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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Class 
 
 Book Volume 
 
 Y-GSSc 
 
 Je 07-10M 
 
* — — 1 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 On the Currency. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD D. LINTON ^ GEORGE V. DRURY. 
 
 The question to be met and settled, now is, Shall money continue to 
 rule and curse mankind, or shall it be made to serve and bless ? 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 HENRY CAREY BAIRD & CO., 
 Industrial Publishers, Booksellers and Importers, 
 810 WALNUT STREET. 
 
 1878. 
 
 Price, 25 Cents. The usual discount by the hundred. 
 
 “ The two greatest inventions of the human mind are writing and 
 money, — the common language of intelligence, and the common 
 language of self-interest.” — Marquis de Mirabeau. 
 
 “The most important function of money is to represent services 
 rendered.” — Charles Moran. 
 
 “Labor is the ultimate price paid for everything. Labor, therefore, 
 is the real measure of exchangeable value of all commodities.” — 
 Adam Smith. 
 
 “The instrument of exchange now in existence, metalic or paper, 
 convertible or legal tender, does not possess qualities adapted to the 
 purposes of justice. A dollar represents various amounts of labor- 
 time in various departments of serviceable exertion, so that commo- 
 dities are sold and services remunerated at the most disproportionate 
 rates, and therefore most unjustly.”— T homas J. Durant. 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
 l 
 
 
, ■■> •' 'M 
 
 ■ *-• 
 
CONVERSATIONS 
 
 On the Currency. 
 
 BY 
 
 » 
 
 EDWARD D. LINTON GEORGE V. DRURY. 
 
 The question to be met and settled, now is, Shall money continue to 
 rule and curse mankind, or shall it be made to serve and bless ? 
 
 “The two greatest inventions of the human mind are writing and 
 money, — the common language qf intelligence, and the common 
 language of self-interest.” — Marquis !deMirabeau. 
 
 “The most important function of money is to represent services 
 rendered.” — Charles Moran. 
 
 “Labor is the ultimate price paid for everything. Labor, therefore, 
 is the real measure of exchangeable value of all commodities.” — 
 Adam Smith. 
 
 “ The instrument of exchange now in existence, metalic or paper, 
 convertible or legal tender, does not possess qualities adapted to the 
 purposes of justice. A dollar represents various amounts of labor- 
 time in various departments of serviceable exertion, so that commo- 
 dities are sold and services remunerated at the most disproportionate 
 rates, and therefore most unjustly.”— T homas J. Durant. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 W. F. BROWN & CO., PRINTERS 
 1878. 
 
Tho author believes that a true and civilized Money is necessarily and 
 fundamentally connected with other great questions underlying what is 
 called government; that ownership in natural wealth, having boon acqui- 
 esced in through ignorance up to tho present time, has so vitiated all mon- 
 ies based on this false idea, that civilization can fully extricate itself from 
 barbarism only by returning to first principles and taking a new depart- 
 ure, beginning with money based upon absolute Equity. Henco he deemed 
 it necessary to open tho subject with a statement of what appear to him 
 self-evident principles, leaving all others free to reject his conclusions if 
 they can. If, however, they prove to bo self-evident to others as to him- 
 self, ho hopes not to be found fault with because ho finds these principles 
 in nature or tho Divine law, and states them as he finds them. 
 
 Tho subjects embraced in the following brief pages are commanding 
 more attention and discussion in Europe and America at the present time 
 than at any former period; and the most notable thing about it is, that 
 those who have given it tho most thoughtful consideration have, so far as is 
 known to the writer, invariably arrived at the conclusion that the social 
 and political problems now agitating the public mind all center in the Land 
 and Finance questions, where only their solutions will bo found: and the 
 time seems to have fully come when the elementary principles underlying 
 those great questions should be explicitly stated, and measures proposed 
 which are vital and decisive in their character. An attempt is hero made 
 to supply this demand, and should it fail, wholly or partly, to meet the 
 requirements of our times, it is hoped that it may at least prompt more 
 successful efforts. 
 
 But these statements and propositions have not been put forth without 
 much and careful deliberation, and tho endorsement of many industrious 
 students of human affairs ; and they are now submitted to more general 
 judgment. 
 
 The theory of government in this country differs from the theory of 
 governments in the old world; but land tenures, the financial, commercial, 
 social, military and naval systems of monarchical and despotic govern- 
 ments, whieh are a thousand times more potential for good or for evil than 
 any form of government, have been copied and adopted by us, and we 
 are reaping the bitter fruits of those semi-barbarous usages; and when 
 this continent becomes half as densely populated as Europe, there will be 
 no perceptible difference in the condition of the people of the two contin- 
 ents, unless these things are changed. We want all monarchical leven 
 expurgated from among us; and our government, and all its practical 
 workings, thoroughly brought into accord with the great principles un- 
 derlying the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 The great overshadowing curse of all nations and peoples has been and 
 is that labor, especially women’s labor, is not equitably rewarded. 
 
ydS.^c, 
 
 * 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 On all hands ’t is admitted that the Currency 
 Question is the supreme issue of the hour, and that 
 it must receive a final settlement at the hands of the 
 American people goes without saying. We have 
 entered the new political period, — the third and 
 greatest of the critical stages in the evolution of this 
 nation, — that is to deal with this specific matter. 
 
 The right adjustment of the claims of labor — the 
 equitable distribution of the products of labor — 
 greater questions than these never confronted the 
 American people. We may resolve these great 
 problems by instituting a scientific instrument of 
 commerce — equitable money. This little book has 
 reason to be, in that it shows how such instrument 
 may be instituted, and reveals to us what will no 
 doubt prove in practice, the final solution of the cur- 
 rency question. 
 
 It is also conceded by the leading thinkers of 
 
 
4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 our time that the state must assume control of the 
 railroads and run them in the interests of the people. 
 It is shown in these pages hoiu this may be equitably 
 effected ; and the plan, entirely original with Mr. 
 Linton, will no doubt be historically realized in the 
 future development of our railroad system. 
 
 All students of equity are also indebted to Mr. 
 Linton for the extension of the Labor Note princi- 
 ple till it is made to cover all the requirements of a 
 National Currency. It is our humble opinion that 
 this achievement will entitle him to remembrance, 
 when the accepted writers, of to-day, on money sub- 
 jects shall have been forgotten. 
 
 E. B. M. 
 
PROPOSED BASIS FOR AMERICAN 
 LEGISLATION. 
 
 It is time we had Truth for authority, instead of Authority for truth. — 
 Ldcretia Mott. 
 
 PRINCIPLES WHICH SEEM TO BE SELF-EVIDENT. 
 
 1. That every human being has an equal and inal- 
 ienable right to all natural wealth, viz., land, air, water, 
 light, and all other primitive productions of the earth, 
 and to the free and unrestricted use of them so far as is 
 necessary for his or her maintenance ; and, therefore, no 
 human being can have any right to sell or convey any of 
 these to his fellow, and can rightfully traffic only in his 
 or her own time and labor and the products of the same, 
 and in sacrifices made and risks incurred. 
 
 2. That every person of sane mind and capable of 
 self-support is rightful sovereign of his or her own per- 
 son , property and responsibilities , and has a right to repel, 
 and to combine with others and form a government to 
 repel, all aggressors upon these sovereign rights — be 
 they individuals, or organizations called governments ; 
 but to go beyond this is to become, in turn, aggressive 
 and criminal. 
 
 3. That no powers or functions can be delegated to 
 any government which each individual does not himself 
 or herself possess. 
 
 4. That all governments exercising any powers not 
 
6 
 
 BASIS FOR 
 
 specifically delegated to them by the persons governed are 
 usurpations. 
 
 5. That what one person may rightfully do many 
 persons may rightfully do as a society or state, but what 
 is wrong or criminal in an individual is just as wrong 
 and criminal in a state or nation ; and what one person 
 may rightfully do lie may delegate power to another to 
 do for him ; but as no person has any right to give, 
 grant, or sell land, but only his improvements thereon, 
 no such right can be delegated to an}' government ; and 
 therefore all “ titles ” to land (except the usefuf occupa- 
 tion or culture of the same) , are illegal and void. 
 
 6. That “profits” beyond compensation for service 
 performed — that is, speculation in the products of labor — 
 arc indefensible on any principle of justice, and that only 
 service performed in the production, transportation or 
 vending of commodities, time employed in rendering ser- 
 vice, sacrifices made and risks incurred, are legitimate 
 subjects of price at all ; and that price should be an 
 equivalent for such time, service or sacrifice. In other 
 words, “ Costs should be the Limit of Price.”* 
 
 7. That labor or service for labor or sendee, in equi- 
 table exchange, will make civilization a condition of 
 peace, plenty and security, instead of a condition of war, 
 poverty and insecurity (which latter is mainly the con- 
 dition of all human society at present) , and a circulating 
 medium (or money) which does not secure the equitable 
 
 * Time employed, sacrifices made and risks incurred in lending money, 
 are each and all entitled to equitable compensation; but “interest” on 
 money is barbarous, vicious and oppressive. 
 
 Time is always employed in lending or letting buildings, machinery, 
 Ac., Ac., and everything that is loaned, is generally attended with risk, 
 sometimes with sacrifice, and (money excepted) always with wear and de- 
 cay; all of which is Cost in the sente in which the word is herein used, 
 and is entitled to compensation. 
 
LEGISLATION. 
 
 7 
 
 exchange of labor is spurious and vicious, and belongs 
 to the barbarous past. Money should be a promise of a 
 known and expressed quantity of labor or service of a 
 definite kind, and which will procure for us from day to 
 day and from year to year the same amount of labor or 
 service that we gave for it. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 The popular errors of so called political economists, 
 and of men claiming to be statesmen, viz., that “ de- 
 mand and supply should regulate price,” and that 
 “money should be the measure of value,” are not only 
 totally irreconcilable with the sacred principle of Equity, 
 and equally at variance with the maxim 4 4 do unto others 
 as you would have others do unto you,” but are mon- 
 strous falsities, as the subjugated and impoverished con- 
 dition of the producers of wealth everywhere testifies. 
 The law of demand and supply should have no more to 
 do with regulating price than it has with regulating the 
 weather. 44 Demand” should regulate 44 supply ,” but 
 not price. 
 
 If an} r one thinks that money should be the measure 
 of value, will he please to tell how much money it will 
 take to measure the value of a cup of cold water to a 
 man famishing with thirst ? 
 
 We want a money that will measure Costs, and not 
 values; and the money now used in the United States 
 may be made to do that, perhaps to a satisfactory degree, 
 b} T issuing it and redeeming it on the Cost principle, as 
 hereinafter proposed ; and the intelligent reader will 
 understand in what sense the word Cost is here used. 
 
 MEASURES. 
 
 If the foregoing principles are sound, it is certainly 
 desirable to understand and act upon them ; and though 
 
8 
 
 BASIS FOR 
 
 we cannot hope to bring them at once into practice, we 
 can at least take action which will tend in the right di- 
 rection. 
 
 First of all, onr legislators must be made to recognize 
 and bear in mind that they are elected to act as Agents, 
 and not as masters , of their constituents ; and that the 
 greatest service they can perform for the people just 
 now is to remove the obstacles they have placed in the 
 way of successful life. 
 
 Among these are the laws prohibiting individual or 
 free banking, and giving the monopoly of furnishing a 
 circulating medium to corporations, and delivering the 
 public lands into the hands of speculators, and thercb}” 
 laying a foundation for a landed aristocracy in this coun- 
 try,* which must inevitably pauperize the nation, as it 
 has done other nations. 
 
 Herein the right of an}’ person, potentate, king, or 
 government of any kind, to give any further titles to 
 land is denied, and solemnty protested against now and 
 evermore ; but the right to occupy and cultivate any 
 land unoccupied or uncultivated, and to give, sell and 
 convey such improvements, should be protected by the 
 whole power of all the people. 
 
 The millions of acres given to railroad speculators 
 within the last ten years must be restored to the pub- 
 lic domain; and, as a means to this and other great 
 ends, it is proposed to tax all lands alike — not by the 
 value , but b}^ the acre, whether improved and occupied or 
 not ; and that all other modes of raising revenue for the 
 
 * A Lucky Senator. Forty years ago Simon Cameron purchased for 
 $100 a spur of the Broad Mountain in Pennsylvania. It is now worth 
 $1,000,000. Coal has been mined out of it for thirty-five years, and he 
 has realized in the shape of royalty about $100 a day. — [Newspaper.] 
 
LEGISLATION. 
 
 9 
 
 support of the National Government except the tax on 
 incomes be abandoned. 
 
 And we demand that our legislative agents immedi- 
 ately look to the abolition of all statutes interfering 
 with, or dictating, directly or indirectly (by tarifFs), 
 what we shall eat, what we shall drink, or wherewith we 
 shall be clothed. 
 
 Our Postal System should be overhauled — so that, 
 instead of a mass of absurd rules, continually changing, 
 and impossible to be understood and remembered, and 
 instead of friendly correspondence being taxed twelve 
 times as much as the advertisements of speculators and 
 the schemes of office seekers, all matter passing through 
 the Post Office should he taxed impartial!}-, one item for 
 bandage and another in proportion to weight — both to- 
 gether balancing the Costs necessarily incurred. 
 
 THE NATIONAL DEBT. 
 
 As the late war had its origin in injustice to labor, 
 and was conducted mainly in the interests of specula- 
 tors, property holders, office holders and office seekers, 
 the national debt should be paid by them , instead of by 
 the workers, who have nothing but insufficient wages to 
 live on. 
 
 MEASURES CONCERNING MONEY. 
 
 Specific Payments better than Specie Payments. 
 
 1. The repeal of all statutes prohibiting any citizens 
 from becoming bankers. 
 
 2. The issuing by the National Government of prom- 
 isor}^ notes (similar to “greenbacks”), to the amount of 
 the Cost of the Postal business of the United States 
 (say twenty-five millions of dollars per annum) , and re- 
 ceivable in payment for Postal service and all other gov- 
 ernment dues. 
 
10 
 
 BASIS FOR 
 
 3. That the National or State governments furnish 
 Railroad transit for freight and passengers at Cost (pre- 
 cisely as it has alwa}’s done the Postal business), and 
 that they issue promisory notes for railroads purchased, 
 and for the labor and material employed in constructing 
 others, to the amount of the Cost of said roads and 
 management, and redeemable in such railroad service 
 and all other government dues. 
 
 To this end the government must purchase all existing 
 railroads at an equitable price, or build new ones paral- 
 lel with those already existing, and build new ones 
 wherever needed. 
 
 4. That the National or State governments take pos- 
 session by equitable purchase, of all the mines and 
 quarries of every description within the jurisdiction of 
 the United States, and work them at Cost ; and that 
 they issue promisor} 7 notes (similar to greenbacks), in 
 pajunent for the purchase, labor, material, and manage- 
 ment of such mines and quarries, to the amount of the 
 Costs thereof, and redeemable in the products of said 
 mines and quarries at Cost price, and also for all gov- 
 ernment dues.* 
 
 5. That the National or State governments furnish 
 the telegraphing of the country on the foregoing princi- 
 ple. 
 
 * Overwhelming reasons in favor of these measures will be found in the 
 frequent and horrible tragedies on the railroads and in the mines, and 
 the systematic extortion practised upon the whole people by mining and 
 railroad speculators 
 
 The San Francisco Bulletin thinks that the Rothschilds, who have a 
 thirty years’ lease of the Almaden quicksilver mines in Spain, and a 
 monopoly of the sale of quicksilver in London have now virtually ob- 
 tained control of the New Almaden mines in California, whereby it says, 
 “a single house will have the monopoly of all the quicksilver mines in 
 the world. New Idria will be swept into the same current, if it has not 
 been already; and as for the other small mines, they will be gobbled up 
 when the time comes.” 
 
LEGISLATION. 
 
 11 
 
 6. That wherever gas or water is introduced to sup- 
 ply large towns and cities, it should be done by the 
 town and city corporations on the same principle. 
 
 7. That the government (State or National) provide 
 storehouses (as it now provides warehouses for the stor- 
 age of imported goods) where labor products (not too 
 perishable) may be deposited, and treasury notes (sim- 
 ilar to greenbacks) issued to the depositor to the 
 amount of 50 per cent., promising, not only dollars, but 
 the commodities themselves, in definite quality and 
 quantity, estimated and priced at the labor cost of the 
 same. 
 
 These departments of business, if managed by the 
 National, State, or Municipal government, as the Postal 
 business is now conducted, would probably furnish all 
 the circulating medium or currency necessary, and there 
 could never be too much, unless there can be too many 
 deeds of real estate, because not a dollar of it would be is- 
 sued by the government until after the service or commo- 
 dity was deposited in custody of the government in which 
 every dollar is to be redeemed. It would be the safest 
 and soundest possible ; it would be issued and redeemed 
 naturally and without interest, and would put a stop to' 
 speculation — the spoliator of legitimate business and the 
 plunderer of the producers of wealth. It would enhance 
 the production, the business, and consequent wealth of 
 the county probably ten fold, and make it possible for 
 every person to have all the comforts and elegancies of 
 life. In other words, poverty would soon be abolished, 
 peace would prevail, and security of person and propert}’ 
 be established, and millionaires and paupers would be- 
 come extinct. 
 
12 
 
 BASIS FOR 
 
 Hours of labor not to exceed eight per day, on any 
 public works. 
 
 The following is the reading of the kind of monej' pro- 
 posed, of the denomination of One Dollar, without the 
 vignette : — 
 
 | The United States promise to 
 pay One Dollar to bearer on de- 
 mand in — cwt. (or tons) of Pig 
 iron at the mine. 
 
 This note is receivable for all 
 debts due the United States. 
 
 The United States promise to 
 pay One Dollar to bearer on de- 
 mand. in — o z. of unalloyed 
 Silver at the U. S Treasury. 
 
 This note is receivable lor all 
 debts due the United St ites. 
 
 The United States promise to 
 pay One Dollar to bearer on de- 
 mand fn — lbs. of Copper at the 
 mine. 
 
 This note is receivable for all 
 debts due the United States. 
 
 The United States promise to 
 pay to bearer on demand One 
 Dollar in — grains of Gold, 18 
 carets fine, at the U S. T reasuiy.f 
 This note is receivable for all 
 debts due the United States. 
 
 The United States promise to pay 
 One Dollar to bearer on demand 
 in freight or passage on any U.S. 
 railroad, at the rate of — cents 
 per mile for one passenger, or 
 — cents per cwt. for freight # 
 This note is receivable for all 
 debts due the Uuited States. 
 
 The United States prom se to pay 
 One Dollar to bearer on demand 
 in — cwt. of anthracite or other 
 Coal at the mine. 
 
 This note is receivable for all 
 debts due the United States. 
 
 In case of wheat deposited by a farmer, let the note 
 read as follows : 
 
 The United States will pay One 
 
 Dollar to bearer on demand in 
 
 bushels of Illinois Fall Wheat at 
 U. S. No. 1 Storehouse, No. 12 Riv- 
 er St., Chicago, 111. 
 
 This note receivable for all debts 
 due the United States. 
 
 A “ dollar,” as now used, is no more the measure of 
 
 * Notes of this kind (that is, receivable in railroad service,) would be 
 issued by the Secretary of the Treasury, and forwarded by him to the 
 Superintendent or President of railroads, to be paid out by bis order for 
 railroad purposes and no other; and all other notes to be forwarded in 
 like manner to their respective places. 
 
 f Let it be remembered that all service or commodities promised by the 
 government in redemption of its notes should, in the absence of positive 
 knowledge, be based upon estimates that will be sure to cover the Costs. 
 Experience, however, will furnish that knowledge, and then, if the esti- 
 mates are not correct, the notes should be called in, and others issued in 
 their place, just covering costs. 
 
LEGISLATION. 
 
 13 
 
 either “ costs” or “ values ” than an india rubber yard- 
 stick would be the measure of cloth. The kind of notes 
 above proposed promise something definite to measure 
 the dollar by, and it is thought that the different kinds 
 of labor or service, and commodities included in the fore- 
 going notes, may be sufficient to compare all other labor 
 to, and to measure it by ; and that therefore all notes 
 issued by the government for other purposes ma}", per- 
 haps, safely conform to the “ greenbacks” now in circu- 
 lation, with the exceptions of the “ legal tender ” clause, 
 and the gold interest and gold payment on duties on 
 import clauses. 
 
 The following is the reading of the notes proposed, to 
 take the place of the “ greenbacks” now in circulation 
 
 The Unbed States promise to 
 pay to bearer One Dollar. 
 
 This note is receiv tble for all 
 debts due the United States. 
 
 Nothing should be a “legal tender” between citizens 
 except what was agreed upon by the contracting parties. 
 A contract, to be of any binding force, should be, 
 
 1st. Possible of fulfillment. 
 
 2d. Understood alike by both or all parties to it. 
 
 3d. It should be jtjst. 
 
 If any of the States or Municipalities within the United 
 States undertake the ownership and management of any 
 of the enterprises proposed in the preceeding pages, 
 (which it is no doubt very desirable they should, if 
 they would do it on the Cost principle), the money 
 should be furnished by the United States, at Cost, on 
 the credit of the State or Municipality, in a way similar 
 to that by which it now furnishes National Bank Notes 
 
 tThe present national banking system is an unmitigated fraud upon 
 the people, and should be immediately abolshed; and banking, on the 
 “ Cost” principle should be unrestricted. 
 
 / 
 
14 
 
 BASIS FOR LEGISLATION. 
 
 to each of the 2,000 banks in the countiy, every separate 
 bank having different reading upon its notes, and yet it 
 is a national currency, which every one seems to insist 
 upon having, and circulates without question through- 
 out the country. 
 
 The money here proposed would circulate the same, 
 without question, and 3’et it would be stable in its charac- 
 ter, perfectly reliable, and positively redeemable. 
 
