Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-10-02


of paper in any other way than by guar
anteeing its redemption in coin. The
Greenbackers, in proposing to pay out the
gold and silver now in the Treasury, pro-
pose that the country shall adopt fat
money. They say, with their usual absurd
ness, that this coin is idle. 1t is not
idle. 1t is the most active coin in the
world, for it is sustaining, to all practical
intents, some s64o, O00, 600 of paper at gold
par. That is its function, and it therefore
constitutes the very foundation of specie
payments 1t is that gold and silver
whose presence in the Treasury makes
every greenback and national bank paper
dollar worth one hundred cents in gold to-
day. Take that gold and silver away,
and the paper money would instantly
cease to be worth one hundred cents on the
dollar in gold.
The Greenbackers, in pretending anxiety
to discharge the public debt quickly, are
trying to conceal their real purpose to pay it
dishonesty, in the frat place, and in the
second. to make the paying of it in that
manner an excuse for putting the country
on fat money basis. The moment the
so-called " idle coin in the Treasury had
been paid out, specie resumption would be
at an end. We should then be launched
upon a new era of irredeemable paper,
with the public credit destroyed by the
dishonest payment of the bonds with de-
preciated paper, and with an initiation of the
currency certain to produce crisis. No
coin in the Treasury and thirteen hundred
millions of irredeemable paper afoat !; that
is the picture the Greenbackers offer us as
the result of their highest financial Wis
dom. And it is through this situation that
the masses are to be benefited, is 1T !?
They are to grow rich by being paid in
dollars which will be worth no more than
70 or so cents They are to prosper by
having to pay two and three prices for
everything they eat and wear and use
What the Greenbackers are really work
ing for is national bankruptcy, for moth.
ing else could possibly result from their
programme. Their inflated paper cur
rency would sink in six months lower than
the lowest point reached By the green
backs during the rebellion. The public
credit would be destroyed through the
practical Reputation of the bonds, and as
the pressure grew heavier the tendency to
try and relieve it by issuing more paper
would be inevitable 1t is well known
how these policies operate, for the world
has tried them often enough, though
always with the same result. The sub
stantial possessions of the poor and the
middle classes in such periods pass into
the hands OF the rich. They are periods
for the impoverishment OF the working
class. 1t is not the rich bondholders who
would suffer most from the Greenbackers'
policy. It is the workingmen and women
who hold no bonds, and who have NO
property but their capacity to labor. The
Greenbackers are not at all sincere in their
professions of yearning to pay the public
debt and save interest. Their policy
would save no interest, but on the con-
trary would subject the whole country to
incalculable and irretrievable losses. Their
policy would substitute for sound cur
rency which secures full value to every
man for labor or goods, deprecated,
redundant, fuctuating currency, which
would rob every body every day; which
would halve the laborer's wages and double
the cost of his living: which would lessen
the value of all securities and increase the
need of those who seek to realize upon
them which would not only start with
depreciation, but would sink lower and
lower until collapse was reached; which
would stop national progress and prosperi-
ty, and undo the work of twenty years in
moment. There is not the possibility of
one scintilla of public gain or benefit in the
Greenback programme. 1t is evil and
mischievous and malignant and dishonest
and foolish from beginning to end. Its
assumptions are fallacious and hypocritical.
It's representations are grossly and reck-
lessly inaccurate. Its most prominent
Characteristic is its stupid defiance of the
experience of universal history. Itshould
be stunned like poison by the workingman,
for 1t menaces the bread he eats and the
roof that shelters him. 1t is in fine
patent plan for discharging the public debt
by running the public credit, and by cheat
ing at once the public creditors and the
people at large.