People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1895 — AN OPEN LETTER TO HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE. [ARTICLE]

AN OPEN LETTER TO HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE.

SiR: Your position as finance minister of this great nation is a most important one. You, more than any other administrative officer of the government, hold in your hands the weal or woe of the people. I beg of you to remember that the people live—that they are happy or miserable —as you control the finances for or against their best interests. When, on March 4, 1898, I heard the words of President Cleveland’s inaugural address in favor of “sound money,” I knew he meant the single gold standard. All the world knew that he

meant death to silver. At that moment I wondered where he would look for his secretary of the treasury who would cany out his policy. Surely, thought I, he cannot find a suitable finance minister in either the South or the West. Surely he must go to Wall Street, and select his secretary from among the money changers—into that “den of thieves” whom the Savior of men would scourge from the temple, were He on earth again. Surely he would be compelled, thoughtI, to find his pliant tool among the gold gamblers, whose machinations caused President, Lincoln, in 1862, to exclaim, “I wish, every one of them had his devil ish head shot off.” Surely he must go to the men whom that, great Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, called “the traitorous class. He must consult the usurers whom all the world calls “Shylock.”

I was greatly mistaken. President Cleveland knew something of men and things. He looked j» the West and South —and he found his man! Not in Wall Street, not on the Rialto among the Shylocks, not in the temples and palaces of great wealth which have not been purified by the scourge of the Master! No, sir, not by any manner of means. The president turned his face to the sacred soil of Kentuckey!— the land where dwell the men of “honor,” the men who set up the ligh claim of being above suspicion; where the slightest breath or tarnish is resented with the bludgeon or the revolver; where men have appealed to the “code” on the merest punctilious of un happy allusions. And there the president found a finance minister able and willing to obey his slightest nod in the assassination of the best half of tue people's money—a man who could even teach his master lessons in finance —who could lead the van in the unholy enterprise of destioying the peace and prosperity of of a great nation. He found a statesman who had studied his subject, and had long described the dire results of the work in hand.

Sir, my language is weak. No words can fully paint the calamities resulting to a people through the destruction, the suppression or the contraction of the volume of the currency. It begets falling prices, and that stops the free circulation of all existing money. Industry ceases, compelling the idleness of labor. Idleness of labor means distress of the people, then beggary, then that frightful condition known as hunger,” overflowing the land in a delirium of starvation, beggary and destitution, which the plutocrats propose to cure by shooting the sufferers in order to “keep the peace.” All this is a mere hint at the evils which must follow the suppression of silver, and the enthronment of that newest and least tried of all wild-eyed money schemes, knowm as the “single gold standard”—a scheme never known on earth prior to 1816.

Mr. Secretary, let me appeal to your own recorded testimony as to the truth of my statements. On Feb. 21, 1878, in the Congress of the United State, you said:— I know that the world’s stock of precious metals is none too large, and I see no reason to apprehend, that it will become so. Mankind will be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the increase of population, commerce and industry. According to my view of the sub*

BY GEORGE W. PEPPERELL.

ject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three sevenths to one half of the metallic money of the world is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilence and famine than ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction of half the entire movable property of the world, including houses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for carrying on commerce, while tt would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would not produce anything like the prolonged distress and disorganization of society that must inevitably result from the permanent annihilation of one half of the metallic money of the world.—Congressional Record, Second Session, fortyfifth Congress, App., p. 43. That brief testimony of yours,

sir, does not overstate the case. Now can a great leader of the people, knowing the results of his course, be found who can, willingly, join in the hellish work contemplated? The man has been found. He understands the case in full. He knows all the dire calamities by heart. For a moment’s brief fame he is willing to throttle and crush sixty millions of people, to turn loose among them the sufferings and passions which no man can describe, and to change a happy republic into “chaos and old night.” You, sir, weie a leader of the people. We trusted you as Washington trusted Arnold. We honored our leader. We followed him. But we have been deceived and betrayed. Kor a handful of silver he left us. Just for a ribbon, to stick on his coat. ***** Hlot out his name, then, record one last soul more. One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. One more devil’s triumph and sorrow for angles, One wrmiK more to man, one more insult to Ood!*

