Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1895-03-15
oARLIsLg.s sohsME.


by destroying the greenback and coin
note circulation, with the view OF
turning over to the banks the entire
control of the paper currency of the
United States, is the most radical and
dangerous measure ever seriously pre-
sented in this country--at any rate
since the covert act demonetizing silver
in 1879 So sweeping and radical
change in the monetary system of any
country cannot be carried out without
profoundly disturbing all industrial
conditions, unsettling prices, and Great
ing confusion in every line of business
Besides, the proposition to tax the PEG
pie to take up and ultimately cancel
our entire legal tender paper currency,
and leave it to banking associations,
organized for private gain, at their
will and as their interests alone
may dictate to supply its place with
promises to pay, ought to arouse the
most anxious concern of the whole
people. The greenback currency costs
the people nothing, is legal tender, of
the same value in every part of the
country, and good anywhere in the
world. To ask the people to tax them
selves-for that is what it amounts to
to take up this currency, in order
that banks may fill it's place with their
notes, is proposition, which, If it had
not come from the treasury depart
ment, would have been deemed insane,
if not indeed diabolical This propo-
sition, too, comes to the country as a
bolt from clear sky. No political
platform ever contained such a propo-
sition; nothing purporting such a
change was given out before the late
election. The people have had no OPP
portunity to express themselves re-
speeding it. 1t comes as all conspira-
cies do--as did the act demonetizing
silver-like thief in the night.
There are more than ten thousand
banking institutions that under this
act may issue notes to circulate as
money. By what principle will they
be governed in the issue of this cur
rency? BY none in the world but their
own interests. Make it profitable to
them, and they will put out any
amount of currency, regardless of con-
sequences, immediate or remote. In
turn, let it become their interest to
contract the currency, and they will
contract it regardless of the effect on
the business world. That is the only
kind of elasticity" there is in this
| form of currency. Banks will issue it
as long as there is profit to them in do
ing so and no longer. The experience
| of the world has been that, under such
| a system, there will at first be expan-
sion-expansion here, there, every
where, all over the country, needless
of the export of gold, except, perhaps,
| In the seaboard cities, till, with con-
tinued loss of gold, the limit of tension
is reached, when a collapse will come,
followed by long-continued contrac-
ton, general business stagnation, and
the ruin of debtors.
This has been the history of such
currency, not only in this country, but
| in every other country that has tried
| it, and nearly all commercial countries
have tried it, one time or another.
The creation and proper regulation
of paper money is inseparable from the
power to coin money; otherwise paper
money may be issued in such quantity
as to displace coin altogether, as diff
ferent periods of our own history
abundantly prove, and as stated by
Webster in 1888.
Neither power can be safely en-
trusted to private interests The Sec
rotary of the treasury, Mr.. A. ]. Dallas,
as long ago as 1916, said: THE au-
thority which is alone competent to
establish the national coin is alone
competent to create national substi-
tute." Alexander Hamilton early ex-
pressed the same opinions.
The principle of regulating money
supply for the whole people as the in
terests of few dictate, regardless of
the vastly greater public interests, is
essentially bad, and has been proven
by experience, over and over again, to
be utterly unsafe and ruinous.
No principles in monetary science are
better settled than that neither secur-
ity of final payment of bank notes, nor
couvertibility alone, can be relied upon
to SO regulate the quantity of paper
currency as to secure stability of value,
which Is the first requisite in a cur
rency of any kind.
No questions which concern the pub
lie welfare were ever subjected to a
more thorough and intelligent investi-
cation than these very questions, both
in this country and in England, from
1910 to 1860; and the policy of entrust-
ing the creation and regulation of a
paper currency to banks, or In any
way to the control of private interests,
has been pronounced against, and
abandoned by every enlighted nation
on the earth. 1t would be disgrace
for this country now to return to 1t.
No other enlightened country would
even entertain for moment such a
proposition.
The business of banking and the duty
of providing people with money are
functions so separate and distinct that