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SECRETARY SHERMAK'S RESUMPTION.

li SHERMAN7S

success in selling fifty millions of four-and-a-

l1 half per cent. boncls in this city malies it all but certa in t'hat

greenbacks will either be at par or sufficiently near par betmeen

now and January, 1879 t o make it possible for him at and after that

date to pay in gold a11 of them which are likely t o be prcsented.

Whether he will be able to continue to do so during the ensuing two

years, nhi le silver is gradually making its way into use as

a

cheap

legal tender,

is

of course still doubtful

;

but the uncertainty on this

point docs not trouble him, as he has the right under theam to pay

in silver should gold be scarce, and he nformed the House Cornmit-

tee the ot,hcr day that should he find himself shor t of both metals

he nould resort to an expedient which he mentioned as something

he had heard of

as

having been used in foreign countries-viz., a

suspension

of

specie payments. Against this contingency, howera- ,

he mill be protected both by his supply of gold, his supply of silver,

and the power which he claims and which he declares his intention

to exerc,ise, of reissuing tho greenbacks reserved y him inexchange

for gold, and by the ponw which he asks Congress to give him of

receivinggrecnbaclrs inpayment of customs dutiesafter July.

This prospect i s aturally giving the public a groat eal of

satisfaction. Some a're pleasedbecause it promises to relieve the

Government from the discredit of having

its

notes circulating

at

a discount; others,because it seems likely t o disconcertorquiet

the silver-men in Congress, and also the advocates of the repeal of

the Resumption Act, their main objection to which was th at itcould

not possibly be executed, and that the preparation for its execution

was inflicting great loss and suffering on debtors.To these two

classes, however, tho most att'ractire eatu re n Mr. Sherman's

scheme is its inflation feature. If carried out n he way he pro-

poses, the gold he pays out for greenbacks will be

a

clear addition

to the circulation, as long

as

the exchanges do not turn against

us

and silver has notbecome too plentiful, for he will reissue the green-

backs

as

soon as he takes them. Consequentlyi t is thought we may

look forward o a year or wo of rising prices, during which wc

shall all be able to unload our unsalable stocks and real estate.

This to the ufferers of the last five years is naturally most a,gree-

able outlook. But after this year or two-what

The answer which theSecretary himself, and hat argeand

growingortion of the public which does notike remote

views, would make o his question would probablybe his

:

Thatheeturn of confidence and hopefulness produced by

the resumption of specie payments by the Government, in con-

junct'iou TTith inflation, would doubtless put an endo

the financial vagaries bred by the long-continued depression, and

bring Congress and the country into a rational and moderate frame

of mindwith regard o finance, and abate he growingdesire t,o

despoil the public creditor; that, therefore, by the time the silver

legislation began t'o make itself felt and work mischief,

it

aoul d be

possible to procure from Congress a repeal or modification

of

the

law, and to reconcile the country to the total disappearance from

circulation of the Government notes; that, in short, a c should get

back gradually o our old and soundfinancial sta tus not by ally

.

ystematic or carefully-planned process, but. in the plunging, floun-

dering fashion which seems to be more and more accepted as the

only fashion in which

a

genuine democracy can escape from diffi-

culties. As this is prophecy,

it

is, of course, impossible t o refute it.

The most one can do is to disbelieve it; but it must be admitted

that it is by no means improbable prophecy, a_nd th at it rrould not

be surprising if we did reach dry land in some such

may.

In any

event, It is

a

great gain to hare theGovernment notes made at las t

payable n gold at par. If the process of paying hem s once

begun, too, so many interests will be enlisted in support of it s con-

tinuance that itwill not be abandoned a'gainwithouta severe strug-

gle or the occurrence of so~nu great -ublic calamity.

On the other hand, no finance, whether public or private, can be

called sound in which the consequences of things not turning

out

as

you

expect they to turn out have not been considered, and as far

i

I

~ _ _ _ _

as possible provided for. It is not likely that any prosperity brou

about by a sudden inflation of the currency, no matter of what th

currency consists,

F i l l

be lasting or healthy. All experience forbid

11s t o

expect

it.

