The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1905-08-18
The 6reenback and It's Enemy.

The United States Monetary League
has issued az address protesting against
the financial plot of the gold-standard
schemers, whose design it is to retire the
greenback and destroy the silver dollar.
Tom Watson, in his magazine. defends
the greenback in his usual vigorous and
pointed style, as the following extracts
will show:
what harm is the greenback doing to
anybody? What evil has it ever wrought?
The approval of Lincoln gave it life;
that soldier who fought for the union,
when Roosevelt was in'sthe cradle, was
paid with it; the union armies were fed
and clothed with it when gold had run
off and hid. The greenback saved the
government in its hour of need, and it has
done good each day of its life ever since.
If we had five times as much of it as now
exists, the country would be twice as we'll
off.
Who is it that hates the greenback?
The national banker. Why?
Because the national banker would like
to have the monopoly of supplying the
paper currency. The government circu-
lates $346, ooo, 900 greenbacks; the nation
al banker circulates $500, GOO, 900 of his
own notes.
The bank-notes earn compound interest
for the banker; the greenbacks earn no
interest at all. Therefore, they compete
with the notes of the banker. They in
terfere with his business. AS long as they
exist, he has no absolute monopoly.
Therefore what?
The national banker hates the green
back just as the Standard Oil detests the
independent companies. For the same
reason which moves the coal barons, the
beef trust and the tobacco trust to wage
relentless war upon the independent deal
err, the money power demands the sup
preston of the greenback. Ifthe nation
al bankers can destroy the greenback,
they can Eli its place with their own
notes. Loaned out at lawful interest,
at the usual periods, they
will wiring from the people yearly trib-
ute of nearly thirty million dollars. In
other words, the country now gets green
backs free of charge, whereas the bank
notes to replace them will cost $50. 900. 900
per annum. can see how this will ben
eft the bankers; but whom else will it
benefit?
One of the strangest hallucinations that
ever entered the legislative mind is that a
bankers note, based on national credit,
is good, safe, sane currency, while the
governments own note, based on nation.
al credit, is unsafe, uusound and not to be
tolerated. The first legislators who saw
the thing that way were probably hired to
do it. The example having been set, ig-
norance, prejudice and selfinterest helped
to swell the numbers of the converts,
until now the men who cling to the belief
that government note, issued by the
government itself, would be as good as
that which it authorizes the banker to is
sue, are in helpless minority.
So, we let the bankers exploit a gov
ornamental function to their immense prof
it, when the government could use the
function itself. to the injury of nobody,
and to the vast benefit of the people at
large. But if the government did this
thing, the national banker would lose his
special privilege, his unjust advantage,
his huge gains.
j, Hence, he not only refuses to permit
the government to supply the country
with any more greenbacks, but he de-
mands the destruction of those already
Under the law of its birth. the green