“Now, Jobe,” says I, “honest injun, which do you think would be the best: to make what money this firm of the United States needs or to keep on a goin deeper and deeper in debt a borrowin money?
“Speak out,” says I. “Haint that good money?”
“Y-a-s,” says he, “but haint that fiat money?”
“Yes, sir,” says I, “that is fiat money, and fiat money is the only honest, true money we can have. Any other kind is a deceit and a fraud.”
Jobe twisted and would have got away if he hadent a been tied. As he couldent git away he snorted out:
“What good would that money be in Urope?”
“The very best that could be made, so far as you and your likes are concerned,” says I.
“Whats its basis? Whats its basis?” says he, “a hundred cent gold dollars or fifty cent silver dollars?”
“Neither,” says I. “And as long as we have so many grains of gold or so many grains of silver or so many grains of both as a basis, you and your likes will be a payin high interest with low-priced grain.”
“What!” says he, “no standard! How are you to tell what your dollar is worth?”
“We will have a standard, Jobe, and the best standard in the world, and the dollar will always be worth one hundred cents, and each cent will be worth ten mills.”
“Now, Jobe,” says I, “dont you know that the law that says that the dollar shall be of the value of so many grains of silver or so many grains of gold is what makes everything you raise low in price? Rich people can make the gold or silver scarce and dear, and that makes every dollar, either paper or metal, dear also, and the dearer the dollars the more of your grain or the more of your work it takes to git them.
“Now, what ort to be done is this: Make a law callin in all the gold and silver money, and redeem it in paper money, dollar for dollar, the same kind of money I spoke about a while ago; give them only six months to turn it in, and therearter let neither gold nor silver be money or a legal tender. And if any of them Wall Street gold sharks want to hang on to their gold money let em hang, and they will find that they will have to sell it for old metal. Arter the government gits it redeemed let us sell it to the jewelers and spoonmakers to make watches and spoons out of.
“And instid of the law a sayin that each dollar shall be of the value of so many grains of useless metal, let it say that ‘_The Dollar shall be of the value of sixty pounds of wheat in the Chicago market_.’[B]