“Mr. Lomax, seek your evening’s pleasure with me—”
At this unexpected sentence in English, addressed to him by name in
Constantinople. Page Lomax wheeled sharply from the railing over which
he had been watching the shadows of silver minarets dissolve like
Cleopatra’s pearl in the Golden Horn, now amber as Rhine wine beneath
the dying sun. By his elbow stood a Turk, whose snowy turban capped
bold features from which only one eye glittered. A sabre scar, which
ran across the man’s cheek until it lost itself in his flowing beard,
accounted for the absence of the other. The fellow was of middle
stature, but powerfully made. A loose caftan hanging from his broad
shoulders framed within its folds of vermilion the white linen swathing
his chest and the orange sash—whence the arabesqued head of a stiletto
scolded at its neighbor, a Mussulman rosary of russet beads—and the
green trousers of zouave cut stretching to his saffron half-boots. He
extended a card, on which Page Lomax read:
THE BRISTOL
Boulevard des Petit Champs,
PERA.
Hosein Aga, Chief Dragoman.
“My hotel!” Mr. Lomax commented. “I reckon you’re all right.”
So Mohammedan and Christian strode off together across the Sultana
Bridge, of which the uneven timbers were creaking with each undulation
of its ever-plashing pontoons. Except themselves, no living thing was
on it other than gaunt dogs, which flashed snarling tusks at them as
they groped through the gathering twilight. Near the shore Hosein
whistled. Forthwith his negro bond-servant, Nakir, met them and bore a
torch before them to the Theatre Osmaniyeh, where actresses from Paris
were already in their final pirouettes. An infinite sadness possessed
Page Lomax, as he beheld these daughters of Europe dancing before the
sons of Asia, but his dragoman muttered:
“I brought you not hither to witness the antics of those painted
harlots. My slave, Zaidee, will follow them.”
While Hosein was speaking, Nakir set on the stage a wicker basket,
whence a brown and yellow cobra de capello wriggled forth. Hissing with
wrath, it sat up on its tail and spread its hood, embroidered with
the spectacles of Buddha. On its slender girth each false scale was
gleaming, as the creature coiled and, opening its savage mouth, bared
those bent fangs of which a mere scratch bestows that rest where no
dreams lift the tent-flap. Then Zaidee appeared. Timing her pace to the
weird tune throbbing from the reed between her lips, she neared the
viper, which launched itself viciously at her. But an invisible force
halted the snake. Falling in with the rhythm of her flute, it wavered
to and fro—a flame flickering in the wind—until the damsel stilled
her strains, when it lay quiet, so tamed that she wound it as a girdle
round her waist.
“Her term of hire expires tonight,” quoth Hosein, “And I am about
convoying her to my villa. Would you spend some time in the home of a
Turk? Nakir, saddle Al Borak for Mr. Lomax.”
Enveloped in a cloak but with no veiling yashmak, Zaidee was on her
palfry when they joined her. As Hosein turned to his own stirrup, the
girl shook her raven tresses at the newcomer and pointed at the gate,
with a gesture, which said: “Leave us!” He might have done so, had he
not intercepted the look which Nakir was bending on the maiden, as,
with a devilish grin, which distorted his sooty visage, he tapped the
whip at his belt. That was enough for Page Lomax. With generous folly,
he bestrode his horse for the adventure. On their arrival at the house,
Zaidee disappeared behind that ebony door, through which no male other
than Hosein might pass even in his thoughts. Again the bold young man
was foolhardy, for he gazed after her as one in a dream, from which,
however, he was roused by Nakir, who was striding toward him with an
executioner’s bow-string in his hand. But here Hosein interposed.
“Put up your cord,” said he. “Mr. Lomax meant no offense. He is
unfamiliar with our Eastern etiquette, that’s all. The Ethiop,” he
continued, this time speaking to his guest, “shall guide you to your
bed.”
The young man had fallen into a fitful doze, when he heard the pipe
of Zaidee, followed by the rattle of small pebbles against his
casement. An instant later, Nakir growled out hoarse words, which the
listener could not understand. But the sound of heavy blows, under
which Zaidee’s voice leapt into shrieks, then fell to sobs, needed no
knowledge of a foreign tongue to be understood. Page Lomax rushed to
the window. Jerking it open, he leaned out, but he could discern no one
and the unbroken stillness seemed deathly to his overwrought nerves.
