The Comstock Club Part 22

"The Government has commenced to coin silver and has partially remonetized it. It is only partial because gold is still made the absolute measure of values and preference is reserved for it in ways which will keep silver depressed until there shall come a demand for it which cannot at once be met; then it will be discovered that it is still one of the precious metals and it will take its place in trade as it has its place here in the mines, side by side and the full brother of gold.

Were the Government to-morrow to commence to absorb and h.o.a.rd all the product of our mines and keep this up for a generation, issuing certificates on the same for the full value, at the end of about thirty years there would be on deposit as security for the paper afloat more than one thousand millions of dollars. This seems like a vast sum, but it would then amount to but ten dollars per capita for our people. You have each received two and a half times that amount to-day on account of your last month's wages, and the only serious inconvenience it has inflicted upon you is the discount which wicked legislation has given to silver.

"But long before one thousand millions in silver could be secured it would command a premium, because that would mean one-fourth of all the silver in circulation, and this old world cannot spare to one Nation that amount and still keep her commerce running and the arts supplied."

"But, Professor," said Alex, "why h.o.a.rd the metals? Why may not money be represented by paper backed by the Nation's faith? Why pile up the metals in the Government vaults when the printing press can supply as good money as the people want?"

"That," replied the Professor, "is an argument for times of peace and prosperity only. The failure of one crop would so lessen the faith of the people that a serious discount would fall upon the money that was only backed by faith. And suppose Europe were to combine to fight the United States, then what would the loss be to the people? We can only estimate the amount by thinking what the United States currency was worth in 1864.

"Such a combination is not at all impossible. There is a vast country to the south of us, the trade of which should be ours, and with the Governments of which we have notified Europe there must be no interference from beyond the Atlantic. There are channels for s.h.i.+ps to be hewed through the Spanish American Isthmus, and their control is to become a question.

"Above all, the light and majesty of our Republic are becoming a terror to the Old World. Think of it. The immigrants that come to us annually, together with the young men and women that annually reach their majority here, are enough to supply the places of all the people of this coast were they to go away. Who can estimate the swelling strength that is sufficient to fully equip a new state annually?

"Before the spectacle thrones are toppling and kings sleep on pillows of thorns. If our soil was adjacent to Europe, the nations would combine and a.s.sail us to-morrow, in sheer self-defense. They have tremendous armies; they are acc.u.mulating mighty navies and arming them as s.h.i.+ps were never armed before. Suppose that sometime they decide that the world's equilibrium is being disturbed by the Great Republic, even as they did when Napoleon the first became their terror, and that, as with him, they determine that our country shall be divided or crushed. What then? Of course they will maneuver to have a rebellion in our country and espouse the cause of the weaker side. This is what nearly happened in 1862; what would have surely happened had not Great Britain possessed the knowledge that if she joined with France in the proposed scheme, whatever the outcome might be, one thing was certain, for a season at least, there would be no night on the sea; the light made by British s.h.i.+ps in flames would make perpetual day.

"Then ocean commerce was carried mostly in s.h.i.+ps that had to trust alone to the fickle winds for headway. In twenty years more steam will be the motive power for carrying all valuable freights, and will be comparatively safe as against pursuing cruisers.

"Imagine such a crisis upon us, what then would the unsupported paper dollar be worth? But imagine that behind the Republic there was in the treasury a thousand millions of dollars in silver, the original money of the world, and another thousand millions in gold, what combination of forces could place the money of the Nation in danger of loss by depreciation?

"Gold and silver when produced are simply the measures of the labor required to produce them; they are labor made imperishable; and when either is destroyed--and demonetization is destruction--just so much labor is destroyed, and you who work have to make up the loss by working more hours for a dollar. You are supposed to receive the same wages that the miners did who worked on this lode six years ago, for a month's work. But you do not because, through the mistake of honest men or the manipulation of knaves, twenty per cent. of the twenty-five dollars paid you in silver for last month's work has been destroyed; and now those who have dealt this blow insist that money can in no wise be changed in value by legislation.

"The trouble is our law-makers do not estimate at half its worth their own country. They stand in awe of what they call the money centers of the world, and refuse to see that already the world is placed at a disadvantage by our Republic; that within thirty years all existing nations, all the nations that have existed through all the long watches of the past, will, in material wealth and strength, seem mean and poor in comparison with our own.

"Look at it! Five hundred thousand foreigners absorbed annually, and not a ripple made where they merge with the mighty current of our people!

