1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 1637
interposed any protest against their action in the premises f Bear in PETITIONS, ETC. mind, we were invited "to hear proof read," no more. The following memorials, petitions, and other papers were presented Now I do not know that I desire to say anything more. It is a a.t the Clerk's desk under the rule, and referrecl as stated: very disagreeable t.hing to have a personal controversy involving the By Mr. GOODE: Papers relating to the claim of Anna Perry, for question of individual recollection with a gentleman anywhere, lea-st property taken by the United States Army, to the Committee on War of all in the discharge of official duty. I know, sir, and every gen Claims. tleman of this House knows, that different gentlemen do not all times By Mr. HAMILTON, of Indiana: Petitions of citizens who were in recollect proceedings alike; but men are more liable to forget things the volunteer service during the war and of citizens of Fort Wayne, than they are to remember things that never transpired. And whereas Indiana, for some action on the part of the United States looking to the gentleman alleges that I am so effectually contradicted by the the speffdy relea-se of Edward O'Meagher Condon, to the Committee RECORD, althou~h that allegation has been disproved, I do not stand on Foreign Affairs. in fear of critimsm from that source, when other statements have By Mr. HOPKINS: Resolution of the city council of Pittsburgh, , been made in speeches in this House which have been as remarkable Pennsylvania, relative to the improvement of the Ohio River, to the as some of tho e to which reference has been ma-de. One I particu Committee on Commerce. larly recollect, and one upon which I think I can appeal to all the Also, the petition of 97 citizens of Pennsylvania, soldiers in the late other ~entlemen of the committee for corroboration. Upon the pre war, for additional bounty, to the Committee on Military Affairs. sentation of the articles of impeachment a denunciation was hurled By Mr. HUNTON: The petition of Mary Gibson, for compensation by the gentleman from Kentucky against the hea-d of the Secretary for property taken by the United States Army, to the Committee on of War because it was charged he bad sought to shleld himself be War Claims. hind the dishonor of his family, whereas, as every other gentleman By Mr. LORD: The petition of the bondsmen of the late Major C. of that committee knows, the whole struggle had been made on his M. Schole:field, for relief, to the Committee of Claims. • behalf with reference to avoiding their dishonor and shouldering the By Mr. MACKEY, of Pennsylvania: A paper relating to a post whole burden himself. route from Lock Haven to Haneyville, Pennsylvania, to the Commit Mr. BLACKBURN. I desire to say to the gentleman from New tee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads. York [Mr. BASS] before he takes his seat as to that last reference be Also, a paper relating to a post-route from Early to Brockport, Penn made to me, that I am glad to know that that sentence has gone to sylvania, to the same committee. record and will endure. I am glad to know that I stand before this Also, the petition of citizens of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for the House and before the country as one who bad done all that an hon repeal of the check-stamp tax, to the Committee of Ways and Means. orable man could do to shield from criticism and censure an innocent B.v Mr. McDILL: The petitiOn of·J. C. Jones and 51 other citizens woman. And the gentleman from New York is welcome to stand be of Page County, Iowa, for the maintenance of the present duty on fore the country, as be does now, striving to shelter from punishment linseed and linseed-oil, to the same committee. a guilty man. [Applause.] • Also, the petition of John Baxter and 42 other citizens of Taylor Mr. MORRISON. I move that the House do now adjourn. County, Iowa, of similar import, to the same committee. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Before putting the inotion of the gen By Mr. McFARLAND: The petition of Thomas Fain, to be re-im tleman the Chair will lay before the House sundry executive com bursed for money lost in registered letters by an accidental fire on the munications. Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in July, 1875, to the Committee of ORVILLE E. BABCOCK. Claims. The SPEAKE;R pro tempo·re laid before the House a letter from the By Mr. MILLER: The petition of Francis Burt, for an increase of Attorney-General, transmitting, in answer to a House resolution of the pension, to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. 3d instant, copies of all instructions, orders, letters, telegrams, &c., By Mr. ROBBINS, of Pennsylvania: The petition of John Coltman, in possession of the Department of Justice relating to the assembling for relief, on account of his father having been a revolutionary sol- - ~ or business of the military court of inquiry in the case of General Or iller, to the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions. • ville E. J,abcock. By Mr. ROBINSON: Papers relating to the claim of Captain A. F. 1\lr. RANDALL. I move that the communication be printed, and McMillan, for additionar pay a-s a United States Army officer, to the referred to the Committee on Military Affairs. Committee on Military Affairs. T SPEAKER pro ternp(Yre. That order will be made. By Mr. 'rEESE: The petition of the heirs of Thomas R. Crosby, for :Mr. HOAR. I object to any reference. There is not a quorum of an extension of a pllrtent on wiring blind-rods, to the Committee on the House present. This should be done to-morrow morning when Patents. the Honse is full. I call for the regular order. By Mr. TERRY : A paper relating to a post-route from Estillville Mr. RANDALL. The gentleman has no right to object. to Gladeville, Virginia, to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post Mr. TOWNSEND, of New York. I call for the regular order; which Roads. is t.be motion to adjourn. . By Mr. THOMPSON: The petition of Michael Hasty, for a pen The SPEAKER pro ternpore. The regular order is the motion to sion, to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. adjourn; but the Chair desires to say that it bas been the usage to Also, the petition of Joseph S. Dealand, of similar import, to the lav these communications before the Honse and have them referred same committee. before the adjournment. Also, the petition of Mary J. Taunt, of similar import, to the same Mr. TOWNSEND, of New York. I call for the regular order. committee. Mr. RANDALL. This is not a persona] explanation. Also, the petition of Nancy T. Eastman, of similar import, to the Mr. TOWNSEND, of New York. I call for the question on the mo same committee. tion to adjourn. Also, the petition of Robert Anderson, of similar import, to the The SPEAKER pro tempm·e. The Chair decides that the regular same committee. order is to submit t.o the Honse the request which the Chair hands to Also, the petition of Silas C. Tarbell, of similar import, to the same the Clerk to be reacl. ' committee. Mr. TOWNSEND, of New York. The Chair has the power to decide By Mr. WHITEHOUSE: Papers relating to the petition of Mrs: so. Elizabet.h Coon, for a pension, to the same committee. ALLAN C. HAl\IMOYD. By Mr. WILLIAMS, of Wisconsin: The petition o£ Jacob Darnton and 30 others, for the repeal of the resumption law, to the Committee On motion of Mr. O'BRIEN, by unanimous consent, leave was given on Banking and Currency. to withdraw from the files of the House the papen in the case of By Mr. WILLIS: The petition of the New York Friends' Temper ·Allan B. Hammond; there heing no adverse report. ance Union, J. A. Bogardus, president, R. W. Underhill, secretary, • MRS. ANN DUCHMAN. for the appointment of a commission to inquire into the alcoholic On motion of Mr. SMITH, of Pennsylvania, by unan.imons consent, liquor traffic, to the Committee on Reform in the Civil Service. leave was given to withdraw from the files of the House the papers in Also, the petition of ·P. F. Rooney and 85 other citizens of New York the case of Mrs. Ann Dnchman, widow of J. H. Duchman, late colo City, that Treasury notes be made receivable for all forms of taxes, nel of the Seventy-ninth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers; t;here duties, and debts, and interchangeable with Government bonds, to being no adverse report. the Committee of Ways and Means. Also, the petition of Robert Danby, for relief, to the Committee of LEAVE OF ABSENCE. Claims. By unanimous consent, leave of absence was granted to Mr. WELLS, of Missouri, for ten days; to Mr. WALDRON for ten days on account of important business ; and. to Mr. DAVIS for eight days. COIDUTTEE ON REFORM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair submits also a request by SATURDAY, March 11, 1876. the Committee on Reform in the Civil Service that a subcommittee • be authorized to sit during the sessions of the House, and that its The House met at twelve o'clock m. Prayer by the Cltaplain, Rev. · chairman be authorized to administer oaths. I. L. TOWNSEND. · Mr. HOAR. I object. The Journal of yesterday was read and approved. The motion of Mr. MORRISON was agreed to; an
bill (H. R. No. 2589) to snpply a deficiency in the appropriations for The pet ition is as follows : certain Sioux Indians; which was read a tirst and second time. To the s~nate and House of Representatives in Oo,gress as11embled: The bill was reacl. It appropriate , out of any mouey in the Treas Your petitioners de-sire most earnestly to represent. to your honorable bod~s the lll'Y not otherwise appropriated, the sum of 100,000, for the purpose suffering <"Ondition of hundracls of tchousancls who not only 1 isked theil· lives hut of supplying t-he Sioux Indians of different tribes, including the Santee also ::rave their be: t, efforts in all forms of property and labor to save tho nation through the years of its grea~st periL Sioux o'f Nebraska, with necessary subsistence, namely, beef, bacon, W e now fine! ourselves depnved of our former employments. proTJerty, and means flour, and corn. and for the necessary transportat-ion thereof. of livin::rby what we rc_gard as amistak made in the fi ••anciai policy of our country. Mr. ATKINS. I ilesire to say, Mr. Speaker, that this bill is in the We bell ve that it is even now possible for Congress to restore prosperity to our nature of a deficiency for the current fis0al year. The Secretary of sufie ring conn try by recoplizin g the fact that t.here should bo bot one kind of ruonoy for all purposes'; and all that is now or evm· has bet>n required to cause 'frea:mry the r uteri or made an application to the Committee on Appropriations notes to be and remaiu as valuable as gold is t.h:tt the Govemment should make for 1~0,000 for t.he purpo e of supplying this deficiency. Indeed, the tb m reet~ ivabl e for all forms of taxi'S, duties, and debt<3, ancl interchangeable. at amount applied for was 225,000, incluiling 75,000 for transporta the will of tho holder, with the intere t·bearing bonds of the Governm!'nt. tion. The commit-tee, after a very exhant5tive examination, decided We also suggE>st the withdrawal of 2.1 per cent. annually of the present bank cir culn.tion, till all is replaced by greenbacks. not to allow at present anything for transportat-ion, and to appropri We urge on your houmable lioclies. by every consideration of patriotism and hu ate only $100,000 deeming that amount snfficient. That includes manity, and as the only means of e tablishing justice a:nd · promotin~ thB genl'ral about twenty-three or tweut.y-five thousand dollars for the expenses welfare, to legislate at onee in the relief of the ~at suffering and continual loss of the conference of the Black Hills commis~
hundred miles; and whereas the Secretary of the Interior, on t.be 15th of March, 1867, Secretary of the Interior for the year ending June 30, 1875, that but 130.26 of the directed the Commissioner of the GenE\ral Land Office w withdraw "the odd sections six hundred miles of line of railway desirnated on the map filed January 3, 1867, within the granted lilnits of twenty miles on each side of said road, as shown on the had been constructed at that date by sai:l company since the reservation of lands map before mentioned," (referring to the map so filed as aforesaid on the 3d ofJanua.ry, waa made in 1867, which is at the rate of about fifteen miles per annum, (two dis 1867,) the said withdrawalcoveringaboutseven and a half millions acres of land; and connected sections, one of thirty miles; from San Jose to Gilroy, and another, of whereas, on the 14th of July, 1 68, on the application of Franklin Steele that the about one hunrlred miles, from Goshen to Caliente.) and the claim is made by said lands so withdrawn be resrored to t~e condition they were in pri8r to the with company that. under an act of Congress passed July '!5, 1868, it is not required to drawals ml).(le in 1867, Ron. 0. H. Browninl!", Secretary of the Interior, issued an construct but twenty miles of road yearly on said line, as designated on the map order to the Commissioner of the G€nemJ Land Offic!>, declaring, " This desigua.tion before referr&l to : Therefore, of the general route of the Southern Pacific Railroad not conforming to law, my Be it resolved That the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed to inquire into . order of the 19th of March, 1867, directing you w order a withdrawal of lands for the matters and things herein recited and set forth, and report, by bill or otherwise, said roaJ is hereby revoked, and you will immediately issue instructions to the whether patents to lands have not been improperly issued to the said Southern Pa proper local officers in California·resroring the lands to the status they held at the cific Railroad Company of California under the acts passed July 27, 1866, ann date of the withdrawal before mentioned; and whereas, on the 20th of A·1~1st, March 3, 1871 ; and what action, if any, should be taken to preserve the rights of 1!:16!:!, the Secretary of the Interior, on the request of the Southern Pacific Railroad actual settlers on the lands claimed by said Southem Pacific Railroad Company Company t.o be permitted to present evidence on the question of the legality of the under th~joint resolution before referred to as paased July 2a, 1870, or otherwise; company's action under its charter, in so locating its road, consented to a suspPn and also to protect and define tho rights and duties of the Govemment aa to tha sion for the time. beina- of his order of restoration; and whereas, on the 2d of No ownership of the said lands or otherwise, and of the ri:?,bts of the people who shall vember, 1!:!69, Hou. J. D. Cox, Secretary of the Interior, issued an order to the Com desire to make private entry, pre-emption, or homestead settlement on said lands: mi!lsioner of the General Land Office reciting that " I have ca.refully considered anrl to this end the said committee may send for persons and papers. the paper!'