Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-12-12

and makes the burden far easier. Will anv
one now say that with hundrt d ami fifty mil
lions of coin on hand we are prepared to
throw the entire six hundred and eighty mil
lions of paper money directly on the Treas
ury for redemption? For that is the real
point involved in the repeal of the legal
tender clause.
Reporter Do you hold that the green
backs now out shall be always kept in cir
culation?
NJ. blaine. That is an entirely different
question, though Secretary Sherman init
mates that he sees no objection to the simple
Treasury note, stripped of legal tender, re-
naming permanent part of our currency
subject to increase or decrease by Congress.
Does not this leave the whole volume of our
paper currency to be voted up or voted down
according to the temper of Congress--the
most dangerous of all the heresies preached by
the greenback party? To answer your question
more directly | suppose that no honest be-
lever in hard money ever contemplated the
perpetual circulation of three or four hundred
millions of legal tender government paper
which we were compelled to issue during the
war. In due time we shall come to that
question, bu. W 'uld not raise premature
discussion upon it.
Reporter. l do not quite apprehend your
meaning.
Mr.. Blaine. What mean is this: The
country has just emerged from prolonged
and very severe financial depression, and is
getting into good condition again as rapidly
as we could possibly expect. Everybody is
taking heart and hope for the future, and ]
cannot conceive better mode of checking
the rising tide OF prosperity than to throw the
country into another angry financial excite
ment to carry out what is at best but
theory.
Reporter. Then you would let the legal
tender notes alone for the present, would
you!
Mr.. Blaine. There is every reason for so
doing. The influx of coin is hourly increas
ing our financial strength, and will soon make
us complete masters of the situation. And
then we may have judicial determination of
the question by the Supreme Court, whose
decision on the pending case may lead to re-
suits not now foreseen. And then in three
years the bank charters expire and the ques-
ticn of the currency will necessarily then be
discussed. Let us wait. A very wise old
political leader in Kennebec of the past gen.
eration-Ben. White of Monmouth--was in
the habit always of repeating to his associ-
ates the adage, ".Stoad still rhiie you stand
meH" And he always added, "Don't venture
on experiments, pronouncing the word with
a full double e. l say with Ben. White,
"Don't venture on experiments"
Repo1er.-Then you object both to the sug-
gestion and to the time it is made?
Mr.. Biaine.-I object on both grounds. l
think if the proposition were even expedient
in itself this would be an injudicious time to
make it. Sir Robert Peel made a notable
answer to Lord John Russell once, when he
told him that ''his amendment, even if right
in principle, was wrong in time" 1t is of
great consequence that our people get accus-
toned to the specie standard without going
through some experimental legislation which
many will oppose and many more distrust.
Let us not forget that specie payment was
suspended full seventeen years. We have
had resumption now only eleven months. We
are doing wonderfully well. Let us continue
to do so.