The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1900-07-27
MONEY.
RY IcNArIus DRNNELLy.

Money is a necessity of civilization.
Without it the productions Of the people
cannot be exchanged. Without it all trade
and commerce must end. If il is furnish
ed in insufficient quantities, its purchas-
ing power increases and the prices Of
labor and all commodities produced by
labor correspondingly fall. The rich
therefore become richer and the poor
poorer.
To supply the people with money is the
supreme function of government; for the
only end Of government is the prosperity
and happiness Of the governed.
Hence the constitution declares that
congress shall coin money and regulate
the value thereof. Aud in the same Sec
ton it provides that congress shall "de-
clare war, raise and support armies" and
'ssprovide and maintain navy" Con-
gress has no more right to authorize
private banking corporations to coin
money and issue ii 10 the citizens than it
would have to authorize similar private
corporations to declare war, raise and
support armies and provide and maintain
a navy.
And when the issue of the money of
the nation is left in the hands of private
corporations, whose interest it is to make
it scarce, and therefore dear, not a
dollar of it can come to the people across
their counters until some one borrows it
and pays interest on it.
The country is then in a horrible con-
dition. 1t is as if we were charged for
the air we breathe. 1t is as if our army,
controlled by private corporations, refused
to resist the invaders of our country until
every citizen came forward and paid them
a private bonus for defending his home.
| Originally all business was barter; and
gold and silver, valuable because the
pagan priesthood adorned Herewith the
temples of the sun and moon, became
standard commodities; and being compact
and portable, were finally nsed in making
exchanges, and called money" and so
descended to our own times.
La.er, however, criminal conspiracy
was organized among the capitalists of
the old and new worlds to deny the
moons metal, silver, access to the mint.
They have thus reduced the metallic
barter basis of all business over all the
earth one-half.
/ Political necessity has forced them, in
this country, to issue paper bank notes to
supply this silver vacuum; but these are
only to reach the people by being borrow
ed and paid for-with more interest and
more eventual bankruptcy. And SO they
have set the pyramid of currency upon
its apex-the gold supply of the world
cube about twenty-seven feet square,
which all nations are struggling to secure;
and now the inverted pyramid is totteriug
/ to its fall, and the bankers will scarcely
be able to prop it up until after the next
election. And when it falls, mankind
will be overwhelmed With calamities for
which history affords no parallel.
While we regard the redemption of the
money of our country in gold and silver
as relic of barbarism and survival oil
pagan superstition, nevertheless, we de-
mand that if either metal is used, both
shall be so used. If there is to be a
metallic basis for our currency, it must
be as broad as possible.
/ 'rtara &c ,,o ,,,oya raacoo for mob n
our money of metals than there is for
engraving our national bonds on plates
of gold, or printing our postage stamps on
tags of silver.
When silver was demonetized, it fell
one-half in value; gold similarly treated
would shrink in the same way. There is
little intrinsic usefulness in either. Civ
ilization could endure without both OF
them; it could scarcely live without iron
or copper.
In our civil war government paper
money, without bankers, saved the
nation; and its life can be maintained, in
time of peace, by the greenbacks.
1t is crime to compel eighty millions
of free people to depend for the first
essential of human society upon few
thousand bankers, who make the people
pay heavily for doing for them what the
people are abundantly able to do for
themselves. The bankers note is re-
deemable in greenbacks. Why not then
destroy the bank notes and issue the
superior paper-the greenbacks.
The world is today trying to solve the
problem, shall wealth or manhood rule
humanity?