Statutes referred to it, in passing, as they did to West Point or Yellowstone Park—something that was permanent, national, inseparable from the life of the Republic.
There never was a law for the Gold Reserve, there never was a necessity for it, there never was an antecedent discussion in regard to it, and there never was a particle of financial sense in it. Nobody ever presented Greenbacks for redemption until Mr. Carlisle made his infamous ruling, and gold was paid out for paper and bonds issued to get the gold back.
The Gold Reserve was useless until it became, under Carlisle’s ruling, a bait to set the bond trap with.
To show that it has no influence upon the value of Greenbacks we need only to point to the fact that although the size of the Gold Reserve constantly fluctuated for about a year after Carlisle’s ruling, the value of the Greenbacks has not varied at all.
If the Greenbacks depended on the Gold Reserve, their value would have risen and fallen with the Gold Reserve.
The Greenbacks do not, and never did, depend on the Gold Reserve. They depend on the credit of the Government, and the known fact that the credit of the Government is based on $80,000,000,000 of national wealth. Their legal tender quality, their usefulness as money, their receivability for taxes and public dues, make them good in the eyes of the people irrespective of any Gold Reserve.
John Sherman had no more right to make a Gold Reserve than he had to make a Silver Reserve.
Greenbacks were no more redeemable in gold than they were in silver. But why argue the case? The verdict is already made up in the minds of the jury. Both the old parties pay their vows to the Gold Reserve. Mumbo Jumbo is shrined in the hearts of both Democrats and Republicans. Sherman’s god rules.
We quake every time they tell us that anything bad has happened to the Gold Reserve. We used to toss in our sleep, muttering distressfully, when the news would come that the Gold Reserve “is dwindling.”
What good does Mumbo Jumbo do the naked African? None.