The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1877-06-16

An Address Delivered Before the HAMA
mOia Farmerm' A SODA tiom. 1n the 8am.
ate Chamber at Springfield, III, JMm
Is, 1677.
Mr.. Fawcett estimates the amount d
gold coin in Europe ut 81 800, ,OOO, 900, and
the annual interest on public debt 81, coo,
900, 600. There is no hard money system
in any commercial country. The same an
thority shows that in Europe there is il
use, as money, the following amounts
Gold coin. sl. .oo9, ,0Oo0o
silver and DAse metal 900 90 eol
Total ~. 30. .eo0.eoI
Per capita, $21 40, which he estimates a
one dollar and forty cents per capita more
than we have in the United States, includ.
ing coin and paper at this time, while he
cry from our political economists" and
statesmen Of the English school il. Con.
tract the currency and resnme that rule.
ssss& system-promisas OF coin that does nct
exist resume a system Of periodical sus-
! pensions of payment when payment is de-
manded in coin, and general financial and
commercial collapse occurring at least once
during each decade.
In the Dominion of Canada they have
the English system Of specie banking in
its most perfect form-a system under
which, in the year 1876, one man in every
thirty-two doing business in Canada failed.
! These figures are from the commercial
agency Of Dunn, Winans & Co., Of Mon
treal.
The Hand Workers of the Mississippi
Valley have declared their opposition to a
resumption Of the English financial sys-
TEN OF promises to pay everything in coin
which does not exist in sufficient quanti-
ties and can not be had. They desire to
preserve the United States legal tender
notes, which did us such good service that
sagaclous governments, like the German,
are introducing like notes in their own
finances. Western anti-resumptionists
were pronounced by the people in the
Eastern States as ignorant, financial luna
tics men who knew nothing Of the true.
scientific and Well-tried systems Of finance
and they refer to systems under which
the mass Of the people are impoverished
to the verge # pauperlsm-whlle ninety
seven III a hundred merchants and traders
die bankrupt. And while they were ridi-
culing the Western ''inhationlsts, these
very Eastern merchants and manufacture
eTs were having their foundations under
mined, and have been ever since passing
into the abyss Of bankruptcy and ruin.
1on insisted that il was not desirable to
resume the system of forced promises to
pay all debts in gold as the only legal ten
der. You insisted upon the preservation
Of the United States legal tender notes.
You claimed that as paper currency must
exist IN every country and must exist here.
that paper currency consisting Of evi-
dences Of government debt, and receivable
Tor all public and private dues, and inter-
changeable with United States interest
bearing obligations, equivalent in value to
com, would be better paper currency
than promises Of banks to pay pay coin on
demand promise that can not be, and
never has been met when general demand
was made.
You insisted that the power to contract
and expand the volume Of the circulating
medium, involved the poSeE 60 .esntraei.
and expand the market price az all proper9
ty, and that this power should not be del
egated to any particular class of corpora
tlons or individuals, or even to govern
Iuent officials but that the power Of every
holder Of government debt-obligatiODs,
legal tender and not bearing interest re-
deemable in interest bearing obligations Of
the government, and Interchangeable at
the pleasure Of the holder, would automat-
ically regulate the volume of the currency
according to the needs Of business, from
time to time, as the supply of steam is
automatically supplied Or withheld from
an engine by its governor.
You claimed that the government Of the
United States would be unable to redeem
its outstanding legal tender notes on de-
mand III gold coin, as the coin could not
be had, and that at recent date the gov
ernment did not have to exceed thirteen
millions of coin which was available for
redemption, while its outstanding legal
tender notes exceeded three hundred and
fifty millions Of dollars. That the true
policy was to make the legal tender notes
convertible into United States interest
bearing bonds or certificates, which should
be interchangeable.
Time is gradually proving that You vera
right. The Secretary Of the Treasury, in
his recent report, admits that the coin re-
demption of the United States legal ten
der notes in circulation is impracticabIe-
that redemption in bonds is practicable.
The National Convention Of Bankers.
recently held at Philadelphia, by resolu-
ton, conceded in this view, and practical
bankers in the East are beginning to agree
with you that these bonds offered in re-
demption must be made interchangeable !;
that permanent and irrevocable funding
Of nited States notes would produce a
financial and commercial earthquake.
You saw the solution Of this financial
problem, because your class alone had
passed to the third stage of industrial and
practical education. Your knowledge Of
and use Of machinery your habit OF in
stantly acting and correcting arrangements
and irregularities, had fitted you to detect
the arrangements and irregularities that
have existed in financial systems for the
last two hundred years, and enabled you
to suggest mode Of improvement.
You realize that, in order to enjoy pop
ular government, our people must be les
cued from want and ignorance that one
the leading causes that keep the great ma
jOrity Of the people in poverty and ignor-
ance is, that the manipulation of the cur
rency under the English system operates
as pump, which draws wealth away from
those lrhO produce 1t, and transfers it to a
few who control the pump. You propose
to do away with the pumping system, and
have financial currency system which will
correspond to the "ater currency system
of nature /; that the demands of commerce
shall evaporate from the bonded debt what
is needed in the form Of current money !;
that this current money shall seek, as the
clouds ssek, places where currency is want
ed that any excess Of currency shall drain
back, by conversion at the United States
Treasury, into the bonded national debt,
as an excess of rain, after saturating the
soil, flows back to the ocean through the
water-courses that the Almighty has pro-
vided to dispose of the excess Of water. In
more than one sense the proper study Of