The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-10-21
NATIONAL BANKS As lEECHES



notes is wholly derived from the confidence
placed in the ability of the issuers to retire
them when presented for payment. No
such circumstance affects paper money. 1t
circulates because it is made a legal tender.
and because the use of a circulating me-
dunn Is Indispensable
Continental money" and Confederate
script" (he latter. by the way, not yet
due were in no sense legal tender, as the
combinations that issued them were pow
erless to make them legal and lawful
money, and besides, they were promises to
pay specie. and depended for their CONNER
cial value upon the certainty of that pay
ment in the future. They are true types
of the paper demanded by Shylock's plat
form adopted at Chicago and Cincinnati,
Paper convertible into COIN 900.
The French "assignat'' bore no true SIM
ilarity whatever to our greenback. 1t was
more nearly akin to our land warrant"
with this difference: The assignat was
specifically redeemable in the confiscated
lands of the church to which the state
held no rghtful title, while our land war
rants are redeemable in government lands.
to which the title is unquestioned.
If was to insist with you that our
greenback partial legal tender money was
similar in its legal tender character and
power to our land warrants, you would all
for good reason conclude that his mental
health was not good: else he was dishonest
and sought to deceive; yet the equivalent
of this was what was done by our oppon-
ents, who denounce the greenbackers as
lunatics and seek to prove the bad char
acter of full legal tender paper dollar by
comparing it with the French assignat for
the ignominous purpose Of destroying
your confidence in the legal tender paper
money and credit of the government
These vandals are the worst enemies the
credit of this nation has; while at the same
time-true to the character Of their father,
the Devil-they profess to be it's strongest
friends.
In full legal tender paper dollar. issued
directly by the government, Is where you
will find the credit of that government in
It's highest and purest form, and an attack
upon that is a direct attack on the credit
of the nation. Such paper dollar is bond
without usury. Those gentlemen want this
same credit in bond with usury; but if
they destroy the credit, the usury bond
with the others becomes worthless. There
fore, I insist that the Greenbackers are
the truest friends the nation has.
John Laws scheme was an Incorporated
bank of issue established in France. 1t
was made the focal point, from which
radiated enlarged personal trust or
credit mobilier. which extended it's trade
or business to India, and the Mississippi.
1t issued species of corporate bank note
that passed current in it's business until
the emperor of France ordered Law to
redeem his issue in coin. 1t was impOssi
BILE to do it, and a collapse necessarily fol-
lowed, to the ruin of thousands. Here
again we find our opponents trying to dis
credit the government legal tender by COM
pairing it with bank issues that brought
wide spread ruin when it collapsed on the
narrow mythical specie basis fraud that
they seek to foist upon you, giving them
the power over all the paper money, as
does the British system of finance; adored
of all monarchs and hated by all true low
ers of humanity and justice, because
through such system you, the producers
and distributors of wealth, are utterly ru-
ined, while they, the non-producers, gather
it in and amass immense fortunes.
1t has been settled. for more than 200
years that you must transact your bust
ness with paper in some form or other.
There is not gold and silver enough in the
mines of the world, if it was all used as
currency, according to the lowest standard
of coinage, to transact one half Of one per
cent of the business of the world. The
other 991s per cent is of necessity done in
paper. The issue joined. therefore, is not
whether you shall use gold and silver to
make your daily exchanges cash, for that
is utterly impossible. The question is.
what kind of paper shall you use; who
shall issue it and control it's volume, and
with what power and authority shall the
paper money be clothed. ...
The Shylocks party, in both it's branches,
as Chicago and Cincinnati declares that
corporations called banks shall issue and
control it's volume. That it shall not be
legal tender for any amount whatever.
That the volume shall be the indefinite
amount that can at all times be converted
into coin. That the only full legal tender
shall be gold coin, silver to be only par
tial legal tender, and this corporate paper
is to have only such credit as is given it
by the promise of the corporation to redeem
1t In coin.
These shylocks profess great solicitude
about the redemption of the paper in coin,
if they were half as solicitous about the re-
dempton of their lost souls there would be
more of them saved. (Applause)
When this coin and bank paper is thus
arranged. both of them will not enable the
people to do to exceed per cent of this So
called cash Gas shown by Sir John Lub-
book. in Patterson on Finance; but on
top of this they say you shall use a great
inflated balloon of corporate and private
credits, bearing usury, thus forming
cone base upwards. l have already shown
you that such baseless inflated bauble is
freighted with death to all industry.
Opposed to this the National party places
pie to issue all of the money, gold, silver
and paper directly into the channels of
trade and all to be full legal tender so
that one dollar will not be the superior of
another, but all on an equality before the
law. at all times, meeting out the same
justice to each member of society. That
the volume thereof shall at all times be no
more and no less than will transact all
business cash.
A favorite assertion of the Shylock party
is that you must have gold as the base of
your paper because gold is a thing of in
trinsic value
1 most emphatically deny that gold or
anything else has Intrinsic" qualities that
are capable of being valued as all SUBJ
any quality in it. Neither is value In
any sense used "intrinsic. Proof of this
is found thus: