The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1879-08-21

upon US, were our Sallanb lcaQerS, Will tnelr
lives in their hands, pluDging into the hell of
battle to save their country Yonder, far away
beyond the sound of the loudest gun, the other
chosen leader, displaying his bolt of calico
already 81 cents and going higherl Now,
when the war is over, and all its fruits gath
cred and saved, our leaders, only too glad, ex-
tend the welcome hand Of peace; while our
good citizen who leads the o;her side has just
got his martial ardor stirred up, and seems to
think that there has not been blood enough
shed, and, with shake of the red flag, says:
Rally once again." would say nothing to
reflect personally upon the Republican
candidate; but we must be pardoned if
we are forced into q little deTision at the
tactics our opponents resort to. For,
the old war-cry or the cry of aRebel Brigadiers"
in Congress, and charge that, failing to break
up the Union with arms, they seek now to ac-
coplplish hiBpurpose in the halle of Congress.
tleave it to you if this is not the burden of all
their speeches and their answer to every argu-
ment A charge more false or more unjust to
Southern Representatives in Congress could
not be made. The demand for the repeal of
partisan election laws and to prohibit the use of
the army at the polls did not come from the
South, and feel called upon on t1is occasion
to say, and do say it with the utmost SINGER
ity, that In all that now concerns our common
welfare as one nation and one people believe
the Representatives in Congress from South
Carolina or Georgia are as true, as sincere, to-
day, as those from Ohio or Massachusetts. If
they have more soldiers in Congress than the
North where is the blame? They certainly had
no more in the war.
Perhaps that old rhyme,
God and a soldier all men doth adore
In time of war, and not before;
When the war is DER and all tn 1Rs righted,
God is forgotten and the soldier slighted,
ie less applicable to the South than to the Re-
publican party in the North
Since the war, and especially since the con-
vulsion of 1873, questions of currency and debt
have absorbed large share of public attention.
Nor is public solicitude likely soon to be with
drawn from them. They are not subjects that
down at our bidding Property, business, labor
and, with not few, the very means of exist
ence are bound up in them. For the past five
or six years this country has suffered business
paralysis, in severity and continuance unlike
any depression ever experienced before.
And IL we ask what has been the compensation
for the tremendous sacrifices of these many
years-the destruction of our industries, the
bankruptcies, the losses of property, the heart
breakings- will be the answer? Resump-
ton? Not fairly. But greenbacks have been
made equal in value to gold That is what the
Secretary of the Treasury boasts of. That is
the mdgnana bonUnl In one place in all the
United States-one place in thirty eight States
and nine Territories place between the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, between the lakes
and the gulf-where if man brings $50 in
greenbacks he can get gold for it! Neverthe-
less, no ono questions the fact that
coin and paper have been equal
lied. But have the banks resumed specie pay
ments? Can we all have our choice as to the
kind of money we will take-gold or paper?
In England, France or Germany one can take
his choice everywhere in every transaction,
and the result is that large percentage of the
common currency of those countries is coin.
We are long way from that kind of resump-
ton in this country, and cannot have it with
$3.50, COO, COO land which may be any sum larger)
Of bank notes redeemable in $246, ,000, 600 of
legal-tender treasury notes. 30 we may at
once dismiss that phase of resumption and
confine ourselves to things as they are-paper
made equal to coin.
= How has that been accomplished? Surely
by no process that patent can be claimed on.
The paper currency has been reduced in vol
ume until there is no more paper money In the
country than would be about our share of the
worlds stock of gold if we had no paper; and,
having been made receivable for duties, it has
been made to do all that gold could do within
the limits of the United States.
