114 POLITICAL LIFE-IV 



cidence that, having made a few years before a very care- 

 ful study of the issues of paper money during the French 

 Eevolution, I had a portion of my very large collection 

 of assignats, mandats, and other revolutionary currency 

 in Albany, having brought it there in order to show 

 it to one or two of my friends who had expressed an 

 interest in the subject. 



Holding this illustrative material in reserve I showed 

 the whole amount of our American paper currency in cir- 

 culation to be about eight hundred million dollars, of 

 which only about one half was of the sort to which the 

 senator referred. I then pointed to the fact that, although 

 the purchasing power of the French franc at the time of 

 the Revolution was fully equal to the purchasing power 

 of the American dollar of our own time, the French rev- 

 olutionary government issued, in a few months, forty- 

 five thousand millions of francs in paper money, and had 

 twenty-five thousand millions of it in circulation at the 

 time when the great depression referred to by Dr. Allaben 

 had taken place. 



I also pointed out the fact that our American notes were 

 now so thoroughly well engraved that counterfeiting was 

 virtually impossible, so that one of the leading European 

 governments had its notes engraved in New York, on this 

 account, whereas, the French assignats could be easily 

 counterfeited, and, as a matter of fact, were counterfeited 

 in vast numbers, the British government pouring them 

 into France through the agency of the French royalists, 

 especially in Brittany, almost by shiploads, and to such 

 purpose, that the French government officials themselves 

 were at last unable to discriminate between the genuine 

 money and the counterfeit. I also pointed out the con- 

 nection of our national banking system with our issues 

 of bonds and paper, one of the happiest and most states- 

 manlike systems ever devised, whereas, in France there 

 was practically no redemption for the notes, save as they 

 could be used for purchasing from the government the 



