SPEECH

GEN. THOMAS EWING,

DELIVERED AT

Ironton, Ohio,, July

COLUMBUS:

[PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF DEM. STATE EX. COM.]
1875.

SPEECH

GENERAL THOMAS EWING,

DELIVERED AT

Ironton, Ohio, July 24 9

FELLOW-CITIZENS : I shall address you to-day only on the money question. It is not
a question of ordinary politics affectiug indirectly and remotely the welfare of the peo-
ple. \It is of present and paramount importance, aqd concerns every one \vho is person-
ally engaged in industrial pursuits, or whose fortune is embarked in them.

I know the subject is one almost every body dislikes to study or discuss. But I do
not offer yon an abstract disquisition on the nature and offices of money, on which po-
litical philosophers differ and confute, as did the schoolmen of the Middle Ages on
entities and quiddities. I ask you only to take the lamp of our own recent experience
as a people, and by it direct your steps.

All eyes are on Ohio. The wonder seems to be that the Democracy have dared to take
issue with the finance policy of tha Republican party a policy of rain to the many and'
aggrandizement to the few. The money power which dictates that policy assumes to
control both the great parties. It is a mighty power the dread legacy of the war
which gathers from all parties to the support of its schemes men of largest control in
business, politics and literature the Sir Oracles of public opinion. It has heretofore
ruled our National finances almost without dispute through its instrument, the Repub-
lican party. Its measures are exactly those through which its prototype, the money
class of England, fastened on the masses of her people a burden of perpetual debt which
they can barely carry and live ; and which have been grafted here to bear precisely the
same fruit. It is a power which brooks no determined opposition from kin? or people.
The howl of ra<?e and torrent of denunciation from its organs which now greet oar ears
bring us the welcome intelligence that the arrow from our Ohio Convention hit the
clont.

THE ISSUE ON THE MONEY QUESTION STATED.

The issue between the Ohio Democracy and the Republican party on this question
may be succinctly stated thus :

'' 'i>- I'ppnblicans say the moneyed class shall determine the proper volume of the enr-
*v . !:<; Democracy say tlie people shall determine it.

2OO3086

They say the business of the people shall conform to such quantity of currency as the
banks can keep afloat redeemable in gold ; ive say the volume of currency shall conform
to the wants of business.

They say the people's money shall be issued by pet corporations ; we say it shall be
issued only by the Republic.

They say the people shall pay interest on the whole currency to the banks ; we say
the whole currency shall be part of the debt bearing no interest.

They say the interest-bearing debt shall be increased over four hundred millions to
buy up and destroy the greenbacks and fractional currency ; we say it shall be reduced
over three hundred millions by substituting greenbacks for National Bank notes.

The verdict of the people of Ohio on these issues, rendered after full discussion, will, I
believe, be ratified by the judgment of the American people. I have no fear of the re-
sult. If it b shown that the policy of the Democracy involves repudiation or a wild
scheme of imposture, the intelligent and conservative masses of our State will condemn
it without instructions from Wall street. But if it shall appear to be consistent with
National honor, and demanded by the interests of the people, the truculent billingsgate
with which it has been assailed will ouly emphasize the popular verdict in its favor.

THE RESUMPTION LAW PRESENTS THE ISSUE.

The whole issne pn this question is involved in the act of January 14, 1875, entitled
*' An act to provide for the resumption of specie payments." It provides in sufestance
as follows :

1. That the forty-eight millions- of dollars of fractional currency then outstanding
shall, " as rapidly as practicable," be redeemed with silver and destroyed.

2. That the National Banks now or hereafter established may increase their currency
without limit of aggregate amount by deposit of United States bonds as security under
existing laws.

3. As each $100 of new bank money is issued, $30 of greenbacks shall be redeemed
and withheld from circulation, until the three hundred and eighty-two millions of dollars
of greenbacks then outstanding be reduced to three hundred millions.

4. On and after tke 1st of January, 1879, all the remaining greenbacks shall be re-
deemable on demand in coin ; and, once redeemed, shall not l>e re-issued

5. The Secretary of the Treasury is required to provide the coin for these redemp-
tions, and authorized to sell five per cent, gold bonds to buy the coin.

THE RESUMPTION LAW A PARTY MEASURE.

This act is the climax of the finance policy of the Republican party since the war.
That party must stand or fall by it. It was reported by Senator Sherman from a Re-
publican Congressional caueus and passed under the gag of the previous question by a
party vote the Democracy to a man opposing it. It was promptly approved by the
President, and was in effect indorsed by the Republicans of OMo in State Convention.

Here, then, is the issne. Shall that law be carried out or repealed ? Let the people
of Ohio and the Republic consider the effect of its provisions and answer.

OUTY-FOUR MILLIONS FRACTIONAL CURRENCY TO B'S DESTROYED MORE CONTRACTION

MORE TAXES.

