State Convention—Interconvertible Notes. 211 
lated government. That experience has proved gold to be the least 
variable and best adapted to the purposes of a monetary standard 
of all known substances. That, therefore, the United States should 
adopt and maintain a gold standard and pay its obligations in this 
universally recognized medium. 
On the other hand are the upholders of the “irredeemable cur- 
currency principle,” of all shades of opinion, from the man who 
defends it only as a temporary, and perhaps questionable expedient, 
to him who declares that “ the use of gold as money is a barbarism 
unworthy of the age, and that the 4 progressive ’ dollar is a 4 paper 
dollar so issued that it shall never be redeemed. 111 They are best 
known as 44 inflationists,” but as many of them deny the fitness of 
that term and it is discourteous to call men by names which they 
dislike, they may, perhaps be spoken of as the 44 greenback-party,” 
until they announce some descriptive title by which they desire to 
be known. The plan generaly advocated as the proper one by which 
to evade redemption may be called the 44 interconvertible-note 
scheme,” and is familiar to all. 
Briefly stated, it proposes that the government shall issue all pa¬ 
per currency directly; shall determine its volume, make it a legal- 
tender, and defer the day of payment to the end of time by repeal¬ 
ing the 44 specie-resumption act.” In connection * with this, is a 
plan for the issuance of bonds, bearing a low rate of interest — sa} r 
.03 tW per cent.— with which the currency shall at all times be in¬ 
terchangeable at the option of the holder; reliance being placed 
upon this adjunct, to give the currencv adaptability, stability, and 
a current value—some claiming that this will make it equivalent 
to gold; others being quite indifferent whether it would or not. 
A discussion of this scheme has been attempted in the following 
paper. It is neither exhaustive nor systematic, but rather desul¬ 
tory, having some reference to recent authoritative expressions of 
the views of the greenback-party in this State. No pretense is 
made of competing with those utterances in rhetoric and eloquence 
—both from confessed inability and because of a conviction that 
the subject is one demanding calmest exercise of the reasoning fac¬ 
ulties, rather than the play of the emotions—but, it is hoped, with 
a constant recognition of the gravity and the intricate and difficult 
nature of the questions at issue. 
There are those who maintain that it is not a proper function of 
