An article in the Cleveland Daily Gazette claims that there is no property, coinage on hand or responsible individuals backing the bills issued by the Kirtland Bank.
“A New Revelation—Morman Money,” Cleveland Daily Gazette (January 12, 1837): [2], Joseph Smith Papers newspaper research files, 1977-2011, CR 100 1051, Church History Library
NEW REVELATION—MORMON MONEY.—During the past few days an emission of bills from the society of Mormons, has been showered upon us. As far as we can learn there is no property bound for their redemption, no coin on hand to redeem them with, and no responsible individuals whose honor or whose honesty is pledged for their payment. They seem to rest upon a spiritual basis. Aside from the violation of the statute rendering them void, and of course the notes given for them, we look upon the whole as a most reprehensible fraud on the public, and cannot conceal our surprise that they should circulate at all. For instance, the large letters engraved on the bills appear, on a casual examination, to read like a bank's bill, and the unsuspecting would in the hurry of business, take them as an ordinary bank bill. But on scrutiny it will be found that previous to the word "Bank" in capital letters, the word "anti" in fine letters is inserted, and after the word "Bank" the syllable "ing" is affixed in small letters also, so as to read in fact, in stead of Bank, "antiBANKing." We do not object to private or company banking, as a system, provided it is done upon a system and made safe, but we consider this whole affair a deception, and are told by a legal gentleman, that there is still in force a section of the statute affixing a penalty of one thousand dollars to the issuing or passing unauthorized Bank paper like the present. It is a kind of radicalism that would flourish better in Michigan than Ohio