New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-10-31
THE GREAT FINANCIAL MEASURE.

THE GREAT FINANCIAL MEASURE.
The country has heard with measureless
satisfaction the official announcement that
while "the Government will exact the full
seigniorage required by lawn on the silver
coin issued from the minis and assay offices,
il "will not undertake to control the DISPOSE
" ton Of the coin after it is paid out" The
succeeding statement that after being paid
over the coin becomes the property of the
" holders, who may do what they please with
:" it,r is one of those grand concessions 10 the
people that have been the chief characteristic
and the crowning glory of the present Adj
ministratiOn. We do not know whether the
language is that of the Director of the Mint,
tho Great Minister of Finance, or the Great
Silent Man. 1t is worthy Of any or all Of
them. and they may all be proud of
it. 1t is to be regretted that there is
no State Convention at hand, for this
is one of those occasions that Mr.. WOOdfOrd,
upon taking the chair, could say some of the
most beautiful things in the language about.
In time like this, when President Grant and
Secretary Richardson are carrying the finances
of forty millions Of people in their heads,
wearing out their intellects at a rate which
even their increased salaries is no cOmpensa-
ton for, wrestling with political economy and
inyenting systems of finance such az no nation
ever enjoyed, and Adam Smith and other dead
persons who thought they knew something
about it never dreamed Oft is something
that we may well be proud of as a people,
that they had the magnanimity and the self
sacrificing generosity to order the announce
ment to be made, boldly and unqualfedly,
that "the Government will not undertake to
control the disposition of coin after it is
paid out y that it becomes then "the prop
" erty of the holders, who may do what they
please with it,
It would be grand thing"to say at any
time, but to say it when the Treasury is en-
gagged in the difficult and delicate task of re-
suming specie payments, and is absolutely
paying out silver at the rate of from seventy
five to a hundred dollars day, was-well,
really it was-just like INSTRUMENTATION. 1t
would not have been strange il, after having
been bafiled in his great project of resuming
specie payments suddenly with silver, Mr..
Richardson should have refused to pay ont
any, or, paying it out, should have sent
Treasury clerk with the payee with instruc-
tons to make him spend it in less than half
an hour on penalty of death. He might have
done this, and after his exasperating
experience with the heartless aud cold
blooded newspaper correspondent who exposed
his original great plan, who could have blamed
hint But he rose above petty resentment.
And so did the President. and, in fact, the
entire Administration. And they said, some
thing sadly, perhaps, and yet hopefully Our
" fiscal policy is overturned by premature
publicity, but never mind. We will food
"the country with silver by gradual process
" extending over seven years, and make every
body happy who lives through it." And
then they said it should be no halfway work
that when they paid out half dollar they
would not send clerk with it to see that il
be put in circulation Immediately; but who
ever got it should have it for keeps and
do what he pleased with it. All, that was a
great day for Liberty.
1t cannot be denied that the suspicion which
was gaining ground that the Treasury De-
partment put detective on the track of
every man who took his five dollars in silver,
was calculated to dotract from the popularity