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cate. Here is the certificate; you are paying interest at three per 
cent, upon'$10,000 now; I will give you back the three per cent, 
certificate, pay me the interest up to elate, and I will take these 
non-interest bearing obligations, and I will use them in commerce; 
provided that when I get through making payments, and these 
small bonds are paid back to me in business, I will not be compelled 
to hawk them about the streets, but may bring in those non-in¬ 
terest bearing obligations, and secure interest-bearing obligations 
for them.” 
In the interchangeability of these little government bonds draw¬ 
ing no interest with the government bonds or certificates bearing 
interest, there is a subtle principle that will regulate the movements 
of finance and commerce, as the movements of the steam-engine are 
regulated by its governor. In mid-summer and in mid-winter these 
greenbacks will come into the sub-treasuries out of circulation 
and there will be no redundancy of the currency; no undue excess 
of prices, or speculative values, but the operation will be like the 
operations of nature, silent, automatic, self-acting. Here we have 
an absolutely convertible currency. In the small bond called green¬ 
backs issued by our government, non-interest bearing, but redeem¬ 
able at the pleasure of the holder into bonds bearing interest, there 
is absolute convertibility. Now you can make the rate of interest 
govern the value of the obligation just as accurately as with a 
Fairbanks scale you can weigh a ton of hay with a couple of ounces 
of brass. The rule of three has been introduced into finance. Dur¬ 
ing the war there was an issue of eighty million of three per cent, 
certificates, and persons holding greenbacks were authorized to take 
greenbacks to the sub-treasury in New York, and receive United 
States three per cent, obligations for them, and when they took 
the three per cent, obligations back to the sub-treasury they could 
have greenbacks. The three per cent, certificate has been tried and 
I think it has not been found wanting. It was withdrawn, arbi¬ 
trarily; it was injudiciously withdrawn. It was the withdrawal of 
the last element of elasticity from our currency, and immediately 
after its withdrawal occurred the stringency of 1871, after the Chi¬ 
cago fire, when the Secretary of the Treasury found it necessary to 
loan to the banks in New York city $5,000,000 of greenbacks in 
order to preven t a financial crisis. And the same thing was done 
after the Boston fire, and the same thing was done, not in the most 
