Currency

The Rag-mills of the East are again benevolently flooding the West with their currency, fearing probably that with specie-paying banks at home, we might not have enough money to pay taxes with.  Demand treasury notes are getting scarce, and their place is being taken by rag-money of doubtful character, such as cursed the West six or seven years ago.  Our people have had a deal of bitter experience in currency matters, and we hardly think they will allow themselves to be thrown off their guard by this renewed onslaught of the rag-barons: – But vigilance is needed, and that of the ‘eternal’ kind, too, to prevent another collapse like those to which the West has been subjected every year or two.  Indeed, we see by a Chicago paper, that a man recently left Clifton, Canada, for the West, with picture papers to the amount of $20,000 on the Bank of Clifton, which is said to be a regular swindle; and he is probably not the only one who is traveling on similar business.  All Eastern wild-cat will do to watch.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, May 2, 1862, p. 1