Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1881 — SENATOR VOORHEES. [ARTICLE]

SENATOR VOORHEES.

Hia Answer to the Recommendations of Secretary Believes Ihe Silver Dollar Cured Usof the Terrible Panic of 1873, and if tho Coldbugw Could Strangle Silver Currency, Tney Would Bring the Hard Times Back —Shall the People Trust Themselves to the Hereies of the Bankers 1

In the Senate of the United States, Dec. 16, Mr. Voorhees’ resolution, referring to the Finance Committee parts of the President’s message relating to a repeal of the laws authorizing silver coinage and the issue of silver certificates, was taken up and that Senator addressed the Senate. He referred to the financial distress of the country during five years prior to 1879 and following the act demonetizing silver, and said that, while this distress was not due to that legislation, the act was a potent factor in the general scheme for the contraction of money and tjie consequent overthrow of business property. It was one of several kindred measures designed to the same evil, and looking to the benefit of the moneylending usurers engaged in making money scarce and dear, the rate of interest high, wages low, and the times hard for all but bond and mortgage holders. The law of the Democratic Congress, in 1878, restoring the silver circulation by means of certificates Rud coin, broke the nightmare spell of financial prostration and quickened the vitality of every business enterprise. It gave positive assurance of a muchneeded gradual increase of our circulating medium. Everybody could then know how much was coming, and at what rate, and could prepare for business accordingly. None of the vehement prognostications of evil then made against the use of silver money had been verified. The capricious exercise by the different Secretaries of the Treasury of the vast and dangerous power of contracting the currency and tightening the money market at the instance of the national banks, who would have driven out the circulation of all kinds of money but their own, in order that they might have the whole financial field and all its profits to themselves, together with the demonetization of silver, more than all other causes combined, created aud continued the panic of 1873. The act of May 31, 1878, prohibited greenback money from being touched, and the treasury was thereby told to let the greenback circulation alone at the amount then outstanding. The answer to the cry that the greenback cause was a failure is given in the fact that the amounts of greenbacks in circulation in 1878 and 1881 respectively are exactly the same. That cause had achieved a great and important victory, for the greenback currency remained a steadfast, undeviating and ’honored one. Beside the act of securing the greenback from further molestation, a subsequent step making it receivable for import duties raised it to a par with gold, and there it has remained ever since. By these measures t le currency has been reasonably expanded by the use of silver, and our entire circulation rendered stable and uniform in value, and to this was due the business prosperity of the country. It had been accomplished against the avowed hostility and the active energy of a Re- j publican administration. Under the act of Feb. 28, 1878, about $92,000,000 of legal-tender silver money lias been : coined, and silver certificates to the amount of $66,663,800, based, dollar for : dollar, on that amount of coin now in the treasury, and pledged for their redemption. These certificates are in the i pockets of the people, performing all the offices of money iu daily business. , Mr. Voorhees characterized the ree- j ommendation of the Secretary of the 1 Treasury for a repeal of the authority for silver certificates, and for their early ; retirement, a wanton, and, to liis mind, criminal assault upon the financial sta- j bilily and business prosperity of the whole country.

It was deliberately proposed to retire more*than $66,000,000 and destroy it, and the consequence of this could be imagined. The bare proposition to contract and disturb the currency at this time would create disorder and panic. But Congress is wiser than the Executive Department, and will pay no heed to this recommendation. In asking authority over the silver coinage and discretion to coin much or little, or none at all, the Secretary’s obvious object is to drive silver entirely out of circulation. The Secretary complains that $66,000,000 of coin is in the vaults and will not circulate, although great efforts have been maue to that end, and yet he also makes the statement that $66,000,000 of par paper money, based on this very coin, is in circulation in every State in tho Union. The Secretary’s report shows a silver circulation, in round numbers, of $100,000,000 -$66,000,000 in certificates, $34,000,000 in coin. What, then, can be thought of his candor and intelligence in trying to leave the imSression that silver money is a rug and a failure, and that the people don’t want it? This assault upon $100,000,000 of currency on a special basis will be met by the country and its authors sternly rebuked. The source of the inspiration for it is apparently the Secretary, who, as the mouthpiece of the banks and to quiet the fear of the public mind of destructive financial contraction, says in his report: “There need be no apprehension of a too limited paper circulation. The national banks are ready to issue their notes in such quantity as the laws of trade demand; and as security therefor the Government will hold an equivalent in its own bonds.” With supreme, and he (Voorhees) might say insolent complacency, the entire control of the supply and circulation of the currency is handed over, in a few words, to the care of moneyed corporations whose tenderest mercies are legalized cruelty and multiplied usuries. The country is to depend on the generosity of the banks for its supply of money. Men neither qualified by knowledge, unselfishness nor breadth of views to pass upon the wants of labor and of active business are average national bankers. The banks desire to destroy silver and greenbacks, so that their fabulous profits may be extended over the entire currency of the country. An average of not less than $17,000,000 per year is received by the banks in interest on Government bonds, pledged for circulation; and for eighteen years this has aggregated over $300,000,000, which the people have had to pay for the blessings of bank money. Add to this the profits of

the banks on their circulation and deposits, and they have received from the pockets of the people since their creation enough gains to pay off at least two-thirds of the national debt; and all this simply for our privilege of receiving through their hands a little more than one-third of our currency, of no better quality than other currencies for whose circulation there was no tax. Was this such a showing as would iuduco Congress to abandon the whole financial question to the banks ? Why will they not learn wisdom, and forbear their greedy aud repulsive demands ? We have heard, here and elsewhere, many earnest admonitions against financial legislation. Who have been the agitators? Those who make new, avaricious, and arrogant demands each session of Congress, or those who stand here to resist encroachment and oppression upon the rights and labor of the people ? Mr. Voorliees charged that every financial agitation from March, 1869, changing the contract under which bonds were to be paid to the present hour have been forced upon Congress by an insatiate, relentless demand by the banks and owners of bonds for unrighteous privileges and powers. People were weary and alarmed at their persistent agitation of the business of the country to promote their own selfish end?, and, if they persisted, he knew it was only a question of time when the people would turn and render them powerless. He would commend the history of the downfall of the United States Bank half a century ago to the present associated banks and their official friends in high places. He then quoted from the Philadelphia papers of that day, descriptive of the popular indignation attending the closing of that institution. The resolution was agreed to.