to them, almost before the twinge of pain reaches their little ones. If England's poor are idle, we have hired them to do our work and let our own people stand and rest. If the hordes of Asia multiply faster than food and clothing, hither do they come in tawny troops and find enough and to spare. The young giant America is bound yet to be the Atlas of fable and bear the round world upon his shoulders. It is not necessary for us to say to our farmers, "You must not make two blades of grass grow where one grew before," lest its value be decreased. It is not necessary for us to tell our young men they shall not be taught, lest the market be glutted with knowledge. It is not necessary for us to permit our currency, the mere tool in our hands, to remain of doubtful value, or to be doled out by arbitrary rules made as long ago as were the laws of the Medes or Persians; ours is a newer and fresher civilization. It is the life of today and the future, and not of yesterday and the past. We are working out the problem in our own time and in our own way, and let us see to it that in finances and progress, as well as in everything else, it is a "Government of the People, for the People and by the People."

My third resolution is:

Resolved, That the way to attain the inestimable benefits of a circulating medium equal to gold, and of a volume adequate and adapted to the needs of trade and progress, is to have an exclusive Government currency based on its indebtedness, receivable for all its dues and interconvertible at the will of the holder with its low interest-bearing bonds, principal and interest, payable in gold or its equivalent.

If they think they can use 500 millions or 1,000 millions, or the whole debt, to a greater profit and advantage in the way of trade and manufacture, than to let it remain stored up in bonds, that also is their right, and should be their privilege. To attempt to keep the people in leading strings, and within set and rigid bounds, in the matter of currency, is as absurd and harmful as for a railroad to say that just so many cars shall do the business of one road, or for a city or state to prescribe rigid rules of settlement. Give the people only opportunity, and their will and energy will do the rest.

Should our congress enact this interconvertible law, it would go far to nullify that impossible and most unwise, if not criminal, of late enactments, the co-called specie resumption act. Only give the people the option to have no currency at all, or to have all they could keep equal to gold, and the magic wand would have touched our nation. She would rise from her lethargy and distress, and stretch her giant, though yet undeveloped limbs, as no nation on earth ever did before. Gold would come up from her iron and coal mines, and from her cotton and wheat fields. It would pour out of her mountains and forests and would roll down her water courses. From the laborer's sinews to the scholar's brain, every power and talent would be convertible and interconvertible at will into the coin of the realm. Then would the good man's brow be smoothed, and his good wife's table be spread. Then would the sorrowful steps of the returning emigrant be arrested and turned hitherward again, and those of his brethern again started to join him. Then should we find for a certainty, that for the present, in America at least, under-consumption is a more real and to be dreaded evil than over-production, whatever else we may want in the future; and whatever other issues may arise, whether you be Democrat or Republican, remember that the Nation's progress and prosperity is of the first importance and that the sure and only road to that is money. Let our motto be, "Good as Gold," and plenty of it.

Early in 1876 a Greenback Club was organized in Milwaukee. George Burnham, a prominent and wealthy brick manufacturer, was made its President, and other men of prominence were members. One of the first to receive an invitation to address this club was Mr. Allis, and he was soon followed by Judge Harlow S. Orton.

Mr. Allis's address was copied and favorably commented upon in various directions outside of Wisconsin. A. R. Anthony, for example, who was one of the local figures in the early Abolition struggle in Kansas, a brother of Susan B. Anthony, the woman's suffrage leader, copied it in his daily paper, the Leavenworth Times, and the Winchester Illinois Independent, a weekly, the Iron Age of Chicago, an important iron trade journal, and others, reprinted and discussed it.

Early in February, the 16th, the Washington correspondence of the Chicago Tribune said that "Soft money" Republicans at the capitol had predicted four presidential candidates, a hard and a soft money candidate for each party.

The Wisconsin Republicans, under pressure from the conservative German voters, made an effort to stand up against the rising demand for an inflated currency, though On the 22nd of February 1876, the not a very vigorous one. State Convention adopted a platform in which is the following paragraph:

We believe in Honest Money. That the currency of the Nation should, as soon as consistent with business interests and safety, be made equal to gold, and until that time should continue as a legal tender.

The Greenback propaganda was now well in progress in Wisconsin.

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I

Organizing Wisconsin

CHAPTER FOUR.

N the exercise of the discretion with which it had been invested by the meeting of January 18th, 1876, the State Committee called a second meeting at Madison on the 10th of May of that year.

This meeting was described in the Milwaukee Sentinel as "a flat failure," with "only a dozen present," but it chose a full delegation of twenty men to attend the National Convention called to meet at Indianapolis, Ind., on the 17th of May. The delegates-at-large selected, were; J. H. Osborne, E. P. Allis, Judge Harlow S. Orton, and William Orledge. An Electoral Ticket was also named, headed by William Orledge of Kenosha, and G. W. Lee of Grant county, as electors at large. A State Central Committee was named, as follows:

Vice President, Peter Cooper of New York, and Samuel F. Cary of Ohio, got but 81,740 votes in the entire nation and but 1509 in the state of Wisconsin. But the Greenback Party was launched and the controversy that ended in giving the presidency to Hayes, through the extra-constitutional Electoral Commission, did not allay the prevailing political uneasiness or settle the financial difficulties. The Greenbackers argued that these difficulties were due to the mistaken financial policy of the Republican Party and the nearer drew the date fixed for specie resumption, the more men there were who thought the financial stringency and business depression due entirely to this impending calamity.

In advance of the State conventions of 1877, there was great discussion of financial subjects throughout the country. It was confined to no political party, and struck terror to the hearts of all the old political managers.

