Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/541

Rh and me is, that he distrusts the integrity of the American people. I believe that the people of the United States are just as honest as any other people in the world, and I know that they have paid their debts as honestly as any other people in the world ever paid theirs.

Mr. . When the Senator from Pennsylvania says that I have said anything to their discredit or reflected upon the honesty of the American people, he says that which he ought to know is not correct. I have said nothing of the kind.

Mr. . I only take your words.

Mr. . I have not used such words. I have said that an irredeemable currency is a dishonest money system. It has been stigmatized as such by the history of the world.

Mr. . But you talked about trickery in its payment.

Mr. . I said this: that if we inflate the currency, the value of money will be depreciated. Is the Senator from Pennsylvania the man to deny it? Does he not know it just as well as I do? Is he not too well versed in addition and subtraction not to know that?

But there was one remark which fell from the Senator from Pennsylvania which really surprised me. He said that the people of Europe took hold of only such loans as were made in their immediate neighborhood. Has he forgotten that during our war hundreds of millions of our bonds went into Germany and were readily taken there while the destinies of the United States were still trembling in the scale of battle? Has he forgotten that? Does he not know that the European countries have been fairly flooded with our railroad securities? Can he count the millions of capital that came from Europe, with which so many of our enterprises were floated, that could not find ready and sufficient capital at home?