To his great relief, Hosein’s maid floated in before them at breakfast
the next morning. She came to dance, while they ate, as the raiment
which she wore showed but too plainly to even the inexperienced eye
of the American. From beneath a veil of fleecy gauze, which floated
back freely instead of hiding her face (as is the custom with Moslem
women), her loose locks rolled their midnight over her shoulders. Her
bell-shaped sleeves had wrinkled back from bare uplifted arms, on which
silver chains were throbbing in unison with the rising and falling of
her white bust, caught in the snare of the ample V in her tight scarlet
jacket. Below that, a third of her supple figure’s living satin blushed
in full sight above the dark-green band, which clasped in place her
divided skirt of pearly transparent stuff shimmering down thence to
her naked round ankles. For a brief space the girl drooped her head
and Page Lomax saw red shame feeding on her white cheek, while up from
the dark depths of her mysterious eyes bitter tears were welling. But
now hidden music swelled into a loud insistent fugue. With a faint
sigh, almost a sob, Zaidee drifted forward as slowly and as softly as a
summer cloud thro’ picture after picture of that old, old pantomime of
the Orient, which illustrates the one text, true in every creed, “Male
and female created He them.” With all his heart uncovered in his gaze,
the young man hung on her every motion until, with a brusque finale,
she snapped in twain the thread of wedded harmony and movement with the
whirling gesture of one hand pointed toward the threshold. Her agonized
glance searched his very brain. Her writhing lips syllabled the word,
“Depart!” Then she vanished.
To Hosein, this posturing to music was nothing new. With a strange and
baffling smile, he had been scrutinizing Page Lomax, instead of Zaidee.
Now he leaned toward him.
“Were I to judge you by your looks,” quoth he, “I would swear that
my Persian hussy has cast a spell upon you. Well, you shall hear her
story. Seven years ago we had a Holy War. I chanced to be at Khorsabad,
while our Circassian troops were there, uprooting from the garden
of the faith those weeds, the Yezidees. As I was nearing a cabin,
out strode one of our men. He was a strapping fellow, with big black
whiskers, and so tall that he had knocked awry his bearskin shako as
he forgot to stoop in coming forth. One hand held his sword, smoking
with blood. The other gripped Zaidee. Flinging her in front of me,
he roared: ‘Will you buy? She’s yours for thirty liras. But I warn
you—she’s the serpent-tamer’s daughter.’ Before I could answer, she
was clinging to my knees, screaming: ‘Oh! save me, save me from that
dreadful butcher!’ Well—I brought her home; but she’s but an ingrate.
These seven seasons have I labored to convert her to God and His
Prophet Mohammed, but I can not wean her from the faith of Zoroaster.
So this week I shall sell her at public auction, if I am bid a thousand
mejedieh for her. She’s worth that, if she’s worth a piastre.”
The last word had hardly left Hosein’s lip ere Page Lomax had whipped
forth from his pocket his fountain-pen and traveler’s circular
cheque-book and was writing rapidly. Through eyes narrowed to a
contemptuous slit, the Turk watched his companion in silence, until the
latter had laid the writing on his lap, when he said: “What’s this for?”
“The girl,” replied Page Lomax. “That’s the price you named. The
Stamboul Branch of the Credit Lyonnaise will pay it to you in gold,
when you present this to it.”
“Your swift Western way of trafficking is indeed bewildering to a slow
Turk,” rejoined Hosein, in honeyed tones, which barely hid a bitter
sneer. “_We_ would have smoked our narghiles and drank coffee and
chaffered for a week, while as for you—_you_ fire a cheque at one,
hair-trigger fashion. Nakir.” Here he turned to the sullen African,
“Get that cashed. The jade goes with the American hence. But, ere you
leave, Mr. Lomax. I must show you the most beautiful scene on earth,
so they say—Constantinople from a distance. And my own poor fields
have somewhat of charm, too, about them, I believe. Let me guide you
through them. You shall witness things, which—being strange—perchance
may thrill you as familiar sights can not. Nay, Nakir, there is no
haste about the cheque. Tomorrow will do. Get you now to the harem and
prepare Zaidee for her departure. Come, Mr. Lomax, we’ll fare forth.”
At a pavilion, which was perched on the wrinkled lip of an abyss—a
sheer thousand feet in depth—the Turk paused and, with sweeping
gesture, brought to the notice of Page Lomax’s eye a range of lofty
mountains, which kissed the horizon at their left.
