Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1876-03-09
LETTERS FROM the PEOPLE
GREENBACKs DEFENDEO-No 4.

GREENBACKS DEFENDEO-No 4.
I admit the omnipotence of gold.
1t cannot buy genius, character,
brains or piety, but everything out
side of the ten commandments is
legally and laudably bought and sold
for gold. We cannot rob it Of its
power unless we could reconstruct
the mineral kingdom, and annihilate
the distinction between metals, as
Lycurgus attempted to do. He re-
versed the order of Nature and made
Iron the legal tender. All | contend
for is that gold will never again be-
come the familiar common circu-
lating medium. People tell me they
have forgotten what silver or gold
dollar looked like They belong now
to the cabinet of the antiquarian,
but have hidden a long farewell to
our pockets and our purses They
will not return again except in the
minimum shapes of small change.
But gold possesses those intransic
properties, and that relation to sub
lunary things, that it must ever re-
main the most convenient and natural
measure of all commercial values.
1t holds that position by an irrepeal-
able ordinance of Nature.
But who should own and control
this great balance wheel of the bust
ness world ? should it be the Bull, or
the Bear, or the broker, or the
banker, or the individual, or the
whole people in their corporate, ma.
tional capacity. The Nation can
hardly be called sovereign unless it
has under its lock and key more gold
than all private parties own, put
together.
The idea of the National control
and ownership of the precious metals
would never have occurred to us but
for the fact that our Nation, like
others, became hopelessly involved in
debt. Fifteen years ago we stopped
all practical enumeration at the mil
lion. But when we were compelled
to mount to billions and trillions, and
plant the American flag on the "tip-
most, towering height" of quad.
rilions, we had to admit that the true
measure of National greatness was
the greatness of our National debt
All other greatness is finite. Our
National debt associates our magni-
| ficence with the Infinite.
But when we became involved in
debt we were compelled to adopt the
same course with other debtors. We
had to beg or demand time. We
had to issue our National bonds and
pay interest. Doubling our capacity
10 survive a great National convul-
| sion in which ten States, like revolted
stars, madly broke from their orbits,
gold forsook us, unsafe within "the
round of such commotlon." Then
we invented ''greenbacks." The
Nation received them in payment of
our enormous taxes, and it compelled
| all private creditors to receive them
10 payment of debts This was the
origin of our National currency. 1t
was the very thing we had been
struggling after for more than half
century. In 1879 they (the green
backs) are to be redeemed in gold and
then destroyed not re-issued. There
are some that contend that the pur
pose of the so-called presumption
act is to enable the government to
purchase the greenbacks dollar ior
dollar and then re issue. Well, no
body objects to this sort of treat
| ment. 1t is the very thing that ought
to be done if the Nation has enough
Of gold to do it with But it is clear
ly the intention OF this savage en-
actment to burn the "greenback in an
"auto da fee," at the very moment of
its triumph, and its redemption is for
the sole purpose of its destruction.
Thereafter, at all events, the National
currency will be robbed of its illegal
tender" attribute. As the National
bank currency is not legal tender,
the business world is again to be ex-
posed any day to those periodical