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Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
though accomplishing marvels for the salvation of the country 
when threatened with destruction by insurrection and civil war, 
and for its industrial and commercial prosperity after the restora¬ 
tion of peace, has done this under exceedingly unfavorable auspices 
for its own credit. Destined from the first to depreciation and par¬ 
tial repudiation by the very government that issued it, and as¬ 
saulted and maligned, first by political partizans, and then by the 
financial authorities whose venerable but false philosophy it threat¬ 
ened to undermine, and whose control over the wealth of the na¬ 
tion it was likely to reduce to its lowest terms, it has never had 
anything like a fair chance to prove its real excellence. Yet for all 
this it has, during considerable periods of time kept a steadier value 
than gold itself; during nearly the whole period of its existence its 
average annual fluctuation has not been perceptibly greater than 
that of gold; while to-day it has, where it is used, from 14 to 20 
per cent, more purchasing power than that of gold has in a 
community where the latter is the* exclusive currency. 
A CONSIDERATION OF THE INTERCONVERTIBLE- 
NOTE SCHEME. 
BY E. B. LELAND, EAU CLAIRE. 
The motto that this country should have a currency “ as good as 
gold and plenty of it,’’ is one of those generalities which must meet 
with general acceptation, at this time, when the opportunity and 
need for improvement in the quality of the currency we are using 
is so widely felt. As yet, however, there is such a wide divergence of 
opinion as to what qualities are needed to make a currency as good 
as gold, and as to the methods which may be safely adopted to 
make it plentiful, that the motto just quoted is hardly definite 
enough to be appropriated as a rallying cry by either of the two 
parties into which the country may be said to be divided upon ques¬ 
tions of finance. On the one hand are those who believe that a 
money standard subject to as little variation as possible, by which 
values may be computed, exchanges effected, and contracts fulfilled 
with uniformity and equity, is of the first necessity to ever} 7 well regu- 
