Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1933-01-09
Electric Dollar and Barter
Enliven Currency Debates

Popular discussions Of the worlds
gold supply and the attitude Of various
nations toward the gold standard az
a basis Of money have reached the
point where new suggestions, such as
that of the electric dollar and the use
Of old-fashioned barter in many COM
modities, receive unprecedented atten-
ton. The idea of a uniform standard
based upon electrical energy was put
forward by DR.. John Pease Norton,
economist, before the Association for
the Advancement of Science. 1t would
employ certificates of 40-kilowatt\ hours
as standards of value. The discussion
at present is largely academic.
THE electric dollar, in the long run,
advises the Cleveland News, probably
would not differ greatly from the gold
or silver dollar, and it Is doubtful If
our currencies would be greatly upset
if it we're adopted tomorrow. But to
call it a panacea for heading, price
fluctuations, panics and depressions is
foolish. Electric dollars would be
boarded as much as gold dollars. The
instinct Of the human race Is to &C
cumulate its resources-for rainy day
or for a moment of supreme enjoy
ment. Saving is good boarding is bad.
But either could be done with one unit
of barter as readily as with another.
Gold dollars in wide circulation mean
work and the exchange OF work every
where; gold dollars hidden mean no
work and starvation for those who
cannot labor. Electric dollars mean
work, too, but not unless they are con-
tinuously circulating.
CDR. Norton's 40-kilowatt hour meas
ure of value" in the opinion OF the New
York World Telegram, seems to have
enough kinship with the 'calorie' idea OF
democracy to produce some enlivenlng
family disputes-pride of authorship
being what it still is. We see good,
however, in discussion and even IN
uuarrels that will open the popular
mind to new realization OF the artl-
fetal nature of money as a measure
of value-thereby helping to cut new
pathways through densities Of the older,
outgrown economics. But when the
Smithsonian Institution promises to
show the scientists a method OF more
than doubling the rate at which grow
ing wheat stores up food energy we
feel, somehow, slightly on the track
of present need. The man who makes
two blades Of grass or wheat grow
where only one grew before is not
quite the fine fellow he was in Dean
Swift's time-not for a present civili-
zation, whose chief difficulty is that its
mill won't grind because 1t is SO
choked with corn. First 'electrify' the
dollars, galvanize trade, get the food
that already exists in plenty to the
millions who desperately need 1t and
would be only too glad to work for
it. Doubling processes applied to pro-
duction can wait quite q while. The
mere suggestion makes a sick world
sicker STILL
"If as much mental effort were ex-
pended in eliminating artificial barriers
to the smooth working of the gold
standard as is now spent on devsing
fanciful substitutes for it," contends the
New York Journal of Commerce, "the
agitation for changes in our standard
of value would soon abate." In COM
menting on the general subject, the
Journal Of Commerce states: Now that
the gold shortage myth has been gen.
orally abandoned, especially in the face
Of rapid increase in the world monetary
gold supply of the past year or so, there
are two basic reasons for advocating
new standards of value. The first and
probably most important Is that the in
PRODUCTION of large quantity OF some
new medium Of exchange permits in
flation of the means Of payment, with
advance in the level of
prices. General substitution of credit
for metal or paper money, however,
makes such result quite difficult to at
tain now. The second reason for con-
tinued advocacy Of the substitution Of