Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/197

Rh as one of the immortal utterances of the financial statesmanship of this period.

Only think of it. Money in bank is no money at all for business purposes, because it is in bank! The great leader of the Democratic party of Ohio, which asks the people to vote for him on the very ground of his financial principles, does not know yet that in this civilized country only about seven per cent. of the business transactions are accomplished by an actual transfer and delivery of currency from hand to hand and that fully ninety-three per cent. of those transactions are effected by the transfer of bank accounts through checks, notes and bills of exchange. He does not know that ninety-three per cent. of the circulation of money in this country is effected through those very banks, which he likens to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean! He does not know yet that, in the progress of civilization, we have passed that ancient period of barbarism when a business man carried his treasury in his wallet and his counting-room in his hat!

It seems almost incredible in this nineteenth century, and yet this very absurdity is the basis of all the reasoning of the inflationists, and Governor Allen is only the blunt but the true representative of the ideas of his followers. Believing, or pretending to believe, that money in bank is lost to circulation and no longer performs the office of money, they strive either to force that money out of the banks, or to issue more which will not go into the banks. They decide at once for the latter course.

Now, suppose more of our irredeemable greenbacks be issued. No matter who gets them, the first thing the people who receive them will do is to go straightway and deposit them in banks—all except Governor Allen. “Hold on!” cries he, “that will never do! You are destroying your greenbacks for all purposes of money and currency! You are throwing them into the bottom of