“There!” he exclaimed. “Are not those sublime? But they are deadly,
too; for in them lurk huge spiders, as big as tigers and twice as
fierce. You smile, as if in doubt. I do not blame you. It _is_ hard to
believe. But they are there. I am no zoologist, so I can not explain
it, but I have been told that spiders came ages ahead of man on this
earth, as their fossils are found in rock of the primary epoch, while
we appear first with the quaternary. If this be so, perhaps these ogres
are survivals of gigantic prehistoric spider forebears. But I don’t
pretend to know anything about it, except that they are there. No
hunter has ever tamed them; but I have caught and caged one. You shall
see it, before you leave. Look now to the right.”
Afar off, yet perfectly plain in every line, thanks to the limpid
clearness of the air, lying in the arms of emerald meadows with her
head pillowed on undulating hills crowned with cypresses as brunette
as the Queen of Sheba, lay Constantinople, many-colored yet shimmering
iridescently under the sapphire tent of heaven, while the Golden Horn
poured the waters of the East at her pearly feet. So noble was the
sight that Page Lomax’s gaze lingered long upon it ere, following
the sky-line, it rested at last on a frowning stronghold, whence a
road wound down to a wharf at which a skiff was moored. So grim and
threatening was this heap of stone that the young man asked Hosein:
“What is that old keep?”
“That,” replied his host, “I have named the Tower of Vengeance. During
the late Muscovite war, my brother, Selim, held it as an outpost. But
the boy’s soldiers were too few, our supporting column too far away. At
dawn one day, the Russians hurled a regiment against it, stormed it,
butchered its garrison, fired it. I was too late to save the boy, but
I headed the cavalry, which cut off retreat for his murderers. As I
charged in, their Colonel quenched this eye for me, but in ten minutes
he and all his followers were dead. Selim is buried there. Thither I
repair each afternoon to lament and feed his grave.”
“To feed his grave?” echoed Page Lomax, inquiringly.
“Yes. In each believer’s tomb is bored a hole, through which he can
hearken to the weeping of those who love him, and can receive food from
them. The hour for my observance of that rite is nigh. Can you respect
it? If so, you may accompany me thither.”
As the two paused before the door of the keep, Page Lomax glanced
through the lattice across the vault to the wall on the other
side. Through this, a postern gate opened, close to which he saw a
prism-shaped mound, ending at head and foot in two marble posts on
which—each opposing the other—the angels, Nekir and Munkir, will
sit, as they debate whether the soul of Selim shall arise to heaven or
descend to hell. Roses decked the hillock. In an orifice at its head,
a yellow apple and a purple fig awaited the dead man’s appetite. But
why was this grave fenced in with stout steel bars, set close together;
and why was it screened overhead with them? Before the Christian had
time to consider this problem till he might solve it, Hosein threw back
the outside bar, which held the door to, and, whirling it round on its
well-oiled hinges, exclaimed:
“To you, my guest, I yield first place. Enter!”
But when Page Lomax was crossing the sill, he felt himself gripped in
a grasp of iron. His feet were knocked from under him with a swift and
dexterous trip, and he fell heavily to the floor. Ere he could stagger
up, dazed as he was, clang went the portal. He was a prisoner, with
Hosein glaring at him through the grating.
“Pray to your Nazarene now and see if he can help you,” chuckled his
jailer. “Not even Mohammed himself could help you now. I vowed to
sacrifice a hecatomb of unbelievers to my brother. Ninety and nine have
already tapped at his tomb. You will make the hundredth victim.”
The young man was a sinewy six-footer, robust and brave; but the boding
indefiniteness of this threat so overwhelmed him that his fair hair
bristled up and his blue eyes dilated to black, then faded to gray. He
circled the dungeon, frantically seeking an exit, which yet he knew
he would not find. Cursing himself for all sorts of a fool, because
he had not taken his pistol with him, when he left the hotel, he ran
to a corner, where something, which looked like a heaped-up pile of
slender white sticks, was faintly gleaming beneath the dim light coming
from above. But, when he saw that they were not sticks but bones, he
staggered back, almost screaming, and made for the door, which he
reached just in time to be knocked down by a body, which Hosein and
Nakir were pitching in. It was Zaidee. Springing up, she wailed forth:
“Oh! why did you not heed my warnings? Did I not sign to you to depart
in the courtyard, and again under your window and still once more, as I
was dancing? Now we are lost, both of us. Look up there!”
Far above, an octagon of lustrous woof and warp was oscillating slowly.
In it, something vast and dark was cradled.
“My God! It’s Hosein’s spider!” gasped the young man.