 A circulating medium, or money thus furnished by the 
 government, would so instruct the whole people as to 
 what civilized mone} r should be, that, at no distant day, 
 public opinion would demand that all business owned 
 and managed by individuals or companies should be con- 
 ducted on the “ Cost” principle : and land tenures being 
 based onty upon useful occupation or culture, and all lands 
 not so occupied being restored to the public domain, a 
 government simply of business agents would be all the 
 government that would be needed. 
 
CONVERSATIONS ON CURRENCY. 
 
 I. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 My Dear Linton , — I duly received }’our pamphlet 
 relating to the monetary question. But I find it so 
 highly condensed that to me there are many parts which, 
 on the first reading, appear to be unintelligible. To 
 yourself, who have long thought over this question, and 
 whose mind is matured by ripe reflection, doubtless all 
 your propositions are clear ; but to a mind like m3’ own, 
 which has been drifting upon the sea of uncertaint3’, 
 with no well-defined method of investigation which I 
 could apply to the subject — having listened to all pro- 
 posed treatments of the financial malad} r , which are so 
 multifarious and varied, that nothing but chaos has re- 
 sulted, — I repeat, to a mind like my own, }'our proposi- 
 tions require explanation and amplification : and, know- 
 ing that 3 T our onl}’ object in writing the pamphlet, was 
 to instruct, I write 3’ou hoping that }*ou will explain 
 such parts as are not clear to me. I feel perfect^ sure 
 that 3’ou will fully dwell on all that relates to the Indus- 
 trial foundation of societ}", from the fact that I read in 
 the Introductory to 3-our pamphlet, the following words : 
 “ The great overshadowing curse of all nations and peo- 
 
1G 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 pies has been, and is, that labor — especially women's 
 labor — is not equitably rewarded.” Therefore, I pre- 
 sume that you will accept the Industrial formula — as 
 opposed to the teaching of the economists — “that Labor, 
 which creates all wealth, is entitled to all the wealth 
 which it creates ,' 9 and pre-supposing your entire ac- 
 ceptance of the correctness of that proposition, I return 
 to the introductory to }’Our pamphlet, in which } r ou sa}' 
 that those who have given these subjects attention and 
 “thoughtful consideration, so far as is known to the 
 writer, invariably arrived at the conclusion that the 
 social and political problems now agitating the public 
 mind all centre in the land and finance questions, 
 where only their solutions will be found ; and the time 
 seems to have fully come when the elementary princi- 
 ples underlying these great questions should be expli- 
 citl} T stated, and measures proposed which are decisive 
 and vital in their character.” The first inquiry there- 
 fore, that I would make would be this — How can you 
 separate the land question from the financial question? 
 seeing that, in the actual state of society, land is used 
 and treated as a commodity, and like all other com- 
 modities is governed, regulated, and rendered subject to 
 the power of a false monetary sj'stem. Land being 
 treated as a commodity, bought, sold, exchanged and mo- 
 nopolized, like all other commodities, and the medium of 
 exchange in the commodity of land being the same as 
 the ‘ ‘ medium of exchange ” for all other commodities — 
 how does it appear that the land question is in any way 
 separate from the financial question ? If land is treated 
 (whether correctly or justly or not) as a commodity, 
 and the medium of exchange is the instrument by which 
 the commodity (land) is monopolized by speculators 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 17 
 
 and holders of the “ medium of exchange,” or currency , 
 or money , as all other commodities are monopolized, in 
 what does land differ from an} T other commodity in fact . 
 If, in fact, the commodity land is subject to the influ- 
 ence of the monopoly of the present ‘ ‘ medium of ex- 
 change,’ J or money, or currency, alike with all other 
 commodities, whj r not reduce at once, and without any 
 distinction, the whole question to its primitive element ? 
 Why call it the land and currency questions when it is 
 simply the currency question ? If the land question is 
 found to play but a secondary part, and the currency 
 question is found to play a primary part — why divide 
 the question ? why not say at once and without fear of 
 contradiction, that the currency question is the pivotal 
 question upon which the distribution of the results of 
 labor turns, — that while a system of currency or circula- 
 ting medium of exchange exists, which enables those 
 who perform no labor to monopolize a portion of the 
 results of the labor performed by others, whether their 
 possessions be in land or in money, the result is identi- 
 cal and eminently unjust, and that therefore the land 
 and currency questions are nearly synonymous ; that the 
 land question is the secondary question, that the Financial 
 (or medium of exchange) question is the primary ques- 
 tion, and that, therefore, the establishment of a just and 
 equitable monetary s} T stem would resolve the land diffi- 
 culty. Awaiting your repty, I remain, 
 
 Hastily 3'ours, 
 
 Drury. 
 
 Linton to Drury: 
 
 My Dear Friend Drury , — Thanking you for your 
 kindlv criticisms on my pamphlet, I dare say you will 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 indulge me in a few preliminar}” remarks before proceed- 
 ing to reply definitely to your questions. 
 
 First of all, then, it seems to me very important that 
 we should strenuousty endeavor to simplify instead of 
 complicating the great subjects under consideration, and 
 disentangle ourselves from ancient sophisms and modern 
 logic. But how do this except by getting outside, so far 
 as possible, of traditions, customs, institutions and stat- 
 utes of mankind, and planting ourselves upon the pri- 
 mary or natural laws which are absolute and eternal? 
 Now, one of these primary laws is the law of order. If 
 we do not observe this, we shall inevitabty fall into con- 
 fusion. 
 
 These remarks would bring me direct^ to answer 3’our 
 first inquiry, were it not that I wish to reply briefly to 
 a preceding passage in 3’our letter, viz: “ I presume 
 3’ou will accept the Industrial formula — ‘that labor, 
 which creates all wealth, is entitled to all the wealth it 
 creates.’ ” 
 
 In passing allow me to say that, owing to the imper- 
 fection of language, and the difficulty of combing ideas 
 in ivords , I deem it hazardous to attempt the art or trick 
 of formulating, because the formulas which have stood, 
 or will ever stand, the test of close scrutiny I am confi- 
 dent would not exceed the hundredth part of one per 
 cent. 
 
 Labor, in the broad sense in which we use that term, 
 is undoubtedly “entitled to all the wealth it creates,” 
 but labor does not create all the wealth. We live and 
 move and have our being on a globe abounding with 
 wealth from its centre to its “ outer air,” and which ex- 
 isted, almost as perfect as now, before human inhabi- 
 tants were possible. I will venture to sa3 r , without at- 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 19 
 
 tempting to formulate, that every human being has an 
 equal and inalienable right to the use of this wealth, and 
 that it* can be rightfully appropriated by those, and only 
 those, who are willing to bestow their time and labor 
 upon it. This is the price which our mother nature de- 
 mands from all who wish to gather wealth from her great 
 storehouse, and “ he or she who climbs up anj T other 
 way the same is a thief and a robber.” 
 
 I come now to your first inquir}", to wit : ‘ ‘ How 
 can you separate the land from the financial question? 
 seeing that land is used and treated as a commoditj’, 
 and like all other commodities is governed, regulated 
 and rendered subject to the power of a false monetary 
 system,” etc., etc. 
 
 If no man held land, minerals, or materials of any 
 kind except by a labor title, then costs onty (such as la- 
 bor, services and sacrifices incurred) , would be trafficked 
 in or exchanged, and then the medium of exchange would 
 be the only question to discuss ; but land was monopo- 
 lzed and the whole known surface of the earth appro- 
 priated before money was in use at all ; and this virus 
 has insinuated itself into and through every material 
 thing upon which labor is bestowed, and into and through 
 every fibre of civilized society ; and therefore we not 
 only exchange our labor for the labor of others through 
 the fraudulent money hitherto in use, leaving two-fifths 
 of our labor in the hands of the money changers, while 
 one-fifth goes to pa}’ for land and all other natural wealth 
 appropriated and held by false and vicious titles ; and 
 hence, whether the land question is fijjgt or second in im- 
 portance to the money question, it should be considered 
 by itself; and beside, when you say “if the land ques- 
 tion is found to play but a secondary part, and the cur- 
 
20 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 rency question is found to play a primary part, why di- 
 vide the question ?” you admit they are two questions, 
 and because thej r are two questions, they should be 
 treated separately, if the land question is to be treated 
 at all. 
 
 I think, however, that the land question will be found 
 to be first in importance, as well as first in the order of 
 events ; for, until the divine or natural law respecting 
 land is understood and accepted, no monetary system 
 can have a sound and natural basis, and like a one- 
 wheeled chariot, I fear u our financial s}"stem” will have 
 to be “regulated” and propelled by the financial states- 
 manship of the United States Senate and House of Rep- 
 resentatives. And I fear also, unless this land question 
 is distinctl}' and correct!}" settled in our minds, the best 
 of us will be continually getting mixed about natural 
 and created wealth, like children who think that houses 
 and trees both grow out of the ground. 
 
 It is true that “the establishment of a just and equi- 
 table monetary system would, in time, resolve the land 
 difficulty,” and settle the labor question ; yet a strictly 
 equitable monetar}" system cannot, at one bound, be 
 reached ; and all that is proposed in my pamphlet is to 
 insert a new element into the circulating medium of ex- 
 change, basing it upon labor instead of “traffic,” and 
 issuing it only in payment for labor or service, or the 
 product of the same, and redeemable only (but with cer- 
 taintj*) in the labor, service, or product for which it is 
 issued, thus definitely qualifying the dollar or dollars 
 which now stand for nothing but numerals upon the face 
 of the greenbacks and national bank notes. It proposes 
 “ a little leaven with which to leaven the whole lump.” 
 
 If there could be gold and silver coin enough to meet 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 21 
 
 all the demands of trade, and greenbacks issued, dollar 
 for dollar and only dollar for dollar, on all coin deposited 
 in the United States Treasuiy, so that for every paper 
 dollar in circulation there would be a dollar in coin on de- 
 posit in the United States Treasury to redeem it with, I 
 think the extreme 4 4 bullionists ” and the extreme infla- 
 tionists could be made to join hands and be at peace. 
 This cannot be done, however, simply because gold and 
 silver enough to effect the exchanges cannot be produced, 
 and even if it could be, it would be gobbled up and 
 hoarded and thus monopolized. But the money pro- 
 posed in my pamphlet would be just such a money, so 
 far as soundness and safety is concerned, but in addi- 
 tion to gold and silver there would be from six to twelve 
 — and if the warehouse system of deposits was adopted — 
 perhaps a hundred other articles of merchandise on de- 
 posit with the United States Government, dollar for dol- 
 lar, to redeem the Treasury notes with, of as intrinsic 
 and universal value,* of as stead}* and unvarying pro- 
 duction as gold and silver ; besides three kinds of service, 
 one of which the Government will allow no one else to per- 
 form, and all of which our people must have, and are 
 always ready to pay their money for, however scarce, or 
 however high the rates of interest. 
 
 In addition to all this, however, it strictly defines the 
 quantity and quality of the gold and silver and all other 
 articles of merchandise held on deposit, as well as ser- 
 vice to be rendered in redemption of Treasury notes and 
 fixes their rates (not value) at cost to the issuer (the 
 United States) in labor or service. 
 
 In concluding this letter, permit me to say that if we 
 
 * I use the word value in this instance only as comparing it with tho 
 bullionists’ money. 
 
22 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 do not strictty adhere to the principles (and b}' principles 
 I mean alwa3 r s primary or natural' laws) underlying the 
 questions we are considering, we shall be all adrift, I 
 think, and our propositions will never attain a much 
 higher dignity than the “projects” of school girls. 
 
 Let me call } r our attention to the following paragraph : 
 “No powers or functions can be delegated to an} r gov- 
 ernment which the delegator docs not himself or herself 
 possess.” 
 
 In my judgment, to go outside of the boundaries of 
 the principle therein set forth, in anything we propose 
 for government to do in respect to money or anything 
 else, would be to “make shipwreck” of our cause, except 
 as a mere temporary expedient and choice of evils as is 
 proposed in the fifth paragraph under head of measures, 
 on page 3d. 
 
 Very truly j*ours, 
 
 E. D. Linton. 
 
 II. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend : — In your introductory to your pamphlet 
 I read “ The theory of government in this country differs 
 from the theory of government in the old w orld ; but 
 land tenures, the financial, commercial, social, military 
 and naval s3 r stems of monarchical and despotic govern- 
 ments, which are a thousand times more potential for 
 good or for evil than any form of government, have 
 been copied and adopted by' us, and we are reaping the 
 
ON CURRENCY . 
 
 23 
 
 oitter fruits of those semi-barbarous usages. We want 
 all monarchical leaven expurgated from among us.” 
 Hence you admit that the theory of this government is 
 superior to its practice, that the institutions under which 
 men live are better than the men themselves — since the 
 theory differs from the old world while the practice differs 
 not. Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Friend : — In your letter No. 2 you quote from 
 the Introductory to my pamphlet, and then add : ‘ 4 Hence 
 3 ’ou admit that the theory of this government is superior 
 to its practice, that the institutions under which men live 
 are better than the men themselves, since the theory 
 differs from the old world while the practice differs not.” 
 
 I did not mean to be understood as saying in that In- 
 troductory that the theory of our government had been 
 incorporated into the government itself in any of its 
 departments, constitutional, legislative, executive or 
 judicial. 
 
 I did not mean to say that the theory had been institu- 
 tionalized at all. It has not been, and that is what I 
 complain of, for although I would not have institutions 
 pr governments exalted above the individual, yet I do 
 not object to the one or the other so far as they can be 
 made to serve and not rule mankind. 
 
 The theory referred to is contained in the familiar 
 phrase of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold 
 these truths to be self-evident,” etc. , etc. This famous 
 Declaration was published to the world seven years be- 
 fore any systematic attempt was made to form an endur- 
 ing government. The war of the American revolution 
 
24 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 was fought out under the inspiring influence of that im- 
 mortal document ; but when victory over a veteran and 
 mighty foe crowned the efforts of the little continental 
 army, and when British subjects were transformed into 
 American citizens and resumed the prosaic work of every- 
 day life, they seemed to relapse into their former state, 
 reclining upon the past, instead of pressing forward to 
 the new idea. Hence, nothing of the principles for which 
 the Colonists had fought found its way into the structure 
 of this government, except in a feeble voice in the pre- 
 ambles of our Constitutions, State and National. 
 
 After a wearisome and exhausting war, our fathers 
 found it more convenient to search for precedents than 
 to invent new statutes and processes with which to prac- 
 ticalize the newly discovered principles of government. 
 All principles exist in nature, and the utilization of those 
 principles (after their discovery) is solely human invent 
 tion. Some, and most, perhaps, of the principles in he- 
 sphere of government have been discovered and were 
 (though rather dimly) understood by our fathers ; but 
 the} 7 attempted no invention but the ballot box, which 
 has proved very defective. It is for us, their successors, 
 to supply the machinery with which to work, or to utilize 
 those principles. This we must do or “ history will re- 
 peat itself” without end. 
 
 I think it is hard to tell when the people of a country 
 ■ collectively are better than their institutions, or their in- 
 stitutions better than the}". I think it is evident that 
 they act and re-act upon each other. But my faith and 
 hope is in this : that those who can perceive the truth, 
 whether they be few or many, have the governing power 
 in their own hands, and if faithful must triumph. Fraud 
 : and injustice is now enthroned in institutions ; these 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 25 
 
 must be dethroned and the reign of equity established. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. D. Linton. 
 
 III. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend : — The more 1 read your pamphlet the 
 more I see its force, and at the same time the more 
 forcibly I see its fault — for it is a fault — its brevity. 
 I think that if all your propositions were taken up one 
 by one, developed and explained, then, in my humble 
 opinion, the value of your pamphlet would be increased 
 an hundred fold. The “ Principles ” which you say 
 “ seem to be self-evident/’ are to me so self-evident 
 that I cannot discuss them. I can only accept them. 
 
 The many points upon which I shall have to ask for 
 information I find it impossible to take up in order. I 
 shall therefore chat to you upon just such points as 
 come uppermost in my mind. The first thing that 
 strikes me among your “measures” is that you con- 
 firm a conviction which in my mind has been settled 
 for years, viz : that the only true model of a money, 
 or currency, or circulating medium of exchange is the 
 postage stamp, for the very reason that it fulfills all the 
 conditions demanded by a money or currency or circu- 
 lating medium, viz : — 
 
 1st. Because it represents a definite and unequivocal 
 amount of service to be rendered in exchange for the 
 postage stamp. 
 
 2d. Because it is known and can be recognized by 
 
26 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 all for the integral amount of service which it bears (or 
 promises) upon its face. 
 
 3d. Because that amount of service is capable and 
 possible of fulfillment, being based upon the faith and 
 known possibilities of a public institution. 
 
 4th. Because it is just, being instituted upon the 
 cost principle. 
 
 1st. It contains the element of definite qualities. 
 
 2d. It contains the definite expression of the service 
 (or value) promised. 
 
 3d. That amount of service can be secured at any 
 moment. 
 
 4th. Its justice is incontestable, as, being based 
 upon the cost principle, it is the representative of ser- 
 vice rendered for service, or equivalent for equivalent, 
 which is Equity. 
 
 I merely call attention here to the t} T pical features of 
 the postage stamp. I will now dwell upon the function 
 which the postage stamp performs in various countries. 
 In some it is restricted to the franking of letters ; in 
 some places they are used as fractional currency in the 
 place of copper coin, and they pass current with no 
 difficulty, no more insecurit}', and no less utility than the 
 legalized currency, or money of those localities. Hence, 
 if we have a correct model , a something containing all 
 the elements which are required, and all those elements 
 perfect, I can see naught else but to reproduce the model, 
 or make another currency upon the same model, contain- 
 ing the same elements and principles. 
 
 Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Friend : — I know and admit the fault in my 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 27 
 
 pamphlet which you speak of, viz : its brevit} T , but it is 
 some comfort for me to know that this fault is as rare as 
 it is grievous. All I hoped for in its publication, in its 
 present form, was to command the attention of the 
 most thoughtful, and in this my expectations have been 
 realized. 
 
 I think those who have spent as much time in studying its 
 contents, as it would take them to read Amasa Walker’s . 
 “Science of Wealth,” have generally understood it. 
 However, it was my intention then, and is now, if I can 
 command the time and means, to do as }*ou suggest, viz : 
 take up all the propositions, one by one, and write a 
 chapter on each. 
 
 It gives me great satisfaction and encouragement to 
 see that you so well understand the nature and charac- 
 ter of the kind of money proposed. You say the only 
 true model of a true money is typified by the postage 
 stamp, and you are entirely correct in all j’ou have said 
 upon that point. Indeed, there is no new thing pro- 
 posed in that pamphlet for .the Government to do, or 
 that this and other Governments have not already done, 
 except that it proposes that these several functions which 
 Governments have performed shall be made the basis of 
 money or medium of exchange. 
 
 Now in regard to the terms used in discussing the 
 money question, the numerous terms in use are abso- 
 lutely appalling, and without stopping to enumerate 
 them, let you and I immediately “come to terms on 
 the question of terms.” Old words refer to old things, 
 and new words refer to no things until defined, and both 
 are impediments in the way of this discussion. It is 
 only then a choice of evils, and the old terms are, I 
 think, the best of the two. In the barbarous past the 
 
28 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 word money has referred to certain metals (generally 
 gold, silver and copper) made current, as a medium of 
 exchange by being coined in a government mint, and 
 stamped with the “image and superscription” of a king 
 or ruler ; in this country it is Tom, Dick and Harr}' ; 
 and therefore the idea that nothing but coin is money is 
 stamped indelibly into the minds of most living men, 
 and they think that nothing is money except that which 
 has, as they term it, an “intrinsic value,” although they 
 may have never in their lives used that value for any- 
 thing but a medium of exchange. 
 
 But let us be as brief as possible and bring this thing 
 to a point. Let us use the one term money , always de- 
 fining it to mean a circulating medium of exchange, for 
 that is all that ninety-nine people in a hundred want 
 money for ; and afterwards use the simple terms money, 
 money question, etc. 
 
 To advance out of the semi-barbarism of the present 
 requires something more than a mere medium of ex- 
 change, for that we now have, though with all its imper- 
 fections it is better than nothing, as an ass’s back was 
 better for a weary traveller than to go on foot ; but we 
 want the same scientific revolution in money that we now 
 have in locomotion ; that is, instead of one man astride 
 of an ass, we have the population of a township on a 
 train of cars or on a steamboat. And instead of a little 
 money in the hands of a few bankers, merchants and 
 manufacturers, with its value regulated by an act of 
 Congress through “limitation” or “inflation,” we want 
 a money for the whole people, regulated by the day’s or 
 hour’s work bestowed upon the products or service in 
 which the money is to be redeemed, deposited in safe 
 hands for redemption ; which will enable all the people 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 29 
 
 to exchange merchandize, or the products of their labor, 
 as readily and as equitably as two farmers or two car- 
 penters Can exchange work. 
 
 AVe hear much clamor about the “ faith and integrity 
 of the nation,” “keeping the national faith,” “honest 
 money,” &c., emanating from the political church. 
 “Keeping faith” with an “ honest money ” which does 
 not even pretend to pay more than one dollar in gold or 
 silver for every ten promises to pay of paper, and a sure 
 suspension of payments altogether in from five to ten 
 years ! I fear no one will believe in the sincerity of any 
 utterances after this, but while we must talk and discuss 
 before we can effect a change * we must use these words 
 even though shysters and hucksters have profaned the 
 holy name of honesty. 
 
 An absolutely equitable and honest money is indis- 
 pensable to freedom and a true civilzation. This means 
 not only a medium of exchange, but an equitable me- 
 dium of exchange. 
 
