The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1878-09-26
BONDS, s INDICATE, TAXES.

BONDS, 5 INDICATE, TAXES.
It is alwayssa good thing to count
the cost Of any luxury before indulging
too extravagantly in it, especially SO
when one has ito mortgage himself, his
farm, his future, and his daily earnings
to pay that cost.
United States bonds, it was thought
when they were issued, were absolute
" essential as means Of raising money.
Men had not comprehended the great
truth that people who will not rely
on themselves will not be trusted by
others. Bonds had long been the
means Of loaning money, and the past
only favored the plan, but the men
who had money to loan favored it.
They knew the United States would
pay all they agreed to pay. They
knew that the demand for money was
so urgent, to meet the alarming ex-
penses of the war, that capital, by
holding back, by magnifying dangers,
increased by the daily increasing ne
cessities for money, and by hourly
conjuring up the difficulties and dangers
of civil war, could demand any usury
the widest apprehension of a bankrupt
treasury could justify. Gold, as it
always does when it is required, at
once disappeared, even what there was
of it; but there was not gold enough III
the United States, or which could
have been forced from all the coin re-
sources of England, to meet the war ex-
penses Of 1924 for two months.
Money had to be raised. 1t was the
price of constitution, liberty, and,
whatever the cost, it must be procured.
No difficulty was found in using and
negotiating our treasury certificates or
interest notes; and if the statesmen of
the time had possessed the courage to
defy and put down the senseless clam
or of capital against paper money there
would have been no necessity for the
issuing of single bond outside of the
United States With the money held
by savings banks and the disposition to
Invest in United States securities by
men of moderate means, if we had dar-
ed to have relied upon ourselves, and
ISSUED greenbacks as absolute money,
to meet any and every emergency, we
more than $4,000, 100000, and would
have been stronger as a government,
more united as people, more prosper
Gus in our enterprises, than ever be-
fore; but we dared not trust ourselves,
and the question comes up, why was it
that the people Of the United States
dare not trust themselves to issue
their own money?
In answering this question | shall
hope to show not only the exact fall
lacy of the fear, but the enormous
cost the yielding to the derisive clamor
ofcapital has imposed upon us.
The old idea upon which capital
has made labor its slave was that gold
and silver were the only safe basis as
medium of exchange; that all bills is
sued, and circulated as money, must be
redeemable in gold and silver, and that
any issue of bills beyond the power of
redemption in gold and silver would be
dangerous; that to issue bills to meet
the war expenses, and to pay for all
we require, would soon create an ex-
cess of paper-an excess so great as to
preclude any possible idea of finding
gold and silver to redeem it; that this
tion, and that the result of the depreci-
alton woulo be that the money issued
by the Government Of the United
States would become as worthless as
the French assignat-the paper money
issued by France during the French
Revolution--or as valueless as the
Continental money issued by the colo
MES before they had consolidated into
government unity and power, or again
as destitute of reliability as the paper
money issued by the Southern Con
federacy while rebels were attempting
to disrupt the Union. !
Timid men. ignorant of all the rea-
sons which led to the failure of the as
signant of the French, the Continental
currency of the colonies, and the base
less bills of the Southern Confederaev
placed the United States in the ex-
act position of the Revolutionist with
out Government, constitutional power,
or resources. As France, at the time
the assignat was issued, was without
Government. the colonies were united
by no political or governmental obliga-
tions, and. as the Southern Confederacy
was mere revolutionary experiment,
the bonds given by either of these
merely revolutionary combinations
would have been as utterly valueless
as the currency they issued. With the
United States Government it was
admitted that the bonds would be good,
while at the same time it was insisted
that the bills they might issue as
money would be as worthless as the
French assignant, which at first had no
foundation for base but iohbery,
which was killed BY forgery.
1t was upon this haseless fallacy
that the bonds of the Government were
forced upon the market at the price OF
L.