Carl Schurz

“ If the great men of the past, whom you delight in calling the founders and apostles of your party, the men whose recorded opinions on this momentous question are plainly before you, if Jefferson, Jackson, Silas Wright, Benton could rise from their graves and hear the Ohio platform called a true exposition of Democratic faith, ah, how their eyes would kindle with scorn at the barefaced imposition, and how they would spurn with their heels the bastard offspring!—So much for inflation as the source of an arbitrary, despotic power, incompatible with free government. ”

“ But now imagine a Congress controlled by statesmen like Governor Allen, who think that more and more currency must be issued until the money of the country stays out of the banks; or imagine a Congress manipulated by a ring of unscrupulous and adroit financial sharpers, and such a Congress wielding the tremendous power of changing at pleasure the current value of every dollar and every dollar's worth of property you have—does not your head swim at the prospect? ”

“ But, O citizens of Ohio, I ask you now in all soberness, would it not be a burning shame for the people of so great a State, an intelligent, educated people, at a critical moment, when so much depends upon their decision, to designate a man, who claims their votes just because he is the exponent of such a policy, as their chosen chief, thus putting the seal of their approbation upon financial theories so utterly absurd and childish as to become the laughing-stock of the world wherever they are mentioned! ”

“ When the capitalist is assured that the dollar of to-morrow will be the same as the dollar of to-day, and that this stability of value finds full security in a rational and fixed monetary system, then, and no sooner, will he liberally trust his money to those who want actively to employ it and promise a fair return. But confidence will not grow as long as the prospect that the wild schemes of demagogues or visionaries may obtain control of our National finances hangs over the business world like a threatening storm-cloud. ”

“ That, fellow-citizens, is the feast to which the advocates of inflation invite you so blandly. That is the revival of business, that is the wonderful development of prosperity which they promise you in such glowing colors. That is the drift of the policy which is to set our factories whirling, to make our farmers rich, to give our laborers abundance of work and unprecedented wages, to put bread into the mouths of the needy. ”

“ Do you not ask the people to vote for you on the ground that you are a reformer? Is it not the office of a true reformer to remove bad things and put better things in their place? And now you come and say, that your opponents have forced upon us a bad thing, and you propose to reform by giving us more of it! You are opposed to all dangerous assumptions of power by the Government, and now you propose to reform by giving us more of that! ”

“ For do not indulge in any delusion about it, the gambling in which an irredeemable currency, a paper money of ever-changing value, is the principal element, is not a game for the laboring man, the poor man, to play. In that game only those win who deal.
An attempt is made to deceive you with a well sounding catchword. They call gold the bondholders money, and our irredeemable paper money "the people's money." Can that be "the people's money" whose value in the people's hands is apt to vanish into nothing, and is sure to vanish into nothing if much more of it is issued? ”

“ And now I assert that those who advocate an inflation of our irredeemable paper currency, although calling themselves Democrats, are advocating an assumption and exercise of power by the Government far more overreaching and dangerous, and a corruption and profligacy far more demoralizing and oppressive than any we have so far experienced. If I make good that assertion, you will not be able to deny that your Ohio platform is a reckless and barefaced abandonment of the very principles the Democratic party pretends to be proudest of. ”

“ No, the cost would be paid by the laboring men of the country, whom the depreciation of the currency would plunder of the difference between the rise of the prices of necessaries and the rise of wages. The cost would be paid by the industrious and frugal, whose deposited savings would be robbed of their value; by the pensioners, the disabled soldiers, the widows and orphans of the slain, whose slender incomes would be despoiled of their power to buy bread; by every honest man in the land, who would suffer in the game of overreaching which the inflated currency would bring with it. ”