The daily gazette., 1878-01-17

call for gold after Jan. 1, 1879. Where
are the people to obtain the gold? The
property of the people has shrunk not
less than thirty-fve per cent. in value.
This Is q criminal confiscation. In this
vast shFinkage Of all values, arising from
the shrinkage of money in circulation, is
to be- found the immediate cause of that
general bankruptcy and ruin which now
fill the land " ~ 81 Nti5
If the policy Of this Government has
been to infiict the greatest misery on the
greatest number, its sucoess has been
complete. During the, period which is
windows of business houses were not
darkened, and business men did not go
as mourners about the streets. The labor
er did not go home without bread to his
wife and children. The public peace was
not broken by riots in resistance to starry r
alton wages. The courts were not prin-
cipally occupied in enforcing collections
foreclosing mortgages, ordering sheritfs
sales, OF Furnishing the destitute and the
optcast. Every act of legislation thus
far has been dictated by invested capital,
and not one by the people,. q 4d u yis
Money Is the creature of Government,
both as to quality and quantity. Shall it
be furnished in suffi amount to af-
ford a just equivalent for labor and for
every other thing of value On the
answer to this question has depended the
prosperity or the adversely of the Amer
can people in all the past. That Govern
ment which for any reason fails to make
a supply adequate to the business pros
perity of its citizens, violates that funda~
mental compact of duty which must pre-
vailin every free political commonwealth.
The system of national banking is the
most elaborate and complete scheme for
| making the people pay tribute to wealth
in orderIto obtain a circulating medium
ever known in the history of the world.
| There is not dollar to-day in the hands
of the people ON which they have not
paid q tax If the national banks are
blessing, then our debt is O blessing, for
the debt supports the banks.
On the one hand here is the vast money
i power in all its various developments of
bonds, banks, and savings associations;
and on the other are the great industries,
| the active business, and the labor people.
| The issue has been years in making up,
but it is now Joined; nobody need be de-
ceived. The power of money in times
like these is very great, but / am much
deceived in the people if they have not
i turned at last in defiance and bold warm
ing upon the oppressors. They are not in
favor of repudiating a single dollar of
their public or private debts. They in
tend to pay everything they owe, but
they intend TO submit TO no more changes
of contract, violation of obligations, and
breaches of public faith in order to in
crease their indebtedness or take away
their means to pay it. They demand the
restoration of the silver dollar; the repeal,
unconditionally, of the act Of Jan. IA,
1875, compelling resumption Of specie
payments in January, 1879; that the
national banking system be removed and
circulating medium in sufficient quanti-
ity be provided by the Government; that
this currency shall be made a legal tender
in payment Of all debts, public and pri-
vate; and that hereafter the financial pol
icy. be framed permanently in the peo-
PIES interests. plead for the financial
credit OF the Government. 1t rests on
the popular will alone, and that will can
no longer be defied or menaced with inn
punity, The people are sovereign; they
can bind and they can loose. If the mo
ney power is advised with wisdom, it will
stop and retrace its steps. 1t confronts
power now mightier than itself; q free
people at the ballot box, inhamed and
united by sense of injustice and oppres-
sion. If, however, it fsjoined to its gold
en- idol; if its heart is hardened and its
neck stiffened by its vast possessions; If
the burning lust of avarice has made 1t
ideaf to the voice of reason, and blind to
all human experience, it will push on in
its career till 1t works its own destruction;
for, sooner or later, the people, irrespect-
i've of party names, viii unite in their
own defence and establish Justice ) Il
i have no word of menace to utter on
this floor; but, in behalf of every laborer
and every owner of the soil whom rep
. resent, warn all such as value their in
vestments that, when doctrines of despot-
ism are sought to be enforced this fair
. land will again be convulsed in agony,
and the fires of liberty will blaze forth
again. as they did one hundred years ago,
. iu defence of the natural rights of man.
! May the wisdom of our fathers and the
; benignity of our God avert such an issue!
But If it shall come-if infatuation has
seized our comrades, the result will only
. add one more instance to the long cata-
logue of human crime and folly, where
avarice, like ambition, overleaps itself,
and, in its unholy attempt to rob others
, of their possessions, loses its own.
[Great applause in the galleries.l -5