_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I have signed the joint resolution to provide for the immediate payment
of the Army and Navy of the United States, passed by the House of
Representatives on the 14th and by the Senate on the 15th instant.
The joint resolution is a simple authority, amounting, however, under
existing circumstances, to a direction, to the Secretary of the Treasury
to make an additional issue of $100,000,000 in United States notes, if
so much money is needed, for the payment of the Army and Navy.
My approval is given in order that every possible facility may be
afforded for the prompt discharge of all arrears of pay due to our
soldiers and our sailors.
While giving this approval, however, I think it my duty to express my
sincere regret that it has been found necessary to authorize so large an
additional issue of United States notes, when this circulation and that
of the suspended banks together have become already so redundant as to
increase prices beyond real values, thereby augmenting the cost of
living to the injury of labor, and the cost of supplies to the injury of
the whole country.
It seems very plain that continued issues of United States notes without
any check to the issues of suspended banks and without adequate
provision for the raising of money by loans and for funding the issues
so as to keep them within due limits must soon produce disastrous
consequences; and this matter appears to me so important that I feel
bound to avail myself of this occasion to ask the special attention of
Congress to it.
That Congress has power to regulate the currency of the country can
hardly admit of doubt, and that a judicious measure to prevent the
deterioration of this currency, by a seasonable taxation of bank
circulation or otherwise, is needed seems equally clear. Independently
of this general consideration, it would be unjust to the people at large
to exempt banks enjoying the special privilege of circulation from their
just proportion of the public burdens.
In order to raise money by way of loans most easily and cheaply, it is
clearly necessary to give every possible support to the public credit.
To that end a uniform currency, in which taxes, subscriptions to loans,
and all other ordinary public dues, as well as all private dues, may be
paid, is almost, if not quite, indispensable. Such a currency can be
furnished by banking associations, organized under a general act of
Congress, as suggested in my message at the beginning of the present
session. The securing of this circulation by the pledge of United States
bonds, as therein suggested, would still further facilitate loans by
increasing the present and causing a future demand for such bonds.
In view of the actual financial embarrassments of the Government and of
the greater embarrassments sure to come if the necessary means of relief
be not afforded, I feel that I should not perform my duty by a simple
announcement of my approval of the joint resolution, which proposes
relief only by increasing circulation, without expressing my earnest
desire that measures such in substance as those I have just referred to
may receive the early sanction of Congress.
By such measures, in my opinion, will payment be most certainly secured,
not only to the Army and Navy, but to all honest creditors of the
Government, and satisfactory provision made for future demands on the
Treasury.