Iron County register., 1898-12-01
A BUGABO0
Only Intellectual Inn beeiles Ever Re
sort to the ..F1fty-Cent Dollar"
aa an Argument.

The creditor combination, who own
the debts of the world are interested In
making money scarce and dear and
everything that money buys cheap,
have invented many ingenious phrases
to deceive their unwary yictims-the
laboring and producing classes. The
creditor combination is the money
octopus. 1t holds demands against
! mankind for the entire stock of gold
money in the world 40 times over. The
amount of interest it gathers in six
months equals the total gold money In
existence. To make money scarce and
dear is to increase its wealth and power
! and TO correspondingly weaken the
ability Of the people to resist any de-
mands it makes.
This rich, powerful and crafty COM
bination understands every prejudice
Of the human heart and every weakness
of the human intellect By skillfully
manipulating these they not only Sc
cure acquiescence in their schemes of
robbery and spoliation, but cause their
victims to zealously do their work
Among the various catch phrases
coined in the parlors of the worlds
great pawn shops to deceive their un-
wary victims are numerous ingenious
and sophistica1 appeals to the moral
sense, the pride, and the passions of
man. The craft, cunning and ingenuity
| of the phrases used are evidenced by
| their acceptance as truth by millions of
unsuspecting victims.
One of the statements that has done,
and is doing duty for the gold COM
bination, is the cry of ''50-cent dol
| lar" It is not uncommon to hear men
suspected of average intelligence, who
| wear clean shirts and whose ordinary
| pretensions pass muster, echoing the
5O-cent dollar argument. If such per-
| sons realized that such arguments ex-
| posed their weakness of intellect and
| caused them to forfeit the respect Of
their more intelligent associates they
would protect themselves against being
classed as intellectual imbeciles by de-
clining to ever repeat them.
The argument current among many
thoughtless victims of gold monopoly
is that the reopening of the mints to
the free coinage of silver would enable
miners and other owners of silver to
have so cents worth of their material
stamped a dollar by the government
and empowered by law to discharge a
dollar of debt; that this dollar would
only be worth so cents actual value, and
that, therefore, gold dollars worth
twice as much would no longer circu-
! late side by side with them, concurrent
/ ly and interchangeably, making pur-
chases and payments; that the with
drawal of the gold money from circu-
lation would cause terrific contrac-
ton of the money volume, making
money so scarce that it would cripple
business and ruin debtors; and that the
business of the country would then be
transacted with dollars worth only so
cents"
1t must be E1nembered that money is
desired, not for the purpose of swap
ping dollars of different material but
as a medium of exchange to facilitate
the work of producing and exchanging
commodities. The value of money,
whether made of gold, silver or paper,
IS the amount of other things in general
it can be exchanged for. When money
made of material such as gold and sill
yer that can be reminted into the coin
of another country free of charge in
whatever quantity obtainable, such
money material will move from one
country to another seeking the mar
ket wherein it can be exchanged for
the most goods, and commodities viii
seek such countries as they can be ex-
changed for the largest amount of such
money material. Thus it will be seen
that the whereabouts of gold must al
ways be determined by the prices of
commodities.
So long as commodities are priced in
and exchanged for money whenever
money becomes scarce prices must fall.
So any attempt to take any large
amount of gold out of circulation
would cause such fall in prices as to
at once call the gold back again by Civ
ing it { greater power to exchange for
commodities here than elsewhere.
Thus it will be seen how absurd is the
claim that our gold could leave on any
account so long as prices in this coun-
try do not go above the international
gold price level. Again. that our vol
uIne of money would be contracted to
a point that business would be cramped
and debtors ruined, and at the same
time we would have in circulation dol
lars worth only so cents, or one-half as
much as before; that they could only
be exchanged for one-half the amount
Of other things, reaches the climax of
transcendant absurdity.
To say that money, the one thing of
universal and constant demand having
Full debt-paying power can be made
scarce and cheap at the same time, so
scarce that it Will stagnate business
and ruin debtors while it can be OBJ
tanned for one-half the labor or sacri-
fee it could before and everything for
sale viii command double the amount
of it in exchange, is TO confound all
logic and common sense. Whenever
you hear a laborer, a producer, or tax
payer. or any other person not a mil
ionaire bondholder make such an ar
gument. please examine the size of his
ears.-Silver knight Watchman.
SeIf-Evfdent Fact.
It ought TO be plain to any man who
Is not wiIlful1y blind that the gold
standard, with only 80. .000, 900 OF people
demanding gold exclusively, was very
different thing from the gold standard