The Portland daily press., 1878-09-06
DISHONEST MONEY.
Candidate Cove and Gen. Sargent at City
Hall.

| Congress from this district, and Gen. Horace
Binney Sargent of Massachusetts addressed a
large audience at City Hall last night. Mr.. A.
received with applause. He stated the
financial question to be between two kinds
of paper money, one based on the whole wealth
of the people (which is the spread eagle phrase
of the Greenbackers for Stat" money! and the
other based on the irresponsible pledge of
corporations (the Greenback description of
money based on conn., Mr.. Cove in proof of
the superiority of the former cited several
instances in which banks conducted on the
| gold system had been caught without sutfi-
Gent basis and had consequently failed. Un-
| doubtedly there have been such cases. But it is
illogical to cite them as proof that it is safer
to issue money on no basis at all or on the
"faith and credit of the whole people which
| is equivalent.
| Mr.. Cove undertook to review the financial
| legislation of the war and charged as all
the Greenback orators do that it was
dictated by the sbylocks of Wall street.
| Mr. Cove flies in the face of
history in making this statement, but it does
| not matter. He trusts that his audiences will
swallow his assertions without examining
them.
Now it happens that the committee of ways
| and means of the House of Representatives
which issued the first $3.50. 100000 legal tender
notes, through their chosen spokesman, Mr.. e.
G. Spaulding, used the following language to the
committee of bankers and the Secretary of the
Treasury, which shows that they were as jeal-
GUS of the ''money power" as Mr.. Cove. This
language is a sample of what was used by the
majority in the subsequent debates in the
House:
"But, sir, knowing the power of money. and
the disposition there is among men to use it for
the acquisition of great gain am unwilling
that the government. with all its immense
power and resources should be left in the
bands of any class of men, bankers or money
lenders, however respectable and patriotic they
may be. The government is much stronger
than any of them. Its capital is much greater.
1t has control of all the bankers money, and
all the brokers' money, and all the property of
the thirty millions of people under its juris-
diction. Why, then, should it 60 into Wall
street, State street, Chestnut street, or any
other street, begging for money? prefer to
assert the power and dignity of the government
by issuing its own notes.
In another speech Mr.. Spaulding Objected
to every form of Shining by government
through Wall and State Streets Certainly if
the bankers bulldozed the American Congress
in 1862 as Mr. Cove alleges, that Congress
wasn't conscious of it. If the soldiers were
paid in greenbacks when they ought to have
been paid in gold Mr.. Cove should not charge
it to the shylocks of Wall street.
Mr.. Cove says the dollar is a measure of
value. So it is. Mr.. Cove says property has
not shrunk, but the dollar has expanded, The
first statement is true and so is the second if
he means the paper dollar. The paper dollar
shrunk because people who had things to sell
became distrustfol of it, in other words they
were afraid they would never get the value it
promised 1t expanded as the danger of the
failure to keep its promise became less. These
fluctuations have undoubtedly worked some
hardships The Republican party propose to
make dollars that will not fuctuate, so that
these hardships shall be avoided in the future
MI. Cove proposes dollars which all history
has shown to be as unstable as the sands of the
seashore, and thereby sow the seeds for a new
crop of hardship and misery.
Mr.. Cove said in one part Of his speech that
the law fixes the value of a dollar, and in an
osuOo thdp WV 4UnuGtJ VI LlOuoy AA6S ltS
value. There is confusion here. If the stamp
fixes the value, the amount ought not to affect
it. If the government can make dollar out
of anything by declaring simply that it shall
be dollar, it ought to be able to make any
number Of them. If the quantity of money
fxesit value, then the stamp has nothing to do
with it. Mr.. Cove says that the Greenbackers
do not propose.to issue an Unlimited amount of
paper dollars. France didn't propose to
issue an unlimited amount of assignats
On the other hand, he specified the
sum which they should not exceed. But once
the ice was broken al promises were disre- ,
garded. As they fell in value, people said it
was because there wasn't enough of them and
more were issued at their demand. And thus
the government went on fixing the limit and
then disregarding it until there was universal
bankruptcy and misery throughout the land.
No way ever was devised and no way will be
devised by which paper money can be kept at
par except by making it redeemable in gold.
All Mr.. Gove's devices have been tried and
found futile, and if he doesn't know it, it is be-
cause he has read history in vain.
In one breath Mr.. Cove advocates currency
based upon the faith and credit of the Ameri-
caa people, and in another he seeks to render
even this foundation utterly worthless by urg-
ing the breaking of the pledge of the Ameri-
can people to pay its notes on the first of JAN
uary, 1879. What he is really advocating is
currency based on the broken faith and ruined
credit Of the American people,
Gen. Sargent followed Mr.. Cove and spoke
in much the same strain. According to him
about all the misery 10 the world in modern
times is directly traceable to resumption of
specie payments. Exhausting wars, bad crops
and individual improvidence have nothing to
do with it. It's all the result of specie basis,
The first great step of the American people in
their progress was the throwing off of the
British yoke, the second the abolition of slav-
cry, and the third should be the getting rid of
the money power. How he proposes to get rid
of men of wealth we do not know, perhaps he
is going to hang them. He like Mr.. Cove
charged that our financial legislation was ruin
Gus, among other things alleging that silver
was demonetizsd by trick. Mr.. Sargent
should not accuse SO great an apostle of the
Greenback as William d. Kelley with dscep-
ton. He it was that introduced the bill for
demonetizing silver. To Mr. Sargent's credit,
be it said that he stated the currency ci rcula-
ton of 1865 correctly. He should step over to
the New Era Office aud get them to take off a
billion from their state nent Of it, The French
assignats, according to Mr.. Sargent, depre-
ciated because they We're counterfeited. Doubt
less this did assist, but to say that it was the
principal cause is absurd. Mr.. Sargent's audi
ence rapidly thnned out under his treatme Mt.
Aid 10 Yellow Fever Sufferers.
A number Of our prominent citizens met at
the Council room last evening to devise means
for collecting funds to aid the fever stricken