This cry for "the best money" is at last beginning to be recognized for what it is--the cunning device of creditors to "catch the conscience" of the people and play upon the sense of fairness that characterizes the great mass of mankind. These interested parties affect to believe that gold is, by nature, the only money metal, ignoring the fact that until silver was displaced by hostile legislation it was, and for four thousand years had been, the principal money metal of the world. But they will no longer be permitted to hide their sinister purpose under the cloak of a demand for the "best money." The masses of the people are aroused on this subject and are beginning to understand it. According to all fair canons of construction the best money should be and is a money of unchanging value, a money that exacts from the debtor the same amount of sacrifice that he bargained for, and which is all that the creditor is equitably entitled to receive. In other words, the money of the contract, not a money whose exactions are increasing at the rate of 2 per cent. per annum. As McCulloch says, debts being stated in dollars and cents, it is not possible for the creditor openly to augment his debtor's obligation by changing the figures of the debt. But, Mr. President, while they can not change the figures of the debt, they are enabled, by a crafty manipulation of the money-volume, to do that which, to the debtor, means the same thing; as the following story will illustrate: A usurer of the coarser type had lent $10,000 on a neighboring farm, for which amount he took the farmer's note, secured by a mortgage on the property. He coveted the farm, and in his anxiety to secure it took his banker into his confidence. He informed the banker that he wanted to get possession of this farm, but it would bring $15,000 under the hammer, and he did not care to pay so much for it. "I have a subtle chemical," said he, "by which I can obliterate from the note and mortgage all trace of the rightful amount ($10,000), and that done, I can insert $15,000. Then, with the genuine signatures on the note and mortgage I can bring suit, and as the farm will not bring more than the face of the note, I shall succeed to the property."