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TREASURY NOTES AND SILVER BULLION.
SPEECH
OF
HON. WILKINSON CALL,
OF
F L O R ID A ,
IN THE
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Tuesday, June 10, 1890.
W A S H IN G T O N .
1 & 90.
SPEECH
OP
HON.
WILKINSON
CALL.
The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having: under consideration the
bill (S.2350) authorizing the issue of Treasury notes on deposits of silver bullion—
Mr. CALL said:
Mr. President: I design to submit a few observations upon the
pending bill, and probably it would be quite as convenient to do so at
this time as any other.
The bill proposes to authorize the purchase by the Government of
$4,500,000 worth of silver each month and the payment for it in Treas
ury notes. In my judgment this bill does not answer the demands of
the country and the necessities of the coinage at this time.v
F R E E COINAGE OF SILV ER.
The free and unlimited coinage of the precious metals is the only
proper solution of the financial troubles which now rest upon the coun
try. Any modification ot that idea in the shape of a limitation or of
a purchase by the Government is I think entirely inconsistent with
the true theory of finance and with the policies which have prevailed
throughout all time in reference to the currency.
GREEKS AND ROMANS UNDERSTOOD IT .
This question can not well be exaggerated in its importance. It
covers the whole field of human efforts and human possibilities. We
may go back as far as we please in the early history of the world, and
we find that the subject of the coinage and the use of precious metals
was well understood, and the principle upon which it was necessarily
based in its relation to all other economies, and to the productions of
the earth, and to invention and labor, was so clearly defined that there
can even now be no reasonable question as to them. I read, from a
treatise prepared by Sir John Lubbock, the following paragraph:
That the true theory of coinage was well understood in Greece we may see
from the words of Aristotle, who thus describes the origin of coins:
“ It became necessary, therefore, to think of certain commodities', easily trans
portable and safely transportable, and of which the uses are so general and so
numerous that they insured the certainty of always obtaining for them the ar
ticles wanted in exchange. The metals, particularly iron and silver and sev
eral others, exactly correspond to this description; they were employed, there
fore, by general agreement, as the ordinary standard of value and the common
measure of exchange) being themselves estimated at first by their bulk and
weight, and afterwards stamped in order to save the trouble of measuring and
weighing them.”
No one at this day can give a more accurate, a more comprehensive,
and %more philosophical description of the nature and functions of coin
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and the relation which it sustains to the business of society and of com
munities that this statement of Aristotle. Again, it is said:
For a long period every Roman family had the right of coining denarii with
their own device, though precautions were taken to preclude any tampering
with the weight or fineness. With the same precaution what honest motive
can there be for preventing any American, English, French, or German fam
ily from coining dollars, shillings, francs, etc. Is our modern civilization so
much more the patron of freedom and independence than Soman imperialism
that did not restrict a family from making honest money, no more than it
would any honest commodity, but confined government work to seeing that it
was honest?
F R E E COINAGE T H E RU LE OF NATIONS.
Mr. President, through all the history of time it has been the policy
of Government to allow the unlimited coinage of the precious metals,
and upon no other theory can there be predicated any sound and phil
osophical relation of coin to exchange. Let me endeavor very briefly
to investigate this proposition.
The proposition covers mankind—man and his needs of body and
mind—his capacities and the earth and its productions.
Two men in their relations will furnish the type of all mankind and
present all the varieties of this question in all the thousands of years of
history and the thousands of millions of human beings, in whose rela
tions it has borne an important part.
RELATIONS OF MONEY TO T H E A F F A IR S O F MEN,
Let us consider the subject, then, in this relation, to the end that we
may the more clearly perceive and understand it.
These two men require subsistence, clothing, amusement, gratifica
tions of taste; they must obtain them from the earth and its productions
by their labor and the use of their faculties. Each of them converts
the productions of the earth into things useful to them both, into com
modities. Each has something which the other requires. How can
it be obtained ?
The things they need are such things as will sustain life; then make it
comfortable; then provide against future want; then amuse and enter
tain ? How shall they each obtain what the other has, the use of which
is necessary to them? They are in contact with each other, and have
the means of communication. The answer is easy and clear. It can be
done by the exchange with each other of the things which each has
and which the other requires. The things which they require are sub
sistence, shelter, clothing, and works of taste and art. In all these ob
jects of need and use we find neither gold nor silver coin nor money.
They can neither eat it nor wear it, nor use it, in the shape of coin.
They can use it as a commodity made into things for ornament and for
their use and amusement.
We see, then, these two persons making an exchange with each other
by transfer and delivery and by promises to exchange and transfer and
•deliver.
These promises to transfer and deliver are themselves transferable
to others and become the easy and convenient means by which exchange
is effected.
We will contemplate these two men in asssociation with others in
the same vicinage and community. They have in that community all
the productions of the earth in the forms into which labor and ingenuity
have converted them, but in different hands; some with things for sub
sistence; some for protection against future want; some tor amusement;
some for personal ornament—they have the same needs for the use of
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these things, but in different degrees—they can only be had by ex
change. Exchange is easy to be made by transfer and delivery, and
when this is not convenient, by promises or agreements to transfer and
deliver.
After production from the earth into things for use, into commodi
ties, which can only be done by labor and the use of man’s faculties
comes exchange, and this completes the circle of production and dis
tribution. Exchange of commodi ties is thus the only thing to be done,
the only means by which distribution to each man can be made. This
exchange is the actual transfer in kind of the commodity to be used, of
wheat, corn, meat, wine, and oil to those who have none for houses or
labor, or clothes, or improvements, or services.
We have seen that this exchange or transfer can easily, conveniently,
and naturally be made by actual transfer and delivery and by promises to
transfer and deliver, which promises are themselves translerable. What
is the difficulty if any two of us here in this Chamber, meeting daily
here together and having everything which either needs or uses or can
use, in our exchanging with each other, as our daily needs require, what
ever we need by actual transfer or by agreement to transfer or verbal
or written orders of transfer.
It is easy to perceive that there is no difficulty in it, and that we
would have no need nor use for any other methods of exchange.
Naturally this is and has always been the most general method o f
exchange, and by it much the greater part of the exchanges in the
world are made now. What is required in exchange by this method is,
first, immediate contact or contiguity; second, convenience of delivery.
EXCH AN G E OP PRODUCTS T H E MEANS OP DISTRIBU TION .
These we can see are the primary factors and causes, and all other
factors are secondary. Exchange, then, is the great means by which
distribution of the products of labor of every kind can be made. It is
exchange then, and its methods, and the laws which regulate it,which
must be the great subject of consideration in connection with the coin
age of the precious metals. Production and exchange are the great
factors of man’s existence, progress, and civilization. We can stand
here on safe and certain ground without speculation, or sailing on an
unknown and shoreless sea of generalization.
GOLD AND SIL V E R A R E SU B SID IARY USES.
Gold and silver, coined or uncoined, money in whatever shape or
form, can not sow or reap. The plow will not move at its bidding.
