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PLEA FOR HONEST MONEY.

Characteristic Speech at Malone, N. Y., Oct. 4, 1879.

LADIES AND Gentlemen:-We have had in our country a magnificent inflation. We have built within twentyfive years some 75,000 miles of railroad, and in order to build that we spent about $5,000,000,000.

Well, there was work for everybody. We had everything growing and there was prosperity all over the land. Everybody worked for everybody—everybody wanted to employ somebody else. In the meantime the war came upon our hands, and in that we spent $10,000,000,000. What for? To build up? No; to tear down and destroy. Every single solitary dollar that was spent was wasted by us. But as a matter of fact, we didn't spend the money, we only agreed to. We scattered all over the country certain notes which we and we have not got them paid yet. In it did not take as much patriotism to put down the Rebellion as it will to pay the debt. A man can be brave for a few minutes when he is right in the line of battle, and when he looks and sees that no one else runs. is comparatively easy to do that, and be shot down at the post of glory. It is comparatively easy to die for a principle. But it is mighty hard to live for it.

agreed to pay, my judgment,

It

It is hard work to get up at four o'clock in the morning and work until the sun goes down, and do that for a life.

I say we spent all of this money, and we had what was called prosperity, and while that was going on the young men left the farms, and said they didn't want to be farmThey said:

ers.

"We won't be farmers; we will go to the city."

Every man that could get $500 worth of goods on trust became a merchant. They wanted to be dentists, doctors, lawyers,—something that there was no work in. When they could not do that they would start an insurance association. Then they sent their agents all over the country to get your property insured, and every moment you would have the picture of a coffin thrust in your face to see if you wouldn't insure. And those agents would come and sit down by you and talk about your last struggle with that monster-death. They got a certain share of the premium, and they insured anybody. They insured consumption in its last hemorrhage, and the money flowed into the society. As soon as the fellows began to die the company closed its doors.

Then they had fire insurance companies. The agents of these also had a share of the premiums, and I tell you that for six, eight or ten years they would have insured and iceberg in perdition. Then the merchants filled all the cars and all the hotels and bars with runners and drummers. Every man that you met had three carpetsacks filled with samples. And in the meantime we had the bankrupt law, so that every man who couldn't pay his debts might take the benefit of this law. Then it all went to the clerks, etc,, of the courts. I never heard of

anyone getting more than 3 per cent. on any claim in my life.

THE CRASH.

All at once-in 1873-there came a crash, and the brother that had said at home and worked on the farm saw in the paper that hls brother, who was president of a life insurance company, was a vagrant and a vagabond. He read, too, that the railroad had failed, and that its bonds were as worthless as the first autumn leaves that grew on this earth. Then he began to think that he was doing well himself; and the fact is the men who cultivate the soil are to-day the richest, on the average, of any class of men under our flag.

Then we got hard times. Everybody who had a mortgage as an adornment to his property has suffered. Now they say the way to get back-the way to have prosperous times again-is to again go into debt. Suppose I bought a farm for $5,000, and gave my note for it; and then I bought a piano for Mary and gave my note, and sent James to school and gave my note, and they all run a year. What a magnificent time I could have for that year! Then when they came around and wanted me to pay the note, I would say, "I will give you little notes for the interest, and let them run for another year." What a splendid time I could have for another year! Finally when they come and say they have got to have the money, what would you think if I were to say to them, "I never had a better time in my life than when I was giving those notes. All that is necessary for universal peace and happiness is to let me keep right on giving my notes."

I say to them the reason of hard times is because they have lost confidence in me. They say the reason they have lost confidence is that I have not got the money.

"FIAT" MONEY.

Now, it is precisely the same way with an individual that it is with the Government. I say that he can't make something out of nothing. The United States Government can't make money. It can make what it calls money. It has not the power to make it; it has the power to make you take it. In other words it has the power to make every creditor take it, and nobody else.

If you

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go to buy a busliel of wheat, and you have got "fiat" money, the man can say, "I will take $1 in gold for that wheat, but I want $5 if you pay in "fiat" money." How are you going to prevent him? The money you have got is simply good because it promises to pay. Now it is proposed to have money that will not promise to pay. If nonsense can go beyond that, I cannot conceive what route or path it will take. Then if Congress says you

must take it, Congress must fix the price of everything. It must fix the price of wheat; it must fix the price of making a speech in a lawsuit; it must fix the price of every article, or else it cannot make its money good.

GOVERNMENT TAXES.

But some gentlemen say that Congress has the power to make money, and I want to ask them, one question; I want you to think about it. If this Government has the power to make money, why should it collect taxes from us? Why don't it make it and let us alone? If the Government can make a dollar or a thousand dollar bill just that quick (slapping his hands together), why should they make us labor day and night, and make us pay taxes to support them? If the Government can make money let them make it and let us alone. But instead of that this great Government comes up here into this country with a bayonet and compels you to to pay taxes. It is like the ocean trotting around to borrow a little salt water, or like the sun trying to get the loan of a candle from some poor devil that has worked weeks to make that candle.

So I say to them, if they can do it, let them do it. Very well, if the Government can make money, how much can it make? How will I get my share? How much is it going to issue? Some say, " Enough to produce prosperity." But how much, they can't tell.

Some say they are going to pay up the bonds and bring money in that way into circulation, and then business will be prosperous. But I say business will be pros

perous when

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