Page:Coin's Financial School.djvu/129

 Rh "Those who have been deceived by this cry of a fifty-cent silver dollar have only themselves to blame, and if they are not money lenders 'they have been paying the fiddler.'

"We express values in dollars, the unit of our monetary system. That unit is now the gold dollar of twenty-three and two- tenths grains of pure gold, or twenty-five and eight-tenths grains of standard gold. If we were to cut this amount in two and make eleven and six-tenths grains pure gold a unit or dollar, we would thereby double the value of all the property in the United States, except debts.

"If we were to double the weight of the unit or dollar by putting forty-six and four-tenths grains in it, we would thus reduce the value of all the property in the world, as expressed in dollars, except debts, as they call for so many dollars.

"If you don't understand this proposition as I have stated it, you will by enlarging the scale. Keep on adding gold to the dollar, till it takes one hundred grains five hundred grains—one thousand grains—to make a legal unit or dollar. Go on making it larger till you have all of the gold in the world in one thousand units, or dollar pieces.

"Who could give up property enough to buy one of them? To buy a single dollar? Suppose you owed a note calling for $100.00 payable in gold, one-tenth the gold of the world—how could you pay it? Think of the property that would have to be slaughtered to get it.

"Carry the illustration still further and put all the gold in the world in one dollar. A note for one dollar would require all the gold to pay it. When you reduce the number of primary dollars, you reduce the value of