Year: 1878




A bill has been introduced in Congress to
repeal the resumption act, and gold 1s only
worth quarter of q cent premium. It they
will only wait little while, gold will be ct
par, and then there will be no need of re-
sumption act.-Sherburne County Star, Dec, 8.


The above shows very plainly the
reason that many people who would
not knowingly support corrupt pol't"
ical party, still support the Republican
organization. They study only one
side Of the question, and entirely mis-
apprehend the points at issue. Fl
"there will be no need of a resumption
act" after gold is at par, and if a re-
sumption act is necessary previous to
that time, as thoStar assumes, the finan-
cial views of the Democratic party are
nonsense. The Star evidently views the
resumption act as a mere fat of:the
government, which may be withdrawn
as soon as gold and greenbacks are
equal. A considerable number of peo>
pie entertain this notion, or other no.
tions equally as incorrect, and form
their opinions Of the two leading po-
litical parties accordingly. The Star
does not seem to consider the fact that
the government has been preparing
for resumption during the most of the
time since the passage of the act, that
as long ago as the close of 1877 the
government had coin reserve for the
special purpose of resumption amount
ing to $63,016,o50.96, that the coin
reserve for that purpose alone now
amounts to over one hundred and forty
million dollars, that the object of the
act was not merely to begin resump-
tion but to maintain it: No sane per-
son questions the desirability Of hav>
ing gold and greenbacks at par, and
there is not, aud never has been, an
issue between the Democratic and the
Republican parties as to the practical
bility of resumption act when
such an act can be put in operation
without arbitrarily and disastrously
efecting the current standard of val>
ue. The resumption act, by increas>
ing the value of money, disturbed the
relative value between money on one
hand and property and labor on the
other. 1T tended to continue the
shrinkage Of values that had been
caused by too rapid contraction of
the currency, and the consequent de-
preston that had already nearly ruined
the material interests Of the country.
By this policy, the rapid contraction
of the currency followed by the re-
sumption act, the value of money was
so increased that all the heavy debtors
in the United States were thrown into
bankruptcy, and their employees were
thrown out Of employment. It is
needless to mentions the hard times
produced by the adoption of this pol
ICY, for everybody knows enough about
it by bitter experience. If the change
in the value of money had been much
slower, and debtors could thus have
been enabled to pay in money that
was not worth more than ten or fifteen
per cent more than the money they
borrowed, instead of one hundred per
cent more, as was the case in some in
stances, bankruptcy, ruin and despair
would not have swept over the land
thousands Of starving families, in des>
titution and rags, could not have been
found in the midst of such exhaustless
resources; American labor would not
be clamoring in the markets of Eu>
rope in competition with the half
starved labor Of the European mon>.
arches. The Star appears to believe
that the machinery presumption may as
we'll be dispensed with as soon as put in
successful operation. The people have
paid too high price for resumption to
consent to that. They have paid ten
times as much as it is worth, and now
they had better have the benefit of it.