New-York tribune., 1875-07-01
CONTRACTION NO INJUSTICE TO DEBTORS.


urged to support the initiation ticket
on the ground that the progress we
have already made toward specie payments
does great injustice to the debtors or the
country. We insist that there has been no IN
Justice of which debtors have any right to
complain, and that the hardshps they have
undergone from alterations in the value OF the
currency are immensely Ovcrratcd.
One man lenGs another a sum of money to
be returned say at the end of two years. The
borrower simply undertakes to return, two
years after receipt, the number Of dollars he
has borrowed. There is no question at all
of the rdlue of those dollars. Neither bor-
rover nor lender considers what quantity OF
any commodity or things i'll general the dol
lars will command in exchange. Inc agree
ment respects solely the number and not the
value of the dollars. and has nothing to do ut
any time with what they Will bny III the
market. The contract is precisely OF the same
nature as those made daily i'll the cotton mar
kct when one spcculatOr contracts SIX months
hence to deliver many bales to another
SpccuaOr at price agreed on when the con-
tract is made. At the end of the six months
cotton may be twice as valuable as 1t was, or IL
may be only half Us valuable. but the specu-
lator who has sold it for future delivery re-
mains under precisely the same obligation,
VIZ, to deliver fixed number OF bales no mat
ter what the market price may be. "A DEBT, ny
whomsOevcr and in whatsoever way contracted,
is essentially the same thing as IL sale OF cot
Ton for future delivery.
We admit or rather we insist, that there
should be as much stcadiness as possible in the
value of money, and for that reason we adyo-
cate a currency representative of the precious
metals, and oppose circulation of legal ten
der paper whose quantity and value are cx-
posed to serious alterations at the whim of
congressman like Kelley and Cabinet officers
like Richardson. The Ohio Democracy demand
in their platform legal tender currency. is
sued directly by tho Government III quaItl-
ties 10 snit the "wants OF business "
an expro ssiOn about as destitute OF mean
ing ~ it well can be. business men who
had sold off nearly everything they had
to SELL and who had a great deal OF
money in bank and owing to them, would
probably want the currency reduced in volume
at the precise time when their debtors and
those merchants or manufacturers from whom
they were to rcpIcnish their stocks of goods
would he clamorng for "m0rc money! In
reality however under paper currency IN
hatcd at pleasure by Congress, which body
would be the judge Of how many fresh cart
loads of paper tho "wants of business re-
quircd, no sensible man would lend at all.
We should speedily have a state of things but
little removed from the barter of backwoOds-
men and barbar0us tribes. One farmer might
lend another a quarter of beef to he returned
when the latter killed, but he wonld hesitate
long before he lent money.
At the end of 1861 the "crcditOr class
including the owners of the money deposited in
savings banks, the holders of life insurance
policies, those who had lent money for term
of years on the security of mortgages and those
who held State stocks, railroad bonds, and the
notes of the various banks throughout the
country thought they had title to receive
certain fixed weights of gold OF standard fine
ness. or at least something which in their csti
nation sho Ild be the full equivalent thereof
That much their contracts promised them.
That much the Constitution and laws OF
the United States and of the several
States and the custom OF most CIVIL
lied nations gave them warrant to expect.
That much, neither more n0r less, their debt
ors had promised to pay them, fully under
standing at the time they were made what
| their promises meant. Three years afterward
those of the creditors of 1861, who had not
already been compelled to accept the prom
jsos of the United States for those of their
debtors, found that a solemn contract made IN
1861 to pay ten ounces Of gold could be salts
fed by the tender of certain engraved promises
of the Government which were worth III no
part of the world five ounces. To this treat
ment the creditors were forced to submit
Let us now see what became the meaning
of debt after February 2j 1862. Instead of
a promise to pay specific quantity of gold.
or some substitute for it satisfactory to the
creditor, it became contract to hand over
the Governments promise to pay gold instead
Of the gold itself. From that date every man
who became a party to a debt OF pccunary
contract entered into a speculation. The value
of money from being firmly anchored gold,
became the sport of the winds and waves.
The wisdom of Congress and the hopes and
fears of the public were substituted for the
qualities which have compelled nations from
the earliest dawn of history, TO make
use of gold and silver as the common
measures of the values of all other things.
From 1861 to 1865 the people had full
opportunity to test the qualities of the subst-
tute. The paper dollar which one day might
command - cents in gold, six months there
after would not be worth 40 cents in that
metal, in which it professed, and still pro-
fcsscs to be payable. These facts were noto-
rious-perfcctly well understood by everybody.
Whoever in those days contracted a debt
borrowed or lent at his perl. "lIere," wrote