What was true generally, was true locally, in Wisconsin. The Republican leaders, especially those in Congress seeking re-election, and those ambitious for places on the State Tickets, were on the verge of a stampede to the Greenbackers. This sentiment, and the elements behind it, are well depicted in a Wisconsin dispatch that appeared in the Chicago Tribune of September 10, 1877, on the eve of the Republican State Convention. It was as follows:

WISCONSIN.

MEETING OF THE REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION.

(Special Correspondence of the Tribune, Chicago)
THE CURRENCY QUESTION.

The most serious question that confronts the Republican Party of Wisconsin today, is the currency, and with that the Convention will be expected to deal Tuesday. Not only is the financial subject one of vital and intensely practical importance to all classes of people on its own account, but other circumstances that have transpired in this State tend to make it more difficult of solution, and more delicate to handle. There is already a Greenback Ticket in the field, with all that the name implies, headed by E. P. Allis, of this city, for Governor, who is already on the stump, assisted by many other good speakers, and clubs are being rapidly formed and campaign papers are springing up in his favor. Mr. Allis is a first class man every way, of high social disposition, a graduate of Yale, and well and favorably known as a business man throughout the Northwest. What Macaulay once said of Pitt, that "He chose his side like a fanatic, and then defended it like a philosopher," may be true of Allis, for without

*Error, Union College.

saying that he has chosen his side like a fanatic, he certainly defends his position with a great deal of skill and ability. He has been an active and consistent Republican until now, and it is thought by many shrewd observers that his vote will astonish everyone. So the Republicans must place themselves in a position to hold some of the vote that has been so seriously affected by the Greenback theory, or their ticket, no matter how good it may be personally, will be in iminent danger of defeat at the polls, because Allis's vote will be drawn much more largely from the Republicans than from the Democrats. If the Convention Tuesday will have the courage to declare in favor of the repeal of the resumption act, of the restoration of the silver dollar, and in favor of a convertible bond drawing a low rate of interest, it would cause Mr. Allis to withdraw, most likely, and insure the success of the ticket. The Democratic State Convention is sure to do just this, or at least to incorporate enough glittering generalities into their platform upon the subject of finance to hold their votes from supporting the Greenback candidate.

This situation, locally, is well described by A. M. Thompson, in his Political History of Wisconsin. Mr. Thompson had been the editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel, and was, at this time, a Republican of wide acquaintance and influence. His statements reflect the conditions of the time as seen through Republican eyes. He says:

The Greenback craze had become epidemic among a certain class. Specie payments had been suspended at the outbreak of the Rebellion, and a law had been passed by Congress fixing the first day of January 1879, as the time when the nation would resume coin payments. There was a widespread belief among many timid people, and especially among business men, that the attempt to resume would ignominiously fail; that there was not gold enough in the country to justify the experiment, and some boards of trade and some political conventions demanded that the law be repealed, and that resumption should be deferred until the country was in better condition to stand the change.

The Greenback heresy was not confined to the Democratic and Socialistic Parties, it had permeated the Republican masses as well, and many men voted the straight Republican Ticket while they believed that the Soft Money theories of their opponents were more than half right; without the greenback the great Rebellion could not have been crushed; the soldiers were paid with them, and they had a fondness for that kind of currency. The Republican State Convention, which met September 11, 1877, was influenced by the fear that if it put forth a truly Sound Money platform it would have a disastrous effect upon the result, and it prevaricated and dodged. Its utterance on the money question was hypocritical; the voice was Jacob's voice, but the hands were the hands of Esau. Disguising its real position the Convention spoke with a double tongue to the greenbackers, hoping to get their votes. It resolved, among other things, "that we hold the silver dollar should be restored to its former place as money and made legal tender in the payment of debts, except when otherwise distinctly provided by law," etc. This was a virtual recognition of the truth of the charge made by their opponents that a change had been made in the status of the silver dollar, which, in the parlance of the day was designated "The crime of '73." The Republicans had good reason to

feel alarmed and it is no wonder the Convention wobbled. Many strong men had gone out from their party, and allied themselves with parties which boldly declared in favor of the inflationist idea.

The Republican Resolutions to which Mr. Thompson refers, made the following cross-eyed declaration.

That we rejoice that the fidelity of the Republican Party in upholding the National credit has brought our currency so near the point of resumption of specie payment; we hold that the silver dollar should be restored to its former place as money and made legal tender for the payment of debts, except when otherwise distinctly provided by law, with coinage so regulated as to maintain equality of value, preserve the harmonious circulation of gold, silver and legal tender notes, as money.

In proof of Mr. Thompsons's statement that the alarm was general, it is only necessary to quote the names of the prominent men composing the Committee on Resolutions, that reported the platform from which the above resolution is taken. They were:

Gen. Thos. S. Allen,

7th District, John C. Spooner, 8th District, Thad. C. Pound,

H. L. Dousman, George W. Burchard, W. B. Clark,

Florian J. Ries,

A. D. Jones,

C. E. Crane,

A. Finklenberg,
Charles M. Webb,

Many of these were men of more than local prominence. James T. Lewis was a former Governor. Gen. "Tom" Allen was one of the proprietors of the Oshkosh Northwestern and a veteran of the famous "Iron Brigade." Thad. C. Pound had been Lieutenant Governor and was elected to Congress that fall. George W. Burchard was, later, Adjutant General under Governor Hoard. John C. Spooner became United States Senator. Charles M. Webb has, for many years, been Judge of the Seventh Circuit, and the others were all men of local importance. This Committee, too, was quite typical of the entire convention. W. T. Price, J. V. Quarles. J. M. Rusk, H. A. Taylor, Charles Ray, G. Van Steenwyk and dozens of names of equally prominent politicians, bankers and business men are to be found in the roll of that convention.

Serious rumblings of discontent were soon heard, and Horace Rublee, Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee, immediately took heroic measures. He ar

*From the Madison State Journal, Sept. 11, 1877.

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