Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-09-21
FIAT MONEY
ADVOCATED By Gen. BUTLER At
INDIANAPOLIS.
History Called Upon to Prove Its Value Over
a Rigid Specie Standard--Littls Hale's
Pronunciamento-Misce Political
Points.
But1er on the Finances.


tendency to destroy their value and prevent
the proper appreciation of the privilege which
| was possessed by the people of the United
States and by no other nation in the world
that of choosing the man who should admin.
lister the government and determine the nature
of our laws. In this land the people are SOW
ereign in their own right and it is their will
| expressed in constitutional manner which
| nakee laws and makes the officers to execute
| those laws. He wished it understood that he
was not one of those who fea-ed the masses OF
people. He held that the congregated intelli
| gence among the masses is greater than that OF
few cultivated men, nor was he afraid the
| masses would do any wrong. This country
has been under the
/; CONTROL OF THE MASSES
for the last fifty years, with some few and rare
exceptions, and they are of recent date.
During all that time, he undertook to say, the
people had done no wrong to anybody, no
wrong to capital. wrong to themselves, no
wrong to the government. nor in the manage
ment of government affairs He had great
| faith in the old Saxon maxim - Fair Play, %
and this was the rule which governed the
actions of the majority of people. When a
few men congregate together, although they be
no better and worse than the rest of the
people, they are drawn together to look after
their own interests and not of the interest of
the whole country The question, therefore, is
how shall the people act today. There never
was time when the people were more free to
act than they are now. There have been two
great parties going along on certain professed
principles which were of Importance at one
time, but have arrived at period when other
issues sink into lesser Importance in view of
the one great question before the people,
namely,
THAT OF FINANCE.
And it may not be for the interest of the
people to be bound up to either of these par
ties any longer. With a view of showing the
nature of financial legislation he then referred
at great length, and considerable minuteness,
to the history of the action of the Democratic
party and of Congress from the DAYS of Mon
roe and Jackson down to the present time. In
the course of this resume he declared the
TEACHING OF HISTORY
in this country and European countrie. was
that irredeemnble currency is more easily kept
at par value than currency redeemable in
coin. He attempted to establish this assertion
by going back to the days of ancient Venice
and said 600 years ago she issued a Gu rency
not redeemable in anything which remained at
par value for more than four centuries, no,
only at par, but as high as 100 per cent. above
gold.
The continental money, with which our sol
diers were paid and our
LIBERTIES WERE WON,
was neither more nor less than rag money
save the manner of its issuance was mistake
and it's form bad, but the continental money
did good service. 1t distributed the expense,
of the of the revolution among all the
people. Eventually it wiped itself out of ex
istence without az ybody being the loser. Thi,
how oh Lat tnr no Al
government with our greenback currency
which has resulted in tax on ourselves anG
our children which will not be paid during the
| next generation. The objection is equally
urged that the French assignats and mandate
| were specimens of unredeemable paper
| money, and proved that such money woulo
| have no permanent value, but disturbed the
condition of France at the time when the
| assignats were issued. The argument and com
parison is unfair and unjust. The assignat
was no better than our land warrants, which nc
one would call money. and those French lane
warrants were in the hands of men who might
one day occupy the position of a criminal or
the next be in seat of judicial power. There
was nothing stable about such currency anC
under such a condition of affairs, because
nothing was valuable in France at that time
| neither life, limb nor property. The neWspa
pers and some political speakers were, he said
raising great objection to the phrase,
FIAT MONEY,
but what does fat money mean? Do the nows
| papers know what it means? When all wa
chaos and without form and void, and darkness
covered the earth as a pail, God said thes
words, which are Latin, Fiat Lux''-'Le
there be light and there was light" Fla
money means simply the United States govern
ment should say:
LET THERE BE MONEY!
| nothing more, nothing less. The word fiat
is the Latin for ''let them be- He referred a
length to his Congressional action upon tn
| finance question, and claimed he had been con
sistent in the views he was advocating
In 1863, he made a speech il
Congress in opposition to the passage o
bill for strengthening the pnblic credit, sn'
! he was now havingthat speech issued Throughout
Massachusetts as campaign document Tha
bill was introduced by Mr.. Schenck, chairman
| of the committee on ways and means and ais
chairman of the National Republican ccmmitte
during the first great campaign. 1t was, h
| alleged. the result of q contract entered int
with August Belmont. agent of the Rothschild
and chairman of the National Democrat CON
| mlttee after MIR. Schenek had been entertained
| atthe Manhattan club of New York. borrowin
ten minutes of Gen. Schenck's time. he. Ger
| Butler, stated his objection 70 the bill and b
| was laughed at for his pains. But if his conr
trymen should ever deem him worthy of
monument he hoped the inscription would b
Here lies the man who denounced the act 6
1869 as an Infamous swindle" Sneak;no r
the
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH.
he said it had been taken out of the hands
both politicel parties by President HAYES an
must now be left to take care of itself. II
wished his Republican friends and the newsp,
| pers who were saying hard things about hir
would not allude to anything ho did preyiou
to 1917, because he was then understood to b
very good Democrat But he had not change
his views He was in early life Democrat,
believer in the financial views of jackson an
Jefferson Democrats. At that tim
money, as now understood. and
wished to stand on the old Democratic doctrin,
the government should take care of the peopl
OF the iabor1ng man, and protect him AGAIN
the greed Of capitalists. That was the doctrir
OF the Democrats when Democracy meant som
thing. What is needed now is that the COVER
ment should make and issue money sufficiel
to carry on all the necessary public works ar
complete them quickly and cheaply. tn
would
PUT MONEY IN CIRCULATION
7 and give employment -. Ella oe I
dnstry in motion all over the land Tho
public works would be carried thronoh wit
out any additional burden being placed on ii
= country, for the government would paw out ii
. money which it had the power to make and
! sue money to any extent that was ,und nece
: sary. This he believed to be the proper al
only way OF supplying the people with none
some Deheved 1t would not work, but ii
!, country could never be worse ,
s than at present, and if the experime
t proved failure why the next Congrs
could change it again. That was the pl
adopted in commercial business. They tri
an experiment., and if it failed abandoned
: for some other method. BE asked in view
the failure of the present financial policy Il