“Gold is the strength of the world.”
Morning concluded it would be unwise to make another trip to his
location, lest suspicion might be excited and discovery follow, so,
breaking camp early the next day, he returned with his comrades to the
copper-lodes, which they reached before noon.
Work was resumed by Steel and his two miners in clearing the old shaft,
and Morning, taking a fowling-piece, avowed his purpose to look for
quail down the ravine. Having reached a point where he felt secluded
from observation, he began a critical examination of the quartz
specimens, which until now he had not dared to withdraw from his
pockets.
As with his microscope he scrutinized piece after piece, he grew pale
with excitement and astonishment. With the habit of a mining expert, he
had sampled the ledge as for an average, and the average value of the
twenty different specimens of quartz, taken from twenty different
localities, enabled him to determine the true value of the property with
great accuracy. He discovered that the amount of gold in each one of the
twenty specimens would not vary materially from the amount of gold in
proportion to the quartz in each and all of the others. In other words,
the entire body of quartz was uniformly impregnated with gold, and,
therefore, of uniform richness and value.
There was no better judge of quartz in all Colorado than David Morning.
He had been accustomed, after careful inspection, to estimate within ten
or twenty percent of the value per ton of free milling gold quartz, and
his accuracy had often been the subject of amicable wagers among his
friends. He was able in this instance to say that each one of the ore
specimens carried not less than five hundred ounces of gold to the ton
of quartz, or that the entire lode would yield, under the stamps, an
average of $10,000 per ton.
This was marvelous! unprecedented! phenomenal! No such deposit for
richness and extent had ever been found in the history of the world.
Ten thousand dollars in gold, distributed through two thousand pounds of
quartz, may not make much of a showing in the quartz, for in bulk there
is fifty times as much quartz as gold; but one hundred tons of such
quartz would yield a million dollars, and the ledge uncovered by the
waterspout was forty feet in width and thirteen hundred and sixty feet
in length to where it ran under the basalt wall. It cropped twelve feet
above the ground, and extended to unknown depths below the surface.
Thirteen feet of rock in place will weigh a ton. In that rift in the
mountain there was now in sight above the surface, all ready to be
broken down and sent to the stamps, six hundred and fifty thousand cubic
feet, or fifty thousand tons, of quartz, containing gold of the value of
$500,000,000.
What was to be done with the vast amount of gold which might be
extracted from the Morning mine? How was it to be placed in circulation
without unsettling values, reducing the worth of all bonds, inaugurating
wild speculation, and revolutionizing the commerce and the finances of
the world?
Would not the nations, so soon as they should be made aware of the
existence of this deposit, hasten to demonetize gold, make of it a
commodity, change the world’s standard money to silver exclusively, and
so lessen the value of the Morning mine to a comparatively small amount?
Under the plea that increased production of silver necessitated a change
in relative values, that metal was demonetized in 1873 in Europe and in
the United States, and its value reduced one-third. Might not gold now
be similarly dealt with, and, with such a vast deposit known to be in
existence, be diminished by demonetization to the value of silver or
less?
The entire production of gold in the world for the last forty years, or
since the California and Australia mines began to yield, had been but
$5,000,000,000, and as much might be extracted from the first one
hundred and twenty feet in depth of the Morning mine. All the gold money
of the world was but $7,600,000,000, or less than might be excavated
from the first two hundred feet in depth of this marvelous deposit. The
total money of the world—gold, silver, and paper—was but
$11,500,000,000, and a similar sum might be extracted from the first
three hundred feet in depth of the mine.
If the ledge extended downward a thousand feet, it contained as much
gold as three times the sum total of all the gold, silver, and paper
currency of the world, and its value was equal to the value, in the year
eighteen hundred and ninety, of one-half of all the real and personal
property in the United States.
How much of this gold could be added to the circulation of the world
with safety? and how could the existence of the vast quantity held in
reserve be kept secret?
His studies in political economy had taught David Morning that gold,
like water, if fed to the land in proper proportions, would stimulate
its fertility and add to its power of beneficent production, but if
precipitated in an unregulated and mighty torrent, would, like the
waterspout, prove a destructive power.
Knowledge of the existence of the gold, if generally diffused, would be
nearly as injurious to the world as to extract it and place it in the
channels of finance. Yet how could the secret be kept? The ledge as it
stood could not be worked without half a hundred men knowing its extent
and value. No guards or bonds of secrecy would be adequate. The birds of
the air would carry the tale. Even now a vagrant prospector or wandering
mountain tourist might reveal the secret to the world.
Not in any spirit of self-seeking did David Morning ask himself these
questions. All his personal wants, and tastes, and aspirations might be
gratified with a few millions, which could easily be mined and invested
before knowledge of his discovery could destroy or lessen the value of
gold. But the purpose now beginning to take possession of him was to
use, not merely millions, but tens and hundreds and thousands of
millions, to bring peace, and progress, and prosperity to the nations,
to ameliorate the conditions under which humanity suffers, to raise the
fallen, to aid the struggling, to curb the power of oppressors, to
remedy public and private wrongs, to solve social problems, to uplift
humanity, and comfort the bodies and souls of men. To accomplish this
work it was necessary that he should have vast sums at his command, and
it was also necessary that his possession of vaster reserves should not
be known.
