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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1898)
Conservative * W brunch of iiulusfciy carefully prepared themselves for the protection of their property against spoliation by the force of law to the best of their ability. From that disaster we are but now emerging. What are the pretexts in support of this effort to put bad money upon the far mers of the West , the cotton growers of the South and the manufacturers of the East ? I thought it might bring this discus sion to n closer point if briefs were exchanged in advance. I have received but one in return for my own and that comes from my honestsincere and gross ly misguided friend , General A. , T. War ner. I find his brief confused , illogical and conflicting. There is but one point to which I shall undertake to make any reply.He says that "The controlling purpose in regulating a paper currency should be to secure the greatest possible stability of value , or in other words , stability of prices. " It is useless to point out how utterly every effort to work these ends by the issue of paper money has failed because our friends of that way of thinking appear to have become incapable of dealing with the facts. I will only take up the final object named , to-wit : The purpose to assure stability of prices. What prices ? At what date ? At what standard ? For what period of time ? Shall we go back two hundred years to the end of the XVII century when questions of cur rency and money were taken up by the able hands of Lord Somers and Sir Isaac Newton ? If so , then it is our business before undertaking to establish stability of prices to promote an im mense reduction from the prices of the present day. Shall we take the prices of this country during the early years of the Revolution when the Continental paper currency nearly defeated the pat riot cause , when the fanners and mer chants carted their goods away from Washington's camp at Valley Forge , leaving his troops half-starved and half naked lest the } ' should be forced to take payment in paper money of full legal- tender ? Shall we take the prices in this coun- Iry when the combined effect of war , of the forced loan collected by means of legal-tender paper money and other malignant influences carried prices to the highest point in recent years while at the same time vastly reducing the purchasing power of wages ? Shall we establish stability of prices on the basis of that evil time when by force of legal- tender paper money the rich grew richer at the cost of the poor , the only period in modern history when those evil con ditions have existed in this country ? Or shall wo take the abnormally de pressed prices of 1893 when credit had been almost destroyed by the fear of fiat money ? Or shall we take the pres ent prices on a gold standard and make an effort to prevent them from eithoi rising or falling no matter what may bo the influence of now inventions , new nethods and now wants ? What say the workmen of this effort to give stability of prices ? While the prices of goods have jeen reduced during the last fifty years in greater or less measure according to the conditions the rate of wages has been steadily advancing. Will the fiat money men avow a purpose to stop the advance in wages ? Whether avowed or not , it would be the sure effect. Not only would the advance in wages be stopped biit wages would be reduced while prices would be advanced and the cost of living would bo augmented , as it has been at every approach toward the suc cess of the cheap money advocates in recent years and at every time in every country throughout economic history in which any of these efforts have been incorporated in the law of any country. The whole effort to regulate prices is as evil and as great a wrong as the effort is to force bad money upon an unsuspect ing community. Time will not suffice for me to enter upon a historic review of the inherent vice of legal-tender. It appears to have been invented in Greece when Solon uttered a decree reducing the silver in the coin known as the drachma by twenty-seven (27) ( ) per cent , making it a penal offense for any one to refuse to accept the debased coin in full liquida tion of debts previously incurred. From that time throughout the history of every European country , notably Eng land in the XVII century , or oven from the time of Edward I down through the reigns of Henry VIII and Queen Eliza beth legal-tender acts or decrees have been adopted by despotic governments in order to cheat the mosses of the people ple and to take from them the reward of their labor without return. Such has been the record throughout Europe , England and Scotland included. Other acts like our own acts of legal-tender have been for the purpose of collecting a forced loan in the conduct of war or for the purchase of a useless stock of silver bullion. The only useful func tion of legal-tender acts has been to keep an under-weighted subsidiary coin of limited coinage from passing out of the country to the inconvenience of the people when some change in the rela tive value of silver and gold might have caused an export. I do not propose to do away with acts by which evidence is recorded and per petuated of the effort of a debtor to liquidate his obligation or to deliver the goods which he has contracted to do liver. That is a very simple and rela tively unimportant function of laws relating to the tender either of goods 01 of money. I do not see that there can bo any rightful objection to the coinage of discs of gold under one name and to the coinage - ago of discs of silver under anothoi mine , thus giving every member of the jommunity the opportunity to make use of both metals or either at his own option or as any two in a contract might be able to agree. The vice of legal-tender s in giving the privilege to one party in a contract to put a debased coin upon ; he other while depriving the other party of any choice in the matter. That is a fraud ; a fraud enforced by statute. [ t leads to the discredit of the law. This verdict may be rendered in the stern words of Pelatish Webster , the patriot merchant of Philadelphia , who resisted bho issue of the Continental legal-tender paper money and who rendered the ver dict after it had ceased to imperil the patriot caiise. "Thus fell , ended and died , the Con tinental currency , aged six years ; the most powerful state engine , and the greatest prodigy of revenue , and of the most mysterious , uncontrollable , and almost magical operation over known or heard of in the political or commercial world ; bubbles of a like sort which have happened in other countries , such as the Mississippi scheme in France , the South- Sea in England , etc. , lasted but a few months , and then burst into nothing ; but this held out much longer , and seemed to retain a vigorous constitution to its last , for its circulation was never more brisk and quick than when its exchange was oOO to 1 ; yet it expired without one groan or struggle ; and I believe of all things which ever suffered dissolution since life was first given to the creation , this mighty monster died the least lamented. "Yet I hear that some folks are pre paring to dig the skeleton of it out of the grave where it has quietly rested nine years , that wo may have the pleas ure of wasting a million or two upon its obsequies. "If it saved the state it has also pol luted the equity of our laws ; turned them into engines of oppression and wrong ; corrupted the justice of our pub lic administration ; destroyed the for tunes of thousands who had most con fidence in it ; enervated the trade , hus bandry and manufactures of our country ; and went far to destroy the morality of our people ; after all this , I wish it might bo suffered to lie whore it is , in a state of quiet oblivion , yea , perfectly forgotten ; for I think that every remembrance of it must be mixed with bitterness. " Again , when resisting the efforts of the fiat money men of our Revolution ary times to further debase the currency of the country Webster said : "Our finances have for five years past been under the management of fifty men of the best abilities and most spotless in tegrity that could be elected out of the thirteen states ; yet they are in a mined condition. We have suffered more from this than from any other causes of cala mity ; it has killed more men , pervaded