On the 8th of this month the Secretary of the Treasury announced that, by authority
and command of that law, he had sold five per cent, bonds, and with the proceeds pur-
chased ever ten millions of silver coin to redeem and destroy fractional currency. He

has thus added five hundred thousand dollars to the annual taxes of the people. He
declares his purpose, and Is bound by the law, to go on and increase the bonded debt in
purchase of silver to redeem and destroy the remainder of the fractional currency,
which will make an aggregate increase cf the annual taxes of over two millions and a
half of dollars.

What good is to be attained by this large increase of the debt, when the people are
struggling under an almost insupportable load of disaster and taxation, and when,
owing to the paralysis of business, the revenues of the General Government fall short
of its expenses, and bonds are being sold to meet the deficiency ? Will it furnish the
people a silver fractional currency ? If it would, call we afford to pay two millions and
a half of dollars annually for the difference between one fractional currency and the
other one having as ninch purchasing power and convenience as the other the only
difference being that one c/iinfcs in the pocket and the other doesn't ?

But it will not furnish the people a silver .fractional currency. It will destroy what
they have and leave them none. The banks and brokers will buy up the silver for the
premium. Two or three per cent, would be ample inducement for the purchase ; and,
as silver commands eight per cent, premium, it is folly to expect it to remain in circula-
tion.

What do you say, then, fellow-citizens, to this provision of the act this addition of
two and a half millions to* our yearly taxes this holocaust of our indispensable frac-
tional money this contraction of the currency, forty-four millions of dollars and the
further shrinkage of values and destruction of business which must follow ?

BANK CURRENCY BEING CONTRACTED $213,000 A DAY.

But this is only the first step to specie payment. Let us see what the next has and
will cost. This act provides for any increase of National Bank circulation which may
be desired, and the withdrawal from circulation of greenbacks to the amount of eighty
per cent, of smch increase until the volume of greenbacks be reduced to three hundred
millions. This was the tub thrown to Morton, Logan and such other Western or South-
ern Republicans as demanded an increase of the currency. They were either fooled by
the provision, or betrayed their convictions. Its effect in connection with other pravi-
sions of law has been to largely contract the currency. Under its operation up to April
1st, three and a half millions of new National Bank notes were issued and nearly three
millions of greenbacks destroyed. But up to the same date over seventeen millions of
bank currency were surrendered and destroyed; the net result being a contraction of
the currency over sixteen millions of dollars in seventy-five days after the passage of
the act two hundred and thirteen thousand dollars a day I

ALL THE GREENBACKS TO BE DESTROYED MORE CONTRACTION MORE TAXES.

The act next makes it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to provide gold to
redeem all the greenbacks outstanding on the 1st of July, 1879, and issue five per cent,
bonds, if necessary, to buy the gold. How much gold will be required f I answer, at
least an amount equal to the sum of greenbacks which shall remain outstanding on the
day of resumption. As there is no probability of much new issue of National Bank
notes in the face of the provisions for specie payment, the Secretary will have to provide
from three hundred and fifty to three hundred and seventy-five millions of gold by Jan-
uary 1, 1879. How will he get It? Not from revenues, for they are already less than
expenses. The last Congress levied thirty-five millions of dollars a year of additional
taxee, and it is believed that in the present and prospective prostration of industries

-the revenues will still fall short. How then will he get that vast sum of gold? Only
by selling bonds for gold, from month to month, as he has announced his purpose to do.
That is, the debt is to be increased by from three hundred and fifty to three hundred
and seventy-five millions, and about twenty millions of dollars of additional taxes lev-
<d each year to pay interest on the new tends.

FIFTY MILLIONS OF SMALL BANK NOTES TO BE DESTROYED MORE CONTRACTION.

Another feature in the scheme for specie payment is embodied in the National Bank
Act (Revised Statutes, section 5175), which provides that after spcie payment shall be
resumed, no notes of less than five dollars shall be issued by the banks, thus cutting off
fifty millions of our present National Bank circulation on the resumption of specie pay-
ment, and leaving the people neither greenbacks, fractional currency nor small bank
notes.

These are the steps to specie payment. Their cost in increased taxes will be over
twenty-two millions of dollars a year. But that is the smallest of the injuries the
movement is inflicting and will millet on the business of the country. Let us examine
the other pernicious effects of the law.

THE AGGREGATE CONTRACTION REQUIRED B^Y THE LAW.

We had, on the 30th of April last, four hundred and twenty-two millions of legal
nders and fractional currency, costing us nothing; and about three hundred and
thirty millions of bank currency, costing us about eighteen millions of dollars a year.
The free money is to be absolutely withdrawn, and also the fifty millions of bank notes
under five dollars, thus reducing the whole currency to two hundred and eighty mil-
ions of bank money.

We will be told that the greenbacks will not be presented for redemption, because
when resumption occurs they will be worth par in gold. 'But with the large demand
for gold throughout the world, and the acknowledged meagre supply with the banks
of all nations struggling for it to keep up their redemption funds with all national
debts payable iu it with our home demand for over two hundred millions annually for
customs and an export in excess of imports of sixty millions of gold annually so
arge a portion of the treasure of the world could not be kept hoarded in our treasury.
It would be drtrvn out by presentation of greenbacks for redemption until, in a year or
two at furthest from the date of redemption, every dollar of greenbacks would be re-
deemed and retired from circulation.

