13be Conservative
just their bullion vnluo as a medium
of exchange and no more.
The same confederate government lie
facto wrested the Southern mints and all
their contents of gold bullion from the
United States by the power of arms. And
the -journals of the confederate congress
and the statutes at large of the confeder
ate states show that the aforesaid < le facto
government proceeded with the coinage
of gold. At Dahlonega and at New
Orleans five , ten and twenty dollar gold
pieces were emitted until all the gold
was exhausted. But those gold pieces ,
though in law counterfeits , will today
buy as much as other gold pieces of the
same weight and fineness , which were
during the same period of time minted
by the United States.
This shows how little a government
can do towards creating values.
The paper of the confederacy , with
all its authorized promises , is valueless.
The silver coin of the confederacy ,
with all its mint stamp , is good for its
bullion value only.
The gold coin minted by authority of
the same government , which is now as
dead as the deadest dead government of
the Pharaohs , remains with the same
vigor of buying power that it would
have enjoyed if it had been legitimately
coined by the United States.
All that any government ought to do
in furnishing a currency for a country
is to see that its mint honestly certifies
the weight and fineness of the coins
which it emits. Those coins whether
silver or gold play only a small part in
the exchanges of a country.
Ninety-three per cent of the whole-
shle and fifty per cent of the retail trade
of the United States is carried on by
checks and bills of exchange.
Government should get out of the
banking business immediately. Let a
currency reform come at once immed
iately after March 4 , 1899.
0 Wish to call
TORRENSLAW.
the attention ol
our readers to the article on the Torrens
law , which we publish on an inner page ,
and which deals with a matter which is
of considerable importance to every
owner of a home or farm. Details con
cerning the operation of this law will be
given in a later number.
The savages and
REINFORCE- barbarians of the
MENTS FOR _ . , . . . . . . ,
POPULISM. Philippine islands
together with the
lepers of Hawaii and the hybrids of
Porto Rico are capable of reinforcing
the populists to a victorious majority in
the United States.
Sixteen-to-one and the unlimited coin
age of silver at that ratio would capti
vate all the untutored citizens of the
United States which it is proposed by
expansion , absorption or annexation to
acquire from uncivilized islands. Big
chiefs with rings in the nose , huge pen-
dants from the care , and an occasional
metallic bracelet on arm or manacle on
the leg would whoop it up for all the
vagaries and isms of the populists , and
yell with savage ecstacy for the free and
unlimited coinage of silver at sixtcen-to-
one by which all ( heir crude jewelry
could be converted into dollars of the
fathers at more than twice their bullion
value.
The more barbaric the people the
more crude their ideas of money , and
the clumsier the commodity which they
use for money. Hence peltry and shells
perform ( he functions of money among
savages. And for the half-savage and
benighted beings that jingoism proposes
to transform into citizens of the United
States the silver standard would be
most attractive.
WHAT CENTURY ?
raised in last
week's CONSERVATIVE as to when the
20th century begins is going to have
a certain influence on our future conver-
r
sation. If wo are born in the year 1900 ,
can wo make our boast to our grand
children that we date from the good old
times of the 19th century ? If wo die in
that year , can we jactitato ourselves
through a blest eternity upon having
lived to see the 20th century come in ?
The answer manifestly depends upon
what the first year of the era is called ;
if we count it the year 0 , then the
year 99 completed the first hundred , and
the year 1899 the nineteenth ; and if we
call it the year 1 , then the first century
was not closed until the end of the year
100 , and the year 1900 will have to be in
cluded in the present century. This state
ment of the issue throws no light upon the
question , for the reason that direct evi
dence on the doubtful point is not now to
be had. Those who were living in that
year are unfortunately all dead now ,
and if they were not , they could give
us no testimony , because it occurred tone
no one to reckon dates from the birth of
Christ until about the year 527 ; and
then they madea poor computation , as
appears from the nativity of Jesus being
set in the year 4 B. C.
Our conversational habit is in favor of
putting 1900 into the 19th century ; we
speak of ancient customs as having ex
isted "since the year one ; " we never
hear of the year nothing.
Later experiments with arbitrary eras
still leave us in confusion on the contro
verted point. A case is found in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. While this
venerable record was in the hands of the
monks of Peterborough , they suffered
the afliction of the loss of their establish
ment by fire. For some time thereafter
the pious fathers dated their annals
from this calamity. Abbot Martin kept
his monies busy at reconstruction , how
ever ; ho "wrolite on the circe and setto
thar to landes and rentes" and finally
"brohto heom into the no we myustre
mid micel wurtschipe ; " this happened
"anno ab incanmtiono Domini Mcxl , a
combustiono loci xxiii. " Now the fire
was in the year 1110 ; to make 1140 the
25rd ! year from it , 1118 must have been
the year 1 , 1117 the year 0 , and it is
liard to see what they could have
counted the year of the catastrophe it
self.
Again , in the case of the French , wheat
at the time of their revolution planned
a new heaven and new earth. They
dated the Age of Reason from midnight
preceding the autumnal equinox of 1792 ,
and it is distinctly stated that they be
gan counting "the year 1 , the year 2 ,
etc. " [ Now the writer has some books of
that period in his possession ; one of
them is dated "An V , " which is paren
thetically explained to bo 1797 ; another
was printed in "An XII , " and that is
explained as being 1803. These two
dates respectively require 1792 to be
considered the year 1 and the year 0 ,
though it is possible that if the printer
had given the month of publication , as
well as the year , this difficulty would
disappear.
Altogether , the point appeal's to be
still open.
Governor Poyn-
.
CLEVELANDESQUE.
ter and all others
entering upon official duties in January ,
1899 , will make no mistake by copying
and adhering to Grover Cleveland's resolution
elution when he was elected governor
of the state of new York in 1882 and
wrote his brother that he intended "to
make the matter a business agreement
between the people of the state and my
self , in which the obligation on my side
is to perform the duties assigned me
with an eye single to the interests of
my employers" !
Nebraska will be content with all pub
lic servants who copy Cleveland in this
relation between the people and their
officials and are as honest and cour
ageous as he was while governor of
New York and president of the United
States.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD MEAN FROM
INTROSPECTION.
To a young citizen there is nothing
acrid and irritating in the generally in
culpating remark of Mons Rochefoucauld
about elderly male humans when he as
serts no doubt after searching intro
spection that "old men like to impart
good precepts to console themselves for
no longer being in a condition to set bad
examples. " But seriously disposed men
of years frequently resent with wrath
this implied general accusation.
"Aunty" Monopoly
AUNTY"
MONOPOLY. opoly will soon be
screeching herself
hoarse again as a tender to agrarian and
anti-property sentiment , which has been
the real spirit of the agitations against
good money. As patriotism is said to
bo the last refuge of the scoundrel ,
"anti-monopoly" is the dernier resort
of political mountebanks.
