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Annual Report of the 
others as opposed to them, then I say those organizations will re¬ 
sult in profit, and only in profit. But because they may make 
some mistakes, I cannot see that they should not be tried. 
What I am afraid of is what I hinted at last night, that the mass 
of the farmers won’t think, but will yield themselves into the hands 
of a class of men that will think not rightly for them, but lead 
them like a bell-wether into somebody’s else field. If they will 
think and know that their interests are identical with all the inter¬ 
ests of the country, then we can get good from these organizations. 
I think the last gentleman was correct when he s lid we are not 
to look so much to law as to abolish laws for our advantages. We 
are not to expect to take the hand of law and put it into the national 
crib and draw it out for our own benefit. 
The paper dollar is wholly a creation of law, and if that law did 
not sustain it, it would disappear instantly. And that is the reason 
I want to go back from the paper dollar to the dollar of nature.— 
The paper dollar is the creation of law. 
Mr. Anderson. Is there such a thing as a natural dollar. 
President Bascom. There is such a thing as a natural dollar? 
Mr. Anderson. I dispute it entirely and emphatically. 
President Bascom. I mean if there was no civil law in this com¬ 
munity a gold dollar would circulate without any law, if no precise 
stamp was fixed upon it. 
Mr. Anderson. Is bullion a legal payment? 
President Bascom. No, sir: but bullion will circulate in the com¬ 
munity and pay debts just as well as an ox or a bushel of wheat 
will pay debts. I cannot compel a man to take a bushel of wheat, 
but it will pay debts to its own value all the time, and bullion 
will do the same thing, but the paper dollar won’t pay a single 
dollar unless you have a government to back it up with an army. 
Therefore I say let us not try to sustain ourselves as farmers by 
law, nor by law to push somebody’s else hand out only that we 
may put our own hand in; let us push every man’s hand out and 
so stand off and leave us with God and nature and give us a fair op¬ 
portunity, and let us lay hold of and use the forces at our disposal. 
We do not want to fight a fight in behalf of farmers alone, but 
in behalf of all men. 
Mr. G. E. Morrow. There are many things I should like to say, 
but I will say this in response to the question Mr. Anderson asks 
