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VOL. i. NEBRASKA CITY , NEB ; | > * JoJRSDAY , SEPTEMBER 22 , 1898. NO. ii.
Ttinr.lHHKI ) WKKKI.Y.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
J. STERLING MORTON , Eitt'roit.
A .IOUKNAI. DEVOTED TO TIIK DISCUSSION
OF I'OMTKiAI. , ECONOMIC ! ANU SOCIOMHIIOA I.
QUESTIONS.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
One dollar : uul a. half per year , in advance ,
postpaid , to nny part of tlio United States or
Canada. Remittances made payable to The
Morton Printing Company.
Address , THE CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska
City , Neb.
Advertising Rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered ut the postollice at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July Stlth , 18 ! 8.
At the OllUlhll
THE FIAT
inoiietary conven-
AIONKY MEN. , . . ,
tion there were a
large number of tint money men in-
eluding prominently umong them Hon.
Calamity Wellor of Iowa and Monsinger
of Indiana. Those gentlemen were /eal-
ous , aotive and vociferous. They were
the logical ripened students of the silver
school of economists. And when Mr.
Monsinger of Indiana with Peffer-like
physiognomy , beard and spectacles pro
claimed with cyclonic energy that "the
government which can Jitit sixty cents
into forty cents worth of silver and
make it a JOO-cent dollar can go
further and do better and make more by
jHitlnij ninety-nine and a half cents into
a half cent's worth of p'aper he showed
the logical end of the silver fallacy. It
is only fair to say that Mr. Towne of
Minnesota is not yet quite fully in ac
cord with Weller and Monsinger as to
the manufacture of full fiat dollars.
Mr. Towne limits the fiat power , the so-
niote-it-be the let it be
- - authority po
tency of the government to silver.
After the value creating capability of
government has been strengthened by
practice on silver for a long time , after
it has gained brawn and brain power
enough , it can infuse value to irredeem
able paper money.
Ou fclie thirteenth
THIS MONETARY
CONVENTION AT of September , 1898 ,
THE OMAHA EXat the Nebraska
POSITION. building on the
Exposition Grounds at Omaha a mone
tary convention assembled and was
called to order by the president of the
National Sound Money League in the
following words :
"As president of the National Sound
-
Money League I call this assemblage to
order.
"Gentlemen , you have been convoked
for a patriotic purpose. That purpose is
to candidly disciiss the money question ,
with the intention of ascertaining the
best currency for conserving the pros
perity , strength and honor of the Amer
ican republic.
"Three questions demanding your
solution are :
1. "Is it the fixed legal ratio enacted
between the coins which governs the
relative ; value of the metals in bullion' {
Or
2. "Is it the relative value of the
metals in bullion which governs the
relative value of the coins ?
! } . "If no single and separate state
can maintain a fixed legal ratio between
the metals when coined in unlimited
quantities , can an international agree
ment amouir the principal mercantile
countries of the world dp so ?
"You enter upon this investigation
with a zealous intention of finding the
truth. Your love of country prompts
you to make this inquiry and to over
throw error and establish truth.
"Mr. Edward Atkinson , the distin
guished economist and publicist of Bos
ton , was prevented from attending be
cause of ill-health. Therefore he sent
to me for presentation on this occasion
his entitled 'Force Bills
paper or Legal-
tender' . And without further prelude I
proceed to read it. "
Then Mr. Morton read the paper of
Edward Atkinson which appeared in
full in THE CONSERVATIVE of Septem
ber 15 , 1898. The ideas advanced by
Mr. Atkinson as to the utter uselessness
of bestowing the legal-tender quality
upon good money , universally-desired
money , money of all-around-the-globo
purchasing power , seemed to astonish
all the free-coinage-of-silver-at-sixteen-
to-one advocates and to totally bewilder
and unnerve most of them and all the
upholders of an irredeemable paper cur
rency. But THE CONSERVATIVE has
always been in harmony with those
ideas and always during ten years last
past proclaimed the inutility of bestow
ing the legal-tender quality upon gold.
It is willing to have gold demonetized.
THE CONSERVATIVE believes that with
the legal-tender quality bestowed upon
silver and denied to gold the latter
metal would still settle the commercial
transactions of the country as their
measurer of value , and their mediator of
exchanges. It believes that christening
corn cake , Johnny cake , BREAD , by
statute and so declaring it the only
bread that hotelkeopers could lawfully
tender and .enforce upon their guests in
the United States would hurt wheat
bread , lessen the demand and consump
tion of wheat bread just as much as
silver with the legal-tender quality
would lessen the demand for gold and
the use of gold though the latter had
jeen as much demonetized as wheat
flour had been de-breadi/ed by enact
ment.
The universality of the demand for
gold as money is based upon the univer
sality of human
EVERYBODY
desire for gold.
WANTS IT.
All d u m a n d e d
things are first desired things. All de
mand is an evolution of desire.
Legislation , if it can create a desire
in the human mind for silver as money
equal to that exist-
LAW-MAUE j f < jr M
1)KSIUES- money , can also
create a desire lor silver m ornaments
equal to that which exists for gold in
ornaments. That desire will develop
into demand. Then if a sister , sweet
heart , or wife wishes rings , watches or
other product of the jeweler's art she
shall be satisfied with those articles
made of silver instead of gold ; and a
diamond or ruby set in silver shall be as
much demanded at the same price as
though mounted in the do-jewelryized
gold. It is just as practical and will
change demand
DE-JEWELRYI/ED
just as much to
OOLD.
de-jewelryize gold ,
to do-dentalize gold , to de-watchize gold
as it is to demonetize it or to de-breadi/e
wheat flour. And people who wish
ornaments of gold can be made to take
ornaments sixteen times as heavy as the
gold ones they desire , made out of silver ,
just as easily as they can be legislated
into talcing sixteen times the weight in
silver money that is contained in the
gold money which they demand.
Suppose the United States congress
should declare by statute that all den
tists in this conn-
DE-DENTAU/El ) ify legftljy u.
OOL1)- censed to fill teeth
with silver at the ratio of sixteen to one
and charge the same for the work that
they would for gold filling ? Would the
law bo much more absurd than the pro
posed free coinage of silver at sixteen to
one is ? Can the latter help trade any
more than the former could help teeth ?
A Mormon publishing house in La-
moni , Iowa , which sends a weekly
paper to the Nebraska City Public Li
brary , uses leaves from the English Bible
as mailing-wrappers.
We fear that wo do not quite see their
point.