Full text of The Money Question of the 53rd Congress : Panic -- Its causes and its remedy : Speech of Hon. John W. Daniel of Virginia, Debate in the Senate, v.1, A-H

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THE PANIC—ITS CAUSES AKD ITS REMEDY.

1. Its causes—increased debts, depressed prices, and destruction of tlie bimetallic base of credit.
2. Its remedy—the restoration of bimetallism..

SPEECH
OF

HON. JOHN ¥ . DANIEL,
OF

VIRGINIA,
IN THE

SENATE

OP

THE

UNITED

STATES,

THUBSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1893.

The mint should stand on both metals—Thomas Jefferson.
To annul the use of either of the metals as money is to abridge the quantity of
circulating medium and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of the benefits of a fall with the evils of a scanty circulation.—Alexander
Hamilton.
I am certainly of opinion that gold and silver, at rates fixed by Congress, constitute the legal standard of value in this country, and that neither Congress nor
any State lifts authority to establish any other standard or to displace this standard.—Daniel Webster.




WASHINGTON.
1893.




S P E E C H
OP

HON. J O H N

W.DANIEL.

The Senate having under consideration tho bill ( S . B. 1) to repeal a p a r t of
an act, approved July 14, 1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of
silver bullion and the issue of T r e a s u r y notes thereon, and for other purposes' i

Mr. D A N I E L said:
Mr, PRESIDENT: In these troubled and exciting times no one
could fitly discuss the delicate and important issues now under
advisement without possessing the spirit of the ancient Greeks
who, in addressing his countrymen, prayed t h a t no unworthy
word m i g h t escape his lips.
Bringing to this task such a spirit, I bring also profound sympathy with every class of our fellow-citizens who have been
smitten with the afflicting hand of an evil financial dispensation.
I have no denunciation for banks or bankers, troubled as they
are by a constricted and a contracted currency, finding as they
do a gap between obligations and means of redemption which is
enough to give them infinite anxiety and pain. Deeply also do
I sympathize with our merchants and manufacturers, and
deeply with labor, that is standing idle begging work, and
hunger t h a t is empty, begging bread.
Yet, Mr. President, we may indulge in some degree the comforting t h o u g h t that the acute stage of the panic is now over,
and although depression may long remain, business is already in
a state of convalescence.
OtTtt A G R I C U L T U R A L R E s O U r t C U S A R B B R I N G I N G BACK GOLD TO T H I S COUNTRY.

I t appears from the Bankers' Magazine of September, 1893,
which is fresh from New York, t h a t the tide of gold has so
strongly set in from abroad to this country t h a t it is coming
back faster and in larger quantities than it had gone out, and
t h a t by t h e last of August all but $20,000,000 of the $68,000,000
exported between January and July had all been reimported, with
more on the way from London,
Doubtless some who look only on t h e surface of things will attribute this movement to the anticipated repeal of the Sherman
law, but fortunately for the cause of t r u t h it is the acknowledged
fact, as stated in tho magazine which I cite as my authority, t h a t
the distinct causes of the return of gold are well identified.
First. I n t h e sharp decline in our imports of goods after the
panic broke out, and the cancellation of f u r t h e r orders.
Second. I n the vast exportation of wheat, flour, feed, and fodder crops, including corn, oats, barley, hay, mill feed, and bran,
which have been taken by the United Kingdom and the contim
3




4
nent in quantities hitherto unknown, until nearly all of the
freight room for two or three months ahead had been engaged.
Third. Added to this, during the past month the comer in
provisions in Chicago collapsed, and our hog products are now
being exported in double the volume of any preceding month
during the year.
And well does this financial periodical sajr that it was these
three causes that turned the tide of gold this way so suddenly
and in such volume, as it was the opposite condition preventing
exports of the great staples for months before that sent gold out
of the country instead to such an unprecedented extent.
The farmer, is called by Prof. Sumner " t h e forgotten man."
If we have forgotten him, thank God he has not forgotten us,
but has rescued " o u r drowning honor by the locks" and is now
redeeming the prosperity and the public credit of the country.
Now that the agricultural resources of our country have given
a truce to the panic; now that it is demonstrated by this revelation that it was not the Sherman law that sent gold away from
us, nor its expected repeal that is bringing it back; now that
disabled banks are resuming operations, and that the increase
of national-bank currency by $20,000,000 has aided in rallying
the markets, we have at least time to explore the causes of the
world-wide monetary disturbances, and to consider remedies
which may tend to alleviate them now and to prevent their recurrence.
I t was a maxim of the greatest nation of antiquity that in an
emergency we should " hasten slowly." I t would be well, perhaps, if the greatest nation of the moderns should remember
and apply it.
T H E GREAT CAUSES O P T H E PANIC.

Mr. President, it is my purpose now to demonstrate, as I confidently believe I can, that the world-wide monetary convulsion
which confronts us is due to three principal causations, whatever may be its phenomenal or provoking incidents. That is:
1. To the enormous increase of debts;
2. To the continuous and unprecedented fall of prices for over
a quarter of a century; and
3. To the contemporaneous destruction of the bimetallic base
of oredit at the dictation of European kings.
I may remark here incidentally that it was the destruction of
this base of credit in the Orient which precipitated this panic
in the West.
I shall further show conclusively that Great Britain is the
leader in the policies which antagonize our interests, with the
open and avowed intent—
1. To aggrandize the creditors, who compose the ruling classes
of her society;
2. To depress the prices of our agricultural products, which
on the one'hand contribute to feed and clothe her people, and on
the other hand to support alike our foreign commerce and our
public credit;
3. To destroy the great silver interests of the United States;
and
4. To derange and minimize our financial system to a gold
basis, in order at one blow to enhance the value of her Australian gold mines, and to increase the riches of her capitalists
upon the wreck of our fortunes; and,
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5
5. Finally, to make the United States, like Egypt and India,
her financial dependent.
If I am correct in defining the chief causes of the financial
trouble, and if I truly apprehend the policy of Great Britain, it
will be evident that this crisis is graver in its nature and farther
reaching in its consequences than any monetary crisis that the
American people have ever had to deal with. If my premises
be correct, this is a solemn and momentous hour in the Senate,
one in which responsibility rises to the highest plane, and in
which a mistake made through haste, incaution or otherwise, will
become the seed of many woes.
F I R S T CAUSE O F T H E P A N I C T H E ENORMOUS I N C R E A S E O P DEBTS.

I cite now in testimony that I have justly conceived the first
great cause of this panic the following facts:
In 1880 the total private indebtedness of the American people
was $6,700,000,000. In 1890 it was $19.700,000,000—an increase of
thirteen thousand millions of dollars.
The funded debt of the railroads of the United States in 1880
was $2,392,000,000. In 1890 it was $5,463,000,000—an increase of
129 per cent. The current debt doubled in seven years. It is estimated that railroad debts exceed by $5,000,000,000 their assets.
There is one terminal point where all the railroads concentrate—
that is in the hands of a receiver.
The debts of telephone, telegraph, street railway, water, gas,
'electric, and other companies are vast beyond computation.
The mortgage debt in twenty-one States, as computed recently,
was $4,547,000,000, without counting Ohio, Texas, California,
and other States of less magnitude.
"Within a decade the loans and overdrafts of national banks
increased from $994,000,000 to $2,171,000,GOO, while those of other
banks (exclusive of private banks) increased from $378,000,000 to
$1,189,000,000.
The aggregate debt of the individual States, and their municipal divisions in 1890 was $1,135,210,000, or $18.13 per capita of
the population, an increase of about $12,000,000 as compared with
1880.
Our National debt in 1892 is reported as $585,000,000 in round
numbers, carrying an annual interest charge of $22,000,000.
I t would require all of our currency, greenback, gold, and silver, more than ten times over, to discharge our private indebtedness. I t would require all of our gold three times over to pay
interest on it at 6 per cent. I t is more than all the gold and silver produced in the world since America was discovered. These
are stupendous facts which we should pause to contemplate.
• T H E INDUSTRY O P T H E S H E R I F F .

There is a plank in the Chicago platform which I have not
heard read in this debate, and that plank recognizes one item of
the overwhelming debt of our people as one of the causes of the
great depression existing:
T H E MORTGAGE B U R D E N .

W e call the attention of thoughtful Americans to the fact that after thirty
years of restrictive taxes against the importation of foreign wealth in exchange for our agricultural surplus, the homes and f a r m s of the country
have become burdened with a real-estate mortgage debt of over $2,500,000,000,
exclusive of all other forms of indebtedness; that in one of the chief agricultural States of the West there appears a real-estate mortgage debt averag461




6
ing $165 per capita of the total population; and that similar conditions and
tendencies are shown to exist in other agricultural exporting States. Wo
denounce a policy which fosters no industry so much as it does that of the
sheriff.

Mr. President, are we to turn the sheriff loose upon these people who have won the sympathy of the nation, and at the same
time contract and take away the money with which they need, to
escape} if they can, from his clutches? Certainly we do not wish
to make the auctioneer's red flag the flag of nations.
T H E SECOND GREAT CAUSE O F T H I S WORLD-WIDE T R O U B L E I S T H E CON*
TINUOUS AND UNPRECEDENTED F A L L Off P R I C E S .

Mulhall, the great English statistician and commercial expert,
writing in 1885, said:
I t may he said that £4 now will buy as much as £6 in 18(56, the fall of prices
being about 30 per cent, but as regards the United States in particular we
find a fall of 46 per cent, namely, from 170 to 91, which is greater than has
occurred in any other country.—Mulhall on Prices, page 6.

If in 1885 the fall of prices in our country had been unprecedented, 45 per cent, what shall we say now when credits and
dehts are piled up into a Tower of Babel, and £4 of English
money are buying what £8 and £10 would have bought then?
For thirty years indeed, Mr. President, there has been a steady
decline in the prices of produce, nor has it afflicted alone the agricultural and laboring classes of our people. The manufacturer
buying raw material and paying labor one year, has found expenses uncovered by the sales of the next. The farmer who
plows and puts his seed in the ground finds next year that,
though Providence has smiled upon him, the generous fruit of
the soil falls short of compensation for his labor.
The merchant buys his stock of goods, down go prices and
away go profits. The investor in bonds and stocks sees the
security for payment part in value with the debt to be redeemed.
This is the process by which slowly and surely the forces of ruin
have been accumulated, and at last the crash has come.
T H E ROYAL B R I T I S H COMMISSION ON D E P R E S S I O N O F TRADE RECOGNIZES
T H E SITUATION.

Fifteen years ago there was a widespread feeling in Great
Britain that an abnormal depression of trade had set in, which,
unlike previous depressions, showed no si^ns of recovery. All
available statistics were considered and laid before the keenesteyed and ripest-minded men of the financial world. Commission
after commission has inquired into the causes of this strange
change in the world's affairs. The royal commission OH the
depression .of trade, in 1885; the gold and silver commission
which sat in 1S87-J88, and now member after member of the International Monetary Conference at Brussels have all reached
the same conclusion.
The commission on the depression of trade in 1885 stated the
following definite conclusions, upon which all minds concurred
1. That the depression dated f r o m the year 1873 or thereabouts.

A fatal year for the destiny of the human race, marked by the
movement for the demonetization of silver!
2. That it extended to every branch of industry, including agriculture,
manufactures, and mining, and t h a t it was not confined to England, but had
been experienced to a greater or less degree in all the industrial countries of
the world.
3. That It appeared to be closely connected with the serious fall in general prices, which even then was most observable, though it has since been
m o r e strongly marked, resulting in the diminution—in some cases even the
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286
total losg—of profit, and consequent Irregularity of employment to the wag©*
earners.
4. That the duration of the depression lias been most unusual and abnormal.
5. That no adequate cause for this staie of things was discoverable, unless
it could be found in some general dislocation of values caused by currencychanges, and which would be capable of affecting an area equal to that which
the depression of trade covered.

It is no silver crank; it is no advocate of illimitable fiat money;
it is the sagacious counselors of the greatest nation of modern
times except our own, who tell you and tell the world that this
prostration of the world's agriculture, commerce, trade, and
manufacture dates its birth with the hour that the money of
the people was Btricken down, and that they can account for it
no other wise, save in the dislocation of the currency of the nations.
T H E NEW P A C T O R I N T H E WORLD OP INDUSTRY, T H E E R R O R I N T H E COMPASS, T H E FOUNDATION OP T R A D E GIVING WAY.

Sir W. Houldsworth, delegate of Great Britain, said before
the International Monetary Conference recently eheld at Brussels:
During the last eighteen years an unprecedented fall in prices has taken
place (not less than 30 per cent as measured by seven independent sets of Index
numbers), and yet thero never was a time when, by the testimony of all engaged in agriculture, manufacturing, and other trades, confirmed by the reports of two royal commissions in England and by investigations elsewhere,
the profit-earning power of every industry had more seriously and persists
ently declined, leading, as such a state of things m u s t inevitably and ultimately lead, " t o irregularity of employment, serious reduction in the rate
of wages in every department of industry, accompanied by strikes and lockouts and short time."
I t is perfectly true that, before the great dislocation of values caused by
currency changes in 1873, "cheap goods" (though I can not admit they were
ever the "conditions under which profitable t r a d e " existed) did lead t o
profitable trade subsequently. Consumption was increased and prices
again rose u p to or above their previous level. Then as a result of previous
cheapness there was profitable trade. In the old days in Lancashire, before
1873, when we had (as we have had for the last five years) cheap cotton,
cheap bread, and cheap money, an advent of good times was as surely expected and as surely came as sunrise in the morning.
But notwithstanding t h a t wo have enjoyed these advantages for a considerable time, we are still in the night of depressed trade.

Do not fancy, Senators, that you are the only unhappy people
in the world, and that you have the illimitable resources of
Great Britain from which to draw gold. She is " i n the ni^ht
of depressed trade.*' Do not expect light to come to America
out of that valley of the shadow.
Is it not a p p a r e n t -

Says this learned and distinguished gentleman—

on my friend's own showing, t h a t a ntfw factor has appeared in tho world
of industry? Things are not as they were. The reason is plain; the foundation has given way upon which trade rests. The standard of value has
been altered, and it is to rectify " the error in the compass " t h a t we are
here to-day.
T H E ACCURSED S I N K I N G O P P R I C E S .

There were amongst other thoughtful Americans at the inteiv
national Brussels conference Prof. E. Benjamin Andrews, president of Brown University, and here are the words he uttered:
Gentlemen, as I suggested, a second p o w e r f u l consideration urges the
thoughtful people of the United States to t r y and rehabilitate silver as
money of full debt-paying power. I t is this: They wish to stay t h a t baneful,
blighting, deadly fall of prices which for nearly t h i r t y years has infected
with miasma the economic life-blood of the whole world. They do not desire
to debase the standard of value. They would have every debt paid in gold
or its equivalent; b u t they do not wish gold to be arbitrarily and u n j u s t l y
appreciated. The everlasting fall of prices, the act of sinking, is the accursed thing. None profit f r o m it b u t such as are annuitants and nothing
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else, and we may be sure t h a t no civilized state is going to legislate to keep
prices falling, when the fall is once seen, as it must soon be seen, to injure
all but the very*few unproductive people who live upon their Incomes.
T H E E V I L S OP P A L L I N G P R I C E S .

There is no better statement of the evil results of the fall of
prices than that of Prof. Marshall, of the Cambridge University, who says:
A fall in prices lowers profit and impoverishes the manufacturer while it
increases the purchasing power of those who have fixed incomes. So, again,
it enriches creditors at the expense of debtors; for if the money that is
owing to them Is repaid this money gives them a greater purchasing power,
and If they have lent at a fixed rate of interest each payment is worth m o r e
to them t h a n it would be if prices were high. But for the same reason t h a t
It enriches creditors and those, who receive fixed incomes, it impoverishes
those men of business who have borrowed capital, and it impoverishes those
who have to make, as most business men have, considerable fixed money
payments for rent, salaries, and other matters.—Economics of Industry,
Book III, chapter 1.
D E P R E C I A T I O N O P W H E A T , COTTON, AND S I L V E R BULLION.

Now, Mr. President, I present in this connection a table showing depreciations of wheat, cotton, and silver since 1873, which
tabulates the well-known and universally recognized fact that
the great staples have gone down with silver bullion, and that
the whole world is suffering under this "accursed" and constant
"shrinking of price," with an enlarging chasm between means
and payment.
Depredations of wheat, cotton, and silver since 1873.
Year.

1872.
1873.
1874.
1875.
1876.
1877.
1878.
1879.
1880.
1881.

1882.

(3)

THE

Wheat Cotton. Silver.

®1.47
1.31
1.43
1.12
1.24
1.17
1.34
1.07
1.25

1.11
1.19

THIRD

Cents.
19.3
18.8
15.4
15.0
12.9
11.8
11.1

9.9
11.5
11.4
11.4

$1.32
1.29
1.27
1.24
1.15
1.20
1.15
1.12
1.14
1.13
1.13

Year.

1884
1885
1836
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893

Wheat. Cotton. Silver.

11.13
1.07
.87
.89
.90

Cents.
10.8
10.5
10.6
9.9
9.5
9.8
9.9

81.11
1.01
1.06
.99
.97

1.04
.90

10.1

.80
.50

10.0
8.7
7.2

GREAT CAUSE O P F A N I O T H E DESTRUCTION
B I M E T A L L I C BASE O P CREDIT.

.86
.75

OP

The third great cause of the panic is to be found in the fact
that contemporaneously with the increase of debt, and cotemporaneously with the fall of prices, war has been waged ever since
1873 against the bimetallic base of credit, A v h e n the abnormal
and unrelieved depression of trade set in. Since that time the
foundation of credit has been narrowing, while the superstructure has been enlarging in weight and been growing higher.
It has long been evident to my humble comprehension that a
great crash would come, and now that it has come, it is equally
evident that these were the causes.
ROCKS A H E A D P O I N T E D OUT AND A CRASH P R E D I C T E D L A S T Y E A R .

On April 20,1892, standing where I now stand, I uttered my
feeble note of warning; I would that I had been a false prophet
instead of a true one; but I will repeat the words which I uttered
then, as they are unhappily realized now. I said:
Mr. President, there are rocks ahead. We are drifting upon them. Presently the ship of state will strike them. No master oX finance appears t o
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save ship, crew, or caxgo. Gold Is the cry; gold, gold, gold, nothing but gold,
although this Is the greatest silver-producing nation In the world, and although if we had financiers equal to our opportunities we might dominate
the financial markets of the world. The silver men alone seem to have any
appreciation or even recognition of our situation.
They offer the only remedy t h a t is offered to rescue us f r o m financial depression and threatened financial ruin. If you do not like their remedy,
the first step in which Is the free coinage of silver, what do you propose?

