Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/161

Rh obligations of the Government which are due and payable. The purpose is to bring out the fact that there is a debt of the United States now due which can be paid; that the country is rich enough to pay it; that no financial disturbance would of necessity ensue; that the vast deposits of gold coin now held in Eu-. rope and our own annual product would suffice to meet our checks for $200,000,000, without serious embarrassment, to be used in the next two or three years, in liquidation of the balance due us for cotton, for corn, and for other commodities which the world must have and can not spare.

It therefore follows that if any temporary financial stringency should occur because of the withdrawal of the legal-tender notes from the bank reserves and from their use as money in this country, the burden or strain of that condition need not and would not be carried by the banks or bankers of this country, but would be transferred to our debtors who owe us, and will continue to owe us annually, on our merchandise account, more than we require to put ourselves on the most solid financial foundation of any nation in the world, viz., on a basis of a paper currency based upon actual bullion held in reserve, dollar for dollar. If it be said that such a demand for coin on the bank reserves of Europe would be met by a return of our securities, may it not be held that these securities are mostly held for investment, and that the more apparent the danger of war and of financial disturbance in Europe becomes, the larger will be the transfer of capital to this country for investment?

May it not be held that the very excess of revenue paid into the treasury over and above the necessities of the Government, is in itself a witness to the enormous financial power now held by the United States because of the very accumulation of capital which has occurred during the last few years? May we not be misled by a mere delusion in assuming that the legal-tender notes or greenbacks have any further useful function in this country if they ever had any?

When the fact is baldly stated which can not be denied, that the reissue of these notes from the treasury of the United States is not the continuance of a former loan, but is the actual borrowing of new money under a forced loan and in time of peace, can anything be more absurd than to assume that such a course is necessary? If the burden of taxation demands relief, that is altogether another matter. If, on the other hand, the burden of taxation is not serious, to what better purpose can the revenue be put than to the payment of any or all debts of the United States, to the end that, before the century is completed, the United States may be absolutely free from the debt which it incurred in order to maintain the integrity of the nation?