Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1875 — Some of the Consequences of Inflation. [ARTICLE]

Some of the Consequences of Inflation.

It galvanizes into spasmodic life all that is reckless, imprudent and foolish in human nature by infusing the gambling element of pure Chance into every business transaction. This it does by the use of a medium of exchange as unstable in value as the mercurial column is unstable in height. It creates for its advocates and dupes a mental strabismus: they look where there is nothing, and they think they see something. It gives them one day of the rosiest illusions and a week of the direst disenchantment. It makes them spend that which they have not—mortgaging the future for an hour of spendthrift enjoyment. In tbe dreams and reveries of men it substitutes the unreal for the real; in the looseness of morals which it engenders it makes the supreme good of men to consist in the rapid accumulation and lavish display of wealth. It is the creator in its victims of an absolute insanity, so that they regard the very calamitii 8 inherent in its nature as blessings to be again sought for and enjoyed. It leads the nation, as it does the individual, into the straight road to bankruptcy and dishonor. These results of an irredeemable inflated currency have been demonstrated to he true by the experience of every people who have tried it,, and by none more so than by our own. —Republic Magazine.

... .In answer to the remarkable argument that moneyas the standard of values should itself intrinsically be of no value the New York Evening Poet says: If the thing to be measured be an extension the thing by which it is measured must have extension.or length; if.it be a weight the measure must have weight; if it be volume the measure must have capacity; if if it he heat the measure must be a unit of heat; if it be time the measure must be a unit of time; and so if it be wealth or something wrought by labor the measure must be wealth. . . . But did anyone ever propose or hear of an ideal measure of length or an ideal measure of weight or capacity? Did anyone ever propose to stamp upon a piece of paper “This is a foot: United States,” or “This is a bushel: United States,” or “ This is a pound: United States” ? No; and why? Why not issue measures of weight, length and capacity front the printing-press as well as measures of wealth? An ideal onnee or an ideal inch or an ideal pint is just as valid and tangible' a quantity as an ideal dollar. Neither of them measures anything and they all alike express nothing.”

... .As to the wind-work about a currency based on the wealth of the nation, the Boston Pott remarks: “As coin is only of that value which it intrinsically possesses, regardless of the stamp put upon it, so is the value of paper currency determined by its ready convertibility into coin. Not that it is worth anything of itself, but that it represents actual value, and will at any tune bring it That is the very most that can be said for paper money.- The talk about its being based on tbe wealth of the country is the assiguat theory right over Mfaih, feeding up into fce aif,”