On President Hayes's
refusal he left the Republican Party and became, a year or
two after, the Democratic nominee for Governor for two or
three years and, as has been seen, was elected in 1883. I
of course supported the Republican candidate and made, I suppose,
thirty or forty speeches in each of those years. He had said
in explaining and defending his fiat money scheme that the
word "fiat" means "let there be." God said "fiat lux," "let
there be light," and there was light. He argued that fiat
money was excellent from the very fact that it cost nothing
and had no intrinsic value. So if a bill were lost or destroyed
a new one could be supplied without cost. He also said that
it would stay in the country and would not be sunk in the
morasses of Asia, especially in China and India, where silver
and gold were absorbed and never heard of in civilized nations
afterward. I quoted these sentences with the following comment:
"That, Fellow-citizens, is precisely the difference between
Omnipotence and Humbug, between the Almighty and General Butler.
God said let there be light and there was light.
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