Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1874-04-15
Imitation,

The most important problem before Cor
gress is the financial one. The Indication
are that instead of coming to any RICH
solution of it, the unknown quantity vii
be made still more uncertain. Nonel
being the representative of value, tina
which is called money is so only to sucl
extent as by the common consent of thu
civilized world, it represents value. The
dictum of the prOmisor cannot make hi,
paper money to greater extent than he car
get his prOmisee to agree. The specie dol
lar IS the only one sanctioned by the world
it is the representative of value. The only
Legitimate business of the paper dollar is tc
represent the specie dollar. When it does
this, it Is good by the sense of the wOrl
when it does MT do it, it is by the sense Of
the world not good money.
People may talk till dOomsday about the
ability of the promisor to pay; if he cannot
or will not back promises by hard money
the talk will be discounted, and the paper
likewise. Men in Congress talk about the
wealth of the country being at the back Of
its notes, and that the issue of few more
millions will not hurt the value of the paper
Our present greenback circulation was
backed a year ago by the same wealth,
and vet it was worth but about ninety
cents on the dollar. And so it will 90;
however near You draw to specie pay
ment the promise of this nation to pay will
never be worth dollar for dollar, till the
specie dollar stands back of it.
The justification of the issue of bare
promises and the TRUSTING of them upon
men for money, was the crisis that forced
the country to ride over minor individual
rights in order to preserve greater ones
and to keep its own life. 1t was the forci-
bic substitution of promise to pay for
payment Nine years of peace and safety
have passed, and the country has gone on
hoping the promises would be redeemed
waiting patiently for the proper season of
redemption, when, 10. there comes instead
Of keeping of faith, the renewal of a war
measure in time of profound quiet The
faith of the people that government would
soon redeem its promise is what has
brought the greenback to nearly par value.
The knowledge of want of intention to re-
deem, and, still worse, of n design to foist
still other promises on the market, will
drive its accepted value down, and leave it
backed not by the specie dollar, nor even
rs heretofore by the word of government
thought to mean honestly, but only by
words proved false
We do not see how in the inevitable I'M
settling of values and of business, any part
OF the country, or any decent class in it, is to
be eventually benefited by the proposed
addition of nearly one hundred millions to
the 9recnback promises to pay. Specula
tors will. of course, find more room for the
exercise oftheir peculiar faculties but hon
est men must suffer. The south and west
are full of a class who will also tempo
rarily receive benefit from the measure.
only as we have intimated, to get cheated
in the end, As they gain by cheating to
begin with
hundred dollars, may have on hand pro-
ducts which sold, would bring a thousand
dollars in currency. This sale would en-
able him to pay but part of his debt, and
would still leave him burlened with two
hundred dollars Indebtedness. With an
inflated currency he might get thirteen
hundred dollars in " legal tenders = for
the same products, pay his whole debt and
have hundred dollars left, on whose
- watered " condition he would then for
the first time look with disflvor. This is
the secret of the desire for imitation. Debts
were paid during the war by deprecated
currency; long delay in returning to
specie payment and continuation of
speculations in part consequent thereon,
have brought men to longing to pay off |
debts again easily. To do this they strike |
at private creditors and public creditors |
alike; ut the rich man who collects his /
mortgage debt (and they do not hurt him |
seriously,) at the frugal poor who are at
tempting to save little by little (and these |
they hurt good deaD and at all pension |
ers, the class of all least deserving such /
treatment. And finally they attack the |
labOrer, whose work measured by this new
and unsteady standard, will not gain as
will the goods which he buys with it, and |
on which he depends for subsistence
The great folly in addition to the great |
wrong of it, is that it takes it for granted
that a nation like this can 90 back on its
promises special and impled-dishonor
itself-and still 60 on in business as well
as before. We still hope that the United
States by the good sense of a majority of
It's Congressman or by the exercise of the
power given the President by the constitu-
ton will be saved from the evils of the
proposed measures of imitation.