In addition to the reduction of the currency by withdrawal of all the greenbacks,
ractional currency and small bank notes, the National Banks must reduce their remain-
ing circulation largely before the dread day of resumption. That this is a necessary
result of the law in the opinion of the banks, is shown by the operation of the Resump-
tion Act for two and a half months after its passage, in reducing the aggregate of bank
circulation sixteen millions of dollars in excess of new issues.

OUR SUPPLY OF PRECIOUS METALS.

We pay abroad, on National and other securities, about one hundred and fifty millions
f dollars in gold annually. Seventy-three per cent, of our foreign trade is carried in
oreign vessels, calling for about fifty millions of freight in gold a year. Assuming that
mnfigrants bring in as much gold each year as our countrymen traveling or sojourn-
Jig abroad take from us, we have a yearly debt to pay to Europe, out of home resources
of two hundred millions of gold or its equivalent for interest on bonds _and for

freights. In other words, we start ont to trade with the rest of the world each year with
that balance against as. We pay it partly in gold and silver, partly in other commodi-
ties, partly in making new debts. Our whole product of gold and silver for five years,
from 1869 to 1873, was a little lees than sixty millions a year. Our annual exports of
gold and silver coin and bullion over our imports of the same commodities are stated
by Mr. Field at an average of sixty millions: (last year it was over fifty-one millions,
and so far this year it is double the rate of last.) Now deduct from our bullion product
twenty per cent., estimated as consumed here in the arts, and we have a net product for
export or coinage of but forty-eight millions so that, notwithstanding our large pro-
duct of the precious metals, the aggregate of coin and bullion remaining in the coun-
try is steadily diminishing. This statement is corroborated by the fact that the gold
and silver in the United States is estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury at one
hundred and sixty-bix millions in 1874, against two hundred and eighty-five millions
estimated by Walker in his " Science of Wealth " in 1860.

We start out, then, with such debt abroad as has reduced our gold and silver to one
hundred and sixty- six millions, and carries away from our shores each year more than
all our product added to all that returns to us. Bullion bought by the Treasury abroad
to prepare for redemption and withdrawal of legal tenders may be hoarded until the
day of resumption, but it will then pour out and flow where our growing foreign debt,
and the markets from which it may be extracted, demand it.

HOW MUCH CURRENCY WILL OUR GOLD SUPPORT.

Let us see, then, what amount of redeemable currency can be kept afloat in the United
States with our present supply of gold and our means of keeping it.

I read from a table showing the total amount in dollars of the precious metals in three
of the chief commercial nations of the world, and of the paper currency they are able
to keep afloat, prepared by me from statistics in Appleton's American Encyclopedia,
Walkei's Science of Wealth and other authorities. It is to be observed that the power
of the banks to obtain and keep gold is to a large extent dependent on the amount

afloat in their respective countries.

Total coin in Total coin in

country. bank.

Great Britain, 1872 $685,000,000 ,$125,000,000

Franco, 1874 760,000,000 157,000,000

United States, 1860 285,000,000 83,000,000

United States, 1874 166,000,000 10,620,000

Paper currency.

Great Britain, 1872 $25:2,000,000 Redeemable.

France, 1874 '. 564,000,000 Not redeemable.

United States, 1860 207,000,000 Redeemable.

United States, 1875 741,000,000 Not redeemable.

We all recollect the difficulties experienced by our banks before the war in maintain-
ing specie payment with one-fourth of our present volume of paper money and nearly
double our present supply of precious metals, and the disastrous panics to which our
system of mixed currency subjected us. If by the Republican resumption law we re-
duce our present excellent currency to two hundred and seven millions of bank cur-
rency (the quantity of paper money we had before thio war), I seo no reason to believe
that we could maintain specie payment as successfully as we did then. We then had a
shipping which carried more than our own commerce, and to which other nations paid
tribute in freights, and we owed abroad less than five hundred millions of National,
State, municipal and other bonds, while we now owe five times that sum, calling for

gold interest. For five years prior to 1860 we produced fifty-four millions of the
precions metals nearly as much as our present production. The conditions for main-
taining an icqual volume of redeemable paper money were certainly more favorable
then than now. Yet at that time two hundred and seven millions was as large an
amount of paper as could be kept afloat not actually redeemable, but just " so so."

On these facts I assert, without fear of successful contradiction, that this law neces-
sarily involves not only the cancellation of all the United States notes, including frac-
tional currency, and of the fifty millions of bank notes below five dollars, but also a fur-
ther reduction of the present bank currency to about two hundred millions of dollars.

WHAT GRANT THOUGHT ABOUT IT IN 1873-74.

