The Brookhaven ledger. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1880-08-12
VOL. lO.--NO. 3.
Reminisence Of the Past

all issuing paper money. IheIr ag
gragate capital was $62, 100000. Th
| Union Bank, located at Jackson, hat
capital of $l5, 100000. The Mis-
sissippi Railroad Company's Bank
of Vicksburg and Natchez, had q
capital of $S,000,000. The Plan
ters Bank, at Natchez, and the Mis-
sissippi and Alabama Railroad
Bank, 1T Brandon, had each capi-
tai of $4,0O0,O00 There was plenty
of money-''fiat" money at that
and every man in the State almost
went into bankruptcy in lS4O,and in
IS4l the State itself took advantage
of the insolyent laws. 4 people
having no money ut all are unfor-
tunate, while people having too
much money are cursed.-Raymond
Gazette.
Should the wild financial scheme
of the Greenback party, which favor
the unlimited issue of Government
money, ever he carried out (which
is far from likely, there will be a
repitition of the financial disaster
and business ruin differing from
the above only in the magnitude
of the rnin and misery precipitated.
We can readily imagine the rank
and ile-the privates so to speak
of the Greenback party honest in
their belief that the unlimited issue
of paper money would be penacea
for all the woes arising from an at
tenuated purse; but the leaders of
that party are, or ought to be, too
well informed to believe in any such
dangerous doctrine. The Green
back idea is not new, by any man
ner of means. Not nation in Eu-
rope but has tested it; not a nation
in Europe but has suffered for its
folly in doing so. No other one
thing has wrought so much misery
and destitution among people of civ
| ilized nations as the unlimited issue
of fiat money; the false and delu-
sive ''prosperity' which ensued for
short period, with the wild eX-
travagance with which it was inva-
riablv marked, was inevitable suc-
ceeded by financial collapse, public
and private decentralization, business
ruin and general destitution and
suffering.
England had her Greenback ideas
exploded with the bursting of the
South Sea and other bubbles, but
fortunately the Government was not
greatly involved; yet England was
shaken from centre to circumfer-
ence when the inevitable collapse.
John Law introduced the Green
back idea into France; and after q
few feeting years Of seeming pros
perity came the legitimate result-a
bankrupt public treasury and a ma
ton of paupers, What schoolbOv is
unacuuainted with the Greenback
as carried ont in the early history
of this Government when sixty dol
lars was considered q fair equiva-
lent fora bushel of wheat, and yet a
little later the collapse of Greenback
policy was briefly but forcibly ex-
pressed in the saying, "not worth a
continental - Who has forgotten
the Confederate experiment with
Greenback idea? The leaders of
the Greenback party have read his
tory to little purpose if they have
failed to observe that public ruin
and private destitution follow the
carving out of the Greenback idea
as naturally and inevitably as the
night succeeds the day.
When an individual sends out his
notes of hand with profusiOn, bust
ness men will not touch his paper
until they are assured that it will
be paid at definite period, and that
his assets exceed his liabilities. He
must have these assets; his notes
must be based upon property value
of some description or they will not
be worth the paper on which they
are written. And this rule applies
with equal force to publictinance, as
has been demonstrated in every
country where the Greenback idea
was tested. Whenever govern
ment lavishly issues paper money
upon no soldier securities than its
mere promise to paw, it is sure to
meet the fate of the individual whose
liabilities are beyond his abilities
to meet.
A few wears since the great en-
pire of Russia adopted the Green
back idea and to-day its national
credit is mot worth a continental.
The Greenback chimera mislead
one of our South American neighbors
and in that country to-day the an
proximate value of square meal is
eighty dollars.
We repeat what we said above.
that we think the rank and file OF
the G. B. party are honest in the
conviction that theirs is the wisest
doctrine: hut in view of the
facts so frequently and fOrcihlv pre-
sented by history, we are led to sup
pose the leaders are extremely igno-
rant or grossly dishonest IN a po-
litical sense, and in either case they
are unworthy Of respectable fol-
lowing.