During the spring and summer of 1891 there was an attempt to organize a new party in Ohio, under the name of the Farmers' Alliance, or People's party, based mainly upon what were alleged to be "seven financial conspiracies." These so-called "conspiracies" were the great measures by which the Union cause was maintained during and since the war. The Alliance was greatly encouraged by its success in defeating Senator Ingalls and replacing him by Senator Peffer, and proposed that I should follow Ingalls. Pamphlets were freely distributed throughout the state, the chief of which was one written by a Mrs. Emery, containing ninety-six pages. I was personally arraigned in this pamphlet as the "head devil" of these conspiracies, and the chief specifications of my crimes were the laws requiring the duties on imported goods to be paid in coin, the payment in coin of the principal and interest of the public debt, the act to strengthen the public credit, the national banking system, and, in her view, the worst of all, the resumption of specie payments.
At first I paid no attention to this pamphlet, but assumed that intelligent readers could and would answer it. In October I received a letter calling my attention to it and asking me to answer it. This I did by the following letter which I was advised had a beneficial effect in the western states, where the pamphlet was being mainly circulated:
"Mansfield, O., October 12, 1891.
"Mr. Charles F. Stokey, Canton, O.
"My Dear Sir:—Yours of the 8th, accompanied by Mrs. S. E. V.
Emery's pamphlet called 'Seven Financial Conspiracies Which Have
Enslaved the American People,' is received.
"Some time since, this wild and visionary book was sent to me, and I read it with amusement and astonishment that anyone could approve of it or be deceived by its falsehoods.
"The 'seven financial conspiracies' are the seven great pillars of our financial credit, the seven great financial measures by which the government was saved from the perils of war and by which the United States has become the most flourishing and prosperous nation in the world.
"The first chapter attributes the Civil War to an infamous plot of capitalists to absorb the wealth of the country at the expense of the people, when all the world knows that the Civil War was organized by slaveholders to destroy the national government and to set up a slaveholding confederacy in the south upon its ruins. The 'Shylock,' described by Mrs. Emery, is a phantom of her imagination. The 'Shylocks of the war' were the men who furnished the means to carry on the government, and included in their number the most patriotic citizens of the northern states, who, uniting their means with the services and sacrifices of our soldiers, put down the rebellion, abolished slavery, and preserved and strengthened our government.
"The first of her 'conspiracies' she calls the exception clause in the act of February 25, 1862, by which the duties on imported goods were required to be paid in coin in order to provide the means to pay the interest on coin bonds in coin. This clause had not only the cordial support of Secretary Chase, but of President Lincoln, and proved to be the most important financial aid of the government devised during the war. Goods being imported upon coin values, it was but right that the duty to the government should be paid in the same coin. Otherwise the duties would have been constantly diminishing with the lessening purchasing power of our greenbacks. If the interest of our debt had not been paid in coin, we could have borrowed no money abroad, and the rate of interest, instead of diminishing as it did, would have been largely increased, and the volume of our paper money would necessarily have had to be increased and its value would have gone down lower and lower, and probably ended, as Confederate money did, in being as worthless as rags. This exception clause saved our public credit by making a market for our bonds, and the coin was paid by foreigners for the privilege of entering our markets.
"As for the national banking system—the second of her 'conspiracies' —it is now conceded to have produced the best form of paper money issued by banks that has ever been devised. It was organized to take the place of the state banks, which, at the beginning of the war, had outstanding over $200,000,000 of notes, of value varying from state to state, and most of them at a discount of from five to twenty-five per cent. It was absolutely necessary to get rid of these state bank notes and to substitute for them bank notes secured beyond doubt by the deposit of United States bonds, a system so perfect that from the beginning until now no one has lost a dollar on the circulating notes of national banks. The system may have to give way because we are paying off our bonds, but no sensible man will ever propose in this country to go back to the old system of state banks, and if some security to take the place of United States bonds can be devised for national bank notes, the system will be and ought to be perpetuated.
"The third 'conspiracy' referred to is contraction of the currency. It has been demonstrated by official documents that from the beginning of the war to this time the volume of our currency has been increasing, year by year, more rapidly than our population. In 1860 the total amount of all the money in circulation was $435,000,000, when our population was 31,000,000, and half of this was money of variable and changing value. Now we have in circulation $1,500,000,000, with a population of 64,000,000, and every dollar of this money is good as gold, all kinds equal to each other, passing from hand to hand and paid out as good money, not only in the United States but among all the commercial countries of the world. Our money has increased nearly fourfold, while our population has only doubled.