nd
distribution, but they cannot be sources of national income, which must
flow from deeper fountains. Whatever bank-notes are not convertible into
gold and silver, at the will of the holder, become of less value than
gold and silver. No solidity of funds, no confidence in banking
operations, has ever enabled them to keep up their paper to the value of
gold and silver any longer than they paid gold and silver on demand."
Similar sentiments he advanced, in 1816, in his speech on the legal
currency, and also in 1832, when he said that a disordered currency is
one of the greatest of political evils,--fatal to industry, frugality,
and economy. "It fosters the spirit of speculation and extravagance. It
is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's field by
the sweat of the poor man's brow." In these days, when principles of
finance are better understood, these remarks may seem like platitudes;
but they were not so fifty or sixty years ago, for then they had the
force of new truth, although even then they were the result of political
wisdom, based on knowledge and experience; and his views were adopted,
for he appealed to reason.

Webster's financial speeches are very calm, like the papers of Hamilton
and Jay in "The Federalist," but as interesting and persuasive as those
of Gladstone, the greatest finance-minister of modern times. They are
plain, simple, direct, without much attempt at rhetoric. He spoke like a
great lawyer to a bench of judges. The solidity and soundness of his
views made him greatly respected, and were remarkable in a young man of
thirty-four. The subsequent financial history of the country shows that
he was prophetic. All his predictions have come to pass. What is more
marked in our history than the extravagance and speculation attending
the expansion of paper money irredeemable in gold and silver? What
misery and disappointment have resulted from inflated values! It was
doubtless necessary to do without gold and silver in our life-and-death
struggle with the South; but it was nevertheless a misfortune, seen in
the gambling operations and the wild fever of speculation which attended
the immense issue of paper money after the war. The bubble was sure to
burst, sooner or later, like John Law's Mississippi scheme in the time
of Louis XV. How many thousands thought themselves rich, in New York and
Chicago, in fact everywhere, when they were really poor,--as any man is
poor when his house or