! filed by the company, and I can come to no other oonclusion than that Resolved, That the Secretary of the Interior be requested to suspend the furtber in the location of their road they entirely disregarded their ctarter from th" State issue of any patents for land to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company of Califor of California, which, in the act of Congress. is given as tbeir authority to build nia under acta of Congress passed July 27, 1866, and March 3, 1871, penuing this in a road in aid State; the withdrawal not being upon the route the company vestigation. were authorized to con tmct a railroad, the suspension of Mr. Secretary Brown JAJ\IES P. GROO~IS. ing's order of .August 20, 1868, is hereby revoked, and you will issue the neces sary orders for a restoration of the lanus as directed by him on the 14th of Jul.v. Mr. TURNEY, by unariimous consent, introduced a bill (H. R. No. 1868;" and wherea-s, on a rohearin~ of the case, at the in.'lta.nce of the parties in 2591) granting pay to James P. Grooms, a private in Company D, interest, on the 11th of November~ 1869, SecPetary Cox issued another order to the Twenty-second Pennsylvania Cavah·y, as an as~:; i stant surgeon; which Commissioner of the General Lana Office reciting that ·'the route upon which the was read a first and second time, referred to the Committee on War wi8hdrawal of 1867 waa secured not passing through several of t-he counties named in the articles of association nor within one hundred and fifty miles of the town of Claims, and ordered to be printed. San Diego, wa-s in violation of the State law. I am clearly of opinion that when LEGISLATIVE, ETC., APPROPRIATION BILL. there is a grant by Congress of land w a railroad company organized under a State law for the purpo e of constructing a road, the laml8 ca.u only be withdmwn upon Mr. RANDALL. I now insist on my motion that the rules be sus the authorized route of such road. Congress did not assume to confer upon any pended and the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole existiug company in California the right to construct a road not authorized by ita on the state of the Union for the con:sideration of the special order, articles of aasociation or to diverge from the route which they prescr:be. It would bo a singular anomaly if Congress should empower a State corporation to do an ad being the legislative, &c., appropriation bill; and I desire to state e:l\.'])ressly forbidden by a law creating it, which the State had the coust:i.tutional that the entire day will be occupied. in general discussion on that power to enact. The withdrawal waa, I am satisfied, not warranted by the act of bill. I only state that fact that gentlemen may understand that tht}re July '.!7, 1866. I DOW return my decision of the 2d instant, and you will instruct will be no morning holir to-day if my motion prevails. t.he local officers to restore the lands withdrawn in 1867 to their former status, after sixty days' public notice by advertisement;" and whereas Secretary Cox subse The question was taken, and Mr. RANDALL's motion was agreed to. quently, on th~ 15th of December, lbt9, ic;sued an order to the Commissioner of the The House accordingly resolved itself into Committee of the Whole General Ltwd Office, suspen«ling for the lime being his order of restoration, recit on the state of the Union, (Mr. Cox in the chair,) and resumed the ing that the order was i,;sued in accordance with the su_ggestion of the chairman consideration of the special order, being the bill (H. R. No. 2;)71) mak of the Senate Committee on Pacific Railroads, "th.tt the lands should hold-their pre ent statu's, wit-hout. change in any respect," until a . joint resolution in ing appropriation for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses relation to tlle lanrls with will of the borrower, not upon the will of the Government; rlespito 75,000,000. The real amount of money used in effecting these ex all legal restrictions it will bring what it is legitimately worth. A chan~es was but 2,491,440·per day. The amount· of money actually hundred-dollar bond is worth more than a hnnclrecl-dollar bill; its u eclm effecting exchanges ince 18:J4.ha been but 4ro per cent. to the pru·chasing power is greater. Therefore, if I lend a b0ud, I should amount exchanged. To make credit inflated, you must have some charge a higher rate of interest than if I should lend a bill, and inas thing behind it that is fixed and immovable,·something which will much as it wa.s already yieluing a fair intere t I would be disinclined not fluctuate. The amount of currency depends, uot upon the amonnt to lend it at all unless I was amply compensated. Many would not actually is ned, but upon the rapitlity of its circulation. When cur incur the risk of leudin(J' when they were certain of a fair compensa rency inflates, credit collapses. Inflation of cmrency always precedes tion otherwise, and might thereby lose principal and interest. There a collapse of credit. Inflation of currency has never yet been a meanR would then be a scarcity of currency in circnlation which would of recovering from a crisis. This Administration, however, has a.t cause the rate of interest to rise mountain-high, and the great end ~empted t o unteach every thing taught by experience and rea on. It aimed at would be further off than before. has endeavored to cure the evil of inflation by stiJl further inflation. There would not even be a remedy, for inflation is not proposed in Wise doctors I Iudeed, it is quite necessary for the financial policy the 3.65 scheme, a'nd the free-bauking system is to be forthwith abol of the Administration to be ably vindicated. ished. The only resource left to our friends would be to get up a The ~mount ~f currency _in circulation is greater to-day than ever petition and procure the signatures of Henry Carey, Jay Cooke, Henry before m the history of this country, excepting the two last preced • Clews, Colonel Thomas A. Scott, and present it to a republican Con ing years. To illustrate this fact, I pre ent an official table showing gress, who, believing in the omnipotence of human government, would the circulation since 1866 to November 1, 1875: forthwith enact a law prohibiting the exportation of American cur rency and fixing the rate of interest at 3.65; provided, always, that United States issues. they ever regain an ascendency within these Halls. Seriously, the 3.65 scheme is the most inexplicable measure of finance ever advocated in any civilized conntry. If it were exposed Date. for awhile to the sunlight of thorough discussion its warmest friends would become heartily a harned of it. WOULD THJ!: 3.65 SCHEME BE A SAVING TO THE GOVERNMENT~ The sole feature which professes any special virtue is that which provides that the greenbacks over anrl above the amount needed for Nov. 1, 1866 S27, 588.010 ~-50, 3.'>7~9, 945, 42~ $417,783,795$292. 964.532 $'710, 74fl, 327 purposes of interchangeability should be used to pay off 5.20 bonds ov. I, 1867 30, 706, 633 20 , 392 356. 956, 453 387, 87 1, 47 ~ 299, 153, Z '6 681. 024, 774 anrl thus save interest. ov. I, 1868 33, 413, 985 137, 555 355, t:! 3, 51~ 3 9, 435, 05f. 299, ~7, 675 689, 322. 73:i Nov.1, 1869 37,035,442113,258 356,000,000 393,14tc,7011 299.910,41!1 69:1,059,119 · This pretense is wholly unfounded. The amount of green backs so Nov. 1, 1870 39, 289, 794 102, 231 356, 000,000 3 ~ 5. 3~t 2 , Q-2'i 302, 607, 942 697, 9Y!I, 967 invested would not exceed 300,000,000; the amount of bonds upon Nov. 1, 18TI 3!1, 488,143 92,8-21 357.500, 000 397,0 0, 964 :1:!4, 77:J, 260 721,854, :C24 which interest would be saved would not exceed :l50.000,000. The Nov. 1, 1872 42. 3 16, 7 6 86.05:1 360.566,764 40:2, 969,603 340, 9!13, 4i0 743. ~ 6:1,073 interest thereon and so saved would amount to only $15,000,000 per Nov. 1, 1813 48,041, ~ 79, 667 366, 92:2.018 415,043, 035 34 , 350, !H!' 763,393, 9t'4 Nov. 1. 1874 47,385. 69::1 75,267 382, 000, 000 429,460, 965 351,927,246 781,388,211 annum. The Government would pay interest on 3.65 currency bonds Nov. 1, 1875 40, 681, 629 69,707 373,236, ll44 413, 987,581 348, 216, 902 762,204, 483 to tile amount of 14,600,000, and there would be a net saviug of in terest of 400,000 per annum. But the Government would.no longer June20, 1874 45,772, 010 76, 717 382, 000,000 427,848, 787 349,894,,182 777, 742, 9G9 collect the tax upon the circulation of the national banks, which amounted to $:1,250,000 per annum last year. So, instead of gaining Jan. 14, 1875. 45,360, 498 72,317/382, 000,000 427, 432,815 351,861, 450 779,294,265 $400,000 per annum, we would actually lose $2,850,000 per annum. How wonderful such economy! What a fierce and brave onslaught REDUCTION NOT DUE TO ACT OF JANUARY 14, 1875. upon the bloated bondholders! Gain 400,000! Throw into the ocean The slight reduction of twelve or fifteen millions of circulation is 2,A50,000 I Bnt then, gentlemen, you have had your revenge upon in nowise due to the wisdom of the act of Januru:y 14, 1875, which the national-bank monopolies. was in reality a measure of inflation, which was accepted as a meas THE 3.65 SCHIDm WOULD RESULT IN COMPLETE ABSORPTION OF CURRENCY. ure of inflation, but rather to the laws of nature, which have brought A brief experiment of this 3.65 system would result in the complete to grief the short-sight-ed statesmanship of this Administration. absorption of the currency. Everybody would speed to the bureau INFLATION INJURIOUij TO THE DEBTOR. and exchange his dollar bearing no interest for a dollar bearing inter :Mr. Chairman, another erroneous jmpression has possessed the minds est; and the investment yielding income would be forthwith hoarded of many of our people, to the effect that inflation would help the debtor up. Such wa.s t.he experience resulting from the act of 1815, a.s the class, that resumption is especially unfriendly to that clas ; an error 1·eport of Secretary DaJ.las completely and conclnsi vely shows. The in every respect, a-s I can speedily demonstrate. If there were to be only explanation why such a mea-sure as this was eye.r conceived and more money to-morrow, it would not be issued to the poor man, to advocated is to suppose it a part of the providential plan to illustrate the debtor class, but rather to the banker and the capitalist. Nobody what fools wise men sometimes condescend to make of themselves. would lend to the debtor, because the prospect ahead would indicate The condition of the country is peculiar; in periods of distress, that when he retnrned the loan it would be worth less than when he want, and feverish apprehension, di tempers are a.lways generat~d; borrowed it. Distrust would not only continue, but increase. Mort the popular pulse beats wildly. '.rhe strangest doctrines find ac gages overdue, notes matured, would be prosecuted to juclgment, be ceptance, not only from the ignorant, but from the wise. I now ad cause the creditor partakes of that weakness of human nature known dress myself to the cure. No miraculous agency will come to the as selfishness, and would take this means to prevent the lessening of rescue. In teacl of yielding to tl'l.e clamor which it excites, we must the debt already due before he collected it. undeceive ourselves, and it may be the people. If we ascertain pre Not only that, bot the capitalist would charge excessively to meet cisely the difficulties of the situation, if we understand the real facts the risk of false values. · The rich would rejoice in greater wealth; in the case, nothing unnatural will occur to us. the poor would sorrow in greater poverty. INFLATION-CURRENCY CANNOT BE INFLATED. When confidence is restored the debtor's prospect brightens at once. 1\fany believe that inflation of the currency would restore prosperity. What he has becomes available; he can get credit for it; the demand This silly belief is refuted by this proposition: there can be no infla for his labor or his products continually enhances. Honest currency tion of t.he currency. Pass a law to-morrow (waiving the con titu is the only safety for an honest man. tional question) increasing the amount of currency :l5 per cent. ; there THE ISTERESTS OF ALL CLASSES IDENTICAL. would not be another real dollar in existence. A dollar issued would There is no real difference between any two clas es in this country. not be given away. He who obtained a "dollar would have to pay Demagogism can erect no barrier which common sense cannot tear value received for it. Such a law would simply increase the number down. The creditor class is more than twice as numerous as the of nominal dollars; but en,ch dollar would be worth less than before, debtor class. People constantly change from one to the other. The would have less purchasing power than before. creditor to-day is th.e debtor to-morrow. There will never be a time A SURE RESULT OF INFLATION: when this argument cannot be urged as forcibly as now, that this And who would obtain these newly-issued dollars T Not the labor measme or that measme is opposed to the interests of the debtor class. ing man, not the mechanic, not the farmer, not the merchant, but the The man who embitters one class againstanotherin a republic should capitalist. They would be hoarded and stored away, because confi be blistered to death in the hot wrath of the people. He makes war dence would be still more lessened, distrust still more in tensitied. upon the sanctity of home and the peace of society. Capital and la It would only be when he supposed the greenba{lks would be ulti bor are mutually dependent and indispensable to each other. mately worthless that he would be willing to exchange them for some- THE NATIONAL BANKS NOT A MONOPOLY. thing that he deemed more valuable. · 1\Ir. Chairman, another idea also ha.s seized the masses, (not strangely, INFLATION OF CREDIT W ANTJ!:D. for it i.,encouraged by the utterances of many newspapers and public What is wanted is rather an inflation of credit. Money is simply men,) to the effect that the national banks are a monopoly; that their used as oil to lubricate the m:10hi11ery of exchange. It is strangely interests are hostile to the general welfare, and that the people through forgotten that bank-notes, bills of exchange, and certificates of de the Government. are paying them a bounty for prosecuting their busi posit serve efficiently the purposes of money. England gets along ness. This arraignment is unjust and ridiculous. It is calculated to with less currency to-day than when its wealth was one-half its protluce much harm to the country, to provoke a contedt which will nresent amount. '.The daily e~cl;tanges in New York for 1875exceeded defer an adjustment of this financial problem possibly for years. The 1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 1641 banking system is free." Any person or person.s can procure a charter of capitaL Let this exclusiveness be done away with forever. Such and have notes issued. to t hem for circulation. 'I'his is one of the ad is the communistic doctrine which men hitherto deemerl sensible are mirable features of the otherwise detest ahle act of January 14, l b'75. now advocating. They suppo e if new issues of ~reenbacks are il"l"ued Tlte national banks have paid to the Government since tb.eir organi they will be cast around impartially to all Without consideration. zation more than $fl5,000,000, as appears from the following :figures, They do not seem to realize that the only mode of gett.ing out more the accuracy of which cannot be questioned: greenbacks is for t he Government to get deeper into debt, and then to issue more of them, as they did those existing, as further certifi Statement showing anwunt paid the Government by the national banks an- cates of indebtedness. • nually from 1864 to 1875. But many advocates of more greenbacks are wiser than their reason ing would give seeming of. They in their unconscionable souls believe Year. On circulation. On deposits. On capitaL Aggregate. that in consequence of such inflation an era of artifictal prospei;ty would ensue, and that then, in the feverish excitement of the hour, 1 864 . ••••.••••••. $53, 096 97 $95, 811 25 $18,402 23 $167,310 45 they could successfully prosecute doubt.ful enterprises or make avail 1 865 ...... 733, 247 59 1, og7, 530 e6 13.1, 251 15 1, 954, 029 60 able douhtful securities. Speculators overtaken by. the vengeance of 1 8G6 ...... 2, 106, 78:\ 30 2, 633, l 02 77 406,947 74 5. 146, 835 81 violated law in this way hope to retrieve their shattered fortunes. 1 867 . ..•••• ·••••• 2, 1'!68, 636 78 2, 650, 180 07 321, Q81 36 5, 840, 698 21 So the ignorant and designing, the latter ignorant in their wisdom, 1 68 . .••••• •••••• 2, 946, 343 07 2, 564. 143 44 306. 781 67 5, 817, 268 18 1 869 . •.•••••••••• 2, 957,416 73 2, 614, 553 5J:j 312.918 68 5, 884, E88 !19 declaim against the bloated bondholders. 1 870 ...... 2, 949, 744 13 2, 614, 767 61 375, 9G2 26 5, 940, 474 00 These bloated bondholders, Mr. Chairman, a.re the widows and or 1 87L...... 2, 987, O:!i 69 2, 802, 840 85 385. 292 13 6, 175, 154 67 phans, the savings-banks, insurance and trust companies, which are ] 872 .••••.•••••• 3, Hl3, 570 03 3, 120, 984 37 389, 3"56 27 6, 703, !110 67 454,891 51 7, 004, 646 93 t.he depositories of the poor. Such are the bloated bondholuers; not 1 873 . •••••••••••• 3, 353, 186 13 3, 19ti, 569 !.!9 .1 874 . •••.•••••••. 3, 40~. 483 11 3, 209, 967 72 4G9, 048 02 7, 083, 498 ~5 the speculators of Wall street or State street. Those are purlieus 3, 514, 310 39 507, 417 76 7, 305, 134 04 1 875 . •••.••••••.. 3, 283, 405 89 , __ where inflat.ion holds eternal jubilee. Fluctuation is the food on -----___ ------which t.hey thrive. Not more enchanted was Horace with his choicest Totals..••••. 