People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1895 — THE FIRST GREAt MISTAKE. [ARTICLE]

THE FIRST GREAt MISTAKE.

A half billion more bonds ate to take the place of the best money the people ever had. The greenback is doomed. The money that saved the union in the sixties is pronounced, “The first great mistake in our currency legislation,” by John G. Carlisle. Read below what this arch traitor said in Boston the 12th of this month ‘at a banquet of bankers, misnamed a reform club. The president of this alleged reform club, G. S. Hale, in introducing Mr. Carlisle said. “We are democrats with Grover Cleveland,” “and republicans with Teddy Roosevelt. Sometimes we are republicans with Edmunds, sometimes with Sherman. and even with Greenhalge. We take our property wherever we find it.” One can easily see what principle there is in such sentiments as the above but here are some extracts from the speech of Kentucky’s shameless son; The secretary congratulated his hearers on the fact that “the free coinage movement has lost its momentum” and then proceeded to explain and controvert what he termed the fallacies in the arguments of those who oppose the single gold standard, declaring that we now have a much larger sum of money in circulation, as well as a larger sum per capita, than we had in 1873, when the gold standard was adopted. The government is oound to redeem its notes in gold when gold is demanded or fail to meet the responsibility imposed upon it by law. After the necessity of maintaining the gold reserve, Secretary Carlisle said:

“The lirst great mistake in our currency legislation was made in the act of March 17,1862, which authorized the secretary of the treasury to issue United States notes to the amount of $150,000,000 and make them legal tender for all debts, public and private, except duties on imports arid interest on the public debt. Foliowing this, other acts were passed under winch additional notes of the same character were issued, until the whole amount of depreciated legal tender paper reached $382,000,000. “These notes when redeemed must be reissued. Under such a system of redemption and compulsory reissue the difficulty of maintaining permanently an ade quate coin reserve would be very great, even if the treasury department were properly organized and equipped for the transaction of a banking business. “Gold can be procured only by sales of bonds or by voluntary exchanges of gold coin for other forms of currency by the banks,

and it is scarcely necessary to say that these voluntary exchanges are most difficult to make at the very times when gold is not needed. When bonds are sold in our own market experience has shown that a large part of the gold to pay for them is taken from our treasury reserve in the first instance or withdrawn in a short time after the bonds have been paid for and delivered. * ‘Of course as long as the government continues to issue circulating notes a reserve must be kept and the notes must be properly redeemed on presentation, and nothing I have said must be construed as an intimation even that the reserve ought to be abandoned or impaired while the present system is maintained. My contention is that the notes ought not to be kept outstanding. * It is sometimes said that, although these notes constitute a part of the public debt, they bear no interest and are, ther fore, the cheapest form of currency that can be provided for the use of the people, but a very brief study of the facts will be sufficient to show how erroneous this conclusion is, and that the United States note is the most expensive form of currency that the people can have. “The responsiblity is upon the people and their representatives in congress to de whether the public debt shall be increased from time to time in order to redeem and reissue this paper, which to say the least, is of doubtful constitutionality, and is no more convenient for use than other forms of currency. “In the meantime the government will continue to redeem its obligations promptly on presentation, according to the requirements of the existing laws and public policy. These who want gold will get it, and those who want silver will get it. The parity of the two metals will be maintained and the whole volume of our currency, paper and coin alike, will be kept equal to the highest standard recognized by the commercial nations of the world.”