569 
State Convention'—Dollars and Sense. 
and payable in gold, when the government agrees to pay them, 
say ten to fifty years. I have no doubt the business of the country 
could be adjusted to it in that time, so as to pay them in gold as 
well as pay them in greenbacks, pork, hogs, wheat, or other surplus 
products. 
Hon. I. C. Sloan: Do you propose to increase the present vol¬ 
ume of the currency? 
Secretary Field: I would favor contracting and expanding the 
currency by the convertible and re-convertible plan proposed, so as 
all times to meet the demands of trade and commerce. 
Mr. Sloan: What do you think the desire is now? 
Secretary Field: I think there is no desire for inflation, but to 
have an elastic, self-regulating currency. 
Mr. Sloan: Would you expect the volume to increase before 
specie payment would be resumed by the government? 
Secretarv Field: I would expect the amount of 2 fold to be in- 
creased. 
Mr. Sloan: Would you expect paper-money to be increased be¬ 
yond its present volume? 
Secretary Field: Not unless the needs of trade demanded it. 
Mr. Sloan: While our currency is not redeemable in coin, would 
you favor at any time, and under any circumstances, the increase 
of the currency? 
Secretary Field: As I said before, T can only answer it in this 
way; I should increase it if the interest of trade and commerce de¬ 
manded it, then I would contract it as the demand ceased. What 
the gentleman from Eau Claire desires, for I think I can see that 
plain enough in his remarks, is that when we can get rid of the 
greenbacks and the national currency, we will call upon the gov¬ 
ernment to allow us to issue currency as it used to. I suppose 
many of you know how that was, but for fear that some of you 
have forgotton I have a little bit of history that I will read to you, 
and I got it from the county treasurer’s office, of Dane county, the 
other day. It is the uncurrent money-list of C. Ivloch & Co., of 
Chicago, January 25, 1858. They give a list of more than forty 
banks in the following States, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, In¬ 
diana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Michigan. What do you suppose that 
money was worth at that time? It was worth all the way from five 