Sir, having betrayed the people and insulted God, you seem now determined to serve no master but mammon. To please the Shylocks you trample the peo pie’s money under foot by refusing to pay out lawful standard silver dollars on coin contracts. Washington, Jeffersoo. Jackson, Benton and all the fathers and defenders of American liberty agreed in making the standard silver dollar the “unite of account and standard of value,” in the American finances. You have spit upon their standard money and oranded it as base metal. This you do in violation —in repudiation—of all coin contracts, because your masters, the great fund holders, demand it of you. At their bidding you pay gold on coin contracts, thus appreciating that fickle and unreliable metal, so that as your gold reserve disappears you may find an excuse to load the people with interest-bearing bonds. Having betrayed the people until soup houses are needed in every city to assuage the public hunger; until increased police forces and even federal troops are required to suppress theories of distress; until brave men and helpless women can no longer find employment., but are met with threat? of violence, or, at best, with the crust of charity; until your own truthful predictions of 1878 seem to promise ultimate fulfillment; you now propose as a remedy to retire the lawful paper money of the government. and to surrender the finances of the country entirely into the hands of the banks. You, a mere administrative oflicer. have had the hardihood to formulate a banking bill, and to send it into the halls of legislation demanding its enactment into law. You demand that the government shall surrender to corporations the sovereign power of issuing money—that the people and the government shall take all the risks and guarantee the currency, while the corporations shall enjoy all the profits. This you do, in spite of the teachings of those great Democratic statesmen who founded your party, and whom you profess to follow. Thomas Jefferson, the first

great Democrat in this country, expressed himself on various occasions, substantially as follows: "Bank paper must be suppressed and the circulation re stored to the nation to whom it belongs. “The power to issue money should be taken from the banks and restored to Congress and the people. “1 sincerely believe that bank ing establishments are more dan gerous than standing armies. “lam not among those whofea the people. Tney, and not the

rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to pre serve their independence we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. “Put down the banks, and i this country could not be carried through the longest war agains: her most powerful enemy with out ever knowing the want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitorous class of her citi sens, without bearing hard or the resources of the people o loading the public with an indefinite burden of debt. I knownothing of my countrymen.” Mr. Secretary, as a follower of the great Jefferson and , member of that great party founded by him, how is it possi ble for you to favor the issuing of United States bonds and the establishment of banks of issue, when the issue of non-interest bearing legal tender paper by the government, as recommended by Mr. Jefferson, wrll meet every useful purpose and every legitimate demand? These are questions that the people are asking; and the public officers who fail to listen and obey will pass from power into merited oblivion or eternal infamy. Sir, for a generation or more your party stood b,y the teachings of Jefferson, Jackson and Benton, aud their compatriots on the money question, and almost uniformly, marched to assured victory in the national elections. In those glorious days the platforms of your party held aloft their victorious banner, bearing the following inscription:—

Resolved, That Congress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republican institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a con centrated money power, and that above the laws and will of the people; and that the result of Democratic legislation in this and all other financial measures npon which issues have been made between the two political parties of the country have demonstrated to candid and practical men of all parties their soundness, safety and utility in all business pursuits. Resolved, That the separation of the moneys of the government from banking institutions is indispensible for the safety of the funds of the government and the rights of the people. In those old Democratic platforms it was declared to be “indispensible” that th 6 government moneys should be "kept sepu rate from banking institutions.” Your party now does not hesi late to place the government moneys in the hands of hundreds of banking institutions. It is placed with them by the millions without interest. The banks loan the government moneys £tt interest and pocket the proceeds, without even a hint at dividing the profits with the tax payers who furnish the money. If the present administration of the finances is Democratic, then what shall we say of Thomas Jefferson. Andrew Jackson and Thomas 11. Benton, who taught and practised the exact opposite?—and who would condemn every act and practice of Mr. Cleveland’s administration as wrong, and dangerous to the liberties of the people! To prove to you, sir, that the present national banking system, with its variations in the direction of state banks authorized by federal authority, is quite as dangerous as the banks so often condemned by the Democratic party and by the people, I call attention to the following testiraoney. On June 19,1882, Beua« tor D. W. Vorbees said;-*

Ii is now twenty years ago that this gOAernment- first engaged in building up, fostering and encouragingthe present vast and overshadowing system of .national banking. No favor ever demanded by the banks has ever been withheld, no privilege denied, until now they constitute the most powerful moneyed corporations on the face of the globe. Congress has heretofore on nearly all occasions abdicted its powers under the Constitution over the finances of the banks, except when called upon to legislate in their favor. They have demanded the violation of legislative contracts with the people, and the demand has been granted, whereby their own gains and the people's burdens have been increased a thousandfold beyond right and justice. They have demanded the remission of all taxation on their bonds, and it has been conceded, thus leaving the poor to pay the taxes of the rich. They have been fortified in their strongholds of moneyed caste and privilege bydouble lines of unjust laws supplemented with litre a redoubt and there a ditch, to guard them from the correcting hand of popular indignation, until now, deeming themselves impregnable, they bully and defy the government.

