_ by simply making
out a check in favor of "C." ("B's" inducement to exchange his dollars
for the stock dollars of "C" is the high rate of interest that they will
return in the form of dividends, which rate is much larger than _The
Bank_ can afford to pay.) "C" deposits "B's" check with _The Bank_ and
hereby liquidates his $10,000 indebtedness to _The Bank_.

At this stage "B" is still the possessor of $10,000, but it is "10,000
stock dollars." "C" is the possessor of $6,700, and "D," from whom the
copper-mine was purchased, is the possessor of $3,300; but the two
latter amounts make up the 10,000 real dollars, and _The Bank_ remains
where it was at the beginning of the transaction. The people, however,
are no wiser; but they know, because they have been most carefully
educated to such knowledge by "C's" agents, Wall Street, and the press,
that their country is tremendously prosperous--that its great prosperity
is evidenced by the $6,700 added wealth in the form of 6,700 new stock
dollars. At the next stage the financial trick accomplished by the
secret device is complete. "B," the farmer, who has contracted for new
machinery and other necessities and luxuries to be paid for "next
season," attempts next season to turn his 10,000 stock dollars into real
dollars, and "C," the Private Thing, knowing their real value to be but
$3,300, refuses to make the exchange, but instead, by proclaiming their
real value, compels "B," who must have real dollars to meet his debts,
to sell them for what "C," the Private Thing, is willing to pay. "C,"
the Private Thing, is willing to pay their worth, which he alone knows
is $3,300; he repurchases them at that price from "B," that he may
repeat the operation at the return of the next "wave of the country's
prosperity."

By this operation "B," the farmer, has lost, as absolutely as though
they had been taken away from him by a Government decree, $6,700 of his
own making, and "C," the Private Thing, has "made," as absolutely as
though the Government had allowed him to coin them for his own benefit,
6,700 real dollars, and _The Bank_, created, regulated, and controlled
by law, and existing because of the people's deposits of money, has been
the instrument by which "C," the Private Thing, has deprived "B," the
farmer, of his savings, because "C," the Private Thing, is at one and
the same time during the operation I have outlined, himself and _The
Bank_.

A careful study of this illustration,