Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1886-04-23
COMMUNICATES.
GOLD AND SILVER CERTIFICATES THE
BASIS OF AN UNvARYING AND THE
ONLY UNCHANGEABLE PAPER
CURRENCY.


ton and expansion, has, for the last
twenty years, so controlled and regu-
lated the volume Of the currency as to
ruin small dealers and those who may
happen to be engaged in any small pro-
ductive industry, while it. has accumu-
lated colossal fortunes for those who
possess it in great abundance, and have
welded it so skillfully as to not only
rob the industry of the country of any
profit upon its productions, but in many
instances of the greater part of the pro-
duct itself. The national banking sys-
TEN is not only Objectionable in its con-
fractions and expansions of the cmren-
CIV, which are ruinous in themselves,
but it is based upon the bonded debt OF
the nation which eau never be entirely
liquidated while the present banking
system is continued. This system en-
tails upon the people the payment OF the
interest in gold semi-annually on the
sum of 1864, 900, 900, amounting annual
ly to twelve million seven hundred and
forty thousand dollars, considering the
whole amount of bonds deposited with
the Secretary of the Treasury at three
and a half cents. but taking the four
per cent. bonds held by those banks
will bring the interest on them TO be
paid by the people at about Sl3,OOO,O 0O
annually. But this class of individuals,
| as all the other bondholders, unlike the
other possessors of wealth or property,
pay no tax on those bonds TO the gov
eminent. They are a class Of persons
SO long favored by Immunity from tax
alton that they begin to think them
selves the Legitimate wards of the gov
eminent. that all laws in regard to bank
ing should be made for their especial
benefit, that the government should
continue to make all the balance OF the
nation tributary to their interests in
granting them privileges and immunl-
ties granted to no other class of individ-
uals, and in their supercilious arrogance
defy the people to rid themselves OF this
| incurable incubus that is riding them
| to ruin.
No other government under the sun,
except the United States of America,
has ever produced parallel case in
which its people tolerated law, giving
to any privileged class of its citizens
for twenty years the right to hold its
bonded obligation with interest payable
semi-annually. and exempted from the
tax imposed upon all other classes,
while it returned to them nine dollars
out of every ten for which the obliga-
ton OF the government was given, to be
loaned to their neighbors at an interest
compounded six times year beside
what the government pays them on the
whole sum. Ii the common people
could see and understand how they are
paying the interest for the government
upon this bonded debt, held by those
bankers, in the form of revenue tariff
which adds to the cost Of every article
consumed by their families, they might
then fully realize the truth and the wis
dom contained i'm the expression Of that
great and noble statesman, Daniel Web
ster, in his appeal to the government In
behalf of the people for sound and I'M
varying financial system, when ne says
eOf all the contrivances for cheating
the laboring classes of mankind none
has been more effectual than that which
deludes them with paper money. This
is the most efiectual of inventions to
fertilize the rich mans fields by the
sweat of the poor mans brow. The
idea OF making money out of credits or
debts, the intrinsic evidence of the
abundance or want of money, is fraud
and an imposture. Not so with gold
and silver certificates. Although it is
the paper representative of certain
value, the coin is held by the govern
ment for its redemption, COLLAR for dol
lar, upon presentation. 1t has been
tried; it is no new or whimsical inven-
ton or experiment; it is based upon no
debt, or upon no credit obligation of the
government, it is based upon the coin
itself and payable upon demand. 1t
will pass anywhere among the principal
commercial nations of the world as an
equivalent of gold or silver where the
good faith and solvency Of our govern
ment has been established. The adop-
ton of this system by the national banks
instead of the currency notes of the
present banking system would forever
abolish the contraction and expansion
that has brought ruin, revuision and
oppression in its train. When the
amount per capita in the volume OF the
currency is once unchangeably fixed by
the government, only to be gradually
| increased as the increase of population
advances, then men of small means or
incorporated bodies of limited capital,
as we'll as those Of larger means, may
calculate with equal certainty rs to the
profits to be realized on their labor or
innustry. The change can be made, if
Congress will enact the law, without
detriment to the banks or to any other
industry or business, as has more than
once been fully demonstrated by the
most able tinanciers Of the country.
In future we may have occasion to
call into service the opinions of some of
those able authors to substantiate the
foregoing proposition. I. +.
A Captains Discovery.
Capt. Coleman, schr. Weymouth, ply
ing between Atlantic City and n. Y,
4 II a.