Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-11-07
Larger Silver Issue
Seen Economic Boon

TO the Editor Of The star:
There Is . gradual awakening to the
fact that bank credit has failed rs q
medium Of exchange.
Both Mr.. Ryan and Mr.. Dwyer IN
your columns advocate free monetiza-
ton OF silver rs curative for economic
ills. Their claim Is that approximately
two billions Of new silver specie could
be effectively used to Offset the $65,ooo,-
000, 900 Of bank credit which now keeps
all industry in debt.
think these ardent followers of
"Coin" Harvey underestimate our
ability to accept radical fiscal ideas.
For If $4,000. 000, 900 of silver money
would boost the business of the country,
why wouldn't still more billions help
industry still more? According to the
land money philosophy we cannot have
a surplus Of legal tender so long as 1t
is restricted in value to the wealth upon
which 1t is based. The legal tender
function Of money is the prepotent one
and this explains why representative,
certificate money is quite as good as
commodity money gold and silver). In
other words, there is no danger Of in
flation of certificate money-properly
issued and properly limited and
anchored to its base, preferably i'm
proved land.
We now go to the bank and obtain
currency by mortgaging improved land.
If real property were not real value
what bank would lend upon it? But
why should this inconvenient, cumber-
some, expensive process be considered
wiser and more ethical than getting
cash directly from the Government at
nominal rate Of interest," or 2 per
many billions Of "land money" be lib
Grated by the United States Govern
ment without the slightest fear of In
! flation? And why wouldn't this plan
be far more simple, practical and ethi-
cal than free silver? The desidera-
, tum at present is more circulating me-
dium-justly einitted-in the con-
way to make wealth distribution even
and fair we should be traitors not to
examine It'll
Free silver, no doubt, for a time
| would prove good business tonic. The
banks, however, would-through the in
terest concentration PROCESSION abb
serb Mr.. Ryan's and Mr.. Dryers two
billions Of cartwheels and merely use
the new hard money to erect larger
credit SuperStructure, with its well
known round of credit imitation, false
prosperity, stock market crash, bank
| failures, bad times, and then the long.
strong painful pull-an for the purpose
Of doing this ridiculous economic stunt
over againl
Believe it or not there is just one
! correct key move to the social chess
problem. This is It: Our Government
must issue enough soundly-based legal
tender to put permanent criInp into
| the ancient and rather dishonorable
business of money lending Two bill
| lions more of silver coin will not per-
| form the miracle Thirty or 40 billions
might. Today the national total of
| bank credit is around SIS billions and,
by the same token, that huge sum Is
the ideal, scientific and ethical amount
of cash in this country for hawless
fisc.
The currency question is not easy of
| solution. II 1t were, we wouldn't still
i be using the sort Of intermediary popu-
lar with the cavemen of 10000 BIC.
The trouble with our public leaders is
| a lack of magnanimity. They are so
sure no one else can find an answer
to the Riddle of the Sphinx" when
| their own cerebrums refuse to function
| in this direction. Sufhce 1t to say,
there Is a solution and comparatively
simple one-simple for all those whose
minds are fortunately free from archaic
prejudices and superstitions. And the
| situation is much too serious for US to
| bother longer with procrastinating,
| time-serving devotees at the Shrine OF
the Golden Bull. If our gold standard
| Is leading us toward ruin and starva-
ton, why not desert It? Life is short
and those now living should be en-
titled to taste real happiness under a
non -interest-yielding f1sc, by which
each person would be paid the full re-
ward of his honest efforts. That is all
there is, in my estimation, to Utopia,
or a millennium-perfect justice to ALL
Why be slaves to our graves and put
| of a period of real prosperity just be-
: cause Of a weird loyalty to the incon-
ceivably fallacious economic" theories
of our ancestors? F. GIA1CH.