at the suspension for one season
of the making of time-contracts would close the factories, furnaces, and
machine-shops of all civilized countries.

The natural concomitant of such a system of industry is the elaborate
system of debt and credit which has grown up with it, and is
indispensable to it. Any serious enhancement in the value of the unit of
money between the time of making a contract or incurring a debt and the
date of fulfilment or maturity always works hardship and frequently ruin
to the contractor or debtor.

Three fourths of the business enterprises of this country are conducted
on borrowed capital. Three fourths of the homes and farms that stand in
the name of the actual occupants have been bought on time, and a very
large proportion of them are mortgaged for the payment of some part of
the purchase money.

Under the operation of a shrinkage in the volume of money this enormous
mass of borrowers, at the maturity of their respective debts, though
nominally paying no more than the amount borrowed, with interest, are,
in reality, in the amount of the principal alone, returning a percentage
of value greater than they received--more than in equity they contracted
to pay, and oftentimes more, in substance, than they profited by the
loan. To the man of business this percentage in many cases constitutes
the difference between success and failure. Thus a shrinkage in the
volume of money is the prolific source of bankruptcy and ruin. It is the
canker that, unperceived and unsuspected, is eating out the prosperity
of our people. By reason of the almost universal inattention to the
nature and functions of money this evil is permitted, unobserved, to
work widespread ruin and disaster. So subtle is it in its operations
that it eludes the vigilance of the most acute. It baffles all foresight
and calculation; it sets at naught all industry, all energy, all
enterprise.

* * * * *

The advocates of the single gold standard deem even silver money much
better money than greenbacks. Does it then follow that when greenbacks
were our only money--good enough money to carry our nation through the
greatest war in all history--we were "along-side" or underneath the
barbarous nations of the world? It is not the form or material of a
nation's money that fixes its status relatively to other nations. That
is accomplished by the vitality, the energy, the intellectuality and
effective force of its people. The U