Seven Financial Conspiracies Which Have Enslaved the American People.
by
Mrs. Sarah E.V. Emery
Chapter Eight
Resumption
Would to God that the record of atrocities against this nation might end here! But no, with the people crushed and staggering beneath the burdens imposed upon them through the preceding robberies, we next find these vampires in Congress inflicting a seventh scourge upon the people by means of the resumption act.
This act, passed January 14, 1875, authorized the secretary of the treasury to destroy the fractional currency, and issue silver coin in like denominations to take its place. The people had found the fractional currency convenient, not only as a medium of exchange at home, but especially cheap and convenient for small remittances in trade. The destruction of this money was a serious injury to the business men of the country. For without fractional currency, even small remittances incurred the expense of a draft or money order. But Congress appeared to be looking after the interest of the money-monger and not to the prosperity of the country.
It next became necessary to issue bonds with which to purchase the silver bullion authorized for coinage. Let it be remembered that these were untaxed, interest-bearing bonds, and of such large denominations that only capitalists were able to carry them, while to the debt-ridden people was added the interest of these very bonds, which could only exist by the destruction of the greenbacks and fractional currency upon which the people paid no interest.
The restoration of silver as a medium of exchange was a great triumph to the unthinking masses and greatly increased their confidence in the governmental policy, but to those who studied the situation the jingle of silver was another death-knell to the prosperity of the country. Is it not clear that by destroying a non-interest bearing currency, as the greenback, and substituting an interest bearing bond, that a burden has been added to the people? Not to the tax-payer only, but to every consumer of food and clothing. But farther, not only has the resumption of specie added to the burdens of the people, but the whole system is a miserable farce. The people have been told, and the masses believe, that their paper currency is redeemable in specie. But first, the smallest amount redeemable is fifty dollars, and secondly, the only place of redemption is the sub-treasury in the city of New York. Is not this clearly another scheme to advance the interests of Shylock? The expense of getting to the sub-treasury, together with the large amount required, at once shuts off the masses from any advantage there might be in resumption. The people are told that the national bank currency is redeemable in greenbacks, and the greenbacks in specie; but the fact is carefully concealed that there is not specie enough behind the paper currency to redeem one-half of it; and should a crisis arise which gave any advantage to the holders of coin, Shylock would be first at the sub-treasury, while the masses with less than fifty dollars at their command would be compelled to lose any advantage there might be in resumption. Will some “hard money” philosopher rise and explain wherein the people have been benefited by resumption? But it does not require a philosopher to show wherein their burdens have been increased through this infamous scheme.
John Sherman who was once honest and then opposed this measure, predicted the results in a speech made in 1869, as follows:
It is not possible to take this voyage without the sorest distress. To every person except a capitalist out of debt, or a salaried officer, or annuitant, it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy, and disaster. * * It means the ruin of all dealers whose debts are twice their business capital, though one-third less than their actual property. It means the fall of all agricultural productions without any great reduction of taxes. When that day comes, every man, as the sailor says, will be close reefed, all enterprise will be suspended, every bank will have contracted its currency to the lowest limit; and the debtor, compelled to meet in coin a debt contracted in currency, will find the coin hoarded in the treasury, no representative of coin in circulation, his property shrunk not only to the extent of the appreciation of the currency, but still more by the artificial scarcity made by the holders of gold. To attempt this task by a surprise upon our people by arresting them in the midst of their lawful business and applying a new standard of value to their property, without any reduction of their debts, or giving them an opportunity to compound with their creditors, or to distribute the losses, would be an act of folly without an example in evil in modern times.
These were the evils that would follow resumption, as prophesied by John Sherman before the clutch of the money power had dwarfed and blackened his soul. Quick to perceive the right with an intuitive love of justice, John Sherman was the natural friend of the people, but avarice perverting his nature, we find him the ready tool of the money power, bartering away his instinctive love of justice and relentlessly antagonizing the interests of the people. His prophecies remain, however, and their fulfillment is undying witness against his degenerate soul.
Beasey says:
Slavery is the inevitable result of poverty; poverty is the inevitable result of low wages; low wages are the inevitable result of scarcity of currency and an improper system of taxation; and scarcity of currency and an improper system of taxation are the logical results of an unjust administration of the government.
Besides the testimony of Senator Sherman and Beasey against the infamous measure, I will also add the opinion of Senator Ferry, of Michigan, who, too honest to retract and take issue against the great industrial masses, paid the penalty prescribed by President Grant, and is no longer “entrusted in public place.” Here are the words of Senator Ferry in regard to resumption and contraction:
It is easy to see why moneyed men want contraction; the shrinkage then which others must suffer would find compensation in their expanded purses. It would be robbing Peter (the people) to pay Paul (the millionaire).
Never were truer words uttered; the shrinkage which followed contraction ruined thousands, while the moneyed class, without an effort, actually doubled their wealth.
Again Senator Ferry says:
The universal distress and unparalleled failures which have followed these past years of trial, must sadly record the severity of the process, which has brought the country so near resumption and so close to financial ruin.
Through the process of contraction, all the truths stated by Senator Ferry have been verified, and all the evils predicted by Senator Sherman have befallen this people. Nor is this the end, for the train of evils brought upon us through this infernal legislation is sapping the energies of the nation and rapidly undermining the bulwarks of our Republic. But it is not necessary to quote the opinions of statesmen, politicians, or political economists to prove that the contraction of our currency has been disastrous to our national prosperity. The experience of the American people for the last twenty years has demonstrated most terribly and conclusively that any system of contraction of the currency is fatal to the industry, morality and general prosperity of a nation.
According to treasury reports for the last fiscal year there is, all told, in the United States $1,394,781,000 cash. On January, 1876, Treasurer Jordan reported in the United States treasury $601,102,318.10 (page 45), since that date the hoard has increased at least $100,000,000. He also reported in banks $369,475,385. Total locked up, $1,070,577,703, leaving among the people in circulation $324,103,297. This, divided among 60,000,000 of people, gives us the per capita of each the sum of $5.40. At the close of the war we had in circulation about $2,000,000,000, including the three per cent treasury certificates, compound interest notes, and 7-30 bonds, which entered into the circulating medium; and a population of about 40,000,000, this sum divided up gave a per capita to each of about $50. Nearly ten times as much per capita as we have at present. With these figures before us who can doubt the real cause of business stagnation, and the rapid increase of pauperism and crime?
Every farmer knows how much more wheat, hay, pork, corn, or wool it takes to buy a dollar now than it did at the close of the war, and many of them know by bitter experience how a mortgage of a few hundred or thousand dollars has swallowed up twice that amount invested in houses, lands or any other property except bonded securities. While property in the form of bonds, mortgages, and stocks, has rapidly appreciated in value, every other form of property has depreciated in the same ratio. Only the wealthy classes are able to hold bond, mortgage and stock securities, and for twenty-five years the great struggles in Congress have been to appreciate the value of these investments, which could only be done by depreciating the property of the masses. Consequently, we have found the rich amassing colossal fortunes while the laboring classes are sinking to lower and lower depths of degradation. Since a man’s social, intellectual and moral status depends largely upon his material prosperity, is not that legislation to be denounced which impoverishes the masses, thus degrading them in all the relations of life?
Chapter Nine
Conclusion
We have now completed a brief outline of seven atrocious conspiracies against this government; conspiracies which for boldness of purpose and cruelty of design, are without a parallel in the annals of crime, and all perpetrated within the brief period of thirteen years; thirteen years in which the powers of darkness sat enthroned in our national capitol; thirteen years of utter disregard for the rights of the people; thirteen years in which class-legislation gave birth to more moneyed and monopolistic powers than ever before cursed any civilized people.
Will it be said I have made misstatements in these charges? In reply I only ask that you search the official records in corroboration of what is contained in these pages. I challenge contradiction of the truths set forth in this little volume. Political tricksters may distort these truths; capitalists may sneer and public opinion derisively shake its head, but the truths remain, and their results are stamped in burning characters upon the heart of a dying nation. The record of the American Congress from February 25, 1862, to January 24, 1875, is a record of the blackest and most heartless crimes. But kind reader, do not for one moment deceive yourself with the thought that this corrupt legislation ceased on that memorable day. Ah, no; the act of resumption simply completed the infernal machinery by which the money power is crushing out the liberty and lives of the American people. By controlling the finances of the country they have been enabled to form trusts and syndicates which have reduced the people to a wage-slavery more abject and heartless than any chattel slavery that ever cursed God’s earth.
The people having slept until this machinery was perfected, have at last awakened from their dream of freedom to find their liberties fettered, and themselves in the grasp of a system of monopolies whose Titanic enginery is crushing out not only liberty, but life itself. And when we consider the fact that the representatives of these monopolies sit in our congressional halls and practically control the United States Senate, that highest law- making power in the land, who does not tremble for the safety not only of our Republic, but of our civilization. The results of this legislation are being universally realized, and fears may justly be entertained that we have already passed the point beyond which our steps may be retraced and our liberties retrieved.
Yes, the people are awakening, but the money power is on guard, they have entrenched themselves at every available point, and are now clamoring for an appropriation to establish a military power. Let us not be deceived; this cry for an established militia is not to defend ourselves against a foreign foe; the enemy is within our gates, sitting in the high places of our country. They tell us “the wealth of the country must be protected.” Ah, the wealth of the country requires protection. It is not labor they would protect; it is not the oppressed they would have go free, it is not the burden of toil they would lighten, but the wealth of the country demands protection. But what is this wealth that cannot be protected without military force? Ah, sirs, it is that wealth of which the people have been robbed; it is the ill-gotten gain of a moneyed oligarchy. It is not the fear of foreign invaders, not the fear that the masses will violate law, but that they will repeal unjust statutes, and restore to the people the inheritance of which they have been so outrageously robbed. Where these robberies will end it is hardly possible to conjecture, but the light is breaking, for God in the multitude of his mercies has raised up a band of sturdy men to stay the dark waters that are overwhelming this people. For twelve years this little Spartan band has stood guard at the mystic pass that leads down to national death. For twelve years the old party Goliaths have stood in awe of this band of Davids, and God has strengthened their arms and multiplied their numbers until there is no place in all this land where their voice is not heard, and where their words do not cause hope to spring up in the hearts of the oppressed.
