•• To have sought, found and laid open a form of truth, be
that my commendation, even though none understand." —
Sajnt Britno.
'** But that one man should die ignorant who had capacity
lor knowledge, this I call a tragedy.*'— Thomas Cari,\xe.
OOP 0000000.00060000000C60000000000
PROBLEMS + IN Nl^E
OF THE . .
BRIEF
HOUR . . . •^ STUDIES
y~d~o o o o o 0 o ^ c .0 o .c.j:_y,_^p. oX4-0^ ® ^ -
By a: K: OWEN.
jj.
Bing out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife ;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring in the valiant man and ftee.
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land.
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
— Tmnyson.
Library of Congress.
1 Owen. Problems of the ^^ur.
: 0
H9ti3
Library of Congress.
Oiron. Problems of the hour.
CONTENTS
i
P'refacc
i
|The Equities in Property
*The Money of Account.
The World's Money. . .
What is a Dollar?
let us Coin Labor, not Gold and Silver.
A Current Money o' the Realm
Trices
Pr^t^.tive Tariff and Patent Laws
The Best Books, Examples in Payments and Laws.
Letter to President-Elect McKlnley
Paoe
I
5
. 6
. 8
. lO
14
. i6
24
27
• 33
.. 36
ir II imi iiMlwiiliiitfi
Library of Congress.
Owan. Problems of the hour.
PREFACE.
During the thirty years since the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln the accumulation of property and power in the hands of
incorporated associations of our citizens has changed the entire
character of our government and of our people. Private prop-
erties, city properties, state properties, national properties,
and international properties are all muddled and huddled to-
gether, without being understood, and without any attempt, so
far as we have seen, being made to separate, or to even define,
them ; and hence those properties and functions which return
large revenues have been mostly seized by special acts, in city,
state 'and nation, and used for the personal greed and aggran-
dizement oi a non-producing class, until the unincorporated
citizen has been reduced to abject vassalage, and even city,
state and nation have been put under tribute to the lords of
privileged legislation and are now robbed of their resources and
defrauded of their revenues until they, with their unincorporated
citizens, are actually beholden to the creatures of their own spe-
cial enactments for the right to exist ; and so it is that this
United States is no longer a government of the people, by the
people and for the people ; but it is a government of the cor-
porations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.
The incorporated companies, syndicates and trusts, to-day,
control or own everything and everybody that are thought to
be worth owning or controlling in the United States, and here
is the condition that confronts us : '*■ From the probate records
of some of our Eastern States and from the impartial investiga-
tions of Mr. George K. Holmes of the United States Mortgage
Census, it appears that a little group of under five thousand
(5,000) millionaires own one-fifth (1-5) of the wealth of the
country, and that one-eighth (}i) of the population, including
these millionaires, own about seven-eighths (Ji) of its wealth,
2 Preface,
while over half of the population possess nothing but a little
cheap household furniture and perhaps a hundred dollars
besides. " This is a frightf ijl picture for an American to con-
template, but it is not one-half as appalling as the facts of the
case actually are, for the 21,000,000 of men and women who
actually grow and fashion everything that add to the wealth of
this nation, are so thoroughly set upon by landlords, transporta-
tion-lords and money-lords — are so down-trodden by rents, taxes,
interests, fares, freightage, expressage and commissions, that 90
per cent, of their number stand within 48 hours of semi-starvation
or charity — there are 4,000,000 of men and women tramping
from place to place, or standing around idle, begging for work
that they may not starve ; there are 180,000 children forced
from their plays and schools into the mines, factories and shops,
that a few 6ents ma*y be made to assist their parents to keep
them in food and shelter ; there are over 500,000 of our women
forced by want and temptation to prostitution, that they may
live ; our almshouses, penitentiaries and asylums reek with
their over-crowded inmates ; and suicides, murders, arson and
crime of every description are upon every hand encountered.
These are a few of the results which come to the surface of the
most monstrous system of centralization and confiscation that
the world has ever been called to witness.
This is the condition — this is the crisis in the affairs of this
people, and if there is not a change — a radical, a systematic
and an early change — then the handwriting may be read
upon the wall, and these United States will perish, as all
nations have perished, which have allowed the cunning, un-
principled, plotting, non-producing few to monopolize the legis-
lation of the nation so as to seize and confiscate, for their own
selfish greed, the products of those who produce — which have
permitted property to become more sacred than the labor which
created the property — which have appreciated gold and have
depreciated the people — which have created classes to enslave
the masses — which have a'lowed the public functions and the
public properties of the people in city, state, nation and inter-
nation to be usurped in the interest of a few of the citizens.
There is no theory in this — it is history; and history em
1
Library of Congress*
OifBn. Problems of the hour.
Preface.
phasizcs this instruction in the downfall of Egypt when 2 per
cent of its people owned 97 per cent, of its wealth ; in Persia,
when I per cent, of its inhabitants owned all the land ; in
Babylon, when 2 per cent, of its citizens controlled all that
was produced ; in Greece and Rome when 1,800 persons owned
the then known world.
The little pamphlet, herewith started upon its mission of love
and duty, simply shows the way to an equitable separation of
properties, so that what is thine may be kept distinct and apart
from what is mine, and so that both thine and mine may be
separated from that of the city, state, nation and inter-nation.
This simple and exact justice to individual, city, state and nation
must be understood and practiced by our people before the
foundation for a good and just government can be laid ; and
until this is done " equal rights to all and special privileges
to none " will be no more than it is now — a motto.
The key to " what is thine and what is mine," is first a home
money based upon home labor employed at home, therefore the
subject of money — its functions, its substitutes, and upon
what and how to issue money — is treated with a view to throw
some light into several dark places.
In the second place, all employments must eventually be
given by the city, the state and the nation, for tha man, or the
woman who is dependent upon another man or woman for his, or
for her employment, cannot be other than a wage slave — a low
hireling with scarcely a soul to call his, or her own ; and all profit
which goes for handlage, storage, exchange, etc., belongs to
the city, or to the state, or to the nation, and should never be
permitted to go to a man, or to a woman, or to a private
corporation, or to a private copartnership, for if it does
that man, woman, corporation or copartnership will use the
advantages given to subvert the liberties and to seize the prop-
erties of those who are employed by him, or by her, or by it.
A. K. OWEN.
Library of Congreas.
Ow«n. Problems of the hour.
'^ Library of Congress*
i Oiren. Problems of the hour.
PROBLEMS OF THE HOUR
IN NINE BRIEF STUDIES
BY
ALBERT KIMSEY OWEN
THE EQUITIES IN PROPERTY
STUDY No. 1.
This is the way we apply the instruction to " render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's," etc. We teach that all prop-
erty shall be classed into five great divisions ; and it must here
be emphasized that in this will be found the ethics of property
— the key to all lessons in social economics — the open sesame
to the reformation which is to usher in the new civilization :
1. Private property — the home and all that is in it; the
foot-lathe, sewing machine, kit of tools, carriage, horse, cow,
bicycle, yacht, etc, — anything, in fact, that a person may pro-
duce, or use, or do for himself or herself.
2. Municipal property — the land and atmosphere which are
needed for the uses of its citizens ; municipal buildings,
asylums, libraries, schools, institutes, etc. ; the streets, bridges,
public areas, tramways, docks, wharves, ferries, vessels, water,
expressage, electric powers, telephones and lights, gas, com-
missary, manufactures, hotels, restaurants, markets, theatres,
halls, meeting-houses ; municipal insurance and money, and
exchange, bank and clearing-house, etc.
3. The inter-municipal, or state property — the lands and
atmosphere between municipalities; state buildings, asylun^s,
institutes, ^choob, parks, reservations, etc. ; railroads, canals,
5
Library of Congress^
Owen. Problems of the hour*
6 Problems of the Hour.
bridges, ferries, vessels, telegraphs, telephones, mines, rivers,
creeks, springs, lakes, seashores, woods, fish, game, birds,
animals, etc., which are entirely within the state, and which are
not incorporated within the limits of any city; state insurance
and money, and exchange, bank, and clearing-house.
4. The inter-state, or national property — national buildings,
parks, reservations, fisheries, asylums, institutions, etc.; high-
ways, bridges, railroads, canals, vessels, rivers, ferries, tele-
v; graphs, telphones, expressages, mailage, etc., which are inter-
% state in extent and character ; inter-state or national insurance
A and money, exchange, bank, and clearing-house, etc.
I. 5. The inter-national, or world properties — the ocean, out-
side of the three-league limit, islands, arctic and antarctic
regions, seals, mid-ocean fish, cables, steamers ; inter-national
arbitration and insurance, exchange, bank and clearing-
house, etc.
