Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[942] appreciated, and not depreciated, by the amount of interest which we have saved by buying up five hundred millions of the interest-bearing debt. The way to test it would be this: suppose we could issue the whole amount and pay all interest-bearing debt at once, then the one hundred and fifty millions of customs which we have to pay for interest without getting ahead in payment of our debt at all could be directed to redeeming the greenbacks. There is a limitation on this power of issuing greenbacks, and only one, and that limitation my friend does not seem to understand. It is this: these greenbacks are non-interest-bearing notes, and therefore they can only be issued in such quantities without depreciation in fact, as will be absorbed by the community to the degree that they are required for business purposes. They may be issued to the degree they will be absorbed as currency. I think that the country can bear to-day some two hundred millions more of them, not issued primarily and arbitrarily for the purpose of paying off the interest-bearing debt, but issued for the purpose of providing a currency for the country which should not be so contracted as to bring ruin, as now, upon the business interests of the country. When you have issued two hundred millions more of these greenbacks and paid your interest-bearing debt with them, have you altered their relation to property, to each other, or to gold? Are they appreciated or depreciated? Appreciated, in fact, because you save the interest on the two hundred millions which you have paid off with them; depreciated if you issue more than will be absorbed as currency, because business men do not want non-interest-bearing notes on hand; and if they are not needed as currency they will sell them at a discount for some property that will pay interest.

Now, then, sir, let me state, for the benefit of my friend, my proposition of finance, and the House can contrast it with any other that may be better, and there will be found better I doubt not. There are now some two thousand five hundred millions of debt. Some two thousand millions of it stand in the shape of interest-bearing debt. There are nineteen different kinds of that description of debt bearing different rates of interest and times of payment. There are some five hundred millions, more or less, in various forms of non-interest-bearing debt, gold certificates, legal-tender notes, and others. Now, my proposition is that, in the first place, we should substitute greenbacks for the national bank currency, releasing to the banks the bonds which we hold as security for that national bank currency. It can be done without shock to the business of the country.

I agree, sir, that any proposition of legislation is vicious which tends in any considerable degree to interfere with the industrial pursuits of the