But spurred on by his appetite for plunder, Shylock still dares to raise his murderous hand against this people. Greed is never satisfied, its ill-gotten gains only serve to sharpen its appetite, and it is ever crying more, MORE. Cunning hands, scheming brains, degenerate souls, still plot the destruction of this Republic. Their next plan is to destroy the $346,000,000 of greenbacks, which have only been preserved thus far through the untiring vigilance in our national Congress of such men as Weaver, Gillette and the devoted DeLamarter, aided by the purse, pen and brains of such men as Peter Cooper, Clover, Swinton, West, Norton, Harper, Heath, Berkey, Phillips, Martin, Polk, and an innumerable host whose names are enshrined in the hearts of a grateful people.
Besides the destruction of the greenbacks it is their settled policy to rob us of the silver dollar and place our currency upon a single gold basis. This is another diabolic scheme solely in the interest of the creditor class.
There is not, there cannot be a greater enemy to American producers than John Sherman and that class of men who are devoting all their energies to the destruction of silver as money. With gold as a basis and the banks to issue the paper currency of the country, the people would be entirely at the mercy of Shylock. Indeed, are we not already at the feet of the money power?
The New York Tribune, under the management of Whitelaw Reid, said:
The time is near when they (the banks) will feel compelled to act strongly. Meanwhile a very good thing has been done. The machinery is now furnished by which, in any emergency, the financial corporations of the east can act together on a single day’s notice with such power that no act of Congress can overcome or resist their decision.
Shades of Horace Greeley! Can it be possible that the New York Tribune, that once powerful advocate of justice, has become so perverted as to call it “a very good thing,” that the financial corporations of the east are furnished with the machinery whereby they can control Congress. Where are we, then? Is it the financial corporations of the east, or the United States Congress, that govern this country? The New York Tribune, that grand old anti-slavery champion, says it is “the financial corporations of the east,” and rejoices in it as “a very good thing.”
What, then, avail the words of Horace Greeley, or the blood of a million martyred soldiers, or the expenditure of five billions of treasure? Have we not today fifty millions of people under the bondage of financial corporations? A bondage more galling and more heartless than that beneath the lash of southern slavery — more galling because perpetrated in the name of liberty, more heartless because there is none to heed the cries of the starving white slaves, none to pity them dying, none to bury their dead. The shackles were dropped from four millions of black slaves, not to make them free, but to enslave the whole producing industries of the country, through this infernal bond and bank scheme.
History proves that nothing has been so disastrous to nations as the enactment of laws which favor the few at the expense of the many. There is no robbery so suicidal as that sanctioned by law; for it not only destroys the morality of the legalized robber, starves and kills the victimized masses, but it degrades the law-maker himself to a level with the most notorious highwayman. Ruskin says: “The occult theft, theft that hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable and cowardly, corrupts the body and soul of man to the very last fibre of them.” And history proves that such legislation destroys nations, degrades humanity, and is a mockery against the most high God. Against the Eternal Judge who will not hold guiltless him who lends a voice to such iniquitous legislation. A legislation that destroys both soul and body of the toiling millions.
Chapter Ten
Sherman Versus Emery
John Davis Replies to the Hon. Sherman’s Latest Letter on Finance.
Since the days of John Brown, Kansas has never ceased to be the stamping ground of reform. Ushered into statehood on the eve of a terrible civil war, her baptism in blood fitted her peculiarly for the growth of liberty and equality.
Never since the days of John Brown have the liberty loving men of Kansas ceased in their determination to hallow the soil made sacred by the life and death of their illustrious martyr.
That soil harrowed by the intelligence of truth loving men and fertilized by the blood of thousands of patriotic soldiers, was well fitted to receive the seeds of historic truth embodied in Seven Financial Conspiracies, and when in the campaign of 1888 fifty thousand copies of the little book were scattered broadcast over the state, the enemies of freedom seeing that it would yield an everlasting harvest to liberty, rushed forth and attempted to destroy the sower and the seed.
Preparatory to their onslaught their chiefs met in council and evolved two monumental documents which were launched upon the public under the captaincy of Messrs. Ady and Kelley.
Again in the campaign of 1891 when ten thousand of these little messengers were scattered over Ohio, the book and its author were again assailed.
The veritable John Sherman whose villainous acts had made possible such a record of crime induced by the solicitude of his political friends came out with an open letter published in the Cincinnati Enquirer and addressed to Chas. F. Stokey of Canton, O., in which he denounces the book as “wild and visionary,” and declares that the Shylock to which the author alludes is a “phantom of her imagination.”
The documents of Ady and Kelley, as also the letter of Senator Sherman were immediately met by the indomitable John Davis through the columns of his paper The Junction City (Kan.) Tribune.
These replies of Mr. Davis are so replete with historic truth that we present the one in reply to Senator Sherman for the consideration of our readers:
A few years ago Mrs. S.E.V. Emery of Michigan emptied a quiver of arrows into the ranks of the people’s enemies. The darts seemed light and feathery, and the bow string was drawn by the weak arm of a woman. Yet the shafts were winged and pointed with truth and justice, and the woman’s arm was nerved with an earnest patriotism. Very soon the wounded birds began to flutter and the broken wings were trailing in the dust.
In the year 1888, 50,000 copies of Mrs. Emery’s little book were showered among the people of Kansas. Under their fructifying influence the seeds of thought began to spring up in every heart. The rage of the enemy knew no bounds. Great lawyers and judges of courts wrote pamphlets and newspaper broadsides which were circulated by Republican committees and corporation newspapers as campaign documents. Smaller men called the little book “The Union Labor Bible.” They cursed it in their speeches, tore it to pieces in he presence of their audiences, dashed it to the floor, spat upon it, trampled it under foot. All this but proved the rage of the lion that had been wounded, the pain of the whale that was pierced, or the bird that was “hit.” Next comes the emptying of another quiver of shafts by the same arm that showered Kansas. This time further East. And, promptly, is produced the same results. A Senator of the United States from Ohio deems it worth his while to confess the pain of the arrow in his breast by a review of the situation in the usual corporation attorney style. A copy of that review is before me, over the name of John Sherman. I beg to quote and discuss portions of it:
MANSFIELD, OHIO, Oct. 12, 1891.
Mr. Charles F. Stokey, Canton, Ohio:
MY DEAR SIR— Yours of the 8th, accompanied by Mrs. S.E.V. Emery’s pamphlet, called “Seven Financial Conspiracies Which Have Enslaved the American People,” is received. Some time since this wild and visionary book was sent to me, and I read it with both amusement and astonishment that any one could read it with approval or be deceived by its falsehoods. The “Seven Financial Conspiracies” are the seven great pillars of our financial credit, the seven great financial measures by which the government was saved from the perils of war and by which the United States has become the most flourishing and prosperous nation in the world. The first chapter attributes the Civil War to an infamous plot of capitalists to absorb the wealth of the country at the expense of the people, when all the world knows that the Civil War was organized by slaveholders to destroy the national government and to setup a slave- holding confederacy in the South upon its ruins. The Shylock described by Mrs. Emery is a phantom of her imagination. The “Shylocks of the war” were the men who furnished the means to carry on the government and to put down the rebellions and included in their number the most patriotic citizens of the Northern States, who, uniting their means with the services and sacrifices of our soldiers, put down the rebellion, abolished slavery and preserved and strengthened our government. The first of her “conspiracies” she calls the exception clause in the act of February 25, 1 862, by which the duties on imported goods were required to be paid in coin in order to provide the means to pay the interest on our bonds in coin. This clause had not only the cordial support of Secretary Chase, but of President Lincoln, and proved to be the most important financial aid of the government devised during the war. * * * This exception clause saved our public credit by making a market for our bonds and was paid by foreigners for the privilege of entering our markets.
Like most men with a bad case on hand, the Senator appears to have little regard for truth, and sets out with a misstatement. Mrs. Emery’s book does not “attribute the Civil War to all infamous plot of capitalists,” etc. The book plainly states (page 11) that “African slavery” was the cause of secession and consequent war. Mrs. Emery and the Senator agree as to the cause of the Civil War, and both state it plainly in their own words, about which there can be no disagreement. Mrs. Emery then takes the ground that the great capitalists were pleased with the opportunity to speculate on the needs of the country, and that they proceeded to profit by the situation, as we shall see in the course of this discussion. The little book uses plain language to suit the plain common people, and hence calls the London and Wall Street speculators “Shylocks.” This the Senator condemns, saying that “the Shylocks of the war were the men who furnished the means to carry on the government,” etc., as above quoted. In this matter Mrs. Emery is in good company.
She agrees with Thaddeus Stevens, Senator Wilson, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Senator Benton and others in calling men and things by their proper names. But this will appear more plainly in the course of the discussion. I now call attention to the Senator’s remarks concerning the First Financial Conspiracy.
Fortunately we are not left in the dark as to the causes and agencies which placed the exception clause on the greenback. Prominent actors in the matter have left their words and acts on record.
The legal tender Bill was introduced in the House by E.G. Spaulding of Buffalo, N.Y., Chairman of the Sub-committee of Ways and Means, December 31, 1861. It was discussed in the House, and perfected, until February 6, 1862. It passed the House by a vote of 93 to 59. It provided for a full legal-tender money with no exception clauses.
After passing the House, the Legal-tender Bill went to the Senate. The Senate amended the bill by providing that the contemplated money should be legal tender for all purposes “except duties on imports and interest on the public debt.” Mrs. Emery claims that those exceptions were the work of the bankers. Mr. Stevens, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee — the grand old “commoner” from Pennsylvania — tells how the crime of wounding the greenback was committed:
TESTIMONY OF THADDEUS STEVENS.
