GREENBACKS AND BONDS. 555 



perpetuate a bonded debt for a basis of that most damnable 

 system of robbery, the national banks. 



And what excuse did they offer the people for their 

 action ? A saving of one-half to one per cent. That was 

 seven years ago; they saved from three and one-half to 

 seven cents on the dollar in interest, and now they are 

 paying the bondholder twenty-nine cents premium on the 

 bonds as they buy them in; net profit to the bondholder, 

 twenty-two to twenty-six cents on every dollar. 



Oh, we have got a set of smart statesmen! If we 

 could persuade the old women to leave off making catnip 

 tea for the babies long enough to go to Congress, for one 

 session, they could beat all such legislation as that, and put 

 in three-fourths of their time knitting. 



The talent and purity of American statesmanship has 

 gone to seed. 



A surplus, indeed ! What v.'ould be thought of a man 

 who, owing a debt, would carry half enough money in his 

 pocket to pay it, and complain of having a surplus? He 

 would be considered a natural born idiot 



If President Cleveland is correct in his message, the 

 business of the country is languishing for the want of the 

 money locked up in the treasury, and great danger of finan- 

 cial collapse is threatened. 



Senator Beck, in his speech in the Senate in 1885, 

 said: 



"A thief who steals and squanders an unneeded sur- 

 plus, locked up in the treasury vaults, would inflict less 

 injury to the country and its business, if the money he 

 stole was put in circulation, than a secretary who holds 

 and hides in vaults, currency which the people want, and 

 refuses to use it to pay debts which the men who own this 

 money owe. It is easy to raise a clamor about a surplus, 

 but it will be difficult to explain to the people why such 

 vast amounts of the money, they have been so heavily 



