The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-12-21
SOME osss RvArloNs ON THE MONEY
STRlNGeNCY

and Remedy of the present financial
depression, he said.
"The shrinkage in prices, In wages
and values which is now going on, be
gan under high protective tariff, and
has continued under it and must con-
continue, protection or no protection,
as long as the basis of credit continues
TO be narrowed" "
His plea is that the repeal of the
Sherman silver law has narrowed our
basis of credit to the single gold 1tand-
ard.
In commenting on the above the
| Warren Democrat says:
"There is as much truth in the above
paragraph as can be crowded into seven
lines of type"
And now comes the youngstown
Vindicator, whose able Democratic
editor is now postmaster, and adds the
following pertinent observations:
"Walter Campbell refuses to bear
false testimony that his party may
flourish, or partisan friends be re.robed
In purple and fine linen. He has the
courage to admit that our present hard
times are legacy from the Republican
party"
And now may we be allowed to add,
by way of observation, that the way to
enlarge our credit is to create more of
the instruments of credit, current
money. 1t makes no difference, so far
as booming business is concerned,
whether that money be gold or silver or
paper, so that it be legal tender money.
What we need LOW is not more idle
gold in the New York banks. This
idle gold does no business man in this
section of country any good. II may
inspire him with confidence, but for
him it buffers no parsnips,
Adam Smith, who is still standard
authority among all English speaking
peoples on political economy, in
his last and greatest work, "The
Wealth of Nations" in commencing
system of banking based upon gold
alone, said:
"At Amsterdam no point of faith is
better established than that for every
guilder circulated as bank money there
is a corresponding guilder of gold to be
found in the treasury of the bank"
Now this sounds very shiny when ar
ticulated by the student of finance, but
the facts are, that when Adam Smith
wrote this, the Bank Of Amsterdam,
which he commended as the ideal
essence of all fiscal wisdom, was insOlv-
ent at the time, and it made disas-
trous failure soon after the book was
published. The deposits of this bank
in 1875, four years before it failed, and
at the time the great Adam Smith
wrote, amounted to thirty-fve millions
aud its annual business was four thou
sand millions.
If this celebrated Englishman were
living in this age of newspaper au-
dacity, and had ever commended Jay
Cooks system Of banks, which swamp
ed US in 1873, or John Sherman's con-
glomerate system of cast iron eXclu-
siVeness, which swamped us in 1893, he
would now be quoted as a profound
scoundrel, rather than as profound |
thinker, or sound fiscal economist.
There are good many people who |
think we have learned something about |
fiscal policies during the past one hun
dred years Of maryelou human
progress.
We learned something about war
during our late civil war; and we
think we learned something about
finance during that war, and since.
And we did not follow English pre-
cedents in either war or finance.
In war our most successful and bril-
liant achievements were in direct vio-
lation of all the military book strategy
Of all the celebrated Euglishmen who
ever wrote books of war.
Grants campaign against Vicks-
burg, and Sherman's campaign from
Atlanta to Savannah, were in violent
disregard of all military book strategy.
AS we understand it, the Declaration
)f Independence was not written in ac-
,ordance with English precedent, and
after Grant had taken Vicksburg and
Sherman had marched to the sea, what
lid all the war books of all the cele-
)rated Englishmen amount to?
And we learned another thing dur
ng the war, that should be well re-
nembered now. We learned fight
he greatest, the 6ercest, the bloodiest
ind the longest enduring war of
modern times, without gold or silver
'ither. We coined government credit.
We need that credit now. The
'ctive, progressive business men, west
# New York need 1T.
One of the greatest of American
tatesmen, Daniel Webster, defined
redlt as the vital air of modern COM
nerce. The West today, with untold
wealth, stands pleading for this credit.
This credit can be coined into money,
md made as potent to revive industry
md start the Car of progress as coined
old.
1t is the duty of Congress to provide
peedily for abundant credit currency.
With labor idle or wasted; with trade
ar below It's legitimate limit, we are
yorse than idiots If we fail to recog-
ize the genius and potency of that
redit money, which the great war
auoht no ia aa nOtant In nroducA |