Anticipating- and foreseeing this crash, seeing that the financial ship of state was driving upon the rocks which have now
split it asunder, and wasted its crew and its cargo, I appealed to
the men to propose something, who say now they know it was
the Sherman act, but did not know it then, and they had nothing to propose, but only opposed everything that anybody else
proposed. I read again from my remarks of April 20,1892:
The chief importance of free coinage lies in the fact t h a t free coinage of
silver is necessary to enlarge and fix the metal base of our currency and
credit system. I t Is estimated t h a t a small percentage of business, some
say 3 or 5 per cent, is done on cash payments. The rest is credit.
Behind this credit is currency which m u s t be used In liquidation, and behind all our volume of currency, which is itself for the most p a r t Governm e n t credit, is the metal money held for its redemption. T h a t metal money
of redemption is claimed to be gold only. Now, the gold base of this vast
superstructure of currency and bond credit, Government credit, and individual credit, is too narrow to sustain it, too narrow to admit of the increase
In size and weight of the superstructure. If we continue to build u p business on this narrow gold foundation, we will build to our ruin. The foundation will soon crumble under the overwhelming burden imposed upon It, and
when the fall of the superstructure comes, as come it must, great will be the
fall thereof. To-day we are piling u p w r a t h against the day of wrath. W e
are sowing the wind, and the whirlwind will be the harvest.

A t last the vials of wrath have been emptied upon our people!
A t last the whirlwind is the harvest from the wind that was
sowed.
INCIDENTAL CAUSES OF PANIC,

The facts and opinions I have cited show the general causes
of the panic. It has been undoubtedly attended by many incidents each and all of which have contributed to the crisis.
The periodicity with which panics occur would indicate that
there are inherent causes that tend to produce them. Prosperity begets extravagance, extravagance strains credit, credit contracts and hard times result, and then panic. Commerce has
its cycle of prosperity, like everything else, and after it has run
into extravagance and been succeeded by liquidation there comes
again the process of restoration. Economic self-denial and restored composure check it. I t then returns and runs its career
until again checked by like causations. If our monetary and
tax systems were all that might be desired, it is probable that
we should have, either now or at some earlier date, the constriction of credit that results from overtrading, and painful conditions of financial hardships to experience.
T H E N E W FACTOR AT W O R K OK T H I S P A N I C .

But it is a fact that this panic is different from all recurring
seasons of depression which the world has ever known. There
is a " new factor " in it recognized by the most thoughtful and
studious men. That new factor is the one which will prevent a
restoration to normal conditions until it has been removed and
normal and natural conditions have themselves been restored.
That new factor is increase of debt, the "accursed sinking of
price," and the destruction of the base of credit.
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LACK O F CONFIDENCE.

(1) No doubt lack of confidence had much to do with the panic.
Lack of confidence has had much to do with every panic which
ever happened in peace or war since the world began; but it has
generally been tho pressure of panicky weakness which produced
tHe lack.of confidence, and not altogether the lack of confldenco
which produced the panic.
T H E BOOMS, EXTRAVAGANCE, AND T H E T A R I F F .

(2) The booms in real estate, from Los Angeles, in California, to
the suburbs of Washington, and the delta of tho Mississippi to
Sioux City in Iowa, from Virginia to Alabama, and from Texas
to the North; the extravagance of the billion-dollar Congress,
the great railroad extensions, the great hotel buildings, the
thousand manufacturing enterprises all over the world which
have anticipated population ana wants not ready to be supplied—
we havo in these things some plain incidental causations of financial trouble.
3. The McKinley tariff bill has undoubtedly aggravated theso
troubles. I t came at a time when credit was already strained.
Vast stocks of goods were hurried into our markets to escape its
burdens. Vast stocks of goods already on hand were affected in
price, as European manufacturers were jostled out of their business, and American manufacturers alike. No change of tariff
laws can ever occur without disturbing business; and as yet not
a year has passed since the Democratic party with nearly unanimous voice was heaping upon the McKmley bill responsibility
for financial disorder.
4. The element of uncertainty attending any chango of tariff
is an element of the present depression. A man may move from
a hut to a palace, but his household goods must suffer during tho
removal, and his family subjected to momentary inconveniences
that are inevitable; and although his condition might be much
improved in the end, the transition state must be ono of confusion and annoyance. Commerce loves certainty. Even a bad
law, which all men know and adjust themselves to, is better than
a state of apprehension and stagnation produced by doubt as to
what the law will be.
CHANGE O P T A R I F F S ALWAYS P R O D U C E DISTURBANCE.

Says a distinguished author (Juglar) in a recent book oh panics:
Any change in o a r tariff laws general enough to rise t o the dignity of a
new tariff, has, with one exception in our history, precipitated a panic.

I t is some comfort to see that he adds to that statement:
This exception is the tariff of 1846, which was.for revenue only, and introduced after long notice and upon a graduated scale.

If we are now in that condition of uncertainty between two
tariffs in which trade must suffer, let us take some consolation
from the thought that as in 1846, when the least trouble was experienced, so in 1893 we may move with a minimum of embarrassment to the changes of tariff which should bo conservative
and cautious.
T H E R E C U R R E N C E A N D COINCIDENCE O F P A N I C S TS ALL C O U N T R I E S AND
GOVERNMENTS.

I t is a thoughtful remark of Mr. Juglar, the author, whom I
have quoted:
W h a t m u s t he noted is the recurrence and sequence of the same point3
nnder varying circumstances a t all times, in all countries and under all
governments,
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This author gives tho following table of the commercial panics
in tho past eighty-five years:
The coincidence of panics in the past eighty-Jive years.
Franco.

England,

United States.

1E04.
1810.
1813-'14.
1818.
1825.
1830.
183&-1839.
1847.
1857.
18G4.

1803.
1810.
1815.
1818.
1825.
1830.
1830-1839.
1817.
1857.
1864-186G.
1873.
1882.
1890-'91.

1814.
1818.
1826.
1820-1831.
183&-1839.
1848.
1857.
1864.
1873.
1884.
18S0-'91.

1882.
1889-'90.

From this table it will be perceived that the successive panics
have resulted from conditions with which the whole world was
troubled. Thus, in 1803-1804 there was a panic in England and
Franco; so in 1810. In 1813-1814-1815 the panic wa3 in England,
France, and America at the same time; so in 1818 in the same
countries; so in 1825-1826 in the same three countries; so in 18291830, and 1831 in the same countries; so in 1836-1839 in the three
countries simultaneously!; so in 1847-1848; so in 1857; so in 1864r1866. But, mark, in 1873, while the panic struck America and
struck England, who were under the influence of the demonetization of silver, the cyolone was a zephyr in France, which retained the use of her ancient Bilver money.
In 1882-1884 the panio came here and in England and in France,
for falling price and narrowing base of credit were being felt
everywhere. So in 1889 and 1890 and 1891 it was in the three
countries alike. Should we not pause to reflect here, Mr. President, before we throw the whole burden of this panic upon one
isolated act of legislation, that panics have been world-wide before, and that this panic is world-wide now?
ONLY GREAT CAUSES P R O D U C E GREAT EVENTS.

Let us recognize the philosophical thought that great events
are always produced by great causations.
A spark may ignite a tinder pile or a powder magazine, or
sweep the wild fire over tho dry grass of the prairie. A lamp
turned over in a stable may put a city in conflagration. The
hunter of the Alps speaks in a whisper lest his breath shall
jostle the gathered avalanche and send it whirling down the
mountain side. Let us consider not only the spark, the lamp, or
the whispered breath. These trite incidents and occasions could
not start the great forces in motion unless the masses of combustion, or of winter's snow, wore accumulated and ready for a
trite circumstance to put their mighty vehemence in motion.
W e may put out the spark that made the conflagration; the
hunter may draw in his breath after he has started the avalanche, but destruction is neither stayed nor repaired. To,prevent recurrence we must remove the great causations or put
them beyond the influence of trivial or accidental influence.
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T H E "WORLD-WIDE DISTURBANCE D I D NOT BEGIN HERE, NOR I S I T ATTENDED
E L S E W H E R E B Y A SHERMAN ACT.

While the storm center of the panic is now in the United States,
it is important to remember that it did notr begin here, and that
its incipiency can not be fastened upon the Sherman law. It began in South America, where there is no Sherman law. I t
swept over Great Britain, a gold-standard country,, where there
is no Sherman law, where English consols, payable in gold only,
and having no fear of silver before their eyes, fell suddenly as
securities fell here; where gold, unprotected from going to a
premium by the single standard, commanded 13 per cent a day
for its loan^ in addition to 3 per cent per annum, and where the
castles of the British money princes came tumbling down.
I t swept on t o Australia, whose people are the richest in the
world per capita, and who have no Sherman law. I t agitated
Austria, Italy, and India, and is now giving Europe the chills,
without the frigid presence of a Sherman law.
A L L ADVISERS NOT D I S I N T E R E S T E D .

Mr. President, it might be well for us to remember that there
are some who cry "Stone him, stone him," as to the Sherman
law who are not entirely disinterested. Our friends, the enemy,
the Republican pdrty, are delighted to attribute the panic to the
Shermanlaw in order to escape their responsibility for the McKinley tariff. The McKinley act goes quietly to sleep in the sheltering arms of the Sherman law, which soothes it to slumber. The
gold monometallist is delighted to lay all the burden on the
Sherman law in order to hide the work of his own hands behind it.
The bankers are, perhaps, interested to say "Sherman act,"
but their desire is to save the country by issuing more paper
money, and by destroying the metallic base of credit in order to
make"way for its emission. We were told by the Senator from
Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN] two years ago, t h a t " the speculators " were
the people who had prevented the wise operation of the Sherman
act. Perhaps those speculators are again at work, and do not
want the people to be relieved, in order to force the President
to issue new bonds and give them a new basis of operation upon
the market.
P R E M O N I T I O N S O P P A N I C B E F O R E T H E S H E R M A N LAW WAS ENACTED,* 18SS
THE INCIPIENT TEAR.

Let us look now at some of the premonitory symptoms of this
panic. The panic began before the Sherman law was enacted.
I call attention to the commercial failures and liabilities inv o l v e d in the United States and in Great Britain alike during
recent years, which show that their increase began before the
Sherman act, and that they had been steadily accumulating,
piling up until the crash came, although retarded by the Sherman act in coming to the crisis by the issue of more money from
the Treasury of the United States.
Here are the failures and the liabilities in the United States
for the last dccade. In 1888 they sprang up from 9,000 to 10,000.
They were over 10,000 in 1889, over 10,000 in 1890, 12,000 again
in 1891, a little less in 1892; then they again burst up like the
flames of a slumbering fire which die down and then catch dry
timber and spread.
Ml




13
Here is the gathering avalanche:
Number and percent of commercial failures and the liabilities involved in failures in the United States for each calendar year from 1379 to 1892 inclusive.
[From the annual circulars of R. G. Dun & Co., New York.]
Calendar years.

Number Number P e r c e n t
of
of business
of
Liabilities.
failures. concerns. failures.
6,658
702,157
4,735
746,823
5,582
781,6S9
6,738 • 822,258
0,184
803,993
10,968
901,759
10,637
919,990
9,834
969,841
9,634
994,231
10,679 1,046,662
10,882 1,051,140
10,907 1,110,590
12,273 1,142,951
10,314 1,172,705

1S79
1880
1881
1881!
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
I860
1891
1S92

.95
.63
.71
.82
1.06
1.21
1.16
1.01
.90
1.02
1.04
. .98
1.07
.88

598,149,053
65,752,000
81,155,932
101,547,566
172,874,192
223,343, 427
124,220,321
114,644,119
167,560,944
123,829,973
148,784,337
189,856,964
189,S68,038
114,044,167

Just as the panic began to creep upon us here, starting in its
severity in 1888, it began also in Great Britain, as appears from
the Annual Statistician, page 608. In that same year there was
a sudden increase of failures and liabilities there as here, the
total for that ye^r there exceeding any previous year since the
stringency of 1883. In 1890 the stringency in Great Britain
turned into panic. The panic began with the tremendous failures of the Argentine Confederation and with stringency in Spain.
"When it was announced upon the bulletin boards that the Barings had failed the announcement fell upon America like a snowstorm in midsummer, and enterprise was suddenly paralyzed.
THE BLACK D A T OF 1S90—"THE BAKINGS HAVE F A I L E D . "

I had personal reason to observe the moment when the panic
burst upon us in its fury. I was in the city of Baltimore upon
that very day, and was engaged in meeting, as the attorney for
some friends in Virginia, certain capitalists in that city who
were proposing^ to invest in my State a large sum of money.
The preliminaries had been arranged, the outlook was satisfactory, and at 3 o'clock on that day we were to meet hopefully for
final arrangements.
As we were going to the office where the transaction was to
take place we looked upon the bulletin board and read the momentous news, " The Barings have failed." Instantly they said,
" "We must stop," and from that day to this, owing to our monetary trouble, which has its deep seat in gold-standard England,
we have seen no hope save in the restoration of our American
money.
CONDITIONS I N E U R O P E A N D A M E R I C A A F T E R T H E B A R I N G S F A I L E D .

Within the spaee of the two years following the financial markets of the world Paris, Berlin, New York, and London suffered severe shocks. As soon as the failure of the Barings was
announced "the atmosphere was charged with storm in London.
In New York a terrible financial crisis came at the end of October, and the beginning of November accumulated ruin and failure. The Stock Exchange felt the effect very severely; ana
One great speculator, with assets of 950,000,000, had to ask for time to meet
bis engagements; the interest on loans was raised to incredible fiffore* in
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14
New Yorlc; 3 per cent a year was paid, with an addition of 13 per cent
a day in London; and the stringency increased, and the liquidation at tho
end of October was marked by live lailures.

These words I copy from financial sources.
In the United States the decline in railroad values was enormous, and in the Bankers'Magazine, for January, 1891, page 501,
will be found an itemized statement of the decline in railroad
stocks during the preceding six months, showing an enormous
loss.
I will presently produce this table of the losses of securities
in the United States, from which I shall deduce the conclusion
that if there were a little more silver money in the world to sustain their price capitalists and investors would themselves be
better off at the present time.
NO SENATOR ATTRIBUTES T H E CONVULSION TO T H E S H E R M A N

ACT.

It has .been contended, though, that the Sherman law brought
on the panic. But let me mark the fact, that while there is an
outcry that the Sherman law has produced this panic, no Senator
of the United States has been bold enough to make that declaration on this floor. Indeed, the able chairman of the Finance
Committee, who is asking us to repeal the Sherman law, on the
theory that it produced the panic, himself repudiates and denounces tho theory invoked for the action, and tells us, what is
the truth, that the American people have full confidence in all
their forms of money.
Will anyone contend that it was the Sherman act which took
gold from t h i B country and is preventing it from coming back?
GOLD CAME TO TIB A S T E R T H E SHERMAN ACT.

I will reply in the remarks which I had the honor to make here
January t, 1891, six months after the Sherman law was enacted,
and in which I pointed out that although it was an ill-concocted
act, which I had opposed, it was then subserving a purpose of
benefit to the people of the United States. I then read the following report, made at that time, from the Treasurer of the
United States:
In the fiscal y e a r -

He said—
1889 there was a loss of nearly twenty-six millions of gold, a gain of thirtyfour millions of silver, and a contraction of forty-one millions in the national-bank circulation, resulting in a net decrease of thirty-three millions
in the effective stock.

But mark the change in 1390 after the passage of the Sherman
act.
The past year witnessed the recovery of fifteen millions of gold, an Increase of forty-three millions of silver, and a withdrawal of twenty-six millions of bank notes, a net increase of thirty-two millions in the aggregate
supply.

Commenting upon that report at that time I had the honor to say:
Thus under the silver legislation as it has emanated f r o m this body you
have seen the same thing happen that has happened with every increase of
our silver circulating medium, that, instead of contracting the currency, j u s t
in proportion as the silver stream broadened and deepened so has the gold
stream broadened and deepened, and t h a t more silver, in the practical Interpretation of finance, has invariably meant more gold.
Mr. President, if we t u r n b a c k to tho year 1S7S, at the time when the first
Impulse was given by the Bland act to thetocreaseof our silver currency, we
find t h a t on July 1, l877t not long before its passage, there was less t h a n $200,000.000 o f ^ o l d i n circulation, in fact only $107,000,000, and t h a t ever since t h e n
gold has been increasing j u s t as silver has been increasing. The t r u t h is, we
Bee here illustrated the important fact of economic science t h a t money produces money. Idke to like is the law of affinity In all things the world over,
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15
T H E MOVEMENT OP GOLD I N RECENT YEARS, BEGINNING I N IBM,

Now, Mr, President, let us trace the movement of gold more
definitely: Let us shadow its footsteps and see where it went
and what it went for.
A heavy movement of gold from the United States commenced
in May, 1888, tho time when the commercial failures in England
began, and, as the Director of the Mint said in his report of 1889,
" h a s created a profound stir in the American commercial world,
and excited some apprehension of a serious strain upon the gold
stock of the United States, as this is the first loss of gold of any
magnitude since the resumption of specie payments in this country." (Page 122, report of 1889.)
The Director of the Mint explains the movement by saying
that displacements of specie from one country to another always
occur when international accounts, established by the balance
of trade, must be settled, and as the balance of trade between
the period embraced in May, 1888, and September, 1889, was
against the United States, the excess of the imports of merchandise into the United States over exports of the same
amounted to $47,000,000.
T H E MONOMETALIST WANTS GOLD BECAUSE I T W I L L CIRCULATE ABROAD
AND GETS I N H Y S T E R I C S I P I T GOES ABROAD TO CIRCULATE.

You tell us, gentlemen, that you want a gold currency that is
good and will circulate in all tho markets of the world. Why,
then, do you get so alarmed, why does Wall street get in hysterics, when it does circulate in all the markets of the world,
according to your projection and according to the inevitable
courses in the balance of trade? If you did not want it to be so
that it would go abroad, and if the country is to be thrown into
trepidation every time it goes to the point you aimed at, is it
not evident that something is wrong; had we not better look out
for some sustaining standard that will not run away so quickly
from the people who want to use it?
W e need gold, indeed, for our foreign trade. But why shall
we not have silver, too, to rely on for our immense local trade?
W h y not balance and supplement the use of gold?
* MOVEMENT OP GOLD PROM 13S9 TO 1S33,

The Director of the Mint further accounts for the movement
of gold abroad at the particular time, 1889, of which I am speaking, by stating that some 120,000 people from the United States
visited Paris during the exposition, and nearly all of them carried bills of credit, which necessitated settlement by New York
bankers with their London correspondents. In this wise he explains our loss of gold, though he candidly confesses that the
specific cause of erratic movements of gold is sometimes difficult
to ascertain.
I t will be seen, at least, that the movement of gold from this
country commenced two years before the Sherman law was
enacted, and its initiation can not be attributed to that measure.
In 1890, the Director of tho Mint explains the continued movement of gold to Europe by citing threo principal causes. There
comes in the operation of the McKinley tariff law, which has
been so much overlooked in this debate. The Director of the
Mint says:
1. Importations of merchandise were heavy, In view of possible' changes
of tariff, so that exchange was in demand to pay for imported goods;
2. The South American disturbances had affected the London market:
3. The rate of discount was higher in London than in Now York, and ho
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16
declares t h a t it is probable that the movement of gold was facilitated by the
readiness with which gold bars, of recognized weight and purity, can be obtained at the Government assay office in New York City, and he recommends
that the act of May 26,1882, which requires the Government to give in oxchange, free of charge, gold bars for United States gold coin be either repealed or modified to the extent of making the exchange discretionary with
the Treasury Department, and the imposition of a slight charge.

