The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-21
WHAT EXPERIENCE DEMON
STRATES.

The Minneapolis Times has boxed the
financial compass and is now. tenn
perarily, running on the course of
greenback fatism. The business
experience which demonstrated to
1t the unprofitab1eness Of it's
silver fiatism will, doubtless. come
to it to bring it around to sup
port the retirement of the greenback
and thus obviate the certainty. else.
of some form of fiatism in the none
tary policy Of the country. But lust
now it is disposed to rank itself with
those who affect to regard the green
back somewhat akin to our old SOL
diers, SCARED with battle and siorified
by sacrifice, and worthy, like them,
of being perpetually pensioned off on
the country.
1t answers an inquirer who asks
if it believes that the retirement of
the greenback is all that is needed 10
reform the currency, by assuring him
that it never intima ted any such opin-
ion, but if it were done some form OF
paper money would have to take its
place and it would also have to he re.
aeemable in gold, and a bank can be
raided in a panic just as the treasury
can. Experience has demonstrated.
it says, that in such emergencies. the
public has more confidence in the re-
sources of the government than it has
in those of private financial institu-
TONS" With some clearness and ac
curaey Of. statement there goes with
the foregoing a surprising inconclu-
siveness, if what is said about the
demonstrations of experience is a con-
clusion from the preceding statements.
The experience Of this country with
the note issues of banks and the
treasury in panics is limited to this
period since the war, and that ex-
perience has shown that the public has
more confidence in the note issues of
the banks than of the government, for.
while scared holders of greenbacks and
treasury notes were rushing them in
for redemption by the million, there
was no rush of bank note holders to
banks for redemption. This was not
because they knew that they were
redeemable in any lawful money"
but because they knew that they were
absolutely secured.
But our contemporary is unable to
see how the substitution of bank notes
for greenbacks would ''lessen the
power of bankers and merchants" to
make the banks furnish the gold which
they now compel the treasury to fur
nish. We confess our own inability to
see 1t. We would regard it as a very
strange banking system that would
deprive note holders, whether bankers,
merchants or workingmen, of the power
to demand gold in redemption of notes.
We assume that power would not only
possible precaution that the financial
wit and experience of the country, aid
ed by the experience of other countries,
could devise. The difference be-
tween a bank and the treasury,
when their notes are being pre-
scented for redemption. is pre-
cisely the reason why the government
should either go fully into banking or
get out of 1t entirely. The government
has but one way of getting the gold
with which to meet redemption. II
must borrow it. 1t will not, in such
times, receive IL for taxes, because no
one will pay In gold. It must do just
what Secretary Carlisle did, issue its
bonds and buy gold with which to re-
deem it's notes A bank has it's loans
To rely upon III addition to it's reserve.