Show the new era first of series of articles on present ray fay economic problems by albert M marsden den in economic theory there are three factors actors in the production 01 wealth viz land labor and capital man alan in its his early savage state wai entirely depend dependent elif upon land anti and labor his life was sustained by cor suming day by day whatever was natively produced upon the land ile he saved nothing for future need until taught by tempestuous experience the advantage of garnering tile the produce of summer for consumption sump in winter the grains and the berries and the meats and skins of wild animals were his earliest probable accumulation ot of capital jils his me life was then no longer imperiled by the barren fields of winter and he was no longer compelled to occupy his whole time in search of food lie he turned to his larder to satisfy his hungar lite life became easter easier moved instinctively in an attempt to satisfy ills fits inherent cu cy lasity he exploited new fields whirl whip afforded icv stimuli tor for new want and provoked new attempts to satiate them this continuous exploitation of the field ot of the unknown has directly led to the creation ul of our great variety of wealth 0 0 0 family tribal pastoral and communal organized social orders guiv successively invoked to gain the mutual advantage of every member la individual genius in the communal state stale each person become a special pur a particular task each became an efficient producer and soon discovered that in his field he could produce a surplus be nond ond individual need these sur pluses were exchanged directly and thus each member received the ben bell tal tfx of his neighbors skill and its resultant creations barter was the earliest lar tar liest form of exchange it had many it was cumbersome and limited the exchange ol 01 0 commodities to a very small territory the inherent desire of man mail to obtain c the products of remote communities muni ties provoked the use of some commodity that would be generally accepted relatively scarce hence something of volume that could be traded tor for an immense amount of other goods oxen wom pum silver and gold are among the most important commodities successfully cess fully used 0 the political sovereign in an attempt to banish fraud and confusion from his realm provided by law that hat a piece of 0 silver or gold of certain v eight and fineness should be a standard by which the value of all other goods should be measured thus the precious metals became automatically a medium of exchange were coined at fixed weight and fineness as standard incas ot of the value of all other commodo ties A momentous blunder was then committed we have inherited that blunder it has provided a haven tor for greed and power it has permitted the file shrewd speculator to exploit the innocent toiler and investor it Is a cardinal cause of these banerdt banet iii depressions pres it Is the direct cause of what professor irving fisher calls the money illusion the grave fallacy of minting coins at a fixed metallic content Is that the supply and demand of gold does docs biot i ot always vary directly with the supply and denland for other com noailles no dilles and vitiates them as a measuring edevice thus during a i period when confidence in profitable investment wanes loans are not renewed credit instruments which circulate as money under our finite financial system diminishes la in volume and bank deposits shrink the domand demand tor for gold cash and ana currency Is greater than its supply the gold dollar increases la in value its purchasing power Is then greatly increased resulting in the general lowering ot of the price level this Is exactly ciny anai occur reu during the panic of 1893 to 1896 to alleviate the strain placed upon sold gold and thus thua lesson the purchasing power of the dollar william jennings bryan campaigned tor for tree free and unlimited coinage of 0 silver as a means of restoring storing tills this country to prosperity 0 0 0 mr bryan as a presidential candidate was defeated but good for fortuna came to the republican victors not to be much from rom policy pursued as aa by accident great deposits of 0 gole gold were shortly after the election of mckinley in thi tb rand district ot or south africa in australia ia in alaska and the Klon klondike like this great increase lu in the supply c gold chi cheapened chrape apenes ned gold everywhere where include in ins that coined luta dollars there was an immediate rc cle creaso in fit the purchasing nr power rf 1 I the dollar and a corresponding la in commodity prices aa return ot confidence and an expansion of 0 which led to a new era ol of prosperity 0 0 the most vital question before the world and particularly america at present Is whether or not we are going to trust to fortuna asala or utilize a beaus which is lately available there are three ex ledi enta which are proposed to restore us to prosperity namely alx lx passion of 0 the currency by lat flat re of silver and an expansion I 1 of 0 credit the merits ot of each will be in fit next weeks week s ar tide |