The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-09-05
JOHN SHERMAN.


A Speech by the Secretary OF the Treas
ury- The National Currency and FL
nances.
FELLOW CITIZENS When informed the Re-
publican State Committee that I could speak
once in Ohio during my brief visit, they in
quired if it would be agreeable to me to speak
in Toledo. I promptly answered yes, for,
though knew that your political associations
had been greatly disturbed by questions which
sprung out of the hardness of the times and
the panic of 1873, yet you would give me pa
tient hearing, and thus be able better to judge
how far we disagree.
naturally suppose that you desire me to
speak mainly on financial topics. My official
position for many years in the Senate connect
ed me with the financial legislation Of Con-
carry into execution these laws. They relate
mainly to the public credit, the public debt,
our coin and currency, and the system of taxes
bywhich our Government is supported. These
topics are necessarily woven with each other !;
but each canvass brings some of these into
more prominence than Others.
Now, the questions most discussed are the
silver question and the resumption question.
These are not the only branches of the currency
question, but they present the main diff
culties in the administration of the Treasury
Department., and will be mainly the subject
of my remarks. The election this fall for
members of the House of Representatives will
practically settle them. There ought to be no
partisan or personal feeling about them, for we
are all interested alike in promoting the COM
mon good, and in settling upon d sound basis
the currency of the country.
In undertaking to address you l will frankly
and freely express my own opinion, but will,
fully and freely obey and execute the Judgment
of my fellow-ctizens as expressed by Congress,
or give way to some one who will do so.
What l want is the largest amount of cur
rency that can be maintained at par with the
established coin in the country. From the di-
versity of our wants we must have many differ
ent kinds of money, to measure great wants
and little wants. We must have coin money
and paper money, and plenty of both. What
money may be of many kinds, it must all
have the same purchasing power. The essen
tial qualities of all good money are sta
bility, equality and convertibility. The
dollar Of one kind should buy as much as the
dollar of any other kind. Deprecated money
cheats the ignorant and the unwary. and en-
riches the money-changer. The poor man,
whose dependence is upon his daily labor is
the victim of deprecated money, for he must
take what is offered, and is always paid in the
poorest money. Nodistinction should be made
between coin money and paper money or be-
tween the noteholder and the bondholder. The
money provided by the Government should
pay all debts and be used for all debts. Sub
ject to these conditions, am for the largest
amount of each kind of money demanded for
the wants of business, and if you will agree
with me in these general propositions there
will be no quarrel between us.
Gold, silver, and copper, as well as the
modern continuance of paper money, are all
useful agents of exchanges, and ought to be
freely used and always maintained at par with
each other. Minor coins of baser metals are
indispensable for the innumerable small wants
of life To measure these wants, silver coin
would have to be too small in size, and, there
fore, copper and nickel are used but these
metals are SO cheap that, if coined at their in
trinsic value, the coins would be too large for
convenience SO, by common consent, the old
copper cents are abandoned, and token coins of
copper and nickel are issued at several times
their intrinsic value, but are maintained at par
by the necessity of their use, and by being re-
deemed in money Of full value when presented
in considerable sums.
for the market and shopping transactions of
life. Silver coins are, by all odds, more nu-
merous than coins of gold, even in countries
where gold alone is the standard of value. The
shillings and haf-crowns OF Great Britain out
number the sovereigns many times, and in the
United States the silver coins issued from Feb.
/, 1875, to Aug. /, 1878, number 900, 1929, $40,
while the whole number of gold pieces issued
during that time in the United States is 7,710,-
n ia lv
take the place of silver. Our old fractional
currency was the best substitute ever devised,
but this cost annually nearly per cent. to
maintain it in decent condition, or nearly the
interest of the money, while the amount lost
wasted and destroyed WIS heavy tax upon the
people who used it. It lasted on an average
only fifteen months, while coin lasts thirty
years. The largest possible use of silver and
it's freest circulation are indispensable to any
system of money that can be devised, but, like
all other money, it must be maintained in some
way at or near the intrinsic value Of other
money.
If silver is coined at less than its market
value and issued without limit, it will as surely
displace gold as water will dsplace air. There.
fore, fractional silver is limited to $1,000, 900,
and is only issued when required in exchange
for United States notes. II it becomes TOO
abundant it comes into the treasury for taxes
and is paid out only when demanded or will
ingly received. So the coming Of the new
silver dollar, though a legal tender for all pur-
poses, is limited by law to from $2 000, 900 to
81, 600, 900 month. The silver in this dollar
is worth less in the market than the gold or
even the paper dollar, and, if issued without
limit. the silver do ar will surely depreciate be-
low the gold dollar, and will become the single
standard of value. This is as certain as the
march of time. EN&9# .EtS
But gold also is an indispensable standard
of value. It measures all the larger trans
actions of business life. It is used as such
by most Christian and civilized nations of the
world, and its decentralization would be as
great an injury as the demonetization of silver
Now, fellow-citizens, I am in favor of SO
adjusting this matter that both metals will
circulate at par with each other; that you will
have gold eagles and silver dollars, and that a
dollar of either will purchase precisely the
same commodities.
This can be done, while the market value
Of silver is lower than it's legal ratio with gold,
either, n
l. By limiting the amount of silver to be is
sued, Or .tI fa
g. By readjusting the relative weight of
the two coins, either by increasing the weight
Of the silver coin, or lowering the weight OF