And now across her web the tigress of the air shot her curved and
toothed claws and buff-colored grappling-hooks and dull-red jaws and
six of her eight powerful black legs, covered with down and splotched
with stiff tufts. Up-rearing her round head and thorax and baring thus
the rich and flexible dark-green fur, as soft as velvet, which clothed
her abdomen, she bent at her wasp-like waist and, balancing on the
verge, fastened her eight eyes—great immovable trance-producing lenses
of terrible crystal—with a gloating stare, full on Hosein’s captives,
huddled together there below her. And now she swung out. Swaying just
beneath her hammock, she whetted one of her scythes against the other.
But, as with horror-stricken gaze, fixed on this monstrous thing, he
and she waited for that to come from which there was no escape, a
sudden inspiration possessed the damsel.
“Steal along the wall,” she cried to Page Lomax, “And leap from behind
her upon her back at the same instant when I spring thither from in
front.”
“But—”
“No buts about it, Fool! Do you want to be eaten alive? Go!”
As he obeyed, the maid plucked from her bodice the pipe of charm and
began breathing from it the melody with which she had quelled the
wrath of the cobra de capello. At its first tremulous notes, the grim
executioner of the ninety and nine hesitated—stopped reeling out her
cord—no longer was opening and closing her grappling-hooks—sheathed
her dull-red jaws. One awful minute she hovered near, wriggling her
eight great curving legs. Then, half asleep under the spell of those
drowsily sweet sounds, she lowered herself to earth and spread herself
out for slumber. Without ceasing to play, Zaidee inched forward. Close
enough now, she sprang upon the immense spider. That same instant, Page
Lomax was by her side.
“Lie down!” she screamed, suiting her own action to her advice to him.
“Press your toes against the ridge of horn, back of her head! Seize
that other, yonder, stretching across, just this side her spinneret,
and hold on—do you hear?—hold on with all your might? She’s going to
rise and she’ll toss us off, if she can!”
Even now the great creature was hauling in her cable. Up she darted
violently. Whirling round and round, she threshed the air furiously
with her legs. Finding out that she could not thus throw off her
burden, she reared herself aloft into her web. With frenzied rage,
she gripped the edges of her house and shook it with all her immense
strength, until it shot back and forth with dizzying speed, at times
almost perpendicular to its axis. But, with the desperate power of
despair, her riders clung to her, until, tiring from her fruitless
efforts to dislodge them, the spider became quiet. Gradually the silken
orb slackened from its semi-vertical position to its normal horizontal.
Its whirring lapsed into silence, as it slowly became still. Except
for a horrible quivering, which was going on under the translucent
shell of horn on which the two were lying, the huge spinner was at last
crouching motionless. They sat up cautiously and looked around them.
No roof hemmed them in. But, in order to keep his monster from fleeing
to her native hills, Hosein had inserted one beam running from East to
West, with three others above it contrariwise from North to South.
“Play again, Zaidee,” said the young man. “It’s my time now to work.”
As the girl’s lulling music once more soothed the spider, he set about
digging out with his pocketknife that part of the nearest upper rafter,
which had rotted at the wall. Soon he could slide this end out. Tugging
the beam across the main girder, he heaved the extricated timber
athwart the coping of the tower, whence, plunging down, it smote Hosein
to the earth, at the same time striking Nakir, too, and felling him
also. A screech of anguish burst from the Turk. Unable to rise unaided,
he seized the honeysuckle, which was clambering aloft on the masonry,
and dragged himself up, only to drop again with a frightful groan, as
his back was broken. Two of the eunuch’s ribs had been fractured, too,
but, as his master groaned that awful groan, he hastened to him and,
lifting his head, wiped the bloody froth from Hosein’s lips. The Turk’s
eyes, of which nothing except the whites had been showing, now rolled
down and fixed their failing glance on the faithful slave.
“Bury me by Selim’s side, Nakir,” he whispered, “And—and don’t let the
Giaour and his jade escape.”
His eyes rolled back again—he shivered—there was a deep sigh—then
the jaw fell.
“Something’s hurt down there,” cried Page Lomax exultingly. “I only
hope it’s Hosein or his nigger. As wishes cost nothing, I wish it were
both. Here goes for beam number two!”
In a crevice in the wall, just over the end of the second rafter of the
upper three, the wind had lodged a seed one day and from it a sturdy
little pine had sprung up. Hunting for food, it had thrust down the
hungry fibres of its roots to feed upon the mortar. It had been nodding
good cheer to the young man, as the breezes played leap-frog with it,
and he hated to hurt it, but he had to. Grasping it, he wrenched it
from its lodging-house. Its roots could not bear to bid adieu to being.
