219 
S^ate Convention—Interconvertible No tes. 
other forms of credit are very greatly extended, the fact that every 
man is liable to be called upon to meet his maturing obligations in 
a medium which is rigidly limited in amount, acts as a powerful 
restraint, the need of which has been so often demonstrated. 
The measure of value of paper credit is the degree of men’s faith 
in the actual performance of the promise to pay. It is sometimes 
said the greenback is not a promise to paj r , or should not be; it is 
simply a token of the coined credit of the nation; a pledge for a 
given amount of the nation’s wealth. This pledge may or may 
not serve the purposes of him who holds it, and if not, then the 
fact that it is never to be redeemed, materially lessens its value for 
him. He has a right under such circumstances to be skeptical—to 
question the assertion that it is as good as gold or better. In ab¬ 
sence of redemption, how is this assertion to be put to a crucial 
test? ITow change this ideal money into concrete money? It is 
upon its face an obligation of the United States. But it will cer¬ 
tainly not be paid on demand, nor is there any future time, how¬ 
ever remote, fixed for its payment. Now, a note which will be 
paid at maturity, is worth its face to the holder so long as he does 
not want to use it, but if he does want to use it, it certainly will 
not be worth par, however easily it may be converted into money 
at the market rate. This market rate being a thing which con¬ 
stantly varies, dependent as it is upon diverse contingencies. Es¬ 
pecially would this be the case with a note bearing no interest and 
having no stipulated time of payment; nor would it wholly re¬ 
move these objections if the maker stood ready to give another 
form of writing deferring the day of payment a long time, or in¬ 
definitely, and bearing interest at considerably less than the market 
rate. This is very trite and commonplace and would be superflu¬ 
ous talk, if we were not constantly told that the new greenback, a 
precisel} r analagous case, will not be amenable to these laws of 
trade, that it will be an exceptional phenomenon and have a fixed 
value. 
If, with all deference to those who make it, one questions this 
statement, he is told that it will all result from interconvertibility 
with the 3.65 bond. But what assurance is there of this? A dollar- 
note, if ninety-nine more be put with it, will bring a government 
bond; but the price which the latter will command is a matter of 
pure speculation. The note will be worth as much as the bond 
