Society owes no debt to either of these. It is obliged to support
them both. This is wrong both as a moral and as an industrial
proposition. Once, a dollar was spent to mine a dollar. To-day
two are spent: One dollar goes into blasting powder, the other
into advertising and office furniture.

No doubt you have heard the age-old legend of the Mother Vein of
Gold, which appears and vanishes, now and again, in this corner
of the world. Superstition regarding this great original vein of
gold is found wherever men seek the precious metal. The feverish
Spaniards called this phantom lode the Madre d'Oro, or "Mother of
Gold." Now it is located in Mexico, now in India or Peru,
California or Australia. Tradition says that Montezuma got his
gold from this great vein, which lay in a secret valley whose
where-abouts was jealously guarded by three priests of the war
tribe, sole possessors of the knowledge. Any intruder who by
chance or design looked down into this valley was smitten
absolutely blind. Tradition among the successors of the Aztecs
says that when Montezuma passed, the Madre d'Oro sank back again
into the earth, and has been seen no more. Men still follow the
phantom vein. Those who see it, even in their dreams, still are
smitten blind.

Gold! There is no other word that means quite so much. We want
gold; indeed, we must have it. Malleable, divisible,
indestructible, rare, it is the indispensable medium of exchange.
It is our chosen unit of power and success, the measure of
civilization and human attainment. Hence it has always been the
object of human desire. The Golden Fleece very probably was the
sheepskin bottom of an old-time sluice-box, in a day when they