222 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
the holders of the rest of the indebtedness to do? They, too, would 
evidently be in a bad way unless they could wait for the govern¬ 
ment to increase the capacity of its paper-mills, and turn out 32,000 
millions more of legal tenders. This is childish talk, it is true, but 
it is just the kind of argument which has to be met. It is a per¬ 
fectly logical conclusion from the reasoning of the greenback party 
that unless there be a volume of currency equaling the entire in¬ 
debtedness of the country—national, corporate, and private—then is 
all pretense of paying ones obligation in lawful money of any sort, 
“a deceit, a fraud, and a lie ” upon its face; and all enactments to 
enforce the payments of debts are contrary to the laws of God and 
truth, and will inevitably lead to disaster. To this absurdity is 
the argument fairly reduced. 
Every business man knows when he deposits money in his bank, 
that funds are not kept in its vaults to liquidate all its liabilities at 
any moment. The prudent banker knows what his average line of 
deposits is and knows the cause of its variation. He has learned 
from experience what proportion of if he can loaA. with safety to 
himself and his depositors, and this he proceeds to do without any 
attempt at concealment, advertising it, indeed, by periodical state¬ 
ments; nor is the faith and confidence of the depositor in the least 
impaired by a knowledge of the notorious fact. The foundrymen, 
the lumbermen, the agricultural manufacturers, who met in con¬ 
vention here the other day, have become the successful, wealthy 
men that they are by a judicious but by no means sparing use of 
their credit. Was it a lraud and a lie for them to make their notes 
payable in lav/ful money, although every one of their creditors 
knew that they did not keep in their safes or in their banks, subject 
to check, a tithe of the sum needed to meet all their outstanding 
liabilities? Not a bit of it. It was an honest promise, honestly 
fulfilled; the obligations have been met according to their terms. 
The government could presume upon this principle of trade with 
greater safety than anyone else. In times of panic, when distrust 
has taken possession of the minds of men, the solvency of every in¬ 
dividual, firm, or corporation, is more or less questioned and ex¬ 
cessive demands are likely to be made growing out of this want of 
confidence. The solvency of the government being sustantially 
unquestioned, it would never be subjected to runs or any other than 
legitimate demands. The government says to each of ns, “you 
