Year: 1878

MISUNDERSTANDING


OF REPUBLIcANIsM.


Senator Dill spoke to large and entbu.
'iastic audience at Greensburg, September
20, on the financial issue, and discussed it
withia degree of ability and candor that com.
manded the hearty approval of his friends.
bis bold declaration in favor of the honest
payment ofall debts, public and private
his denunciation of reputation in every
form even under color of law, and his mas
terly defense of the constitutional standard
OF money as the only rock of safety for gov
eminent and people, ELECTED the most enthu.
siastic responses from his hearers and his
protest against the arbitrary regulation of
the volume of currency by Presidents or Cab
met officers or by the capricious views of
Congress, was received with universal favor.
bis review of the resumption policy of Sec.
retary Sherman gave the clearest compre-
hension of the question to all, and when he
exposed the needless enlargement of the
debt and the contraction of currency to com.
pei resumption, when the whole business
energies of the country are prostrated, he
startled his audience with the conclusive.
ness 'of his reasoning on the subject. The
speech throughout was listened to with the
most profound interest, and did more to set
tie the views of the community on the mon.
ey question than anything that has been pre-
sented to them. The following is an ab-
stract of the financial part of his speech


Senator Dill said that he had no flexible
platitudes to offer about honest money and
the honest payment of private debts, and the
honest maintenance Of the national faith
platitudes which could be as plausibly in.
terpreted alike to the hard money and soft
money voters. The solvent citizen or the
government, he said, that does not pay
debts according to the terms of the contract,
must be dishonest, and no technical plead
ing, no cunning .sophistry, can even excuse,
much less justify it. The credit of the gov.
ernment is its very life, and he who would
destroy it by reputation, however indirect,
is as much its foe as he who levies war
against it ; and the private citizen who has
the ability to pay, can in no way within the
lines of integrity, repudiate his debts or any
part Of them, even if it were possible to do
it under color of law.


THE CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARD MONEY,


Ours is government of law, and Justice
and equity are the leading attributes of our
laws. The Constitution to which the De-
mocracy has ever bowed with reverence has
fixed gold and silver as the standard money
of the Union, and it is in accord with the
accepted theory of the civilized governments
of the world. From that standard there can
be no departure without violence to law and
destruction to public faith and private pros
perity but the standard money is not now,
never has been and never will be the chief
circulating medium of a country so varied
in its pursuits as ours. Paper currency is
indispensable in all countries, and more in
dispensabe here than in any other nation,
because of the greater individual energy and
thrift of our people. In no other nationali.
ty do the people 80 generally possess and
so freely use money in their ordinary ways
of life as in the United States, and in no
other nationality is wealth so widely diffus-
ed and so tickle in its smiles as here, where
intelligence is limited to no class and honor
and fortune are open to all. A larger vol
ume of money in proportion to population
is, therefore needed in this country than in
any other, and it should be limited solely
by the wants of legitimate business, and not
by the arbitrary decree of President or a
Secretary af the Treasury or by the ebbs and
flows of political tides in Congress. All
such reglations of the volumes of currency
stamp uncertainty upon our financial policy
and psralyze industry by cesseless distrust.
We have seen a President arbitrarily and
lswlessly direct the isue of millions of cur.
rency when financial panic threatened the
defeat of the party that happened to rule at
the time and when one Executive can do
so without accountability, what may not a
future President or Minister of the Treasu-
ry do to promote or hinder the prosperity of
the nation as cupidity or ambition may die
tate ?


MONEY TO BE MADE EQUAL WITH COIN.


In my judgment there is but one sound
rule by which to regulate the currency of
the country. 1t is to maintain it as equal
in value with gold and silver, the constitu.
tionsi standard of money to maintain the
simplest and cheapest channels through
which it can reach legitimate trade, and lin
it it solely by the legitimate demands of the
business interests of the country, Irredeem-
able paper is a lie upon its face, for all mon
ey contains on its face the promise to pay.
and it is as poison to healthy industry but
redeemsble currency, maintained at equal
value with the constitutional standard of the
nation, should be accessible in such volume
as the varying wants OF trade require. The
volume of currency should be beyond the
control of gamblers and spectators, such as
have depressed all values in day by lock-
ing up money, and beyond the power of
partisan officials to employ it as factor in
political campaigns, at the cost of the stabil-
ity aud trust of business.


IRREDEEMABLE PAPER AT TIMES A Me-


CEssITY.


There are times in the history of all ma
tions which sorely try the people and severe
ly test the fixed laws of public safety. and
such calamitous tides are readily seized
upon by the reckless and the corrupt to in
augurates reign OF license in place of the
reign of law but however exhaustively the
extreme power of governments must be en-
ployed to preserve government as the foun-
dation of order and prosperity, the sancitity
of ordained authority cannot be surrendered
without teaching universal contempt of law.
The suspension of specie payments has be.
come supreme necessity at one period oil
another in the history of every nation, bu
the laws and the people have adjusted them
selves to it until the restoration of prosper.
ous industry and healthy trade resumntiou