The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-04-04
COLUMBIA.
Thursday Morning, April 8. 1867.



Francis Train happened into The
"gold room" in New York, and wns
requested by its frequenters, the
bulls and bears of Wall street, tc
make q speech on the expansion Of
the currency. He replied in an
elaborate sketch, drawing, in charac-
teristic language, q contrast between
the financial condition OF tho coun-
try in 1860 and 1867. The speech is
published at length in the New York
papers, but our space only permits
us to take glance ut some of its
main points.
In 1860, he said. prosperity was all
over the land; 5000, GOO bales OF cot
ton on q thousand plantations; 5,OOO,-
1000 tons of shipping on every ocean;
agriculture we'll to do, manufacturers
prosperous, banks and insurance
companies paying good dividends,
petroleum wells and wealth just being
d developed, 10000. 600 of gold coming
in from the California mines, the
stock market producing a harvest to
the brokers, the dry goods merchants
making mopey-in short, prosperity
all over the land; and yet all this was
done on q currency of tWo hundred
and fifty millions Of dollars. This
was 1860; now for the other picture
he drew-1S67.
Fivecmillions of shipping wiped off
the sea by England's neutrality; no
five millions of cotton bales now;
three hundred millions sunk in Pc
troleum; gold-mining companies have
played out; agriculture dropping;
woolen and other manufacturers sus-
pending payment; insurance compa-
MES failing, and steamship property
is dying out. The rottenest security
in the street is the so-called gilt-elged
paper; the rich men are all poor, and
are first to call in their loans; those
patriotic radicals who put their mo-
ney into Southern cotton plantations
have planted it there forever. The
West is not paying up, and the South
has nothing to pay OF buy with; the
bonded warehouses have piles of
foreign goods not paid for; the coun-
try is stocked with merchandise; the
gold market from thirty to forty per
cent. premium; $4,000, 900 sunk in
the Stock Exchange-that financial
Morgue of the land-since january
in short, paralysis overywhcre-thc
dry rot in Wall street-nobody pay
ing expenses; checks exchanged to
show lifc-all loans on call-no bust
ness doing-no industrial enterprises
going on-no confidence anywhere;
and yet, all this with currency of
one MousuM millions Of dollars!
This is brief sketch of the con-
trast presented by the speaker. He
refers, then, to the future. He refers
to Congress, and notices what they
are doing. He says the lawyers are
in power, and what do they care?
They have added $500, 900, 600 to the
national debt. He asks if the South
is to be re-admitted under tho militia
ry bill, and says that Stevens holds
the rcins; confscation comes next.
He predicts that Congress will bring
on financial crash in the fall, lay it
on the Administration policy, and
when everything is broken, Congress
will meet in the winter, pass Ran
dalls bill putting grecnbacks in place
of national bank bonds, pass another
bill for paying duties on imports in
grcenbacks-in other words, giving
the country one currency. He said
this would make all happy for the
Presidential election for 1868. He
illustrated his position by saying ma
tional dcliri"m hcmens requires ma
tional whiskey, and the national
whislcy will make all vote for the
party.
The contrast drawn by the speaker