The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 32, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 6, 1896 Page: 1 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 15 x 11 in. Digitized from 35 mm. microfilm.View a full description of this newspaper.
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WHEN PARTY LEADERS RETRAY THE PEOPLE, IT IS TIME FRR THE VOTIHS MASSES TO SET IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.
VOL. XV., NO. 32.
DALLAS, TEXAS, THÜRSDAY, Aü(¡. <>. 18 «.
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Men on the Donkey—Say, Mister! Won't you please endorse us?
Pop—Not jest yet! You fellows have deceived us too often! We can't afford to trust you; especially that
feller on thar behin'. I prefer to keep in the middle of the road.—Adapted from the Cleveland Press.
WHAT IS MONEY?
The testimony by W. H. Grenfell,
ex-president of the Bank of England,
as to what money is, as succinctly ex-
plained by Aristotle Paulus, John
Locke, Ricardo and Mill, is of public
interest, especially these times, when
the question so largely affects the
agricultural and productive interests
of the people of this country.
Mr. Grenfell makes the following
quotations, to-wit:
"Aristotle testified that money ex-
ists by law and not by nature.
"That money derives its power not
from the intrinsic value of the sub-
stance of which it is made, but from
the law, which can give or take away
that value, and that money is not al-
ways of the same value, though of
the same material."
I; Paulas testified that "money is not
only a legal institution, as Aristotle
pointed out, and derives its power,
not from the substance from which it
is made, but from its quantity."
John Locke states "the value of
money in general is the quantity of
all the money in the world in propor-
tion to all the trade."
Ricardo testifies that "the value of
money in any country is determined
by the amount existing; that com-
modities rise and fall in price in pro-
portion to increase or contraction of
money.
"I assume, as a fact that is incon-
vertible, that the value of money is
regulated entirely by its quantity."
John Stewart Mill said: "The value
of money, other things being the
same, varies inversely to the quant-
ity—every increase of quantity low-
ering its value and every diminution
raising it in a ratio exactly equiva-
lent.
"That all increase of the quantity
of money raises prices and a diminu-
tion lowers them is the most elemen-
tary proposition in the history of cur-
rency, and without it we should have
po key to any others."
It has been truly said that money is
the creature of law, and congress is
the creator, and is a measure of value
by the power given to it by law, and
not of the value of the material of
which it is composed.
Money of any country is that arti-
cle which the laws of any country
make a legal tender for a debt.
Therefore it should be made of a ma-
terial that cannot be cornered, con-
tracted or expanded. Therefore pa-
per money legal tender measure of
value is a more honest measure of
value than gold or silver.
The smaller the quantity of money,
of course the greater its value as a
debt-paying power.
Remonetization of silver would, of
course, make it of a parity of value
with gold.
Demonetized silver enables pauper
laboring countries, as British India,
Japan, China and Egypt, to secure
with it labqr at the rate of 8 or 10
cents a day ;o produce cotton, silks,
woolens and grain, especially wheat,
at a lesser price than it can possibly
be produced in this country.
Remonetization of silver would
bring it up to its proper condition of
parity of value with legal tender fjold
money. The above are axiomatical
facts, as we have frequently explain-
ed.
During the early struggles of the
late war gold was hidden away, while
demonetized paper money measures
of value came to the front a d sus-
tained the army, navy and the union.
During the late war millionaires in
the United States senate crippled the
government and endangered the per-
petuity of the union.
The legal tender paper money of
the government, issued during the
early stages of the war, was never
below par in gold, for the reason that
it was possessed of the same legal
tender debt-paying power.—Insurance
Magazine.
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 15, No. 32, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 6, 1896, newspaper, August 6, 1896; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185671/m1/1/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .