/\BOUT MONEY 
 
 BY A FARMER 
 
 New York 1891 
 
ABOUT MONEY 
 
 BY A FARMER 
 
 *\)0 V e i 5*^ r '■ ^ r ' *- ^ » 
 
 New York 1891 
 
ABOUT MONEY 
 
 BY A FARMER 
 
 The difference of opinion as to what money really 
 is, and as to what constitutes its value, has always been 
 very great. If we search economic and financial author¬ 
 ities, we only find different opinions of different men, 
 whether under various forms of government, or in the 
 same government at different times. 
 
 If general agreement be necessary to establish a 
 truth, the money question is an open question to-day. 
 The greatest financiers and statesmen differ widely as 
 to what money is, as to what its value is in itself, and 
 as to the kind and amount needed ; to say nothing of 
 the vast array of opinions about the use and misuse of 
 money. 
 
 Therefore, since we are obliged to sail upon the sea 
 of financial uncertainty, in whose vessel shall we sail ? 
 Whose chart shall we adopt? Whose compass shall 
 we steer by, and what port do we propose to gain ? 
 These are.very grave queries. To the people of these 
 United States, who are to-day looked upon as the best 
 pilots for common humanity, as well as for themselves, 
 they are vitally grave indeed. To reason together and 
 seek the truth for ourselves, becomes the necessity of 
 
 
4 
 
 a self-governing people. When great questions, like 
 this one about money and finance, come up for solu¬ 
 tion, we must do more than vote,—we must think. 
 
 Among the many notions and conclusions about 
 money, there is none more prevalent perhaps than that 
 which may be termed the miser theory. The miser 
 loves money for itself alone. He is sure that it has 
 value in and of itself. To him, money is the power 
 controlling the price of the earth and all the produc¬ 
 tions thereof, as well as the labor and sustenance of 
 mankind. Therefore, says he, it is the most precious 
 thing in the world, and I love it above all things. Is 
 he alone in this, or only an extremist among millions 
 of his kind ? 
 
 On the other hand, his opposite, who is equally an 
 extremist, says : Your money is a worthless thing, 
 with no intrinsic value, no power to feed or clothe or 
 teach mankind. Therefore, those who believe that 
 barter (the exchange of commodities without the use 
 of money) is the only simple, direct and true way of 
 obtaining what we cannot produce ourselves, tell us, 
 ‘ 1 Money cannot make us brave, wise, good or happy ; 
 neither can it cure disease, lengthen life, or teach us to 
 love one another. ” 
 
 They ask us if the rich, with all their money, fight 
 the battles of liberty, sustain government, or produce 
 the necessaries of life for mankind ? If poor men can 
 do all these things without the use of more money 
 than gives the rich power to enslave them, is money 
 anything but a despicable contrivance for the mere 
 
5 
 
 benefit of the money-power itself ? Then they go on to 
 tell us how it corrupts and degrades even those who 
 have the most of it; telling us also that idolatry can 
 never cease while men create a god to whom, if they 
 wish to live, all must bow. Hence they say “We 
 hate money ! ” 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the miser loves, and the bar- 
 terist hates money. In them we have the two extremes of 
 the money question, without, however, obtaining any 
 satisfactory notion of what money really is. But if it 
 be true that, “Extremes right themselves,” then we 
 may look for a kernel of truth somewhere between these 
 two opinions, which in the course of time will prove a 
 great solvent for these intolerant extremists. 
 
 And now, since these extremes are out of proportion 
 and unsatisfactory, let us examine the means. That 
 good money is the best thing possible for effecting ex¬ 
 changes, and that this is the primary object of all 
 kinds of money in a legitimate sense, cannot be denied 
 by any reasonably intelligent person who has studied 
 the subject enough to form a conclusion. Yet the fact 
 that all things valuable are estimated in dollars and 
 cents,—that is, that they are worth so much money— 
 makes it appear that value is inherent in money, and 
 proceeds from it alone. Hence, men fall into the error 
 of thinking that money, by common consent the mere 
 measure of value, is value itself. And thus in the minds 
 of men value and money have become synonymous to 
 such an extent that it is difficult to expose the fallacy 
 without raising an incredulous smile. 
 
6 
 
 It is currently claimed that silver and gold do not 
 merely represent values, hut that they are value; be¬ 
 cause, we are told, value has been put into them, by 
 its costing- about as much skill and labor as they 
 are worth to produce them. But even this definition 
 of silver and gold values is a practical admission of 
 the fact that, after all, it is skill and labor which are 
 value. 
 
 But these moneys into which so much skill and labor 
 have been put are called precious metal. Why? Just 
 because they represent skill and labor. This reasoning 
 fails to tell us why each dollar that the miner pans 
 out, whether it takes him a minute or a week, has 
 precisely the same value. Is it not because a dollar’s 
 worth of skill and labor put into a coined dollar, should 
 last a thousand years and pay a million laborers for 
 as much skill and labor at each transfer as it originally 
 took to produce the dollar ? 
 
 Why should the miner’s skill and labor endure, and 
 the farmer’s bushel of wheat which cost as much as 
 these, perish and be forgotten ? Is wheat less valuable 
 or less useful to the generations of men? Should it be 
 produced and reproduced a thousand times for this 
 same dollar, which has gone the rounds of change 
 unchanged, and comes along each year proclaiming 
 that the skill and labor originally put into it are still 
 worth as much as a bushel of wheat ? 
 
