Congress has said what dollar
shall be, but it cannot determine what
dollar will buy. To ask congress to fix
the value of 1922 grains of gold, in terms
of the value of the average commodity, is
simply to ask congress to fix the price of
the average commodity in gold. The value
of the gold dollar is determined by what
1t will buy.
Very good, responds the Silver
Knight-Watchman. Il is equally true
that all the persons in the world who
produce wheat cannot determine what
a person will give for bushel CT wheat,
but if they should stop producing wheat
it Will hardly be contended thata bushel
of wheat would not be worth more than
it would be if the producers CT wheat
should double the production. All the
men in the world who raise hogs cannot
say what person shall give for pound
of pork. But if they should stop raising
hogs the price of pork would go up
pretty promptly.
Money is the creation of law. If in
dividuals attempt to create money IN
this country they are liable to be
caught, convicted and sent to the peni-
Tertiary. The supreme court of the
United States has repeatedly decided
in the illegal tender cases" that congress
alone can create money and that it may
create it by the use of either metal, pa
per or any other suitable material and
that the courts have no power 10 ques-
ton the action Of congress in exercising
its discretion to create full legal tender
money. 1t is true that congress has
adopted 23.22 grains of pure gold or
37125 grains Of pure silver as the
amount of gold and silver respectively
to constitute dollar, and has ceased
to coin silver; consequently congress
has confined the creation of new money
to gold alone and thus limited the sup
ply of money.
Money is an absolute necessity to civ
ili2ation, nearly as much so as the air
we breathe is a necessity to sustain life;
consequently people are compelled to
give up enough of property or services,
if they have it, to buy gold enough to
- I IoV, TrnT clio
walton. They estimate how much sacri-
flee they will make for gold, and they
make 4 very unreasonable sacrifice be-
cause they cannot help it. Wheat has
risen in the last year from about go
cents to about SLIGO bushel. The men
who buy wheat fix the price because
they prefer a bushel of wheat to $1.60,
but if there was a sufficient supply of
wheat so that they could get it for 60
cents a bushel that would be the mar
ket price OF wheat to-day. The limita-
ton of the amount of money to be
created to the commodity gold, and the
deficiency of the supply of that COM
modify makes gold money very dear,
but it would be in the power Of the gov
eminent to make paper money much
dearer than gold money. The treasury
department reports that there are about
ST 600, 100000 of money of various kinds
in the United States. Suppose congress
should reduce that amount to $S00,000,-
600 by declaring that neither gold nor
silver nor Sherman notes should pos
sess any legal tender quality whatever.
How would the paper money in this
h Io Il OF
gold? Bear in mind that all debts and
taxes would be then payable in paper
money and paper money alone. Would
not the owner of property who was
compelled to have money to pay his
debts and taxes give more for paper
money than he would for gold
money?
The learned author of Sound money"
says that value is determined by the
parties themselves in making a con-
tract, and in the same connection con-
tends that the value of gold is fixed
measure, the same as unit of length or
a unit of weight. If the uni: of value
were reduced to the same certainty as
a yard stick or a pound weight, how
can a man fix it for himself? The law
fixes the length of yard stick. It
also fixes the pound weight. But value
is simply estimation of parties making
an exchange and cannot be fixed by law,
but conditions may be changed by law
or by Individual enterprise. The gov
eminent having a monopoly of making
money can fix the amount and the esti-
nation of man in buying money will be
governed by the amount of money in
circulation, the same as it is by the sup
ply of wheat or cotton or any other
commodity. When the author of "sound
money" admits that value is estima
ton he stultifies himself by comparing
it to a yard stick. A yard stick is not
estimation; it is exact measurement.
Value depends upon the law of supply
and demand, but d yard stick is just 80
inches long without regard to the law
of supply and demand or estimation.
The number of yard sticks makes no
difference in the length of yard stick,
but the number of bushels of wheat pro-
duced or the number of dollars in cir
culation will always be the all-im
portant consideration in fixing the price
of wheat or the purchasing power of a
dollar.
What Money Is.
In it's true nature, money is simply
right or title to demand some product
or service from some one else. Now,
when a person accepts money in ex-
change for products or services rem