The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1876-06-16


doing the mischief.
If Resumption thinks that this is
logical deduction from his facts,
he is simply incapable of tracing the
connection between causes and eff
ects. 1t is not difficult to UNDER
stand or explain how the effort to
make gold the only legal tender is
baukrupting the productive indus
tries of this country, but there is no
room in this article to cover that
matter.
We must stop borrowing and
pay. Governments are as morally
bound 10 pay as individuals.
Correct, every word of it, but
straight against the resumption law
policy. 1t is that law and its aJyo-
Gates who propose to borrow. They
insist that the country ought to
borrow gold enough to redeem the
currency with, and are now passing
through Congress, bill to borrow
100000 of silver, with a bill in
reserve to borrow S20,OOOO00 more
silver, to issue in place of the frac-
tional currency. Why don't they
stop their unnecessary and absurd
borrowing? Ofcourse governments
are morally bound to pay as indiv-
iduals, aud for that reason have no
right to make promises that they
can't keep. Aproper observance of
this precept would have prevented
the passage of the resumption law
(which is a direct pledge of the
national faith to redeem its curren-
cy in gold on and after Jan. 1, 1879.
The violation of that pledge will
be the fault of those who forced
its being made without providing
any adequate means of keeping it.
Our present money system is the
result of war necessary, IT a ne
ceSStty at all. Senator 'essenden,
well said "The right of Congress to
borrow money and issue obliga-
lions for loans in such form as may
be convenient is unquestiOnable
but the authority to issue obliga-
tons for circulating medium as
money and TO make these obliga-
tions q legal tender, can only be
found in the unaUrittea ldsC, which
sanctions whatever the representa-
tives of the people, whose duty is to
maintain the government against
its enemies, may consider in a great
emergency necessary to be DONE"
If lack of express constitutional
authority is the trouble with the
greenback currency, it can be very
easily obviated by an amendment to
the constitution. AS to unwritten
and written laws, the more nearly
the written laws express the IN
written ones, the more apt they
are to be right and beniticent. The
unwritteH law was against African
slavery, and it finally had its way
despite the torturOus interpreta-
tons put by our leading statesmen
upon the written Law. If Senator
Fessenden is distressed because
greenbacks are not distinctly auth
orized by the written law OF the
constitution, he should have offered
an amendment to have the written
laws improved to meet the necessities
of the people. Had they voted on
ana rejected such an amendment, his
objection would be W orth consider
ing.
The present issue is forced loan
which the government ought to
pay, and which it has solemnly and
publicly pledged its faith to do in
coin er its equivalent, and that cat
the earliest practicable moment"
1t is as mischievous and dishonest
for Congress to expand and con-
tract the currency at each session
as it would be to change the num-
Der of ounces in a pound or the
number of inches in q yard. 1t
"rests with the changeable and ever
chsnging opinions of some three
or four hundred very promiscuous
gentlemen who shall be the |
length of our financial yard stick"
Here are some more facts that
demolish the very policy they y
offered to sustain. The govern
ment has not only pledged its faith
to redeem its currency in coin or It's
"at the earliest practical
bic moment" but it has pledged It's
faith to redeem its currency in gold |
coin on Jan. l, 1879. This is the
fret fact. The next fact is that the
is absolutely unable to
keep that pledge. Resumption him
self stated in the beginning of hi
article, that resumption in 1879 |
would prove a practical failure.
Now in this predicament, what
ought the government to do. If
unable to redeem the currency in
gold, it ought to redeem it in the
equivalent to gold, which
it can. That is 3 :65 gold interest
interconvertible bond. This it re-
fuses to do, and thereby dishonors
its good faith, and depreciates the
gold value of it's currency.
As to Congressional tinkering with the
that is exactly what the inter-
bond system proposes to abol-
sh. 1t would make the supply of cur
'ency self-regulating, instead of leaving
t to Congress or the banks authorized by
Congress to say how much or how little
hould be issued. The specie payment
BASIS never yet provided any way of stop
ping Congressional tinkering with the
currency, and the greatest need is and
always has been TO have the basis of the
currency fixed by the Constitution, so
hat Congress will have to stop interior
ing with our financial yard sticks. There
s very plain, exact, effectiye Constitu-
ional measure that ought to be adopted
IN this polnt-but no hard money man
will favor it for 4 moment. The treasury
avs, as upheld hy the supreme court,
'rior to 1873, made the silver dollar the
init of values, and silver legal tender as
veil as gold. But in that year Congress
polished the silver dollar as the unit of !
Talues and made the gold dollar the unit,
md now silver IL NOT laOaI fandar 20 any