Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1918 — WHY PRICES ARE HIGH [ARTICLE]

WHY PRICES ARE HIGH

Gold Uaed In Abraham’s Time Still Utilised Today} Accumulating; So Fast It Is Becoming Cheap

By S. W. STRAUS

(Prominent New York and Chicago Banks)

(Copyright, 1917, Western Newspaper Union.) In these days of high prices we hear much about the lowered purchasing power of gold. It is asserted our supply of the precious metal is constantly growing larger, due to the accumulations of centuries, with the result that gold is becoming cheaper. Consequently, more money is required to buy a suit of clothes today than twenty years ago, because the standard of monetary value is reduced. We pay more, but have more; so things are evened up. Most of us do not realize fie extent to which gold is conserved and used over and over again. An authority on money once said that in all probability the gold set-ving during the time of Abraham, the Israelites and Solomon Is still utilized today. Perhaps the gold contained in the ring on your finger once graced the hand of Cleopatra I After a moment’s reflection his statement seems quite reasonable. Gold has always been considered extremely precious. Jewelry and other articles made from It have been cherished and passed on from generation to generation. Of course, some escaped when articles of gold were placed in tombs with the dead. But the world is really deprived of It only temporarily, for these same burial places are being opened now and the contents removed. And recently a movement started to prevent gold composing dental fillrings in dead people from being buried!

The ‘‘lure of gold’’ offers man an interesting chapter in the world’s books of romance. Continents have been discovered and explored, empires have been extended, wars have been provoked —all in the eternal search of gold. Some, a very few, have been rewarded in their search and lived comfortably ever after. . But many have found that gold is a mirage, ever slipping from their grasp and bringing hitter disillusionment with each disappointment. The famous Comstock mines of Nevada yielded 350 millions In gold and silver, but brought to its discoverer and developers a string of misfortunes perhaps •without a parallel. By a trick, three men obtained possession of the holdings from the discoverer, H. P. T. Comstock, and each cleaned up a fortune. But the sudden acquisition of wealth led to excesses. One died in a lunatic asylum In poverty, another became a cook in a cheap restaurant and died a beggar, and the third was killed In an accident, leaving $3,000. Cornstock committed suicide. A .Frenchman Who later worked the mine went mad. Another man obtained a

fortune from it and left the money to his son, who was accidentally killed in France on the very spot where the Frenchman was bom. Comstock’s ranch is today a mass of desolate ruins. It is easy to see why man has from the first preferred gold as a material for coins. Most important is its high value, which has made possible coins of large denominations in convenient sizes. With gold no such proceeding as employing a cart to carry the pocketbook, as the Chinese do when shopping with their iron money, is necessary. Sometime or other in the history of the world almost every material has been used for coins, but none to the extent that gold has. Shells have been in use for a long time in Afrjca and the. East Indies, also at one time in China. Iron was used in Sparta under the laws of Lycurgus; also used, according to Caesar, among the ancient Britons in the form of bars. It took a wagonload of Spartan iron money to buy an ox. The Spartans used iron because it w&s so awkward and they wished to discourage acquisition of Wealth. The inhabitants of Bysantium and the Japanese used iron. Coins of tin were struck by Dionysius of Syracuse. Platinum was tried in Russia. Lead is still used in Burmah; nickpl in Belgium, United States and Germany. Glass was used at one time for subsidiary coinage in Egypt and Sicily. Copper was and is also widely used. Just now the good old American dollar, stands pre-eminent In the world!