In 1891 the Director of the Mint again takes up the movement
of gold, and on page 47 shows that in February of that year the
movement of gold to Europe commenced again and did not cease
until July, causing the most serious loss of gold which this country
had sustained for years, amounting to $70,000,000 in six months.
In 1892, page 42, he makes a summary of the movement of gold,
and, commenting on the l&rere amount exported, concludes that
it is "accounted for on the face of the prevailing rates of exchange by the continued efforts of the Austrian and other European governments to enlarge their stock of gold."
I here give now an extract from the Director's Report of 1892,
which summarizes the matter:
SUMMARY o r MOVEMENT O P GOLD PROM T H E U N I T E D STATES.

I t m a y be interesting and valuable to recapitulate the movements of gold
from the United States in recent years.
The heavy export of gold commenced in May, 1888, aggregating to July,
1889, when the movement ceased, 361,435,989.
In the summer of 1890 another movement commenced,vwhich continued for
only two months, with a total export, in that brief period, of $15,672,982.
In February, 1891, still another movement of gold to Europe commenced,
which did not cease until the close of July, causing by far the most serious
loss of gold which this country has sustained for many years, The total
amount exported f r o m the port of New York during these six months was
$70,223,494.
In the month of February, 1892, gold exports again commenced and have
continued until this time, aggregating from February 19,1832, to February
15,1893, from the port of New York, the sum of $90,728,839, an amount in excess of any prior export movement of gold from this country. The movem e n t still continues, the shipments for the first six weeks of the present
calendar year reaching about $20,000,000.
The amount of the exports is unusual, and is accounted for, in the face of
the prevailing rates of exchange, by the continued efforts of the Austrian
and other .European Governments, to enlarge their stock of gold. I t is said
t h a t inducements have been given by the Bank of France to obtain gold to
replace some of its reserves that have been withdrawn.—Report of Director
o/ the Mint, 1892,

So then, Mr. President, if the financial officers of this Government, who have related every movement of gold and who have
explored every source of causation, know anything about their
business, it is not the Sherman act, and they have never so contended, but the movement of the gold-standard nations of the
Old World to draw further upon the supply of gold and to dislocate further the money of the people.
Thus, Mr. President, I have traced the movement of gold during the last year, and have traced it before and during the panic
of 1890; I have shown that our resources are bringing it back
now, with the Sherman law in force, and that its movement to
England in 1888 was due to the stringency in the gold-standard
nation not so much as in our own. Balfour has pointed out that
it was from France and the United States, with their large silver
resources, that gold-standard England found succor in her time
of need.
P R E D I C T I O N S O P T H E E V I L I N F L U E N C E S OP T H E SHERMAN ACT—THE D A T
O P JUDGMENT H A S COME.

Mr. President, I have no reason to defend the Sherman act.
I was never a friend of it, nor it a friend of mine; our relations
have always been considerably strained; and if I do not detain




17
the Senate, I beg to read to it now what I said when it stood upon
its passage:
If finance were the mere matter of a day I would give my adhesion to this
bill. It is better, in my judgment, that this bill should become a law than
t h a t no bill should become a law, and will be better for two, three, or four
years to come, in this respect: that it will increase the volume of your circulating medium, and will to that degree, for awhile, relieve to a certain extent the people of the country and do that much good. But this bill is a
mere makeshift; It is a mere expedient for the nonce. I t is a lawyer's plea,
put in to get the continuance of a case; and when the witnesses are ready
and the j u r y are about to give a verdict against "his client, it is fancied that
if yon make this experiment with silver and p u t it there as bullion, and then
p u t out some paper money, yon will throw a sop to Cerberus; that you will
quiet to some degree the anxieties and respond to the demands of the people for more money. But, Mr. President, there is a day of judgment not far
off that will sit upon this bill.
On the one hand, It will soon be contended that this had been a mighty
effort to restore silver, and t h a t it had failed; that paper money was being
emitted instead of hard money, and the first administration that could get
the power to do it would go to work and contract t h a t currency and draw in
the greenbacks, copying the unhappy experience which this nation went
through just after the civil war.
•

*

*

*

*

*

For two or three years, for a little while, this will in some degree please
the people by the declaration t h a t they have more money, and by actually
giving it to them, but silver is not going to rise to par under this bill. New
difficulties are going to beset and thicken upon our pathway. In the mean
time it will be contended, just as we see the gold men undertaking to contend here now, in the face of law, in the face of precedent, in the face of the
plain truth, t h a t we have adopted the single standard.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Instead of correcting his ill-conceived and
misused language, will go along and declare again that our bonds are payable in gold. The worla will be deceived by our action. The mystery or interpretation will evolve out of the smoke and cloud of this statute ideas not
contained in it. The New York papers and the financiers of the world will
so iterate and reiterate their views of It, it will be twisted and tortured and
turned In this direction and that; and mean time silver will be degraded as a
mere commodity to be warehoused, not a dollar of It being coined, not one
dollar of it more being sent out in its paper representative according to Its
dollar capacity.

Mr. President, three years have passed since I had the honor
to deliver those words and the day of judgment has come. And
singularly enough it is the first time that I have ever seen a
criminal driving himself to the gallows and singing songs of
hallelujah over his self execution.
Every word of prophecy which I then uttered is now history,
and a sad history at that. The bill, which I denounced as a makeshift, was so denounced by the national Democracy at Chicago,
and is now confessed to have been such by its authors. I t pleased
the people for a while with the idea that they were getting more
money, and by actually giving it to them, but it has run its
cdurse and the day of judgment has come, and none are now
more severe in their judgment or more anxious to set it aside
than those who propounded and passed it. While it was ostensibly a silver bill, and was called such, the contention that I predicted has been made, that while seeming to be for silver, it was
really a sly quasi adoption of the single gold standard. The
mystery of interpretation has evolved out of the smoke and
cloud of the statute Just as I anticipated, a construction at war
with silver, and not m its favor.
The New York papers and the financiers of the world have so
iterated and reiterated their views that it has been twisted and
tortyred in this direction and that, and meantime, the silver
which it pretended to be the friend of, has been degraded as a
mere commodity to be warehoused. Not a dollar of it has been
coined beyond the limit fixed by the bill, and not a dollar has
461

2




18
been emitted, even in its paper representative, according to its
dollar capacity. Never did retribution follow so swiftly and
so surely upon the ill-concocted measure of the time-server.
T H E GOOD AND I L L O F T H E SHERMAN LAW.

The Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN], who addressed us a
few days ago, begged that we would give the devil his due and
make acknowledgment of the virtues, while condemning the ills
of the measure which has become associated with his name.
I have no hesitation in giving the individual his due as far as
it can be administered in this world of abbreviated equities and
small opportunities. It is undoubtedly the fact, and for my part
I candidly admit it, thatwith all its ills, the so-called Sherman
law did confer upon this country a substantial benefit. I t must
be remembered in considering it that it had a two-fold projection; the one was an effect on silver, the other on the volume of
the currency.
In so far as it affected our currency, the result up to a recent
date was beneficial. I t helped *to stay the panic of 1890, and to
fill the gap caused by the flood of gold which went to the rescue
of English investments when the Barings failed. It is in its
effect upon silver that it has had the most injurious operation,
and that effect has been caused not by any necessary operation
of the act, but by that mystery of interpretation which I foresaw
would be evolved out of the smoke of the statute.
W H Y NOT R E P E A L AND NO MOB&?

My friends in Virginia have asked me, and gentlemen here
have put the proposition to me, " no man was more opposed to
the Sherman law than yourself, why shall you not vote to repeal an evil measure whose consequences you predicted and
whose evils you denounced?" Mr. President, that is sophistry
and not logic, Is there a man who having a raggedcoat will
throw it off in the dead of winter before he can get a new one?
Is there a man who is riding a spavined horse and will cut his
throat because he has not an Arabian charger to ride on? Is
there a man with an old shoe who will fling it into the gutter
and go barefooted upon the stones before he can make connection with leather and a shoemaker? Is there a peasant living
in a thatched cottage through which the winds blow and the
rains descend who will burn down his cottage in the midst of a
snow storm because he has dreamed of a castle in Spain or a
palace in the skies when he has nowhere else but in the cabin
to lay his head?
Mr. President, I am not in favor of the Sherman law; neither
am I in favor of going hatless, coatless, shoeless, barefooted,
and naked out into this winter storm.
T H E E F F E C T O F R E P E A L — T H E BLAND-ALLISON ACT.

Let me ask as to the effect of its repeal, do you propose to restore the conditions existing at the time of its repeal in repealing it? Oh, no, you repealed the Democratic measure, the
Bland-Allison act, which put forth $2,000,000 per month, by the
Sherman act, and you propose now, by repealing the Sherman
law, to destroy the Bland-Allison act, whose place it took, and
not issue, as it did, the 82,000,000 per month.
R E P E A L W I T H A SUBSTITUTE DEMANDED B T T H E DEMOCRACY.

Ah, but you say the Democratic platform said: " Repeal the
Sherman law." So it did. I t also said: " Repeal the McKinley
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19
tariff a c t b u t will you repeal the McKinley tariff act and leavo
us without revenue in the Treasury and with no tariff? Why,
then, should you repeal the Sherman law and leavo us with no
law for continued silver money? The Democrats called for a reduced tariff instead of the McKinley act, and for coinage of silver and gold without discrimination instead of the Sherman act.
SOME TEMPORARY B E N E F I T S FROM R E P E A L ACKNOWLEDGED.

Mr. President, I do not doubt that the repeal of tho Sherman
law would have some beneficial effect in many directions. I t
would give some immediate ease to business transactions, par*
tially through the hurrah that would be made that confidence
was now restored, partially also because there is no doubt that
some capitalists who wish to force the country to its repeal have
refused the loan of money until it is repealed.
Go to a bank, Mr. President, and ask to have your note discounted. " My dear sir, we will be happy to accommodate you,
"but let us wait until the Sherman law is repealed."
Transiently there would be some relief through the movement of money, either purposely withheld, or frightened into
retirement. But this monetary effect would soon wear off. Existing mostly in the emotional nature of man, though to a degree promoted by a scheme to contract our currency, it would
soon dissipate its influence, and the excited people who havo
been persuaded to expect great relief from repeal would erelong
stand confronting the merciless conditions of a contracted currenoy without a corresponding contraction of either taxation or
debt,
T H E E F F E C T O F R E P E A L ON BUSINESS WOULD B E L I K E T H E TEMPORARY
I N F L U E N C E O F T H E AOT ON T H E P R I C E O F S I L V E R BULLION.

The effect of repealing the Sherman law and putting nothing
in its place would act upon our commerce very much like the
passage of that bill acted upon the price of silver. Momentarily
the price of silver went up under the influence of the declarations so vociferously made by the friends of the bill that it would
go up, but when this influence was exhausted bullion again went
down. I much fear that commerce would revive in very much
the same manner under the influence of the declarations that the
repeal of the law would revive it; but I also fear after this emotional influence was over it would again drop just like the price
of silver dropped. The effect of the repeal in the excited condition of the public mind would be very much like the effect of
a patriotic air of music on a column of weary and hungry troops.
I t would quicken their steps and lighten their countenances,
and as long as the music lasted, the cheery feeling would run
along the line, but when the musio ended they would be weary
and hungry still, and would quickly realize, as weariness and
hunger increased, that they had a still longer march before
them, and were still without rest or nutriment.
DEMONETIZATION P R O P O S E D I N 1803 A F T E R T H E F A S H I O N O F 1873.

In the next place, we should remember that the unconditional
repeal of the Sherman law is the abrupt and total discontinuance
of silver coinage, and that it is fashioned after the Republican
legislation of 1873, which wo called demonetization because it
quietly dropped silver from our coinage laws. That legislation
went through the House of Representatives with a soft and catlike tread, and even the Speaker who sent the bill to the Presi461




20

dent of the United States, and the President of the United States
who signed it, did not know it. But this demonetization, patterned on that very one which we have denounced for twenty
years, will go through the Senate, if it goes at all, without a
substitute, with the lion's roar.
P R E S E N T CONTRACTION OF CURRENCY UNLESS T H E R E I S A SUBSTITUTE.

Mr. President, the unconditional repeal would contract the currency. The people would soon realize that some fifty-odd million
dollars, whicn the Sherman act supplies annually, would as suddenly stop its flow iuto the currents of trade. With a diminishing supply of money, is it not evident that the drooping energies
of trade could not be long sustained, and that we would not
profit by decreasing our resources at a time when the whole
country is calling for their expansion?
WOULD NOT S I L V E R F U R T H E R DECLINE I N V A L U E ?

Let me ask the question if the absolute repeal of the Sherman
law would not lead to a further decline in the present price of
our silver bullion? There is a solemn statute upon the statute
books of the United States to-day declaring for the preservation
of both metals at a parity. I ask you to mark its phraseology:
"Both metals." The writers of that statute knew the fact that
if you ^rould keep the metals at a parity the dollars would take
care of themselves, and that you can not take care of the dollars
without taking care of the metals out of which they are made.
So it did not say it would keep the dollars at a parity, but would
keep the two metals that make them at a jUrity, because then
parity was in the very heart of nature established and insured.
Now, then, will that pledge be redeemed if we shall pass a law
leading to the possible or probable decline in silver bullion?
Our silver currency in specie and in certificates representing
bullion is now about $600,000,000. They have declined some 40
or 45 per cent. Their further decline, and we can not estimate
to what extent it would go, would futher separate bullion and
legal values. This result will not only apply to our silver money,
but would apply to the silver of the world.
Silver bullion fell under the operation of demonetization in
Germany and the United States twenty years ago. I t fell again
abruptly under the demonetization in India but a short time
ago. Would not history repeat itself if we followed those examples now? Certain it is that our British friends on the other
side of the water are anticipating this result.
GREAT B R I T A I N A N T I C I P A T E S D E C L I N E ON S I L V E R F R O M R E P E A L WITHOUT
A SUBSTITUTE.

In the report of the British commission, which is known as the
Herschel report, it is said, on page 14:
A strong agitation exists in the United States withrespect to the law now
in force providing for the purchase of silver. Fears have heen and are entertained that there may come to be a premium on gold, and a strong pressure has been brought to bear upon the Government of that country, with a
view to bring about an alteration of t h a t law.

No one knows any better than, our British friends, who wrote
that report, how strong a pressure has been brought here; and
certainly they ought to know, for they were the persons whoassisted to bring it, and inspired it, and are still sustaining it now.
This report continues:
In December last a bill was introduced in the Senate to repeal the Sherm a n act, and another to suspend purchases under it.
461




21
That was when the honorable Senator from Ohio led off in
this new anti-silver movement.
Whether any such measure will pass into law it is Impossible to foretell—

Says the report—

but it must be regarded as possible; and although, in the light of past experience, predictions on such a subject must be made with caution, it is certainly probable that the repeal of the Sherman act will be followed by a
heavy fall In the price of silver.

Again they say, page 26:
The closing of the Indian mints would no doubt make it more likely t h a t
the United States would give up buying silver, and if the apprehension of
this were added to the cessation of the Indian demand, the eflect might be a
panic in the silver market.

Mr. President, it was a double-barreled gun that was shot at
silver. I t was of longer range than any that guards our native
coast. The trigger was pulled by a gunner who sits near the
British throne. One barrel struck in far-off India and another
struck in the miners' camps of the West, aimed for the purpose
of making that panic in the silver market which has ensued,
and which will probably yet ensue if you do as they ask you,
and repeal without any substitute the Sherman law.
I t is possible that the decline in silver has been discounted.
I t is possible that the destruction of our mines may so lessen the
quantity of production as that prices as at present may remain.
No one can tell amidst such confusing conditions. But the proposed experiment is dangerous indeed.
W I L L NOT I N C R E A S E OP TAXATION BE NECESSITATED?

What next? Increase of taxation is another apparent probable consequence of the repeal of the Sherman law without a
substitute. The British Commission on the Indian currency,
page 40, points out this consequence from such legislation. It
says:
The alteration in the relative values of gold and silver has so increased
the liabilities of the Indian government, in comparison with its revenues,
as to make it necessary, in the absence of other remedies, to Impose fresh
taxation.

The same effect is being felt here. There is shrinkage of revenue as money grows tight. There will be more shrinkage as
silver is further degraded by the repealing bill, and there will
be further shrinkage in property valuations as money and property value are further parted. Mr. Alfred de Rothschild
acknowledged this in the monetary conference. Present assessments of real and personal property will have to be reduced and,
meanwhile, the property-holder will be compelled to pay a tax
no longer represented by corresponding value or productive
power.
My distinguished friend, the chairman of the Finance Committee, evidently appreciated these facts as to the sequal of a
repeal without a substitute, for in his speech he contemplates
and argues in favor of two things: First, the repeal of the Sherman law; second, the creation of an income tax.
W I L L NOT SECURITY-HOLDERS AND P R O P E R T Y - H O L D E R S S U P P E R ?

Security-holders and income-gatherers will here again find that
not only are their securities reduced in value by a war on silver
and by shrinkage in the property which supplies them, but a
continuous shrinkage will follow the imposition of a new burden
on them, nor will that burden cease when levied on them in the
shape of an income tax. I t must extend itself to embrace in461




22
creased taxation on real and personal estate in the States. I t
will spread itself to the excises of the Federal Government, and
to every department of State and municipal taxation throughout
this nation. It was but this morhing that I read in one of our
journals that the experts were hard at work to see how much
more revenue might be squeezed out of increased whisky and
tobacco tax through the internal-revenue laws.
WOULD I T NOT L E A D TO R E V I S I O N O F PENSIONS AND SALARIES?

There is another result of this movement against silver which
Mr. De Rothschild pointed out in the monetary conference at
Brussels; which is that pensions will have to be revised and cut
down.
Here is a war against your pensioners; not against the fraudulent ones, but against the bronzed and war-beaten men of battle, whom every generous heart the world around loves to see
crowned with their country's honors and receiving its just rewards. You will have to cut down their pensions if you cut
down the values which support them. The salaries of all the
Government officials will have to be reduced next under the accursed shrinkage of the world's property, under the immense
weight of a debt to which you deny the means of redemption.
WOULD NOT UNCONDITIONAL R E P E A L L E A D TO F U R T H E R CONTRACTION OF
THE CURRENCY OR INCREASE OF THE PUBLIC DEBT?

