The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1876-09-14
TAUNTON. VIRGINIA, SEPTEMBER II, 1876.

cumulated without frugality, is doomed to
disappointment. individuals may get rich
by fortunate accident under any system,
but communities can only grow in wealth
and prosperity by labor and economy. With
these, and with fair natural advantages, their
prosperity cannot long be retarded. The
seasons OF speculative excitement. when ev-
ery5ody seems to get rich by buying wild
lands, town lots, fancy stocks, and discount
ing the future, are uniformly followed by
depressions-whe fictitious values vanish
like fairy gold, real values are deprecated,
anc labor has to bear the double burden OF
paying for past imprudencc and present sup
port. In last resort it is labor which pays
the whole debt OF society. There is no leg
crdemain in finance, no magic in law, no
Aladin's lamp even in invention by which we
can escape the primal sentence, SIN the
sweat OF thy face shalt thou earn thy bread.'
whenever community attempts to make a
short cut to prosperity it will realize the
truth OF the old proverb and find the longest
way round. et liA fi'ifi rsig'
THE PROSPERITY OF THE WAR.
There are those who recall the business
activity and apparent pecuniary prospects OF
| the country during the war and few years
succeeding it, who believe that this could be
restored by some legislative scheme for issn-
| ing money. These mistake cause for effect.
| 1t is common and insiduous error. In this
country so rich in natural resources, and so
intimate in its connection with the civilized
| world, it is the contraction of business which
contracts the money in circulation, and not
| the contraction of money that contracts bus
mess. Values fall first. To-day, when bus
mess is so stagnant, property SO low, the
Government is putting 4 loan upon the mar
q 1s,,nr i1fn o11
upon undonbted security money can be Dor
| roWed at as low rate Of interest ccrtai My
as was paid in our prosperous times. The
securities have contracted more than money,
Ii money could be made to grow on bushes.
| or be had for the asking, it would not be
worth any more than any thing else that
grows on bushes or can be had for the ask
ing. Air and water are more precious than
money, TAT least the air is), but it does not
follow because they are free that they would
make good circulating medium
The war was a great business carried on
by the Government. 1t employed a million
Of men in the field and a million more in
supporting them. 1t created Il demand for
every article produced on the farm or manu-
featured in workshops. True, it was the
business of destruction, but it was the most
gigantic business every carried on in the
world, and it constantly demanded the use
of vast sums of money. 10 obtain that mo-
ney we went in debt, to all the world, and
discounted our own future at usurous rates.
Then everything was marketable-even hui
man life. If the expenses of the war had
been paid at the time by immediate taxa
ton, we should have realized that we were
growing poorer and not richer by the i'm
mense destruction of property and diversion
of labor. 1t is the office of a National debt
to transfer the burden of one generation to
another, or to distribute it over many gener-
ations. The National deb1s of the world
amount to the appalling sum of twenty-five
thousand million dollars. They have nearly
all been created by war, and tine interest on
this vast sum is the price with which this
generation is paying for the wars OF the past.
great war, carried on upon credit, gives to
Nation that fictitious prosperity, that APP
pearance of prosperity, which deceives a
man into believing that he is rich while he
is borrowing on unlimited credit. Payday
comes at last to both. But, some one may
suggest, the activity of business and a gen.
eral pecuniary prosperity continued some
years after the war. Yes; railroad train
will run for some time by its momentum.
An effect often continues after the cause,
and a moral effect will long survive physical
cause. The close of the war was a period of
hope, of exaltation. Nothing seemed impos-
sible to the American people. Every coun-
ty in the Northern States seemed to be re-
peopled by returning soldiers, returning,
thank God, not as soldiers, but us citizens
1t was like a sudden accession of population.
The waste of the war had to be repaired ex-
hausted stocks to be replenished, and that
created demand for labor and gave en-
ployment to capital. Great fortunes ac-
cumulated in the war and made splendid
shows. AS a community we were extrava-
CANT. Horses could not be fast enough,
houses grand enough, clothes fine enough.
Or gew-gaws too glittering. We had been
accustomed to high prices, large profits, and
sudden advances, and did not realize that
the cause was removed. We had gone in
debt, and mortgaged the future so easily
that we did not realize that we could not
continue to indefinitely. The slow and sure
methods OF accumulation seemed tame and
commonplace. The man who could not leap
into fortune was an old fogy. The light was
bright. and we were Burning the candle at
both ends. t7
The revulsion seemed to come suddenly.
But it had been long in preparation. Want
came in at many a back-door while the
front-door was snowy as ever. Institutions
and companies continued to do business
whose insolvency was known only to them
selves. The great failure of Jay Cooke &
but only revealed its hollowness. You may
have seen, in the early spring, a stream of
water moving beneath q coverlid Of snow.
The surface of the snow does not change
from day to day, though the water is silent
ly eating it out beneath. At length it dsap
pears in an hour. You may have seen a
great river bridged from bluff to bluff with
ice. You suppose the water is flowing in
full torrent beneath. Suddenly the ice
breaks with crash, and you learn that 81
lently and unseen the river has shrunken to
its channel. 81 4
am, perhaps, wearying your patience,
and disappointing those who want politi-
cal speech six nights in the week, but I find
the feeling so prevalent that what is called
ssgood tines can be legislated into exist
ence by an act of Congress, and that flush
times, high prices, and demand for labor
can be restored simply by arbitrarily increas-
ing the volume of currency, without the con-
ditions which make the increased demand
necessary, that you must pardon me if / pro
coed still furtheron this subject.
IA THE VOLUME OF CURRENCY.
1t is a common expression that currency
ought to be equal to the wants of business.
Ofcourse it ought. But it does not follow
that everybody should have all the money
he wants. You, being very moderate,
might only want hundred thousand, or
five hundred thousand, or perchance mil
lion each; but there are some communities
where they are so greedy they would take
five times as much, and money would be-
come so plenty it would not be worth any
more than fourpenny nails. Business may
be depressed by many causes so that it will
not want money, but an abundance of :.cur-
rency'' will MOI create that kind of business
which in the end is profitable to commu-
nifty.
II a company should organize here to
build another railroad to Indianapolis, while
the road was building, business would be in
creased, and there would be an increased
amount Of money in circulation. But if,
when the road was completed, it should fail
to pay running expenses, all the capital in
vested in it would be loss, and it would