 This cannot be attained without a labor basis, not of 
 one kind, but of many kinds, so that the monopoly of 
 money and interest on money (institutionized as now) 
 will be impossible ; therefore the material of which it is 
 made must be as costless as possible, for it is an equi- 
 table medium of exchange which is wanted and not an 
 exchange of the material of which the money is made. 
 The material, therefore, must be paper or parchment for 
 the integers, and nearly costless metals for the fractions ; 
 and the inscription must be triune in character, partak- 
 ing of the character of a deed of real estate, a certifi- 
 cate of stock, and a note of hand ; and must be as 
 specific and definite as any and all of these. 
 
 It must be like a deed, because the holder of the 
 
30 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 money must be the owner of the commodity deposited 
 for its redemption, and not the custodian of the com- 
 modity. It must be like a certificate of stock, because 
 it must not only certify ownership, but it must be trans- 
 ferable. It must be like a note of hand, because it must 
 be of the nature of a contract ; and last, though not 
 least, it must be just, understood alike by all parties 
 concerned, and possible of fulfillment, otherwise, it would 
 be void in equity, and not an honest money. 
 
 At the conclusion of your letter }*ou say: “Money is 
 already regarded, in the general sense, as being pos- 
 sessed of four elements or powers : 1st, the power to rep- 
 resent value ; 2d, the power to measure value ; 3d, the 
 power to exchange value ; 4th, the power to accumulate 
 value b\ r interest.” This is intended to be true of the 
 present huckster money, which is just the instrument for 
 traffic among Islimaelites, but not for exchange among 
 friends. 
 
 Now let us see how far it is true of the present mone} r . 
 It represents value, but not with definiteness. It does 
 not measure value , and cannot ; nor can an}^ monej'. 
 It exchanges values fraudulentty and viciousty, and 
 taints everything it touches with the virus of an asp. 
 It accumulates values by interest, and there is no name 
 for the crime it thus commits. If I were to attempt to 
 coin a word to express that crime, I should take the 
 initial letters of every crime in the catalogue of crimes, 
 and make a word of those letters. 
 
 Money has but one function which would be of any 
 consequence to any nation or people exalted to the stand- 
 ard of righteousness, and that is : To be the medium for 
 the equitable exchange of labor. But the transforma- 
 tion that a money performing that function would make 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 31 
 
 in this world of ours, if effected in one night, would 
 amaze us more than Rip Van Winkle was amazed when 
 he awoke from a sleep of twent} T years. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 E. D. Linton. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend , — You say “nothing should be a legal 
 •tender between citizens except what the creditor agreed 
 to take.” Perhaps if all men were fair and honest and 
 good, that might be so ; but, unfortunate^, wherever 
 money intervenes between men, it seems to blind them 
 to all sentiment of justice, and deprive them of every- 
 thing like probity in their actions. In fact, some men 
 have a large amount of “cussedness” in their natures, 
 and will even put themselves to trouble in order to annoy 
 another. I therefore wish to see how this would work 
 in such a case. I fear that this “cussedness” would 
 have full swing, and would be exercised most fully if the 
 creditor had the opportune to impose his own condi- 
 tions as to what would be convenient for him to receive 
 in payment of a debt. 
 
 It does not appear clear to me that men would be gov- 
 erned by their higher interests, but b} r revenge in many 
 cases ; and in such cases I can perceive that if ‘ 4 nothing 
 should be a legal tender” but “what the creditor agreed 
 to take,” the creditor might impose such conditions upon 
 the debtor as would render it often inconvenient, some- 
 times impossible, to pay the debt. Now } T ou will admit 
 that in almost indescribable forms this feeling exists 
 
32 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 among men. It might be well, and work well, if every 
 man had the full results of his personal efforts ; but I 
 should be sorry to see it applied until such was the case, 
 and indisputably and unequivocally the case. It would 
 appear to me that of all reform measures it should be 
 the last measure to be applied. The making of a some- 
 thing a legal tender does not in my view in an} r way 
 invalidate the three conditions, which 3*ou say should be 
 necessary to render a contract of binding force. 
 
 Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Drury , — Yes, incessant toil, or, if not that, 
 anxiety about providing the necessaries of life for him- 
 self and those dependent upon him, weigh like a mill- 
 stone around the neck of the workingman, and paralyze 
 all his efforts to raise himself out of his condition. Ilis 
 doom seems to be sealed. But no. There is such a 
 mighty power in truth and justice, that “one,” though 
 of the humblest, “can chase a thousand, and two put 
 ten thousand to flight.” This is our hope : the devices 
 of men, if not based upon truth and justice, w r ill come 
 to naught. Whoever it was that said “the wisdom of 
 man is foolishness with God” expressed a great truth, 
 the disregard of which has brought us to where we today 
 are — 
 
 “ Where wealth accumulates and meD decay.” 
 
 This whole nation, and perhaps I may r add the so- 
 called civilized world, is drunk today with the delusion 
 that whatever is passed into a statute law by human 
 legislation should be respected and obeyed. Oh, foolish 
 man ! when will you learn that ‘ ‘ God is not mocked” ! 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 33 
 
 I for one do not dare to proceed to build upon any other 
 foundation than a self-evident law of nature, or of God, 
 terms synonymous with me. 
 
 We now come to the question of Legal Tenders. Per- 
 haps I should have said in my pamphlet that nothing 
 should be a legal tender except what the contracting par- 
 ties agree upon. But even this statement might be sub- 
 ject to an interpretation entirety foreign to my meaning. 
 And this imperfection that necessarily attaches to the 
 use of words to express ideas shows the fatuit} r of any 
 attempt at formulating, or statute making even, when 
 truth and justice are the objects in view. I certainly did 
 not mean to say that the creditor was the only party who 
 should have a voice in this matter, but I assumed that 
 ordinarily a creditor could not become a creditor without 
 a previous contract with the debtor ; and I did not mean 
 a contract made between a highwayman with a pistol in 
 hand and a defenceless traveller, or any contract made 
 under duress. I assumed also that these contracting 
 parties know better than the law-makers ( ?) how they 
 wish to exchange their services or their property. Any 
 interference on the part of the State in the premises is 
 an unwarrantable usurpation, except to enforce the con- 
 tract if it was a valid one. 
 
 There never will be any occasion for making an honest 
 and equitable mone^- a legal tender, for mankind would 
 take and use it for the same reason that they eat bread 
 and drink water, because they satisfy a want. It is only 
 when the governments make a false and vicious money,, 
 for false and vicious purposes ; namely, an instrument 
 by which a favored few may spoliate and rob the many, 
 — that it becomes necessary to make money a “legal 
 tender.” 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 But where does a government based on the principle 
 of delegated power get the right to compel an} r one to 
 take its notes or its coin in pa 3 r ment for debts, or for an} r 
 other purpose? Does any individual in the nation pre- 
 tend to possess the right to exercise that power? If not, 
 how delegate the right to the government to exercise it ! 
 We see, then, it is plain enough that this government is 
 a usurping despotism, as all other existing governments 
 are, (unless possibly we may except some minor states,) 
 though the form is different. The people of other gov- 
 ernments are the subjects of a despotism. The people 
 of this government are the subjects of a despotism and 
 a delusion ; that is the only difference. I wish some one 
 would devise a suitable and appropriate image for this 
 government to stamp upon its coin and its greenbacks ; 
 I wonder what earthly creature it would resemble ? 
 
 In this connection I cannot forbear quoting this pas- 
 sage from your letter: “Perhaps if all men were fair, 
 honest and good, that* might be so ; but unfortunately 
 wherever money intervenes between men it seems to 
 blind them to all sense of justice.” What you say is 
 true, and very obviously so, of all money hitherto in 
 use. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of 
 thistles.” This “cussedness” you speak of is the crab- 
 apple of the present financial tree. This “cussedness” 
 is not natural to man, and I do not believe }X>u think it 
 is. .1 shall believe that you as well as myself will re- 
 spond to this eloquent passage from John Ruskin : 
 
 “I speak,” says he, “either about kings or masses of 
 men, with a fixed conviction that human nature is a 
 noble and beautiful thing ; not a foul nor a base thing. 
 
 * “ Nothing should be a ‘ legal tender’ between citizens except what the 
 creditor agreed to take.” 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 35 
 
 All the sin of men I esteem as their disease, not their 
 nature ; as a folty which may be prevented, not a neces- 
 sity which must be accepted.” 
 
 Yes, this false money has had more to do with produc- 
 ing this disease in mankind, which you call “cussed- 
 ness,” than any and all other things put together, and a 
 true money will do more toward curing and preventing 
 it in the future than all others. 
 
 I do not think it necessar } 7 for us of the New Dispen- 
 sation, which is in the near future, to trouble ourselves 
 about the “lingo” of the pseudo-political economists 
 and “ financiers.” “Let the dead bun 7 their dead.” 
 
 Let us use the term “ mone} T ” to express a circulating 
 medium of exchange, and “currenc} 7 ” to mean the 
 practical part thereof, just as the common people now 
 use those terms to express the same things and thus try 
 to simplify the matter. Those who wish to perpetuate 
 the false monetary system now in use, will, of course, 
 try to complicate and n^stify the question. 
 
 In concluding your letter you say: “You ought to 
 write a pamphlet — What a Currency Should Be — and 
 treat the question without regard to abstract or even 
 concrete notions or ideas of a government, or of princi- 
 ples of equity, or common sense, or anything else.” 
 
 It might do to treat the subject without saying any- 
 thing in the treatise about the principles of equity or 
 justice ; but I should have to keep these constantly in 
 mind, or my treatise would not be worth the paper upon 
 which it was written. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 E. D. Linton. 
 
36 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 V. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend : — I would not for a moment contend that 
 the government should not own and conduct the mines, 
 the railways, &c. I believe they belong to the people 
 both by right and in justice. But the}' are fraudulently 
 withheld from the people, and the fact of their being 
 so withheld makes it impossible to use the natural wealth 
 of the mines and the service of the railroads as a 
 basis of emission of money. Therefore, the fact of 
 those things not belonging to the government is a bar- 
 rier in the way of such emission. What is to be done 
 in the case? If you speak to people, you are met with 
 this: “Yes, that’s all very well, but the government 
 don’t own the railroads.” There are two difficulties 
 which present themselves at one and the same time ; 
 which appear to be inseparable, and yet which must be 
 separated before any advance can be made. Before such 
 an issue of money can be made it is necessary to make 
 the railroads and mines national property. So it would 
 appear that it is necessary to teach the people in relation 
 to that subject before teaching them in relation to the 
 question of money. Since it appears to be a barrier in 
 the way, it is necessary to remove the barrier. It is 
 evident that the two difficulties cannot be overcome 
 simultaneously. Which must be the first? * 
 
 In relation to the railroads, we have here in Pennsyl- 
 
 * It seems to me that the first thing in order is to show that money 
 should be issued in payment for labor or service estimated by time em- 
 ployed, and for nothing else ; and that if the government is to issue it 
 the government must undertake useful industries enough to furnish abun- 
 dance of money, and these industries should bo of a public character, like 
 those herein proposed. — e. d. l. 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 37 
 
 vania a difficulty in the way, which is peculiar to this 
 State. Some years ago, the railroads belonged to the 
 State, and they were so badly managed that the citizens 
 petitioned the legislature to sell or transfer them to 
 corporations ; and those inhabitants who are old enough 
 to have retained a vivid remembrance of the transaction, 
 and of the part they took in advising, or sustaining, or 
 in tacitly submitting to the change, all cry very loudty, 
 u It wont work well.” 
 
 I know that all this merely resolves itself into a ques- 
 tion of good or bad management, and that it in no way 
 affects the principle of the ownership of the railroads ; 
 but it is a side issue which people are very fond of rais- 
 ing, in order to divert attention from the simple clear- 
 ness of the main question ; and the minor question of the 
 railroads is only raised as an objection to the major ques- 
 tion of a true money, upon which all hinges. The “cus- 
 sedness” of human nature exhibits itself in contumace- 
 ous attempts at baffling, by means of insignificant ob- 
 jections, all arguments which in any way interfere with 
 their bias, or preconceived notions, or prejudices. 
 
 There arc but few prejudices having a deeper root in 
 the minds of the human family today than those relat- 
 ing to money, especially to gold, for it is one of the 
 ideas of most ancient date — one of the ideas formed in 
 the human mind at a very earty period of its devel- 
 opment, and which will probably be one of the last to 
 be eradicated. All is subject to the law of evolution — 
 the greenback as well as the brain ; and the commercial 
 activity of humanity, from barter in kind to the most 
 highty developed features of exchange, based upon credit, 
 or the promisory note, which represents no commodity 
 whatever, is a chain growing link by link from the sim- 
 
38 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 pie to the complex, evolving day by day, slowly but 
 surety, better conditions. Today we are seeking for 
 still better conditions by means of a more rational 
 money system. Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Drury : — I commence this letter with a remark- 
 able quotation from Euskin : — “Money is not only a 
 means of exchange ; it is a documentary expression of 
 legal claim. It is not wealth, it is documentary claim to 
 wealth, to which, at a given time, persons are entitled. 
 *** Money is, therefore, correspondent in its nature to 
 the title-deed of an estate. *** Mone}' cannot be ar- 
 bitrarity multiplied an}' more than title-deeds can.” 
 
 The words we employ in our conversations are of little 
 consequence so long as we get each other’s meaning. The 
 government is surety the custodian of the postal business, 
 and whether, in the strictest sense of the word, it is the 
 owner or not is not important so long as the business is 
 well managed, and is conducted at cost. The war and 
 strife which now rages among men to acquire unlimited 
 possessions will cease as soon as all business is conducted 
 on the principle upon which the postal business now 
 professes to be conducted, viz : “The Cost Principle.” 
 
 The kind of money proposed in my pamphlet presup- 
 poses, as you say, that the government should own. the 
 mines, railroads, &c. ; “but,” 3~ou continue, “they are 
 now fraudulentty withheld from the people, and that fact 
 makes it impossible to use the natural wealth of the 
 mines and the service of the railroads as a basis of 
 emission of money- ;” and you add: “what is to be 
 
 done in the case ?” 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 39 
 
 “Fraudulently withheld from the people” are 3 T our 
 words, and they are right words. But the fraud was 
 perpetrated by the government ; no righteous or (right- 
 ful) power could have perpetrated such a stupendous 
 fraud. The question then is, shall the government be 
 permitted to perpetrate that fraud through all future 
 generations, or shall we, armed with the irresistable 
 power of truth and justice, compel the government to 
 annul the fraud and restore to all the people their inal- 
 ienable right to all natural wealth ? 
 
 I have not and shall not propose any arbitrary abuse 
 of power on the part of the government, although it 
 does not hesitate to exercise such power, so far as labor 
 and laborers are concerned, as in the case of conscrip- 
 tions of men (though not of property) in the late war. 
 But I say, let a little of the power which has been exer- 
 cised to enact injustice be now exercised to annul 
 this injustice, and to guaranty fair play in the future. 
 Let there be another emancipation proclamation author- 
 ized by Congress and issued by the Executive of the 
 United States, declaring that all mineral wealth in 
 its natural state, must at a certain date, be restored 
 to the government for the equal benefit of all the peo- 
 ple ; but let all individuals, or corporations, be indem- 
 nified for any damages that can equitably be award- 
 ed them. Let the railroads be purchased at an equi- 
 table price, or new and parallel roads be built. Let 
 the fraudulent titles by which large tracts of land are 
 held either be annulled or restored by taxation, which- 
 ever way may be the more expedient. I think taxation 
 would be the better wa} T , because the people are accus- 
 tomed to the constant exercise of this power by the gov- 
 ernment, and hitherto alwa} r s against them : let it now 
 
40 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 be used for their emancipation. But tax the land only 
 not the labor bestowed upon it. 
 
 The natural wealth of the countr}’ should be conserved 
 and supervised by the government for the benefit of all 
 the people alike, and public highways,* and all public 
 works, should also, in some way, be held and supervised 
 at cost by agents of the people, for reasons sufficient, 
 and independent of an} T considerations of a money fit 
 for civilized purposes. But when all -these things can 
 be better accomplished connectedly than separately, why 
 separate them? especially since it is impossible to have 
 a sound and equitable medium of exchange, except upon 
 a labor basis ; and since there can be no legitimate title 
 to properly but a labor title. For if a person comes into 
 possession of property by gift or inheritance, a labor 
 title must be at the bottom, or it is not legitimate. 
 
 And now let the following discrimination be con- 
 stantly kept in mind in considering the money proposi- 
 tion we are now examining, to wit : It is not the natural 
 wealth (which it is proposed that the government shall 
 be the custodian of) that the proposed money is to be 
 based upon, but the labor or service bestowed upon that 
 wealth (or material) in bringing it into use. This dis- 
 crimination is indispensable to a conception of the scope 
 and bearing of the propositions. And it might as well 
 be said here as anywhere that it is by no means to be 
 expected, and perhaps not to be desired, that all these 
 measures under consideration should be adopted at once, 
 but cautiously, one or two at a time. The postal busi- 
 ness, already conducted by the government, would, on 
 the principle proposed, furnish us with twenty-five mil- 
 
 * There is already a growing demand that railroads should be held and 
 managed by the government . 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 41 
 
 lions of dollars annually of redeemable money. Next, 
 a railroad or two could be purchased or built, and con- 
 ducted on the same principle. Next, if these experi- 
 ments proved successful and satisfactoiy, some, if not 
 all, mines and quarries could be secured, worked at cost, 
 and the money paid for the labor and service in working 
 them made redeemable in the products of said labor and 
 service at cost, estimated by the time employed, and not 
 in currency, in specific and definite qualities and quanti- 
 ties. Thus the new mone} r and the old would come in 
 competition, and it would soon be known which the peo- 
 ple — not the speculating class — preferred. If the new 
 should be preferred, the old would gradually be retired, 
 and no panic would ensue. If the old should be pre- 
 ferred, the new would not come into general use ; the 
 experiment would die out, and we should all resign our- 
 selves to congressional tinkering, and to never-ending 
 twaddle on the money question. I am Confident, how- 
 ever, that no one could be induced to take even a gold 
 or silver dollar, if a definite, specific, and positively re- 
 deemable currency were offered in its stead. 
 
 The following will illustrate what I mean : — About 
 the year 1830, as near as I can recollect, what was 
 called “superfine Genesee flour” was five dollars per 
 barrel. This was the best quality of flour then known. 
 A mason’s wages, at that time, was two dollars per day, 
 and his barrel of flour cost him two and a half day’s 
 work. Now we will suppose a mason of that day (for- 
 ty-three years ago) had put five dollars United States 
 coin of his earnings into his money-box and kept it 
 there until toda}’, when he takes the self-same money to 
 buy a barrel of flour. The money is current and more 
 than current, for it is quoted today (April oth, 1874) at 
 
42 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 one dollar twelve and a half cents. lie inquires the price 
 of flour and is told that it is twelve dollars and fifty cents 
 per barrel. Ilis five dollars in coin will be received in 
 pa} T ment for the flour to the amount of five dollars, sixt}'- 
 two and a half cents, and b}’ adding six dollars, eighty- 
 seven and a half cents in “greenbacks” he gets the flour ; 
 and thus he pays four and one quarter da} r, s work for 
 the same kind of flour today which in 1830 cost him two 
 and a half da3’s’ work ; difference — one and three-quarters 
 days ; that is, he pa3’8 nearly twice as much labor for 
 his flour toda3 r as he did then. 
 
 A mason’s wages today is four dollars per da3 T , and 
 his barrel of flour costs him a little over three day’s 
 work, half a da3 T more than it did the mason of forty 
 3’ears ago. 
 
 But let it be remembered that the labor cost of the 
 flour of toda3 r (estimated b3’ > time emplo3*ed and not in 
 currenc3 T ) is not one half so much as it w T as forty 3’ears 
 ago, owing to the better soil where it is now raised, im- 
 provements in agricultural implements, and in means of 
 transportation. 
 
 Now let us suppose that the mason of forty 3 T ears ago 
 had received in payment for his two and a half da3 T s’ 
 work a United States Treasury note (or greenback) of 
 five dollars, with this inscription upon its face: “The 
 
 United States will pay to bearer, on demand, five dol- 
 lars in one barrel of flour (best qualit3') of 196 lbs. 
 This bill receivable for all debts due the United States.” 
 That same Treasury note would procure a barrel of flour 
 toda3 T the same as it did then. And thus it would be 
 of an3 T other commodit3 T . or approximately so at least. 
 
 But this is not all. The labor costs of nearly all arti- 
 cles of consumption estimated in time emploj^ed are re- 
 
ON CURBENCY. 
 
 43 
 
 duced from time to time by the introduction of improved 
 tools, implements and machinery ; and although ruinous 
 and destructive fluctuations in prices would not occur, 
 as now and heretofore, } r et a gradual diminution in prices 
 would occur, and as they occured the new issues of the 
 civilized mone}r would recognize the fact, and the old 
 issues would naturally return to the issuer to be ex- 
 changed for the new, as there could be no motive for the 
 issuer to do otherwise, since the mone} r w’ould be based 
 upon labor measured by time, and none but hoarders of 
 money would be the losers. All other persons would be 
 gainers by the introduction of labor-saving machinery, 
 and thus ever}" encouragement would be given to inven- 
 tors by everybody , and patent laws could be dispensed 
 with. 
 
 But how is it now? A million of laborers lying idle 
 in the United States under the reign of a false or semi- 
 barbarous money, by the introduction of labor-saving 
 machinery ; the products of labor decaying in ware- 
 houses for want of purchasers because persons lying 
 idle have nothing to purchase with, and business paral- 
 ized. 
 
 This part of the subject is by no means exhausted, 
 but I must hasten to give one more example of the oper- 
 ation of a false, as compared with a true, mone} T . 
 
