The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-09-02
WHOLE NUMBER L0f d.,

cred1t. Whose shall that credit ba9 Sboii
IL De the credit OF banks and their cns.o1,1s-.
y, IHe credit 81 the nation? This question
also experience has answered. RefoTs tba
war we has banks resting eaob one 80
credit. We all remember the resnlt Tha
Dills OF bank ceased generally 70 ha c,,r.
rent hundred miles from its own co1nf1,r
i ou lost ten per cent. in changing those of
I2e south ana west Tor Eastern bills; and
Horace Greeley demurely told the commit
Western bills, "If Convenient
should much prefer q well executa5
counterielt on some Eastern bank" What
makes our national bank bills good. and
equally good, everywhere TO day? TIE ma
ton stands behind them. Such notes mass
everywhere, and everywhere at the same
value, because the nation guarantees them.
All the note currency we have rests on ma
tionsl credit, directly or indirectly. No man
can give reason why they should not All
resi- direcIly on national credit; why all
Dank Dllls should not be withdrawn and
legal tenders supply their place. In build
ing mouse you do not put a platform he
tween the honse and its foundation Car
tainly not. Your walls rest directlv on
your foundation. To-day the nation paws
tne banks szO,OOO,OOO or more to allow them
to play the useless part OF standing
between it (the nation) and
its own currency. Dr. Franlxlin,s
hero, who asked his victim to pay for heat
ing the poker, was most reasonable person
and solomon compared with ourselves in
this matter. have heard of an incompetent
man put under guardianship and Obliged 10
pay trustees literally for taking csre of his
own property, but never heard of one mt
under guardianship and paving his guard
ian literally, and then obliged to do an his
own business besides, which is exactly our
case. we lurnisn the credit that supports
these bank bills, and then we paw the hanks
for using that credit. Bagehot. the highest
authority in England, says the public takes
Bank OF England bills without inauiry or
hesitation, because it knows that in apy
emergency the government viii sustain the
pa' x. Here our pllls pass because the gov
ernment is distinctly pledged to do so. The
two great commercial centres have drifted
into currency based. in fact on poyern-
ernment credit, and they
DELIBERATELY ACCEPT THE SITUATION.
Our hrst question (On what shall our cur
rency restE) Is fully answered by facts. In
commercial nations il rests and must rest
on government credit. Second-How much
currency shall we have? No single man.
ofncer or institution can decide or ever did
decide this question. Currency made up of
oank Dllls, deposits, notes, bills of exchange,
etc, is IKE any other article of manufacture
we make as much of il as we need. The
business OF country, when not interfered
with, always settles the amount of its cur
rency. Business creates, everywhere and at
all times, just such and just so much cur
rency ssit needs. Banks and secretaries of
treasures imagine they determine
AS well might Old Probability
claim that he determined the weather. he
and they only record what mightier forces
DO. hats, shoes, wagons, rails, cloths, cotton,
wheat-one year we want more, the next
year less-who decides? The dealers in the
article and the users of it. Does ANYBODY
advise going back to other DAYS and having
some board of wiseacres decide how nuch
wheat shall be planted and how much cot
ton, how many loaves or wagons made? No
such dreamer cbtrudes himself on the pub
nc. But thousands clamor for allowing
oank directors and them alone to settle the
amount of the currency. And they are al
lowed more control than any other agency.
The New York city banks alone increased
the currency sS,0OO,0O0 1885,, ,2O0) in one
month, September, 1874, and decreased
u so,OOO,0GO IN one week of March, 1875.
Inls aristocracy in the money manufacture
is an odious monopoly, alien to our insti-
tutions and harmful to our prosperity.
w hat should we say if 500 men and such
friends as they chose were allowed to plant
wheat and mine iron while every one else
was forbidden? Yet this is but another
name for our present bank system. Let us
cease, then, to have any plan either 10 en-
large or contract the currency. Let the gov
stand ready to issue all the cur
rency any business man wishes aud can give
good security for, at low interest and con-
vertible into long bonds. If necessary in,
order to conciliate existing prejudice, let the
capital OF these bonds, having long terms to
run, be payable in gold. Make
iREENBAcKs LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL PUR-
POSES,
customs and all government dues included.
Ihsre is every reasonwhy this should be done.
History is repeating itself. England never
knew more prosperous years than from 1850
TO $50, during which she neither had gold
nor wished to have it, nor promised to nav
gold to any one whatever. All that while
she extended and contracted her currency
without any regard whatever to gold. Her
enormous trade and expenditures were all
paper and only paper, resting on credit and
nothing else. We had similar prosperity
during the war and after, on the same
terms. In 1870 England, yielding to theo-
rss and dresmers, tried to put this
dragged ber business back to methods
century old-to specie. Bankruptcy, the
very history of which makes the blood cold
70 day, blighted the Empire. I5 took half
generation to recover from the mistake. No
man can to-day begin TO show that such suf-
Iering was necessary; that it achieved any
good or thai it effected any change which
could not have been as we'll made withousit-
We entered that same valley of the shadow
Of death when, in 1865, McCulloch began
We are hurrying fast to Eng
lands 1870. Property sunk to half its for
mer value; the streets crowded with Unem-
ployed men fast rotting into criminals; grass
growing on the wharves, machinery rust
ing, wealth alarmed, poverty starving
Woe to the political party which the
nation shall finally pronounce responsible
for this fatal mistake No previous merits
Will avail tor its pardon. It's leaders will De
buried in curses, as men whom neither his
tory nor their own experience could make
WISE We lament, as we'll we may, the wide
spread corruption OF business men and Office
holders. But where such corruption in high
places steals a dollar, contraction-this well
ignorance of bullionists-robs the
people of thousands. If this generation is
ever bankrupt, its bankruptcy will not be
The work of knaves, but of honest men fol.
lowing jack o. lantern and dragging us to,
ruin. Yours