The discoveries in California and Australia by which in ten years
fourteen hundred millions of gold dollars were added to the world’s
stock of the precious metals was a beneficent discovery. It lifted half
the weight from the shoulders of every debtor; it made possible the
payment of every farm mortgage; it delivered manhood from the evil
embrace of Apathy, and wedded him to fair young Hope; it invigorated
commerce, it inspired enterprise, it led the armies of peace to the
conquest of forest and prairie; it caused furnaces to flame and spindles
to hum; it brought plenty and progress to a people.
But this addition to the gold money of civilization was gradually made,
and the product of forty years of all the gold mines in the world was
not equal to the sum which in less than four years might be taken from
the Morning mine.
If, as a consequence of Morning’s find, gold should not be demonetized,
if it should be permitted to remain as a measurer of all values, and the
extent of the deposit should be made known to the world, the inevitable
result would be to quadruple the prices of land, labor, and goods, and
to reduce to one-fourth of their present proportions the value to the
creditor of all existing indebtedness. The farmer whose land was worth
$10,000 would find it worth $40,000, and the man who had loaned $5,000
upon it would find his loan worth but $1,250 practically, because the
purchasing power of his $5,000 would be reduced to one-fourth of its
present capacity.
All government bonds of the nations, all county, city, and railroad
bonds, and all the mortgages and promissory notes and book accounts in
the world, would, if all of Morning’s gold should be poured at once into
circulation, without preparation or warning, be reduced at one blow to
one-fourth of their present value, and all the owners of land, and
implements, and horses, and cattle, and merchandise would find their
value at once increased fourfold. The laborer who had only his hands or
his brains would remain unaffected. His wages would be quadrupled, and
so would the cost of his living.
Knowledge of the extent of the Morning mine would immediately enrich the
debtors and ruin the creditors of the world, unless the governments of
earth should demonetize gold, deny it access to the mints, refuse to
coin it, and so degrade it to a commodity.
An illustration in a small way of the operations of this immutable law
of finance may be found in the history of San Francisco. The foundations
of some of the great fortunes of that city may be traced to the days of
the Civil War, when San Francisco wholesale merchants paid their Eastern
creditors in legal tender currency, the while they diligently fostered a
public sentiment which made it discreditable to the honesty and ruinous
to the credit of any California retailer who should attempt to pay his
debt to them in the despised greenbacks. The interior storekeeper glowed
with pride when Ephraim Smooth & Company gathered in his golden
twenties, and commended his honesty for “paying his debts like a man, in
gold, and not availing himself of the dishonest legal tender law.” But
Smooth & Company paid their New York creditors in greenbacks, and
pocketed the difference.
Inflation of the currency, or an increase of the money of a nation, if
it can be gradually made, need not prove disastrous to the creditors,
and must prove a benefaction to the debtors of the world. The relation
of wages to the cost of living, whether the volume of money in a country
be contracted or inflated, practically remains the same. It may be
claimed that the workman who receives an increase of wages, and whose
cost of living is correspondingly increased, is no better off at the end
of the year, yet economy brings to him larger apparent accumulations,
and he is thereby encouraged to practice frugality.
The American mechanic who wandered to the Canary Islands, where he
received $400 a day in the local currency for his wages, was enabled to
save $100 a day by denying himself brandy and tobacco, and but for this
dazzling inducement he might have surrendered to temptations that would
have made him a proper subject for the ministrations of the W. C. T. U.
But though an inflation of values which should be beneficent might
follow the discovery and working of the Morning mine, clearly the first
thing for the discoverer to do was to take effectual measures to conceal
from human knowledge the extent of his discovery.
David Morning remained for some time in deep thought, and then, rising
from his seat upon a bowlder behind the manzanita bushes, he tore into
fragments the paper upon which he had been making calculations, and,
excavating with his foot a hole in the sand, he dropped into it and
covered the specimens of gold quartz which he had taken from the ledge,
and, retracing his steps, was soon at the copper-camp, where, in answer
to the queries of his companions, he replied truthfully that during his
absence he had not seen a single quail.
Two days elapsed, and, the shaft having been cleaned out and the copper
lode thoroughly exposed, Morning took samples of it, and also of
croppings of the other lodes included in the ground located by Steel,
and the party broke camp and started for Tucson, where they arrived
early in the afternoon of the second day.
