IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 



147 



and resolutely opposed to repudiation in any 

 form. There was a general impression in New 

 England that he would be able to prevent any 

 tampering with the act of 1'875. 



The apologists of Mr. Bland's bill contend 

 that the bill provides for the honest fulfillment 

 of the financial obligations of the Government. 

 They allege that, when the American debt was 

 contracted, silver was a legal tender, and that 

 the acts under which the loans were raised prom- 

 ised payment of principal and interest in "coin," 

 but did not specifically promise gold. 1 These 

 pleas may have concealed from honest Americans 

 the true character of Mr. Bland's measure, but as 

 a justification of it they are wholly and absurdly 

 inadequate. When the loans were raised, the 

 United States had practically ceased to have a 

 double standard; "coin" meant gold; the inter- 

 est of the public debt has always been paid in 

 gold ; the duties which have been levied to pay 

 the interest have been made payable in gold. To 

 make silver a legal tender and to make the silver 

 dollar weigh only 412| grains is an attempt to 

 cheat all creditors for the advantage of all debt- 

 ors. If the ratio between the value of gold and 

 the value of silver which has ruled for some time 

 past continues, every one who has lent money, 

 whether to the Federal Government, to State gov- 

 ernments, 2 to municipal corporations, to railway 

 and manufacturing companies, or to private per- 

 sons, will lose nine or ten per cent, of his principal 

 and interest. The parable of the unjust steward 

 is to be illustrated in the national policy of Amer- 

 ica ; to every man who owes a hundred thousand 

 dollars, Mr. Bland says, " take thy bill and write 

 ninety." 



It is very possible, indeed, that the enormous 

 injustice which this policy is calculated to inflict 

 may be averted. Under the fresh demand for 

 silver created by remonetization, the price may 

 touch a point which will make the silver dollar of 

 412| grains equal in value to gold. If this hap- 

 pens, the people of the United States will have 

 provoked universal distrust and indignation by 

 the attempt to pay their debts in a depreciated 

 currency, and yet they will have to pay in full. 

 They will have committed the crime, and will lose 

 the wages of their iniquity. 



1 In a letter which appeared in the Times of Feb- 

 ruary 18th it is stated that " in the prospectus of the 

 funded loans- issued under the auspices of Messrs. 

 Rothschild and Messrs. Baring Brothers— payment of 

 both interest and paincipal is guaranteed in 'gold 

 coin' of the United States." 



2 Immediately on the passing of Mr. Bland's bill, 

 Massachusetts announced that she intended to pay the 

 interest of her debt in gold. 



The controversy is a grave one, politically as 

 well as morally. It will create a bitter feeling in 

 New England against the rest of the country. 

 The Middle and Western States are the bor- 

 rowers ; the Northeastern States are the lenders. 

 The sudden resurrection of Chicago from its ashes 

 a few years ago was the splendid achievement of 

 New England capital. A great part of the city 

 was mortgaged to the men of Connecticut and 

 Massachusetts. When the fire came, the mort- 

 gagees found the money necessary to rebuild. 

 Chicago is only an example of the extent to which 

 the West is indebted to the Northeast. If the 

 results which Mr. Bland and his supporters are 

 expecting actually follow the triumph of their pol- 

 icy, the resentment of the New-Englanders will 

 not be easily allayed. 1 



I propose to give my impressions of the com- 

 mon schools of America in another paper ; but 

 there are certain political aspects of the educa- 

 tion question which it will be convenient to dis- 

 miss at once. 



As to the necessity of maintaining the exist- 

 ing system for providing elementary education, I 

 found no difference of opinion among the Ameri- 

 cans with whom I happened to meet. On this 

 subject Northerners and Southerners, the men of 

 New England and the men of the West, Repub- 

 licans and Democrats, free-traders and protection- 

 ists, Episcopalians, Unitarians, and Congregation- 

 alists, were all of one mind. About the free high- 

 schools there was not the same unanimity. In one 

 of the Middle States I spent an evening with a num- 

 ber of gentlemen who complained most bitterly of 

 being taxed for schools in which, without paying 

 a cent, the son of a bricklayer or a washer-woman 

 may study conic sections and the calculus, Goethe, 

 Moliere, and Tacitus, ancient and modern history, 

 political economy, and the art of rhetoric ; and in 

 which the bricklayer's daughter and the washer- 

 woman's daughter may have half an hour's calis- 

 thenics every day, may have a drawing-master 

 and a music-master, may study geometry and 

 work quadratic equations, may run through a 

 course of French and German literature, and may 

 listen to lectures on chemistry, on mechanics, on 

 heat, on light and sound, on electricity, galvan- 



1 These paragraphs were written before the bill 

 had passed. The President's message to Congress, in 

 which he explained his reasons for vetoing the bill 

 was excellent ; but within two hours and twenty-five 

 minutes from the time the veto message reached the 

 Capitol, the measure was carried through both Houses 

 by majorities sufficiently large to overrule the veto: in 

 the House of Representatives by 196 to 73, fifty votes 

 over the necessary majority of two-thirds; in the Sen- 

 ate by 46 to 19, eight votes over the two-thirds. 