MR. SPEAKER: — I have a very few words to say. I approach the subject with more depression of spirits than I ever approached any question. No personal motive influences me. I hope not at least. I have a melancholy foreboding that we are about to consummate a cunningly-devised scheme, which will carry great injury and great loss to all classes of people throughout this Union, except one. With my colleague, I believe that no act of legislation was ever hailed with as much delight throughout the length and breadth of this Union, by every class of people without exception, as the bill which we passed and sent to the Senate. Congratulations from all classes — merchants, traders, manufacturers, mechanics and laborers — poured in upon us from all quarters. The Boards of Trade from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee approved its provisions and urged its passage as it was. I have a dispatch from the Chamber of Commerce, Cincinnati, sent to the Treasurer, and by him to me, urging the speedy passage of the bill as it passed the House. It is true there was a doleful sound came up from the caverns of bullion brokers and from the salons of the associated banks. Their cashiers and agents were soon on the ground and persuaded the Senate, with but little deliberation, to mangle and destroy what it had cost the House months to digest, consider and pass. They fell upon the bill in hot haste, and so disfigured and deformed it that its father would not know it. Instead of being a beneficent and invigorating measure, it is positively mischievous. It has all the bad qualities which its enemies charged on the original bill, and none of its benefits. It now creates money, and by its very terms declares it a depreciated currency. It makes two classes of money: one for banks and brokers, and another for the people. It discriminates between the rights of different classes of creditors, allowing the capitalists to demand gold, and compelling the ordinary lender of money on individual security to receive notes which the government had purposely discredited. ****** ALL classes of people shall take these legal-tender notes at par for every article of trade or contract, unless they have money enough to buy United States bonds, and then they shall be paid in gold. Who is that favored class? The banks and brokers and nobody else.
— Speech in House, February 20, 1862.
That is the statement of the chairman of the committee that originated the bill. He and Mrs. Emery agree that the brokers and bankers are responsible for the exception clause that depreciated the greenback money.
Senator Sherman says it is one of the great pillars of our financial credit.
TESTIMONY OF HENRY WILSON.
It is a contest between the brokers, jobbers and money changers on the one side, and the people of the United States on the other. I venture to express the opinion that ninety-nine of every hundred of the loyal people of the United States are for this legal-tender clause.
— Wilson’s Speech in the Senate, February 13, 1862.
THE VOICE OF HISTORY.
The [legal tender] bill was no sooner made public than delegations of bankers from New York, Boston and Philadelphia hurried to Washington to oppose it. They organized in a formal manner by selecting a chairman (S.A. Mercer of Philadelphia), and invited the finance Committee of the Senate and the Committee of Ways and Means of the House to meet them at the office of the Secretary of the Treasury January 11,1862. The invitation was accepted. At the meeting which followed the bankers spoke in opposition to the bill. * * * The bank delegates remained in Washington and held further consultation with Secretary Chase extending through several days, which resulted in an arrangement with him to the effect, among other things, that Congress should be urged to pass the National Bank Bill, etc.
— Berkey’s Monetary System, 1876.
TESTIMONY OF WM. D. KELLEY.
I remember the grand old commoner Thaddeus Stevens, with his hat in his hand and his cane under his arm, when he returned to the House after his final conference (on the exception clause) and shedding bitter tears over the result. “Yes,” said he, “we had to yield; the Senate was stubborn. We did not yield until we found that the country must be lost or the banks gratified, and we have sought to save the country in spite of the cupidity of its wealthier citizens.”
Judge Wm. D, Kelley, Philadelphia, January 15, 1876.
Let us now analyze the vote on the Legal-tender Bill. When voted on in the House on its first passage, authorizing a full legal-tender money, it passed by a vote of 93 to 59. Among the voters in the majority we find the names of Stevens, Spaulding, Windom, Wilson, Hale, Fessenden, Colfax, Bingham, Hooper and a majority of the great Union Congressmen, who were then in favor of a full legal-tender currency. In the minority, we find Vallandigham, Voorhees, Pendleton, Wm.H. English and S.S. Cox. Vallandigham of Ohio was very emphatic in his denunciation of legal-tender paper. He said:
Cheap in materials, easy of issue, worked by steam, signed by machinery, there will be no end to the legion of paper devils which shall pour forth from the loins of the Secretary.
Vallandigham insisted that these notes were not money, that they would not circulate as money:
Though you should send them forth bearing ten times the image and superscription — the fair face and form of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, now President and CAESAR of the American Republic. * * * I utterly deny, sir, the right of the Federal government to provide a paper currency, intended primarily to circulate as money and meet the demands of business and commercial transactions and to the exclusion of all other paper.
But when the bill was returned from the Senate, mutilated and depreciated by the infamous exception clause, we find Vallandigham, Voorhees, Cox, Pendleton, English, et hoc genus omne, voting for the mutilated bill authorizing a crippled and depreciated money. * * * They did not agree with Secretary Chase, Wilson, Stevens, Hale and Windom, those great and noble patriots who tried to give to the country a legal-tender money without any mutilation and exceptions; and as these men who have been styled “traitors” voted in the House, so voted John Sherman in the Senate. Neither Sherman, Vallandigham nor Voorhees agreed with Secretary Chase, Wilson, Stevens, Hale, Windom and all those great and noble patriots who tried to give to the country a legal- tender money without any mutilations and exceptions. (See Spaulding’ s History, 1869).
The object of the exception clause on the greenback was to cause its depreciation so that the holders of gold could buy up the currency at half-price and then invest it in bonds at face value. Senator Sherman himself once explained the whole matter in a single sentence. He said: “It became necessary to depreciate the notes in order to create a market for the bonds.” That is, the great rich men, whom Thomas Jefferson called “the traitorous class,” would not invest in the bonds unless they could double their money by so doing.
Having beaten the government in the exception-clause fight, which Mr. Stevens called “the first victory of the money power over the country,” the Shylocks determined to take further advantage of the necessities of the government and the exigencies of the times. So in 1863 they procured the passage of zzz
THE NATIONAL BANKING LAW.
Under this law the bondholders could place the bonds which had cost them about 50 cents on the dollar, in the United States Treasury, without sacrificing any of the interest- income, and receive back 90 per cent of the bonds in bank currency to loan to the people, as bankers. This gave the bankers two interest-incomes from one investment. With $50,000 in gold they could become the happy owners of $100,000 of interest-bearing bonds and $90,000 of currency, all free from taxes “under State or local authority.” This was a big bonanza, or, in fact, two bonanzas combined. This law was passed during one of the darkest periods of the war, when patriots, statesmen, generals, soldiers and people were straining every nerve to save the country. It pounced upon its prey like a panther when the victim was bleeding at every pore. Moulton’s History of American Finances, page 131, states the case as follows:
Mr. Sherman now introduced the National Bank Bill. After a lengthy debate, it passed the Senate by a vote of 23 to 21. In the meantime there had been several bills for the same purpose introduced and referred to the committee in the House. When the Senate Bill came down it was not referred, as usual, but brought before the House without consideration in committee with other similar bills. It was not discussed in Committee of the Whole, but under a motion to refer, which cut off all amendments, the friends of the bill debated its general merits. When by parliamentary tactics it was forced to a final vote, it passed under the gag rule of the previous question by a vote of 78 to 64.
And thus was fulfilled the prediction of Senator Thos. Benton, when, on the victory of President Jackson over the United States Bank, said that Jackson had beaten the bank; yet the bank power was not conquered, but, like a “royal tiger” driven to the jungles, he will return again. He returned in 1863 to prey upon the prostrate form of a bleeding Republic, when neither President, Congress nor people had the power to resist his coming. With 3,000 whelps and an aggregate capital of $700,000,000, much of it furnished by the government, this “ROYAL TIGER” has been for twenty-five years preying upon the fortunes and liberties of the people, through this system of legalized robbery.
Seven times the people of the United States have voted on this national bank question at Presidential elections. Five times out of the seven they declared, by their votes, that “a national bank is unconstitutional and dangerous to liberty.” That sentiment was a regular plank in Democratic platforms prior to 1860, and five times that platform was approved by the people at the Presidential elections.
Peter Cooper tells us that, in 1793, President Washington signed a resolution of the American Senate declaring that a holder of bank stock should not have a seat in Congress. And when John Quincy Adams was elected to Congress he refused to qualify until he had disposed of his bank stock. And yet Senator Sherman is in favor of the national banking system, and his party regularly send to the United States Senate numerous bank presidents, just as if this great country has no other interests worth attention except stock gambling, coupon clipping and usuary collecting.
And at this moment the President of the United States Senate is not only a banker, but a BRITISH BANKER, doing business in London as “Morton, Rose & Co.” And, further, should President Harrison die, we would have a LONDON BANKER AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Verily Thomas Jefferson was right when he said:
“Banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies.”
The exception clause on the Greenback Bill and the national banking law are all the “conspiracies” mentioned in Mrs. Emery’s book that were enacted during the administration of President Lincoln. I have shown that they were perpetrated by the money power while Mr. Lincoln and the country were so terribly pressed by the exigencies of the war that Mr. Lincoln had no option or responsibility in the matter. He submitted to them under coercion; he approved them to placate one enemy while he battled with another; being unable, as he himself said, on one occassion, to fight two wars at once. He submitted to the inevitable, as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Henry and other champions of liberty in their day submitted to the existence of slavery and the slave trade — because there was no other alternative!
It will be remembered that Secretary Chase favored the legal-tender law, and that it required several days of meetings and threats of financial coercion by the “bank delegates,” who “remained in Washington” after the exception clause, to induce Mr. Chase to recommend the bank law. Mr. Chase lived long enough to bitterly regret the part he took in the matter, and is reported as expressing himself as follows:
My agency in procuring the passage of the National Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly that affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed. But before this can be accomplished, the people will be arrayed on one side and the banks on the other in a contest such as we have never seen in this country. — Salmon P. Chase.
