Mexico weekly ledger., 1879-08-07
OHIO POLITICS.
Greenbacks a. National Banks.
BY GEN. TOM. EWING.

of treasury notes for bank notes.
The Ohio Democracy this year, true
to its past avowals declares for the
gradual withdrawal of national bank
notes and the substitution therefor of
treasury notes, which in the language
of the platform shall be receivable
for all debts and a legal tender equal
ly with coin ; such governmental is
sues to be regulated upon principles
established by legislation or organic
law, so as to secure the greatest pos
sible stability of values.
The Republican party intended by
the resumption law and still intends,
to take up and destroy every dollar
of the greenback money. Secreta-.
ries Bristow and Morrill,, in their Of
fetal reports, declared that such was
the purpose and effect of the law, and
Mr.. Sherman admitted this on the
floor of the Senate. 1t was the agi-
tation against the total destruction of
greenbacks by the Western and South
ern Democracy and the Nationals
which, against the determined oppo-
sition of the great mass of the Re-
publican party, established the green
backs now in circulation as a part of
the permanent currency of the coun-
try. But the money power regards
the costless greenback as a standing
menace to its partial control of the
currency-and an obstacle to that
complete control which it desires and
intends to secure. The paper cur-
rency will not be left half costless
and half subsidised-half issued by
the government and half issued by
private corporations. 1t should and
will be issued wholly by one power
or the other. Give the Republican
party a new endorsement, dominat-
ed and controlled as it is by the ma
tionai banks, and you will find that
either through judicial continuance or
directly through legislation, your
greenbacks will be wiped out and the
money power will give you just as
little paper money for your business
as it pleases, and will regulate the
values of your property and labor to
suit itself.
Our experience has demonstrated
that no matter how plentiful may be
the supply of gold and silver, the
greatest part of the money actually
current will always be paper. On the
volume of the money actually current
depends the prices of labor and COM
modities. AS that volume rises prices
60 up and as it falls they 60 down.
The whole volume of money current
has rarely been over a fftieth part of
the aggregate value Of the property
of the country yet when the money
IN actual circulation is reduced one
hundred millions, that reduction
shrlnks the value of labor and prop
erty to fifty times the sum Of the cur
rency reduction; and SO when the
current money is increased one hum
dred millions, it adds fifty times that
sum to the aggregate value Of other
property. So, too, when the volume
of the currency diminishes and prices
consequently fall, all business becomes
unprOsperous; while, when the cur
rency is being increased, values rise
and business becomes good again.
The power TO control the volume of
the currency, affecting as it does so
profoundly the general prosperity, is
in its nature a sovereign power. The
welfare or the people demand that
this power to expand or contract the
currency, to raise and lower values,
to give prosperity or infict distress,
should not be committed to the hands
of private individuals or corporations,
and least of all corporations, repre-
the holder of public and pri-
yate debts, whose wealth IS increased
by every fall of prices and is dimin.
ished by every rise. 1t should be
exercised by the government alone,
in such q manner as shall give TO
debtors. Taxpayers and the industrial
classes the assurance Of justly estab-
lished and stable values. If two or
three thousand corporations, acting,
as they always do, in the interests of
the holders of money securities, are
permitted to control the volume of
currency at their pleasure, there is no
limit to the injury and loss they may
upon the people, or to the
they may themselves accumu-
late by hidden and concerted meas
ures of expansion and contraction Of
IL was precisely this danger
which led Jefferson to resist the in
corporation Of the first bank of the
States under Washington's
administration, and to oppose the re-
newal of its charter under Madison,
and which led "Old Hickory to
make his grand and successful fight
the re-charter of the bank.
Had the Republican party desired
diminish as rapidly as possibly the
debt it would, when the war
have prohibited the incorpo-
alton of any more banks of issue
and gradually substituted treasury
notes for bank notes.-the power to
make such substitution having been
reserved in the national bank law. Il