30, 836, 937 42 30, 104, 762 20 4, 0 2,150 78 65, 023, 850 40 wines than are these men with the tidings of national repudiation. THE CRIME OF INFLATIO ', Last year, as appears by these fi g ures, they paid to the Government $7,305,134. The only money received by them from the Government No man who loves honesty, who believes in substance rather than is int-erest upon the bonds deposited as securit y for circulation. If shadows, will for an instant tolerate the thought of inflation. Infla this interest was not paid to the banks it would be paid to some ot.her tion is injurious to the farmer, injurious to the mechanic, injurious to parties, perhaps to foreign holders. . the merchant. It benefits none but the gambler. It cannot be better Mr. FORT. Will the gentleman tell us how much is the interest de8eribed than in the scathing words of J nvenal: "It is a monster, paid by the Government f whose vices are not redeemed by a single virtue." Mr. WILLIS. It occurs to me, :Mr. Chairman, that the inquiry at SECTIONALISM: this particular point is not pertinent; for, no matter whether the in Mr. Chairman, more deplorable than even the tirade against na terest be sixteen million or sixty million dollars per annum, it is inter tional banks and bloated bondholders is the criminal effort on the est due upon a legitimate constitutional indebtedness, and the Gov part of men claiming to be statesmen to en~euder sectional strifes and ernment is bound to pay it, if not to the national banks, then to ot.her create sectional differences. The honoral>le gentleman from Maine parties who happen to hold the bonds. [Mr. BLAINE] informed the House that in the West and South t-here CANNOT DISPENSE WITH THE BANKS. is a loud outcry for inflation; others inform ns that eastern capital ists should be crushed out; that no banks are wanted in the West Mr. Chairman, these national banks represent an _aggregation of and South; others a-ssert that the next President shall be a. western capital which can be utilized and employed, if we are wise, aB an man, while others insist he shall he an eastern man. This reference agency for enforcing resumption. Without these banks the country to sections is intolerable. We have but one country. There are in would be in a state of perplexity. They are no part of the Govern flationists East, West, North, South; there are frienrls of honest cur ment machinery. They are at t.be mercy of the legislative power. rency everywhere; but wherever a political battle is fought, whether The only relation the Government sustains to these banks is as an in the North or the South, the East or West, that army will triumph agency for the people, supplying them with currency and making it which demands prompt restoration of national credit. Honesty is uniform and convertible into coi:J). upon demand. peculiar to no section. Dishonesty finds provender everywhere; These notes are superior to the" greenbacks," because they have prisons are needed everywhere. behind them a definite sum, a definite fund, making them redeemable He who appeals to prejudices of section within the council balls of in the absence of" greenbacks'' in gold. If they; (the hanks) fail to a republic sanctified by sacrifice and blood. should be stamped with comply with this provision you can go to the courts or to the Govern the reproach which the infamy of such an act justly merits. The very ment, and obtain ample redress; but if the Government fails to meet magnitude of the country,. its diversity in climate and production, its obligations, when its notes go to protest and you seek a remedy, serve, by making the several sections lean upon each other, to weld the doors of the conrt-rooms are barred against you, and there is no them into a ~mplete, harmonious unity. Honesty is the true policy dependence save upon the caprice of whimsical law-makers, whose of the whole country; dishonesty is the sure peril of every section; aptitude for :finance is not such as to provoke enthusiastic-admiration. inflation is crime, North, South, East, m· West. All history testifies that the Government possesses neither the capacity nor the conscience.to regulate apd carry on the banking business. In THE ACT OF JANUARY 14, 1875, NOT ADEQUATE. doing so it cramps individual efforts; it thwarts the operation of nat But, Mr. Chairman, the exultation which our republican friends ural laws, and it is controlled more frequently by demagogism than manifest when allusion is made to the act of January 14, 1875, is not by sagacious statesmanship. Andfortheplain reason that it attempts justified either by the results wrought by the measure or by the act the execution of inappropriate functions, it invades a domain which itself. The honorahle gentleman from Maine, who certairily will belongs to private enterprise. · admit nothing unless compulsorily, says that while it fixes a date, it I<'und legal-tenders, gold alone remains with which to redeem the gives no adequate process. We propose to improve upon the repub bank-notes. The bond makes the dollar absolutely good and there: lican policy. We will not content ourselves by making hollow prom demption on demand enforcible. Why, then, this outcry a-gainst all ises without any intention of fulfilling them. For a mere declaration uational hanks, and whence does it come! Will not a national-bank and empty boast we will take some positive step forward. We will note dollar bring as much in gold as your greenback dollarf This provide an adequate process. For uncertainty we will give certainty. bitter warfare against innocent corporations is insanity born of dem I<' or fluctuation we will give stability. For the elasticity which comes agogism, which can flourish only when the skies are clouded with from caprice we will give an elasticity which comes from obedience gloom. . to the law of supply and demand, spurning alike contraction and The CHA.IRMAN. The time of the gentleman from New Yorlt has inflation as unmeaning phrases. expired. RESUMPTION HAS DEE~ PRACTICABLE. Mr. SEELYE. I have the floor and will yield fifteen minutes of The honorable gent.leman from Maine, [Mr. BLAINE,] also observed my time to the gentleman from New York. th at so long as the country was progressing reasonably well it was Mr. WILLIS. It will take me more than that, I fear. not practicable nor possible to set to work deliberately without the ·Mr. FORT. I should like to ask the gentleman a few questions. pressure of necessity to force svecie resumption. He says we are Mr. WILLI S. When I get through, if I have time left, I will yield situated as was Mr. Pitt, when, heing asked why he did not bring in to the gentleman from Illinois. I will yield now if it is not to Cl>me a bill for the suppression of the slave trade, declared tl).at the ruer out of my time. chants were too strong for the ministry. How unfortunate a weak WHO ARE THE BLOATED BONDHOLDERS. memory! In 1865 1\IcCulloch began contraction. In 186'7 $44,000,000 Mr. Chairman, this delusion about the banks is no stranger glorv had been withdrawn from circulation. The House voted almost ing in its isolation for another, more unfounded and unreasonable still, unanimously, there being but a minority of six, to snst.ain this policy intrudes itself. The holders of United States bonds are singled out for Prices advanced, confidence revived, and an early resumption was scornful a.."lSault and bitter vituperation. What axe the facts f What I promised; but all at once a change of front occurred. The policy of say the advocates of inflation and interchangeable {lurrency\' Shall honesty was abandoned. McCulloch was dismissed, and intlation of we wear the yoke imposed upon us by bloated bondholders f Shall the currency followed. On the flood of a false· prosperity the party we for their sakes suffer the pangs of hunger "and agony of want f of the Administration re-elected its Chief Magistrate. The pension No, let us break from this serfdom of money, this miserable monopoly ers upon the bounty of the Government made profligate exp enditure~ 1642 CONG.RESSIONAL RECORD-. UOlTSE. MARCH li, of money, subsidized the press, and debauched the p~ople. Then the dollars worth one hundred cents each make the holders any poorer' l aws of God were vindicated by a collapse of credit in 1873, which Let us see. Suppose the. nominal dollar in circnlatiou were to re put.s all precedents in eclipRe. main the same, t.be pre ent ability of every holder on demand to Ab! my friends instead of exclaiming, as did Pitt," the British mer oLtaiu a g_old dollar would so appTeciate their value that they would chants are too strong for the ministry," the honorable ~entlema . n should be eqnal t,o 15 per cent. incrca. e in the circulat ion. Let the Gov have expressed himself in this language: The Admmistration, re-en ernment fnnd all greenbacks offered and they would be at par to forced by gamblers and speculators, was too strong for an honest morrow, for no ordinarily intelligent .American would se11 a clo1l ar Secretary of the Treasury. for ninety-nine cents. The national-bank notes would a.ppreciat in A HISTORICAL ALLUSION. the same ra-tio. Why' Becanse redeemable in greenbacks; if not The honorable gent leman from Maine recalled the message of Gen in greenbacks, in gold. If no gold could be hail, then t.be Government eral Jackson~ dated July 10, 1832, and exultingly asked what he would sell bonds on deposit as security for circnlation, t.he sale of would have thought of a great paper-money machine, with inconvert which would realize more in gold than the face amount of the notes. ible currency dependent upon legislat.ive caprice.· Sir, he would have Our banking sy t-ern, though in many respect fa.ulty, owing to op denounced it with that honest warmth which made him so terrible pre ive exactions aud restrictions to which it is subj ected., is fre . to his foes. Instead of cr<'ating one and then perpetuating it, a tbe It emboilics three indispensable cond.itions for sound and safe bauk republican party havo clone, he would have stamped it out forthwith ing: on the heels of wur. The featUl'es even of his statue in bronze at the First. Absolute ecnrity for the bill-holder. other end of the Avenue tells us what to do. ~hey command us to SPcond. Convert.ibility into coiu on demand. be honest and fearless, obedient to genuine democracy, and unforgiv Third. Uniformity; the same dollar bill welcomed with the same ing to t.hooo who "wear the livery of the coUl't of heaven to serve th~ genuine warmth in Maine, Texas, and Oregon. devil in." They are competent to increase issues 0 per cent. upon the amonnt NOW 18 THE TIME TO SETTLE THE FINANCIAL QlffiSTION. of boncls they may deposit. So, no matter how extensive the tlemaHd, the banks can and will supply it by increasing circulation. .M:on y Mr. Chairman, the time is apt for the adjustment of th!s financial i like an. other commodities. It goes wherever it is :q~ost ~autell. question. :No change can make matters wore. Property baa shrunk The bankers of London, Paris, and Berlin are not wholly witle s and to the lowest level. Money is too abundant. There is no special brainless. If they can obtain more profit by sendmg gold to tLe need for the green hacks, and t.hey can be bette ~ funded to-day than United S~ates than by retaining it, t.hey will do it, and that, too, not ever again.. Our policy must be outspoken and fearless. The people with hesitation, but with eage1· greed. The queslion may be urged, jnstly regard us as cowarus. We are afraid to act, and yet inaction why have national hanks been surrendering circulation' Becan e is the supreme peril. there is so much ui trust, 'O murh dullne ; so little demand; becan e THE TRUE REMEDY. money is in uch a still torpor, that there is no occasion for its use and Now, 1\Ir. Chairman, bavfng effectnally proven the responsibility of its use yields no profit. this Administ ration for the woe and distress which have been bursting Why is the.re so sma,ll a quantity of golrl Y Because it is not userl afreoh upon us every year, appalling everybody, cramping and gall for circulation; if the nee(l is limit-ed, the supply accomm0uates ing everybody and everything, and the unreasonablene::;s of commit itself to the need; it i cheaper in the Uuit.ed States than elsewhere; t.ing to tllem the labor of relief; having shown the jugglery of the act the market prices indicate not the value of gold, but the deprecia1 ion of January 14, l rl75, committing the Governme-nt to a pledge for the of our currency. Think yon if tbe holdera of gold could t·ealize more fultillmeut of which it was qnite uneqflal, I shall now proceed to here than el. ewhere that it would not flow here until valnes w re point. out that mode by which confidence can be restored and early again equalized f Becan e, further, in pillsnance of that law more prosperity assured. It is involved in no mystery. No profound dark ancient than commonwealths, a superior currency refuses to co-exist ness euvelopR it. There is no originality in it. It is the same mode with an inferior currency; \vith a sensitiveness which it .would be that a practical business man under tht3 like circnmstances would delightful to witness in society, it declines to abide with those who adopt-, nominally costing a slight amount, but in reality a boon freight have not the good sense to appreciate it. eel with an annual harvest, yielding, not metaphorically, hut literally .Make yoUl' green back dollar worth one hundred cent-s; gold will a bnndredfold. forthwith become the boon companion of the bank-note; the eagles Here is the precise state of the case. The Government issued its and half ea~les, driven from the Republic by unconstitutional, short notetJ by which it promiAed to pay their face value in actual dollars; sighted, unst.atesmanlike legislat.ion, will be coaxed back to the land real constitutional dollars. They were forced upon the people, aud from whose bosom they were unburied, and those henceforth mined are certificates of an indebtedness for property taken by force with and coined will not fly away. Whehever a dollar is needed, there wi U out process of law. These issues or certifica1es bear no interest., and he a ready way to obtain it; it goes whither it is wanted, as does silk, are payable on no given day. They are a cwTency which the Govern jewelry, or any other article. ment, overriding the restra.ints of law, compelled the people to use in The shallow cry ·of contraction and the mad cry of inflation will be lieu of gold and siver; and the people acquiesced in the law of force silenced. No law-maker will ha.ve the stupidity to name this amount and necessit.y. Now, the obligation of the Government, by virtue of or that amount as adeqnate to the demands of trade. every conside-ration of morality, prudence~ and law, was and is to The law ordained by Omniscience-that of law and supply-will satisfy the holders of the e notes at the earliest practicable moment control the amount. When it is profitable for banks to issue more, by red~eming t.hem in gold, or in wl1at the holders are willing to ac they will respond by issning more; when money is a -drug upon the cept instead thereof as a full equivalent. market, they will surrender a part of their circulation. If anybody [Here the ha.mmer fell.] wishes to enter into banking business, they ca.n do so by compliance Mr. FORT. The gentleman promised to answer my questions. with the·banking act; deposit 20 per cent. in excess of the amount Mr. SEELYE. I will yield five minutes more to the gentleman from of ba.nk-not.es desired; a business entirely open to everybody; jW!t New York, (Mr. WILLIS.] as open as dry good , clothing, grocery, or any other busine s. Mr. WILLIS. I .trust the Honse will grant me time to proceed This twaddle about monopoly of national banks is unworthy of with my remarks ; I very seldom ask its indulgence. men; it is the invention of a demagogue hard-pressed for a campaign Mr. FORT. I hope if the gentlemn.n has his time extended he will watch-word. It means mischief; it means war between labor and cap answer my questions. ital, in which labor always comes off second-best, for pt-nding t he Mr. WILLIS. Now, the holders are willing, ay, eager, to accept a struggle starvation becomes the ally of capital. Bankiug is.now a. bond, at say 4 per cent., payable in forty years. free and open business, in which everybody can engage at will. Bank Who will object, then, to such redemption: the fu.nding of the green capital is taxed in excess of all other capital. The banks are now ba-cks into a 4 per cent. forty-year bond 'f Is there any different re and always will be at the mercy of the law-making power, !!ubject to sult arising from an investment of $100 in a 4 per cent. bond than the behests of public opinion. from an investment in a city bond, in a horse, in an acre of land, in the stock of an insurance company, in a savings-bank deposit; if so, GOVEIThTMENT SHOULD NOT BE BANKER. wherein t Let the terror-stricken inflationist answer. The property Mr. Chairman, perpetuate the green back system and enl:trge it ac would remain in the country; if it did not, we ctuld afford to pay cording to the 3.6& interconvertible scheme or the simple inflation any investor 4 per cent. If our bonds should go abroa~, we become scheme, make the Government sole banker, and it then will be in no poorer; value received would be pairl for t.hem. But the bonds trenched behind the Government, be a part of the Government at onoo. should be issued in small multiples-$20, $50, $100, to $1,000. In this It becomes a fierce omnivorous monster, always preying on the people, wise they would be di.ffnsed, owned everywhere by mechanics, farm makin!f._ officials the allies of gambleis and· speculatorR, multiplying ers, retail dealers; they would he available as collaterals, and could Black ..tl'iuays and Northwest corners, fluctuating va\ues, creating be always inade useful as capital to undertake and carry on business at pleasure, periods of prostration and prosperity, menacing and over undertakings, whether banking or otherwise. They would be equal topping the legislative and judicial departments of the Government , to their face value in gold coin, and the funding consequently would arbitrarily fixing rates of interest by making money plenty or !!carce, increase the available wealth of the country. a.s selfishness and greed may suggest, controlling popular electimw, Nobody wouJd realb-;e any contraction. Everybody thatha~agreen debauching officials, and enabling the Administration and it· friemls back dollar worth eighty-six or eighty-seven cents could exchanfi"'e it to perpetuat-e themselves indefinitely in power. The President to for a dollar bearing interest worth at lea-st one hundred cents. ow da,y has tmder his command an .Army and Navy. Add to these the could the contraction opex:ate ha.rshly 'f How could the conversion purse-strings, which yon do if you mal:e the Government a banker, of three hnndred and eighty-two million nominal dollars worth and yoill liberties e.re at the disposal of a single man. To do this eightyY>ix cents each into .three hundred and eighty-two million real would indOOd be a fitting climax of Grantism .and not unworthy ititi • 1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 1643 latter-day: history, a fitting accompaniment to its bayonet ru1e in the which awaits vindication, the cry for shelter and bread which the South, and its extortions through the North. passage of the mea ure I advocate wouJd sa.tisfy, t.he- stagnated busi FUND THE GBEEN:HACKP ness and paralyzed energy of the country which simple justice to the Let