The Big Sandy news. [volume] (Louisa, Ky.) 1885-1929, 1922-01-27
HACKING AT THE
FEDERAL RESERVE

NThe following remarkably clear ar
ticle which appeared recently in the
Saturday Evening Post, written by
win Payne, should be read by every
body. Congress is inclined to NEEDLE
with this wonderful system and the
people ought to understand the law in
order to protest-)
Most Of us have chronic Idea that
we want more money. II you sit down
calmly and examine your total stock
of ideas you will probably find that
this one of wanting more money Is a
sort of fixed North Star amid whirl-
ing armament OF other ideas. The 9TH
er ideas come and go, shoot up comet
fashion and peter out; but the little
old idea of wanting more money twink
les right along. The Bible warns us
against 1t, but somehow the needle is
always swinging back to the north.
One might almost say that man has
steered his course by 1t ever since
cave days. It Is such a persistent and
appealing idea that great many peo-
pie get through life very comfortably
without ever having any other idea
worth mentioning.
Mostly when fellow citizen solicits
your vote for an elective Office his
platform SINNERS down to a promise
to get you more money-by reducing
taxes lowering railroad rates, tinker
ing the tariff in your alleged interest,
curbing the trusts, and so on, the net
of It being that II you vote for him
you will be better on in the current
coin.
Now all modern governments make
money by simply printing 1t. That is
one of their functions. Naturally some
lively political movements have been
based upon simple proposal to have
the Government supply the peoples
want of money by just making a lot
of it. The celebrated greenback move
ment of more than a generation ago
was in that category. This is Gov
eminent for the people. the people
want money, the Government makes
money, let the Government make what
the people want. Substantially that
was what it came to.
The free-silver movement of 1895
was somewhat more refined. 1t didn't
propose to have the Government make
dollars out of nothing, but to have 1t
make a dollar out Of fifty cents worth
of silver-a sort Of fifty-f fifty scheme.
There have been many less conspicu-
Gus movements along the same at
tractive line.
Fiat Money.
But of late years all of us with any
sense have been disillusioned on that
subject OF just making money out of
hand. According to the old greenback
and free-silver doctrines the Russian
people should now be enjoying the
acme Of economic happiness-instead
of starving to death-for since the
world began no other people was ever
SO blessed with money as the Rus
SLAMS now are. Quite literally they
have money to burn. 1t is so abund-
ant that a cab driver gets a thousand
rubles for carrying you three blocks.
But he cannot get square meal or a
pair Of shoes. Austria has money by
the billions, but no clothes Germany
to-day has more than forty times as
much money as prosperous prewar
Germany had, but is not happy about
It.
OF late years we have learned that
there is good money and bad money. !
anu tnat any money ptSlHS u 30 Ddu /
as soon as there is too much Of it. Ex-
perts always knew that; but to ordi-
nary citizens the notion that there
might be too much money was hard |
one to swallow. They know it now, J
however. Experience here at home |
was illuminating.
Early in 1920 we had far more dol
lars than ever before; but the dollars
had shrunk scandalously in purchas- |
ing power. Outside of lunatic asyl- I
Jim nobody nowadays could get votes
by simply promising to turn out lot /
more dollars.
But since greenback days we have
grown sophisticated about money dn
another respect. We care little about
money in the sense Of greenbacks and !
silver dollars. On the whole we pre- I
fer deposit to our credit in a bank,
and check book. 1t is more oonven- /
lent.
So we now discover in our midst
some signs Of a greenback and free