To show the undoubted facts in the case, and the usual treason of the money power in all great emergencies, I call the especial attention of Senator Sherman and all Republicans to the following from Senator Ingalls:
No people in a great emergency ever found a faithful ally in gold. It is the most cowardly and treacherous of all metals. It makes no treaty it does not break. It has no friend it does not sooner or later betray. Armies and Navies are not maintained by gold. In times of panic and calamity, shipwreck and disaster, it becomes the agent and minister of ruin. No nation ever fought a great war by the aid of gold. On the contrary, in the crisis of the greatest peril, it becomes an enemy more potent than the foe in the field; but when the battle is won and peace has been secured gold reappears and claims the fruits of victory. In our own Civil War it is doubtful if the gold of New York and London did not work us greater injury than the powder and lead and iron of the South. It was the most invincible enemy of the public credit. Gold paid no soldier or sailor. It refused the national obligations. It was worth most when our fortunes were the lowest. Every defeat gave it increased value. It was in open alliance with our enemies the world over, and all its energies were evoked for our destruction. But as usual, when danger had been averted and the victory secured, gold swaggers to the front and asserts the supremacy. —Ingall’s speech in the United States Senate, February 15, 1878.
That is a short but fair description of the men whom Mrs. Emery calls “Shylocks.” Senator Sherman says they were the men who furnished the means to put down the rebellion. Thomas Jefferson called them the “traitorous class.” Senator Wilson called them “brokers, jobbers and money-changers.” Thaddeus Stevens called them “bullion brokers;” who sent their cashiers and agents into Congress to influence legislation in their own interest; also, “sharks and brokers.”
It appears, then, that “Shylock” is not “a phantom of Mrs. Emery’s brain,” but a living reality, who, according to Mr. Spaulding, would only loan his currency to the government for big interest, on good security, and interest and principal payable in gold.
Mr. John A. Anderson, an orthodox Republican member of Congress for twelve years, and now Consul General to Cairo under the present Republican administration, said:
By the Charter Act the system was to terminate in twenty years. It was never intended to continue it; the original design was to stop it at the end of twenty years; but the power of the banks had then (46th Congress) become greater than that of Congress. The system was not stopped at the end of twenty years, and may now go on forever so far as the original and organic safeguard has anything to do with it.
Senator Sherman’s defense of the national banking system is extremely weak. He merely compares it with other banks of issue, and says: “It is now conceded to have been the best form of paper money ever issued by banks that has ever been devised.”
Mr. Anderson shows that there need not be any “form of paper money issued by banks,” but that the true paper money is the legal-tender greenback, issued by the general government. Mr. Anderson agrees with Thomas Jefferson that “bank currency should be suppressed and the circulation restored to the nation where it belongs.”
Senator Sherman dares not controvert that position. He prefers, rather, to erect a man of straw at which to aim his darts. As the old State bank system of paper issues have now no friends he feels very safe in fighting them, in order to justify this “great pillar of our financial credit,” which Mr. Anderson says is now too strong for Congress, and which is always on the wrong side in matters of legislation.
The Third “Conspiracy” under discussion is the contraction of the currency. Strange to say, the Senator denied that there has been any contraction, and says:
It has been demonstrated by official documents that, from the beginning of the war to this time, the volume of our currency has been increasing year by year more rapidly than our population.
This statement is palpably false, as shown by “the official documents” of 1865, 1866 and later, and by the leading Republican speakers, including the Senator himself. Senator Logan and others. Senator Sherman’s change of front, between the years 1869 and 1874, was so notorious and shameless that Senator Logan publicly charged him with the change without eliciting a denial.
The Senator tries to sustain his statement of the non-contraction of the currency by the recent falsehood of his party leaders that the 7-30 Treasury notes did not circulate as money.
But Secretary McCullough in his report for December, 1865, says we have now about $2,000,000,000 nearly all in circulation among the people. While in March, 1874, General Logan says “Contraction has gone on until the whole amount of currency of every kind now outstanding is only $742,000,000.”
It will be noticed that Secretary McCullough and General Logan both classed the $830,000,000 of 7-30 notes among the active currency of the country, Senator Sherman to the contrary, notwithstanding. In reply to a note of inquiry General Spinner, ex-United States Treasurer, stated as follows:
MOHAWK, August 17, 1876.
Sir: — Your letter of the 15th inst. has been received. In answer I have to say that the 7-30 notes were intended, prepared, issued and used as money.
Very respectfully yours, F.E. SPINNER.
Senator Sherman does not agree with McCullough, Logan and Spinner. Who is right?
I call attention to the following table and remarks from the Chicago Inter-Ocean, a leading Republican paper of Illinois in 1878:
“Banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies.”
No people in a great emergency ever found a faithful ally in gold. It is the most cowardly and treacherous of all metals. It makes no treaty it does not break. It has no friend it does not sooner or later betray. Armies and Navies are not maintained by gold. In times of panic and calamity, shipwreck and disaster, it becomes the agent and minister of ruin. No nation ever fought a great war by the aid of gold. On the contrary, in the crisis of the greatest peril, it becomes an enemy more potent than the foe in the field; but when the battle is won and peace has been secured gold reappears and claims the fruits of victory. In our own Civil War it is doubtful if the gold of New York and London did not work us greater injury than the powder and lead and iron of the South. It was the most invincible enemy of the public credit. Gold paid no soldier or sailor. It refused the national obligations. It was worth most when our fortunes were the lowest. Every defeat gave it increased value. It was in open alliance with our enemies the world over, and all its energies were evoked for our destruction. But as usual, when danger had been averted and the victory secured, gold swaggers to the front and asserts the supremacy. —Ingall’s speech in the United States Senate, February 15, 1878.
By the Charter Act the system was to terminate in twenty years. It was never intended to continue it; the original design was to stop it at the end of twenty years; but the power of the banks had then (46th Congress) become greater than that of Congress. The system was not stopped at the end of twenty years, and may now go on forever so far as the original and organic safeguard has anything to do with it.
It has been demonstrated by official documents that, from the beginning of the war to this time, the volume of our currency has been increasing year by year more rapidly than our population.
MOHAWK, August 17, 1876.
Sir: — Your letter of the 15th inst. has been received. In answer I have to say that the 7-30 notes were intended, prepared, issued and used as money.
Very respectfully yours, F.E. SPINNER.
| Year. | Currency. | Population. | Per capita |
| 1865 | $1,651,282,373 | 34,819,581 | $47.42 |
| 1866 | 1.803.702.726 | 35.537.148 | 50.76 |
| 1867 | 1,330,414,677 | 36,269,502 | 36.68 |
| 1868 | 817,199,773 | 37,016,949 | 22.08 |
| 1869 | 750,025,989 | 37,779,800 | 19.85 |
| 1870 | 740,039,179 | 38,588,371 | 19.19 |
| 1871 | 734,244,774 | 39,750,073 | 18.47 |
| 1872 | 736,340,912 | 40,978,607 | 17.97 |
| 1873 | 733,291,749 | 42,245,110 | 17.48 |
| 1874 | 779,031,589 | 43,550,756 | 17.89 |
| 1875 | 778,176,250 | 44,896,705 | 17.33 |
| 1876 | 735,358,832 | 46,284,344 | 15.89 |
| 1877 | 696,443,394 | 47,714,829 | 14.60 |
The 7-30 three-year notes, whose circulation as currency is most scouted, were outstanding on the, 1st of September, 1865, to the amount of $830,000,000, every dollar of which was legal tender for its face value under the terms of the law, “to the same extent as United States notes.”
Secretary Fessenden’s report of December 6, 1864, says he caused to be paid out to the soldiers in the field over $20,000,000 of these 7-30 notes at one time.
President U.S. Grant’s message of December 2, 1873, indorses the fact of contraction up to the time as follows:
During the last four years the currency has been contracted directly by the withdrawal of the 3 per cent certificates, compound interest notes, and 7- 30 bonds outstanding on the 4th of March, 1869 (all of which took the place of legal tenders in bank reserves), to the extent of $63,000,000.
Here is a letter from the president of a national bank and a member of the Forty-third Congress:
OFFICE OF FIRST NATIONAL BANK.NEW JERSEY, August 12, 1878.In compliance with your request of the 18 inst., that I should define the relative position of the 7-30 Treasury notes to the general volume of currency in 1865, 1 have to say that I was then daily in the habit of receiving and paying out the same in the conduct of my ordinary business the same as greenbacks, and I esteemed their peculiar characteristics (being conducive of elasticity) as not only forming a currency, but a currency of special merit.AMOS CLARK.
Testimony like this may be produced from the official documents of the government and other reliable sources to any desirable extent, and yet, in the face of it all, Senator Sherman says the 7-30 Treasury notes did not circulate as money and that there has been no contraction of the currency!
Senator John A. Logan, in his great speech of March 17, 1874, discussing the panic of 1873, said:
On the subject of the panic of 1873 to 1877, the United States Monetary Commission says:But, sir, that the panic was not due to the character of the currency is proved by the history of the panic itself. * * * No, sir, the panic was not attributable to the character of the currency, but to a money famine, and to nothing else. In the very midst of the panic we saw the leading bankers and business men of New York pressing and urging the President and the Secretary of the Treasury to let loose twenty or twenty-five millions more of the same paper for their relief. The very same men who today denounce it as a disgrace to our government. It was good enough for them when they were in trouble.
The true and only cause of the stagnation in industry and commerce, now everywhere felt, is the fact everywhere existing of falling prices, caused by a shrinking volume of money. * * * * This is the great cause. All others are collateral, cumulative or really the effects of that primal cause. Practical men see what the mischief is, and they all see it alike, and without formulating their ideas into set words and phrases, they state it alike. Capitalists, large and small, give one and only one reason for refusing to invest in productive enterprises. Uniformly and universally the reason given is that prices are falling and may continue to fall, and that money is the best thing to get and hold while that state of things continues. * * * Falling prices, is only another expression for an increasing value of money, by contracting its volume.
In order to throw some light on the question as to who or what class of society is interested in a scanty volume of money and low prices of labor and the products of labor, I call attention to an extract from the Inter-Ocean of February 28, 1874, quoted and approved by General Logan in his speech of March 17, 1874. The Inter-Ocean said:
In the national Senate Chamber a bitter contest is in progress by the representatives of the moneyed aristocracy on the one hand, and by the representatives of the masses of the people on the other. The proposition on the part of the capitalists is to grasp and firmly hold the largest possible percentage of the profits of all the labor of the country. They want high rates of interest whereby they may tax traffic, and low rates of wages whereby they may tax labor. By contracting the currency they secure both of these objects, for they force traffic to supplicate the banks for loans, and drive labor to beggary; and as the necessities of merchants render more pressing their importunities for loans, the rate of interest is advanced to cover the increased risk, and as the demand for labor declines the price also declines. On the other hand, the proposition of the people, those who live by labor and traffic, is to extend the volume of currency, thereby cheapening money, and so stimulating manufacturing and other industries into such activity as will insure employment to the laboring classes at remunerative rates of wages. No contest was ever more clearly defined. At no time in the history of our country, not even in the history of the rebellion, has it been more evident that the interest of the many clash with those of the few.
