away from his creditor a mortgage note bearing interest, and giving in its stead a due bill bearing no interest."
Against greenbackism, he was continually referring to payday or redemption. The integrity of currency notes, he was always saying, depends on purpose and ability of the government to redeem them in gold coin not in depreciated paper promises. Of the plan to print enough greenbacks to take up the national debt this was the programme of "greenbackism,"—he wrote:
February 18, 1878—This would be a thorough and logical method of carrying out the greenback scheme. It would simply be repudiation of the entire debt; for there would be no hope that so great an amount of greenbacks would be redeemed; no time for redemption would or could be specified and as holders would receive no interest the greenbacks would not possess a single quality of value."
August 31, 1892—"While it is true that government may issue paper and call it money, yet it is with government as with the individual that which costs nothing is worth nothing. There is no juggle in values. Many who see the paper bill, forget that there is value behind it, stored up in gold or silver; but the value is there, and this is what gives the paper note the function and character of money. Increase the paper notes beyond redeemability and their value is gone or impaired altogether. Among all nations and in all ages where this has been tried, the result has been the same."
April 8, 1898—"The truth is, we buy only with gold coin, to which alone the name of money ought to be applied. No bank note, treasury note or paper certificate, in any form or by whomsoever issued, is more than an instrument of credit. It is an order and a security (so long as the party issuing it is solvent) for a sum of money and is good for the sum it calls for, only so long as gold can be obtained for it . . . . We have more of the notes now than formerly, because we have more gold to stand for them; and we have more gold because we have ceased to expel gold from the country or to drive it into hiding at home by ceasing the threat of free coinage of silver and by stopping the purchase of silver for issue of paper upon it."
