Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/216

190 contraction by the Government, not contraction by the Republican party, not contraction forced upon the business of the country, but a contraction of the currency voluntarily set on foot by the business of the country when that business was at perfect liberty to choose expansion as well. To carry out the somewhat homely figure, the diseased body economic refuses to take the medicine administered by quacks; nature makes an effort to right itself; the overcharged stomach begins to give up its undigested food, and disgorges currency for which there is no legitimate employment. That state of things would seem well calculated to convince any candid man of the true state of things. But the inflation doctors, nothing daunted, still, in spite of all this, insist upon treating the case as one of starvation, and propose, if the patient refuses to take it willingly, to ram down by force still more of the indigestible stuff. They evidently belong to that class of doctors to whom the sale of the medicine is more important than the cure of the patient.

And what good do you promise us your inflation medicine will do? A patent-elixir advertisement could not be richer than the declamations of its advocates. Prosperity is to revive at once; every man, woman and child is to have plenty of money; all debts are to be paid by a sort of self-acting process; every mine, every factory, every mill in the land is to be at once in full blast, and thousands of new establishments will spring up on all sides; they will produce an infinite quantity of goods, and for all they can produce there will be a ready market; everybody will want to buy everything, and have plenty of money to do it; the laboring man will command the situation; he will have to work less and get higher wages for it than ever; and in an incredibly short time we shall all be rich; or rather, while now the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, then the rich will get poor and the poor get rich, the