Corroborative of this, in 1862, when we had a million of men in the field and not a dollar to feed or clothe them, we had the minions of these artificial persons come down to Washington in a threatening attitude, with the cry of "No more greenbacks; no more irredeemable paper, or we withdraw our moneyed support to the Government," in order to extort from father Abraham the privilege of issuing 300,000,000 of bank-notes upon the faith of the people, redeemable with the people's greenbacks, but securing to themselves a margin of at least fifteen per cent. per annum. Corroborative of this, is the fact that since the rebellion was crushed, and our necessity removed, this banking privilege has been maintained and extended at a needless cost to the people of over twenty millions a year. Corroborative of this, is the purpose of resumption by contraction, being freshly fastened upon us, giving the entire control of the currency, and consequently the control of all material values to these same artificial persons, who, like the chieftain of the Pacific Road Construction Company, will be disposed to put their money "where it will do the most good."

If thirst suggests the use of water; if hunger suggests the use of food; if respiration suggests the need of air, this state of things certainly suggests to producers the need of remedy.

The question arises, then, can there be a remedy without organization? Producers have the power of remedy, but the power of remedy must be intelligently applied. Can this intelligent application of remedy be secured without organization? The remedy, to be effectual, must be just and equitable to the producers themselves. Can this be secured without organization? The remedy, to be lasting, must be just and equitable to all concerned. Can this be secured without organization? It is difficult, in this state of the investigation, to avoid the conclusion that organization is the preliminary and indispensible step toward remedy. Then, organization is the word! Organization to the producers, to-day, means what Independence meant to the colonists in 'seventy-six. It means freedom from oppression and foreign rule. For, disguise it as you may, the moneyed encroachments in this country, draw their inspiration and power from the moneyed feudalism of Europe. Organization then, becomes an unavoidable necessity. Producers must make themselves felt in public affairs. We must meet realized capital squarely, and say, "we will give you half but not all." And

it may not be amiss to briefly reason the case; for truth, generally, is a tower of strength, still, with the moneyed power, not equal to numbers. Say, then, to the capitalists of all christendom, that whan mutually interested "you regard your labor and their money as known powers of a just equation in the ethics of production."

Say to them "that if they propose to use their brains to disturb such ethics, you propose to use your numbers to prevent it." Say to them, "that this is both your choice and your necessity. Your choice, because it is just. Your necessity, because if you give them ten to fifteen per cent. for the use of their money, while realizing only four or five per cent., the difference has to be met by a draft on your own, which, as an exhaustive process, would bankrupt you in everything but labor."

As organized producers, we must say to all artificial persons, "we created you for the public good, we will help you fulfill but never to prevent your mission," and it may not be amiss to briefly dicuss the situation. We may say to them, "your special privileges were granted you to promote your special good, but not at the sacrifice of the public good," that as trustees of the public good, we must both judge and control, and that aside fron any constitutional provision we have the right to do so. That the right of self-preservation in eminent peril is an inate right of the individual, of which peril he alone must judge; and that the aggregation of this individual right into the general sovereignty of the state is complete and unimpaired. That the aggregate sovereignty of the state cannot be impaired, and the state being unable to part with any of its sovereignty in creating artificial persons, or otherwise, must still retain all the functions of absolute control over them which belongs to unimpaired sovereignty. That this right of self-preservation and consequent control in the state is further established and illustrated by its permitting artificial persons to exercise the right of eminent domain, which to them is intrusted but not surrendered, because it is an attribute of sovereignty and cannot be surrendered.

We must say to them authoritatively-and especially to their attorneys "that their very existence is a trust." That charters are not contracts. That sovereignty contracts with sovereignty; that the sovereignty of a state contracts with the sovereignty of another state, as in the cases of treaties, or with the sovereignty left in natural persons, as in the building of a capitol, or the purchase of

a cord of wood, and hence the fallacy or muddle of the Dartmouth College case.

We must say to these artificial persons, that as a controlling element in the powers of the state, we propose to see that the purpose of their creation be fairly carried out, and that they be justly and liberally paid for it. But as modesty is no virtue when concealing the truth, we may as well tell them that the charging more for a less service, the discriminating between persons and places, the adjusting of rates to cover fictitious investments, the condemning of lands without just compensation, the transporting hirelings to vote loans of credit, the floating of supply, construction and transportation under currents, by which stock-holders are left minus their dues, is severally and generally opposed to the public good, and can not be tolerated by those with whom that good is intrusted, and that any such authority whatever that neglects to control or remedy such wrongs, we propose to see superceded as speedily as possible. And now for a word to all our officials in trust of power.

As organized producers we must distinctly say to them, “We choose to have you regard our special welfare as the butt-end of the general welfare."

