The times., 1898-01-04
indianapolis Auromania

The impudence in the contention OF
the indianapolis money lenders con-
Yention, that the committee formed by
it to attempt the destruction of Ameri-
can money vas a monetary commits
sion was brazen rather than golden
and its creature is not more modest.
The latter has made preliminary re-
| port" which barely is worthy of seri-
| Gus notice, except to expose some of
its more fragrant attempts to pull wool
| over the eyes Of people who may not
| have enjoyed opportunities to study
the first principles of political economy.
Judging from the published text, the
suspicion is unavoidable that few if
any of the persons responsible for the
| report ever have possessed, or at
| least availed themselves of,that adyan-
| tase. At this time il only seems neces-
sary 10 dispose of one of the paretic
propositions OF the commission to
demonstrate the uselessness of its
labors. and the futility of its attack
upon the Congress Of the people, which.
let it be clearly understood, is as un-
official as it is impertinent. The re
port says:
There are some considerations as to the
Standard Which ought to commend them
selves 10 the judgmentof the country There
must be some standard of value. The stan
dard must have a market value as n
commodity independently of any govern
mental fiat and OF legal tender la WIS: il must
be durable; it must be homogeneous; it
must have maxinlum of value Droportioned
Ia its bulk; 1t mus; have, as commodity,
"a II RI
m order TO secure the stability of that
market value the relation between its
supply aud demand must be as constant
aS possible. Gold alone fulfIIls these
conditions. The civilized world has. there
tore, determined that the standard shall
be gold. No government, however power
ful, can in fact reverse that determinations
or, without injury to the Interests of all it's
people, attempt TO establish any other
standard OF value.
We quite agree that there are some
conditions as TO the standard of value
which ought to commend themselves to
the judgment of the country but at
that point we cease to see anything in
the argument The standard does not
and cannot have a commodity value
equal to and independently of its
money function. To say that this
quality inheres in gold is as idiotic as
it would be to say that it does in iron
or copper. The gold advocates forever
are falling back upon the puerile fall
lacy of the intrinsic value of gold.
Everybody in these days, of ordinary
intelligence, knows that value" can
not be an intrinsic quality. Things in
trinsically may have length, breadth
and thickness: they may have pom
derosity and luminosity, but value is a
thing which is determined in exchange.
For example, it is admitted by Euro
pean economists that if gold were to
be demonetiZed, as once it was pro-
posed by the leading financiers of
Europe to demonetize it, the worlds
supply of gold for use in the arts,
being ample for the next sixty, or per-
haps eighty, years it would sink to its
normal demand for art use and shortly
would fail approximately to the pre-
sent value of silver, or even of copper;
because, metal of high value as an
object of human desire, when once de-
priyed of its value in exchange, soon
loses its use for ornamental purposes.
for obvious reasons.
Money is function and not a thing.
We are tired Of opposing to the con- |
tention of the gold contractionists, the |
truism that commodity cannot |
have currency as money except by |