Such is the resumption law, and such its inevitable effects in increasing the public
debt, and in changing the character and shrinking the volume of our currency. Its-
enactment is justified on the assumption that our present currency is bad in kind and
excessive in amount ; that a bank currency redeemable in specie will be better ; and
that we are already prepared for early resumption. Each of these propositions is un-
founded. Each was strongly condemned by the Administration itself in the annual
message of the President of December, 1873, only a year before the passage of the Re-
sumption Act. I read from that message :

" The experience of the present panic has proven that the currency of the country,
based as it is upon the credit of the country, is the best that has ever been devised.
Usually, in times of such trials, currency has become worthless, or so much depreciated
in value as to inflate the values of all the necessaries of life as compared with the cur-
rency. Every one holding it has been anxious to dispose of it on any terms. Now we
witness the reverse. Holders of currency hoard it as they did gold in former experi-
ences of a like nature.

" It is patent to the most casual observer that much more currency or money is re-
quired to transact the legitimate trade of the country during the fall and winter
months, when the vast crops are being removed, than during the balance of the year.

" In view of t^e great actual contraction that has taken place in the currency, and
the comparative contraction continuously going on due to the increase of manufacto-
ries and all the industries I do not believe there is too much of it now for the dullest
period of the year.

" A specie basis cannot be reached and maintained until our exports, exclusively of
gold, pay for our imports, interest due abroad, and other specie obligations, or so nearly
so as to leave an appreciable accumulation of the precious metals in the country.

" To increase our exports sufficient currency is required to keep all the industries of
the country employed. Without this, National as well as individual bankruptcy must
ensue."

This was General Grant's common sense view of the subject three months after the
panic. On these suggestions Congress acted, and passed a bill for a small increase of
the currency, against the combined opposition of the specie payment financiers. But
meanwhile delegations of usurers and theorists besieged the President, and he surren-
dered at discretion. He vetoed the bill framed on his own suggestions, and in his veto
message this currency which he had lauded as " the lest that has even' "been devised," was
denounced as one of the " evils growing out of the rebellion !" Thenceforth he became
merely the mouth-piece of the money power.

THE MABCH TO SPECIE PAYMEN1 BY CONTRACTION FROM 1865 TO 1873.

To get a full view of the dangers which threaten us in this march to specie payment,
it is necessary to look back to its origin and progress, and its past and present effects
on the business of the country.

It was begun by Mr. McCulloch in 1865, at the dictation of Eoropean capitalists. He
then had an agent abroad (Mr. Lanier) negotiating bonds, who reported to him that

"the feeling in favor of the contraction of the currency was universally expressed as
the sole condition on which our credit abroad could be maintained." Thereupon the
contraction policy was adopted. Gold that year after the war averaged about thirty-
five per cent, premium our currency was the largest we ever had and the industries
of the country in all branches most prosperous. Ten years have since passed the
policy of contraction has been pursued at the dictation of the money class abroad and
at home gold is now at sixteen per cent, premium and rising and the industries of
the country lie prostrate. If the people's interests, instead of the demands of bond-
holders, had controlled our money policy, the industries of the country would have
been still flourishing, and specie payment far nearer reached than now.

The state of the currency October 31, 1865, may be judged from the following table of.
notes of all kinds then outstanding. It is from Spalding's Finance History, page 201 :

Greenbacks and fractional currency $454,000,000

State and National bank notes 250,000,000

Five per cent, legal tenders 33,000,000

Three per cent, certificates of indebtedness 56,000,000

Temporary certificates 99,000,000

Seven-thirty treasury notes 830,000,000

Compound interest notes 173,000,000

$1,895,000,000

The floating war debt had been substantially settled, and the bonded debt was but
$1,162,000,000, of which nearly all was held in the United States. The interest-bearing
notes were all held at home they were bank reserves, thus liberating non-interest bear-
ing currency. The interest due on them was paid in currency. It ebbed and flowed
from the Treasury to the people as interest, and from the people back to the Treasury
as taxes. These notes were held as investments or reserves, except at times when large
transactions or a more than ordinary business need of money called them out to perform
its office. They were the reserve corps of the currency.

The consequence of having this large amount of money and interest notes held by the
people was that, notwithstanding we were paying heavier taxes than were ever before
imposed, there was from 1863 to 1866 a season of prosperity and freedom from personal
debt unparalleled in our history. During the eight years from 1865 to 1873, while the
population and business of the country were growing, a large amount of legal tenders
and nearly every dollar of the eleven hundred and ninety-one millions of Treasury notes
bearing interest which had served as currency, reserve and investment by turns were
withdrawn, and the currency on the 30th of June, 1873, stood as follows :

United States notes and legal tenders $416,000,000

National Bank notes 350,000,000

$766,000,000
Less reserve 128,000,000

Total available currency $638,000,000

The bonded debt had meanwhile been increased from one thousand one hundred and
sixty-two millions in 1865, to one thousand seven hundred and thirty-two millions, over
half of which had been sold abroad, calling for about sixty millions of gold interest
annually.

