The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-02-25

trade. And we are sometimes told il by men
who are not positive fools on the subject We
nave been complained of for styling our
national bank system ga rotten system -
because 1t is based on lying promises 10 nav.
Now, here is proposition which tests the
soundness of our criticism. Ifthe legaI-tend
notes are as good as is alleged, why not pay
off the 7'30 loan in them as proposed bv Mr..
Davis Why pay $50, 100000 year interest
on this loan when we can easily get rid ofsueb
burdensome tax If the legal-tender notes of
the United States are just as good as coin for
our internal trade and business, as we are told
if they are in fact mOney-then we cannot
have too many of them, for no people under
heaven can have too much money. The argu-
ment is irresistible that not only is it good
thing to have the 7'30s paid in greenbaclSs,
but il is the very best thing for everybody to
have them so paid. And when we shall have
paid the 7'30s, we have only to pass one more
iegal-tender act and under it pay off our 5-2Os
by the same process. ...
When we have done this, we shall have
realized the logical results of the imitation
policy, supported by the thirty majority of
the House in its vote of Thursday last If
this policy is sound for one single step it is
sound for every similar step in the same direc
ton, until you fetch up by paying your whole
loan, the entire national Indebtedness, in ire
deemable promises to pay And we say to the
holders of the national loan, and of every form
and description of the national obligations
drawing interest, that the logical result of the
action of the infationists in the House of
Representatives is the utter destruction of
those securities by their conversion into
worthless paper money. There is no end to
the mischief which can be wrought by the
vicious principle of the infationist-that the
irredeemable legal-tender note of the Govern
ment is money, or is as good as money for any
purpose under heaven. We say that in its
irredeemable state it is a worthless rag, a
transparent swindle, glaring lie; and the
whole fabric of trade, commerce, industry,
speculation, banking, based on it, is a rotten
fabric, resting on rotten supports and liable
to crumble and go down in one universal
crash.
The more especially, we say, is this true
when the whole superstructure and foundation
rest on a reckless ma jority of spectators in
Congress. The inflationists need not tell us
they do not mean this and they do not mean
that. They do not know what they mean.
Their error and their vice is that they trust
themselves to the guidance of an unsound
principle which leads them, aolenS CoienS,
willing or unwilling, straight down the preci-
pice of individual and national bankruptcy.
They hold that to be security which is not
security. They hold that to be money which is
not money. They bedevil themselves and
bedevil the country with the idea that the
irredeemable paper money of the Government
is a blessing. Following the lead of these
false and pernicious ideas. they reason and
they act accordingly. Adopting the vicious
principle that small imitation is good thing,
they pave the way for a large imitation as a
better.
If the holders of the Government securities
do not wish to see these securities substan-
TALLY repudiated and themselves stripped,
they have got to send somebody to Congress
besides infationists, whose ideas and whose
measures lead directly to this result. The
country must be made to realize that ire
deemable paper money is bold swindle, by
whOmsOever issued, and is disgrace to its
utterer; and that they who would increase
its volume or prolong its existence day.
except under the pressure of dire national
necessity--a necessity which has long since
ceased to exist in this country-are as much
public enemies as they who would conspire for
the national ruin i'll any other manner. .
The people have suffered enough from the
evils of deprecated currency to insist on the
demand for its extinction. The vast body of
consumers have been long subjected to inordi-
nate prices through the powerful combinations
of gigantic spectators dealing in and control
ling all articles of consumption, and especially
the necessares of life. These speculative COM
binatiOns are supported by the banks, who
earn their eXorbitant profits by issuing endless
promises to pay, which they are never called
upon to redeem; and thus they become CO.
conspirators with these plunderers upon the
public. The banks are no longer admins
tered for the purpose of facilitating CONNER
cial operations by legitimate loans Released
from all obligation to pay except in paper
promises, they issue their notes, they afford
their credit, they grant their aid to bloated
speculatiOns on stocks and on commodities of
every kind and description. And still, not
content with the enormous and ruinous agen-
cies of imitation now controlled by them, they,
and the operators they sustain, besiege Con-
gress for such additional means of prosecuting
their lllegitimate, oppressive, and dangerous
courses, as is afforded by the additional grant
OF the one hundred millions of greenbacks
voted by the House on Thursday.
| We warn all concerned that the way of the
transgrcssOr is hard. This sort of thing cannot
long go on. The banks and the spectators
may have their way for time, but the day
Will come when the loose principles now
avowed by their representatives, and the lying
pretenses ON which they operate, namely, that
! a promise may be disregarded without shame
and that the shadow is as good rs the sub
stance, will work their own disgrace and de
struction. Every solvent man and every sol
vent institution in the country is deeply inte
rested in maintaining the idea that there is anC
can be no mercantile honor and no nationa
financial credit inseparable from stric
ndellty to pecuniary engagements. How
Tar we have wandered and are wandering
irom this intleXible standard we forget t
remember, in the midst of this rolling mum
dating sea of lying promises to pay which til,
country has consented for these past few year,
10 dignity with the name of money. The peo
| pie have become debauched with its demora