The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1910-02-03

money STANDS on. If interest bearing
bonds are a safe basis for our finan-
cial system, then paper money is bet
ter than bonds, because it rests on
the same basis, with three conclu-
sive advantages in it's favor First,
it bears no interest. Second, it is a
medium of exchange, which employs
labor, stimulates trade and brings
prosperity. Third, it need not be re-
deemed or paid, as bonds must.
For thirty-fve years, | have been
amazed and Inundated that the
American people can not see so sim
pie thing, and that they do not rise
in their sovereign majesty and wipe
out this Internal system of banks and
bonds, and establish just monetary
system.
Paper money is a legal tender for
debts, public and private, redeemable
in nothing, but exchangeable for all
kinds of money and every variety of
property.
But I am not yet done with the
bonds. In the very face of the Con-
stitution, Congress has villainously
robbed the people by class 1egisla-
ton; and one of the most high
handed outrages is that United
States bonds are exempt from taxa
ton, State and national. If you fail
to pay taxes on your horse or I on
my land, our property is seized and
sold, but the bondholder neither
tolls nor SPINS" He pays no taxes
All he has to do is to clip his cou-
pons and collect his usury. But the
privileges of this favored class by no
means stop here. The bondhoIder,
under the national banking law, can
deposit his bonds in the United
States Treasury, where they are safe
~ kept for him, and the interest
promptly paid. Then, upon the pay
ment of one-fourth Of ] per cent. for
the use of it, the United States issues
and delivers bank currency for a
term OF twenty years, for the full
amount of the face of his bonds. And
empowers him or them to organize a
national bank and lend the money
which cost the bank one-fourth of |
per cent to you and me at 10 to IL
per cent, or whatever rate of usury
our straitened circumstances enable
the bank to exact. Why should not
other people have the assessed value
" o1iOA1 CchACu pAOpSIIy 1uIuISu0u
them in money, when the bondhold-
ers are getting it on untaxed prop
erty?
The national banks have the power
under the law to expand or contract
their circulation at pleasure And
yet there is no proposition better un-
derstOod than that. the volume of
money in circulation fixes prices If
there is a large circulation Of from
$50 to $50 per capita, the price of
labor and all kinds of property will
be high, as it was during the Civil
War, and for few years after When
the volume of money is large, labor
will be employed, trade stimulated
and prosperity abound, because every
man can get money for his labor or
his property, and does not have to
go to a bank and pay usury. But
when the volume of money is small,
as it now is. values shrink and prices
are low, labor is unemployed, trade
stagnates, and bankruptcy stares the
people in the face. Therefore, there
is no species of dishonesty more
criminal than to change the measure
of values during existing indebted
ness, by reducing the volume of
money in circulation, and lowering
the price of labor and property The
class legislation Of the past forty
years on this line has robbed the