“Why have not the Republican Secretaries of the Treasury exercised that discretion?” asked Mr. Pence of Colorado.
“I have not been Secretary of the Treasury,” replied Mr. Hepburn hotly. “When I am I will answer. I am as fully convinced, however, as I am that I am alive, that if the Secretary of the Treasury were now to exercise his discretion and pay gold when legitimate redemptions were asked, and refuse it to sharks and speculators, the evils from which we suffer would cease to be.”
A broader view is that the prime motive of the Secretary in exercising his discretion should be the welfare of the government; and gold should be refused where its payment is likely to hurt the treasury.
In the foregoing pages we have attempted to give such a bird’s-eye view of American money and finance as would serve as an example and warning for the future. We behold in this short story how our finances were continually run upon the rocks and shoals of a false “political economy,” so-called, and how they were occasionally pulled off—though remaining most of the time stuck fast in the most dismal way.
As to the general aspects of the money question this is added:
Our financial kings have kept two purposes in view. First: To have our money issued by and for the special use of private institutions called banks; and to have this money scanty in quantity and of fluctuating value. Second: To issue, foster and maintain, by all possible means, bonds and other interest-bearing obligations, as the most convenient means of transferring to the few the product of the industry of the many.
To maintain these humbugs, they use learned language, like doctors writing prescriptions in Latin. All the expert handlers of money, stocks, etc., hate nothing so much as that which is best for the other classes, viz., steady values. Their delight is in ups and downs; and then, if speculators, their effort is to be on the winning side. With brokers, every change is profitable. With them it is: “Heads I win, tails you lose.” Copernicus said of the work of these traitors: “It is not by a blow, but little by little, and through a secret and obscure approach, that it destroys the state.” Further back in the ages Plato, Lycurgus and Solon saw this most plainly.
The new American system of money is plainly and briefly this: Abundant government fiat paper money—founded upon the wealth and credit of a great, stable nation; such money to[to] be kept at a steady purchasing power by the increase and decrease of its volume; and to be quite void of intrinsic value, and quite free from particular commodities as bases for the monetary units.
For the present we wish free coinage of gold and silver at 16 to 1. The ultimate of gold and silver will probably be free coinage for all who bring them to the mints, into suitable coins stamped with their weight and fineness, and returned to the owners to be used as they choose. And no one will lie awake nights for fear the metals will go abroad.