 These queries serve to show us that it is not the skill 
 and labor put into money which makes it pei’manently 
 valuable. And yet the admission on the part of coin- 
 
7 
 
 lovers, that skill and labor are the value in silver and 
 gold coins, makes it clear that even they do not be¬ 
 lieve that these metals have intrinsic values in and of 
 themselves at all; hence all can agree in the conclusion 
 that the metal or material out of which money is made 
 bears such small comparison to all the value which it 
 represents that it is hardly worth the calculation of 
 its cost. Especially is this true when we take into 
 consideration its durability in comparison with the 
 perishable nature of nearly if not quite all intrinsic 
 values. 
 
 It may therefore, I think, be laid down as a truth, 
 that the material out of which money is made is not 
 the value of it. Then, if the material, skill and labor 
 required to produce money do not constitute its value, 
 as is the case with nearly all things valuable, in what 
 does its value consist ? 
 
 Outside of the force and influence that custom, law 
 and speculation may exert upon it, the real worth and 
 value of money to man lies undoubtedly in its use as a 
 medium of exchange. 
 
 Money represents value in its broadest sense, by 
 and through the common consent of mankind; hence 
 the reason, and the only reason, why it can shift the 
 possession of things valuable from one owner to an¬ 
 other. Mankind have an almost universal predilection 
 for the use of silver and gold as money, which predi¬ 
 lection, together with a sort of hereditary and pros¬ 
 pective idea that they are, and always will be, money, 
 
8 
 
 lends to these metals a certain and greater value 
 than to any material with less range of acceptance. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this, nations, states and even 
 counties, may have within their own boundaries, and 
 in a restricted sense, other moneys equally good, be¬ 
 cause, during the time for which these moneys are 
 issued they will perform all the functions of money, if 
 the people of these districts honor them with the rep¬ 
 resentations of value, that is, their property. For 
 property is value ; since value alone is the essence of 
 any and all kinds of propertj r . So it turns out that 
 commercial property, which in its broadest sense in¬ 
 cludes everything that a man may own and sell, is 
 value ; and that money is really a machine which man 
 makes and uses for the transferring and exchang¬ 
 ing of property. It is, moreover, evident that by 
 common consent he attaches the power of value to 
 this machine named money to cause it to do its work ; 
 just as he attaches any other power to any other ma¬ 
 chine whatever, to cause it to do the work for which it 
 was designed. Consequently, the “miser theory” is 
 an entire inversion or transposition of an intrinsic 
 value to an extrinsic representation of it in money 
 which he falsely concludes is value. 
 
 Since the barterists’ theory would destroy the 
 oldest, simplest and best machine that man has ever 
 invented for exchanging property ; and since those 
 ranging between these two extremes appear to be all 
 at sea about money and values, we trust it will not 
 seem out of place to lay down our own theory of what 
 
9 
 
 money really is. At all events we will proceed to 
 the best of our ability to give our definition of 
 money. 
 
 Money is a machine which may be constructed of 
 any adequate material on which material designs are 
 stamped to indicate the power of the machine, when 
 going at full capacity, to effect an exchange of pro¬ 
 perty. 
 
 There is no other power adequate to make the 
 machine named money go, except the power of value; 
 and there is no other way of attaching this power to 
 that machine save by common consent of those having 
 labor or property; for without these essential requi¬ 
 sites money is not worth the material of which it is 
 made. Thus it is only this mighty and intricate 
 power of value, attached to this simple and intrinsi¬ 
 cally worthless machinery of money which causes 
 the latter, according to its use or abuse, to affect 
 mankind for weal or woe. 
 
 But all the power of all the labor and all the 
 property in all the world, is the mightiest power over 
 which man has any control. Yet this power, rest¬ 
 less as the wants of man, is at once the potential 
 and kinetic, the latent and moving energy of all the 
 machinery of money. Therefore let man beware ! 
 Let statesmen and financiers beware ! Aye, and let 
 government beware of humanity’s needs and the 
 honest rights of man; for even a penny is a powerful 
 machine, with a thousand lives and a million honors 
 aboard of it, driving across the world-wide ocean of 
 
10 
 
 human interests to the beautiful city of human welfare. 
 Let not the dollar run down the penny, nor the pound 
 blockade the city ; for the many must sail in a penny 
 boat, and the city should be an open port. 
 
 In regard to the material out of which money should 
 be made there is also great difference of opinion. If 
 there did not exist an almost universal idea that silver 
 and gold metal is peculiarly money, and consequent^ 
 an almost universal acquiescence in its use as a repre¬ 
 sentative of value (which idea and acquiescence give 
 it the precedence it now possesses over all other 
 materials) it would certainly seem that the cheapest 
 and best material accessible to all men and nations alike, 
 would surely be the best material out of which to manu¬ 
 facture this machine. And the presumption may be 
 ventured, that by reason of their cost, even silver and 
 gold will erelong lose their prestige. For they cannot 
 escape the prime object in all other economic changes 
 and advancement; which is to cheapen cost and 
 multiply advantages. 
 
 Moreover, civilization now demands a universal 
 medium of exchange that shall bear upon its face the 
 sign of its universal value among all men. But this 
 demand, acquiesced in as a theory by the most 
 enlightened people of all nations, conflicts at every 
 point with existing monetary conditions. Even gold, 
 as a universal medium of exchange and standard of 
 value, constantly encounters silver-using peoples and 
 nations. 
 
