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PAGE EIGHT THE Weekly Jeffersonian PUBLISHED BY THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON Editors and Proprietors T»mple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. —. .... -1 - - ■ ■ SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - - SI.OO PER TEAR Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. at Pnttjut, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at st c and clan mail matttr ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5,1907 Our National Financial System. Does any one place a mortgage on his property, if he can help it? Do not all of us realize that we injure our credit and run the risk of bankruptcy when we sign a mortgage which must go to record? The questions answer themselves. As individals we never encumber our property and burden our future in that way, unless necessity compels. Now, what is a bond issued by the Govern ment, if it is not virtually a mortgage placed upon the nation? A bond issue of $35,000,000 is nothing more nor less than a mortgage to that amount which covers the national income and burdens our future. Not so very long ago the war-ships of Eu ropean nations, sent at the instance of the hungry creditors of Venezuela, trained their guns upon Venezuelan cities. Acting as the bill collectors for a lot of rascally usurers, these proud war-ships threatened the Venezuelan cities with the horrors of a bombardment if these outrageously padded claims of European creditors were not settled. In the end, Venezuela was forced to mort gage her custom house duties, to satisfy these war-vessel bill-collectors. We North Americans looked on, indignant and ashamed, as the Shylocks of Europe rivet ed their fetters upon helpless Venezuela. But we now have enough to think about, here at home. Our custom house duties have been mort gaged, and we have been so ready to accept the fetters of our own Shylocks that our edit ors, Congressmen and leaders, generally, have loudly praised the Government for its “suc cess,” in putting another mortgage on the na tion! If one of our leading business men should hand out an interview in which he spoke boast ingly of his “success” in floating'a mortgage on his property, he would be universally re garded as a lunatic whose family ought to lock him up. Yet the recent feat of Mr. Cortelyou was nothing more the floating of another 3 per cent mortgage on the finest property on earth—a mortgage as utterly unjustifiable and wicked as the mortgage which Cleveland plac ed upon us in 1893. In the infamy of that transaction J. P. Mor gan was the leading figure. In the infamy of this last transaction J. P. Morgan was a lead ing figure. At each crisis in the national finances, it was J. P. Morgan who went to the White House to tell the Government what Wall Street meant to have. And in each case, he got what he went after. Neither Cleveland, the so-called Demo crat, nor Roosevelt, the nominal Republican, were able to resist the National Bankers, whose power is intrenched in Wall street. And even Mr. Bryan —for reasons * best known to himself —did not have the courage to tell the country what was the matter. He shrank from the Money Question, with a fear that partakes far more of the caution of a man who wants to be President than of any worth ier element. When 85,000,000 of his fellow citizen® were being profoundly stirred by the WATSON’S WEEKDY JEFFERSONIAN. calamitous conditions into which our National bankers and Gold Standard leaders have brought us, Mr. Bryan could think of no better plan of relief than a Government guaranty, to be given to the silk hat conspirators who had caused the panic. These National bankers are already doing business on the national credit, represented by the bonds; and now, when they have putri fied the whole system of national finance, Mr. Bryan thinks these pampered pets should have the benefit of further governmental endorse ment. That’s queer democracy truly. Let Mr. Bryan cut out one or two Sunday school speeches, and give himself time to read a few pages of Benton’s “Thirty Years’ View.” Let him excuse himself to the Y. M. C. A. for a night or two while he studies Jack son’s “Farewell Address.” Let him omit two or three of those perfunctory banquets, and pore over Madison’s Messages of 1815 and 1816; over Calhoun’s compact, meaty speeches on finance; over Jefferson’s letters to John W. Eppes. If he will do this, he will realize how far he wandered away from democratic moorings when he proposed to perpetuate the power, the privileges and monstrous injustice of the National banking system by a governmental guaranty of their deposits. The Government has always had the right, inherent and unlimited, to create money. Being nothing more than a medium of ex change, money need never have intrinsic val ue. All that it needs is the legal tender qual ity. By legal tender is meant that lawful of fer to pay, which the creditor must accept. If he refuses to accept a lawful offer to pay, his debt is dead. The creditor, it is true, can at any time agree to reconsider, and to accept the lawful offer, but he never can, under any cir cumstances, get more than the lawful offer. Thus, the currency which the law says is “legal tender” is that