Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1870-03-10
IMAGINED EVILS.

IMAGINED EVILS.
As increased confidence improves the
redit and enhances the value of the So
eurities ofour government, the wise men
who do the Financial theorizing for the
newspapers are busily engaged in pre-
dieting ruin as a result of our approx
nation to specie payments They seek
preeedents in the history of the past and
attempt TO apply them to the present,
forgetting that the present era, in its
gigantic movements in wars, commerce,
manufactures, civilization and political
and social progress is so far ahead of any
past era that the precedents they find in
history are of no avail in determining
what the result of a similar experiment
wouIdbe NOW. Someof these theorizers are
figuring out financial revolution year
or two ahead as result of the imitation
of the currency by its enhanced value,
and cite the result in 1925 after the
resumptian of 1921. They argue that
the 500, ,OOO, 900 of currency with gold at
LIS is only worth S595 100000 and re-
turn to specie payments will increase
the value of that currency $l05, 600. 900.
and at the same time make circulating
medium of the $3.50, 900, 600 of coin now
only used as an article of trade, thereby
giving us $3.50, 900, 900 of currency or
S355, 900, 900 than we now have. In theo-
-, Ii; &c trrra huf in r,raotioa III
would be found to operate very differ
emily. The present volume ofcurrency,
being irredeemable, is kept in cireula-
ton by the banks, because their profits
are enhanced by doing SO and they run
40 risk of being pressed for its redemp-
ton. The very moment they are re
quired to redeem in coin. however, they
will adopt different policy and only
keep in circulation the amount that the
demands of trade will require, or their
ability to redeem will justify. The gold
now used as merchandise, instead OF
going into circulation, will, to a great
extent, pass into the vaults of the banks
as as reserve fund for the redemption
of their issues. If the banking system
of the country was such as we had few
years ago, when the people were the
losers to the full extent of the banks
outstanding circulation when it failed,
there might be some grounds for fear
that reckless spectators in the control
of the banks would destroy the value of
the currency by over-issue, but under a
system of secured circulation, where the
redemption of the currency is not de-
pendent upon the solvency of the bank
that issues it, it is not at all likely that
banks will attempt to carry more of it
than they can readily redeem.
Precedents to be of any force as illus
trations must have occurred under pre-
cisely similar circumstances and condi-
tions to those which they are aduced to
illustrate. To take this country in 1S2l-5
with the..system mofbanking, thee urrency
the trade, commerce and manufactures
then existing, and argue that because q
certain financial policy produced such
and-such results then, similar policy
under the very different and changed
condition of affairs of the present, will
produce the same results, is to argue
that because the little boy two years old
can not eat beans and bacon without
having the cholic, the grown up labor.
ing man must be fed on thickened-milk
and boiled rice. The same men who are
now predicting ruin from return to
specie payments, because ofthe imitation
of the value of the currency Is per
cent, were equally bold in their predic-
lions when that currency was 40 cents.
below par. The country has seen this
volume of currency pass from 40 cents
below par to within Is, or an increase
of q per cent, without witnessing any
of the evils predicted by those who cite
precedents to sustain their oft repeated
predictions of ruin. Here is precedent
that is worth more as an illustration OF
what this age, this financial system,
this great moving mass Of douhle-dis-
titled ingenuity and energy, known as
Young America, in the year of grace 1876
needs and can bear, than all the prece.
dents that can be gather from the
histories of all the eras of the past
With q per cent added to the value of
our currency during the past twelve
months, the people are clamoring foI
more currency, and even Congress is
talking and passing resolutions in favor
of an additional increase of $50, 900, coo.
Talk about precedents in the past
Why our whole history during the past
twenty years has been without prece-
dent. The growth of our country the
development of our resources; the gi.
gantic strides in internal Improvements;
the wonderful development of our finan-
cial resources; the elevation of labor,
and even our wars and our plans of re-
constructing agovernment that all the
world pronounced hopelessly dissolved,
are without parallels in history, and
are grand. precedents from which we and
those who come after may learn more
about the wants, power and resources
of the people of this age and country,
than from all the musty volumes of the
past.
Loydsviie, Ohio, town of one hundred and
forty Inhabitants has seventeen Widows and
number of old maids who flourish among the
weeds1B Belmont Chronicle.
Yes, and SO is every other village throughout
this once happy land crowded with widows and
ha nnl /.