The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-06-20
interference Of the government in the volume

interference OF the government in the volume
and value Of the currency, while it should
have been for the benefit of the people, and
especially of the workingman, whose labor
alone is taxed to pay the public burdens, has
virtually enured to the advancement of the
monied interest, and to the oppression of
labor in all its forms of usefulness. Whatq
the government should now do, and what
is clearly its duty to do, is to place it in
the power of the people-the laboring and
industrial classes-to reap some Of the adj |
vantages of this currency system. The
bulk of it is now piled up in the vaults of
the New York and Boston banks, and the
monied men of the country--those who
command government bonds, or can offer
them as security-can have any amount Of
it at three and half or four per cent. per
annum while men of character, enter
prise, and the highest financial honor in
Virginia, who desire to put FORCES, furnaces
and rolling-mills in motion-make water
power available to run looms and spindles
stock our farms with the means and i'm
plements of acknowledgements cheap
transportation by water and rail as widely
available as possible, have to pay eight and
ten per cent. for the use of the currency
thus locked up in these plethoric metropol-
itan banks. a
These banks, as we have shown, take
one profit from the face value of this cur
rency before it goes into circulation-that
| is, coupon interest cut from their bonds
then ten per cent. discount for the use
of currency, and, where the necessities of
the borrower go so far as to require the use
Of gold, still another ten or fourteen per
cent. profit from the face of the loan. OF
course, the neck of no conceivable indus,
try in the world will long stand such
drag as this. The natural resources Of
the country must sooner or later suffer
arrangement and paralysis under such a
/ pressure, and the rayages of war can hard
\ ly be more destructive to labor than such o
lcurrency system. s 3sa
The remedy lies in the hands, or rather
in the Uotes, of the laboring people. It is for
them to strike down this colossal monied
tyranny. They can do it without any rev.
dictionary action, such as the communistic
element of Europe would suggest, but by
simply demanding Of Congress SO low an in
terest for currency that the business enter
prises of the country shall not be continual
ly crushed to the earth by its present bur-
densome rates. If a uniform rate of three
and sixty-fve one hundredths per cent.
were fixed upon as the maximum, the ma
tional banks would then realize from nine
to ten per cent. in currency on every green
back loan. as they receive their coupon in
terest in gold. This profit would be
largely in excess of what it actually should
be, but it would be the first ameliorating
step in the direction Of currency reform,
and its stimulating effect upon the labor in
terests of the country would be widely and
benefcently felt. a.a -
L We are aware that we shall be met by
the popular fallacy that money should bt
left, like every other commodity, to regulate
itself according to the fixed laws of trade
But money is not a commodity, but .
measure of value only. Commodities ar
moveables, ralued By money, the common
measure of everything that can be bough
and sold and greenbacks might just a
, well be called real estate, because the,
9 measure its value, as to be called commodi
ties, because they measure their value. |
f is time that this popular error was correct
ed, and the financial nomenclature of thu
country was stript of this iniquitous def
nitional wrong. 1t is time, too, that labo
had its profits as well as money and i
, its value must be measured by cheap ant
non-conyertible medium, it should share il
f some of the benefits of that cheapness al
: well as the bankers and money-lenders
. who monopolize the bulk of the cur
$ rency circulation. We designate ''thre
a and sixty-fve hundredths per cent. inter
r est" as it would be one cent day on
e hundred dollars, and adjust the rate a
e once to the decimal system of computation
f What the effect of such strike y woul,
: be, we shall consider in future article.
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A DETROIT woman lately saved herse