456 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



issue of the money, and by controlling it held an iron grip 

 on the industries of the country. 



The wildest dreamer of financial reform has never 

 advocated a greater amount of circulating medium per 

 capita than existed at the close of the war. At that time 

 the circulation was exclusively of paper. There was com- 

 paratively no coin in sight. When the war broke out 

 gold and silver, cowardly as its owners, slunk out of sight 

 and hid itself until the danger was over. Then, it emerged 

 from its hiding place, and, with an audacity that would 

 have put Annanias to shame, it not only claimed the honor 

 of suppressing the rebellion, but insisted that it had a 

 right to crucify the real Savior of the country the green- 

 back. In 1 86 1, when the slogan of war sounded, the 

 government called upon the bankers for aid. They fur- 

 nished $150,000,000 in coin and then every mother's son 

 of them suspended specie payment. In the hour of the 

 greatest need the capitalists proved traitors to their country. 

 The system of specie basis failed, as it always does at the 

 time something is expected of it. Then the government 

 smote the rock of public credit. In the face of the opposi- 

 tion of the bullionists, a paper money, crippled with a fatal 

 exception, and only partially clothed with the functions 

 of money, sprang forth and gave new life and vigor to the 

 arm of the nation. It equipped armies, built ships, and 

 supplied provisions and clothing to the men who had gone 

 to the front. It opened up the workshops, built new 

 factories and supplied the munitions of war to a million 

 of men in the field. When the war was over it permeated 

 every State and Territory and helped to restore the waste 

 and exhausted resources of the nation. Did any one say, 

 at that time, that it was as " plenty as leaves," or that it 

 "took $500 of it to buy a breakfast?" 



As an organization we only demand a u volume suffi- 

 cient for the business of the country." We have a respect 



