Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1877-10-25
INTERCHANGEABLE BONDS.
How the Scheme Would work
in Practice.
It Would Enable Capital to Control
and Expand the Currency at Will.
It Would Bind and Gag the Treasury and
Fling it at the Feet of the Wall Street
Gamblers.
A Clear and Mastery Exposition of the
Subject.

Political economists of careful
study, practical business men of large
experience have appeared as the adj
yocates of this scheme. ] have pom
dered upon it much. My conclusion
is that it would be impossible to de-
wise a scheme more ruinous TO all
human effort than this very one. |
do not stop to remind you that we
have no authority for holding that
Congress can in time of peace under
our Constitution make anything but
gold and silver legal tender for debt.
We can change our Constitution, and
we would do so if the public welfare
demanded it. l do not stop to re-
mind you that many of our bonds are
by their very terms payable in coin |
do not stop to remind you that ma
ton has no better moral right to llq-
uidate it's interest bearing obligations
by issuing non-interest bearing notes,
than any private citizen has to do the
same. / confront you with no legal,
and no moral obligation, | simply say
to every business, and to every labor
ing man, that if he is not utterly reck.
less of his own welfare, he must not
dare to try
THAT FEARFUL EXPERIMENT.
I have read of the good woman
who complacently boosted that her
husband had embellished his town
residence with the last invention Of
modern architecture,--a mortgage. L
have read of that able financier who
lived upon the interest of what he
owed. Who has not laughed at the
SELF com lacency of Mr.. Micawber
who, when he had liquidated store
bill by giving his 0 U, proudly de-
clared "he could once more hold up
his head "among his fellow-men.'
Bat the scheme to which we are in
vited. is more farcical than any of
those. Mr.. Micawber only cheated
himself with the delusion that he
had extinguished the debt, when in
fact. he had merely changed its form.
But here is an alchemy by which it
is proposed to transpose simple debt
into solid cash. The dced is simply
impossible. Water was once turned
iuto wine, but He who wrought that
miracle is no longer among us, and
if he were, | doubt if he would per-
form the miracle proposed.
If there were no obstacles in the
way, raised by
THE CONSTITUTION OR BY CONTRACT,
it would be easy to draft bill maxi
ing bonds and greenbacks intercon>
vertiole. 1t would be easy to pass
such q bill through all the forms OF
legal enactments but what then
where is the man who has bonds he
would change into groenbacks
There are hundreds and thousands
who would gladly exchange green
backs for four per cent. bonds, II
they could. Hitherto Congress has
not permitted the Treasury to make
such exchange except upon condi>
tions. Private parties will not make
such exchange at all. The country
resounds with the cry that we have
not money enough. Not money
enough -? Show me the place where
4 per cent. bonds can be had for
Treasury notes, and will show
Won where millions of Treasury
notes can be had.
NOT MONEY ENOUGH?
Twenty years ago, the whole bank
note circulation of the country was
but little more than two hundred mil
lions. Not a dollar of it was legal
tender. The whole coin reserve was
less than a hundred millions. There
was TO cry then of want of money.
Not money enough? Money was
never so cheap before in this country
since the May FIo,cer unloaded on
Plymouth Rock. Not money enough |?
Be not deceived. 1t is not the vol
ume of money which is shriveled, but
the volume of business. The volume
of currency is but about thirty mil
lions less than it was 10 1870, 1871
and 1872. The volume of business
has shrivelled since those years be-
yond my ability to state. mention
one item. During those years, in adj
dition to every industry prosecuted
now, there were more than 1000
miles of railway built and equipped,
upon an average each year. During
the succeeding fiscal year, railway
construction dwindled to less than