It would seem from this view of the case that Senator Sherman, at first, was on the side of the people, but that the side of the oppressor became more fascinating to him, for some reason almost obvious to common mortals.
The contraction of the currency was not at first a Republican measure. It was bitterly opposed by the leading Republicans of the time and for years afterward. They condemned it in the severest terms. Senator Sherman said “it would be an act of folly without example for evil in modern times.” Senator Wade said it would be “as bad as a fire.” And in 1874, when the country was struggling with bankruptcy and general distress. Senator Logan said: “It is a money famine and nothing else.”
I do not speak at random. Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes, afterward Republican President of the United States, has told us all about how contraction was enacted while he and the best Republicans voted against it.
In his speech at Sydney, Ohio, September 4, 1867, Mr. Hayes said:
The very measure which was intended to carry out this policy of Secretary McCullough’s, to enable him to take up the greenback currency with interest-bearing bonds, was introduced into Congress in March, 1866. I have here the votes upon that question, and I say that the Democratic party in both Houses — all the members of the Democratic Party in both Houses — voted for Secretary McCullough’s plan, and that Mr. Jullian, Judge Schofield, Mr. Lawrance — all of whom I see here — and myself, a majority of the Republican members, voted against the scheme, and it became a law because a minority of the Union Party, with a unanimous vote of the Democratic Party, supported it, and because, when it was submitted to Andrew Johnson, instead of vetoing it as he did all Union Party measures, he wrote his name on the 12th of April at the bottom: “Approved, Andrew Johnson.” I think, then, I am authorized in saying that these gentlemen are mistaken when they accuse the Union Party of being in favor of taking up the greenback currency and putting in the place of it interest-bearing, non-taxable bonds. — Howard’s Life of Hayes, p. 206.
And that scheme, opposed by all true Union men at the time, including Senator Sherman, the same Senator now says, is one of the “great pillars of out financial credit.”
Senator Logan continues the discussion of contraction as follows:
It was the contraction and increased want of currency, and not a superabundance, which produced the necessity for running in debt, of which there is so much said on this floor. Why, sir, the people were never freer from debt in proportion to the business done than in 1865, at the close of the war, when Mr. McCullough began his system of contraction, and at the very time eleven millions more people were to be supplied. Was it to be supposed that the activity and energy which the adequate supply of money had put into operation, and which was giving prosperity and happiness to the country, would suddenly dwarf itself to suit financial notions without a severe struggle? The inevitable result was an expedient to meet the consequent want, and credit was expanded. At the very moment, above all others, when adequate supply was needed, the opposite course was adopted; and right hear lies the true cause of the late panic, which resulted from a money famine, and not from an excessive supply.
Senator Logan discusses the subject still further, as follows:
Sir, turn this matter as we will, and look at it from any side whatever, and it does present the appearance of being a stupendous scheme [Mrs. Emery calls it a conspiracy] of the moneyholders to seize this opportunity of placing under their control the vast industries of the nation. Therefore I warn Senators against pushing too far the great conflict now going on between capital and labor. It is not our duty to legislate exclusively for either, but, as far as possible, to try and harmonize the interests of the two. Capital rests upon labor; but when it attempts to press too heavily upon that which supports it in a free Republic, the slumbering volcano, whose mutterings are beginning already to be heard, will burst forth with a fury that no legislation will quell.
The Senator quotes and approves the following from the Berrien County (Mich.) Record:
It is a lamentable fact that the financial question is leading to a conflict between capital and labor, money and production. The capitalists, the possessors of money, who stand isolated from the laboring and producing classes, are getting themselves in hostile array to oppose with might and main every effort to increase the currency of this country to something like an equal ratio with other commercial nations. The East, especially the Wall Streeters and banks, want no more money. They prefer to have the volume of currency limited so that combinations may be entered into and the money cornered. Every time a few millions of the currency are locked up in the East, the West suffers, the products of the West decline in price,and the Western producer suffers, while the Eastern capitalist makes money. The time has come when this state of affairs should and must be remedied. The interest of the South and West are identical on this point, and, unless the East will yield to that which is just and right, the result cannot be otherwise than disastrous in the end. This the money-lenders of New York will learn, but, perhaps, not until it is too late.
I have dwelt at length on this subject of contraction because it is the central “Conspiracy” around which the others cluster, and because the greatest traitor of the day denies its existence. I will ask attention to but one more Republican statement and contradiction:
If I were deciding this case upon what I considered the best evidence, I would be bound to say that I believed the money in actual circulation did not much, if at all, exceed $500,000,000, * * * or a trifle over $8 per capita. —P.B. Plumb in United States Senate, June 1890.
Mr. J.K. Hudson, a leading Republican editor, in April, 1890, stated that the amount of currency at one time was $2,242,576,028.41, “a per capita circulation of $64 at the close of the war, July 1, 1865.”
I leave the stalwarts to settle their diverse statements in their own way. It seems as if the Republicans had recently entered into a bold conspiracy to deceive the people on this money question, even though they made themselves ridiculous by eating their own words and by contradicting each other.
The First “Conspiracy,” wounding the greenback, was to enable the great fund-holders of the world to obtain United States bonds on easy terms. The Second, known as the national banking system, was to make the bonds very profitable to the holders, enabling them to draw double interest on one investment. The Third Conspiracy was to render money so scarce that the bonds would, probably, not be paid, making the investment perpetual.
The conspiracy of 1 869 was to make the bonds payable in coin only, so that their payment would be still more burdensome and less probable.
It was with considerable difficulty that Congress passed the laws of 1869 and 1870, making the 5-20 currency bonds payable in coin, and refunding bonds so that no future Congress could undo the work. Those measures were vehemently opposed and condemned by John Sherman, Senator Doolittle, Oliver P. Morton, Henry Wilson and others. Senator Sherman called the Act of 1869 “extortion and repudiation.” Senator Morton said that, “in its passage, four distinct laws were violated!” But the money power was all-powerful. It was unscrupulous, and, of course, it again triumphed.
In 1873 a coinage law was passed for the coinage of trade dollars and subsidiary silver. It in no way referred to the standard dollar, which had been the unit of account and the standard of value since the beginning of the government. It was an innocent and useful law, yet on this law was founded a “revision,” adopted in bulk, June, 1874, as follows:
The silver coins of the United States shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding $5 in any one payment.
That language demonetized all the silver coins of the United States for amounts above $5, including the standard silver dollar. The United States Monetary Commission Report of 1877, Vol. I, page 90, says:
No law was ever passed by Congress of which this language can be considered a revision.
The report then adds:
Whoever may be responsible for this error in the Revised Statutes, the ancient money of the country, instead of being intentionally legislated out of existence by Congress, was revised out of existence.
The law of 1 875 — the Resumption Law — was intended to redeem and retire the remaining greenbacks, making gold coin the money of the rich bondholders, and bank currency and subsidiary silver the moneys of trade and business. But the sufferings of the people and danger to the peace of the country became so great that Congress, in 1878, passed a law that redeemed greenbacks would not be canceled, but should be paid out again. This defeated the resumption scheme and saved to the people $346,000,000 of greenbacks. Another law was passed in 1878 restoring the full legal-tender quality of the silver dollar, and requiring its coinage at the rate of two to four millions per month. These were the first financial laws passed in the interests of the people since 1862. They were the first check to the money power since the passage of the exception clause on the greenback, which Thaddeus Stevens pronounced “the first victory of the money power over the country.”
The remedial laws of 1878 were an immediate and immense relief to the people, showing that General Logan was right when he called the period from 1873 to 1878 “a money famine and nothing else.”
The great Wall Street Journals were very much disgusted with the passage of the remedial measures of 1878. They unanimously ascribed their passage to the influence of the greenback sentiment of the West and South.
I have now sketched the manner and spirit of the enactment of the “Conspiracies” of the great money power of London and New York against the liberties of the American people, robbing them, with unseen hands, through the manipulations of the finances, as no highwaymen of ancient of modern times could have done it. And these are the crimes which Senator John Sherman says “are the seven great pillars of our financial credit.”
The Senator denies that he ever had any interest in the First National Bank of New York. Of course it cannot be proven that he had. But circumstances are a little suspicious against him. I have on my table a “Political Manual” for 1880. Discussing “Secretary Sherman’s Favorite Financial Agency,” on page 146, I find this remark:
The deposits controlled by the First National Bank [New York] were equal to nearly two and one-half times the entire deposits in all of the other seventy banks where such deposits were held.
Now if Senator Sherman was not financially interested in the First National Bank of New York, why did he thus favor it with the deposits of public moneys when he was Secretary of the Treasury under President Hayes? Why should that particular bank receive deposits in the year 1878, from April to December, amounting to much more than all the other fiscal banks of the country? I ask in all candor, whether the circumstances are not suspicious against the Senator? Or was this conspiracy with that bank another “great pillar of our country’s financial credit?” We have the Senator’s statement that there has been no contraction of the currency since the war, and that he never had any pecuniary interest in his pet bank. But the facts and circumstances against him in both cases are rather ugly! He will next tell us, perhaps, that he became a millionaire by the honest savings from his salary as a public officer!
JOHN DAVIS.
Member of Congress from Kansas.