Thus, uuder the contraction policy adopted and steadily pursued by the Republican
party from 1865 to 1873, the interest burden of the debt was largely increased ; it was
changed from a home debt payable in currency to a foreign debt payable in gold the

interest-bearing notes which had served the people alternately as currency, bank re-
serves and investments, were taken np, leaving a vastly smaller currency, the inadequate
amount of which cramped business, checked enterprise, and led to the substitution of
credits with enormous interest to carry on the enterprises and business of the people.
The panic came and shook the credits, which were a bad and only partial substitute for
the destroyed currency and interest notes, and the business of the country thereupon
collapsed.

WHY BUSINESS DOES NOT REVIVE.

Two years have passed since the panic why is there no symptom of recovery f Why
does each season, compared with that preceding, tell of shrinking values, rednctd man-
ufactures and trade, greater suffering among laborers, and bankruptcy among producing
and trading capitalists ? Why have our exports fallen off a fourth ? Why are half our
iron furnaces out of blast ; our woolen and cotton factories closing ; our lands and lots
being sold for taxes ; bankruptcies multiplying ; laborers at lowered wages put on half
work or no work ; and the cry of want, amid the abundance of God's bounties, going
up from every industrial center in the land ?

It is because " mon.ey is plenty " in the stagnant pools where craft dams it np, and
scarce in the channels of business, where it was wont to flow. It is because capitalists
know that if the contraction policy be pursued the bottom is not yet reached, and will
not be for years after resumption ; that most industrial pursuits, of which money is the
handmaid, can not survive the strain of the further contraction necessary to resumption
in 1879. They, therefore, hoard their money, or lend it only on securities such as ordi-
nary business can not offer, waiting for the combined effects of contraction by hoarding
and contraction by the resumption law to still further shrink or destroy all values ex-
cept the almighty dollar and bond. They complacently bide their time, like wreckers
waiting on a dangerous coast, till the storm be past and the ships lie foundered ; or like
vultures lazily hovering till Death prepares their feast.

A STRIKING PARALLEL THE BRITISH RESUMPTION LAW.

That I do not err in attributing the business disasters of the past few years to the
measures for specie payments, nor exaggerate the evils in store for us if this resumption
law be executed, is shown by the history of resumption in England after her war with
Napoleon, which is a striking parallel to our own experience.

Great Britain suspended specie payment from 1797 to (in effect) 1823 twenty-six
years. That suspension enabled her to conduct her great war and send vast snma of
gold to the Continent to pay troops and aid allies without the slightest disturbance of
her home currency; and during that war her home industries and her foreign commerce
grew more than in any equal period of her history. Napoleon said she conqmere^ him
" with her spindles^' The war ended in 1815. The paper issues vrere large, credits
extended, and the banks unprepared for resumption ; but the cry was raised, " On to
specie payments." Accordingly, in 1819, four years after the close of the war, an at
was passed to resume specie payment in 1823 giving the British people just as long a
notice as has been given us.

Sir Archibald Alison, in his History of Europe (second series, vol. 2, pages 144-45),
says:

" The effects of this extraordinary piece of legislation were soon apparent. The in-
dustry of the nation was speedily congealed, as a flowing stream is by the severity of an
Arctic winttr. The alarm became as universal and wide-spread as confidence and
activity had recently been. The country bankers, who had advanced largely on the

stocks of goods imported, refused to continue their support to their customers, and they
were forced to bring their stocks into the market. Prices in consequence fell rapidly ;
that of cotton, iu particular, sank in three months to half its former level. The entire
circulation of England fell from $232,000,000 in 1818 to $174,000,000 in 1820, and in the
succeeding year it sank as low as $142,000,000.

" The effects of this sudden and prodigious contraction of the currency were soon ap-
parent, and they rendered the next three years a period of ceaseless distress and suffer-
ing in the British Islands. The accommodation granted by bankers diminished so much
in consequence of the obligation laid upon them to pay in specie, which was not to be
got, that the paper under discount at the bank of England, which in 1813 had been
$103,300,000, sank in 1820 to $23,350,000 ! and in 1821 to $13,610,000 ! The effect upon
prices was not less immediate or appalling. They declined in general, within six
months, to half their former amount, and remained at that low level f *r the next three
years. Distress was universal in the latter months of 1819, and that distrust and dis-
couragement were felt in all branches of industry which are at once the forerunner and
the cause of disaster."

Doubleday, in his " Financial, Monetary and Statistical History of England," says :
" We have already seen the fall in prices produced by the immense aarrowing of the
paper circulation. The distress, ruin and bankruptcy which now took place were uni-
versal, affecting the great interests both of land and trade ; but especially among land-
lords whose estates were burdened by mortgages, settlements, legacies and the like, the
effects were most marked. In hundreds of cases, from the tremendous/edoction which
took place in the price of land, the estates barely sold for as much as would pay off the
mortgages, and the owners were stripped of all and made beggars."

