TIIK I'AKMKR AND THE CURRENCY. 351 



is most in use in common speech, is not strictly correct, nor is 

 the common comparison of money with the yardstick and 

 the bushel correct in all cases. To measure cloth the measure 

 must have length, as a yardstick; and to measure bulk the 

 measure nmst have bulk, as the bushel. So to measure value, 

 the measure must have value. Now value as ordinarily con- 

 ceived means the results of labor applied to the production of 

 some object of desire, as gold or silver. Neither metal can be 

 obtained without substantial labor, and both are objects of 

 desire, irrespective of their use as money. Wampum, how- 

 ever, or fiat money, is not the result of much labor, nor does 

 any one desire them except as money. They have no value, 

 and hence can not well be said to measure value. I say they 

 have no value to make tiie point clear, and yet that is not 

 quite true. So long as society acce})ts them as money, they 

 have a value for that purpose, and to tlie extent that they have 

 such value they can measure value. The trouble is that, 

 for reasons already given, society is constantly changing its 

 opinion in regard to them, usually for the worse, and with 

 every fluctuation of opinion there is a change in the capacity 

 of the measure, which is distinctly what we do not desire in 

 any measure. Such money may be likened to a leaky gallon 

 measure; it will give us a rough notion of the amount of 

 liquid, provided we are very deft and move quickly enough ; 

 if we let the milk stand a little in the measure, there will be 

 less of it; if we accept shaky money in payment and keep it 

 a few days, we perhaps can not again buy with it that which 

 we sold for it. We none of us desire any such measure of 

 value as that. 



If now the law steps in and prescribes that this wampum 

 or fiat or irredeemable money shall be legal tender — that is, 

 that creditors must take it in payment for debt — a value is 

 certainly created which did not before exist. The money at 

 once becomes an object of desire to those who have debts to 

 pay, especially so long as it can be obtained more cheaply than 

 anything else that will pay debt. So long as it has value for 

 paying debts it will be received, at some rate, by those who have 

 no debts to pay, but know that they can pass it on to those 