John Davis, 1826-1901
Davis, John, a Representative from Kansas; born near Springfield, Sangamon County, 111., August 9, 1826
; moved with his parents to Macon County in 1830; attended the country schools, Springfield Academy, and Illinois College, Jacksonville, 111.; engaged in agricultural and horticultural pursuits near Decatur, 111. ; moved to Kansas in 1872 and located on a farm near Junction City; secretary of the Central Kansas Horticultural Society for many years; elected president of the first distinctive farmers’ convention held in Kansas in 1873, out of which grew the Farmers’ Cooperative Association, of which he was the first president; president of the Grange convention in 1874; became proprietor and editor of the Junction City Tribune in 1875; unsuccessful candidate of the Greenback Party for election in 1880 to the Forty-seventh Congress and in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress; elected as a Populist to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses (March 4, 1891 -March 3, 1895); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; devoted his time to literary work until his death in Topeka, Kans., August 1, 1901 ; interment in Topeka Cemetery.
THE AUTHOR’S REVIEW OF SHERMAN
FOSTORIA, O., Oct. 16, 1891.
HON. JOHN SHERMAN:
My attention has just been called to your criticism of Seven Financial Conspiracies in the Cincinnati Enquirer of the 15th inst. You say you “first read the book with amusement and astonishment.” I am not surprised at your astonishment when you see the enormity of your acts summed up and presented to the people in a plain, matter-of-fact way and that it should afford you amusement is only in keeping with a character that could deliberately plan such diabolisms. History tells us that “Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” and history may tell posterity that John Sherman was “amused” when he saw his hellish schemes consummating in the overthrow of the American Republic.
You say the Seven Financial Conspiracies are “the seven great measures by which the country was saved from the perils of civil war,” and yet you know that five of these laws were not enacted until after the war had closed. Senator, do you suppose you can make the people believe that the Contraction of the currency in 1 866, the Credit-Strengthening Act of 1869, the Refunding Act of 1870, the Demonetization of Silver in 1873, or the Resumption Act of 1878 were measures instituted to save the country from a war that had successfully terminated in 1865? You certainly cannot deceive the people by this specious argument, and if you would deceive them in this, what reliance can be placed on your other statements?
You say “the civil war was organized by slave-holders.” It is true they were charged with the crime, but what of Wall Street and the notorious Zach Chandler, who openly asserted that “a country is not worth a damn without bloodletting,” and who, through the agency of the civil war, was elevated from “a man of moderate means” to a position of a millionaire; and. Senator, if I am correctly informed, Zachariah was not the only loyal northern man whose wealth was increased to phenomenal proportions through this infernal agency.
You say it is the men whom I denounce as “Shylocks” who furnished the means for carrying on the war. Ah, did they? You know it was because they demanded such extortionate rates of interest for their money that the government resorted to the issuance of its own money, and you know that it was this very government money — the green back — that saved the country in the hour of peril. In your speech at Toledo on the evening of the 14th inst., you expatiated admirably upon the fact that “all our money is now as good as gold,” but in speaking of the greenback you only parenthetically and stammeringly stated “true, it was depreciated for a time.” Why did you not then and there tell your audience of the blighting effects of this depreciation and subsequent appreciation of the greenback on the wealth producers of the country? Why did you pass so hurriedly over a question of such vital importance? Sir, your object was to deceive the people, and it would be impossible in the same length of time to make more misleading and deceptive statements than you made on that occasion. It is no wonder that cunningly devised utterances choked in your throat. The most ordinary intelligence, not blinded by party prejudice, could easily detect the gauzy web you had so ingeniously prepared to entrap the unwary multitude. But, sir, the multitudes are becoming familiar with your deceptive arguments, and a righteously indignant people are rising to hurl from our national temple the heartless moneychangers who have torn our liberties from their shrine and are bartering them away to the enemies of freedom.
You acknowledge that the greenback was purposely depreciated to make a market for interest-bearing bonds. Why did you not also state an equally patent fact that it was to create a market for the gold which Shylock had hoarded in order that he might speculate upon the dire necessities of the country?
Under the head of the first conspiracy you say “the duty on imported goods was required to be paid in coin in order to provide the means to pay the interest on our bonds in coin.” But you previously stated that “the men who furnished the means to put down the rebellion were included among the most patriotic citizens of the northern states.” Senator, was it an evidence of patriotism on the part of these loyal citizens to demand that the interest on the bonds which they had purchased with depreciated greenbacks should be paid in gold? You insult every old veteran when you compare the patriotism of the gold kings in Wall Street with that of the soldier who faced death at the cannon’s mouth and received in payment money which you say was purposely depreciated to create a market for bonds, the interest upon which was paid in gold when it required more than two dollars of the soldier’s money to purchase one dollar of the bond-holder’s money.
Under the head of second conspiracy you reiterate the thread-bare assertion that “the national bank system is the best that has ever been devised.” This is the first time for more than twelve months that I have found a man sufficiently audacious to presume so much upon the ignorance of the people. The fact is, the people are becoming enlightened upon the vital questions of the day, and such perfidious statements fall powerless and harmless even from the lips of a United States Senator.
Under the head of the third conspiracy — contraction — you assert that “from the beginning of the war until the present time our volume of money has been increasing year by year more rapidly than our population.” And if I remember correctly you stated in your Toledo speech that we now have more money per capita than ever before. You also charge that my statements in regard to the contraction of the currency “are not only misleading, but absolutely false.” Now let us see if it is not Senator Sherman who is attempting to mislead the people. The entire controversy in regard to our money volume arises from the fact that the manipulators of our finances find the people awakening to their corrupt methods, and in order to retain public confidence it has become necessary to cover up the iniquities of past legislation. To do this you now claim that the 7-30 treasury notes and compound interest notes were not money. But Secretary McCullough, Treasurer T.E. Spinner and Senator John A. Logan concurred in counting compound interest and the 7-30 notes as a part of the currency. Indeed, they were made lawful money and a legal tender by the acts creating them. General Spinner, in reply to a letter of inquiry written Aug. 17, 1876, says: “The 7-30 notes were intended, prepared, issued and used, as money,” and scores of people are still living who will testify that these notes passed current as money. And, Senator, the fact that today you come before the people stating that they were not money is unmistakable evidence of the crafty methods you have adopted to gull and mislead a confiding people. You say that what I call money was “the most burdensome form of interest-bearing securties at 7 3-10 percent interest.” Well, this interest was payable in the same kind of money and ceased altogether at the end of three years.
Will you figure out how much was saved to the tax payers by exchanging these 7-30 notes for 5-20s bearing gold interest at 6 per cent. With fifty cents in gold the bond holder purchased $1.00 of these 5-20s bearing gold interest; now did he not really get 6 per cent in gold on his fifty cent gold investment, or 12 per cent on the investment that cost him but $1.00 in gold? While his means were invested in the 7-30s he received but 7 3-10 per cent in paper but after investing in the 5 -20s he received 6 per cent in gold equivalent to 12 per cent in paper on the investment which cost him but fifty cents in gold. Senator will you please tell us how it is that 12 per cent is less burdensome than 7 3-10 per cent? Evidently you have figured on the basis presented by Maj. McKinley “That a mortgage is an evidence of prosperity,” from which standpoint you reach the logical conclusion that the higher the rate of interest the greater the degree of prosperity. Woe unto you hypocrites who under the pretense of relieving the people double their burdens and perpetuate their bondage.
In order to complete your deception, you attempt to still further deceive the people by manipulating the Treasurer’s Report in such a manner as to make it appear that we now have a larger per capita circulation than at any previous time. This has been done first by including in our present circulation the entire amount of greenbacks $346,000,000 which were only saved from the cremation furnace through the efforts of a few sturdy greenbackers led by our invincible Weaver and the great souled Peter Cooper. Now you know that thousands and even millions of that money have been destroyed during the past twenty-eight years by fire, flood and the natural agencies of destruction. Secretary Foster includes in his (campaign) report the various national and private bank reserves which every body knows avails nothing to our depressed industrial classes. No amount of money locked up in treasury and bank vaults could bring relief to the people. An abundant and healthy circulating medium is as necessary to national life as blood is to physical life. The body of a hanged man has an abundance of blood but its stagnation caused him to die. So when a nation’s circulating medium stagnates in bank vaults or is disproportionately shrunken in volume that nation will as surely die. The testimony of Secretary McCullough, Spinner, Logan, Plumb and other leading authorities bear me out in the assertion that our actual per capita circulation is less than one fourth that of 1866. As proof of this Secretary McCullough in his report for Dec. 1865 says we have now about $2,000,000,000 nearly all in circulation among the people.
Our population at that time was 35,000,000 consequently we had about $57 per capita. Secretary Foster in his report for campaign purposes in 1891 shows about $1,588,000,000 with a population of 64,000,000 which gives per capita circulation of over $24. Secretary Foster, however, in his anxiety to present a winning campaign document deceives the people by omitting the important fact that nearly one half the amount is not in circulation. A fair estimate shows thezzz
| Loss of paper money during 28 years | $ 50,000,000 |
| hoarded-low estimate | 25,000,000 |
| National bank reserves — Comp. report 1889, p. 51 | 460,000,000 |
| Private bank reserves-estimated | 250,000,000 |
| 785,000,000 | |
| Balance in actual circulation | $803,000,000 |
| Population | 64,000,000 |
| Per capita in circulation | $12.50 |
This calculation is far more liberal than that of Senator Plumb who in 1890 said the circulation did not exceed $500,000,000, or a little more than $8 per capita.
You say that my statements in regard to this matter “are palpable falsehoods, and if stated by a man would justify a stronger word.” Very well. Senator, use your strongest language, but please apply it where it belongs, to your colleagues. Secretary McCullough, Spinner, Logan and Plumb. You say you were not in favor of contraction of the greenbacks and made a speech against it. I am aware of that fact, and made a quotation from your speech showing that your views were correct on this subject. At the same time we find you in 1875 passing the Resumption Act, which provided for the destruction of every dollar of that money. Your views were also correct when in 1866 you said “the bondholder can demand only the kind of money he paid. He is a repudiator and extortioner to demand money more valuable than he gave.” Now if this view was correct in 1866, was it not equally correct in 1879? Then why did you, in a speech made in Toledo in that year say “that to refuse to pay the bonds in gold would be repudiation and extortion, and would be scoffing at the blessings of Almighty God.” Senator the fact that your worldly possessions were wonderfully augmented during these years justifies a very general suspicion that you had fallen into “ways that were dark, etc.”
