The Winslow mail., 1899-07-20
The Currency Question.
STRANGE DOCTRINE.
A Wall Street Organ Says There Is
an Imperative Need for
More Currency.

More Currency.
Some very curious developments are
taking place in Wall street-develop-
ments that cannot be accounted for by
anything we have seen or heard from
that quarter during the past few years,
says the Atlanta Constitution. We give
one instance out of several. The New
York Journal of Commerce remarks
editorially that 1.-The vast transactions
now going on and the volume of busi-
ness that must come in autumn, must
impress every observer with a sense of
the imperative need of a larger volume
of paper currency, and of some means
of expanding the aggregate supply of
circulation in response to the require
ments of commerce, whether these be
temporary or permanent" There you
have it! And we venture to say that
no reader of the Journal of Commerce
has previously hit upon such state
ment in his favorite newspaper for
many long years. Naturally, therefore,
to find it there now, duly spread out III
the editorial columns and standing 1or
the views of the editor, is calculated to
cause the thoughtful reader to rub ms
eyes. Why, 20 years ago demand 1or
more paper money was roundly ue-
nounced in Wall street as financial
heresy.' To propose it was to sol1clt
abuse. There was mighty small dill
ference in the view of Wall street be-
tween betraying your country ana ao-
vocating imitation" Four years ago.
the coinage of silver dollars was IN
fation." Six years ago there was loud
complaint of the overabundance OF
money. The banks in the money cen
ters were gorged with it; the gold or
gans called attention to the situation
in order to show that there was an over
supply on hand; and the treasury re-
ports were quoted to show the tremend-
Gus increase in the money supply.
More than that, the able director OF the
mint, who can be depended upon at
pinch, mustered all the fugitive figures
in the multiplication table to show
that the prospective increase of gold
production in this year would be sutfi-
cient to cause the "silverites". to open
their eyes.
We are told that the money outstand-
ing the banks and 'among the people"
has been increased "some $500, 100000
in the last three years" In the face of
all these claims, and at season when
the demand for money is not most ac-
tive. the Journal of Commerce comes
forward with the declaration that there
is an imperative need of larger vol
ume of paper currency" and likewise,
an imperative need of "some means of
expanding the aggregate supply of cir
culation in response to the require
ments of commerce" Well, this is pre-
cisely what we have been contending,
only we have insisted that the increase
in circulation should be in the shape
of specie, silver money, or notes based
on money of final payment. 1t is no
wonder, when the recent declara-
tions OF the gold organs are considered,
that New England paper belonging
to that class should read with amaze
ment the proposition of the Journal of
commerce, should top it off with the in
quiry: SIS Wall street going over to
Bryan?" and should declare that it
sounds like a sentence taken from the
stump deliverances of some populist
orator" We gather from this New Eng
land paper that such propositions are
not effective even when they come from
so conservative source as the Journal
of Commerce, for it prays that the cur
rency reform movement may ''be deliv-
cred from the patronage of these popu-
listic spectators" The Journal of
Commerce a ''populistic speculator!"
Well! what next? We may well regard
it as a very encouraging sign that such
financial organs should perceive and
recognize the necessity of enlarging
the money supply. Wall street will
insist, of course, that the new supplies
shall come from the banks, but the peo-
pie, we think, will be inclined to believe
that the credit of the government is
better than that of all the banks put to-
gether. That question, however, is not
very pertinent at the moment The
main thing is that the Journal of Com
merce should be willing to echo the
declaration that there is an imperative
need of an increase in the volume of cur
rency.