They clung so closely to the rough ashlar round which they had twined
that the stone was twisted out with them and crashed to the tiles
below, leaving the second beam free at this end, so that Page Lomax
could send it after the first one.
The third rafter of the upper three was fat with turpentine. Scratching
a match, the young man held it under the oiliest streak, until a feeble
blaze stole up. Waxing lustier, it parted with sparkling fingers its
blue veil of smoke that it might the better gnaw through the bar on
which it was at work. When the beam had nearly burned in two, Page
Lomax shoved it upward. It broke. In a twinkling, it had gone outside
to join the others.
“Now, Zaidee,” he cried, as he cast himself face downward on the great
spider’s back, “Throw yourself here beside me. Rest your toes against
that same little ledge back of her head. Grip the other as you did
before. She’ll bounce over that wall, in the next ten seconds. When she
hits the ground and settles down on her hind-legs, jump, jump for your
life, and run for the boat with me.”
Mad with the exhilaration of approaching liberty, the huge creature
dived out over her prison wall, alighting noiselessly and without a
jar. Giving no heed to Page Lomax and Zaidee, as they fled, she raced
like the wind along her shortest line of approach toward Nakir. He
was too far from Hosein’s home ever to reach it, with her in pursuit.
She was between him and the summer-house. The tower alone remained.
Rushing to it, he threw the bar, tore the door open and, plunging
headlong through it, whirled it to. It had no fastenings on the inner
side. As it swung outward, he must keep it closed in some way or be
devoured. Flinging himself down, he dug his nails between its stout oak
transverse and its upright panels and bore on with all his weight. The
spider tapped once or twice on the door. It still remaining closed,
she squatted down before it. After a few seconds, during which she
seemed to be studying, her terrible eyes dwelt at last on the crack
between the door and the doorstep. In a trice, she reached her claws
through and sank them into the door on the inner side. In spite of
Nakir’s frantic struggling, she fetched it round. With her fierce
grappling-hooks, she pounced upon him. Bellowing with mingled fear
and pain, he struck at her with his dagger, but she fell back on her
haunches, haling him to her. Her grappling-hooks raised him close to
her red jaws. A sudden flash of savage color—and the blades of those
jaws sprang apart—another—as they snapped together—a blood-curdling
scream—a sickening gush of blood—then silence. Hosein’s spider had
sacrificed her hundredth man.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT.]
Gail, Texas, July 15th, 1908.
Dear Sir:
Enclosed find $1.00 for which send to my address both publications
Weekly and Monthly for six months, after which I think I can send you
some subscribers. It was an oversight in not sending it in before now.
In a little discussion some time back some one spoke of there being no
private titles to land in England, and several asked me to write and
ask you in regard to the matter.
I saw enough in your last Magazine to convince me, but would like to
have you write a piece on the subject.
Yours respectfully,
THOMAS O. EDWARDS.
(Answer.)
The system of Land Ownership in this country was derived from England.
Excepting crown lands, all real estate in Great Britain is held by
private titles. Even entailed estates may be bought and sold but the
procedure is cumbersome and costly. Stating the case broadly, no poor
man can buy land in England, without the aid of the Government.
In Ireland the huge estates of the nobles are being purchased by the
Government and parcelled out among the people, who buy the land from
the Government, on long time with low interest.
* * * * *
Loganville, Ga., Nov. 9, 1908.
Hon. Thos. E. Watson,
Thomson, Ga.
Dear Sir:
Please answer the following questions in the Jeffersonian or Magazine
or both: Has the Democratic party, at any one time since the Civil War,
been in full control of the National Government? If so please give
proof, not that I wouldn’t believe you in every particular, but I want
to prove it to some “hot headed democrats” who don’t want to believe
you; also please give the time in which they were in control.
Hoping for an immediate reply, I am,
Yours for the cause,
W. G. STANLEY.
Answer:—In 1892, Cleveland was elected President as a Democrat, and
the Democrats had a majority both in the Senate and in the House during
Cleveland’s term of four years, 1892 to 1896.
The official records prove this, and no truthful Democrat who is posted
will dispute the fact. Suppose you refer the skeptics to Senators A. O.
Bacon and A. S. Clay.—T. E. W.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= Why is it that the whole world presents the same general
picture of unrest, hard times, business depression, and unemployed
labor?