As soon as the Sherman law was repealed it would be immediately claimed that all of our silver money was a mere subsidiary money, to be redeemed in gold.
Our stock of gold in the Treasury available for redemption
purposes is about $103,000,000, and it is now charged with the
redemption of $412,000,000 of uncovered paper money. In addi*
tion to this, it would be instantly charged with the redemption!
also, of some $600,000,000 of silver certificates and silver dollars,
making over $1,000,000,000 of subsidiary money resting on a gold
basis of $100,000,000, or an inflation of a billion of paper money on
the unbankable basis of 10 to 1.
If there be lack of confidence now in silver money* would not
that laok of confidence be immediately intensified? Would it
be possible for t h i B slender and overstrained stock of gold to
redeem this vast volume of other money? Might not the shook
which we now feel be merely a tremor compared to that which
would possibly result from the contraction of our metallic base,
it being impracticable With present resources in gold to support
the redemption of so large a volume of money? Confronting
that condition, two alternatives would bo presented to us to follow:
1. Tho Congress and the President would be urged to withdraw the greenback circulation of $346,000,000, an idea whioh
was recommended by Daniel Mannipg* when Secretary of the
Treasury, and which may now lurk behind the silent statesmen
who demand unconditional repeal of the Sherman act and no
more, although none are bold enough to say that it was tho cause
of this trouble.
2. If this further contraction of our currency > with all' the
miseries in its train with which we are familiar, is not the mysterious plan behind this movement, then the increase of the national debt must become the other inevitable alternative.
In order to provide gold to save the Treasury, shdUld there be
a rush of silver or greenbacks for redemption, the issue of bonds
m




23
would be proposed. Will confidence then be restored when the
already overtaxed gold resources are thus assailed? On the
contrary, confidence will be weakened, and those who have been
urgingthePresidenttoorder or recommend the issue of bonds to
provide gold will renew their demand, and it must be granted or
the attempted gold system will collapse and fall and bury the
honor of our country in its ruins.
PANICS CAN NOT BE ALLEVIATED BY CONTRACTION.

A panic can not be arrested by a contraction of the currency
any more than a panic in war can be arrested by the abolition of
troops. It occurs from lack of money; and if we were now to
contract the currency by stopping the emission of silver or silver certificates under the Sherman act, and put nothing in its
stead we would do a thing unprecedented in the history of financial legislation, and the very reverse of what England did when
the recent failure of the Barings occurred.
HOW WE TREATED T H E P A N I C O F 1S9&

In 1890, when the panic that has now burst upon us was threatening, it was retarded and prevented from then coming to a head
by the action of the Secretary of the Treasury, who used the surplus to buy bonds, and threw a million dollars of fresh money
into the New York market for seventy days successively.
This $70,000,000 which went from the Treasury was reenforced
by the Sherman act, which sent nearly five millions a month, as
the Bankers'Magazine, which I have before me, states; and such
was the demand in New York for the notes that were printed
under the Sherman act that the printers' press had to print them
in hundred and thousand dollar notes. So eager was New York
to devour them in the money famine that she could not wait for
the press to turn them out in small bills. So we come to the
rescue of the panic of 1890 with more money, and Great Britain
recognized her emergency in the same way.
H O W GREAT B R I T A I N T R E A T E D T H E P A N I C O F ISM.

On September, 1890, when the Bank of England received notification of the difficulties of the Baring Brothers, they went at
once to work to reinforce the falling market and supply it with
money. By the 15th of that month the Bank of England had
secured from a syndicate composed of the great London houses,
and guaranteed that it would be protected from loss to the
amount of £4,000,000 if it would liquidate the Barings' account,
and had also secured from the British Government the right to
issue seven millions of notes, provided that sum was used to loan
the Barings,
Thus on both sides of the water, and according to universal
experience, practice, and wisdom, they did not attempt to put
out the fire by pouring On the oil of contraction, but they did
help to assuage its flames by turning on the hose with more
money.
P R O O F S THAT WE N E E D MORE MONET.

W e are constantly told by many of our advisers that this com**
try does not need more money, that there is abundance in existence, and that the only trouble is that those who own it will
not allow it to circulate, preferring to hoard it. Tho phenomena
of the present situation, as well as certain settled conditions of
the country, alike show that they are mistaken in their diagnosis.
m




24
T H E MAKESHIFTS A B E SUBSTITUTES F O R MONET.

That we need more money is evidenced by numerous current
circumstances:
First. That all sorts of makeshift contrivances and inventions
are issued to take its place—certified checks, interest-bearing
duebills in large but unknown amounts, and in New York ana
Boston alone as much as $50,000,000 of clearing-house certificates.
T H E NATIONAL BANKS H A V E I N C R E A S E D CIRCULATION.

Second. It is proven by the fact that the United States bonds
are being hurried from all directions to be hypothecated at the
Treasury as a basis of national-banknotes, and that the nationalbank circulation based upon them has increased $20,000,000 since
this panic began.
T H E NATIONAL BANKS A R E ASKING- F O R MORE CURRENCY.

Third. By the fact that the national banks and their patrons
are all urging Congress to issue to them 100 cents on the dollar
of currency instead of 90 cents, which they now have. Surely, if
we had plenty of money these institutions, who would be the
first to command its use, by reason of the guaranties which they
can give to depositors, would not be knocking at the doors of
Congress clamoring for more.
SOLVENT SECURITIES CAN NOT COMMAND MONEY.

Fourth. That there is not enough money is evidenced by the
fact that the most solvent and certain securities can not command it. 1 have heard a gentleman within sound of my voice
declare that he had offered $150,000 of firstrdass securities for a
loan of $30,000, thus making the collateral 5 to 1. The situation is such that in all the money centers the question of safety
in the security has no effect in commanding currency.
NO DISTRUST O F CURRENCY OR S I L V E R MANIFESTED.

Fifth. If it were distrust of the currency which led to its abstraction from the marts of trade, surely those who are afraid
that it would spoil on their hands over night would be rushing,
like a green grocer who wishes to sell his perishable fruits and
vegetables while the dew of the morning Is on them and ere
they wither during the day. But, Mr. President, the people
who are charged with distrust of their currency are hoarding
away their silver dollars in their stockings and cherish them as
the one thing in life to stick to now. Furthermore, it is said,
there are capitalists who have got money and are afraid to risk
it for fear of payment in silver. Why do they hoard it when
there are millions of men who are ready to give them gold notes
in return, and it is perfectly legal to do'so?
T H E H I G H PREMIUM F O R MONEY.

Sixth. If there were plenty of money, how is it possible that
money commands so high a premium? How is it that if the silver dollar is avoided and distrusted, men are ready to pay a premium of from 3 to 5 per cent to get possession of it? How is it
that the Secretary of the Treasury tells you that gold has been
tapping at the door of the Treasury during this panic, begging,
to be exchanged for the silver dollars that lie there uncirculated and disused? How is it that the rate of discount is so high
in London? All these phenomena point unmistakably to the fact
that there is not enough money in the country or in the world.
4fU




25
SETTLED CONDITIONS SHOW W E N E E D MORE MONEY.

The settled condition which needs to be relieved, and that
which lies behind all of these phenomena, and most rivets the
conclusion that there is not enough money, is the fact that there
has been a continuous fall of prices in the staple products of the
soil for a quarter of a century, the greatest fall of prices in such
a time ever known in the history of the world.
Whatever tendencies of modern society may exist to promote
the fall of prices, whether it comes from the increase of productiveness by machinery or the increased area of production or
otherwise, the fact that prices have fallen from whatever cause,
the fact that debt has so greatly increased from whatever cause—
these two things reveal to you that between credit and redemption there is now a gap which the gold bridge can not cover, and
it is necessary, no matter what may have been the causes of this
recognized ill, to address yourselves to the unhappy condition
and to endeavor to meet its equities in enabling the world to better bear its burdens.
UNCONDITIONAL R E P E A L WOULD STRENGTHEN MONOMETALLISM.

Would not unconditional repeal vastly strengthen the cause
of monometallism, and putbimetallists at a disadvantage? I will
read just here from the report of Edward Atkinson, who was a
special commissioner sent by President Cleveland to Europe during his first Administration to investigate the conditions of
finance, and whose report, with Secretary Bayard's approval,
was submitted to Congress some years ago.
I t has seemed to me suitable to use every means in my power to remove
the discredit of silver, and to call attention to the powerful forces which are
now just beginning to act, but which can not fail to increase the demand for
silver coin over great continents.
I have reason to believe that my efforts in this direction may have partly
removed the dread of a prospective "avalanche of silver," as it is sometimes
called, from the continent of North America, especially from the United
States, and that this fear, which has been perhaps the most potent cause of
the unwillingness even to consider the question of bimetallism may be
wholly removed by the f u r t h e r investigation as to the relative production
of silver and gold which may ensue.
Another dread may also have been removed, to wit, that of a sudden
change of policy in the United States leading to the cessation of silver coinage, and also to the possible attempt to dispose of a considerable part of the
present stock of silver coin. The people of Great Britain are so wholly unaccustomed to the use of any representative paper money of less denomination than the five-pound notes of England or the one-pound notes or Scotland, that I think there has been no real appreciation of the manner in which
the silver certificates of the United States have passed into the circulation,
or how easily they are now maintained at par in gold, taking the place of
bank notes as they are disused, and of legal tender notes as they may be of
necessity, rather than choice, withheld in the Treasury.

Thus it will be seen that he recites the European dread of our
cessation of silver coinage and ensuing sale of discarded silver
as one of the great impediments to bimetallism in Europe. This
dread, which has so long retarded the opening of European mints
to silver, would now become a realized fact and an immediate
impending danger, for with the vast sum of discarded silver in
our Treasury we would be enabled at any time to deluge Europe
as she was once deluged by Germany, and she would understand
and interpret our action as an abandonment on our part of bimetallism, and a falling into line with her movement to monometallism.
Those who in America have masqueraded asbimetallists would
instantly unfurl the flag of monometallism. It would be heralded
over the boards of exchange; it would be rejoicingly boasted by
i6l




26
aHIJhe organs^of the money power, that this country had deliberately discarded silver, and turned the prow of the ship of state
toward the mainland of monometallism.,
That honest and sincere bimetallists would abandon their
cawse,I do not believe; but instead of being masters of the situar
tion, as they are here and now to-day, if they will but stand by
the convictions which they have so often professed, they will bie
at the mercy of their enemies; instead of being nearer the end
of their goal, they would have to begin anew their battle.
I t would require an act of Congress to restore the field, and we
would be where we were in 1873, when silver was first demonetized, with the disadvantage of knowing that it had taken place*
openly and deliberately.
MR. A . DE ROTHS C H I L D ' S VIEWS.

In this connection let me read the words of Mr. Alfred d a
Rothschild in the monetary conference.
fco sum u p the situation i n a few w o r d s -

He said—
London being the center of the financial world, we have to be doubly careful to protect our stock of gold; but if bimetallism were introduced throughout Europe we should have much greater difficulty in doing so and should
be obliged to increase our stock of silver whether it suited us or not. '

So if America stands by bimetallism, England will have to stay
nearer to bimetallism in order to protect her stock of gold; but
if we go to the sole gold basis, with a knowledge that English
investments in America may at any time contract the gold market and plunge us into a panic, it will be we who will be at the
mercy of the British money kings, and not they within the range
of our control.
T H E REMEDY SUGGESTED BY DEMOCRACY.

Having now described the situation as I understand it, what
should be the remedy? I will answer.
First. In general terms, more money; and that it should be
silver money, as there is not enough gold, and too much paper
already, is the inevitable conclusion which, as I think, should
follow.
Second. Speaking specifically as to remedy, I would say the
remedy which was recommended by the Democratic convention
of 1892; that is to say, the coinage of gold and silver without discrimination against either metal, or charge for mintage.
Third. The removal of the tax of 10 per cent on State banks,
that the people may employ their own energies in their own behalf; and, I will add, the banks, out of the very necessities of tho
case, have been employing them notwithstanding the tax.
Fourth. The reduction of the tariff to a revenue basis.
These plans stood tho assault of their enemies in 1892, and was
approved by the people, and the initial step should be the restoration of silver, because all our paper currency, whether issued
by Federal or State government, must rest on a metallic base.
A SOUND AND STABLE CURRENCY S H O U L D B E ESTABLISHED.

' I am in favor of a sound and stable currency, every dollar of
which should be maintained at par with every other dollar. This
currency should consist of gold and silver, the hard metallic
money of the Constitution to which our people have been accustomed for an hundred years, and also of paper money to such extent as it may be made redeemable and payable in gold or silver
coin. Every unit called a dollar of the whole money mass should
tm.




27
bo preserved Of an equal value with every other unit, whether tho
material which represents it be gold, silver, or paper. Any de*
parture from these principles of sound finance is sure to bring
confusion to commerce and to precipitate disasters upon all
classes of the people.
As our mintage laws now stand no gold dollar pieces are
coined, and our workingmen and retail dealers, who are compelled to take silver in quarters, halves, and dollars, by reason
of the fact that gold is not coined in such valuations, are not
guaranteed against their depreciation; they must inevitably
suffer.
The power of Congress to fcass all laws necessary to maintain
the parity of all our dollars cannot be questioned. The Constitution says it shall have power "to coin money and regulate the
value thereof." This "regulation of value" should not stop
short of the maintenance of the parity of all varieties of money.
THE PRESIDENT'S VIEWS I N HIS LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE COMMENDED*

The Democratic party has never preached any other doctrine
than this, and in the Chicago convention Of 1892 it gave to this
doctrine explicit and emphatio utterance. When the President
accepted his nomination upon tho Democratic platform, he expressed himself in terms well chosen. Instead of adopting tho
precise language of that platform* he adopted its principles and
he declared for the coinage of both metals well guarded
by wise
laws "onequal terms," and for tho equality of their u intrinsic
value or their purchasing power.*'
That utterance of the President in his letter of acceptance I
commend. I t is in a straight line with the platform on which
he was nominated, and is a decided improvement upon it in clearness of language. Indeed, I welcomed tho President's words for
they took somewhat of the cloud out of the inapt phrase of tho
Democratic platform and put light in its stead; and it fixed his
regard for bimetallism.
I was a member of the committee that framed tho Democratic
platform at Chicago, and at onetime that committee had agreed
that its declaration should read in favor of the "freO coinage of
both gold and silver, without discrimination against either metal,
but the dollar unit of both metals must be of fequal exchangeable
value," etc., etc., to my best memory.
But it was contended that there were many who were prejudiced against the word "free,*' and who attributed to it a deluge of silver, and a more enlarged meaning than was necessary;
that the words, "without discrimination against either metal,
or charge for mintage,?' meant free silver coinage, and that in
that shape and form it would be acceptable to the country >
Mr. President, a distinguished gentleman 'from New York*
Mr. J O H N D E W I T T W A R N E R , a near friend of the President,
and who is now a member of Congress, and who attended tho
Chicago convention, has, in a recent speech, declared that this
meant free coinage, and I presume there is no one who can read
that language understanding^ who can attribbute to it any other
meaning than that*
W H A T I S MEANT B T SOUND AND S T A B L E CURRENCY.

When we use the adjectives " s o u n d " and " s t a b l e " in refer*
once to currency, we must remember that we are not applying
them to an exact science* In the abstractions of mathematics
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we employ exact terms, and 2 equal to 2 is absolutely exact
world without end. In things concrete equations can only express approximations. All men are equal, we say in political
phrase. That means "before the law" only, for we know that
m no respect are any two men equal otherwise. Even twins
differ in every faculty and feature. No two leaves
in the forest
and no two grains of sand upon the seashore are (< exact" counterparts of each other.
The words "sound" and " stable" as applied to money, mean
simply that money must have fixity in its materials and equality
of function or faculty before the law; and that the units of the
mass be preserved at their parity of " intrinsic value or purchasing power." This is what the President has defined himself to
mean, and this is what intelligent men everywhere mean when
they use those terms.
T H E P A R I T Y O P MONEYS A L E G A L AND COMMERCIAL TERM.

The par of money or the parity of coins, it must be remembered, is a legal and commercial term. It does not mean that
the law can or will maintain one gold dollar at all times and circumstances in parity with itself,
for this is a world in which " the^
moth and rust doth corrupt, w and the abrasion of the coin may
destroy the parity with which it began with another gold coin
of the same material and denomination, and may cause it to be
rejected at its value.
When $100,000 during the panic was tendered at the Treasury
in coin it lost $3,000 of its value by abrasion. So you do not
mean by parity that you are going to preserve, guarantee, and
keep at all times any dollar which you emit a t a measurable
equality with every other dollar.
A DOLLAB NOT A DEBT BUT A R E D E E M E R OIP DEBT

Then, in the next place, parity of money does not mean that
one metal dollar should be redeemed in another metal dollar.
Such an idea has never had a place in the finance of any nation.
I t is a modern invention, a reversal of all sound finance that
ever existed, by the Republican party in order to destroy the
value of silver. If the silver dollar be treated as a promise to
pay a gold one why not write the promise on paper? If the
gold dollar is redeemable in a silver one why not write the promise on paper? The idea that one metal dollar is to be redeemed
in another metal dollar is an utter destruction of the meaning
of the terms and a revocation of the dictionaries of all languages.
I t is done upon the assumption that a dollar is a debt. A dollar has never been a debt. I t is not made for redemption but
is made to be the redeemer. If the dollar is a debt then the
United States is arepudiator, for the Treasury is refusing to-day
to give silver dollars for gold ones.
If the silver dollar is treated as a debt, then also the gold dollar must be treated as a debt, else the one dollar is not at parity
of function with the other dollar. Then one has a quality that
the other does not possess. Then the two metals are not treated
on equal terms. Then there is no sound and stable money, of
which every unit is legally equivalent to every other unit.
If both gold and silver dollars be treated as debts, then the
more dollars we coin the deeper we involve ourselves in bankruptcy. We would have to keep our silver money in the Treasury to redeem our gold dollars of debt. We would also have to
461




29
keep the gold dollars in the Treasury to redeem our silver dollars of debt.
Then, too, bimetallism by which it is designed to make gold
share the burdens of silver, and silver share the burdens of gold,
would double the burdens it is intended to divide. Then our
money, instead of being a sound and stable currency to circulate
amongst the people, would become a stagnant Treasury pond.
BIMETALLISM AND ITS THEORY.

Mr. President, I am in favor of bimetallism, and bimetallism
'can never be established except by following its theory throughout all of its legitimate conclusions. Bimetallism, as I understand it, is the use of both gold and silver as money at a fixed
ratio of value and as a legal tender for all debts and taxes, with
equal rights of coinage at that ratio. Monometallism is the use
of one metal as money. There is also a mixed system in which
one metal is used as a standard and the other as subsidiary coin.
This has been fitly termed humpbacked bimetallism.
TWO P R E V A I L I N G SENTIMENTS: 1. R E P E A L T H E SHERMAN LAW; 2. RESTORE
BIMETALLISM.