the green backs be funded at the will of the holder ; tlle Gov nation's creditors woulcl unclasp and make free. ernment does, forthwith, without detriment to any person in the 1and, This particular question of finance is a moral one, and can be justly what honesty requires, and pur~, in~llige!lt p~licy dictates; i.t ab~n decided only in the forum of conscience. We should spurn the treach dons its unwarrantable, unconstitutional functiOn as banker; It re-m erous voice of partisan hip. states itself in the worl • 1644 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. MARCH 11, Mr. SEELYE. l\fr. Chairman, I have listened here to some very in turned at the option of the holder, for such a currency has its obvious teres! ing and exceedingly able discussions of f1ppropriations and the conveniences which I know of nought to coll'traveue. Dot a pnper general qnMtious of finance, in which, however, the utmost variety currency which is only a promi c to pn.y that is neve-r fulfilled, a cur of opinion upon these important themes has been expressed. But I rency whose only value is furni!:ihed by the command or even by the believe that., notwithstanding this seeming diversity, there is one credit of the government. which issues it, a currency which can be point where the members of this House and the people who have sent produced to any extent without labor, and which ha no po. sible us here will substautially agree. If it could be positively and every use for anything except as currency, is not only inconvenient ru1d where known that our fiuancia,l affairs had settled down upon some disadvantageous~ bnt must be disastrous wherever employed. S11ch a stable basis, a sigh of relief would be wafted from every quarte1· of currency, unstable itself, renders everything el ·e nn:stable; it nuset the land. What our farmers, and mechanics, and laborers of all tles all values ; it disturbs every kind of business; it obliges that kinds most urgently need, what our manufacturers, and merchants, trade should be clone with a broader margin of profit and loss, and anu trad~rs of every sort are actu~Llly groaning for, is some sort of thus enlarging the field of speculation it extends in an equal uegr e stability in the monetary affairs of the nation. Without such stability the bounds .of bankruptcy; it always has been, whenever tried, a our whole iudm~try is and must be afloat without a chart or compass, mo t fruitful. source of evil, and, from the nature of the c.ase, its re the sport of winds and waves. Upon this point I am sure we are all sults must be always evil. agreed. Here, then, in a word, is the exact and hopeless difficulty with this llu t, if this be trne, our views ought to l1armonize still further; currency of ours. It undertakes to pay for inuustry with that which for a stable condition of our monetary affairs is not possible on the has no industry in it, and this i a fra.ud upon industry which, how ground upon which we have sought to conduct them for the la t fif ever cloaked or long concealed, will at length come to light and claim t een years. During this period the volume of our currency and its its retribution. ' l\ly Lord Cardinal," said Anne of Austria to Cardi consequent value have depended, as they still do, upon acts of Con nal Richelieu one day," My Lord Cardinal, God does not pay at the gress, and these acts, various and contradictory as they sometimes end of every week or mont.h; but at the end He pays." To individu Lave been, and uncertain as they always must be, introduce an ele als this payment mny be carried over beyond this world, but nations me11t of instability in our finances which not.hing can remove so long suffer here and now for their faults and £ollie ·, as well as for their a we seek 1io regulate them in this way. Until the questions which crimes. \Vhy, l\Ir. Chairman, is any eye o blind as not to see the dire now agitate us concerning our currency can be put. beyoud the con consequences o.f thi. eurrency of ours a now apparent in the land f trol of Congress, and be left to re~ulate themselves, like wincls and The gentleman from Peunsylvania [ 1r. KELLEY] the other day pict tides, hy gravitation, it is simply 1mpossiule to h::we financial sta ured in sepulcbra.l tones the funerea.l gloom in which our indust1·ie8 bility in the land. seemed to him en hroucled; but what has brought so ad a state to Now, it may seem preposterous to hope for agreement upon any pass f \Vhy this "suspended industry," and "curtailed production," plan to put our currency upon a stable basis, but it is not difficult to and "enforced idlenes " which, in the language of the gentleman, see that all po ible financial plans for us, comprehensively considered, has added so .. fearfully tothelistof suicides, crowded insane asylums resolve themselves into three, one of which we must take, and only with suddenly-impoverished patients, and opened as their only refuge one of which can be wise. station-houses and houses of correction to thousands of men and wo The first of these is the attempt to continue jnst·as we are, with men who would £nd happiness in enduring the penalty of the primal neither expan ion nor contraction, a po ibility which it is well for curse could they be permitted to earn their bread in the sweat of us to look fairly in· the face and see w bether it be actually such, or their brow." We stillhavethis "philosophical currency," this" glori whether it be only a delusion and a snare. ous currency," "t.he best currency in the world," of which the greedy Those who advocate the maintenance of our present financial pol foreign nations can never deprive us; and the ·e, upon which the gen icy essentially unchanged assert very ditferent reasons in behalf of tleman has descanted, are its legitimate results. To what else are this policy and are innumerably divided in their methods of prac they, to what else can they ·be referred, eveu upon his own showing T tically adjusting it. Some would maintain it as the only way to get Doe he, does any man, believe tbat "the fin an cia I policy inaugurated back to specie payments and others as the best means of avoiding by Pre ident Johnson's Secretary of the Trea ury" is responsible for Rpecie payments altogether. Some would do away with our bank this state of things t But this state of thin~s does not occur till from not.es entirely and substitute green backs in their stead, maintaining six to eight years after that financial policy had been abandoned. the present volume unchanged, while others abound in what are called Does the gentleman believe, is he serious when he ascribes any part of elastic ex·pedients, by which the same cDITency may b43 stretched or this con1lition to what he terms" the ill-judged act providing for the shortened, as the widening or narrowing demands of trade may require. resumption of specie payments on the 1st of January, 1879 f" But But the point of agreement in them all is this: tha.t we have an the e results began long before that act was pas ed or even proposed, American system of currepcy, different from that of all the rest of and if anybody doe not know that they are altogether independent the world, a paper currency basecluot upon coin but upon the credit of that act he needs something more than arguments to ~ive him of the nation, and by this alone our permanent financ:ial prosperity knowledge. It is not light which he lacks, but an eye. This con can be secured. It is not necessary to take up severally the various dition is not at all an unnatural result of a currency like ours. It is methods, act.ual or conceivable, for adjusting this system; since if a result which has alwayt~ attended such a cun·ency. It is the result the system itself is vitally def6ctive that de~ect will attaeh to all its which has been predicted over and over again, as sure to follow the applicat.ions. attempt to pay for labor in anything which is not the product of la Now, I affirm that the one defect in pur present currency, a defect bor, and this result can never be remedied by any device which does which penetrates it through and through and renders it forever in not reach to the very root of the evil it.self. · c.apable of performing the functions of a sound money, is that it is a TherefOre, Mr. Chairman, this result is not going to be chan~ed, · cunency which has originally cost no labor; it rests upon no solid cannot, from th~ very nature of tile case, be changed by making this ground of industry, and therefore when you undertake to pay for currency interconvert.ible with bonds, a scheme made so famous by the labor with it labor is cheated, and the industry of the nation, being persistent advocacy of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and which di honestly paid, "Qecomes in consequence prostrate and paralyzed. I have sometimes almost thought he has intended to pr ent as an ex In other wor•)s, we have fancied that we could actually measure the quisite piece of irony, or, perha.ps, a magnificent piece of burlesque, labor of the land by that which hJ18 no labor in it; we have taken a in which the ridiculous results Qf a certain theory of the currency piece of paper which costs no labor, and which may be duplicated and rrilght appear in all their absurdity. But if this be a ober scheme, multiplied to any exteut without labor, and have supposed that we soberly presented, I ventnre to turn aside for a moment from the could make this the actual standard of value and wealth, when the direct line of my discussion to ask what it re-ally means. Dollars, one essential thing without which value disappears and wealth be ac<: ording to the scheme, are to be converted into bon~and bonds comes a nullity is labor. There is no possible way in which the.cur are to be converted into dollars, interchangeably and perpetually, as rency of a nation can be a stable representative of the industry or the the exigencies of business shall require; but what is a dollar, aml wealth of a nation unle s that currency be a commodity which costs what are the bonds 'f Perhaps a dollar means nothing, is only a word labor to produce it and is worth w!I.at it has cost for some other use with no more siguificance than tho e macutes which Montesquieu than currency. It may be any commodity you please, if it have these tells us the inhabitants of the West Af1·ican coast employ in their characteristics; it may be wampum or bullets, as among the earliest reckoning; but I suspect the gentleman would hardly allow that his colonists of Massachusetts; it may be salt, or tin, or tea, or cowry scheme stands upon this level. And yet if a dollar means anytbing shells, as among some Asiatic and African peoples to-day; or it may I will not say a definite weight, duly stamped, of gold or silver, but be silver and gold, as from the earliest history has been the case in if it have any conceivable meaning-then this interconvertible-green the civilized world; but whatever it is, it must possess these two quali back-and-bond scheme, if it be anything other than a gigantic folly, ties, of being intrinsically desirable to possess and equally difficult to is a stupendous fraud. Let us see. The gentleman surely will not obtain, or it cannot be truly money or furnish a truly stable currency claim that this piece of paper called a greenba.ck is a dollar, for the for the people who employ it. The simple reason for this, which greenback itself claims to be nothing of the sort. All that the green makes its truth apparent to every sound eye, is that these two ele back claims to be is a promise to pay a dollar, and this promise to pay ments are exactly what give value to anything; in other words, are a dollar cannot surely be the same thing as a dollar, except upon that exa-ctly that which constitutes wealth, and, while all wealth is not system of lo~ic by which a horse-chestnut is proved to be the same money, ther~ cannot be money in any true sense which is not wealth. thing as a cnestnnt horse, a system of logic wit.h which I have no Now, I will not argue the an vantages of gold and silver for this doubt the gentleman often amused himself, as we all have done, in purpose, for these are too plain to need arguing. Neither do I wish tt. the sports of boyhood, but by which that remarkable chool of politi bring any charge of disadvantage against a paper currency whicL cal economists which he so often quotes actually; guides itself in the repretsents its fried amount of gold and silver, into which it may be speculations of mature life. • 1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 1645 The greenback is a P.romise to pay; does this mean anything! Shall est financial problem. To see that a further inflation means repudi it be fulfilled! Yes, tays the gentleman, we will redeem it in bond . ation, aud that the attempted continuance in our present course is A given number of greenQ.acks shall have in return a given numuer the continned reign of financial disaster and ruin, is much easier than of bonds. These promises to pay shall be transferred thus into dol to discover the sure path to the only safe end. But n, wise and prac lars! No, but they shall find their full equivalent in bonds. But tical people like ours ought to be able t.o solve tl.Jis problem, and a what then a1·e the bonds Y Why, they are only promises to pay ; brave people like ours ought not to be diseonraged before it. · promises to pay, moreover, dollars again, just as the greenbacks are, We shall be aided toward this solution if here also we classify all anrl to be fulfilled and redeemed by being converted, when it comes to the possible ways in which any one might suppose it could be reached. a pinch, into greenbacks again. Ont) promise is paid by a second, and And, in doing this, we shall find that a{) there a1·e only three possible the econd is redeemed by renewing the first, by which process, we are courses for us to take in the general ad111inistration of our uational gmvely told, our financial prosperity shall be all that we desire I But finances, only one of which is wise, so there are only three possihle what has uecome of the tlollar in all this jugglery between greenbacks ways of attempting specie resumption, only one of which is certain to and bonds t Where is "the little joker" in th.is amazing game of succeed. I say only three possiule ways, for I exclude the thought thimble-rigging in which a gTeat government like ours is soberly that our currency, unless still further expanded, can be repudiated, as urged to engage t The dul1ar, whatever it is-and I will not quarrel an impossibility. here about its meaning-the dollar is nowhere to be found. He to The first of these ways is to hoard coin until a sufficient amount whom it belonged, wilen seeking for his own, finds himself the vic has been gathered to make sure that resumption would not be a fail tim of a cheat., and the government which palms oJf such a procedure ure. This is a favorite method wit,h some, who find easy arguments upon him becomt's a. party to a fraud. I am aware, 1\lr. Cha.ir"!llan, in its support, but I suspect the difficulties in its way are too great to that some very extravagant financial theories are afloat among us, allow it to succeed_ For, obviously, it would be a very costly pro but I suspect that a parallel for this interconver!: ible-greenback-and cedure. The gold would have to be bought in order to be stored, and bond scheme cannot be found outside of a madl.Jouse. the increasing scarcity caused by the increasing hoard would resist And yet every po si ble contrivance to pat.r h up our present system, lessly increase the market price of the gold. What shall be Baid, too, · while the system itself is left essentially unchanged, necessarily in of the interest upon the accumulations during the time of their pro volves more or less of a delusion; for the very groQndwork of the gres.s and what of the unsettling of monetary values all over the system is faulty, and the fault remains, whatever its adjustments. world which such a procedure would include T It may safely be said Since the payment of labor with anything which is not a payment in t.bat such an accumulation of specie as would be necessary to secure kind-i.e., witbauytbingwhich is not at bottomapaymentin labor payment in coin for our present currency wonld prodnce such a finan is only a pretentled and not f4 real payment, no legiRlation, no devices cial pressure here and elsewhere that we should be forced to stop be can change this pretense into a reality, any more tlw,n acts of Con fore we had finished. And thus this method of resuming specie pay gress or contrivances of men can change any other falsehood into a ments is not really a possible one, though at first it might k!eern to truth. It is therefore only a puerile delu ion to suppose that efforts be such. Moreover, iftbik! were possible there is another way, not only to strengthen the so-called credit of the Government would help this easier, but incalcnlably more economical. matter in the least. 