=Answer=: The Kings of High Finance have chained the whole world with
the gold standard, the effect of which is to contract the currency. A
contraction of the currency is invariably followed by the same results,
to wit—the ruin of the debtor class, the curtailment of business, the
suspension of work, and the creation of an army of the unemployed.
For three thousand years prior to the discovery of gold in California
(1856) both gold and silver had been in use, over the world, as money
metals. Now, however, gold alone is the standard of value, and the
money of final payment.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= Why were gold and silver selected as the money metals?
=Answer: BECAUSE THEY ARE SCARCE=. By confining money to these two
precious metals, it was believed by the financiers that the volume of
real money would never get so large that they could not control it.
=The limitation of money to these two scarce metals was a practical
limitation to the supply.=
So matters stood throughout the world until the discovery of such vast
quantities of gold in California frightened the financiers. They feared
that so much gold would be added to the currency of the world that
prices would go down, bonds would decrease in value, and that they, the
financiers, would be unable to control the supply of real money.
Consequently, they hired able writers, like Chevalier and MacLarren, TO
WRITE AGAINST GOLD, in the same way that =THE MONEY KINGS HIRED DAVID A.
WELLS AND EDWARD ATKINSON TO WRITE AGAINST SILVER=, more than a century
later.
Germany and Austria excluded gold from their mints (1857) and Belgium
and Holland adopted the single silver standard.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= What checked the demonetization of gold?
The discovery of the rich silver mines in Nevada, Colorado and other
Western States. The financiers saw that there would soon be more silver
than gold, and they went to work to have the scarcer metal made the
standard of value, and the money of final payment.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= What nation led the others in the demonetization of silver?
=Answer=: Great Britain. She is the nation to whom the people of all
other countries owe most. In other words, the whole world is in debt to
Great Britain.
To make this debt harder to pay, Great Britain led the other nations in
the world-wide war against Bi-metallism, which means the use of both
gold and silver on equal terms.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= What is meant by “making the debt harder to pay?”
A debt, contracted when the volume of currency is expanded by the use
of both gold and silver as monetary metals on equal terms, becomes
harder to pay when the currency is contracted to the use of but one
of these metals. A bond, for instance, issued by the Government when
the currency is expanded by the use of gold, silver and Greenbacks, is
enormously more valuable after the Government has destroyed a thousand
million dollars of the Greenbacks and has demonetized silver. Having
to be paid =THEN= in gold, the bondholder gets money very much more
valuable than the money he invested in the bond.
Now Great Britain wanted the nations of the earth to pay the debts they
owed her in money that was more valuable than the money she loaned.
Hence, her war upon Bi-metallism.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= But why did other nations help Great Britain demonetize
silver and establish the single gold standard?
=Answer=: Because these other nations were controlled by their High
Finance rascals, who wanted to enhance the value of the claims which
they held against their own Governments and peoples.
In each of these other nations, were bondholders and money changers who
wanted to make money scarce, so that they could control it, and so that
the money paid them to satisfy their claims against the Government and
the people would be more valuable than that which they had loaned.
* * * * *
=QUESTION:= Is there any reason why the amount of metal in a dollar
should be worth a dollar?
None. Money is a man-made product, like a cartwheel. Nature does not
produce dollars nor cartwheels. Nature supplies the raw materials, but
man is the manufacturer who turns these raw materials into dollars and
cartwheels.
Dollars are made for the purpose of effecting the exchange of one
product for another. It is a tool of exchange.
It enables Commerce to get along without the bartering of one commodity
for another. In old times, a man who did not have a horse but wanted
one, would get one in exchange for cows, of which he had more than he
needed. There was inconvenience about this, because the man who had a
horse that he was willing to swap for cows might not be easy to find.
To get away from the cumbersome, unsatisfactory system of Barter,
men agreed on something that should represent value in exchange. The
substance agreed on, no matter what it was, became money.
Therefore, money was made by man for the special purpose of carrying on
Commerce, just as wheels are made to carry on carts, wagons, carriages
and railroad cars.
There is no more sense in claiming that the dollar—which is the wheel
of Commerce—should be made out of a material of any particular value
than there would be in claiming that a car wheel shall bear a certain
proportion of value to the freight which is transported in the car.
The dollar is a tool, in the same sense that a hoe is a tool. With
one hoe, you may cultivate cotton worth fifty dollars; but that is no
reason why the hoe should cost you fifty dollars.
[Illustration: TWO HANDS