We think that the separation of all properties into these five
distinct and separate and inter-dependent classes will give
equity in property, and that the equity in property will bring
about the ethics of property, which is the moral side of the
problem, and the only possible foundation for a perfect society
to rest upon.
THE MONEY OF ACCOUNT.
Study No. 2.
The greatest of all money is the money of account The
money of account indicates all prices. The money of account has
nothing to do with coins, or with gold and silver, more than
with iron, copper, tin, wheat, corn, rice, land, etc. With the
money of account we all — persons of all nationalities— adjust our
swappings ; i. e., we estimate the value of our services when we
wish to exchange something which we have and which we do
not need for something which we do not have and which we
want.
The unit of the money of account of the United States is the
Problems of the Hour. 7
dollar ; that of Mexico is the peso ;* that of Spain is \\i^ peseta ;
that of England is the pound sterling ; f that of France is the
franc ; t that of Germany is the mark ; that of Japan is the
yen. When the respective peoples of these countries talk busi-
ness they each use their respective mo7iey 0/ account to fix their
prices; but the settlements are made in a million-and-one
ways, and coins are used, at most, only for counters in small
retail transactions. Coins are of no more use in themselves
than yardsticks are of use in themselves. What we all struggle
for in this world of ours is for the services and for the finished
service products of each other.
Here is an instance of how the niomy of account is used, and
where coins or notes are not thought of. Jones is a Kansas
farmer. He meets Smith and says : " Smith, I have thought
the matter over, and I will take 50 of your hogs. What is your
lowest price t " *' Well, Jones, I guess that those hogs are
worth about five-twenty-five a head in the pen." " All right,
Smith, I will take them at that price, and wilt pay you in that
carriage of mine, which your wife wants at sixty-two-twenty-five,
and in those eight acres of swamp land over by your woods, at
twenty-five dollars an acre." ** It is a bargain, Jones, you make
out the deed of transfer, bring over the carriage and take the
hogs."
* The money of account of Mexico in fact is the real, medio, quartillo
and tlaco, in spite of the law which forbids such coins to be used.
In England the guinea is used in accounts, but there b no such coin to
corresf)ond with it.
The Roman sestertius w^ like our "bit,'' a money of account, having no
coin to represent its va'ue.
The Turkish piaster is a money of acccount, there being no piaster coin.
The rei of Brazil is a money of account, no piece of that denomination
being coined. Ten thousand reis equal I5.25.
The scheme for Continental coinage proposed by Robert Morris provided
the following scale : " Ten quarter? make one penny, ten pence make one
bit, ten bits make one dollar, and ten dollars make one crown."
t A pound sterling is just what it says-t-" a pound sterling of "silver," yet
did any one ever see a silver coin one pound in weight ?
I In 1803, France passed a law which reads as follows : '• Five grains of
silver, nine-tenths fine, constitute the monetary unit which retains the name
of franc."
Library of Congress*
Ow9n» Problems of the hour.
8 Probleviy of the Hour,
Now, hore was a business agreed upon, as millions of trans-
actions are made every day by all classes and conditions of
people, in their respective money of account^ and a settlement,
just and agreeable to both parties concerned, was effected, and
no coin, bills, notes, or any other promises to pay were thought
of in the transaction.
And let nie here emphasize that money, whether it is gold
coin, bank notes or treasury paper money, is at best only a
promise to pay, for service and finished labor products are paid
for only with service and finished labor products. Therefore it
is the money of account that our legislators should study and not
the prices of metals.
The gentlemen at Washington worse than waste their time
and confuse themselves and confound those who undertake to
follow them when they try to do the i6 to i puzzle by juggling
with 25,8 grains of gold nine-tenths fine and 412.5 grains of
silver nine-tenths fine, for it is probable that 99 per cent, of our
public men, editors and speakers, who monkey with the money
problem in the 16 to i ratio, never have had the opportunity to
study money, its functions and its substitutes, free from the
influences of bankers, whose business in life depends upon
keeping the masses ignorant of the secrets of their-craft. This
secret is to attack and to destroy anything and everything which
in any way issues to interfere with their monopoly of the current
credits of the people.
THE WORLD'S MONEY.
Study No 3.
It is asked, " What is the world's money } " Strictly speak-
ing there is no such thing. There is no common money of
account, or any international coin or note, used between nations.
Letters of credit and bills ot exchange are used by travelers and
by merchants respectively, in traveling and buying in foreign
countries. International trade is the swapping of commodities,
and the balance is paid, not in money, but in one or more com-
modities agreed upon by the traders. Between England and the
United States the balance is paid in gold when not otherwise
•| Library of Congress.
i Owen. Problems of the hour.
Proh/tms of the Hour.
specified in the contr;ict~not in gold coin, but in gold at its
bullion value, and that value is fixed by the government of
Great Britain, the United States, France and Germany.
When a person goes from the United States to Europe, he
does Hot take gold coin or gold bullion ; he takes a letter of
credit from one banker to another, for $500 or $1,000, as the
case may bo, and when he reaches England he presents his letter
of credit and is given credit to that amount, reckoned in tlie
money of account of England. The English banker does not
ask or care how the traveler established his credit in America.
It is not of any importance whether the credit was obtained by
the deposit of gold dust, "guano, copper, tin, land, mortgages,
railway stocks or other collaterals. The fact is shown by the
letter of credit that the holder has established in America, credit
to that amount, and therefore he is credited in England, France,
Germany or elsewhere, to tliat amount. Hence, credit is the
world's n.oney; is the ways and means by which foreigners
pay their bills while travel inL
F'orcign trade is simply swapping conimodilies* — never ex-
changing coins as coins. Gold is sent to and fro, between
the United States and Europe, at its bullion value only; the
United States and Europe pay balances in Asia, in Mexico and
in South and Central America with silver ; but as elsewhere
« «•
The truth U," said, Sir William Vernon llarcourt, in the British
Cabinet meeting of March 17,1896, ** we art paid not in golds but in goods.
It is out of this merchandise that our people make their living, and now it
is expected of us that we shall go around the world begging that we shall
receive less merchandise for our gold."
) " The United States i;. the greater.t producer of silver in the world ...d
should fix its price. In 1893 the United States produced $77,57 <;700 of
•ilver, (Ireat r.ritain but $327,700 i an^ yet the United States allows England
to fix the price on silver; and this, too, when she has to have $50,000,000
worth of silver or lose her prestige in the markets of the Orient. Is there a
man in Europe, or America, who would permit a forcfd buytrXo fix the price
on a commodi'ty of which he produced enough to control the market .>
The Americans produced in 1893, $160,317,400 of silver; all Europe but
I19, 155, too and yet the Americans permit Europe to dictate the price for
which it Is to be sold, when Europe haa to have $32,000,000 to supply her
coinage alone. Could anything reflect more than this against the business
capacity of the United States.
Library of Congress.
Owen. Problem! of the hour.
Library of Congress*
Owen. Problems of the hoiir*
lo problems of the Hour.
it is by the offsetting of commodities between these countri
which settle all of their accounts and coins as coins play no pa
In the transactions.
Let us repeat we do not pay our foreign debts in gold ; \^
pay them in products of our fields and mills. For the last
twenty-three years the balance of trade has been in our favor
every year excepting five.t
England is our principal creditor. In the year 1894 we
exported $422,000,000 worth of merchandise, and imported
from her only $108,000,000 worth, leaving a balance in our
favor of over $300,000,000. This immense balance is what we
pay our debts with, and not with gold as some "gold-bugs"
would have us believe.
*' What constitutes the wealth of the nation? Our lands, buildings,
machiner)', tools, stock of goods and the quantity of people ready to work.
Money is nothing but an incident. For instance, about $20,000,000,000
worth of goods travel to and fro between nations in the course of the year
Do you suppose that $20,000,000,000 also travels to and fro every year to
pay for those goods? Of course not. About $10,000,000,000 of these
goods pays for the other $10,000,000,000. Not much over $500,000,0^^0
gold and silver bullion, at the merchandise price, travels to and fro between
natiorts in the course of the year. There is no such a thing as money in
international commerce. It is not needed.*'
WHAT IS A DOLLAR?
Sn^DV No. 4.
