Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1879 — THURMAN ON SHERMAN. [ARTICLE]

THURMAN ON SHERMAN.

Extract from the Ohio Senator’s Columbus Speech. The Republican speakers and Republican press are crowing lustily about what they call the resumption of specie payments. Behold, say they, we are on the eve of prosperity; resumption brought this about, and wo brought about resumption; ergo, you should all support the Republican party. My friends, it requires no great powers of analysis X. xplode this sophistry. In the first place, have we specie payments? Do any of our debtors pay us in specie unless the debt be *5 or less? Do the banks pay their creditors in specie? Try and see if they do. Collect as many bank bills as you can and assort them. Out of *IO,OOO you will have probably not over *2OO on the national banks of Columbus. The remaining *9,800 are of banks scattered all over the republic. To present them at the banks that issued them would require you to travel thousands of miles and incur hundreds of dollars of expense. To present them at the Treasury Department at Washington would cost less, but yet would be onerous and expensive. So you abandon the idea of doing either. Youhave *2OO of Columbus bills. You present them at the banks and demand specie. Do you get it? Not unless the banks see fit to give it to you. Our Columbus banks are very accommodating, and I have no donbt that, in a case of necessity, they would oolige you by giving you specie for your *2OO of their notes. But they are not obliged to do so, and were you to present *5,000 or *IO,OOO of their bills for redemption, they would not do so. They would pay you in the much-derided greenback. Then what would you do with the greenbacks if you wanted specie for them? Present them to any Federal officer in Columbus for redemption? If you did he would smile at your ignorance, and politely tell yon that the Government did not redeem greenbacks in Columbus; that if you wanted specie for them you must carry or send them to the city of New York and present them to the Assisjant Treasurer of the United States. Well, you can’t afford to incur that trouble, expense and loss, and so you conclude to keep your greenbacks. Why, what does the Secretary tell us in the speeches that he is delivering through the country; in order to illustrate, I suppose, the honesty of the President’s civilservice rules? Does he tell us that the Government is redeeming greenbacks in specie ? Far from it He tells us that comparatively few greenbacks are presented for redemption. Our so-called specie payments, therefore, are no specie payments at all. Neither individuals, banks, nor the Government make payments in specie. Paper money, when undoubtedly good, is so much more convenient than specie that it keeps specie out of circulation. In no country that uses small paper money can there be a specie circulation, except small change. In England and France there is veritable specie payment Debts of large as well as small amount are often paid in specie. But in those countries there are no small notes, and hence a large proportion of the money in circulation is specie. In our country we have small notes of both the Government and the banks, and hence we have no specie in circulation worth mentioning, except our subsidiary coins of half dollars and less. But, while we have no specie payments, accurately speaking, 1 admit that our paper money has been brought to a par with specie. Of the sacrifices suffered by the people, m order to bring this result about, of the shrinkage of all values, the paralysis of all industries, the thousands of laborers thrown out of employment, the bankruptcies, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, 1 shall not speak to-night. If there is any one here who thinks that we have not paid dearly for the whistle, I will not, to-night, attempt to disturb his belief. But when the Secretary of the Treasury perambulates the country, boasting of the achievement of bringing greenbacks to a par with coin, it is not improper to point out to him the graveyards through which we have passed in our dreary march to this result And when he claims that this consummation was brought about by the Resumption act, and his execution of it, it is eminently proper to show him how baseless is nis claim, how hollow is his pretension. There are various causes that have operated to bring our paper money to a par with specie, and among them the Resumption act is the least. Had that act never been passed, and had Congress authorized what the Secretary of the Treasury, without authority of law, now permits, the receipt of greenbacks in payment of customs duties, they would have been at par with specie a year at least before the time fixed for resumption by the Resumption act. When that act was before the Senate I moved an amendment providing for the receipt of greenbacks in payment of customs duties. The Republicans voted it down. I said it was worth more than all the provisions in the act. My opinion was treated with silent contempt, for the bill had been concocted in caucus, and the Republican Senators would not debate it. Time has proved that my judgment was correct Witn all the machinery of the Resumption act, and its cost to the people, the Secretary of the Treasury found himself compelled to receive, in plain violation of law, the greenback in payment of the duties. I have said that, had the Resumption act never been passed, greenbacks would have reached a par with coin. It would have been through great suffering, as it has been through great suffering, aggravated by that act, but it would certainly have come.

About every twenty years we have a commercial revulsion which, for brevity, we call a panic; when the country wakes up to the fact that, owing to an imprudent extension of credit or bad legislation, or both, it is not able to pay its debts on demand. A long period of suffering, generally five or six years, ensues, and then, having reached the bottom, any change must necessarily be for the better, and business begins to revive. Specie payments are resumed, as it is called; that is. paper money and specie come to par. It is not this resumption, so called, that produces a revival of business, but it is the revival of business that produces the* resumption. In 1837 one of these panics occurred. In five or six years thereafter, indebtedness being in a great measure liquidated, or wiped out by the Bankrupt law of 1841, business began to revive, and, as a consequence, we had what was called a resumption of specie payments. In 1857 we had another panic, and its history would have been precisely that of the panic of 1837 had not the civil war occurred. In 1873 came the last panic, and, without any Resumption act, five or six years, as in former instances, would have brought us back to a revival of industry and a resumption of specie payments, so-called. If I understand one of the speeches of the Secretary of the Treasury, he admits that the panic of 1873 made resumption possible. If so, where is the merit of tne Resumption act which was not passed until Jan. 14,1875? I agree that resumption necessarily followed the panic of 1873, just as it followed the panic of 1837, without a Resumption act. bnt it took five or six years to resume, just as it took the same time after 1837. But another cause has largely contributed to our so-called resumption, and for this cause our Republican rulers certainly claim no credit Owing to bountiful crops in America and short crops in Europe for three years, the bal knee of trade, instead of . being against us, has been largely in our favor; until, at length, gold is being shipped, in large amounts, to this country to pay for bread. Another cause that has facilitated the equalization of paper and coin was the Democratic measure of remonetizing silver, which Presi - dent Hayes vetoed, but which we passed over his veto. x . Still another cause was the Democratic bill that pnt an end to the destruction of the greenback, for without the greenback in existence neither Secretary Sherman nor the national banks would have the audacity to pretend that they could maintain actual specie payments. In a word, my friends, the claim of the Radical leaders to your support on the ground that they have brought about prosperity to the country by a resumption of specie payments is a bold pretense, without any foundation in fact, that can deceive none bnt those who are ignorant or those who wish to be deceived. ~ln conclusion upon this subject, let me say that they who charge us with a purpose to undo what has been done, and to plunge the country into a wild career of inflation, do us the greatest injustice. However much we deplore the suffering that has been caused by Radical measures, and especially by the contraction of the currency, we nave no purpose to embark upon a career of wild and useless speculation.

Db. /Oliver Wendell Holmes is said take the best possible care of his health, and to believe that he owes his length of years to his care. He pays great attention to the weather, having all sorts of scientific instruments to tell him when the atmosphere will permit him to take out-door exercise,