Montana labor news., 1932-08-04
RUBBER MONEY AND
IRON h

This is the caption Of an article
by Henry Haxlitt appearing in The
Nation some months ago. I'm using
IL because it tells the story In five
words. I'm going to tell you in the
following twelve hundred words.
Well. then, money is a medium OF
exchange. Money is also a measure
OF value just as a yard Is a meas
ure of lineai dimension. Now a yard
wasn't always a yard, although it
WAS called a yard and woe unto him
who said 1t wasn't a yard. That was
when the length Of the yard was de-
termined by the circumference or
the midshift of the king. If the king
happened to be a Henry VIII. whose
Eirth measured five feet, then the
yard was five feet. If, on the other
hand. the king was a skinny James
i, then the yard was two feet six.
Naturally all sorts of complica-
lions arose from this peculiar stand
ard OF easur For instance. Mas
ter Woolenweaver comes to Lon
dontown to sell a bolt of worsted
containing ten lineal yards accord
ing to the girth Of King Lean. But
Al bad luck wants it. King Lean died
the night before, and King Fat
reigns in his place. The result is
that yards are now five feet instead
OF two feet six, wherefore Master
N1Y~-I~u-x1~ya~ Innnrtc for hnm q
with the proceeds of only fifteen feet
Of worsted.
Nor did the loss of Woolenweav-
er benefit Mr.. Pencepacker, the mer-
chant, who had purchased his ten
yards for the price Of fifteen feet.
For Merchant Pencepacker, being a
man of parts, had a thousand yards
OF worsted in his stock, every one
of which shrank from five feet to
to two feet six when King Fat
mounted the throne of King Lean.
In fact, the only person who bene-
fitted by the change of kings and
yards was Shillingshaver, the mon
~ey-lender, who had loaned thirty
pounds. or the equivalent of fifty
yards of worsted, as measured by the
girth of King Lean, and o de-
manded his money back in the yards
of King Fat.
No use telling the intelligent read
er that a standard of measures fluc-
tuating with the girth of kings was
too silly to last forever. So now we
have yards composed of three feet,
that is, three times the length of the
kings foot, which finally settled
down to twelve inches the foot, be-
cause kings got tired of having their
feet measured.
All this happened, of course. a
long time ago when people were still
dumber than they are now, which is
saying a-plenty. And say, don't it
beat all. the progress we've been
making since the time when our an
cestors measured worsted by His
Majesty's belly-band, for now we
have a of value that is
more marvellous still? l am talking
of the gold dollar.
True, there are other dollars be-
sides gold dollars. But the gold dol
lar is the only dollar that is worth
a hundred cents on the dollar, as
anyone may convince himself by the
simple test of exchanging a gold dol
lar for one hundred cents. OF course
at the present price of copper, a
hundred cents are only worth about
seven cents. But why bring that up?
The silver dollar, on the other
hand. is worth fifty cents. This fin
ally disposes of the old notion that
two halves make a whole, for ac-
cording to the currency experts, it
takes two half dollars and four
quarters to make a dollar.
There also are paper dollars, the
intrinsic value of which is the paper
they are printed on, plus ink and
printers wages. But as most paper
money is convertible into gold and