 And even if all could agree to some universal parity 
 
11 
 
 of value between silver and gold, then each nation 
 would most certainly claim the privilege of furnishing 
 their pro rata share of this universal money, ere they 
 would agree to honor it. And this again would bring 
 up before each nation the question of material out 
 of which to make their money-machinery. Then, 
 naturally enough, those countries without mines of the 
 precious metals would hardly be willing to help out a 
 scheme which so largely favored bullion owners in 
 foreign lands. In short, such nations could not afford 
 to buy these over-valued metals in order to have 
 something upon which to represent their values. 
 
 Query : Can any people afford to do this? Is it not 
 conceivable that our inheritance of silver and gold will 
 become a bar to the demands of our advancing civili¬ 
 zation, and that a universal money of civilization 
 will be diametrically opposed to our inherited money 
 of barbarism? For there is no doubt that silver 
 and gold, as money, are the legitimate survivals of 
 the ornamental gew-gaws worn by our barbarian 
 ancestors. 
 
 But to substitute other money for our barbarian cur¬ 
 rency will be the hardest task, if not the greatest 
 achievement, of an advancing civilization; nor is it 
 probable that this can be accomplished without prepa¬ 
 ration and education of a world-wide character. In 
 the course of time it is possible that civilized nations 
 will agree on some unit or standard of value similar to 
 the horse-power standard, or to any other employed 
 for estimating the capacity of machinery; and will use 
 
12 
 
 this unit, say the work-power* of an average laborer 
 for any convenient length of time, as a basis for all 
 government estimations in which statements of value 
 occur. They can then pass on to its use in their cur¬ 
 rency, banking and clearing-house transactions of all 
 kinds, until their people become familiar with it. 
 
 This would be an education universal enough in 
 character to comprehend the first necessary steps. For 
 by the time this was accomplished, a labor unit, and 
 possibly its decimals, would have become common 
 knowledge, hence a common bond of interest to the 
 common people of all nations ; who at the same time 
 would learn to look upon labor, the true producer of all 
 earned wealth, as the proper basis of all values. Thus 
 the tabor capabilities, or work-power, of any people 
 would become the acknowledged exponent of the 
 amount of money-machinery necessary to the business 
 of exchange. In the same way a farmer, by looking 
 at his acres of grain, can estimate the machinery 
 necessary to harvest and market his crop. 
 
 The material for making money-machinery would be 
 settled, just as the question about material for any 
 other machinery is settled. For that material would 
 naturally be chosen which is cheapest and best suited 
 to the purpose for which money-machinery is designed. 
 
 When this preparatory education is accomplished, it 
 
 ♦That industry which furnishes the sustenance for our whole population, and 
 at the same time makes additions to the sum-total of our wealth as a nation, may 
 be termed the work-power of our whole people; while that labor which furnishes 
 sustenance and additions to individuals lives and property, may be termed the 
 work-power value of individuals. 
 
13 
 
 will only be necessary to fix the pro rata share of 
 the different governments, in order to establish a uni¬ 
 versal money which would naturally in the course of 
 time supersede all other money, if the powers now in 
 progress should continue to unify the business and 
 monetary interests of all nations. 
 
 When we reflect upon the wonderful discoveries and 
 the vast range of inventions now giving mankind such 
 powerful control in the development of the world's re¬ 
 sources, binding together and making common the 
 economic interests of all nations, the conclusion is 
 inevitable that, other things being equal, the concomi¬ 
 tant of this mighty material movement must be a cor¬ 
 responding intellectual improvement. As a result of 
 this improvement, and of their common interest, the 
 nations will not be slow to grasp the significance and 
 utility of a universal medium of exchange. 
 
 If the masses of mankind ever prove wise and 
 powerful enough to pass upward to the realization of 
 this important step in the management of practical 
 affairs, “the same old story of Wealth, Vice, Cor¬ 
 ruption, Barbarism at last,'’ may not have its repeti¬ 
 tion in the ages to come, as Byron tells us it has had 
 in the past. 
 
 With regard to the amount, use and kinds of money, 
 and their relation to values, with a plan for basing 
 money and taxes on the labor and property values of 
 the whole people, it may be said that there is little 
 doubt that the world’s assets of real value are far 
 below tfieir value as represented by money and credits 
 
14 
 
 resting* on them. That is, the world’s stock of these 
 representatives of value is largely a watered stock. 
 And this watered stock, claiming to be value, consti¬ 
 tutes at once an unperceived and ubiquitous power to 
 enslave all producers ofreal values; because it furnishes 
 a means by which these and the values they create can 
 at once be drawn upon and made responsible for inte¬ 
 rest and dividends on this watered stock. In this 
 might be found one of the chief causes of hard times and 
 depression of trade. 
 
 However, if there were no ways of withdrawing the 
 circulating medium of the world from its rightful uses 
 and legitimate channels of trade and exchange, it 
 could really make but little difference and work no 
 harm to any class, whether the amount were relatively 
 great or small, so long as enough was kept in circula¬ 
 tion to do the business required. But while we are 
 trying to supply all the hoarders in the world, to keep 
 up and pay up the interest on accumulating debts all 
 over the world, and to pay dividends to all manner of 
 trusts and combinations which are taking advantage 
 of the capital of the world, it is utterly impossible to 
 tell what ratio money should bear to the products and 
 trade of any given country. It is equally impossible to 
 fix a minimum or maximum amount in correspondence 
 with the population, work-power and real wealth of 
 any people. 
 
 Under present conditions supply and demand are 
 made the mere burglar-tools of capital. For are they 
 not used everywhere to unlock combinations of it for 
 
15 
 
 the exclusive benefit of capitalists ? There is no stand¬ 
 ard of value, neither can there he any true measure of 
 it, while money is made a gambling machinery for the 
 use of sharpers instead of a legitimate machinery for 
 business men. 
 
