St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-26
AN EARLIER EXPERIMENT.


The advocates of the sub-treasury
scheme meet the criticism that their
plan has had a recent trial on an ex-
tended scale in the Argentine Republic
and resulted in involving that ambi-
tIous republic in hopeless bankruptcy.
by saying that the Argentines are a
half-civiliZed people, a mixture of Span
ish and Indian blood, without Judg-
ment, experience or good common
sense, and that nothing better could
have been expected of them anyway.
But their plan is to be tried in America,
in the light of centuries of financial eX-
perience, by people renowned for
their good judgment, their prudence and
their Stalwart common sense, who know
just how far to go, who can fix the pre-
else point where they have enough of a
good thing and the firmness to stop
there. They point to the Argentines
and their origin and to Us and Our or
igin and ask if we can question our
superiority. Is not the eagle of the
Rockies nobler than the condor of the
Andes?
But their scheme for the alienation
OF financial ills has had a trial on Amer
lean soil, not by etfete moderns, demon
allied by the contact with luxury, but
by the hard-headed fathers, who, it is
popularity supposed, had a sinch on all
the wisdom that is worth having The
men who had just wrested dominion
from the mother country, and had tried
their prentice hand in nation building,
brought to bear on the problem of fur
nishlng cheap money their Yankee
genius for applying means to ends
which has eXtOrted from a reluctant
world the highest encomiums. Rhode
Island, in common with the other colo
MES, had come out of the war impOyer-
iShed, taX-ridden and in debt. Money
was scarce, prices ruled low, creditors
were pressing. With that cuteneSs IN
herent in the Yankee, trace of which
remains in even these degenerate days.
the wise men of little Rhody perceived
that all that they wanted was more
money. Given that. and taxes could b e
paid, ravenous creditors be sent about
their business, and the Upright sun of
prosperity would scatter blessings
DER a smiling land" And what
easier? There was state with
ample power to emit bills of
credit, and there was the land. than
which there could be no better security.
Let the state print money and lend it to
the farmers on their land on a margin
of 81 of security for 81 Of loan, and there
| you have it, simple, easy, safe way
out of the difficulty. And so the state
decreed, and the farmers of the plgmv
state took their mortgages to the capital
and took home the printed money of the
state, happy in having abolished hard
times. But when they went shopping,
and sought to buy their groceries and
rum with their new money. they found
that prices had been jumping up; that
the merchants refused to exchange their
goods paid for in good doubioons for
paper money, secured though it was by
Land mortgages; some absolutely refus-
ing, others only consenting at long adj
vance in prices. The mistake of not
making the bill a legal tender was rem
edied and supplemented by law max
ing it misdemeanor. punishable with
fine and Imprisonment t, to refuse to &C
cept the bills in payment of debts, or for
goods.
Trade stopped; the farm produce
rotted on the ground; merchants shut
their stores and ceased business; stagna-
ton came in place of prosperity, and the
farmers found themselves ruined by the
very means they had devised for their
deliyerance. The sub-treasury scheme
of the last century was fiat and disas-
trous failure. 1t is hardly worth while
to repeat the experiment.