New-York tribune., 1921-12-18
HEN Henry Ford suggested the SUBJ
stitution of energy for dollars and

wv r HEN Henry Ford suggested the SUBJ
NV stitution Of energy for dollars and
Wv displacing gold with the output of
Muscle Shoals and other store
houses OF natural wealth. his proposal was not
rs novel as it may have appeared in the head
lines.
Discussions of possible substitutes for
money are as old as money itself. Scientists
have written books and pamphlets on the SUBJ
sect. and others who are not scientists have
done likewise. Novelists who have dealt in
utopian themes have had plenty of mental
exercise in picturing communities where gold
is dross.
With most of the worlds gold stored in the
United States, it is not strange that the SUBJ
ject has come up for discussion again. A
magazine writer quite recently compared the
situation with the game Of marbles at school.
Uncle Sam, as the best player, may accumu-
late all the marbles--otherwise all the gold
but what is going to happen, the magazine
writer asks if the other boys decide suddenly
to play tops or some other game?
Henry Ford says it is time to change the
game right now-to quit playing marbles with
gold, because he says gold is the cause of all
the fights in the school yard. The boys, he
ayers, would never have any rows at all If
it were not for the ill feeling engendered by
the unequal distribution of the wealth of the
playground.
The substitute proposed by Mr. Ford is the
energy from natural resources-Muscle
Shoals being an example. He pictures Muscle
Shoals completed and capable of furnishing
100000 horsepower.
'It will be here as long as there is rain and
FOUNTAINS to shed the rain into rivers" says
IL. Ford "This energy is wealth in pro-
ductive form. Now, which is the more imper-
ishable, the more secure, this power site and
its development, or the several barrels of
gold necessary to make $40, ,0O0,00O (the esti-
mated cost of the completion of the project).
This site, with it's power possibilities, will be
here long after the Treasury building is a
ruin.
''The standard American dollar is approx
mately one-twenteth of an ounce of gold
Under the new currency system certain
amount of energy exerted for one hour would
be equal to one dollar. 1t is simply case of
thinking and calculating in terms different
from those laid down to US by the interna-
tional banking group to which we have grown
SO accustomed that we think there is no other
desirable standard. We should change our
minds on that question. The only difference
between the currency plan and the bond plan
is that there is interest to be paid and the
Wall Street money merchants, who do nothing
to build the dam and deserve nothing, will
get nothing"
"But how is all this going to stop WARP"
Simply because if tried here at Muscle
Shoals this plan will prove so overwhelmingly
and amazingly successful that the American
people will never again consent to issuance
of interest-bearing bond for a national
Improvement. When the government needs
money it will raise it by issuing currency
against it's innperishable natural wealth. Other
countries, seeing our success, will undoubtedly
do likewise. The function of the money seller
will have disappeared"
If Mr. Ford's "energy dollar" proves to be
the thing that eliminates the gold dollar,
speaking theoretically in the ears Of those
average mortals who have not seen a gold
piece FOR many years, it will necessitate
sweeping changes in literature. At the New
York Public Library there are more cards
grouped under the general heading Of money
than under any other title. One finds an sorts
of titles in which the word money figures,
such as "The Love of Money" "The Relations
Of Money and Social Ethics,'' "Man and His