Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/545

currency may in the aggregate be superabundant and yet an insufficiency may be felt in certain localities and certain branches of business in consequence of a vicious diffusion; that this vicious diffusion, springing in part from the natural effects of an irredeemable and redundant currency, cannot be cured but will only be aggravated by inflation; that the gambling risk inseparable from an irredeemable and fluctuating currency will drive up prices as well as the rates of interest; that the rate of interest depends on the existing amount of real capital in a loanable form and its proportion to the demand for the use of that capital, and can therefore not be lowered by an inflation of an irredeemable currency, but will be raised by the increased element of risk; that for such reasons the remedies for existing evils proposed by gentlemen who favor inflation are not only no real remedies at all, but mere quack medicines, which will only aggravate the ailment; when all this is demonstrated, gentlemen on the opposite side mount the high horse and say: “Why, all this is mere theory; you are mere abstractionists. We are practical men, which you are not; you look into books, but we look into the living, active business of the country; we trust the evidences of our senses; we open our eyes, and we see what is going on, and from what we see we draw our conclusions, and upon what we see we build our ideas as to remedies.” Well, sir, the contempt of these practical statesmen for theories is of the very loftiest nature. I have heard it said on this floor that the great lights of political economy, such as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Ricardo and all those who recognized the precious metals as the standard of value, and who thought they would remain so, were in fact nothing but old fogies, rather behind their times; moral cowards, who had not courage enough to confront an old popular prejudice. Away, then, with all those great thinkers upon whom the