 Whether the great hue and cry about a change in 
 gold and silver values means anything more than a 
 scheme to corner gold, and shuffle silver up and down 
 on the gaming hoards, is not easy to determine. If 
 we ask what it means, the wise ones tell us that an ad¬ 
 vancing civilization requires a “ single gold standard; ” 
 and if we ask what that is,—“ Why ! a single gold 
 standard means a single gold standard of gold values; ” 
 —they answer, with a degree of confidence in the miser 
 theory of value which nothing hut its general acceptance 
 by the people would warrant. 
 
 But if silver is really becoming too plentiful, as our 
 advocates of a single gold standard everywhere pro¬ 
 claim ; if, as they tell us, it is becoming a drug in the 
 market, and is therefore subject to “the unwritten 
 law of supply and demand; ” if all this be true, and 
 silver has actually become a mere commodity, have 
 we any proof that gold will long remain the thing they 
 conceive it to be ? There may he mountains of it in the 
 earth, that man will yet discover and bring forth. It 
 may clog the wheel of fortune, and cram huge coffers 
 to no purpose, as silver is claimed to do. What then 
 about a “single gold standard of gold” to measure 
 money by ? 
 
 Man must control money or money will control man. 
 
16 
 
 The tyrant Greed will make no compromise with his 
 slaves to poverty. He has no more capacity for sym¬ 
 pathy than has the money he grasps. His wants are 
 boundless, but the power of money to fulfil them is 
 only less great. And so we have a combination ter¬ 
 rible to cope with. 
 
 But still, man must control money, or else money 
 will control man. There is no other alternative. We 
 must grapple with this terrible combination of greed 
 and power now threatening all the rights and liberties 
 of humanity, and deal with money as a subject, not 
 as a master of man; as something for our use and 
 benefit, and not as something to be used for its own 
 benefit. The reverse action of our monej^-machinerj 7 ' 
 has counteracted the progressive forces of civilization 
 quite long enough. 
 
 The trouble, ruin and distress growing out of combina¬ 
 tions of capital which by the mere power of money 
 deprive men of their honest possessions are every¬ 
 where crjung out against this robbery. But false 
 notions of a tolerance due to wrongs upheld by powerful 
 interests, blind men to the lives ruined and fortunes 
 blasted by the moneyed powers. Neither their sym¬ 
 pathy nor their condemnation is stirred to remedial 
 action, until too late, it may be, for anything but 
 blood and revolution. 
 
 Even a large part of the apparent progress attri¬ 
 buted to the money-power of to-day has, after all, a 
 retrograde tendency, if the common good to be the 
 true source of social advancement. Nor can it be oth- 
 
11 
 
 erwise when individual enterprise, the natural parent 
 of industrj 7 , economy and independence among the 
 masses, is overpowered, kept back, held down and 
 crushed out of existence, in every department of in¬ 
 dustry. Moneyed interests in which they have no 
 part, nor lot, except to toil in them from day to day, 
 control the lives of the masses. These have no voice 
 in whose vast concerns which subject the laborers of 
 the world to their own purposes as completely as any 
 other cause which has ever enslaved man, save his 
 ignorance of his own capabilities. And this ignorance 
 will be natural result of any continuous course of em¬ 
 ployment—no matter how renumerative in a moneyed 
 sense—that requires no individual enterprise, no self- 
 judging powers, and no independent effort to attain 
 success. 
 
 The reason that our men and women of the West 
 have been a power in the world, strong, good and true 
 in body and in mind, is because their liberty to con¬ 
 trol themselves and their own affairs was untrammeled. 
 They were poor and had to work hard, but they over¬ 
 came much, after their own fashion; and hence they 
 have gained a success—if not in the acquirement of 
 fortune, yet as men and women. 
 
 No, all the obstacles man has to cope with in nature ; 
 all the circumstances he can mould, control, or ad¬ 
 just himself to endure, in short, all things that make a 
 full and conscious life-experience, belong to everyone 
 by right, and may not be abridged without a cor¬ 
 responding loss to life and manly powers. Experience 
 
18 
 
 and observation verify the truth that men long hind¬ 
 ered, or by chance estranged, even from rough ex¬ 
 perience, lack that essential grip upon the realities 
 of life which is so indispensable to success. 
 
 If, therefore, we allow money to enslave our lives by 
 its accumulating powers; and this for the entire benefit 
 of the old tyrant greed ; then we deserve to be 
 ground down and sink into that state of lethargy in 
 which men live only to eat and breed; to breed an 
 inane posterity whom wild barbarians can sweep from 
 off the earth into a well-deserved oblivion. Man then 
 must control money, or money will control man to his 
 own destruction. 
 
 Not but that money has its uses, and, when under 
 wise control for beneficial purposes, is good for man. 
 Like any other machinery that is good for anything, 
 money saves time and labor, aiding man to make an 
 honest living more easily than he could otherwise do. 
 But like any other useful machinery with great power, 
 money is most dangerous unless kept under careful, 
 intelligent and constant control, by those concerned 
 in its use and advantages. 
 
 Now how shall we control the enormous powers of 
 this money-machinery and at the same time secure 
 its advantages? This is a question of supreme im¬ 
 portance, for the solution of which I offer the following 
 general outlines of a plan which it seems to me could 
 be made practicable. Money of all kinds is a machin¬ 
 ery whose power rests in the common consent of the 
 people who use it. If we would control and get the 
 
19 
 
 most use out of any machinery, it is necessary for it 
 to be in proportion to, and in adjustment with, the 
 power which runs it. A wagon too heavy for your 
 team is a continual drag. An engine too light for 
 your power is a continual menace. It is the same with 
 the machinery of money ; this also should be in propor¬ 
 tion to, and in adjustment with the power that runs it, 
 namely, labor and property values. 
 