I will call attention just here to an important fact. There are
two sentiments in this country which have had the approbation
of every political party in it. We have been at the millenium
for more than twelve months on two propositions. They are to
be found expressed or implied in every political platform; they
have been advocated by nearly all orators upon the hustings.
There is a consensus of the American mind on these two propositions; that the Sherman law shall be repealed and that you
shall use gold and silver not in humpbacked bimetallism, not
as subsidiary coin, but as standard money of redemption, sustained by wise laws, with a power to defend itself in the market
and to discharge taxation and debt.
I stand here ready to carry out here and now both of these
ideas. I repeat at this juncture what was said so aptly and well
by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. WALTHALL], that if you
will but change the promise in the pending measure to the
word " e n a c t " I am-now here to carry out the will of the American people as it has been interpreted through all three parties
who have represented the people, and it can now be accepted so
far as I am concerned without another word of debate.
T H E ESSENTIALS O P BIMETALLISM.

But, Mr. President, speaking of bimetallism, let me say that
under existing humpbacked bimetallism it is not intended to nor
can it keep the two metals at a parity, for the refuse of the one
not coined as freely as the other must at once fall to commodity
value. I t is necessary to bimetallism that these things shall be
established:
1. That a ratio of value between the two metals be fixed by law;
2. That they be impartially coined at that ratio;
< 3. That they be made a legal tender for debts and taxes impartially ;
4. That they be impartially collected and disbursed in payments ;
5. That the more plentiful metal be freely used when there is
a scarcity of one of them.
L T H E LAW MUST F I X RATIO.

The ratio must be fixed by law. This is because there is no
natural ratio between the two metals, either as to amount or
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value. The production and supply of them is constantly varying in quantity. The demand for them is constantly varying in
intensity. Were there no ratio fixed by law and enforced by
law, in so far as it deals with them, the mercury in the thermometer would not be more changeable as temperature rises and
falls than would be the value of those metals as the supply and
demand rises and falls.
As conservatories, dwellings, and hospitalsare kept at a certain temperature to preserve vegetable and animal life, so a ratio
is fixed by law between the metals to preserve the parity between the units of the monetary mass.
2. COINAGE MUST B E I M P A R T I A L — T H E HAMMER TEST.

Unless the two metals be impartially coined at the legal ratio,
it is evident that the one or the other must sink in value, and
the one that is preferred jn coinage will rise, and the one that is
slighted must fall. Impartial coinage may be " f r e e coinage,"
or coinage at an equal seigniorage.
Seigniorage is charged for one metal and not for the other; the
one that has to pay it will,of course, fall in value, and the one that
is given free coinage will rise. If one is given free coinage
and the other denied the right of free coinage, of course the preferred metal will rise and the slighted metal will fall. As our
laws now stand the legal value of gold can neither rise or fall,
because the Government insures its legal value.
To say that it is stable is simply to say that measured by itself
it is always the same before the law in the same measure. Anyone who has the quantity of grains that make a dollar can take
i t to the mint and it is coined into dollars for him at the expense of the public. Anyone who has the amount of silver
which constitutes a dollar when coined can not have it coined in
similar manner at public expense, or even at his own expense.
In short, the law is partial to gold. Hit your gold dollar with
a hammer and it becomes a shapeless piece of bullion. Take
the disfigured lump to tho Mint, and at public expense it is reshaped for you into a dollar. If you knock the life out of it, the
law puts the life back into it; consequently, its life and legal
value are guaranteed by law. Hit your silver dollar with a hammer, and the law will .do nothing to restore it. I t is flung aside
as rejected and useless.
In other words, Mr. President, gold has a vitality and an immortal soul put into it by the law. Silver ifc left soulless like the
beasts that perish.
Edward Atkinson has written an article upon this subject in
the North American Review. He says:
The only definition of good money is that it consists of coin which Is worth
as much after it is melted into bullion as It purported to he worth In the
coin.

Admit it. He says " gold is good money because it is worth as
m u c h i n b u l l i o n a s i t i s i n coin," and "silver is bad money because
it is not worth as much in bullion as in coin." I admit all of the
plain propositions of this great statistician and metallic philosopher. Why did he not add a word and say that the gold was as
good in the bullion as a dollar because the American people
would pay for putting it back into the dollar if the dollar was
knocked out of it, and why did he riot add tho plain inference,
that if the law will simply put the dollar in the silver it will
Always find sufficient silver in the dollar?
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BOTH METALS MUST B E MADE LEGAL TENDER, IMPARTIALLY.

Evidently this is necessary, for if a man may loan one of manykinds of currency, and require gold in return, it is easy for traders to turn the country on a gold basis while the laws are declaring for bimetallism. Legal tender is the balance-pole of
money. W e leave the country like a dancer walking the golden
rope without a balance-pole if we do not make both moneys full
legal tender for all debts, and especially should it not be allowed
that one money be loaned and another demanded. All this has
been pointed out by Justice Miller in an able opinion in the Supreme Court well known, in which he dissented from the statutory construction of our legal-tender laws, and announced the
true philosophic view of the subject.
4 THE TWO METALS MUST B E I M P A R T I A L L Y COLLECTED AND DISBURSED I N
PAYMENTS.

Unless there be impartial collection and disbursement one
metal will be preferred by administrative influences disturbing
the operations of an equal law.
5. THE MORS P L E N T I F U L METAL SHOULD B E USED WHEN
SCARCE.

THE OTHER I S

To use that article which is most plentiful when another is
scarce is the universal instinct of private and public economy,
else we make more scarce what is already so, and discard the
bounty which is ready at hand.
Peculiar circumstances may vary the application of thesepiinciples, but they are principles not to be ignored.
T H I S I S A B I M E T A L L I C COUNTRY.

Mr. President, this country is in favor of bimetallism, and i t
is to its interest to be so. I t produces about two-fifths of the silver of the world, and is the largest silver-producing and goldproducing nation.
The great men who framed our institutions were bimetallista.
Our system was devised by Hamilton and Jefferson and approved
by Washington; and it existed, flourished, and fulfilled its functions from 1793 to 1873, during a period of eighty years. While
i t led to some perturbations, these perturbations were readily
corrected. When silver went away from us, gold stayed by us,
and when gold went away from us, silver stayed by us, and using
that metal which was move serviceable, we flourished as no other
nation has ever flourished since time began.
BIMETALLISM CONTEMPLATED FLUCTUATIONS O F PRODUCTION.

Bimetallism was not fashioned upon the supposition that there
would be equal production of the two metals, according to the
ratio of value fixed. Jefferson and Hamilton knew just as well
as we know now that when the system was established the production would necessarily vary thereafter as it had varied before.
And it was because of the fluctuations in production of both metals that bimetallism, rather than monometallism, was adopted.
If we had a monometallic gold basis, and our exchanges, assessments, and taxes were based solely upon gold, any decrease in the
production of gold would be calamitous, and any hoarding or cornering of it would be equally so; for the moment the gold stream
ceases to flow into the channels of trade there would be utter
Stagnation of commerce, with panic and bankruptcy impending.
So, if only silver were used as money, any causation which curtailed its supply would be disastrous.
One hundred years ago, when we stood upon the threshold-of
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our career as a nation, these facts were fully comprehended by
the sagacious men who framed our monetary system. They
knew that, in the nature of things, the supply of gold would fluctuate, and that the supply of silver would fluctuate, and they
concluded that these fluctuations would be less shocking to society if our system were built upon two metals rather than one.
If the supply of gold failed, the supply of silver might be bountiful. If silver failed, gold might be "bountiful, while, in the long
run, through the tract of many years, there might be an approximate equality in the production of the two metals. In tho
history of our country from 1792 to 1892 their wisdom is demonstrated.
For the first fifty years, or from 1792 to 1841, the production of
silver in the world was greater than that of gold. From 1841 to
1848 gold predominated. In 1849 silver a little predominated.
In 1850, owing to the discoveries of gold—in Australia and California—gold production took the lead and held it for thirty-two
years, until 1881, when the two metals were nearly equal. In
1882 silver took the lead and still leads it. But when we sum up
the whole tract of time from 1792 to 1893 we find that throughout
that period the production of gold has been $5,633,900,0CK), the
production of silver $5,104,961,000, a total of $10,738,869,000,
in which vast sum gold exceeded silver by $528,947,000. This
small variation in so long a time shows that present troubles are
not due to fluctuations in the production of the metals.
A SINGLE STANDARD CAN NOT MAKE A SOUND AND STABLE CURRENCY.

The experience of the world has shown that a single standard
of gold or silver can never make a sound or stable currency. In
single-standard Great Britain the price of gold has varied thirteen times within a single year. Gold goes to a premium in itself
at some junctures. Statistics show that there is more fluctuar
tion in the value of one metal used as money than can occur with
two metals used as money.
S I N G L E STANDARD D O E S NOT P R E V E N T P R E M I U M ON GOLD.

There seems to be some vague dread going on in this country
that if you have the full coinage of silver gold will go to a premium . Gentlemen, you are dreading something that has already
happened. You are afraid of a ghost which has already flitted
before you. You are afraid of a ghost which the single standard does not prevent from troubling you again. If the premium
on gold is not expressed in another metal it will express itself
in gold, and while at the single standard. Although it would
seem paradoxical to say so, you can never keep gold at a parity
with itself. A premium of 13 per cent on gold has recently
obtained in gold-standard England. Why do you say, then, that
you dread the coinage of silver because you will have to pay a
premium on gold. Is it not already being required in all countries whether of the single or double standard, and does it not
show the scarcity of gold? You will eventually reduce the premium gradually on gold if you have silver. Why? Because gold
will not have that monopoly that it enjoys when you have silver.
I L L U S T R A T I O N S PROM MECHANICS A N D NATURE.

The bicycle turns over with the slightest jostling, and the twowheeled carriage moves smoothly along,even if there be not mathematical exactness in the perimeter of the two wheels. A onelegged man must hop unevenly in his gait, but a two-legged
461




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man may go at an even gait, even if one leg is a little shorter
than the other. The two ears of man are never precisely the
same in detecting sound, but each ear rests the other, and both
together are more astute than one. There is hardly any man
who has not some stigmatism of one eye or the other, yet each
eye rests the other, and human sight is keener and more endui>
ing from the possession of the two organs than if we were a oneeyed Cyclops race.
The price of coffee is steadied by the production of tea; the
price of corn by that of wheat, rye, and oats; the price of beef
by that of pork; the price of wool by that of cotton; the price of
brandy by that of whisky and wine; the price of railway transportation by that of water transportation. In short, the value
and use of everything in nature is affected by the value of other
things which have a similar use. And the Creator of the universe* wisely providing against perturbations, or reducing them
to a minimum on their Ul consequences, has not relied upon a
single standard in anything for the continued processes and progress of the world.
DEAD S I L V E R B U L L I O N AND L I V E S I L V E R MONEY HAVE NO RATIO.

The Senator from Oregon [Mr. DOLPH] yesterday uttered a
great argument against silver upon the idea that silver bullion
was depreciated. What has silver bullion rejected and depreciated got to do with live silver? There is no more comparison between silver bullion refused and discarded and the silver
that is invested with debt-redeeming and tax-paying power than
there is between " t h e dark, deserted house" when the soul of
man has gone from it and man created in the image of his Maker
with his senses keen and his intellect bright and his energies
summoned for effort and encounter.
W H E N I T I S MOST CERTAIN T H A T R E F U S E BULLION, I F COINED, WOULD R I S E
TO P A R , I T W I L L B E CHEAPEST. U T I L I T Y MAKES VALUE.

The following proposition, which I now make, will seem at
first blush a paradox, and yet no proposition is more capable of
demonstration, either by logic or by the observations of experience. The proposition I make is this: That at the time when it
is most certain that bullion, if coined, would rise to par value,
that portion of bullion which is refused the right of coinage will
be cheapest, and may indeed be cheaper than staple commodities
of consumption, because it is a luxury and not a necessary of
life.
A t the time when money is most dear men are ready to make
the greatest sacrifices to get it. They will sell property for a
song. They will make superhuman exertions of labor. They
will do anything in reason to get the one thing that will relieve
them from oppression of debt and taxes. At such a time all
property values are lowest, and as the bullion that is denied
the right of coinage is mere useless property, unless used in the
arts, il is quite certain t h a t it will be lowest at the time when
money is most dear. Aye, it will then, in all likelihood, be
cheaper in proportion than wheat or corn, or meat, which men
must get in order to live, or than wool or cotton, which they
must alsoget in order to be clothed. It becomes a mere luxury,
useful only in jewelry and in the arts of ornamentation.
Men forego such uses in hard times, and hence the refuse bullion will fall below the plane of value of the things which they
461—3




34
must have. It should be borne in mind by those who seek un,
derstanding of, the money question that it is only tho refuse bullion that is low in value. Let a man order a suit of clothes, and
have a scrap of! cloth left over; let him buy bricks for a house,
and have a pile left over; let him order a dinner and leave a dish
but partially tasted; let him build a bridge, and have enough
timber to build: a span left over. Does not everyone know that
although the intrinsic elements of cloth, of brick, of food, of lumber are all still there, t h a t they have been, by the refusal of use
in the manner for which they were procured, suddenly dropped
in the scale of value, to be sold for a song to the junk dealer or
the scrap hunter?
Who cares for the silver scraps that are not made into money?
Who would turn on his heel to pick up the discarded and rejected
metal? But, t h e n e x t day j let the man who got the suitof clothes
need more cloth and be unable to get it; let the man who built
the house need more brick for an addition; let the man who
feasted be hungry and without food; let a span of the bridge be
swept away by high waters, and at once that which would have
been,thrown into waste finds its value restored by the circumstances which surround it. The muskets of Grant's and'Lee's
armies had every intrinsic element in them the day after the surrender of Appomattox that they had before, but where was their
value? The old warships of the world had every element of intrinsic value when the iron-clads came upon the deep that they
had before, but where was commercial value when they were no
longer useful? I t is utility that makes value.
When we destroy the utility of silver you crush out of it the
elements of; value that it possessed before the destruction. I t is
we, not silver, t h a t is to blame that it is discarded and refused
to be made into money at a time when the hungry world is hold*
in£ up its hands and begging us to give it the silver tool to work
with the silver redeemer to relieve the bondage of debt.
FIXITY I N VOLUME OF MONEY: DOES NOT MAKE A SOUND AND STABLE CURRENCY.

Fixity in volume of money is not an element of a sound and
stable currency. On the contrary, fixity in volume would destroy it. Population, business wants, products, increase every
day. The volume of money is the measure of their value. If
money remain at a fixed figure, while its uses increase, prices go
down, money goes up, and soundness and stability are lost. A
ship must be sound and stable in all its timbers, but if it is so
rigid in its course that it will not rise and fall with the waves
i t is not a sound and stable ship* but one that will go to the
bottom in the first storm. So with money. If it does not increase in volume with multiplied uses prices will fall, ; and if it
decreases with falling prices panic is inevitable.
LIMITATION IN VOLUME OF MONET NECESSARY.

But while fixity is fatal to the beneficent functions of1 money,
limitation to its volume is indispensable.
But for the limitation money would lose all value.
If golden or silvery apples grew on trees, who would care for
them? i If diamonds fell in rain showers or grew like daisies, who
would care for them? Would their "intrinsic elements give
them intrinsic value "? Oh, no. For if everybody had them in
abundance they would give nothing for them in exchange.
The natural limitation^ upon the production.of the precious
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metals induced mankind to make money out of them—that is to
sav, the two things combined: 1. Their intrinsic elements, which
are capable of manifold uses; 2. Connected with the limitation
upon their quantity which nature has made—and out of their
suitability for purposes of exchange grew up the almost universal theory and practice of bimetallic money. In this we contemplate and take the chances of nature, the equitable mother of us
all.
I F NOT S I L V E R MONEY—WHAT?

If we do not increase our money in silver, what are we going to
increase it with? W h a t else is there to look to? There is a condition and not a theory for us to confront. If any are opposed to
increasing the mone^ of our country in silver, let the chairman
of the Finance Committee—let some of these able statesmen who
recognize their responsibility to meet this condition—answer my
question and let me carry to my people some information or hope.
If you will not take silver, tell me what will you take? Is there any
one here who can answer me? "Don't everybody speak at once."
[Laughter.] In lack of information as to anything else, I must
confront this condition as best I can with all my imperfections of
information and experience.
S I L V E R OR P A P E R T H E A L T E R N A T I V E .

It is either silver or paper we must choose. Then who is it
who stands here for sound and stablemoney ? I t is not you who are
proposing to embark this country now with its billion of paper
money with only $100,000,000 of gold to redeem it "upon a still
broader expanse of paper? You can not call yourselves advocates of sound and stable money with such a plan before you. I t
is the monometallist who proposes to carry our people again
upon the dark, uncertain, unsound, and unstable waves of more
paper money; without a sufficient metallic base, or, in the other
alternative, he does not propose to give the people any at all.
I t may be that this is the idea. If that is the proposition it has
never been disclosed; but hope has been held out that we will
come to silver after awhile. When?
GOLD I N S U F F I C I E N T , W H Y NOT S I L V E R ?

Why shall we not have free coinage of silver, or coinage on
equal terms, properly supported now; and why should trade be
alarmed at the idea of restoring a money to which we were accustomed for eighty years? Evidently gold is insufficient as a
basis of a larger amount of paper money. Then we have an insufficiency to sustain the volume of money necessary in the discharge of such vast debts as are due from our people.
In 1892 the United States produced 633,000,000 of gold, of
which $16,000,000 was used in the arts, and there was little difference in the figures of 1891, leaving in each year not as much
as $16,000,000 t o go into coinage from current stock.
The world's product of gold has only been $130,000,000 in 1892,
$120,000,000 in 1891, and $113,000,000 in 1890, and with probably
about one-half of this quantity consumed in the arts. I t is quite
ovident t h a t if wo were looking to gold alone to rescue the
world, and if the whole ^vorld should go on the gold standard—
England on tho gold standard, Germany on the gold standard,
Austria on the gold standard, Australia on the gold standard,
and France quivering upon the edge of the gold standard—if all
these great nations are to be gathered around t h e small lump of
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$60,000,000 of gold per year, this is indeed " a dainty dish to set before the king "—rthis is the seed of anarchy, despotism, and ruin.
The paper money of the world now is about $2,500,000,000.
NO J U S T F E A R OP S I L V E R DELUGE PROM E U R O P E .

