The independent., 1903-03-19
CHAPTER XII.
All Rights Reserved.


When it is thus seen that the
word Dollar, ,"~which stands as the
symbol of the fixed and unchanging
quantity of valuation of the force OF
demand, for purposes of taxation, Sc
lected TO be the standard unit, con-
stitutes the STANDARD of money" OF
this country, 1t becomes clear that
tax levies must be made and judg-
ments rendered in that money" and
1t Is that money" which congress
is empowered by the constitution to
coin, stamp, Or print
The standard Of money" is from
necessity a word or term standing as
the symbol, by the use OF which to
express a fixed and changeless guam
tity of the force Of demand, which is
created by government striving to sup
ply its needs by taking articles from
it's citizens: and cannot be physi-
cal object. This word dollar" is the
unit" Of the force of demand in the
United States.
In the face of this incontestible
fact, in 1873, and again, after ~ years
of deliberation, in 1900, the congress
passed, and the president approved, a
statute declaring that "coin" of the
United States, composed of 25.8 grains
of gold 9-10 fine shall be the unit
Of value" By this absurd act of in
sensate and sacrilegious folly, con-
gress solemnly undertakes by stat
ute to diyest a material substance of
its density, malleability and all the
other characteristic properties of mat
ter, and to cause small lump of the
metal, gold, to become fixed and
unchanging quantity of the force of
demand thus attempting by statute
to transmute matter into force.
Had yardful of jackasses perpe-
trated such an egregious act of idiocy
and of monstrous wickedness COM
bined, that one act alone would have
vindicated the Judgment of Aesop,
long ago passed upon the stupidity OF
intellect of that dull animal. But
what shall we say Of the mental con-
dition prevalent, Wien the assembled
representatives of the mightiest ma
ton of the earth, boasting of its
transcendent enlightenment, really
iquity and impossible nonsense into
law? When King Canute, reduced to
a state of semi-idiocy by the fiatter-
les Of his courtiers, seated himself on
the beach and commanded the tides
of the ocean to cease their resistless
flow, his decree thus uttered was not
more ludicrously sacrilegious and fu-
tile than this insane attempt to an
nihilate by statute the inherent prop
critics OF a metal and to cause ma
terial commodity to become a fixed
quantity of an abstract form of force
Such an incredible absurdity, at
tempted to be enacted into law, is
the logical outcome of the teachings
of race of impostors, called "Profes-
sors of Political Economy" who from
the days of Aristotle downward have
set at defiance all the rules for the
guidance of scientific inquiry and each
succeeding generation of charlatans,
like parrots, have repeated without
investigation the senseless platitudes
OF ignorant predecessors. Instead of
giving us science, they have contin-
ued to impose upon us the supersti-
tions and childish assumptions of our
remote ancestors, who were savages.
No one of them ever labored enough
himself to devote the necessary labor
and wearing toll required to wrench
from the jaws of chaos real knowl-
edge of the thing called value" and
catalogue it among the forms of force,
where it belongs, and where it's ex-
istence ceases to be an anomoly, but
becomes inteliigibie No one of them
ever delyed into the dark quarries and
with drill and dynamite blasted out
the truth, that the thing properly
called money" is not ''coin," but is
a device for expressing a fixed guam
tity Of the force of demand, and con-
sists of term standing as the sym
boil of that fixed and changeless GUAM
tity OF the force of demand adopted as
the unit" and that quantity of all
valuations may be expressed by that
symbol. aided by the numerals.
10 one of them ever labored enough
to discover that which, when pointed
oat, is patent. to all-that the neces-
sity which brought about this inven-
ton was not any imaginary difficult
ties surrounding the exchange of
heterogeneous commodities for each
other; but that instead it was brought
forth to overcome otherwise insuper-