The husbandman may have countless hoards of it, but unless he moves
his muscles and exercises his faculties, turns up the earth, sows and
plants, works the loom, makes inventions, the earth will not yield her
treasures nor the fabrics of labor or art and invention be produced.
Two men in contact may each have his pockets filled with gold
and silver, but when they desire to exchange things in the possession
ot each the exchange or the promise to exchange is more convenient
and easy than for one to deliver a certain amount of gold or silver to
the other and receive from the other a certain amount of gold and
silver.
EXCH AN G E AN D PROMISES TO EXCHAN GE.
We find, then, that exchange and promises to exchange can be njade
without gold and silver or money; that gold, silver, and money are not
a primary or necessary factor in exchange; that whatever they may be
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6
and however valuable their uses, they are in their nature secondary and
subsidiary uses. What, then, are the necessary factors of exchange, and
where and how and to what extent does money stand in relation to
exchange? Whence does it derive its uses? How far do these uses
extend? Upon what do they depend ?
Let us see if we can weigh and measure these ideas with precision
and certainty. If we can do so and not depart from the line of strict
logical sequences of cause and effect, we shall reach some certain and
clear and true conclusion.
First, what are the necessary and primary factors of exchange of prod
ucts between any two and every two persons in the world ? They are
contact, communication, opportunities and methods of transfer of com
modities or products.
Without roads, communication, vehicles of transportation, ships, the
mines and jewels of Golconda can not and will not effect the transfer
and exchange of commodities or human productions. These factors,
then, are the exercise of human faculties, contact and communication,
highways, ships.
GOLD AND SILV ER A USEFUL BUT NOT NECESSARY FACTOR.
In all these factors and agencies we find neither gold nor silver as
money, yet these are the great and necessary factors of all human life,
and all progress, and all civilization, and we have the demonstrated
truth that gold and silver and money are not necessary factors; that
money as a means of exchange, as a representative of value, may be
promises to exchange in kind, or promises transferable to some com
mon center of exchange.
RELATIONS OF MONEY TO EXCH AN G E O F PRODUCTS.
Where, then, does money have a place in exchange, and what are
the necessary ideas or properties which will enable it to have a relation
to exchange or any functions connected with it ?
We have found that production and exchange cover the whole circle
o f human efforts and human possibilities. It follows that money can
only have value or use or function as a means or method of exchange.
When it ceases to be used for this purpose or to have this function it
is no longer money, and can no longer represent values however much
the law may make it a legal tender.
It is quite obvious that exchange of products can be made either by
an actual exchange in kind, and where contact and contiguity aoes not
exist, can be made between any two persons by an exchange into some
thing which neither has use for, but which is of general demand or of uni
versal demand, and which, because of this universal demand, can easily
and always be converted into some other commodity or product which
may be needed.
M ONEY IS T H A T W H IC H EXCHAN GES PRODUCTS.
It therefore follows that money is that which exchanges products,
and that it is something that is of general use and need, and that the
quality of general use and need or convertibility into other products is
the absolutely essential and indispensable quality of money.
This, then, is the law. It is not a yard-stick; it is not a peck meas
ure. As has been stated, it can not be a fixed and stable measure of
any kind whatever, because its only value is to exchange for other
things and the value of those things are constantly changed with their
scarcity of abundance.
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GOLD AND SILV ER H A V E IM PORTANT USES.
We therefore perceive that while the use of the precious metals is an
all-important one, fixed by natural law, as the true basis of exchange
it is a subsidiary and a secondary use. We further perceive that the
great mass of exchanges are and must of neceasity be made without the
intervention of gold and silver, and under the constant changes in the
methods of commercial intercourse and communications throughout the
world and from its great centers there are substituted methods of ex*
change, without the intervention of gold and silver, and by their use
simply as standards or expressions of value.
IS T H E V AL U E O F M ON EY A N A TU RAL O R A R T IF IC IA L Q U A L IT Y ?
It therefore follows that we must ascertain whether this is a natural
quality or an artificial one created by law. If the latter, it follows
4»hat we can vary the money of a country and its methods of exchange
by statute at will and pleasure. We can change it both in respect to
substance, quality, and quantity. If it be artificial it is the creature
of law and subject to wise and unwise regulation.
IT IS C H IE F L Y A N A TU RAL Q U A L IT Y.
If the uses and needs of mankind depend on nature and natural
economies, then it follows that we can not by law create the uses and
needs of mankind.
I T IS BOTH A NA TU RAL AND A R T IF IC IA L Q U AL IT Y.
If it be composed of natural qualities and of needs created by law,
then we have a proposition in which tlve question of law and wise regu
lation must have place, and if we wish to reason on the subject we
must weigh and analyze with precision the artificial and the natural
qualities of money and find out if we can how far the law of nature
will reach and control and within what limits wise regulation or law
•can operate. Is this quality of universal need and demand a natural
quality or an artificial one?
EX AM IN A TIO N AS TO H O W F A R N A TU RAL OR CREATED B Y L A W .
Let us search the domains of nature and see if we can find this qual
ity of universality of use, need, and demand in any product of nature
or of labor, and then let us see if this quality of general use, need, and
demand is sufficient of itself to make it serve the uses of money.
If we search the domain of nature for some produet of nature and
labor which is of universal use, need, and demand, we find all the arti
cles of food, wheat, corn, meat, wine, oil, cotton, rye, flax, wool, silk,
and others. These are all of universal use, need, and demand. Why
shall they not serve as a means of exchange, as money?
N ATU RAL PRODUCTS SERVE AS MONEY.
They do serve as a means of exchahge, through the contiguity which
modern methods of transportation have established and drafts on bills
o f lading.
LIM ITATIONS IN T H E IR USE.
These articles do serve the purposes of money. They are of general
use, but they are perishable and bulky, and their use is limited to the
extent to which they are consumed and produced in different coun
tries.
E X TE N T O F T H E IR USE AS MONEY.
While the use of them is universal and primary, it is limited to the
deficiency of production below consumption in different communities
and countries. To this extent these articles of necessity are by natural
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and immutable law a means of exchange or money in all the senses but
one, namely, legal tender, in which the word can be used. Any o f
these articles sent to any neighborhood or country and exchanged,
whether by the term sale or barter or trade for something else, is an
exchange of values, and as money has no value and no function but to
make exchange, these commodities serve the purposes of money to the
extent to which they are sold or exchanged. The universality of the
use of th^se articles is therefore limited by these considerations as to the
functions of money. They represent for these purposes the value of the
articles at the centers of commerce, which is the proportion of supply
and demand limited, increased or decreased, by the combinations which
may be made for that purpose.
F U RT H E R E X T E N T O F USB OF COMMODITIES.
Their further use is limited by the fact that the exchangeable value
of these commodities in another neighborhood or country is not con
veniently divisible into small quantities.
D RAFTS ON BILLS OF LAD IN G T H E GREATEST FACTORS.
It is not difficult to see that through drafts drawn on bills of lading
this result may be very largely reached and the exchange between in
dividuals and communities and countries largely supplied and effected.