Ah, you say, there will be a deluge of the silver of the world
to America. I wish I could believe it. I should be still more
in favor of silver than I am now, f o r i think a little deluge is just
what the famishing and crying world is needing; but, Mr. President, there is no such hope. Are the opinions of our financial
experts worth anything? Did Secretary Windom know what he
was talking about when he advised the American Congress that
there is no accumulation of silver bullion anywhere in the world;
that Germany had long since .disposed of her stock, and that
there was no danger of an avalanche?
In a report which I have, but will not read in full, it appears
that the fact is, so far as a deluge is concerned, that Europe has
some reason to fear, but we none. Why? Because we are a silver-producing nation and a silver-possessing nation, while Europe is not silver producing and can not share what she is using.
T H E E U R O P E A N P E A R O F S I L V E R DELUGE NOT U N F O U N D E D .

Europe is naturally afraid that we are trying to unload our silver upon them, but we know that they have little or no silver to
unload upon us.
Here is an instructive statement from Secretary Windom's
report of 1890:
There is, in fact, no known accumulation of silver bullion anywhere in
the world. Germany long since disposed of her stock of melted silver coins,
partly by sale, partly by recoinage into her own new subsidiary coins, and
partly by use in coining for Egypt. Only recently it became necessary to
purchase silver for the Egyptian coinage executed at the mint at Berlin.
NO AVALANCHE P O S S I B L E FROM PAST PRODUCTS O F S I L V E R .

The Secretary continues in his report:
I t is plain, then, that there is no danger that the silver product of past
years will be poured into our mints, unless new steps be taken for demonetization, and for this improbable contingency ample safeguards can be provided.
*
Nor need there be any serious apprehension t h a t any considerable p a r t of
the stock of silver coin of Europe would be shipped to the United States for
deposit for Treasury notes.
There is much less reason for shipping coin to this country t h a n bullion,
for while the leading nations of Europe have discontinued the coinage of
full legal-tender silver pieces, they have provided by law for maintaining
their existing stock of silver coins at par.
In England, Portugal, and the states of the Scandinavian Union there Is
no stock of silver coin except subsidiary coins, required for change purposes,
the nominal value of which is far in excess of the bullion value. Germany
has in circulation about $100,000,000 in old silver thalers, but ten years have
passed since the sales of bullion arising under the anti-silver legislation of
1873 were discontinued. It is safe to say there is no stock of silver coin in
Europe which is not needed for business purposes.

And ! may well associate with this statement the following remarks and analytical statement of W. P . St. John, esq., president of the Mercantile National Bank of New York. Says he:
Indisputable records prohibit the assumption of an excessive production
of silver in the world. The entire world's coinage of silver during any period of five years, counting our Treasury absorption as coinage, has exceeded
by average the annual production of silver. F o r the five years ending with
1889 the average annual coinage of silver has exceeded the annual production of silver by $10,700,000. In 1889 the production exceeded the coinage;
b u t in 1890 (for which I have not figures) our required Treasury absorption
was enlarged. The world's records t h u s manifest a recoinage of foreign
moneys by one or more nations, for which a sufficient explanation is India's
and China.'s absorption of Mexican dollars.
Estimates, too moderate to be disputed, of the world's annual gross re461




37
qnirement of silver by average of the five years ending 1889 (ending 1890 for
India), are as follows—all at our coin value:
Art consumption in Europe and the United States
£00,000
Art and money use of silver in China, Japan, Ceylon, and Africa. 17,000, COO
Retained at home, of their annual production, by Mexico, Central
and South America, exceeding
8,000,000
Spain and Austria's full tender and subsidiary, and the subsidiary coinage of the other continental States
12,500,000
British India's net absorption, exceeding
35,000,000
. United States mint absorption prior to 1890, about
32,500,000
World's average annual requirement of silver prior to our purchase act of 1890
137,500,000
Increase of United States requirement now 54,000,000 ounces, coin
value $70,000,000, less $32,500,000
„ _ 38,500,000
Total average requirement
World's greatest annual production of record

176,000,000
165,000,000

Average shortage of annual production of silver for present
requirement
11,000,000
This present yearly excess of gross requirement over the largest production of silver in the world seems to be verified by the record of the United
States imports and exports of silver for 1891. During the nine months to
October 1 our exports of silver have exceeded our imports of silver by $5,526,846. I t seems further to be confirmed by the year's decrease of about
$7,000,000 in the supply of silver bullion accumulated in New York. The New
York accumulation of silver has been caused by fluctuations in the price
occasioned by speculations upon the predicted legislation, anfl was greatest
In amount before the act of 1890 became a law.
T H E QUESTION O F WAGES.

Ah, but it is said, you will hurt the laboring man and destroy
wages if you give him a cheap dollar. I have never heard that
argument from a laboring man, and silver can never be a cheap
dollar. I t has been invented for him and used in his behalf by
those who wanted monometallism. Are wages higher in America, which has stuck to silver, or in gold-standard England, which
has stuck to gold? Are wages better in the silver United States
or in gold-standard Germany, which has stuck to gold?
The gold protectionists who would outlaw silver to enhance
gold value use the same delusive arguments to workingmen that
all protectionists use when they discuss the tariff. The tariff
protectionist says, make the manufacturer rich at the expense
of the people and he will share his profits with the workingman
and give him high wages. This bubble burst in 1891-'92,and the
story of lower wages that came on with the McKinley bill is now
historic, and helped to overthrow the Republican party that
preached the fallacy. The gold protectionist is now dressed in
the old clothes of the tariff protectionist, and is saying " Help
me to protect the gold owners of Australian mines and gold
creditors and I will give you gold wages." Have these protectionists of all classes forgotten that last year the workingman
was told how low the wages were in England, a gold-standard
country, and in Germany, a gold-standard country, and how
much better they were here, where we were still clinging to
silver? Has not the laborer yet learr.ed that monopoly never
does divide fairly with him, and that his chance in life is only
under free and equal laws?
The Royal Commission of Great Britain, appointed to inquire
into the changes in the relative values of the precious metals, in
18S7, replied to the argument, " that low prices and dear money
help the wageeamer," and said:
That a fall in prices benefits the capitalists who have lent money for fixed
periods at a fixed rate of interest, and in such cases a smaller share of the
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product of labor is loft to be divided between the producer and the wageearning classes. I t is difficult to suppose that tlie latter can for any length,
of time receive larger real wages out of the smaller share of the gross product of labor which is divisible between themselves and the producer.

This argument seems to me to be conclusive that the interests
of the wage earner is not on the side of those who are contracting and appreciating money, and who are leaving to the producers of wealth who employ them a less profit for division between
themselves and their, employes.
HONEST MONEY I S T H E MONEY O P T H E CONTRACT.

But we are told that we must have honest money. So say I—
honest money. W h a t is honest money? " W h a t is truth ? "
asked Jesting Pilate, and turned away, not waiting for an answer. I will give answer. I know of no money which can be der
scribed as honest except the money of the contract. The money
which a man promises to pay is honest money , if that money, not
another kind, be required in payment. I t is quite obvious that,
whoever else we may injure, it is impossible, in the present; condition of things, to injure the creditor classes generally.
T H E NATIONAL DEBT SCARCE A FACTOR NOW.

I eliminate out of all discussion here our national debt. I t is
no longer a factor upon the question of our Federal currency *
I t is but $585,000,000, and there are $22,000,000 per annum of inT.
terest charge. Not by law, but by custom, we have reversed
by Treasury interpretation the theory of bimetallism, and have
given the creditors of the Government an option, which belongs,
to the people, and they have chosen gold.
So insignificant in proportion is the remaining volume of our
public indebtedness, so misunderstood and misrepresented should;
we be if we at this late day adopt another rule, that I lay aside
that common-law maxim, malus usus abolendus est; I would dono injustice to any public creditor; I would not quibble over a,
forced condition, the reversal of which, at this late day, might
injure our credit; I would not make enemies of those who should,
befriends; I would not revive a useless controversy.
MORE S I L V E R DEBTS T H A N GOLD DEBTS: DUE* AND NO DANGER EXISTS O F
I N J U R Y TO T H E C R E D I T O R CLASS.

As to the great mass of general creditors, therq aro moremen ;
who. hold debts that are ; solvable in. silver than debts that are
solvable in gold, and as to the great mass of credits that are
solvable in any kind of metal, if the creditors could get to-day
silver bullion, rejected, dishonored,, demonetized, unstamped
as legal-tender money, they would then generally get an equivalent in value for all they have loaned. Now, ifi you put the
stamp upon it and make it a dollar, they would get something
more i n value than the dollar which they lent.
I agree that all creditors, should get the value of the- dollar
loaned. But that value by the contract is to be in the dollar and
not in other things. In short, a contract to pay a dollar is fulfilled literally, truly, and equitably by paying the dollar that, the
contract called for. If we go beyond tho contract, and if i t is to
be contended that we are to give to; the creditor a dollar, measuring its value by the things t h a t a dollar will buy, if this is tho
construction to be put upon the contract, and we are to look beyond its terms for its solution, then the contract is twofold, and
we are only required to pay the creditor the value of his dollar in
other things.
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39
Now, if we are to pay a dollar valued in other things for the
dollar borrowed, my reply would be manifold:
First. That silver bullion will to-day buy as much of anything
that a man can buy with his dollar, as any dollar ever borrowed
would have bought at the time it was loaned; for silver bullion
will to-day get as much wheat, corn, cloth, or other commodities as it ever would.
Second. If we make a dollar to pay our creditor out of silver
bullion, the dollar function imparted to'the bullion will undoubtedly increase its commerciar exchangeable value, and if we were
to pay every! creditor, private and public, in a silver dollar, we
would :pay him something that would buy him more of this
world's goods than the dollar he loaned would have bought at the
time; and there is nothing that we-can-do with regard to silver
that will not through its agency return to the creditor as much
or more value than he loaned.'
Third. If the creditor Shall insist in looking beyond his contract to the alleged equity, and Infeist that he possesses a right
extraneous to his contract, and demand the equivalent in com-,
modities of the dollar he loaned, the debtor must, on the other
hand, .possess the like equity to look beyond the terms of the
contract and pay the creditor, as measured by commodities, only
the value that he loaned; and if the principle shall be applied of
looking to extraneous equities, even the silver dollar that will
be paid for anterior debts would have to be scaled and cut down
in order to administer the equity between the parties.
H O L D E R S O F BONDS AND STOCKS S H O U L D SUSTAIN S I L V E R .

. The holders of bonds and stocks are now suffering from th&
financial conditions by whioh
we. aresurrounded far more than
they could possibly suffer !if all the silver in the world were
coined by the United States. If the banks that have failed, and
theif names are legion jcouldpaytheir depositors in silver money,
how much more valuable would be their stock? If the railroads,
which are in the hands of receivers, could pay 'their bondholders in silver, how much more valuable would be their securities?
If the mortgagors, whose shrunken lands are now unable to bear
the burden of the mortgages upon them, could only get silver t o
pay them off, how happy would be the mortgagees?
Mr. President, I have a statement here taken from the Bankers' Magazine for January, 1801, which gives a table of the decline in the leading railroad stocks during the six months preceding the^panic of 1890, when this storm was getting its work
Well in:
Stocks.

!

Highest
price last
spring.

550/746,373
Atchison, Topeka and S a n t a F e
54,762,500
Canadian Pacific
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and
21,898,299
St. Louis
Chicago and Northwestern
— 36,711 , m
Chicago and Northwestern, preferred. 33,053,136
36,649,207
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. P a u l
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul,
27;090,836
preferred.
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific™... 44,771,330
85,170,055
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
11,727,450
Chesapeake and Ohio
24,820,000
Central P a c i f i c . . . . . . . v .
461




Lowest
price December 8.

Loss in
value.

$25,620,919 $25,500,052
44,525,000 10,237,500
15,110,508
30,749,798
30,038,154
20,769,802

6,787,791
5,961,696
3,014,9S2
15,879,405

21,277,823
30,462,960
64,068,505
6,668,550
19,645,000

5,813,013
14,308,360
21,101,550
5,058,900
6,175,000

40
Table of the decline in the leading railroad stocks during the six months preceding the panic of 1890—Continued.
Stocks.
Delaware, Lackawanna and W e s t e r n .
Delaware and Hudson
Erie Railway
Erie Railway, preferred
E a s t Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia.
E a s t Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia,
first preferred
East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia,
Illinois Central
Louisville and Nashville
Lake Shore
Michigan Central
Missouri Pacific
Missouri, Kansas and Texas
Missouri,Kansas and Texas, preferredManhattan Consolidated
New York Central and Hudson
New Jersey Central
Norfolk and Western
Norfolk and Western, preferred
Northern Pacific
Northern Pacific, preferred
New York, Ontario and Western
New York and New England
Ohio and Mississippi
Oregon Navigation
Oregon Short Line
Oregon Transcontinental
Pacific Mail
Philadelphia and Reading
Richmond and West Point Terminal..
St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba..
Southern Pacific
Union Pacific
Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf

Highest
price last
spring.

Lowest
price December 8.

Loss in
value.

$39,161,000
42,875,000
23,010,000
5,933,145
3,162,500

$32,215,500
32,340,000
13,357,500
4,012,343
1,787,500

$6,945,000
10,535,000
9,652,500
1,920,802
1,375,000

8,910,000

7,850,000

2,060,000

4,041,250
47,620,217
44,400,000
56,453,643
19,628,264
37,649,297
9,571,030
4,046,250
27,957,887
99,265,413
23,938,522
1,741,250
17,921,250
19,355,000
31,843,146
13,220,931
10,450,000
5,150,000
25,950,000
13,906,578
20,094,100
9,475,000
19,089,965
19,775,000
23,000,000
38,963,617
41,542,751
12,032,314

2,543,500
37,488,259
32,049,000
49,961,165
15,552,706
25,178,710
5,046,540
2,275,000
22,342,414
85,180,456
17,325,156
910,000
13,905,000
9,310,000
21,450,194
8,135,957
5,650,000
3,575,000
18,240,000
4,461,242
3,815,946
5,415,000
10,334,362
9,161,250
18,400,000
29,763,874
24,347,400
5,373,668

1,497,500
10,131,958
12,360,000
6,492,478
4,075,558
12,470,587
4,524,490
1,771,250
5,615,473
14,084,967
6,613,366
831,250
4,016,250
10,045,000
10,392,952
5,084,974
4,800,000
1,575,000
7,710,000
9,405,336
16,278,154
4,060,000
8,755,603
10,613,750
4,600,000
9,199,743
17,195,351
9,658,646

Look at that table, with its shrinkage of millions upon millions of value. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad
Company lost $25,000,000 in trying to keep up to the gold standard. Look at my own State, where the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad Company lost $5,000,000. Look how the great Richmond and Danville line lost $10,000,000 in the twinkling of an
eye. Ah! if those stockholders and bondholders could only have
a little silver money, or even silver bullion, to fill that aching
void, would not they be happier than they are now, looking
down the great gold canyon and seeing nothing at the bottom.
T H E PRODUCTION AND T H E V A L U E O F SILVER.

I t is claimed by some, and not without plausibility to the
minds of the uninformed, that the increased production of silver
has been the cause of the decline in the value of silver bullion.
In the case of commodities which are sold upon the open markets of the world at such prices as they may command, undoubtedly the law of supply and demand controls the price. When
they are scarce the price goes up, and when they are low the
price goes down; but this law has little effect upon the value of
the precious metals when they are allowed the right of coinage
at a legal ratio.
That the existing increase in the production of silver is not
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41
the cause of the fall in its bullion value is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that silver bullion fell at a time when there
was a continuous excess of gold production. In round numbers
the world's production of gold and silver from 1870 to 1880 was
as follows:
Year.
1870
1871
1872
1873.
1874
1875
1876

Gold.

Silver.

8123,000,000
119,000,000
113,000,000
112,000,000
111,000,000
111,000,000
111,000,000

$64,000,000
68,000,000
71,000,000
75,000,000
79,000,000
82,000,000
88,000,000

Year.
1877
1878
1879
1880

Gold.

Silver.

$116,000,000 $93,000,000
120,000,000 97,000,000
114,000,000 99,000,000
108,000,000 101,000,000
1,258,000,000 817,000,000

In 1870, gold $123,000,000, silver $64,000,000; 1871, gold $119,000,000, silver 68,000,000; 1872, gold $113,000,000, silver $71,000,000; 1873, gold $112,000,000, silver $75,000,000; and so on all down
the line, showing that in the decade between 1870 and 1880 there
was produced $1,258,000,000 of gold and but $817,000,000 of silver.
Thus in one decade the production of gold exceeding silver was
nearly $500,000,000.
Nevertheless, silver bullion did not increase in value, which
would undoubtedly have been the case if excessive production
of gold necessarily cheapened it and lesser production of silver
necessarily enhanced its value.
Clearly we must look beyond the relative productions of the
two metals for the cause of depreciation in silver bullion. Between 1687 and 1873 the lowest ratio of silver to gold was 16.25,
in 1813, and the highest ratio was in 1760,1 to 14.14.
As long as mints were open to both metals and debts could bo
paid in either metal, there was stability in price regardless of
the variations in production. The yield of silver between 1800
and 1840 was forty times that of gold, yet there was but slight
variation in the metals from the legal ratio, and when, as between 1850 and 1870, silver was but 4.5 times that of gold, there
was also but little variation.
In the forty years between 1833 and 1873, which in elude the
period of the great gold discoveries and the consequent increase
in the available supply of that metal, but little change in the
gold price of silver can be observed.
In the ten years from 1831 to 1840, the proportion which the
value of the silver produced bore to that of gold was 1.86 to 1.
In the five years from 1851 to 1855, the proportion had fallen to
.288 to 1; the market value of silver only varied between 15.75 to
1 in the first period, and 15.41 to 1 in the last.
In the five years between 1871 to 1875, when the production of
silver, as compared to gold, was .710 to 1; and in the five years
from 1876 to 1880, when the proportion was .794 to 1, the change
in production was insignificant, and yet in the last five years the
market value of gold was 17.81 to 1, while in the first it was
15.97 to 1.
From 1861 to 1872 gold diminished and silver increased without any variation in the price of silver.
CAUSE O F D E C L I N E I N S I L V E R CLEAR—ACTION O F LAW T H E CAUSE.