In 1822, three years after the passage of the Resumption Act, and one year before it
was to go into full effect, the distress of all the industrial classes became so great that
a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider the subject, which
reported that in consequence not of " over-production" or " over-trading," as was alleged by
the bullionistsbut solely of the contraction of the currency, resulting from the mere passage of
the acta contraction in three years of forty per cent. the price of labor and all its pro-
ducts, with scarcely an exception, had fallen in a still greater proportion. The commit-
tee further say :

" In the midst of this fall of prices, what operation in business could proceed without loss or
ruin f There has teen no form in which the capital of the merchant, none in which the capital
of the manufacturer, could be invested without the half of it being sacrificed during this calamit-
ous period. We have been thrown back upon a condition of society in which all industry and
enterprise have been rendered pernicious or ruinous, and where no property is safe unlexs hoarded
in the shape of money or lent to others on a double security."

The result was that the theorists and usurers of Great Britain were compelled, a year
before their act of resumption was to go into effect, to amend one of its most distressing
features providing for the extinction of the small notes a provision copied into our re-
sumption law by extending the time of their retirement to 1833.

Fellow-citizens ! If there be value to us in the experisnce of other nations, does not
this page of British history warn us against attempting resumption by contracting the
currency after the plan of her usurers and theorists f She attempted it when gold waa
but three per cent, premium, and her circulation but two hundred and thirty-two mil-
lions. Ricardo, the oracle of the bullionists, said it would do no great ii jury to any
one, as it merely involved the raising of the value of bank paper three per cent., while
the event proved that it involved a contraction of the currency forty-five per cent., and

of business credits eighty-seven per cent., bringing in its train the ruin ot manufacturers,
tradesmen, merchants, fanners, and the degradation of the laboring masses to pauperism.
M. Leon Say, the French Minister of Finance, cites the disasters to the industries of
Great Britain, resulting from the act of resumption, as a warning to France not to fix
at present a time for specie payment, though her currency is at par with gold, and her
people hold more of the precious metals than any other nation. Our theorists and
usurers are leading us to even greater misfortunes than befell Great Britain as our
currency is over three times that of hers when her resumption act was passed the pre-
mium on gold five times greater and the reduction of the currency, instead of being
ninety millions, will be over five hundred millions. The holders of the public funds
forced resumption there as here. The second Peel, whom the Irish Catholics called
" Orange Peel," was the mouth-piece of the bnllionists, who advocated the bill in the
name of " the public honor." His patriot father said to him when it was passed,
"Robert, you have made the fortunes of your family, but ruined your country."

REPEAL.

Shall this resumption act. be executed T Will the people suffer the money-lords here,
by the same false cry of public konor, to make the fortunes of their families and ruin
their country ? Never ! Let Ohio, standing in the center, cry out Repeal ! Pennsyl-
vania and Virginia will answer back Repeal ! And from every State where the Missis-
sippi ga'thers its waters will come the cry, Repeal ! Repeal ! ! Repeal ! ! !

The Ohio Democracy demand that this whole plan of resumption be abandoned ; that
the contraction of the currency cease ; that the National Bank Notes be canceled and
greenbacks issued in their place, thus saving the people eighteen millions annually ;
that legal tenders be given increased value by making them receivable for half the
customs ; that the volume of currency be, by some prudent and intelligent method, ad-
justed to and kept equal with the growing demands of trade, and that the restoration,
of legal tenders to par with gold be brought about by promoting the industries of the
people, and not by destroying them.

FALSE CRY OP REPUDIATION.

The usurers and theorists declare that this means repudiation. Does it, and why f
Because, they say, the customs are pledged for the interest on the public debt, and must
therefore be wholly paid in gold. But, as Judge Thurman has shown, the customs
amount regularly to full twice the interest on the debt (which we do not propose to in-
crease), and, therefore, half the customs will yield gold enough to pay the interest.
They say it would-be a violation of contract to take the circulation from the National
Banks. But the last section of the law under which they were organized reserves to
Congress the right to amend or repeal it at pleasure. They say the Government is
bound to redeem and pay the greenback in gold, as it was taken on the faith of that
promise. I answer it was never taken as a public debt, 'but only as a legal tender. It
goes from hand to hand is mine to-day and yours to-morrow. I doubt if there be a
man in America who ever took a greenback on the promise of payment in coin. Every
one takes it solely because it is receivable for all debts and exchangeable for all values.

But if the holder of the greenback be regarded as an investor in public fands which
he is not still to redeem this money in gold, to the detriment of the business of the coun-
try, were a monstrous wrong. The greenback was issued because the Government could
not pay its current debts in coin. The formal promise on the face of the bill fixes no day

of redemption; and all takers and holders know they are to be redeemed only when the
interests of the public shall permit. The people's interest must be consulted ; and doubly
so because they chiefly hold the greenbacks from day to day, and also chiefly owe the
debts, own the property, and do the business to be affected injuriously by forced resump-
tion. There is a faith due to the people as well as to the holders of public securities.
In the language of Edmund Burke, " It is to the property of the citizen, and not to the de-
mands of the creditor of the State, that the original faith of society is pledged. The claim of the
citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity."

WHO SHOULD DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF CIRCULATION ?