Moreover, it is not ikely that anyeffect of inflatio

during the next two years nil1 make the burdenf debt at theWes

vhether pricate or municipal, seem much lighter. The payment o

any debt in gold, or it s equivalent, is something which the Wes

will hardly become reconciled to within that period, and yet the

mccess of

tho

Secretary's plan depends on the three legal tende

oontinuing equal in value. Should they cease to bc so through an

contingency, he mould have t o abandon goldpayments, and th

attent ion of thedebtor class would beagain urned o he

Governmenh paper which he proposes to keep afloat as the ru

instrument

of

its deliverance

;

and this time it would undoubtedl

be made to work it s deliverance. His plan of resumption, in shor

though

it

may ease matters for the moment, and may p repar e th

m y or real resumption, is not the esumption which was intende

when the notes were issued; is not the rcsunlption which the de

knders of the public crcdit ha re been working for; and is not th

resumption provided for by the Resumption Act. When hese note

were first ssued they mere regardedas a forced loan, and he

legal-tender characterwasbestoaed on themnot because th

Government had dete rmined to take up the business of a bank o

issue, but in order

t o

sustain their value

as

currency. The notio

that thcy ~o u l d, ould, or should be made to const itute part of th

pcrmanent circulation of the country was due to the discovery b

t hcDemocrats of the fact that theyould probably be made the in

ment

of

fraud botho n public and privatecreditors. Since that perio

111the thoughtle ss andishonest classes n thecountry have adopte

the theory that they vere truemoney, the best kind of 'money, an

that me could not hare too many of them. There arc, too, hundred

jfthousands East and mestho, while repud iating the idea that

arc fit to be the permanentmoney of the country, nevertheless hol

that they are l1 good enough money to pay debtswith ; nd nobod

who

docs not make it a business towatch he manifestat,ions

lmpular opinion on this subject , can form an adequate conceptio

3f the strength of the hold which has been obtained, both in Congres

and at theWest,, by the notion that the burdenof debt under whic

the country is nom Paboring cannot be got rid of by the ordinary

process, but must be disposed of by

au

issue of Government pape

made for the purpose, so that we can all make 1 a fresh star t with

out liabilities of any kind.

There is only one mode of salvat ion from this craze, and that ,

the one prorided by the liesurnption Act, which directs the Secre

tary of the Treasury to redeem in coin the United States lega

tender notes then outstanding

on

pre~entation,~' etc.Redeeming

note i n coin means paying

it ;

and when it

is

paid it has no longc

any fbnctionorvalue in law or morals. The sole duty of th

Treasury mith regard to it is to cancel or destroy it. T o put

afloat again is t o issue it afresh, or, in other words, to do a thin

which the Supreme Court has denied the rightof the United State

to

do in time

of

peace. Secretary Sherman put this construction o

the Resumption

act^

in

1875

when h e procured its passage. H

~ ~ O J Y

om rer , claims the pone r of reissuing the redeemed note

ullder the old statuto, which gives the Secretary tho poFer of re

issuing notes (' eturned t o the Treasury , in payment of taxes an

in the purchase of bonds. That this isa, quibble is, of course, plain

and it is i~~possiblc to characterize it,onsidering ~ h ohe autho

is, language hat would seem moderate. Theresult of acting

it n-ill probably be t'he following

:

1. The assumption by the Government,without

any

clear

o

defini te .\varrant of law, or any proper checks and restraints, of th

functions

of

a bank, managed by one man, armed vi th enormou

and irresponsible IJowcr o r e r thc money market.

3

The confirmation a11d furthcr diffu:,iouof the gron.ing

an

dangerous

ljopular

clelusion that rrhatevcr the Government stamp

as moncs

is

good money, and may be of indefinite amount, and th

Congress is the proper judgeof the amount needed at any particu

time.

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The encouragement of that other and more dangerous delu-

sion which has been born in this countrymainly of the issue of irre-

deemable paper-that the Government is responsible for the con-

dition of intlust'ry and the prosperity of the people in other vay s

th an throlTgh htr provision

of

security, and,asan nexhaustible

fountain

of

~vt.alth,may be fairly called on

to

provide remunerative

employment for all

~ v h o

eek it.