 Now let us look at the situation in the United States. 
 Each individual’s labor and property are his own; 
 and each individual citizen has his labor and property 
 within the boundaries of some township, county or 
 State. All of the citizens of this country own all of its 
 labor and property, and agree, as integral parts of the 
 government, to sustain it, and to be taxed for its sup¬ 
 port. But all labor, all taxable property, everything 
 that we earn and possess for its value has a cause, and 
 that cause may be termed the “work-power ” of each 
 individual, or of the aggregation of individuals that 
 makes up the whole or any sub-division of our govern¬ 
 ment. Now this cause of value, this power w r hich 
 should at once run and control our money-machinery, 
 ought' also to determine the proportional amount and 
 adjustment of it to our needs; and must do so if intel¬ 
 ligent control is better than blind chance or unbridled 
 desire. 
 
 Under this plan we would have to determine the 
 general work-power of our whole people, and the work- 
 power value of each individual. For the work-power, 
 or productive capabilities of a nation are also its equiv- 
 
alent of value or credit in an economic sense; just as 
 the labor and property of an individual form his basis 
 of value or credit in the same sense, but variously pro¬ 
 portioned according* to his possessions. 
 
 When we have determined the work-power of our 
 whole people, it will stand for nothing more nor less 
 than what it is, namely, our national credit. And 
 when each State, county, etc., has determined the 
 same thing with reference to their different popula¬ 
 tions, that also will stand for their several credits. 
 Now as each of the sub-divisions is a part of the whole, 
 each would bear a certain proportion to the whole, so 
 that the work-power value of each individual can be 
 determined by our assessors and census reporters. 
 
 When this is done let us issue money in proportion 
 to our national credit or work-power. Let each State 
 bond itself to the United States Government for an 
 amount of this money proportional to its credit, esti¬ 
 mated on the same general basis. Let each county do 
 the same thing with reference to their several State 
 
 governments ; and so on down to the smallest subdi- 
 
 # 
 
 visions of local self-government, each giving a bond 
 to their superior governments in proportion to their 
 work-power credits, as already determined, and draw¬ 
 ing from them their several apportionments of money, 
 to be distributed among their individuals. The plan 
 for individual apportionments of money machinery 
 among our entire people, according to their work- 
 power and real values, would be as follows : The 
 credit of each individual for w r ork-power being 
 
 0 4 
 
) 
 
 
 21 
 
 the same as that of every other person entitled 
 to and credited with it all over the United States, 
 it becomes necessary to add to this credit what¬ 
 ever value of any other kind any one possesses, calling* 
 it his u work-power value,” since under this plan even 
 property will be estimated in terms of work-power. 
 
 So it is obvious that a simple work-power would be 
 the value or credit of a laborer without property or 
 values of any other description ; while work-power- 
 value would always include or be some other kind of 
 value. Now let everything belonging to any one that 
 can be shown to be or to represent real value have its 
 true estimation and then be credited to the individual 
 who owns it; and let the sum total of such credits be 
 considered his or her possessions, just as they now are, 
 and placed on the county records as his or her work- 
 power value credit. These credits would be each man's 
 own actual and tangible values. Would they not? 
 
 This credit of each individual for just what he pos¬ 
 sesses in actuality would then become his bond and 
 collateral security for a pro rata share of the money 
 apportioned to his county or district, as above desig¬ 
 nated ; and he would have the right to take this 
 money and use it just as he would any other money, 
 secured and made good by him and his values. Thus 
 we should have a money-machinery for the people, 
 based upon all their values, and distributed among 
 them. 
 
 It is evident that the expenses of government must 
 be borne by the people, and, as we all know, this is 
 
22 
 
 done by taxing* us in some way or other. Under this 
 plan I would propose to collect all revenue and taxes 
 of every kind directly from the people. And to do 
 this, let each person’s credit-bond, on which, as we 
 have seen,he would draw his pro rata share of money, 
 be also his taxable valuation on which he shall pay a 
 rate of tax sufficient for all purposes. 
 
 While this is, in fact, a tax on real values, it might, 
 under our plan, be considered interest on representative 
 values, or the money drawn on the credit of real values. 
 Thus our credit bond would at once determine both 
 the amount of money we could draw and the amount 
 of taxes we should have to pay ; and w r e might con¬ 
 sider that the government was loaning us money and 
 getting its interest by taxing us for its own sup¬ 
 port. But in reality it would be money and taxation, 
 based on our own powers and own values, labored for 
 and produced by us. 
 
 Under this plan it will be seen that each individual 
 would pay tax on the amount of his real values or 
 credit bond; and each county and State would pay 
 tax on its work-power bond or its apportionment of 
 money. So that each individual’s rate of tax could be 
 adjusted by both local and general requirements, each 
 countj 7 ’s rate of tax could be adjusted by both local and 
 general requirements, and each state’s rate of tax 
 could be adjusted in the same way, and still leave the 
 rate of tax that we should each and all have to pay to 
 our general government the same. 
 
 Thus the same uniformity of rate as between indi- 
 
23 
 
 viduals of any district, as between counties in any 
 State, and as between the several States of the Union, 
 would hold throughout. 
 
