Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-09-11
Ewing As a Financial Orator.

leTeu upon dSldlSLlSIl9 11NOlNlAS cAetSI
knowledge and clear understanding.
The result was disastrous failure, which
places upon exhibition, Illuminated, as
it were, in red and blue fire, Gen. Ew-
ingS incOmpetency to discuss lntelll-
gently financial question.
The equalization of currency with
coin, as the Democratic statesmen who
have been convicted of financial quack
cry are pleased to term resumption,
comes from the readiness of the Govern
ment to redeem in gold or silver the
greenbackS Or demand nOtes of the Gov
eminent, presented to the Sub-Treasurer
at New York. As the case stands, the
greenbacks are redeemable in coin, and
the bank notes are redeemable in green
backs.
There are in legal-tender notes, green
backs, S346,6SI ,O16. The amount of Ma
tiOnal bank notes circulating at the date
of the last report of the Comptroller of
the Currency, was 1922, 100000. Total
greenbacks and bank notes, S66S, 900, 900.
This sum has been slightly increased by
the issue of notes. The specie reserve
of the Treasury September l, was: Gold
coin and bullion, Sl41, ,546, ,390.52; stand
ard silver dollars, S30,67S, ,464; fractional
silver coin, Sl5,236, ,T24.4S; silver bull
lion, S4S04,6l1,S SO. The Democrats of
Ohio demand that the 1922, 100000 Ma
tiOnal bank notes shall be withdrawn
and greenbacks substituted, making the
amount of paper of the Government
ready to be rushed in for redemption
S60S, 100000. We hold that the specie re-
serve is not sufficient to meet this de-
mand; that the substitution or green
backs for bank notes would be equiva-
lent to the overthrow of the resumptiIUl
policy, and that those who urge ttaS
scheme are doing it expressly to deStYby
the equivalency of coin with paper, for
the purposes of imitation, speculation,
protiigacy, bankruptcy and reputation.
Mr.. Ewing undertook to make the
point that the Government was already
responsible for the resumption of bank
notes, and that the competency of the
reserve of specie in the Treasury to meet
outstanding obligations would be no less
if there were S66S,0O0,0O0 of paper in
greenbacks instead of S346,000,000 in
greenbackS and 1922, 100000 III bank
notes. He quoted the following clause
of the law:
"When the circulating notes of any such
National Banking) Association, assorted or
unassorted, shall be presented for redemption
in sums of $1,000 OF any multiple thereof, to
the Treasurer of the United States, the same
shall be redeemed in United States notes"
This seemed to IA man of Nh Ewing's
imperfections of information the same
thing rs fixing the responsibility for the
redemption of the bank notes upon the
Government, and he proceeded as fol-
lows:
"rhis is all the redemption there is, in fact,
of the National bank EOtes, because each
bank is only bound to redeem its own notes,
and no man can collect out of the general
circulation any considerable number of the
notes of the bank in his immediate locality.
Hence the United States in effect alone re-
deems the bank notes, and the same officer
tohO redeems gree1I6GcEs in coin redeemS bank
1lOttS in greele6GckS. Now, auppose you want
81, 900 in gold; you can only get it by pre-
senting to the Treasurer or Sub b.rreasurer of
the United States 81, ZOO in greenbacks, or in
National bank notes. 1t makes no difference
aeltich you present. Suppose, if you present
bank notes and demand coin, the Treasurer
should say-'l am not bound to pay you in
COIN Your answer will be-'Then pay me
in greenbacks.' And when he hands you the
gIeenbacks you will hand them back and say
Now pay me in coin.' Does not the Uni.
ted States, therefore, in fact and effect, re
deem equally greenbacks and bank notes in
coin? Is not tie burden Of furnishing the coin
for the entire paper circulation achOtiy on the
United States? Would that burden lie in
creased dollar by substituting greenbacks
for bank notes?"
Here is the product of the arrogance
of complacent ignorance. Now each
bank has and must have continually in
the Treasury of the United States, in
greenbacks, five per cent of the sum of
its circulation. This Is the redemption
fund, and 1t is not the property of the
United States, but of Lhe National banks
They mast keep 1t up. The same officer
who redeems greenbacks in coin does not
redeem bank notes in greenbacks. The
Treasurer at New York who pays out
coin for greenbackS has nothing what
ever to do with bank notes. If $1,000 in
bank notes were presented him for re-
he had nothing to do with bank notes :;
that the banks themselves had their
own notes to redeem out of their own
fund for that purpose. 1t does make a
difference which you present. In tile
case you present greenbacks to the
Treasurer at New York you get gold,
while if you present bank notes TO the
same officer he sends you about your bu-
sineSS to deal with the banks and not
with the Government. The case is per-
fectly plain. There is not any possible
doubt about the facts. The presentation
and redemption of the entire three hun
dred and twenty-five millions of bank
notes, would not take one dollar out of
the specie reserve of the Government.
The effect and the only visible material
effect of the redemption of the whole
sum of the bank notes would be to place
those notes in the Treasury to be burn
ed, and to take out of the Treasury the
property of the banks held as collateral
viz, the bonds used to secure the bank
circulation and the greenbacks of the re-
dempt;on fund. And yet General Ew-
ing was silly enough to say, in continual
ton of the remarkS'qu above: -
"There is no schoolboy in Ohio who, on
reading the law, would not see that both
Mr.. Schurz and Mr.. Sherman are falsfying the
facts when they assert that the substitution of
legal tenders for bank notes either increases
the burden of resumption or impairs its sta
bilty. Yet on this shallow invention is built
almost the whole structure of their arguments
Un the money question against the position of
the Ohio Democracy"
There is no intelligent citizen who,
reading the law, would fail to see that
Mr.. Ewing had either not read it, or was
incapable through intellectual idiosyn-
cracy of understanding it, or was totally
reckless in misrepresenting it: and yet
out of his manifest miScOnStruction of a
statute that leaves no two interpreta-
tions of its meaning possible to mind
that receives the truth, Gen. Ewing
draws the whole array of his assault
upon the Secretary of the Interior, to
whnm ha popS on with mo most aSinina