Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1878 — A GREENBACK CURRENCY. [ARTICLE]

A GREENBACK CURRENCY.

Gen. Butler Defines and Describes the Kind of Money the People Want. [From his Recent Speech in Congress.] Mr. Butler declared himself for the full restoration of silver to the coinage of the country, and that every debt of the United Statss now existing which could be paid by the silver dollar now proposed was by the very terms of the law under which the debt was contracted to be paid by silver dollars of the same weight and fineness. In regard to the point of dishonesty toward public or private creditors, he asked whether it was immoral, dishonest or wrong to provide by law that the debtor shall pay back back all he received with interest in discharge of a money debt The same dollar which pays the poor man’s debt should equally cancel the rich man’s demand. Both should stand before the law alike, and right and justice be done at the hands of Congress, in spite of Executive recommendation or Executive power, whether in the Ishape of a veto or otherwise. Mr. Butler denied that $60,000,000 of bonds, or anything like that amount, had been returned from Europe, but wished, for the financial and business prosperity of the country, it were true. He wished Europe would send back every bond of ours it holds, and the lowt r the price at which they sell here the better. If he could hear our 6-per- ■ cent, bonds were coming back at 50 cents on the dollar, to be exchanged for our merchandise, our gold, or our silver, he should look upon it as the brightest and happiest financial fact the country ever knew. He wanted to see both silver and wheat sent abroad to pay our debts, and bring the balance of trade in our favor. He saw neither wisdom nor statesman' h p in locking our silver up in vaults. He reprobated the withdrawal of the paper fractional currency and substitution for it of subsidiary silver coin, saying that the pe< pie were to be taxed the enormous sum represented by the 5 per cent, compound interest on $50,000,000 for thirty years, and that, if the Secretary of the Treasury who framed that measure had ever sat down and made the calculation, and then foolishly cast that enormous burden on the people, he ought to be hanged to the nearest lamp-post for malice toward all mankind. If he had not done so, he ought to be hanged at all events for getting into an office which he could not fill. Mr. Butler concluded as follows: We want the greenback for our currency, and mean to have it. But Ido not desire that greenback currency should be made to serve the country as it has done —vilified, insulted, depreciated by act of Government itself, being refused not only to be received for all debts due the Government, not even paid for all demands due from the Government. The American system of finance which will obtain in the near future, and I hope at once—which I desire—is: 1. A dollar that shall have at all times a certain fixed and stable value below which it cannot go. 2. I demand the dollar shall be issued by Government alone in the exercise of its high prerogative and constitutional power, and that that power shall not be delegated to any corporation or individual any more than Charles 11. ought to have delegated his prerogative of stamping gold coin for the benefit of his paramours as a monopoly. 3. I want that dollar stamped on some convenient and cheap material of the least possible intrinsic value, so that neither the wear nor its destruction will be any loss to the Government issuing it. 4. I also desire the dollar to be made of such material for the purpose that it shall never be exported or desirable to carry out of the country. Framing an American -system of finance, I do not propose to adapt it to the wants of any other nation, and especially the Chinese, who are nearly one-quarter of the world. 5. I desire that the dollar so issued shall never be redeemed. I see no more reason why the unit of tne measure of value should be redeemed or redeemable than that the yard-stick with which I measure my cloth, or the quart with which I measure my milk, shall be redeemed. 6. For convenience only I propose that the dollar so issued shall be quite equal or a little better than the present value of the average gold dollar of the world, not to be changed or changeable. If the gold dollar grows lower in value or grows higher, not to be obliged to conform itself in value in any regard to the dollar of any other nation of the world, keeping itself always stable and fixed, so that when the property of the country adjusts itself to it as a measure of value it shall remain a fixed standard forever. But if this is ever changed, it shall change equally and alike for creditor and debtor, not as the dollar based upon supposed gold, whose changes have always given the creditor the advantage. To give the greenback currency thus desired a fixed and stable value, I would make it fundable at all times at a sufficient number of places, convenient to the people, in coupon or registered bonds of SSO and multiples thereof up to SIO,OOO, bearing interest at 3.65 per cent., payable semi-annually, which bonds should be reconvertible into currency at the pleasure of the holder at every public depository. Thus I would have a currency better than a gold currency, unalterable in value, because founded upon wealth, power and property, together with all the gold and silver of the country, to keep it ata steady measure of value, to which all the property would soon accommodate itself, and ultimately the whole national debt would be brought home from abroad and funded into this national bond. This would give to America a non-exportable currency, better than any other, capable at all times of being invested at home at an equal rate of interest with the gold of the world, which is now in the best Government securities invested at an average of 3 per cent, only.