Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-08-16
Fiat Folly.

THERE are great many greenback-
ers who do not like to be classed as
inhationists and who seek to disasso-
ciate themselves from the ultras. The
latter believe in fiat'' or irredeem-
able money; the former in Government
issues in lieu of national bank notes.
but only in limited amount and made
redeemable in coin. The difficulty in
this divergence of opinion is that the
absolute money fellows far out-number
the redeemable paperites, and so shape
and control the conventions, caucuses
and campaign literature that all new
accessions to the party almost inva-
riably attach themselves to the extreme
and predominant section. Nearly all
the leading greenback papers belong
to the fiat wing. The party teachings
are all permeated through and through
with the old, fallacious doctrine of q
non-exportable, irredeemable, paper
currency. 1t is not necessary to 90 to
New York city to find these doctrines
in the greenback AdUOcate, nor to
Brick Pomeroy's headquarters for
greenback tracts; the papers near at
home furnish ample evidence that this
ancient folly modernized has the ar
dent support of the controlling ele-
ment of the greenback party of to-day.
AS an instance near at home, we have
the Muscatine Tribune, which boldly
proclaims its doctrines in the following
plain language:
"The Greenbackers hold that the bonds be
paid off immediately in greenbacks. By this
means the interest, amounting to about
800, 900 a year, will be stopped, and the
SunDlipd Wi
| 0OO,OOO more of money. This will revive
| business, set in motion the wheels of indus-
| try and give employment to the millions of
! labOrers now idle"
ment erft Of if bohldst III 1fejfeuftuead paper
would be illegal, does not trouble the
| Tribune any more than it does any
other greenbacker. The fact that it
would be reputation gives it quite as
| little concern. The average green
hacker on this question is monoma-
MAC. He cares nothing for figures or
statistics or the facts of history. What
he sees is, that wealth and prosperity
are desirable things. He sees that gold
and silver have been considered valua-
BILE because they served to pass proper
ty from one man to another, and would
buy anything that has value and is for
sale. He sees that paper issues which
promised to pay gold or silver on de-
mand have served a like purpose with
coin as representative of wealth. He
has seen our national government issue
these paper promises to pay, and, as
| the times were coincidently prosperous
because the government was heavy
buyer and demand exceeded produc-
ton, he has reached the conclusion
that paper money did it all, and that if
a little paper money did that much a
great deal of paper money would do
more to "revive business" and "set
in motion the wheels of industry and
give employment to the millions of
| laborers now idle" And so the cry of
the greenbacker is for more money,
only, perceiving that the greater the
debt the more difficult it is to pay, he
has hit upon the happy expedient of
not paying the debt at all. Having
thus throttled all logic, reason, history,
experience and common sense, it is
easy enough to reach the stage of
mania which would issue over two bill
ions of government paper, and then
make the holders of government bonds
take their pay in the irredeemable pa
per. There is no absurdity too high or
broad that a greenback idolater will
not accept after he is once inoculated
with the fallacy of fiat currency
| HdUb-Eye.