Excerpt from The Money We Need: A Short Primer on Money and Currency

And yet the assertion that the United States grew rich during the war by making trade for the shoddy mills and the sutlers is quite as worthy of respect as many Of the arguments which are addressed to Con gress and the country by those who are in favor of the Silver dollar instead Of the gold' dollar, or Of bimetallism, which means the same thing as a Sin gle Silver standard, or Of paper dollars printed by the government in quantities to suit. Whatever is said here must not be considered as addressed person ally to all who believe that something radical ought to be done to reform our money system. A good many honest people have been deceived, and a good many intelligent people have been mystified, by the speculations of those for whose apparently studious pursuit of this subject they have respect. They have been led to believe, for example, that there is not enough gold in the world for the proper transac tion of the world's business; that gold has increased in value, become clearer, and that therefore it purchases more Of other products than it used to. There is a universal outcry about low prices, and sugges tions are made that if silver were used for money as well as gold, money would be cheaper and other products would be dearer. The idea has gained ground that money is something valuable in itself, something that men, especially bankers, pursue for its own sake, because they want to store it up. Therefore these greedy persons have devised meth ods, arts, tricks - all Of them dishonorable and tyran nical - by the practice Of which they may gather in the money-of the world and compel others who want it to pay enormously for it.

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