loose-jointed power and broad optimism of the Mississippi valley rather than by the highly organized but more cautious leading of the seaboard. The merchants and manufacturers of the coast are perhaps too conventional in their methods; they have been forced to fight defensively too long to lead where broader and bolder action might best succeed. The commercial generals must be Lincolns and Grants; patient, constant, enterprising, and imbued with an absolute confidence in themselves and in their highly-organized, highly-paid armies of workmen. Such confidence seems warranted. The men of our industrial armies possess an educated intelligence; they know how to harness the forces of Nature and to compel her greatest energies. They are weaponed with machines and tools so ingenious, so perfectly adapted to their uses, as enormously to increase the effectiveness of labor; they can move quickly, for they carry no burden of clumsiness or surplusage, they bow to no useless traditions and reject nothing because it is new. How can such armies, when backed by the resources of such a country, fail of victory?

The fruits of victory are worth considering. We shall have a trade that will fill the country with factories, and owing to the wide distribution and climatic differences of the world's markets, there need be no periods of idleness for workmen. The Russian oil fields threaten to destroy our exports of petroleum to the Eastern hemisphere; our shipments of lumber must soon cease from exhaustion of our forests; experts tell us that our food exports steadily decline, and that by the end of the century we shall need nearly all our wheat for home consumption. As a result of the campaign, this void will be filled by shipments of a wonderful variety of merchandise in which the smallest part of the value is that of the raw material, the greatest, that of skilled and intelligent labor. Great Britain sold in 1889 more than $300,000,000 worth of goods produced by other countries, while we sold but $13,000,000 worth. With the transfer of commercial supremacy, much of this valuable and profitable trade would come to us. The steadily-increasing importance of New York as an international financial center will be stimulated, and the first general European war will see the transfer of the world's surplus capital from London to New York. Thus we shall, if

we remain financially spotless and trustworthy, become the world's savings bank and safe deposit.

Beyond the material benefits arising from commercially organizing the world around a new center, are other gains. The public business of the nation is generally carried on by secondrate men, for those of the first ability find a more attractive field of action in private affairs. Perhaps, with the larger leisure to come, first-rate men may be drawn into the making of the laws and the guiding of the state. So far there has been little original artistic progress, except in the work of our machinists and engineers, who strip away unnecessary material, the result being artistic perfection of form. When commercial ambitions are satisfied a new desire may arise for primacy in art. Close commercial intercourse with the artistic civilizations of Asia and Europe will have acquainted us with the achievements of these countries and will have created ideals which our people will set themselves to realize. Some profound changes in national character may be looked for. The qualities that have well served to overrun the world may become secondary to others necessary to the preservation of our great place among the nations. Breadth of mind, the outcome of world-wide interests and sympathies, may replace intensity. The calmness that comes with success and possession may overshadow the eagerness of pursuit; swift aggressiveness may be succeeded by weight and steadiness; and the complexity of affairs will stimulate mental subtlety.

The people who shall have won such victories will have become intellectual athletes, for the contest will exact the full development of every power. The fittest qualities for permanent dominance, gained from the mingling of the blood of all the nations of Europe, will have survived. Then from this nation, strengthened in character, trained in intellect, and elevated by these great events, may be expected works of genius in all the arts, and a literature of fact and imagination such as the world has not yet seen.

ULYSSES D. EDDY.

SILVER, AND THE NEED OF MORE MONEY.

MORE money is a necessity. If any one doubts this, let him read an article on the money market in any leading journal in Europe or America, or apply for a loan at any bank on either side of the Atlantic. The constant and increasing stringency in the money market is the text of financial literature, the banker's reason for refusing accommodation on good security, and the miser's excuse for sacrificing his debtor's property at forced sale. The limit of the supply of gold for use as money has been reached. The question under consideration on both sides of the Atlantic is: What other material besides gold shall be stamped as money of redemption?

From time immemorial, previous to 1873, silver was used as money equally with gold. Silver was excluded from the mint by legislation. Shall it be restored to its place as money by legislation? If not, the alternative is presented of the gold standard and perpetual contraction, or fiat paper money. The gold monometallists assert that the subject cannot be controlled by legislation. Their spokesman, Mr. Edward Atkinson, in the May number of the FORUM, boldly asserts that "the value of gold and of silver in the markets of the world is a matter that it is wholly without the power of the government to control or to regulate."

