The independent., 1903-08-27
BOOK 2.-Chapter XIV.
All rights Reserved.

that money. and comforting the power
of tender-the first is vastly most i'm
portant.
A standard of money, by the use of
which to express the appraised degree
of the intensity of the force of demand
for commodities and services benefic-
iaI to men, is a fundamental necessity
for the support and maintenance of
government through the exercise of
the taxing power, and is also great
convenience in human affairs in rem
tering easy the exchange of the enor
p:ous mass of heterogeneous cOn.modi-
ties, constituting the products Of in
dustry in modern times.
But the system of abdicating the
power to coin its money, adopted in all
civilized countries (*), and of limit
ing the issue of coin to a fixed guam
the next place work enormous injus
tice to all men, except the favored
owners of gold, by stamping upon
their metal a fixed price at which, by
statute, the governments provide a
market incapable of ever being sup
piled.
We are told glibly that the act of
coming gold is simply certifying the
weight and fneness of the metal"
This patent falsehood is exposed at
once if you read the "superscription"
uron the coin. The legend upon an
American eagle, stamped upon 232
grains of gold, is: United States of
America. Ten Dollars" Here is no
certificate of weight and fneness. On
the contrary, in plain words, "Ten
Dollars" the price thereof. is i'm
pressed into the metal, and double
acting statute compels every citizen of
the United States to use it alone to de-
liver himself fro-l tax levies and judg-
ments, and also compels the custodian
OF all tax levies and judgments Sin
the public Offices and courts" to accept
it at that price.
While an inexhaustible market, at
a price arbitrarily fixed and stamped
upon the favorites' gold, is thus pro-
vided by the government, the owners
of all the useful commodities, the
manufacturing, preserving and trans
pGrtation appliances, and all the labor
of the race is left without any price
stamped upon it, and no one is COM
pelled either to procure them or to
a( cept them. Thus abandoned to their
fate, all services and all commodities,
except gold alone, combat each other
in competition l.. the mad struggle to
get gold at its statutory price to per-
fern an imperious statutory service,
universally necessary; and all prices,
except the statutory price of gold, are
beaten down in the battle. The power
to coin money is thus transformed into
the power to fix the price of one sin
gle commodity; and by comforting up
on that commodity the exclusive pow
er to satisfy tax levies and judgments.
al that price, enables those favorites
to whom the "coin" is thus given. to
compel mankind to give up in sacrifice
to obtain it whatever of their service
and commodities the greed of the gold
trust may dictate. In order to defend
themselves from destruction thus
threatened by the gold trust, the great
manufacturing, mining, preserving
and transportation companies are ev-
erywhere organizing cooperative un-
ions or trusts, in the hope to put an
end to the competitive battle among
| themselves for monetary possession of
the coins of the gold trust.
So ruinous had this combat become
that all their products and services
were scarcely able to procure the coin
required by these institutions to meet
their tax levies and judgments, or
claims Fastening to become judgments,
| leaving nothing for themselves.
Not knowing that it is the secret
hand of the gold trust which robs
them, they support its wicked ard in
human domination and seek to make
reprisals by combination of all par
ties engaged in the same department
OF business or industry. But their eff
| forts are vain.
| Unless they can obtain the enact
ment of laws fixing and enforcing a
price upon their commodities and SER
vices, and giving them the power of a
receipt by "tender" against tax levies
and judgments 'in the public offices
and courts upon the same conditions
! as the commodity In which the gold
1 trust deals, their efforts will be vain.
! The struggle of the great manufac-
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