Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/234

208 and why the horizon is still without a visible ray of hope?

My fellow-citizens, all sane men agree that, of the great problem which oppresses us, there is but one ultimate solution. It is the return to a specie basis. Whatever other schemes may be devised, they do not even pretend to have a permanent, final settlement of the question in view. The resumption of specie payments is the only rational one, for no other system will remove current values from the reach of the arbitrary power of Government; no other can give to current values that stability without which no safe business calculations can be made; no other can restore that confidence which is the first prerequisite of a new period of prosperity. But the resumption of specie payments is also the only possible solution. It must at last come. Even the inflationists, while wildly seeking to throw difficulties in its way, still admit that finally it must come. It is as inevitable as fate. Is it not the part of prudent men, then, to move resolutely and with unflagging firmness in the direction of an end so desirable and also so inevitable?

I shall certainly not attempt to deceive you by denying that when a country is once cursed with an irredeemable paper money, the resumption of specie payments is not an easy process. Like the cutting out of a cancer, it is an unpleasant and difficult operation. But if health is to be restored, the cancer must be cut out. It is one of those evils which cannot be cured without pain and cannot be permitted to linger without peril. Delay will only prolong the suffering and increase the danger.

This is neither the time nor the place for a discussion of the different methods to bring on resumption. What we have at present to do is to stem a mischievous movement which threatens to make it impossible. But any of those methods, even the most painful, will be far less so