Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-01-09
WESTERN RADICALS ON DEBTORS
AND RESTMPTTON.

: The Chicago Post, Radical
claims to have been the discoverer
of an " original financial plan" the
$ principal feature of which is that
all debts contracted since the 23d of
e October, 1862, may be paid as fol-
lows: in legal tender notes dollar
for dollar, or, in gold, at the rate Of
seventy-fve cents for each dollar of
debt so paid or redeemed. The
adoption of this policy, the Post
} contends, would result in the restor-
alton of specie payments without
causing widespread financial re-
vulsion, and ruin to the debtor
classes. The plan of the Post is
virtually that of its contemporary,
the Chicago Tribune, and also, of
the Cincinnati Gazette. The West
ern Radicals fear resumption,
because Of the Indebtedness of
their people, and hence they are
laboring to make the policy advo-
catedby the three papers named pre-
cedent to a resumption of specie
payments. The Chicago Tribune is
the leading Radical organ of the
Northwest, and the fact that it ar
CUES so strongly in favor of the
policy of paying debts in greenbacks
or at the rate greenbacks command
ed when the debts were contracted,
shows that it is popular with the
party Of which the Tribune is an
organ if not the business class of
the Northwest. The Tribune, in an
article in its issue of the 4th inst.
inserts the following reasons in sup
port of its position
awe have the great debtor class,
which embraces the whole active
businessopublic. They have bought |
and sold and made contracts innum-
cradle for seven years, on the basis
OF the unstable, false money. They
owe their creditors thousands of |
millions of dollars-how much in
the aggregate it is impossible to esti- |
mate, but certainly sum greater |
than the national debt and all the |
State debts combined. They owe
tho national nriuo+a o,,I .o,,;,,o-,
banks not less than 81, 100000, 900,
and this sum is, probably, not a
third of their total Indebtedness. If
we add the policies of insurance
that are issued by life, fire, and mar
inc companies, we can safely double
our estimate and have grand aggre-
gate of six or seven billions of
promises to pay" now outstanding
among the people. Let any one
carefully reflect On the vast sums re-
presented by the obligations of con-
tractors of all kinds, of mortgages
Oh real estate, of liens on water
craft and other personal property,
OF judgments and suits in courts, of
debts due from retailers to whole
salers, and of consumers to retail
ers of every description, and then
some just conception may be formed
Of the mutual Indebtedness of forty
millions of the most active, enter
prising, productive and commercial
people on the face of the globe.
Almost all of these debts have
been created in a fiuctuating, de-
preciating currency, ranging in
value from sixty-iv to seventy
three, and averaging about seventy
per cent. The debtors have prom !
Used to pay their creditors in law
full money value from them. Where
a note for 81, 900 has been given,
the maker has received property
worth but $3.50 to 500, and ex-
poets to make payment of like
amount with interest. In other
words, the creditors have given
their debtors 4 consideration, as
measured by the gold standard, of
only two-thirds Of what the obliga-
tons nominally call for.
ANY scheme of resumption
which shall make the money of &C
count worth one hundred cents in
geld without providing for the set
Element of existing Indebtedness,
substantially according to the basis
of values at the time it was created,
would cause wide spread calamity
of disaster. 1t would be equivalent
to calling on debtors to pay forty
or fifty per cent. more than they ac-
tually owe, or than creditors have a
right to expect, or in equity or good
conscience should exact. 1t would
be in effect confscation of one to
two thousand millions of the prop
ertY of the business classes, and its
tranfer to those who have no just
claim to a dollar of it. Such a pro-
ceeding would wipe out and ruin
tens of thousands of firms, and re
duce to beggary vast multitudes of
families now in comfortable circum-
stances; and it would bring want
and misery to the hearthstOnes OF
hundreds of thousands of the fami-
lies of the laboring classes. The
CONFUSION that would attend such
resumption would 50 greatly cut of
the revenues of the government as
to reduce it to the verge OF bank
ruptcy, and spread discomfort, gloom
and atlliction throughout the Union.
"Any scheme Of resumption must
therefore embrace three classes of
debtors, viz The government, the
banks, and private debtors. If the
government commenced tomorrow
to redeem its notes in specie, the
banks must redeem theirs in specie,
and the debtors must pay their debts
in specie, Notwithstanding each had
only received two thirds specie value
for the notes when given. On the
S450,000,000 of legal tender notes
outstanding, the government would
lose SI5O,0O0,00O. On the $500,
100000 of notes and $1,OOO,O OO,
600 of deposits, the National and
private banks would lose $500, OOO,-
600, and on the $780, 100000 of
individual and firm indebtedness
those debtors would lose $1,000
100000. Could the country stand
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