I HE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
a nation; and the rulers of nations
always enjoying the power of coin
ing money from the days of the Per
sians, Greeks and Romans to the mid
dle age when the Jews, in some way,
contrived to get this power into their
own hands. It is supposed that free
coinage commenced in Spainand that
it gradually worked its way into
France, Holland and other countries
of- Europe. I think . it must have
commenced In Spain about a thou
sand years ago, when that country
was in the hands of the Moors Jlnd
.M&hnmmedanB. At anv rate there uaa
no such : thlngas free, coinage! among
" Mie Romans. ,.. ' ... ; .- f .. . .
.; In 1666 the ' silver pieces ' had be
come worn so much, or had been
filed and clipped so much, that, on
uu average, they - did, not represent
half as much silver as they ought to
contain by, law. Besides, they were
hammered by hand, and-were nearly
,auare and it was verv easv for each
'person to file off a little and pass it
on to the next person without t the fil
ing being observed. This was the
kind of currency that was in circula
tipn in 1GC6, when the new law of free
, coinage went mio eneet. x nere was
jio law by which the worn and clipped
; currency' could be taken, out of circu
lation. -Free coinage ,made nolprovi-
sion ior mis. xet me oid money was
receivable for taxes and, although
there were many dlsmites. it contin
ued to circulate as the money of the
people. It determined the price of all
K commodities, and, by that price the
"value of the money was determined
, By the same price the value of any
one commodity! with, respect to any ,
, omer commodity was determined. This
.currency mererore, was a measure
Vbf" value" for the people, although
, a very poor measure
' Perhans it was sunnosed that, hv
jopenjng the mint to free oinagefof.
kllvei" the' wnfYl . arA nti-nnAti iAtnin' '
'.half-crowns and shillings - would be
MARCH 9, 1903.
driven out, and that the new; crowna,,
fc half-crowns and shillings WotildvtaRo
sineir piace. But, If such waSv their
(thought, it did not so turtf 'but,' for
1 iub oitt crowns, nair-cro.wn an sjuii
ings continued to circulate" and the
new crownsj half-crowns and shillings
:,Would ;not . -circulate. ?This. pnzzted
OVCn lha' isloa mart nt ff-mA
'These things-went on k rom"bafiPt6
v worse -until 1686, - ' . ; i . c
(vFrom 1066 to 1696, a period bt thfr
; ty years, there were great changes in
' ISngla&qV' There was aTevolution 4ur-.
j ang mis lime, .Known as . tne revoju
tfon of hm. 1 Charles' il.'cHad a nat,
t tirai death on the throne lnl&SS.
I James ,11., , his. brother,, pndertook to
. rule England, 1 but he remained "king
f but three years. Then,! after sa shqr
' Interreggnum of a few months, came
'.William III., prince of ..Orange and
nls wife Mary. William had not been
.on the throne a year before his mln
listers began to giva attention to thp
currency, From 1689 to 1696 the agi-'
tation continued, the result of which
was that a day was fixed, after which
the clipped currency would not be re
ceived, except by weight, for taxes.
This put an end o its circulation, be-
MAtinA I i. ... 1 .3 1 i . . .
it wuuiu reijuire iwo snuiings
of the old money to make one of the
new. This made the old, no better
than the new, for paying debts. In
fact the old and the new were just
alike because they both passed by
weight The new had a little advant
age, in that it did not need weighing;
having come fresh from the mint, the
new coin was a certification and proof
of its weight ':,
The change from the old money to
the new produced I he greatest money
panic known befor3 or Bice. Ixrd
Macaulay gives a very full account of
it in the 21st and 22nd chapters of his
History of England There is ope
strange thing, however, namely: The
historian does not mention or allude
to the fact that free coinage was then
in operation and had been for thirty
years. This he overlooks entirely. I
cannot account for it, except upon
the ground that free coinage didtnot
go into effect much until the oid: mon
ey was demonetized by not receiving
It for taxes.
The retirement of the old coins and
the substitution of the new was 'con
sidered a reformation of the currency.
