The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-12-28
THE CURRENCY QUESTION.


THE CURRENCY QUESTION
A Movement Of the Politicians and not Of the
People-Not Legitimate Political Question
Professor Newcomb's Financial Naviga-
tion-The Country Not Bankrupt.
The success which has attended the re-
cent movement Of the professional politi-
clans and party managers to force the cur
rency question upon the country and make
1t political issue among the people aptly
illustrates the insincerity and dishonesty of
American politics. 1t illustrates more
II brings to the surface and makes palpa-
BILE to anybody and everybody who 10 not
80 wilfully blind and prejudiced that he
will not see, under any circumstances, the
conditions and means which render sue
cess in this matter and in all kindred mat
tiers possible. 1t shows with what ease
party leaders manipulate the masses and
literally use them for their own agrsndize-
ment. 1t illustrates the proneness of the
people to engage in political contests, not
for the sake of any principle involved, not
for the good Of the body polite, not even
for the ostensble object for which the con-
tests have been engendered, but for the
sake of the contests themselves for the
sake of division and its consequent ex-
ctement and commotion.
A brief year ago the people had no
thoughts of voting for "hard money or
for "soft money; to-day they are in tur-
MOL about the currency, and impatient to
record their votes, for resumption" or
for "infation." Within the last twelve
months they have become fiippant in the
use of the terms which the politicians have
put into their mouths and can talk Of
"specie payments ''gold basis" "irre-
deemable paper" purchasing power of
money!" etc., etc., dd infnitum. How is
this new order of things to be accounted
for How does it happen that in this year
of grace, 1876, without any material change
in the currency Of the country or in the
country's finances generally, from what they
have been for several years past, this ex-
element has sprung up among the masses ?
What new element has crept in to influ-
ence the public mind concerning the
public money We answer, simply
a political scheme of the party
managers which has no more to do with or
care for the country's financial we'll being
than it has with and for the millennium.
This proneness of the people to refer all
questions which they can not readily solve
and settle in any other way to the tribunal
of the ballot box has become the politicians
stocks in trade, and it is the only explapa-
ton Of the public excitement and agitation,
just now, concerning the currency of the
country.
1t might, perhaps, be difficult to say
whether the docile submission of the masses
to the dictation of few leaders or their
love of political squabble preponderate.,
but one thing is beyond question, namely
A majority vote and a party triumph are
regarded as of much more importance than
the merits of the question at issue, and, in
the present case, of much more importance
than gold or greenbacks. Hence the zeal
so manifest at the present time respecting
resumption and specie payments, while
not one voter in hundred has any clear
conception of what these terms, as applied
to finance, signify, much less has he any
conception of the means by which our pa
per system is to be changed to gold sys-
TEN, or of the effect which his vote is to
have on the question. And this is by no
means an evidence of unusual or uDpar-
donable ignorance on his part, for it is to
be observed that up to the present date no
man has been able to devise such a plan of
resumption as has seemed practicable TO
any considerable number of his fellow
men, and we look in vain to-day for plan
which has reasonable promise of FEAST
find fault because the "average voter" Gas
the gentlemen who run political conven-
tions and arrange programmes and plat
forms are pleased to denominate us) does
not understand this financial question
does not understand what nobody under
stands, but because his zeal to vote on the
question is In an inverse ratio to his under
standing Of it, and the less he knows finan-
cially the wiser he regards himself polt-
ically and the more eager he Is 10 make it
manifest. And this anomaly is not con-
fined to the subject Of finance ;
1t is seen In more than hall
of the questions upon which we are per
mitted to express our wishes and opinions
through the ballot box. 1t Is already a
national defect and bids fair soon to be-
come national calamity.
Take the question of tariff and free
trade. The most zealous partizanship on
that question is invariably to be sought and
found among those who, for their lives,
could not give respectable synopsis of the
subject if. indeed, they could tell what
tariff and free trade mean. And these are
they who appreciate most keenly the du-
bious compliment involved in the illusions
to their superior intelligence by the po-
litical mountebanks from the platform
and stump who arc most liable to 60
mad with enthusiasm for the triumph of
their party-for the success Of the hard
money scheme or the soft-money scheme,
and it matters not which. And this is the
source whence large share of our legisla-
ton comes this is the quarry which the
professional politicians and demagogues
are to-day working. 1t is this that gives
American politics their incongruous char
acter and renders some things possible that
are anything but creditable to us as a ma
ton. 1t is this that has created the vast
system of "rings" and handed over the
rights of the people to few INSCRIPTIONS.
scheming men. 1t is this that has fostered
and developed class legislation and mon
opolies which 30 distinguish us among the
nations Of the earth. 1t is this that has
embellished a republican government in all
its various departments with nepotism and
| favoritism. 1t is this that has packed iu-
rles and corrupted courts. 1t is this that
has furnished free passes from railroad
corporations to members of state legisla-
lures and procured enactments which rem
der vested interests and securities in said
corporations fiction, and sacred trusts
myth. 1t is this that has taken the man
agement of business out of the hands of Its
owner and passed it to the management of
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