The Leavenworth weekly times. [volume] (Leavenworth, Kan.) 1870-1880, 1878-04-18

Matters.
And now a few words about Governor
Anthony's letter TO the Troy Chic. am
one Of those individuals who hold that the
prosperity of a country depends vitality up
on its monetary system; that it is not
enough tina: nation be blessed with full
ness OF wealth, and that the people thereof
have ample capacity for the creation OF
values in all industrial pursuits. The means
Of utilizing and distributing this wealth
must nevertheless be ample and beyond the
power of selfish men or combinations of
men to tamper with and control. The
means to provide for measuring and recip-
rocating values is money. Every member
of the body polite has right to insist
that money shall be emitted and distributed
SO that no person through irregularity or
in that respect shall ever fail to get his
own. When the financial arrangement
comes short of that end, then follow panics,
hard times, Industrial paralysis, involving
almost all other evils in their train-just
such state of things as our own country
is now, and has been experiencing for some
time past Not that we do not possess
abundant wealth, unbounded productive
| resources, and millions of willing and cum
ming hands to add to our aggregate wealth
| many fold-but because of the vicious, cor |
rupt, One-sided monetary system which pre- |
walls here. If / am wrong in these prem |
ises, then have carefully studied the sci |
ence of political economy, and the financial |
history Of this and other countries to but |
little purpose.
THE POWER TO REGULATE AND CONTROL THE |!
CURRENCY
is made by our constitution, one OF the SOW
ereign prerogatiyes of Government. That
this power from the first, has been permit
ted to bankers and brokers, makes nothing
against the assertion. The doing or the
permission of prohibited things does not
alter the fact OF the prohibition. Madison,
Jefferson, Jackson, Calhoun and other emf
nsnt statesmen have held that the Govern
ment should exercise undivided control
over the finances, and as occasion prompt
ed, those able statesmen contended earnest
ly and strenuously against chartering OF
all banks, state as we'll as national, and
against the emission of sny currency but a
L
theless, banks of issue have been in exis-
tence from the beginning of the constitu-
tional period-rotten, cheating concerns, |
pretending to be based upon specie, but
really based almost entirely upon individ-
ual or corporate credit, with all the insta-
bility, insecurity, and liability to fraud and
failure therein implied. And what has
been the result? Not less than ten general
panics since the commencement Of the pc
riod aforesaid, each involving the whole
country in woeful calamity.
If the power TO
EMIT AND REGULATE MONEY
belongs exclusively to the government, then
it belongs exclusively to the people; and can
not and ought not to be delegated to indi-
viduals or associations of individuals,
whom self-interest is sure to prompt to work,
chiefly, for self-aggrandizemen to the great
detriment OF the general welfare. To this
idea people of this country, brayed in the
merciless mortar of present and past adver-
sity, are getting their eyes opened. They
are studying finance; they are watching
the fiscal management at the seat of govern
ment; and moreover they are keeping a
sharp eye on those old dodgers and trick
sters, whose chief business is politics, and
whose life-aim is to get and keep in Office.
The people of Kansas, if not foremost, are
well advanced in The business. Hence fogy
politicians, who, as a class are averse to
new issues, appear to be in perturbation.
i take il, that is the matter with our wOr-
thy Governor. After the battle for silver
has been fought, and won, he tells US in this
letter that had he been there he too would |
have voted for silver. But he does not see fit
toexplain why, when silver needed his cham
pionship he was so severely reticent.
The silver contest, however, was but the
opening of the campaign, which is to be
pushed in furtherance Of financial reform.
Happily silver has been..remonetized to the
great discontinue of the usually dominant
money power, and now the cry is:
DOWN WITH THE NATIONAL BANKS,
specie resumption, capital absorbing bonds,
and all other contrivances and devices
founded upon the old economical supersti-
ton that a currency to be stable and safe
must necessarily be based upon the precious
metals. Down with all schemes and con-
trivances which stand in the way of acircu-
lating medium guaranteed by the absolute
wealth of all the nation, and consequently
absolutely secure, equal in volume to the 7
business requirements of the whole coun-
try, and with such provisions for its con-
vertibility that it may never become over 6
abundant a currency not burdened like \
the National bank circulation with interest, :
and receivable for all Government taxes
and dues; a currency like the Government =
itself, of the people and for the people. ;
Such a currency the people are bent upon n
having. But Governor Anthony, as in h
terpret his letter to the Chief has no SYM r
patty with their aspirations in that direc-
ton. He evidently thinks financial issues
should be kept out of politics. He would
drown the clamor for financial reform by
continuing to shout the Battle Cry Of I
Freedom" He would divert the attention
IF voters from the true cause of the hard
lines they are now suffering, by persistent
y Haunting in their eyes the bloody shirt.
THE GOVERNOR
aspires to a second term, and what is more, II
o a seat in the .. s. Senate; at least, such 3,
appears to be the very general impression. .
1 is my opinion that the people have no {,
lse for him in either place. What a dis n
,usting compound of self-assertion and eva a
i've twaddle this letter of his is He vaunts h
himself upon being characteristically posi- :,
ire in his views and way of expressing them, n
ret, this very letter conveying the vaunt, is n,
me of the most skulking diplomatic papers 8,
hat ever came from a man in public posi- n
ion. Moreover, it does shocking violence r.
o the rules and principles of English COM CT
'osition. If a man may be Governor of
Kansas, and possibly U. S. Senator, and yet Il
etray such palpable ignorance of English
yntax, what is the use of grammar
chools, and what does the stndy of English tn
amount to As preparation of the %
outh of the country to fill places of honor r
nd trust in the country's future? AZ
LORING, April Is, 1873. ]. A. B. U
TOPEKA.