Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1877 — THE FINANCES. [ARTICLE]

THE FINANCES.

Speech of Hon. E. P. Allis, Greenback Nominee for Governor of Wisconsin. The Currency Problem Discussed by a Practical Business Mari. •• . . Hon. Edward P. Allis, the nominee of the Greenback party so Governor of "Wisconsin, recently delivered an address to a large audience at the Academy of Music, in Milwaukee, the following report of which we find iu the Sentinel of that city: The speaker acknowledged that it gave him a sensation such as he had never before experienced to publicly appear before a Milwaukee audience after walking quietly among the people of the Cream City from the time his heart was young and buoyant until his hair had grown gray and thin. Though he claimed to have neither the ability nor the ambition of a phblic speaker, he desired so to conduct himself as to reflect credit on his friends as well as upon himself. The course of events had brought him prominently before tho people as a candidate for tho highest office in the State, a poembarrassing as unsought, and, high as lie esteemed the honor, lie had accepted with much misgiving the seeming duty. The cause for which he appeared, though made the target, for ridicule, was to him a surpassing, important and holy one. Not only America, but the entire civilized world, said the speaker, is suffering from a want of knowledge of the true function of debt, its relation to labor, progress and civilization. It is left to the American to work out the problem, and that a free people’s government cannot long exist except in accord with that true relation of debt to progress. It was, therefore, not simply a question of temporary policy, but a question as broad as humanity, and it seemed to the speaker as one of the marked events in the history of the world. The war waged to strike the galling fetters of iron from Hie black man had, as its concomitant, the teaching how the depressing fetters of gold should be stricken from the white man.

Money of some kind he declared to be an absolute essential to progress and civilization, since without it the race could not advance. Progress is only accomplished by gain, and that gain, to any extent, obtained through association and exchange. The exchange must have an appropriate medium, and this medium is money. The cause of civilization and progress centered in love of gain, and the sentiment is universal in the human heart. To-day, as in tho past, all are striving for gain, and failure to accomplish gain proved retrogression of the race. The speaker said : It is not gold, but gain, we are striving for ; gain in wealth—gain in power—gain in honor — gain in influence—gain in purity—gain in reverence—gain in position —gain in culture—gain in knowledge—gain in pleasure ; it is for gain in something that our hearts all go out, and just as that love for gain extends to higher, holier things, just so is the race elevated and ennoble J. Gain in material thus emanates from association and labor, and the dissemination of gain is exchange, and the means of exchange is money. In early ages, when mankind were rude, and governments were weak and crude, their money partook of the character of the time and people, and was of a low order, beginning with sticks and stones, and shells and skins. The value of the money was sometimes intrinsic, and sometimes a matter of simple public esteem. For instance, a shell rare in Africa, but of no value, was used as money. The same shell was plenty in India, and of no esteem. This fact was taken advantage of by more civilized nations, and the shell was taken in ship-loads from India, where valueless, to Africa, where esteemed, and exchanged for their valuable commodities.

From very early timen silver and gold have been used as money, and were admirably adapted for the purpose and the time. To their discovery and use, as money, we can scarcely attach too high an importance. As the race had outgrown the ruder symbols of the earlier time, and had not reached a high degree of government or of public or private faith, gold and silver came, and, by their benign influence, humanity took a giant’s leap. But the precious metals, that w'ere once an advance, and sufficient for the time, have long been outgrown and outstripped in volume, and the ability of mankind to labor and accomplish gain by association has over-reached their ability to exchange. The loanable capital of Great Britain alone is greater than all the gold in the universe, and yet that loanable capital is all claimed to be gold, as is also tho loanable capital of other nations of the earth. The public debts of the principal civilized nations of the earth, all payable in gold, are live times over all the gold in the world. The business transactions of the world fairly put the volume of gold to shame, the annual clearings of the London bank, alone being five times, and those of New York four times, all the gold in the known world. One of these fictitious means of increasing the volume of the precious metals, in our country, was the so-called “ specie-paying banks.