Making an appointment with Steel for that evening, Morning deposited his
copper samples with an assayer, and, walking to the Court House, he
filed the notice of location of the Morning mine with the county
recorder. Two hours later he had the report of the assayer upon the
copper samples, showing an average of twelve per cent of carbonate
copper in the ore. This was not so rich as had been predicted by Steel,
but was of sufficient value to warrant the purchase of the copper
prospects at the low price which had been fixed upon them, provided that
arrangements could be made for economically working them, and Morning
had already formulated in his own mind a plan of action by which the
working of the copper lodes could be made to advance his project of
working the gold lode so as to conceal the extent of its yield.
Morning calculated that the amount of money needed for labor, supplies,
machinery, and buildings, to work the mines in accordance with his
plans, would be about $300,000, and his first thought was to obtain this
money by breaking down, and shipping to reduction works in California or
Colorado, about thirty tons of the quartz before he should commence the
work which he projected for the concealment of the ledge.
With his own hands he could mine and sack such an amount of ore in a
fortnight, and with the aid of half a dozen pack animals, managed by
himself, transport it a mile or two from the rift, where it might be
thrown into the channel cut by the waterspout, and, with a blast or two,
be covered with rocks and dirt until teams should be brought from Tucson
for it.
With this idea uppermost, he sought the freight agent of the railroad
company of Tucson.
Then he came in contact with the system in vogue on the Pacific
Coast—and possibly elsewhere—that of a one-sided railroad partnership
with the producer, on the basis that the producer furnish all the
capital and suffer all the losses, the railroad company providing
neither capital, experience, nor services, but taking the lion’s share
of the profits.
“What,” said Morning, “will your freight charges be for three car loads
of ore to Pueblo or San Francisco?”
“What kind of ore?”
“Gold-bearing quartz in sacks.”
“What does your ore assay?” inquired the agent.
“What has that got to do with it?” questioned Morning sharply.
“Everything,” answered the official. “We charge in car-load lots $12 per
ton to San Francisco, or $24 per ton to Pueblo, and $2.00 per ton in
addition for each $100 per ton of the assay value of the ore.”
“Very well,” said Morning, “I believe I will ship thirty tons to San
Francisco.”
“Have you it here?” said the agent.
“It will not be ready for some weeks yet,” replied Morning.
“You did not mention its value,” said the agent.
“I will state its value at $100 per ton,” said Morning.
“All right,” said the agent, “we will take it at that, subject, of
course, to assay according to our rules by the assayer of the company at
your expense.”
“Well, I don’t know that I care to trouble the assayer of your company,”
replied Morning. “In fact, the ore is a good deal richer than $100 per
ton. But I will ship it at that valuation, and release the company from
all liability for loss or damage beyond that. In brief, I will take all
the chances, and if the ore shall be lost, or stolen, or tumbled off a
bridge, or overturned into a river, the company will only account to me
for it at $100 per ton. I suppose that will be satisfactory?”
The agent shook his head.
“It looks as if it ought to be satisfactory,” said he, “but my orders
are imperative. The ore must be assayed, and you will have to pay two
per cent of its value.”
“But this,” replied Morning, with some heat, “is unreasonable and
outrageous. If the tax of two per cent is to be regarded in the light of
a charge for insurance, I am sure there is not a marine or fire
insurance company in the world that would charge one-fourth of one per
cent for such a risk.”
“Company’s orders,” said the agent.
“Suppose you wire headquarters at my cost, and say that David Morning
wishes to ship thirty tons of gold-bearing quartz from Tucson to San
Francisco, at a valuation of $100 per ton. Say that he will prepay the
freight, and load and unload the cars himself if permitted. Say that he
does not wish the railroad company to take any of the risks of mining,
transporting, or reducing the ore, nor to share any of the profits of
the business. Say that he will release the company from all liability
even for gross negligence or theft, beyond $100 per ton. Say that he
does not wish to acquaint the company’s assayer or the company’s freight
agent with the value of the ore, or permit either of them to form any
accurate judgment for speculative or other purposes as to the value of
the mine from which the ore was taken. Say that he wishes the privilege
of conducting his own business in his own way. Say that if the railroad
company will kindly fix a rate at which it will consent to carry the
freight he offers, without sticking its meddlesome, corporate nose into
his business, he will then consider whether he will pay that rate or
refrain from shipping the ore at all.”
“Mr. Morning,” said the agent, “if I were to send such a telegram as
that, it would cost me my place, and, indeed, my orders are not to
communicate remonstrances made by shippers at the company’s rules,
except by mail. Of course you can send any message you like over your
own name to the head office, but I can inform you now that they will
only refer you to me for an answer, and I can only refer to my general
instructions, and there the matter will end.”
“Well,” replied Morning, “I will ship the ore by ox teams or not ship it
at all before I will submit to the injustice of your general
instructions. I suppose I am without remedy in the premises?”
“You might build another road, Mr. Morning,” said the agent, with a
slight tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
Morning answered slowly, as he turned away:—
“I may conclude to do so, or to buy up this road, and if I do I will run
it on business principles that shall give the shipper some little
chance.”
“When will that halcyon hour for the public arrive, Mr. Morning?”
“By and by,” rejoined our hero, “and then you may look for better days.”