Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/552

532 pay the National bonds in gold; they proposed to issue the necessary amount of greenbacks to pay off the National debt in a depreciated paper, in the cheapest possible money. They thought the people would jump at the chance of thus getting rid of a very onerous burden. Well, sir, what was the result? At first the proposition seemed to become quite popular in some quarters, and politicians of both parties—who are always ready to run after a popular cry, right or wrong, and always think what they think the people think—saw there a chance of a profitable game for themselves. They advocated the scheme, or at least did nothing against it. They thought they could not afford to oppose it. Well, sir, here is a piece of my personal experience. In the Presidential campaign of 1868 I was invited to make speeches in the State of Indiana. When I came into that State I was met by some politicians who told me: “Now we want you not to say anything in your speeches against that greenback scheme; the people of Indiana are almost universally in favor of it; they want to get rid of this heavy debt; they do not want to pay the bloated bond holder in gold”; and so on. I replied: “If I cannot say about the greenback scheme what I please in this canvass, I will not speak in Indiana at all.” After some hesitation those politicians consented that I should proceed; but they watched me with great trepidation. Well, I did speak my mind, and in every speech I denounced the greenback scheme as a most rascally conception, and I insisted that it was the sacred duty of the Government to pay to the National creditor every farthing according to the letter and spirit of the law. And there were the people of Indiana before me, who had been represented to me as being fairly wild on the subject of the greenback scheme. What was the result? No declaration in my speeches was more heartily applauded than just this, and