Tha t Sec reta ry Sherman's plan , and, abore all, his shifty, eva-

sive, and changeful utterances o n all financial problems, will b ut

strengthen a11 the alarming endencies of t he day,seems at thi s

moment highlp probable, an d i t would be

a

great misfortune if his

proposed attempt

t o

disreg ard the law, whatever one may think of

his motives, passed without the protest bothf honest and far-seeing

men. If he means t o reissue the gre enbacks, he o ught inecency to

ask Congress that they may o deprived of thcir legal-tender charac-

ter and allo~vedo circulate for what they a,re worth as Government

promissory notes. It isexceedinglydoubt>ful in any ease whether

his reissues would beacceptedasanything more than his,and

whether the courtswould hold them o be a legal tender.

~ _ ~ _ _ _ _

T

THE I\IORSL

O F TWEED S

CAREER.

death of

Tweed

t,hc late

hss

of this city, has drawnorth the

ncunl number

of

~ u ~ e r a lliscourses, both from the press an d the

pulpit, and b y most of them he has been made to serve

as a

warn-

ing of cstraorc1in:ry solemnity against dishonest practices and sen-

sual indulgence. We cannot help thinki ng that this is great waste

of a fine and conspicuous example. Th e only preacher, within our

observation, mho ha's turned it t o proper account is the New Pork

Ti rzes, i u

pointingout tha t mha t Tweed's career most efiect,irely

illustrated KIS not the iaespcctiency of individual wickedness, bu t

the balillcss of

ihc

social conditions in which such vickedncss could

be so successful. The re is no city in the civilized world which does

no t

contail1 plenty of men capable of doing all tha t Tweed did and

mwc, if they got a clmnce. Lonclon Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Eoston,

and Pililndelphi;t, all haTe them in abundance ; men, me venture to

say, -rith full

as much ability and audacity, with as huge a greed

for

money

ancl as ca,pacious stomachs. In er ery one of these cities

thore are scnrcs of ( ( mute inglorious Tweeds, waiting for an oppor-

be, not tha t was

a man

of matchless powers of mischief, but that

the connnnnity t811ey ire in

will

not giro

them a

chance of imi tating

him.

IIc

n.as mldoubtectly an eminent man in his fieM, but he was

not ail euliucntly bad man. With similar culture ndmanure

dozens like him could

be

raised in a year in any great capital, and

by going t o any State prison

mnch

more valuable illustrations of th e

consequcnccs of Imavery might be produced for the use of the Sun-

day-school teacher .

To

say that he r a s produced by certain social conditions is,how-

ever not strict'lyaccurate. He was produced by certain political

contlitions which greE into existence almost without the knowledge

of the American public, and to which their eyes were only fairly

opt:11ed

by his rise and fall. Americanpolitical heories an d ra -

ditions li:~cl made absolutelyno provision and provided 110 place

for the conlmunity nhich raised him. According to these theories

ant1 traclitions, \\-hen

a

number of capitalists, owning

or

controlling

vast, :trllox1its of property, collect for the tra nsaction of business a t

tllc moi:th of

a

great ri\-er and draw around hemhundreds

of

thousanck of

poor

ignorant, or shiftless persons to work for them in

their warehouses and factories and docks, these hundreds of thou-

sands Imome auiruated by an eager desire for efficient, orderly, and

ecocomicxl municipalgovernment, andunitewith heproperty-

owners for i ts crea tion

and

maintellance

;

they become, in short,

t,he personage I < n o ~ w

n

America jurisprudence as the people,"

inheriting ,he

supposed

att ributes of the sovereign of t'he Old

\Torlcl--that is,

a

pekspicacious, vigilant, upright ma'ster, keeping

a mxtchful eyc orer the public int'ercsts, and carcful in the selection

of public cri-ants. In fact, however, thegrowth of American

cities has followed no such lines. The population by which they

have been rapidlybuiltupduring hepast twenty-five years

tunity

t o p l a y

hispart.

