452 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



' ' doubting Thomas' . ' ' Men whose business consists prin- 

 cipally of politics, and whose success, like that of the 

 physicians and pharmacists who surround their prescrip- 

 tions with the mystery of Latin names and abbreviations, 

 depends on keeping the people in ignorance of the true in- 

 wardness of their party's doings, will sneeringly ask a 

 score of unreasonable questions, and present a number of 

 imaginary obstacles in the way of adopting an absolute 

 paper money. To the mind of the party slave who would 

 wear a collar with his bosses' name thereon, these questions 

 and objections might appear plausible and even "smart" 

 and " shrewd." Anticipating that the reader of this work, 

 and the student of this branch of political economy will 

 be subjected to such an ordeal, the author deems this chap- 

 ter incomplete without subjecting some of these fancied 

 objections to the light of reason. 



One of the most common among these is, 4 ( This 

 money will be worthless because irredemable." And it is 

 often sneeringly remarked by the objector, "If I was to 

 give you my note without any promise to pay what would 

 it be worth?" The sweet, innocent, child-like ignorance 

 displayed by some self-important and bigoted ( ' cross-roads' ' 

 politician, in' asking this question, should commend him 

 to our careful consideration. In the first place we are not 

 aware that the note of the aforesaid politician would be 

 worth anything with his "promise to pay" inscribed 

 thereon. If he is not more honest in his business transac- 

 tions than he is in politics, we are inclined to be a little 

 doubtful of his paper. 



In the second place, the premises are not well taken; 

 as in the one case the giver of the "note" would be the 

 government possessing absolute power, and clothing it 

 with some of the attributes of money, while in the 

 other case the giver of the note would be an individual 

 forming the insignificant one sixtieth of a millionth part 



