The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-08-30

siDle lnnatlon on the one hand, or contrac-
tlon on the other; which will steadily but sure
ly improve the quality of the currency without
serious disturbance of its existing volume or
violent change of commercial values. This
understand to be the policy of the Republican
party. the spirit of the platforms of Cleveland
and Cincinnati. Under the almost exclusive
agency of business and commerce the distance
between the inflated prices of war and the full
restoration of coin values has been narrowed To
span; but it is not possible for these agencies
to work out final results Before the point can be
reached the Government must make it's notes
interconvertible. Objections to further issue
OF legal-tender notes are lnsuperable, The
point to be reached is coin values. Nothing is
clearer in the fundamental law than the denial
to Government of the constitutional power to
make its due-billsa substitute for legal-tender
money, except as defense in the emergency
of war. The present legal-tender notes were
held to be constitutional by divided court on
this ground alone. 1t is equally i'm
possible to retire the national bank
ing currency by taking up and dis
charging the bonds held as collaterals with q
further issue of legal-tender notes. They can
not be discharged with the legal-tender notes
of any issue without violating the faith and the
honor of the nation pledged to their payment
in coin. Return to specie payment, enable the
banks to make their notes interconvertible with
coin at the pleasure of the holder, and they
will constitute an agency incomparably superior
to the centralized political power at Washing
ton for regulating the volume of currency &C
cording to the wants of trade. 1t furnishes to
business interests and business men of every
locality, who know its wants by personal con-
tact with them, facilities and power to supply
those wants as they may arise. 1t recognizes
the principle of home-rule in furnishing and
regulating the volume of currency. Another
financial school insists that the interconverti-
bll1ty OF coin and paper money can better be
effected by the arbitrary contraction
and retirement of legal-tender notes
until their value shall be brought
to par in coin. This implies a discretion in the
contracting power at Washington that might
not always be influenced by virtue. It is a
power that can be much more safely exercised
by the people at home, through the ordinary
channels of business, than by central junta
of politicians piled by the bulls and bears of
Wall street. The existing strain upon Western
interests and Western capital by the shrinkage
of values without shrinkage of liabilities
makes a return to interconvertibihty through
contraction alone simply suicidal. Augmenting
the value by sheer force Of making money
scarce would doubly intensity the strain !:
would cause the final fracture. For these
reasons it would seem the dictate of common
sense that stability of volume, the insensible
appreciation of paper money, and the gradual
approach to coin values, are things to be maine
tanned, fpossible, in any plan of resumption and
hence that either forced imitation or forced
contraction of the existing volume by the ex-
ertlon OF arbitrary power is alike hazardous
and unWise.
RECOMMENDATION of silver, under judicious re-
strictions and limitations with the restored dig
nifty and powers indicated, can hardly fail to
become efficient hoI tn no of
specie payment. Cooperating with gold, now
little more than speculative commodity of
merchandise, in discharging customs and pub
lie dues, twill reduce that coin to the rank of
commercial money and make its existing vol
ume available for the purposes of resumption.
Swelling this volume by keeping the balance
OF trade in our favor, the desired point of
cannot be far in the dis
lance.
To Congress, however, this must be remit
ted, trusting that the wisdom of that body will
do whatever and only what is necessary "to
make provision at the earliest PRACTICABLE pc
Rod for the redemption of United States notes
in COIN.
Not more money so much as better money;
not greater volume SO much as greater activity
of the existing volume do the interests and
wants of the country demand. When these
shall be attained, then will fixed values and
certainty, gold gambling lose it's occupation,
premiums and contingent premiums cease to
augment the cost of consumption, capital seek
legitimate channels of investment, industry
command the certain rewards due to labor, en-
terprise resume her former confidence, and hope
and happiness be again animated by the genius
of public credit, shielded by public honor.
Now, my neighbors, ought here to conclude.
It is impossible to crowd the material for vol
5,,+c H&Nxo Hoen
forbids the discussion of other topics, which
must be postponed to a future occasion. l can
not conclude, however, without declaring it as
my deliberate conviction that we owe it to our
selves, to Repubhcanism, and to our common
country, to give fair and honest trial to the
experiment of the President in dealing with the
Southern question. That there are differences
of opinion on this cannot be denied or ignored.
From an intimate personal and official acquaint-
ance of many years, think I can say, however,
that know him to be of incorruptible integrity
and infiexible sincerity, incapable of other mo-
tive than that of the common good of our
common countrymen. I think I can further
say that, while recognizing to its full extent
the right of Federal intervention to enforce
the constitutional guarantees Of liberty,
protection, and citizenship, he, under the en-
barrassments which his predecessor and the
Congress which had power over it had permit
ted to gather about the question and be en-
tailed upon his young administration, sincerely
believed that Cancellation, goodwill, and ma
tional fraternity-those elements of union
which give enduring straightforward more
repress inter-sectional animosities
and race-conficts, stop the shedding of inno-
cent blood, and secure permanent pacifcation,
than the harsher exercise of his constitutional
powers He preferred rather to turn the Bit
terness of his own people against himself, than
that the temple committed to his guardianship
should, by division, cease to stand. Dastaste-
full as this to some of us now is, trust that
impartial history, the future of the country.
and the highest welfare of an emancipated
race will vindicate the wisdom of his course.
New Use for the GrasShOpper.
Mr.. Beecher has been credited with a
1. 7