People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 November 1895 — A FATAL ADMISSION OF FACT! [ARTICLE]

A FATAL ADMISSION OF FACT!

The Chicago Times-Herald Says That The Greenback Cannot be Retired Without Imperiling the Business of The Entire People. » PREFERS ISSUING BONDS FOR THE PRESENT. A Palpable Fraud on its Face, as The Whole Scheme is to Make an Immense Bonded Debt that Shall be the basis for National Bank Notes and then Retire the Money That Saved the Union.

The Chicago Times-Herald in its leading editorial of last Sun; day attempts to deceive its read ers regarding its true position on the question of the retirement of the greenbacks. The following clipping is too transparent to catch any thinking man: “Ex-Speaker Reed is reported as in consultation with practical financiers at New York concerning the proposed retirement of the greenbacks as one method of checking the movement of “the endless chain.” From present indications congress is not bkely to present any legislation on the subject, for there are too many men in both houses who remember “wild cat” days to consent to a substitution of uncontrollable state banks for national st i >ility and security. We have not succeeded in placing our finances yet upon an ideal basis; but to stop the endless chain of redemption in gold which periodically lowers the legal reserve it is not wisdom to turn to a thoroughly exploded system of state paper issues which ultimately would end where it has always ended, in disaster following inflation and consequent panic. “Even at some cost'for borrowing from time to time, the greenback will continue to be the preferred paper money of the United States until it can be retired without imperiling the -business of the entire people.” The article above suggests by inference that it is necessary to have a gold reserve to redeem the greenbacks, and that they are the cause of the depletion of the treasury. It avoids mentioning that all the national bank notes, all the silver and gold certificates, all the standard silver dollars and in fact every form of money, paper and metalic, is being “redeemed” by the government in gold. And besides all this drain on the “legal reserve” is the enormous deficit in the revenues for current expenses. But of all this nothing is said. The greenback is held responsible for all the bond issues, that the people may consent to their final destruction. It should be lawful for the government to pay its obligations in any lawful money, gold, silver or paper, and it should be criminal for any one to discrim-

inate against any kind of lawful money, as it is in France. The scheme is make the greenback the scape goat for all the financial ills, and at the same time pile up an enormous bonded debt that shall never be paid, but shall be used as a basis of circulation by national banks, thus placing the entire paper money of the country in the hands of a monopoly, so combined as to be the most dangerous enemy of the people, conspirators that will not hesitate to take the life of the nation.