Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1895-12-19

them stood the faith and credit of n
great Nation. The plan worked so
well that, as Mr.. Cleveland himself
testifles, between 1879 and 1880 only
$2S, 200, 900 OF these notes were ever
offered for redemption.
But when the Republican party
was defeated i'm 1892, when the
government i'm all it's branches
became Democratic, there was a
sudden check of industry and bust
ness all over the country. Produc-
ton fell off enormously. Mills and
factories shut down. A million peo-
pie were thrown out of employment.
and locked itself up. Nobody took
any chances and creditors every
where began to pursue debtors with
a pcrsistcncy and severity unknown
since the war. Foreigners took
alarm. They had hundreds of millions
Oh tn~ss+.,-nnts hare Their rpturns
from these investments stopped and
they began to call on us to pay back
the capital they had advanced to us.
Meanwhile the Democratic party
went forward with n tariff bill.
American industry was stripped of
the protection it had hitherto en-
joyed. The gates were thrown wide
open for the entrance of foreign
goods and the American market was
loaded down with the products of a
lah cham N ran6nr if inn
possible for Americans to compete.
At once there We're heavy balances
of trade against us. We were buy
ing from Europe vastly more than
we were selling to Europe and, in
addition, foreign investors We're
asking the return of their capital.
Then it was, then for the first time,
that these greenbacks began to he
presented to the treasury forredemp-
ton. The people wanted gold.
They had to have gold. They had
to use it to pay the foreign balance
of trade. Will anybody pretend to
say that that balance existed because
the greenbacks existed? If that is
not what Mr.. Cleveland means, there
is no sense in his argument. For OF
course, if the greenbacks dident do
it, retiring the greenbacks will not
undo it, If the evil conditions that
came upon us resulted from other
causes than the greenbacks the
and not the greenbacks. Nc
intelligent man can assert that the
greenbacks had anything to do will
the creation of those bad conditions
They simply provided a way by
which the people. needing money
THAT is, gold to pay their debts
with, could get it by taking thu
greenbacks to the treasury ant
calling upon the treasury to pay al
obligation which it had been owing
and which they had been content tt
. let it owe, for a dozen years or more
Was that hardship on th'
treasury? 1t had escaped the inter
est on this debt for all those years
Why shouldn't it pay now when tn
money was needed and when ever,
other debtor was being compelled t.
pay?
. But suppose we adopt Mr.. Cleve
lands plan and retire these green
backs. He says that the way t.
retire them is to borrow the money
that is, the gold-to pay them with
: and then to cancel them forever
! That is to say, he proposes to sub
stitute an interest-bearing debt 70
a non-interest- bearing debt. How
that going to improve trade an
) industry? 1t will add $aO,OOO,OOO
year TO our governmental expenses
5 Is that calculated to make any c
us any richer than we are now, set
: ing that the twenty millions mus
I come out of our pockets? And
r will take away from US, for use i
: our traffic among ourselves, $500
[ OOO,O 900 of currency. This, he says
( the National banks will supply,
e we lower the tax on their circuls
4 tion and allow them to put out note
D freely. Well, we shall then be sui
: stituting a currency that costs u
: nothing for currency that we hay
c got to pay the banks to supply. W
{ don't seem to make much on tina
4 transaction. When it il all dom
4 unless business improves, unles