In one respect it was: It gave the
country what were called "milled"
coins instead of the old-fashioned
coins hammered out by hand. I sup
pose they were called "milled" be
cause they erected a milljn the Tow
er and used ho'rse-powet to run it;
and, even with a horse and the mill,
it took from May to August before
they could get new coin enough to
take the place of the old, during which
time England had the great money
panic and distress ever known before
or since. ,
The milled coins had a raised bor
der or impression around the edge of
the coin to prevent clipping, and fine
grooves or indentations across the
edge for the same purpose. .In fact,
it brought the art of coinage up to Its
present state of pertection, In order to
prevent any mutilation of the coinu
I am unable to find any reformation
in the currency, except that the new'
pieces were so made that clipping,
paring or filing: became imnnssihifl
without. detection at. once. Certainly!
noinmg new in the science of money
was discovered, except that bad mon
ey, if allowed by scvernent, would
be used in preference to good.
..-, The great ?recoinage f 1696 would
have reduced the vniiimo nf mnnov
dne-half in Ensland if ndthi'is ha.-l
beendone to. counteract 4 L, This was J
meviiapie, necause me old coins con
tained only about half of the Teduire.1
amount of silver; .grd, therefore two
sniinngs of the old money would mak.;
only one of the new. This would hav.
caused prices . to fall and' the falling
prices would have rroduced a nani.
which. would. have..usd prices to go:
v"i iuwer. uui'ine scarcity oimon
ey was soon suDnlied by the onera
tion Of free ' COinaee. Whir h r finahUrl
the mint to coin for private owners of
enver as soon as the old crown, half
crowns and shilling;, had been brought
in, meitea down and recolned into a
smaller amount of monev. Rut th
fact that there was free coinage, in
connecuon with government coinage
Was totally lost sight of by the states
men and philosophers- of the day
Two years before the ereat rernin
age, ,1694, the Banic of England .was
chartered and organized. 1 Thia' insti.
tution took all the gold and silver of-
lered at the. leal -nrir -no nroviniioi
explained and then took the gold
and silver to the mint and hart thAm
coined into money. It also loaned
the government and took.. Its "bonds
ioa a Kuuuiuimot lis cnarreri rnr nn
million two hundred thousand
at .6 per cent and received. the right
to tissue -circuming notes to the
amount os the-loan. In fact th lnan
was paid by the circulatlner nnts.
Then the coinage of monev and tho i-
Stiancb-of paW monev becaniA f vprv.
c josejy; connected. Two years after-.
o.iuo, iu xoi7, me uanK loaned tne
government as much more, in order
to enable It to defray the exnensea of
the recoinaeeiL The loss on th niA
flipped cns., . amounted 'to 'one mil
libh two' hundred thousand - pounds..
itMti iju'.was -Dome ty the public in-Eied.-f
, in,diyiduals, ' and had :to: .be;
made good ' "by a tax (on windows)
""J ucgiuuilig tile W1U-
doW , tax ..in Ens-la nfl.' Tha iav tsh
th Interest and thus made the bonds
gOOd. ' ' - y- .
; There-Was a ereat deal of disfus-
sion in. 1896 about making a "shUling"
uui ui ua.il a sniiimg; and they taxed
mei peapie to,ename tne government
to make a whole new shllHner out
of each old half shilling.
Those who are interested In th's
subject will find it fullv dismissed hv
John Locke,1 just two hundred years
Deiore Mr. yryan received his nomi
nation for nresident on a "fro" sil
ver platform. And those who en haMr
to the year 1696 will find that gold
was not then thought of as a "stand
ard" of value, and that silver al
ways looked upon as the "standard"
money. Macaulay says that guineas,
before 'the great recoinaee sold at so
shillings a piece and that after the
recoinage they sold at 21s 6d a piece.
This shows .that gold money (guin-'
eas) was bought and sold like mer
chandise. These guineas, be it re
membered, were a legal tender tor
debts; and, yet, this quality or qualifi
cation did not prevent them from ris
ing and falling In price the word
"price" meaning clipped sliver mon
ey before the recoinage, and silver
coin of full welsrht and fineness after
the recoinage.
In 1696 no man. learned or un
earned, could see anv "stjmdnrd"
money or standard ol value outside of
silver; and this continued to be the
case for more than a hundred years
at least that is. till the time of Ad am
Smith and David Ricardo; Smith hav-
ng nnished his great work in 1776;
;ticardo not seeinz It till 1799. -
If we have free coinage, the value
of money is the value of the metal in
the coin, which changes from mo
ment to moment or may chance, ev
ery time there is an exchange.
If we have no free coinaee. then the
value of money will be, hot according
to value of the metal in the coin, but
according to the number of coins
other things equal.