Evidently we must look for the causes of variation in value
of the bullion metals for causes extrinsic to that of ratio of produc461




42
tion; and these causes are obvious when we look for them. " He
that •hath eyes to See, ttet =him see."
In 1871 Germany suspended free coinage of silver ana adopted
the gold standard. In 1873 the United States suspended free
coinage/provided for an issue of trade dollars, and stripped silver
coins of legal-tender function in sums exceeding $5. In 1873
Germany threvra great mass of demonetized silver bullion on
the market, purchased gold, and provided for the retirement of
silver coins, while France the same year restricted silver coinage.
In 1874 Norway and Sweden demonetized silver; in 1875 Holland suspended it: in 1876 Russia, France, and Spain discontinued
it. In 1892 Austria-Hungary adopted the gold standard and began to buy gold, and recently, in June of the present year, India
suspended free coinage
In parallel lines to these movements of the law against silver,
its bullion price declined, although in perpendicular lines the
gold production was in excess through the period of its declination up to 1882.
The royal commission of Great Britain, composed of financial
experts, who in 1887 inquired into the causes of changes in the
relative values of the precious metals, showed conclusively that
the depreciation of silver was not due to its increased production. They called attention to the fact (page 78) that in the case
of other commodities, the effect of changes in supply and demand
was more marked and more immediate; that those commodities
are generally produced for the purpose of consumption at an early
date, or within a comparatively sho^t period; that the supply at
any time available for the market, o r being capable of being
placed'ondt, was, therefore, a very important element by which
its value is fixed.
While, on the other hand, the preciou&metals
were but to a : slight extent consumed, and the available supply
consisted Of the accumulation of previous years.
They also decl&red that ah important consideration with regard to the precious metals was the relation between the total
stock then in-existence and the then existing demands upon it*
The increased demand for gold, made by the extension of t h e
gold standard, and the decreased demand for silver, caused-by
its demonetization, aro obviously the causes which have ,put silver down and gold up.
t
Mr. de Rothschild said before tho International Monetary
Conference that t h e action taken by Germany and the action of
the three great money powers and the several minor powers
had materially tended to accentuate the downfall in the prices
and value of silver.
The great Humboldt, whose master mind read and interpreted
the secrets of nature, declared t h a t the enormous mass of precious metals already accumulated in Europe render any considerable or continued variations in t h e relative value of gold and
silver impossible. Experience, he says, has shown this. In
England, for instance, In the ten years more than 1,294,0.00
marks of gold, $180,959 (in dollars), were converted into money,
and yet this monopoly of gold only raised a proportion of it,
that of silver from 1 to 14.97 to 1 to 15.60.
Humboldt did not anticipate, and 'neither could'he take into
account one new factor, which b a s come into the world's economic
concerns contemporaneously with the factor of falling .prices and
depressed trade, the change of law which operated upon tho
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43
base of credit and disorganized all things which depend upon
that base to be sustained.
THE RATIO OF COINAGE SHOULD NOT BE CHANGED.

The existing ratio between silver and gold ought not, in my
opinion, to bo changed.
I t would involve the recoinage of our present mass of silver
money at the immense cost $112,000,000, as shown by the letter
of Secretary Carlisle; but more important than this are the philosophical considerations.
No other nation of the whole world has proposed to change its
ratio. W e would not be in closer affinity with any one else by
changing our ratio than we are now. On the contrary, we would;
be moving away from those affinities and likenesses of commerce, which Jjave so much more force in old countries, like those
of Europe*, than in our own. The silver and gold of England are
coined at a less proportion than we have now. I t is so with the
silver of France, of the Latin Union, of Germany, and all the European nations. Why, then, should we further complicate and.
confuse this problem by moving further away from existing, conditions rather than by moving closer to them?
Indeed, Mr. President, I believe that a change of ratio and'the
putting of more silver in the dollar would be an increased impediment to bimetallism. It has been pointed out by all financial writers and experts that if any European nation were opened
to the free coinage of silver to-day our silver dollar would goto
Europe, go into coinage, and make at least 3 per cent by turning into foreign money out of our own; and it is the fact that we
are now putting too much silver into our dollar which has helped
to close the mints of Europe to the free coinage of silver, because over there they fear not only the silver bullion; which
comes from our mines, but also that our silver money will go
there to convert itself into their silver money a t a premium of
exchange of not less than 3 per cent.
Albert Gallatin originally advocated the ratio of 151 to 1That ratio would to-day be far better than an increased ratio • and
would put us in, closer relations with the great silver-using nations. I t would create a money level, in which the money of one
nation would have no intrinsic motive to go to another nation's
mint for profit in : exchange.
In the report of the British Indian Currency Committee, page
48, these views obtained for reasons well stated, and I quote
their comments against the change of ratio in India. They said:
The coinage of a new rupee of greater weight t h a n that.at present existing has been suggested as a remedy for the difficulty. If for this purpose
the plan were adopted of recoining tho existing rupees it is evident that the
expense, which m u s t be calculated on at least 1,000 to 1,500 millions of rupees, would be very heavy, even if tho measure did not a t t r a c t to the mints
hoards in excess of the amount in circulation; and after the recoinage had
been completed there would be no security t h a t i t would be effectual, since a
f u r t h e r fall.in the gold value of the rupee would produce difficulties of. the
same kind as have now arisen* If, on the other hand, in addition to the existing rupees, heavier rupees were issued, there is the objection that, for
some time at any rate, two kinds of coin would be in circulation, of different
intrinsic worth, yet professedly of the same value; and there does not appear
to be any advantage In this plan over t h a t proposed by the government of
India.
T H E DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.

A few words, Mr. President, about the platforms. Everybody
in the United States, as matters stand to-day, is committed to silver as standard: money* I will speak now of t i e Democratic platr
461




u
form. I t said: " We denounce the Sherman law as a cowardly
makeshift." A makeshift is a kind of bogus substitute. Now, the
Sherman law was a makeshift and a bogus substitute, but for
what? For the free coinage of silver. So, if you take the language in its proper and accepted sense and inject into it the
meaning of the thing that it applied to, it means that you denounce the Republican party for making a 4 4 cowardly makeshift" for the free coinage of silver and for not giving us the
genuine article. The next sentence is equally significant:
We-

The Democracy—
hold to—

" H o l d to," Mr. President. A good word that—" hold."
Whatever other meaning "hold to" may have, I*beg to suggest
to the learned grammarians that it does not mean " let go." If
it be acknowledged that " hold to " does not mean " l e t go,";we
ought to hold on to the silver that we have and look forward
faithfully and hopefully to that which we desire, for we said—
We hold t o the use of both gold and silver—

Now, I say you promised to hold on. Let us hold on—to
what?—
both gold and silver-

In what character?
as the standard money of the country—

" T h e standard money of the country!" How long has the
patron of the Sherman law been trying to convince this people
that we want the single gold standard? How long has he been
trying to subvert all ideas of historic finance by regarding dollars as debts redeemable and convertible into each other? W e
are not on the gold standard and we do not intend to go to the
gold standard, but we hold to gold and silver " as the standard
money of the country." Now, how.are we going to sustain the
standard?
and to the coinage of both gold and silver—

For that is the way it reads. They would coin both metals.
They were not going to float a lot of paper on bullion uncoined.
That is what the Republicans had wanted to do, but the Democrats were going to coin both metals. They said: " We are
going to coin both metals," and I say do it. How are they going
to coin them?
without discriminating against either metal—

Without discrimination against either. The Republicans have
been discriminating against one metal, but the Democrats would
not do it, and not only without discrimination against either of
the metals, but the platform says:
or charge for mintage.

That is, they were going to have free mintage without charge.
But—

They said—
the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value.

I did not like that language, because if a dollar is of equal
exchangeable value it i's iali one wants, commerce is exchange
and value is ratio in exchange, and there is an equal ratio between the dollar and exchange; but some gentlemen like to ao461




45
cumulate words; they are fond of a little ambiguity; and they
put in the words " intrinsic value."
EQUALITY OF PURCHASING POWER IN DOLLARS THE THING NEEDFUL.

It was just there that the President of the United States in his
letter of acceptance, put a little of the white of an egg into the
coffee grounds and clarified them by a clear expression. He said
that he was in favor of " equal intrinsic value or purchasing
power." There is the true theory of the proposition. If the
money has the same purchasing power we do not care about intrinsic value. If both metals have the same intrinsic value they
will always have the same purchasing power. The purchasing
power is the thing that is looked to, whether it is a national-bank
note resting on a bond, whether it is a greenback resting on the
Treasury, and on taxation, whether it is silver, or whether it is
gold.
Then, be it noted, the Democratic convention did not insist it
should be positively and absolutely of equal intrinsic value, but
the platform added:
Or-

With emphasis on " or."
I t was going to get gold and silver money without discrimination, and if it could not get there by one road it was going to
take another, and it said:
Or be adjusted through international a g r e e m e n t -

Let it be remembered that an international convention had
been called; it was about to meet; and if it could be adjusted
there, well and good. But it was not adjusted there, and the
Democrats at Chicago contemplated that it might not be adjusted there, and they added another clause:
Or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of
the parity of the two metals, and the equal power of every dollar, at all
times, In the markets and in the payment of debts.

These are the words. If other nations did not do it this nation would do it; and as this is the nation that is responsible for
its promise, now is the time to perform it. It can not be performed unless we restore bimetallism with all the legal-tender
functions of, and tax-paying functions of, all metal dollars, in
debt payment and in exchange.
E N G L I S H AND AMERICAN INTERESTS CONFLICT.

Mr. President, many of the early people who settled and conquered England came over there under what they called the
raven flag, and they boasted in styling themselves the ravagers
of the world. I think the present financial conditions show that
the breed of the ravagers of the world is not extinct and that
the raven flag is still flying.
There are certain characteristics of the English people that
make them our natural economic foe:
ll Great Britain is a creditor nation and this is a debtor nation.
2. Great Britain is a consumer of our agricultural products.
We are the producers.
3. Great Britain is a gold-producing nation and this is more
than gold producing, a silver-producing nation.
4. I t is the interest of Great Britain to make silver low. I t is
the interest of Great Britain to make gold dear.
5. I t is the interest of Great Britain to make wheat, cotton,
corn, and produce cheap.
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46
6. Our interests are the antitheses of hers.
Now, then, I propose to make good the three assertions with
which I began this discussion. I propose to prove that Great
Britain seeks to enrioh her creditor class by opposing silver.
L

PROOF THAT GREAT BRITAIN PROPOSES TO AGGRANDIZE HER CREDITOR
CLASSES B Y DESTROYING SILVER.

England always goes to battle with drums beating, colors flying, and bugles blowing. She avows her purpose to conquer
when she declares war. It is sufficient proof that she is warring
upon our silver to enrich her creditors, to take the avowals of her
prime mininster, William E. Gladstone, made in February last
in the House of Commons. I t is a confession, it is an avowal,
and he who runs may read. His speech will be interesting to
those who are still deluded to follow the ignis fatuus of international conference.
A motion being made looking to the reassembling of the Brussels conference and to the restoration of silver money; Mr. Gladstone replied to the member who made it in plain, open British
fashion:
The honorable member spoke r a t h e r with ridicule—

Said he—
upon the proposition of this countryas the great creditor country of the world.
I t is the great creditor country of the world; of t h a t there can be no doubt
whatever; and it is increasingly the great creditor country of the world. I
suppose there is not a year which passes over our heads which does not
largely add to the mass of British investments abroad. I am almost afraid
t o estimate the total amount of the property which the United Kingdom
holds beyond the limits of the United Kingdom; but of this I am well convinced, t h a t it is not to be counted by tens or hundreds of millions.
One thousand millions probably would be an extremely low and inadequate estimate. Two thousand millions, or something even more than
that, is very likely to be nearer the mark.
' Hear I" " Hear!"] I think under these circumstances it is a rather serious m a t t e r to ask this country to
consider whether we are going to perform this supreme act of self-sacriUce.
I have a profound a d m i r a t i o n f o r cosmopolitan principles. I can go a great
length in moderation [laughter] i n recommending their recognition and
establishment, but if there are these two thousand millions or fifteen hundred millions of money which we have got abroad, it is a very serious matter as between this country and other countries.
"W© have nothing to pay to them; we are not debtors a t all; we should get
no comfort, no consolation out of th e substitution of an inferior material, of a
cheaper money, which we could obtain for less and p a r t with for more. We
should get no consolation, but the consolation throughout the world would
be great. [Load laughter.]

" W o should get no consolation, but the consolation throughout the world would be groat," says Gladstone. Yes, how great
it would be here I
He continued:
This splendid spirit of philanthropy, which we can not too highly prize,
because I have no doubt all this Is foreseen, would result in our making a
present of fifty or a hundred millions to the world* I t would be thankfully
accepted, but I think that the gratitude for your benevolence would be
mixed with very grave misgivings as to your wisdom.
I have shown why we should pause and consider for "ourselves once,
twice, and thrice before departing from the solid ground on which you have
within the last half century erected a commercial fabric unknown in the
whole history of the world—before departing f r o m t h a t solid ground you
should well consult and well consider and take no step except such as you
can well justify to your own understanding, to your fellow-countrymen, and
to those who come after us.

England will not be philanthropic to us.
Should we not be philanthropic to ourselves?
The effects of closing the mints of India to silver coinage are
acknowledged by tho British commission to be "such as result
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from an appreciating currency, namely, first,, to make prices
lower than they would otherwise have been; then, though more
slowly, to- lower money wages and to increase the burden of
debts and all'fixed payments."
Mr. President, that is the programme that is laid before us for
adoption. This is the music that the American people are asked
to dance to—appreciation of money at the time of a money
famine, lower prices at a time when prices are on a bankrupt
scale, increased burdens of debt when labor is less able to bear
it, lower wages when wages are most needed, more poverty in
the great industrial substratums of society, more riches in frescoes on the beautiful dome!
2. m o o r THAT ENGLAND WOULD D E P R E S S OUR PRODUCTS.

1 have a second proposition. England wants to depress the
prices of Our agricultural products by opposing silver. Sir
Rivers Wilson, a delegate of Great Britain, announced in the
Brussels conference for himself and colleagues—and ! was glad
that my distinguished friend from Oregon [Mr. MITCHELL] yesterday gave to his remarks attention—that—
Our faith is t h a t of the school of monometallism, p u r e and simple.

This movement here is the echo of that cry. Mr. Alfred de
Rothschild, of the great Kothschild house, gave the reason of
this British faith by saying that whether the fall of silver had
reduced prices or not, he could not see that the fall in the prices
of commodities was a misfortune for England or the world, and
added the blunt but significant sentence:
" I hold t h a t wheat a t 30s. a q u a r t e r instead of
otherwise^

is r a t h e r a blessing t h a n

Of course he and his can not see that it is a misfortune to
America to sell wheat a t 55 and 60 or 75 cents a bushel, and cot*
ton at 7 cents a pound, and pork, beef, silver, and a l l the products ofr our. soil below the cost of production, for it is as old as the
hills that " I t is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when
he is gone his way, then he boasteth." But what do our farmers see? W h a t do American statesmen see?
Mr. Alph. Allard, delegate of Belgium and delegate of Turkey, characterized the proposition of Mr. de Rothschild in the
conference to consent to small silver purchases as a sort of '
homeopathic consolation, intended to work upon the faith of
the patient and not upon the disease. He pointed out that the
crisis now extant was no birth of yesterday, and. added signifir
cantly:
I t dates f r o m 1873, t h e m o m e n t when f r e e coinage of silver w a s suspended
i n Europe.

The true remedy, he said, would be the reestablishment of
free coinage, though he acknowledged that for the moment it
had no chance of being accepted.
Well did he answer Mr. de Rothschild's question of the prosperity of England by saying:
I t seems t o m e t h a t the depression of t r a d e would n o t have caused such
uneasiness if t h i s were so.

And he added these words:
U n f o r t u n a t e l y Mr. de Rothschild is n o t troubled by t h e fall in prices. He
is disposed t o t h i n k " t h a t w h e a t a t 30s. a q u a r t e r , instead of 45*., Is r a t h e r a
blessing t h a n otherwise." But, I ask him, w h a t do the British f a r m e r s think
of it? In Belgium, I can assert, agriculture is suffering f r o m this deep evil;
and as f o r England, I do n o t t h i n k t h a t Mr. de Rothschild's views are shared
by Mr. Chaplin, formerly m i n i s t e r of agriculture, who h a s traversed t h e
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whole of England In the search for remedies t o be applied to these evils. I t
appears, too, from the reports'contained in t h e English newspapers a week
ago, t h a t Monsignor "Walsh, the archbishop of Dublin, is concerning himself
with the monetary question, on account of the disasters which are befalling
Ireland. When giving evidence before an English commission on the subject of Irish evictions, he spoke in an absolutely bimetallic sense. He pointed
out the evils which had been produced in England by the scarcity and the
appreciation of gold, and also the extremely difficult, embarrassing, and disastrous position in which the Irish f a r m e r s were placed by the same cause.

I need not amplify^ facts. All know that England wants our
produce cheap, and is trying to kill silver in order to get it
cheap.
3. P R O O F T H A T ENGLAND WOULD DESTROY OUR SILVER MINES TO B U I L D U P
H E R GOLD MINES.

Mr. President, I have one other charge to make against the
policy which is opposing, in my judgment, the wise policy for
this country. I will begin by reading a brief statistical table:
The production of gold and silver in the United States and Australasia.
1891.

1890.
Gold.

Silver.

Gold.

Silver.

1892.
Gold.

Silver.

United States $32,845,000 $70,465,000 $33,175,000 $75,416,500 $33,000,000 $74,989,900
29,808,000 10,731,300 31,399,000 12,929,300 33,870,300 17,375,677
Australasia

Great Britain guards her own. She is like an eagle in a dovecote with American interests. I have the proofs before my eyes,
avowed and open, that she is striking at silver in order to crush
out the silver interests of this country and to buildup the growing gold interests in Australasia. Here is what the royal British
commission of England itself says on this subject:
I t m u s t be remembered, t o o -

Said the commission, telling the Queen and Parliament what
should be British policy—
that this country is largely a creditor of debts payable in gold, and any
change which entailed a rise in the price of commodities generally—that is
to say, a diminution of the purchasing power of gold—would be to our disadvantage.

And then this royal commission adds these words:
The interests of our Australian and other gold-producing colonies, at
which we have already glanced, m u s t also be considered. Their deposits of
gold are one of their principal sources of wealth, and any measure which
tended to check gold-mining or to depreciate that metal would, in all probability, injuriously affect the prosperity of the colonies and react upon the
trade of the mother country with them.
T H E W E S T E R N STATES.

