JUST MONEY
As has been before stated, money in its broadest meaning is a
medium of exchange.
Anything that can pay a debt or purchase property, in any part of
a country, is the money of that country.
Every civilized country has its own minted or printed money.
The usual mediums of circulation are gold, silver, nickel and
copper, the latter alloyed more or less in the United States with
nickel.
Government and bank bills, while having all the purchasing power
of gold, are simply promises to pay in gold, or other coin of
"redemption", the amounts they represent.
The money of one country cannot legally be made to pay a debt in
another country, unless both parties to the payment agree to it.
When gold is exchanged to settle the balances of trade between two
countries, it is not reckoned, if coined, at its face value, but
at its bullion value.
The word "pecunia" meant in ancient Greece and Rome a flock or
herd.
In those days live stock were used as a medium of exchange, or
money.
We keep the word and often use it as in "pecuniary" affairs, and
when we call a moneyless man, "impecunious."
UNITED STATES MONEY
The United States Government reserves to itself the right under
the constitution, to coin and issue the money to be used by its
own people.
Formerly we had two standards of value, gold and silver, or
bimetalism.
If gold and silver were produced in relatively equal quantities,
the world would go on trading with money of both kinds, but the
proportions are not the same.
Among the Aztecs and Peruvians silver ranked with gold as two to
one, that is, two pounds of silver would purchase as much as one
pound of gold.
But when great silver mines were discovered and new methods were
discovered for extracting the metal, it became more and more
abundant, till it depreciated far below the former value it had in
its relation to gold.
Most of the commercial nations decided to have but one standard of
value, and that gold, long before the United States fell into
line.
Our money measure is known as the decimal, or metric. It would be
convenient, if we could follow the example of nearly all the other
commercial nations, and use the metric system for all our weights
and measures.
OUR METAL MONEY
In the United States Treasury at Washington, there are many
million dollars in silver coins and bullion.
The gold standard has not driven silver out of circulation, for it
is still found convenient to use it in settling immediately our
smaller business transactions.
When the silver dollar was first coined, and indeed up to the
present date, the intention was that it should contain about a
dollar's worth of silver, or 374 1/4 Troy grains of the pure
metal. This amount of silver was supposed to represent permanently
24 3/4 grains of pure gold, and it did so represent its value at
one time, and would have continued to do so, had the relative
output of both metals been the same.
Our chief mint is in Philadelphia, where is coined all the copper,
nickel, silver, and gold money in use.
To imitate these metals, even where the full value is given,
constitutes the criminal offence called "counterfeiting."
In former times, some of our older readers will remember them, the
Government meant to have the metal in each coin of about its
unstamped value in the market.
In those days the cent was as large as our present silver half
dollar, and the copper two-cent piece was a monster in the way of
coinage.
Now our copper and nickel coins are small and can be carried
without testing strength of pockets. They are regarded as money
"tokens."
Silver coins that are punched can be refused in the settlement of
a debt.
Punched gold coins should always be refused, for they are never of
their face value.
Silver coins may be used in the settlement of bills up to $5.00.
Gold coins are, of course, legal tender up to any amount.
PAPER MONEY
We usually class all paper money as "bills."
There are three classes of bills, all quite different in their
inception and meaning. These are--
1. National bank notes.
2. Treasury notes or "greenbacks."
3. Treasury certificates.
BANK NOTES
A national bank note is the guaranteed promise of some national
bank to pay coin or its equivalent to any one presenting the note
at the bank and asking to have the exchange made.
This exchange is called "redeeming."
If you examine a bank bill you will notice that it is drawn much
like an ordinary business "demand" note, made payable to "bearer,"
and signed by the bank president and cashier.
For every dollar of its own sent out in the form of a bill by a
national bank, the Government holds a dollar of the bank's
collateral to guarantee the redemption of the note if the bank
should fail.
National bank notes are received in all business transactions,
because they are secured by the Government, yet there are cases in
which even the Government will not receive them in payment of a
claim, nor pay them out itself.
1. All import duties must be paid in gold.
2. The Government pays the interest on its own bonds in gold.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing--a department of the United
States Treasury--makes and prints all the national bank notes.
On all these notes the names of the United States Treasurer and
the United States Register appear. The names look like signatures,
but they are facsimilies and are printed with the note.
The notes are printed on specially prepared paper, to imitate
which is regarded as a counterfeit.
Soiled and worn out bank notes may be exchanged for fresh ones at
the Treasury Department.
"GREENBACKS"
Greenbacks are treasury notes. The name comes from the color in
which they first appeared in the years of our Civil War.
The treasury note is really an engraved promissory note of the
United States Government made payable to the bearer, and bearing
the signatures of the Treasurer and Register of the Treasury.
These notes are issued in denominations of from five to ten
thousand dollars.
Formerly there were one and two-dollar treasury notes issued, and
we still find some of these "old-timers" in circulation.
There are so many treasury notes in circulation that the
Government, vast though its bullion and coin reserves are, could
not redeem them if presented at once.
The treasury note is a legal tender for any amount of
indebtedness.
The Government prints the following guarantee on every treasury
note:
"This note is, by law, to be considered as good as coin. Any one
to whom you pay it must reckon it as equivalent to a dollar (or
face value in dollars) in value."
TREASURY CERTIFICATES
The treasury certificate is, in form, very much like the treasury
note, and it bears the signatures of the same officers.
Treasury certificates are of two kinds, gold and silver.
The gold certificates are printed in yellow.
The silver certificates are light black and white.
These certificates are issued against the great reserves of gold
and silver that are kept to redeem them.
The use of the gold certificate saves the loss of the gold that
comes through abrasion when handled.
A five-dollar silver certificate is much more convenient to carry
than five silver dollars.
These certificates, as may be seen, are issued for the convenience
of the public.
Certificates of either character will be redeemed to any amount,
in the metals for which they call, if presented at the United
States Treasury at Washington, or at any of the sub-treasuries to
be found in our larger cities.
WORN-OUT NOTES
Only those familiar with the work can realize the great quantities
of bank bills, treasury notes, and certificates continually being
made and sent out from Washington.
While a stream of clean, fresh paper of enormous value is going
out to be spread all over the country, another stream of soiled,
torn and altogether disreputable-looking paper is flowing back to
the Treasury.
The filthy paper is quite as valuable as the clean, so it is
properly checked, recorded, and credited before new paper is sent
out in its place.
They are now trying to make old bills presentable by washing them
at the Department. Meanwhile, most of them are ground again into
pulp, made into new paper, and all the first processes gone
through with to make the paper into money.