CURRENCY AND FARMING. 19 



iously heavier than it would have been but for this malignant 

 currency ; but you could pay it without feeling it if it was not 

 for this currency. It is not possible for any prosperity to 

 rest upon the agricultural interests of the country as long as 

 this currency, which is eating out their life-blood like a cancer, 

 is allowed to exist. Therefore, amid all the folly that we 

 hear about among grown-up men, is there anything quite so 

 senseless as the cry which comes up from our Western farmers 

 for an increase of the currency? These Western farmers 

 have got affiliations here. I know I may be treading on 

 somebody's toes, but I am not a paid machine-runner, and I 

 never intend to seek office, and I say that this granger inter- 

 est, in so far as it is an interest for the increase of the cur- 

 rency, is folly. I will not compare it to the man that killed 

 the goose that laid the golden egg, but to the man who, with 

 his house burning over his head, endeavors to quench the 

 flames with that which makes them burn only the fiercer. 



Now let us pause for a moment. It is not the agricultural 

 interests alone that are affected by vitiated currency, but the 

 manufacturers also. Our manufacturers complain of hard 

 times, notwithstanding the tariff. There are a few articles of 

 which we export more now than in 1860, while of others less. 

 Our cotton manufacturers, who have been meeting in Boston 

 of late, have been talking of an over-production, and com- 

 bined to shut down their mills, but they would not have to 

 enter into any such combination if the market of the world 

 was open before them. Why is not the market open? The 

 great reason is the shiftless management respecting the cur- 

 rency, and the depreciation and the change of prices that have 

 resulted. The markets of the world are simply closed against 

 us, and thus that which burdens the farmer burdens the 

 manufacturer, as well as the professional man likewise. 



In closing, I am not going to say what you shall do, but I 

 want to speak of what the government has got to do, — what 

 it ought to do. Let us see just what the government is shut 

 up to. It is shut up to one of four courses. In the first 

 place, it is possible you can conceive of Mr. Boutwell's policy, 

 the stand-still policy, the let-alone policy ; in other words, ' 

 the policy of growing up to the need of the volume of cur- 

 rency we have now. But this is simply impossible. There 