Colorado and the silver-producing States of the great West
have not the good fortune at this juncture to be colonies of the
British crown. Thank heaven they are our people, and we should
be their friends. They have higher appeals for our consideration than the colonies of Great Britain have on her. A stronger
consideration than any personal appeal 6r any local interest controls my advocacy of silver. Long before I held communication
with them, long before I even knew the men who represented
the West, at a time when there was not one amongst them who
was not my political foe, I had a deep and abiding conviction
that this should be and remain a bimetallic country; that we
should build up our own national interests and restore the people's
money.
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Bu^ Mr. President, I am glad that my conviction of what is
right, long entertained and sincerely cherished, moves on in
the same plane with personal enthusiasm and admiration for the
men of the great West, who in the American Congress have
shown that they represent no sectional interest, but regard all
America and every American as under the aegis of their protecting care; the men of the young, fruitful, generous West;"and
I shall not forget, whoever else in this land shall fail to remember
them. When my distinguished friend from Indiana [Mr. VOORHEES] drew that beautiful picture of the harmony of all sections
in this glorious country, of the union of all hearts and all hands
for common prosperity and the common good, I could but look
from the eloquence of the lips that pronounced the words to the
other side of this Chamber, and I could but feel my heart going
out in gratitude to the noble champions of civil liberty from
the great West, who stood by the Democrats here in the hour of
their country's need and did not permit a President of their own
party to shake them in their faith of free America and her free
Constitution. [Applause in the galleries.]
The VICE-PRESIDENT rapped his gavel.
Mr. DANIEL. These men of the West have more claim upon
this country and all of her sons than the representatives of
any other peculiar interest. Would any think that my distinguished and worthy friend from Louisiana [Mr. WHITE] would
be doing an improper thing if he should stand up and speak for
the subsidy to the sugar men of the South? Am I supposed to
do anything that I may not do openly if I ask you to relieve the
tax on the tobacco in my State which has shrunk from a production of $11,000,000 a year to $3,000,000. Are they to be
looked upon as mere champions of peculiar interests when they
do what all do openly and avowedly for a policy that they deem
for the general good?
But the silver men of the West, they stand upon a much higher
plane than other advocates of similar interests. This Government did not sell to the people of Virginia their tobacco lands.
This Government did not sell to Louisianians their sugar lands.
But this Government did sell the silver mines of the West to
men whom they invited to go there and get the silver out of
them.
But, Mr. President, suppose there be answer to this argument, there is another and stronger one. They had a stronger
right to look to the protecting care of this Government about
mines of gold and mines of silver than any one else has to look
to their peculiar interests, because gold and silver were implanted in the Constitution of our country.
The great Webster, as we were reminded by a Senator from
his own State a few days ago, expounded that Constitution to
mean that whatever else was done you could not demonetize
either gold or silver and strip the people of the r i g h t to use that
legal-tender money to discharge debts when they had created
their indebtedness in it. So these men of the West do not stand
here as we do. They are not defending mere local interests.
They are standing for interests upon lands which were sold them
under the protecting aegis of the Constitution of their country,
which they had a right to believe you would continue to regard
and respect.
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WE MAT ADMIRE GREAT BRITAIN BUT SHOULD NOT, THEREFORE, B E SUBSERVIENT.

I do not doubt, Mr. President, that Great Britain is the great
nation and that her people are the great people the Senator
from Ohio says they are. I am of the same blood that you are,
and come from them. But the fact that they were our brothers,
the fact that we admire them, does not result in any logical conclusion that we must agree with them for their interests and
against our own. When Gen. Washington rode upon the field
of Trenton he caught sight of the red line of British veterans
standing steady under the Continental fire, and, admiring their
valor, ho said, " L o o k at those noble fellows; how they fight,
Oh, that our men were disciplined like they." But although he
admired and honored them, and paid his tribute to courage, it
did not prevent him from giving them a good thrashing, and
telling them to go home and mind their own business, and let
the American people alone.
So there was another man in this country who had great admiration for British valor, and knew of British genius and British arts and letters, and all that sort of thing. But one fine day
down at New Orleans he felt compelled to give the British red
coats another lesson, and ho did not forget the maxim of scripture, t o ' ' s p a r e the rod and spoil the ohild." Gen. Andrew Jackson not only stood up against the British, but he stood always for
the gold and silver money of his country, and his name will go
sounding down in history as a great American who never at any
time failed to believe in an American interest or in an American
cause.
T H E GREATNESS AND P O W E R O F OUR COUNTRY*

W h a t and who are we, Mr. President, who must adopt a policy
because it is in conformity with the policies of Europe and because we must put ourselves in line with the markets of tho
world? Other nations need us more than wo need them.
You might build a wall around America, and she could thrive
on all the necessaries and luxuries of life and live apart from tho
world.
Build a wall around Great Britain and she would starve to
death.
I heard with pleasure soma days since the declarations of the
great Senator from Indiana who is now tho chairman of our Finance Committee, as to the power and greatness of our country.
I have no quarrel with him, neither have I any criticism to pronounce upon his course. Thirty years' faithful service to the
people of this country, in which ho has borne his ofhce with
the purity with which a judge wears his ermine, in which he
has become illustrious as one of tho foremost defenders of civil
liberty that this world has ever known, has so imbued me with
confidence in him t h a t he could do nothing that would for a
moment destroy my affection or abate my admiration or make
me feel otherwise than his friend. His great heart has always
throbbed in sympathy with tho people. But, sir, if I venture to
differ with him on this legislative incident, i t is with diffidence,
and yet I recall tho great fact which he related:
Sir-

He s a i d -

it m a y be stated as a fact t h a t tho interstate commerco of the United
States alone is greater in value t h a n all the foreign commerce and carrying
trade of Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Holland, Kussia, and
Belgium p u t together.
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Mr. President, this vast interstate commerce which haS increased and is daily increasing in bulk and volume is a business
in which silver is the chief money used; and shall we cut down
our volume of money which supports this immense trade to sustain the comparatively insignificant foreign trade which he refers to?
Look at the great lines of our commercial transportation. Tho
United Kingdom has 20,000 miles of railroad; the United States
' 115,000, nearly eightfold.
The area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 2,970,000
square miles; as great as that of Great Britain and Ireland,
Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany> Holland, Belgium,
Prance, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and European Turkey*
Palestine,'Japan, and China proper.
If you want an international conference to settle this question
here and now, here is the greatest international conference that
ever sat in the worlds with mastery over the grandest area, the
most varied and richest resources and the noblest and most energetic people.
Our 1*500,000 square miles of arable land, one-half of our total
area, could feed over a billion of peoplo. For over a decade we
have been, in mineral products, at the head of all the nations,
and are to-day acknowledged to be the richest and most powerful nation in the world.
Well might Gladstone say that we have the "natural base for
the greatest continuous empire ever established by man," and
he might have added the natural base for the soundest, most
stable, most ample, and self-sustaining currency.
Our wealth, as contrasted with that of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, is of the most permanent and of the
most productive form. The value of our lands exceeds theirs
by $1,000,000,000; the value of houses by $400,000,000; the value
of cattle is threefold.
The United Kingdom produces neither silver nor gold, while
we are the greatest producers of both in the world. Our population exceeds hers by 22,000,000, and while we are independent
of her in all things, she is dependent upon us both for the food
she eats and for the clothes she wears.
In his Balance Sheet of the World, Mr. Munhall, statistician
of the Royal Society of England, says:
I t would bo impossible to find a parallel to the progress or the United Stated
in the last ten years. Every day the sun rises upon the American people i t
sees an addition of $2,500,000 to the accumulation ot wealth i n the Republic,
which is equal t o one-third of the daily accumulation of all mankind outside
of the United States.

Thus one-third of the World in daily productive power is here
represented, and will it be argued that such a power can not
Sustain its ancient, its much-needed money?
GO F O R W A R D AND F E A R NOT.

So, Mr, President, if our souls are only as great as the bodies
in which our Creator has placed them, if our national soul be as
great as the body of the nation, instead of standing upon the
edge of this panic trembling, helpless, afraid, we should walk
upon the field with the proud mastery of a marshal who knows
that he has troops who are ready to do his bidding, and instead
of leading a retreat, we should order the advance of all of our
American forces, blow the buglo* and sound the charge for
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Americans to stand together, to give back the money of the people which they want. [Applause in the galleries.]
The VICE-PRESIDENT. Order must be preserved in the
galleries.
THE GOIID TRUST—ITS AUTHORS, ITS OBJECTS, AND ITS VICTORIES.

Mr. DANIEL. Mr. President, we pass laws against trusts and
combines organized to monopolize and enhance the price of the
necessaries of life. The press, the rostrum, the State Legislatures, and Congress abound in denouncements of sugar trusts,
binding-twine trusts, meat trusts, wheat corners, oil combines,
and the like.
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN] is the author of an
act against trusts now upon the statute books, but which, so far
as I know, is a barren fig tree—it has borne no fruit. The Senator from Ohio and those who oppose trusts alike overlook the
fact that the gold trust, of which they are the defenders, is the
widest spread, the most dangerous, and the most oppressive of
all. The despots of the earth are its organizers. The so-called
shoddy aristocrats of the earth are its supporters; the usurers of
the earth are its profit-takers; the people of the earth are its
victims. The true Democrats are everywhere its opponents.
The scheme of the gold trust is this:
1. To increase the value of money.
2. To effect this, they would decrease the volume of money.
3. To decrease the volume of money, they would permit but
one metal to be freely coined. That metal now is gold. But
they would as soon demonetize one metal as the other, and the
only reason that they are now warring upon silver instead of
gold is because Great Britain is not a great producer of silver,
while America is, and Great Britain, their leader in the movement, they must follow.
In short, the gold trust would increase the value of money by
limiting its supply. The demand for money increasing every day
as population and business increase; and, the supply being limited or decreased proportionately, the gold trust knows full well
that the value of dollars will thus be made greater and the value
of labor and its products, as measured by dollars, will be made
lower. As a necessary result, they know full well that the rich
possessors of money are made richer and the poor producers of 4
commodities are made poorer day by day, week by week, month
by month, and year by year.
Certain features of European society indicate the inevitable
trend, the increase of debt, the increase of standing armies, the
increase of millionaires, the increase of paupers, the increase of
failures, increase of liabilities, increase of bankruptcy, and increase of tramps.
All of these features appear contemporaneously with falling
prices, all of them come from squeezing the world of finance into
the little gold jacket of monometallism.
That is " the new factor " of destruction. That is " the error
in the compass " which we must correct.
THE MEMBERS OF THE GOLD TRUST.

England having overthrown Napoleon I at Waterloo, found
herself greatly involved in public debt to pay the expenses of
war, and the Rothschilds, the Barings, and other great banking
houses had supplied the funds to sustain her. The house of
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Rothschild had its agent in Brussels watching the fortunes of
the great fight. It was this agent, and not the courier of Wellington, that bore to England the news of victory. Before the
public knew it this great house had made enormous purchases
of English" securities, and when the public learned it, they had
accumulated great riches by the rise of those securities. To
still further increase their value, they at once supported the
movement to demonetize silver, and reaped by their "astuteness
a second golden crop.
Germany imitated the example of England when she had overthrown France at Sedan. One by one the monarchies of Europe
have joined the gold trust, and the few republics or quasi-republics that live by their side have been compelled into unwilling
submission to the greed and avarice of the money power; until
now Europe lays prostrate at the feet of the money power, and
finds in the increasing miseries of her people and in increased
standing armies the inevitable consequence of their conquest.
AMERICA MAKES A ' S T A N D AGAINST T H E GOLD TRUST.

One great nation of the earth has not as yet completely surrendered to the gold trust. There is one nation as yet where the flag
of the people flies, though rent and torn, it is true, and now at
half-mast; and never in all its history did it more need the united
action of the sons of liberty than it needs them now. Like all
great battles in which immense forces are struggling for ascendancy, the tides of this battle have ebbed and flowed. At one moment they who carry the standards of the people's money have
borne them over the bulwarks of the gold trust in triumph, and
in the next they have been stricken down. The people triumphed in the House and in the Senate in 1878, when their representatives voted for the free coinage of silver. Do you not
wish now they had tried that experiment then? All do; but we
can not recoup upon the past.
A Republican President vetoed the bill, and the Bland-Allison makeshift was the compromise. The people triumphed again
in the Senate in 1890. Their cause was lost in a Republican
House. They triumphed again in 1891 in the Senate, and were
again suppressed in the House of Representatives. W i t h an unparalleled majority they renewed the assault for the third time.
They triumphed in the popular election of 1890, and a great majority of their representatives came to Washington on their side
in the winter of 1891. They elected a Speaker of the House
committed to their cause, passing by, to accomplish this result, the
great leader of tariff reform from Texas, who had been a great
leader for silver, too, but who in that campaign first gave indication of weakening in his advocacy of the white metal.
Again, free coinage triumphed here in the Senate for the
third time since I have had the honor to be a member of this
body, and on the eve of its complete legislative victory in the
House it suddenly collapsed by a political combination between
a minority of Democrats and the main portion of Republicans.
A N T MEASURE I S E X P E R I M E N T A L — W H A T I S S A F E R T H A N SILVER?

Mr. President, silver comes again to the field. 1 would not
have this country to make any too perilous experiment, but let
us look at the cold facts and confront them. An experiment
now is all that we can make. Anything that we may do can not
rise above the dignity of experiment. Under no standard of
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money can we demand a "bond of fate." We aro like a solid
square of troops in an open plain, with "cannon to right of
them, cannon 16 Left of them, cannon in front of them"—and
cannon bahind them,
and these cannon of falling prices,
increased debts, and demolished money are decimating their
ranks. We can not retreat; we xxm not stand still. All we can
do is to die iri our tracks or advance. Shall We advance on the
uncertain sea of paper money, whose great billows now over tide
our gold, or shall we go back to the traditions of tiiir lathers, to
the laws of our fathers, to the customs of our people, to the
promises of our faith, and restore that which for eighty years
gave us victory, prosperity, and peace.
Mr. President, I have no War to make upon the banks, Which
kre a most useful part of our public ecohOmy. I have ho desire
to array one class bf the people against other classes, neithef
have I any desire to do anything which might possibly injure
the success of this Democratic Administration, or endanger the
prosperity of our country. I have loyally supported the President of these United States in three campaigns. I expect in
many days of battle yet to bear his colors and to defend his cause.
I honor him as a great American of honesty, intelligence, pat:
riotism* and courage, and as the captain of the host m which 1
train. I shall not pay him, however, the poor tribute of the
courtier who only says, " Behold a brave and honest man who
has convictions.'' I shall imitate that example as I understood
it and esteem it, and feel that we should demonstrate, too, that
American Senators have their convictions and are brave, honest*
and true to defend them. [Applause in the galleries.]
FORTIFY SILVER A N D GATHER GOLD.

Now, fbrtify silver and gather gold. I would sum up in advancing this idea—fortify silver by coinage on equal terms with
gold, that is free coinage; if necessary levy the tariff in gold; if
necessary, issue gold bonds and buy gold and hoard gold. Do
hot let our gold be taken from us, and do not let our silver be disr
fcarded and disused. If it is thought we can compel international
Agreement, do Hot let us disrobe ourselves of our money to do it;
do not let us ainl our missiles a t Europe through the bodies of
bur own people. In order to squeeze Europe let us hot squeeze
Ourselves. Let us sustaih ourselves with Bilver, and through bur
vast resources let us ialso accumulate gold, and through these
means reach international agreement without starvation at home
to accomplish it.
Consider these hotions, Senators, modify them, and mold themj
and let us grasp the situation with commensurate measures.
I t is not for a class, but for all this people; not for a section-,
but for all this Union; not solely for a special interest, but separatevely and collectively for tho mutuality of supportand progress
in all our social and national interests that I speak.
SILVER NECESSARY F O B THE WHOLE PEOPLE.

In behalf of the impoverished farmers of our abundant land,
who provide the feasts of wealth and get but poverty in return,
whose products sustain our foreign commerce without affording
them competence at home, and who are now sustaining our publib
credit with foreign gold.and are without silver to sustain their
own: in behalf of the great masses of labor who turn the machinery
of the world's progress, and get but scanty share; in behalf of
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our retail merchants, who behold tho profits of business absorbed
by the few who dictate gold notes, while of necessity they must
take silver in exchange for their goods; in behalf of our wholesale merchants and manufacturers, to whom successive years of
business bring successive seasons of depression; in behalf of pur
banks, whose creditors, sinking under the burden of gold, can
not enable them to pay their depositors, and in behalf of the
depositors, who find the shrinkage of payments destroying the
means of redemption; in behalf of the railroads, whose freights
from field, mine, and factory would increase if bountiful money
enabled them to thrive, whose stocks and bonds are shrinking in
their holders'hands, and forcing them to find terminal facilities
in bankrupt courts; in behalf of the miners, whose machinery
rusts in mines of wealth, and who have been scattered and driven
from their homes to enrich their foreign rivals, and to pander
to British avarice; in behalf of the myriad investors, whose only
hope of recovering the billions lost by the accursed sinking of
price lies through an ample volume of money to sustain them;
m behalf of peace, that strikes, lockouts, and bread riots may not
disturb society, and that standing armies may not become its
guardian and its menace; in behalf of the great West, whose advancing footsteps have been halted, whose progress has been paralyzed, whose generous and high-spirited people have never turned
a deaf , ear to the cry of patriotism against the fanaticism of section, and who will never wear the yoke of any party that makes
them hewers of wood and drawers of water; in behalf of the South,
which is without mines of precious wealth, and without the
hoarded riches of accumulated bonds, and which only asks that
you divorce not man from nature and tie not the hands of labor,
but stand out of her sunshine and give her a chance to gather the
fruits of h e r honest toil; in behalf of the East, that those of our
citizens who are broad-minded, liberal, and brave may not be overcome by the magnates of fortune, whose polite and accomplished
society'is now making the same mistake that Great Britain made
when she mocked at the petitions of her weaker brethren, and is
drying up the fountains from which she has gathered succor; in
behalf of the Union, that it may be a union of hearts and hands,
in which every citizen shall feel that his cause is the cause of
his countrymen; in behalf of both political parties—Republican
and Democratic—who have the public indebtedness of their
plighted faith to redeem by performance here; and especially
in behalf of the Democracy, the party of the people, that has
carried the people's standards through storm, adversity, and
defeat, and has ever found truth and fidelity its comforts in disaster, its ministers in weakness, and the heralds of its final triumph; in behalf of America, the day star of the world's hope,
that it may not abandon its great traditions, dissolve its ancient
policy, and become subservient to British dictation and to British power—I pray you, Senators, here and now in^ this accepted
time, to deal with this great world-wide question in a great way,
and to fulfill the great hopes which center upon the action of
the American Congress. If great powers wo have to resist,
when did America ever shrink before them? If great efforts
we have to make, when were we ever incapable of making them?
If great difficulties must be overcome, have we not the genius
to overcome them?
Let us renovate our entire financial system with justice to all
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interests and partiality to none, respecting- every obligation of
our public faith as it is interpreted, and let us stand together
without any interest of section or interest of class, in the broad
spirit of American brotherhood, with the motto, Each for all,
and all for each, and America against the world! [Applause in
the galleries.J
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair must remind the galleries that manifestations of approval or disapproval aro forbidden
by the rules of the Senate.
Mr. STEWART made a brief personal explanation.
Mr. TELLER. I do not suppose the chairman of the Committee on Finance will thinu it necessary or even proper to proceed further to-night, after the very remarkable, excellent, and
wonderful speech to which we have listened for four hours. I
should like to know what his intention may be.
Mr. VOORHEES. Mr. President, after such a display of ability and eloquence, constraining the attention of everybody, I feel
that it would be unjust to ask any Senator to proceed with a
speech at this late hour. I therefore move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of executive business.
The motion was agreed to.




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