Probably not one in^ a thousand average men can answer the
simple question : ** What is a dollar t " The boy when asked,
'* What is water? " looked amazed, was inclined to be offended
at being questioned upon such a simple subject ; but bold in
his ignorance, answered, "Why water is water." And likewise
those legislators of ours at Washington use such gibberish in
talking of money as ** unit of value,'* " honest money," " standard
of value," "eighty-cent dollar," etc., when the fact is that there
never was or can be eitjier a " unit " or " standard of value," any
more than there carfbe a^ifliif or standard of temperature. A
', Llbrfa.ry of Congress*
Owen. Problems of the hour*
P'ohlems of the Hour, \\
thermometer may indicate high or low temperature, but it could
hardly be called a " unit or a standard of heat," nor was there
ever a dollar that was not worth one hundred cents, any more
than there could have existed a gallon containing less tha»
four quarts; and, so far as our acquaintance goes with the
various currencies of the world, there has never been an
** honest " money, except it be that which was issued by Hon.
de Lisle Brock, the governor of Guernsey, in payment for the
labor to build a market house in the town of St. Peters.
There can be a "standard for payments'* and a "unit of
payment," but there cannot be a ** standard" or a "unit " of
value, my more than there can be a bushel measure without
bottom and sides. The " greenback '* dollar was never worth
less than loo cents. The "greenback " dollar was the patriotic
dollar* — was the standard dollar which did current duty during
our civil war. The gold dollar f during the war, was not a
"dollar" because it was not current — it was a "commodity"
and was sold like so much wheat and cotton, by brokers, to our
importers — to the highest bidder — because these merchants had
to have the gold coin to pay their duties at the custom-house.
* Let a war cloud the size of a man's hand appear above the horizon
of any nation, and their gold and silver hides away as quickly as rats
before a terrier.
t Gold as a coin is worse than useless. No people in a great emer-
gency ever found a faithful all}- in gold. It is the most cowardly and
treacherous of all metals. It makes no treaty it does not break. It
haa no friend it does not sooner or later betray. Armies and navies
are not maintained by gold. In times of panic and calamity, ship-
wreck and disaster, it l^ecomes an enemy more potent than the foe in
the field ; but when the battle is won and peace has been secure<l,
"gold reappears and claims the fruit of victory.'* In our own civil
war, it is doubtful if the gold of New York and London did not work
gjreater injury than the powder and lead and iron of the rebels. It
was the most in\4ncible enemy of the public credit. Gold paid no
soldier or sailor. It refused the rational obligations. It was worth
most when oiu" fortunes were lowest. Every defeat gave it increase<l
value. It was in open alliance with our enemies th^" world o\'er, and
all its energies were worked for our destruction. But as usual, when
danger had been averted and victory secure<l, gold swa^^gered to the
front and asserterl its supremacy. — Ex-Senator John J. Ingalls.
] Library of Congreaa. ■f'"'
f Ow«n. Problems of the hour, f
12 Ptohltws of thr /fjur.
In Mexico during the Viceroys, the early Mexicans had the
sanie experience with " chickens." The natives had to pay
" two reals and a chicken " for taxes, and if you will read Mex-
ican history, you will see how those poor Indians, who did not
know how to raise " chickens," had to bid against each other to
get the necessary "chicken" from the tax .gatherers, who
cornered and sold the chickens. That chicken legal tender
history is full of misery and instruction. Read it, and you will
have a better idea ot how our " gold dollar " was sold as high
as $2.85. It is quite evident that the "greenback ** could never
have been at a discount of $1.85. for, if it was, will you please
calculate what a dinner cost in the United States during the
middle sixties, when a person tendered a "greenback'^ dollar
for a good dinner and received fifty cents in change, at the time
that the said dollar, according to the rule of discount, was worth
$1.85 less than nothing? It will not do to speak about gold
cents and coins. There never was a gold cent. The United .
States cents have all been copper. "The demand notes," or
the first greenbacks, were receivable for customs dues, and they
always kept at li e same premium as gold coin because they had
equal uses ; and to-day we see that the United States treasury
note, the " Bland dollar'* and the gold dollar are all equal in
payments, because they are equal before the law in acceptability,
and because there are just as many finished products behind
one as behind the other. If the people would like to see how
much preciousness, ** intrinsic value " and " money-of-the-world
value" there is in ? "gold dollar," all they have to do is to
coin a " copper dollar " and have Congress to make it alone
receivable for all public dues to the United States ; and then
watch and see how our importers and taxpayers would scramble
for the " copper dollar " and pay two and three gold dollars for
one " copper dollar," if the " copper dollars " were few and
could be cornered by a clique of speculators.
This goes to show that law ♦ says what shall be moneys but
that it is the use of money which gives money its value.
♦"All the money in the world is the result of a positive law, and
there will not be and never has been any such thing as natural money. "
— Senator Henry M. Teller.
■4-
■if
Probitms of the Hour. 13
We are opposed to making a dollar in itself valuable for the
same reason that it would, doubtless, be thought foolish for a
merchant to be compelled to measure dollar silk with a yard-
stick worth just $1 in gold ; and 10 cent calico with a yardstick
worth just 10 cents in silver ; and yet this would be quite as
sensible as having a dollar's worth of gold in our dollar, and 10
cents worth of silver in our 10 cent pieces to express prices.
A dollar and a ten cent price are simply counters to show the
extent of the service the holder has given to society, and the
extent to which society is indebted to the holder in return. II
it is right to have " a dollar " in itself worth one dollar, then, to
be just, a mortgage on land should be engraved on gold, or
silver plate, equal in value to the land mortgaged.
The law says what shall be money, but it is the finished labor
products which are back of the money and which stand ready
to redeem the money that gives money its value. If there is
not labor to redeem the.money, money is of no value ; no matter if
the gold dollar should have a pound of gold in it and " ♦he silver
dollar should be as large as a cart-wheel." The Mexican Adobe
dollar contains 417.25 grains of silver, nine-tenths fine, but as
Mexico is deficient in diversified home industries her dollar is
made the plaything of the exchange scalpers ; and just at this
time a *' Bland dollar," which contains only 412.50 grains of
silver, nine-tenths fine, would almost buy two of Mexico's
heavier and richer-in-itself-dollars ; % and the reason is that '* the
Bland dollar " has all of the wonderful varieties of assorted and
useful finished articles in the United States ready to redeem it.
This one fact should be sufficient to show the farce of the claim
made by the gold-bugs that *' ft is the inherent or intrinsic value
of coins which gives them their value."
Again, in one hundred five-cent nickel pieces there are only
seventy-five cents worth of nickel, and yet these one hundred
five-cent nickel pieces will buy just as much as a five-dollar
gold piece anywhere in the United States, and not one person
\ A peraon can go into one of the restaurants in Mexico City, get a
50 cent dinner, hand a " Bland dollar" in payment and receive I1.45
In change in Mexican silver.
Library of Congraas*
0w«n»Probl6MS of the hour*
1 4 Problc m s of the Hour.
in ten million who use nickel, gold and silver coin, ever know,
or ever care, as to what thek respective intrinsic values are.
No one wants the coins for themselves : hut every person does
want the articles for which the cuius can be redeemed.
LET US COIN LABOR, NOT GOLD AND SILVER.
Study No. 5.
" Labor is superior to capital^ and desertes much the higfur con-
stdi'Kiitionr — Abraham Lincohi.
*' Without labor there would be no government and no leading
class and nothing to preserved — .V. S. Grant.
•* All history shows that the welfare of the working classes does
not depend upon the price of bread but upon the demand for their
labor:''— Dr. Aendt.
We believe that each municipality should move at once to
employ its citizens — should establish an employment bureau
and set the idle people to work upon fixed plans, to purify neg-
lected places, to improve public conveniences and to extend its
environments. Every city should have its own truck gardens,
farms and factories, etc., if for no other purpose than to employ
every class and condition of its own citizens who are not other-
wise occupied. The one great lesson which our national legis-
lators and our city magistrates have yet to learn is, that it is not
gold and silver, but it is labor that constitutes the most precious
and, at the same time, the most perishable commodity in a city
and in a nation. Labor is the jewel pendent of every com-
munity. It is labor alone upon which every city and nation
depend ; and just in the proportion and with the intelligence
that labor is employed, fostered and diversified, do nations and
cities advance to power and to influence ; and it is diversified
home industries alone that give to money its value. Therefore
to permit labor to be lost, for want of direction and for want of
a place to deposit, is tho greatest possible waste of wealth that
rulers can be guilty of. The time is nigh when to neglect to
encourage and to husb«'»nd the work of the citizens, a mayor will
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FrobUms of the Hour. 15
be thought to have committed a greater wrong against the city
and to have betrayed his trusteeship more than if he had
robbed the city's treasury. Jhe law or laws which will be made
to employ, utilize and protect labor, will be the law or laws which
will solve, the soonest and the best, the money, the tariff, and
other problems which now agitate governments to their downfall.