'flle second po sibilit.y is a returu to tile method so wisely adopt.ed The credit of the Government creates no values. All that it can at the close of the war, of gradually retiring and dek!troying these do is to certify to the value which honest intlustry has already crea legal-tender notes out of . the superabundant reveJ.Jues of the Govern ted. The cretlit of the Government certifies by it.scoinage to the value ment,--a process whtch I hold to have been the wisest finaucial step of a given coin, hut the value is in the weight and tineness of the the Government bas taken since these notes were made a legal tender; metal coined, anu not in the stamp which gives it currency. All the and which, had it l,.leen continuefl as it began, would have brought us credit of the Government could no more give iron pyrites the value back to specie payments and prosperity long ago~ But though om· of gold tba n could the credit of the Government make reams of paste surplus revenue is not now sufficient to permit, without an increase of board iutore(J'iments of tigllting men. Labeling the pasteboard with taxation, a hopefulre-inanguration of this method, we should not for tile titles of ~u army aud solemnly pledging the faitll of the Govern get that such a course, could it be pursued, woul Mr. DURAND obtained the floor. peculiarly American, anon-exportable currenc3, one in which no one Mr. PHILLIPS, of Kansas. Will the gentleman yield to me to ask but our own citizeus in our own country would have any interest. a question of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. SEELYE f ] But, whether fort1mately or unfortunately, this state of things does Mr. DURAND. I will yield for a question only. not exist. We owe a foreign debt to-day", national railroad corporations Mr_. PHILLIPS, of Kansas. I understood the gentleman from and private debt-s included, estimated at not far from $2,500,000,000, . Massachuset.ts [Mr. SEELYE] to say that Congress has no power to the annual interest on which amounts to about $150,000,000, all of regulate values. which, bot.h principal and interest, this Government and the corpora Mr. SEELYE. If the gentleman will allow me to correct the terms tions and citizens of this country must pay in a money the value of in which he puts his question I will hear him. What I did say was, which is estimated from a gold standard. In other words, we mu:;t not that Congress had no power to regulate values, but that it had no pay it in gold; and we do not pay iij and cannot pay it in a non power to create values. Does the gentleman mean to stand here and exportable currency unless we make that non-exportable currency say to the Congress and country that Congress can make values f equal in value to gold; and if we do this with a. currency worth 14 Mr. PHILLIPS, of Kansa.s. Silver has depreciated in the market 10 per cent. less than it professes to be worth, which is the condition per cent. Does th~ geutleman from Massachusetts [Mr. SEELYE] hold of our currency to-day, we a,re compelled to use what we cttll that we must add to its value by adding gold or something to bring it $171,000,000 in order to-pay 150,000,000 of interest. np that 10 per cent y· Then again we imported during the fiscAl year ending J nne 30,1875, Mr. SEELYE. The gentleman says that silver has depreciated. goods from foreign countries amounting in round numbers to the sum Why f Because it takes less labor to obtain a pound of silver now of $5f10,000,000. These also we were compelled to pay for in money that it did four years stgo; that is the reason why silver has depre estimated from a gold standard, taking of our ." non-exportable" cur ciated. rency the sum of $627,000,000 to pay for these goods. So that besides Mr. PHILLIPS, of Kansas. Where is your standard 'f Where is paying the value of the goods we were obliged to pay in addition the your dollar f . sum of 77,000,000 for the difference between the value of our money Mr. SEELYE. I will refer the gentleman to the Revised Statutes as it really is when measured or estimated from the gold standard of of the United States for the definition of a dollar. the world with which we are compelled to deal and the va1uestamped Mr. DURAND. Mr. Chairman, representing in this House, as I do or written upon its face. With snch facts as these staring us in the in part, one of the great States of the Union, a State noted for its face and confronting us in every department of commerce and trade surprisingdiversityofresourceandproduction,foritsextensivemining, how can it be possible that we should fail to see the necessity of adopt agricultural, and commercial intere~:Jts, I feel that I would be recreant ing such a line of policy as shall surely bring our cunency to a spe0ie t • the trust reposed in me by the people who have commissioned me standard of value at the earliest reasonable practicable moment. to represent them on this floor if I did not raise my voice in support Our people are a commercial people; our trade extends over the of a sound, stable, hoTtest currency, and if I did not upon every proper world. WP. boy and sell in all parts of the habitable globe, and in occasion exert my influence in favor of snch a governmental policy making excbangt>s and in settling balances we are obliged to use in pay as will tend soonest to restore business r1rosperity and build up shat- ment such a standard of money as is recoguized by the nations with tered industries. An overpowering ·conviction of what I deem to be which we deal. Premising, therefore, that there is a certain and fixed my simple dut.y in this regard must be my excuse for forcing my st andard from which to estimate the value of money, it follows that views in relation to this question, so vital to the future prosperity of if any commercial country ba-s a quality of money which th-ough the American people, upon the attention of this deliberative assembly professedly up to the required standard is as a matter of fact really so soon after becoming a member of it. There are so many different below it, and is for that reason what we denominate a depreciated views entertained in regard to the question of what money we shall currency, then that country is in all foreign business transactions put have, and how large a v.olume of money it is necessary to have in cir to a disadvantage equal, or nearly equal, to the amount of such de culation, in order that the business of the country may go on in a preciation. Some ba-sis of value must be recognized by us as a com prosperous manner, that it seems to me to be the part of wise states mercial people;. and, unless we are willin~ to deprive ourselves of the manship to divest it as much as po&sible of all merely political or full benefits which accrue from trade an to put afloat paper promises to pay and call it money, (which right, how able. Had this theory been adopted and carried out, I do not be I may add by way of parenthesis, is douoted by some of the ablest lieve we should have the paralyzation of bu 'iness which is now com constitutional la\\-ryers in this country)-admitting, I say, that the plained of. Jlad the people been allowed to condttet their own hn i Government has the constitutional right so to do, I deem the exercise ness, I do not believe there would now ue one single subsidized rail of such a right would be fraught with dangers so great as. to appall road or other corporation in America.. Se..veral hnnllre.d we.lJ-fed every intelligent, patriotic, thinking man who would giv·e the snuject public officials would long since have beeu relieved of their sinecures that attention which it demands. To authorize any government to and invited back to the modest and exhilarating pursuits of private issue paper promises to pay and call it money, with no limit to its life. The salaries of the President and some other public officials volume.and no provision for its redemption save such as is prompted would never have been douoled up, back pay wonld have been held by legislative wisdom or legislative faith, is to put the entire business in repreheusion, and fraud and pecul:~.tion npon the Government of the countryiu a condition of const,ant doubt 1-1nd uncert'-"int.y; from would neither have beeu greeted with a silent tongue nor a benignant the very nature of things, it would lead to extravagance and frauds, smile. ami from thence to financial ruin and utter bankruptcy. When sought To conclude this branch of the argument I contend that the Gov to be applied to mere business tran actions, 1 have no confidence in ernment, if not already inhibitecl by la ~: k of power under the Constitu legislative faith, especially ~llen we consider how frequent are the tion to exercise it, should, for prudential rea.l5on::; and for the protec changes in the personnel of the Congress of t.he Uniteu States, with tion of the people anrl for the safety and pro~erity of our business the great diversity of opinion and of intere ts shown or repre ented interests, be finally and forever denied tlle right to issue one dollar bv t,he me.mbers of it. We must know that what would be consid in currency, and that the ent.ire banking business of this connh·y, in ered by our Congress to be a safe and proper theory up<;m which to cluding the issnanee and floatage of currency, should l1e by proper and conduct the money-issuing power of the Government would be con just legislation remitted to the people, (if it h In further confirmation of what the fact s of history show in regard people are compelled to do business except the treacb.erous sea of . to our peculiar currency and who is responsible for it, I beg to refer legisla.tive faith; and in my humble opinion that full and firm con to that most orthodox of republican newspapers, the Indianapolis fidence so absolutely essential to a successful a.nd prosperous busi· JonTnal, which, in its issue of January 21, 1876, says: · ness will never be fully restored until it is distinctJy and finally set The quietus to all this quackery is a simple statement of facts. The republican tled that it is contrary to the policy of the Government iil the exercise party is the greenbaek party of tbe past, the present, and the futw·e. The party of its constitutional functions to issue paper money in times of peace. that crea.tedgreenbaeks is the one to protoot them. · While I hold, therefore, that the Government should not be permit I do not refer to this in any offensive sense whatever, but simply to ted to issue a dollar in paper money under any circumstances and show that the difficulties which surround our financial system are while I am fully persuaded that the issue already made under the ex attributable to other calises than such as have originated from mere ercise of a war power was impolitic and unwise, yet, inasmuch as it political antagonisms. I attribute the present depreciated condition did issue it and inasmuch~ about 400,000,000 of it are a~tuaJly afloat of our currency t-o other and to different causes than those which some to-day, I maintain that good faith and fairness on the part of the of the distinguished gentlemen who have discussed this question have Government toward the people require that we do not attempt to submitted. One of these canses I insist is j;hat the Government ha-s increa e its quality through a forcible contraction of its quantity by ignored its true measure of responsibility by failing to recognize the congressional enactment. While t-he Government- has the undoubted fact that the paper promises-to-pay which it has issued is a valid, sub right to do this, yet, as the business of the country has been es sisting debt, long since overdue and long since dishonored and depre tablished with full knowled~e of the fact that a given amount of ciated; and, instead of adopting measures looking to the payment of currency wa-s in circulation, It does not seem to me to be fair to at these overdue obligations, it has treated them as being payable only tempt to affect its value by reducing its volume. What does good at its convenience, and has bent all its energies to looking after the faith require' Simply this, that the Government begin to save the p a yment of its interest-bearing debt, the paymept of which might money committed to its keeping from all unwarrantable expenditures wisely be deferred until crippled industries have been revived by a and lay away something day by day l!nd month by month with which restoration to the·people of a sound currency with which to conduct to pay this debt, with whicb. to redeem this currency; let these sav their business enterprises. To show how the people of other coun ings be in that article which constitutes the money of the world; let tries look upon this mistaken policy, I desire to call attention to an it recognize the simple fact that the wa.y to pay a debt is to accumu able and t-laborate article, credited to the Westminster Review, upon late the money with which to pay it; that the way to resume is to get "Foreign Loans and National Debts." After expressing the opinion ready to resume. Let it adopt some reasonable but fixed and settled · that we· are trying to pay off our imm~nse war debt too fast, and that policy which, if fairly and honestly carried out, will certainly result in order to accomplish that purpose we have adopted such severe tax in bringing its issue of currency to par and to a resumption of specie ation and such a mist.aken system of imports that we have crippled payments, and then let it work with the people for those politic an inefficient in his office, or was a mn.n who had grown gray in the serv gard to our foreign and our internal commerce. To him we refer ico of the na,tion-who had given his time, his ta.lents, his abi1ities to whenever we are discussing tariffs and matters of that kind, and need the service of the country. They wm·e all reduced in their salaries. information that may be available for such a eli ens ·ion. In addition The committee seem to have had :no respect to the fact that the cost to that, I may sa.y that he has earned the gratitude not onl,v of tho of living to .the clerks and to the officers of the Government here is House, but of the country, for the excellent work which he has jnst far more now than it used to be when their salar.ies were establisheu; issued from hi!'! Bureau, entitled "Labor in Europe aucl.A.ruerica," 't ihat it takes more·forthem to support their families, to provide them work which affords us a better idea than \\'e ever had before of the in with food and raiment, than it did in former t.imes, pe...:haps at the dustrin.linstitutiousof theOldn.ndof the NewWorlu; wbicbgivesus time when they were appointed. an opportunity of comparing om· own industrial system with those of They did not take into consideration another circumst.ance which foreign lanus. I think it was hard, I think it was sharp to reduce his is importoot in the discussion and cpnsidemtion of this bill; that we little salary H> per cep.t., brll;lging it down to $2,250. are now on an upward movement, that we are moving on the incom But again, in that same Treasury Department is an officer who i!:! ing wa.ve of a renewed prosperity. ·we have touched the bottom of intimately connected with the history of the currency of the country, our disasters, and we are now emerging from the triLls and troubles not only so fa.r as regards bank-notes and legal-tenders, but also in imposed upon us by an inflated currency and an unfo::tunate system connection with the bonded indebtedness of the nation. I allude to of finance, the resulting incidents of the late rebellion. I repeat that the chief of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. It is right and we are emerging from that unfortunate condition, and. our furnaces, proper that we should obtain for an office of that responsible kind the forges, and manufactories are opening their doors and setting their very best talent in the land ; that we should have in that position a machinery again in motion ; at least I know that is so in the district man of high character, good inform_ation, great executive ability, keen I have the honor to l'epresent. alld sharp at accounts, because there pass through his hands every I desire now to call t.he attention of the House to a very few par year hnn $1,060; making, with other items, 17,210, wherewith they might wore a great deal less than they are now, it was because the rate of pursue the operations of the Bureau. But to-day, instead of giving living was a great dealles . And it may be alit.tle curious for yon to the officers as m.uch money to do the work a~ they had last year, they know what was therateofliving inWa~bingtonaboutthree-q:wrters do not give them sufficient even for their stationery. They do not of a century ago. In turning over the pape1·s of one of my predeces alJow them stationery enough to use at their de~liS to write out their sors, who was an old revolutionary colonel, I fouud a letter dated answers to correspondents, let alone to make out their reports. They December, 1800, which gives a curious view of the condition of con do not give them a dollar wherewith they can collect information gre · ionallife at that time. ·writing home to a son he says : necessary to compile the magnificent volume which they publish every I am now settled in a Large double House ncar the Capitol, and in a Room with year, giving to this country and to the world the largest and most Kiitora from Lancaster-a Sociable pleasant man and seemsAgreeal>le-wh<'rc I hope to remain comfottably for the winter. Our only fear is the want of Fire complete amount of knowledge of the condition of the educational Wood-no Stock yet laid in, but wo keep persecuting our Landlord to get a Quan· system of our lancl. tity-& he says he Bargained for 20 Cords this week, but none comes yet. It reminds me, Mr. Chairman, when they give them all this machin It ery and nothing to work it with, of the evil time the children of seems they were pretty hard up for fuel then, as coal had not Israel had under Pharaoh. Their case is marvelously similar, for been discovered. Pharaoh said to the Children of Israel: We have about 14 Boarders at 10 Dolls. p. week~ Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you. yet shall ye You see board was a good deal lower than it is now, when it is deliver the tale of bricks. from $120 to 200 per month, lodging included: Ami. the officers of the children of I srael did see that they were in evil case, after And a Large family of Workmen and servants-about 12 fires burning constantly it was said, Ye shall not minish aught from your bricks of your daily task. when we have Wood-sometimes half Starving, & obliaed to troo_p down to tho Din· And the officers of this Bureau begin to see they, too, are in evil case ing_-~oom for warmth. We have some high Fliers at T:ilile, viz: Gouverneur Morris when they are set a task to perform and given no ;money wherewith of ~ew York-a. pleasant Witty Man of knowledge of the wvrld, formerly Ambas sador to France, &c.