The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-08-13
The Air.Line Route 10 Financial Ruin

Let us analYZe the euectS "n!Cn
would result from this blpnder, II II
could be consummated. Inc aoo 9N,e
statement ia step in advance OF the
PeudIeton theory, The writer has DIS
covered, by dint OF hard PounHtnG,
that. when the bonds have been al
withdrawn and greenbacks issued Inc
principal OF the debt is as large as ever
Not a dollar of 1t has been palu. Inc
United States still owes me holqeFs OF
| correspondent says should De PAID IN
cold. But he says we have stopped the
6syment of the interest. Waving the
point that 1t would be as just 20 repu-
diate the principal as the interest OF any
debt on which we have agreed to pay In
terest, and hence the plan, ifa good one
stops short of it's full fruition by 81 500,
COO OOO, we will suppose the job done
The bonds are recalled. The green
backs are issued. The blow Is struck
whom has it felled?
First. We have agreed TO pay 81 500
600 COO in gold on demand for debt
which we conId buy to-day for as cents
per dollar, or for Sl,7O0. 600 in gold
altogether, thus losing at the outset III
the greeDbaCks are ever to be paid.
$500, 0OO. 600 in gold, or 6H years inter
est on the National debt.
Secondly. The National Debt could
not be paid out of the surplus earnings
OF the people, ntter paying for the wear
and tear of working capital and the sup
port of the people, in less than twenty
years. a mole without interest, paya-
Bile in twenty years, is worth that sum
which, if placed at compound interest
for twenty years, will produce the sum
for which the mole is given. The note
OF the Government for SlOO, due in
twenty years, without interest, and
sure 10 be paid in coin, would be worth
only $50. Even were there absolute
certainty, therefore, that every green
back note would be paid in full in gold,
at the end OF twenty years it would be
dollar. II used as a currency in
which prices were to be stated
and de6Is paid all prices would go
up $50 per cent above what they now
are, or 400 above the gold price, and
all debGs would be payable with less
than one. third the actual value which
would now pay them. II ull value
would rise at the same time, the extent
of the evil could DE arrived at by COM
putation. But they would not. I'm.
ports and exports, dry goods, wheat,
pork, beef, aud other exportable mer-
chandise, would rise in price long be-
fore wages and rents, and these still
long before real estate, and real estate
in commercial cities would rise long
before, and more than, country prop
erty. This would set on foot a general
gam bling and specializing era such as
the country has never seen. Gold
would go up from 40 to 500. The
poor man who o.day sells his shop or
cottage that has heretofore been worth
81 COO, for 81 500, thinking he has made
great advance, finds before long that
he ought to have sold it for 5000, in
order 10 make himself whole, and that
10, l.. L., Al. ali l.,
worth, unless he can SWindle somebody
AS badly as he has been swindled,
In such chaos and wreck of prices
and OF business, the workingman is
ruined; the hard-earned property he
has accumulated melts like the. dew
he scarcely knows why. Such a con
dition of things is favorable only
to the gambler and land. shark
and fatal to all honest and legiti
mate industry. Talk of saving
Sl2O. 600. GOO of interest per annum! II
would unsettle and tumble into chaos
the entire property OF the country, sc
that no man could be certain of saving
ANYTHING. The twenty thousand mil.
lions of dollars, which the entire real
and personal property OF the country is
worth, would rise to one hundred thou
sand millions, and in the rise eighty
thousand millions ofittsAt its advanced
those who have honestly earned it into
the hands of spectators. This propo
sition launches US on a shoreless sea
| 1t has no element in it but certain de
struction, widespread and terrible dis
| asler. The very existence of bushes!
and industry depends on preventing
the fools from running our finances
upon this rock of Republication. 1t is no
| a question of mere honor but of over
! whelming Interestingly, of self-preser
walton. The sO-called payment of thu
debt in green backs, eUen If they tver,
certain to be paid IN gold in tICenty gears
and therefore deprecated only TO TWEEN
ty cents on the dollar, for this is thu
basis on which we have thus far calcu
non-speculRtor in the country
The most reckless gambling would
be the only salvation of any man Of
business. But it is not true that the
greenbacks would be paid in coin in
twenty years, and consequently it is
not true that the depreciation would
stop at twenty cents per dollar. When
they had fallen to twenty cents, they
would be three times more deprecated
aud consequently further from being
paid in coin, than the national bond:
now are. The Pendletons and Vallan
dighams, who cry out against paying
bonds in coin that are deprecated to a
cents, will find 1t to be just three anC
half times as unjust and oppressive
10 redeem the greenbacks in coin in iul
when they had sunk 10 20 cents per dol
lar. If there were to be any redemp,
ton of them at all, they would only
! buy them in at market prices, because
that would be all they need pay to ge
them. Just as Mexico is now buyiDt
! in her debt at six, and Russia redeemed
her debts of 1915 at seven. Hence, wheI
the greenbacks have sunk to 20 cents
per dollar. the prospect is. not that they
will be paid in fall in gold at the end O
20 years, but that they will be redeemed
at some future time at the rate OF five
dollars in greenbacks for one OF gold
This prospect Is no sooner apparent
than the greenbacks go down from q
to 5, gold goes up, as 1t did in tht
Rebel COnfederacy, to 4,OO0-all vnl-
ueS burst together, the whole NatlonR
debt, bonds and greenbacEs, and ban6
notes and private notes, are exploited
the people are left without any medi
um of exchange except gold and silver
and not more than 500, GOO, 600 of thai
in the whole country. How much
business could be done in the United
States with currency suddenly re
duced TO five dollars per capita for the
whole people? Our farms, mines, fac
tories, and stores would be paralyze
as ii universal palsy pervaded the bust
ness men OF The country. Famine
would stalk through the land. The
operative willing to work would zinc
/ nobody able to furnish him anything
with which to buy food. The merchant
would refuse to sell on credit that
bore no evidence of being secure. All
securities would have vanished, and nc
means of doing business for cash would
exist. Such a return to barbarism
such a general and overwhelming
crash, such wide. spread and destruct
i've suspension of industry, with the