Bnt who shall determine what quantity of currency the business of the country re-
quires t The Democracy of Ohio say the people, who do the business, and are the sov-
ereigns. The institution of money is conventional, and its establishment and regulation
a sovereign prerogative. Why should the people surrender this sovereign power which
determines the distribution of their wealth to the mere chance of gold production, or the
vicissitudes of European crops or politics, or the interests of incorporated money-lendersf
The money power does not distinctly deny the fitness of the people to make war or peace ;
to determine all questions of person or property; to regulate all the rights and duties of
man within the scope of civil government. But they demand that the people shall abdi-
cate in their favor the sovereign power of controlling the money of domestic commerce
on the insolent assumption that they are, and the people are not, capable of regulating it.

The chatter about Confederate and Continental money, French assignats', "rags,"
etc., does not deserve serious answer. The Confederate and Continental currency were
issued by Rebel Governments, when their cause was desperate, their people poor, and
public loans impracticable at home or abroad, and when excessive issues of notes were
resorted to as a last resonrce of despair. The French assignats were based on the con-
fiscated property of the church and nobility, and lost all value when the Revolution
itself was overturned, and the confiscated property restored to its original owners. Our
Republic is the firmest Government on earth, regardful of public honor, with credit at
home and abroad, and nine-tenths of the people are property-holders, with the conserva-
tive tendency which follows the possession of property. Such a people, under such cir-
cumstances, will not run into wild extravagance in this any more than in any other pol-
icy of government. They are used to power have nsed it wisely and honestly and
will use it on this money question in spite of the contempfcuoas jeers of the minions of
the money power.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE LIMIT OF CIRCULATION T

It is said the Ohio Democracy demand an issue of greenbacks unlimited and illimita-
ble ; and that an excessive issue will sink their value, and be in effect repudiation.

But our platform prescribes a limit the requirements of business. Recently, in New
York, a member of Congress not our Buckeye abroad, Sam Cox denounced our plat-
form as one of wild inflation, and in the same breath declared that we already have
more greenbacks than the wants of trade demand. I answered that if it be true we
have more currency than business requires, our platform demands contraction, and there-
fore he should favor it.

The elements of our material growth are thirty billions of property, and the labor
which by use of property produces seven billions of wealth annually about seven-eighths
of which product is consumed in living expenses. The business of production and ex-
change is now done with seven hundred and forty millions of curreucy which is its life-

blood, keeping afloat and discharging fifty times its sum of commercial transactions.
We say this body of business shall have all the blood it needs for healthy action and
growth. Either the wants of trade must determine the limits of currency, or the arbi-
trary limit of currency will determine the volume of trade. Which shall bo subordinate ?
If our position be wrong, the converse must be true, and the business be cut down to the
dimensions of the foreordained currency. It were as sensible to cut down the business
of onr railway -system to meet the capacity of an arbitrarily fixed quantity of rolling
stock ; or to reduce the acreage of crops in the country by fixing an arbitrary number of
mowers and threshers ; or, after the custom of Chinese women, to limit the growth of
the foot to a prescribed size of shoe.

HOW SHALL IT BE DETERMINED!

How shall the volume of currency be adapted to the wants of the trade? That is a
practical questioa not in issue in thia canvass. If the people declare it shall be done, the
how can be left to their representatives, or to future popular discussion. I thiak, and
for five years past have publicly advocated, that the Government should i^sne a bond
bearing an interest about equal to the average net increase of wealth in the United
States say 3 65 per cent, per annam which would be one cent a day on each one hun-
dred dollars, into which bond legal tenders may at any time be converted, and which
shall be itself convertible into legal tenders at the option of the holder. When currency
becomes scarce these bonds would be converted into money ; and, when money grows
too plenty, the bonds would absorb the surplus. The business of the country would
thus determine and obtain for itself the amount of currency necessary for its use, with-
out arbitrary interference, and it would never be either glutted or starved ; while the
low rate of interest on the interchangeable bond would abate the usury which is the
bane of our social system. This is one proposed method of adjusting the quantity of
currency to the demands of business. It has not the sanction of either of the great par-
ties, but has been indorsed by the late Treasurer of the United States, and by many of
the most eminent financiers, statesmen and business men of the country, and is strongly
recommended by our experience with our interest-bearing notes about the close of the
war, before our home currency debt was made a foreign gold debt, and the policy was
inaugurated of giving to the banks control of the people's money.

LEGAL TENDERS CONSTITUTIONAL.

Bat it is claimed that the proposed issue of legal tenders is unconstitutional. I will
not consider the objection here further than to say that the Supreme Court of the United
States, in the legal tender cases at the December term, 1870, decided the acts authoriz-
ing their issue constitutional. The Court did not hold the issue valid because it was a
means of executing the grant of tear powers, but because it was an act not prohibited by
the Constitution, and " calculated to effect one of the objects intrusted to the Govern-
ment." If a new issue of legal tenders, to take the place of bank notrs, or supply a
deficiency in the currency, be found au appropriate means of enabling the Government
to carry and pay its debt and expenses, it would be fully sustained by the reasoning of
the Court in pronouncing that decision.

DEMOCRATIC TRADITIONS.

