Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/466

440 his hands for satisfaction and joy to be thus rid of the decayed tooth and to feel once more like a well man? But, unfortunately, there is no laughing gas for the correction of great economic evils. It is an easy thing under certain circumstances to introduce an irredeemable paper currency, but when it has long existed and produced its effects it is terribly difficult to get rid of. Its introduction will drive out the precious metals. Its expansion will diminish its purchasing power, and run up other values to a fictitious point. A return to the specie basis requires the acquisition of the precious metals necessary for redemption. It requires a reduction of the paper money within that volume which the business of the country will be able to float in the shape of specie, and paper convertible into specie. It requires retrenchment and economy in the conduct of business and all kinds of expenditures. Such operations cannot be effected without some painful sensations. They do not involve the destruction of any real value, but they do involve the destruction of fictions in business, of the delusive estimate in which men hold their possessions and prospects. It is another of the weaknesses of human nature that we dislike to be shaken up from a dream to sober reality, when that dream was pleasant. And thus when the practical preparations for resumption are to be taken in hand, people, although they may ever so much desire to be cured of the ailment, are apt suddenly to fear the remedy more than the disease, and thus, like the man with the decayed tooth, who shrinks from the dentist's instrument, will cry out, “Hold on! wait a little.”

Now, what is our case? The painful consequences which were feared from the practical preparations for resumption came upon us through the crisis of 1873 in the way of a natural development without there being any preparations for resumption made. Previous to 1873 no