EXCHAN GES T H A T A R E NOT MADE W ITH O U T MONEY.
Even with this result of divisibility of the proceeds of the products
of labor when concentrated for exchange, there must be a vast quantity
of the numberless exchanges of service, for service, service for commod
ity, taxes lor support of government, which can not be conveniently
reached by the division of the products of labor.
CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTS A SUBSTITUTE F O R MONEY.
It does, however, follow as a logical sequence that a large part if
not the most important factors as money in the commerce of the world
are the concentration of the products of labor or commodities for ex
change and the distribution of these commodities or products from
common centers, whether it is the neighborhood, State, the country
village, the metropolitan mart, or the great cosmopolitan centers of
New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, New Orleans,
Charleston, Savannah, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, through drafts
drawn on bills of lading.
EFFECT ON USES O F MONEY OF E X TE N D ED COMMUNICATIONS.
The tendency of commerce which is exchange as communication over
the world by telegraph, rail, and steam is extended is clearly to make
exchange and distribution by this method and to substitute it as money
or as the prevailing method or means of exchange or distribution to
the full extent of its possibility.
P O W E R O F CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTS ASSERTS ITSE LF B Y IMMUTABLE L A W .
By an immutable law the power of the concentrated products of labor
asserts itself and is beyond control and limitation, because it is a nat
ural law dependent on the wants and necessities of mankind, and the
actual distribution of the products of labor is the only means of sup
plying them. The result of this natural law is concentration of prod
ucts of labor in commercial centers for exchange and actual distribution.
For these two essential things there can be no substitutes. There
may be anticipation and promises and these become values and trans
ferable and are money as we have seen, and nothing can be money
which does not effect this result and the performance of these two acta
or the expectation of their performance.
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SOMETHING OF GEN E RAL USE, IM PERISH AB LE , D IVISIBLE, TRAN SPORTABLE.
We are, however, on the search for something, whether it be a com*
modity, the product of labor or of nature alone, which does or may
possess certain qualities or characteristics which are, first, to be of gen
eral use, need, demand, or desire, as nearly universal use and demand
as possible, which shall be permanent, not perishable, easily divisible,
easily transportable.
MEROHANT-OP-VENICE TRAD IN G IN T H E ORIENT.
To illustrate this need, let us suppose in the days of Venice, in the
thousand years of her existence, when her merchants sought the Jar
Cathay of the East, one of them starting on a venture to that far-dis
tant country. He can not transport wheat, wine, oil, or articles of
subsistence on his person. If he could, he would find these things in
some form wherever human life can exist, and wherever the race has
made any progress he will find them in greater or less abundance.
What, then, shall he carry within the necessary limitations of space
and means of transportation, and by what reason shall he be guided in
selecting that which will be an object of desire with the people of that
distant country ?
TH E COMMODITIES H E W IL L T A K E AS MONEY.
He reasons that the desire for ornament is natural and universal \
that gold and silver are the products of nature the most attractive for
this purpose, the most easily converted into shapes pleasing to the eye
and taste, the most rare or least' abundant; that by natural qualities
they are indestructible irom ordinary causes, most easily divisible, and
most easily transportable. He has thus found something which answers
the necessary conditions of his search. No law of man can give these
qualities; they are impressed on them by nature; they do not derive
them from the stamp of the mint; no statute can make a man or a
woman desire or prefer them for ornament to iron, copper, or the baser
metals.
H E CHOOSES GOLD AN D SILV ER.
He takes, then, his store in gold and silver, and preferably under
most conditions gold, on account of its smaller bulk and greater
scarcity.
GOLD AN D SILV E R A L W A Y S IN DEMAND AND A L W A Y S CONVERTIBLE.
The reasons which govern him control us. We also find in gold and
silver these natural uses and qualities which make them always a con
vertible value, a something ior which every man may exchange any
thing he has, confident that he will everywhere find some other perron
who will want this gold and silver.
T H E USE O P GOLT> AND SILV E R NOT DEPENDENT ON L A W .
He knows that these qualities and uses are not dependent on any law
or statute or the will of any monarch. That while their use may be
increased and their value enhanced by law, they rest on the permanent
base of natural desire and adaptation to human use for their value.
GOLD AND SILV ER OP UN IVERSAL USE AND AD APTATIO N TO USE.
We here find, then, the object of our search in the domain of nature
a substance of universal use and desire, of adaptation to the wants of
men, indestructible, divisible, and transportable. No royal stamp can
either give or take away these qualities. Whenever a man has some
thing which he wishes to dispose of and does not desire an immediate
exchange into something for immediate use and consumption, here is a
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product of nature for which he may safely exchange whatever he has,
knowing that when he wishes to exchange it again some one will easily
be found who will desire it.
GOLD AN D S ILV E R A R E MONEY, W H E T H E R COINED OR UNCOINED.
This fact makes it money or a medium of exchange, and the fact that
this is the most current medium of exchange gives it an increased value
and a new use.
The extent to which the law'can either increase or decrease its value
or use as a means of exchange is very limited.
E X T E N T TO W H IC H REGULATION B Y L A W CAN A FFECT T H E IR VAL U E.
Let us see if we can weigh with precision and measure the extent to
which regulation or law can either increase or decrease the value of
these natural products, the precious metals of gold and silver.
Our Constitution and all other organic law gives to Government the
power to “ coin money; ” that is to divide and stamp it and “ regulate
the value; ” that is, prescribe its fineness or its value with respect to
other coin, not regulate its value with respect to other commodities;
that is as to how much land or wheat or corn or other things prescribed
quantities of it shall buy.
CAN L A W F I X T H E RAT IO OF V A L U E OF GOLD AND S IL V E R ?
Neither can the law prescribe the relative value of gold and silver to
each other. Let us examine this proposition and see whether it is true
or not. Suppose the Government should declare that an ounce of sil
ver shall be worth an ounce of gold; what effect will that have? The
declaration of this fact by the Government will not in any way affect
your taste in preferring gold to silver, nor will it change the preference
of mankind for gold tor use as ornament, nor the preference for gold in
traveling because of its smaller bulk and safer transportation. Neither
will it make silver as scarce as gold; neither will it change the natural
qualities of the two metals.
VAL U E O F GOLD AND SILV E R DUE TO N A TU RAL Q UALITIES.
We see, then, that the value of each of these metals is based on nat
ural qualities, and adaptation to natural wants, and their relative value
like anything else depends on the relative abundance or scarcity of each.
L A W CAN NOT G IV E OR T A K E THEM A W A Y .
Law can not take away natural qualities, use, and adaptation to use.
W H A T CAN L A W DO IN RESPECT TO GOLD AND S IL V E R ?
What, then, can law do in this relation, and how far can an artificial
use be created which will supplement the natural use, and adaptation
to use, of the precious metals?
LEG AL T EN D ER AND ITS EFFECT.
The organic law of our country says:
No State shall make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender for the
payment of debts.
In this provision of the organic law the qualities which we have de
scribed are recognized, namely, universal use and universal demand.