I do not find th Word "standard"
used much, until we come to "free"
coinage. This is as I would exnect.
because free coinage reauires the coins
to be of a certain weight and fine
ness, which is called standard weight
and fineness. This produces standard
money, which simply means that the
money is of a certain weight and fineness.
Money is a measure of value not
a standard of value. It Is a "meas
ure," because it determines the level
of prices, and thereby determines not
only the relative value of fay two
commodities, hut the value -f every
commodity with respect, to money and
the value of money ' with respect to
every commodity. In other -words
we get a ratio of exchange by means
of money its quautity.
... .bllzibeth. (A. D. 1560) raised the
"standard" very much. SO that the"
amount of silver -in 20 shillings
(pound-sterling) , was equal to $4.44
in our old silver dollars of the "dad
dies" 1,848 grains 11-12 fine. Henry
VIII., her father, had lowered the
standard so much ' that' there Was
scarcely any silver in the money. tA
. Henry's money therefor was almost
like our greenbacks during the civil
war. He never, lowered the weight of
his coin, because ' as the silver lov
ered the pewter increased. When -he
commenced to" debase the currency, as
n-ey caned it, the coin was 11-12 fine,
but when he got through, it was 8-12
pewter and 4-12 sil ver. "And vet we
do not hear of any extraordinary rise
of prices, which shows that the value
of money does not al wavs denend nn-
on Its material.
?The cliDDed Crowns, half-rrnwns and
shillings in circulation in the year
10W Were DrObab V the monev issued
oy ii7aoeth in 1560. It had, there
fore, been in circulation one hundred
and thirty-Six vears! and fnnciHof-
Ing, that it Was hammered monev
and not exactly round, it is not sur
prising that it had been pared down
to .about half its original weieht. Tt
was good money, except that it lacked
me. necessary weight It was up to
"standard" so far as fineness was con
cerned. But it Was SO much reduced
in weight, that thoso who had goods to
fceu wanted to Know In what money
they were to be naid: and. when tnld
that it was in clipped shillings, 'i a
mgner price was asked.
'With the dinned
. r wv u xxx a . i 4
John Locke wrote his treatise, eri-
uued "further Considerations Con.
cerning Raising the Value of Money'
UOaOl, WhlCh -Was in renlv tn an
"Essay." by William T.nwnde;. f.
me amendment Of the cilvon nntna "
" WA1 V VX tVlUUi
Lowndes was then secretary of the
treasury, and he .wanted to ' recoin
the clipped money and make a shill-
Inn - 11 .. 1 ... -
a mey saia, out or six pence. In
other words, Lowndes proposed to re
coin the Old Dieces and Stamn them as
they had been stamped, without regard
10 tne amount or silver in them. The
other side, headed fcv Locke, made- all
sorts of fun out of this. -They thought
mat tne-vaiue of money could not be
raised without putting more silver 'in
it Locke wanted nnt
' v v wu tu x UipC
the value of the money, but he wanted.
10 ao it oy increasing the amount of
silver in it: he could not see that the
value of the money could be raised
by simply diminishing the number of
the pieces. ' It is probable that Lown
des Saw it although hfi was nnt nhle
to convince the people of his day and
generation. At any rate, Locke wa3
on the popular side and his views
were adonted: the result of
that the govemmeut had to buy six
mnuon aonars . worth of silver and
run in debt for It - The government
issued bonds and with them bought
the necessary amount of aiivon nf tiq
v. j CiJV,
Bank of England. The bank issued
its circulating notes for monev tn the
amount of the bonds. In this wav
the bank got interest twice, (1) on the
bonds. (2) on the circulating nntce
Thl3 is the way the English people
yam ior tneir liberties. It was, nev
ertheless, a great improvement on
Charles II.
JNO. S. TYR HAPT
Jersey City, -N. J.
against what they honestly conceived
to be extortionate " and oppressive
banking , and- transportation ; monop
olies. This movement made no head
way in the manufacturing centres. The
socialist movement, , oh the ..contrary,
receives its greatest-accessions froni
the ranks of the labor unionists. Its
strongholds, are in the cities and min
irig districts. The impression is gen
eral among the hewers. of wood and
drawers of water that they are not
receiving, full, vlfie. for .their labor,.
