The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1878-01-26
aRHENRAcK NONSENSE.

tho neoplc of the vest arc in favor of the with
drawal of the national bank currency and the
substitution of grccnbacks, We have no doubt
nearly as large a proportion agree with the
Illinois Sfate Register that Congress has no
power under the constitution, to issue legal
tender paper in time ofpeace, even if it has the
right to do so under the "war power that the
initiation of prices inevitably consequent upon
the issue Of paper money has burdened indl-
viduals, towns, cities, states, and the nation
with mountains of debt, and that the contrac,
ton, which congress has power to order, ana
which it must order, or repudiate the green
back is bankrupting the country
All the paper money the country needs, now
ever, whether grecnbacks or blucbackS, can be-
issued from the public treasury without being
made legal tender With the reconciliation
of silver, the friends Of "A sound financial sys.I
TEN in the west believe the government VIII
have il IN its power always to command coin
enough to take care Of whatever paper it may
issue; and whether it limits its issue to the
present S3j0,000,0O0 OF grcenbacks, or adds
S3jO,000000 more IN treasury notes in place
of the national bank bills, the government can
make no pretensons to common business hon.
esty unless it makes at The same time adequate
provision for the prompt redemption of such
paper on presentation IN coin or its equivalent,
THIS is the real issue" however, not as the
Sun proceeds to argue which the west and the
,,,I, lt,tt il.
the issue as presented by Dan Voorhees, and
the small squad of financial quack doctors in
the west already alluded TO- who have, We be.
lieve, as their only organ west Of the Allcghc-
MES Pomeroys Democrat, printed at Chicago.
To this squad the real silver advocates in the
west are as hostile as they are to the gold ma.
MACS and bond Shylocks The west do not adj
yocatc silver TO get cheaper currency-whatI
they want is good money, with no further rails
ing or lowering of the standard The country
has worked up--long and painfully through
untold financial agony, trial and disaster
from GO per cent. depreciation to per cent
above par in silver.
The country don't want now to annihiliate
silver and adding 90 per cent. to the value of
gold spend another IS years Of disaster and
agony in working up to that With silver re-
monetized it will go up enough, and gold will
come down enough from its present meretri-
cious appreciation to enable the two to meet
on level, and then the government will be !
able to command enough to give US an honest
resumption of specie payment. That is all
that the honest people of the west want, and
they will havc-at least they will not have the
gold resumption of the Shylocks instead OF
that or some other equally honest scheme; or
they will-well, perhaps not fight, but they
will bring about such demolition of present
party leaders and organizations rs will force
the eastern political demagogues, traders and
mountebanks TO conclude that the whole west
is tore up by political earthquake,
But there is no denying that there is small
squad Of financial quack doctors in the west
who insist that the government shall issue from
one to two thousand millions of greenbacks
and make them a legal tender, and treat that
as the only lawful money" Of the nation, and
make no provision, nor contemplate any, ever
to redeem such paper in coin. The recent
great speech Of Dan VOORHEES, in the [. s.
Senate on the silver question unquestionably
favored that quiXotic scheme and to that eX-
tent is justly characterized by AS high author.
ity rs the 81. Louis RcpuJlicdn as "widly and
extravagantly ridiculous" To the same ex-
tent the New York SIN is justified in its criti-
cisXn when it says that while Mr. voorhees,
pretends 10 clamOr for the coinage of silver, he
has no intention that the metal shall be cur
rency after it is coined "All that he wants is
to lower the standard according to which our
paper money circulatcs, and thus still further
to depreciate it. The real issue before the
country is, therefore, not SO much whether we
shall have resumption in silver or resumption
in gold, but whether We shall have resumption
at all"