The secretary, superintendent and every officer and agent of the association are strictly forbidden to dispose of these Home D. bills to any other than employees and stockholders, or to receive them from any other party. I think this rule has been observed as to paying out, but in some isolated cases, when persons, through ignorance or misrepresentation, have been imposed upon, in taking our bills, they have been received and redeemed, but only through protest and compromise.
Again, our employees are almost exclusively stockholders or members of a family whose head is a stockholder. You will see in our petition that the object of our association was to furnish employment and opportunities for learning trades and for reasonable remuneration for labor, which, up to the present, is about all we have been able to accomplish.
Mr. Hollister will probably endeavor to prove by affidavits, that we "pay out" our bills to other than stockholders and employees; and he may find some such who have had our bills; but I think no one will testify under oath that he received them from any authorized agent, or that they were redeemed without protest and injunction not to take them again, etc.
Our store scrip is not limited in circulation by specification on its face, though in fact it does not circulate outside our institution—it is used to pay employees, and is good only for just what it calls for; it comprises little less than one-tenth of the bills reported for assessment.
A great distinction exists between these two classes of bills. The store bills being good for any imported article in our store, while the Home D. is not presentable at this department, and in no instance has it ever been redeemed in such articles. In one respect, however, these two classes are similar, to wit: neither of them is ever paid or redeemed in cash or legal money, by any officer or agent of the association. We pay and redeem in the kind designated upon the face of the bills, and in nothing else.
We have done business to a considerable amount with outside parties—the Utah Northern Railroad Company, the superintendent of the Ogden Junction printing office, the Deseret News and Salt Lake Herald, etc., and could get affidavits from those parties showing we have never paid them our bills, but have given them direct orders to draw on departments agreed upon.
If our counsel cannot relieve us of assessment on both classes of bills, they may think it policy to separate them, and only claim abatement on the "Home D." bills which, if allowed, would probably save over $8,000.
The counsel will notice that the "Home D." bills are characteristically different from bills issued by any other co-operation.
Yours affectionately,
Lorenzo Snow.