Why should not every city * have an employment bureau or a
iabor depository ; or, as it were, a municipal pawnshop, where
any person who has a day's work to give, can go and receive
^ * There is one solution of the question of the unemployed and ouly
one. ' It is unployment by the State or municipality in such a way
that each man at his own trade or calling may prcxluce that which will
furnish him with a maintenance. Ohio has already an institution at
Columbus— the penitentiary — which is like a busy manufacturing city.
The State f urnislies the buildings and tlie ground rent free, and largely
the machinery. The punluct of tho labor of the convicts provides
partly or wholly for their living. The state can just as readily build
tactorie.: outside the prison walls and give its honest citizens a chance
to earn a living. Why woul<i Ohio make special |)ets of its convicted
criminals atid compel the honest JMtizons to submit to hunger or beg the
privilege 01 honest work ? "
** Massachusetts has established a tramp farm, consisting of 2,000
acres of cheap land, which is lx)th boggy and rocky, but improvable
and capable of l)eing made profitable for agricultural puqwses. To
this fanii every tramp legally convicted of vagrancy will l>e sent for
two years. He will l^e employe<l in buildinjjj roads and houses on the
farm ; in digging drains, in clearing, plowing, sowing, reaping, and
all the labor of a farm that has to be created from a wilderness."
*• The mayor of the second arondissraent of Paris has undertaken an
interesting experiment. P*or some time he has had a free employment
registry, which is sai<l to have proved of great |mblic utility. What
he purposes to do now is to publish lists of persons seeking situations
ana employers seeking assistants. These lists are to l)e exhibited in
suitable frames in at least three frequented public places. No charges
will be made."
•' The city government of Stuttgart. Germany, has establishe<i a
bureau to register applicants for work without expense to workmen.
It is estimated that the scheme will cost the city not over |i , 250 a year. ' •
*• In 1895, Mississippi bought three tracts of land and put its 250
convicts to work under sta^e supervision. The result was 3,200 bales
of cotton of 500 pounds each ; 50,000 bushels of com ; 1. 100 tons of
hay • 45,000 pounds of pork : 55 barrels of molasses ; 2,200 bushels of
pears, all of which sold for $165,000. The cost of the la nd and expenses
of the year for farming utensils, live stock, etc., amounted to !^>6,ooo,
Icaviyg a profit of $70,000 to the state.
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1 6 Problems oj inn s*v^^*
orders where to work under the direction of the city, and in this
way can deposit his or her crude and skilled labor, as the case
may be, and get credited for the same on the city's books.
There is not a city in this world that is not in need of all
kind of services to put it in order, so that a decent person can
have a decent place in which to live. The idle throngs, the
street venders, and those who are engaged in disreputable occu-
pations in all our cities, would be worth more to these cities
than a thousand gold mines, if the city magistrates were only
sufficiently alert to seize and to store the wealth they have at
their command, by devising plans to conserve, to deposit and
to coin it into serviceable form. What is most wanted is that
the cities should clean their old and open new streets, orna-
ment their parks, reclaim waste districts, regulate and beautify
their suburbs, and have some order and fixed plan to put every
family into its own house ; and they can either pay for the
labor with city warrants, made receiveable for city dues, or,
(what is better) they can open books at the ciiy's employment
bureau and credit every workman with what he or she does, and
they can open books at the city's commissary and debit him or
her with what he or she consumes.
The Venetians adopted this latter plan — the credit and debit
plan — when they laid the foundations for their republic, which
ruled the commercial world during nearly three centuries ; and
the credits upon the books of the city of Venice, which, by the
way, were kept in a money of account * (as there were not any
bills or coins to correspond with them), were always at a
premium over the famous gold ducats of that republic.
By this plan every city would have its own distinct, local, and
independent ways and means of payments, and would be ab-
solutely indifferent to whether all the gold and silver of the
world were in Europe, or at the bottom of the deepest sea.
The greatest lesson of the crisis of i893~'94 is that the cities t
* "There were three series of Roman coins, the Republican, the
family and the Imperial coins. The first were issued by the State
minis, the second by faniiiies which had purchased the right of mak-
ing coins ; the third were issued by the Kmperors. ' Almost evers
Roman city in Italy and the colonies had and exercise*! the right of
coining money of its own."
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Problems of the Hour, 17
in the United States were driven by tiie force of circumstances
to look more than ever into some way to provide the ways and
means free from the issuing of bonds and making themselves
dependent upon bankers ; and this must result sooner or later
in every city having its own ways and means of payments,
separate and distinct from what might be used elsewhere; for*
as long as nations and cities adopt the English bank system of
inflated credits they will be made jumping-jacks every time
the bankers wish to contract credits and to foreclose mortgages.
The following queries were made by the justly celebrated Bishop
Berkley, in his "Querist." written in 1770, at Cloyue, Ireland : *' 134
is the ceiebratcd query ! Whether if there was a wall of brass a thou-
sand cubits high surrounding us, our natives might not nevertheless
live cleanly and comfortabl}', till the land and reap the fruits thereof ?
*• 114. Whether a nation might not have within itself, real wealth
sufficient to give its inhabitants power and distinction without tlie
help of gold and silver ?
^* 35. Whether power to command the industry of others be not
real wealth ? And whether money be not in truth tickets or tokens
for recording and conveying such power, and whether it be of conse-
quence what material the tickets are made of."
t The Time»-I>emocrat, August 20, 1894 : The business of New
Orleans, as we noted some time ago, has adapted itself thoroughly to
the certified check system, first tried in New York, and afterwards ad-
opted by the banks here. What the banks must do to help the planters
is to issue certificates of deposit of I5, |io and |2o. The men can then
be paid in these as though in currency, and as the checks will be
taken at the plantation stores where most of the employes or tenants
deal, they can easily be placed in circulation at once. The planters
can then pay off their men, and the men can get coffee, flour, clothing,
or whatever else they may require. In this way, indeed, a new cur-
rency will be created, that will help us o\'er the present trouble and
enable us to harvest the present crops without delay of any kind. "
In Cincinnati, we are told that the street car companies are issuing
5-cent tickets made of aluminum, and these coins are found to be so
convenient that they are freely circulated for s^ent pieces in the city,
and, ill Kalamazoo,* Michigan, the same kind of currency is Iwing
«aed. But the lesson, of all others, which these panicky times have
given us, is the plan de\atcd by Hon. Carter Harrison, Mayor of
Chicago. Here it is.
♦• Chicago, Illinois, August 25, 1894.— Mayor Harrison has a plan
1
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A CURRENT MONEY OF THE REALM.
Study No. 6.
Let us hd'iC a Jlomc Money for the Home People^ Based upon,
say Ju'enty of the Staple Products of the Nation, and made
. Automatic with the Industries <f the People.
Let us jix the pru\: if ht caJstujJi^ uon, Ctpper, cotton and coal,
as we used to fix the price of silver, and as ive now fix the price
of gold.
Ccriainly ! lei ihc -o^ ci liiiRin .'Uy .silver and gold, but
why should either gold or silver be coined when the fact is that
the people do not use either gold or silver coin to any great
extent, comparatively, in their home exchanges, and never in
their foreign payments ; for has it not again and again been
proven that about 97^^ per cent of our domestic payments are
to relieve the great striugency existing here in currency. // ; v to
issue city zoarrants for circulation as money in the city of Chicago.
The Mayor said to-daj' : "A week ago a bank president told nie he
feared there would be in Chicago a currency famine so great that
matters would be far worse than they now are. Country banks which
ou}<ht to have large deposits in Chicago, have withdrawn them. I
was asked what could l)e done, I made the proposition, that if the
))anks, the newspapers, the business men and the j)eople would assist
me, I could give to the business men of Chicago somewhere in the
neighlx)rhoo<l of 1,000,000 of currency a motitli, without making a
dollar of it. of less value than a I'^nited States treasurj* note. I propose*!
that with tlie consent of the business men, the people and the banks,
I would issue small 'a'anants of $5 value, if jwssible ; if not, f 10
value, and pay them all to the lalK)rers of the city, salaried men and-
others who work for the city. That is if we owe a contractor |io,ooi\
instead of giving him one warrant for that amount, I will issue it in
I5 warrants. These he can pay to his men, the men give them to
their grocers ; they will deposit them in the banks ; the banks will
use them to pay clearing house differences, and they will be paid out
M money."
I^rohffHK nf^ fh.' %fnup-^ {A
made by means of bank checks and oiiitr paper substitutes for
money, that foreign payments are made by offsetting one com-
modity with another, and that the balances are paidwitli gold or ^
silver bullion, but never with gold or silver coin as coin.
Again, why should special protection be given by our gov-
ernment to gold and silver bullion over other products?
