Birmingham state herald., 1896-01-01
IN A QUANDARY.

IN A QUANDARY.
 The Argus can see no relief. no safety
 for our country except through the man
 cial plan so ably urged by MT Cleveland.
 But this is @ purely national question and can only be effected through national
 issues. But. while we abate neither jot
 nor little in our faith in the gold basis
 of value, so long as there can De no m ternational agreement, we can but recog- nze that there are great many demo-
 crats of another view in Alabama
 Huntsville Argus.
 Will the Argus please inform us what
 the financial plan of the president is?
 There appears to be a good deal of con-
 fusion among our sole gold standard
 friends as to the status of the question.
 We desire to deal fairly with our friends
 who think differently from us in this
 matter and beg to be corrected if we are
 in error in stating the position of the
 president and the secretary of the treas
 ury. Upon one point they are agreed,
 and that is that silver must be measured
 by gold as the sole standard of value,
 and that to keep gold in the treasury 1t
 is necessary to abolish all kinds of treas
 ury notes But MT. Carlisle does not
 agree with the president and does not agree with himself as to what shall be substituted for the vast volume of cur rency after it is destroyed, and after a perpetual annual interest of $25,O00,O0O is saddled upon the people by the substitu- tion of bonded debt for these non-in- terest bearing notes.
 Last year MT. Carlisle recommended a plan to congress in report to which the president in his annual message gave his unqualified indorsement.' That plan ta a authorizing the deposit of United States bonds as securi- ty for the circulation of the national
 banks, and to transfer that circulation
 from a government credit basis to a
 purely bank credit basis. In addition to
 this change he recommended the repeal of the tax on the notes of state banks,
 a recommendation which was in line
 with the national democratic platform.
 He went so far in his friendship for state banks as to propose less onerous condi- tions upon them than on the national banks In all of these proposals MT. Carlisle had the unqualified indorse- ment" of the president Such was the plan of last year. It recognized the ruin ous contraction of currency that would follow from withdrawal of the green backs and the business endorsements that would accompany it, and it offered as a remedy state and national banks without limit and without a circulation secured by national bonds and with only such security as the pleasure of each state legislature might provide. The na- tional banks were not to be secured at all. Their theory was that any bank failure
 would be more than met by small per- centage to be paid into the treasury an- nually It was a calculation of chances that with no security no more banks would break than had broken when they | were well secured.
 In his recent message the president | completely threw overheard the bank | credit plan of Mr. Carlisle, which had | only year ago met his unqualified n- dorsement" He and MT. Carlisle also | ncontinently abandoned the state bank plan, and in effect repudiated the party l platform. Not word was said by either | of them as to the propriety and necessity | of repeating the tax on state banks. l In the presidents recent message and | in the secretary's report at the present session they abandon the bank credit basis, and are silent as to any repeal of the odious state bank tax. They content themselves simply with advising con gress to permit the national banks to en- | large the limits of their circula tion, and | as an inducement to make the new bonds | bankable 1t is suggested that the taxes | upon the banks be lessened Looking | back over the rough road travelled by the | administration during the past two years we would ask our esteemed friend l of the Huntsville Argus which of the | financial plans of the president and MT | Carlisle he wishes us to follow, that of | last year, or that of this year? He can | not expect us to follow both. That of ! last year advocated a free banking sys- | tenn, based not upon actual bond credit, but simply upon bank credit, and permis- 1 sion to the states to authorize banks of issue at pleasure. That of this year re- pudiates state banks, and returns to the republican national banking system. We would be pleased to follow the ad- vice of the Argus, but are completely at loss how to do so. It Is gratifying to
 know that the Argus admits that there are a great many democrats in Alabama of another view than that of "the finan- cial plan so ably urged by MT. Cleve- land" It would have been we'll if our friend had gone a step further, and ad-
 mitted that MT. Creveland and MT. Car lsle in 1895 had another view" than that held by them in 1894.