Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/510

490 appetite will not be satisfied; it will only be stimulated by the supply.

Now issue more currency, and it will go just as little where you want it to go as it does now. You can issue it; but, mark my words, you cannot force it into the channels of legitimate business, and you cannot force it out of the channels of speculation. The currency you issue will fall under the control of exactly the same class of men who control it now, only in a larger and more oppressive form. With every addition you make, a larger proportion will go into the hands of those who have too much already and use it for bad purposes; and it will increase their power to keep it out of the hands of those who have not enough, and who would use it for good purposes. You are indulging in a dangerous, I might say a childish, delusion if you think that you have any power to prevent new issues from flowing exactly the same way the old issues have gone. Increase the volume of the stream, and you will make it flow only the faster, but not in a different direction. Quibble about it as you may, draw what fancy pictures you will, you cannot deny the stern fact which stares you in the face:. It will only be a more powerful weapon in the hands of the speculator to cripple legitimate business and to oppress the people the more there is of it. It always has been so, and it always will be so; and the sooner the American people make up their minds to this fact and honestly act upon it, the better it will be for their virtue as well as for their prosperity.

Now, sir, sincerely and profoundly do I sympathize with the people of the Senator from North Carolina, as I do with the people of all the States who are suffering; and I should be most happy to aid them in their distress. But, I repeat, I am profoundly convinced that inflation