Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1898-12-01
The Money Issue Side Tracked.

discussing The financial questions Wnlcn
are now perpleXing the nation. The
News has been for destroying the green
backs and we for maintaining them.
The News for taking the government
out of the banking business, we for
leaving it in. The News, we think, has
been for turning the making of paper
money over to the banks, we for leav-
ing it with the government. On these
three vital issues we entertain diver
gent views, we hope without feeling,
and are we hope equally honest in our
convictions. We are net alone in these
views, but each has behind him large
and influential class of thinkers. We
admit that 1t has been hard to get the
News to clearly identify its position. as
to all three of these points. We have
never yet found why it was more for
the good of the country that the govern
ment should cease issuing its promises
to pay, and at the same time create an
individual or agent, such as national
bank, and let it do the thing the gov
eminent, we are told, must not do. The
national bank is the creature of the
government, the national bank is to
issue the money, the issuing then is the
act of the government, through its
agents. who are a favored few, but 1t is
all so arranged that the agent and not
the government is responsible for the
note issued. If, however, the govern
ment has had trouble keeping its own
notes at par, how are the bank notes to
be kept at par? Is there any species OF
promise better than the governments
promise? and if so good promise as
this cannot be kept at par with coin
how can national banks keep their
promises at par? Yet when the News
cites instances of paper money falling
into disrepute it says:
Read Russia's experience with her
roubles, Frances experience with asslg
mats and mandats, the experience with
our continental paper, with confederate
paper, read up On the greenbacks from
their issue down to date, with the trou-
bles, contentious and perplexities to
keep them at par and prevent The long
haired PETERS from flooding the country
with them, which would have made
them worthless; and you will get much
clearer idea of the subject than We
could give you in a dozen short news
paper articles, even if we welded the
| pen of a master"
It might have cited worthless bank
pa per by the thousand instances with
more effect Seeing that two of the
instances cited at home, to-wit, the
Continental currency, and the Confed
crate currency, have no more TO dc
with the case at bar, nor with the
United States, than the Cuban bonds OF
debt will have, and both were lost 8!
policies in the Staunton Life or Vale.
Mutual Insurance Companies, because
the promissor OF person to pay, dice
bankrupt, and that there never ha
been any real trouble with the green
backs that Wall Street did not make
we Will not worry the public or our
selves by tracing the causes of troubl
with the French or Russian paper O
following the PETER night mare. Al
we Will say on that point is if the gov
ernment cannot keep its own issue o
paper money at par with gold, ma,
heaven preserve us from any othe
paper currency, and from any other per
| no rob
we know it can never succeed, and W
will be robbed and plundered at th
mercy of the issuers.
But says the writer in the News, W,
did not begin this article to discus
greenbacks, but to properly char
aeterize q statement which TIL
SPECTATOR said was current il
Washington, to the effect that Grove
Cleveland made four millions out of tn
bond deal. This is undertaken will
some degree of virulence. Now, as q mat
ter of fact The writer does not any NOR,
Know that Cleveland did not max,
money by the bond deal, than those whit
|
possibly not as much about it.. Nc
body suspects that Grover would have
come out on the front steps of til.
| White House, and called all Washington
up, and said, heres my part of tn;
Doodle" Cleveland is not a fool, an(
when he made a deal, if lie ever did, b,
didn't publish it in the papers. Th.
writer of the article in question doe
not know that Cleveland did not "turr
an honest penny" in the deal, he is only
reasoning from circumstantiale evidence
and on his own idea of Cleveland
character, and that won't work these
days in all cases. So his defense Of
| Cleveland does not arise from 4 knowl
edge of fact, but from a desire to blus
ter. When he challenges us in the fol
lowing manner: 1--WE challenge you tt
name any respectable man who Will at
tach his signature to such charge,
he supposes of course, that if such per
son be not produced, then the case il
gained in favor of Cleveland If the
writer were lawyer he would know
that he had proven many g man liar
and unworthy of belief, on rumor, cur
rent report, or what the people in hi
| neighborhood said OF him, and if any
| man had testified as to his own knowl
edge, or had signed a paper TO thai
effect such evidence would have beef
disregarded. He would also know thai
circumstantial evidence c0nyicts oftepeI
than 1t acquits. How silly then I,
attempt by such means to disprove {
rumor such as has been afioat ia Wash
ington for over two years, that Cleve
land had made money out of the bond
deal He can call the rumor any names
he pleases. He can characterize it ir
any language that suits his fancy. Il
| is not our property, we did not start il