Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1874-02-18
LETTER FROM SENATOR BRowybOw.
ais Views on the Currency Question and
the civil Rights bill
what the South May Expec. In the way OF
Claims.

WASHINGTON, ID. c., Feb. 10th, 1874.
EDITORS KNOXVILLE CHRONICLE: On
yesterday the Senate passed, by vote of
forty ayes to eleven nays, the bill giving
S1S,50O to the East Ten nessee University
and State Agricultural College" as COM
pensation for the use, occupation, &c, Of
the college buildings during the war.
Though located at..Knoxville, the whole
State Is alike interested in the prosperity
of this institution, and it is hoped that the
sum appropriated will relieve the Univer-
sty of its Indebtedness and enable it to ex-
tend the facilities of education to the
youths congregated within its walls from
every county in.the State, Last year we
passed this bill in the Senate without
contest. While it passed yesterday by
large majority, several Senators spoke
against it. mention this that your read
ers may see that, as result of the none
tary panic, Congress is not likely to make
the appropriations for the benefit of indi-
viduals and institutions in the Southern
States, which they might otherwise have
expected. In the running debate on the
passage of this bill, / was represented by
Senators, John A. Logan and Il. w. Fer
ry, to whom the thanks of all the friends
of education throughout the State are
due.
4 bill appropriating the small sum of
s., 000 to our State Lunatic Asylum, under
the able management of DIR. Jno. II. Cal
iendar, is now pending. / hope Senator
Cooper and myself may be enabled to get
this through, but 1 have little hope that
anything will be done for the Nashville
and Memphis Custom Houses beyond
them last year.
This brings me to the question of the
CURRENCY,
which overshadows all others in impor-
lance. From the letters l have received
from all parts of Tennessee, ] see there is
much anxiety to know "what Congress
will do" on this subject. The people of
Tennessee want more greenbacks, because
they are not mouopolists, The only alarm
greenback creates is among monopolsts.
They dread it more than mad dog does
water. If, as its enemies assert, it is a
q worthless rag has no value-why,
would ask, so much uneasiness about il /?
The extraordinary sensitiveness on this
question among the members of Congress
from the States having monopoly of the
circulating medium, no matter in what
shape it is presented, argues more strongly
than anything else in favor of expansion,
free banking aud an equal distribution.
The motive for this is so plain that the
dullest mind need not fail to discern it.
The alarm of these Congressman from the
States having "the lions share" of the
currency is not because they are afraid of
its value or solidity, or that its increase
would breed any disaster in business.
They are too shrewd in the arts of trade
for that; they too we'll understand the eff
feet of an equal distribution of anything
that is good. AS matter of policy, the
advocates of contraction and a return to
specie payments preach the adverse doc
trine. This grasping for all the currency
as the most unratriotic selfishness, and is at
the bottom Of The opposition to expansion
and the clamor for a return to specie
payments. The partially and despicable
unfairness of this whole question was il
Illustrated in the brief remarks / submitted
last month to the Senate, and which were
published in the CHRONICLE. To further
illustrate it, the State of Pennsylvania
has more population than the whole OF
New England; yet Pennsylvania has al
Iotted to her only $40 100000 of national
bank circulation, while the New England
States have more than twice as much, or
Sl10,500000. New England has q circula-
ton of S31.6S per capita; the Middle
States $1282; the West S7.09; the South
and Southwest 1921 on an average, and in
Tennessee we have less than 50 per capita.
Is it surprising that with such a distribu.
ton as this the people of Tennessee are
compelled to pay such ruinous rates of in
terest?
If Che reply is made to this that the
Eastern States need more currency than
the West and South, would answer that
such was not the case when the war broke
out and is not necessarily the case now. In
1850 the South and Southwest had q bank
circulation issued under the State laws of
81 900, 000; under the national bank sys-
tenn the same States have only S3S, 000, 600.
In 1862 the bank circulation of New Eng
land was S65, 900, 900; now it is Sic, 900. 600
Such facts as these give the explanation of
why money is plentiful in the East and
scarce at the West and South.
But these specie-paying congressman
tsell US that money will flow wherever
GEeTe is a demand for it. This simply
means that in the East they will issue
all the circulation their own people need
at six per cent. per annum, and if our peo-
pie in Tennessee want any of it we have
just to bid up TO two per cent. per month,
and we will get it. 1t will flow to US then
And this is what we have been doing
in Tennessee until our people are al
most ruined by usurious rates of interest.
As said in the remarks made weeks ago,
there is no legitimate kind of business in
Tennessee which can stand these rates
of interest. They grow out of the absolute
scarcity of money their legitimate conse-
, quences are bankruptcy and ruin. People
thus situated don't care to be talked to