Specie payment

“ The time has come, however, when the Government and national banks should be required to take the most efficient steps and make all necessary arrangements for a resumption of specie payments at the earliest practicable period. Specie payments having been once resumed by the Government and banks, all notes or bills of paper issued by either of a less denomination than $20 should by law be excluded from circulation, so that the people may have the benefit and convenience of a gold and silver currency which in all their business transactions will be uniform in value at home and abroad. ”

“ My own judgment is that, however much individuals may have suffered, one long step has been taken toward specie payments; that we can never have permanent prosperity until a specie basis is reached: and that a specie basis can not be reached and maintained until our exports, exclusive of gold, pay for our imports, interest due abroad, and other specie obligations, or so nearly so as to leave an appreciable accumulation of the precious metals in the country from the products of our mines. ”

“ The resumption of specie payments is the only rational one, for no other system will remove current values from the reach of the arbitrary power of Government; no other can give to current values that stability without which no safe business calculations can be made; no other can restore that confidence which is the first prerequisite of a new period of prosperity. But the resumption of specie payments is also the only possible solution. ”

“ The shock of this discovery to his financial principles was serious; much more serious than the shock of the Terebratula and Pteraspis to his principles of geology. A mistake about Evolution was not fatal; a mistake about specie payments would destroy forever the last hope of employment in State Street. ”

“ Every citizen in this respect would be a law to himself. If he chose in his own business to resume specie payments, he could do so. There would be a voluntary resumption by the people, one by one. But this influence could not be confined to the immediate parties. Beyond the contagion of its example, there would be a positive necessity on the part of the banks that they should adapt themselves to the exigency by the substitution of proper commercial equivalents; and thus again we take another step in specie payments. ”

“ But I can not permit myself to doubt that, when with the actual resumption of specie payments, a better order of things and a revival of prosperity dawns upon us, the American people will be disposed to approach this question also with a more dispassionate and clearer judgment. ”

“ Therefore it is that specie payments, or a specie standard, is pressed by the great body of intelligent men who study these questions, as an indispensable prerequisite for steady business and good times.
"Now, most of you will agree to all this, and will only differ as to the mode, or time, and manner; but there is a large class of people who believe that paper can be, and ought to be, made into money without any promise or hope of redemption; that a note should be printed: 'This is a dollar,' and be made a legal tender. ”

“ Indeed, it was then entirely feasible for the Government to have resumed specie payments, as any demand upon the Treasury for gold could have been met with proceeds of bonds sold in Europe. It was my opinion, however, that it would be wiser to delay resumption until the balance of trade should be so much in our favor that specie payments could be maintained by our own resources. And this was accomplished in less than six years. It is with a state as it is with an individual. ”

“ But it may be stated as the conviction of the writer that a mere return to specie payments, though beneficial, will not do all for the country that its advocates claim. Something more will be required—that is, economy, curtailment of expenses, national and individual—before we can reach bottom. ”

“ Now, Mr. president, that is all there is in regard to banking in this bill and also in regard to the retirement of the United States notes until the time for the resumption of specie payments comes, when this bill provides for actual redemption in coin of all notes presented. It has always been a question in the minds of many people as to whether it is wise to fix a day for specie payments. ”

“ What is the use of fining a man a nominal sum, when he has a wealthy collector behind his back, ready and willing to pay all his expenses, with a substantial margin for himself to boot? Is this likely to prove any deterrent? I would have every bird that was not proved to be distinctly injurious to agricultural or horticultural produce properly protected for a certain season by a proper law, properly enforced; and should any bonâ fide collectors desire eggs or specimens of any particular species, they should, on payment of a fixed fee, receive a proper permit to acquire the same. ”

“ The large amount of specie now in the United States, reaching a total of not less than two hundred and seventy-five millions of dollars, will easily support payments of duties in coin, while these payments and ordinary demands will aid in retaining this specie in the country as a solid basis both of circulation and loans. ”

“ In one of the Year Books of the Department we read that the annual loss to the cotton crop of the United States by insects amounts to sixty million dollars. We learn, too, that grasshoppers and other insects annually destroy fifty-three million dollars' worth of hay and that two million dollars' worth of cereals are each year eaten by our insect population. In fact, we are told that one-tenth of all the cereals, hay, cotton, tobacco, forests, and general farm products is the yearly tax which insects levy and collect. ”

“ I do not mean our practical indebtedness to insects for honey and bees'-wax, silk and satin, cochineal and lacquer, or a hundred other such-like useful products: these, indeed, are many and valuable in their own way, though far less so than the tribute we draw from most of the other great classes of animal life. But there is one debt we owe them so out of all proportion to their size and relative importance in the world that it is strange it should so seldom meet with due recognition. ”

“ The accumulation of eighty millions in the brief space of five years, fifteen millions of it in gold, attest the sincerity of their design, and the facility of its execution. The country was going on at the rate of an average increase of twelve millions of specie per annum, when the general stoppages of the banks in May last, the exportation of specie, and the imposition of irredeemable paper upon the government and the people, seemed to announce the total failure of the plan. ”