 A farmer of my acquaintance bought a farm in the 
 neighborhood where he had alwaj^s lived. He knew its 
 capacities for production under a given amount of labor. 
 He paid cash down . for one third of the price of the 
 farm, and gave his note payable in yearly installments 
 for the other two-thirds. He w r as a careful, industrious 
 and honest man, and intented and expected to honor 
 his paper as the payments became due ; his expecta- 
 
44 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 tions, however, were based upon liis knowledge of the 
 farm and estimates of the crops he could raise upon it 
 in the time specified, at the current prices, making some 
 allowance for ordinary fluctuations in prices. But the 
 “ financial crash” of ’57 caused an enormous “shrink- 
 age of values,” (so called) and so for his crops he got 
 about one-third less money than he had promised to pay, 
 and thus he had to pay one-third more labor for two- 
 thirds of his farm than he had contemplated, and the 
 man who sold him the farm got one-third more labor 
 than he bargained for ; for the note he held against the 
 purchaser did not “shrink.” 
 
 Now suppose the purchaser, in this case, had prom- 
 ised to pay a given quantity of corn, rye, flax, butter, 
 cheese, and other products of his labor ; he would then 
 have paid just the amount of labor agreed upon: For 
 what he had “raised” upon the farm had exceeded his 
 estimates. 
 
 In the above cases it is easy to see how much ( !) the 
 natural law of “demand and supply” has to do with reg- 
 ulating prices. 
 
 1 understand 3*ou to say that state management of a 
 railroad has been tried and found wanting in Pennsyl- 
 vania. I apprehend, however, that no attempt has been 
 made, even in Pennsjdvania, to own and manage a rail- 
 road on the cost principle. I will venture to guess that 
 it was attempted on the profit principle — that the State 
 attempted to derive a “revenue” from the railroad, and 
 if so, of course it failed, for a government cannot com- 
 pete with private enterprise “on that line,” because com- 
 petition and fraud would inevitably ensue, in the hands 
 of a government on the profit principle. The postal busi- 
 ness would be an utter failure, in competition with pri- 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 45 
 
 vate enterprise, if it was conducted on the profit princi- 
 ple. The beauty and glory of the cost principle is that 
 whether conducted by a government or b} T an individual, 
 whether by the Republic of America, or by the Autocrat 
 of Russia, the result would be substantially the same ; 
 for it takes away all motives for fraud or corruption, and 
 inspires a spirit of general co-operation and good-will 
 among men. However, let every one be free to issue 
 money on the cost principle , and then, if individual 
 management proves to be superior to government man- 
 agement, it will be made to appear, and the former will 
 supercede the latter. It seems to be admitted that the 
 postal business, as conducted by the government, works 
 well enough ; and if the railroads and other industries 
 cannot be conducted equally well by the same agencj’, 
 on the same principle, then let us have an agency that 
 will do it. 
 
 In concluding this letter I will quote a few passages 
 from “Munera Pulveris,” by John Ruskin. 
 
 4 4 The use of substances of intrinsic value as the ma- 
 terial of a currency is a barbarism.” 
 
 4 4 The base of a currency should be several substances 
 instead of one.” 
 
 “Thus the steadiness of a currency depends upon the 
 breadth of its base.” 
 
 Your article in the 4 4 Independent Press,” on the Or- 
 ganization of Exchange, I like very well, and shall re- 
 joice in the success of such organization whenever and 
 wherever attempted, although Equitable Money would 
 render the artificial organization of exchange unneces- 
 sary. It would organize itself naturally and most effect- 
 ually. Truly y ours, E. D. linton. 
 
46 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 VI. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Linton : — I regret that I have not the time to 
 take up seriatim the paragraphs in your reply No. 5. I 
 will do so in a future communication. There is a point, 
 however, upon which I w r ish 3 -ou to enlighten me, al- 
 though that point does not occur here in its proper place, 
 or in its logical order. I hasten to put the question now, 
 merely because it is uppermost in m} r mind for the mo- 
 ment, and is considered an important question by those 
 who deal with the question of Finance. 
 
 It is generalty conccedcd that as currency or money 
 is necessary to facilitate exchanges, and that at certain 
 periods there will be less commodities to exchange than 
 at others, that therefore the volume of currency de- 
 manded for use will not be alwaj’s equal; that the sur- 
 plus of money when exchange is at the minimum of its 
 activity will necessitate a bank of deposit ; that as the 
 employment of money in facilitating exchanges gives 
 rise to certain benefits or profits to the one who uses the 
 money ; that when this money is not employed in facili- 
 tating exchanges that it should not cease to be beneficial 
 or profitable. They easily imagine that it is necessary 
 in order to conserve and continue this beneficial or prof- 
 itable property of mono}", that it should be convertable 
 into something — some say interest-bearing bonds at 
 3. Go ; others have different ideas, but all agree as to the 
 convertable nature of the currency. 
 
 Why make it convertable? Why the necessity for 
 bonds bearing 3.65 interest? Why the necessity of in- 
 terest in relation to mone^y ? If monej’ is an institution 
 organized for the facilitating of exchanges, being a rep- 
 resentative of the things exchanged : why, if the things 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 47 
 
 exchanged deteriorate by time and decrease in value and 
 use, why should money, its representative, increase in 
 value? Truly yours, 
 
 Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Drury : — Your last letter closes with four ques- 
 tions so intelligently put that they ought, as they stand, 
 to be all the answer needed to all the false assumptions 
 which necessarily attach to a false mone}\ To under- 
 take to follow these assumptions and sophisms and show 
 their absurdity, would be like chasing an ignis fatuus; 
 for while exposing one a hundred others would be in- 
 vented and thrust into your face. It is thus that the 
 supporters of a false money are, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, always notifying the money question, contin- 
 ually throwing dust into our eyes, and darkness instead 
 of light into our understandings. Kellogg himself, that 
 noble, grand man, undertook to throw light upon this 
 subject while his own vision was beclouded, and “ if 
 the light in us be darkness, how great is that darkness !” 
 He undertook to put “ new wine into old bottles,” and 
 that is what manj" well-meaning writers of to-day are 
 attempting to do, but it can’t be done ! 
 
 ' If the chief end of man is to spoliate and rob his 
 fellow man through force and fraud, and the chief func- 
 tion of money is to facilitate that operation, no change 
 in the character of money is needed. Let it remain in 
 the hands of the usurers and trafickers ; let its functions 
 continue to be, what Kellogg declared it to be, “to draw 
 interest ” and to secure profits. Let it be improved and 
 perfected on that line. Let Congress continue to have 
 
 4 
 
48 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 power to create money and to fix the value thereof, and 
 to make its money thus created a “legal tender,” and 
 prohibit every one else from issuing money. Let it 
 “regulate the volume " of money in circulation to suit 
 the purposes and convenience of bankers, merchants, 
 corporate manufacturers, land, railroad, and all other 
 monopolists. Let Congress perpetuate the national 
 debt, continue the national banking s} 7 stem of two fold 
 interest based upon said debt, continue issuing and re- 
 issuing gold interest-bearing bonds and make them ex- 
 changeable for treasury notes at the option of usurers 
 and speculators, — so that, if business becomes nearly 
 stagnant, for a period, as at present, (because all the 
 suiplus wealth produced during a previous period of ac- 
 tivit} r has been gobbled rp and absorbed b \ 7 interest, 
 and profit-mongers, and money cannot be let in open 
 market,) those holding treasur } 7 notes (greenbacks) can 
 exchange them for interest-bearing bonds,* thus compel- 
 ling the suffering toilers to pa } 7 interest on all the money 
 in the nation, the same when said toilers are underbid- 
 ding each other in the market in respect to wages and 
 overbidding each other in respect to hours of labor per 
 da} 7 , as during periods of activity, when, perchance, 
 they may be getting a little advance in wages. 
 
 You say “it is generally admitted that currency or 
 money is necessary to facilitate exchange,” and that is 
 the honest purpose for which money is wanted, but ex- 
 change of labor or service, or labor products, is not the 
 objective point in all this discussion about money as at 
 present and in general conducted. The objective points 
 are how corporations may secure large dividends ; how 
 
 * Which will make greenbacks stand at. a premium over bank notes. 
 
ON CUHEF.NCT. 
 
 49 
 
 holders of land (by parchment titles), can secure ready 
 sales and enormous profits ; how bankers and brokers 
 can secure high, or at least perpetual, rates of interest ; 
 how merchants shall secure large profits on investments. 
 The age of direct robbery by kings and rulers, by war 
 and conquest, has been succeeded by an age of indirect 
 robbery under the very plausible pretext of exchange. 
 Exchange is not the paramount object of financial 
 writers^ — it is not co-ordinate even. It is incidental and 
 subordinate. 
 
 This constant mixture of these two questions, sub- 
 jects or objects, is the bane, the perplexit}', the difficulty, 
 the danger of this whole discussion. Can we separate 
 them and stamp each with its true character as they 
 occur in the discussion ? Can anything be more pal- 
 pably evident than that a money adapted to the pur- 
 poses set forth in the preceding paragraphs cannot be 
 adapted to the equitable exchange of labor or labor 
 products ? 
 
 I judge by your letter before me that you are as well 
 aware as I am that all the questious you have pro- 
 pounded, except the four with which your letter closes, 
 are prompted from viewing money employed in facilitat- 
 ing that kind of exchange which “gives rise tc certain 
 benefits or profits” to the one who uses the mbnej^, and 
 are not suggested by viewing monc} T as a medium to fa- 
 cilitate simple exchange. If the former is the true 
 function ol money then it follows, of course, that un- 
 limited interest, rents, profits, speculations, adultera- 
 tions, short weights and measures are all in order, be- 
 cause “buying and selling for gain,” and not justice 
 and equity , are the objects sought. 
 
 John Ruskin says, “ money is not only a means of 
 
50 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 exchange, it is documentary expression of legal claim. 
 It is not wealth, it is a documentar} r claim to wealth, 
 to which at a given time, persons (the holders) are en- 
 titled. * * * Money is therefore correspondent in 
 
 its nature to the title-deed of an estate. * * * 
 
 Money cannot be arbitrary multiplied any more than 
 title-deeds can.” 
 
 I know Ruskin is not quite j'et orthodox authority 
 on political econom}', but nevertheless destined to be 
 the Adam Smith of the new dispensation , and in my 
 judgment, no sounder views of money have ever been 
 written than those I have just quoted, and I shall as- 
 sume that the}’ are correct until they are exploded by 
 substantial reasoning. 
 
 Let us assume in this Conversation, at least, that 
 “money is correspondent in its nature to the title-deed 
 of an estate,” and let us put three of the questions con- 
 tained in the concluding portion of }our letter, again 
 substituting the compound word tittle-deed for the 
 word money and see if it will not settle at least three 
 out of the four financial fallacies without farther illustra- 
 tion or argument. 
 
 “Wh} T make title-deeds convertable into interest- 
 bearing bonds ?” 
 
 “Why the necessit}’ of interest in relation to title- 
 deeds ?” 
 
 “ If the estate deteriorates b}’ time and decreases in 
 value by use, why should the title-deed — its representa- 
 tive — increase in value?” Wh} T , O why? 
 
 If a man owned an estate, occup} T ing it himself, or be- 
 ing occupied by another, for which he receives compen- 
 sation, does any one say that the title-deed should draw 
 interest, or should be exchangable for interest-bearing 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 51 
 
 bonds at the owner’s pleasure ? Certainly not, nor would 
 any one say so of any true money. 
 
 As to the question ‘ ‘ why the necessity of bonds bear- 
 ing interest?” what shall one say in reply to such a 
 question nearly two thousand years after the birth of 
 “our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” and nearly one hun- 
 dred years after the promulgation of the American Dec- 
 laration of Independence, during which periods, and 
 even longer, interest has been denounced as a crime and 
 a curse by the conscientious and good men of all na- 
 tions ? If wars are still to be fought, and men who are 
 obliged to work every day for their daily bread are to be 
 compelled to fight the battles at an arbitrary price, fixed 
 by the government, is it not self-evident that the wealth 
 of the nation, existing at the time of the war, should be 
 compelled to pay the bills upon terms also arbitrarily 
 fixed b}^ the government? Or if money is to be bor- 
 rowed, to be returned again, should it not be borrowed 
 of citizens on compulsion, if citizens are to fight on 
 compulsion, and upon terms fixed by the government? 
 and should not those terms be payments in installments 
 by a tax on accumulated and accumulating wealth, and 
 not on everything the poor laborers of a country eat, 
 drink, wear and use ; and paid without interest, and not 
 paid over and over again in the form of interest, and 
 thus made a perpetual lien on the labor of the country, 
 destroying the laborers and fostering a horde of idlers 
 to debauch themselves, and debauch the nation, as is 
 the case with our nation to-day ? 
 
 There is no necessity for interest-bearing bonds — 
 there is no righteous reason for their existence to-day, 
 nor for their continuance. A just and well-informed 
 people would not permit their existence, and if they are 
 
52 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 not swept out of existence speedily the}' will first defile 
 and then destroy the nation. With regard to banks: 
 banks of deposit and exchange will doubtless always be 
 a great convenience, if not a necessity, for they super- 
 cede the necessity of money transfers to an enormous 
 extent, and if individual banking, or money issues, are 
 permitted by the government, and persons choose to 
 avail themselves of the privilege, banks of deposit and 
 exchange will be indispensable, for without them mono}' 
 based upon personal or individual responsibilities (and 
 really there is no other responsibility) would not circu- 
 late throughout the nation.* Even banks of discount, 
 if they could be established under the reign of an equi- 
 table and scientific money, would be perfectly harmless, 
 for then interest could not be institutionized and the 
 whole wealth of the world absorbed by a few houses of 
 Rothschilds and Barrings. With such a money in use, 
 it persons wished to accumulate wealth they would hoard 
 real wealth and not its representative, money ; and then 
 all the money required would be as much as is necces- 
 sary to effect exchanges. 
 
 Probably money representing 2,000,000,000 hours of 
 adult labor would be sufficient ; but if four times that 
 amount was needed it could easily be supplied. How? 
 If a true money was in use, within a decade adults 
 would not work, ordinarily, more than four hours each 
 day. Why? because human wants and needs, of ever}' 
 kind and description, could be abundantly supplied with 
 
 * While we have national boundaries, a sound money which is current 
 throughout the nation is sufficient; for the people of all nations would be 
 much better off to only exchange such commodities as could be produced 
 abroad and transported at less labor cost than they could be produced at 
 home. 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 53 
 
 that amount of labor. But if more was needed it could 
 easily be done. 
 
 But it may be asked, Suppose too much money should 
 get into people’s pockets, what would they do with 
 it? Put it into a bank vault and pay some one 
 for keepiug it, or lend it to some one without interest 
 on good security, to “move crops” with, and save the 
 expense of hiring a banker to take care of it ; or lend it, 
 on the same terms, to build a bridge, railroad, gas or 
 water works, to be worked at cost . 
 
 E. D. Linton. 
 
 VII. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend Linton : — On page 8 of your pamphlet I 
 read in a foot-note : “ The present national banking sys- 
 tem is an unmitigated fraud upon the people, and should 
 be immediately abolished ; and banking on the cost 
 principle should be substituted.” To one who has 
 thought over the fraudulent results of the present finan- 
 cial system your assertion will be accepted as correct ; 
 but to those who have no knowledge of the elementary 
 workings of the national banks such an assertion ap- 
 pears to be exaggerated, and I think may require to be 
 followed, or rather preceded, by an explanation of the 
 means employed by those banks to defraud the people. 
 What is your idea in the case ? 
 
 On page 9 you say, — “ A circulating medium****etc., 
 would so instruct the whole people as to what civilized 
 
54 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 money should be, that at no distant day,” etc. etc. 
 
 Now, my dear friend, I am not quite sure that the ed- 
 ucational element to which }*ou refer is ver} r evident to 
 me ; therefore, would you kindly explain, and explain 
 fulty, wherein the educational process lies, and what are 
 the essential educational .properties of such a system of 
 money as 3'ou propose ? 
 
 I may misconceive what 3'ou say, or get erroneous im- 
 pressions, by supposing an intention which your words 
 only seem to imply. Uncertainty I wish to banish, and 
 to base m} r knowledge of the financial problem upon cer- 
 taint}\ 
 
 I would ask another question. What would be the 
 best method of making the public land — now held from 
 cultivation by speculators and monopolists — revert to 
 the possession of the people? You say, while it is un- 
 cultivated it should be subject to a tax. What would be 
 3’our method of taxation, in order to be in the interest 
 of the people? Have 3’ou any precise knowledge of the 
 number of acres which are tying waste, because of the 
 caprice of speculators holding it for a rise, thereb3' de- 
 barring the cultivator from making the land produce and 
 increasing the public wealth. 
 
 Ever truty r 3'ours, Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Drui'y : — You quote a foot-note from m3' pamphlet 
 as follows : “The present national banking S3*stem is an 
 unmitigated fraud upon the people ; ” and you add that, 
 “to those who have no knowledge of the workings of 
 the national banks, such an assertion ma3' appear exag- 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 55 
 
 gerated, and I think may require to be preceded by an 
 explanation of the means employed by those banks to 
 defraud the people.” 
 
 It is not to be presumed that the banks are any too 
 honest, for corporate bodies have no moral responsibility 
 any more than statues hewn out of stone ; and }*et I do 
 not say they employ illegal means to defraud the people. 
 The fraud was perpetrated by the power which gave 
 them existence, namely, the Congress of the United 
 States. The first fraud was perpetrated before the 
 banks were established, in the authorization by Con- 
 gress of the issue of interest-bearing bonds, which fraud 
 is probably sufficiently elucidated in my last letter. 
 Fraud Number One laid the foundation for Fraud Num- 
 ber Two, authorizing national banking upon the basis of 
 a debt, instead of a basis of wealth — upon what had 
 been consumed, instead of what had been accumulated. 
 After restricting, by a law of Congress, the amount of 
 money to be allowed in circulation, that is, restricting 
 the “volume of the currency,” to about $800,000,000, 
 one half of which consists of greenbacks, Congress au- 
 thorizes national banking to the amount of about $400,- 
 000,000 more. 
 
 The process is as follows : Persons wish to estab- 
 
 lish a bank, with a capital, say, of $500,000. On 
 every hundred dollars in United States bonds deposited 
 in the United States Treasury, the bank will be supplied 
 with ninety dollars in its own notes, (the plates remain- 
 ing in the custody of the United States Treasury depart- 
 ment,) or in other words, ninety per cent, on bonds de- 
 posited, which the bank is permitted to loan at whatever 
 rate of interest the law of the state where the bank is 
 located allows. In the state of Massachusetts, and most 
 
56 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 of the states, I believe, there is no legal limit to the rate 
 of interest, except what the contracting parties agree 
 upon. Thus it will be perceived that the national banks 
 draw two-fold interest on about one-half of all the mo- 
 ney in the country ; one on the bonds, and one (without 
 limitation) on their own notes. The average interest on 
 that portion of the currency furnished by the national 
 banks, taking the country through, is said to be about 
 fifteen per cent, per annum, and probably it is quite up 
 to this figure, which, in round numbers amounts to fifty- 
 three millions per annum. The interest on the $400,- 
 000,000 bonds is from thirteen millions to fifteen mil- 
 lions, according to the rate of interest the bonds bear — 
 the rate not being uniform. 
 
 The interest on the bond basis and the national bank 
 note circulation added together makes the round sum of 
 from sixty-six million to sixty-eight million dollars, paid 
 annually by the people to the bank stock holders ; but 
 the interest on the bonds has to be paid by the people, 
 just the same whether owned by the banks or by others. 
 But let us return to the fifty-three million dollars inter- 
 est on the national bank circulation: — Man}' persons 
 say this is not much — only about one dollar and twenty- 
 five cents per capita on the population of the nation ; 
 "but, much or little, if it is a fraud it is a fraud, and my 
 assertion is proved, that “the present national banking 
 system is a fraud upon the people.” But the mere fraud 
 of taxing the people one dollar and twenty-five cents per 
 •capita for the benefit of bank stock holders does not 
 •give the faintest shadow of the blighting effects of the 
 •gigantic swindle of the national bonds and the national 
 Ibank notes based upon those bonds. The current rate 
 •of interest on money at all times determines the per 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 57 
 
 cent, of interest, rents, profits, and dividends, to be ex- 
 acted upon all the property of the country, and upon all 
 business enterprises. This statement need not be forti- 
 fied by an argument, because it is generally conceded by 
 financial writers. The amount of the interest on the en- 
 tire property of the countiy even at seven per cent. , I 
 will venture to sa} T , is fully equal to the entire sum paid 
 to wage laborers in the United States. This sum, though 
 paid by labor, is kept back by fraud, and never gets into 
 the hands of the laborers. But there is another fact 
 which should be stated, namely : Of the entire sum that 
 does get into the hands of the laborers, one-lialf goes to 
 pay rents, profits, and the subtle taxes perfidiously levied 
 upon everything they consume. 
 
 Another of the pernicious effects of the national bank 
 swindle is that it virtually withdraws from active and- 
 beneficial business enterprises an amount of capital equal 
 to the entire national bank circulation — a sum certainly 
 not less than three hundred million dollars. This is 
 fully explained by the writers hereafter referred to. The 
 general effect in the brief period of a single decade is 
 before us. In a business point of view the nation is 
 palsied ; and in a moral point of view the scene is sick- 
 ening — a nation demoralized and debauched ! Look at 
 the catalogue of “ bulls,’ * “bears,” “rings,” “corners,” 
 “sala^-grabs,” “credit mobiliers,” “swindles,” “defal- 
 cations,” “watered stock,” etc., etc., etc., and every 
 imaginable device to get dishonest gains ; and really no 
 honest, legitimate business throughout the nation, while 
 starvation stares millions of people in the face ! 
 
