“The Board of Directors will, in the first instance, consist of the governor of each State through which the roadbed shall be constructed, from Maine to California. To these fifteen or sixteen governors will be added thirty experienced railway managers, who will be selected by me. Each governor will serve as director only during his term as governor, and will be succeeded as director by his official successor as governor. The thirty directors appointed by me will receive liberal salaries, will not be permitted to be interested in any other railroad, and will serve until they resign, or die, or are removed for cause by a two-thirds vote of the other directors. Vacancies thus occurring will be filled by a similar vote. Subject to the principles of management I have endeavored to outline, the control of the affairs of the company will be with the Board of Directors.” “Will not the vast sums of money which the yield of the Morning mine must add to the standard currency of the world so inflate values as to make difficult any equitable adjustment of freight or passenger rates, or of the wages of railroad workers?” “Freight and passenger rates, and wages, will necessarily advance with the increase of all values. It will be like the tide at the Dardanelles, which never ebbs. No man who has any knowledge, or exercises any care, need be overwhelmed or hurt by it, and all men who try can guide their barks to prosperity upon its swell.” “Would you consider it really a healthful state of affairs if, by an inflated currency, prices were so increased that a dinner which one can now buy for fifty cents should cost $5.00, and a $20 coat sell for $200?” “Why not if prices were similarly advanced over all the world? People indulge in a good deal of loose talk about inflated currency, debased currency, and fiat money. In truth, all money is fiat money, for a bar of gold is not a legal tender, and inflation of values is the law of commercial growth. In the middle ages a penny was the price of a day’s wages or of a bushel of wheat. Money which has for its basis either precious metals or substantial property in lands or merchandise is good money, while money lacking such basis is bad money. Clipped shillings, French assignats, and Continental and Confederate currency, were no more fiat money than are American double eagles or five-pound Bank of England notes. It is the stamp of the government, the fiat of its power, that turns the metal or the paper into money.” “But do not all financiers consider inflation a disaster, Mr. Morning?”