What is equal to a new State, with all its people and equipments, launched upon the Union every year--it makes me think of the Creator launching worlds--with immeasurable resources yet to be utilized; the wealth of the country already equal to that of Great Britain, with all her twelve hundred years of spoils; all our earnings our own; no five millions of people toiling to support another million that stand on guard, as is required in France and Germany and Russia and Austria and Italy; our great Southern staple commanding tribute from all the world; hungry Europe looking to our Northern States for meat and bread, and to our rivers for fish; our Western miners supplying to business the tonic which keeps its every artery throbbing with buoyant health, while over all is our flag, which symbols a sovereignty so awful in power and yet so beneficent in mercies, that while the laws command and protect, they bring no friction in their contact; rather they guarantee the perfect liberty of every child of the Republic, to seize with equal hand upon every opportunity for fortune, or for fame, which our country holds within her august grasp.

"To carry on the business of such a land an ocean of money is needed, and infinitely more will be required in future. And for this money there must be a solid basis; not merely a faith which expands with this year's prosperity and contracts with next year's calamity; not something which the death of a millionaire or a visitation of gra.s.shoppers will throw down; but something which is the first-born child of labor, and is therefore immortal and without change. This is represented by gold and silver, and to commerce they are what 'the great twin brethren' at Lake Regillus were to Rome."

When the Professor ceased speaking, Harding said: "Professor, what you have been saying about our Republic sounds to me almost like a coincidence. Did you dream what you have been saying?"

The Professor replied that he did not, and asked what in the world prompted such a question.

Harding smiled and blushed, and then said: "Because I had a dream last night."

All wanted to hear what it was.

"You won't laugh, Carlin?" said Harding.

Carlin said he would not.

"And you will not call me a fool, Wright?" Harding asked.

Wright promised to conceal his sentiments, if necessary.

"You will not call it a mirage, Corrigan?" asked Harding.

Corrigan agreed to refrain.

"And, Colonel, you will not ask mysterious questions about who usually sits as a commission of lunacy in Virginia City?" Harding inquired.

The Colonel agreed to restrain himself.

"And, Alex, you will not expose me in the paper?" questioned Harding.

Alex promised to be merciful to the public.

In final appeal, Harding said: "And you, Professor, you will not say it is a tough, hard formation and too nearly primitive to carry any treasure?"

The Professor a.s.sured him that faults and displacements were common in the richest mineral-bearing veins.

"Well," said Harding, "I was tired and nervous last night. I could not sleep, and so determined to get up and read for an hour. I happened to pick up a volume of Roman history, and became so absorbed in it that I read for an hour or two more than I ought to. I went to bed at last, and my body dropped to sleep in a moment, but my brain was still half awake, and for a while ran things on its own account in a confused sort of a way.

"I thought I was sitting here alone, when, suddenly, a stranger appeared and began to pace, slowly, up and down the room. He had an eye like a hawk, nose like an eagle's beak and an air that was altogether martial.

His walk had the perfect, measured step of the trained veteran soldier.

After watching him for a little s.p.a.ce, I grew bold and demanded of him his name and business. When I spoke the sound of my own voice startled me, for he was more savage looking than a s.h.i.+ft boss. He turned round to me--don't laugh, I pray you--and said:

"'I am that Scipio to whom Hannibal the terrible capitulated. I was proud of my Rome and my Romans. We were the "Iron Nation," truly. All that human valor and human endurance could do we accomplished. Amid the snows of the Alps and the sands of Africa we were alike invincible. We were not deficient either in brain power. We left monuments enough to abundantly establish that fact. To us the whole civilized world yielded fealty, but we were barbarians after all. Listen!'

"Just then there floated in through the open window what seemed a full diapason of far-off but exquisite music.

"'Do you know what that is?' he asked. 'It is the echo of the melody which the children of this Republic awaken, singing in their free schools. It smites upon and charms the ear of the sentinel angel, whose station is in the sun, through one-eighth of his daily round; those echoes that with an enchantment all their own ride on the swift pinions of the hours over all the three thousand miles between the seas.

"My Rome had nothing like that. We trusted alone to the law of might, and though we tried to be just, the slave was chained daily at our gates; we sold into slavery our captives taken in war; we fought gladiators and wild beasts for the amus.e.m.e.nt of our daughters and wives; we never learned to temper justice with mercy; only the first leaves of the book of knowledge were opened to us; our brains and our bodies were disciplined, but our hearts were darkened and we perished because we were no longer fit to rule.

