MONEY VOLUME 
 
 £7 £7 
 
 How To Get It? 
 
 $ $ 
 
 BY RICHARD WOLFE 
 
 LJE who advocates a scientific money, 
 1 1 stands for the greatest issue ever pre¬ 
 sented to the people of the world. 
 
 The question of money involves all other 
 economic questions! 
 
 The evils arising from a shortage in the 
 money volume have been with us from the 
 dawn of civilization! 
 
 The money shortage is the one economic 
 evil that is, and ever has been, co-extensive 
 with Poverty! 
 
 Remove this fundamental cause, and Pros¬ 
 perity will be the portion of all! 
 
There is no scarcity of “land’’—it has 
 obtained in abundance for ages. Only here 
 and there are there congested centers of pop¬ 
 ulation where land monopoly is felt. Hut go 
 where you will, search the wide world over, 
 and wherever you find even the lowest civi¬ 
 lization, you will find distress arising from 
 an inadequate circulating medium. 
 
 The Fiji Islander, or the wild man of Bor¬ 
 neo, if he but exchange his product with civ¬ 
 ilized man, must bear his share of the “inter¬ 
 est” burden of the world; and while other 
 monopolies may affect communities, or a na¬ 
 tion, the monopoly of money carries its evil 
 effects to the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 
 HE money shortage has been acute so 
 
 * long, it is astonishing that so little prog¬ 
 ress has been made toward the solution of 
 the problem. Hardly a step in advance has 
 been made since Abraham purchased a grave 
 for Sarah! We use the same barbaric money 
 to-day that was used by the Pharaohs! 
 
 The ingenuity of man has been taxed to 
 the utmost to devise makeshifts for real 
 money. We have used many credit devices, 
 which have permitted an expansion of com¬ 
 merce. We now use bank-credit to a greater 
 extent than ever before in our history. 
 
 And these devices answer tolerably well so 
 long as we have advancing prices; but when 
 a sharp decline in prices occurs, this circula¬ 
 tion fails. When confidence in the stability 
 of prices is lost, this credit circulation at once 
 shrinks to nothing, the struggle for the real 
 
money begins, and the magnitude of the de¬ 
 vastation will depend upon the volume of 
 the tangible currency that may be at the 
 command of the business world. 
 
 Not only are these credit devices danger¬ 
 ous, but they are expensive, permitting the 
 idle few to gather in the surplus of the many 
 producers of wealth through the interest 
 charge. For though money may be, and 
 often is, had without interest, the. credit 
 makeshift always carries with it an interest 
 charge. 
 
 W HAT is more uncertain to-day than a 
 business venture ? We float our busi¬ 
 ness on an atmosphere of bank credit as thin 
 as ether, and as volatile as the perfume of a 
 rose. Is it any wonder that fully 95 percent 
 of business men, sooner or later, fail. 
 
 The uncertain currency volume, the con¬ 
 stant extension and denial of credit, affects 
 prices and keeps them in a state of unrest so 
 that no business sagacity can guard against 
 failure. Business ventures are a gamble, 
 and the vain-glorious fool is as apt to win in 
 thestruggle as the wisest of the wise. It is a 
 virtual tempting of fate to enter the business 
 world, and so the prudent take “interest” 
 slow but sure. 
 
 Thus, by making legitimate business un¬ 
 certain, we find it conducted by reckless ad¬ 
 venturers who make it still more precarious. 
 Is it any wonder that distress, want and 
 misery surround us on every hand, while as 
 a nation we are rolling in wealth. 
 
 
4 
 
 THE cause is apparent: the great factor in 
 * exchange, is wanting! The government 
 refuses, or neglects, to provide a sufficient 
 volume of money! 
 
 If money was a product of labor, or if it 
 were a natural production, there might be 
 some excuse for a money shortage, but when 
 we know it to be a product of legislation a 
 creation of law, a thing that can be created 
 without cost, and in any quantity desired, 
 one is at a loss to account for a money strin¬ 
 gency. Why a people should struggle along 
 without so needful a thing as money, when it 
 can be so easily supplied, is one of the things 
 past finding out. 
 
 _ Let us inquire into the matter and see how 
 simple it is to provide a sufficient volume of 
 money: 
 
 First: The gold bullion owner is permit¬ 
 ted to take his gold to the mint and the gov¬ 
 ernment converts it into money, without 
 charge, by the coinage process. 
 
 Second: The United States bond owner is 
 permitted to turn his bonds into money by 
 the certificate process. 
 
 In other words: we allow these owners of 
 wealth to monetize it at will, but this policy 
 provides only a fraction of the quantity we 
 need, and so we are compelled to use a credit 
 substitute having no tangible existence, and 
 for which we pay interest, while the bullion 
 owner and the bond owner get money first 
 handed, free from an interest charge. 
 
Now if this same plan was carried a step 
 further and made to include other forms of 
 stable wealth as well as gold and bonds, it 
 would permit an abundant supply of money, 
 provide a non-interest bearing currency, and 
 thus make it possible to have a just distribu¬ 
 tion of wealth. 
 
