Year: 1876

J harness, shoeing horses, sharpening
tools. Farmers had market al
home. Money was plenty, and even


the old fogies who had doubted the


policy of the State going in debt, be


gan to feel that perhaps they had


made mistake. l thought if thai
Macadam road was finished to the
Ohio river, and we could cross the
creek on stone bridge, it would be
the consummation of earthly hopes
1t never was completed. One morn


ing the horses and carts and work
men did not 20 out as usual. There
was general CONSERVATION.


The Morris Canal Company had
failed, and the State found she was
in debt to contractors tor a number
of unfinished works, few of which
would have been worth cost if COM
pleted, and the owner Of an undivid
ed interest in a soap factory some
where in New Jersey.


Then there was collapse. Mon
cy in circulation contracted because
the business for it to do had contract
ed. Credit which had been easy be-
came hard because securities were de
preciatcd. The State was in debt to
the contractors, and having no other
money to pay them, and no money
to pay current expenses, issued
scrip" But even that did not make
money plenty, and though it bore in
terest, it would not remain at par
Never was there better illustration
of the principle that money will stay
and circulate where there is business
for it to do. 1t will not remain in
excess of the actual legitimate de-
mand; it runs away from falling val
ues. Poor money will drive out
good, but the volume and value OF
either will be regulated by demand,
and is not subject to arbitrary con-
troll. Distribute it by the cart load
in excess Of demand for its profitable
employment for the time being, it
will create fever of speculation and
habits of extravaganza. Seek for it
in year, and you will fail to find 1t.
1t will go where the demand is
Create the demand for it, and there
is no power in legislation to keep it
away. If that demand be healthy
and legitimate one, the work it ac-
complishes cndures as permanent
good. If it be an unwise one, a mere
scheme Of imitation for its own sake,
|-it it be simply discounting and
Notwithstanding the future, it must
be paid back, with that compound in
tercst which is ultimate ruinous loss.


What mongrel currency we had
in the following ycars-of all shapes,
shades, and values. State scrip, In
diana State Bank notes, Hin Dis State
Bank notes, Shawneetown, Red Dog,
Blue Pup, John Watson's shinplas-
ters, and All occasional estray from
the Eastern States. Bank notes
were not redeemablc, and there seem
ed to be no reason in the nature of
things why they should not be abun-
dant; but somehow they would not
stay around, or, if they did, would
not stay good. | remember one Of
our old citizens, quite famous as a
wag in his day, conceived the idea
that he had as good right to make
paper money as John Watson, and
accordingly he issued his notes on
the same terms that Watson did,
payable on presentation in sums of
FIVE dollars, in State Bank paper
but he only issued four dollars and
seventy-tive cents. He might have
inflated the currency twenty cents
more, and still have been on the safe
side Of his promise. There was an
instance Of banking made easy, an
irredeemable currency which per-
forms all its promises, and Of ''lim-
tied" imitation, in miniature, pertec-
ton.


Then corn was down to 10 cents
a bushcl, pork to a dollar and half
a hundred, and they were our staples.
There was a long season of deprcs-
sion,-a depression far greater than
we have known since. 1t seemed as
though we never should get through.


look around me now with Won
der and admiration upon our beauti-
ful city. l see the prairies around
you covered with farms with substan-
tial improvements, school house in
every district, church in every
neighborhood, and l do uncovered
homage to those great miracle wor-
kers, labor and patience.


When l review the past sixteen
years and reflect upon the tremendous
operations of the government during
the War, the vast sums of money it
put in circulation, the markets it Gre
ated. the prices it inflated, the men it
employed, the spirit of speculation it
engcndered, and reflect that all this
was work of destruction, paid for
at the time by borrowing from the
future, by putting the whole future
under bond and mortgage, the won
der to my mind is not there should
be a depression, but that it should
not be far greater. Just as l believe
that in history the miracle of the
War will be deemed not the great
scale on which it was conducted with
extemporized armies, but the fact that
the vast armies when victory was as
sured, melted into the peaceful pur-
suits of private life without distur-
bance. When and where else were
a million of men in arms
disbanded at one time without a muir
mur against their treatment, without
bandit, or the suggestion of a posi-.
bility that the military force might
seize upon the government.


A great deal has been said of late
about the debtor and creditor classes
Of this country, upon the assumption
that their interests were distinct, and
that Legislation that would benefit
one would oppress the other. There
are several fallacies in this. The
creditor has the same interest in the
general prosperity of the country,
that he may receive his money with
out fail, the debtor has, that he can
pay it without distress. But, as dis
tinct classes, they hardly exist in this
country. The number of men who
live upon fixed incomes from perma-
nent investment in bonds and mort