Thi.vcQnYic&e .iscsprcsscd . through,
the grqwthjof, these minor parties..,
The v populists frenresent one element
and the, socialists another. Both ren-
resent the arraignment of the hou-?e of'
want, against ihe hjouse of have. Thp.
socialists are full, that youthful en
thusiasm Which was characteristic n?
v..v iwiunoto , ut-gaiae ago.
j. ue , principal work- nf nnr law
making bodies Seems to he to tram.
fer additional privileges taxing pow-!
ti io tne predatory class. The dav
of , reckoning Is bound to come, nrnn
erty rights are assailed, some classes
of legalized nronertv have nn mnr'ai
justification. Socialism would destro
all rights in,vpriyate property. It
would burn-house to roast a pig.
The right of property is on trial. The
present generation; Is called upon to
distinguish between just property
rights and unjust legalized privileges.
If a man has. a right to himself if
he be not a slave he has an exclusive
right to hls..,.qwn; products This is
the highest 'title :to property. The
tariff, the. internal revenue system,
private ownership of the franchises of
public" utilities, -monopolies of the
mineral deposits and other natural re
sources which all must use, give to a
powerful few the -right to levy pro
digious tribute from the unprivileged
masses. The jask before the Ameri
can .people is to solve this problem
aright When the test of property
rights comes, s soon it will, the advo
catesjf laissez faire will find.it quite
as difficult to defend, before the bar of
pubhe opinion, their present legal
rights to plunder-the people as will
the socialists to justify their position
chat society should absorb all indi
vidual .rights. This riddle of aha
bphinx, which-not to answer is to be
destroyed, has. been read
George.. It is .elucidated in the pages
ui r-rugresa and Poverty. If Ameri
ca goes the-way of all republics, as
well as emnires and kinffdoms. it tp-u
be for lack of reading that book.t:
-A. FREELAND.
Mt. Pleasant, -Tenn. , .
Fifteen new, churches are built ev
ery day and in a year the value of
new church edifices aegreeatea $.17.
350,000. Nevertheless crime increases
at a greater rate than noDulation.
There must be something "wrong with
this modern religion.
Populism, Georgeism, Socialism
Editor Indenendent: Hon nnvM t
Hill and the nlatform
. v V tV V VA.
the democratic convention of the stato
of New York have been widely cen
sured for their adontion of the t.,,-
tion calling for government ownership
and operation of the coal mines. Thi j
action was nrobablv
much by the desire to curb the power
of the coal trust as to stem the rising
tide of socialism.' The fact that in
spite of this socialistic nlanlr n Vin
democratic platform, the social demo
cratic (elsewhere calfed socialist) par
ty in the November elections made
gains in -each and every one of the
thirty-five assembly districts m Great
er New York, increasing -their total
city vote by 70
vote by 75 per cent, and their national
vote Dy idu per cent, indicates a steady
and general drift of sentiment in that
direction. What "more natural k.
the effort on the part of Hill and oth
er proiessional politicians, devoid cf
convictions." to steal some nf fha o
cialistic thunder after the manner of
me democratic party when in 1S96 it
appropriated the free sliver tnnfl
the populists?. ' ,
The nonulist
a revolt of the western farmers
Dr. Shoop's
Rheumatic Cure
Coils.' Nothing If It Fails.
After 2.000 exneriments. T
learned how to cure Rheumatism. Not
to turn bony joints into flesh again;
that is impossible. But I can cure tho
disease always, at any stage, and for
ever.
I ask for no monev. Simniv wr.r
me a postal and I will send you an or
der on your nearest druggist for six
bottles Dr. Shoop's Kheumatic Cure,
for every druggist keeps it Use it
for a month and, if it succeeds, the
cost is only 5.50. If it fails, I will
pay the druggist myself.
I have no sam: es, because any med
icine that can affec Rheumatism
quickly must be drugged to the verge
of danger. I use no such drugs, and
it is folly to take them. You must
get the disease out of the blood.
My remedy does that even in the
most difficult obstinate cases. No
matter how impossible this seems to
you, I know it and take the risk. I
have cured tens of thousands of cases
In this way, and my records show that
39 out of 40 who get six bottles pay
gladly. I have learned that people in
general are honest with a physician
who cures them. That is all I ask.
If I fail I don't expact a penny from
you. -
Simply write me a postal card or a
letter. I will send you my book about
Rheumatism, and an order for the
medicine. Take it for a month, as it
won harm you anyway. If it fails,
it is free, and I leave me decision
itacme, wis.
Mild cases, not chronic, are often
cured by one or two bottles. At all
druggists.
a