The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-03-18
Congress and the Currency.
The New York Examiner says:

Having no intrinsic value, it must have
something valuable behind it, which
can be had for the asking; and its
volume must easily and naturally vary
with the demands of business. Our
national bank currency comes the near
est to this standard of any paper money
we have ever had in this country. The
old state bank notes were constant
source of loss to the people, while they
were no dependence whatever in peri
DDS of financial disturbance. The de-
feet of the greenbacks -" is that their
volume is arbitrarily determined, and
determined, moreover, by a political
rather than a business body. Hence,
while they served their purpose fairly
well during the war as -" forced loan !"
which is, practically, what they are
they are not suitable for business cur
rency in time of peace. The national
bank notes, on the other hand while
made secure by the pledge of govern
ment bonds, respond readily in volume
to the requirements of trade, and thus
aid instead of alternately hindering and
menacing business interests.
1t is all very well to say that the old
state banks were injurious institutions.
1t is quite true that they were so, and
that the national system is a great i'm
provement in some particulars. But
those of us who are old enough know
very well that the press, and especially
the city press, upheld the old system
and opposed the introduction of the
new. In congress we believe that the
whole delegation from Vermont, and a
great part of that from the rest of New
England, were opposed to the plan of a
national banking system. The old sys-
tenn was in power then, and it had
plenty of friends. Now it is dead, and
the Examiner can kick its corpse with
impunity. Whatever banking system
is in power will be generally supported
by the newspapers,-just as any other
institutions in which rich and influ-
entail men are interested will manage,
in one way or the other, to have that
support. Slavery had the press of the
North on its side almost unanimously
for long time, and both the anti
slavery and the temperance reforms
found it necessary to have press of
their own, in order to have their prin-
ciples fairly presented. The press does
not create public opinion. 1t follows
it, and nothing else need be expected.
There are too many ways in which the
men who control banks, railroads, and
other great corporations can hurt an
unfriendly newspaper, and help a
friendly one. 1t is only when the peo-
pie are alarmed, and the public mind
strongly aroused, that power appears
which will support the press, so that il
can stand up and tell the truth about
the evils and abuses of any established
system.
We cannot blame the Eraminer for
being no better than its fellows. But
we can examine its reasoning on the
subject of national banking. And here
we may premise that many defenders
of the national banking system assume
that the opposition to it comes from
those who want to go back to the old
state bank system. 1t is perhaps true
that some of it does. But it is not gen.
orally so. The now acknowledged evils
of the old system are so well understood
that no intelligent person would wish
to return to it. The faults of the new
system are not in those things wherein
it differs from the old, but in those
things which it has retained from the
old. Our bankers fought with all theil
power against the establishment of ma.
tional control over their business. In
the matter of the entire safety of the
paper currency of the banks, secured by
the deposit of bonds, and the greater
security of depositors, secured by the
law which makes stockholders liable to
twice the amount of their stock, there
has been a great gain to the public
Probably the public would never have
secured these advantages, but for the
power of the government in time OF
war, and as war measure, to force
these improvements upon the bankers OF
the country. 1t was all that could be
done at the time, but nevertheless il
did not go to the root of the evil. The
time will come when that will be done
for " nothing is ever settled until it il
settled right"
The power to coin money and estab
fish a legal tender is a sovereign power
an attribute of lawfully established gov
eminent. Before the war the inten
of the words " to coin " seems to hav,
been limited to actual coins" of tn,
precious metals. But when the consti
tuition of the United States was frame'
the right to issue bills of credit (pa
per money! was surrendered by tn
states. So strict was the construction
of the constitution, in the jealous earl
days of its operation, that this prohi
bition to the states was so construed a
not to deprive them of the power t
grant privilege, of which they wer
themselves deprived, to private banks
established by state charters. Upo
these two quibbles,-that the Unite