Year: 1879

enlist all the friends of ssa safe and stable
currency" in support of this part of his
Message, whether they are republicans or
democrats. Our advices from Washington
to-day give warning that the trimmers in
dare. So important measure as
the final retirement of the legal ten
der notes can be carried through
Congress only by q strong pressure
of public opinion. The President
has furnished the proper rallying point,
and his policy should be promptly and vlg-
orously responded to by the press and the
business community. Great reforms 90
not accomplish themselves. Congress will
shirk it's duty unless the people take up the
subject with resolute energy and an un-
finching determination to make their de-
mand respected.


There can be no doubt that majority of
the American people favor sound cur
rency; but their views are not yet very clear
as to the necessity of the particular M measure
which the President so strongly recon-
mends Even Secretary Sherman moves
with halting pace. and would retain three





in permanent use, though Invested of their
legal tender capacity. But Mr.. Sher-
mans position is logically indefensible,
resting upon no principle and being in
consistent with his strongly declared views
on other branches of the currency question.
The reason he gives for the retention of the
| greenbacks is that the government would
save the interest on that amount of public
| debt. But this argument proves too much.
If it has any real force it is On argu-
ment for making our whole paper
circulation consist of Treasury notes.
If it be q good thing to save by this
method the interest on three hundred mill
| ions, as Secretary Sherman desires, it
would be better thing to save the inter-
est on six hundred millions. If the princi-
pie be once admitted that it is expedient
for the government to make profit by
issuing paper money there is no escape
from the conclusion that it should furnish
the whole paper circulation.


Mr.. Sherman, without intending it, is
playing into the hands of the extreme
greenback party. Their wild project of re-
placing the national bank notes with green
backs has heretofore been successfully
sisted on the ground that there is no con-
stitutional authority to issue legal tender
notes in time OF peace. Mr.. Sherman pro-
poses to remove that objection by taking
away the legal tender function and letting
the notes circulate on the credit of the
| government as bank notes circulate on the
joint credit of the government and the in
stitutions issuing them. This would dis
pose of the constitutional objection and
leave the greenback advocates free to in
sist that the government should have the
whole profit of supplying the paper cur
rency of the country. Now, if it is proper,
as Mr.. Sherman maintains, that the gov
ernment should save interest or make q
profit by supplying one-half of the paper
circulation there is no logical stopping
place short Of q full retirement of all
the national bank notes and q substitution
Of Treasury notes in their place. The
principle is precisely the same whether ap-
piled to one-half or the whole, and the saw
ing or profit would be doubled by doubling
the amount of government paper. Mr..
Sherman shrinks from this consequence
and is q jealous defender of the national
banks but the same reasons which make
it expedient that the banks furnish part
of the paper circulation are equally sound
reasons why they should furnish the whole
of it.


There is none of this trimming between
opposite principles in the policy of Presi-
dent Hayes. He does not regard it as any
| ~. l. Al
ment to attempt to save money by the issue
of circulating notes. No other solvent
| government of commercial country
does anything of the kind. In England.
France. Germany, Belgium, the paper
currency consists wholly of bank notes,
although it is as true in those countries
as il is in our own that the governments
might make profit by issuing their own
paper They correctly judge that the
saving would not compensate the danger
and mischief. We need not at present go
into the reasoning upon which this conclu-
sion rests, but there is q strong presump-
ton of its soundness in the fact that it is
accepted by every solvent government in
Europe and Endorsed by an immense pre-
ponderance of financial opinion throughout
| the world.


! Our system of resumption has not yet
been put to any test fitted to expose its
weakness. The short crops of Western
Europe and the great abundance of our
own have sent tide Of gold into the coun-
try SO much in excess Of our wants that
there is no motive for drawing coin out of
the Treasury by presenting notes for re-
demption. We do not need gold even
for the payment of duties since
paper is received at oil the custom
houses. There has accordingly been no
strain to test the value of our fair weather