 HE Holden Plan for supplying the cur- 
 
 * rency deficit is to extend the provision 
 to improved land, and permit the holder to 
 monetize land values by the certificate pro¬ 
 cess. The contention is that this policy 
 would provide an ample supply, and for this 
 reason the provision need not he extended lo 
 other forms of wealth. 
 
 This plan is not open to the objection of 
 being uncertain as to where the issue would 
 stop. Being limited to a percentage of land 
 values, the volume could not be increased 
 beyond that limit, and as interest for cur¬ 
 rency or circulation would cease with a suf¬ 
 ficient supply, it is probable that less than 50 
 percent of land values would he monetized. 
 
 The national bond owner now has the 
 privilege of monetizing his bond at its face 
 value; and though the interest rate on bonds 
 is very low, quite a large percentage of the 
 bonds is not monetized; and as the process of 
 monetizing land values cannot be made so 
 simple, nor is it intended to monetize land at 
 its full value, but at an absolutely safe valu¬ 
 ation, there probably would not be so large a 
 percentage of land values used for currency 
 purposes as there now is of bonds. 
 
TlBE Holden System has been tried, and 
 * worked admirably. The Pennsylvania 
 Land Currency, devised and improved by 
 Franklin, involving the same principle, was 
 used for 40 years 1722 to 1762 - and was 
 better than coin money; but when the 
 British Parliament prohibited the American 
 colonies from issuing paper currency, it did 
 not discriminate between the Franklin 
 paper money, and the colonial credit cur- 
 reucij, so it was destroyed with the rest. 
 
 So great was the prejudice against paper 
 issues, the Fathers were deterred from plac¬ 
 ing a provision in their favor in the Consti¬ 
 tution. Though they did not deny that right 
 to the nation, they did prohibit the states 
 from making anything but gold and silver 
 coins a tender in payment of debts. 
 
 But the framers of the Constitution, by 
 implication, admitted that the nation could 
 make paper money a legal tender, and so it 
 afterward did. and we now have 346 millions 
 ^>f legal tender paper which is as good as 
 gold, and better, for it is far more convenient 
 and does not represent a loss of value to the 
 nation, as gold does when it is taken for 
 money uses. 
 
 Neither are there constant inroads made 
 on the volume of this 346 millions of legal 
 tender paper, as there is on our gold money. 
 Millions are taken from the money volume of 
 gold by the arts, while other millions are 
 carried out of the country. But this legal tend¬ 
 er paper is always with us doing active duty as 
 
an exchange medium, never having cost us a 
 cent; nor does it draw from the people a con¬ 
 stant stream of gold as interest; nor does it 
 represent a loss of labor or mental energy 
 equal to its face value as does gold. 
 
 It will pay a debt or buy a Sarah’s grave as 
 well as if it were metal. But aside from all 
 this it has a still greater advantage over gold 
 —an advantage of unspeakable importance. 
 Its use permits the world to have the needed 
 volume to answer every requirement for 
 money. 
 
 ASIDE from a mere medium of exchange 
 we need a vast volume for the purpose 
 of conserving individual wealth- Statistics 
 show that there is not enough tangible 
 money to represent 20 per cent of the unin¬ 
 vested earnings of the common people, to say 
 nothing of the rich. 
 
 Our so called “bank deposits” amount to 
 more than $17,000,000,000, while the highest 
 estimate of our currency volume, including 
 all kinds, is less than $3,000,000,000. This 
 indicates a fourteen billion dollar money 
 shortage! Equal to $IJ+O per capita. 
 
 Is it any wonder that money commands 
 an “interest” rate that makes thousands of 
 enterprises unprofitable and thus narrows the 
 productive field, creates a congested labor 
 market and a wage scale that makes condi¬ 
 tions worse than chattel slavery! 
 
If we wish to escape the leveling down of 
 socialism on the one hand, or the destruction 
 of civilization (by the pauperization of the 
 masses) on the other, we must arouse our¬ 
 selves to the importance of the money prob¬ 
 lem! It is, and ever has been, the vital ques¬ 
 tion of the ages! 
 
 The Land Currency plan has some novel 
 features, but is not a radical departure from 
 the existing method of providing money for 
 commercial uses, except that it permits the 
 issue of a sufficient supply. It simply per¬ 
 fects the present system which has been 
 evolved out of ages of experience, by provid¬ 
 ing for the automatic adjustment of the vol¬ 
 ume so that all the needs for money will be 
 satisfied without additional legislation. It 
 will provide an unobstructed, constant and 
 natural supply of money as business expan¬ 
 sion requires it. 
 
 Our every economic ill can be traced to the 
 money shortage; hence the Holden System 
 deserves the serious consideration of every 
 thoughtful mind. It will remedy every finan¬ 
 cial difficulty, and lead to the solution of 
 every economic problem! 
 
 Richard Wolfe, 
 
 601 Kittredge Bldg., Denver, Colo. 
 
 Issued by the National Land Currency 
 League, Headquarters, 601 Kittredge Bldg., 
 Denver, Colorado. 
 
 25 copies post-paid 25c