What have gold and silver miners ever done that their ores
should be coined into legal tenders to the exclusion of all
other products — the products of all other producers made de-
pendent up^n their products ? Did not the elder Peel, in 1816,
when England adopted a gold basis, say : ** You have doubled
my fortune, but you have ruined the people ? " Has not our own
I)aniel Webster put himself on record to the efiect that : " When
all our paper money is made payable in specie on demand, it
will prove the most certain means that can be used to fertilize
the rich man's held by the sweat of the poor man's brow ; ' and
has not Samuel Calvin told us that : *' The whole theory of specie
basis is a fraud, and has entailed upon the people of Great
Britain and the United States an amount of want and wicked-
ness and misery no pen can describe, no figure estimate."
It is unjust — it is a monstrous wrong on tlie part of any gov-
ernment to make the products of one or two classes of pro-
ducers legal tender to seize the products of all other producers;
and this fact is beginning to dawn upon those who are giving
thought to the subject of money— its functions, its substitutes
Again, iron, copper, nickel, lead and tin are a million times
more valuable to society than gold and silver ever were, or ever
can be. In fact, gold is of the least use of all, being actually
of little account xcept to plug teeth ; and even in this particu-
lar use or monopoly, which gold has enjoyed, aluminium is now
superseding it. Garrison said ; " Relegate gold to the rank of
commodities, where it belongs. In China gold and silver are
merely commodities, whose price is regulated by the laws of
supply and demand."
Alexander Hamilton, in advocating the Mint act of 1792 as-
signed two reasons for not attaching the unit of money exclu-
sively to one metal, the first being that to do so would '* de-
stroy the office and character of one of them as money and re-
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duce it to the situation of a mere iiicrchandise ; " and the
second, that "to annul the use of cither of the metals as
money is to abridge the quantity of the circulating medium,
and is liable to all the objections which arise from a compari-
son of the benefits of a full with the evils of a scanty circu-
lation."
"The first Congress of the United States (act of April 2,
1792), providing for the coinage of silver dollars, or units,
each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the
same is now current, and to contain 371.25 grains of pure
silver, and fractional pieces of the same fineness and propor-
tional weight," and an eagle or double eagle, a half and a
quarter eagle, and the coins, each and several, were to be of
the val e of so many dollars, or units ; and the dollar, or unit,
is 371.25 grains of pure silver. The conformity of gold to
silver, by the same statute, at 15 to i, made the gold coins to
be multiples of 2^'. 75 grains of gold — a proportion which has
since been altered to preserve the conformity. This simply
showed the amount of gold which at the time should be, myf a
dollar^ but of the value of a dollar*'
Great Britain, in 1844, fixed the price of one ounce of pure
gold at £2> '7^* 9^» *"^ *^ ^^^ remained so at her mints ever
since. This is the reason that the price of gold bullion never
varies when near an English mint. Between April 2, 1792, and
February 12, 1873, silver and gold bullion were received at the
United States treasury at the ratio, at the first of 15 to i, and
afterward at 16 to i, and the prices of these bullions never
varied a fraction of a cent at the United States mint from
these ratios ; but when the free coinage act in regard to silver
was tampered with, February 12, 1873, the price of silver bul-
lion was no longer protected by the United States, and it
fell in sympathy with other commodities as compared with
the price 01 gold bullion, which alone was protected in its
price by the United States. Now, as fixity of price for raw
materials is essential to safe and intelligent calculation in con-
tracts for articles of finished manufacture, why should not
the United States advertise on the first day of January, every
*year, that on and after the first day of July next and during
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the following fiscal year, it will pay a fixed price, on delivery at
such and such places, per ounce for so many thousand ounces
of silver ; per pound for so many thousand pounds of nickel,
copper, platinum, iridium, aluminum ; a fixed price per ton for
so many million tons of iron, lead, tin and coal ; a fixed price
per bushel for so many bushels of wheat, corn, bar-
ley, rice and beans ; and a fixed price per bale for so many
thousand bales of cotton, hemp, flax and wool. All of these
are staple articles which are used by our people, one way and
another, in our utilities and in our arts every working hour in
every business day of the year, and the amount and quantity of
each necessary to supply ovir home industries, from year to
year, can readily be approximated, and the price of each can
be fixed by the government, for a start, at the average price
for which each of these products has been sold during the last
ten years.
Fr:. nee controls the production and sale of its tobacco; so
does Turkey, Spain and Prussia. Russia owns and sells its
malachite ; Great Britain manufactures and sells all the salt
used in India ; in Prassia the price of medicine is regulated
by the state, and a new price list is issued annually ; the soap
industry in Holland now brings a revenue of ;£"i 50,000 a year
to the government ; and in the United Stntes the production
and price of oil, sugar, wheat, flour, beef, pork, coffins, etc.,
etc., are fixed and unfixed by trusts for the private revenues
of private citizens ; therefore, the cities, the states and the
nation must step in and fix the prices and production of the
staple articles of food and manufacture, or allow themselves to
be set aside for, by and in the interest of specially privileged
classes who are fast enslaving the masses ; for has not our
Attorney General, in his defense of the trusts, said : ** Property
is monopoly."
The plan here suggested is that the United States go\^em-
ment fix the quantity it will buy* and the price it will pay for
♦ William McKinley, immediately after tMe adjournment of the
Fifty-first Congress, acceded to the request of the editor of the North
American Review, and said that the passage of the Sherman Silver
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22 Problems of the Hour,
say each of the twenty leading staple productions of the
United States ; and will, on receipt of any one of the same,
at the depositories to be established, issue in payment treas-
ury paper money, that will be carefully engraved and guard-
edly issued, and made receivable in payment for all dues to
the United States, just as tne Hamburg Bank issues its cur-
rency based upon silver bullion. This money, therefore, could
not be issi.ed except for full value received and deposited,
and when the government sold any of these deposits for the
price paid, this money would come back to the source of its
issue and "ould be used to buy more bar gold, bar silver, pig
iron and wheat bushels, etc. ; or, like the postage stamp, hav-
ing done its duty once, it could be destroyed.
For subsidiary coins, aluminum would be best, for with an
;iiioy of copper, it is light, durable, pretty and comparatively
inexpensive but there should be issued, also, postal currency,
in paper, for five, ten, twenty-five and fifty cents to facilitate
persons in sending money in letters.
The fixing of the prices of these staple products, from year
to year, by the government, would not necessarily bring but a
small part of these products to the depositories, or into the care,
in any way of the government, any more than the fixing of the
prices for gold and silver has brought the gold and silver needed
in the arts to the vaults of our treasury ; but it would, probably,
Purchase law was a triumph, and in these words : "Among the more im-
portant pieces of legislation accomplished is the Silver bill, which
i^tov\Ae*i iot the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury
notes thereon. ^ It directs the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase
from time to time silver bullion to the aggregate amount of 4,500,000
ounces monthly, or so much thereof as may be offered in each month
at the market price, not exceeding $1 for 372.55 grains of pure silver,
and to issue in payment for the pmrchases Treasury notes of the United
States in denominations not less than $1 nor more than |i,ooo which
notes arc redeemable in silver. This law will utilize every ounce of
the silver product of the country and more — utilize it for money and
turn it into channels of trade and avenues of business. As a result,
silver is nearer parity with gold to-day than it has been for the last
fifteen or eighteen years. The circulating medium is increased and
made absolutely sale, with all the money of the country interchange-
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Problems of the Hour. 23
bring enough to supply a sufficient amount of current money of
the reahn to encourage our great industries to take new life and
new hope.
What an impetus such an enactment would give to all classes
of home industries, and what a stable, plentiful, elastic and ex-
cellent currency this would make for the whole people. Again,
w'Mt a cause for congratulation it would be to have these great
leading staple products of the nation taken out from the ruin-
ous influences of the " Produce Exchanges " — from these gam-
bling dens r ^ our metroplitan cities — and to have their prices
fixed, from one year to another, so that our leading producers
and large manufacturers could with a certainty estimate the
cost of the same ahead. It is a blow to honest industry that
business in this stage of our boasted civilization is made an
uncertainty and a gamble, just because governments insist that
they are created only to tax the people, to declare war and to
legislate for special and private monopolies.
There is not anything in the constitution against this plan.
However, some moss-back always says that it is unconstitu-
tional whenever a suggestion is made to liberate black chattel
slaves, to relieve white wage slaves, or to advance, in any way,
our people toward the light and the better way. However, the
constitution does not seem to prevent our secretary of the
treasury from coining a dollar when 23.22 grains of pure gold
are offered ; nor did it stop him from dickering for four millions
and more ounces of silver, per month, some two years ago, in
the open market ; or from paying out "greenbacks," during the
sixties, for food supplies, clothing and war materials, ships,
salaries, etc., and it may be well for us to remember, in con-
abie with goM and silver and re<leemable in either or lx)th of these
metals."
