Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1884 — REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN. [ARTICLE]

REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN.

BY BEN : PERLEY POORE.

President Jackson appointed his Kentucky friend, William T. Barry, Postmaster General, having transferred to the bench of the Supreme Court Mr. McLean, who had refused to remove efficient officers on account of their political opinion. He also invited Barry to take a seat at his council table, from which the Postmaster General had previously been excluded. Barry was also the first to increase the compensation of Postmasters on “star-routes,” and to pay the large extra allowances was forced to obtain loans from banks. This resulted in a tedious investigation of its affairs by a Congressional committee. President Jackson, in consequence, transferred Mr. Barry to a sphere of duty calling for less financial ability, and placed in the postal chair Amos Kendall, a man of singular clearness of intellect, fine administrative qualification and herculean energy, who immediately set on foot measures destined promptly to elevate the credit and relieve the embarrassments of the Postoffice Department. In a short time he bad restored the lost credit of the institution, and paid off the half a million dollars of debt resulting from Mr. Barry’s unsuccessful policy. Dueling was the fashion at Washington during the exciting debates on the Kansas-Nebraska bill m the early spring of 1858. Col. Sumner challenged Gen. Harney upon having secured his trial by court-martial upon trivial charges involving breaches of military etiquette. Messrs. Clay, of Kentucky, and Cullum, of Tennessee, members of the House of Representatives, went to Baltimore, and practiced with rifles preparatory to shooting at each other, but finally submitted their difficulty to Senators Crittenden and Toombs, who amicably settled it. Lieuts. Robert Williams and David Bell, of the army, fought, at Bladensburg, the second duel that had ever taken place between graduates of the West Point Military Academy. Pistols were selected as the weapons, and at the first shot the ball from Bell’s pistol passed through Williams’ hat. Williams, who had reserved his fire, lowered his pistol and fired in the ground. The friends of the parties then interposed, and “the affair was adjusted on terms satisfactory and honorable to both parties.” There was also an unpleasantness between A. C. Rhind, who had been dropped from the rolls of the Navy Department, and Commander E. B. Boutwell, but this affair was also amicably settled. Postal currency, which was the “change” during the war and until the resumption of specie payment, was the invention of Gen. Spinner, who had represented the Syracuse district of New York in Congress, and had been appointed Treasurer of the United States by President Lincoln. Small change had vanished, and in buying a dinner in the market change had to be taken in beets, cabbages, potatoes and what not. Gen. Spinner was constantly appealed to from all quarters to do something to supply the demand for Bmall change. He had no law under which he could act, but after buying a half-dollar’s worth of apples several times and receiving for his half-dollar in change more or less different kinds of produce, he began to cast around for a substitute for small change. In his dilemma he bethought himself of the postage stamp. He sent down to the Postoffice Department and purchased a quantity of stamps. He then ordered up a package of the paper upon which Government Securities were printed. He cut the paper into various sizes. On the pieces he pasted stamps to represent different amounts. He thus initiated a substitute for fractional silver. This was not, however, a Government transaction in any sense; it could not be. Gen. Spinner distributed his improvised currency among the clerks of the department. They took it readily. The idea spiead; the postt ge stamps, either detached or pasted upon a piece of paper, became the medium of small exchange. It was dubbed “postal currency.” From this Gen. Spinner got his idea of the fractional currency, and went before Congress with it. That body readily adopted it, and but a short time after Gen. Spinner had begun pasting operations a law was on the statue book providing for the issue of the fractional currency which became so popular. The sac-simile of a postage stamp was put on each piece of currency, and for a long time it was known as “postal currency. ” An enormous amount never was presented for redemption, and the Government was consequently the gainer.