 After the first general adjustment of the work-power 
 of the whole people and the work-power values of all 
 individuals—the first apportionment being made accord¬ 
 ing to this plan—each tax-payer’s average valuation 
 (for, say the ten years between readjustments and con¬ 
 sequent refunding of money, perhaps by a reissue), would 
 be his credit bond on which to draw money the sec¬ 
 ond time, and so on thereafter. It may be objected that 
 work-power of a laborer, or of any one without pro¬ 
 perty, is not a real and tangible thing on which to 
 base such vast calculations as are here involved. But 
 by a moment’s reflection, it must become evident that 
 the work-power of our whole body politic is at once 
 the real source and tangible prospect of all wealth, on 
 which both present and future calculations of every 
 kind must rest. 
 
 The farm produces, the factory runs, and the ship 
 sails, and we have a right to count upon their doing so 
 next year, as well as in the one just past. And they 
 will do these things because men with work-power 
 will be there to till the farm, run the factory, and sail 
 the ship. On no other basis than themselves and 
 ther own work-power can a people make present and 
 future calculations for their own benefit in an economic 
 sense. 
 
 And if the object of all production and consumption 
 rises above the mere doing and using of things for 
 
24 
 
 our bodily preservation and comfort into the realm of 
 that activity which finds its happiness in working out 
 principles of economy for the benefit and elevation of 
 all men, there can be no possible objection to a plan of 
 finance based upon the cause of national advancement 
 than which there is no surer foundation and support 
 of the thing called value among men. 
 
 Remembering, then, that our whole amount of 
 money-machinery will depend upon the work-power of 
 the whole people; that the whole amount apportioned 
 to each State and district will according to their several 
 populations depend upon the same thing; that each 
 individual’s share will depend upon himself and his 
 own property ; that upon the man and his means a tax 
 will be assessed ; that this tax will at once defray his 
 expenses of government and determine the rate of 
 interest in a general sense; and that finally this money’s 
 current use will be regulated by the general and local 
 value of labor and property, just as it is now, or at all 
 events, ought to be ;* remembering all this, one can 
 hardly help being struck with the identity of interests 
 which such an arrangement of our financial affairs 
 would foster in the whole people. While it involves no 
 change in the Constitution or fundamental law and 
 principles of our government, it yet gives full scope 
 and force to that individual enterprise and control of 
 
 ♦This is a general plan, without specific statements in regard to many ques¬ 
 tions involved. But we may presume that the specifications and details will alj 
 fall into line with it, just as every part of our Union answers to every other, and 
 more or Jess perfectly adapts itself to the whole. 
 
25 
 
 ourselves and our own affairs, upon which the man¬ 
 hood and honor of an advancing- civilization must 
 depend for its success among men who have reached a 
 self-governing stage. 
 
 With all the advantages of this arrangement there 
 would he nothing sacrificed, except the power of greed. 
 Unfortunately, the effect of greed upon existing mone¬ 
 tary conditions, its power over the very bread of men, 
 and its terrible tenacity in maintaining its own advan¬ 
 tages, together with the people’s lack of thought and 
 information on the subject, form a great barrier to the 
 adoption of any improvement for the permanent benefit 
 of the whole people. 
 
 The idea so generally held that more gold, silver 
 and currency—in short, more money of any kind, can 
 under existing conditions help matters permanently, 
 or even for any great length of time, is erroneous and 
 without foundation in reason or in experience. More 
 money makes more speculations, and in this way may 
 furnish temporary relief; but the sharper and greedier 
 speculators will gather it in and waiting until labor 
 catches up again and begins to fetch real value. Then 
 speculation goes forth to reap by the mere force of 
 money another harvest, and crushes individual enter¬ 
 prise that may have pushed ahead a little. 
 
 Thus comes the alternations of “hard times,” and 
 “ ease in money matters,” which conditions follow one 
 another the more rapidly as devices for increasing 
 money become more plentiful. 
 
 Since money, through speculation, possesses the 
 
26 
 
 power to add to money, greed is thereby enabled, not 
 only to hoard more and more of it and to retain it out 
 of use, but also to take advantage of more and more 
 opportunities in advance of labor. It is enabled to 
 devour, in a thousand ways, more and more of the pro¬ 
 ceeds of labor, until its heartless possessor can sit 
 upon the throne of moneyed success and dictate to 
 labor how long it shall be in digging a grave for its 
 own liberty. 
 
 No; just enough money-machinery to do our busi¬ 
 ness of exchanging with is all we can afford to main¬ 
 tain. Beyond this it goes right into harvesting 
 our crops of labor by speculation, and securing in a 
 lump our chances for individual enterprise before 
 we can work up to them. The silver mountains and 
 the golden sands, with all the debts that they can pos¬ 
 sibly secure, are piling, piling, piling up on top of us, a 
 load too terrible to contemplate. No; we cannot afford 
 to pay such enormous amounts of watered stock of 
 dollar for dollar, on the mere chance of working it out. 
 It will not pay to be born into it; not even of good 
 parents. Manhood shrinks from slavey. Therefore, 
 we must control money, or money will control us. I 
 say a we,” because I believe that a self-governing 
 people will naturally come up to these great questions 
 affecting the welfare of the masses of men, in advance 
 of governments whose people are less progressive, or 
 else have more to contend with. We have been inno¬ 
 vators from the beginning, and will continue to defend 
 the rights and liberties of the common people against 
 
27 
 
 long-established and powerful opponents so long as we 
 continue to progress; for such as these must build the 
 kingdom of liberty on earth. But we cannot expect to 
 accomplish it without trials, and, it may be, great 
 tribulation. 
 