Under the fourth head — the Credit-Strengthening Conspiracy — you say, “I maintain and still believe that by a fair construction of the Loan Law we had a right to pay the principal of the bonds as they matured in greenbacks of the kind and character in existence when the bonds were issued.” Now this is precisely the ground I take in regard to this matter, therefore I see no occasion for controversy upon this subject; though it is universally conceded that through this act of Congress, which you supported, the people were robbed of hundreds of millions of dollars, and will ever be denounced as one of the most diabolical conspiracies in the record of crime.
The Refunding Act was simply a scheme to perpetuate the national debt, and no amount of glamour or sophistry will make it appear otherwise in the minds of a debt-ridden and tax cursed people.
Your claim that the bonds were refunded to secure a lower rate of interest is calculated solely to deceive the people. We have already shown that it was far easier for the people to pay 7 3-10 per cent interest with paper money depreciated one-half than it was to pay 6 per cent in gold interest. Senator, I agree with your “intelligent statesmen” that the Refunding Act “was a measure of the highest value conducted with remarkable success.” It certainly was a measure of highest value to the bond-holders, and conducted with remarkable success by their agents of which you appear as chief.
Under the head of Demonetization of Silver you again resort to your “honest dollar” deception, and attempt to terrorize the farmer, the laborer and the soldier by the fear that they are going to be paid off in “dishonest dollars.” Senator, if we have any “dishonest dollars” was it not a Republican congress under your manipulations that made them so? Are you deterred from taking a silver dollar because there is only seventy-seven cents worth of silver in it? You say it will buy as much and is equally as good as the gold dollar, the national bank note or the greenback. Will you sell your silver dollars for seventy-seven cents? Certainly not, for they are worth one hundred cents in the market. Then why attempt to confuse and prejudice the soldier by telling him that he will be paid in “cheap dollars,” “dishonest dollars,” “short dollars,” etc., unless your party wins?
This solicitude in regard to the soldier, however, seems quite out of character on your part when we reflect that while our country was in the throes of civil war, it was through such legislation as you prescribed that the soldier was paid in a currency which you say was depreciated in order to make a market for gold-interest bearing bonds. This “dishonest dollar,” over which you have so long and loudly lamented, has no exception clause upon it. You boast that our money is all equally good, that one kind of a dollar will buy as much as another kind. Since this is true, why do you attempt to deceive the people by this talk of “dishonest dollars?” Money can only be dishonest when its purchasing power is impaired. If we have ever had any dishonest money it was that which Congress depreciated by placing the exception clause upon it and then compelled the soldier in the field to accept it for his services. And, sir, did not you, under the instruction of a London banker. Earnest Seyd, manipulate this legislation — Demonetization of Silver — in the interests of British and American capitalists? Senator Ingalls says in his great speech, in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 14, 1891, “there is a deep-seated conviction among the people, which I fully share, that the demonetization of silver in 1 873 was one element of a great conspiracy to deliver the fiscal system of this country over to those by whom it has in my opinion finally been captured. * * * So great was the power of capital, so profound was the impulse, so persistent was the determination, the promoters of this scheme succeeded by the operation of mind power and will force in capturing and bewildering the intelligence of men of all parties, of members of both houses of congress, the members of the cabinet and the president of the United States. * * * As I say, it is one of the phenomena and anomalies of legislation, and I have no other explanation to make than this: I believe that both houses of congress and the president of the United States must have been hypnotized.” Senator, were you hypnotized on that memorable occasion? Excuse this seemingly personal and impertinent question, for the truth is, British gold and Washington whiskey have been such important factors in American legislation during the past thirty years that one is hardly able to determine whether this was or was not a genuine case of hypnotization. You claim however, that you understood this measure was before congress. It was no secret with you. You evidently were not hypnotized. The management of such a stupendous conspiracy necessitated a clear brain and an unyielding nerve. You, doubtless, were the great hypnotizer.
Under the head of Resumption you claim this crowning act to be the “glory and pride of the people of the United States.” You extol our credit, our productive interests, the development of our national resources, but not one word have you to say of the general advancement and prosperity of the masses. The truth is, under your “beneficent financial policy” the masses are being rapidly reduced to a condition of wage slavery. With 9,000,000 of mortgaged homes, $30,000,000,000 of indebtedness, and one-half the wealth of the country in the hands of 3 1,000 people, the boast of prosperity is a mockery, and an insult to common intelligence.
S.E.V. EMERY.
The Press and People Endorse It.
OFFICE OF DR. ALBERT FULLER,
KIRWIN, KAN., December 10, 1888.
The little book, “Seven Financial Conspiracies” by Mrs. S.E.V, Emery, is a warning voice. It reveals the destructive tendency of corrupt legislation in our country. It should be carefully read and well considered by every American citizen. CORRUPTIONISTS may HISS at it, but HISTORY will HONOR the WOMAN who WROTE it.
ALBERT FULLER, M.D.
OFFICE OF THE KANSAS COMMONER,
NEWTON, KANSAS, Dec. 13, 1888.
MRS. S.E.V. EMERY:
DEAR MADAM — Your little work, “Seven Financial Conspiracies,” has been of wonderful service in the late campaign in Kansas. It was called the “Union Labor Bible,” and was read by most of the farmers in this portion of the state; a profound impression was produced by its teachings which will remain as the basis of future victory. Many for the first time caught a glimpse of the profound facts connected with financial slavery, and although thousands who have been convicted of sin have so far failed to fully embrace the truth, still a foundation has been laid in the minds of the majority that will in the near future uphold the cause of “the great plain people.”
I sincerely hope that its circulation may be most widely extended.
Very truly,
J.R. ROGERS.
The person who is not thoroughly well informed upon the cause that has, within the last twenty years, produced five thousand millionaires, while producing one million tramps and fixing death-grip “mortgages” on over one-half the homes of America, should buy and read this little book, and be wise in time to prevent the further aggression of monopolies. — Weekly Review, Douglasville, Ga.
What you have revealed is startling and makes me think of what John the Revelator saw. I have set others to reading it and they are all as much surprised as I am. — MRS. GEO. STEBBINS.
In my estimation you are fully entitled to the first premium for a work adapted for general circulation among the masses. You have done your work well; God bless you. — J.M. CALKINS.
SEVEN FINANCIAL CONSPIRACIES WHICH HAVE ENSLAVED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.— The above is the title of an invaluable little book of eighty-five pages, graphically written, in a concise form, though the whole story is told; and ought to be read by every man, woman and child living in the United States. We are not able to find language to express thanks to our noble sister for her grand work. — The National Review.
Your little book has come to me like a revelation from the ever living God — Leon Lewis.
I learned more in relation to the financial history of our country during the past thirty years, by reading carefully Mrs. S.E.V. Emery’s “Seven Financial Conspiracies,” than I had ever known before. I advise every voter to lay aside prejudice and read this wonderful little book. JOHN P. ST. JOHN. Ex-Governor of Kansas.
I received from Washington, some time ago, the report of the United States silver commission and find it a grand document for the American people. In perusing its pages I underscored the passages that struck me as being especially significant and important, with a lead pencil, and now have before me a grand, italicized, governmental. Union Labor, campaign document, issued by Congress at Washington.
It looked so nice, laying thus before me, that I thought the plan would be a good one with some of our other best authors.
It worked well till I come to Mrs. S.E.V. Emery’s “Seven Financial Conspiracies.” Here I was completely surprised and nonplussed. I found my pencil instinctively running under every line, and from one side of the page to the other, without being able to discriminate as to which words or thoughts were more weighty than the others. For superlative excellence in everything that she lays her hand to give me a woman. With this thought I dropped my pencil with the exclamation: My God, there is no danger of the American people being enslaved as long as they have such mothers as that!
Give women the ballot and they will send the liquor business higher than Gilderoy’s kite. Give woman the ballot and the “Seven Financial Conspiracies” reviewed by Mrs. Emery and the seventy-seven other conspiracies by John Bull & Co. will melt away in the sunshine of her Superior and instinctive perception. She has more moral courage than man. Vide the late crusades in Missouri. She has a clearer perception of motives and proprieties than man. She rules the nation in its infancy and it would be all the better if her trained and experienced counsels, and the impulses of her more faithful and loving heart, were over her boys as long as they live. Women most always prove themselves equal to the emergency, no matter what that emergency may be.
The negro problem would soon be solved; the financial troubles would disappear.
The country would, no doubt, gain immeasurably, by an unrestricted enfranchisement of our wives and mothers.
With the same constancy that arms her to repel intruders, in her domestic sphere, she would send John Bull home to attend to Ireland, India and Portugal, and warn him to keep his fingers out of our finances. “The poor ye have always with you,” said Jesus, “and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.” At last, in these latter days, God has given the poor a government, the Democratic Republic of America. The poor, being in the majority, have the reins of government always within their grasp. The rich, in this and other lands are endeavoring to steal away the government from the poor. Half the men are blind and do not see it. Women being more sensitive and the first to suffer, are keenly alive to these despicable methods. Let us arm the women to make a lawful crusade against our wrongs.
Hopefully yours.
— J.L. Switzer, in the Chicago Express.
HEADQUARTERS UNION LABOR PARTY.
CHETOPA, KAN., November 24, 1888.
Mrs. S.E.V. Emery, Lansing, Mich.:
MY DEAR MADAM — I believe the little book “Seven Financial Conspiracies,” of which we distributed 60,000 copies, is entitled to more credit than all else in making Kansas the Banner Union Labor State. It has caused more men, both Democrat and Republican, to investigate the financial legislation of the country, than any other document of its size ever brought before the reading public.
Very truly yours,
JNO. W. BREIDENTHAL,
Chairman State Central Committee.
Not since the days of Uncle Tom’s Cabin has a mere statement of facts drawn from the pages of history been subject to such severe scrutiny and vindictive criticism as has Mrs. Emery’s little book, entitled “Seven Financial Conspiracies,” &c., within the past six months.
