Excerpt from The Finances: Washington Correspondence of the Philadelphia Press, Giving the Views of the Hon. Wm. D. Kelley, M. C., October 30, 1873; Letter of Hon. Wm. D. Kelley, M. C., To the Philadelphia Press, November 4, 1873

The compound interest notes matured and were paid off, which was a material contraction of the currency. The seven-thirties matured and were paid, still further contracting the currency. Secretary mcculloch had issued his Fort Wayne letter, promising that we should resume Specie payments before the last of these obligations would mature, which letter cost the country hundreds of millions by the paralysis it inflicted upon our productive industries. If resumption was to be brought about thus rapidly, no prudent man wanted to be caught with incomplete enterprises upon his hands, or to manufacture goods to be sold in a rapidly-falling market. But, worse than all this, having compelled the banks to hold a reserve of greenbacks instead of compound interest notes or seven-thirties, Congress absurdly permitted Mr. Mcculloch to retire four millions of greenbacks for eleven con secutive months, making a reduction of eleven per cent. Of the entire amount. What was the result? Money became scarce and dear, and the interest went up so high that it was no longer a matter of profit. Or convenience to enterprising Americans to hold our bonds. They had to sell them in order to escape the ruinous rates of interest demanded, and the only market for them was abroad. But deluded by the fact that we were paying our debt at the rate of one hundred millions a year, and the belief that we must therefore be approaching specie payments, another measure of contraction to the extent of seventy millions was consummated at the cost of doubling the rate of interest on that amount of the national debt. The three per cents. Were in the nature of a call loan, but they never would have been called, because our banks held and used them as part of their reserve, and were thus receiving three per cent. On that part of their reserve which was composed of these certificates. As the banks would have to supply the vacuum created by retiring part of their greenbacks, which were not interest-bearing, but by loaning which they were re ceiving six per cent., they never would have called for their payment. If the seventy-millions of dollars with which the three per cents. Were redeemed had been applied to the redemption of six per cents, our interest account would have been one million five hundred thou sand gold less than it now is annually, and the interest would have been paid to Americans instead of the increased amount being paid to foreigners. Thus it has come to pass that all our bonds, except those held by the national and savings banks, are now-held by for eigners, and our payments of interest in gold to foreigners, from the Government and on gold-bearing bonds of corporations, is more than one hundred millions of dollars annually, or forty millions more than the annual product of our mines.

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