Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1880-10-28

tratlon they were slowly selling Al per
cent. bonds at par. When / became
secretary of the treasury, in April, 1877,
/ believed that the credit OF the govern
ment was so good that we ought to sell
per cent. bonds in coin. So / with
drew the Il per cent. bonds and offered
the 4 per cent. bonds. The banks would
not take them. They said the rate Of
interest was too low, and don't blame
them at all because it is natural for
man to get as high rate of interest as
/ he can, and he does not care whether IL
is right or wrong. However. L insisted
upon Offering the per cent bonds to
the people. We did so by what is called
the popular loan. Strange to say. the
people OF the United States took $75.-
Ooo,UOO OF those bonds in sixty days.
Applause.
am now going to speak word as to
RESUMPTION AND BUSINESS PROSPERITY.
The resumption act was passed in
1919, after great deal of discussion and
debate all over this land. There was
vide divergence of opinion among the
people about our ability to resume and
we had all sorts Of nonsense talked. even
IN wisconsin where you are a pretty
level headed set Of people. Finally. the
Republican party in congress after de
bate pro and con passed measures pro-
wong Tor the resumption Of specie paw
ments, and mark it whenever there is any
hard nut to crack, any difficult problem
TO solve, 1t IS and always has been done
Tor twenty years by the Republican
party. Applause. The Democratic
party Tor twenty years has advocated no
measure and proposed none. 1t has
done nothing but oppose what we pro-
posed and propose nothing whatever.
We made up our minds that the time had
come to resume specie payments. What
was done? Our notes were then worth
ninety cents on the dollar. What was
meant by resumption? Resumption was
simply to bring the value Of those notes
up to par IN coin so that the note in the
hands Of laboring man or farmer
would buy as much log and hominy or
anything else as gold coin. The bond
holders were paid in gold coin and every
body felt that they had no discrimi-
nation against them. The Ameri-
can people can stand anything but
: discrimination. They al want to stand
, on the same bottom. If one man has a
J dollar IN gold everybody else wants a
: dollar In gold. Therefore this policy OF
, resumption was nothing more or less
than to bring this paper dollar to the
J value of q gold dollar. Howwas it done ?
We had accumulated in the treasury
; gold little by little SO as not to disturb
} the money market, to enable us to bring
about resumption and pay ANYBODY that
l wanted gold. In April, 1877, this pro-
cess of accumulation commenced. We
gradually put gold into the treasury al
: the rate of five million dollars mouth.
! We had at that time no surplus revenue.
1t was period Of hard times, and vet We
, sold the per cent bonds and we got
= gold and put every month into the
treasury five millions OF dollars of gold.
; But the Democrats halloed out, "EThis
: will contract the currency" Instead OF
7 contracting it expanded the currency.
: We accumulated gold in the treasury.
our notes went up and gold went down.
J That was not according to Democratic
logic, but according to the actual fact.
As we accumulated this gold people be-
gan to believe that we should resume,
J and we went on piling up this gold until
: congress met. Congress had become
Democratic, and what did they do
They
TRIED TO REPEAL THE RESUMPTION ACT;
they tried to arrest the funding opera
tons of the government; they tried to
defeat resumption. That bill was sent
to the senate, and there it passed by all
but one vote; but | didn't care for that.
because l knew if it passed both houses
and went to the president, it would be
vetoed, and resumption would remain.
Applause. In the meantime congress
was doing all sorts of devilment. They
examined me day after day, week after
week, until they pumped me dry. I
gave them all the facts l could get from
the books. Yet gold kept coming into
the treasury month after month, and
after about twelve months people began
to think, and say, well [ believe the old
fellow will bring about resumption
Laughter. During all this time the
Democratic party denounced the resump-
ton act. | could read to you by the
hour the resolutions of all OF nearly all
the states against resumption. Yes. six
months before resumption was a success.
they passed resolutions in Wisconsin,
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania.
New York, in nearly every state. de-
handing the immediate and uncondi-
tlonal repeal of the resumption act.
They said it was
FISHERMAN SHAM"
1t was anything that was not good.
Every corner grocery that failed, they
said it was on account of the resumption
act. Laughter. Notwithstanding
that, the good sense and sober Judgment
of American people returned, and to-day
they have solid money. The people had
confidence, and three months before re-
sumption came the difference between
gold and paper had disappeared, and
within sixty days of resumption every
body knew that it was success; thirty
days before it came notes rose to par
IN coin. and on the day of resumption
when the doors were thrown open and
the treasury was ready to redeem aLy
notes that were offered, only 5000 in
notes were. presented and $40, 900 of gold
was deposited in the treasury in ex-
change for United States notes. TAP
| plausel Some New York hrol,er bod