A bank was permitted to issue five dollars, or more in paper for every one dollar in coin jt possessed, promising to redeem it all in coin, on demands In this Way the volume of coin, for practical purposes, was largely multiplied,and such banks were great aids to business and progress; in their days and while they prospered. A notable and successful instance of this multiplying the volume of coin for practical purposes occurred in our city. Alexander Mitchell established here an insurance company, -with permission to issue bills ad libitum. The Northwest was new and without money, and its progress was slow and painful. Mr. Mitchell was a man of known ability, and unblemished integrity, andjour people eagerly sought to use his money which he freely dispensed, and this for years was our principal medium of exchange. The use of this money added largely to the early prosperity of the Northwest; and for this benefit we should ever hold Mr. Mitchell in grateful remembrance. This system of multiplying the volume of these precious metals, however, contained within itself the seeds of its own dissolution, in its promise to pay on demand, five times, or over, more coin than it had. These banks might have other things just as good as coin, but the promise was coin, and it is evident that their ability to redeem the promise only lasted while they were not called upon to do so. Had these banks promised to pay in something which they esteemed just as good as coin, and been honestly and well managed, they would have been built upon truth and might have stood; but they were built upon fiction, and no subterfuge or fraud can ever be a proper basis to rest public or private welfare upon. A notable instance of this system of banking, at this moment existing, and a great power in lhe world, is the Bank of England. This fiction—this subterfuge—is beneath the spirit of the age —behind the present advance of civilization. The truth should be acknowledged and openly conformed to, and if the volume of the precious metals is not sufficient fOr the Use of the world as money, its substitute or supplement should be placed on its own foundation. This fiction—this subterfuge, I maintain, has been the cause of the ordinary commercial panics and convulsion that have from time to time swept over the commercial world like the besom of destruction, and these commercial simoons will continue to strew the world with business wrecks just as long as.. this subterfuge is resorted to. Wherever people have attempted to supplement the volume of gold it has been by means of a debt, and they have called the debt gold, and the enduring quality of the substitute depended upon the character of the debt. This question of debt is one of deep interest and import, and is closely intwined with the hu man family. Commencing with individual obligation of the slightest form, it has been ever present and ever increasing, and is to-day the largest and most important structure on earth. We hear it said, the present trouble is caused bv debt. Why did you get in debt? Pay your debts, etc. Our debts can only be paid in barbarism. Debt! it is debt everywhere. Debt above us—debt around us—debt beneath us. Our progress is a debt to the past and our civilization a debt to the future. The millions piled up in your insurance company is only a debt The quarterly reports of

every bank are all made up of debt. The inventory of your every merchant is largely grade np of debt. The savings of this great people, for the last century, piled up by millions in savings banks, are all debts. The rich man counts his thousands in debts, and the poor man receives his day’s wages in debt. The widow drops her mite m a debt, and robbers burst vaults and carry off hundreds of thousands in debts. What is our beautiful Plankinton House but a debt to the railroads, the merchants and manufacturers of our city. What iff dur magnificent system of railroads, itself, but a debt to the farm, the shop, the brain and sinews of the people ? The highest form of physical debt, and consequently of value, now known, is that of a nation to its own people. An individual, or corporation may be unwilliyg to pay a debt to his neighbor, or his creditor—a State may fail to pay its debt to a foreign State, and the foreign State must be the loser—but a nation’s debt to its own people cannot fail. The people' have had the Value of the debt, and they cannot be deprived, of'it, and the only question is, the just distribution of its benefits and burdens, which Is purely a question of n<etAod, not of value. A national debt to its own people, therefore, is the refinement of debt—the very bright of value, it cannot be lost. Wherefore are the Turks ridiculed, day by day, for the money they use? It is theirs; and nil they have. It is their wealth and . honor pledged to each other. Because they have no gold, unist they, therefore, desert their country ? Must they measure their love of native land'by a foreigner’s love for gold? So were our greenbacks reviled by doubtful patriots when with us it was either greenbacks or national dot>L The Bank of England, to-day, holds a debt against the British nation for the excess of its bills over' the coin which it has, and the only weakness of those bills to the British people is that they have a guardian in the Bank of England who promises what he has not got, and charges for it. The national banks of our own time and country hold the debt of our nation for the bills they issue, and their only weakness is that they promise greenbacks, which they have not got, and charge us for it. If the nation’s debt which is owned by the national banks, & well as the rest of it. bore an interest not as high as the average increase of national wealth, and was interconvertible at will with greenbacks, and if it was greenbacks the banks issued and received, and greenbacks only, then would those banks be founded upon just, equitable, safe principles, and be as legitimate and as great aids to advance as is your business or mine; and I believe that until that is done, or something equivalent, there will never again be true and permanent prosperity in our land, either to banking or any other business.