“ Other measures governments could take to confront the crisis of disappearing species, recognizing that it constitutes a major resource and development challenge, include consideration of species conservation needs and opportunities in land use planning and the explicit incorporation of their genetic resource stocks into national accounting systems. This could entail establishing a natural-resource accounting system that directs particular attention to species as high-value yet little-appreciated resources. ”

“ If it should be charged that the system supplies no specie for exportation; the answer is, that it is really no part of the legitimate business of a bank to furnish specie for exportation. Its legitimate business is simply to furnish credit and currency for home industry and trade. And it can never furnish these constantly, and in adequate amounts, unless it can be freed from the obligation to supply specie on demand for exportation. Specie should, therefore, always be merely an article of merchandise in the market, like any other ”

“ For thirty years past, I had not known so much specie in circulation as we had at the emission of paper money, in 1783. That medium was increasing daily. People from abroad bring specie; for, thank God, our country produces articles which are every where in demand. There is more specie in the country than is generally imagined; but the proprietors keep it locked up. No man will part with his specie. It lies in his chest. It is asked. Why not lend it out? The answer is obvious—that, should he once let it get out of his power, he never can recover the whole of it. ”

“ First, If the very useless prohibition of the exportation of specie, however it might be profitable to those who could export it, could have possibly been put in force, 60 millions of real cash added, in a country where 20 millions perhaps are sufficient for circulation, must have doubled at least the price of every thing ”

“ Economic Loss from Insects.—The money value of crops, forest trees, stored foods, and other material destroyed annually by insects is beyond belief. It is estimated that they get one tenth of the country's crops, at the lowest estimate a matter of some $300,000,000 yearly. ”

“ But even though public effort may be concentrated on a few species, all species are important and deserve some degree of attention: this might take the form of tax credits to farmers willing to maintain primitive cultivars, an end to incentives to clear virgin forest, the promotion of research attention from local universities, and the preparation of basic inventories of native flora and fauna by national institutions. ”

“ Then, there are the Indians, the whole trade in animal products, the necessity of not interfering with any legitimate development, and the question of immediate expense, however small, for a deferred benefit, however great and near at hand. And, finally, we must remember that scientific knowledge is not by any means adequate to deal with all the factors of the problem at once. ”

“ In no country is more harm done by insects than in the United States. The losses to live stock and to plants, both growing and stored, resulting from insects are greater than all the expenses of the National Government, including the pension roll and the yearly maintenance of the army and navy.
Immense as is the value of our farm products, it would be much greater if it were not for the work of these insects. Careful calculations indicate that this loss will amount to not less than the enormous sum of $1,100,000,000 annually and probably far more. The loss is usually estimated at ten per cent. ”

“ To amend the Endangered Species Act to prevent a species that is not native to the United States from being listed as an endangered species or a threatened species, to prohibit certain types of financial assistance, and for other purposes. ”

“ THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS
To-day, from Halifax to Los Angeles, and from Key West to Victoria, a deadly contest is being waged. The fruit-growers, farmers, forest owners and "park people" are engaged in a struggle with the insect hordes for the possession of the trees, shrubs and crops. Go out into the open, with your eyes open, and you will see it for yourself. Millions of dollars are being expended in it. ”

“ A brief study of the question from an economic point of view, aside from the æsthetic, leads us to hope that the time is not far distant when the several States will afford a uniform protection to all of the native fowls of the air, regardless of whether they be game birds, song birds, or “other” birds, at least until such time as a long-continued investigation will prove beyond a doubt that the restriction of the numbers of any species is of substantive value from an economic standpoint. ”

“ It may be the doctrine will never come to prevail that a specie basis in whole or in part is no more indispensable to a sound and safe paper currency than an exclusive specie currency is possible or desirable in a country like this. ”

“ They will be preferred to specie, because they will be more convenient, and free from the hazards incident to the possession of specie. The banks will require no more specie than the wants of the community for change make necessary. ”

“ This difference between species and domestic varieties may be partly accounted for by disuse having acted on the latter for an insufficient length of time, and partly from their exemption from any severe struggle for existence entailing rigid economy in the development of each part, to which all species under nature are subjected. Nevertheless the law of compensation or balancement, which likewise depends on the economy of growth, apparently has affected to a certain extent our domesticated productions. ”

“ In modern times this is greatly changed. Specie is still the universal standard of value, but it has ceased to be even the usual medium of exchange. The failure to distinguish between the standard of value and the medium of exchanges occasions many of the errors into which so many fall, and nearly every Senator who has spoken on one side of the question has fallen into this error. Specie has lost a portion of its sovereign power, for with the enormous increase of exchanges it was found that, valuable as it is, it is too heavy to transport from place to place as a medium of exchange. ”

“ The activities of the New York Zoological Society began in 1896, and they do not require comment here. They have been continuous, aggressive and far-reaching, and they have been supported by thousands of dollars from the Society's treasury. It is true that the funds available for protection work have not represented a great annual sum, such as the work demands, but the amount being expended from year to year is steadily increasing. In serious emergencies there is always something available! ”

“ Even though the losses were distributed pro rata the more abundant species would profit to some extent. For the less abundant species the gain would of course be relatively greater. Theoretically therefore, all of the five species would profit if in place of five distinct warning patterns they exhibited but a single one in common. And since it is profitable to all concerned what more natural than that it should be brought about by natural selection? ”