GREENBACKS AND BONDS. 529 



Mr. Hooper said: U I am opposed to this amendment 

 of the Senate, which requires the interest on government 

 notes and bonds to be absolutely paid in coin, because its 

 effect will be to depreciate these notes as compared with 

 coin, by declaring them in advance to be so depreciated 

 It creates a necessity for the government to obtain a large 

 amount of coin by purchase, if it is not received in taxes 

 and loans, which hold out an inducement to speculate oc 

 the necessity of the government, by collecting and hoard- 

 ing the coin against the time that it will be required by 

 the government to pay its interest; and because it is an 

 unnecessary inconvenience to require the whole amount of 

 the interest to be paid in coin, when only the small amount 

 is necessary that is to be remitted to foreign holders of 

 bonds, which could easily be obtained at small cost if the 

 effect of the issue of the government notes should be what 

 the friends of this bill expect. ***** If the 

 opponents of this bill have proved anything they have 

 proved too much in reference to the question now before 

 the House, which is to make a distinction in favor of the 

 holders of government securities, and pay what may be due 

 to them in coined money, while all other creditors of the 

 government shall be paid in what they have denounced to 

 the country from the high places they occupy here as the 

 meanest paper trash. ' ' 



The closing remarks on the bill was made by Mr. 

 Stevens, the chairman of the House Committee of Ways 

 and Means. We make the following extracts from his 

 speech : 



"Mr. Speaker: I have a very few words to say. I 

 approach the subject with more depression of spirits than 

 I ever before approached any question. No personal 

 feeling or motive influences me. I hope not, at least. I 

 have a melancholy foreboding that we are about to con- 

 summate a cunningly devised scheme which will carry 



