Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-12-28
sherman on Finances.

The Hon. John Sherman, in his
speech at Fairfield, Ohio, last week,
said:
But it is said the national banks
will have to retire their circulating
notes when the bonds of the United
States are paid off. This may be so.
do not believe the people of the Unit
ed States, after their experience with
good and bad money, will accept a Sc
curIry of less value than bond of the
United States. But this will not drive
them to the use of paper money by
state banks without any security pro-
-vided or guaranteed by the United
States. Experience has demonstrated
that money issued directly by the Uni
ted States, promising to pay coin and
resting upon the honor, wealth and re-
sources of IS million people, made
legal tender and receivable for all
dues and obligations, is the kind OF
money they want. They favor the ma
tional banks, but are not willing to de-
lay the payment of the public debt
culating notes, The national banks
ought to be continued under national
control as agencies for deposit, COM
MERGE and exchange. The issue of cir
culating notes is not indispensable to
their continuance, and when that fran
chise falls upon the government, after
all its obligations have been fully paid,
it will be in the position, without the
aid of the states, to furnish an ample
currency FOR the convenience of the
people, always redeemable in gold and
silver coin of equal intrinsic and mark
ct value. Such notes would be received
at pa. with gold in every country of the
world. In this way, better than any
other can we attain that position
among financial powers that our popu-
lation and wealth entities US to. We
need not interpose between us and our
promises private corporation, like the
Bank of England or the Bank of
France, but in our own name may
stamp our credit on the money of the
world.
ALI this is in accordance with the
tendencies of the time in which we live.
Every leading nation now has it's paper
money, and specie or coin only enters
into the minor transactions of life or
in the great exchanges between COM
merclal nations. They have as yet
agreed upon no medium of exchange
except coin, and by nearly all COM
mercial nations it is gold coin. Why
can not the expensive and dangerous
movement Of coin from nation to nation
be avoided by adopting the notes of
medium of exchange, and let them
settle their balances IN great clearing
house of nations.
Uniformity in coinage among nations
is and has been my hope for more than
thirty years. 1t was agreed to in the
conference of Paris in 1867, but was
defeated by the narrow notions of the
representatives of Great Britain, who
saw in an international unit disturb
ance of her profits of exchange. Now
the conditions of our finances and the
certainty of the payment of our ma
tional debt opens to view not only an
international unit of coinage, but an
international paper money that will be
recognized among all commercial
nations as equal to the best gold of any
mint, and will be received and Cir
culated as the representative of such
coin.
This Is not fanciful dream. When
l recall the conceded fact that 95 per
cent of all the payments in the United
States are by checks, drafts and COM
mercial paper, and that in the great
cities of the world money is used only
for the markets and credits for nearly
all business transactions, it is not i'm
probable that foreign exchanges will
be, as most of them now are, made in
paper. Business men now watch the
movement of gold across the water as
an element of fear or hope, and so it
will be until until some credit money,
recognized by leading commercial ma
lions shall take the place of coin in the
ebb and fow.''