 Look again at the mighty army of men, women, and 
 children whom the above virtuous community ( !) call 
 criminals, and the unparalleled increase of the most ap- 
 
58 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 palling crimes ; even the very air seems surcharged with 
 the moral poison. 
 
 But an analytic and exhaustive statement of the na- 
 tional bank and bond frauds would make a volume. 
 The national bank sw indle in and of itself has been w’ell 
 exposed by abler pens than mine, with Judge Campbell 
 of Illinois at the head. To them I refer the reader for a 
 more thorough and detailed statement of the fraud. It 
 is my particular province to deal with fundamental prin- 
 ciples, rather than with minute particulars, on this money 
 question ; and in what was said in my pamphlet in re- 
 gard to the national banks, it w as only my purpose to 
 endorse what these able writers have stated and proved, 
 and whose statements are familiar to most intelligent 
 readers on this subject. 
 
 But I find I have still something to add to what I 
 have already said. It is a familiar sa}dng, and a true 
 one, that the utterance of one lie requires a hundred to 
 back it. This is true of all falsities of words and deeds. 
 The ingenious, subtle and plausible fraud of the United 
 States banking system is simpty the offspring of innu- 
 merable previous frauds of governments and human leg- 
 islation. There is alwa3’s a plausible pretext, either 
 expressed or implied, for every wrong that is perpetrated. 
 The wolf that met the lamb at the brook, and wanted to 
 make a meal of him, was too modest and conscientious 
 to devour him without a pretext ; so, although the lamb 
 w'as down-stream from where the wolf was drinking, 
 w'olf accused lamb of roiling the water, and then seized 
 him for his prey. 
 
 The Congress of the United States having shielded 
 the existing wealth of the nation from paying the pecu- 
 niary cost of the w*ar, while compelling the existing poor 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 59 
 
 population of the nation to do the fighting, contracted a 
 debt of two thousand million dollars (to be paid by the 
 future labor of the toiling population) authorized the 
 issuing of bonds to that amount, payable, principal and 
 interest in gold, and having provided for the issuing of 
 Treasury notes (greenbacks) only sufficient to pay the 
 executive, legislative, judicial, militar} 7 , naval, postal, 
 diplomatic, and other expenses of the government, found 
 that said Treasury notes would furnish only about $400,- 
 000,000 currency, while the financial wisdom of said 
 Congress had discovered and declared that $800,000,000 
 was about the precise sum needed. The question arose 
 then how to get that amount of currenc} 7 into circulation. 
 Half of the amount w^as supplied b} 7 greenbacks, upon 
 which the people paid no interest ; but it would not quite 
 do to double the expenses of the government in order to 
 get the full $800,000,000 currency into circulation, 
 though a u salary-grab” sufficient^ large for that purpose 
 might have been a grand stroke of policy at that time, 
 and possibly have been tolerated. And then again, the 
 “ business men” must have, it is said, a “loanable capi- 
 tal” somewhere “to move crops with,” that is, to buy 
 up crops and merchandise to hold, or rather withhold 
 from the people, until the people, suffering for the same, 
 should cause those crops and merchandise to “ rise in 
 value” in the hands of said “business men.” At length, 
 of course, said crops and merchandise w T ould be pur- 
 chased by the people, however valuable (!) or at what- 
 ever price, (for they must have them, or suffer with hun- 
 ger and cold,) and the money would be returned to the 
 bank to create a “contraction” of the currency, in time 
 for the next harvest, so as to cause a “fall in value” of 
 the crops in the hands of the husbandman and toiler, for 
 
60 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 the benefit of the ring of banks and “business men.” 
 This is what is meant by “a flexible currency” ! 
 
 Well, the question of getting the last half of $800,- 
 000,000 currency into circulation was solved by the bril- 
 liant conception of the present national banking scheme, 
 making the national debt, to that extent, the basis of a 
 national currenc} 7 , and to the same extent making the 
 national debt ‘ ‘ a national blessing” ! O happ} r thought ! 
 O great discovery of more than the philosopher’s stone ! 
 for while the latter w'as supposed to possess only the 
 power to transmute the baser metals into gold, here was 
 a discovery which was to transmute a debt bearing inter- 
 est, always considered a curse to the debtor, and of in- 
 finitely less than no substance, into a blessing to him ! 
 
 Nearty all the functions performed bj’this government 
 are either negative or destructive. All the positive or 
 constructive service it performs is included in the postal 
 sendee and the lately established weather bureau. Now 
 ■why should not government add to these constructive 
 and beneficent enterprises those of possessing, control- 
 ing and operating the mines and quarries, the railroads, 
 telegraphs, etc., and so issue all the currency needed 
 without interest, instead of conferring that privilege and 
 power upon irresponsible corporations or persons ; thus, 
 in the language of Charles Sears, clothing them with 
 “plenary dominion over industry and commerce.” 
 
 Issuing the Treasury notes I consider to be banking 
 on the cost principle, in so far as ft is a currency issued 
 without interest ; but much more than that is required to 
 make it the instrument of the emancipation of the toil- 
 ers, and the medium of equitable exchanges, as I have 
 already explained in my pamphlet, and in my previous 
 letters to you ; but I will offer a little further illustration. 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 61 
 
 In a former letter I gave some account of Hayes & Co., 
 at Winslow, N. J., who issue their own money, in which 
 they pay their employes. I will copy again from the 
 face of a specimen before me : 
 
 Winslow, N. J. — Due to bearer, in Merchandise at the counter of our 
 store, Five Dollars. HAYES & CO. 
 
 January 1st, 1865. 
 
 Now if Hayes & Co. had promised to pay the holder 
 of their note a given number of dollars in a specific 
 kind, quantity and quality of any of the products of 
 their farm or glass-works, estimated and priced at the 
 labor cost, that would be genuine banking on the cost 
 principle, which should not be restricted. 
 
 I have said in my pamphlet that the kind of money 
 proposed therein would educate the people into demand- 
 ing that all business should be conducted on the cost 
 principle, and you wish me to explain fully how and 
 wherein it would so operate. I will endeavor to comply 
 with y our request; but I beg a Yankee’s privilege, to 
 begin with questions of my own. 
 
 1. First, then, has the money now in use an educat- 
 ing influence? and if so, is that influence wholesome and 
 elevating? and is it calculated to inspire an exalted self- 
 respect and love of justice? or is it demoralizing and 
 corrupting in all its tendencies ? To the last interroga- 
 tory I answer, yes. I think the present money pollutes, 
 more or less, every one who touches it. One cannot 
 touch pitch and not be defiled. If I am right, and a 
 false and vicious money pollutes us, will not a true and 
 equitable money purify and cleanse us? If a person 
 wishes to get the advantage of you in a contract, he will 
 insist upon your being specific and exact in what 3’ou 
 promise, while his own promises will be as ambiguous 
 
62 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 and indefinite as 3*ou will allow him to make them, so 
 he can play fast and loose while 3*ou are bound. Such 
 a man personifies and illustrates the character of the 
 present mone}’. You are a laborer, and whether yon 
 work by the day or “piece-work,” 3*ou agree to take a 
 definite and specific number of dollars for 3*our labor ; 
 but when 3*ou go to exchange those dollars for the labor 
 of others, 3’ou know not, and have no means of know- 
 ing, how much labor 3011 are to get in return. And 
 prices of commodities in the hands of speculators are 
 continual^* fluctuating, while the price of 3*our labor, if 
 it fluctuates at all, nearty always fluctuates to 3'our dis- 
 advantage ; and 3'our only safety is to get the thing 3*ou 
 want as cheaply as 3*011 can, and thus 3*ou are compelled 
 to pollute 3*our soul. The money proposed would inform 
 3*011 just w r hat 3*ou would get for it, and 3*ou would not 
 be obliged to make two bargains ever3* time 3*ou ex- 
 changed 3*our labor for that of another person, — one 
 when 3*ou performed 3*our labor, and another when 3*ou 
 came to exchange 3*our mone3* for the labor of another. 
 
 2. I believe there is no law to prevent an3* one from 
 buying postage stamps of the government agents, and 
 selling them again at a profit, and it would certainly 
 be a public convenience to have them for sale at as many 
 different places as there are different places for the sale 
 of stationery or groceries ; and all would be willing to 
 pa3 7 for the accommodation ; and the3* are often kept at 
 those places to accommodate and attract customers, but 
 are never sold at a profit. Why? Because every one 
 knows the price of postage. 
 
 3 . Again : why* do traders so studiously conceal the 
 price they paid for the merchandise they keep for sale ? 
 First, because, though not celebrated for their want of 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 63 
 
 “cheek,” they cannot look people in the face and charge 
 them an exorbitant price ; and, second, if they did ask 
 such a price, no one would pay it. Again, it is a well- 
 known fact that those commodities, the cost of which the 
 people are most familiar with, pay the least profits. 
 
 I think there is an intrinsic love of justice and fair 
 play in the average human ; and I think it is safe to say 
 that people will not submit to injustice when they know 
 it and can avoid it ; and that a universal demand for 
 equity will be made when people have an instrument in 
 common use with which to determine what equity is. 
 The money proposed will furnish that instrument, which, 
 in connection with a genuine bureau of statistics of 
 labor established at Washington, similar to the weather 
 bureau, with stations all over the country, — a concur- 
 rent instrumentality to ascertain the labor cost of all 
 kinds of merchandise, — will, I think, so instruct the 
 people that they need not submit to the present profit 
 system unless they prefer it, and I do not believe they 
 will prefer it. These, then, are the considerations I 
 have to offer in justification of the assertion quoted from 
 my pamphlet. 
 
 You further ask what may be the best method of mak- 
 ing the public lands, treacherously donated b} 7 Congress 
 to railroad corporations, revert again to the possession 
 of the people ? I distinctly stated in my pamphlet what 
 I considered to be the best method of restoring those 
 lands to the public domain ; and as I have seen no rea- 
 son for changing my mind, I will copy that paragraph 
 here: “The millions of acres [of public lands] given 
 
 [by Congress] to railroad corporations within the last 
 decade must be restored to the public domain ; and as a 
 means to this and other great ends, it is proposed to tax 
 5 
 
64 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 all lands alike, whether occupied and improved or not — 
 not by their value, but by the acre; and that all other 
 modes of raising revenue for the support of the national 
 government, except the tax on incomes, be abandoned.” 
 Congress taxed the old state banks out of existence, be- 
 cause they had charters that could not legalh 7 be inter- 
 fered with, to make way for the precious national bank- 
 ing system ; and so we have a precedent for the kind of 
 taxation proposed, and you know lawmakers are always 
 looking for precedents. 
 
 In fact, it is only by taxation, or revolution, that land 
 tenures, ancient or modern, can be annulled ; and an- 
 nulled they must be before civilization can advance. By 
 revolution I mean rescinding, by an ex post facto law, 
 these parchment titles, feloniously bestowed b} T govern- 
 ments, which would be in contravention of the organic 
 law of this nation ; and as there is a less violent and 
 more efficient method, there is no need to resort to that. 
 It is proposed, then, to tax these lands back to the pub- 
 lic domain. Now let us consider these propositions in 
 the following order : 
 
 1 . Why not tax according to value ? 
 
 2 . Why tax by the acre ? 
 
 3. Why tax all lands alike? 
 
 1 . To tax land anj’where by its valuation is to virtu- 
 ally exempt lands unimproved and remote from settle- 
 ments from taxatiou at all ; and that would defeat our 
 object, which is to make all unimproved lands free to 
 actual settlers. To tax by valuation would be virtually 
 to tax labor and industry, which is utterly inadmissible 
 in principle and ruinous in practice. Our only purpose 
 is to rectify an ancient and enormous wrong by the least 
 violent and most effectual means, as a choice of evils 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 65 
 
 where there is nothing but evil to choose from, — not in- 
 tending to endorse the abstract principle of taxation. 
 
 2. A tax of fifty, or even twenty-five, cents per acre 
 would set all those railroad companies, who have unjustly 
 come in possession of the people’s land, lobbying Con- 
 gress to take the land back ; because, if they did not get 
 rid of the unoccupied land, they would have to give up 
 land and railroads too to pay the taxes. Such a tax 
 would lighten rather than increase the taxes of the far- 
 mers, if, as is concurrently proposed, they were exempted 
 from tariff and internal revenue taxation ; and if such a 
 tax should prove annoying, they would, to be exempted 
 from it, only have to surrender their parchment titles 
 and rest their claim on the natural right of possession, 
 namely, useful occupation , or culture , which would be 
 legalized simultaneously with the enactment of the law 
 now proposed. 
 
 It would also immediately force all unimproved lands 
 into the market , bringing all holders of land for specula- 
 tive purposes into sharp competition with each other, — 
 perhaps to the extent, in many cases, of compelling 
 large landholders, even in the oldest settled states, to 
 surrender their land to the state, under whose seal no 
 more parchment titles must be permitted to issue. 
 
 At any rate, such a tax could not fail to put an end to 
 land traffic for speculative purposes, (or if it did not, 
 let it be increased until it did,) and indirectly reduce the 
 price of land and rents enormously. This tax, however, 
 would not bear directly upon the occupants of land in 
 cities and suburbs, but only operate indirectly to re- 
 duce fictitious prices of land and rents, as previously 
 explained. 
 
 3. It might be desirable to discriminate between im- 
 
66 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 proved and unimproved lands, if sham improvements 
 could not be so easily improvised to perplex assessors, 
 fill courts with litigation, and defeat the execution of the 
 law. Governor Booth of California, some years ago, in 
 a message or public letter, I forget which, proposed to 
 the people of that state to tax all lands alike, for reasons 
 similar to those I have given, in order to put an end to 
 land speculation. His proposition, however, was to tax 
 by valuation, instead of taxing by the acre, which I 
 think would have defeated the object of the law, even 
 if it could have been enforced. 
 
 You inquire if I have any precise knowledge of the 
 number of acres of land lying waste because of the ca- 
 price of speculators holding it for a rise in price. I 
 have not ; and I think it would be difficult to get precise 
 information of this kind respecting other lands than 
 those donated to railroad companies ; but I think it 
 would be safe to say one-half the territory even of the 
 thirteen original states. Gaorge YT. Julien — God bless 
 him ! — in his speeches and letters, furnishes the most 
 thorough and reliable information in regard to Public 
 Lands and Lands Donated to Railroad Companies. 
 
 A very few dollars per acre will prevent people who 
 have no dollars from going on the land, and the price 
 paid by those who do go, whether it be little or much, 
 must be added to the price of the products of the land, 
 and must, like interest, rents, profits and dividends, be 
 paid by consumers, and thus all are made to paj^, so far 
 as land in its primitive state is concerned, for that which 
 already belongs to them for use. Not more than one- 
 half of the population will probably ever again till the 
 land ; but those who do not till the land are as much in- 
 terested in the management and price of land as those 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 67 
 
 who do ; and all this, and more, is now true of mineral 
 land. 
 
 But the most fatal and iniquitous of all the effects 
 of the land tenure system now in operation is — to quote 
 Mr. Sears again — the “ plenaty dominion” it gives to 
 landholders, not only “over industry and commerce,” 
 but over the bodies and souls of the landless, whose 
 name is legion. E. D. Ltnton. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 My Dear Linton : — In your “Principles which Ap- 
 pear to be Self-evident,” No. 3 declares “that no pow- 
 ers can be delegated to any government which each indi- 
 vidual does not himself or herself possess.” This would 
 not be clear to all, and would not be to every one self- 
 evident. Any individual has the right in his individual 
 capacity to build railroads, telegraphs, and run a post 
 office ; but he may not have means, and as the right im- 
 plies the means, a government may have the power to 
 perform a function as a collectivity, which no individual 
 can have the power to do, although he or she may have 
 the right. It would appear that governments (where 
 liberally chosen) were instituted for the exercising of 
 powers and the performance of functions which the indi- 
 vidual would not accomplish ; and all the evils arising 
 from governments appear to spring from their having 
 overstepped their functions. 
 
 No. 4 says “ that all governments exercising any 
 
08 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 powers not specifically delegated to them by the persons 
 governed are usurpations.” Hence we find that a repre- 
 sentative government cannot properly function, unless 
 certain restrictions are placed upon its action. This has 
 been attempted practically in Switzerland by the “Ref- 
 erendum,” and in France only partially and imperfectly 
 by means of the “Mandat Imperatif,” neither of which 
 completely fulfills the desired conditions of control, from 
 the very fact that it gives rise to a cumbersome method 
 of verification of opinion upon a given question. And 
 again : it has the inconvenience of making of questions, 
 which have in reality merely a local importance, ques- 
 tions of national discussson. It would appear to me, 
 therefore, that the blending of the two principles of the 
 “ Referendum” and the “Mandat Imperatif” is neces- 
 sary to secure expeditious and non-personal legislation, 
 which can only become effective when the autonomy of 
 locality is recognized in relation to national existence. 
 The less government we have the better. 
 
 The elimination of error has all along the road of his- 
 tory been attended with struggles, frequently bloodshed ; 
 and we must still expect to struggle in order to conquer 
 error and prejudice. As the errors pertaining to the 
 political system which at present obtains in the United 
 States are of later development in the human mind than 
 many other errors which are still rooted there, we may 
 hope, and I think reasonably hope, that they may be 
 more easily eradicated than errors of longer standing. 
 Therefore I congratulate you on the great service you 
 have rendered to the cause by condensing so man } 7 valu- 
 able thoughts into such terse statements and such small 
 space as you have done in your pamphlet. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 Drury. 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 69 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Drury : — Your letter No. 8 brings us again to 
 the consideration of words , and the difficulty of convey- 
 ing ideas, in those vehicles, especially when the ideas 
 are unfamiliar, and exactness is necessary. Put the 
 right thing in practice , and every one will understand. 
 You quote second paragraph of “Principles which Seem 
 to be Self-evident,” and I copy it here in order to get a 
 starting-point : “ No powers or functions can be delegat- 
 ed to any government which each individual does not 
 himself or herself possess.” The word rights might 
 have been used in place of “powers,” and yet in the 
 discussion of ethics, socialistics, and politics, no word, 
 perhaps, in the English language has so muddled peo- 
 ple’s minds and obscured the subjects discussed as the 
 word right. There are, as you know, at least five distinct 
 dictionary definitions to this word : and most words ad- 
 mit of more than one, and sometimes many definitions 
 and interpretations, and this fact ought to deter all men 
 from every attempt at formulating (except for conven- 
 ience) and statute-making. Even what I am writing 
 here for the purpose of making n^self better understood 
 will probably be understood differently by different per- 
 sons. The context is always more or less a guide to the 
 meaning of the text ; but the spirit, if it can be per- 
 ceived, is the best guide to go b} 7 . The most important 
 truths are often too subtle to be clothed in words. “The 
 spirit giveth life, the letter killeth.” 
 
 However, I am glad you have criticised the paragraph 
 quoted, as some others have stumbled in the same place. 
 Of course it would be absurd to say that the people 
 collectively cannot exert more physical force, or even 
 moral force, than an individual ; but the question is, 
 
70 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 Can two or more persons unite their forces to perform 
 an act or secure an end, in a civic sense, which it would 
 be wrong for each to do singly ? 
 
 No serious harm, I think, could come from any form 
 of government, if it w r ere restricted within the limits 
 prescribed in the seven propositions under the head of 
 “ Principles,” etc., in the pamphlet quoted ; and I know 
 of no reliable, efficient, or even possible means to secure 
 such restriction, but the power and majesty of correct 
 principles, lodged in the minds and consciences of men 
 and women, whether few or man}'. And, really, this 
 power constitutes all the restraint that now exists to 
 check unlimited rapacity. More perfect and more gen- 
 eral knowledge on this subject is all that is wanted. 
 The object cannot be attained by human legislation, nor 
 by any artificial means. In respect to legislation the 
 greatest need of mankind is Repeal. 
 
 E. D. Linton. 
 
 IX. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend : — On page 4 of your pamphlet, you have 
 a clause under the heading of “The National Debt,” 
 the truth of which must be recognized by all impartial 
 minds ; and your conclusion appears to be that ‘ ‘ as the 
 late war had its origin in injustice to labor” ; that as 
 property was exempt from the conscription ; that as la- 
 bor had to pay with its life ; property should have to 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 71 
 
 pay with its money ; and that property, not labor, should 
 pay the debt. 
 
 I am truly glad that in your pamphlet you forecast 
 the question of the national debt ; for however remote 
 may be the time when this question will be handled 
 without gloves by the people at large, that time will 
 surely come, and the question of repudiation will be re- 
 vived ; fortified by the power of conviction, the word 
 repudiation itself will become modified — or, rather, 
 will convey to the mind a different impression than that 
 which it conveys to-day. 
 
 The question will arise in the minds of the people as 
 to wdiether the man of property, who lent fifty dollars 
 to the government in a moment of national distress, 
 shall receive interest on one hundred dollars, for an un- 
 limited number of years, at six per cent., and in the end 
 demand, in gold, one hundred dollars as principal, when 
 fifty dollars as principal was all he lent to the govern- 
 ment. The proposition that, giving to the lender the 
 advantage of all the interest received up to a given 
 date, a law be passed declaring that the integral repay- 
 ment of the fifty dollars originally loaned to the gov- 
 ernment shall cancel the debt, will be considered to be 
 repudiation. It will on the contrary be the payment 
 in full of the debt. 
 
 The bondholders and others tell us that to repudiate 
 the national debt would be to provoke a war. But when 
 we consider that the committee of the Syndicate who 
 so adroitly floated the United States bonds upon the 
 European markets by that means made creditors of 
 foreigners, we may be sure that to make war on the 
 United States they would simply be illustrating the 
 fable of the hen with the golden eggs. 
 
