The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1866-01-01
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as we now are, Of trouble in the futurea-
Would we not feel, even If there was too much
of good money among us, that the evil would
cure itself easily and without hurting any
one? If our miners had dug out five hundred
million dollars worth ofgold or more, and our
farmers and business men had, each acting for
himself, kept so much of it in the country
that, in the aggregate, it amounted to as much
as do now our legal tender notes, would any
one be wise enough to say whether it was too
much9 To say that the people did not know
their own wants? Would the government
have to step in and tell the people how to get
rid of so much as they did not need?
So long as the Government had to do only
with the real money of the Constitution-gold
and silver-it found no necessity that IL should
prescribe how much the miners should dig
each year, how much of gold should be sent
to the mint, or how much should be shipped
abroad. 1t simply kept its mint open to all
corners, ready to coin just as much money as
the people chose to have 1t is only when it
makes something unreal and false substitute
for the money of the Constitution, whether it
be notes of the government, OF notes endors-
ed by the government, that there comes in
the fuss Of government regulations. 1t is only
then that government officers begin to calcu-
late with how much of all those things the
people may safely be trusted. They might as
well calculate and provide how many shoes
shall be made every year, in fear that some
,roor fhar Inv
reason of there being more babies than shoes,
or more shoes than babies.
The wisdom of Congress is utterly unequal
to the solving of such questions as these. If
Congress and the Cabinet ministers, and the
President himself, wise as we know he is, and
the Supreme Court judges, wise and learned
as they must be, were all to put their heads to-
gether, they would not have wisdom enough
to solve such questions. 1t was not intended
by Providence that they should have. The
wisdom of trade tells the shoemakers just how
many shoes to furnish every year, so that no
man goes barefoot who has wherewithal to buy
a pair. 1t tells this so exactly that there is
never an oppressive scarcity nor an oppressive
surplus of shoes, of whatever size. In like
manner the wisdom of trade will tell the peo-
Pile just how much real money they must get
out of the mines and through the mint; and
and just how many paper promises to pay on
demand or otherwise, will be convenient in
their business. Some one will be sure to dig
all the gold that is wanted; some one will be
sure to supply all the paper promises to pay
that are. convenient. In this way, and in no
other way, we can get the flexible currency
which the Secretary of the Treasury seeks, to
wit, a currency that shall expand ofitself just
as the demands of business from time to time
vary. When banking, which is as honest
business as shoemaking, is as free as shoemak-
ing, the supply Of money and the supply of
paper currency of every necessary kind will be
as wisely managed as is now the supply OF
shoes.
In contemplating redundancy as the only
ailment of our money, may we not overlook
the main disease and misdirect our remedies?
Redundancy, if our money were good and
true, would not be !. q fatal disease. In false
hood are always the seeds of modification.
If the government will CONT i've some means,
not too harsh or abrupt, to cure the disease
which itself has inflicted upon us, to take
away its false money of every kind and put
in its place the true money of the Constitu-
ton, and will then let things alone, the dropsy
of redundancy will disappear; for the circu-
lation will be filled with good blood. The
case, theme eforth, will take care of itself.