“I now proceed to notice the second point that has been made in favor of this bill. It is assumed that specie payment will injure the debtor class of this country, and thereby oppress the poor; in other words, that the enforcement of the resumption law will oppress the poor and increase the riches of the rich. It is assumed that the laboring-men are in debt, and that the rich men constitute the creditor class. I deny this proposition in toto. I affirm that the vast majority of the creditors of this country are the poor people; that the vast majority of the debtors of this country are the well-to-do people—in fact, people who are moderately rich.
“As a matter of fact, the poor man, the laboring-man, can not get heavily in debt. He has not the security to offer. Men lend their money on security, and in the very nature of the case poor men can borrow but little. What then do poor men do with their small earnings? When a man has earned, out of his hard work, a hundred dollars more than he needs for current expenses, he reasons thus: ‘I can not go into business with a hundred dollars; I can not embark in trade; but, as I work, I want my money to work.’ And so he puts his small gains where they will earn something. He lends his money to a wealthier neighbor, or puts it in the savings-bank. There were, in the United States, on the first of November, 1876, forty-four hundred and seventy-five savings-banks and private banks of deposit, and their deposits amounted to $1,377,000,000, almost three-fourths of the amount of our national debt. Over two and a half millions of the citizens of the United States were depositors. In some States the deposits did not average more than $250 each. The great mass of the depositors are men and women of small means—laborers, widows, and orphans. They are the lenders of this enormous aggregate. The savings-banks, as their agents, lend it to whom? Not to the laboring poor, but to the business men who wish to enlarge their business beyond their capital. Speculators sometimes borrow it. But in the main, well-to-do business men borrow these hoardings. Thus the poor lend to the rich....
“There is another way in which poor men dispose of their money. A man says: ‘I can keep my wife and babies from starving while I live and have my health, but if I die they may be compelled to go over the hills to the poor-house’; and, agonized by that thought, he saves out of his hard earnings enough to take out and keep alive a small life-insurance policy, so that, if he dies, there may be something left, provided the insurance company to which he intrusts his money is honest enough to keep its pledges. And how many men do you think have done that in the United States? I do not know the number for the whole country, but I do know this, that from a late report to the insurance commissioner of the State of New York, it appears that the companies doing business in that State had 774,625 policies in force, and the face value of these policies was $1,922,000,000. I find, by looking over the returns, that in my State there are 55,000 policies outstanding; in Pennsylvania, 74,000; in Maine, 17,000; in Maryland, 25,000; and, in the State of New York, 160,090. There are, of course, some rich men insured in these companies, but the majority are poor people, for the policies do not average more than $2,200 each. What is done with the assets of these companies, which amount to $445,000,000? They are loaned out. Here again the creditor class is the poor, and the insurance companies are the agents of the poor to lend their money for them. It would be dishonorable for Congress to legislate either for the debtor class or for the creditor class alone. We ought to legislate for the whole country. But when gentlemen attempt to manufacture sentiment against the resumption act, by saying it will help the rich and hurt the poor, they are overwhelmingly answered by the facts.
“Suppose you undo the work that Congress has attempted—to resume specie payment—what will result? You will depreciate the value of the greenback. Suppose it falls ten cents on the dollar, you will have destroyed ten per cent. of the value of every deposit in the savings-banks, ten per cent. of every life-insurance policy and fire-insurance policy, of every pension to the soldier, and of every day’s wages of every laborer in the nation.
“In the census of 1870, it was estimated that on any given day there were $120,000,000 due to laborers for their unpaid wages. That is a small estimate. Let the greenback dollar come down ten per cent. and you take $12,000,000 from the men who have already earned it. In the name of every interest connected with the poor man I denounce this effort to prevent resumption. Daniel Webster never uttered a greater truth in finance than when he said that of all contrivances to cheat the laboring-classes of mankind, none was so effective as that which deluded them with an irredeemable paper money. The rich can take care of themselves, but the dead-weight of all the fluctuations and losses falls ultimately on the poor man who has only his day’s work to sell.
“I admit that in the passage from peace to war there was a great loss to one class of the community, to the creditors; and in the return to the basis of peace some loss to debtors was inevitable. This injustice was unavoidable. The loss and gain did not fall upon the same. The evil could not be balanced nor adjusted. The debtors of 1862–’65 are not the debtors of 1877. The most competent judges declare that the average life of the private debts in the United States is not more than two years. Of course, obligations may be renewed, but the average length of private debts in this country is not more than two years. Now, we have already gone two years on the road to resumption, and the country has been adjusting itself to the new condition of things. The people have expected resumption, and have already discounted most of the hardships and sufferings incident to the change. The agony is almost over; and if we now embark again upon the open sea we lose all that has been gained, and plunge the country into the necessity of venturing once more over the same boisterous ocean, with all its perils and uncertainties. I speak the deepest convictions of my mind and heart when I say that, should this resumption act be repealed and no effectual substitute be put in its place, the day is not far distant when all of us, looking back on this time from the depths of the evils which will result, will regret, with all our power to regret, the day when we again let loose the dangers of inflation upon the country.
“Although I do not believe in keeping greenbacks as a permanent currency in the United States, although I do not myself believe in the Government becoming a permanent banker, yet I am willing for one that, in order to prevent the shock to business which gentlemen fear, the $300,000,000 of greenbacks shall be allowed to remain in circulation as long as the wants of trade show manifestly that they are needed. Now, is that a great contraction? Is it contraction at all?
“Why, gentlemen, when you have brought your greenback up two and one-half cents higher in value, you will have added to your volume of money $200,000,000 of gold coin which can not circulate until greenbacks are brought to par.
“Let those who are afraid of contraction consider that and answer it.