mist. This fact alone makes it an important sign of the times.
I am surprised that its importance has not been fully appreciated by the Galveston News, which journal alone among the great dailies of the country is an exponent of rational finance. Its editor, in noticing Atkinson's scheme, instead of pointing out its introduction of a revolutionary principle, remarks that "the one infallible way to reach the ideal of a sound system of organized credit is to reach the ideal of a population correspondingly sound in character and intellect." This philistine utterance I hardly expected from such a quarter. It is undoubtedly true that a considerable degree of character and intellect is necessary to the successful organization of credit. But this truth is now a truism. There is another truth, not a truism, for the inculcation of which there is pressing need,—that credit, once organized, will do as much to develop character and intellect as the development of character and intellect ever did to organize credit. It was this truth, and the important bearing that the monetization of all wealth would have upon it, that I expected to see emphasized by the Galveston News in its comments upon Atkinson's proposal. I hoped and still hope, to hear it rejoice with Liberty that the man whose solutions of the labor problem have consisted mainly of nine-dollar suits and ten-cent meals and patent ovens has at last broached a measure that, instead of being beneath contempt, is worthy of profound consideration.
A GREENBACKER IN A CORNER.
[Liberty, August 9, 1884.]
To the Editor of Liberty:
In Liberty of June 28 you refer to a writer in the Essex Statesman, of whom you say that he "gets down to bottom truth" on the tariff question by averring that "Free Money" and "Free Trade" are corollaries of each other.
Every Greenbacker (I am one) of brains perceived this simple (I might say axiomatic) doctrine the moment he thought at all on it.
Monopoly of money is through interest; monopoly of trade is through taxing (tariffs) : so, if you would overthrow all monopoly, you have only to secure currency unloaded with interest, and their doom is recorded.
There is no more rational reformer in existence than the "Greenbacker" who is a Greenbacker in the only rational sense of the word,—that is, a believer in "a non-interest-bearing currency."
It is amusing, this prating of "secured money"! Liberty ought to see