From the Pen of Thomas Edison

If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good also. . . . Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurers and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government was no good, then the bonds would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges. . . .

Finding this quote gives further credence to my suspicion that far more people thought about and understood our monetary system in the past than do today. It's a pity the situation today has become far more dire than perhaps it ever was before.