Year: 1878




vaults of the banks at least one hundred
millions of silver legal-tender currency
and this would have been the case had it
not been for the secret act OF John Sher-
man as chairman of the Finance Com
sittee, and his fellow conspirators in the
Senate, who, it often has been hinted,
were well paid for smuggling this act
through Congress.


England, Germany and France each
have four times as much silver money as
we have, and it would have been a ''nice
thing" for the English and German bond
holders to be paid principal and interest
in gold when they had only been prom
ised currency.


England, France and Germany have
about three dollars of coin (silyer and
gold) for every dollar of paper. 1t is,
therefore, very easy for them to have
circulation in coin. But the people OF
the United States have three dollars Of
paper for every dollar in coin, and it is
difficult to see how specie resumption is
to be continued until we secure a greater
amount of coin TO meet our demand notes
now in circulation which aggregate near
ly six hundred and fifty millions, while
we have but 10000, 900 of coin all told
to pay them with.


haIiaya ttnIar fha
stances, however, the government might
pay specie and redeem its greenbacks, if
there was no forcible resumption law to
compel it to do what it cannot do on the
first of January next. This torcible re-
sumption makes every debt payable in
| coin or its equivalent. Under this bill
the banks will gobble up all our coin in
January. If the resumption bill were
repealed the government could use one
hundred millions of coin a year in pay
ment of wages and one hundred millions
in retiring greeIibacks each year until
they were all retired. Because the gold
that was paid out would be paid back to
the government through the revenue and
customs officers, and we would be in fact
on a specie basis at once, since we would
be able TO discover just how much coin
would be required by keeping the mnts
in operation. In the meantime the mints
would, as the law provides, continue the
coin a AZ SilVar ut tl.a pnfn af al
thirty or forty millions year, and in less
than five years we would find ourselves
Oh a more solid specie basis than ever
we were before, and this, too, without
the fear Of any sudden collapse Of which
we will be in dread constantly if forced
upon ms by tho legislation of John Sher-
man and his gold gamblers in the inter
est OF the bondholders and other Shy
locks


The people have quite as much sense
as the lawyers in Congress who taxed
their ingenuity to make some of the
worst laws that ever were enacted, of
which silver demonetization and the
bankrupt acts were specimens. Both have
been repealed; and now the resumption
act may be traught with more evil than
either, and it should be cleared away as
soon after Congress meets as possible. If
we are able to resume specie payments
and continue it, we can do without that
law and If we are not able to continue
resumption, to force us to it by law will
be sure to prove disastrous, and perhaps
destroy confidence to such AN extent AS
to throw us back ten or fifteen years
longer.


One of our oldest and most expert
enced bank officers, who has been con-
nected with his bank as cashier and di-


rector for forty years, we presume, and


who has never been a Democrat, told lis


shortly since that he could not believe


that twas possible to resume and continue


to pay under the circumstances.