The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1876-05-25
Gen. Cary'S Financial Views.

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The twang ofthe old harp ofone string
which was played without variation Of
tune at eighty eight mass meetings by
General Cary last year, resounded again
in College Hall on Tuesday night. "Some'
thing terrible is the matter" industry is
paralySed, business Frustrated, million
Of men without employment, therefore
something is wrong, and General Cary
was born to set it right, But how is that
to be done? Here is General Cary's pro-
gramme;
i never was opposed to specie pay
ments. | would like to see specie and
greenbacks upon par with each other at
any time and at all times, and believe
it can be done but there is onlyone way
to do it, and that is to have every man,
woman and child that is able and willing
to work engaged in profitable employ
ment. Let our vessels be sent out to all
lands loaded down to the guards with
our surplus production; secure the bal
ance of trade in your favor, and then the
precious metals will come in, and gold
and greenbacks will be at par, if there
were two millions of greenbacks. APP
plause. We never will pay specie in the
world unless We become creditor coun-
try"
But how are these men and women to
be put to profitable employment? Gen.
Cary's theory is that the stringency of
the times is due to the contraction of the
currency, and that there is not enough
money in the country to do its business.
Therefore the steps taken looking to re-
sumption of specie payments must be re-
traced, the day be indefinitely postponed,
and a food of greenbacks poured upon
the people, Then business will be re-
viyed
But have we not had that experiment?
The country was flooded with currency,
and the people set afoat on sea of
speculation during the period from 1862
to 1865, All hands that would work had
work at the highest prices, and superb
Cial thinkers saw in it the era of National
prosperity and everybody on the high
road to wealth. Were we near to sub
stantial financial foundation By what
logic does General Cary arrive at the con.
clusion that repetition of this eXper-
ment, a renewed flood of irredeemable
currency, will work other results than it
has workedP
1t is all very well to say, load down
your ships with surplus products 1t is
with difficulty that we find markets for
our surplus products now. We have to
compete in the markets of the world
with the products of other nations, and
the one that produces at the least cost,
either the raw material or the manufac.
tured article, commands the market. We
shall have purchasers when we can un-
dersell, and we can undeIsell when we
can produce at such cost as to make it
profitable.
Does General Cary suppose that by
stimulating industry with an injection of
greenbacks, creating fictitious prices and
send up the cost of everything, he is
going to make the conditions of the cost
of production such that we can success
fully compete with the foreign producer
and manufacturer in his own market,
and thus secure the balance of trade in
our favor?"
This is like the rest of the false reason
ing of General Cary on the financial
question, and is in the nature of a delu-
sion. We shall become a creditor coun-
try like France, when we can produce
like France at smaller cost than her
neighbors, and when, like France, our
monetary system rests upon a specie
basis, When as people we learn to
practice the economy of the French in
dustrial classes and producing more than
be individually prosperous, and as ma
tions are but aggregates of individuals,
we shall then be nationally prosperous.
One great secret of our present Condi-
ton is that we have lived too fast. spent
too much, and, like reckless youth, who
has run through his fortune and ex-
hausted his credit, finds that he wants
more money, but has no resources that
will command the money. And this
reckless expenditure, this prodigality of
living, has been created by the profuse
shower of fgreenbacks and National bank
notes which the Government supplied
when it was itself the purchaser and con-
sumner of vast share of the surplus pro-
duction of the people. 1t has been still
further encouraged by that class of politi-
cal economists of which General Cary is
an exaggerated type, who assure the peo-
pie that paper dollars are actual money,
realized wealth, and not what they are
evidences of debt, g forced loan, and
broken promises to pay.
General Cary simply wishes to put off
the day of payment indefinitely, and to
go on spending in the old prodigal way.
He wants return of the unhealthful and
feverish speculative era, and prolonga-
ton of the delusion that the more notes
an individual what is the same thing
on large scale, Nation-has out, the
richer he is, and the better evidence he
gives of the increase of his prosperity.
The assertion that there is not suffi-
cient money or currency in the country
to do business with, and that therein is
the cause of our trouble, has been so fre-
quently refuted that it does not seem ne
cessary to go into labored argument. But
the simple fact that the banks are volun-
tarily retiring their circulation because
there is no demaud for the currency, no.
body to buy it, or take it on reasonable
credit, no business to absorb it, is suffi-
cient answer to such fatuity. This put
ting effects for causes is constantly re-
curing phenomenon of General Cary's
reasoning, and involves him in the gross
est absurdities.-Cin Commercial.
The more the Democratic platform