72 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 Professor Hamilton, in his “ Inquiry Concerning the 
 British National Debt,” said : — “It would not in any 
 case occasion internal distraction and convulsion. The 
 evil to be feared would be war with the complaining 
 nations, and so we would retain our full strength ; and 
 as our resources would be unincumbered with debt, they 
 might not find it prudent to attack us.” I quote from 
 memory, and probably inexactly, but the sense is there. 
 
 It may be urged that repudiation would render war 
 loans impossible. This I think is one of the strongest 
 reasons why war debts should be wiped out by every 
 nation. If it would stop war loans, then repudiation 
 becomes the policy of peace, of public economy, of jus- 
 tice, and of humanity. 
 
 Before the late war, wages and profits were high, be- 
 cause taxation was low. Taxation will exhaust the en- 
 ergies and the prosperity of any nation. No taxation 
 is so harmful as that raised to pay war debts. 
 
 Yours ever as ever, Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Drury : — Having alluded to the war debt several 
 ttimes in these letters, and having dwelt quite at length 
 in letter No. 7 upon that subject (which was not re- 
 ceived by you until after your letter before me [No. 9] 
 was forwarded), it will hardly be necessary for me to 
 -do more at this time than to heartily endorse and 
 •commend the able and conclusive presentation of the 
 ^subject contained in your letter. In whatever form 
 these papers may appear in print, this letter must be 
 : added or supplemented to the text. Your statement in 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 73 
 
 the words following is so pregnant and terse, that I 
 cannot resist the temptation to copy it : — 
 
 “That ‘as the late war had its origin in injustice to 
 labor;’ that as property was exempt from the conscrip- 
 tion ; that as labor had to pay with its life, — property 
 should have to pay with its money ; and that property, 
 not labor, should pay the debt.” 
 
 I thought, when I wrote that pamphlet, and I still 
 think, that it is unwise to urge “ repudiation,” because 
 that word does not express what we mean, and it puts a 
 weapon into the hands of sham patriotism to use against 
 us ; although all you have said is true, and may ulti- 
 mately prove the best policy. The equitable and im- 
 mediate payment of the national debt should be the first 
 and imperative demand. 
 
 The application of the equitable principle to the war 
 debt would shrink it into exceedingly small dimensions 5 
 and “ immediate payment ” would seize upon all prop- 
 erty for that purpose, which would bring the property- 
 holders to our side, compelling citizen bondholders to 
 take a hand in squaring the account. So far as the 
 bonds are held by citizens, the nation collectively would 
 not be embarrassed or impoverished by immediate pay- 
 ment any more than an individual would be impover- 
 ished by transferring a jack-knife from one pocket to 
 another. 
 
 Let me relate here what a man (a Democrat) stated 
 in a public meeting in Charlestown about five years ago. 
 When gold was at a premium of $2.50 (in 1863, 1 think), 
 this man had one thousand dollars in gold. He exchanged 
 that gold for two thousand five hundred dollars in green- 
 backs, which he loaned to the government at 7.30 in 
 gold. In 1870 he had received his one thousand dollars 
 
74 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 in gold back again in the form of interest, and had his 
 two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar bond left; and in five 
 years more he would be paid again, and still have his 
 bond left. 
 
 Again I say, the first and imperative demand should 
 be the equitable and immediate payment of the national 
 debt. 
 
 And be it remembered that the United States bonds 
 thus issued, which have all been once paid in the form 
 of interest, and a part of which have been paid twice 
 over in the same way, are yet exempted from taxa- 
 tion. This was an infamous gratuity to the bond- 
 holders on the part of Congress, as it was no part of 
 the original contract with them. The effect of this is 
 to add at least one per cent, tax on two billions of 
 other property ; that is, two millions of dollars levied 
 upon the productive industries of the nation for the 
 benefit of bondholders; the effect of which is to cripple 
 and discourage legitimate business. The laws imprison 
 a “ pickpocket ” for stealing a sixpence, and yet by this 
 law of Congress, exempting United States bonds from 
 taxation, the pockets of the poor are picked, and the 
 money goes into the pockets of the rich. Why do not 
 the people demand that the bonds shall be, at least, 
 taxed ? E. D. Linton. 
 
 X. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 Dear Friend : — While reading your pamphlet, I was 
 struck with the force of your attacks upon some of the 
 fundamental laws as sustained and defended by the 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 75 
 
 political economists; and it was my intention to talk 
 over the subject of the standard of value with you, and 
 to put a few questions to you in relation thereto, which, 
 if I can collect my scattered thoughts, I will now pro- 
 ceed to do. 
 
 In the first place, then, it would seem necessary to 
 come to terms, and decide what value is in itself, before 
 we can get any clear idea as to whether it can have a 
 standard or not ; if it is or is not capable of measure- 
 ment, or susceptible to comparison. But you know that 
 the splitting of hairs, the chopping of words, and the 
 contest of terms form no part of our conversations ; that 
 in the words we use we strive to see the ideas which 
 those words represent ; and if the ideas are identical, 
 it matters not whether or no the words by which we 
 represent those ideas are similar. 
 
 First, then, as to value. I should much like to dis- 
 card the use of that word, if possible, for it is so in- 
 definite in its meaning that I feel assured it does not 
 give rise to the same ideas in any two minds. When 
 we say that a thing has a value , we must of necessity 
 compare it mentally with some other thing which has a 
 value, which other thing in its turn has a value only in 
 relation to all other things, and that relation is controlled 
 by circumstances. If a man be shipwrecked upon a 
 desert island, and ha$ a pocket full of gold and a crust 
 of bread in his wallet, evidently, in that circumstance, 
 the crust of bread is of more value than his pocketful 
 of gold. If, on the contrary, he be in the city of New 
 York, his gold, in that circumstance, would be of more 
 value than his crust of bread. Therefore, value is too 
 metaphysical a term ; it represents no fixed idea ; it is 
 altered and changed by every class of circumstances 
 
76 
 
 CONVEASATIONS 
 
 that surrounds it. Or we may say that the value of a 
 thing that a man possesses is decided by his environ- 
 ment. 
 
 If, on the contrary, we use the word utility we get at 
 a definite idea of certain properties which naturally 
 attach to things; and utility is less subject to variation. 
 A crust of bread will sustain life equally as well and for 
 as long a time in the city of New York as on a desert 
 island ; and the utility of bread being to support life, 
 it is equally useful under all conditions where life is to 
 be sustained. So with gold ; its utility is its property 
 of being fashioned into useful and ornamental objects, 
 and it is as useful in any locality where such objects are 
 required ; — the difference being that bread is indispen- 
 sable to life, gold not. The one applies to physical 
 existence, the other to aesthetic existence. In other 
 words, both gold and bread always possess the same 
 utility; whereas their value is constantly fluctuating in 
 their relation to each other and to other things. I think 
 you will agree with me that there is no standard of 
 value. If that be so, and you can demonstrate it in your 
 pamphlet, you will have divested the currency question 
 of one of its sujierfluous and most confusing ideas. If, 
 however, there is a standard of value, that is, a thing or 
 commodity by which all other things or commodities 
 were measured, then it certainly cannot be gold or sil- 
 ver, or any other one thing, but every thing, every com- 
 modity, becomes in its turn a standard ; that is, it de- 
 termines the relative value of all other things. For 
 instance, values or utilities are the necessaries of life. 
 I have seen two bushels of com exchanged for one 
 bushel of wheat; the next year one bushel of corn 
 exchanged for one bushel of wheat; while a certain 
 
OX CURRENCY. 
 
 77 
 
 amount of gold would purchase one bushel of wheat, 
 iTi the one instance, and two bushels in the other. Now 
 which was the standard of value? the corn, the wheat, 
 or the gold ? Certainly neither of them. I have seen, 
 also, four bushels of potatoes exchanged for one bushel 
 of corn, when potatoes were abundant ; and when they 
 were scarce, two bushels have been exchanged for the 
 same quantity of corn. So with all commodities ; the 
 quantities of each which will exchange for the quantities 
 of others vary among themselves according to the abun- 
 dance or scarcity of the commodities themselves ; there- 
 fore, either they are each and all of them standards of 
 value, or they are neither of them standards of value ; 
 hence there is no standard of value, there is but a dif- 
 ference in quantity ; but this difference in no way affects 
 the property of utility which naturally inheres in each. 
 
 If we trace this difference of quantity to its origin 
 we shall find that it arises from a want of scientific 
 method as applied to production, and that the quantities 
 of each commodity produced is not in equilibrium with 
 the quantity required for consumption, for were such 
 the case they would exchange equal quantity for equal 
 quantity — supposing their utility were equal, and the 
 labor bestowed upon the production of an equal quantity 
 of the commodities were equal for each. Hence we fall 
 squarely on to the question of economics which demands 
 imperatively that the consumptive power of the com- 
 munity should be known, and that the productive power 
 should be used to meet exactly the consumptive power ; 
 or say, consumption equals 50, the production should 
 equal 50, or even 55, leaving always a margin (on the 
 right side) for contingencies. Hence you see the ex- 
 treme breadth of this currency question, which you 
 
78 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 handle with rare discrimination. Its discussion cannot 
 but give rise to the correction of immature thoughts ; 
 and if, in anything I may say to you, I appear to wander 
 from the question, it is because I cannot bring my mind 
 to such a focus upon the question as to avoid collateral 
 thoughts. If, however, you can make this matter of the 
 standard of value clear, and dispel the fog which sur- 
 rounds it, I for one shall thank you. 
 
 Hastily yours, Drury. 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Friend : — Your well-nigh exhaustive treat- 
 ment of the subject of “ values ” makes it unnecessary 
 that I should add anything myself; but I will insert 
 here an article by the master mind. ' This article has 
 often before been published, but it is so complete, per- 
 fect, and conclusive, as well as concise, that it cannot be 
 too often republished and read. E. D. Linton. 
 
 COST AND PRICE. 
 
 BY JOSIAH WARREN. 
 
 What should a circulating medium be? What is 
 required of it? Should it be a representative of prop- 
 erty — of wealth? 
 
 What wealth? What property? Let us examine. 
 Sunshine, the air we breathe, the water in a river, are 
 wealth, but they are natural wealth ; they are of great 
 value , but they cost nothing, — they are not the product 
 of any human exertion : therefore, no human being has 
 any right to claim pay for them ; they are of right and 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 79 
 
 of necessity the common property of all. Therefore 
 we require no circulating medium to represent these, or 
 any other natural wealth or natural value. 
 
 A watch embraces but little natural wealth. It has a 
 cost, which consists of the amount of labor bestowed 
 on the mineral or natural wealth, in converting it into 
 metal, the labor bestowed by the workmen in construct- 
 ing the watch, the wear of tools, the rent, fire-wood, 
 and various contingent expenses in its manufacture, to- 
 gether with the labor or money expended in its trans- 
 mission from the manufacturer to the vender, and the 
 labor and money expenses of the vender in passing it 
 to the one who uses it. All these items or more, con- 
 stitute the cost of the watch. 
 
 The value is entirely different from its cost, and would 
 be different with almost every different watch and every 
 different purchaser. 
 
 The watch, then, consists of at least three prominent 
 constituents : natural wealth , its cost , and its value . 
 Now, which of these should become the basis of its 
 price, and be represented by the circulating medium ? 
 Or should it represent all of them? 
 
 The natural wealth. The mineral in the earth 
 before any labor was bestowed upon it, — who can ra- 
 tionally set a price upon and claim pay for this? Who- 
 ever can rightly do this can also claim pay for sunshine ; 
 but, as this has been irrationally permitted, the price 
 paid for it enters into and becomes part of the cost. 
 
 The cost. Who can rationally set a price on and 
 claim pay for this ? All those who applied their money 
 or labor towards it. 
 
 The value. This, in a well-made watch, depends 
 upon the natural qualities or principles of its mechanism, 
 
80 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 upon the uses to which it is applied, upon the fancy or 
 the wants of the purchaser; and it would be different 
 with almost every different watch. The same watch 
 would possess different values to different persons, and 
 different to the same person under different circum- 
 stances. Now, among this multitude of different values, 
 which of them should be selected to set a price upon ? 
 Or should the price be made to vary and fluctuate ac- 
 cording to these various and fluctuating values? Com- 
 mon sense answers, Neither; but that, as this value, 
 like that of sunshine and air, is not the product of hu- 
 man exertion, so no one can rightly rest any claim or 
 set any price upon it. 
 
 Cost, then, and not value, is the only rational ground 
 of price. Yet value is made almost entirely the basis 
 of price in almost all the commerce of what is called 
 civilized society. 
 
 XI. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 My Dear Linton : — Since last I wrote you I have had 
 the pleasure of meeting you at the conference on cur- 
 rency in New York; and I wish now to call your atten- 
 tion to a few of the observations made by some of the 
 friends in attendance. As these observations are repre- 
 sentative of the opinions of a vast majority, I wish you 
 to give me the replies in writing which you would have 
 given to the conference verbally had all those who at- 
 tended it had time to listen to your explanations ; but 
 there, as is usually the case when friends meet, we had 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 81 
 
 not time enough to spend together; and as each came a 
 long distance, we had to hurry home. Do you remem- 
 ber the remark of one of our friends when you demand- 
 ed liberty in banking, as in all things ? He spoke to 
 this effect: “Nothing is money except what the law 
 makes money; anything that legislative enactments 
 make money is money.” Now what answer would you 
 have made to that proposition? You will see, I think, 
 that if it is accepted as correct, it will land some of us 
 where we should not like to find ourselves. What do 
 you say? 
 
 “Wealth,” said another, “is capital;” and as he con- 
 tinued he said that “capital is a factor;” a factor in the 
 social sum, I understood him to imply. And he dwelt 
 earnestly upon the importance of due consideration 
 being given to the factor capital. But labor,' also, is a 
 factor in the social problem, and a factor equally as im- 
 portant as capital, and without claiming superiority for 
 one or the other of these factors, we may at least claim 
 priority for labor, — since no capital can exist unless it 
 be created by labor; for although, when it is said that 
 “ labor creates all wealth,” it may be objected that there 
 is natural wealth which labor does not create, yet the 
 distinction between wealth and capital is just this : that 
 wealth implies the action of Nature, while capital im- 
 plies solely the action of labor. If I understand your 
 desire it is this : that a currency should be established 
 whereby neither labor nor capital shall be unjustly 
 treated, but whereby justice-equity shall be done both 
 to the laborer and the capitalist ; am I right? 
 
 Do you remember that one of the friends present 
 asserted that “ Interest is legitimate, else how could a 
 railroad be built”? Now in your pamphlet, as I remem- 
 
82 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 ber, you speak of building gas and water works and 
 railroads; what reply would you have made to that? 
 I am anxious to know. 
 
 If you remember, I put a question very pointedly to 
 you; you were about to reply when another question 
 was put to you, which not only diverted your mind 
 from my question, but led all our thoughts into a differ- 
 ent channel. The question was this: “Would the 
 money proposed by you circulate the same as green- 
 backs?” I was cheated out of a merited reply at the 
 time, so I would encroach upon your kindness for an 
 answer to the same question now. Close upon that 
 question came two somewhat similar ones from another 
 part of the room ; I remember them well, — they were 
 these: “Would it be necessary to purchase coal with 
 coal money ?” and “ Would it not be a complicated cur- 
 rency ? ” I thought both of these questions very perti- 
 nent, and the reason you did not answer them was, I 
 thought, that you did not like to take up too much of 
 the time ; so now, as you are quietly at home, and need 
 have no fear of monopolizing the time which politeness 
 made you think belonged to others, you can write me 
 a long, friendly letter, and explain in full. You see I am 
 very exacting: but to one who has thought so long and 
 so profoundly upon the question, it comes quite natural 
 to me to think that it must be a labor of love. But in 
 your case I am sure it will not be “ Love’s labor lost.” 
 
 Is not the currency now in use in the United States 
 based upon debt, that is, upon substance already con- 
 sumed ; and should it not be based upon something 
 positive, definite, certain, which is unconsumed, but 
 which is to be delivered to the holder of the currency 
 upon demand ? Truly yours, Drury. 
 
OX CURRENCY. 
 
 83 
 
 LINTON TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Friend : — In your last you call ray attention to 
 the remarks made at the late conference in New York 
 City, and desire me to make such replies to those referred 
 to in your letter, as I would have done on the spot if I 
 had had time and opportunity. With this desire I will 
 cheerfully comply, and will do so in the order in which 
 they stand in your letter. 
 
 The first remark you allude to is the statement there 
 made, that “Nothing is money except what the law 
 makes money.” The gentleman being young in years, 
 I don’t know whether or not he was aware that Henry 
 Clay, thirty years ago, used similar language in regard 
 to slavery; but of course that notorious speech was at 
 once revived in my memory. It was as follows : “ That 
 is property which the law makes property.” The as- 
 sumption that any human law could make man the prop- 
 erty of man, Lord Brougham pronounced to be “ a wild 
 and guilty phantasy.” “A wild and foolish phantasy!” 
 would have been my reply to the young man. If human 
 law creates anything, it is always artificial, if not fictitious 
 and criminal. The law can add nothing to your rights 
 or mine as a human being; neither can the law alienate 
 from us one of these rights. Is it probable that that 
 gentleman would say that nothing is a carriage (or 
 means of conveyance) except what the law makes a 
 carriage ? If he would not, and I think he would not, 
 the two things, money and carriages, so nearly resemble 
 each other in the functions they are used to perform, 
 that no more need be said. If A, in Massachusetts, has 
 a right to make a hoe, and B, in Connecticut, has a right 
 to make a hat, have not A and B an* equal right to ar- 
 
84 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 range, without let or hindrance, how they shall convey 
 the hoe and the hat from one to the other, if they wish 
 to exchange? If any person has any rights which the 
 law-making power, so called, is bound to respect, this 
 last mentioned is one of them. 
 
 “ Wealth,” said another, “is capital.” “Is it?” my 
 reply would have been ; “then let us dismiss one or the 
 other of these terms, in this discussion, that we may not 
 unnecessarily complicate the subject.” Wealth, then, is 
 a factor. But there are two kinds of wealth, one the 
 product of Nature, the other of human exertion. I 
 plant a tree ; it grows ; and the earth, the sun, the air, 
 and a myriad other agencies, are the factors. What is 
 due to these agencies, and to whom is it due? Echo 
 answers, to whom ? I am a farmer, and I want a plow. 
 The plow is a factor. What is due to this factor, and 
 to whom is it due? I answer, To the plow-maker, to 
 the iron-worker, etc., it is due. But how much ? Let 
 us leave this question for the moment, in order that 
 another question may be answered at the same time. 
 You are a plow-maker, and want more wheat. Wheat 
 is a factor, because, without it, you cannot make the 
 plow. What is due to this factor, and to whom is it 
 due? To you, the plow-maker, it is due ; but how much ? 
 (It must be assumed that we are both competent work- 
 men at our respective occupations.) I answer, As much 
 labor in wheat as it cost labor to produce the plow ; both 
 to be measured by time employed, if both are equally 
 costly of life and health, clothes, tools, shop-room, fuel, 
 etc. If plow-making proves to be more costly in these 
 respects than wheat-raising, then something more than 
 hour for hour would seem to be due from the farmer to 
 the plow-maker. What more is due, than is above 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 85 
 
 stated, to the factor, wealth ? Echo answers, what more 
 is due ? 
 
 I am not writing for unthinking, unreasoning men, and 
 therefore it is unnecessary to multiply examples. If I 
 were to give a thousand, the elementary principles in- 
 volved in all of them would be the same, and the point 
 be no clearer. And now, if there is any defect in my 
 statements here, let them be pointed out, or let us hear 
 no more about “adjusting the relations between capital 
 and labor.” There is no capital but saved-up labor to 
 be taken into the account, as a “ factor,” in the construc- 
 tion of a civilized money system. There is, in the last 
 analysis, absolutely nothing to be adjusted but labor, or 
 exchangeable service, as labor must pay for every thing. 
 There are, it is true, other elements which necessarily 
 enter into the adjustment of prices in exchange. These 
 elements are sacrifices, repugnance, risks of all kinds, 
 etc.; but these can only be adjusted by the immediate 
 parties to each and every transaction, and have nothing 
 to do with the construction of a civilized medium of 
 exchange. But for the use of a crude and irrational 
 money in the past, we never should have heard anything 
 about “ the relations of capital and labor.” “ But,” says 
 one, “ how about loans and rents ? ” In friendly neigh- 
 borhoods, a little remote from public marts, even now, 
 we hear nothing about the relations of capital and labor. 
 Jf a blacksmith wants the loan of a farmer’s horse and 
 carriage for a day, to visit a friend at a distance, the 
 farmer’s conditions or price would be different under 
 different circumstances ; but we will suppose the circum- 
 stances to be as follows : the farmer does not want to 
 use the horse and carriage himself, the horse is in good 
 condition, and having done nothing for some time, needs 
 
86 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 a little exercise. The farmer, in his “ innocence and 
 grace,” would, probably, say to the blacksmith: “Drive 
 the horse moderately, give him food and water so and 
 so, take care of him thus and thus, return him in as good 
 condition as when you took him, and these are the con- 
 ditions or price for the horse.” Why ? Because if the 
 conditions named are complied with, it will have cost 
 the farmer nothing for the loan of the horse ; and not 
 having had his primitive sense of right or righteousness 
 perverted and corrupted by the use of a crude and irra- 
 tional money, the farmer thinks not of extorting a price 
 for the loan of the horse according to the value of the 
 journey to the blacksmith. “But for the w T ear of the 
 carriage,” says the farmer, “ you may set a tire for me, 
 some time, when one comes off.” And right here let me 
 say, that no civilized money , nor any money , can be 
 devised , that can ever rectify the giant wrongs and 
 complicated falsities of the past. Any attempt to do 
 so must forever “ perplex and dash warmest councils.” 
 The past must be left to dry up and die out . Our efforts 
 will be wasted and lost if we do not confine ourselves 
 to the single and specific work of constructing a civil- 
 ized monetary system which, while it shall make no war 
 upon present accumulations of wealth , shall provide for 
 the equitable exchange of future productions. And we 
 must adhere strictly to primary principles, or, if you 
 choose, divine law; or there is no way of extricating 
 mankind from the ignorance, the injustice, the corrup- 
 tions, the sufferings, and the crimes of present society. 
 
