conflict with the laws of political economy, were, to every visible
appearance, several years in advance of them. Of course, the
primary effect of the appreciation of our paper towards par with
the standard of coin was the enhancement of the purchasing power
of the circulating medium. That made it hard to pay debts which
had been contracted on low scales of purchasing power. That which
had been bought for a dollar worth sixty cents, must be paid for
with a dollar worth eighty, ninety, or a hundred cents, according
to the date on which the contract matured. Of course, such a
proceedings created an awful squeeze. Many men, struggling under
loads of debt, found the weight of their obligations growing upon
them faster than their power to meet, and they succumbed.

"For all this John Sherman was blamed. He was named 'The Wrecker,'
and the maledictions poured upon his head during the years 1877
and 1878 could not be measured. Every day the columns of the press
recorded new failures, and every failure added to the directory of
John Sherman's maledictors. But the man persevered. And now,
looking back over the record of those two years, with all their
stifled ambitions and ruined hopes, the grim resolution with which
John, deafening his ears to the cry of distress from every quarter,
kept his eye fixed upon the single object of his endeavor, seems
hardly human--certainly not humane. And yet there are few reasoning
men to be found now ready to deny that it was for the best, and,
taken all in all, a benefaction to the country; one of those sad
cases, in fact, where it is necessary to be cruel in order to be
kind.

"We were not a supporter of John Sherman's policy at any period of
its crucial test. We did not believe that his gigantic experiment
could be brought to a successful conclusion. The absurd currency
theories which were from time to time set up in antagonism to his
policy never impressed us; our disbelief was based upon our fear
that the commercial and industrial wreckage, consequent upon an
increase of forty per cent. in the purchasing power of money within
three years, would be infinitely greater than it turned out to be,
and, so being, would overwhelm the country in one common ruin.
But we were mistaken. John Sherman was right. And it is but common
frankness to say of him, even as one would give the devil his due,
that he builded wiser than we knew--possibly wiser than he knew
himself. At all events,