Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
433 
as so much merchandise, according to its purity and price in the 
market, like wheat. Still, as gold is a convenient medium of ex¬ 
change on many accounts, and at present is so received by the 
world, our government will help merchants to use it. In order to 
do this the government will certify by its stamp the weight and 
purity of gold bars sent to its mints, and government will keep 
gold deposited with it by merchants, and give certificates for its 
amount and value. Such certificates may be used here and abroad, 
thus enabling the merchants to save the cost and risk of carrying 
gold to and fro, and the expense of insurance. In this way we fur¬ 
nish the merchants with certificates which will soon be of the same 
use and value as gold itself, whether in the form of bars or coin. If 
any one doubts whether the government is honest enough to be 
trusted with such power, I answer it is as honest as the national 
banks who now wield these powers. We must trust such power 
somewhere. We can detect and punish and prevent misdoing more 
quickly in the government than we can in money corporations 
shielded by privacy. 
There are doubtless some special kinds of business so profitable 
that men engaged in them can afford to pay 10 and 12 per cent. 
But I am sure that business men will support me in saying that 
business in general—the average business of the country—cannot 
be carried on with profit while money is at 7 per cent, or much 
above. 
You must therefore lessen the rate of interest, either by attract¬ 
ing foreign capital here, or by inventing some new way to make 
freer use of all we have, of every kind. Only thus can the laboring 
and trading class prosper. Such reduction of interest would have 
saved the North from present wholesale bankruptcy; by develop¬ 
ing the industry of the South it would have gone far to prevent 
the political troubles there which loom so darkly over our future. 
28 a 