 To the remark that “ interest is legitimate, else how 
 could a railroad be built?” my answer is, Yes, with a 
 false money, interest is legitimate ; but it does not follow 
 that a railroad cannot be built without interest, and a 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 87 
 
 great deal better without it than with it. If there was 
 no legislative enactment to prevent it, what should hin- 
 der the national or any State government, or any com- 
 pany, or even an individual in whom the public had 
 sufficient confidence, from laying out a railroad wherever 
 one was needed, paying for the land an equitable price, 
 and for all other material, labor, or service in the con- 
 struction 'and running of the road, in certificates entitling 
 the holder to a definite amount of conveyance for freight 
 and passengers at cost? If the road was really and 
 obviously needed in the part of the country it was pro- 
 posed to build it, these certificates would be gladly re- 
 ceived at par, at least in the vicinity of the road ; and, 
 moreover, would supply a better currency than was ever 
 before in use. It would at once set everything in mo- 
 tion and everybody at work. Why would this money 
 be received? First, because everybody would soon 
 know that the road was absolutely needed ; secondly, 
 because no profits would be demanded by stockholders ; 
 and, thirdly, because no interest would be paid on the 
 money used in its construction. If the money would 
 not circulate, it would be conclusive evidence that the 
 road ought not to be built. 
 
 It may be remarked here that one of the causes of the 
 unparalleled and protracted stagnation of our national 
 industries is the building of railrdads for speculative 
 purposes, to the extent that this has been done. 
 
 The three following questions occur in your letter : 
 “ Would the money proposed by me circulate the same 
 as greenbacks?” “Would it be necessary to purchase 
 coal with coal money ? ” “Would it not be a compli- 
 cated currency?” I will answer the last question first. 
 My proposition is, that the national government issue, 
 
88 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 or authorize the issuing of, the currency, based upon the- 
 integrity of the United States government; therefore 
 it would not be a “complicated currency.” I have 
 heard many objections brought against the present cur- 
 rency of the United States; but never that it was a 
 “ complicated currency,” notwithstanding that there are 
 over two thousand different national banks, located in 
 every State in the Union, besides several different kinds 
 of greenbacks. Why? Because the responsibility (so 
 far as there is any responsibility about it) of all the cur- 
 rency in circulation rests with the United States. Again, 
 the money I propose would be receivable for all govern- 
 ment dues (which the present currency is not), and con- 
 sequently convertible, one for another, throughout ; and 
 therefore it would not be a complicated currency. It 
 would not be necessary to purchase coal with coal money, 
 any more than it is now necessary to purchase postage 
 or revenue stamps with greenbacks instead of national 
 bank notes. 
 
 The unit of measure of all the money proposed by 
 me is, virtually, one hour’s labor time, as the slightest 
 analysis of it will show. This measure is absolutely 
 perfect , and therefore the currency would be absolutely 
 uniform throughout the United States, and must “circu- 
 late the same as greenbacks.” 
 
 To the whole of the last paragraph in your last (if the 
 reader will be kind enough to turn to it and read), I 
 answer most emphatically, yes . Linton. 
 
OX CURRENCY. 
 
 89 
 
 XII. 
 
 DRURY TO LINTON. 
 
 My Dear Lfoiton : — I read with pleasure your pam- 
 phlet. It is seldom we find so much condensed into ten 
 pages. I like it much on account of the bold manner 
 in which it speaks in contradiction to some of the ac- 
 cepted doctrines of the economists. Without denying 
 for a moment that the writings of the political econo- 
 mists have been valuable, and have rendered great ser- 
 vice to the world in the past, we may, however, question 
 the correctness of some of their conclusions, and be 
 permitted to doubt if some of the “laws” which they 
 have propounded are really laws at all ; and also to 
 doubt that, though these laws have guided the relations 
 of men in the past, they are fit to guide for the present, 
 or can possibly serve for the future. 
 
 I am glad to see that you call attention to the sub- 
 ject. “ Supply and demand regulates price,” say the 
 economists, and thereupon they defend the most inhu- 
 man practices (such as can only exist among savages) 
 upon the plea that it is all in accordance with law. 
 
 It is necessary to awaken to the fact that the econo- 
 mists of to-day are, many of them, very much shaken 
 in their faith in their predecessors, and even go so far as 
 to deny the “laws” of their masters. One of them, in 
 speaking of the school, says : — “ Their decrees I may 
 say in the main amount to a handsome ratification of the 
 existing form of society as approximately perfect, and 
 I think we should be able to understand the repugnance, 
 and even violent opposition, manifested toward it by 
 people who have their own reasons for not cherishing 
 
90 
 
 CONVEKSATIONS 
 
 that unbounded admiration for our present industrial 
 arrangements which is felt by some popular expositors 
 of so-called economic laws.” And we may certainly say 
 that supply and demand, in so far as they have formu- 
 lated it as a law, is not received with “ unbounded ad- 
 miration.” It is perfectly true, as you say, that “De- 
 mand should regulate supply and the first work of the 
 economists should have been to ascertain what the de- 
 mand is. That is a thing they have never done, nor 
 have they taken the first step toward it. If the demand 
 were once known, the question of supply and demand 
 would naturally answer itself. Given the population of 
 a territory, or nation, what is its consumptive capacity? 
 That would constitute the demand. Then, what is its 
 productive capacity? That would constitute the supply. 
 The demand once known, the natural step to take would 
 be to organize the productive energies of the population 
 in such a way that the demand would be supplied — plus 
 a slight per centage in order to meet contingencies. But 
 how can we expect political economy to treat of supply 
 and demand with that enlightened spirit which the pres- 
 ent times demand, when it has not yet recognized as a 
 law that, with society, the constructive power of produc- 
 tion is superior to the destructive power of consumption. 
 If we look for a moment at supply and demand as the 
 economist defends it, we cannot fail to perceive how in- 
 human it is, and we can readily recognize whence springs 
 the “violent opposition manifested toward it.” 
 
 If there is, say, ten thousand barrels of flour on the 
 market at Boston, and the people require ten thousand 
 barrels for consumption, the demand is naturally equal 
 to the supply. If those who demand the flour have 
 eight dollars each, and those who hold (supply) the flour 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 91 
 
 . will sell it at that price, the supply remains equal to the 
 demand. But now comes the case — which is usually the 
 fact — that operators, speculators, monopolists, call them 
 what you will, buy up five thousand barrels, or half the 
 quantity in the market, and make a corner , and hold it 
 for a rise ; and they will not part with it for less than 
 ten or twelve dollars a barrel. Those who hold the 
 money want the flour as much as they would at eight 
 dollars a barrel, but they cannot obtain it. The econo- 
 mist hereupon says that the demand is not equal to 
 the supply, and points with pride to the fact that of ten 
 thousand barrels of flour only five thousand are sold — 
 consequently they did not want more ! Hence we see 
 plainly that monopoly steps in and prevents the natural 
 working of supply and demand ; in other words, monop- 
 olists can interfere with a “ law,” and make it conform 
 to their own caprice. What should we say if a man, 
 because he had money, could walk in the air, and sus- 
 pend the action of gravitation : should we dignify it 
 with the name of law f 
 
 But, say the economists, the desire to purchase im- 
 plies the means to purchase, and there can be no demand 
 if the means of supply is not possessed. That is as if 
 I were to say to you that you want a dinner, but if you 
 have not the money wherewith to purchase it you can- 
 not be hungry. No wonder, then, that the people have 
 so little faith in the doctrines of the economists. And 
 yet, the workers are fully convinced that the industrial 
 activity of the world is to be found in conforming to 
 law ; but they do not suppose for a moment that it goes 
 on bap-hazard without plan or purpose. 
 
 Those who have closely watched the action of the 
 producers of the world during the past quarter of a cen- 
 
92 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 tury, have no doubt that the workers will succeed in 
 establishing a code of laws in political economy which 
 will be much more in accordance with justice and equity 
 than the doctrines of the economists who have written 
 up to the present time ; and your admirable treatment 
 of the currency question is an evidence that it will not 
 fail. That the economists have not proven themselves 
 to be more profound upon the subject of money than 
 they have been on other questions, we have but to refer 
 to the difference of opinion and variety of treatment 
 which the elementary principles in relation to the theory 
 of money has received at the hands of Ricardo, Senior, 
 Tooke, Cairnes, etc. “The value of money is inversely 
 as its quantity,” was held to be a law; see how they 
 agree among themselves as to its truth, and then ask 
 yourself, Who is to decide? Hastily yours, Drury. 
 
 Remarks. — My letter to Gen. Banks, printed in the 
 Appendix, contains the pith and marrow of what I 
 would have said on demand and supply, but would have 
 been more elaborated and illustrated. E. D. L. 
 
 BABCOCK TO DRURY. 
 
 Dear Mr. Drury : — To the excessive grief of all his 
 friends, who honor him for his life-long devotion to an 
 unpopular but beneficent cause, Mr. Linton has been 
 stricken down by a painful and lingering malady ; and 
 at his request I write a few observations on “ supply and 
 demand,” to accompany your last admirable letter. 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 93 
 
 Were it not for the fact that men so often permit their 
 better qualities to be smothered in their thirst of gain, 
 and their perceptions to be blinded by their interests, 
 nothing could be so dishonorable to the human intellect 
 as the inconsiderate haste with which the commercial 
 world accepted the theory of supply and demand as 
 showing how prices are determined and regulated. The 
 delusion is so transparent that its exposure requires but 
 a moment’s thought. It can neither stand on its own 
 basis, nor against the fixed moral principles that should 
 ever control human action. The bubble may be punc- 
 tured in a few words. 
 
 The theory, as stated by John Stuart Mill, is this: — 
 “ If the demand increases, the value rises ; if the demand 
 diminishes, the value falls.” But, as if with intent to 
 show how utterly inoperative the -theory is, he also says : 
 “ In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be un- 
 derstood, ‘ supposing all parties to take care of their 
 ovm interest ” What is now left of this boasted “ law ”? 
 Let us see. 
 
 (1) It implies that all men are thoroughly selfish ; but 
 this is not a fact. The benevolent impulses and moral 
 affections play an important part in the business of life. 
 When a man refuses, in a generous purpose, to take 
 advantage of a scarcity to raise the price of a com- 
 modity he has to sell, as many men have done, he upsets 
 the “ law.” 
 
 (2) It requires that each man shall understand his 
 own selfish interest. Now nothing is more certain than 
 that all men have not attained that wisdom. This fact 
 largely explains the diversities of success in business. 
 Men make money in trade by dealing with those who 
 do not understand their own interest — paying less and 
 
94 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 getting more than it would be possible to do if they did. 
 In such cases it is not supply and demand, but sharpness 
 and simplicity, that regulate the price. 
 
 (3) It requires that if each man understands his own 
 interest he shall also take care of it. But, as is well 
 known, all men will not do this. There are men too 
 noble in their instincts and purposes to make the “ ne- 
 cessities of men their opportunities” to enrich ^hem- 
 selves. There are employers too humane to cut down 
 wages to the lowest possible starvation point. 
 
 (4) It decrees that no enterprise involving the outlay 
 of money shall be undertaken except in the expectation 
 of pecuniary return. But all private educational insti- 
 tutions are in open disregard of this in their foundation. 
 The colleges, I believe, still continue to teach the de- 
 lusive theory of supply and demand ; but the history of 
 each is a sufficient refutation of the teaching. Not one 
 has come into existence except in defiance of it. The 
 best journals ever published have been those supported 
 by voluntary donation and self-denying sacrifice, when 
 there was no “ demand ” for them to make them paying 
 enterprises. 
 
 (5) It requires that there shall be no combinations or 
 monopolies to control prices. But all business is now 
 honeycombed with combinations, such as the “ corner ” 
 you so graphically describe. Dealers combine to fix 
 prices of goods, and employers combine to establish the 
 rate of wages. Anything like natural supply and de- 
 mand is, while these combinations continue, impossible. 
 
 These considerations, thus briefly stated, effectually 
 dispose of all the assumption and delusion of the current 
 theory of supply and demand. But even if it were not 
 demolished by the facts of life, and could ever be avail- 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 95 
 
 able, I should still repudiate it on moral grounds. It 
 takes no account of the distinction between right and 
 wrong. It coolly sanctions injustice. It represents 
 Nature — that benignant mother — as throwing her rich 
 treasures into a confused heap, and saying to her chil- 
 dren, Grab ! — if any one can seize the lion’s share, he 
 may ! I do not believe that this is any just or natural 
 law of human action or intercourse. Why, I ask, were 
 the instincts of justice and generosity implanted in hu- 
 man breasts, if not to control the mutual relations ot 
 men ; to diminish human suffering and promote human 
 welfare? The assumption that a man may take advant- 
 age of the state of the market to enrich himself at his 
 brother’s expense, I reject and spurn as a mockery ot 
 the eternal moral verities ! 
 
 The first work is to dislodge this false and immoral 
 theory; the next, to establish the true principle which 
 regulates price. I do not design to enter on that point 
 now, since so much is to be done to emancipate the pub- 
 lic mind from the theories that have enslaved it. But 
 I will say, in closing, that no better standard has yet 
 been proposed than that “ cost is the limit of price.” 
 Cordially, J. M. L. Babcock. 
 
 ALTHOUGH NOWHERE INSERTED HERE, LET IT AL- 
 WAYS BE REMEMBERED THAT THERE SHOULD BE A 
 LIMIT TO EVERY ISSUE OF MONEY, WHICH ISSUE 
 SHOULD BE NUMBERED, DATED, AND REGISTERED; 
 OF WHATEVER DESCRIPTION, BY WHOMSOEVER AU- 
 THORIZED, AND BY WHOMSOEVER ISSUED ; AND THAT 
 LIMIT SHOULD NEVER EXCEED THE PROMPT DELIV- 
 ERY OF THE CERTAIN QUANTITY OF THE COMMODITY 
 PROMISED. BANKING ON THE COST PRINCIPLE WILL 
 BE A SUFFICIENT CHECK TO ANY ATTEMPT AT ILLE- 
 GITIMATE HOARDING OR MONOPOLY OF MONEY. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 MR. LINTON ON LAND TENURE. 
 
 [Extract from a Letter to E. B. McKenzie.] 
 
 Mr. Warren and I did not quite agree »on the land question ; 
 still, the difference was mainly in words. 
 
 My position is that occupancy, or labor invested in or on the 
 land, is the only true title, and not the parchment conveyance of a 
 government; that while a person's labor is invested in or. on, and 
 inseparable from, land, or any other material wholly the product 
 of Nature, such investment of labor constitutes an “ act of owner- 
 ship,” and is property while these conditions last. 
 
 Nothing can be called property that is not composed in part of 
 material of some kind, but the labor invested in it constitutes the 
 only legal or rightful title. I think that is just what Mr. Warren 
 meant. If he meant that any one could have any other rightful 
 title to property, he was mistaken. E. D. L. 
 
 LAST WORDS. 
 
 [Our friend, Mr. Linton, having been prostrated by 
 a stroke of paralysis in the early part of the year 1876, 
 and being unable to attend to the work of putting in 
 type this little volume, which he regards as the most 
 important work of his life, and his complete and com- 
 prehensive contribution toward the solution of the 
 problem of Labor Reform, has intrusted to a friend the 
 supervision of that work, with permission to improve 
 his manuscript, even to the extent in some cases of more 
 fully carrying out his thought. The portion of that 
 manuscript which is here printed in an Appendix was 
 96 
 
OX CURRENCY. 
 
 97 
 
 dictated to an amanuensis, while he lay upon his bed, 
 and some incompleteness or obscurity was of course to 
 be expected in it. Nevertheless, that friend has felt 
 unwilling to avail himself of the permission given, ex- 
 cept to a very small extent; at the same time, he has 
 felt constrained, by his respect for the author, and his 
 high appreciation of the value of Mr. Linton’s utter- 
 ances on this subject, to allow nothing intended for 
 these pages to be omitted, however incomplete or un- 
 satisfactory it may have seemed to the author. His sick- 
 bed addenda will be read as fragments, and may perhaps 
 be valued by his friends all the more because they are 
 such. 
 
 The writing of a chapter on “Demand and Supply ” 
 our friend had postponed for a favorable mood of mind,, 
 as he wished to do his best upon it, not because he re- 
 garded the subject as abstruse or difficult in any way, 
 except as it is involved in a very current popular error; 
 and it is much to be regretted that Mr. Linton had not 
 an opportunity to treat this subject in his own perspicu- 
 ous style; but paralysis prevented his doing it, and this 
 rather important chapter had to be supplied by another 
 hand. Among the dictated papers placed in the hands 
 of the editor is the following very brief sketch of the- 
 groundwork of what Mr. L. would have said. — Editor.] 
 
 Demand and Supply will regulate price as long as there is 
 scarcity ; but in civilized society scarcity should be the rare excep- 
 tion, especially in staple articles of consumption : and, therefore*, 
 supply and demand should have nothing whatever to do with price ;; 
 but cost, and cost alone, in the broad sense, should regulate price. 
 
 In civilized society scarcity is the rare exception, except whecu 
 produced intentionally by speculators. 
 
 This is the fundamental idea, which can be elaborated and illus- 
 trated, but is the substance of what I would say on this subject. 
 
98 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 [We insert other brief passages from the author, with- 
 out attempting any order. — E d.] 
 
 29 City Square, Charlestown, June 4, 1876. 
 
 It is known, of course, that all the propositions contained in the 
 “ Conversations on Currency ” will not be carried out at once, hut 
 only by degrees, according to the ripeness of public men and of 
 the leaders of public thought and action. But the writers believe 
 that civilization cannot attain a true growth without all of them, 
 and they undertook to write the whole truth as far as revealed to 
 them ; knowing well enough that when it shall come to practical 
 issues true and comprehensive measures will be sufficiently diluted 
 to prevent any catastrophe from a too sudden change from the 
 false to the true. 
 
 Individual Action. — We want individual ownership, individual 
 responsibility, individual leadership or directorship, and individual 
 enterprise. We cannot go on without them. We do not want to 
 change things ; when we come to critically analyze society, we 
 shall find that there is not so very much that wants changing. 
 Equity, taught and incorporated into our daily lives, governing and 
 controlling onr exchanges and all our intercourse with each other, 
 will make co-operation spontaneous, and transform society into — 
 
 [My appreciative reader can supply the concluding 
 clause, which is not in the manuscript, and we prefer 
 to leave it as it fell from the author’s lips. At the bot- 
 tom of the paper is written : “ Don’t fail to have some 
 one write it out and put it in print.” We think it is 
 worth more as it is than with other hands upon it. — Ed.] 
 
 Of Possession and Property. — I should like to define the words 
 “ possession ” and “ property ” as' I use them here. Possession is 
 the holding of natural or primitive wealth where labor is invested' 
 property is that which one has constructed or produced, or has any 
 labor title to. Land, or other primitive wealth, may continue in 
 one line of possession hundreds of years, or as long as the first la- 
 bor invested attaches to it. Labor invested in primitive wealth, or 
 any labor, bestows the right of possession, but not the right of prop- 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 99 
 
 erty. It is not important that the amount of primitive wealth pos- 
 sessed should be equal in every case ; it is only property in said wealth 
 that is called in question : and it is onlj' when hundreds, thousands, 
 and even millions of such possessions are held as property, that we 
 arise to dispute the enormous claim, “ the wild and guilty fantasy/' 
 which has produced so much crime and misery in the world. But 
 there is no occasion for higgling about the possession of a few acres 
 of land for use, and not for speculation and spoliation : it is of no 
 consequence whether it be one acre or one thousand. Let all have 
 whatever they want for use ; and, in equity, comparatively few 
 would want land and mines. It is not desirable, nor is it practica- 
 ble, that land and other primitive wealth should be parcelled out, 
 so much per capita. That would be no remedy or check to the co- 
 lossal evil of monopoly ; but the limiting of the possession of nat- 
 ural wealth to the title acquired by labor invested, to remain only 
 as long as the two cannot bq separated, would render the possession 
 of wealth perfectly harmless. 
 
 Of Competition. — Discrimination is the greatest word in the 
 English language. The diversities of adaptabilities to different 
 pursuits developed by the introduction of equitable money would 
 indeed induce a liealthy competition or emulation that would work 
 beneficially for every individual and for society also. It would 
 tend to put all persons in the right place, and keep them there. But 
 the piratical competition which arises from the social sanction, and 
 even sanctification, of the sentiment that “ that is property which 
 the law makes property,” cannot operate to rectify any evil, espe- 
 cially that already referred to, — the ownership of the soil by the 
 few, or by any body. This is preposterous. The crimes of the 
 hoary past, perpetrated through ignorance, cannot be rectified in 
 this way. 
 
 Three-quarters of the human race landless and nearly without 
 property ; and property mixed with the ownership of natural or 
 primitive wealth and labor ; and the labor of thousands wielded as 
 a football at the caprice of the owners of natural wealth, — these 
 conditions create a piratical state of society, wherein the members 
 know nothing but to prey upon one another ; and no wrongs arising 
 from this state can be corrected by any competition which is the 
 product of it, nor by any money, however free, based upon primi- 
 tive wealth, or upon labor possessed through fraudulent or unright- 
 
100 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 eous means. The whole people precipitated against one another 
 in a degrading scramble for wealth, the working classes in a pitiful 
 competition for work : this is the kind of competition which the 
 present money engenders. 
 
