CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



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pelled to reduce and get out of as fast as they 

 could, lest, on account of such uncertainties, 

 while they might be making a nominal profit, 

 they should be really incurring great and un- 

 known losses. No great enterprises could there- 

 fore be undertaken ; and those already under- 

 taken were abandoned at the first practicable 

 moment; and the toiling millions, owing to 

 these and many other causes among which 

 one of the most prominent was the improve- 

 ment in labor-saving machinery found little 

 demand for their labor. 



u Mr. President, this was a state of things 

 for which neither the issue of more Treasury 

 notes nor any other increase in the volume of 

 currency, without a return to specie payments, 

 would have brought a remedy. If more had 

 been issued, they could not have been kept in 

 circulation when those already issued could 

 not. They would have gone with the others 

 into the hands of the banks and bankers, just 

 as the silver dollar would, and would not have 

 circulated among the people, unless the Gov- 

 ernment should have done what the greenback 

 and silver advocates seem to have made many 

 of the people believe the Government ought 

 to and will do send to each individual in the 

 nation his aliquot proportion of the greenbacks 

 or silver pieces, without requiring anything in 

 return, as the Agricultural Department dis- 

 tributes garden-seeds, except that it shall be 

 absolutely impartial and universal. But what- 

 ever impression may have been created out- 

 side, I think no one has yet, in this hall, advo- 

 cated such distribution as this. 



"Now, what were the real causes which 

 produced this state of things in the money 

 market, and the depressed condition of busi- 

 ness enterprises in short, the distress among 

 the people, or the hard times? The immediate 

 causes were merely the combined results of all 

 the antecedents to that state of things. These 

 antecedents, the real causes, are too numerous 

 to be stated and analyzed in a single speech. 

 I can only touch and briefly touch a few of 

 the more prominent. The causa causans, the 

 fruitful mother of all the other causes, was the 

 terrible war which for more than four years 

 swept over the country, taking from produc- 

 tive occupations millions of men from all parts 

 of the Union, who were engaged for between 

 four and five years in destroying and consum- 

 ing the property, the wealth and capital of the 

 nation, of the people, and sweeping away the 

 accumulations of years of prosperity, instead 

 of producing and creating wealth ; so that, 

 without reference to the debt entailed upon 

 the nation, the nation, as a whole, had become 

 poorer by thousands of millions of dollars than 

 immediately before the war. In the North, it 

 is true, where the direct ravages of war were 

 less and the prices were greatly augmented, as 

 well by the increased demand created by the 

 war as inflated by the immense issues of Treas- 

 ury notes in which they were paid, was kept 

 up an appearance of prosperity which was to a 



great extent fictitious, and consisting in drafts 

 upon the future for which the pay-day must 

 sooner or later come. In the South almost 

 everything in the shape of property, except the 

 naked face of the earth, had practically disap- 

 peared, and had to be recreated by the slow 

 process of labor and production. And, fortu- 

 nately or unfortunately, the North and the 

 South, all sections of our common country, are 

 so linked together in commercial relations that 

 it is vain to expect one portion can long remain 

 prosperous while a large part of the Union is 

 depressed and poor. 



u But, in addition to the direct destruction 

 and consumption of property and capital by 

 the war, came necessarily, and, as I think, 

 rightfully, an immense debt, the mere interest 

 of which, drawn by way of taxes directly and 

 indirectly from the productions of labor, con- 

 stitutes a formidable burden and causes an im- 

 mense drain upon our resources. 



"For one, Mr. President, looking at the 

 situation immediately after the war, I did not 

 expect, and could not see how any man could, 

 a prompt restoration and steady continuance 

 of the same high state of prosperity as before. 

 I thought I saw that a period of revulsion, of 

 terrible depression, must soon come from the 

 causes I have mentioned ; and I never could 

 see how any man could suppose it could be 

 avoided. My wonder was not that it finally 

 came in 1873, but that it was kept off so long. 

 I could not see (though popular delusion, 

 prompted and stimulated by hope, thought it 

 did see) how the farmer, for instance, whose 

 means had been accumulating for years by a 

 small excess of income over outgoes, until a 

 considerable income had been accumulated, 

 could, after some calamity which compelled an 

 expenditure of all his accumulations, and after 

 being compelled to anticipate the income of 

 many future years by debts upon which he was 

 to pay interest yearly and ultimately to provide 

 for the principal, be quite as prosperous as he 

 was before ; or, except by great frugality and 

 industry, or some fortunate accident, avoid a 

 crash in the end. 



" And in the case of the farmer I thought I 

 saw the case of the nation which is but the 

 aggregate of our population and that it was 

 just as unreasonable to expect the nation to 

 avoid a revulsion by any other kind of means 

 than the farmer could in the case I have just 

 put ; and these were that the people compos- 

 ing the nation should cut down expenses, and 

 by increased frugality and economy, and in- 

 creased industry in the production of values, 

 gradually overcome the depression ; that busi- 

 ness men and men of enterprise ought to avoid 

 all speculative schemes and doubtful enterprises, 

 limiting their business to strictly legitimate ob- 

 jects, and avoiding the creation of any debts 

 which they could not readily and certainly meet. 

 But exactly the opposite of this was the course 

 actually taken. The large fortunes suddenly 

 made during the war had kindled an inordinate 



