trodden masses of other nations have a deep interest, for, if the money power is able to accomplish its designs in free, republican America, where else can the people hope to escape its bondage?

The contest will undoubtedly be bitter, surpassing in that respect the memorable contest between the money power and the people under the lead of General Jackson in 1832, but "the flower safety is only plucked from the nettle danger." The political organizations of the country are no longer faithful exponents of the popular will, nor can they be until the money changers are driven from their temples The people must regain control of their party machinery, or be led like sheep to the slaughter. But it is to be hoped, in the language of Jackson's farewell address touching the same subject, "that, while the people remain

*

uncorrupted and incorruptible, and jealous of their rights, the government is safe, and the cause of freedom will continue to triumph over all its enemies."

APPENDIX.

THE 3.65 INTER-CONVERTIBLE BOND SYSTEM. BELOW we give an able article from the pen of Horace Greeley, on the subject of the inter-convertible bond, which appeared in the New York Tribune of November 9, 1871. It will be observed that Mr. Greeley suggested that the bonds should bear a moderate gold interest. This is unnecessary, and would be taken advantage of by the gold gamblers. The currency bonds of the United States Government to-day bear a large premium over the gold bonds, simply because they possess a slight advantage in point of the time they have to run. It may be, however, that, if the public note was properly instituted (made a full legal tender and sustained by a bond), it would practically make no difference whether the bonds of the government were payable both principal and interest in gold or legal tender notes. This view is held by many eminent persons. The Hon. Francis W. Hughes, of Pennsylvania, a distinguished leader in the democratic party, as well as one of the most profound lawyers in the country, in a speech at Scranton, Pa., in October, 1875, in discussing this point, said:

4

;

"What better system could be devised and what better guarantee could be afforded, that our paper legal tenders will always remain equal to par with gold, than that whenever there shall be an excess of currency it can and will go into government bonds payable in gold. I say gold, because I regard it as immaterial whether under such a system the bonds be payable in gold or not-either way they can be made, as now, better than gold. Our government bonds sell at 20 and 24 per cent. above par in our partial legal tender

currency, and from three to eight per cent. above par in gold. Did our government not discredit our greenbacks by refusing to take them for duties on imports, and did it not thereby make a market for gold, the paper legal tenders would have always remained at par with gold. The $60,000,000 of full legal tenders first issued remained at par with gold, when the latter was as to partial legal tenders at a premium of 285. Let the bonds be payable in gold, and what then? Why, whenever the issue of legal tenders is in excess of the wants of business, by a law of its own nature as fixed as the law of gravity, such excess of currency will go back into such gold bonds. Can such legal tenders ever get below par in gold? Never, so long as government bonds shall be at a given rate of interest. Let experience determine this. I believe that under such a system the government credit would be so assured that 3.65 bonds, as have been proposed, would go above par in gold. In such case the interest should be less. Let results determine the proper rate of interest, or, if need be, perhaps some functionaries under careful guards, might be authorized to lessen or increase the rate of interest. This is a subject for legislation, and from the many suggestions that have been made a proper method can readily be adopted."

*

*

"It is not proposed to abolish gold as a legal tender. Whether as an article of merchandise or as a coin, let us have the benefit of it to the extent we may. But let us also have a NATIONAL CURRENCY. One that will not keep us involved in European money complications. but secure to us perfect independence therefrom."

The following is Mr. Greeley's editorial:

HOW TO REDUCE THE INTEREST OF THE NATIONAL DEBT.

"Mr. Boutwell's plan of funding the national debt has had a pretty fair trial. True, the times have been adverse, but we have generally found them so when we needed to borrow money.

The sum and substance of the Secretary's success is the funding of $200,000,000 at 5 per cent. on the payment of the bonus of 14 per cent. to the syndicate of foreign bankers who have agreed to take the loan. We would not disparage this achievement, for we regard it as decidedly better than nothing. Add to the interest ($3,000,000) $1,000,000 more for the aggregate cost of printing the new bonds, advertising,

explaining and commending the loan, and the entire cost of funding the $200,000,000 at 5 per cent. for ten years is $4,000,000. It seems to me that this does not justify a hope that our $1,500,000,000 of instantly or presently redeemable sixes can be promptly funded even at 5 per cent.

