Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1875 — The Reture to a Specie Basis. [ARTICLE]

The Reture to a Specie Basis.

My fellow-citizens, til sane men agree that, of the great problem which oppresses us, there is out one ultimate solution. It is the return to a specie basis. Whatever other schemes may be devised, they do not even pretend to nave a permanent, final settlement of the question in view. The resumption of specie payments is the only rational one, for no other system will remove current values from the reach of the arbitrary power of Government; no other can give to current values that stability without which no safe business calculations can be made; no other can restore that confidence which is the first prerequisite of a new period of prosperity. But the resumption of specie payments is also the only possible solution. It must at last come. Even the inflationists, while wildly seeking to throw difficulties in its way, still admit that, finally, it must come. It is as inevitable as fate. Is it not the part of prudent men, then, to move resolutely and with unflagging firmness in the direction of an end so desirable and also so inevitable! I shall certainly not attempt to deceive you by denying that when a country is once cursed with an irredeemable paper money the resumption of specie payments is not an easy process. Like the cutting out of a cancer, it is an unpleasant and difficult operation. But, if health is to be restored, the cancer must be cut out. It is one of those evils which cannot be cured without pain, and cannot be permitted to linger without peril. Delay will only prolong the suffering and increase the danger. This u neither the time nor the place for a discussion of the different methods to bring on resumption. What we have at present to do is to stem a mischievous movement which threatens to make it impossible. But any of these methods, even the most painful, will be far less so than a continuance of the present diseased condition of uncertainty and distrust, which wastes the working energies of the people in-desolate stagnation and, like a dry rot, eats up our prosperity. And surely, even the severest cramp to which resumption may subject the economic body will be nothing compared with the universal disaster, ruin and disgrace with which the madness of inflation would inevitably overwhelm us. Indeed, is there any choice? We shall have a resumption of specie payment; it not by a careful method, embodied in well-considered legislation, then surely in another way. Then we shall drift on until our present system bears its legitimate fruit; until by a destructive convulsion our paper money is swept out of existence, ana, suddenly finding ourselves without any currency, except what little specie there is left in the country, we commence business again on a very small scale. The least reflection will certainly convince you that, whatever our financial policy may be, whether there be much or little money, he who wants to get it must earn it. The capitalist will gain it by profitable investments, the trader by buying and selling, the farmer by raising crops, the laborer by the work of his hand". Nobody will get it for nothing. But if, under all circumstances, you must gain it by hard work, must you not see that it is manifestly for your interest to have money the value of which is certain? Must it not be clear to you that, while the capitalist may operate with money of changing value to his advantage, you, with money whose value may dwindle in your hands to less and less, and, maybe, to finally nothing, most always be the losers in the game ? Are there not many among you who remember that in times of wild-cat banks, in working for such money, they worked not unfrequently for nothing? And does it not occur to you that, if the inflation scheme prevails, the same thing may, nay, surely will, happen to you also? For do not indulge in any delusion about it; the gambling in which an irredeemable currency, a paper money of ever-changing value, is the principal element is not a game for the laboring man, the poor man, to play. In that game only those win who deal.— From Ex-Senator Schurt ’ Recent Speech at Cincinnati.