Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/196

170 of confidence which deters those who have money from embarking in business, and from lending money to those who need it.

This want of confidence is to be overcome. How do the inflationists propose to accomplish this?

On this point we obtain some information from their chief, Governor Allen, who is by the Democratic party of Ohio charged with the great office of leading the country out of all its financial difficulties. I have studied some of the speeches of that venerable gentleman, which, I must confess, filled me with wonder and amazement. No words can do him justice but his own. In a verbatim report of his speech delivered some time ago at Marietta, I find the following language:

These men [meaning his opponents] go about and cry there is too much money in this country. I wish to God we could find some of it. [Laughter.] They say it is in the banks. Is it? It might just as well, for the purposes of money and currency, be in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, for if it is not in circulation, it is no more money than so many cornstalks would be. To be money it must circulate as a medium for carrying on the exchange of the country.

This, then, is Governor Allen's doctrine. I do not wish to speak harshly of the venerable gentleman, who, no doubt, possesses many estimable qualities, and far be it from me to cast any slur upon his character as a man. But standing there as one of the great leaders whose wisdom the people are called upon to trust for the management of their most important interests, his expressed opinions challenge scrutiny. Now, I must confess, among all the glaring absurdities with which the inflation school of financiers has been flooding the land, I find none equal to this theory of Governor Allen's in brilliancy of nonsense. It deserves to be recorded and transmitted to posterity