[189]. The Supreme Court has decided that this action also is unconstitutional.
[190]. Robinson and Beard, Outlines of European History, II, 640.
[191]. Many sorts of merchandise have been used as money at one time or another. In early times cattle often served as the standard of value. This was undoubtedly the case among our Indo-European ancestors, as is shown by the survival of certain words in the English language at the present time. The word “pecuniary,” for example, comes from the Latin “pecunia,” meaning money, which is in turn from “pecus,” cattle. The word “fee” is merely a rendition of the old German word “Vieh,” which also means cattle.
[192]. The Chinese use copper money, which they call “cash.” The coins have a hole in the center so that they can be carried on a string like beads.
[193]. That was what had to be done in the old days before gold and silver were stamped into coins of known weight and fineness. You remember the Scriptural story of the patriarch Abraham’s weighing out the four hundred shekels of silver to pay the sons of Heth for Sarah’s grave. If not, read it in Genesis, xxiii, 2-19.
[194]. The weight of the gold dollar, as fixed by law, is 23.2 grains of pure gold.
[195]. Anyone may take gold to these mints and have it coined. Pure gold would be too soft for use as money, however; so an alloy of silver is mixed with it. The mixed metals are then heated and rolled into strips. These strips are next put into a stamping machine which forms them into so many little gold cakes, ready to be placed in another machine which stamps an impression upon them. In the case of gold and silver coins the edges are “milled” to prevent their being clipped or scraped by dishonest people. In the United States this is in the form of a raised and serrated edge; in European countries an inscription is often printed on the edges of the coins. The German twenty-mark piece before the war had the legend, “Gott mit uns,” in this form. The silver, nickel, and copper for American currency is bought by the mint and made into coins at a profit. This profit is called seigniorage and it is sufficient to make all the mints self-supporting. The amount of metal in a nickel, for instance, costs only a fraction of five cents. When coins are lost or destroyed—by shipwreck, fire, etc.—the government is just so much to the good, and a great many coins are permanently lost or destroyed every year.
[196]. With a dual system of coinage the ratio at the mint must be exactly that of the open market, otherwise the metal which the mint overvalues is the only one which will come in to be coined. If mine-owners who produce silver, for example, can get more gold in exchange for it in the open market than they can get dollars for it at the mint, they will naturally exchange it in the open market. But it is difficult to keep the legal ratio in exact accord with the market value because the latter fluctuates somewhat from year to year.
[197]. In this same year a severe commercial panic took place and the action of the government in demonetizing silver was blamed for it. Hence the frequent reference in later years to “the crime of 1873.”
[198]. Provision for the coinage of silver on a limited scale was made by the Bland Act (1878) and the Sherman Act (1890). These acts merely provided that the Treasury should buy so much silver each year and coin it, a very different thing from free coinage.