EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION
Question. What did you do on your European trip, Colonel?
Answer. I went with my family from New York to Southampton, England, thence to London, and from London to Edinburgh. In Scotland I visited every place where Burns had lived, from the cottage where he was born to the room where he died. I followed him from the cradle to the coffin. I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the purpose of seeing all that I could in any way connected with Shakespeare; next to London, where we visited again all the places of interest, and thence to Paris, where we spent a couple of weeks in the Exposition.
Question. And what did you think of it?
Answer. So far as machinery—so far as the practical is concerned, it is not equal to ours in Philadelphia; in art it is incomparably beyond it. I was very much gratified to find so much evidence in favor of my theory that the golden age in art is in front of us; that mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and immediately commence to degenerate. The modern painters and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient. I think we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements. Nothing pleased me more than the painting from Holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life. They paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint homes. They are not much on Ariadnes and Venuses, but they paint good women.
Question. What did you think of the American display?
Answer. Our part of the Exposition is good, but nothing to what is should and might have been, but we bring home nearly as many medals as we took things. We lead the world in machinery and in ingenious inventions, and some of our paintings were excellent.
Question. Colonel, crossing the Atlantic back to America, what do you think of the Greenback movement?
Answer. In regard to the Greenback party, in the first place, I am not a believer in miracles. I do not believe that something can be made out of nothing. The Government, in my judgment, cannot create money; the Government can give its note, like an individual, and the prospect of its being paid determines its value. We have already substantially resumed. Every piece of property that has been shrinking has simply been resuming. We expended during the war—not for the useful, but for the useless, not to build up, but to destroy—at least one thousand million dollars. The Government was an enormous purchaser; when the war ceased the industries of the country lost their greatest customer. As a consequence there was a surplus of production, and consequently a surplus of labor. At last we have gotten back, and the country since the war has produced over and above the cost of production, something near the amount that was lost during the war. Our exports are about two hundred million dollars more than our imports, and this is a healthy sign. There are, however, five or six hundred thousand men, probably, out of employment; as prosperity increases this number will decrease. I am in favor of the Government doing something to ameliorate the condition of these men. I would like to see constructed the Northern and Southern Pacific railroads; this would give employment at once to many thousands, and homes after awhile to millions. All the signs of the times to me are good. The wretched bankrupt law, at last, is wiped from the statute books, and honest people in a short time can get plenty of credit. This law should have been repealed years before it was. It would have been far better to have had all who have gone into bankruptcy during these frightful years to have done so at once.
Question. What will be the political effect of the Greenback movement?
Answer. The effect in Maine has been to defeat the Republican party. I do not believe any party can permanently succeed in the United States that does not believe in and advocate actual money. I want to see the greenback equal with gold the world round. A money below par keeps the people below par. No man can possibly be proud of a country that is not willing to pay its debts. Several of the States this fall may be carried by the Greenback party, but if I have a correct understanding of their views, that party cannot hold any State for any great length of time. But all the men of wealth should remember that everybody in the community has got, in some way, to be supported. I want to see them so that they can support themselves by their own labor. In my judgment real prosperity will begin with actual resumption, because confidence will then return. If the workingmen of the United States cannot make their living, cannot have the opportunity to labor, they have got to be supported in some way, and in any event, I want to see a liberal policy inaugurated by the Government. I believe in improving rivers and harbors.
I do not believe the trans-continental commerce of this country should depend on one railroad. I want new territories opened. I want to see American steamships running to all the great ports of the world. I want to see our flag flying on all the seas and in all the harbors. We have the best country, and, in my judgment, the best people in the world, and we ought to be the most prosperous nation on the earth.
Question. Then you only consider the Greenback movement a temporary thing?
Answer. Yes; I do not believe that there is anything permanent in anything that is not sound, that has not a perfectly sound foundation, and I mean sound, sound in every sense of that word. It must be wise and honest. We have plenty of money; the trouble is to get it. If the Greenbackers will pass a law furnishing all of us with collaterals, there certainly would be no trouble about getting the money. Nothing can demonstrate more fully the plentifulness of money than the fact that millions of four per cent. bonds have been taken in the United States. The trouble is, business is scarce.
Question. But do you not think the Greenback movement will help the Democracy to success in 1880?
Answer. I think the Greenback movement will injure the Republican party much more than the Democratic party. Whether that injury will reach as far as 1880 depends simply upon one thing. If resumption—in spite of all the resolutions to the contrary— inaugurates an era of prosperity, as I believe and hope it will, then it seems to me that the Republican party will be as strong in the North as in its palmiest days. Of course I regard most of the old issues as settled, and I make this statement simply because I regard the financial issue as the only living one.
Of course, I have no idea who will be the Democratic candidate, but I suppose the South will be solid for the Democratic nominee, unless the financial question divides that section of the country.
Question. With a solid South do you not think the Democratic nominee will stand a good chance?
Answer. Certainly, he will stand the best chance if the Democracy is right on the financial question; if it will cling to its old idea of hard money, he will. If the Democrats will recognize that the issues of the war are settled, then I think that party has the best chance.
Question. But if it clings to soft money?
Answer. Then I think it will be beaten, if by soft money it means the payment of one promise with another.
Question. You consider Greenbackers inflationists, do you not?
Answer. I suppose the Greenbackers to be the party of inflation. I am in favor of inflation produced by industry. I am in favor of the country being inflated with corn, with wheat, good houses, books, pictures, and plenty of labor for everybody. I am in favor of being inflated with gold and silver, but I do not believe in the inflation of promise, expectation and speculation. I sympathize with every man who is willing to work and cannot get it, and I sympathize to that degree that I would like to see the fortunate and prosperous taxed to support his unfortunate brother until labor could be found.
The Greenback party seems to think credit is just as good as gold. While the credit lasts this is so; but the trouble is, whenever it is ascertained that the gold is gone or cannot be produced the credit takes wings. The bill of a perfectly solvent bank may circulate for years. Now, because nobody demands the gold on that bill it doesn't follow that the bill would be just as good without any gold behind it. The idea that you can have the gold whenever you present the bill gives it its value. To illustrate: A poor man buys soup tickets. He is not hungry at the time of purchase, and will not be for some hours. During those hours the Greenback gentlemen argue that there is no use of keeping any soup on hand with which to redeem these tickets, and from this they further argue that if they can be good for a few hours without soup, why not forever? And they would be, only the holder gets hungry. Until he is hungry, of course, he does not care whether any soup is on hand or not, but when he presents his ticket he wants his soup, and the idea that he can have the soup when he does present the ticket gives it its value. And so I regard bank notes, without gold and silver, as of the same value as tickets without soup.
—The Post, Washington, D. C., 1878.