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
