Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/195

Rh statement the platform proceeds to propose “to make and keep the volume of the currency equal to the wants of trade.”

What does this mean? If anything, it means that the volume of the currency has been reduced so much as to fall short of the wants of trade; that it must be “made” equal to those wants, and that can be done by issuing more of it; and that it must be “kept” equal to those wants, and that can be done only by issuing still more of it from time to time, as the volume put out may not have effected the purpose.

Every child in the country can understand the meaning of such language, and I wonder with what faces “honorable gentlemen” can stand up before an intelligent people feebly quibbling about a turn of phrase which has no meaning at all if it does not mean inflation. But it means not only inflation by a single act and to a fixed amount—it means inflation continuous and indefinite.

The volume of the currency is to be “made and kept equal to the wants of trade.” Is not the volume of the currency equal to the wants of trade now? It is a fact as notorious as daylight that the banks of the country, especially in the centers of trade, are full of money that lies idle for want of employment. No intelligent man questions this fact. To any candid mind this would conclusively prove, not that the volume of currency is unequal to the wants of business, but that the business of the country is unequal to the volume of the currency.

But no! say the inflationists. It does not prove that the volume of currency is equal to the wants of trade; for, although there may be a superabundance of money in the banks, there are a great many people who want money and cannot get it.

To candid common-sense, this again would prove, not that there is a lack of currency, but that there is a want