The eagle., November 27, 1895, Page 10, Image 10

About The eagle. (Silver City, N.M.) 1894-1???

Image provided by: University of New Mexico

                
10
THE EAGLE: WEDNESDAY, NOYEMBER 27, 1895.
THE OTHER SIDE!
Secretary Carlisle outlines the Rec
ommendations of the Administration.
Greenback! to be Retired and the National
Bankt to lisuc Legal Tender Paper
Money and Control Its Volume.
At the Beventeenth annual banquet of
the Chamber of Commerce of New York
on the 19th inst, Secretary Carlisle made
the speeeh of the evening he said :
"Two years ago, at your annual ban
quet, 1 said that the disposition and
ability of the government to maintain
its own credit at the highest standard,
and to preserve the integrity of all the
forms of currency in circulation among
the people, could not be reasonably
doubted, and ought not to be the subject
of further controversy. But the task is
both difficult and expensive. Since that
declaration was made here interest-
bearing bonds to the amount of $162,315,
400 have been issued to procure gold tor
the redemption of the United States
notes.
The notes still remain the same as the
beginning. Notes are redeemed, but
they are unpaid. Our legal standard of
value is as sound as that of any country
in the world, and if we had Buch a cur
rency system to guarantee its perman
ent maintenance no government would
command a larger credit or realize great
er benefits from it than ours ; but the
great investors of the world appreciate
the difficulties under which we arelabor
ing and, until these difficulties are re
moved, we can not reasonably hope to
see perfect confidence restored at home
or abroad.
The fundamental vice in our currency
system is the legal tender note redeema
ble in coin by the government and re
issuable under the law. There are other
defects, but this threatens the stability
of the whole volume of our currency.
So long as the notes are outstanding the
slightest diminution of the coin reserve
at once excites a feeling of apprehension
and of distrust, affects the values of all
securities, curtails investments, and
more or less seriously embarrasses all
the business affairs of the people,
In attempting to provide a circulating
medium consisting of its own notes re
deemable in coin on presentation and
reissuablo after redemption, the govern
ment of the United States is engaged in
a business for which it is wholly unfitted
and which was never for a moment con
templated by its founders. It has a
right to borrow money and issue evi
dences of the debt, but it was never con
templated that it should convert itself
into a bank of issue and furnish a legal
tender paper currency for the use of the
people. The treasury department ought
to be,! and was intended to be, simply a
public agency for the management of
the fiscal affairs of the government as a
government, not as a bank.
No change made in our currency sys
tem will afford relief unless it provides
for the retirement of the legal tenders.
The circulation of legal tendrs has a
tendency to drive out of the country the
very coin in which the government is
compelled to redeem them; and it has
expelled millions of dollars from our
borders. Although the government and
our own people are compelled to weive
them, they will not discharge interna
tional obligations, and gold must go out
to settle all final balances against us.
No other government in the world is re
quired to supply gold from its treasury
to discharge the private obligations of
its citizens.
While the pecuniary loss to which the
people have been subjected by the issue
and continued circulation of legal tender
paper has been almost incalculable, this
has not been the only injury inflicted
upon the country.
The theories that the government can
create money by placing its stamp upon
paper or other material ; that a legisla
tive enactment can make bO cents equal
in value to 100 cents ; that artificially
inflated prices, ' paid in a depreciated
currency, are better for the people that
natural prices, paid in a sound currency,
and various other vagaries now floating
like bubbles in the political atmosphere,
are all directly attributable to the long
continued use of legal tender paper.
The proposition that a prom so of the
government to pay money is money is
just as absurd as the proposition that a
promise to deliver a horse is a horse,
and yet there are eminent men, high in
public councils, who believe that the
United States' promissory note is actual
money and that the statute which com
pels all the people to receive it as actual
money is constitutional, and ought to he
continued in force.
The agitation for the free coinage of
legal tender silver is predicated upon the
same vicious principle that underlies the
legislation making paper promises a
legal tender; but there is a practical
difference between the two systems.
The United States note was a forced loan
from the people to the government,
which the government promised to pay
in dollars, but the free coinage of legal
Under silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 would
be a forced loan from the people to the
owners of silver mines and silver bullion
without a promise of repayment by any
body. The campaign against t he propo
sition to debase our standard of value
should not be abandoned or suspended.
If the friends of a sound and stated
measure of value arc vigilant and active
this effect can not possibly succeed, aid
the questioh will soon recede from the
public view. But the United States
legal tender notes will remain to com
plicate the currency system and embar
rass the government. In my opinion,
legislation in this direction, at the earli
est possible day, is imperatively de
manded by every substantial interest in
the country, and its postponment upon
any pretext of political expediency, or
upon the assumption in advance that no
satisfactoiy result can lie accomplished,
would he a very grave mistake.
No nation can reasonably hope to con
trol the trade of any considerable part of
the world unless its excluí' gesaru based
upon a standard of value recognized as
sound in all the centers of commerce.
The pound sterling has made London
not only the principal market, but the
clearing house of the whole world. En
gland not only realizes great profit from
her own trade, but takes toll out of the
internationi l trade of allothereountries.
With an inferior currency, we cuuM
never successfully contest her supre
macy, and the belief that we can punish
her or enrich oum-lvep by destroying
the value of our own money is one of the
most remarkable delusions of the age."
llUyclu Katie at El lno.
On Nov. 25 to 28 inclusive, for the bi
cycle races to be held at F,l IV", nn
Thanksgiving day, the A. T. a s. i;'.
railroad company will sell round trip
tickets to El Paso, at one and one-third
standard first-class fare. Final return
November 29th. H. M. Stkckkk,
Agent.
Dr. S. D. Swope, uf Denting was in
the citv last I'riday.
RIP AN
ONE GIVES RELIEF.