Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1875 — Objections to the Interconvertible Currency Scheme. [ARTICLE]

Objections to the Interconvertible Currency Scheme.

Congress can make a paper currency for use in the United States, but this nation is not yet quite powerful enough to compel the commercial world to adopt it as a substitute for gold. An Administration newspaper at Monticello—the Herald —classes the editors of this paper with such infamous cutthroats as “the Bender family and the Younger brothers.’' May Jehovah forgive brother I luff this and all other vagaries arising from softening of tfie brain, one of many deplorable results that follow excessive vicious indulgence in youth. His condition excites our profoundest pity! ————-• w Col. Healey attended the meeting of the stockholders of the Indianapolis, Delphi Chicago railroad company at Delphi yesterday. The meeting was held to elect a board of directors and officers for the ensuing year. It was also expected that some definite plan would be agreed upon for future action. As he has not returned at the hour of our going to press we can not report what was done al the meeting, but hope, however, to be able to publish next week that it was determined to resume work immediately. It is stated by the Laporte Herald that Miss Celia Wilkinson has been employed to teach in the public schools of that city, during the approaching winter session. This lady is well known in Jasper county, where she has taught several terms of schools, both public and private, in the country ami at Hensselacr. The board ot trustees tendered her a position in our town school for the coining winter, and were anxious to employ her. As a teacher she is quite successful, and iu that most difficult as well as SNosUumportant department of a school, the primary’, has very few equals. A dispatch from Pittsburg, Pa., to the Chicago Times gives an imperfect account of the Chappell cattle transaction which occurred in this county recently. The dispatch says a man named Crawford (evidently Chappell) brought 136 Mead of cattle to a Pittsburg firm, desired them to get the best rates in the market for him, and wanted payment made in currency. It was not convenient to pay the full amount that Way, but they gave him SI,OOO m currency and a negotiable draft for $2,000 and forwarded balance by express to him at Rensselaer. The dispatch also stated that Chappell had run about 200 head of cattle into Chicago in the same manner. All the owners have yet been able to recover was the money sent by express, less than SI,OOO, and ChappeTT TiaiTnotT yet been found, though an accomplice, whose name is given as Truxall, was arrested.

Rev. 11. O. Hoffman, Chaplain of the 17th regiment Indiana volunteer infantry for a year or two, and who at one time was pastor of the M. E. church at Rensselaer, is now at Quincy, 111., preaching to a congregation of five hundred members strong, among whom is General Prentiss of Shiloh battle fame and a prominent lawyer of that city. Between General Prentiss and Rev. Mr, Hoffman a quarrel has broken out, in consequence of which Prentiss was arraigned before the church charged with slandering his pastor. The trial was in progress last week, creating a great deal of excitement not alone in -Quincy but also to more or lesl extent over the State. The specifications of the charge upon which Gen. Prentiss is being tried are (1) that he called Mr. Hoffman a liar, and (2) said he was a libertine. Gen. Prentiss appears as his owmcounsel, enters a plea of justification to each specb fication and promises to prove all he has said and more too. In his testimony Mr. Hoffman mentions having once lived at Rensselaer but has nothing to say of the scandal arising from his indiscreet attentions to a susceptible widow of his flock, and the jealousy of a rival brother minister of the same denomination who was paying his devotions at the same shrine—a *

scandal which so crippled church that it has not yet regained'! the influence it possessed in community prior to his settlement here though more than a decade has elapsed since he moved away.

In a letter of recent date, a valued correspondent who has at times taken an active part in the discussion of popular themes, states his objections to the position taken by the inflationists upon the subject of our national finances. He says: I do not like the theory of finance advocated by Wendell Phillips, Peter Cooper,- Benjamin Butler, Judge Kelley, and the Ohio democrats. Ist. Gold and silver are the standard of values, the world over. Nobody can prevent [change] it. 2d. Exchange of currency for national bonds, and vice verbal, at the will of rich individuals, makes the treasury debtor without its consent. But to what amount can never be known, nor the necessary taxes to pay the interest provided for. Capitalists will control the funds as they dd now, with this extra advantage: They can retire the currency at their pleasure, and manipulate prices spring and fall at their heart's content. % 3d. A poor man,-or a business man in a pinch, could never negotiate a loan, except at ruinous rates, carrying disaster to natural capital and to commerce, giving them over irrevocably to the control and greed of capitalists. 4th. As the advocates of this schem't both in this country and in England are capitalists —neither commercial men nor laborers—it will be well enough to examine the. theory carefully and closely before adopting it. sth It certainly can be of no benefit to a co'inmercia! or business man, for he does not wish to retire his capital. but to keep it in trade. 6th. It can be of no benefit to a laboring man, because he lias no capital to deposit. 7th. Capitalists alone arc to be benefited by this measure, and they would not advocate it were it not to their advantage and for their express interest.

At present idle capital and idle labor are seeking employment side by side, but neither can make satisfactory investments; both are losing time and advantage. So many business men made fortunes out of the war and retired from active life so suddenly that their places could not be supplied with men known to trade; but after a few years of waiting, which is inevitable, a leading class will be at the head whose characters and reputations will be established, and in tjll likelihood things will revert again to their natural course. Better be patient and wait awhile until this can be effected, than resort to such an experiment as these men propose. At best this experiment can help only one class—the rich and independent—wealthy, idle consumers—who neeed no help. Let the laborer, the farmer, the artizan, the poor man and the commercial or trades man look well to a project arising from such a source, which oilers them no advantage and holds out to them no inducements. It will cripple the freedom of the government by leaving its finances iu the control of irresponsible and unknown meu in private life, compel it to levy taxes at the option of capitalists, and compel it to keep large amounts of surplus bonds at all points within reach of money-lenders for their special convenience, but not for the aid or benefit of anyAiublic oe private enterprise. In other words it would place a corruption fund in every city to monopolize the energies of the country. I do not like the looks of it. How is it that capital is so plenty in this country at the present time, thousands being offered to loan in every county at high rates of interest inine per cent, on large loans), on long time, with trippie security, over undoubted , names, while small amounts on short time demand double interest rates? Ko menfflant and no man in legitimate business can afford to pay such rates of interest. If any agree to pay them it must be those who are devising desperate ventures, for no proper or legitimate profits can lattbrd them. Add this onerous interest and the necessary profits for a I tradesman to live by bis business, together, and people cannot stand to I pay such enormous advances over wholesale prices. They stop consumption, trade stagnates, merchants fail, ! and depression and bankruptcy follow upon the laborer and business, compelling forced sales,.while the capitalist reaps the harvest of Ins loans by retiring his capital aud buying in the property of his "debtor at a third of its j value, “as noted in the bond” when I lie advanced his loan. Put forward and perfect this scheme of finance, and the rotation of- these results will > be as regular as the diurnal revolution iof the,earth.

Many claim that interest is too high and ought to be restricted to a less per cent, by law. Others think that rents are rather high and ought to be restricted. They ignore the fact that scarcity makes dear, and plenty cheap. Some of those who now lend money at the rates complained of, have accurnulated it, by such economy and selfdenial of indulgences as some who borrow scorn to think of practicing. If they had practiced it they would not only have no need of borrowing, but would themselves have cash to lend, and as demands of borrowers would be but few and and cash awaiting such demands abundant, interest would of course be low. The rule that prices will be high or low according as supplies are more or less than the demands, is stronger than a statute law, and such a statute cannot be enforced with good effect.-*— Valparaiso IYV