"'Whether by evolution the world has advanced, or whether, indeed, the lessons of that Nazarene, whom our soldiers crucified, are bearing celestial fruit, who knows! But surely our Rome, with all its power, all its splendor, all its heroic men and stately women; its victories in the field, its pageants in the Imperial City on the days when, returning from a conquest, our chieftians were laurel-crowned; our art, our eloquence--all, were nothing compared with this song of songs. It started at first where the sullen waves wash against Plymouth Rock; it swelled in volume while the deep woods gave place to smiling fields; over mountain and desert it rolled in full tones and only ceases, at last, where the roar of the deep sea, breaking outside the Golden Gate, or meeting in everlasting anger the Oregon upon her stormy bar, gives notice that the pioneer must halt at last in his westward march.'

"As he ceased to speak the melody was heard again, sweeter, clearer and fuller than before. My guest faded away before me and I awoke. In all the air there was no sound save the deep respirations of the hoisting engine in the Norcross works, and the murmur of the winds, as on slow beating wings they floated up over the Divide and swept on, out over the desert."

The verdict of the Club was that if old Scipio talked in that strain he had softened down immensely since the days when he was setting his legions in array against the swarthy hosts of the mighty Carthagenian.

After a while Corrigan spoke: "You native Americans," he said, "at least the majority of yees, do not half appreciate your country. I was but a lad whin, after a winter of half starvation, in the care of an uncle, I lift Ireland in an English imigrant s.h.i.+p. One mornin' as me uncle and meself were watchin' from the deck a sail rose out of the say directly in our path. It grew larger and larger, in a little while the hull appeared, and soon after we could discern that it was a frigate. The wind was off her beam, blowing fresh; every sail was crowded on, and as her black beak rose and fell with the says, I thought her more beautiful than the smile of the sunlight on the hills of Kildare. Half careened as she was under the pressure on her sails, but still resolutely rus.h.i.+ng on, she made a pictur' of courage which has shone before me eyes a thousand times since, when me heart has been heavy. She drew quite near, and as she swung upon her tack her flag was dipped in salute. Then me uncle bent and said: 'Barney, lad, mark will that flag! That is an Amirican s.h.i.+p of war.'

"Great G.o.d! Child that I was, I think in that moment I knew how the young mother feels, when in the curtained dimness of her room, she half fainting, hears the blissful whisper that unto her is born a son.

"There was the ensign of the land which held all joy in thought for us; which to us opened the gates of hope; that wondrous land in the air of which the pallid cheek of Want grows rosy red and Irish hearts cast off hereditary dispair.

"I rushed forward, where thray hundred imigrants were listlessly lounging about the deck, and, in mad excitement, shouted: 'See! See! It is the Amirican flag!' Just then the sunlight caught in its folds and turned it to gold.

"O, but thin there was a transformation sane. Ivery person on that deck sprang up and shouted. Men waved their hats and women embraced each other, and with a mighty 'All Hail' those Irish imigrants--Irish no longer, but henceforth forever to be Amiricans--greeted that flag. In response the marines manned the yards, and off to us across the wathers came the first ringing Amirican chare that we had iver heard. We answered back with a yell like that which might have been awakened at Babel. It was not a disciplined chare, but simply a wild cry of joy, and it was none the less hearty that over us swung haughtily the red cross of St. George.

"You native Amiricans are like spiled children, that niver having known an unsatisfied want, surfeit on dainties."

Corrigan relapsed into silence, but his eyes were glistening and there was a tremble about his lips. His mind was still in the burial place, where "memory was calling up its dead."

While the spell of Barney's words was still upon the Club, Yap Sing softly opened the door and announced that the evening luncheon was ready. The heathen had inaugurated these luncheons on the first day of his coming. They were at once accepted and had become a regular thing.

Seeing that they were received approvingly, Yap had exhausted every device to make them a marked feature of the Club.

On this occasion the table was fully set, but there was no food on the table. Beside each plate stood a gla.s.s of water and a dish of salt. When the company was seated, Yap went to the cooking range, took out and set upon the table an immense platter which was piled high with huge baked potatoes, after which, with a face utterly dest.i.tute of expression, he went to his bench in the corner of the room and sat down.

Wright, who was nearest him, said: "What is the matter, Yap? Are you sick?"