The record-union., 1897-08-19

him to pay them out that they may
return again and again for redemption.
Upon every hand, the laws of the land
make it an embarrassment to the prof
liable conduct of the business affairs
of the country. 1t adds to the en-
barrassment by the forced imitation of
the volume of the circulating medium
at one time and the forced contraction
through the operation of the Sub
Treasury system at another It's only
source Of strength lies in the believed
forbearance of attack upon it's SOL
vency by those who hold its obliga-
tions. Designing to have banks, Gre
ated under it and subject to govern
mental supervision, supply the cur
rency needs of the country, it still in
sists on competing with them in their
note-issuing function and prevents
through tax and other barriers which
the law erect, accomplishing the very
purpose for which they were brought
into being.
By the operation of the Bland d-Allison
Act was caused the coming of many
millions of silver dollars at a value far
more than the commercial value of the
silver metal in them and of far less val
ue than the metal in the gold dollar with
which it is provided they shall be of
equal legal tender value and alongside
of which they are expected to circulate.
And as if to add the crowning act to a
series of complications already perpleX-
ing to an unheard of degree, the Sher-
man law has given us still other silver
dollars and treasury notes to burden an
already overburdened gold reserve,
without in the smallest measure adding
to its safeguards. We search in vain
to find some solid foundation upon
which all this structure rests, but the
statute books reveal nothing, save that
there is drawn about it what is deemed
"the sacred circle" of governmental pro-
lection, in the declaration ostentatiously
made, that it is ''the established policy
of the United States to maintain the
two metals at a parity with each other
upon the present legal ratio or such ra-
tic as may be provided by law The
declaration is made and then to pro-
claim the sham and pretense of it the
Secretary of the Treasury is denied the
full and adequate powers necessary to
enable him under any and all circum-
stances to enforce that policy to the
credit of the nation and with the least
expense to the citizen.
In the contemplation of a series of
contradictions and inconsistencies SO in
congruous the business men of the ma
ton may well decry currency laws so
irrational and demand a speedy reme-
dying of them at the hands of the en-
acting power No stronger evidence
4 I. l., IL. scs
radically wrong and weakening to our
financial world than the fact that here
and everywhere, as it now stands, it is
the one great subject of discussion and
debate. No one is decrying our form of
Government, because all recognize the
inherent correctness of the principles
upon which it rests. Our system of ju-
risprudence is beyond question, and
neither in the legislative hall nor in the
columns of the press is it assailed. But
the private citizen in business, the ma
Sional legislator and executive officers
OF the Government are all confeSSing by
their daily acts and conversation that
this one first essential to a peoples
prosperity. so far from being sound, is
absolutely weak and dangerous. 1t
would be foolish to undertake to conceal
that the source of our difficulties which
has bhghted the past confronts the
present and threatens the future, lies
in the fear that the United States can
not in the face of existing laws main
tain unswervingly the gold standard as
its unit of value. The faintest suspi-
cion that it viii not be able now or in
the future to meet the obligations in