If gold and silver did not have these qualities the law which made
them a legal tender would only be a declaration that a debt should not
be collected or a contract performed. It is only because of its ever
present convertibility or exchangeable use that it may safely be made
a legal tender for the payment of debts or the performance of obligations
or contracts.
The legal-tender law does not and can not affect the validity of conCALL
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tracts, and does not affect and can not affect the contracts which are
^executed, which comprise much the greater number of transactions o f
life or'business. Neither does it affect the great , bulk of time con
tracts which have become the subject of adjustment in the courts.
^Neither does the legal-tender law and the ratio of gold and silver
affect the great bulk of time contracts, because when the ratio of gold
and silver to each other is different from that prescribed in the law
■all contracts will be made on the basis of a performance in the cheaper
metal, because the law in authorizing the discharge of the obligations
in either of the metals according to a prescribed ratio authorizes its
discharge in the cheaper metal, and all contracts made by intelligent
persons will be on this basis, and it will be only the poor and ignorant
who will be the sufferers, but very soon this knowledge will extend
even to the poor and most ignorant.
EFFECT OF L A W GU AR AN TYIN G A R A T IO .
Now let us examine the influence and scope and effect of laws which
make the people at large as a Government guaranty the debt-paying
power or legal-tender quality of gold and silver coin of a fixed relative
value or ratio, and measure if we can with exactness the influence and
effect of such laws. We have ascertained that the value of gold and
silver is because of their ever-present convertibility or exchange into
other things; that this property or quality is because of its use and
demand for ornamentation and use in the arts;.that Government pan
neither give it nor take it away; that where it ceases to have this ex
changeable value a law requiring it to be taken for the payment of
debts would be a law confiscating debts and prohibiting the perform
ance of contracts; that when the exchangeable value of gold and silver
is respectively different from the prescribed ratio contracts will be made
on the basis of performance in the cheaper metal. Now, the Govern
ment says we we will keep these two metals in a prescribed ratio of
value. We will pay gold for silver in prescribed quantities wherever
-any one holding silver shall want it.
Now, if the exchangeable value of the two metals for commodities,
etc., in the arts or for any purpose is different, how will the Govern*
ment be able to do this? Here is a certain quantity of gold; it is of
more value than a certain quantity of silver for which the Govern
ment gives it. The gold will sell somewhere in England, France, In
dia, or China, for more than the silver; that is, it will buy inore travel,
freight, products than that amount of silver. The Government ob
tained this gold from the people, who bought it with their labor or
products sold for gold valued at the cheaper but actual market price
o f gold paid in silver; or, in other words, the people paid that much
more of their labor in taxes to preserve this ratio. This seems to be
the necessary result of this provision of law, but yet it seems to me
that the taxation required for that purpose would be wise at present in
furnishing an abundant and stable and convertible currency to relieve
the farmers and people generally from the grasp of the usurer, extor
tioner, and money-lender.
R AT IO O F VALU E DEPENDENT ON COMMODITY V A L U E OF BACH.
The ratio of value between gold and silver is dependent on the use
o f each in the arts and needs of mankind. Legal-tender laws can not
create it nor take it away.
The needs of mankind are for the actual exchange of commodities of
things useful in life. All other things are secondary and it is only as
this is promoted has currency any value.
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E FFECT O F L A W ON TIM E CONTRACTS.
Now, let us see what part the law has or cau have in affecting debts
and obligations or time contracts, as they have been called. What is
a time contract or debt? It is an agreement for a future exchange of
commodities or properties for something that will itself be exchange
able into commodities or properties. This contract is in terms an agree
ment to take certain quantities of gold or silver coin at certain fixed
relative values, each party taking the risk that the gold or silver can
be exchanged into a greater or smaller quantity of other commodities,
or, in other words, he takes the risk that the property, for which the
gold and silver can be exchanged at the time of the performance of the
time contract will be greater or less than the gold and silver he re
ceives. This is what he terms the rise or fall of prices; that is, the
greater or less quantity for which commodities can be exchanged.
DECREASE OF GOLD AND S ILV E R COIN OR MONEY.
The gold and silver itself being subject to fluctuation by its own laws
of abundance or scarcity, what then is the effect of decrease of coin or
gold and silver? The coin only is a legal tender, and in coining or re
fusing to coin it there is a check on the quantity which may be ob
tained for the payment of debts or the performance of obligations. If
Government gathers all the coin or the means by which debts can
be paid or contracts performed in its own hands and holds it, or by
any public policy promotes its concentration in the hands of a few per
sons, it deprives the people of the means of performing their obliga
tions. It increases the amount of labor or service the people have to
give for coin.
It is true this evil soon ceases and remedies itself; coin having ceased
to be a medium of exchange, having become too scarce and dear, actual
exchange by other methods takes its place, properties are sacrificed,
homes broken up, business suspended, until new arrangements are
made. This is the result produced by the old method of clipping the
coin,, debasing the coin. The law remaining unaltered, the scope and
effect of such law is the same as contracting the currency. It operates
in contracts yet to be performed or damages recovered in suits at law,
and here it stops as to the great mass of the community.
EFFECT OF INCREASE OF GOLD AN D SILV E R AS MONEY.
Now, what will be the effect of an increase of the coinage with this
legal-tender quality preserved? The same law which governs any
other value will govern the coinage in its relation to other things. I f
abundant, and the demand for it is the same or greater, the quantity
of commodities which it will take to buy a given amount of coin will
be less. This is called inflation, but it is no more and no less tnan
what belongs to any other species of property. Coin has to be bought
with or exchanged for work, service, property, lands, houses, and prod
ucts. It can be used in no other way. It is a commodity that can not
be divested of this quality because of its artiticial or money use.
The abundance of coin, therefore, can only affect values in a meas
ure to which any value is liable to be affected, and it benefits the great
mass of men who are the debtor class and who are the least able to bear
loss.
No human ingenuity can prevent this fluctuation in the relative
value of commodities to gold and silver, or the relative value ot gold
to silver.
Whether we speak of buying property with gold and silver or o f
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buying gold and silver coin with property it is the same thing; they are
convertible terms, and with every fluctuation of the price of commodi
ties gold and silver fluctuate in precisely the same degree, namely, in
its exchangeable value, which is its only value and use.
GOLD AN D SILV ER AS L EG AL TENDER.
Gold and silver coin as legal tender has no fixed value either to the
person who is to receive it or to the person who is to pay it. I f it will
buy more property or commodities of any kind when the contract is
performed, the man who receives is advantaged, and the man who gives
is disadvantaged; if less, they reverse places.
F REE COINAGE CAN H A V E NO DISASTROUS EFFECT.
I am therefore, Mr. President, confident in the opinion that the un
limited coinage of gold and silver and its legal-tender quality can have
no disastrous effect upon the business of the country. I perceive in a
little manual which I have here that the absorption of the silver coin
age of the world in Oriental countries has been, if I read these figures
aright, something like a billion and a half of money from the year 1835
to the year 1876. I read as follows:
Asia, with nearly double the population of Europe and America combined,
depends almost exclusively upon the western continent for its supply of the
precious metals. The annual import into Asia and Egypt of silver for the last
•thirty years has averaged $40,000,000.
At the beginning of the century, according to Humboldt, they took twenty-five
out of forty-three millions of silver annually produced, and the remaining stock
was insufficient to supply the requirements of silver for manufactures and change
money. England, in 1816, and the United States, in 1833, depreciated their subsid
iary silver coins, not on account of the excess but from scarcity of silver and im
possibility otherwise to retain their silver coins from export to the East. There is
no reason to apprehend that the demand of India and China for silver will de
cline. During the last twenty-five years Tndia has taken an average of $38,000,000,
and China $9,000,000, making the average yearly absorption of silver by those na
tions $47,000,000. It is not unreasonable to expect that their future requirements
will fully equal that amount.
DEPOSIT OF BULLION AN D CERTIFICATE OF LEG AL-TEND ER COIN.
I had a conversation this morning with a very intelligent and ac
complished man who is the representative of the United States of Colom
bia in this country, in which he expressed his opinions in regard to the
use of silver coin as currency and the unlimited coinage of silver. We
remember with what distinguished ability the Hon. Mr. Romero, the
minister to the United States from Mexico, discussed this subject in the
Pan-American Congress which recently assembled in Washington. The
following draft of a bill prepared by me embodies the views of Mr.
Hurtado and other distinguished citizens of our sister Republics:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled, That silver bullion of the standard of fineness
required by the laws of the United States for coinage shall be received at all the
mints of the United States for coinage in the denominations and of the fineness
now prescribed by law, and coined in the order in which such deposits shall be
received.
That in making such deposit of the ores, of the standard of fineness required
by the laws, by any citizen of the United States, the superintendent of the mint
shall deliver to such depositor a certificate of the amount of such deposit and the
Amount and character of coin which he will receive and the time at which it
will be coined and delivered to him, with the guaranty of the Government that
such coinage will be made and the amount of coin delivered on the presentation
of his certificate. The seigniorage shall be deducted from said coin.
That silver dollars and half-dollars coined from the mints of the United States
shall be a legal tender ii*the payment of all debts and obligations, and of taxes
and dues to the United States.
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The opinion of Mr. Hurtado is, I think, a wise one. He is an able*
and an accomplished man, and it is a matter of gratification that therepresentatives and citizens of our sister republics here are men of dis
tinguished ability, who have given profound thought and consider
ation to these great financial subjects. I take pleasure in giving
Mr. Hurtado the credit of this idea, whatever value it may have. He
is of the opinion that coinage laws which authorize the deposit of gold
and silver bullion of the standard of fineness required by the laws o f
the United States for coinage, required to be received at the mints of
the United States and to be coined in their order, certificates being
given for the bullion deposited, which certificates are to be redeemed
in coin itself with the legal-tender quality attached, would at once re
move from the market a great amount of silver bullion and place it on
deposit in the mints of the United States; that this would to a great
extent relieve the price of silver, and it would take time (there being
coined probably not more than forty millions or fifty millions a year)
for the coin to be made and to be delivered; that the Government would
thus have a check upon the amount, the suddenness with which it
should be placed upon the market, and that in this time the laws of
trade and the business of the country would adjust contracts to the
new and increased amount of currency. Thus an unlimited coinage
might safely be resorted to, and the beneficial effects of a great abun
dance of money had throughout the whole country.
LIM ITATIO N OP COINAGE H U RTFU L TO A L L INTERESTS.
I fail to see, Mr. President, anything but an undue and hurtful con
trol of the great interests of production and distribution by any limita
tion whatever upon the amount of gold and silver coin which can be
placed in the world. Where do you find the idea, and upon what do
you found it? It possesses its value as a commodity; it is indelibly
stamped upon it. Law can not <*ive it and law can not take it away.
It has no value except its use and capacity for exchanging the products
of labor. Deprive it of these you leave it dead and inactive. The
legal-tender quality attached to gold and silver or anything else with
out the power of making exchanges would leave it dead and inactive,
and the legal-tender quality would only be a means of confiscation, a
declaration that contracts can not be performed, or that when per
formed something that is incapable of transferring values and effecting
exchanges shall be received in payment. To make anything of such
universal use or value that any person will reasonably believe that
whenever they desire they can convert it again into any other product
or value which they may desire, it must have some natural, permanent,
intrinsic value; tha* is, use and adaptation to use.
Legal-tender use is not universal. It is limited to unexecuted con
tracts, and to contracts which are submitted to legal arbitrament, and
to contracts the performance of which is involuntary and compulsory.
All the legal-tender laws in the world could not make iron or copper
or any of the base metals a means of exchange lor commodities.
The only effect of such a law would be to limit all contracts to such
as could be immediately executed, or to the settlement of disputed con
tracts by voluntary arbitrament.
Therefore, Mr. President, I fail to see any force in the argument that
any limitation whatever is desirable upon the supply of the preciousmetals that are to be found in the world. Exchange is not dependent
upon it. It is promoted by it. That is all. The arts are kept aliveCALL
15
The abundance of gold and silver is constantly checked J>y the desire
of the human race for ornamentation, which gives to it, as Aristotle
said in the early days, its value, and its great and essential value, for
the purposes of currency and of business.
NO F I X I T Y OF VALU E IN E IT H E R GOLD OR SILV ER.
Mr. President, there is force in the suggestions made by the Senator
from Ohio. While I appreciate the great ability and learning which
has been exhibited by the Senator from Colorado upon this subject and
quite agree with him, in most of the propositions of one of the most
learned and able speeches ever made in the Senate on this subject, still
I see that there is both force and ability in the suggestions of the Sen
ator from Ohio. A single standard of value, and’a gold standard, is cer
tainly the more certain standard of the two. The divergence which the
two metals may have can not exist when there is but one standard, and
the measurement of contract values to be paid in the future would ap
pear to be more certain if limited to gold values; but neither in gold
nor silver can there be certainty.
The gold will buy more or less of commodities, and commodities buy
more or less of gold, for they are convertible terms, as commodities may
be scarce or may be abundant, and there is no fixity and can be no*
fixity of value. The old theory as we read in the old school-books and
in Blackstone of the institutions which instead of taking gold or silver
took wheat, for rent, is a proper illustration of this idea, which is true
and will hold true as long as the world lasts.
'
ADVANTAGES OF F R E E COINAGE TO FA R M E R .
But the great advantage, in my judgment—and I express it,with
modesty—of the unlimited coinage of these precious metals is that it
prevents combinations affecting the value of money; it prevents contrac
tion of the currency by a few persons. It is true it does not exclude the
possibility of it, but where gold and silver are abundant, and wftere it
may be stored in the great centers of exchange thoughout the country
everywhere, and where the farmer receives it for his products—and
I am by no means certain that the ideas of th£ Farmers’ Alliance for
relief from their present depressed and impoverished condition will
not in a modified form take a great part in the financial system o f
the world. When silver is abundant—and it goes into the profits of the
farmer throughout the country, and of the artisan, and of the laborer,
they will have the means then of establishing their own centers of ex
change and their little centers of finance. When it is scarce, when a
single standard exists, when it is a subject of easy manipulation and con
trol and does not have to be gathered from a great and wide center of
distribution, it is easy to combine and easy to contract.