Sir, with full and unrestricted power over the volume of the currency and, consequently, ovei all values conceded to the bank's, together with ample machinery by which in an emergency they can defy the passage of any act of Congress, what is left to tin government except an abject submission ? This government could not, to-morrow, go to wat in defense of its Hag, its honoi or its existence without first ask ing permission to do so of tin great financial corporations of the country. If there was an invading force on our soil th's hour. Congress could not with safety or show of success d( clai ( war to repel it without first sup plicating cowardly and unpatriotic capital, engaged in banking, not to contract the currency withhold financial aid. and leav. the country to starve. In lac , there is no measure of this go\ - eminent, either in peace or ii war, which is not wholly depone ing on the pleasure of the banks This government is at the n .-au of its own creatures. It has be gotten and pampered a systeu whine .s now us master. Th< people have been betrayed inn rie 'latches of a financial des poti.sm which scorns responsi hiiiiy and defies lawful restraint. That truthful testimony refers to ine course of the bank's ii. I*Bl, when they began to rapidly retire their currency in order to compel the government to obey their wishes. The government yielded. President Hayes veioeo a certain funding bill which dici not please the banks. The same history was repeated it 189 H by the banks, in order to coerce tin government into compliance with their wishes on the silver ques tion. Again the government yielded. The repetition of the testimony on this matter has wearied, the nation, and no man has ceased to remember it. The present distressing financial anti industrial condition of the country emphasizes and intensifies that testimony, so all feel it in both purse and person; yet it is into the hands of these banks that, your bill sent in to Congress proposes to surrender the finances of the country. Sir, all the leaders of thought in both of the great political par‘ies have borne testimony 10

the fact that whoever couirols* the currencv of the country is absolute master of all industry ana ivyu-jerce. The government itself ceases to be independent. It can neither declare war. make peace, nor do any important thing witnout consulting the “Neptunes” who preside over the ebb aud flow of the currency. The people and their dearest interests are no longer safe when they surrender the control of their finances into the hands of corporations. As we have recently seen, the corporations controlling the money can put i\p and put down prices assuits their own interests or ca- ' price. All real estate, all growing crops, and every important commodity of commerce is in their power. ‘‘All property is at their mercy.” Sir, these facts and truisms have been so often s.ated that I need not further rei erate them. Now in 1 candor, sir, what must the verdict of history be as to the reputation of the public officer who deliberately surrenders, or advises the surrender of, this great. hatioUj, with all its best and dearest interest, and its millions of warm-beatirg hearts,, into " the ,

,■ A . * . hands of corporationsf Which know no mercy and worship no god but mammon? Mr. Secretary, in your published reports the facts respecting the volume of currency are not properly set forth. They tend to deceive the people, leading them to mistake the financial condition of the country, and hence, to ascribe the public distress to other causes than the true ones. In your tables of 1893 and 1894, you claim to show the amount of money in the United States, and the amount outside of the treasury. You also attempt to show the annual increase and decrease of the money of the country. In each and every case you fail to make any deductions for lost and destroyed notes and coins, or for exported gold. You call the amount of United States notes (greenbacks) $346,681,016. Senator Plumb estimated, in 1888, that at least forty-six million dollars of those notes had been lost or destroyed. That was six years ago. Since then the waste has continued, and the amount is now evidently, far below three hundred millions. For thirty years, bank notes and greenbacks have been subject to the same gains and losses. Other currencies now inexistence and the subsidary silver coins, have been wasting away for shorter periods. I see no deductions for these great losses, miounting, certainly, to many millions of dollars. As to gold 'ioin, it was rew-’y stated in the hearings bes- .lie banking iiid currency e< i m .tee that, in two years, froi Jme 30, 1891, to June 30, 189 k, one hundred fiftysix millions of dollars had been exported. And, sir, your iveent bond issues to replace exports of gold, seem to show that quid has been leaving the country since June 30, 1893, quite as fast, cr even faster, than ever

before. For the waste and losses of notes and coins, and for the exports of gold, you make no deductions in your tables. This deceives the people. Your tables show an increase of money, while the facts, if all stated, would prove that from year to year oui stock of money in the United -hates is rapidly and continually lecreasing. This, however, is in old trick of the masters whom vou serve. Your predecessors in the treasury department, under other administrations, oiMcticed the same deceptions. i'ou have all been following the 'xatnple of the finance minister >f England in 18:29; and the English historian, Mr. Thomas Doubleday, culled attention to ihe deception as lam now calling attention to your imitation A it. Mr. Doubleday said:— In reply to toe asservation i hat Peel's act was causing the ibe pressure complained of. the 'ukeactually went so far as to assert that the money in circulation at that moment was, notwithstanding the low and declinug markets, equal to the highest amount when the paper money was iu its most depreciated state! He might as well have asserted that, when the thermometer stood at thirty-tivo degrees, the temperature was the same as when it rose to 64 degrees. The assertion, however, was made; and to prove it, the noble luke produced the following extraordinary statement:— (Here follow two tables designed to show that the circulation was greater in 1829 than at any time prior to 1819. The table prior to 1819 shows a circulation of £64,000,000. The table of 1829 shows a circulation of

