CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



141 



compelled to seek refuge in the almshouse or 

 commit petty crime to secure the shelter of 

 the jail? These are the legitimate fruits of 

 repudiation by Congress of the currency itself 

 had created. 



" I speak for the American people, and I ask 

 the Government to be honest to its own peo- 

 ple before it is generous to foreign bankers 

 and bondholders. 



" What does the bill propose ? This : that 

 any citizen or corporation having money lying 

 idle, for which no present use exists, may lend 

 it to the Government at the rate of 3.65 per 

 cent., recalling it as he would do from a sav- 

 ings-bank or individual to whom it had been 

 loaned on call when the time comes for more 

 advantageous use. What good would that do ? 

 you say. Why, sir, in the first place, it would 

 remove the brand of repudiation from our 

 legal tenders, and it would give the Govern- 

 ment immediately and when I say imme- 

 diately I mean, say, within six months 'from 

 the time when the first bond should be issued 

 about five hundred million dollars at that 

 low rate of interest, payable to our own peo- 

 ple within our own limits, with which to 

 redeem gold-bearing bonds now held by for- 

 eigners. It would relieve us of that amount 

 of that debt abroad which so curses us. It 

 would give increased value to the greenback, 

 and thereby diminish the disparity between it 

 and gold. It would diminish the demand for 

 gold, and thereby again decrease the disparity 

 between gold and the greenback. 



"And, sir, more and better than this, it 

 would quicken every industry in the country. 

 How so ? Why, sir, our currency no longer 

 circulates ; it has ceased to perform the func- 

 tion of currency; it is hoarded as capital. 

 More than sixty millions of it lie dead in the 

 Treasury. What is the office of currency? It is 

 to run, to circulate, to pass from hand to hand 

 in effecting exchanges of property and values. 

 Why does it not run, why does it not circu- 

 late? Because capitalists know that with the 

 cry of contraction and the threatened repeal 

 of the legal-tender clause the production of 

 the country must still further contract. They 

 know that with the Government insisting 

 on contraction and capitalists hoarding the 

 currency as capital, the prices of all property 

 must depreciate and vast amounts of it ex- 

 change hands by forced sales." 



Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts said: "Mr. 

 Chairman, for myself this question as a political 

 one has passed away from all interest. Eight 

 years ago I announced substantially the prop- 

 osition contained in this bill as what I be- 

 lieved to be the only safety to the currency 

 of the country. I saw that the greenback 

 which, when it was made legal tender, was 

 made convertible into United States 6 per 

 cent, bonds, had, by the action of Congress, 

 inspired by the capitalists of both hemispheres, 

 been repudiated and set aside by having that 

 privilege taken away, and that it had no value 



except as a legal tender for certain debts of 

 the Government and for the debts of the peo- 

 ple. And I saw that there was nothing of 

 value that could be predicated upon it, and I 

 made the suggestion, now embodied in this 

 bill, that there should be a bond of the Gov- 

 ernment authorized and prepared, which 

 should allow the greenback to be funded in 

 that which should bear an interest which 

 should give it value; and I chose 3.65 as the 

 rate of interest for two reasons : First, as I 

 supposed that this bond would pass from hand 

 to hand in the transactions of life largely, that 

 there might be a convenient rate of interest in 

 which to make the account a mill a day for 

 ten dollars, half a cent for fifty dollars, one 

 cent for one hundred dollars, so that all could 

 be reckoned without trouble and inconven- 

 ience. 



" But I had a higher and more controlling 

 motive than that. I looked abroad over the 

 world, and I saw that the gold dollar of the 

 world was invested, on the average, at about 

 three per cent. Take the whole gold invest- 

 ments in Government securities of the world, 

 and they do not yield over three per cent. ; they 

 would not average even that were it not for our 

 large six per cent, gold loans. That being so, I 

 said, let us make the greenback dollar of the 

 United States a little better than the gold dollar 

 of the world ; that is, it shall be competent for 

 investment at any hour at the rate of 3.65 in- 

 terest, or a little better than the average gold 

 dollar of the world. And that will bring up 

 the greenback equal to the gold dollar of the 

 world without shock to the business or pros- 

 perity of the country. 



" I elaborated this idea in a speech to the 

 House. Because of this simple proposition to 

 bring up the value and utilize the greenback I 

 was instantly attacked as a repudiator. No 

 man ever answered the argument. It was 

 made on this floor nearly six years ago, in Feb- 

 ruary, 1869, and no man has ever answered 

 the argument nay, no man has ever at- 

 tempted to answer the argument, and no man 

 has attempted to show that this proposition is 

 not feasible, and will not accomplish all that 

 is claimed for it. The reply has always been 

 calling hard names or insisting that nothing 

 should be done which should save the pros- 

 perity of the country, only that all values 

 should be forced down by contraction until 

 the creditors, both of the people and the Gov- 

 ernment, could be paid in gold, dollar for dol- 

 lar, for that which they had loaned in green- 

 backs, sometimes at fifty per cent, discount 

 from gold. 



"How stands the fact? Yon have a legal- 

 tender dollar with which the whole business 

 of this people is done; but you make no pro- 

 vision for its redemption now or hereafter. 

 You require every man to take it in pay for 

 all his possessions he is obliged to sell. You 

 pay it as an equivalent for the blood and limbs 

 of your soldiers ; with it you compensate their 



