Now, if the government can afford to let the banker have _credit_ at 1 per cent. on actual circulation, why can’t the treasury supply all the people with legal-tender money at the same rate? Why not issue the money direct to the people and then pay interest into the United States treasury, instead of into the coffers of corporate institutions? National banks are expensive luxuries which we don’t need. So let the people unite in demanding their abolition at once, and then institute in their stead United States banks, sub-treasuries if you please, backed by all the people, and hence absolutely safe. This would make a government for the _people_, instead of for the corporations. Let us do business on the credit of the people—on the credit of the government; not, as we are now doing, on the credit of banks and bankers. 3. =The Funding Act.= (April 12, 1866.) Commonly called contraction. This law authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to retire the legal-tender notes by investing them in 6 per cent. bonds. Contraction continued until some $1,500,000,000 were destroyed, and a corresponding amount of 6 per cent. bonds issued. The treasury notes, or legal tenders, were nearly all non-interest-bearing. This reduction of the currency was an outrage upon the people. The volume should have been increased to keep pace with an increasing population. But Shylock must have interest. 4. =The Credit-Strengthening Act.= (March 18, 1869.) This law provided that the legal-tender treasury notes be paid in coin, as also all interest-bearing obligations of the government. Prior to the passage of this law public obligations had been payable _in the lawful money_ of the country; the greenback was lawful money, redeemable the same as gold and silver coin, except duties on imports and interest on the public debt. The credit of the nation was good, and needed no strengthening. The war was over, and the country was prosperous and the people contented. Why, then, add another burden? 5. =An Act Refunding the Public Debt.= (July 14, 1870.) This act authorized the issue and sale of $1,500,000,000 United States bonds, to refund 5-20 bonds and make them conform to the law of 1860. To fund means to put public obligations into stocks and securities, making them interest-bearing. The public debt should have been paid, as at first provided, in the lawful currency of the country, gold, silver and treasury notes. The law of 1869 added $500,000,000 to the 5-20 bonds, by making them payable in _coin_; then to refund the bonds, just to please English Shylocks, is villainy unnamed and unnameable.