The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1895-01-09
The RefOrmer and Monetary
PrOblemS.1

Problems"
Were a dozen foxes raiding the Re
formers chicken house, would the con-
temporary lie down with the assurance
that his fowls were safe after he had
"retired" two or three of the looting
Rewards? This is about the size and
effect of the argument in favor of the
Carlisle cure ncy bill in its bearing
upon the matter of protecting the gold
reserve by retiring the legal tender
notes. The utmost the bill, if it be-
comes a law, can do in the way of
locking up the greenback is to send
S225,00000 into the reasury. f this
entire amount were retired, would the
treasury's gold reserve be any safer, so
far as this menace is concerned, than
the chickens after the retirement of two
or three of the foxes?
Mr.. Hepburn, in the December
Forum, states that there were in circu-
lation, November / in round numbers,
$3.50, 100000 in legal tender notes.
There were also 1920 100000 in notes
under the act Of July IA, 1890, which
are redeemaole in gold. Now if the
pro posed new banks should deposit
with the United States treasurer $685.
100000 in these notes, there would still
be S175 100000 in circulation. In adj
dtion to this, there are in gold certifi-
Gates, currency certificates, and ma
tional bank notes, some 100000, 900,
and also $3.50, 100000 silver certificates,
aggregating 1926, 100000, call dependent
upon the gold reserve and on the gen
eral confidence that the United States
will redeem its obligations in as good
currency as is known in the world :"
And yet our cuckoo contemporary, in
his struggle to sing in tune with the
leader of the choir in Washington,
cheerily undertakes to maintain that
the Carlisle scheme would effect such
material reduction of the national
currency that, though there would still
be outstanding more than $S00,000000
payable in gold or convertible into gold
the treasury reserve of $100,000,000 or
less would be delivered from peril
Two or three of the foxes may have
been retired" but nine or ten would
still be at large and very much
alive. " Monetary problems would be
clearer to our contemporary but for the
exigency of cuckoo politics.
While it may be true that some of
the nau ghty bankers in New York city
may have been recently drawing gold
from the treasury, by way of stacking
the cards for another game of draw
poker with the administration, still it is
also true, after all deductions have
been made, that the drain on the treas
ury is the result, in the main, of the
withdrawal of foreign Investments.
There was no charge that the dwin-
ding of the treasury reserve, which
was the cause of the first bond issue a
year ago, was the result of the plottings
of Wall street; there was no charge
that the recent call was made necessary
by the "Shylocks." 1t was plain that
both calls were uttered by reason of the
export of gold, and that the next will
be made for similar reason. The re.
serve will not endure the double strain
of a large deficit in the national reve.
nues and the requirements for exporta
tion-both the result of the disastrous
policy and wretched management Of
the party administering the govern
ment.
The reason why gold is going abroad
in steady stream is not the fault of III,
administration, but is due to the ras
cality of railroad managers, pipes the
Reformer. The embarrassments of tn,
administration and the disasters 10 tn,
country are ascri bed to every cause bu
the right one 1.-THE fault is not will
us, dear Brutus, but with our stars"
"A currency" concludes the Re
former, -" that depends upon constantly
decreasing bonds cannot by any posi-
bility be elastic" There is no DANCE
of the currency encountering this ele
ment of inelasticity under Democrat
administration, or, as a consequence
OF this administration, for many year
to come. In its conclusion the Re
former seeks in the last ditch CRATE
full respite from the bother of "mone
tary problems"