Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/544

524 existing in Amsterdam and London bodily to New York and Boston, and give it the same field of action, then the rate of interest at the latter places would be no longer 6 and 8 per cent., but it would be 2 to 3 per cent., and if we could transport all the accumulated wealth of New York and Boston to Omaha and Hannibal, then, in all probability, the rate of interest there would cease to be 12 to 24 per cent., and it would range at 6 to 8.

But the same effect cannot be produced in any other way than by the gradual creation and accumulation of wealth. The accumulation of capital and consequent low rates of interest are the result of the work of generations. It cannot be created by the establishment of banks, or by the issues of paper money; and the idea that it can be done by the printing of irredeemable paper money is so absurd, that every baby can see it. Still more preposterous is the fabulous notion that we can issue paper money enough to secure to everybody who wants it a loan, or to discount every man's note at as low a rate of interest as he desires. It is indeed incredible that such propositions should be seriously advanced and advocated on the floor of the Senate of the United States. Why, we might as well in the shortest way solve the problem by saying: Let every man issue his note for all his debts, past, present and prospective; and then let us enact a law making that note legal-tender.

And now, sir, when I have demonstrated by fact and reason, so that every child might understand them, propositions like these, that capital and currency are two very different things; that the wealth of a country is not augmented by printing more paper money; that when popular confidence in the issuer of irredeemable paper money is unimpaired, the constant depreciation of that paper money demonstrates its excess in quantity over and above the real requirements of legitimate business; that such a