The success of this plan, it is apparent, must depend upon the volition
of the holders of the present bonds; and it is not entirely certain that
the inducement which must be offered them would result in more financial
benefit to the Government than the purchase of bonds, while the latter
proposition would reduce the principal of the debt by actual payment
instead of extending it.
The proposition to deposit the money held by the Government in banks
throughout the country for use by the people is, it seems to me,
exceedingly objectionable in principle, as establishing too close a
relationship between the operations of the Government Treasury and the
business of the country and too extensive a commingling of their money,
thus fostering an unnatural reliance in private business upon public
funds. If this scheme should be adopted, it should only be done as a
temporary expedient to meet an urgent necessity. Legislative and
executive effort should generally be in the opposite direction, and
should have a tendency to divorce, as much and as fast as can be safely
done, the Treasury Department from private enterprise.
Of course it is not expected that unnecessary and extravagant
appropriations will be made for the purpose of avoiding the accumulation
of an excess of revenue. Such expenditure, besides the demoralization of
all just conceptions of public duty which it entails, stimulates a habit
of reckless improvidence not in the least consistent with the mission of
our people or the high and beneficent purposes of our Government.
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