We must say to our servants at Washington, you made a mistake in repealing the Income-Tax; it ought to be restored at once and made a source of large and enduring revenue. In repealing that law, you ignored the soundest principle of taxation that was ever known to fiscal rule; because the increase of wealth furnishes the most equitable and exact scale of charge for Government protection, as well as a uniform basis of exemption. But you did not ignore proneness of capital to shun its own legitimate burdens, by placing them upon the shoulders of labor.

That reciprocity treaty, too, with Canada, in itself, was more than a mistake; it was a blunder, and can only escape becoming a folly by the action of the Senate, upon the heels of an abrogation of even a better treaty, as late as 1866; it would look like an imputation upon our common intelligence, were it not for the ever shadowing features of a crime, derived from its sacrificing the many to the interest of the few. Independent of the enormity of giving a very great deal of what we need for a very little of what we don't need, is the additional enormity of turning the control of the reve

nue over to the treaty-making power, when it constitutionally belongs to Congress.

But the most serious and puzzling development of questionable statesmanship, that for years has been enacted by our servants at Washington, is the one previously alluded to, of forcing the resumption of specie payment. It is serious, because, either viewed in the light of analogous record, or that of the existing facts controlling the subject, it must affect seriously all the interest of production in this country. It is puzzling on account of involving the contradictory tendencies of both contraction and expansion with nothing clear as to which will preponderate. If the ultimate preponderance should be expansion, it would augment the amount of specie to be provided for resumption, and to that extent increase the burden of indebtedness. If, however, it should ultimate in contraction, it would carry with it still greater diminished production, stagnation in business, and hopelessly doom the earnings of the many to the mercy of the few. Two things in it, however, are certain. It fixes a day for resumption, thereby advising financiers when to look out for their chances, and it contracts green back currency which costs the people nothing, and expands bank note currency which costs the people from 15 to 30 per cent. per annum.

Owing as we do, according to the New York Shipping Gazette, within a fraction of ten billions of dollars, which is about $248 per capita for our entire population, and having not more than one hundred and fifty millions, or three dollars and seventy-five cents per capita in specie, it must be seen that the difference between our liabilities and solid specie basis, aside from the amount of commercial exchanges, is too great to be floated safely by any or all the forms of credit.

As the currency is contracted, credits expand, even in adjusting diminished values, but can these credits or their expansion be relied on to cover the difference between three dollars and seventy-five cents and $248? Then gold must be borrowed and the interest and principle added to our indebtedness.

And how will you find the gold market after setting a day for resumption, when less than a dozen millionaires in New York can control all the gold in this country, while the Rothschilds can corner it in Europe? Allow all you can for deferred maturity of these credits, or their negotiable or convertible forms and you will find a

deficiency against you sufficient to shake all public confidence. And that is what realized capital is constantly seeking a panic

a shrinkage of value-and in the general sacrifice it commands a higher interest on loans, or invests at the ebb, while at work creating a tide in the market in which again to realize. If realized capital can control the basis of the currency, it can on general laws control the volume of the currency, independent of the special laws of control, which it now wields through the banking privilege and other forms of special favor.

But the parallel record which imparts a most serious aspect to this movement at Washington is to be found in the financial history of England from 1815 to 1823, as effected by Sir Robert Peel's bill for resumption. This record, however, was epitomized by the father of Sir Robert, when in speaking of it he said: "Robert, you have doubled my fortune but you have ruined your country." Showing most unmistakably the tendency of such measures to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. And as this paper is intended for the suggestion of thought, it ought not to omit the suggestion that each producer refer to Doubleday's Financial Monetary and Statistical History of England for information upon this subject. Thomas Doubleday, esq., was a bullionist of the strictest school, but had to deplore the measures of confiscation, culminating in the Peel resumption that bankrupted half of England.

Aside from the inadequacy of specie, the great error manifestly involving this whole subject, is adherence to the historical idea of a mixed currency, or a currency in which commercial value is blended with legal value. The commercial element being subject to commercial changes and conditions drags the legal element with it, and divests the currency of uniformity, stability and confidence. And, if the scarcity or indestructibility of the commercial element suggests or justifies it, it disappears with the first symptoms of public distrust, and is hoarded, thus increasing the chances of instability and insecurity of the whole. Herein the conception that the currency must rest on a basis of innate, inherent or commercial value is deceptive, because, without adding a particle to the safety, it infuses into the currency all the uncertainty that may pervade the market for such value, with the additional tendency in moments of distrust, to be withdrawn both from the market and the circulation. The experiences of Amsterdam, Geneva and Venice, as well as our own country and England, are illustrative of this.