But, as I perceive it, Mr. President, the great factors of business, o f
life, and of civilization are production and exchange, and productsby the laws of commerce are now concentrated in centers of exchange,
in neighborhoods, in metropolitan cities, in cosmopolitan cities, in great
centers of exchange, which through clearing-houses and draft on ship
ments distribute it throughout the different quarters of the earth. I
am satisfied that the progress of financial skill and ability and enter
prise will give some favorable direction to the ideas which the great
agricultural interests of the country are now formulating in the direc
tion of a concentration of the products of agriculture which are not
perishable so that they will be sources of credit.
These products do now, we perceive, furnish the methods of exchange
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and their proceeds are a currency. Who will say that the millions and
hundreds of millions of wheat values exported to Europe and concen
trated in a common center of distribution and the value of it drawn in
bills of lading and paid in this country is not a credit, is not a capital,
is not a money, is not a method of exchange? Why, unquestionably
that is true.
This idea may be followed out, in my judgment and belief, into some
practical results.
PUBLIC POLICIES W H IC H IM POVERISH T H E FARM ER.
Our present system of banks, our methods of collecting revenue by a
tax on consumption which makes everything necessary and useful to
human life dearer increases the hours of labor necessary to obtain
them. The concentration of the money of the country through the tax
levied on the transportation of the people in the great centers of finance
bears with great hardship on the farmer and leaves him with nothing
but a bare and scanty support for himself and his family.
F IV E THOUSAND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS P A ID B Y FARM ERS.
1 think the estimate is not unreasonable that between four and five
thousand millions of dollars of gold values have been sold by the farmers
in foreign countries since the war and brought back to the United States;
and of this great sum of money nearly one-half has been required by
our laws to be paid by them in bounties to others for the things which
they consumed.
From the remainder all charges of transportation and its incidents
have been paid; and of this great sum there has been little or nothing
left, and they have had to borrow from those who held the proceeds
of their labor at 10 or even 20 per cent, interest to educate their
children and clothe their families until a great debt has been accumu
lated upon them, and a hopeless future seems to look them in the face.
MEASURES W H IC H W IL L CONTRIBUTE TO T H E IR R E L IE F .
It is true that the unlimited coinage of silver will not change these
conditions, will not alter the tax levied on them of one-half their prod
ucts, but it will do something towards it. Money abundant, farm prod
uce will buy more of it than it would if scarce. This will aid them
in paying taxes. It will make money cheaper. Money abundant,
financial enterprise will find the means of making the farmer’s prod
ucts which are not too perishable a source of banking credit at low
rates of interest if the farmer requires loans.
Changes in our laws regulating banks and banking may enable them
to meet the needs and interests of their combined organizations with
out the intervention of the Government. The Government, we must
remember, is the people, and has nothing but that which the people
give to it. It has nothing but taxes and the credit which the power
to levy taxes gives. Of these taxes the farmer pays a great part of the
whole amount. Money is nothing but a means of exchanging what
the farmer makes with the product of the artisan, the manufacturer,
and other farmers and fruit-growers of his own and other countries.
EX TE N T OF T H E POW ER OF GOVERNMENT.
It is true that the belief, confidence, or credit that certain things or
persons will be able to effect what we desire is equal as a factor while
it lasts to the actual possession or existence of the power, and in this
sense the Government has a credit or confidence much greater than its
real power. Its real power is limited, first, by the capacity of the peo
ple, and, second, by the willingness of the people-to pay.
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Government often exceeds the capacity of the people to pay in times
of war, and the willingness of the people always stops short of the point
where the tax encroaches upon their means to buy the bare necessaries
of life. It is a question whether we have not reached that point now
with the great farming interests of this country.
FAVORS A N Y MEASURE W H IC H W IL L R E L IE V E FARM ERS.
I shall favor any reasonable and practical measure in the direction
of the ideas of the Farmers’ Alliance which can afford them relief, and I
regard the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver as an impor
tant step in that direction.
EFFECT O F LIM ITED AMOUNT OF GOLD AND SILV ER.
Let us further examine the effect of the confinement or limitation
of the currency as the representative of exchange to a fixed and lim
ited amount which may be easily held and controlled by a few per
sons concentrated in our great cities or in foreign centers of exchange.
We take gold and silver, for illustration. We have found that these
precious metals have a universal and intrinsic value for ornamenta
tion and use in the arts, which makes it reasonably certain that as
bullion it will always be in demand everywhere, and therefore when
we have any property which we wish to convert into something else
which is not convenient immediately to buy or exchange, we purchase
gold and silver either as bullion or as coin for future exchange into
something else.
Seizing on this property of these metals the policy of the laws and
of all forms of power, whether despotic or free, from time immemorial,
has refined, milled, and stamped these metals in coins of convenient
sizes, and endeavored to fix and create an arbitrary ratio or relative value
of one to the other, for the purpose of making them by law or force a
legal tender for the payment of obligations, and for the purpose of giv
ing absolute control to government or centralized power of something
which would always command the services and labor and products of
mankind by its power of convertibility.
The same motive has been powerful with bankers and all forms of
private combinations, as we discover from the organization of credit on
the basis of the issue of bills of credit on the basis of a redemption re
serve of three dollars of bills to one of gold or silver.
This fact equally illustrates the insufficiency of the total amount o f
gold and silver in the world to effect its exchanges, and the great power
and control over the labor of the people which the control of the pre
cious metals gives.
Having erected on the foundation of these natural values of the pre
cious metals this great fabric of commercial and centralized power, and
enshrined it in the confidence of the world by giving it a legal-tender
or debt-paying power, sanctioned by all governments and all forms
of power and by traditions from the most ancient times, when in our
modern days a golden image was molten, and all the world required to
bow down and worship it, we may well see what a shock it is to the
customs, the traditions, and the interest of the world. We can also see
how great the power in the hands of those who by law are vested with
the power of making this golden image and commanding the world to
worship it.
EFFECT OF H IG H T A X E S AN D SCARCE M ONEY ON T H E FARM ERS.
How does the farmer stand whose labor has brought back to this
country four or five thousand millions of dollars of this golden treasure
CALL— 2
18
or its representative values in the last twenty years. First, 45 per
cent, paid in bounties to other persons; second, cost of transportation
collected from the remainder and drawn to New York, or London, or
Amsterdam, where interest on bonds is paid; third, four hundred and
fifty millions a year in Federal taxes collected and drawn to a common
•center; fourth, a system of banking or the right to loan money limited
by law to those who can buy Government bonds with the condition
attached by law that no loans or credits shall be made to the farmer on
the security of his land, and practically excluding him from the priv
ilege of loans on the products for the exchange of which this great sys
tem has been constructed, and which is its only proper use. The farmer
is then compelled to borrow, when he requires money outside of these
Institutions at enormous rates of interest.
