The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-05-17
PRESS INFLATIoN-1
The Deadly Parallel
.xcerpts from ''Fiat Money imitation In France"
BY ANDREW DICKSON WHITE
tPubIshed by D. Appieton-Century Company
fCoovrtzhtl

COMPLAINTS were made that the army Of
~ engravers and printers at the mint could
not meet the demand for assignatS-that they
could produce only from so to 10 millions per day
and that the government was spending daily
from 80 to 81 millions
The purchasing power Of this paper having
now become almost nothing, it was decreed that
the whole amount issued should be limited TO
forty thousand millions, including all that had
previously been put forth and that when this
had been done the copper plates should be bro
ken. Even in spite Of this, additional issues wre
made amounting to about ten thousand millions.
But on Feb. 10. 1896, at o'clock in the morn
ing, in the presence Of a great crowd, the ma
chinery, plates and paper for printing assignatS
were brought 10 the Place Vendome and there,
on the spot where the Napoleon column now
stands. these were solemnly broken and burned.
60 ended the reign of paper money in France.
y The nation in general rich and poor alike,
was plunged into financial ruin from one end to
The other.
For this general distress there was, indeed,
one exception. In Paris and few Of the other
great cities, men like Tallien Of the heartleSS,
debauched, luxurious, Spectator, contractor and
gambler class, had risen above the ruins
Of the multitudes of smaller fortunes. Tallien,
one of the worst demagogue "reformerS," and a
certain number of men like him, had been skill
full enough to become millionaires, while their
QUDeS,
money had become pauperS.
The luxury and extravaganza Of the currency
gamblers and their families form one Of the most
significant features in any picture OF the social
condition Of that period.
THE acute suffering from the wreck and ruin
i lasted nearly 10 years, but the period Of
recovery lasted longer than the generation which
followed 1t required fully 40 years to bring
o1 ir6Uc credit
their condition when the Revolution began, and
demanded a man on horseback" who estab-
lished monarchy on the ruins of the repub-
lice and threw away millions of lives for the
empire to be added to the millions which had
been sacrificed by the revolution.
Thus was the history of France logically de-
veloped in obedience to natural laws; such has,
to a greater or less degree, always been the re-
suit Of irredeemable paper, created according to
the Whm or interest of legislative assemblies.
Such, we may fairly expect, will always be the
result of them until the fiat of the Almighty
shall evolve laws in the universe radically diff
ferent from those which at present obtain
My subject has been Fiat Money in France;
How 1t Came; What 1t Brought and How 1t
Ended"
paratively small evl in an evil infinitely more
dangerous. To cure disease temporary in its
character, a corrosive poison was administered,
which ate out the vitals of French prosperity.
1t progressed according to a law in social
physics which we may call the claw of acceler-
ating issue and depreciation" 1t was COM
paratively easy to refrain from the first issue;
it was exceedingly difficult to refrain from the
second; to refrain from the third and those fol-
lowing was practically impossible.
1t brought, as we have seen, the same de-
struction which would come to a Hollander
opening the dykes of the sea to irrigate his
garden in dry summer.
1t ended in the complete financial, moral
and political prostration of France-a prostra-
ton from which only Napoleon could raise it,
THE END