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Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
depreciation of an inconvertible currency have so often been de¬ 
monstrated by past experience, that—as the good old way was to 
be discarded as too barbarous for this progressive age—the neces¬ 
sity 7 of devising some plan for avoiding those evils was felt and 
acted upon. The result was the interconvertible bond-scheme. 
It was heralded with much flourish, and the changes of its praises 
have been rung in infinite variety. Regulative control of the cur¬ 
rency is only one of its minor, incidental merits. It is a heaven-in¬ 
spired plan, the grandeur whereof is well-nigh too great for mortal 
contemplation. “ Standing alone in its majesty, it is almost the 
summum bonum of human financial wisdom.” It is to pacify all 
bickering and contention between man and man, and bring the 
blessed boon of peace to the immemorial warfare waged between 
God and Mammon. It is to arouse America from her lethargy and 
distress, to a career of unparalleled prosperity, and gild with a new 
glory the wings of our national bird. In short, not to multiply 
quotations, the laudation has been so absurdly extravagant as al¬ 
most to beget doubts as to its sincerity. But in truth it is a spe¬ 
cious, captivating theory, captivating in that it supplies a good, 
long, resounding word— Interconvertibility —to satisfy the im¬ 
agination of those who are unwilling to subject themselves to the 
strain of a little thought upon the subject. Specious, because it 
“'keeps the word of promise to our ear,” though it would be all too 
certain “to break it to our hope,” for, removed from out the glam¬ 
our of hyberbole and stripped of its verbiage, what does this much 
vaunted proposition amount to? 
Simply, that the government ma} T put out a volume of irredeem¬ 
able currency, the sole limit of which will be the amount of the 
public debt, (say two thousand millions, until we are so fortunate 
as to find a successor for Secretary Bristow, who will be wise 
enough to substitute the “ marriage peal of increase” for the “fu¬ 
neral dirge of reduction,”) and, having floated this currency, shall 
say to the holder, “If at any time you find you have a surplus of 
this money, or have any misgivings as to its quality, bring it back, 
and you shall have an interest-bearing coupon bond for it, to keep 
as long as you like.” In plain, commercial English, the govern¬ 
ment shall do what all the bankers and brokers of our cities have 
advertised to do for years, that is, take our money on call at a low 