It must be understood that the Sherman Silver Purchase law did
not fix the price of silver, but on the contrar>' our Secretary of the
Treasury went into the market as a ** bear '♦ and did what he could to
get the silver as low in price as possible before he purchased it. The
proposition we make is that the price of silver be fixed in common
with other leading commodities of United States production, and that
the price shall be maintained from year to year. A. K. O.
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Owen. Problems of the hour*
\
24 Problems 0/ the Hour,
nection with what is constitutional, and with what is not con-
stitutional that our good, old, sterling patriot and philosopher,
Peter Cooper, has told us that: " No vested rights can stand
in the face of the public welfare ; common and statute law recog-
nizes this principle. Hence, aP vested rights can be repealed
by the law-making power that conferred them. Under this
principle private property can be taken for public use, and all
coiporate rights can be abolished that stand in the way of the
public welfare."
What must we think of a government that consents to buy two
comparatively worthless metals — gold and silver — which are
mostly used to make teapots, goblets, spoons, watch cases, ear
and finger rings and such like non-essentials, and yet vould con-
tend that it had constitutional grounds not to base its current
money of the realm upon such important and useful metals as
iron, nickel, tin, lead and aluminum ?
PRICES.
Study No 7.
raw material, including land and labor.
Must be Separated from Manufactured Articles^ in which a
Good Dinner is Included^ before Prices can be Understood,
Frequently we read letters advocating United States treasury
money, which contain quotations from the teachings of such
English " free tr^de " and " bank credit despotism '* teachers as
Mill and Walker. Recently the United States Monetary Com-
mission of 1877 has been brought into their support — which is
simply confusion worse confounded. Please, therefore, publish
the selections as given below, and insert a clipping from my
scrap-book in answer to the same :
" Other things being equal, the general average of prices is
determined bv the quantity of currency in circulation, and
prices advance or recede as that is increased or diminished.
, . . The general prices of all objects of value will ever
Problems of the Hour. 25
depend upon the quantity of currency existing in the country in
which they are produced and sold. This is an economic law
as certain as any of the laws of Nature."— Walker's Science of
Wealth, p. 221.
" If the whole money in circulation was doubled, prices would
be doubled. If it was only increased one-fourth, prices would
rise one-fourth."— Mill, Prin. Pol. Economy, vol. II., p. 29.
"General prosperity and a general fall in prices never did and
never can coexist." —P. 15, Vol. I., Dept. U. S. Mon. Com.,
1877.
A. K. Owen published the following in The Delaware County
Democrat, 1875 • ^" discussing the fall and rise of prices rela-
tive to a scarcity or abundance of current money, there is not a
suP.icient distinction made between the price of raw material and
that of the manufactured article. In fact, few writers or public
speakers ever make any distinction whatever ; and, hence speak-
ing of values, prices, etc., they rather add to the complications of
the discussion than simplify them. For instance: One writer
maintains that plenty of money, at low interest, will make prices
advance, and he is right if he has reference to raw material, in
which labor and land are included ; and a stump orator argues,
and a simple, easy-going editor publishes, that plenty of money,
at a low rate of interest, will make prices fall, and they are
equally correct in their statement if they have reference to man-
ufactured articles. Hence, we maintain that most persons who
undertake to inform the public, labor, not always intentionally,
yet still they labor to confuse*' my intelligent readers."
The political economists of the inductive school maintain
that a current money of the realm, made interconvertible with
the nation's bonds at a low rate of interest, and issued in har-
mony with the people's industries, will advance the price of raw
materials, in which are included labor and land, and will lessen
the price of manufactured articles of all kind. Thus, while the
laborer can command more money for liis services, the land-
owner more money for his land, and the cotton, wool, wheat
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26 /^rod/ems of the Hour,
and potato grower more money for his raw product, these and
all may command the manufactured necessities and luxuries of
life, including a good dinner, for less money, i. e., tbnt the price
of the raw material will approximate closer to the price of the
manufactured article. If it were otherwise, it would not be har-
mony— hence, could not be upon the basis of a true principle. ^
Nature's laws invariably act in harmony. Mankind approxi- |
mate to just actions as they approach harmony of interests. |
As raw material, in which labor and land are included, :|
approximate in price to the price of manufactured articles, I
civilization advances, and the reverse, i. e., when raw materials, v
in which ar^ included land and labor, fall in price, and tiie price
of manufactured articles do not fall in the same proportion, then
v.e retrograde towards barbarism. A ton of rags in the Rocky
Mountains is not worth a quire of paper ; but when brought to
the Missouri River — where I assume there is a paper mill — a
ton of rags will buy several quires of paper.
Under nominal conditions, land, labor and raw material in-
crease in value as they near population and diversified indus-
tries, and the articles manufactured by them become cheaper
and better at those times when land, labor and raw material
cost the most. The reverse of such conditions is barbarism.
The deductive school of political economy says : " The
hoight of usefulness and the essential, quality for a statesman
is to * look out for number one,' and thereby to let the one thou-
sand millions of other human beings upon this earth get over
Jord^^n's road the best they may have the chance to do."
Inductive philosophy teaches us that in making people prosper
ous and consequently happy and useful, we take the positive,
and certainly the more laudable way to secure our uwn interests
i. e., to better ihe condition of the masses is the basis of ou
advancement to intellectual, moral and realized civilization.
We ask that our remarks be well studied before commented
upon.
Probh'?n> of fj,e Hour. 27
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PROTECTIVE TARIFF AND PATENT LAWS.
Srri)\ N,o. 8.
( I'rom the ** Philadelphia Enquirer," Jtily 10. 1875.)
Vv I I H A. rv. oWKN, L. h., iKUJKt l()R OF THE
AUSTIN- roPCH.onAMPo PACIFK-.
Reporter. — " The one or two simple little laws, almost un-
known because of their simplicity, whith alone rescue us from
savageism,'' which you n-fer to in your ** Memorial " to Con-
fXtess, which are they ?
Mr-! ()\M N. — They are the tariff and patent laws. The
former protects our industries from the wealth and monopoly
of foreigners — more particularly from the English, who, by
means of an overgrown and inflated system of bank-credit, are
enabled to centralize immense power in the hands of a few
men. The latter protects us individually, in our inventions,
from the wealth and monopoly of our own countrymen. What
one does for us as a nation, the other accomplishes for us as
individuals. The patent law is the complement to the tariff,
and they together preserve us from barbarism because they
alone protect us in our ii^dividuality. Germany is superior to
the United States in science, England in literature, and France in
art ; but Americ^^ is greater than either, because among her forty
millions of people, there are six millions who have independent
homes.* This has been secured by the laws which encourage
and foster nationality and individuality, of which the patent and
the tariff are the basis. Without these simple little laws, as im-
perfect and as much tampered with as they are, we would be a
* This is not the ^.v,-v now, however, with the United States. In
1877 there were less than 5oo,ocxo unmortgaged homes here ; while ill
I^rance there were over 7,500,000,
2i^ J'rohkms of i fir /Your.
mere tribe of savages, if not with nngs iii
scanty of clothes. And allow me to add, aprop nis ques-
tion, that the instruction was to "subdue \\.r earth," but men
havL put forth their mightiest energies to embarrass and to en-
blav^i each other. Isolated individuals scattered over this
eaith's surface are inventing and perfecting labor-saving ma-
chines, and their efforts are daily emancipating labor from
drudgery and elevating mankind to higher duties, while priests,
kings, congressmen and soldiers are combining church, state,
law and powder to make war, to destroy the works and to en-
slave the industries of their respective j^coples, and the record
of the efforts of these priests, kings, congressmen and soldiers,
and their conr.jined efforts to destroy individuality and science,
and the resistance which this individuality and science offer to
their injustice, make up history, ancient and modern.
R. — My object to-day is to question you upon money. Is it
your opinion that gold is useless as a coin ?
O, — Yes ; not only useless but detrimental to commerce.
Gold as a legal tender coin is the greatest instrument of tor-
ture the world has ever experienced. The Auto-da-fe and the
body-puller of the Spanish inquisition, the car of Juggernaut,
the knife of the Celtic Druid, and the obsidian of the Aztec
priest, who sacrificed annually 39,000 of the best formed and
most talented Mexicans, were but playthings in comparison to
gold coin as legal tender, and this simply because gold coin has
been so scarce and at so high a price and interest as to have
denied to the masses the right to labor or to enjoy the wealth
which their labor has produced.
