UNCLE SAM: Well, you have certainly demonstrated that I have made some very expensive mistakes. Let's see just what the net result of this blundering has been. I have lost $340,000,000 on account of the greenbacks and I have lost the great advantage of having $346,000,000 more gold to further strengthen the commercial credit of the country; and yet, I still owe every cent of these due bills and what seems to me equally certain is this: that if I should get into a great war, these very greenbacks will make me more trouble by injuring my credit in the future to a much greater extent than they ever have done at any time in the past. There is no doubt whatever about that. By the eternal, something must be done to get me out of this apparently bottomless pit. But you have not told us yet why these I.O.U.'s of mine, or United States Notes, are not fit for currency, as you declare. You know that you sort of hurt my feelings, and for half a minute I was fighting mad, but as I said I am from forty-seven states, besides Missouri, and therefore I am ready to be shown. MR. BANKER: I am coming to their use as currency right now. There are three distinct reasons why the United States Notes are a bad form of currency. _First_: Any Government issue of bills, or of I.O.U.'s such as these are, must be very limited, if they are kept as good as gold. _Second_: The United States Notes do not spring into existence in connection with business transactions, as the right kind of a currency always does. _Third_: It costs those who use it, as currency, five times as much as currency should. It is precisely as Mr. Manufacturer over there asserted a moment ago. Any system of currency that is of necessity limited in amount, and fixed as these United States Notes must be from the very nature of the case, breeds panics, because everybody realizing that the amount is limited, begins to scramble for cash upon the first intimation that there is any business trouble brewing. For this reason, they are utterly unfit as a system of currency. Again, a right currency system is the natural product of business, and the amount of the currency will always rise and fall with the demands of trade. This can never be the case with the United States Notes, and they are on that account utterly unfit for currency. And finally, certainly, if they cost the users of currency five times as much as the right kind of currency would, then we should replace them at once with the right kind of currency. Now, let me illustrate and demonstrate this.