 While prudence is the great law of self-defense in 
 political action of all kinds, it is neither wise nor safe 
 to be cowardly. And while there may be good and 
 great men, both wealthy and powerful, whom the 
 masses may trust with their political affairs, there is 
 no self-governing prudence at all in that blind trust in 
 the name and fame of men or parties, by those masses 
 who are unthinking partisans. It is the cowardice of 
 ignorance that kills. The ballot in such hands as these 
 is the mere semblance of liberty, to make men slaves 
 of passion and prejudice. The ballot in such hands as 
 these is the cloud hanging over us all the time and 
 everywhere; the dark mask among us, and the black 
 plague within us, that threatens the life of our insti¬ 
 tutions from their very source. 
 
 If the masses would inform themselves and think: be 
 
 « / 
 
 honest with themselves and with their own convictions, 
 there is no power on earth strong enough to abridge 
 their liberties, much less to make them slaves, even to 
 the great god of gold himself. 
 
 With reference to the bi-metallic controversy it may 
 be said that there are certain phases of it which are 
 either not apparent, or else are purposely kept in the 
 background. There is much in it that is not counted 
 on by the tyrant greed and money-power generally ; 
 
28 
 
 I 
 
 which latter is bound either to follow the former’s lead 
 or suffer disaster; a hard lot that few will choose, even 
 for honor’s sake. 
 
 That the mountains of debt named value, and draw¬ 
 ing interest, are crushing the foundations of labor 
 and real values, and are bound, from the sheer weight 
 of themselves, to fall, must seem inevitable to any one 
 who will take the pains to compare representative 
 values and interest-drawing debts of all kinds with 
 real values and productive power; not forgetting to 
 deduct from real values the cost of living, 
 
 Although an overplus of money and representatives 
 of value always gives to the tyrant greed and his 
 satellites (the speculators, hoarders and idle, non¬ 
 producing classes) more and better opportunities to 
 grasp in advance the plant which nature has stored up 
 for all men—such as lands, mines and privileges of 
 various kinds—although credit money in great quanti¬ 
 ties, brings golden harvests to speculators ; even they 
 are becoming aware that some day there is sure to be 
 a mighty crash. 
 
 And though, upon the whole, the money-power is 
 tremendously greedy, it is also a cautious power ; and, 
 its astuteness generally keeps pace with its greed. If it 
 could be sure that men would continue rounding up 
 their backs beneath their present weight of debts, and 
 that the labor-world, by placing their broad shoulders 
 square against all this, could still plod on beneath the 
 silver mountains coming down upon them, it never 
 would cry, “Hold, enough!” But this astute and 
 
cautious power is not sure of this by any means, and 
 hence it does cry, “Hold, enough of silver money, 
 lest it cheapen gold !” And though to poor men it 
 may seem absurd, yet certain facts regarding money 
 have a tendency to strengthen such a fear. 
 
 The fact that there are more money-seeking, solid, 
 interest-paying investments than can be placed, is 
 significant. The fact that trusted securities of all 
 kinds are gradually but surely reducing their interests 
 is significant. And the further fact that to capitalists 
 everywhere their money, over and above what they 
 can use in supplying their own wants, is becoming a 
 dead-weight in their coffers, useless to the world as 
 it is profitless to themselves, proves that money is not 
 value nor the ultimate power on which men really 
 depend for the accumulation of value, even in its re¬ 
 presentative forms. It furthermore proves that money, 
 like anything else produced and used by man, can be¬ 
 come too plentiful to be profitable to its holders; and 
 like anything else which supply and demand regulate, 
 will compete with itself in the markets of the world, if 
 it cannot be made scarce by hoarding or contraction, 
 or both of these. 
 
 Therefore the money-powers say,—Stop the unne¬ 
 cessary supply of silver. Shrink, contract and refund, 
 that our money may become more profitable, and at 
 the same time make the interest-bearing debts look 
 smaller to the people, who are beginning to understand 
 that they have public interests and debts to pay, as 
 well as their private ones. 
 
BO 
 
 No, this move against silver is not a mere caprice of 
 the money-power without definite cause of object; al¬ 
 though greed, seeing the gain in it, by its haste makes 
 it seem so. The move began in Germany, where the 
 plethora of capital was felt the most, and spread, with 
 little opposition from the masses, wherever the increase 
 of real values over subsistence is too small to guar¬ 
 antee much increase of money or interest. 
 
 But here in the United States, and pre-eminently in 
 the West, we are hardly aware of the facts in the case. 
 Especially is this so when we look to our own State or 
 neighborhood experience for a verification of the idea 
 that money is really becoming too plentiful to be profi¬ 
 table to its holders. But the fact is verified by the 
 way that railroads are run into unpopulated and even 
 wild countries; where towns spring up like magic with 
 all the modern equipments of banks, loan agents, 
 trust companies, and brokers of all kinds, whose busi¬ 
 ness from the beginning is to prey upon the settlers, 
 farmers, and working people generally. 
 
 No waiting now for slow accretions to the towns and 
 cities, caused by the development and building up of 
 the surrounding country, as of yore ! They rise up in 
 the wilderness, “ as from the stroke of the enchanter’s 
 wand,” and make men fairly giddy by their speculative 
 glare and gambling policies with money. In further 
 confirmation of this fact that there is too much repre¬ 
 sentative value afloat, it is estimated on good authority 
 that over two million dollars a week have, for the past 
 two years or more, been coming into the United 
 
31 
 
 States from England alone ; while Germany and other 
 foreign countries have also sent large amounts of 
 capital here to he invested in various ways. All this 
 goes to show that money seeks its increase where in¬ 
 trinsic values, its correlative cause, are also on the 
 increase. 
 