If

we never hear of them he reason will

had many of the characteri stics of

a

plebs, and rapidly beg

io ask for leaders which should put it in he

way

of living

the rich without violating th e 1;m. Tweed succeeded becauseh

w s the first to perceive the work which this class wished

t o

ha

:lone, and the first t o discover the way of doing it. Ra-ring on

mx rc d, throu gh the ignorant, greedy rote, the control

of

the lo

taxation, he introduced Americans to anoth er startl ing ovclty-t.h

mholesalc corruptibility of legislatures composed of country farm

and lawyers of small means, by the use of sums which far exceed

Kith most of them the possible swin gs of a frugal and successful l

With the instruments in his hands, his work,

as

we a11 know, w

perfectly casy. He met with no check from the very first until t

exposure came. And let us remember th at he fell without loss

reputation among thebulk of his upporters.Thebulk of

poorer voters of this city to-day rererc his memory, and loolr

011

h

as the rictimof rich men's malice ; as, in short, frientl of the ne

who appl ied the public funds, with as little waste as was poss

under the circumstances, to the purposes to which they ought to

applicd-and that is to the makingf work for the workingman. T

odium heaped on him in the pulpits last Sunday does not exist

the lomcr stra tum of New Po rk society. Wecauappeal for

truth of this to anyone who has during the past six years take

trouble to test theopinion of this stratum

on

Tweed's life and fu

The ntel ligent and wealthy classes, of course,

do

not ike

believe these thing s, and men with political ambition, if they

lieve them, do not dare to utter them

;

but they arc nono the l

true ndmportant.They onstitutehe reat- city proble

which is perhaps now the most pressing one of American polit

but which politicians an d primitive Americans (wi th t he Xew E

land

town governments still fresh in thei r minds, homcver) eit

refuse

t o

see or shrink from dealing with.

It

is the problem,

by which the

seeds

of tha t communistic spirit which is n o ~ vssai

t he

nation's finances was sown and is being steadily fostered. T

power

lodgcd

in the hands

of

the penniless municipal

roter

o

large masses of property furnishes either a constant lesson in spo

tion or a temptation to spoliation, and is keeping alive or stimu

ing all over the Union the schemes for getting a living out of

Government by hook or by crook which are now showing themsel

in the arena of national politics, and even becoming the founda

of a party.

In

thi s new field-new in America-Tweed

xu

im

the earliest worker, but hewas not a particularly skilful ~ o rl te r

lost his head very early in the day and thus precipitated his do

fall. Hadhe gone more slowly and arried on

his

operati

on a smaller scale, a nd been simpler in his hab its and less osten

tious in his pleasures, he could have retained his power until n

and might hare strengthened it and made his overthrow far m

difficult. A villain of more brains ~ o u l dave had a modest dm

ingand would have guzzled in secret. He found, however,

seizure of the government a d he malversation of its funds

so

c

at the outset that he was thrown ff his guard. His successors h

and elsewhere will not imitate him in this, but that heill have s

cessors the re s no doubt. The resolute refLlsa1of the commu

which he spoiled and corrupted to make any essential change

the system by lvhich he rose, or even to acknowledge the dcsirab

ness of a change, is

a

kind of s tanding invitation to nll the dem

gogues of the world to come here and try their hands

on

us ag

and the tax ing ystem of nearly every city in the Union offers th

a ready instrument for the attempt.

r _ _ _ ~

THE

AMERICAN COLONY I N

FRANCE.

PARIS,

arch

20,

187

onc can have resided long abroad mithout noticing that Americ

N as

people

are

neither liked nor respected by the French, in s

of

their purchasing power and of the pretty speeches made at the Gr

IIbtel dinners about Lafayrlte, Rochambeau

CO.

Frenchmen are

prejudiced against us by the stories of our barbarous customs a n c l fin

cial irregularities a t home.They oilly shrtig their shoulders when t

hear them. "Que voulez-vous chaque pays a ses usages," as on

them

said

to

a

lady

who

complained tha t African cannibals had eaten

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