Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1875 — Senator Christiancy on the Currency Question. [ARTICLE]

Senator Christiancy on the Currency Question.

In the recent Hard-Money Convention at Detroit, Mich., a letter was read from United States Senator Christiancy, in which,' among other things, he said: I do not assert that it might not have done better when the greebacks were originally issued to have made them, or a certain amount of them, redeemable in bonds at a low rate of interest, and*,these again convertible into greenbacks at the option of the holders. Nor do I mean to say that this interconvertible plan might not even now be applied for a portion of our outstanding greenbacks, so far as it might be done consistently with their gradual withdrawal. and the diminution of their amount by actual payment and cancellation. But to adopt this interconvertible system in connection with, as a part of, the plan of expansion, and with the idea which necessarily goes with it of permanently dispensing with specie payments, even of interest, or “specie basis” of our circulation—thus making one promise of the Government, known to be utterly baseless when made, redeemable only in another promise of the same kind, with the expectation of making the business community place confidence in and receive such a paper currency for money, without rapid depreciation to the point of utter worthlessness—this is simply an attempt to make one falsehood exactly balance another, with the expectation of making the public trust in both as true. It is like the attempt to produce perpetual motion, and reminds me of the effort of a very learned gentleman I once knew, who owned a mill-site upon a small stream, which, except in extraordinary freshets, did not furnish water enough to run his mill. He, therefore, for the best of reasons, went in for inflation; and, as Providence refused to inflate the stream, except on extraordinary occasions, which did not furnish a steady power, he determined to make the stream inflate itself, and furnish a self-adjusting power, by the aid of an overshot wheel, which, after the water was used in turning the wheel, should again take it up by means of a pump attached to the shaft, and throw it back into the pond to run again over the wheel, and so on ad infinitum. But it is hardly necessary to say be failed, and found —though he never understood the mystery —that action and reaction were equals, and the friction was to be overcome besides. The stream would not inflate.

I knew also a highly-educated clergyman, who, having observed the hardship to which teams have to submit in drawing loaded wagons, and how much easier they were drawn without the weight of the loads, and that their weight rested upon the axle, in the kindness of his heart undertook to relieve the teams, and at the same time enable them to draw a much heavier load, to the great profit of the owners. His plan was to place upon each axle a tight air-box, filled with compressed air, and fitted with a pistonhead, with a piston-rod extending upward, upon which the wagon-body with all its load would rest. The weight of the load, he reasoned, no longer rested upon the axle, but only the air-box, and the air was tight and kept the weight of the load from the axle. Well, he constructed his wagon with the air-boxes, and: more lucky than the millowner, he succeeded in the inflation of his boxes with air—air, too, much more compressed than that generally nsed by the inflationists of our day, though it did notmake half the noise. But, unfortunately, and much to the astonishment of the good clergyman, while his air-boxes would inflate, the load would not, and, in spite of tho air, the whole weight of the load still insisted in working in some mysterious way through the air-box down on the axle, and the load was found to be heavier by just the weight of the air-boxes; hence the poor teams have had to plod along the old way, drawing their loads as best they could, till the present day. Both these were learned men. Their theories were beautiful in the abstract, and would have been highly successful in practice but for one thing: the Almighty in creating the world and fashioning mankind had adopted quite a different theory or plan of the laws by which “ men and things” were to be governed. This was the pole obstacle to the success of their theories, and for this they were not responsible. Both these men,, if living, would undoubtedly have been leading lights in the inflation world; but unfortunately they are in their graves. It is some consolation, however, to know they have left some worthy representatives behind. But for myself, believing the power of creating something or anything out of nothing is the prerogative of the Deity alone, whenever I see a man, however talented he may be generally, engaged in- such an attempt or in the invention of perpetual motion, I am compelled to believe there is a screw loose somewhere, and that upon this particular subject he is insane; and so, for the like reasons, I am compelled to think of those inflationists who really believe the truth of their professed theories—and that there are some I have no doubt. But one thing I do not hesitate to say, with the best light I have been able to obtain of their plans and theories—and I have read great numbers of their speeches and pamphlets—either they are insane upon this subject or 1 am; and, if I am, it is some comfort to find that the delusion under which I am suffering is but the same which had taken possession of all the great statesmen and all the great authorities upon finance, from the period known as the dark ages down to the vety repent period when the national debt of the United. States began to press heavily upon the resources of the people, and ingenious and interested theorists began to cast about for some method of getting rid of the burden of this debt (as well as their own, sometimes) without paying, it, or even the interest upon it, in anvthinp- of real value.

Now, I am so old-fogy in my notions and opinions as to hold that, when an individual or nation is deeply in debt, the true and only honest way of getting rid of that burden is the plain, old-fashioned way of paying the debt in money where it was agreed to be paid in money, or in something of equal value and convertible into moneys and, if we cannot pay the whole at once or when due, then to pay the interest in the meantime, and the debt as fast as we can. If we have not the money to pay with, then the better plan is to go to work in any and every form of productive industries, producing values which will command the money, rather than to adopt the plan substantially followed by a large proportion of our people, of speculating out of each otherin purely fictitious values, like the two boys who shut themselves up in the same room for a week, and both got rich, or fancied they had got rich, by trading and retrading jackets, with certain offers of boot-money each way, which neitherever intended to pay. * * * To bring this letter within a readable compass I will say that I deem the views expressed by the present Secretary of the Treasury in his last annual report, under the head of “ Resumption,” substantially sound and statesmanlike. And, for the clearest and ablest exposition I have seen of the principles involved, and of the fallacies and absurdities of theinflation scheme in all its forma, I refer to the speech of the Hon. Carl Schurz, at Cincinnati, and his reply to the criticism of Mr. Wendell Phillips, in all of which I fully concur, an 4 which I should vainly attempt to equal.