People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1895 — GOLD AS COMMODITY [ARTICLE]

GOLD AS COMMODITY

WORTHLESS WITHOUT GOVERNMENT STAMP. A Page from History, Showing That It Would Require a Shovelful to Huy a Jackass on the Basis of “Inti Lisle” Value.

[Tom Watson's Paper.] On the last page of the first volume of his "Conquest of Peru,” Mr. Preicott, the historian, tells us that tvhen Pizarro anti his victorious companions came to a division of the gold and silver they bad script from shrine, temple, and palace, the quantity was so great thst the relations of commodities in the markets were very seriously disturbed. The price of gold and silver went down and the price of other things went up. That is, it required a larger amount of silver and gold to purchase other prvclucts.

The historian says: “A quire of paper was sold for ten pesos de oro.” A pesos de oro, as Mr. Prescott explains on page 454, was equal to gII.GT of our money. Therefore the quire of papier exchanged for 1:116.70 in gold. Mr. Prescott further says: "A bottle of wine sold for sixty pesos de oro; a sword for forty or fifty; a clcak fora hundred, and sometimes more; a pu'.r of shoes cost thirty or forty pesos de oro, and a good horse could not be had for less than twentylive hundred.”

Turning these prices into their equivalents in out money, we have the following interesting table of values, in Peru, in the year of our Lord 1533: A bottle'of wineloo.2o A sU-ord 466.80 A elbnk- 1,167.00 A pa:r of shoes 350.10 A horse2o; 115.00 All payable in gold or silver. The people of Peru had no knowledge of irtoney. They had no paper or coin currency. Barter and exchange was'their only mercantile .device. One commodity had to swap for another on its merits —those merits being. determined by usefulness, and supply and demand. , Those among, us. who object to the issue 6f legal tender notes by tiy government never tire-.of reminding us of the?paper money of the dead-confeder-acyl—forgetting that the land has been flooded time and again by the ‘ worthless paper of dead banks.' Yet there is in Mr. Prescott’s brilliant narrative abundant proof that if you will take away from gold and silver the special favors given them by sta ute law, they will do just what con federate money did—sink to a commodity basis.

When a horse brings §25,000 in gold, wc.gct a very instructive lesson in the science of ‘-intrinsic values.” When a pair of shoes command §350 in gold, even a Wall street democrat ought to be able to see that gold, when left to shift for itself, is at the mercy of the currents of commerce ju.-t as other commodities would be under a natural system. There are few products of the earth which have less --intrinsic value" than gold. You can’t even make money out of it without hardening it with other metals.

Repeal our absurd and monopolistic currency laws, and gold would shrink away from the approval of mankind, as c< mj ared to iron, a fid copper and coal.

The human family has no want to which g< ld is indispensable. We can cat. drink, cloth ourselves and house ourselves, and we can develop mind, body and soul to the utmost limits without the aid of gold. Put the race down to its legitimate wants, its healthy aspirations, its noblest purposes, and gold would absolutely cut no figure in the lofty civilization, which would follow.

It is only when a nation is growing corrupt that the mad craze for wealth breaks down all natural laws, and legislation is prostituted to the ambition of those w Ito seek to plunder industry of its legitimate returns through the secure method of financial manipulations.

In any country where a paltry piec - of useless yellow metal commands three bushels of wheat, in whose precious grains is stored the industry of the men who produced it and the blessings of life and health and strength to the men who must have it, or perish, we need no philosopher to tell us that our laws have been tampered with by rascals who have given to gold an advantage which God’s law of nature does not give it.

The Nowels Milling Co. wi 1 pay highest market price z or all kinds of grain and bay. Take ydur grain td them at the mill near depot. If you are going to set. trees this fall, give me a call. I soil the tfest stock at very low prices. 5,000 2-year-old grape vines at 5 cents each, ready for delivery after October 10th. Nursery one-half mile northeast of Fores-

man, Ind,

J. A. WOODIN.

Farmers, haul your grain to Hartley Bros, and receive Remington and Geodland prices.