Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/499

Rh We had our own Continental money, the history of which is familiar to you. Tried and exploded again!

The theory of the progressive system was discussed with more than ordinary thoroughness in the British Parliament in the debates on the report of the bullion committee. Tried and exploded again!

And now, after all these teachings of history, the same progressive ideas appear as something new in the Senate of the United States. But, sir, when these same fallacies, so hoary with age and so overshadowed with the condemnation of experience, are still repeated again and again in the Senate of the United States, in spite of overwhelming refutation on the spot; when they still seem to be believed in by some; and when, finally, the venerable Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. ] rises and tells us that the very fact of the abundance of money in the great centers at the present moment is conclusive proof that there is not enough of it in the country, and when the same Senator tries to make us believe that by voting for inflation we shall, with him, make war upon the monopolists and the wicked speculators and money-changers, then, sir, I may be pardoned if at this late stage of the debate I come forward once more to speak of first principles.

I want it distinctly understood that the object of the remarks I am going to make will be distinctly this: I desire to show, first, that the gentlemen who favor an expansion of the currency labor under an essentially erroneous conception of the nature of the difficulties for which they want to provide; and, secondly, that the remedies which they propose will not effect a cure at all, but will rather aggravate the evil.

An inflation of our paper money is demanded of us in any form, the form of greenbacks, the form of national-bank currency or both combined, but an inflation in any event upon one single ground—that there is at present an