R. — Is not gold coin a perfect money ?
O. — No, sir. Gold coin can never be even a good money.
It has heretofore been, at best, but a commodity, and has been
and is still sold in the public market to the highest bidder.
The Government, by making gold coin a legal tender, recog-
nizes one class of labor to the disfranchisement of other occu-
pations; or, what is the same thing, it subsidizes other indus-
tries to the worst class of adventurers.
R. — But gold is the mj^t precious metal, and, therefore, large
values may be pressed* into the most convenient bulk.
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Owen. Problems of the hour.
problems .if fh^ Hour
^.—V^xAow me, there arc eight metals— indium, vanadium,
ruthenium, rhodium, platinum, uranium, osmium and irridium
— more valuable than gold. When one substance or commodity
is exchanged for another, it is barter. Gold is a convenient
metal for barter, but should not be stamped otherwise than to
specify its weight and carat. It would then go into the arts,
its proper place, for there it is useful. Suppose a modern Fagin
shoi' J chance to stumble upon a mass of gold a hundred yards
square, which is likely to occur when Mexico is looked over,
would not this wretch subsidize the labor of the world to his
foul purposes ^ Is this state of society civilization or bar-
barism ? Now, if the government were to issue a legal tender
for services rendered and material employed, this adventurous
and degraded class, who spend their lives disgraceful to them-
selves and an injury to others, would never obtain a position
superior to the most worthy, industrious and well-to-do-citizens,
as they now frequently do.
R. — But gold has an intrinsic value which paper has not and
never can have.
O. — Paper legal tenders have an intrinsic value just so long
as the Government is recognized by its own f>eople. Gold and
silver coin, as such, cannot have any more. Speaking strictly
of intrinsic value, gold has not any, while wheat, corn, potatoes
have. Suppose, for instance, you were adrift upon the ocean,
and had a chest of gold and a pound of flour, which would have
the intrinsic value ? Now gold and silver bullion have an in-
trinsic value only in those countries where they are used for
ornaments and art. When these metals are coined they lose
their intrinsic value as metals, because it is against the law to
use them for othei purposes than current money, and every
people who have ob^ lined any respectability in commerce have
condemned metals for general business transactions. Those
who wish gold and silver to retain their intrinsic value should
do all they can to get a paper legal tender, so as to allow gold
and silver, now more than uselessly employed because out of
their proper places, to go where they belong, and. in conse-
quence, where they are of the most service.
Again, if, according to the "gold bug," gold is the most
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Ow«n. Problems of the hour.
30 Problems of the Hour,
precious metal, and, therefore, gold is the best substance for a
perfect money, why do they not, under the same argument, wish
gold redeemed with indium, wliich science and barter tells us is
more precious ? During the war services were performed, sub-
stances exchanged, and our industries enlarged to conform with
the volume of United States greenbacks. McCuUoch, con-
tracted this volume to conform with the quantity of gold coin
we possessed. At least this was his aim, and, consequently,
contracted every industry in that proportion. Now, why do not
the metallic basis men support this suicidal policy by being
still more patriotic and heroic, and contract the gold coins to
conform with the indium we possess ? If England led, would
it be wise for us to follow ?
R. — Do 3'ou argue that the greenback could ever be kept at
par with *;old coin.
(). — 'I'he greenback is the par of the unit of our money of
account, and the standard of our ways and means of payment,
and would be at a premium over gold coin, or indium coin, if it
were alone made a legal tender for all dues to the Government.
Apropos to this, allow me to read a paragraph from Brantz-
Mayer's History, Vol. i, page 172, where it was shown that
even chickens were made a legal tender for taxes, and how the
demand and scarcity made them, like our gold coin, sell at a
premium several times over their par value.
In ^594, Philip the Second, finding himself straitened for
nic?iis to carr)^ on the European wars in which he was engaged,
recurred to the unfortunate and unjust system of forced loans
to increase his revenue. He did not confine himself in this
odious compulsory tax to the Old World, which was the most
concerned in the result of his wars, but instructed Velasco
Viceroy of Mexico, to impose a tribute of four reals, or fifty,
cents, upon the Indians, in addition to the sum they already
paid his majesty. Velasco reluctantly undertook the unwelcome
task, but, anxious to lighten the burden of the natives as much
as possible, and at the same time, to foster the raising of poul
try and cattle, he compounded the whole tax of a dollar, which
they were obliged to pay, for seven reals, or eirhty-sevt-n
and one-haK cents, and one (owl, which at that time was
Library of Congress*
j Ow«n« Problems of the hour.
'C-f-r-,^
ProhUms i^Hntbur. %\
valued at a single roal, or twelve and one-half cents. This,
it will be perceived, was amiably designed by the Vice-
roy, but became immediately the subject of gross abuse.
The Indians are slowly moved either to new modes of culti-
vation or to new objects of care, even of the most domestic
and useful character. Instead of devoting themselves to the
raising of poultry with the industrious thrift that would have
saved one-eighth of their taxation or twelve and a half per
cent., they allowed the time to pass without providing the re-
quired bird in their homestead, so that when the tax gatherer
arrived they were forced to buy the fowl instead of selling it.
This of cour: j raised the price, and the consequence was that
the Indian «\iS obliged often to pay two or three reals more
than the original amount of the whole taxation of a dollar. It
is related that one of th'=i oidores (tax collectors) who had taken
eight hundred fowl, reserved two hundred for the consumption
of his house, and through an agent sold the rest for three reals
or thirty-seven and a half cents each, by which he contrived to
make a profit of two hundred per cent. Various efforts were
made to remedy this shameful abuse, or to revoke the decree,
but the system was found too profitable to be abandoned with-
out a severe struggle.
R. — Mr. Owen, what were the mediums for exchange used
by the Aztecs when found by the Spaniards >
O. — There was a currency of different values regulated by
trade, which consisted of quills filled with gold dust ; of pieces
of tin cut in the form of a T; of balls of cotton, and bags of
cacao containing a specific number of grains. The greater
part of the Aztec trade was, nevertheless, carried on by barter ;
and thus we find that the taxes which were collected by Monte-
zuma from the Crown Lands and the occupations of the people
were paid in cott.^n dresses and mantles of feather work, orna-
mented armor, vases of gold, gold dust, bands and bracelets,
crystals, gilt and varnished jars and goblets, bells, arms and
utensils of copper, reams of paper, grain, fruits, copal, amber,
cochineal, cacao, wild animals, birds, timber, ni Us, and a
general medley, in which the luxuries and necessaries of life
Library of Congress^
Ow«n. Problems of the hour.
Problems of the Hour.
'were strangely mixed. As uncivilized as this was, I ask, in a1
justice, was it not a more liberal recognition of the general in-
dustries of the country than our system of subsidizing all labor
to gold adventurc-s ?
In reading the report of A. B. Steinberger on the Samoan
Islands, some weeks ago, I find this paragraph, which I think
is of intrinsic value in the consideration of our financial re-
quirements :
" Je, the Samoan * fine mat,' enters more largely into all the
political ramifications of the people than any creed, custom or
tradit' ^r which they have ever held. It protects caste, fosters
the igno. .r*^ thraldom of the people, and alone serves to per-
petuate barbaric prejudices. A husband will leave his wife
for another with no other purpose than the acquisition of a
* fine mat.' War may be declared and peace made for the pos-
session of a * sacred mat.* Families count their wealth, and all
personal and real estate is computed in 'fine mats.' Chiefs
and families have *fine mats,' but only districts and govern-
ments have * sacred mats.* * * * For the secure establishment
and maintenance of a home and foreign government in Samoa,
the hereditary and fictitious value of ' fine n^its * must be de-
stroyed. This could best be done by affixing a government
stamp and making them a circulating medium, subject to re-
demption as is paper money."
Now, why Mr. Steinberger would wish one hereditary and
fictitious value — 'fine mats* — redeemed by another heredi-
tary and fictitious value — gold coin — is only to be accounted
for by the fact that a Christian often sees a mote in his neigh-
bor's eye, when at the same instant there is a tenpenny nail stick-
ing out of his own. Had an intelligent Samoan visited our
shores and re^^orted our country, its people and customs, in his
remarks upon the hereditary and fictitious value of our gold
coin, and its evil influence in our politics, creed^, customs, castes
and misinformations, he might have suggested'ko his king, as
Steinberger, Esq. did to our president, that there could be no
home for foreign government — particularly the foreign — until
the United States would make gold coin redeemable in Samoan
* fine mats.' After all, does it not come to our minds, more and
Library of Congress.