Mr. Atkinson's assertion will hardly convince the people that universal peace and abundant harvests produce scarcity of money, depression, and want; but it ought to satisfy them that it is idle to expect relief from the gold monometallists. If it be true, as contended by Mr. Atkinson, that the repeal of all laws providing for the coinage of the precious metals and the enactment of statutes depriving coin of its legal-tender function would not affect the value of either gold or silver, what becomes of the economic axiom that value depends upon the law of supply and demand? The demand for gold and silver for use as money is

more than nine tenths of the entire demand for those metals. Why would not the cutting off, by legislation, of nine tenths of the demand for the precious metals depreciate their value? Has either gold or silver intrinsic value independent of supply and demand? If all the rocks were gold, would an ounce of that metal buy the same amount of food or clothing that it now does? Those who attribute intrinsic value to gold mistake quality for value. Quality is inherent and intrinsic; value exists in the mind of man and is extrinsic, and, in a great degree, independent of quality. The heat of the sun, the light of day, and the air we breathe possess qualities essential to animal life, but in their natural condition they have no commercial value. A traveler at a mountain stream satisfies his thirst without cost, but in a desert he would willingly exchange his last dollar for a pint of the precious fluid. The only elements of value are desire to possess and the limitation of quantity; in other words, supply and demand. The value of gold and silver, when used as money, is their purchasing power, or their power in exchange. If the quantity were increased, the demand remaining the same, the value of each dollar, pound, franc, or other unit of money would be correspondingly decreased. Why did silver decline in value as compared with gold, when its coinage was prohibited by law? When the gold mines of California and Australia were most productive, Germany, Austria, and Holland demonetized gold. Chevalier, Maclaren, and others advocated an international agreement to reject gold and to adopt the silver standard. If they had succeeded would not the value of silver have advanced as compared with gold?

The principal use, aside from habit, custom, or prejudice, for either gold or silver as money is to limit the quantity of the circulating medium. Without limitation in quantity, as we have already seen, money would have no value. So long as no other limitation can be agreed upon, a metallic basis for money of ultimate redemption is a necessity. The question is, Shall such basis be gold alone, or both gold and silver? If there were enough gold, there would be no necessity for using silver; but there never was enough of either gold or silver. There never was too much of both combined.

The most serious objection to metallic money is the want of a sufficient supply. In the past, nations have prospered when the mines of gold and silver were productive, and languished and decayed when the mines failed. Modern civilization com menced with the supply of gold and silver from the New World. Its progress has been measured by the yield of the mines. It has been rapid when they have been productive; it has been retarded by every decline in the output of gold and silver. The wonderful revival of commerce and prosperity enjoyed while the gold placers of California and Australia were productive, illustrates the beneficial effects of an abundant supply of money. When the output of gold declined, the discovery of the great Comstock lode revived silver-mining; since which time the combined product of gold and silver has not been more than sufficient to keep pace with the increase of population and business.

If silver had not been demonetized, the use of both metals. would have furnished a reasonable supply of money and disarmed the advocates of paper fiat money. The demonetization of silver cut off half the supply, violated existing contracts, reduced values, and paralyzed industry. Prosperity cannot be restored without an increased supply of money. Silver must be used as money equally with gold, or the metallic basis must be abandoned. If silver is rejected, some form of fiat money must be invented, or history will repeat itself by a return to barbarism. Civilization cannot exist without money. The demonetization of silver was the crime of the nineteenth century. The use of both gold and silver as money was a part of every contract. The people of the civilized world had agreed to pay, in either gold or silver, not less than a hundred thousand million dollars, when silver was demonetized by strategy or fraud. By such demonetization every contract was made payable in gold alone. The debtor was denied the option of paying in either gold or silver, as stipulated in the contract. The United States immediately thereafter resumed specie payment, and compelled the people to sell their products at a discount of from 30 to 50 per cent. to buy gold with which to pay obligations contracted to be paid in either gold, silver, or paper. Other nations followed our example. The injustice and wrong of this act did