was postponed
until the early months of the year 1871. In these later years, when
bonds of the United States have been sold upon the basis of their par
value at two per cent income, it is difficult to realize that in 1869
the six per cent bonds of the United States were worth in gold only
83-5/10 cents to the dollar. The first attempt to dispose of the five
per cent bonds was made by the Treasury Department through an
invitation to the public to subscribe for the bonds, payment to be
made in the currency of the country, or by an exchange of outstanding
five-twenty bonds which bore interest at the rate of six per cent.
The subscriptions reached the sum of sixty-six million dollars, of
which the national banks were subscribers to the amount of sixty-four
million, leaving two million only as the loan to the general public.
A portion of the amount taken by the banks was for the account of
patrons and clients. This experience justified the opinion that future
efforts with the general public would be unsuccessful, while the credit
of the country was not established and placed beyond the influence of
cavilers and doubters.

It was under such circumstances that the aid of banks and bankers
became important for the furtherance of subscriptions, in view of the
fact that they could give personal service of a nature not possible in
the case of salaried officers of the Government, nor compatible with
their daily duties.

It is not easy, in this age of comparative freedom and power in
financial affairs, to comprehend that in the year 1871 the long
established bankers of New York, Amsterdam, and London, either declined
or neglected the opportunity to negotiate the five per cent coin bonds
of the United States upon the basis of their par value. It may not be
out of place for me to mention Mr. Morton, of the house of Morton,
Bliss & Co., as an exception, to the bankers of Europe and the United
States.

It was in the same months of 1871 that I recommended the issue of a
four per cent fifty-year bond as the basis of the currency to be issued
by the national banks. This proposition, which would have been
advantageous to the banks, in an increasing ratio as the value of money
diminished, was defeated by the organized opposition of the banks
through an effective lobby that was assembled in the city of
Washington. Such was the public sentiment in the year 1871, even in
the presence of these important facts, that in the month of Dece