Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1877 — CURRENCY REFORM. [ARTICLE]

CURRENCY REFORM.

4 Texts for the People. “Exorbitant rent (commonly called interest) is silently but surely devouring the substance of the people.”— Peter Cooper. “ However fertile a country may be, interest, even at 2 per cent, will inevitably oppress the producers.”— Edward Kellogg. “ Bank paper must be suppressed and the circulation restored to the nation, to whom it rightfully belongs.”— Thomas Jefferson. “If the bond-holder refuses to take the same kind of money with which he bought the bonds, he is an extortioner and a robber.”— John Sherman. “ The amount of money needed in a country should be determined by the wants of the people, and can only be done by a national paper money.”— Henry Carey Baird. ‘ ‘ When the country will realize the glories of a ‘ gold basis’ and learn what is meant by ‘irredeemable trash,’the fallacy and cheat of a ‘ gold basis’ will have been demonstrated for the thousandth time.”— Samuel F. Cary. “ President Hayes’ salary is paid in greenbacks, so is Gov. Robinson’s. Why, then, should we pay gold to the bondholder, seeing that the bondholder lent greenbacks to the Government and not gold?”— Bichard Montgomery Griffin. “That millions of people should be idle, and in many cases absolutely starving, not because there is no work to do, but because there is no medium of exchange, is a disgrace to our Government. ” — A New York mechanic.

“ While our present monetary system, which is a shameless fraud, continues, the poor man will become poorer, while fraudulent money-brokers and bank-note manipulators will absorb the products of labor.”— F. Hughes, of Pennsylvania. “Foreign debt, carrying gold interest, is what is crushing the hearts and hopes of the laboring people of our country. It is that indebtedness which is filling our almshouses with skilled mechanics, and stripping the thrifty laborer of his earn-ings.”—-Judge Kelley. “We should do foul injustice to the Government and the people of the United States, after we have sold these bonds on an average for not more than 60 cents on the dollar, now to propose to make a new contract for the benefit of the holders.”— O. P. Morton. “ What is a government good for, if in such a country as this, with all its material resources and vast extent, it cannot prevent a large part of its people from the distress of want of work and of bread. This seems to me the first duty of government.”— Peter Cooper. “ When the bill was on its passage (the bill for the payment of the 5-20 bonds), the question was expressly asked if the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and as expressly Answered by him, that only the interest was payable in coin.”— Thaddeus Stevens. “ The gold gamblers have manipulated Congress so as to discredit its own paper, that they might swindle the people. They accomplished ,that end, and now they would destroy the money of the people that they might largely appreciate their ill-gotten gains.”—Thaddeus Stevens. “ Gold and silver are not intrinsically of equal value with iron. Their value rests chiefly in the estimation they happen to be in among the generality of nations. Paper money has great advantages over gold and silver, as it is not likely to have its value reduced by exportation. ” — Benjamin Franklin. “ I look upon this contest [the discussion in Congress as to whether the interesbon the public debt should be paid in greenbacks or gold] as a contest between the curb-stone brokers, the Jew brokers, the money-changers, the men who speculate in stocks, and the productive toiling men of our country.”— Henry Wilson. ‘ ‘ The people are the sovereign power, and no man can question their right (through Congress) to make as much of the medium of exchange (money) as will be necessary for the wants of trade. Paper money is better than either gold or silfer, as its volume cannot be contracted by using it as merchandise.”— John Magwire, of St. Louis. “I am convinced that when a true American system of finance is adopted which shall put all that circulates as money entirely and exclusively under the control of the Government, making it receivable for all dues and debts, employment for all the working classes, and prosperity for the whole country will be natural and permanent. ” — Peter Cooper.

“ One great purpose of the money power, who have brought about contraction, is to control the mass of the people, that they may further enrich themselves, and pander to their lust of power. Further impoverishment may render further resistance hopeless, and they who would be free from this great money despotism must strike the blow before it is too late. ” — F. Hughes, of Philadelphia. “Money should be a thing of or belonging to the country. An exportable commodity is not fitted to be money. And nothing could be more monstrous than England’s principle, followed by the United States, of forcing people to be buyers of gold, and making their possession of gold—one of the sacredest articles in the world—the condition of being able to furnish themselves with bread and clothing.”— lsaac Buchanan, of Canada. ‘ ‘ No single interest touches the domestic comfort and prosperity of the people as this one of the currency, and in the present condition of the country none is of such immediate importance, or calls for more immediate solution. To put off this question, therefore, with vague expressions of reform, and the desirableness of ‘ specie payments,’ is to ignore the ruling interest of the houy, It is to jtarea&T pedrte to tjttoir

without any promise of remedy. ” — Peter Cooper. “ We boast of having liberated 4,000,000 of slaves. True, we have stricken the shackles from the former bondsmen, and brought all laborers to a common level, but not so much by elevating the former slave as by reducing the whole working population to a state of practical serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous monetary system we have practically nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is only less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.” —Alexander Camphell, of Lllinois.