The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-08-18
IN. Y. Tribune.l
Some Points for Maine Voters.

~ Foter III MAINE, VINO WISHES 10 Dc IN tue
right on financial questions, has an idea that
he is cutting down four cords of wood in order
to get one for himself. He thinks that the
bondholders originally insisted on being paid
in silver of a certain weight and fneness, but
now do not want it, and induce Secretary
Sherman to store up $500. 900 in the Treas
ury. The bonds, he thinks, ought to be paid
in greenbacks as they fall due, for the holder
would prefer greenbacks to silver and the
Government could print notes as long as hold
ers of bopds would take them in preference to
the silver stipulated.
The voter has been deceived. If he will 90
OUT this week and cut four cords of wood from
his farm he will find that he has the whole of
it himself, and is not obliged to pay three cords
or one cork, or single stick of it, to anybody
Whether he cuts the wood or lets it alone, he
will have to pay the taxes on his property Just
as other men do who have property which
Government protects.
1t is not true that any class of Government
bonds were ever issued under such a contract,
"that they were to be paid in silver of GER
tain weight and fineness." If the voter will
require his informant to produce the act of
Congress authorizing such an issue of bonds
or any bond bearing on it such stipulation,
he will find that he has been deceived. No
such bond ever existed and no such an act
was ever passed. What did occur is this: The
United States needing to borrow money issued
bonds promising to pay dollars in United States
coin, and at that time, as for years previously,
silver dollars were not in circulation. 1t was
the necessary and universal understanding
that gold dollars were to be paid, because no
other coin dollars were in use, or could by any
possibility be collected in sufficient quantity to
pay even small fraction of the loans Many
years later, silver having deprecated, mis-
guided or dishonest men proposed to coin
great quantity of silver dollars, imagining that
in someway, by means of such deprecated
coins, people who had debts to pay could man.
age to rob their creditors. They forgot that
nobody could get those Scent dollars out
of the Treasury without paying it the value of
gold dollar for each Of them. AS no one
wanted to pay that price, the silver coined has
accumulated in the Treasury. For the Gov
ernment to use these coins in paying back mon-
ey, which, when it was borrowed the Govern
ment expected to pay, and the lenders ex-
pected to have paid in gold, would be an act of
presume, does not want to rob his neighbor,
who bought United States bonds upon the
facts the existing.
Neither is it trne that Secretary Sherman
has on hand, or at any time has had, $500 0OO,-
900 in silver The standard silver dollars, which
form the only part of the silver on hand that
could lawfully be used in payment of debts,
amounted August ! to SAG, 2,791. Congress
has made it lawful but cannot make it honor
able, to use these coins in payment Of bonds.
We are paying off from S5,0O0,000 to $10,-
00000 oof per cent, bonds each month from
the surplus revenues of the Government. At
greater or less rate these bonds have been
bought in as fast as there was money in the
Treasury; why? Because, had the sum been
kept in the Treasury until the bonds fell due,
a disastrous scarcity of our currency would
have resulted. In order to avoid locking up
several hundred millions unnecessarily, the
present Administration has paid off the debt
as fast as it could by buying the bonds, and
meanwhile has taken advantage of the i'm
proved credit of the country to try to substi-
tute per cent for 8 and & per cent. bonds to
very large amount. The latter is the opera
tion of refunding, which the voter of Maine
wants to stop. His trouble is that he does not
understand that the debt is now being tpaid off
as fast as possible, and at the same time re-
funding is cutting down the rate of interest on
the remainder unpaid.
The voter of Maine thinks it would be we'll
| to destroy the public credit bys compelling
creditors to receive either deprecated sivet or
deprecated notes for their bonds For, though
| the notes of the United States are as good as
gold to-day, they wonld be worth great deal
less than gold. or silver either, if the Govern
ment should issue enough more of them to
''pay' the bonds which become redeemabls
next year. In like manner, though in less de-
gree, the silver dollars would become worth
| less than they are if the Government should
empty into circulation 900 of them.
Either course would not only be dishonest but
| foolish, because the country makes and saves
more money by maintaining high credit, so
that it can constantly reduce the interest on its
debt, than it could make or save by robbing its
| creditors.
| Let us suppose that the voter of Maine has
tenant who rents farm worth $4,000 at a
| rental of $500 year. After paying rent for
| twenty years has the tenant right to take the
| farm as his own and kick the voter off from his
| own property? But the bond-holder has loaned
| his money, just as the man leases a farm to be
| paid so much yearly for the use of it. In forty
| years the interest will amount to twice the
original sum, and yet that sum originally bor-
rowed will remain due at the end Of the forty
years, exactly as the voters farm will still be-
long to him although another man has paid for
the use OF it for forty years in succession.
Apply the golden rule: Do as you would
have others do unto you. Then the voter in
Maine will find no difficulty IN seeing that the
policy of the Republican party has been both
right and wise. For honesty is really the best
policy for nations, as for individuals.