CGo, 000,000.] The historian then proceeds: — Making every allowance for rhe' increase ot‘ commercial transactions and of the population up to 1830, it is utterly impossible that, with such a circulation. the fall in prices now in progress could have occurred to so great an extent, supposing the estimate to be in, itself creditable. But it is a preposterous I statement on the face of it. To [obtain .£28.000.000 in gold (as •the duke claimed) the duke r.-ust have taken the whole coinage since 1819 and assumed it 1.0 be current, without deduction for exportation and the sums locked up in the tills of bankers, discounters and merchants. After getting through with the false and absurd claim as to gold in. circulation, the historian says:— The statement as to silver coin is equally fallacious—the probability being that not more than half that .amount (£8,000,000) was ever current at one and the same period. Tuis unfortunate attempt at economical calculation on the .part of the minister, of

course became a source of some amusement to thos& who had any knowledge of such matters. Elsewhere it had no effect of any kind; nor did the assertion of overproduction as an excuse for the continuous fall of prices universally over the kingdom fare much better. Now, Mr. Secretary, do you not see yourself in that mirror? Have you not merely repeated the deceptions ordered by your masters, the Shylocks, as the finance minister of England did? Contraction of currency in every commercial country is always followed by the same disastrous results. The authors of it have the same rapacious designs, and their agents and attorneys make the same false report* tell the same absurd stories. is an exacting cri’tic, and the public men who cannot escape attention should be very particular as to the records they make, lest their annals may prove a grief to their posterity. Now, Mr. Secretary, in closing, lam sorry to be able to compliment you on the fulfilment of your prediction of Feb. 21, 1878. Speaking of the demonetization of silver and the destruction of one half of the world's supply of money, you called it “the most gigantic crime of this or any other age” And you added. “Theconsuma tion of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilence and famine that ever occurred in the history of the worid "

That, sir. was strong language, but not too strong to be true. The first effect was reduction of the volume of metallic money. 'Fiie next was a reduction of paper depending on coin redemption. The reduction of money caused falling prices of commodities. That drove all existing money from use into hiding, waiting for prices to touch bottom. As long as commodities increase and the volume of money does not, prices will never touch bottom. Hence, hoarding of money will never cease, and investments will not begin. Suppression and hoarding of money means the depression of industry, idleness of labor and starvation of the people. That is our condition to-day, and there is only a temporary barricade of soup houses in the great cities r o prevent a general uprising of ihe distressed people, ready for any and all crimes in the decalogue. Senator Ingalls of Kansas, another whilom friend of silver, desscrided the situation, Jan. 14, 1891, as follows:

A financial system under which more than one half of the enormous wealth of the country, derived from the bounty of nature vnd the labor of all. is owned by a little more than thirty thousand people, while one million American citizens, able and will ing to toil, are homeless tramps, starving for bread, requires readjustment. A social system which offers to tender, virtuous, and dependent women the alternative between prostitution aud suicide as an escape from beggary is organized crime, for which someday unrelenting jus tice will demand atonement and expiation So it happens, Mr. President, that our society is becoming rapidly stratified, almost hopelessly stratified, into a condition of superflously rich and helplessly poor. We are accustomed to speak of this as the land of the free and the home of the brave. It will soon be the home of the rich and the land of the slave.

Mr. Secretary, when in congress you uttered the prediction; Senator Ingalls the fulfillment. Both of you and the parties to which you belong have contributed to the direful results. vVhat, now, is your opinion of your handiwork. All this, sir, can yet be remedied by the restoration of silver and the lost, destroyed and cancelled paper, and the increase of good, lawful money as the . people increase, in the form of .gold and silver coin and United •States notes, all receivable in the public revenues and legal tender in all payments, but not otherwise redeemable. Such a money rests on all values, and, when circulated through the lawful disbursements of the government. it never fails while the issuing government exists and continues to collect and disburse revenues. There is no exception to this rule, and herein lies our easy and only means of escape from the evils you too truly predicted and which are now upon us. What will you do in this crisis? It is well to note that human life is short and the

hereafter long, and teat the Nemesis of history is making up a never-dying record, which will mention your deeds and perpetuate your memory.