The Forrest City times., 1897-12-24
MklNLEY AS A ReFoRMER.
h"w the President Discharges an
 "Obvfous Duty.v

How the President Dfschnrre. an Obvious Duty The president is not much more con- sistent Tn his treatment of the currency question than he Is in his dealing with the matter of forcible annexation.
 Il earnestly recommend" he says,
 as soon as the receipts of the govern ment are quite sufficient to pay all the expenses of the government, that when any of the United States notes are pre- sented for redemption in gold and are redeemed in gold such notes shall be Kept and set apart and paid cut only in exchange for gold. This is an obvious duty"
 Why an obvious duty? Because if the redeemed notes are paid out as the law now requires they are more than likely to return for re-redemption. mus It becomes necessary to keep re- pienlshing the gold reserve, ard this can be done in no other way than by selling interest-bearing bonds. Hence "the great cost to the government" un- der existing law "of maintaining the parity of our different forms of money"
 And this cost is especially great "in times of business panic and when the revenues are insufficient to meet the ex- penses of the government. At such times,' the president truly says. "tbe government has no other way to supply It's deficit and maintain redemption but through the increase of it's bonded debt.'
 II. then, it is the obvious duty of government 10 hold greenbacks in the treasury until somebody is willing to give gold in exchange for them in or der to obviate the necessity for repeat ed issues of bonds, that duty is most ob- yious and imperative in times of panic and when the revenues are insuffi- cient
 Yet the president does not propose to begin the discharge of this obvious duty until "the receipts of the govern ment are quite sufficient to pay all the expenses of the government" How can he explain his recommendation that the obvious duty be not discharged at the very time when, by his own show ing. it is most imperative? The government is running behind now at greater rate than ever before and there is an official estimate that there will be deficit of more than s21, = 100000. during the next fiscal year un- less something is done to increase the revenues. According to republican the ory, therefore, another panic is due and liable to occur at any time. But, panic CT no panic, the shortage is a notorious | fact, and it is a fact which should prompt to the immediate discharge of that obvious duty.
 Respecting this duty it is to be ob- served that if it should be discharged In accordance with the presidents | recommendation and if the banks should be required to redeem their notes in gold in accordance with an- other of his recommendations the greenbacks would soon be permanent ly retired and they might as well be ex- l tinguished.
 Such runs on the treasury as oc- cured during the last administration would bring the last one of the green backs into the treasury. and there they would stay until some one offered gold in exchange for them.
 Who would offer the gold? Not the national banks, because they would hold fast to the gold to meet demands l from holders of their own notes. If others should offer gold and take out | the notes and put them in circulation the banks would quickly gather them up and present them at the treasury and draw out the gold again.
 Thus the proposed measure would almost certainly result soon in the complete retirement of the green backs and practically their permanent retirement. This would the more cer- tainly be the case, because, as Senator | Allison has pointed out, if the banks were required to redeem their notes n | gold they would decline to accept silver or it's certificate representative, except as special deposit. They could not af- ford to be loaded with silver if re- quired to redeem in gold. The resulting discrimination against silver would produce very serious com | plications. Not the Least of these, prob ably, would be depreciation of silver and silver certificates, which the gov ernment could not remedy without borrowing hundreds of millions of l gold to maintain their convertibility. Chicago Chronicle.