“So, if you sell the government say $10 worth of oats to feed our army mules on, or if you do $10 worth of work a keepin books or a holdin office or a bankin up the Mississippi River, and you git a $10 bill for it—that bill, or your havin of that bill, says that you as a individual have delivered to all the balance of the seventy million people—to the company, if you please—$10 worth of value, and hold their paper for it. Now, if, arter you git that $10 from all the people, you go to Alick Smith and buy his Chester White brood sow and give him the $10 for her, your claim aginst all the people has passed from you to him—he has the receipt for the value you delivered the government and you have his sow. And, bein a good citizen, he takes the paper $10, because the value you gave the government was in part for him, and the $10 is an order to him as one of the twelve million or more pardners. And you bein one of the twelve million, you are one of the firm also, and stand ready to accept that same $10 for anything you may have to sell that Alick Smith might want.” Jobe seemed to be a gittin interested. “Then,” says I, “we will say that Alick would go to town and buy two gallons of John Schwab’s rye whiskey. John takes the bill for the same reason that Alick did. Well, John bein a licker dealer, we—that is, all the people—charge him $25 a year for sellin rye whiskey and sich. So John sends that same $10 to the revenue collector at Cleveland for his revenue tax. The revenue collector sends it to the treasury at Washington, where it was made, and where it fust come from. Haint it been redeemed? Haint that money? John Schwab paid for the work you done, or for the oats the government mules eat, and paid for it with the receipt you got for the oats or the work. “Now, suppose nothin was money but gold, and the government couldent issue sich receipts or orders, or whatever you want to call them, and suppose the government dident have any gold—so then you couldent sell your oats, nor you couldent git the work to do on the river bank, and you wouldent git any money. If you couldent git the money you couldent buy Alick’s sow; if Alick couldent sell his sow he couldent buy Schwab’s whiskey; if Schwab couldent sell his whiskey he couldent pay revenue tax, and when people cant pay revenue tax the government gits hard up and has to borrow money. “Now, Jobe,” says I, “honest injun, which do you think would be the best: to make what money this firm of the United States needs or to keep on a goin deeper and deeper in debt a borrowin money? “Speak out,” says I. “Haint that good money?” Jobe studied a minit. “Y-a-s,” says he, “but haint that fiat money?” “Yes, sir,” says I, “that is fiat money, and fiat money is the only honest, true money we can have. Any other kind is a deceit and a fraud.” Jobe twisted and would have got away if he hadent a been tied. As he couldent git away he snorted out: “What good would that money be in Urope?”