The old specie-paying banks, the Bank of England, aua our present national banks, having the feature of compulsory demand payment in something they have not got, though they may have something just as good, are frauds to that extent, and so long as this feature exists they will be fruitful sources of the commercial disasters that have marked the road since the race passed beyond the power of the precious metals to supply its want of money. It is this feature of compulsory payment, on demand, in gold, which we have not got, and cannot get, that is now sought to be restored, and perpetuated, in the specie-redemption act, whicb is to go into effectonthe Ist Of January, 1879, or which, I should rather say, is still in force ; for it can never go into effect except upon a bankruptnationandapeople rapidly traveling backward in the scale of civilization and progress. I . How pnerilOis the attempt, and how wicked is the result, needs only to be looked at in a business manner to be plainly evident. We have produced in our country, since the discovery of gold, ih round numbers, fifteen hundred mjllions of dollars, and, gentlemen, where is it ? There is not enough left of it to be worthy of national consideration. We have spent it all in foreign lands. But the spending of this vast sum abroad, the entire labor of a generation in that direction, is not half the story. We are indebted to Europe, in a national, corporate and individual capacity, to an amount variously estimated at from fifteen hundred to four thousand millions more—that is, we have spent all the gold the last generation has produced, and all that the coming one or two generations could produce, if they were free from debt, but, as it requires all we can raise annually to pay the interest on our gigantic foreign debt, as all tho European nations are fighting to keep what they have, you can easily calculate what chance we have to keep, or get, any of it for currency purposes. But plain as would seem to be the deduction from the above state of things, we are not compelled to rest on theory. As the time rolls on toward that evil day, the state of the country rushes along with equal speed toward ruin. After these many years of constant decline we were, on the Ist of January last, assured that now we were only removed a few cents from resumption and that the change was at band, and that we were about to emerge upon a new era of prosperity. Each day since has seen us plunged deeper into the pit; and, during the bix months to July 1, it is safe to say that the loss to the country, in the additional shrinkage of values, and in the loss from labor, has equaled the entire national debt. We can also safely affirm that during the present sit months the downward progress, unless assisted by the repeal of existing laws, will be equally rapid, and that the Ist of January, 1878, will jind us that much nearer universal ruin. It is true, we have in the Northwest the aid of a bounteous harvest, but it* effect will be local and trifling, and can no more stay the dread progress than a rush of the torrent of the Nile. Not only is labor a sufferer beyond computation, but capital itself, which is, and should be, the great aid and abettor of labor, is, apparently unkhown, itself fearfully endangered by this suicidal policy. The national banks themselves, in a circular letter asking a remission of a tax, used this language : “The percentage of taxation, in some sections of the country, including the State taxes and the national taxes, amounts to nearly or quite the whole earning power of the capital employed. If this is to be continued, it amounts, by confiscating its earning power, to a virtual confiscation of the capital.” This is the language of the banks themselves, but they do not, or will not, see that they are advocating the very cause that brings this state or things upon themselves, as well as upon the rest of us.

We have for years been paying onerous taxes; not from the current profits of the people, which can only safely pay them, but from our working principal, till that is nearly gone. With the continuance of this policy it cannot be two years before the Government itself will be unable to collect from an idle ana impoverished people the means to pay even its running expenses, and the disgrace of national bankruptcy will be added to the ready wide-spread individual ruin by which we are surrounded. Here the speaker simplified his illustrations of the nature of public debt and his point that the attempt to resume specie payment would end hi national bankruptcy. Mr. Allis closed by rehearsing the claims of his party as follows: We claim that one war has taught us what we have for a hundred years been trying to find, that m -our national debt we have found a sure and staple supplement for the insufficient volume Of the precious metals. We claim that the greenbacks paid out by our Government to its people for their material, their labor, their blood and their lives, was money earned by them, and that it belonged to them, while they could use it to their advantage, and that its forcible retirement was a wrong, as well as a financial mistake. We claim that as the people of this country kept the nation coequal in power and standing with other nations; this money of the peogle, paid for such service, should have been so onored by the Government as to have made its value, however abundant, coequal with the coin used by other nations, and rendered all compulsory redemption or contraction laws unnecessary. We claim that, the wicked contraction of the currency, and the threatened forced redemption in somethingJwe haM& not got, is the cause of the present disturbed state of the country, and that after the loss of thousands of millions we shall find we have attempted an impossibility, and be compelled to slowly and painfully retrace our steps, if, indeed, we can retrace them at all. We claim that since we now have a foreign debt, requiring all the gold we can-produce to pay tiie interest, we be given such volume of honored paper currency as we can use to enable us to profitably employ the labor of the country, that we may ultimately hope to pay the debt and escape national disgrace. We claim that the subterfuge or fraud of demanding conversion into something we have not got has been the cause of the periodical financial convulsions and panics that have swept over our land, and the world, like the besom of destruction, and that it shall no longer be tolerated.

We claim that, since the two metals, gold and silver, were so materially insufficient iu volume for the use of the people as money, the demonetizing of silver, thus reducing the scant supply one-half, was an Unparalleled blow at the already dedining prosperity <rf the people. We claim that money, as money, is not wealth and cannotlre, but is simply the medium of exchange, the tool by which wealth is acquired to the nation, and as' fmeh tool is a national prerogative, and whether metallic or paper should be issued directly by the Government, and its vqlume be elastic and regulated entirely by the lairirand demands of trade. We claim that, as checks and bills of exchange which can be used by the larger dealers to in a measure supplement other methods of exchange, are out of the reach of of the people, to be deprived of ‘ tho greenback, which is the method of exchange -of the laborer and smaller dealers, is an undue and disproportionate hardship to them, and consequent injury to the general good. We d aim, finally, that if a nation has adVAtice need of the material And services of its people; or, rather, if tho future of au nation has need of the services of the present-, that the satisfying such need is the leyitiii/ate function and property of all the people, and that the fulfillment of such need should be exchanged in paper, and that such paper should not be used to borrow money, but that of itself it is money.