of one promise with another.
_Question_. You consider Greenbackers inflationists, do you not?
_Answer_. I suppose the Greenbackers to be the party of inflation.
I am in favor of inflation produced by industry. I am in favor of
the country being inflated with corn, with wheat, good houses,
books, pictures, and plenty of labor for everybody. I am in favor
of being inflated with gold and silver, but I do not believe in
the inflation of promise, expectation and speculation. I sympathize
with every man who is willing to work and cannot get it, and I
sympathize to that degree that I would like to see the fortunate
and prosperous taxed to support his unfortunate brother until labor
could be found.
The Greenback party seems to think credit is just as good as gold.
While the credit lasts this is so; but the trouble is, whenever it
is ascertained that the gold is gone or cannot be produced the
credit takes wings. The bill of a perfectly solvent bank may
circulate for years. Now, because nobody demands the gold on that
bill it doesn't follow that the bill would be just as good without
any gold behind it. The idea that you can have the gold whenever
you present the bill gives it its value. To illustrate: A poor
man buys soup tickets. He is not hungry at the time of purchase,
and will not be for some hours. During those hours the Greenback
gentlemen argue that there is no use of keeping any soup on hand
with which to redeem these tickets, and from this they further
argue that if they can be good for a few hours without soup, why
not forever? And they would be, only the holder gets hungry.
Until he is hungry, of course, he does not care whether any soup
is on hand or not, but when he presents his ticket he wants his
soup, and the idea that he can have the soup when he does present
the ticket gives it its value. And so I regard bank notes, without
gold and silver, as of the same value as tickets without soup.
--_The Post_, Washington, D. C., 1878.
THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE.
_Question_. What do you think of the Pre-Millennial Conference
that was held in New York City recently?
_Answer_. Well, I think that all who attended it were believers
in the Bible, and any one who believes in prophecies and looks to
their fulfillment will go insane. A man that tries from Daniel's
ram with three horns and five tails and his deformed goats to
ascertain the date of the second immigration of Christ to this
worl
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