Year: 1878




A fiat" paper is satisfied that it has
settled the power of the government to
give what value it pleases to what is of
no value, by the thus saith the law"
and this is the way it does it:


Ben Harrison denounces as idiots those
who talk of fiat money. What is it if not the
dollar OF our daddies worth one hundred cents
while the Mexican dollar with three more
grains of silver is worth but ninety cents, and
in large quantities even less? What but the
fiat of the government makes two half dollars,
which contain but eighty cents worth of silver,
pass everywhere for one dollar? What but
the government fiat makes twenty-five-cent
pieces, containing but nineteen cents worth of
nickel, receivable and payable forone dollar?"


Suppose somebody should ask, in his
turn, why, if the fiat" of the govern
ment is the creation of value in money,
it may not be the equal creation of val
ue in wheat and meat and clothes, and
everything else that money will buy?
Why does gold in dust" pass as money
readily at the value its weight would
have as coin, or within trife of? 1t
passed SO for years in California, Aus
tralia and other gold-bearing countries.
Why does gold in bars pass for the
same value as the same weight in coin?
1t has'no government stamp to give it
value, except the mark Of fneness of
the assay Office, and that is not the coin
stamp, nor is the bar coin. 1t is worth
just as much without the fiat" as with
it. And what is more, the government
takes it at its value by weight; and what
is more yet, it takes its own coin by
weight, too, just as it takes bars that
have no stamp Of money value at all.
If the 'fiat" makes value why is this
thus? Why does the government it.
self disallOw its own creation, put aside
its own fiat" and weigh coin to ascer
tain its value? Why does the mint, the
great factory Of fiat value, reject a coin
OF its own making, no matter how plain
the stamp is, if it is under weight? 1t
won't send out these light coins, though
ever so plainly authorized by the stamp.
1t holds that the value is in the weight,
not in the fiat" Gold is good money,
has been in all ages, and will be- until
the end Of time, without any fat or
public authority, simply because it has
value independent Of the government,
and a value equal, or nearly, to that
which the fiat" gives it.


The difference made by the law be-
tween intrinsic and legal value in coin,
which seems to have filled this fat reas-
oner's little cranial vacuity with con-
viction, is no proof Of the force of the
fiat" to give real to unreal value. The
law says that less than one hundred
cents shall be a legal tender for one
hundred cents, and that is all that it
does or can say. The man who owes
dollar can pay it with ninety-two cents,
or force the creditor to 60 without any
thing. That's what's the matter. The
government says, in effect, to the cred
itor: p" If you don't take that ninety
two cent dollar for one hundred cents
and acquit your debtor, you can't have
any use of my courts or officers to COL
lect your debt, and, of course, without
the help Of laws and courts you can get
nothing. You must take that or go
without altogether" That is the way
the fla" makes value in paying debts,
but mark you, in nothing else. If Bill
Smith wants a dollars worth of cloth
in store, and Bill Jones, the owner,
won't take the ninety-two cent dollar
for it, how is Bill Smith or the govern
ment, either, to help it? Bill Jones is
a strong reasoner in his way, and he
says, MY butter is worth dollar, and
my cloth is worth ten dollars, and I'm
not going to take ninety-two cents for
one, or nine dollars and twenty cents
for the other. Give me my price or
clear out" The fiat" is not worth a
straw. The government can give value
in paying debts, for it can withhold its
agency in collecting otherwise than as
it commands, but there fat stops. It
can't make man take its valuation for
good unless he chooses. If nobody
owed anybody, the idlest thing in all
this world Of vanities would be the fla"
that ninety-two cents would be hum
.dred. 1t would be exactly the rebel
way of making their money par, just as
silly and just as futile. If the govern
ment were to make ten cents worth of
silver in legal coin legal tender for .
dollar-and it can do that as easily, and
not much more dishonestly, than what
! it has done-does anybody suppose it