Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/540

520 calculated to elevate the American character and to raise the credit of the country in the eyes of the world than a speedy deliverance from that system. Why is it, I would ask him, that the National bonds of ours, than which there is no better security in the world, do not rise higher than they have done? Why is it that they do not keep pace, in proportion to the respective rates of interest, with the best of European securities? Simply because as long as we have this false system of irredeemable money, there is still lurking in the minds of men a secret suspicion that, by some trick or other, the National debt may still be paid off with depreciated greenbacks; and when I say that, I know whereof I speak, for I heard it a hundred times, to my own shame and to that of my country. I know that suspicion is wrong, absolutely groundless; but I consider it my duty, as a candid man, to tell you that such a suspicion exists.

I have now indicated how the credit of the country can be raised and how it is depreciated.

Mr. . If the Senator will allow me, he is again wrong, in my estimation. It is not because of the doubt of our credit, or our honesty, but it is because of that natural feeling in the human mind that men trust those securities that are near to them. The small money lender in Germany will lend to a man in his own ward for less interest than he will to a man living a mile off from him in the same city. So the people of France lend their money, and so do the people of England lend it at home first. It is the surplus, which they cannot invest securely, that they send here. Besides, if he wants to make his mortgage secure, it is very easy to make the interest payable in gold.

Mr. . Ah! there we come to it. Let us make it all payable in gold; that is what we are contending for.

Mr. . The difference between the Senator