It is not difficult to perceive that under this system the farmer is the
most oppressed of all people.
T H E DEMOCRATIC P A R T Y T H E FAR M E R ’ S P A R T Y .
The Democratic party since the day when Thomas. Jefferson abolished
•entails and established the land policy of small farms and the protec
tion of actual settlers has been, as it is to-day, the friend and support
o f the farming interest, without detriment to the true interests o f
manufacturers, which can only flourish permanently when the farmer
prospers.
O R E A T BEN BE ACTORS W H O H A V E SPRUNG FROM BUSINESS OF M A K IN G M O N EY.
From the earliest time the business of handling and managing money
lias been the most profitable of all pursuits. It has produced many
great men in every age of the world. Many of the world’s benefactors
have sprung from it—the great Jewish banker, Montefiore; the great
citizen of Washington, Mr. W. W. Corcoran, whose statue ought to adorn
some public park in Washington City; in my own State a citizen of New
York, Mr. H. M. Flagler, who is still living, who, though not a banker
is a great master of finance, has used his great fortune as a benefactor of
mankind, in great works of public utility in the State of Florida and
deserves honorable mention in th e noble list of those who having accumu
lated great fortunes have been inspired with a pure sympathy with the
wants of mankind and a generous ambition that their talentsshould leave
behind them the enduring fruit of good works; and there is another citi
zen o f New York, Mr. H. B. Plant, who uses his great means there in
other works of permanent beneficence, and a third, Mr. Bobert Cole
man, of Pennsylvania, who is still living, for whom the like claim may
be made. These men, and others like them, will live in the gratitude
o f future generations of the people of Florida.
MONEY ALSO BREEDS SHYLOCKS.
The business of managing money breeds also men of another kind—
Shy locks, extortioners, usurers—the reproach of all time, accursed of
God and man.
The scarcity of the precious metals in forms of coin, the limita
tion of the legal-tender, the debt-paving power to a single thing scarce
and difficult to obtain, breeds this latter class of men in every little
community and neighborhood to prey on the people as mercilessly as the
jackal preys on the dead and wounded of some deserted field of battle.
These men find their support in great combinations of credit in our
commercial centers; they are fair as the “ whited sepulchre on the out
side,’ ’ but false and foul with “ dead men’s bones and rottenness
within,” preying on the farmers and on their wives and children.
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F R E E COINAGE PROTECTS FARM ERS.
It is because tbe free and unlimited coinage of the precious metals
•will enable the farmers, by wise combinations; to avail themselves of
the opportunity to obtain the use of money that I favor it as the first
and one great step towards protecting them against this class of men.
O TH ER MEASURES FOR T H E F A R M E R ’ S R E L IE F .
Other great measures will follow. The farmers should not be misled
by wolves in sheep’s clothing. The great struggle in which they are
'engaged is not now for the first time made.
It dates back many centuries, and is the contest between the people,
the great body of whom must always be tillers of the soil—and, under
favorable conditions, peaceable, contented, and prosperous—and the
power of combination in the interest of the few. Low taxes, popular
•education, small holdings of land, laws inviting the cultivation of the
soil, cheap transportation, abundance of money, government based on
peace establishments, no standing armies, and no great navies, oppor
tunities for industrial education of the farmers’ children, diversity of
employment; these are the great points on which the battle has been
fought tor ages.
DEMOCRATIC P A P T Y T H E G REAT FARM ERS’ ALLIANCE.
The Democratic party, under the influence of the ideas and princi
ples of Thomas Jefferson, stands tully committed to these ideas and
measures.
It is and has been a great farmers’ alliance. For myself, I will go
as far as those who will go farthest in the support of every practicable
measure, not only of present relief, but of permanent advancement and
benefit to them. I believe that with free coinage of gold and silver,
with abundance of money, with lower taxes, with wise and intelligent
combinations of the farmers for economical, not political, purposes, that
•our system of banking and finance may be so changed that it will do all
that is possible to be done for their prosperity, it is obvious, in my
judgment, that so long as one-half or more than one-half the proceeds of
their labor is taken in taxation in one form or another that the first
great measure must be to relieve them from this great burden of taxa
tion.
Relieved from this, with abundance of money from the sale of crops,
with banks organized subject to safe requirements established by law
and under Government supervision, the iarmers themselves will con
trol their own banks, as they did in former times, and dictate within
reasonable limits of the natural law of demand and supply the sale and
disposition of their own products. The farmers, under a proper sys
tem of taxation and finance, are richer than the Government, and
than all other combinations. Their need, and the purpose of their com
binations must be for the successful establishment of the economies,
which will save and secure to themselves the greatest share ot the
proceeds of their own products; for the products of the farmer’s skill
and labor are the sources of all prosperity and wealth. They constitute
the resources of government, and when it needs money or tribute it
levies fts taxes on the farmer and his products.
What is needed, then, is such polices as will enable the farmer to save
for his own use the largest share of the products of his own labor, and
such policies as will enable him to control and direct in a reasonable
degree the financial agencies which furnish the means of exchanging
them.
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20
AMOUNT OF T H E PUBLIC DEBT O F T H E W O R L D .
On January 1,1889, the amount of the combined debt of the world
was $26,100,082,695.
DEBTS OF T H E W O R L D IMPOSSIBLE OF P AYM EN T.
All the gold and silver, whether coin or bullion, in the world will not
pay the debts of the world.
The debts of some particular countries are impossible of payment.
FORCE AN D EFFECT O F TH IS FACT.
What is the force and effect of this lact, and what is its relation to
coinage and to the precious metals and to money ?
Let us examine these facts and endeavor to consider what they mean.
TO T AL AMOUNT O F BULLION AN D GOLD AN D SILV E R COIN IN T H E W O RLD .
The total amount of bullion and gold and silver coin in the world in
active circulation is estimated in the annual statistics lor 1889 to be
eleven billions five hundred millions in active circulation. In banks,
two billions; that is, thirteen billions five hundred millions; of paper
money, three billions nine hundred millions. In a note on page 377
the author says:
The total amount of gold and silver in circulation at this time in the world
does>not exceed seven billions six hundred millions.
All the gold and silver in the world known to have been mined previous to
1492 amounted to $8,691,374, yet the existence of only one hundred and seventy
millions could be traced. In 1809 there was estimated to be one billion eight
hundred and forty-three millions of gold and silver in circulation altogether,
although America alone had added between 1492 and 1809 $6,000,000,000 to the
world’s stock of precious me ais.
The grand total of gold and silver produced in the world down to June 30,
1884, is estimated to be $23,148,762,501, of which $12,709,425,520 was gold and $10,439,336,981 was silver. The total amount of gold and silver, in coin and bull
ion, in circulation at this time in the world does not exceed $7,600,000,000.
