Correspondence

2 pages

R.F. Pettigrew speaks with H.L. Loucks about the Loucks' current article and the arguments therein. Pettigrew mentions that Loucks should follow a particular strain of his own argument that would greatly benefit his article. Pettigrew also voices his dislike for the bankers and financiers of New York. Pettigrew briefly covers his thoughts in regards to 'intrinsic' and 'extrinsic value.'

TRANSCRIPT

Cable Address:
“Auditorium”
Auditorium Hotel
Michigan Boulevard and Congress Street
J. J. Calvey,
Manager

Chicago, January 11, 1916.

Mr. H. L. Loucks,
Watertown, S. D.

My dear friend:-

I received your article, and have ready it,-not with the same care that I would like to exercise in reading it, and am going to read it again; but a combination of circumstances has kept me busy lately, and I have been away from home a great deal. And so I have not studied the article as much as I would like to. I hope to get a chance to talk it over with you, but I fear that opportunity will not come.

I have just taken Mrs. Pettigrew to Battle Creek, Mich., and am going home this afternoon for a very short time only. I shall probably close my house within the next week or so, and be away the rest of the winter. However, I am much interested in your work, because you do it better than anybody; and your statement that the new banking law has resulted in a contraction of currency is intensely interesting. Of course they reduce the circulation in order to affect prices; and I notice that wheat went down to less than $1.00 a bushel until the farmers got rid of it all, and now it’s gone back to $1.25. In other words, the currency in the hands of the bankers can be contacted or expanded as bests suits their profit, and thus used to lower and raise prices, and rob and plunder the producers at will. Follow this particular branch of the subject up. It is what I predicted would occur, but I did not know until I read your article that they had the machine already in operation.

You know the treasurers of all the great railroads and industrial combinations are in New York. The treasuries of all the public utilities for over 400 American cities are in New York. Every nickel we pay in anywhere in the United States flows at once to New York, for the great life insurance companies are there, also. And now we have turned over the issue of money and the control of the currency to this same gang of gamblers and scoundrels. The whole performance ought to produce a revolution, but I suppose it will not. The American people like to be robbed, especially if they can see the robbers buy a dukelet for their daughters once in a while.

I see in your article that you use the term “intrinsic value.” Of course there is no such thing, and yet it is a term that has been used so much, it has a meaning of itself. Value attaches to that which is limited in quantity, and the subject of human desire. Quantity may be intrinsic, but value, never-it is extrinsic always, and is the result of the limit of the amount and the human desire for the thing which causes value to attach to it.

I shall be in Sioux Falls for about a week. I wish I had time to see and talk this whole question over with you. Shall I return the article you sent me? If so, I will have it copied, so that I may more carefully examine the contents thereof.

Your friend,

R. F. Pettigrew