The “common people” were admitted to the bar of the house, their plaints patiently listened to, and reparation promised. Bills for increased revenue were hurriedly introduced, and new taxes were loaded upon the broad shoulders of the millionaires of the nation;—taxes on checks, taxes on certificates of incorporation, taxes on deeds and mortgages, taxes on pleasure yachts, taxes on private parks and plaisances, taxes on wills of all property above $5,000 in value, taxes on all gifts of realty for and in consideration of natural love and affection, taxes on all passage tickets to foreign lands, and double taxes on the estates of all absentees on and after the lapse of six months.
There was a doubling up too of the tariff on all important luxuries, for as was said on the floor of Congress, “if the silks and satins of American looms and the wines and tobacco of native growth, are not good enough for ‘my Lord of Wall Street,’ let him pay the difference and thank heaven that he can get them at that price.”
To quiet the murmurs of the good people of the land, additional millions were placed to the credit of the Department of Public Works, and harbors were dredged out in one month only to fill up in the next, and new systems of improvement of interstate waterways were entered upon on a scale of magnitude hitherto undreamt of. The Commissioners for the distribution of public moneys to farmers so impoverished as to be unable to work their lands, were kept busy in placing “Peffer Loans” where the need of them seemed to be the greatest, and to put a stop to the “nefarious doings of money-changers and traders in the misfortunes of the people,” a statute was enacted making it a felony punishable with imprisonment for life, for any person or corporate body to buy and sell government bonds or public funds, or deal in them with a view to draw gain or profit from their rise and fall in value.
But try never so hard, the Government found itself powerless to check the slow but steady decline in value of the people’s dollar. By midsummer, it had fallen to forty-three cents, and ere the fair Northland had wrapped itself, like a scornful beauty, in its Autumn mantle of gold, the fondly trusted coin had sunk to exactly one-third of the value of a standard gold dollar. People carried baskets in their arms, filled with the now discredited coin, when they went abroad to pay a debt or make purchase of the necessaries of life. Huge sacks of the white metal were flung at the door of the mortgagee when discharge was sought for a few thousand dollars. Men servants accompanied their mistresses upon shopping tours to carry the necessary funds, and leather pockets took the place of the old time muslin ones in male habiliments, least the weight of the fifteen coins required to make up a five dollar gold piece should tear the thin stuff and spill a dollar at every step.