W H A T IS A D E B T ?
It may be properly defined to be an obligation or promise, either pub
lic or private, to give or pay to some person a quantity expressed and
clearly defined of some value or commodity, either in kind or in some
other thing which shall be exchangeable into that or into all com
modities.
INTERCHAN GEABLE VALU E O F P A YM EN T T H E ESSENCE OF T H E OBLIGATION.
The interchangeable value of the commodity in which this obliga
tion is to be performed is of the essence of the obligation. To make this
clear let us suppose that I agree to pay you 100,000 bushels of wheat
at some future time. You say, “ I will take your obligation to pay me
this wheat in something other than wheat, if 1 can find something
which can at that time be exchanged for wheat or for any other com
modity. ’ ’ I say to you, ‘ ‘Gold and silver is that thing,’ 1and we agree on
gold and silver; and we estimate, according to our judgment, the
amount of gold and silver which will equal this amount of wheat, tak
ing the present values of wheat in relation to gold and silver and our
judgment as to its increase or decrease. We have then in this illustra
tion the use and necessity of a common and interchangeable and per
manent representative of value.
REPRESENTATIVE OF VALU E MUST BE PERM ANENT, UN IVERSA L.
We find it then the interest of mankind to make this representative
of value as permanent and as universal as possible.
A G REAT POW ER.
We can see then clearly what a great power it is to be able to create
or control this representative of value.
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M A Y BE T H E MEANS OP AP P RO PR IAT IN G L ABO R O F T H E PEOPLE.
I f it be interchangeable, it may be the means of appropriating or
using the products of every man’s labor. Yet, as we have seen, it is, a
purely artificial and a subsidiary use or factor.
TRAD ITIO N AN D USE COMBINE TO M AKE GOLD AN D SILV ER T H E REPRE SEN TATIVE
O F VALU E.
Tradition, custom, and use in all countries have combined to estab
lish this representative of value and have found in the natural prop
erties of gold and silver and in the desire of mankind for ornamenta
tion the permanency and universality of use and demand required in
such a representative of value,
RELATIO N OF ACTU AL E X CH AN G E O F PRODUCTS AN D COMMON REPRE SEN TATIVE
O F VALU E.
We have also found that the necessity of mankind is for the actual
exchange of things, and that exchange by a common representative of
value is only a convenience and not a necessary use. Now we have
found a common representative of value and have made its use uni
versal and have sought to make it compulsory by law as a legal tender.
We have also found that through its use there has been created an
amount of promises or obligations to deliver it which are many times
greater than the entire amount of it in all the world.
The laborer receives a dollar for a day’s labor. He takes the same
dollar to the grocer and pays for a quantity of groceries, measured by
the quantity of gold which the groceries will buy, and this will be
greater or less as groceries may be at that time and in that place abun
dant'or scarce; and this will depend on the facility of coinmunication
and transportation.
EFFECT O F CONTROL O F R E P RE SEN TATIVE OF VAL U E.
If this dollar is held by one man, or by a few men, the persons who
hold it and sell it for commodities will charge more for it than if it
was abundant and held by many men.
Thus this dollar goes on its wajr from hand to hand in an unending
circle, performing its functions without cost to the community; but
when it stops, when it is concentrated, when is diverted from these
proper uses by any artificial means, it ceases to be a convenience and
a means of exchange, and other methods of effecting actual exchanges
become substituted easily and naturally.
FORCE AN D IN JU R Y O F L A W ,
Here comes and begins the force and injury of law. A great mass
o f obligations, private and public, have acquired the force of law, and
are required to.be performed in this dollar not in actual exchange.
A person may have all the things which the dollar may be ex
changed for, and of the value o f which its sole function is to be the
representative, but the law requires you to have the dollar money,
and if you have it not everything you have is taken, though many
times greater than the value of the money representative fixed in the
obligation. It is the control, of the dollar, or money representative of
value, and .its scarcity and its abundance which are great controlling
factors as to this great mass of indebtedness, public and private, and are
great objects of desire, and are the means by which the great mass o f
the people are held in the slavery of want and ignorance, which is the
worst form of slavery.
CONCLUSIONS O F F ACT AN D REASON.
We have thus found the following propositions of fact and reason:
First. A greater amount of public debt or public obligations to transOALL
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fer and deliver the exchangeable products of mankind than there are
products in the world.
Second. A mass of debt impossible of performance or payment.
Third. A mass of private debt or contracts impossible o f perform
ance, because they exceed the products of the world.
Fourth. A power in the legal-tender laws to compel the performance
o f these obligations in one species of exchangeable value, namely, in
gold and silver and not in other values.
Fifth. A prop >sition to further limit, compel, and confine the per
formance of these obligations to less than one-half of these two values*
namely, .in gold.
Sixth. The concentration of these legal-tender values in the posses
sion and control of a very small number of persons in every country in
the world who, by the ownership of the public debt of the world and
through the taxing power of governments, and by the ownership of the
land virtually own and appropriate the products of the world, regulate
prices, and prescribe the abundance or scarcity of the supply to each
person of the necessaries and comforts of life.
SUBSTITUTION OP PAYM ENT O P INTEREST CH ARG E IN PLA CE O P P R IN C IP A L
PUBLIC DEBTS.
OF
We may form some idea of the effect of this mass of debt and ot
legal-tender laws and of the tax power by a consideration of the feet
that the public debt of the world is impossible of payment, and prac
tically there has been substituted for it an obligation to pay only a
part of the debt, namely* an annual charge of a fixed amountwhich is
termed interest, and that the obligation to pay this annftal interest has
become a value, and men sell their labor and all their products for gold
and silver ^nd pay it for portions of this debt with the certainty that
the Government can never pay it, and solely for the purpose of obtain
ing this annual payment, and the payment of this interest or annual
charge upon this great mass of fictitious and impossible obligation has
become so great a burden on the people of some countries as to approach
the point of impossible performance even of this substituted obligation
«of so small a part of the original debt.
{EFFECT O F O W N E RSH IP O F PUBLIC DEBTS AND CONTROL O F T A X IN G P O W E R O F
GOVERNMENTS B Y A P E W PERSONS.
The ownership of this public debt of Governments and the control of
the fax power and the ownership of the land by a few persons in the
great centers of commerce and finance, is oppressive and ruinous to the
people in concentrating the representative of value and directing through
it the proceeds of labor and all the products of man into the ownership,
use. and enjoyment of the few.
F R E E AND UN LIM ITED COINAGE O F G OLD AN D SIL V E R A REM ED Y.
It therefore follows that the free and unlimited coinage of gold and
silver and its supplement by all other methods of exchange are benefi
cent uses, and while they may affect to some extent this great mass of
debt which is impossible of payment, and which must fall of its own
weight before many generations shall pass, and if it does not can Only
•survive to carry civilization down with it, until both perish. While
it may have this effect it will also limit the power of the few. It will
also promote fair exchange and distribution, and be an unmixed blessin gto the toilers of every country in the world.
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@FedFRASER