State Convention—Interconvertible Notes. 237 
would like to have that made a little clearer, how we are going to 
have a currency that will adapt itself to just what we want. I 
do not see that we "re going to get back to a stable currency b}' 
anything Mr. Leland has suggested in his paper, because gold cer¬ 
tainly is not stable. I do not know where we are going to be 
benefited by leaving one kind of paper currency and going back to 
another. 
Mr. Benton: There is an apt illustration at hand, in relation to 
controlling -the volume of money in the country, in the fractional 
currency. The government has the power to issue $50,000,000. 
There are between forty-two and forty-three millions in use. Why 
not all of it? The wants of trade say just how much of this circu- 
tion is needed, and no more comes out. In relation to fractional 
currency there is no redundancy or stringency. If a man don’t want 
it he goes and buys a greenback. The necessities of trade govern 
the amount of fractional currency and there is the point the gen¬ 
tleman who read the last paper made. We are charged with infla¬ 
tion, yet if you get it you must get it in gold; the standard of the 
amount is fixed by the same law, the economic law, the law of con¬ 
venience. There is no more fractional currency than needed, and 
no less. Just enough. It is so with the interconvertible bonds. 
Men would not have any more greenbacks than they need. They 
, are both one. That is the doctrine. The controlling of the volume 
of the currency by the necessity of the people. It is illustrated in 
this way. If 1 have a farm that will support just so much stock, I 
do not want to buy more to put on that same farm. Men do not 
buy any more money than they want, any more than they do any 
i more stock than they can take care of. I don’t keep any more horses 
on my farm than I want. I don’t keep any more money than I 
want. That may seem a poor reason, but it is the law. The prin¬ 
ciples are essential which I lay down in the governing of the 
i volume and stability of the currency. What regulates the value 
of the money that we use? President Steele discussed examples 
showing } T ou that gold was one of the most variable and fluctuat- 
ing commodities in the country. The idea that money is to be the 
reservoir of value is one of the most fallacious. Money is the me¬ 
dium of exchange, and fixes the value^at what I can change one 
article into another. The reservoir of value is the interest or use 
a thing will give me. I do not want money for that; I have got 
