Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1878 — AN OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY SHERMAN. [ARTICLE]

AN OPEN LETTER TO SECRETARY SHERMAN.

Hon. John Sherman: The New York papers report that you have recently negotiated with the Syndicate in Wall street for the sale of $50,000,000 of 4i per cent, fifteen years’ United States Government bonds, the interest and principal of which are to be paid in coin. Have you carefully and thoughtfully estimated what this transaction will cost the people of this country ? The interest on $50,000,000 of bonds at 4j per cent, for fifteen years is $33,750,000. At the end of the fifteen years the principal will also have to be paid, which, with the interest, lays a burden of taxes upon the people amounting to $83,750,000 in coin. Now, what is your object in doing this? Is it not for the avowed purpose of carrying out the provisions of the Specie Resumption act of which you are the author, and which you persistently insist upon enforcing ? Is it not a part of your present programme to enforce that portion of this act which authorizes the withdrawal and destruction of all the legal-tender notes before January next, that are in excess of $300,000,000? Are there not $46,000,000 of such notes still in circulation among the people as their lawful money ? Do you not propose to take this $46,000,000 of the people’s money and destroy it ? Have the people too much money now ? Are they not burdened with debt, oppressed with taxes and impoverished for want of sufficient money with which to free themselves from these burdens ? Would not each dollar of this $46,000,000 whicli you propose to destroy sell in Wall street or any of our markets for 991 cents in gold ? In destroying this amount of the legal money of the people, do you not actually destroy more tlian $45,500,000 of money value in gold ? If you add this amount of gold value which you take from the people to the amount which the principal and interest on the bonds will cost, does it not count up to about $129,220,000 in gold? Do you not propose to take from the people this $46,000,000 of legal money and issue notes to the national banks to the extent of SIOO to every SBO of United States notes you destroy ? Are the notes of national banks of any more value for use as money than tne notes of the Government of the United States?

Are not the bank notes redeemable in the very kind of money you destroy ? Do you not issue bonds for the purpose of destroying legal-tender notes? Do not the people have to pay interest on the bonds, which interest would be saved if the legal money was left as it is? What reason can yon assign for destroying the people’s money and forcing a burden of taxes upon them equal to $129,000,000, other than for the purpose of destroying the people’s money and substituting bankers’ money therefor? Are you running the Government of the United States for the sole benefit of the banks ? Please tell us in what way the mass of the people arc to be benefited by transactions of this kind ? Is it to get our currency on a specie basis that you make these expensive changes ? Will changing United States notes for bank notes aid you iu getting to such a basis ? Is a bank note of any more coin value than a greenback ? Could you bring the paper circulation of the country to par with coin any sooner if it was all in bank notes, which is not lawful money, than you could if it was all in United States notes, which is alwful money ? Does not the destruction of the Government money diminish the volume of lawful money with which the people do their business and pay their debts? Have you been able thus far to put coin in the place of the legal-tender notes you have destroyed ? Can you put coin in the place of the $46,000,000 of legal money you propose to destroy between this and the Ist of January next ? If not, will you not diminish the volume of legal money just that amount? If you destroy that amount of money, will it not be a fearful damage to the country, sending tens of thousands of them into bankruptcy ? Who are the parties who are demanding the enforcement of the Specie-Re-sumption act for the purpose of getting to a specie basis ? Who is it that is so exceedingly anx--ious to use coin instead of greenbacks ? Is it the workingmen of the country ? Is it the business men of the country ? Is it the great mass of the farmers of the West or the manufacturers of the East that are asking for this change ? Will any or all of these parties demand coin in exchange for the $300,000,000 that you propose to redeem after Jan. 1, 1879? If they do, have you made provision for the redemption of all these notes in coin, when presented? In your examination before the committee of the House you stated that you did not expect $1 in SIOO would be presented for redemption after resumption begins. If so, why drag the business men of this country through eight months more of bankruptcy and business distress, for the purpose of supplying an imaginary . want of the people for coin ? Are you not, by enforcing the Resumption act, creating an unnecessary demand for coin when no demand now exists for its use for such purposes ? Does not the Resumption act create a demand for $300,000,000 of coin, that does not now exist, and will not exist if that act is repealed ? Can you create a demand for such an enormous amount of coin without raising the price ? If you raise the price of coin in attempting to resume, will it not defeat resumption ? Did you not say to the House committee that if there was a quarter of 1 per cent, difference between coin and greenbacks it would defeat resumption? Can you place the currency of this country upon a specie basis and retain it there with only $1 of coin to $4 or $5 of paper ? Has not every specie-paying country in the world more ooin than paper in circulation among the people ? Has not England to-day nearly $3 of coin to $1 of paper currency ? Has not France more than $2.50 of coin to $1 of paper notes ? Did not this country, when on a specie

basis, have as much as $5 of coin to $4 of paper notes ? How, then, do you expect that this country, with an enormous foreign debt drawing away its specie to pay interest annually in "coin, can maintain specie payments when you have at least four times as much paper currency as you have of coin ? As a citizen of the United States! have a right to demand of you a satisfactory answer to these questions and an explanation of your action with reference thereto. As I view the matter, for you to enforce the Resumption act is to pursue the most effective means to defeat the resumption of specie payments; while, if that act is repealed, resumption will take place without any difficulty whatever. Every act passed by Congress from the time the war closed, for the purpose of forcing a specie basis, has directly tended to prevent or retard resumption. Remember that all revolutions are developed by an attempt to enforce unjust and oppressive laws upon the people. It will be difficult to find in the history of nations laws that are more unjust and oppressive, or that have brought more disastrous calamities upon the people than those that have been forced upon this country for the purpose of resuming specie payments, every one of which has not only been useless for the purpose, but has actually hindered the accomplishment of that object. Respectfully yours, E. P. Miblbr. Bath Hotel, 39 and 41 West Twenty-sixth 6treet, New York.