Arkansas true Democrat., 1857-11-10
Gold and Silver Currency.

bankers. From every paper dollar that is il circulation, they derive an income. From the gold and silver in circulation they derive nc income. Therefore their interest is to supplanl gold and silver by bank notes, so far at least a: can be done without entirely suspending specie payments.
 Next to these paper bankers, is class 0 men, who, under the present artificial system | of credit, can borrow largely from the banks l but who, under natural system of credit would not be able to borrow at all. They have no capital of their own, or, if any, next to none and no such personal character as entities them to be trusted; but cunning with such men aided by banks of issue, supplies the place o both capital and character. These men, through | the aid afforded to them by the banks, rush in- to the widest speculatons. If they lose. all the loss falls on their creditors, for they have nothing of their own to lose. If they gan the gain is all their own. It is not at all sur prising to find this class of men denouncing the notion of gold medium as fit only for bar barous ages" They have as deep an interest as have the paper money bankers in supplant- ing gold and silver money by bank notes. ! These two classes of men make powerful body, but they are powerful, less through their numbers than through their organization, through the position they occupy, through their control of the public press, and through their influence over the members of Congress, and of the State Legislatures-an influence which is frequently of the most corruptng na- ture When all told these men will be found to embrace not more than one in twenty of the men in the United States. The residue of the population have deep interest, not in the i'm mediate destruction of paper money, but in gradually sugp7anting it by gold and silver.
 Among those who have this deep interest in gradually supplanting paper money by gold and silver are the planters of the south, the farmers of the north, the mechanics, the manufactu- rers, the regular pains taking merchants and the working men every where. All who aim at earning a livelihood by industry and economy rather than by speculation, have an interest i'll having circulating medium as sta ble as the nature of things will admit, and such coins of gold and silver.
 This being the case, why should the interests of ninety-fve men in every hundred be any longer sacrificed in order that the remaining z five may eujoy inordinate gains? Why should not the great body of the community who have an interest in gradually supplauting pa per money by gold, rise in their might and let their power be felt in the State Legislatures and in Congress? Why should they any longer be subject to all the evils of bank expansions and bank contractions, followed by suspensions of specie payments, and those again followed by efforts at resumption, producing suffering greater if possible, than is produced by sus- pension.
 Why should the working man be content with bank note, when, during specie pay mentS, it costs him just as much labor to pro- cure paper as silver dollar? Why should the cotton planter be content with bank bills, when 1t costs him just as many pounds of Cot ton to purchase hundred paper as hundied silver dollars?
 Will 1t be urged that the banks by their is- sues make money more plenty? Then they can do 50 only ay degrading its value. What all vantage is gained by man in getting p or 5O per cent more for what he sells, when he has to pay p or 50 per cent more for what he buys?
 The rise of prices produced by bank iu- tlation is unequal, affecting different things in different degrees so that though some may gain from l5 to 20 per cent. on what they sell, they lose from 30 to 40 per cent. on what they buy
 The two classes that suffer most from huc- tuations of price produced by paper money are the day laborers of the north and the cotton planters of the south. It has been found by experience that the wages of day labor are the l.st to rise in times of expansion, and the first to fall in times of contraction. Af- ter contraction has proceeded to a certain ex- tent, great numbers of working men find 1t i'm possible to procure employment at any price, ! the north have doleful experience at the pre- sent moment.
 The cotton planter of the south is peculiarly situated. The banks may, oy increasing their issues, cause rise in the price of his staple, but It is only temporary. The price of his cot ton at New Orleans depends ultimately on the price it bears at Liverpool.
 l While the banks make only temporary rise in the price of cotton, they make not perman ent, (Or there is nothing permanent in thi: wretched system, )-but they make rise in the price of every thing the cotton planter has tC buy which lasts much longer than the rise in the price of what he has to sell.
 This holds true, not only in regard to wha the cotton planter has to buy from the north it also holds true in regard to many things h, has to buy abroad. Our bank imitation in '35-t raised the price of sugar enormously in Havan na. The late rise in the price of sugar is to b, attributed to the like cause. It has beer found by a careful collation. of facts that tn, price of iron in England depends more or the issues of the American than of the Eng lish banks. Just as our banks expand othe things being equal, does the price of iron risc ln Eng just as our banks contract does tht price of iron fall in England The reason is that the price of iron in England is mainly de- termned by what the manufacturers can sel 1t for in foreign countries; just as the price O our cotton at home depends on the price we ge for 1t abroad.
 The late Hon. Dixon H. Lewis, U. S. Sen. ator for Alabama was one of the soundes political economists the country has produced and he had extensive experience as cottor planter. He was most deeply impressed witt the truth that the planters of the south lose much more than they gain through the rise o prices produced by the action of the banks, anc Used D saV that bor |