Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/470

444 more of that money, for there was no employment for it. Then some ingenious minds hit upon a bolder plan. You have probably known persons who, when they are sick, will think no medicine can help unless it be particularly strong in color and nasty in taste. They look upon everything that is natural with distrust. Thus the scheme of so-called fiat money was brought forward, and many well meaning innocent people seem to have been talked into the belief that this at last is the true thing.

What is absolute or fiat money? It is the simplest contrivance in the world. The Government takes a little piece of paper and says to it, “Be thou a dollar,” and then the Government stamp is put upon the paper, and forthwith it is a dollar, or five, or ten, or a hundred dollars, as the case may be. Then all other kinds of money—gold, silver, greenbacks and national-bank notes—are withdrawn, and the fiat or absolute money put in their places. It will be the only legal-tender in payment of debts and Government dues. Now the present greenback bears this inscription: “The United States will pay the bearer one dollar”—or five or ten. Will not the fiat dollar bear a similar promise? Bless you, no. The fiat dollar will not promise anything, and just that is the beauty of it. According to the fiat money doctors, it was the weakness of the greenback, that it promised something. The fiat dollar does not promise anything, for it is in itself the performance of the promise—it is a dollar. The fiat money promises nothing beyond itself, for it does away with all other things. Gold and silver are antiquated stuff, entirely unsuitable for this progressive age and country. The fiat money once out, gold and silver will no more be thought of. We shall be entirely separate and independent from the rest of the world in all financial and commercial transactions. Our fiat money will not be exported, for it will not be taken anywhere else; and