Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1895 — Metal Money as Currency. [ARTICLE]

Metal Money as Currency.

Metal money is often inconvenient. It is too heavy, for one thing, to be used in large quantities. When this is true it is open to all the objections ♦bat are made against barter. It will not serve for currency in some transactions. By currency, I mean money and its representatives that pass from hand in daily transactions. Suppose, for example, that A should purchase property of B for SIOO,OOO. If A had nothing but gold in which to pay B, he would be obliged to buy a wagon and carry the price to Bin this expensive and troublesome manner. If there were nothing but gold • n this world, the man who goes into the central part of this State to buy butter and cheese, or in the wheat farms in the Northwest, would be obliged to carry with him chests of gold and an arsenal for his protection against .-obbers. Therefore paper currency and other representatives of money have been invented. And this paper is not confined to government notes and bank notes. It does not necessarily represent gold or silver, but it must be good for every dollar that it promises to pay, and more than that, it must be believed to be good by those who are asked to part with their goods for it. It includes promissory notes, drafts, bills of exchange, and the checks of individuals. All these things pass from hand to hand, and the paper obligations of private persons, it is estimated, furnish the tools with which nine-tenths of business transactions are carried on. All these paper obligations rest on coined money or property of some other kind. They pass in trade because it is believed that they will be redeemed. Paper representatives of money must be honest just as money itself must be honest.