The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1895-09-21

greatest financial triumph of the
world. Its inventor was loaded
with honors and made a manager
of the bank. A great boom follow
ed. Paris was wild with the
wealth of cheap money. The notes
of the bank rose high above par.
Men rushed to Paris to gather
riches. Times were prosperous be-
yond precedent. The balloon rose
to great height, but hardly had
it reached its greatest height when
the gas began to escape and the
balloon began to collapse; the
money to depreciate. The govern
ment issued an edict that the notes
should remain at premium. This
was without effect and the depre-
citation continued The govern
ment then issued a decree that
their rates to gold should be Is to
/, i. e., one half the value of gold,
but the government found itself
as impotent to create value of
one half, as it was to create a val
ne of the whole; as impotent to
rule the great ocean of commerce,
as the Autocrat of Persia was to
chastise the waves of the Helles-
pont. The notes deprecated until
they were as valueless as the leaves
of autumn.
The French Revolution tried
the same experiment. To refuse
to receive the assignat at par was
crime, a treason. To accept it, the
highest patriotism. But neither
the appeal to patriotism, nor the
terror of that fierce reign of terror
could impart value to the assignat.
That burning patriotism and fierce
terror could conquer Europe, but
it could not create value. The
brief life of the assignat was hard
ly longer than the leaves of spring,
and fell as the dead and scattered
leaves of autumn.
There is hardly a despotism that
has not tried the experiment of
creating values. England tried it
in the reign of her great, but
naughty and imperious queen.
Russia, that despotism of despot-
isms tried it. China tried it and
many others, and each and all
failed. We have failed to state
the effect of these experiments and
failures. We cannot describe it
more fully than by describing that
in the commercial world, it was
the "pestilence that walketh in dark
ness and the destruction that
wasteth at monday"
Can the people of Louisiana have
forgotten the property banks of
1897 to 1885 and their collapse one
after another from 1886 to 1889;
the millions that they have paid
in taxes to redeem the i'll advised
efforts of the State to create cheap,
abundant money. The flush times
of Alabama live in the satire of
fiction, but its thousands of bank
rupts and impoverished people have
buried their privations and sor-
rows in the grave of silence. The
flush times of cheap money In Lou
isiana have not been told in story,
but some of the wrecks of its wide
spread ruin are in our midst, and
tell of the lost homes and ruined
fortunes of those who dreamed OF
wealth and prosperity in the flush
times of cheap and abundant money.
| The basis of all this cheap mon
ey, including free silver at l6 to l.
rests on the fat of the government
making it a legal tender in pay
ment Of debts. This basis may be
made to reveal the dagger it con
ceals by the question: What is its
basis? The capital upon which the
legal tender rests. The answer is
clear and beyond dispute. 1t rests
upon the debts of the debtor anG
the robbery of the creditor. With
out these, the logical fiat that CHEAP
money should be received in pay
ment of debts would be without
meaning, a mere nullity. The
bank would be without capital t.
secure the circulation of its cur.
rency. What must we think of
bank whose capital consists O
debts and robbery? What mus
we think of a government which
resorts to such a capital upoi
J which to base the value of its cur
rency. The legal tender act o
1862, involved power unrecogniz
ed by the trainers of our constitu
ton, and the act was passed wheI
} Mr.. Seward truthfully boosted
that he could have any citizen o
the United States imprisoned b,
! Al = I'LL LII -. lie - - =