N
Conservative *
LOST , STKAYED "TllO crime of
on STOLEN. 1873 , " which was
much advertised iii 1896 , seems to hnvo
escape'd from its captors , and auditors
are never tortured in 1898 by a recital of
its diabolisms.
Will some philanthropist who has the
welfare of "the plaiu people" in mind
kindly return to public plaudits the
crime of 1878 ? Will some orator , like
Senator Allen , eloquently depict again
the Devil of Demonetisation , with
rubescent rascality , rushing the com
mittal to the gold standard through an
innocent and ignorant congress in the
year 1878 ?
SKNATOII ALLKN. It is only fair to
admit that United States Senator Wil
liam Vincent Allen is the ablest and
most aggressive man among the leaders
of populism. Amidst them all ho has
no equal in mental ability and no rival
in audacity. The deliberate and force
ful manner which characterizes his ut
terances in favor of the ownership by
the United States government of all
the railroads in this country , and his
perfunctory reiteration of the fallacy of
the free and unlimited coinage of silver
at the ratio of 16 to 1 , show that Mr.
Allen is a splendid leader for thoughtless
people. Perhaps , more truthfully , Mr.
Allen may be called an alert and dis
creet follower of people who prefer to
be actuated by impulsive prejudices and
decline to think. In any event Mr.
Allen , while ho may fool many others ,
will never fool himself into a belief that
government can create or destroy values
at will , and by a mere "be it enacted. "
Mr. Allen is too big to hold such an
opinion. But Mr. Allen , being a candi
date for re-election to the Senate of the
United States , at the hands of an
agglomeration of representatives of var
ious and conflicting political organiza
tions , asserts himself for protection
when he declares for free silver ; against
protection when ho favors free trade ;
against monopoly when ho talks of
banks , and zealously for monopoly when
he advocates the government ownership
of all the railroads.
Mr. Allen may possibly make some
farmers feel the need of dollars of less
purchasing power when they sell their
crops , cattle and hogs ; and ho may
make others believe that money can
become so abundant , through the
financial fallacies which he teaches ,
that those who now have neither ser
vices nor commodities nor. credits , to
exchange for money will then have them
all galore by the miracles of legislation.
THIS UNIT. The standard
unit of coin which measures the value
of all exchangeable property must bo
made of only one metal. And that
metal should be gold. It should bo
coined unlimitedly free from all mint
charges. In this way the value of the
bullion and the value of the coin in the
country doing the minting must re
main precisely the same. The owner of
; ho bullion pays no seigniorage. The
government has merely transmutted his
bullion into coin and certificated its
weight and fineness. But the govern
ment has added no value to the metal.
The fact that governmental stamping
confers no value to gold is daily demon
strated by the Bank of England. It
handles and treats all gold coins , except
those of England , as bullion. The Bank
of England pays for United States gold
coins 76 shillings , 4 and } pence an
ounce. It sells the same at 76 shillings , 8
pence per ounce. But the Bank of Eng
land pays for gold bars ( .999 fine ) 77
shillings 9 pence an ounce and will not
sell said gold bars at less than 77 shil
lings and 11 pence an ounce. Thus it is
seen that .999 fine gold bullion , in the
greatest monetary center of the globe
is worth more than coin governmeiitally
minted and stamped by the United
States or by any other power foreign to
Great Britain. Gold makes the best
unit of value.
LEGAL , TKNUISIl."The Federal Gov
ernment I deny their
power to mnko paper money a legal tender. "
Thomas Jefferson.
"Moat unquestionably there is no legal ten
der , and there can be no legal tender , in this
country , under the authority of this govern
ment or any other , but gold and silver , either
the coinage of our own mints , or foreign coins ,
at rates regulated by congress. This is u con
stitutional principle , perfectly plain" , and of
the very highest importance. * * Congress
* * * clearly has no power to substitute
paper , or anything else , for coin , as a tender
in payment of debts and in discharge of con
tracts. " Daniel Webster , in U. S. Senate ,
December 21,1830.
"Tho uniform and universal judgment of
statesmen , jurists and lawyers has denied the
constitutional right of congress to maku paper
a legal tender for debts to any extent what
ever. " Roscoe Colliding , in 1805.
The essential idea of "legal tender"
that quality given to money by law
which obliges the creditor to receive it
in full satisfaction of a past debt when
expressed in general terms of the money
of a country. A debt is a sum of money
due by contract , expressed or implied.
When our laws , for instance , declare
that United States notes are legal ten
der and this is the only complete desig
nation of a legal-tender money for
"all debts public and private , " it must
be understood that this provision does
not cover any operations not arising
from contract. Current buying and
selling do not make a situation calling
for legal tender ; a purchaser cannot
compel the delivery of goods over a coun
ter by offering legal-tender money for
them , because , as yet , no debt has been
created. *
* "A contract payable in money generally is ,
undoubtedly , payable in any kind of money
made by law legal tender , at the option of the
debtor at the time of payment. Ho contracts
simply to pay so much money , and creates a
debt , pure and simple ; and by paying what
the law says is money his contract is per
formed. But , if lie agrees to pay in gold coin ,
it is not an agreement to pay money simply
but to pay or deliver a specific kind of money
and nothing else ; and the payment in any
other is not a fulfillment of the contract ac
cording to its terms or the intention of the
parties. " 25 Calif. 504 , Carpenter vs. Ather-
ton.
Contracts made in general terms of
; ho money units of the country must
necessarily often be interpreted by the
courts. The existence of contracts call
ing for a given sum of dollars and the
necessity of adjudicating and enforcing
such contracts , require that there should
bo an accurate legal interpretation of
what a dollar is. As everyone knows ,
the name , or unit of account , is affixed
to a given number of groins of a speci
fied fineness of a certain metal. This
being the standard , and this having been
chosen by the concurring habits of the
business world , it is fit that the law
should designate that , when only dollars
lars are mentioned in a contract , it
should bo satisfied only by the payment
of that which is the standard money of
the community.
Since prices and contracts are expressed -
pressed in terms of the standard article ,
it is clear that the legal tender quality
should not be equally affixed to differ
ent articles having different values , but
called by the same name. This method
would be sure to bring confusion , un
certainty , and injustice into trade and
industry. No one who had made a con
tract would knov , in what he was to bo
paid. The legal-tender quality , then ,
should bo confined to that which is the
sole standard. And it is also obvious
that when a standard is satisfactorily
determined upon , and when various ef
fective media of exchange , like bank
notes , checks , or bills of exchange , have
spiling up , the legal-tender quality
should not be given to these instruments
of convenience. They are themselves
expressed in , and are resolvable into ,
the standard metal ; so the power to sat
isfy debts should bo given not to the
shadow , but to the substance , not to the
devices drawn in terms of the standard ,
but only to the standard itself , oven
though , as a matter of fact , nine-tenths
of the debts and contracts are actually
settled by means of these devices. So
long as these instruments are conver
tible into , and thus made fully equal to ,
the standard in terms of which they are
drawn , they will be used by the busi
ness community for the settlement of
debts without being made a legal tender.
And whenever they are worth less than
the standard they certainly should not
bo made a legal tender , because of the
injustice which in such a case they
would work.
Having shown that the legal-tender
quality is only a necessary legal comple
ment of the choice of a standard , it will
not be difficult to see that the state
properly chooses an article fit to have
the legal-tender attribute for exactly the
reasons that governed the selection of
the same article as a standard. The
whole history of money shows that the
standard article was the one which had
utility to the community using it. As
the evolution of the money commodity
went on from cattle to silver and gold ,