The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1870-06-30
GeneraI GaraeId on the Currenct RiII.

: currency bill III the House Of Repre-
sentatives last week, General GarfieII
i, referred a. follows to the record of thC
Democracy Oh the question Of thu
currency:
!. ] call attention for moment to th'
general course of debate on this bill
Our Democratic friends do not seen
10 be ready TO lead the country into
7. green pastures, and beside the still
waters-Of financial peace. The dis
/, tingUished gentleman from New
; York, my colleague on the committee
. on banking and currency, Mr.. Cox,
: says
1T Is my deliberate Judgment, after
much study, that all your measures
, even your most matured, are mere
, make-shifts, cOwardly, timid, haltins
/, devices To avoid the one heroic rem
: edy, which this Congress has not
, had the skill or courage 10 apply, tC
: wit, resume specie payments. You
, owe il TO the people 10 give them bach
I. their gold and silver"
This bold declaration reused the Ell
thusiasm Of some of his JacksOnian
; and old bullion colleagues, and lit
tie scene, touching the dramatic, took
place i'll the neighbOrhOod of the spe-
cie-paying orator, who con tinued his
speech rs follows:
"Ah! / see that Pennsylvania has
an ear open. Judge Woodward
bowed to the speaker; and Mr.. GetZ
of Pennsylvania approached the seat
OF Mr.. Cox, presenting him two gold
twenty dollar piecee.l
"MT. GetZ. Here is the Democratic
-hi.h loves
and longs after. Laughter.
''Mr. Cox. | hear its chink. see its
beauty. / know it is precious
Laughter. 1t reminds me of the
better days of the republic, when the
people knew what they had to deal
with"
But this sweet vision of peace and
unity was rudely disturbed when my
colleague from the Mt. Vernon dis
trict Mr.. MOrgan] took the floor
Turning to his specie paying friend
from New York Mr.. Cox he said,
IscOrnfully:
''Sir, this talk of returning to n spe-
Gle basis while this debt hangs over
Us is a mere cheat, set aflOat for the
express purpose of deceiving the peO-
pie"
Rising i'm his noble rage above party,
he denounced not only Congress, but
the late Democratic administration
for having reduced the currency in
1866 and onward, and said.
4. "And all this, sir, has been done in
the interest of banker and bOndhOld-
er, and to the injury of the people
Why? Because the scarcity of cur
rency makes high interest and high
/ rents, with low wages for the work
man and low prices for the farmer
| Let us all stand rebuked for not hav-
/ ing discovered before this how cruelty
the people were wrOnged i'll having
the volume of their paper money re-
duced in 1866, when its whole amount
was only little less than nine hun
dred million dollars.
! But my cOllegne was not content
with rebuking evil. lie determined
to show himself the chief champion
of the people, by relieving them of
one of their most pressing difficulties
that of paying taxes. He therefore
introduced bill, which the House
voted on yesterday, and, with singu-
lar blindness, voted down by Il vote of
about three to one. His bill recites
in its second section the various phil
anthropic objects which its author
had in view, among which is the fol-
lowing: 'HTO provide the people the
means of paying their taxes"
Generous mani How they will rise
upand bless him when they learn of
his noble bequest His method of
doing this is to set the printing
presses of the Treasury going and
print Off 500, 600, 900 of greenbacks.-I
Most people are so simple rs to sup
pose that if the Treasury should issue
greenback notes, the Secretary would
pay them out to the creditors of the
government; but it would seem, from
the language of the second section,
that the $500, 900 to be manufilc-
tured by my colleague will be distrib-
uted to those who owe debts to the
government in the form of taxes.
suggest whether it would not be bet
ter to cancel the taxes directly, and
thus save the expense of printing and
delivering the greenhacks and paying
them back into the Treasury.
He proposes to abolish the national
banks, and declared in his speech that
that single feature of his bill will save
cover twenty million dollars annually !
now paid as interest on the bonds de- |
posted by the banks as security for |
their circulation" / am puzzled to |
know how my colleague makes this !
out, and still more puzzled to know |
how the mere abolition of the banks /
will abolish the bonds held for their |
circulation.
Having begun this work of abolish /
ing, why does he not take step fur |
Ol nH
whether held by the banks or by cit |
izens? His philanthropy ought to
take a wider scope and accomplish |
pie and not stint his charity.
There is n courage and gallantry |
about my colleague that is most touch
ing. He takes the opportunity to re-
vive the exploded theory of his friend
Pendleton and in his hands it bios
SONS again into full life and vigor. /
had supposed that the PendletOn the
ory of finance had perished with the
defeat of that distinguished gentle
man in the New York convention of .
1865, or at least under the late decis-
ion of the late Supreme Court. The
Democratic State Convention that re-
Gently met at Columbus, Ohio, lacked /
either the will or the courage to re-
vive or indorse that theory.
The arguments of my colleague Mr..
MOrgan) and of the gentleman from
Indiana (Mr. HOlman) come down to
us like voices from the tomb. These
men still follow the financial lead of
Mr.. PendletOn, and are the champi-
Ons of the same greenbacks which
Mr.. PendletOn denounced i'll this
chamber in the most unmeasured
terms. In 1862, when the first issue
of legal tender notes was authorized,
Mr.. PendletOn denounced them as
unconstitutional, and concluded an
speech against them i'll
these words:
"You send these notes out into the
world stamped with irredeemability.
You put on them the mark of Cain,
and like Cain, they will go forth to
be vagabOnds and fugitives on the
earth. What, then, will be the con-
1t requires no prophet TO
tell what will be their history. The
will be expanded; prices will
be inflated fixed values will depre-
ciate; incomes will he diminished;
the savings of the poor will vanish;
the hOardings of the widow will melt
away; bonds, mortgages and notes,
of fixed value, will lose
their value; everything of change
able value will be appreciated; the
of life will rise in value"
"Con-
will follow. Private ruin
and public bankruptcy, either with or,
reputation, will inevitably
follow"
1t is manifest that this House is
inclined to an increase of .
the currency. Most of those who have
spoken on this bill lave favored some
At the risk of giving effense to fifty
Or sixty members who have changed
their ground on this subject, | will re-
mind them that on the 18th of De-
1865, this House passed, by I
vote of IA yeas to q nays, the follow
ing resolution:
"That this House cordially cOncurs !
in the views of the Secretary of the
Treasury in relation to the necessity !