State Convention'—Interconvertible Notes. 245 
benefited when prices generally rise. I don’t think there is a farmer 
that believes the doctrine. When prices rose during the war, we 
were benefited, and when prices had a general fall we were crushed, 
and crushed badly. When, in any country, work and labor is low, 
and poorly paid, there is a state of degradation. I know a high 
rate of interest has been crushing every industry in this country. 
Let us wipe it out. As our lamented President Lincoln said: u This 
government is a government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people.” If he was living to-day he would say it was a gov¬ 
ernment of rings of bankers, by rings of bankers, and for rings of 
bankers. 
Mr. Roberts; A man who has been educated in the prejudice of 
a belief in a gold currency, or a currency on a gold basis, it seems 
to me needs considerable courage to get up before this audience and 
take that side of the question; and I feel a good deal of timidity in 
getting up here before you and taking that side of the question; 
but my real purpose, is, perhaps, more to make some inquiry and 
ask some questions, because I find statements made by these green¬ 
back-men seem to conflict. One gentleman states that there is an 
inherent value in the greenback, it has a value of its own. 
Another says, that the value of every article is in proportion 
to what it costs to produce it, the labor necessary to produce it. 
We know about the amount of labor necessary to get a 
gold dollar out of the earth, and in a gold dollar I suppose 
there are twenty-three grains of pure gold. Now what is 
the labor necessary to produce a greenback? I can not see that 
there is very much inherent value in a piece of paper. It costs a 
little something, to make the paper, and it costs a little something 
to print it, but that cost may or may not represent the inherent 
value of the greenback. In a gold dollar there are twenty-three 
grains of gold, and that twenty-three grains of gold will pretty 
nearly exchange for a dollar’s worth of products in any part of the 
world. Now, one gentleman stated here, it costs four times as much 
to get a gold dollar out of the earth in India as it does in the 
United States. 
Dr. Steele: I didn’t say that. I said it cost four or five times 
as much to get possession of a gold dollar in India as it did in the 
United States. 
Mr. Roberts: As I understand it, a dollar’s worth of gold is 