Having given to the Secretary's efforts a hearty support throughout, we urge that a radically different plan may next have a fair trial. Before we send another bond abroad to be hawked from banking house to banking house throughout Europe, we ask the government to try-just earnestly to try -to fund the bulk of our debt at home. We could not have sold our bonds during the dark hours of our civil war to Europe at any price, no matter how ruinous, if we had not first shown our faith in them by taking hundreds of millions of them ourselves. So now, having seen how reluctantly they take our reissues at 5 per cent., with a discount, let us show them that we stand ready to take a larger amount at a lower rate of interest at par. Here is the gist of our proposition.

Let Congress make our greenbacks fundable, at the pleasure of the holder, in bonds of $100, $1,000 and $10,000, drawing interest at the rate of one cent per day on each $100 (or 3.65 per annum), and exchaneable in greenbacks at the pleasure of the holder. Now authorize the Treasury to purchase and extinguish our outstanding bonds so fast as it is supplied with the means of so doing by receipts of customs or otherwise, and to issue new greenbacks whenever larger amounts shall be required, every one being fundable in sums of $100, 1,000 or $10,000, as aforesaid, at the pleasure of the holder, in bonds drawing an annual interest of 3.65 in coin per annum, and these bonds exchangeable into greenbacks whenever a holder shall desire it.

The benefits of this system would be these:

1. Our greenbacks, which are now virtual falsehoods, would be truths. The government would pay them on demand in bonds as aforesaid, which is in substantial accordance with the plan on which the greenbacks were first authorized.

2. Every person having greenbacks for which he had no present need would present them at some Sub-Treasury and exchange them at par for these bonds. Suppose he had $10,000 which he expected to use a month hence, he can make them earn him $30 meantime, without incurring the

smallest danger of loss by bank failures or otherwise, and with a positive certainty that the money would be ready for him whenever he chose to take it.

3. A merchant leaves New York with a million of dollars which he proposes to invest in wheat at the West or in cotton at the South. He calls at our Sub-Treasury, exchanges his greenbacks for these bonds, and takes or sends these to Chicago, Saint Paul, New Orleans, or Galveston, to be exchanged for use when needed. After looking about for a month, he buys half the produce he originally intended, converts half his bonds into greenbacks, receives $50 per day or $1,500 in all, as interest, and makes his payments. After traveling and looking for another month, he invests the remainder of his capital, receives $3,000 as interest thereon for the two months he has held the last half million of bonds, and lays his course homeward. His bonds may have lain nearly all the time he owned them in the vaults of some bank; but they were earning money, not for that bank but for him.

4. Our greenbacks, no longer false, but convertible at pleasure into bonds bearing a moderate gold interest, and exchangeable as aforesaid, could not fail to appreciate steadily until they nearly reached the level of gold. Indeed, they would, unless issued too profusely, be really better than gold. Drawing a higher rate of interest than British consuls, and convertible at pleasure, as these are not, they would in time obtain currency even in the Old World.

5. The trouble so inveterately borrowed by thousands with respect to over-issues, redundant currency, etc., would (or at least should) be hereby dispelled. If there were at any time an excess of currency, it would tend to precipitate itself into the bonds aforesaid. If there should ever be a scarcity of currency, bonds would be exchanged at the Treasury for greenbacks till the want was fully supplied. Black Fridays and the locking up of greenbacks would soon be numbered with lost arts and hobgoblin terrors.

6. Though the demand for these bonds might for months be moderate, their convenience and manifest utility would soon diffuse their popularity and stimulate an ever widening demand for them. They would be a favorite investment with guardians and trustees who would expect to be required to pay over the funds held by them at an early day, whether fixed or uncertain. They would say, though I might invest Ι