-Mr. Dayton of Jersey, our Old Speaker-a General Monisof to perform it. Vermont-who keep the Tallie in a Roar oflaughter mostly at Dinner. We don't I say, therefore, the Committee on Appropriations must. assuredly Drink hard, but sometimes rather more than I wish-nothing but Wine in Onr have made a mistake, and I appeal to that committee, to their sense Club. About half the Company wont touch. but take Brandy& Water, & Run off of justice and of right, (and I know they are gentlemen of education as soon as they have done Eating. These are Democrats- and culture,) to the instincts within them, to give to this Bureau that [ Great laughter]- "'provision which will enable it to get together the statistics so inter about half the company, Leaving 7 or 8 of us t.he Table to ourselves. est-ing to this country, and so much sought after by educators here I read that ancient letter for a double purpose-to show how cheap and in other lands. · congre.ssionalliving was then-- · Coming still further down the bill I :find, in one of their last sec 1\lr. HOA.R. And to show the consistency of the democrats. tions, that they reduce the salaries of all the clerks in all the Depart Mr. TOWNSEND, of P ennsylvania. Yes; only that they have ments. In section 2 they take up the second and third-cL'lSs clerks, and the fourth-class clerks as well. They strike at them all, no matter changed from brandy and water to good rye whisky. Now, ~:lr. Chairman, with regard to our own salaries, I do not think how small the salary may be. Fourteen-hundred-dolla.r clerks are re that they are any too high. 1 do not think, perhaps, that they are duced to $1,300, Leing over 7 per cent. 1·eduction; sixteen-hundred high enough; and I have most excellent authority for that. I have uollar clerks to 1,450, being between 9 and 10 per cent.; and eight the authority of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. een-hundred-dollar clerks to $1,600, being over 10 percent. reduction. Some two or three years ago we had· a controversy about that matter 1\fr. RANDALL. The average is under 10 per cent. antl the chairmap of the Committee on Appropriations made a mo t Mr. TOWNSE1\'D, of Pennsylvania. The average, my friend from excellent speech in favor of 7,500. He was very anxious then that Pennsylvania, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, says, is that should bo the :figme; and as his speech is a very good one upon under 10 per cent., and I accept his statement. that point, I ·will.ask the Clerk to read that part of it which I have I wish to say a word respecting the clerks of these Departments.· I have ·been here for seven years; have had daily intercourse with marked with pencil. them in one Department or anothe1· from one end of the Government The Clerk read as follows: Mr. RA.."\DALL. When I went into this conference on this bill I found that here to the other during the sessions of Congress; and on every occa there were t.hree overshadowing questions beyond an others which were in contro· sion wherever I asked for information or required a duty to be done versy between the two Houses. The first one that met us in committee was this I have found them civil obliging, and well-informed. I protest most que tion of salaries. Upon that question I have uttered no doubtful sound and earnestly against this reduction of that useful class of the employes have made no doubtful record in thlS House. ~have cleclared to the country and to my constituents that I believed I have earned 7,500a year since I have been in this of the Government. I protest against it becau~e they are the lea-st Congress, and that I cotild not live here for less with my family with any sort of paid men in the Departments, save the first-class clerks at $1,200 and deceooy. I do not know how it may be with members from the rural districts, to the nine-hundred-dollar clerks. -Some have beeu here for years. which my friend from Indiana. [Mr. Niblack l has referred, bot I could not go into a. They bave grown gray in the service. Theh· salaries were fixed when :~J~~~:b~~~l ::&1h~~!~~~~h:~!!~~~~l c~~i~~.y difference in this respect between the cost of living was much cheaper than now. They have continued There is another consideration upon thls question of salaries; almost all mem from day to day, from month to month, from year to year, discharging bers of Congress are compellell, like myself to keep up a resiclence here, while at the duties of their offices fully and faithfully and becoming more tho same time retaining their re idences within the State from which they come. valuable as time has rolled on. They .have raised -families around The gentleman from illinois rMr. Farnsworth] has talked about the "man hood" of this report. Why, sir, l would like to ask him wh tber it is not more them, and as those families have increased their expenses have grown, manly to stand here and vote deliberately in 1he face of the whole country f<>r this without any corresponding increase in their salaries. I say, there incr ase than it is for a member to raise his voice in a demagogical strain against fore, that their case appeals not only to the humanity but to the jus such a proposition, and then, as soon as the law takes effect, to go and draw the tice of every individual member. "With alaries reduced in this way, money from the Treasury~ Any man here who rai es his voice against this in· clerks who have been here for years, having families growing up . crease should not, iu my judgment, take the money if the·measure passes. ·around them, can hardly make both ends meet at the close of the Mr. TOWNSEND, of Pennsylvania.. Now the gentleman from year. The fact is that on numerous occasions some of them have Pennsylvania, my colleague, an excellent gentleman I know, and come to me and said, "Cannot yon get me promoted from the position whom I esteem and admire, bas given his idea. of what was the value I am in to the next higher one, for I am to-day actually Ullable to of a Uongressman's services three years ago. He was honest then I meet my expenses f I am running in debt, and unless I can be re have no doubt. I trust that he is equally honest now. He ha de lieved by promotion and higher pay I must eventually sink under it." preciated, however-and he is the best judge of t.be va.lue of his own Now, Mr. Chairman, there ought to be some regarrl to the expenses services-he has depreciated from $7,500 a year, which he voted for of livincr. There sl;wuld be some respect paid to the length of service. and took then, down to $4,500-a depreciation 9f $3,000 or a bout 40 There should be some consideration for the qualification of officers. por cent., the -largest money depreciation that I ever knew in refer And yet the Committee on Appropriations have not had the slightest ence to the services of a member of Cong.t·e s. 1·egard to any one of these matters. No matter how well q nalified, how Now, lt:lr. Chairman, if he was worth 57,500 then, som~ of the rest ltmg t.hey have been in service, or what may be the expense of living, of us who are not so talented, who are not so gifted or experieuccd, 1\) per cent. must be taken off, shaved oft' from th13 poor compensation ought to be worth at least $5,000 a year. We think we are. I t.hink of every one of them. I am. My constituents think I am or they would not havo Ht \llt me And respecting the whole of this curtailment of expenditure, I wa.nt here. I tell you in regard to that, that my constituency wonlcl not to remark that it is not called for Ly the emergencies of the Govern send me here for any sum under $5,000 a year. I am instructctl as to ment. It is not demanded by the situation of the nation. We are that. I cannot vote for less than I am by law now entitleu to. paying off our debt; we are reducing the interest; we are changing Sir, during my first canvas for Congres seven years ago I stnm ped the debt from one rate of interest to another and saving expenditure my district with my political opponent. He was a middle-aged demo thereby. Nay, more, the industry of the country is beginning tore crat, a lawyer, well informed, eloquent, and economical. He ran upon vive; it is springing up in every quarter, and the argument which the same line which the Committee on Appropriations is running on would have been good some years ago is no argument now. to-day. We called it then "theecouomyuouge;" Idonotknowwhat It was right and proper the committee thought, no doubt, that it i · called now. We stumped my have made provision in special cases which we thought demande(l it and climate oo that they may assist the agric"-lturists of the country that clerks known as princi.pa'i clerks should continue to lw,ve $1, 00. in saving us the many millions of d.ollars tho,t we now pay for these 'the average reduotioll therefore which we h::we made as to these four cereals. ~lasses of clerks is less t.han 10 per cent. And I would like to know In this connection I d~sire to call the attention of the Committee how my co11eague would have had us act f Upon what principle of the Whole to the numerous petitions that have been sent here :froni eould we have proceeded e~cept by the application of a 10 per cent. many of the northwestern States whose enterprising citizens have reduction th.rmtghout the Government t enga~ in the production of flaxseed and in the manufacture of oil In regard to tb'e expenses of collecting the customs, we found it expressed from it. :somewhat difficult to t-each the compensation of the custom-house The bill (H. R. No. 1711) introduced by :Mr. MoRRISO~, of lllinois, ~fficers throughout the United States, and I "ill tell you why. There to change customs dnties proposes to interfere seriously with tbis has prevailed, according to my judgment, a pernicious system of pay growing industry. The farmers of my State are looking in every in~ these officers. Custom-house officers throu~hout the country are direction for avenues in which they can diversify their industries. Itt pa.Jd from what is known :as permanent appropnations. There is per 1870 we bad a surplus of corn that would not bear transportation. manently appropriated $5,500,000, subject to the control of the Secre We increased our livestock with which to convert corn into meat that tary of the Treasury, in addition to such sums as are received from would bear trousportation, until our export of animal products equals tines, penalties, and forfeitures. The latter amount is estimated at that of our breadstuffs in value. \Ve imported in 1873 2,67~,7~5 1,000,000 annually~ So that the Secretary of the Treasury, for the bushels of flaxseed, costing 4,223,936; in 1874 we imported 2,647,208 pmpose of carrying on the collection of customs, has under his con bushels, costing $4,292,911.95; in 1875 the amount imported rose to trol, without any review by Congress, $6,500,000. 3,479,777 bu.shels, costing $5,729,095. . To-day the people are not made aware of the a~tual current expend The increase in our imports is growing very rapidly, but our own itures of the GoYernment, for the rea.son that independently of the people have not been idle in the mean ttme; for, while in 1870 the lnterest on the public debt and the amount necessary for the sinking whole United States only produced 1,730,400 bushels of flaxseed, it fund, which is 130,000,000, nearly 20,000,000 goes out of the Treasury is estimated that there was produced in the country in 1875 3,000,000 . Qf the United States, and as to the mode of its expenditure no mem bushels. The census of the State of Iowa shows that while she only ber of Congress has any control. This is, I think, one of the most produced 88,621 bushels in 1870, she now produces 559,8;l6 bushels, pernicion.s systems ever known under any ~overnment. Twenty mill nearly one-third of what the whole United States produced in 1870. ton dollars should not be taken out of the rrea.stuy annually without This industry in Iowa occupies 72,984 acres of land and gives employ any legislative review. ment to a great many people. But besides this it is one of the prod When the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the last ucts of our soil that is manufactured at home. Oil-mills have been Congress [Mr. GA.RFmLD] announced to the coontrythat the amount built in many of the counties of Iowa, and if unfriendly hands are can now stand alone and are be~nuing to send something abroad we ongh t to have enjoyed had interest been at a rate that would have from their shops. But an exammation of the list of article ent ju tHied production. · abroad in 1 75 will show that if we exclude the products of the field, With our vast deposits of coal and iron; with our rich and produc the forest, and the mine, not more thnn one-twentieth of our exports tive soil for the growth of food and cotton; with our uulimited sup are from our shops, or about thirty of the six hundred and thirty ply of every variety of timber for the manufacture of all artieles million dollars' worth exported last fi ·cal year. So rapid hn.s been made of wood; wit.h our advantages for the growing of wool; with the growth of our population and o great our own wants, manu our net-work of railroads; with our water-lines of tran portation~ factures have not to any great extent outgrown the wants of our own with all these advantages for manufacturifJ~ and shipping our prod people. As the agricultura.l· States accumulate weaUh, as they are ucts to market we should not have sufferea one pound of raw ma now very fast, the debts owing to the East will be paid off; the land terial to have left our shores, but everything should have been manu will become the property of re:idents altogether; the price received factured here, and the profits in so do in~ sa,ved to our own people, and tue for the large surplus crop will seek investment in industrie iu our sUI·plus beyond what we needed for nome consumption. should have towns and villages, with a view to consuming at horne as much as h<>en sent abroad in American bottoms, built in our own ship-yard . po ible the ever-increasing surplus. But our trouble is uow, and has bt~eu all the time, that these n:tturaJ Now that our people ask protection from the pauper labor of Russia advantages are of no benefit to n , for the reason that most of the and India on this art.icle that they have been adopting into the list articles we manufacture, after they are produced, are not worth auy of crops, it is no more than fair, just: and equitable that the duty more, aud. often not as much, as the cost of their production, on acconut on these commodities should be r tainec.l on the statute as they are of the lligh rates of interest that our ma.nufacturers have to pay for DOW. We are far from the eaboard; transportation co~sume much monoy to carry on busine . of our profit.s. \Ve bav·e asked that extortion and discr:mi!lation on Men eaunot afford to work hard all the year, and when they bal · interstate railroads be prevented. But this House refuses to con ance their accouut.s, find that the interest which they have had to pay sider the question or allow a vote on a resolution I introduced declar for money in order to do lmsines amounts to inore than their clear ing the power and duty of Congre sin this respect. We attempt to profits on the work they have done. That bas been and still is the evade the transp_ortation tax by starting manufactures, and a west real showiug of the balance-sheets of a majority of our merchant , ern man, singularly enough from the great grain and. meat raising manufacturers, and business men who have ha-d to borrow money in State of Illinois, proposca to prevent the growth of new crops and order to do bu iness, until hundreds and thousands of them have the establishment of new manufactures. If this tariff bill had come become utterly discouraged, stopped work, and ceased to employ labor, from an eastei·n member, I could well understand the object. No and as their only relief from their embarrassment ma.ny of them have eastern man, however, will have the hardihood to refuse us the benefit gone into bankruptcy. Hence our laboring people, who spend their of a tithe of the laws neces ary to raise revenue and incidentally pro money freely to make them elves and families comfortabl~ when th y tect Jabor while we are getting upon our feet in the manufacturing have it, are without employment and without money to pay their of our own raw ma.tei-ial. · debts or purcba e the necessities of life. We owe obligations abroad asindi vidna.Is, corporations, cities, States, Many