Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1873 — Senator Sherman on the Financial Situation. [ARTICLE]

Senator Sherman on the Financial Situation.

On the 27th of September, at a Republican mass meeting in Cincinnati, Senator Sherman, of Ohio, who is chairman of the Finance Committee of the United States Senate, thus gave his views of the financial situation: The Republican part; is on trial. It has passed over nicely all its trials, but there is one trial it has had to go through in the last two or three weeks, and that was the test of our financial system when touched with panic. 1 want to show you now that the Republican party, which has been so successful in all the measures it has adopted, has been able to do you a service which you can never estimate by any mode of estimating among men. It has furnished you a currency which has enabled you during the panic of the last week or two to convert your money into anything else that can be offered you, cither houses, lands or stocks. Here you are. Have you got a greenback in your pockety Have you got a National bank note in your pockety Arc you afraid that either of them will break! [Cries of "No.”] My countrymen, I have got very little currency on hand, but I will redeem every dollar of bank-notes that you can show that have been dishonored. [Applause.] You have now a currency so good that the people do not want, to give it away, do not want to deposit it, but kScp it m the safest place they have got, with perfect certainty that it is good for the last cent it promises to pay.

Why, there are old men around me who remember back to these times in 1837, 1847 aud 1857? Perhaps some can go back to 181 b. My friend here over the way says he can remember in 1816 when a panic came. In those old Democratic limes, what was the result? Every dollar of money in the pockets of the people was worse than useless rags. The money was the first thing to go, and it was not worth anything. [A voice—" How about Jay Cooke!"] 1 will come to Jay Cooke In a moment. The money in those times was the first thing to wither. Then, upon Democratic policy, the loss fell upon the people, fell upon the mouey in their pockets; now, with this Republican currency, no man can possibly lose a dollar. [Applause. J Jay-Cooke may fail; Clews may fail; every.Natioual Bank in the whole land may fail; and yet the greenback and the bank-note are secured by bonds in the Treasury of the United States. They are secured by the people’s money and the people’s properly, aod all the wealth of the country must be exhausted before a man can lose a dollar on his greenbacks, or a dollar on his bank-notes. That is Republican money. Now, my fellow-citizens, what was the cause of that panic? No more patriotic and no better men ever lived than Jay Cooke & Co., take them either morally or socially, or iu any other way you choose. They were high-minded, patriotic men. They did service to -their country in the time of war [applause], but they were too sanguine.—They thought the Northern Pacific Railroad was a kind of a railroad to heaven, 1 guess [laughter], and they wanted to build it through. Well, my friends, it was a had investment, and the whole panic through which we have gone iu the last week or two lias grown out of the enterprise of bankers and business men investing large sums of capital in unprofitable railroad property. That is the whole secret of it ; and yet, during all this time, the bankers have not failed because they were Insolvent; they failed because they couHTnot realize currency upon their property, and now, when their statements are being exhibited, it is shown that all these banks have assets to pay every dollar of their indebtedness. [Applause.J Well, now, when a panic comes—they will come at all times—they come in seasons of prosperity, they come in seasons of adversity, they com* as the thief comes at night, still auc quiet; the most sagacious man cannot tell when a panic comes. If he could, it would be a great fortune to him. When a panic comes, it comes all at once, and the people are alarmed. Everybody auspeetß everybody else, and in these times there is no other way whatever except to pause awhile; reflect, consider, be patient, careful, husband yoar resources, and then go on again, and that is exactly what is being done now. 1 entirely and heartily approve of the course that has beeu adopted by the National Banks of the City of Cincinnati and in other cities, in which they have made a kind of quasi suspension, refusing to pay out the great mass of their money to their depositors. That is all well enough. Public opinion will sustain (he banks iu doing this thing; but they must remember that they have corresponding duties to perform to the people. A bauk may, for its own protection and to advance the best interests of the public at large, for a time decline to meet their full obligations; but if they do, they must be careful. To do all their just duty to the public, they must see that no pay-roll is stopped for want of money to pay. [Cheers from the workingmen.] They must see that no man who has money due him for labor shall go hungry to bed. They must supply money, and the very moment the panic subsides they must resume payment, dollar for dollar, and pay every check that is honestly presented. If it is properly due. [Applause.] I thank God I can see, although not a prophet, that the sky is clearing; that (he panic is over, I trust. No doubt it is injuring some here and there, inflicting some damages; but. my countrymen, we must be prepared to meet these periodical pauics. The duty of this panic, after all. is that it has not hurt the people, the laboring masses. The old pauics did. Now the men who suffer are the high bankers, the wealthy men. The people’s money is in their currency, the measure of their daily mil, and as long as that is good they can laugh and grow fat. [Cheers.] I say, then, that the Republican party, in the management of your financial affairs, is gradually reducing the public debt in gradually reducing taxes; iu furnishing you with Natioual Banks instead of the old State Banks; in giving you greenbacks. For these reasons, as well as for abolishing slavery and saving your country, aud putting all men on an equal footing, it has deserved your gratitude. Felldwcitizens, there are some defects in our banking system that 1 will meution. 'The first is that a greenback, although mighty good, is not quite as good as gold. Now, I will never be content, myself, until the Republican party makes every dollar of greenbacks in the pockets of laboring men as good as the best gold coin that was ever coined. I know the people and bankers sometimes say the Government is going to contract the currency, but that is all a humbug. It is like Judge Thurman’s speeches. We can go back to specie payments, but we cannot go back until our money is equivalent to gold and silver coin, and then we will have the best currency in the world. I will not debate this difficult question, hut I tell you, my countrymen, whether you are Democrats or Republicans, that the people of this country ought never to cease to agitate this question until their money is as good as gold, and then they are on a sure rock, an eternal foundation iu all ages and in all countries. It has got to be an axiom in financial matters that gold alone is the standard of value, and the planetary laws that govern the universe are not more fixed and absolute in their sway than that law which demands that everything shall be measured by the gold staudard, and the very moment you make your paper money as good as gold coin, then you hare got a currency that you may live by, die by, and leave to your children and widows without fear or favor. Now, there is another matter to which the Republican party can lay credit, and that is in the mode of levying taxes during the war. We had to levy heavy taxes. We had soldiers to pay, and, if necessary, we would have taken the last shirt off the backs of the stay-at-homes in order to pay the "boys in blue.” But since the war the taxes have been repealed until finally nothing is taxed save whisky, tobacco, beer, and imported goods. We still levy a great part of our taxes on imported goods. Now, sometimes, the tariff is regarded as a kind of half-horse-half-alligator that swallows children. But what is the tariff! The tariff is 6imply a tax on imported goods. We levy oyer two hundred millions in gold. Now, my friends, one of the effects of this is to gil-e us a large revenue to enable its to repeal all the other taxes. Another effect is, that by levying this tax upon imported goods we protect our ownindU6try; we protect our own labor; we bnild up our manufacturing establishments. [A voice—"No pauper labor.’’} No, sir; we want free American labor, white and black, and all on the same footing. Now, these people sometimes tell you that a protective tariff taxes the poor for the benefit of the rich. No, it is to give the poor man, the labor-loving, independent, free man a chance to rise. If yourepeal that tariff you bring into competition with him the pauper labor of Europe. While We levy taxes at all, we will take care to put a reasonable and moderate tax on those articles winch compete with American industry. That is what iye intend to do. If we are wrong in that, turn ns out Let me give you an instance. A few years ago there was scarcely any iron made in this country. In-1860 we put a tariff on iron. -What has been the result? We have more than doubled the manufacture of pig iron. We have quadrupled the manufacture of railroad iron. We have six times increased the manufacture of cast iron. Fourteen years we have been giving oaf jteople ample labor-, and now we have, by domestic competition, reduced the price of these articles so We can compete with Great Britain, and only recently shipments of American iron have been sent over to Liverpool to compete with the British iron, I tell yon the old iron sceptre is like ail the rest of animate and inanimate things, moving westward, and now crowns the banner of onr country. The time is not far distant when we wiil be able to compete with England in all the different productions of human labor in her own markets.

tyThe Liberals of Kansas, who stepSid out of the Republican ranks to follow orace Greeley’s strange device, have nearly all repented of their ways aud promised to sift jto mare. ]