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Show No Longer A Measure Of Value TE OLD theory was that money was not only a me "' ai of exchange, but a measure of f value.!. When money was first used it was j a measure of values. Men exchanged what of value they could produce, for the amount of gold that men could in the Bame time wash j from the streams, or the silver they could, by their crude means, obtain from tho rocks. Those were values founded on labor. So when, later, a certain weight of gold represented tho value of an ox, and a certain weight of silver represented the . value of a sheep, the same rule was clung to as nearly as men in a rude ago could cling to it. But as the centuries have fled, and men have become enlightened, and have made gold the world's exclusive money, while invention, and finished fin-ished mechanics, and the world's Industries have increased, until now the volume of work has multiplied mul-tiplied a thousand fold over that of any other age and half that work is performed by soulless and mindless, and merciless machinery, and the gold itself has gravitated to a comparatively few hands, it has ceased to' be any fair measure of 1 values. This is seen all around us every day. We often see that when gold is measured by wheat or corn a poor man can with a bushel of the former for-mer or two bushels of tho latter buy a dollar, when a month late, with no change save what the dealers in gold make, the poor man has to i I give two bushels of wheat or four bushels of corn f to obtain that dollar; when in truth the gold is no more needed and the wheat and corn are just as much needed as they were a month previous. It is not the province of a government to try to support its people, but it is the province of a government gov-ernment to protect its people, and our belief is that the time has almost come when governments ought to declare by law that no substance on earth is fit to be named as a standard of values, all of them being given to such fluctuations in value; but rather, to expedite exchange we will issue a paper token and stamp upon it a dollar stamp as a basis or multiples of the dollar, on which men may exchange their commodities, and when settlements are demanded in gold, we will exchange the gold for the paper on .a fixed basis which will not change. Further we will destroy de-stroy combines, and corners and grafts by keeping keep-ing watch, and when arrangements are made to prey upon a man or community, we will stop all that by putting out more paper dollars until the crisis, and the proposed graft, is defeated and then at convenience call in the paper advances, and let business assume normal conditions. |