During the presidential campaign over fifty thousand copies of this stirring document were circulated in the State of Kansas alone; and so effective was its influence on the side of the people that it was made the special object of attack by the ablest speakers of the great monopoly party of the State, by organized central committees, and by the most powerful and widely circulated Journals of the great Wall street party.
Yet in all this fiery furnace of rage, vituperation, slander and abuse, not a break or a fracture was found in the harness of this glorious little book. Not a statement was disproved or a position overthrown. Republican speakers on the rostrum were seen to exhibit it to their audiences, to misread its pages, to use the most withering invectives in their denunciations, and then, in their rage, to dash it on the floor, to spit upon it and to stamp it with their feet!
A book worthy so much vindictive and apprehensive attention on the part of the enemies of popular liberty is no common production. This little book is, in our opinion, the most powerful and valuable document of its size now in use. — Junction City (Kan.) Tribune.
OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN NONCONFORMIST,
WINFIELD, KAN.
MRS. EMERY:
You observe that Kansas comes up with 10,000 more U.L. votes than any other State in the Union, and in justice it should be known that the little “Seven Shooter” was the greatest agency and the strongest lever brought into service. It called out the fire of the enemy as nothing else. We shall need 100,000 of them for 1889, for the U.L. Party means to save Kansas. The best thing outside of this State is the conversion of the St. Louis Christian Advocate, caused by the Editor reading your book. He comes out square and is now running a series of articles showing up the whole system. Let us take courage and keep up the fight.
Yours,
H. & L. VINCENT.
Publishers Nonconformist.
The people turned out en masse to do all honor to Mrs. S.E.V. Emery. The parade at 1 1:30 was immense. In the afternoon a very large and attentive audience gathered to listen to Mrs. Emery, who is one of the finest speakers it has ever been our good fortune to hear. For three hours she held her audience spellbound listening to the words of wisdom, eloquence and truth that she uttered; her very appearance is a benediction. She is a grand, good woman and that vast crowd testified its appreciation by frequently interrupting her with cheers and cries of, “that’s so,” etc. After the speaking the audience dispersed with three cheers for Mrs. Emery — long may she live to continue her grand and noble work of educating and elevating mankind. — Stafford (Kansas), Advocate.
SHELBY, October 11, 1886.
ED. TRIBUNE — Say to the people of Oceans county, through your paper, that if they get a chance to hear Sarah E.V. Emery during her course of lectures in the county this week, to do so by all means. In our opinion, and we voice the sentiment of the Shelby people without regard to party, the Michigan lecture platform has on it no abler speaker today than Mrs. Emery. Pleasing in her delivery, clear cut and decisive in her argument, with a remarkably strong and pleasing voice, Mrs. Emery will hold an audience for two hours, so still that you can hear a pin drop. Her subject, “Whither are we drifting?” is political but not partisan. Dealing with the great questions which today demand attention at the hands of the people in a fair, impartial manner, and suggesting the remedy which in her opinion is most concise and common sense. Her lectures are free to everybody. — Shelby Tribune (Shelby) Michigan.
The Seven Financial Conspiracies was the principle weapon used by the stalwart Kansans in their memorable war with and defeat of the “Irredescent Dreamer,” John J. Ingalls. It is the best eye opener for the average voter now before the public and ought to be in the hands of every American citizen.
CHAS. N. BROWN,
Editor Alliance Defender.
No pamphlet published has struck such terrible and effective blows as has this one. The eighty-second thousand is ready to be sent out. It goes right back to the root of these great evils and shows in a manner that will convince, how the servility of the people is being brought about by deep laid and foul conspiracies which have been carried out, and are now daily gnawing at the vitals of the republic. — Non-Conformist, Winfield, Kansas.
Mrs. Emery is of large build, physically, mentally and spiritually. She possesses a superb voice, well trained in the elocutionist arts, poised by such superior mental powers and a knowledge of her subjects, that made her master of the occasion. We have no power of pen, or language at command to do anything like justice to her speech.
We have listened to Wendell Phillips, humanity’s silver tongued orator; to Henry Ward Beecher, the proud preacher of Plymouth church; to John B. Gough; to the forensic efforts of Roscoe Conklin and Carlisle; to the brant productions of “Sunset Cox” and polish of Gen Weaver, but never in all did we listen to such a speech as delivered by Mrs. Emery to 5,000 people at the Knights of Labor celebration. July 4th, 1887. From first to last she held them spellbound by the magic of her orator, the clearness of her argument and power of her logic. We shall not even attempt a review. Suffice it to say that 5,000 people will never forget her burning words, portraying the wrongs that the wealth producers — the true business and laboring classes suffer under — and the true remedy — a national solution of the money question in the interests of those classes. — The People’s Advocate, Independence, Iowa, July 7th, 1887.
Mrs. Emery’s Success Upon the Rostrum.
At 2 p.m. the people gathered in Lafayette park, and listened to a long and interesting address by Mrs. Emery. The gathering was so large that not more than one-third of the people were able to hear the address. There were no newspaper men on the stand and a full report of the speech cannot be given. It is said to be one of the finest talks on the vital questions of the day made in Kansas this year. Mrs. Emery is a forcible writer and understands the history of our country as well as anyone that is on the public stage now. The talk was well received from first to last and made a good impression on the hearers. — Beacon, Great Bend, Kansas.
One of the largest audiences ever assembled in the court house greeted the lady speaker last evening. Mrs. Emery, besides being an orator, proved herself to be a master of her subject, and her command of language was somewhat amazing to those at least who think that a lady is not capable of delivering an address in public, more especially when the subject chosen deals with the great political questions of the day. — Abilene (Kansas) Gazette.
Mrs. S.E.V. Emery, a talented and interesting Union Labor lecturer, addressed a crowded house Tuesday evening. While we do not subscribe to the U.L. faith entirely, yet there is much to be commended in Mrs. E.’s speech. Her review of John Sherman and the relation his financial policy bears to the present stagnated condition of agriculture, her interpretations of the workings of the tariff laws, and the manner in which they have strangled labor, were unanswerable. — Girard Herald (Rep.) (Girard) Kansas.
Mrs. Emery, of Lansing, delivered an address in the Congregational church last Monday evening, under the auspices of the W.C.T.U. Her lecture was a very intellectual production. With a woman’s pathetic pleading, she combine’s the convincing logic of a strong reasoner and the persuasive power of a graceful orator. She speaks with great ease and fluency, and is thoroughly well posted. — Williamston Enterprise, (Williamston) Michigan.
Mrs. Emery is a lady of fine presence, has a clear and powerful voice and an easy and often eloquent oratory which gives her front rank among platform speakers. She handled her theme with great skill and made a strong impression in favor of woman suffrage as necessary not only to the cause of temperance and other vital reforms, but the perpetuation of republican government. Senator Peffer and Congressman Simpson were present and in short speeches unqualifiedly indorsed the arguments of Mrs. Emery and pledged their adhesion to the reforms she advocated. — Emporia Daily Gazette.
The late dailies contain Hon. John Sherman’s sharp reply to that remarkably powerful and popular little book, “The Seven Financial Conspiracies.” More than 100,000 copies of this book have been sold in the past year. No woman ever trod foot on Shelby county soil whose sweet, persuasive eloquence thrilled people with more righteous fervor than did the words of Mrs. Emery at Lithia Springs last August. — Our Best Words, Shelbyville, 111., Nov 21, 1891.
DECLARATION OF CONDITIONS.
[Adopted by the People’s Party at Omaha, July 4, 1892.]
Assembled upon the one hundred and sixteenth anniversary of the declaration of independence, the People’s Party of America, in their first national convention, invoking upon their action the blessing of Almighty God, puts forth in the name and on behalf of the people of this country the following preamble and declaration of principles:
The conditions which surround us justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the Legislature, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized, most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced; business prostrated; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self- protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruit of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes — tramps and millionaires.
The national power to create monopoly enriches bondholders; a vast public debt payable in legal tender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people
Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by increasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise and enslave industry. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on the two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at once it forbodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of despotism. We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the extending dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed together to ignore in the coming campaign every issue but one. They promise to drown the outcries of plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of. They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires.
Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the nation, and filled with the spirit of the grand generation who established our independence, we seek to restore the government of the republic to the hands of “the plain people” with whose class it originated. We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the national Constitution, to form a more perfect union, and establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty or ourselves and our posterity.
We declare that this country can only endure as a free government while built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the nation, that it cannot be pinned together by bayonets, that the civil war is over, and that every passion and resentment which grew out of it must die with it, and that we must be in fact as we are in name, one united brotherhood of free men.
Our country finds its future confronted with conditions for which there is no precedent in the history of the world. We pledge ourselves that if given power we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation in accordance with the terms of our platform.
We believe that the powers of government — in other words, of the people — should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice and poverty shall eventually cease in the land. While our sympathies as a party of reform are naturally on the side of every proposition which will tend to make men intelligent, virtuous and temperate, we nevertheless regard these questions — important as they are — as secondary to the issues now pressing for solution, and upon which not only our individual prosperity but the very existence of free institutions depend; and we ask all men to first help us to determine whether we are to have a republic to administrate, before we differ as to the conditions upon which it is to be administered; believing that the forces of reform this day organized will never cease to move forward until every wrong is remedied and equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of this country.
PLATFORM OF PRINCIPLES
We declare that the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall be permanent and perpetual; may its spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the republic, and the uplifting of mankind.
2. Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent, is robbery. “If any will not work neither shall he eat.” The interests of rural and civic labor are the same; their enemies are identical.
3. We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing all roads, we should favor an amendment to the Constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a civil service regulation of the most rigid character so as to prevent the increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employes.
FINANCE.
We demand a national currency, safe, sound and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the issue of banking corporations; a just, equitable and efficient means of distribution direct to the people at a tax not to exceed 2 per cent, per annum to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance, or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements.
We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1.
We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita.
We demand a graduated income tax.
We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government economically and honestly administered.
We demand that postal savings banks be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people, and to facilitate exchange.
TRANSPORTATION.
Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interests of the people.
The telegraph, telephone, like the post office system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people.
LAND.
The land, including all the natural resources of wealth, is the heritage of the people and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railways and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens, should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only.
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