EXPECTATIONS REALIZED
The capacity of the people to select representatives wiser than
their constituents illustrated by historic facts.
America has passed through several crises, and each time has been saved
because the people’s representatives were wiser than the people. In
this respect, the expectation of the Fathers has been realized. I will
mention but three instances.
During the Civil War the government resorted to the issuance of paper
currency, commonly called greenbacks. While conservative people assumed
that these greenbacks would be redeemed whenever the government was
able, nevertheless, there being no express provision for their
redemption, they went to depreciation, and passed from hand to hand far
below par. All this resulted in inflation which inevitably led to a
period of depression.
In this connection it is well to remember that whenever we have had a
period of depression, and whenever we shall have such a period, there
always has been and ever will be a group of people with a panacea for
our ills. During the period referred to, a political party, calling
itself the “Greenback Party,” came into existence and advocated the
issuance of an indefinite volume of irredeemable paper currency which,
in their ignorance, they called “money.” The specious argument was to
the effect that when “money” can be made on a printing press, it is
silly to have less than enough. They expressly advocated issuing all
the currency the people could use without making any provision for its
retirement. Whenever the people wanted more, they proposed to print
more.
Fully seventy-five percent of the American people, without regard to
political affiliation, favored some phase or degree of “greenbackism.”
While much of this sentiment failed of crystallization, quite a number
of congressmen were elected on that issue. If the direct primary law,
with which most of the states are now cursed, had been in force at that
time, it is probable that no man could have been nominated for
Congress, by any party, who was not avowedly in favor of inflation by
some method. But the people were saved from themselves exactly as the
Fathers had anticipated. The representatives of the people, being wiser
than the people, refused the people what most of them desired and gave
them what they needed, resumption of specie payment.
Again, in the ’90’s we had a period of depression, and the panacea then
recommended was the free and unlimited coinage of silver, at the ratio
of 16 to 1 with gold. The difference between “greenbackism” and “free
silverism” was simply one of degree. The greenbacker desired the
government to print the dollar mark on a piece of paper, thus producing
currency one hundred percent fiat, while the free silverite asked that
the government stamp the dollar mark upon a piece of silver, thus
producing currency fifty percent fiat.
Fully nine-tenths of the American people desired the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. William McKinley, willing as he was to run for
president on a gold standard platform in 1896, when in Congress had
voted for a clean-cut free silver measure. The lower house of Congress
actually passed a free silver bill. But, exactly as the Fathers
expected, the people’s representatives in the Senate, wiser than the
people who had placed them there, refused the people what ninety
percent of them wanted and gave them what one hundred percent
needed—sound money.
Outside of Russia, there is scarcely a man in all the world who would
now recommend the issuance of irredeemable paper currency, what
three-fourths of the American people wanted in the ’70’s; and there is
not more than one man in all the world who would now recommend the free
coinage of silver, what four-fifths of the American people wanted in
the ’90’s.
The direct primary in 1896 would have nominated a free silver
republican, and a free silver democrat in each and every congressional
district of the United States, and we would have had a solid free
silver House. If the United States senators had been then elected by
the people, preceded by a direct primary, the Senate of the United
States would have been solidly for free silver; and we would have
passed, as everyone now recognizes, to financial ruin. We were saved,
because the United States of America was a republic and not a
democracy—because, if you please, we had representative and not direct
government.
More recently, Germany and the Central Powers made war upon the United
States. This they continued for more than two years. Finally, the
President, in his message of April 2, 1917, advised Congress to
“declare the course of the Imperial German Government to be, in fact,
nothing less than war against the country and the people of the United
States.” A resolution to that effect was thereupon passed on April 6,
1917.
If the proposition of going to war with Germany had been submitted to a
direct vote of the American people, under a referendum, they would have
voted against it, two to one, and in many localities and cities, four
to one. Again we were saved, because we had a republican and not a
democratic form of government. We were saved because our
representatives proved wiser than their constituents.