THE LABOR-WROUGHT DOLLAR. 395 



The greatest foe the farmers of this country have had for the past 

 dozen years has been the paper money. There is nothing mysteri 

 ous about a silver dollar. There is nothing magical about it. It is 

 just so much silver metal stamped, but the stamp adds only a slight 

 fraction to its value. It took honest labor to get this silver out of 

 the earth, refine, alloy, and coin it, and therefore it is just the thing 

 to help exchange other things that have cost honest labor. This 

 dollar is just like a bushel of wheat; it has cost something; it is 

 adapted to a human want, and therefore it is good for something. 

 Labor for labor is the law of exchange, and therefore the dollar that 

 has cost labor is the only honest dollar. It is the only dollar about 

 which there is no trick. It is the only dollar that defrauds nobody. 

 It is a real equivalent. It is indeed only a tool to help exchange 

 other things, but it is an honest tool. We take it only to part with 

 it again, but when we take it we get an equivalent for what we give, 

 and when we part with it we give an equivalent for what we get. 

 Money is indeed a medium to exchange other things with, but it is 

 of vast consequence that the medium be a good medium, a real 

 medium, an intelligible medium, a medium that gives no advantage 

 in the exchange to either party. 



Moreover, this silver dollar is the sa me thing year in and year out. 

 The first silver dollar was coined in this country in 1794, just eighty 

 years ago, and there was put into it 371J grains of pure silver, and 

 that quantity of pure silver has been put into every dollar coined 

 since; so that, so far as the word dollar has depended on the silver 

 coin of that name, (and the same principles of course apply to the 

 gold dollar,) the word has had a steady significance. Men knew 

 what they were talking about when they were bargaining in dollars. 

 The thing dollar was a perfectly definite thing, and consequently 

 the denomination dollar was a steady denomination. In values you 

 reckon in dollars just as in grains you reckon in bushels. Gold and 

 silver money give you steady denomination dollars to reckon in, to 

 bargain by, to make calculation^ with. As things, dollars are a me 

 dium to exchange other things with; as denominations, dollars are a 

 measure of all other values whatsoever; and it is impossible to 

 have steady denominations unless you have steady coin dollars be 

 hind them. 



I now hold in my hand a so-called paper dollar. It is not a dollar 

 at all. It is only a promise to pay a dollar. Read it and you will 

 see that it is so: &quot; The United States will pay to bearer one dollar.&quot; 

 It carries the truth upon its very face. It is only a promise. Un 

 fortunately, also, it is a promise that has not been kept. It is an un 

 fulfilled promise. &quot;Worse than that, it is a promise that the promiser 

 refuses to fulfill. It is a broken promise. It is a dishonest promise. 

 It is failed paper. Because it is an unfulfilled promise, it is of course 

 worth less than that which it promises to pay. It is depreciated. 

 It always has been depreciated, and it is depreciated now. It has 

 been at times very much depreciated. Now, we have seen that the 

 dollar as a thing is a medium helping exchange all other things, and 

 also that the dollar as a denomination is a measure measuring all 

 other values. But a measure of other things should itself be uni 

 form. A bushel measure should be the same thing year in and year 

 ou t to buy and sell by. A yard-stick should be thirty-six inches 



