The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1898-09-27
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
OF THE GREAT STATESMAN
HENRY CLAY.
me Evils of Currency Contractfon-Re-
pubiicans Are Fond of Quoting Clay
on the Tariff-Let Them Quote Him
on the Money Question.

traction and expansion, as follows:
The proposed substitution OF an ex-
elusive metallic currency to the mixed
medium to which we have been so
long familiar is forbidden by the prin-
clples of eternal justice. Assuming
the currency of the country to consist
OF tWo-thirds paper and one-third met
al, and assuming also that the money
OF a country, whatever may be it's COM
ponent parts, regulates all values and
expresses the true amount which the
DEBTOR has to pay his creditor, the
erect OF the change upon that relation
ana upon the property of the country
would De most ruinous. All property
would be reduced in value to one-third
or its present normal amount, and
every debtor would in effect have to
pay three times as much as he had
contracted for. The pressure of our
foreign debt would be three times as
great as it is, while about 100000 900,
which is about the sum now probably
due to the banks from the people,
would be multiplied into $1,800, 000, 000
Have gentlemen reflected upon the
consequences of their system of deple-
ton? have already stated that the
country is borne down by weight OF
debt. II the currency be greatly di-
mlnished, as beyond all example it has
been, how is this debt to be extinguish-
ed? Property, the resource on which
the debtor relied for his payment, will
decline in value, and it may happen
that man who honestly contracted
a debt on the faith of property which
mad value at the time fully adequate
to warrant the debt will find himself
stripped of all his property and his
debt remains unextinguished. The
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Blu
chanan) has put the case Of two ma
lions, in one of which the amount OF
its currency shall be double what it is
in the other, and, as he contends, the
prices of all property will be double IN
the former nation of what they are in
the latter. If this be true of two ma
lions, it must be equally true OF one
whose circulating medium is at one
period double what it is at another.
Now as the friends of the bill agree,
we have been, and yet are, in this in
fated state; our currency has been
double, or in something like that pro-
portion, of what was necessary, and
we must come down to the lowest
standard. Do they not perceive that
inevitable ruin to thousands must be
the inevitable consequence? A man,
for example, owning property to the
value of $4,000 contracts a debt OF
$4,000. BY the reduction of one-half
of the currency of the country his
property in effect becomes reduced to
the value of $2,50O But his debt IN
dergoes no corresponding reduction.
He gives up all his property, and re-
mains still in debt $4,000. Thus this
measure will operate on the debtor
class of the nation-always the weaker
class, and that which for that reason
most needs the protection of the gov
eminent.
"But if the effect of this hard money
policy upon the debtor class be injuri-
GUS, it is still more disastrous, if pos
sible, to the laboring classes. Enter
prise will be checked or stopped, en-
ployment will become more difficult,
and the poorer classes will be subjected
to the greatest privations and dis
tress.
"And what is the remedy to be pro-
vided for this unhappy state of the
country? / have conversed freely with
the members of the Philadelphia COM
mittee. They are real political work
ingmen-intellige well acquainted
with the general condition and with
the suffering Of their particular COM
munity. No one who has not heart
of steel can listen to them without feel
ing the deepest sympathy for the pri-
vations and suffering unnecessarily
brought upon the laboring classes
Both the committee and the memorial
declare that their reliance is exclusive
ly on the legislative branch of the gov
eminent. Mr.. President, it is with
subdued feelings of the profoundest
humility and modification that / am
compelled to say that, constituted as
congress now is, no relief will be at
forded by it unless it's members shall
he enlightened and instructed by the
people themselves.
"(To the -president) To you,
then. sir. in no unfriendly spirit, but
with feelings softened and subdued by
the deep distress which pervades every
class of our countrymen, l make the
appeal. By your official and personal
relations with the president you main
tain with him an intercourse which I
neither enjoy nor covet. Go to him
ond fell him without exaggeration, but