252 Wisconsin" State Agricultural Society. 
specie basis, we could get a paper dollar kt presto-changed 11 into a 
metallic dollar! Startle not, for I have seen it done! Under the 
reign of this specie basis, and while it did rain , w^e could, and did 
frequently, with the Midas incantation of “ I demand,” obtain gold 
for paper! 
0, it was a glorious sight, as marvelous as it was glorious, to see 
the modem alchemist prove the problem that was such a charmed 
secret in the seventeenth century, by walking into a marble front, 
and approaching an ornate counter, with a hand full of rags, and 
with a little incantation ceremony, pull forth a pile of ringing, 
shining gold! The sight was grand! glorious! enchanting as 
anything in the exploits of Aladdin. 
The new Jerusalem, with its solid gold-paved streets—its walls of 
sapphire,beryl, onyx and other precious stones,was at best a common¬ 
place ideality compared with the occular proof that alchemy was a 
science that actually turned rags and lampblack to gold! 
But, alas, as among the cannibals, it is the food that fattens the 
body which sinks the heart, in view of the results to follow. 
Glittering as were our halcyon days of gold basis it had its in¬ 
evitable relapse, and thirty-eight JSFew York banks, went down with 
a crash that buried millions beneath the debris. In other States 
the loss was still greater, and in one wa} 7 and another, the people 
suffered losses by the many millions. Why did they lose? How 
could they lose, with a talismanic specie basis? Ah, there’s the 
rub! There is just the place where the serio-comico, and more 
serio than cornico, joke comes in! 
This specie basis may be likened to the great Pyramid of Egypt, 
standing on its apex, on a lady’s thimble. How long would the 
inverted pyramid stand on such a fine-point basis? 
The history of all banking, from the days of Croesus to the pres¬ 
ent.hour, teaches us that bankers would not keep on hand a suffi¬ 
cient basis of metal to redeem their issues, if they could, and could 
not if they would. The only possible way to make bank paper per¬ 
fectly safe, is to have a basis of a coin dollar for every paper dollar. 
Of course no bank would do this, if it could. There would be no 
advantage in banking, over the curbstone-broker, and without a 
u margin ” the banker will not issue bills, and his bills are alwa} 7 s 
unsafe to the extent of his u margin.” 
