The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-11-05
BOOK 2.-Chapter XIV.
All Rights Reserved

The power to coin money, thus act
ually exercised by congress, instead of
being, as at present, abdicated in fay-
or Of the gold trust, would put an end
private, by giving the products of the
people the power to perform required
beneficial service, and to such COM
modities as all the people can produce,
authority to pay tax ievies and judg-
ments.
1t would abolish poverty among the
people; develop to the utmost all the
resources of the country; give to each
citizen the power to realize the price
Of his products or service, and usLer
n an era of universal prosperity and
human happiness, such as the world
has never seen. The gold trust would
dissolve, and every other injurious
combination for gathering profits from
human toll unjustly, by means OF mo-
Lopoly Of things universally neces-
sary, would likewise vanish.
This is neither IAN utOpian dream"
IOr dream of any kind.
1t has already been partially, but
imperfectly, tried once, and not found
wanting.
The plan here suggested is simply
the application, on vaster scale, up
OH a grander theatre, of the same
principles which brought worldwide
prosperity to a small and essentially
barbarous body of freebooters, inhab-
iting those insignificant and barren
sand islands at the head of the
Adriatic sea.
Their only resource was their pos
session of two metals, which the SUI
peIstitiOus ignorance of mankind has
permitted to be clothed by Infamous
statutes with purely artificial pow
e. to perform beneficial service for
nan.
Under the same system, extended SO
as to include al that vast array OF
commodities endowed with real
power for beneficial human service,
produced in this country, America
would become and remain the clearing
bcuse of the world.
That inexpressible infamy, consti-
tUting the master injustice of human
history, called free coinage" and the
compulsory use of another mans
commodity to supply an imperious and
universal statutory need, at price
fixed by statute and stamped upon it
by your government, which cOldly re-
fuses the like favor to you, would
cease to torment and make miserable
the human race, in order that the
gold trust, by exercising the taxing
power, may own and plumber the
world.
Under the proposed system man
kind, at present condemned to worse
servitude than Israel suffered in
Egypt, would cease to be boDdmen
End bondwomen, toiling through a
hopeless life Of death to pay to the
sold trust the usury upon the bonds
Oh the nations, payable in one sole
commodity, which they cannot pro-
duce, and every ounce of which when
driven by the bayonet or the knout to
obtain, they must procure from the
gold trust, its indefeasable owner, by
means Of bonds of all nations which
hold it in vulture's clutch.
Under the proposed system. what
ever man possesses, If taxable, will
ray that tax or any judgment. 1t
should be tried without 4ear of maxi
ing things worse, because If Satan had
devised system with view to make
mankind miserable, he could not have
made 1t to exceed the present scheme
in injustice and forror. Its far-reach-
ing consequences manifest themselves
IL the multitude OF combinations In
all departments of industry by which
each useful vocation seeks to protect
itself from the ruinous competitive
battle TO get the gold trusts gold. the
only means by which they can satisfy
the enormous tax levies against their
wealth. and meet the vast sums re-
CURED to be expended In their opera
tons
The competitive system begot the
gold trust: and Il In turn begeis n
brood after It's kind.
a tax In the just tribute the citizen
pays 10 government as return for
'ts protection OF his person and prop
erty. Surely he should ne permitted 10
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