Some Democrats think our pi it*;.' n> a i' , rom the traditions of the party. The

statesman who did more th\n all others to i..x Democratic principles in our Constitution,
the father of Democracy Thomas Jefferson has spoken on an issue almost identical
with this. About tho close of the war of 1812 the people were heavily burdened with two

A 000104024 5

war debts ; the Continental money had been dishonored, and eight hundred banks fur-
nished the entire currency of the country. He then declared, as a proper measure of
relief for the people, that " Bank paper should be suppressed, and the circulation restored to the
nation, to whom it belongs." He said, " Congress may now brorwv of the public, without interest,
all the money they want, to the extent of a competent circulation ;" and he further proposed
that such National currency should be a legal tender for all public dues, and convertible
at the option of the holder into Government bonds. Later, when the Government was
free from debt, and the people had no burdens to be lightened by an issue of Govern-
ment notes such as they had in Jefferson's day and now have Jackson and Benton
fought against the Banks, and demanded " hard money '' rather than the " rag money."
Bat Democrats who now quote them are, in effect, fighting/or the'Banks, with the same
catch-words. " The letter killeth ; but the spins givelh life !"

TICKS OF PROPOSED BANK CURRENCY.

We can not have a currency composed largely or exclusively of gold that is admitted
on all sides. We have only a choice between two systems of paper money : bank money
nominally redeemable in gold after January 1, lfc?9, and legal tenders redeemable at the
pleasure of the Government.

The chief considerations respecting the bank money system are :

1. It is a device to supplement the acknowledged deficiency of coin with a credit
currency, at the risk and cost of the people, and for the aggrandizement of monopolies.

2. It is founded on the false pretense that one dollar in gold will redeem three dollars
in paper and five dollars in deposits. Whenever a panic, accidental or contrived, occurs,
the juggle fails, and brings confusion and loss to the business built on it. Mr. Page, of
the Bank of England, characterizes this mixt-d currency as " a grand system of insidious
swindling."

3. It will reduce onr currency to aboat a quarter of its already reduced volume, be-
cause of the small and steadily diminishing supply of gold in the United States.

4. The struggle of the batiks to "iioard gold will successfully keep it out of circula-
tion, and leave us only such meager supply of currency as the banks dare keep afloat.

5. The system is, by constitution, panicky. It is a currency of three parts paper and
five parts deposits, built on one part gold. The gold foundation is as unstable as water ;
as fickle and volatile as mercury. It is here this month, in England next,, in France
next, wherever the winds of war, or craft, or traffic blow it. Our banks could no more
control its export than they could control the crops, or finances or politics of Europe,
which cause its export. The shipment of gold would come directly from the banks,
for ther^ It would be stored, subject to demand of depositors and note-holders. Mr.

-.on, iu his " Science of Finance," says : " When the stock of gold in the Bank of
(1 is jit its oil.;.:;!: r level, the export of ti-n or fifteen millions suffices to produce
a derth of money aud a eenu>;.< commercial .crisis." We exported this year, to the 15th
of July, fifty-five millions of goiu. Under this proposed bank system, and with our
frequent large shipments of gold, cramps, j ;;'iics, suspensions, and consequent disaster
to business, would be the rule, and an even course cf business the exception.

THE CURRENCY NEEDED FOR OUR FOKKIGX COMMERCE.

This convulsive currency is demanded in the interests of our foreign commerce. Oar
home exchanges are over thirty billions of dollars annually ; our foreign exchanges less
than a billion. Our commerce on the Ohio doubtless surpasses that on the seas. Shall

the wants of our home or of our foreign trade determine the character of the National
currency ? Shall the dog wag the tail, or the tail wag the dog T

But I deny that our foreign commerce would be promoted by a currency so unfit for
domestic business. There is no " money of the world." There is a product gold iu
which balances of trade between nations are generally settled. Our National currency
should bear as steady a relation to a given weight and fineness of that product as the
unstable value of gold, arising from the fitful changes of demand, will permit. It is the
stability of relation of the currency to gold, and not the equality of our paper dollar tcitk
our gold dollar, that the wants of foreign trade require. The best assurance of National
solvency, honor, and commercial power, is in a home currency which will fill, without
paroxysms of drouth or overflow, the channels of domestic industry.

CONCLUSION.

Fellow -citizen, the Ohio Democracy has called a halt in the march of the Republican
administration to the equalization of the currency with gold, and demands that another
and better route shall be taken. The two roads are widely divergent. One leads through
years of individual bankruptcy, prostration of business, riot of usurers, impoverishment
and degradation of the masses ; to the establishment-of a currency meager in quantity,
inferior in character, and controlled by monopolies in a few money centers, whose power
will make them lords and the people serfs. The other leads through industrial activity,
abatement of usury, employment of labor and diffusion of wealth, to the establish-
ment of an exclusively National currency, controlled by the people with a due regard to
all obligations of honor and to the equal interest of all sections and classes. Which
road shall we take ? Shall we plunge on for four years through the Serbonian bog in
which the industries of the country are now struggling and sinking, or march by the
pleasant and solid paths of prosperity and thrift f