CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 



centers at home and abroad are wanted by 

 everybody who prefers a perfectly safe to a 

 speculative investment. Unless war shall de- 

 mand the creation of a new public debt, these 

 bonds will probably be the last the Government 

 will ever issue, and as the demand will increase 

 everywhere in proportion to the increase of 

 wealth and population, in like proportion will 

 their market value appreciate. The interest 

 we promise and pay is the tax-payers' wages, 

 and why throw away one half per cent per an- 

 num of their hard-earned money ? 



"For Congress now to say, with the light 

 we have, that the discretion between a 3 per 

 cent Treasury note and one bearing a less rate 

 of interest should be lodged with the Secretary 

 of the Treasury is equivalent to discrediting 

 our own obligation, and virtually foreordains 

 and establishes the rate at 3J per cent. 



" Why, then, permit our bonds to be hawked 

 about the streets subject to the whim or ca- 

 price of a Treasury Secretary or of the expec- 

 tant purchasers, none of whom will invest in a 

 3 per cent bond while Congress proclaims its 

 absurdity by fixing a higher rate? 



" In my opinion, it is the duty of Congress 

 to fund the debt at the lowest possible rate of 

 interest ; to extend the time for the maturity 

 of the bonds to forty years, so that posterity 

 may bear a share, although a small share, of 

 the burdens created by the exigencies of the 

 war. The present generation has contributed 

 in the tremendous sacrifice of life it involved 

 its full share of the cost. It has suffered in 

 the waste and destruction always attendant 

 upon civil war to an extent never before known 

 in the history of any people. During the five 

 years, commencing with 1873 and ending with 

 1878, the suffering by paralysis in business in- 

 dustry from causes contingent upon the war 

 have had no parallel in the annals of the world. 

 A somewhat disordered financial system, to- 

 gether with outer causes apparently uncon- 

 trollable, forced into bankruptcy tens of thou- 

 sands of our citizens engaged in legitimate and 

 honorable pursuits, closed the doors of our 

 workshops and factories, and compelled the 

 honest and willing laborer to become a tramp 

 and seek bread from door to door. Notwith- 

 standing all this, we have paid off more than 

 one half our war debt. A grateful people, 

 speaking through their representatives in Con- 

 gress, have imposed upon the present genera- 

 tion a pension list which in the aggregate is 

 frightful, and the burdens of which can not be 

 shared by posterity, because the pensioner will 

 not be alive to receive it. 



" The war for the Union was fought for the 

 benefit of all future generations, and it would 

 be only equitable for posterity to share the ex- 

 pense. 



" The money to pay this debt must be drawn 

 from the people by taxation, and we are an- 

 nually making drafts upon the people far in 

 excess of the actual needs of the Government. 

 This surplus war taxation is taken from the re- 



productive industries, from the wages or work- 

 ing fund of the country, and every dollar thus 

 taken above the wants of the Government 

 economically and honestly administered, is a 

 dollar too much. 



' Let it not be forgotten that there are other 

 taxes bearing heavily upon the shoulders of the 

 people. Faults in legislation and administra- 

 tion by States and municipalities have been 

 followed by a train of evils which will require 

 a degree of prosperity unparalleled in the past 

 to enable the people to reform and repair. Un- 

 less this be done, and speedily, bankruptcy and 

 repudiation will be the final result. This is 

 especially true of some of the States of the 

 South, whose credit is pledged for tens of mill- 

 ions of dollars, the proceeds of which have 

 never found their way into their treasury vaults 

 or been applied in such way as to add much to 

 the general wealth and prosperity. Is it just, is 

 it wise, under circumstances such as these, and 

 at a time when industry at the South can not 

 pay its local taxes, to impose upon the people 

 these unnecessary burdens? 



" Our municipal debt is scarcely less than 

 the national debt, and having been contracted 

 to a large extent since the war, of necessity 

 bears a heavy burden of interest, and, unlike 

 the national Government, but few cities have 

 the financial credit to refund their debts at a 

 lower rate. The aggregate sum drawn from 

 the people on account of interest on State and 

 municipal debts is a heavy burden upon them. 



" There is not a State in the Union in which 

 the legal rate of interest is less than 6 per cent, 

 and in many of the States where money is 

 most needed to aid development 10 per cent is 

 maintained as the ruling rate. The agricultur- 

 ist, manufacturer, and miner are never able to 

 borrow, even when money is abundant, at less 

 than the legal rate ; and when capital is sadly 

 needed at the West and South to move the 

 wheels of industry, it is proposed to take an- 

 nually from fifty to one hundred millions of the 

 working capital of the country, costing for its 

 use at least 10 per cent per annum, to pay a 

 debt which can be extended indefinitely by the 

 Government at 3 per cent. This may pass for 

 statesmanship, but it can scarcely be called 

 business wisdom. The citizen, as a member of 

 the national community, after all his sacrifices 

 in support of the national credit, must pay his 

 own debt bearing 3 per cent interest by a mort- 

 gage loan upon his property or business bear- 

 ing 10 per cent. It is only necessary to state 

 the proposition to demonstrate its injustice and 

 absurdity. 



" Rapid payment of the public debt, when 

 the Government can borrow at the minimum 

 rate while the citizen is required to pay the 

 maximum rate, is an evil and a loss to the citi- 

 zen, whom the Government is bound by every 

 consideration consistent with financial safety 

 to encourage and protect. 



"True financial wisdom requires the refund- 

 ing of the national debt in very long bonds at 