gentlemen who are free-traders in money insist that it is our and as a nation. We are an honest people and we mean to pay these tarift'laws that have closed against us the mar)wts of the world, and d.ebts; but we must earn the money before we can pay them. Thein ha,ve therefore dwarfed our productive industry and caused all thi du ·trio us men of the nation on the farms, in the shops, in the forests, distress upon the country. They say that our high duties have kopt and in the mines must toil to prepare articles for sale, or our debt us from lllanufacturing and shipping our pmducts abroad, and com will never be paid. A struggle is going on between the workers of our peting with Europe in t.he markets of the world. When Great Brit country and other countries. Thou ands of our workers are idle. Mr. ain to-day, with her cheap interest and cheap labor, is able to ship MORRISON'S bill proposes to ma~e idle several thousands more. Over her manufactured articles to our own shores, pay our present dutie , seventy-two thousand acres in Iowa is to lie idle that bas been rais and then sell the articles in our own market as cheap as we can man ing flax, and the cultivators of the e acres are to stand idle or rai e facture th.em here, on account of our high rates of interest. If our corn to add to the one hundred and forty million bushels we now raise, manuiactmers could use money at low interest, they could furnish or wheat to add to the forty-three million bushels we now raise, in products to our own people at cheap rates, and we might then talk order to enable the Russians and BengaJese to sell us twice as much about competing with Europe with our manufactured articles in all flax and oil as they sell us now and cripple our ability to pay our war the markets of the world, but not till then. It is theretore high in debt. Is it either wisdom, justice, or public policy to stop our creat terest, and not the tariff, that is hurtin~ us, and preventing our pros ors of wealth f perity; for under our tariff laws as tney aro we ship scarcely any Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, the bill now before the Committee thing abroad, except our mw material. And .still we purchase from on nanking and Currency, which provides fqr the regulating of inter Europe of her manufactured articles, as a general rule, more in value ~st by Congress and fixing the same uta rate not exceeding 6 per cent. each year than the raw material we ship away, a,nd that difference in every part Qf the United States, is one that I had the honor to present we have to pay in gold. If our tariff wa-s made lower, and the rates to this House. I regard the questions em braced within it the most im of interest remained. as they are now, the only result would be we portant that can or will be brought before this Congress. The future would purcha e more ~broad than we have been doing, and have that bappines and prosperity of a,ll the laboring interests of this country much larger balance in gold to pay. We purchase enough now for are involved within it. High interest has ha.d more to do with bring our own good, and certainly want no change in the tariff that would ing upon our people their present distresses than all other causes put require us to purchase more, in order to make our revenue equal to together. It is the devouring moth that has consumed the su bst.ance what we now receive. For every manufactured article we purchase of the bnsineRS and laboring people of the country and retarded our abroan, to that extent we rob labor here. national growth and prosperity. I therefore re pectfully ask the Mr. Chairman, I venture the a sertion that if you could get the real Honse not to pass tmfavorable judgment upon the bill until its merits and hone t sentiments of all the people of the United States to-day, shall have been fully discussed and understood. ten-twelft.hs of them would tell you that the paralyzed condition of In a country like ours, where we are blessed with every variety of the country, the failures and bankruptcy of so many of our business climate that the wish of man could desire; wit.h a productive soil, men, the sufiering and want of our laboring people, are attributable sufficient in quantity when properly cultivated and stocked to feed more to the high rates of interest 'that they have had to pay for the use and clothe not only onr own people, were our population tenfold of money in onler to do business than all the other causes put together. what it is, but the whole world besides; and with minerals enough The power of money to accumulate by interest is a subject that is tu supply the wants of mankind~with all these advantages and not thoroftghly understood by our people; if it was, but few men ble~sings, still the country is not prosperous. Its business is para could be found who would question for a moment the truth of the lyzed; many of its wor&.snops and manufacturing establishments are assertion that it is high interest more than every other cause that has standing idle; ~he masses of the people are burclenecl witQ. debt and paralyzed the CO\lntry, broken down the business men, and driven so taxation ; the labor of the country is unemployed, and hundreds of many of them into bankruptcy, and brought so much distre s, mi ery, thousands who want work, ~nt cannot get it, are actually suffering and want upon the ~aboring people. for the necessit:ies of life. These things should not be so. Yet they To illustrate this power of interest, let me give a few examples are stubborn facts that are looking us squarely in the face, a,nd we where the note is renewed ;1ot the end of each year and the interest have to meet them whether we want t;O or not. included within it. · What are the causes of this paralysis in business, and this distress One dollar loaned one hundred years at;..:. of our people' They are various. Among them may be mentioned, 1 per cent. would amount to...... $2 75 overproduction, extravaga.nce, destruction of property by flood antl by 3 per cent...... l!l 25 fire, failure of large numbers of our business men, want of confidence 6 per cent...... 340 00 10 per cent...... 13, 809 00 in business among our leading capitalists. But the principal cause, 12percent ...... -·······-····-·---·· 84,675 00 and the one that lays at the bottom of all these I have mentioned, 15 per ceut ...... ·---·· ----·-·-·· ...... 1, 174,405 00 except loss by flood and by fire, is the enormous rates of interest that 18 pe>r ceut...... 15, 145, 007 00 our people have been compelled to pay and are still paying in order 24percent ...... 2,551,799,404 00 to keep up their credit and carry on the business of the country. I If the notes were renewed every four or six months, instead of oucc mention overproduction as one of tbe causes of our present troubles; a year, the increase would be much larger than the above figures aud when we take into con ideration the high interest that our oper show. ator!\ have had to pay for money in order to do business, it i one of 1f1ost per ons, without giving the subject reflection, suppose that the c'tnses. Bnt sti1l we have not produced one-half what we should money at 6 per cent. thus loaned would only be six times more in have done .to give us the prosp.erity that we are entitled to and which amount t-han when loaned at l per cent., but the figmes show that it 1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. 1655 amounts to over one hundred and twenty-three times as muck. And when tion on account of high interest that when the articles are sold in the loaned at 10 per cent., insteau of its being ten times more than when market at a reasonable profit to these middle-men they are nece a loaned at 1 per cent., we find it amounts to more than ji1'e thousand rily dear, and in many cases the poorer clas es of people in cities t-imes that amount, and over forty tirnes as much as when loaned at 6 by rea on thereof are compelled to eat inferior and often unhealthy per cent. And when loaned at 12 per cent., which is 1 per cent. a food. Therefore I insist upon making money-which controls the month, the usual rate paid in my part of the State-Indiana-instead price of everything else--cheap, and then all articles of food and of it being only twelve times as much as when loaned at 1 per cent., clo tb ing in the madet will be correspondi ugly cheap to the consumers. we find it over thirty thottsa1ul tintes that amount, and a.bout two hun There is no otller way of regulating the price of articles in the market dred and fifty times as much as when loaned at 6 per cent. And as except by regulating the price of money. we increase the percentage, the increase in amount is much more But I am told that regulating the value of money by fixing the rate rapid; in fact, the increase is so great, -that its results are not only of interest is in opposition to the views of modern writers upon the astounding, but alarming. For at 24 per cent. the interest, instead subject of money as well as against the intelligence of the age; that of being twenty-jour times greater tha,n 1 per cent., amounts to near a interest must be regulated by the law of supply and demand, and not thousand Tnillion tintes nwre. by statute; that usury laws are a humbug, a relic of the dark age , Now, if we will compare the results of labor for one hundred years and only serve to make interest higher instead of lower. with the results of thet:!e high rates of interest, we will see that)abor Mr. Chairman, I am aware that that is the argument of the money stands no show whatever, for the reason that laboring men, as a gen lenders of the world. I know they think they represent the intelli eral rule, neither Jay up nor loan money, as it takes all their wages to gence of the age. They refer us to Great Britain and other European properly support, Qlothe, and educate their families. What they earn governments, where usury laws have long since been abolisheu, as they make it benefit the country, for they keep it in circuL'ttion. proof of the fact that free trade in money-that is, letting the law of The above figures show that one dollar in the hands of a capita.list supply and demand regulate its price-makes interest cheap ; for they loaned for one hundred years at 12 per cent. would lay up for its say that interest is only 3 and 4 per cent. there. I admit that inter owner 84,675; while a laboring man in one hundred years, supposing est is cheap in Europe. Why t Becanse capital, not havil1g been him to work thr,ee hundred days in ea~h year, at $1.50 per day, could properly restrained there by law, has ground labor by its rates of in only earn 45,000. So that one dolla.r loaned for one hundred years at 12 terest until it has made paupers of all its laboring-people, aucl 3 an(l per cent. would earn for its owner during that time .39,6i5 more than 4 per cent. is now all that it can squeeze out of them. Hence, that is a laboring ma.n at $1.50 per clay could earn during the hundred years. now the rate of interest there. If labor could pay more, capital wonld And at 24 per cent. the one dollar would earn for its owner 28,404 exact more, for it takes every cent of the earnings of labor in Eurcpo more than 56,706 laborers could earn during that time, supposing except a bare subsistence. Does any man within the sound of my each man to work three hundred days in the yea.r at · $1.50 each per voice desire that such a state of thing-s shall ever exist in this coun day. For the figures show that the one dollar for one hundred years try Y Does any true lover of a republican form· of government desire at 24 per cent. would earn 2,551,798,404, while 56,706 laborers at to see the labor of this country r~clnced to pauperism Y If not we must $1.50 per day each for one hundred years, counting three hundred protect it by controlling the power of money. That can only be done working days in each year, coulu only earn 2,551,770,000. Excess of by an act of Congress m~de broad and strong enough to prevent usury, interest over labor $28,404. for the States have not the power, a.s I will show; and the l:lw of When we reflect that the annual increase in value of the whole supply and demand cannot, for, under its operations, high interest country does not exceed 3t per cent. nuder our present mode of doing has almost ea.ten up the country. brt iness, and that all this increase in wealth is addeu by labor, how An act of Congress that will save the labor of the country from the is it po sible for labor to prosper while it has to pay to the money usurious gra.sp of capital is called by our money-lenders a humbug, a lender fr.Jm 10 to 12 per cent. for the use of money to do business that relic of the dark ages. Why a law t-o. prevent usury should be thus yields only 3t per cent. V It must be remembered that the difference characterized I cannot understand. History does not warrant it; between the percentage of increase of wealth and theintereston money neither do the decisions of the legal tribunals of the country; for in that is used in business is a tax upon labor, which keeps it oppressed the highest courts of both Europe and America, where the utility of and will continue to oppress it as long as high rates of interest are usury laws have been thoroughly considered by thl} ablest judges permitte(l, · who have ever sat U}JOD the bench, with scarcely an exception these If interest was so regulated by law that it could not in any case judges have all agreed that usury laws were an absolute necessity to exceed 6 per cent., money-lenders would then be compelled to keep protect the weak a.gainst the extortions of the strong. · their money active. They could not afford to let it lie idle. They Lord Reclesdale, one of the able t of the English judges, in closing would either put it in business themselves or loan it to those who an opinion in a celebrated usury case, said: · • could afford to. . The labor of the country would soon be employed to The statute of usury is const-antly interposing its warning voice between the its fullest extent; manufacturing establishments would be multiplied creditor aml the debtor, even in their most secret and dangerous negotiations, and by the thousand and laborer& by the millions; substantial wealth teaches ale son of moderation to the one and offers its protecting arm to the other. would be rapidly added to the country, and the people relieved of I am not willing to withdraw snch a entinel. I have been called to witnes . in the their embanassments; manufactured products would be cheap, and course of my official life, t()O many nctims to the weakness and to the inflamed the markets of the world supplied from our workshops. 'fhen the passions of men. difference he tween the percentage of increase of wealth and that of in Chancellor Kent, one of the ablest of his profession in America, in terest on monp,y would be very sli~ht, and labor would be relieved of a celebrated usury case before the court of errors of the State of New the burden .of that difference, whwh has been hanging like a mill York, after thoroughly reviewing the history of the law of usury and stone upon its neck. its effects upon s_ociety, closed by sayillg: Many persons object to regulating the price of money by fixing the I apprehend it would be perilous in the extreme to throw aside all the existing interest it shall earn, and say that you might as well undertake to check.'