Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-09-15
HAVE WE ENOUGH MONEY!

LA II w l. ILNOONIl lhO-N II L
The Hon. Hugh Mccullough, An
drew Johnson's Secretary of the Treas
ury, an able fnancier, writes to the
New York Tribune another letter of
his series on the subject Of money.
He reviews at length the causes of the
depression in our trade, and thinks it
clearly due to the redundancy of pa
per money after the war, which caused
an imitation ofpriCes of manufactured
articles, and a general Generalization
of business. The war created an UNI
natural demand for thousands of arti-
Giles, which caused their production
on larger scale than the ordinary
demands would warrant. That the
stagnation in business is from over
production, and not want of money,
Mr.. Mccullough clearly explains in
the following clear style:
There are very few branches of manufac-
turing in Great Britain, the greatest manu-
featuring nation in the world, which are
now in prosperous state, simply because
there have been more goods manufactured
than there is present demand for. The
same is true in the United States. Why, let
me ask, are so many of our foundries idle?
Why are the wooden and cotton mills run
ming on half time? Why are our lumber
yards overstocked? Why is there so little
activity in ,shipbuilding? Why are our
railroads so Improbable, and why are so
many thousands of laborers out of employ
ment? Certainly not for want of money,
paper money, was never so abundant or so
cheap, and the same would be true of real
money if it had not been driven out of cir
culation by the inferior currency. Ask our
iron manufacturers why their foundries
and FORCES are not in full operation the
managers of our wooden and cotton mills,
why their works are partially suspended
our lumber men, why stocks have accumu-
lated on their hands our shipbuilders, why
they are not building more ships our rails
road men, why their roads are not earning
more money, and see if the answers are not
of the same tenor-that manufactures have
outstripped demand, that there is more lum-
Der than building, more ships than freight,
more railroads than traffic, more laborers
than work. do not believe that one single
sensible man among all these classes Of pro-
duGers and dealers can be found who will
attribute the existing depression to a
scarcity of money.
If such are the facts, what judgment
should be pronounced upon those who,
through willful blindness, or for party pur-
poses, or for selfish ends, declaim, before
laborers suffering from want of employ
ment against the oppression of capitalists,
and urge them to demand more currency,
as an antidote for their misfortune.
That the redundancy of paper
money is now, and at these other pc
RODS Of our history has been, the
cause Of such general stagnation he
shows by the following figures which
it seems to us are very important to
bear in mind in order to determine
what is the remedy for our present
trouble. He says:
Tho hopL nota o;rcu1o,;o, - tho IT,;,ol
States was increased from SCI, 900, 900 lin
round numbers) in 1880 to Sl49 900, 600 in
1887 bank deposits from 500, 100000 to
Sl27, 900, 900; loans from $20O,OOOOOO to
S500,0O0,OO0. Then came the crash which
many of us still remember, and by which
the country was Frustrated for years.
Again, the bank note circulation, which
in lSI3 was S58,OOO,OOO, was run up to
1914, 100000 in 1857, bank deposits within
the same period from $1,000, 900 to $780,
1000, loans from $250,0OO, 900 to $780,
100000. Then the second great crisis &C.
CURED, which, although sharper, and for
the time it lasted more destructive, was OF
much shorter duration than the former one
In 1860 the bank note circulation was
500, 900, 00O-at the present time the circu.
lation of legal tender and bank notes is and
for some years has been upward of $780,
100000, while the deposits and loans o.
the banks have been increased in a still
greater ratio.
THE corn crop Of this year will be
an enormous one. The corn crop il