Year: 1874

the wheat. When we have large crops
OF wheat, the crop of money becomes
small by comparison, or relatively, and
rice UerSa.


The quicker we cut loose from all these
old worn-out heresies, which can have
no possible perfect or even modified, ap-
plication to US or to our modes of thought
and acting, and start on the plain, COM
mon sense path dictated by the spirit
and genius of a free and independent
people, the sooner will we get rid of the
difficulties which beset us on every hand.


Mr.. Speaker, the contractionists say,
"Let US come back to specie payments at
once" Why, sir, if we had a circulation
of three hundred and fifty millions of
bank notes, and four hundred millions
in greenbacks to redeem it with, and had
a suspension of all in September and Oc-
tober-if the men in New York could
make a corner on our whole currency
and the redeeming agency at the same
time, what would have become of the in
terests of the country if specie payments
had prevailed in harmony with the old
plans on that subject in this or any other
country. Your paper currency and busi-
ness would have been involved in ire
trievable ruin, as in other crises.


We know, sir, what powers of combina-



for their interests this financial disaster
came. See if there is not evidence of
collusion and combination between the
capitalists and money-lenders of Europe
and America. Just at the time when
crops were short in Europe; at time
when they would be compelled to import
large quantities of agricultural products
from America; just at the time when our
cotton crops as well as the more than
average quantities of other crops were re-
quired in Europe to make up their def
ciencies and we were about in return to
receive the worlds currency" or its
equivalent, in exchange for our surplus
products, the combined money power of
Europe and America made the corner"
The result was that our produce was
stopped in trarasitu-the prices reduced
more than 25 per cent. Had this not
been done the exportable commodities
would have gone forward, realizing full
prices paid to our own people. The bal
ance of trade might have turned in our
favor, and the gold that we have been
compelled to pay our debts abroad would
have remained with US and in time
specie payments would have resumed
of their own motion, and the interests of
the country have been protected and
saved.


But, sir, the effect of this combination
has been to turn our working men out
of employment, sending them adrift in
every direction at the most trying and
inclement season of the year. Too much
currency, you say. If we had enough,
properly guarded and regulated, it would
be impossible for the privateers to cap
ture and corner it as they did. Can a
corner be made upon the produce to the
-bo,, i,,A,
of such panics? | think not. 1t has
been tried in Chicago; but they cannot
be maintained Such curses are like
chickens; They come home to roost, and
the parties engaged are frequently in
volved in irretrievable ruin.


Mr.. Speaker, on the question of the
currency, it seems to me, as l said before,
that to state our case is sufficient ar
gument of it. If sufficient, why are we
compelled to pay such dear rates for its
use? But then, again, contemplate the
difference between our condition and
that of Great Britain, our banking capital
and circulation twenty-seven dollars per
CAPITA and theirs one hundred and five
dollars, and the demands for its use in
each country; our country stretching
from the north pole to the equator, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, embracing
forty million free, and industrious (and
ought to be a prosperous) people, and
they would be prosperous if the legisla-
ton of the country favored all as much
as it does part of our people-this vast
area, embracing lands, forests and mines
of undeveloped andinexhaustible wealth,
which could and would furnish five times
our capital and circulation profitable
avenues for investments and active oper-
ations in the development of our great
and as yet undeveloped natural resour-
ces, capable of employing and sustaining
five hundred million people: Great
Britain, with her thirty-two million peo-
pie, and one hundred and five dollars of
banking capital and circulation each,
covers an area not larger than one of the
States of this Union, powerless to inaug-
urate an additional industry, those in
operation far on the way to complete ex-
haustion, and with her great city of Lon
don, which, practically, is Great Britain
for all commercial purposes does not in
fact need one-fourth the banking capital
and circulation that we do. The East
ern States, with a part of the Middle
States, may, as before stated, have fair
supply, for they are situated much like
England is, without the undeveloped re-
sources too set on foot new industries,
and with the great cities of New York
and Boston, which, through their clear
ing-houses, transact hundreds Of millions
daily on less than 4 per cent in actual
currency. Not so with US in the West,
South, Northwest and Southwest. Our
sections, more sparsely settled and denied
by the Government our equal share of
banking facilities, we have, in proportion
to our needs. very limited facilities for
transacting the business of our great
producing region of the country.


But, Mr.. Speaker, what has been the
effect of our financial system of which
this inconvertible and branded paper
currency is so prominent a part and
which was adopted by the republican
party | do not refer to this matter in
partisan sense, only because the repub-
ican party was in power when it was
adopted, and has sustained it since its
birth l am very glad to find so many OF
friends of the proposition with me, from
the South and West, of both parties.
Sir, the country has advanced more in
material wealth. and all the clements of
civilization since 1861, twelve years, than
marked its progress in all the history of
its past. The melting of the shackles
off four million slaves, by q fervid heat OF
fratricidal war, has not only resulted
| in their emancipation, but has stricken
the shackles off thirty millions of white
/ people. l have not the time to go into
details, and have not the statistics pres
ent.


But Mr.. Speaker, want to state fact
which is patent, and which can be seen,
known, and read u all men everywhere
that under this policy of expansion, il
YOU so call it, the United States has
grown more in wealth and prosperity in
the twelve years than it did in the whole
! seYentv-one wears of its previous exist