The proposition to redeem the proposed treasury notes in silver bullion
or in anything but lawful money of the United States will never meet the
approval of the people.
What the people of this country want is money, and what they should have
is money. These notes will represent full value received, the evidence
of which is the bullion in possession of the Government. When issued,
they will enter into circulation. They will have to do the work of money
among the people. They will go to make up the volume of the currency. On
the basis of that volume each dollar acquires a certain value, and
represents a given amount of sacrifice. On that volume, and on those
conditions, bargains will be made, prices established, debts contracted,
values adjusted, and equities created. If any portion of that money be
withdrawn from circulation (for that is what "redemption" means) without
an equivalent amount of money in some other form being issued to take
its place, the circulation will to that extent be contracted, every
dollar in circulation will increase in value, prices will fall,
property-values established on the basis of the larger circulation will
shrink, and equities will be destroyed.
The redemption of any number of those notes in silver bullion means the
withdrawal of many dollars of money from circulation and the destruction
of so much of the money of the country. Money is not a thing that can be
destroyed with impunity. It should be kept in use among the people. It
is to industry what the blood is to the human body; it is the
life-giving and life-sustaining medium. The money volume of a country
should not be subject to frequent and violent changes. In a new and
growing country, it should be characterized by that steady accretion
that characterizes the increase in the quantity of blood in the human
body as it progresses from infancy to maturity. It is no more
unreasoning, empirical, or unscientific to be alternately withdrawing
blood from, and injecting blood into, a human body than to be constantly
contracting and expanding the money volume of the country. And as
activity of circulation of the blood is essential to the health of the
body, so activity of circulation in money is indispensable to the
well-being of society. The possession of no mere commodity, whatever its
value, will compensate a country for the destruction of any considerable
portion of its money, upon the entire volume of which vast equities
rest.