Year: 1876

~
one per cent. interest on most the
loans. A saving of one per cent. on the
average would he one hundred and
seventy-seven year in gold; that saw
ing regularly invested at a per cent.
! would in less than 39 years extinguish
the principal, and the whole one thou.
sand seven hundred millions (D offunded
debt might be paid by this saving alone,
without cost to the people. 1t is best
even, when preparation shall have been
| matured on the exact debt that it would
have to be chosen with reference to the
existing state of trade and credit of
operations in our own country, and the
course of foreign commerce and condl-
ton of exchanges with other nations.


The specific measures and actual
dates are matters Of detail having re-
ference to ever changing conditions


They belong to domain of practical


administrative craftsmanship. The cap
tain of steamer about starting from
New York to Liverpool does not assem-
ble council over his ocean chart, rs
human intelligence must be at the helm
to place the shifting forces of waters
and winds, to feel elements day by day
and guide to mastery over them; such
preparations are nothing without them.


A legislative committee fixing a day and
official promises are shams among
thoughtful men whose judgment will,


at least, sway public opinion in an at
tempt to act on such acommand or such


promises without preparation. This
would end in new suspension, it would
be fresh calamity prolific of confusion,


distrust and distress. The act of Con-
gress of July II, 1875, enacted that on
and after the first of July, 1875, the
Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem


coin legal tender notes OF the United
States on presentation at the office at the
Assistant Treasurer in New York, 1t
authorizes the Secretary to prepare and
provide for such resumption of specie


payments by use Of any surplus revenues
not otherwise appropriated and by is
suing in his discretion certain classes OF
bonds. More than one and u half of
four years have passed, Congress and
the President have continued ever since
to unite in acts which have legislated
out of existence every possible surplus
applicable to this purpose. The coin
in the Treasury claimed to belong to
the Government, had, on the 3Oth of
July fallen to less than forty-five mil
liens of dollars against fifty-nine mil
lions of dollars on the first of July, 1875,


and availability of part of that sum is
said to he questionable. The revenues
are falling faster than appropriations
and expenditures are reduced, leaving
the Treasury with diminishing resour-
ces. The Secretary has done nothing
under his power to issue bonds; the
Legislative command and the official
promises, fixing day for resumption,


have been made, there has been no ne
cromancy in the operations of the Gov
ernment. Tue homely maxims of every
day life are the best standard of its con-
duct. A debter who should promise to
pay loan out of u surplus income, yet
be seen every day spending all he could
lay his hands on in riotous living, would
lose all character for honesty, and bis
offer of a new promise OF his profession
us to the value of old promises would
alike provoke derision. The St. Louis
platform denounces the failure for eleven
years to make good the promises of the
legal tender notes; it denounces the
omission to accumulate any reserve for
their redemption; it denounces the con-
duct which, during eleven years OF
peace, has made no advance toward re-
sumption, no preparation for resump-
ton; but instead, has obstructed re-
sumption by wasting our resources and
exhaustins all our surplus income, and
while protesting to intend speedily to
resume specie payments, has annually
enacted fresh hindrances thereto, and
having frs. denounced the baseness of
q promise OF day of resumption, it
next denounces the barren promise us a
hindrance to resumption; it then de-
mands its repeal, and also demands the
establishment of judicious system of
preparation for resumption. 1t cannot
be doubted that the substitution OF q sys-
tenn Of preparation without promise of a
day would be the gain of the substance OF
resumption, in exchange forits shadow,
nor is denuciation unmerited of that
improvidence which in the eleven years
since peace which has consumed forty
five million dollars aud yet could not af


ford to give the people sound and
stable currency. Two and half per
cent. of the expenditures Of these eleven
years or less would have provided all
the additional coin needful to resump-
ton. The distress now felt by the peo-
pie in all their business and industries,
though it has its principal cause in the
enormous waste of capital occasioned,
by false policies of soar Government,
has been greatly aggravated by mis-
management of the currency, and is the
prolific parent of mischief in all bust.
ness. Never were its evils more fell
than now. Men do nothing, because
they are unable to make any calculations
on which they can safely rely; they un


dertake nothing, because they are at &
loss in everything they would attempt


they stop and wish; the merchant dares
not buy for future consumption of his
customer; the manufacturer dares moi


make fabrics which may not refund hi.
outlay; he shuts his factory and dis


charges his workmen; capitalists can


not lend Oh security they consider safe


and their funds lie almost without in


terest; men with enterprise, who hav'
creditors to pledge, will not borrow