Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-01-11 | Page 9 | Treasury to Issue More Greenbacks

TREASURY TO ISSUE MORE GREENBACKS Bills of Small Denominations Denomina-tions to Take Place of Large Ones. WASHINGTON. Jan. lO.--A new issue of the ?1 and $2 greenbacks of civil war Jays, discontinued more than thirty years ago, will be put into circulation probably about, February l, displacing similar United States notes of larger denominations, denomina-tions, to provide relief from the unprecedented unprece-dented demand for small paper currency. The treasury department announced tonight to-night that the issue ha, J been decided on because silver certificates, the ordinary bills of Si and 2 denominations, could not be issued under the law in sufficient quantities to meet tiie demand. A limit of 5o4tj,tSl,01t to the amount of outstanding federal notes was fixed by law in t7S after the greenback had be-come be-come an issue in politics and had resulted in the birth of a new national party, backed largely by the farmers of the west and south. No greenbacks have been issued since 1SS5, and the amount ol" outstanding and $2 notes of that variety now is slightly over $3,000,000. There is. however, 5102,445,300 outstanding outstand-ing in United S-tates notes of 10 denomination de-nomination and higher and a portion of these will be retired and cancelled, dollar dol-lar for dollar, to meet the new issue of smaller denominations. "The demand for paper currency of the smaller denominations," said the department's depart-ment's announcement, "always has been regarded by the treasury as an index to business conditions. For many months there has been a constantly growing demand de-mand for fl and 52 bills, until now it is impossible to meet the ' country's needs in this respect by means of silver certificates, certifi-cates, which, for more than thirty years, have been the only form of paper currency cur-rency issued in 1 and $2 denominations. denomina-tions. "As the supply of silver certificates is fixed by the number of silver dollars coined, such coinage having been discontinued discon-tinued in 1004, it is only possible to increase in-crease the number of and $2 silver certificates outstanding by cancelling a corresponding number of silver certificates certifi-cates of larger denominations. From Julv 3. 1913, to January 1, 1917. the ?1 and $2 .silver certificates in circulation increased from J234.5S7.S01 to 5284,826,786. This was offset principally by a decrease in the amount of outstanding silver certificates of the denominations of $10 and above, such a demand existing for 55 certificates i hat it lias not been possible to retire them. "In consenuence of this conversion of large denominations to small, there now are outstanding only about 530,000,000 of silver certificates of more than 55 in value, and conversions of large denominations denomi-nations to those of small denominations rave become increasingly slower and more difficult. As the demand continued and became more pressing, it became necessary neces-sary for the secretary to look to another source, and consequently he has invoked for the first time the provisions of the act of March 4, 1907."