 In new countries, where labor and natural resources 
 join hands in the first and almost spontaneous pro¬ 
 duction of real or intrinsic values, these values in¬ 
 crease faster in proportion to the needs of the sparse 
 population than do the representative values. Hence 
 in new countries interest and wages are always higher 
 than in old ones, because money and labor are always 
 scarcer, even if speculation cut no figure in the demand 
 for money. No people whose whole labor returns 
 them nothing more than a bare living can pay interest 
 on money. And nations approach nearer and nearer 
 this point as their increasing populations approach 
 nearer and nearer to the productive limits of labor 
 and nature. 
 
 Hence the old world’s plethora of money cannot ex¬ 
 pect to draw much, if any, interest out of the scanty 
 life-portion of their laborers; and thus we may see 
 why the capital of old countries, in excess of their 
 real needs, and its true use as a medium of exchange, 
 seeks new ones for investment, in other words, specula¬ 
 tion. 
 
 Aside from all the facts and inferences leading up 
 to these opinions relative to money, there is one thing 
 that the money power generally is agreed upon, and 
 
32 
 
 that is, that you cannot hurt gold by demonetizing 
 silver. In fact, it is the general opinion that it will 
 enhance gold values at least as much as it diminishes 
 • silver. But there are one or two considerations which 
 we may believe are overlooked, even by those who so 
 unanimously agree that gold will come unharmed 
 out of this repudiation of its ancient, continuous and 
 almost world-wide relation with silver. There is an 
 educational consideration which will have a tendency 
 to destro3 7 the people’s faith, not only in one, but in 
 both of these gods of barbarian heritage. 
 
 It has ever been easy enough for men to believe that 
 paper money must be redeemed somewhere, at some 
 time or other, with silver and gold, and must therefore 
 be a mere credit money. Metal money has always 
 appeared to the masses of men to be solid value, and 
 its chink has been the voice of the god of worldly 
 power, not alone to the thoughtless and-miserly, but 
 also to many of the wise and good of all past ages. 
 Yet the downfall of idolatry is always assured when 
 you have proved to the heathen that even one of his 
 many images is a deceptive heritage of dead material, 
 void of the attributes ascribed to it. Jupiter, the king 
 of the gods, and Juno, the mother of finance, reigned 
 over the Roman Pantheon for untold ages; but when 
 her virtue became doubtful, lo, the sacrifices to him 
 were a thing of the past! And so the god of gold may 
 cease to receive the homage of men, when they learn 
 that the divinity of value resides not in the gold and 
 silver. There is a sort of eye-opener that has not been 
 counted on in this repudiation of silver values. 
 
33 
 
 Another result of the downfall of idolatry has always 
 been to cause men to worship a truer source of life and 
 its blessings. And so it might come to pass that if 
 this fetish of metal monej^ were destroyed, labor, the 
 true source of value and sustenance, would take a more 
 exalted place in the world’s estimation. 
 
 There is a growing conviction among laboring men 
 everywhere that they have over them an inexorable 
 master, whose power to shape their own and their chil¬ 
 dren's destiny is, by its ubiquitous control of modern 
 methods of production and distribution of their own 
 needs, becoming more and more absolute. There is 
 also a general distrust of all political and financial 
 movements as being merely selfish schemes of special 
 classes to cheat the masses. These considerations, 
 with the known advantages which legislation, by dis¬ 
 honoring law, has given to such methods in the past 
 —and with this “ Gold-standard-of-single-gold-value” 
 edition of the same sort coming on—these, together 
 with the inevitable friction which inequalities of rights 
 and moral status must produce, will rouse and keep 
 alive in every honest, independent soul, that natural 
 agitator of the rights of man, the love of liberty ! 
 
 But it is evident that liberty, without a reasonable 
 amount of property, and a tolerably sure way of sus¬ 
 taining life, is only a name. And this is a truth that 
 society and civilization must ever confirm. Because 
 these must recognize the right of man to the fruits of his 
 own industry,and conform their customs and laws to this 
 fundamental principle in equity of all social compacts. 
 
34 
 
 Hence, anarchy and monopoly are extremes, fatal 
 alike to liberty and property. The anarchist arrogates 
 to himself lihei’ty to destroy life, and the monopolist 
 arrogates to himself property to destroy liberty. There¬ 
 fore society, as a matter of self preservation, has the 
 right to protect itself against either one or both of these 
 extremes. And this, if nothing else, precludes the right 
 of society to be bound to any system of finance or 
 fetiches of metal value, controlled by monopolies that 
 appropriate the fruits of industry, and thereby control 
 the lives and liberties of the people. 
 
 The cream of all social advantages is the right of a 
 man to use his own private judgment, and to possess 
 his own earnings. In other words, liberty and pro¬ 
 perty, as a result of man’s own thought and industry, 
 are, under social forms of government, the highest 
 attainments possible to the economy of human life. 
 The equal right of all mankind to these is reason’s 
 remedy against tyranny; and, if individuality and 
 social union—nature’s basis for all human life—survive 
 until that life fulfills its capabilities on earth, then must 
 liberty and property prevail at last. 
 
 Hence, in a people’s government like ours—the truest 
 sponsor for this highest aim—there must be power 
 and purpose in the common mind of the great body 
 politic,to form its own judgments, to labor for its own 
 property, and also to maintain the right to both judg¬ 
 ments and property. 
 
 JOSEPH ALFRED WHEALDON, 
 
 Nasel, Washington State.