The Monitor-register., 1896-10-02
The Root of the Monetary Disease

A cO~rr6SpOnQon OF Gno New YORK
| Herald says that when Mr.. Sherman was
at the head of the Treasury in 1879 he
nullifed the law making customs duties
payable in gold and it came to pass in
this wise:
When the Republicans created in 1862
legal tender %greenbacks Chat was the
first appearance of the nuisance, it was
insisted by the East, and finally enacted,
that interest on the public debt must be
paid Sin coin," and, to get the coin, that
duties must be paid in gold.
Then and there was ''coin" defined as
gold.
The specie resumption law, enacted in
1875, was on the theory that all the green
backs were to be paid. then destroyed and
never reissued, but Ohio and the West
wished in 1878 cheap money. The Repub-
licans and Democrats, yielding to the de.
mand for a ''dirty dollar" put on the
statute book a law requiring the green.
backs to be reissued after payment.
Hence our present financial woes,
caused by the presence of the greenbacks
and the need of buying redeeming gold.
After 1879, when the specie resumption
law was in operation and the greenhacks
were to be redeemed in gold Organism
insists only in silver) on demand, Secre-
tary Sherm an ordered the custom houses
to receive greenbacks and not require i'm
porters to go to the Assistant Tres surer
and get them redeemed in gold.
In the same year (1s7s) of the green.
back reissue law came the Bland Allison
silver dollar law, which made the silver
dollar a full legal tender for duties, and,
10 1890, the Sherman law, which created
the panic of 1898, and made the Sherman
notes also good for duties.
As a result of the ~greenbaek legislation
of 1862 and 1878, the Bland Allison silver
certificate enactment of 1878 and the
Sherman notes, united with the national
bank notes, we are under a regime of
paper currency amounting to nearly ten
hundred millions, no gold coins and only
q few silver dollars in circulation.
Organism proposes to Danish our gold
coins, redeem the paper dollars for a while
only in silver, and, 10 the end, not to re-
deem them in anything.
By the foregoing, one can see why the
Treasury must now buy gold for redemp.
ton.
Our monetary disease is Government
paper dollars.
1t is vexing to keep in ones mind the
details of our paper currency, but il is
necessary if q would appreciate the
present monetary disease and the remedy.
First of all, the BAG, DOC. 900 of the civil
war greenbacks, then $50, 600, 600 of paper
silvar certificates, then some 10000, 900
of Sherman notes, and, finally, nearly
200, 600, 900 of bank notes redeemable by
law only in greenbaoks. The silver oerti.
ficates were at first only redeem able in
silver deposited when the certificates
were taken, but, under the 'sparity''
clause of Sherman's law of 1890, they
became redeemable in gold, as did the
Sherman notes.
Thus the 1000. 900, 900 of our paper
credit currency is, under Republican
legislation, to be all of it redeemed on
demand in gold, and only one-tenth as
much gold in the Treasury, which, when
exhausted, must be ~replenished only by
buving.
Greenbacks cause the diease. Not more
tafin taxes, but only extermination of
the greenbacks can remove tae disease.