State Convention—Dollars and Sense. 277 
circulation that we have to-day, the commercial failures in this 
country only numbered five hundred, and the total sum of the fail¬ 
ures only about $5,000,000. Just so fast as our currency was con¬ 
tracted, just so fast it has shown itself by the commercial failures. 
That from 3 T ear to year the failures were greater as the currency 
was contracted down to the year 1874, when the commercial fail¬ 
ures amounted to over five thousand, in place of five hundred, nine 
years previous, and the total amount was $200,000,000. I hold the 
contraction of our currency has crippled every industry in this 
country. I hold there is not a farmer in this county who has 
prayed for the redemption of greenbacks in gold. It is the drones 
that want the redemption, and not the industrial or productive 
classes of the country. Talk about the redemption of greenbacks! 
I have been redeeming greenbacks for twelve years with all the 
produce I have raised on my farm. I have been trading for them. 
That is a better redemption than gold ever was, or silver ever was. 
These drones in the hive of industry, who produce nothing, hut 
live off of that which is produced by the labor of the country, work 
hard for redemption, because they can buy more with one dollar 
than the\ T otherwise could with two. Those are the reasons why 
they want to make money more valuable. We have heard a great 
deal about this gold convertible bond. I hold that this United 
States government, with all the property, is much better than the 
specie in any man’s bank as a basis. L hold the government of this 
country is a good basis. I hold the national bank currency is bet¬ 
ter than any State bank currency. 
Mr. Barland: There is one aspect of this greenback-question 
that I would like to see illustrated a little. While the greenback- 
party, as I understand them, agree with the specie-pa 3 T ment men as 
to the desirability of a gold basis for a currency, they seem to dif¬ 
fer as to the means by which this object is to he obtained. The 
farmer, the producer, sees, by the process which is urged by 
the immediate resumptionist, a process of ruin and contraction 
which will involve the ruin of ever 3 r producer immediately. I wish 
to urge, right here, that this country is a county of such resources, 
such spirit, such enterprise that there is no necessity of involving 
the countr 3 r in a Bull-Run panic to get to specie payments. Why 
cannot the country go steadfastly, in its great strength and wealth; 
go in the consciousness of that strength, steadily, calml 3 r , quietly* 
