The Ohio star. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1830-1854, 1854-02-22

This statement exhibits q steady increase of the
currency volume from 1864 until 1873, when 1t
reached its maximum, since which time there has
been slight decrease 1t was greater in 1873 when
the financial crash occurred, than at any former
tired under President johnson, Congress ordered the
reissue OF s24 OOO,OOO in vain effort to tide tie
to ne TRe n the
since 1875 has been more than compensated by its
money volume. The coin value or the purchasing
power of money, motifs number of nominal dollars,
constitute its true volume In 1879 the coin value
Of the aggregase currency was only % w. lts
Now its coin value exceeds S6S5 0o0O0 Since then
$50 900 Of postal currency has been retired and
fractional silver coin substituted The recoinage of
the silver dollar and the products of our gold mines
have added many millions more SO that instead of
contraction there has been Large increase II the
aggregate volume of circulation which now reaches
one billion dollars in coin value. larger Volume than
euer eristed at any former period.
ITS BUSINESS POWER
The period of greatest business activity in the his
tory of the country was from 1869 to 1878. Every
enterprise was stimulated and the whole productive
idle not an energy dormant. All forms of govern
ment securities, which had in any degree entered
retired under President johnson. The working
power of the currency was its volume of legal tender
1Rd d nos % sen xns
being S64S 600 in 1878 when the panic occurred
Their as Roae nde pr be seT aT bd @
speculation as an article OF merchandise. AS the
then volume of exclusively paper currency
sufficient to animate and give employment to the
entire industrial aud commercial capacity of the
ton then, how can it be asserted that thousand
so now? Surely some other cause than lack of cur
rency must have produced the depression OF subse-
lack OF market commensurate with the capacity Of
seded in his is at Rv Marion tbe s
of labor saving machinery about 80 per cent
of population using the improved tools and ma
can CONSUME and can in addition produce all that
we have yet been able to find market for abroad
the country is dispensed with
This is forced dleness and its cause Is it not dis
Contraction Of the currency? Would the issuing by
the government of additional thousand millions
of legal tender notes this result? Would it
create for US an additional foreign market? Would
it compel the whole population to consume more
would It destroy the power and
capacity of the 80 per cent. to still produce
more than 100 per cent, can consume?
Heaithful prosperity exists only when the capacity
with the capacity for production in all the various
departments of industry. If the capacity
ms market . demand for N its Wv wares, T Diminish e
ed activity employment in some other department
of industry, or idleness is inevitable. When the
whole capacity of production is employed in work
ing its various departments to the full capacity of
will industrial equilibrium and solid prosperity
exist.
This condition OF things was disturbed and broken
up by the violence of 1t only be restored
by readjustment to the conditions of peace. The
exigencies of the war diminished production
| ted unnatural market, relatively augmented
consumption. and correspondingly stimulated the
highest pitch of activity, in order to supply its
nous demands. The resulting prosperity un-
natural and ephemeral, ana destined to inevitable
collapse when its cause should cease to operate;
when peace should transform the consuming de-
stroyer into competing producer.
The war closed. For while the wild eXtrava
gance and reckless adventure which it stimulated
swept on like resstless torrent but policy,
currency no wit of man could forever float the base
less balloon. Collapse and the crash came, they
always have, and inevitably must from
like causes, and from which re-
covery is possible only by time economy. and the
operation of natural and industrial forces. The
demagogue may agravate the evils agitation may
intensity and proong them but can not avert their
coming nor hasten relief. Hear Senator Thurman
again on this point. In the Senate, in December
1874, he said:
''rhe panic was the result of our trading and ex-
travagaIce until at last the bubble burst and then
came season of retrenchment and economy. In
the history of this country it has been shown that
the business of the country never revives in less
period than four years after panic. Nothing hut
time honesty, economy, and retrenchment will set
the business in motion and make the country pros
porous Tinkering ut our financial system Will
never accomplish this result"