For it is a well settled principle in monetary
science, that if any country using paper money
limits the volume to an amount not greater
than would be the share of metallic money that
would in the course of trade fall to it. then the
parer money, within the limits of such coun-
try, would stand at level with the metallic
money That's Just what we have done. Our
volume of money now, if we count every dollar
that actually forms part of the circulation,
gives not more than $l4 per capita-less rather
than moro than that
AS long as the revenues equal expenditures,
the coin locked up in the treasury, together
bo nko hold a1,ncolv nfior
purposes, must and will, under existing law,
remain in the treasury as a hoard, and, while
so he'd it no more affects prices and can nc
more be p55PeTiJ counted as part Of the circula-
ton of tlp country than so much not yet out OF
the minCv.
The popuiafion Of the world using gold as
money Supplemental with more or less sill
yer, it may bel is about 800 600 600, and, taking
out few large boards that ought not to be
counted, and thereis probably from 81, 200. .0OO,
COO to $4,250, 100000 of gold money. If this
were divided evenly (but do not say it ever
would be) it would give about S14 per capita
for this whole population of 800, 100000. or in
the neighborhood of SOC, 900, COO for the United
States. This, if not exactly, sufficiently Illus
trates how our currency has been brought to
an equivalency with gold. Let us note here,
also, that the only way to maintain the equiya-
lency Of paper and gold, or gold resumption, if
you please, Is to keep our volume restricted to
the gold measure, which means that prices
must be kept there, too. 1t must be plain, /
think, that if the use of silver was co-extensive
with that of gold, the distlibutive share of the
two metals that would fall to the various coun-
tries embracing the population given would be
much greater than when limited to gold alone,
and, by as much as the volume of metallic
money would be greater than with gold and sill
yer, by 80 much might the paper volume be in
creased, and still it's equivalency with gold be
maintained. The significance of this principle
will appear more clearly as, further on, we con-
slider the change that has been made by the
decentralization Of silver.
But first let us see what change has been re-
quired in the currency of the country or has
been made in order to produce the results
which have been reached.
In 1865 the volume of the currency was a
the highest, and counting, besides the banl
notes only that which was full legal tender and il
actual circulation, and excluding S115, 600 600 o
certificates of Indebtedness and S576, ,0O0, ,0C0 O
two and three-year 7.30 treasury notes of $5C
and upward, part of which were receivable
for dues from the Government and we hat
$685.. .COO,0C0 But, inasmuch as the population
of the States lately in rebellion had not COM
then to use to any appreciable extent this cur
rency, the population actually sharing it coult
not have been more than %, 600, 0C0 or 26 900,
O0c, which gives about $40 per capita But b.
1873, under the policy OF contraction
the total volume had been reduced t
$75O, ,0OO O00-I give official figures while tn
population that were using it at that tim
was from Al ,0O0, coo to A., 100000. That CAV
only SIS or sl9 per capita, a reduction of s2
to each person in eight years! Is it any wonde
that crash came? The mystery, though diff
cult to explain, has been why it did not com
sooner. In the first place, while business
going on briskly, everything would NATURAL
brace against fall. But the main causes wer
these:
First, the enormous sales of bonds OF a.
kinds-Government municipal and railroad-t
foreign countries, which brought us capital i
various forms, the use of which helped to kee
business going and to keep up prices, and sec
ond, and chiefly, the enormous expansion @
credit that took place during this period.
Bank loans increased in ten years from S64S
0OO, ,0O0 to 81, ,5S2, ,00, eco; bank deposits, whic
are made up very largely of credits, arisln
from discounts. increased in the same perlo
from $685., ,O00000 to sS9l, GOO. 600, while th
money which the national banks held weI
down sos, ,0O0, 600 to S13i, ,No,OO.
| Credit in other forms increased in proportion
| The debts of all kinds in the United States i
| 1878 have been estimated variously at from
to 40 per cent of the entire value of the proI
erty Of the country, while the money did IL
exceed per cent of the property valuation.
| credit expansion, there fore, of even 10 pr
cent is quite sufficient to account for the mail
| tenance of prices while the reduction of $233
1900 in the currency volume was beir
| made.
But the panic came, and the credit -bubb
| in, fO