 The wage laborers are obliged to work for a specified sum, and 
 are always in fierce competition with each other as to what that 
 sum shall be, while the spoliating classes are not confined to any 
 particular amount of gain, or obliged to give an account of what 
 profit they make. They always keep this a secret. Yet these 
 classes are as truly the employees of society as the wage classes, 
 and should be held as strictly to a price for whatever service they 
 render. 
 
 The Basis of Monet in a Nutshell. — There is no ground for 
 ownership in natural wealth, — as land, mines, water, with what 
 they contain, — except the labor invested in such wealth; and can 
 be no ground for possessing more than is needed for use. Money 
 issued upon a mixed basis must necessarily be mischievous, if not 
 ruinous. Such money is now, and such it has always been. 
 
 As labor-saving machinery multiplies, wealth augments in the 
 hands of the few, and the laborer finds it more difficult to supply 
 his wants. He finds his condition more insecure and precarious, 
 and his lot day by day harder to endure. We hold that this is all 
 caused by the false character of money ; and nothing but a change 
 of a radical nature in the money now in use can prevent the per- 
 petual enslavement of labor. 
 
 Money, by whomsoever issued, should be issued in payment for 
 economic labor or service, and for nothing else. The persons, cor- 
 porations, or governments issuing the money for which this labor 
 or service is rendered, or rather deposited r should be made as re- 
 sponsible as anything human can be. 
 
 Statistics that are Much Wanted. — We want statistics in 
 a shape to be easily available to all inquirers, as follows : Statistics 
 of labor -time in every commodity, of the number of persons 
 engaged in law-making for cities, States, and nations, and how 
 much it mignt be reduced ; showing the cost of maintaining the ex- 
 ecutive, State, and judicial departments, and the number of persons 
 employed in them. Also, of the capital invested in banking ; how 
 much is paid in dividends and otherwise ; how many pay taxes, 
 
ON CURRENCY. 
 
 101 
 
 and how many pay no more than a poll-tax ; how much is invested 
 in railroads. We want statistics to tell us what proportion of the 
 time the wage laborers are out of employment ; what per cent, of 
 the population of cities and States own eighty per cent, of the 
 property, and what per cent, own twenty per cent, of the prop- 
 erty ; what per cent, own all of the taxable property ; and what 
 pursuits and employments tend to waste and poverty, instead of 
 an increase of the common wealth, and to what extent they are 
 carried on. 
 
 [The following was put into the editor’s hands about 
 the middle of December, 1876, and is Mr. Linton’s 
 latest production.] 
 
 The Specific Basis. — How is it that money, issued upon gold 
 and silver, is considered the safest and soundest possible, accepta- 
 ble to everybody and current everywhere 1 Because the holder of 
 the certificate — or money — is the owner of the deposit, which he 
 received at the same price that the goveenment pays for it. The 
 same is true of money issued upon copper, nickel, iron, or any 
 other metal. The same is true of money issued for postal service, 
 redeemable in the same, and at the same price. It is also true of 
 money issued on railroads. The holders of certificates own the 
 roads, and have their freight and passage at cost ; the government 
 being only the custodian or agent for these industries. The money 
 issued in place of the greenback, in payment for military and 
 naval service and supplies, and for civil service, does not furnish 
 the government with the means of redemption, but accepting it for 
 taxes and duties on imports and exports, makes it at once a re- 
 deemable and interchangeable currency, the same as the other for 
 all practical purposes; but of course the government will issue 
 no more such money than is necessary to pay for such service 
 and supplies. This makes all the money so issued satisfactory 
 and current everywhere. And the use of such equitable money 
 will educate the people to appreciate the difference between the 
 money issued for exact equivalents or deposit, and guarantying to 
 the holder just what is promised, and the money issued without 
 anything on deposit for redemption, nor guarantying the holder 
 anything definite. 
 
102 
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 Every one who wants to hire money must give security, and with 
 such money in use every one who could give securky could get 
 money without interest; but borrowing money would be as excep- 
 tional as borrowing hats and coats ; and if lent, would be estimated 
 by the cost to the lender, and not by the necessities of the bor- 
 rower. 
 
 The money issued on storehouse deposits will be equally reliable 
 and safe, equally current and acceptable, and no venturesome ex- 
 periments will be tried. Five years’ careful experimenting will 
 determine what kind of merchandise will be mostly used by the 
 government for this purpose. 
 
 The loss of such money in the natural use of it is no public loss, 
 but only a private one. It is rather a public gain, because it pays 
 all the expenses of conducting the business. We challenge any 
 one to show that these things can be said of any money now in use 
 or ever proposed. 
 
 This money would be a great promoter of peace. With it war 
 would be impossible Would a government holding in its archives 
 such vast and precious interests be likely to be lightly valued by 
 the people? be likely to be upset or set aside by politicians ? Or 
 would it be held as a sacred trust, to be transmitted from generation 
 to generation, untarnished and uncorrupted ? I have said such 
 money could not be loaned in an institutionalized form as now, for 
 every one who wishes to borrow money must give security. 
 
CONCERNING VALUE. 
 
 The ideas, somewhat elaborated in the preceding pages are, 
 to most persons, new, and it has been thought fitting that one 
 of those who best understood and appreciated the thought of 
 the Author, should write a few lines in further exposition of one 
 at least, of the more important points touched upon. 
 
 Nothing in the whole range of political economy has provoked 
 so much discussion, or caused so much confusion of thought, as 
 the common use of the word value. All the school economists 
 make use of this term to cover the three distinct concepts, util- 
 ity, cost, price. 
 
 Even that prince of financial writers, Wm. B. Greene, author 
 of “Mutual Banking,” persists in using value to denote price , af- 
 ter the manner of the old school writers. Of the founder of the 
 equity school, he says : — 
 
 “No man respects the memory of Josiali Warren more than I 
 do. No man is more ready to defend his doctrine of ‘ individual 
 sovereignty,’ than I am. Nevertheless, I affirm that the parts of 
 Josiali Warren’s books, which treat of value , and of the inade- 
 quacy of the English language to express plain thoughts, and 
 sentiments, are sheer nonsense.” 
 
 “These be very bitter words,” and it behoves us to ascertain 
 which is in the wrong, the great philosopher, or Col. Greene. 
 
 We have not far to search to find even those opposed to the 
 teachings of equity, acknowledging that there is a difficulty with 
 this term, as the economists use it. The following is from a 
 Tribune editorial, and shows that there is an “inadequacy” some- 
 where. 
 
 “Every exchange of money for goods or labor, and vice versa , 
 *of goods or labor for money, should be an exchange of equiva- 
 
104 
 
 CONCERNING VALUE. 
 
 lents. We mean that the money should be considered as equal 
 in value (Iiow ?) to the goods, and the goods to the money. Such 
 is the case when gold and silver are used. Now, as money is 
 not used up, eaten, planted, or disposed of in any way, except 
 when again exchanged for goods, it is desirable that its value 
 shall be at all times, as nearly as possible the same. And here , 
 in this word value , we encounter the great source of the confusion , 
 which pervades the writings of the professors , as well as the ideas 
 of common men in regard to money.” 
 
 “Should be an exchange of equivalents,” in terms of what ? 
 The Editor says, in terms of value. It is just here the whole diffi- 
 culty is revealed. 
 
 The Editor has not in his own mind, nor does he convey to 
 the mind of the reader, the slightest idea that this “value” of 
 which he speaks, stands for the labor cost of the gold, the silver, 
 and the goods. This shows the “inadequacy” of the term, to 
 convey any true idea of the “principle of equivalents.” 
 
 In equity, an act of exchange consists in giving and receiving 
 equal amounts of service or labor, either directly, or in the con- 
 crete form of commodities. We are not to concern ourselves 
 with the usefulness, the value, or the worth of any given com- 
 modity ; but only with the inquiry, “does this thing stand, essen- 
 tially, for as much labor as I am giving for it ? ” 
 
 Mr. Warren held, that “value being the basis of price, is the 
 root of civilized cannibalism.” That is, value, admitted as an el- 
 ement in price, is tendered as an equivalent in exchange for labor , 
 and this is the root evil of our civilization. It is on this idea, 
 that modern economists have based that blight, curse, and mil- 
 dew of nations, the interest principle. It is this idea of value in 
 price, that so benumbs the moral sense of men, that they see 
 .no inequity in a person possessing $10,000,000; when if they 
 -would reflect a single moment, they would see that it is impossi- 
 ble for any individual to render an equivalent , for as much prop- 
 erty as can be purchased for $100,000. Let us observe now, in 
 ^what sense, or rather in how many different senses, this term is 
 rmade use of, by writers on this subject. 
 
CONCERNING VALUE. 
 
 105 
 
 “The utility (value) of an article is one thing; its- exchange- 
 able value, (price) is another ; and the cost of its production is 
 still another; but the amount of labor expended in production, 
 though not the measure, is, in the long run, the regulator of 
 value (price).” — Mutual Banking , p. 35. 
 
 “ Wealth and utility are synonymous terms ; so are value 
 and capital. But wealth and capital, utility and value, are not 
 synonymous terms, although constantly used as such by most per- 
 sons. It is not the utility of a thing itself that constitutes its 
 value, but the usefulness , (not the amount) of the human labor 
 and intelligence incorporated in the thing at the time when it is 
 sold. Water is indispensable to man, and yet water has actually 
 no value, (?) notwithstanding its great utility. But the labor of 
 bringing water from a distance, to the hands of those who need 
 it, has to be remunerated, and this often gives value to the wa- 
 ter. (!) In such a case, the price paid for the water, is the mere 
 remuneration of the human labor incorporated in the water, and 
 thus saved to the purchaser.” 
 
 The labor incorporated on things, and thus saved to those who 
 acquire them, is what constitutes value or capital. 
 
 “Nothing is Capital but the existing results of previous Labor 
 that can contribute to man’s enjoyment, and well being. This 
 analysis of Capital shows the correctness of the theory of Bas- 
 tiat, that all exchanges are mere exchanges of services.” — 
 “Money,” by Chas. Moran , pp. 16-17. 
 
 “It is only, then,' when supplied in moderate quantities, and 
 at the right time, that a thing can be said to be useful. Utility 
 is not a quality intrinsic in a substance, for, if it were, additional 
 quantities of the same substance would always be desired, how- 
 ever much we previously possessed. We mu>.t not confuse the 
 usefulness of a thing with the physical qualities upon which the 
 usefulness depends. Utility and value are only accidents of a 
 thing arising from the fact that some one wants it, and the 
 degree of the utility, and the amount of resulting value, will 
 depend upon the extent to which the desire for it has been 
 previously gratified.” 
 
106 
 
 CONCERNING VALUE. 
 
 “We must now fix our attention upon tlie fact, that, in every 
 act of exchange, a definite quantity of one substance, is ex- 
 changed for a definite quantity of another. The things bartered 
 may be most various in character, and may be variously meas- 
 ured. We may give a weight of silver for a length of rope, or a 
 superficial extent of carpet, or a number of gallons of wine, or a 
 certain horse-power of force, or conveyance over a certain dis- 
 tance. The quantities to be measured may be expressed in 
 terms of space, time, mass, force, energy, heat, or any other phys- 
 ical units, yet each exchange will consist in giving so many units 
 of one thing for so many units of another, each measured in its 
 appropriate way.” 
 
 Shade of Bastiat defend us ! That it should come to this 1 
 
 “Every act of exchange thus presents itself to us in the form 
 of a ratio between two numbers. The word value is commonly 
 used, and if, at current rates, 9 ne ton of copper exchanges for 
 ten tons of bar iron, it is usual to say that the value of copper is 
 ten times that of the iron, weight for weight. For our purpose 
 at least, this use of the word, value, is only an indirect mode of 
 expressing a ratio.” — W. Stanley Jevons. “Money, and the 
 Mechanism of 'Exchange” 
 
 We beg pardon, but this use of the word value is a direct 
 mode of dodging the otherwise necessity of giving a rational 
 analysis of exchange. The euphonism, “value expresses ratio in 
 exchange,” conceals from the uncritical reader the simple law of 
 “labor lor labor,” or, as Bastiat puts it, “service for service.” 
 
 It will be seen by the extracts given, that there is a funda- 
 mental difficulty with this word, value. It refuses to do office 
 for utility, natural value, exchangeable value, and a dozen other 
 shades of thought, and rewards those who thus use it, with being 
 self-confounded, and worse confounding their readers. There is 
 nothing that so powerfully aids “those who mistake the philoso- 
 phy of speculation on human misfortunes and necessities, for 
 social science,” as the use of this word to cover the idea of price . 
 It furnishes as great a loop-hole of escape for such philosophers, 
 as did the great discovery of Seinor, that “interest” is “com- 
 
CONCERNING VALUE. 
 
 107 
 
 pensation” to those who “abstain” from a too rapid consumption 
 of other people’s property. 
 
 One of the first difficulties encountered by Mr. Warren in 
 his efforts to make himself understood, was to find words that 
 were not associated with meanings foreign to his idea. For 
 this reason he was very cautious in treating his new thoughts, 
 for, on his thought being rightly apprehended, depended in his 
 view, the future welfare of his kind. 
 
 Considering the interminable and bottomless discussions that 
 have arisen through the inadequacy of abstract language, to con- 
 vey highly abstracted ideas, it would seem that a thinker who 
 approached the treatment of his subject, “almost with fear and 
 trembling,” merited something better than to have his efforts 
 to be understood, dubbed “sheer nonsense.” 
 
 Had P. J. Prondhon possessed a little of Mr. Warren’s cau- 
 tion in this direction, he would not have slashed around quite so 
 freely with his “property is robbery,” and “property is impossi- 
 ble,” and his readers might have understood what he was driving 
 at without first reading Warren and Kellogg. 
 
 Why do we insist on so nice discrimination in this matter ? 
 For this reason : Although there is a vague general idea that 
 property rights are founded in labor, there is no recognition 
 whatever of this in practice ; and hence, that individual who 
 can say with truth, that he never soiled his hands with manual 
 toil, or ever painted a picture, or wrote a poem with the view of 
 earning his bread, is held by society to stand in the highest 
 niche of respectability. That is, social standing is conceded to 
 the wealthy in a ratio inverse to the degree they may have con- 
 tributed to earn their property. Degrees of respectability are 
 estimated in terms of the absence of necessity of eaters of bread 
 and wearers of clothes to earn the same. 
 
 Now when a philosopher comes on the scene, and proclaims 
 the exact reverse of this to be the essential of a true civilization, 
 that the most disagreeable labor is entitled to the highest com- 
 pensation, that the hardest worker would be the richest, and, in 
 the common, vulgar estimation, the most respectable, it becomes 
 
108 
 
 CONCERNING VALUE. 
 
 him to be very careful in his choice of words ; to use terms that 
 can be made to have a determinate meaning. 
 
 And it being admitted on all sides, that the common use of the 
 word value is misleading, Mr. Warren stands justified in reject- 
 ing such usage. Not only this, but such is the utter demoraliza- 
 tion of society, touching the nature of equivalency in exchange, 
 that he is also justified in declaring, that “Value being the basis 
 of price, is the root of civilized cannibalism.” 
 
 E. B. M. 
 
LETTER FROM JOHN A. THOMPSON. 
 
 [This letter is from an entire stranger up to its date.] 
 
 Summit Point, Jefferson County, West Va., Oct. 16, 1876. 
 E. D. Linton, Esq. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I received your valuable pamphlet “Specific Pay- 
 ments better than Specie Payments,” and would have acknowledged 
 the favor sooner, but that it was not in my power to read it until 
 yesterday. It is one of the most valuable contributions I have seen 
 to the great controversy, now in progress throughout the world, on 
 the great questions of Currency and Labor, which indeed, like the 
 Siamese Twins, are vitally connected. I agree fully with you in the 
 absolute necessity of an honest medium of exchange, and moreover, that 
 the Government is bound to furnish it, and thus protect the people 
 against fraud, as much as it is bound to protect them against open 
 force and violence. The plan you advocate, would certainly effect 
 equivalent exchanges , and exclude — forever I hope — that interloping 
 thief — profit, from all transactions of exchange between man and man ! 
 Any system that will effect this, will make civilization a possibility — 
 nay, a fact ! For as yet, in my opinion, the world has known no civil- 
 ization worthy of the name. The only difference between the civiliza- 
 tions so-called , of modern and ancient nations, and those of the ancient 
 Parthians and modern Sioux and Arabs of the desert, is, that the for- 
 mer were better organized Savagisms, and more effective in their deadly 
 influences on the bodies and souls of men than the latter. The Par- 
 thians and the modern Arabs of the desert transfixed with the spear 
 or arrow, and the Siouxs takes the scalps (of little use to a dead man) 
 from his enemy — and this often — most often in defence of their nat- 
 ural rights to the common wealth given by God to all men ; while 
 boasted civilization, with its bankers, and usurers, and special laws, 
 and monopolies of exchange , and lands, and mines, and steam, and 
 lightning — Aye ! all it can lay its hands on ; for it would monopolize 
 the airland light, were it possible; condemns to living death, and 
 crimes, and ignorance its victims, and sends its countless numbers of 
 
110 
 
 LETTER FROM JOHN A. THOMPSON. 
 
 destitute females to brothels, and men to suicides and jails, and to the 
 gallows, and penitentiary. I say, then, my dear sir, your plan would 
 change all this, and, yet, while I admire it, and wish it, with all my 
 heart, God speed, I must express to you a shorter cut to the objects you 
 aim at. I will be brief; but will begin, by saying that, in my opinion, 
 there should be a limitation to the quantity of land any man should 
 hold, and so as to leave a sufficiency to all men : For land — a place 
 to stand on and lie down on — is as necessary as air or light. Each 
 man, then, should have his own farm, his own factory, his own store, 
 or shop, and his own occupation, and, under conditions, that all the 
 earnings of his muscles and brain should be his Untaxed for any pur- 
 pose whatever, but his own.* 
 
 To bring about this result, all the great and common powers of 
 nature — too great to be intrusted to individuals, or corporations 
 — should be left to a common Government, to be managed, on the 
 Co-operative principles, for the good of all. Give to Government the 
 sovereign power of money, of all the highways of every description, in- 
 cluding railways, of all the telegraphs, of all the mines, coal and gold 
 included, of all insurances and proceeds, of all patents when liberally 
 paid for, and the yield of all these sources of wealth, managed for the 
 benefits of all, will not only pay all the expenses of both State and Na- 
 tional Governments, but there would be an overplus, or fund, from 
 which all the tramps in the country could be employed; railroads 
 would be as common as other highways, and so cheap that all would 
 enjoy the blessing of the steam power, the poorest equally with the 
 richest. In regard to the money power, the money should come di- 
 rectly to the people without the intervention of Banks, and as it is a 
 power emanating from all the people as a naked medium of exchange, 
 it should be used for that purpose and no other, under the sanction of 
 the penitentiary, or the gallows, if necessary, to guard it against sale, 
 as a commodity, or pervert it to usury. Under this management, the 
 volume of money necessary to exchange the seven billions of annual 
 products could be as easily calculated as the quantity of grease and tar 
 necessary to lubricate car wheels or machinery. For such is the true 
 
 * With all deference to the opinion of our excellent friend, we still adhere to the 
 opinion that the limitation that we made to the amount of land to be held by any 
 one person is the soundest possible, and covers the whole ground, namely, USE 
 and not parchment title. Authob. 
 
LETTER FROM A. K. OWEN. 
 
 Ill 
 
 nature of money, as it is not wealth, but simply in the nature of grease 
 and tar to lubricate its exchange. It should, therefore, be a cheap ar- 
 ticle. Indeed the sum of honest equivalent exchanges, is, cheap money 
 and cheap transportation. With these crude hints rapidly and hastily 
 penned, and with many thanks for your most valuable pamphlet, and 
 the pleasure and instruction I have derived from it, and still expect to 
 derive from its study, I assure you, my dear sir, you are a Radical 
 after my own heart, and I am, very truly and sincerely yours. 
 
 JNO. A. THOMSON. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS FROM A. K. OWEN, C. E. 
 
 Chester, Pa. 9 A. M. 7, 1, 1875. 
 
 To Miss Kate Metcalf, 
 
 Greeting: — Thank you kindly for your postal. I am very 
 sorry of the severe sickness of Mr. Linton. His loss would be a Na- 
 tional loss, although the Nation may be ignorant of it. There are few, 
 if any, to take Mr. Linton’s place. The position he has so compre- 
 hensively taken, is unique and peculiar to himself. * * * * 
 
 Chester, Pa. 20, 8, 1877 
 The enclosed postal, brings me word of the death of noble Linton. 
 His works, however, still remain with us. Intelligent persons are not 
 led by man or woman, but by principles. Great has been the work of 
 him or her, who have left substantial, equitable, 'humane principles, 
 for the present and future harmony of his or her race. Friend Lin- 
 ton was most successful in leaving us a true principle. The more 
 comprehensive we become, the more will his publications be appreciated. 
 
 Respectfully. A. K. OWEN. 
 
Specific Payments 
 
 BETTER THAN 
 
 SPECIE PAYMENTS: 
 
 The Money Question divested of Verbiage and 
 Technicalities, 
 
 EDWARD D. LINTON. 
 
 True Civilization: 
 
 A SUBJECT OF VITAL AND SERIOUS INTEREST 
 TO ALL PEOPLE, 
 
 BUT MOST IMMEDIATELY 
 TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF LABOR AND SORROW. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSIAH WARREN. 
 
 A Pamphlet of 117 pages, now passing its Fifth Edition, 
 explaining the basic principles of Labor Reform, Liberty and 
 Equity. 
 
 PRICE, 30 CENTS. 1 
 
3 0112 059088325 
 
 WzM 
 
 
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