Owen. Problems of the hour.
"WEi ''^ilS
Problems of the Hour. 33
more as our experience grows, that the intrinsic value of a
thing is worth just the love we set upon it ?
One word more An article of commerce, having a demand,
hence a value, can never be a good money. The Samoan>/^
mats md gold coin cannot possibly be other than barbaric
money. The system of barter, as systemized under the Aztecs,
was infinitely nearer just to the p^;ople than the mixed, repu-
diated, and contracted currency of the United States after one
hund'-cd years of what is styled self-government. But for the
full subject upon money, its history, unassociated with theories,
you must see the article " Money," in Appleton's New Ency-
clopaedia.
THE BEST BOOKS EXAMPLES IN PAYMENTS
AND LAWS.
Study No. 9.
It is asked what are the most important books on the money
question ; the most marked examples, not " theories," in pay-
ments that have been given at any time, and the best laws that
have ever been promulgated for the people.
The books are two : first, and above ail, is " The Ways and
Means of Payments," by Stephen Colwell, of Philadelphia,
which was issued about 1854; the second is "Querist," by
Bishop Berkley, of Ireland, published in 1770.
The important lessons in actual payments are two : First,
the plan by which the market house in St. Peter's, Guernsey,
was built by order of the governor. This is recorded by Jona-
than Duncan, in h's interesting and now very rare book, en-
titled, *' Bank Charters." This little volume is at least fifty
years old, but like true art, it is all the better for its age, hav-
ing been written entirely free from the influences of the money
potentates who, in these our pursy days, make business men,
legislators and governments tremble when it is proposed to
interfere with the banker's monopoly to infiate our currencies.
The plan was quite simple. The citizens of St. Peter's
\
\ Library of Congress.
I ^^°' Problems of the hour.
34 Problems of the Hour.
waited upon the governor of their island and said that they
were greatly in need of a covered market house. The governor
questioned them as to whether they had the raw materials and
the crude and skilled labor to make such a building as they
wished. They replied that they had, and that they only lacked
the money necessary to pay for the materials and the labor.
*' Well," the governor replied, " if that is all that is iieccssary,
your wishes can readily be compiled with. You go to work,^
make brick, tile and mortar, quarry slate for the roof and get
your best carpenters to do the woodwork, etc., etc., and I will
in the name of the city of St. Peter's, issue a market house
money and pay each one of you for what you deliver and do."
j'hese people went to work; the governor paid them with
the ci'.y's money, the shopkeepers, market-women and land-
lords took the money, for all knew that it was issued tor labor
and materials put ipto their own market hou«e,^and that the
rentals would re^'eem all that vwould be issued. The new cur-
''re(icy stimulated every .DnSftiess in the tity to new life, every
man sang at his work, and when the market house was ready,
the stalls were rented to the market people, and as the rents
could only be paidin*the city's .money which had been issued
to build the market hoase, the people had to struggle to get
this certain money ; and hence, they gave their farm truck
freely and gladly foi It. Within ten years all the money^ which
had been issued to build the market house was redeemed by
stall rentals and was in the city's treasury. Then the governor
issued a public call, the citizehs marched in procession^with
the governor at their head to the city plaza, and there the ^^
governor counted the money before* the people and burned it
in the way of cancellation. , Bvaicraft Library'
In this record we have the greatest lesson in payments* that
has ever been taught. And had the W^orld's Fair' comniis- *
sioners and the mayor of Chicago adopted this plan, as it was
suggested to them in a series of letters by the author t>f
these studies, the World's Exposition would not have cost
Chicago, the stateaf, or the 'nation one rupee. Chicago
would have put into circulation $20,000,000 of the nearest
"honest " money that was jevel issued ; labor, crude and
... , - mi. .^..
\ Library of Congress.
A rhmn. Problems of the hour.
m^ft^
ProbUms ef the Hour. ^-
skilled, could have been jnid full wages, and a stmgi^le to get
this money for gate fares, for rentals, and for '^ 1 every
kind of payments made to and inside the Exposition, by 50,000
to 150,000 people a day, during six months, would have kept
thit Exposition money, issued in the name of the city of
Chicago, at a premium over the gold, or any other dollar. This
would have been an object lesson which would h.-'ve borne its
fruit the world over. It would have been the means of bringing
more wealth to the world than if Columbus had returned to
life and announced that he had discovered another world for
us to setr and develop. The second great lesson in pay-
ments is t - way that The Credit Foncier Company paid for
its irrigating ditch at Topolobampo, Sinaloa, Mexico. The
length of the ditch is 6^^ miles, the length of the laterals, 8
miles, the amount of earth excavated in the main ditch, 325,000
cubic yards. The depth of the headgate at the Fuerte River is
22 feet, gradually decreasing to 3 feet at tailgate, at which
point the laterals begin. Width at bottom of ditch 8 feet
with a slope of one to one or angle of 45 degrees, gradually,
increasing at the last three-fourths of a mile to 22 feet at the
bottom. W'itii 10 feet of water in this ditch, from 30,000 to
40,000 acres of land can be irrigated, and each acre irrigated
is worth from $100 to $500 per acre. This work was paid for
by the Improvement Fund Scrip, issued in the name of The
Credit Foncier Company, and this scrip, known as *' ditch
scrip" * by the colonists, will be redeemed by the water uses
of the said ditch. The only money used by the said colonists
v/as to buy food, tools, etc., which had to be imported from
the United States. Any further work of like nature, such, for
instance, as the labor for building the roadbed of a railway
"^ The sherilT ot l.oi'.ion annually pays into the British extiicc|ucr
six horse shoes with the proi)er number of nails, as rent for a piece of
ground in the jjarish of St. Clements. In 1234 this lot was rented
from the Crown by a blacksmith to build a shop on, and afterwards
the property came into the hands of the city corporation at the same
rental. The horseshoes and nails have been annually paid since the
date mentioned. The contract is fulfilled, and hence the payment is
legal if in full as agreed. ^
Library of Congress.
Owen. Problems of the hour.
o
6 Problems of thf Hour.
and the laying of sleepers and raus, uuiiamg »3iations, round-
houses ana machine-shops, and operating the road, could be
done by the colonists without money, for their food can be
supplied from their own farm, which is now in a good condi-
tion, and is growing some kind of crops every month in the
ye ar.
There has been no other equal example in modern times of
a work having been finished on The (luernsey Market House
Plan, as the great ditch completed by The Topolobanipo colo-
nists ; and after a little while persons who are watching this ex-
periment by incorporated labor will begin to appreciate the
marked ; -.ccess that these colonists have already attained in
sustaining "^he fixed plan and the settled purposes with which
they went to Sinaloa to work out, under so many difficulties,
discouragements and expenses.
The greatest and shortest laws that were ever made are two :
Fiist, that given by jesus Christ, "Love ye one another."
Second, that of Queen Elizabeth, " Put the people to work."
Upon the observance of these two little laws depends the future
progress of our race.
Appendix No. i.
38 Wall Street, Room 4.
New York City, Dec. 7, 1896.
lion. William McKinlcy, President-elect of the United
States.
Dear Sir :
Herein please find a suggestion for a current money of the
realm for the home people at home. (Study No. 6).
Mrst. — This will protect this nation in its highest and most
essential prerogative to say what shall be, and how, and when
money shall be issued.
Second. -This will fix the prices, from year to year, of the
nation's staple products, and will protect our home producers at
home and abroad as they have never before been protected in
the control of their own products.
Library of Congress.
Owon. Problems of the hour.
Problems of the Hour. ^y
Third- -This will protect the people from trusts, which other-
wise will certainly ^e incorporated, for their own benefit, to
comer and fix and unfix the prices of our staple products, as
trusts have already incorporated and fixed and unfixed for
their own private gain, the prices for oils, sugar, coals, etc.
Fourth. — This will break up and put an end to the big bucket
shops, or to the gambling dives known as ** Produce Exchanges ; "
and will encourage the diversification and perfection of home
industries at home, by giving protection in fixed prices for the
staple raw products which are essential to the manufacturers of
finished articles of national import.
Fifth. — This will be a movement on the part of the nation
which will ^all a halt to those few citizens who are now seeking,
by means of incorporated privileges, to monopolize the currency
and the raw staple proc'uctions of this nation ; and thereby
will call the attention of the whole people to where we, as a nation,
are drifting, that the proper legislation may be taken to protect
ourselves from home and foreign companies which are harvest-
ing where they have not sown.
That Russia is, just at this time, moving to fix the price of
wheat, in the interest of her own wheat growers, gives a special
and marked import to the subject of this communication.
Respectfully,
Albert Kimsev Owen.
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