The Portland daily press., 1881-02-05
Treasury Notes and Bank Notes.

treasury NOC0S ana Bank NOUoS.
IN. Y. Post
Tho Sun speaks for good many Democrats
when it Indignantly rejects the notion of an
alliance between their party and the Green
hackers Our contemporary characterizes .
such an intention, as reported by the Herald,
as "too ridiculous to be seriously considered.
But the movement of which the intelligent
Washington correspondent of the Herald says
"there is some quiet talk' is not general
combination in support of an exclusive ''fat''
paper, an immediate and enormous imitation of
its volume, scheme of "interconvertible
bonds" and other wild notions which have
been included under the descriptive title
''Greenbackism". What is contemplated is
coalition upon the single ground of opposition to
the national banks.
Whatever this movement might lead to at
last, it is in the beginning and upon its face
something less startling than the extravagant
policy of initiation and reputation, which
found so much favor before the resumption of
specie payments. The proposed platform does
not denouce gold as the coin of the Sharks
and the "Shylocks." 1t does not invoke a
flood of Treasury notes as the "money of the
people," and call for an issue of thousand
ullllouS more OF ieSS oI Inom as aUapJeQ TO
the wants of business" 1t does not even de-
mand the repeal of the Resumption act or in
sist upon the payment of bonds with depreci
ated paper. Some men who would be fright
ened by these heresies might not be alarmed
by the cry, "Down with the national banks!'
Senator Thurman found opposition to the
banks a convenient halting place on the jour-
ney from hard money to soft money. Hostili-
ty to the banks has been more marked in the
West than in the East, but even eastern DEM
ocratic journals, which have hitherto stood
fest by hard money leaders such as Senator
Bayard, at this late day are contending
that the national banking system should be
swept away and that all the paper currency
needed by the country should be issued by the
federal government.
1t is not worth while to reargue this question
just now. 1t is enough to say that the ablest
financiers, whether thinkers and students or
practical and experienced men of affairs,
whether Democrats or Republicans, agree that
the federal Treasury ought not to be bank of
issue. To make Treasury notes a permanent
paper currency is to keep the Treasury in the
business of bank of issue, and to entrust the
delicate question of the volume of that curren-
cy to the caprices and vagaries, to say nothing
of worse influences, of political body such as
Congress But tnat the opponents of these
views should unite against them is far from
improbable. They unite when they resist re-
funding. They unite when they present So
called refundlng measure in a shape which
will make refunding impossible. They unite
when they offer the alternative of a withdraw
al of bank circulation or the acceptance by
the banks OF new loan upon terms which
they cannot afford to take.
Whether or not union of this sort will take
the shape of a formal union of the Greenback-
ers and the soft-money Democrats under a
common party name remains to be seen; but
such result is not extravagantly improbable.