which the creditor must accept, if he wants to collect his debt. No matter how much may be written on the subject, that is all that money is—a lawful offer to pay, constituting the legal medium of exchange. Nobody that ever understood the question, has ever contended that a bushel measure, or a gallon measure, should have the intrinsic value of a bushel or a gallon. Measure is one thing, value is another. Now, when you consider the true intent and purpose of adopting a national medium of ex change, you can readily understand how easy it is to confuse the measure with the value. Money measures the exchange value of com modities, just as the peck-measure, or the gallon pot, tells how much wheat or molassess may be in the sack, or barrel. But there is no more sense in contending that a five dollar bill shall itself be worth five dollars intrinsic ally, than there wolud be in contending that a gallon pot with which syrup is measured, should be worth a gallon of syrup. It is only the scheming financier, and his interested allies, and his innocent dupes, who contend that in choosing the standard of meas ure for exchange values, the measure should be equal in intrinsic value to the thing which it measures. But these scheming financiers, their allies and their dupes, have had their own way and the consequence is that we now have, in mon ey matters, away of measuring values which is just as unscientific and absurd as would be a system of measuring cloth that required the yard-stick to be equal in value to the yard of silk, or cotton, or velvet, or Brussels carpet, which it measured. If the weights which indicated that a bale of cotton weighed 500 pounds were required to be as heavy as the cotton, we should see the folly of such a system of weights and meas ure®. But we are not able to see that our schem ing financiers, their allies and their dupes, measure values in just that way. They require that the dollar shall be worth a dollar, else it is not “honest”; and you vote it to be so, never stopping to think that you are voting to make the yardstick worth a yard, the quart measure worth a quart, the peck measure worth a peck, the 500 pound weight, on the scales, equal to the 500 pounds of cotton. Why do the scheming financiers demand that the medium of exchange shall have intrin sic value? Why do they demand that, when it comes to money, the thing which measures shall be equal in value to the thing measured? Because upon this vicious error they are able to rear the colossal structure of their own profit, power and prestige. When a five dollar bill is required to be, itself, worth five dollars in gold, those who can control the gold, can master the situation. If a five dollar bill were required to be “redeemed,” when de manded, in five dollars’ worth of cotton, those who controlled the cotton would rule the land. If every dollar of the money in circulation were required to be redeemed in wheat, when the holder of the dollar so demanded, thpse who control the wheat would be masters of the situation. Don’t you see it, son? The scheming financiers always strive to make the currency of a people, redeemable in whichever metal is scarcest at the time, in or der that they may be better able to control the metal of final redemption. Whoever controls silver, when silver is the metal of redemption, rules the situation. It was that way some years ago, in Europe. But silver increased in quantity and then the scheming financiers decided to make gold the metal of final redemption. Therefore, we had the long struggle which resulted in this uncon stitutional, villainous, and crushing Single Gold Standard. In its last analysis, the Single Gold Standard means that every other kind of money must be “redeemed” in gold, when demanded. The man who cannot understand what an enormous power and profit this gives to the few who have cornered the gold, may be deli cately and accurately classed as follows: (1) The scheming financiers; (2) The interested allies of the same; (3) The subsidized editors, politicians, of fice holders, and camp-followers, generally; (4) The innocent dupes; (5) The fools. *. * * Our Nelv Railroad Commission. Has been too busy to take hold of the Southern Express Company. Yet among the corporation horse-leeches that are sucking the blood of the people, none is more ravenous and insatiable than this Geor gia concern. In its relation to the Railroads it is the favored shipper. The special rates which it exacts are in plain violation of the law. In its relation to the public, it is an arbitra ry taxer, beyond all reasonable limits, of the people whom it serves. When will our new Commission lay its soothing, take-a-seat-Major, touch on the Southern Express Company? A company which charges more for trans portation than the goods are worth —such goods as books, oranges, etc., etc. —is a compa ny that needs attention, and needs it bad. When will it get it? Then, again, we are still shivering and catch ing the colds that lead to Pneumonia, as we stand around the passenger stations of country towns to take the night trains. When are the railroads going to be required to provide for the health and comfort of their patrons? Winter is upon us. Exposure at these pas senger stations at night, will mean suffering, I