Mr. Merchant: But we carry the worry.
Mr. Banker: I wish you did. You would have an easy time then, but—
Mr. Laboringman: You needn't say "but" to me. You have it on all of us. There is no doubt about that. However, Mr. Banker, I'm not going back on you, for you have helped me out of several tight pinches.
Uncle Sam: Well, it does really look to me as if I had been living in a fool's paradise. Those dear old greenbacks they have been about as much of a fraud as the dollar of our daddies. I do declare this whole thing makes me half sick. But if you are actually finding out what really ails me, I'll get over that pretty soon, and, boys, if we stick to this job, and play fair and honest, we'll have the best banking system in the world yet, and don't you forget it.
But you forgot to tell me about the safest and best banking system in the world because every bank note was secured by one of my Government bonds. That's what they've been telling me, you know. Now, what about that?
Mr. Banker: Well, I could not interfere with your confession that you had been living in a fool's paradise, and dreaming dreams about making something out of nothing, while your credit was in peril, and you were losing hundreds of millions and furnishing the country a currency that was costing the people five or six times as much as the right kind of currency would.
Now, a word about your bond-secured bank note illusion, and I will be through. Uncle Sam, you remember that during the war, you were looking around in every direction to find some new method for obtaining means to carry on the war. You had busted your credit wide open with your United States Note issue, and the question was how to find some new resource. Your Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, concocted this scheme of giving the banks the right of issuing notes if they purchased Government bonds, and deposited them to secure the payment of the notes. It is very strange, but he did not get much from this source, as there were only $98,896,488 of notes out when the war closed. However, the scheme was started, and has been going ever since, precisely as it was inaugurated, a bond investment scheme. The amount of notes in circulation has never borne any direct relation to the demands of trade, as you can see by the following facts: In 1880 the notes outstanding amounted to $352,000,000, and in 1891, eleven years afterwards, they amounted to only $162,000,000, or about $100,000,000 less, although the country was growing and business expanding all the while. We ought always to expand our currency during the fall months about $300,000,000, and we ought to contract it during the succeeding months, or during the springtime just as much. But a careful investigation shows that these bond-secured notes have decreased as often in the fall months as they have increased, and have increased in the spring months as often as they have decreased. This proves conclusively that the amount of notes outstanding has never borne any relation whatever to the requirements of trade. The scheme is today precisely what it was when first concocted, purely a bond investment affair.
Uncle Sam: Well, well, now that is mighty strange, but my greatest Chief Justice, John Marshall, pointed out the necessity of having a currency directly related to the business of the country, when upholding the constitutionality of the Act incorporating the second United States Bank. He said: "The currency which it circulates by means of its trade with individuals is believed to make it a more fit instrument of government than it could otherwise be." One of my presidents, James A. Garfield, used this language: "No currency can meet the wants of this country that is not founded on business." Boys, both of these great men must have referred to credit currency, and declared that it was essential to our business.
Mr. Banker: Furthermore, Uncle Sam, these bond-secured Bank Notes are indirectly just that much more of a burden resting upon the United States Treasury, upon you, if you want to know the truth, as I explained to you last Wednesday night.