The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1916-06-21
NCLE SANS MONEY
LS LIKE OLEOMARGARINE

mother and was politely told that
while the law provided that the sec
rotary of the treasury should main
tain gold and silver on a parity the
section had been construed to mean
that silver certificates could not pro-
duce gold coin.
Finally Got His Gold.
Thereupon he spent one of his dol
lars for Dutch courage, and, thus for
titled, determined somehow to secure
that gold piece for the mother who
was becoming momentarily dearer.
He succeeded after time in exchang-
ing his silver certificate for legal
tender note for SIS. Although such
notes are protected by gold reserve
equal to only about third of the is
sue the department without hesita-
ton gave him the gold coin.
The narrator of the tale could not
remember whether the gold piece ever
reached the mother or was spent to
celebrate the modern method of the
transmutation of metals.
! The sad, sad story, absurd in itself,
was suggestive enough to induce some
investigations of the nature of the
moneys which the treasurer handles.
The constitution imposes upon the
federal government the duty of coin
ing the money and regulating the ma
tional currency.
Gold is the real basis and standard
of the system, although the treasury
department is required by congress to
speculate in silver to some extent.
The general monetary plan or
scheme is that all gold offered to the
department must be coined into mon
ey for the person offering it upon the
payment of small mintage charge
(one-ffth of one per cent?. The
practical working of this scheme is
for the treasury to pay cash for the
pure gold at the rate of $20,671.S3
an ounce upon it's acceptance; but it
is the right of the person to receive
the gold coin.
These coins have been issued to the
amount of over $3,378, 100000, but
there is nowhere near that amount in
circulation.
A Girls Weight in Gold.
The coming value of gold is about
$40 an ounce; so that when the ar
dent youth breathes to his fair one
that she is worth her weight in pure
gold he is telling her that her cash
value is about $4,000, with varia-
lions in favor of the Junoesque over
the languid lily type.
AS oleomargarine is to butter so is
the silver dollar to the dollar made
of gold-of equal value if people can
only be made to think so,
After the war between the states
the first silver dollar put out by the
government was the trade dollar con-
tanning APO grains of silver. They
were legal tender for amounts under
So. They have been demonetized.
Their artistic design and the motto,
'In God We Trust" ada nothing to
value of the coin, and each dollar is
now worth 420 grains of silver bull
lion, now 81 cents. There were near
ly 4O,O0O,000 of these issued, and
the government redeemed over T.
100000. The remainder of them
have merely bullion value.
Then comes the standard silver dol
lar, which contains 412.5 grains OF
silver bullion. 1t is a legal tender
at it's face value in payment of all
debts, public or private, except where
otherwise stipulated in the contract.
There is no pretense now that the bull
lion in silver equals in value the bull
lion in a gold dollar; and it is only a
legal tender because the act OF con-
gress has so ordained.
1t is very much as though congress
should now pass an act requiring all
persons to accept oleomargarine when
rendered instead of butter, unless
there had been a written contract be-
tween the parties that butter
should spell 'butter" and not oleo-
margarine.
How Millions Are Lost.
Wbap the Titanic. its cabin filled
with the notable and wealthy, went
down it carried with it, among other
treasures, many thousands of Amerl-
can money-most of it in bills, or pa
per promise to pay. These bills can
never be enforced. Where the bills
were made by the banks the bonds
deposited to secure the circulation
will not be reduced, and the lost bllis
remain simply unidentified, liability
never to be determined or paid.
Where the lost bills represent the
nromise of the government secured
bv the bullion or coin deposited for
their redemption the conditions are
the same, except that in course OF