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PAGE TWELVE
AGAINST THE ALDRICH BILL.
(Continued from Page Nine.)
many others. By the terms of this bill
these railroad magnates can issue bonds
in their railroad offices and then take
the same bonds to their national bank
offices and issue notes which the un
privileged millions of the country must
accept as money. Could there be any
greater perversion and degradation of the
powers of government? Could there be
any form of special privilege more odi
ous? Could there be any delegation of
sovereign powers to private persons more
dangerous in its logical tendency?
If the government were to issue its
own notes to supply the country with cir
culating medium, it would be conform
ing to the sound doctrine of equal rights
for all. It would have its currency going
out into circulation among the people
without some middle man standing in
between the government and the people
to rake off a tremendous profit. The
money would get into circulation through
the appropriations of Congress, through
the payment of pensions, through the tak
ing up of bonds, through the construction
of public works, through the reclamations
of swamp and arid lands, and through the
construction of canals. Personally, I
should favor, with all my heart, the build
ing by the government of a few great
post-roads, stretching from sea to sea,
and from Lakes to Gulf. Upon these
post-roads I would send the iron horse.
By the issuance of treasury notes, to
be legal tender for all demands, public
and private, the government would at
once unlock the hoarded treasures of
banks and of private individuals. The
mere fact that the government had taken
a step in that direction would prove to
Wall street that the policy of congesting
money in New York could no longer be
indulged. The moment the government
started up its own printing-presses and
began to put its own imperial stamp upon
the nation’s currency, those heartless, re
morseless usurers of Wall street, who
have brought this terrible distress upon
so many millions of our people, would
realize that the day of their tyranny was
over. Governed by the merest selfish
ness, they would at once begin to put
their own money into circulation, to pre
vent the government from making such
an increase of its own note issues as
would effectually undermine the power
of these favored bankers over the com
merce of the country.
In other woids, I am against the whole
national banking system, for the very
same reasons given by Andrew Jackson,
I homas H. Benton, and Thomas Jeffer
son. I believe it to be an infernal out
rage, as well as an anomaly in govern
ment, to allow six or seven thousand na
tional bankers to use for their own bene
fit the irresistible power of expansion
and contraction. The thing is hostile to
the very spirit of democracy, and is ruin-
THE JEFFERSONIAN.
ously antagonistic to the true interests
of the Republic.
Another reason why the government
should issue all of the money, is that it
is manifestly unjust that any citizen or
corporation should be allowed to have
the use of the national credit in his busi
ness, to the exclusion of other citizens
and corporations. Every one of the 85,-
000,000 people who compose our popula
tion has just as much right to the use
of the national credit in his business as
every other; therefore, the only way in
which this sound principle of equity can
be maintained is for the government,
which represents all the people, to use
the credit of all the people for the bene
fit of all the people. The issuance of
greenbacks would be the doing of that
very thing.
There is still another and most impor
tant objection to the use of bonds as a
basis for the currency of the country.
Owing to the fact that from the very
foundation of the government down to
the present day, national legislation has
favored the capitalists of the East to the
prejudice of. other sections of the Repub
lic, the greater portion of the capital in
vested in bonds is held in the East.
When, therefore, we allow none but
bond-holders the enormous privilege,
power and profit of monetizing the
wealth which they have invested in
bonds, we discriminate against those
whose wealth has been put into other
things. The millionaire of the East who
for generations has been the beneficiary
of the class legislation enacted by Con
gress will come forward with his wealth
represented by the bonds, and will be
allowed to use this wealth as money;
thus be will not only draw interest upon
his bonds, but will draw interest upon
the notes which are based on the bonds,
and thus will pocket two profits on the
same investment; and. of course, where
he thus reaps two profits, the millions of
unprivileged citizens lose what he gains.
The farmers of the South and West
have, in equity, in law. and in good mor
als, just as much right to monetize their
lands, their wheat, their corn, their hav,
their cotton, their cotton-seed oil and
their live stock, as the bond-holders have
to monetize the wealth represented by
the bonds. Mine owners and factorv
owners, merchants and every other class
of property owners have in equity and
law just the same right to monetize their
property as the bond-holder has to mone
tize his; therefore, when it is proposed
to grant to the holders of bonds the ex
t elusive right to monetize their wealth,
we have not onlv dene a monumental in
justice to all other forms of wealth, but
we have discriminated in favor of one
section of the Republic against the others,
for it is a well known fact that, as com
pared with the East, the South and the
West are not bond-holding sections.
It is undoubtedly true that we need an
increase of money; hut this increase
should be permanent, and not temporary.
It should be real money, and not mere
credit stuff based on bonds.
To issue $500,000,000 of paper money
would be most beneficial, provided it js
real money, and'provided it is to remain
permanently in circulation. To put out
the wrong sort of money will do no good,
but will do harm. To put out $500,000,-
000 of notes of any sort, good or bad,
which are to be used for a short while
and then destroyed, will do harm.
The country either has a sufficient vol
ume of currency, or it has not. If we
have got a sufficient quantity of money
in circulation, then we do not need the
additional supply contemplated in the
Aldrich bill; but if we have a shortage
which ought to be made good by an ad
ditional supply, then it is absolutely
wrong to allow six or seven thousand
national bankers to supply that deficiency „
on their own terms, and to have the privi
lege of destroying the notes which they
issue whenever it is to their interest to
do so.
I can think of no national legislation
which will inevitably bring more hard
ship upon the mass of our people than a
refusal to give them a sufficient volume
of real money with which to effect their
exchanges. To put the entire business
world of the United States under the feet
of a favored class of Eastern capitalists,
as the Aldrich bill proposes to do, is cer
tainly a monstrous proposition, which
would have no chance for its life in any
forum where intelligence, reason and jus
tice prevail.
« n m
Relvare the Take Agent.
J. P. Vincent is not, and never has
been, the agent of the Jeffersonian.
George Hallet is not, and never has
been, the agent of the Jeffersonian.
Don’t give your subscriptions to
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* * *
Honor 'Roll.
A. W. Files, Little Rock, Ark. >
John E. Stealey, Clarksburg, W. Va.
s B. F. Martin, Donie, Tex.
W. O. Durham, Maxeys, Ga.
B. T. McClure, Poteau, Okla.
L. J. Knoth, Eddyville, Ky.
W. D. Murray, Bronwood, Ga.
J. L. Elder, Macon, Ga.
W. G. Smith, Grayson, Ga.
W. H. Moss, Sugar Valley, Ga.
S. B. Hunt, Powder Springs, Ga.
R. W. Mays, Jackson, Ga.
J. J. Gordy, Richland, Ga. •- J
J. S. Sandefer, Roberta, Ga. r
S. W. Jackson, Commerce, Ga.
J. M. Odell, Gillsville, Ga.
N. L. McNorrill, Shell Bluff, Ga.
W. T. Flynt, Sharon, Ga.
M. L. Bond, Statham, Ga.
C. A. McDaniel, Thomaston, Ga.
(To be Continued.)