146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In order to be able to pay these notes on demand when de- 

 mand is made, the treasury of the United States holds a special 

 reserve of $100,000,000 in gold coin ; but the amount of notes due 

 is in round figures $350,000,000. The United States, therefore, 

 owes substantially $250,000,000 on demand, for which it has as 

 yet made no specific provision either in gold coin or to any con- 

 siderable extent, even in silver coin which can be made available 

 for such payments. The remainder of its gold held in the treas- 

 ury above the special reserve of $100,000,000 is either subject to 

 payment on demand in liquidation of gold certificates of deposits, 

 or else it constitutes a part of the necessary daily balance of money 

 necessary to the ordinary conduct of business. The larger part, if 

 not the whole, of the silver dollars held by the treasury are held 

 to meet the payment of the silver certificates which have been 

 issued against them. There are, therefore, substantially $250,- 

 000,000 of United States notes due on demand, for which no spe- 

 cific provision has yet been made and to the payment of which 

 the so-called surplus revenue could now be apj^lied. Yet the 

 public mind has become so accustomed to the common use of a 

 debt currency, which under a fiction of law has been declared to 

 be lawful money by the Supreme Court of the United States, as 

 to have lost sight of the fact that the greenback or legal-tender 

 note is not true money, but that it is an evidence of debt to be 

 paid. Therefore, no consideration is given to the possible appli- 

 cation of surplus revenue, so called, to such payment of these 

 notes now due on demand. 



In order that this subject may be made clear, it becomes ne- 

 cessary to recur once more to the original purpose of the Govern- 

 ment in issuing United States notes and compelling their accept- 

 ance as lawful money by means of the legal-tender act. These 

 notes ivere issued in time of war for the purpose of collecting a 

 forced loan and for no other purpose. The necessity for a forced 

 loan has ceased ; the revenue of the Government is in excess of 

 its necessary expenditures. When the revenue derived from 

 taxation is paid to the Government in its own notes, that forced 

 loan, to the amount of such notes paid in, has been liquidated by 

 way of taxation. Each note returned to the treasury in settle- 

 ment of a tax becomes like a common bank-note when redeemed 

 by the bank ; it is a note paid. It is functus officio. Its reissue 

 by the treasury of the United States is in fact the collection of a 

 new forced loan without authority of law under any act author- 

 izing such a new loan, without necessity, without benefit to any 

 one, and with positive danger to the whole community. 



If the executive officers of the United States were to take the 

 ground that these notes should not be reissued when they had 

 once been paid into the treasury of the United States in settle- 



