Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1907 — SILVER PREFERRED TO GOLD. [ARTICLE]

SILVER PREFERRED TO GOLD.

Money a Relative Term—Value Depends on Locality, i “It is hard to define just what money Is,” said Colonel Louis E. Plttj of Missouri recently. “At best it seems to be a relative term —that is, what pafcses for money fn one part of the world is regarded with suspicion at Some other place. “Gold is supposed to be the one circulating medium that passes current everywhere, but it is not true. In the far East, for instance, the natives positively refuse to take anything but silver. Gold is not money to them and hi' Washington or New York or any of the cities along the Atlantic coast w’hen I hand a man a $lO to S2O gold piece to change he looks on me with suspicion. He almost says in so many words he would rather not have it But let me hand out a worn and dirty bill and he accepts it without looking at it. “Out In California bills are still more or less of a curiosity, and consequently the people are not accustomed to them. Go into a bank in San Francisco and tender a SSO bill for change. The chances are the president of the bank and the entire staff of officials would be called into consultation as to its genuineness, and I doubt if there is a store iu the town where a bill would be accepted and changed offhand. “The silver coins in circulation in China,” Pitts continued, “are objects of curiosity to foreigners. In China the coinage of money is let to private parties, and the amount of silver in a coin depends largely on the personal honesty of the man in charge of the particular mint. On this account each coin as it passes around in circulation has to be stamped with the initials of the merchant last having it in his possession. The last man stamping the coin is held responsible for any shortage in weight In the coin. The result is that the coins, from repeated stampings, resemble small saucers, and each one fits into the other when stacked up in a pile.” ,