! upon usurious extortion and abolish or traduco a law whi,ch is founded on regulate the price of wheat, corn, beef, hogs, labor, rent.s, &c., by law the accumulated experience of every age. • as to undertake to fix the price of money. There is no good sense in Mr. Tyler, in his work on usury, written ·in 1872, on page 64, in the objection, for the rea.son that money is not a commodity ]ike speaking of our usury laws, says: wheat and corn. It is used to purchase or exchange commodities. Its That in most cases the objections to these laws emanate from money-lendcrn value is not regulated by wheat and corn, but the value of wheat and themselves, and they are usually most prominent in making effort., to obtain their corn is re~ulated by it. Money is the yardstick that.measures the value repeal; and, further, that it is the daily observation of every discerning bo inEll'!s man that no person can continue for an.v considerable length o£ time in any lef,riti of all art1cles in the market for sale or hil·e. If money is worth 6 per mate calling who i in the constant habit of borrowing money at exorbitant inter cent. and not alloweu to go above that, then wheat, corn, labor, and est; his failure is a. foregone conclo ion, and it is only a question of time. The rents will have a regular value in the mo,rket, for we generally find probabilities therefore are tha.t these legal restraints will still be continued in many that there is about o mnoh rai ed, and so much labor hired each year, or most of the American States, and that tJ!e time is at least far distant when the increasing in amounts with the increase in population and wealth. system will be permanently abandoned. But if the value of money is allowe(l to fluctuate so that one month Our great trouble in legislating by State is this: We have so many it is worth 6 per cent., and the price of all articles is regulated by it, of them and their la.ws are so different that it is an impossibility for if the next month it is worth twice as much, say 12 per cent., then the people by State law to protect themselves against mmry. For labor and all other couunodities ought to double in price so as to keep example, if' the people of one State fix interest, say, at G per cent., and pace with it; bn.t the reverse is true. When interest is high then make the law so strong that no man dares violate it, the result is that labor and the products of the farm are cheap, and times become bani. the money -lenders of that State transfer their loans to some other Hal'd, it is true, upon the labor of the country, but not upon the State where interest is higher; and the people who made the law wealth, for the wealthy llave the money and get twice as much for find it an injury instead of a benefit, for all their money is taken from its use during these bard times as the laboring-men for their labor them to other States. The Ia.w, therefore, remains on the statute and prouucts, and hence the burdens and miseries of hard times fall book a 3.65 bond make interest lower to those who want to borrow money T expense. And • 1660 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE. ~!ARCH 11, be done to prevent it 7 How is interest to be cheapeue·d f The D1oney ployed. If our eastern friends think that 6 per cent, is enough for lenders say, "Let the laws of trade, supply and demand. regulate the money, and that that is all their money-lenders exact, then this law price of money; then the country \vill be prosperous." Others say the I propose will not hurt them. It will only make certain what is now States must regulate the rates of interest on money; that Congress uncertain, that is, it will fix interest at a rate not exceeding 6 per has no power over the subject. I have shown that the law of supply cent. which might go beyond that amount. and demand will not regulate interest and make it cheap. I have Some insist that we cannot enforce a 6 per cent. interest law. That also shown th~tt the States have not the power to do so; for under the is what the whisky ring believed when we made the law putting the ?perat.ions of the State laws and the law of supply and demand high tax on whisky so high, but the ·experience of the last few months has tnterest ha.s almost eaten up the counny. I have shown. that the converted them, and they now believe it can be. Anfl if gentlemen 3.65 bond ~annot. lower it to the money-borrowers, wli.o give employ will examine the provisiona of the bill No. 1226, now on their files, ment to labor. Neither will the breaking down of the national banks which I had the honor to present, they will come to the conclusion and :mbstituting the green backs in the place of the bank-notes do so. that it would be Aafer to violate the law regulating the tax on whisky Then how can it be done T I see no earthly way, unless Congress will than that regulating the interest on money, if it waa once enacted in take hold of the question and make a law fixing the rate of interest to a law. at which our national money shall be loaned in every part of the I do not contend that Congress has the power to regulate interest. United States; make that rat.e not exceeding 6 per cent., and then on contracts made by the people of the same State, where the loan with the strong arm of the Government enforce the law, compel every ing of national money does not in any way directly or indirectly en person to obey it or suffer the penalty. Six per cent. is as much as ter into the contract. For example. If a man sells his farm, stock, legitimat-e business can pay. If those who have money will not loan grain, or the like, and the purchaser executes his notes, the interest it at that rate, let them keep it or put it in business themselves. that such notes should bear should be regulated 1Jy the State. And What the country wants is for our money to be put in circulation. the owners of such notes should be left free to dispose of them at It makes no difference who does it, so that it is done; but if it has to such rates of discount as allowefl by the laws of that State. The ob be by borrowers, then I want it to be at a rate of interest that will ject of the bill under (liscussion is to regulate the interest on all na- Justify the employment of labor in legitimat.e business. If interest tional money hired, loaned, or used in business. _ · lS low, money-lenders cannot afford to let their money remain idle; If capital remains unrestrained in this country and the money they must keep it active, so as to ma.ke it earn a livelihood for lenders are left free to charge al?y amount of interest that they can them. contract for without reference to what per cent. legitimate business Low interest is what the country needs in order to revive business will pay, as all the financial plans now before the country permit, and give employment to labor at living wages. The question of interest will continue much higher than the per cent. of increase on the quality or quantity of our money is but secondary to the ques business throughout the countr.v-, and that.difference must and will be tion of low interest. The ma.sses are satisfiefl with our paper money, ground from the swea.t and toil of labor. If this grinding process is and I have no doubt but what there is sufficient in quantity to do all continued it will be but a few generations until capital will control t.he legitimat.e business, ii interest was only low enough to justify its use labor of this country, the same as it does the labor in Europe. To by the people. If Congress should issue a thousand millions of green allow that to be done would be worse than a crime. But that result is as backs the people coulfl not get this money unless they had something inevitable and certain, unless we restrain tbe power of money, as that to · exchange for it, either property or lahor. I care not how much the weak must give way to the strong when they come in contact. money we put in circulation, it will soon get into the hands of the few. History, as well as our own experience, teaches us that capital unre And, unless wefixtherateofinterestbyla.w, beyond whichitcannotbe strained will grind labor. With that knowledge, can any Representa loaned, these few will tix the rates to suit themselves, and it will be so tive on this floor refuse his assent to a law the purpose and effect of high that it will constantly grind labor, because labor must bear the which are to prevent this great injustice by using.the strong arm of the burden of loss between the per cent. of money auf! the per cent. of G-overnment to cheapen interest, so as to shield and protect the labor increase in the growth of the country. It is a mistaken notion to ing and business men of the country from the impoverishing grasp of suppose that Congress can give prosperity to the country by issuing capital f greenbacks. Prosperity must come, if at all, fi·om labor, and not Mr. BENNETT obtained the floor, but yielded to Mr. RA...~DALL, who from acts of Congress. All that Congress should flo is to see that the moved that the committee rise. • country has a sound currency, free from monopoly, anfl in such shape The motion was agreed to. tbat its volume will be controlled by the flemands of business, and The commit.tee accordingly rose; and Mr. HOLMAN having taken not. by the whims of Congress, aml at a rate of interest that legiti the chair as Speaker pro tempm·e, Mr. Cox reported that the Commit mate business can afforcl to pay, in no case exceeding 6 per cent. tee of the 'Vhole on the siate of the Union had, according to order, The. people must learn that in order to get greenbacks they must had under consilleration the special order, a bill (H. R. No. :l571) mak rely upon their labor, and not upon Congress. If the farmer wants ing appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses green backs he must cultivat.e the soil properly, and in the fall have · of the Government for the year ending June 30, 1877, and for other plenty of corn, wheat, pork, aml beef to sell, and I will insure him purposes, and had come to no resolution thereon. plenty of greenbacks. If the blacksmith wants them, he must pound TRANSFER OF lli'DIAN BUREAU. them out on his anvil anfl he will have plenty. The carpenter must plane them out of the plank he works up, anfl he will be in the same Mr. COOK. I am instructefl by the Committee on the Judiciary to condition. And so .of all other kinds of business. Greenbacks must report a substitute for the bill (H. R. No. 9R7) to transfer the conduct come to the people-.throngh labor; tl).ey cannot come in any other of In.dian affairs from the Interior Department to the War Depart way so as to give prosperity; but in order to insure this prosperity in ment, and to :tpove that it be recommitted and orderefl to be printed, the country money must circulate freely ana at a rate of interest that and to enter a motion to reconsider. will justify business and enable it t.o keep the labor of the country Mr. BURCHARD, of Illinois. I flo not object if it is not to be constantly employed. brought back on a motion to reconsider. Some say there is no necessity for this law; that interest is now Mr. COOK. I desire to enter a motion to reconsider. cheap enough in the East; that millions of money can be had there ?.:lr. HOAR. Does the gentleman propose to lea'i·e the motion to at 5 and 6 per cent. I have no doubt it can now be had at that rate reconsider pe.nding t . if you give national bonds a.s security anfl agree to pay on call. But Mr. COOK. Yes; but I do not propose to call it up until there is because it is thus cheap is no inducement for men of enterpr.ise to a full Honse. borrow it and engage in business that will give employment to labor. Mr. RANDALL. The motion to reconsider can only be carried by Why 'f They know as soon as they do and the country begins to look a majority. prosperous,· then these money-lenders will commence raising interest Mr. HOAR. I must object. on them and they will be forced to pay their high rates or lose every The SPEAKER pro tempm·e. The bill is not before the HoUI:ie, ob thing they invest. Therefore they cannot make anything by thus en jection being m~de. gaging in bllSiness, for the reason that the money-lenders by their LEAVE OF ABSE~CE. high rates of interest get all the cream of their profits, and leave By unanimous consent, leave of absence was granted to Mr. nothing for them and the laborers they employ to do the work but HATCHER for twenty days on account of important bnsinoss; to Mr. skimmed milk. MAcKEY, of South Carolina, for four days; and to Mr. LAWRENCE for This cry of cheap interest in the East, therefore, is but a snare to two weeks from Tuesday next. men of enterprise. It is a nice thing to induce them to commence And then, on motion of 1\Ir. VANCE, of North Carolina, (at five business, but its sudden growth, as soon as business is fairly estab o'clock and eight minutes p.m.,) the House adjourned. li~:~bed, is what hurts them a.nd deters men of ~nterprise from engag ing in pm'Suits that would give the country the prosperity it so much needs. Going into business now is like going into a fair-it only costs PETITIO~S, ETC. a dollar to get in, but fifty to get eut. If men coula know when they The following memorials, petitions, and other papers were presented engage in business that interest could. not rise on them, when they at the Clerk's desk under the rule, and .referred as statefl : got fairly under headway, beyonfl 6 per cent., then they could and By Mr. BANNING : The protest of H. L. Todd, against certain ir would engage in it a.ll the time; but while they k~ow that as soon as ~e.~u.larities in the United States Army, to the Committee on Military they commence interest will then start up .anu increase just fast Altaus. enough to eat up all tho profits, they prefer to let manufacturing and By Mr. COWAN: The petition of 270 citizens of the fonrteonth con other busineRs alone, and that is the principal reason why the busi gressional district of Ohio. for the release of Edward O'Meagher Con uess of the cotmtry is paralyzed and tho labor of the country unem- den from an English prison, to the Committee on l!'oreign Affairs. 1876. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 166.1 By Mr. COX: The petition of George C. Richardson and other citi the Commissioner of the General Land Office for land sclip in lien of zens of Now York, for the amendment of the bankrupt law, to the their lands sold by the United States Government and lying within Committee on the Judiciary. the limits of a Spanish grdnt t.o James Maxwell which was confirmed By Mr. HOPKINS : The petition of soldiers of the late war residing to Hugh:H. and John P. Maxwell; which was refened to the Com in Alle~heny County, Pennsylvania, for the equalization of bounties, mittee (ln Private Land Claims. to the \Jommittee on .Military Affairs. Mr. BOUTWELL presented the memorial of George D. Cabot, By :Mr. HUNTON: The petition of Matilda and Mary Heymes, for president, and George B. Neal, secretary, of the New England Associ the payment of money due them under the invalid-pension laws, to ation of Gas Engineers, in favor of fixiug a time for the general in 11lle Committee on Invalid Pensions. troduction of the metric system of weights and measures; which was By Mr. McCRARY: Memorial of the lot proprietors of Glenwood referred to the Committee on Finance. Cemetery, in the District of Columbia, to place the control of said Mr. WEST preseuted a memorial of the city council of New Or cemetery in their hands, to the Committee for th6 District of Colum leans, in favor of the appropriation.Oy Congress of the money neces bia. sary to place the United Sta . ~s mint in that city in fnll operation r By Mr. McFARLAND: The petition of James Lynn and others, for which was referred to the Committee on Appropriations. the establishment of a post-route from Kingsport to Arcatiia, Snllivan Mr. McMILLAN presented a joint resolution of the Legislature of County, Tennessee, to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post- Minnesota, in favor of the establishment of a man-route from Chaska, Roads. · in Carver County, to Exceh!ior, in Hennepin County.; which was re By Mr. PIPER: :M~morial of the Ladies' Seamen's Friend Society ferred to the Committ.ee on Post-Offices and Po t-Roads. of San Francisco, relating to the marine hospital at that place, to the Mr. MORRILL, of Maine. I pre ent a petition of merchants and Committee on Commerce. business men of the city of Portla.nd, :Maine, approving the principle 1 By lli. JOHN REILLY: The petition of soldiers of Cambria Coun of the law of Congress known as the bankrupt law, aml they "re ty, Pennsylvania., that one hundred and sixty acres of land and $200 spectfully remonstrat-e against the proposed repeal of the bankrupt be given to soldiers and sailors who served thirty days or over in the law, and pray your honorable bodies to take action for the amend late war in the At·my or Navy, to the Committee on Public Lands. ment of the same. And such of your memorialists as may have here By Mr. RIDDLE: Papers relating to the petition of Henry A. Kelly, tofore signed a petition for the repeal of the bankrupt law respect for additional compensa.tion as a. United States officer, to the Com fnlly request that such petition ma.y be understood as expressing mittee on Military Affairs. their opposition to the law as it now stands, but not as opposing the By Mr. SEELYE: The petition of the Boston Homeopathic Medical just and salutary principle of the law, nor as opposed to the law with Society, for the introduction of the metric syst.em of 'weights and such modifications as are n.bove suggested." I move that the petition measures, to the Committee on Coinacre, Weights, and Measures. be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. By Mr. SMITH, of Pennsylvania: The petition of Ann S. Ducbman, The motion was agreed to. for a pension, to the Committee on Invalitl Pensions. l\Ir. EATON presented a memolial of the bar of the district of Con By Mr. STEVENS, of Arizona: The petition of 91 citizens of Ari necticut, in favor of a modification of the pending bi1l constituting a zona, for the esta.blishment of a mail-route from Phrenix to Prescott, new court of appeals so as to provide that the sessionti thereof for the to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads. second circuit shall be held in New York City instead of Albany, By Mr. WILLARD: Memorial of the president, professors, and offi New York, as proposed; which was referred to the Committee on the cers of Yale College-, in favor of a decima.l metric system of weights Judiciary. ·· and measures and its application to the postal aud revenue service, l\ir. STEVENSON presented a petition of citizens of Covington, to the Committee on Coinage, 'Weights, and Measures. Kentucky, praying for the· repeal of the bankrupt law; which was Also, memorial of E. L. Kingsley aud others, of similar import, to referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. the same committe.e. . By Mr. WOOD, of New York: The petition of Margaret Brewster, LIEUTE~A...""T JOIDI' A. SHAW. for a pension, to the Committee on Invalid Pensions. Mr. COCKRELL. I am directed by the Committee on Military Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. No. 509) for the relief of John A. Shaw, to report it without amendment and submit a report thereon. If there be no objection I should like to have the bill considered at the present time. It will only take a moment. IN SEN4.TE. By unanimous consent, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, proceede