Full text of The Money Question of the 53rd Congress : Repeal of the Sherman Silver Law : Speech of Hon. Charles H. Grosvenor of Ohio, Debate in the House of Representatives, v.4, A-G

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Repeal of the Sherman Silver Law.
S P E E C H

or

HON. CHAELES H. GEOSVENOE,
OF OHIO,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Tuesday, August 15,1893.
The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. 1) to repeal a part of
an act. approved July 14, 1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of
silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes

Mr. GROSVENOR said:
Mr. SPEAKER: The President of the United States has seen fit
to call upon Congress to convene in extra session, and thereby
to discharge a duty which, under certain circumstances, may
properly devolve upon Congress under.the Constitution; and in
doing this the President made a stat3ment of the reasons why,
in his judgment, it Was necessary in midsummer, in this torrid
season, to call the members of the Fifty-third Congress from
their homes in all the localities of the country and to compel
them, in the discharge of their duty, to come to Washington
and discuss and decide what is necessary to save the country
from an imminent impending condition.
In making this c.ill it is to bo greatly regretted that the President did not himself occupy the same nonpartisan stand that he
has demanded Congress should and ought to occupy in this great
emergency. He had a grand opportunity to set an example,
which we should have all wisely and gladly emulated; but he has
not done it.
It was unfortunate, as will be pointed out a little further on, that
the Executive of th?s country, looking forward as he must have
looked, to the condition which we see developing in this House
and in the Senate and in the country, a condition which portended violent opposition to his views and determined opposition
to his plan of action, did not call upon the country in the exercise and the development of the same spirit in which he has invoked Congress to assemble and act, but that on the contrary he
has seen lit to make the first appeal to partisanship, and to unjustly proclaim to the people of the country a condition of things
in which his own party will not bear him out.
I refer to his declaration that the peril of the country, the condition of the country, grows out of a certain matter of legishvtion the responsibility for which he is pleased to lay at the door
of the Republican party. And, Mr. Spaaker, if it should so
happen that in the course of this debate there should be something of partisan politics brought in here, the justification for
so




it is found in the declaration of the President himself. In his
proclama tion calling this extraordinary session he uses the following language:

And whereas the present perilous condition is largely the result of a financial policy which the executive branch of the Government finds embodied in
unwise laws which must be executed until repealed by Congress—

therefore he calls upon Congress to come forward in special session and do what? Repeal that law. And in his message he
has seen lit to further and more certainly fan the flame of partisan politics, and to assuredly bring politics into this Chamber by
this language:

I believe these things are principally chargeable to Congressional legisla*
tion touching the purchase and coinage of silver by the General Government.
This legislation is embodied in a statute passed on the 14th day of July, 1890,
which was the culmination of much agitation on the subject involved, and
which may be considered a truce after a long struggle between the advocates
of free-silver coinage and those Intending to be more conservative.

And now, Mr. Speaker, if, during the course of this debate
there sh 1 be something of partisan politics brought in here,
1
the origin of it is in this exceedingly parliamentary and diplomatic 1 nguage of the President of the United States, which
was understood from Maine to California to be a declaration that
the Republican party, through its legislation, was responsible
for a condition which brought about a necessity for this special
session of Congress. If this be so, Mr. Speaker, it is greatly to
be regretted th.it the self constituted leaders of the Ad minis trar
tion wing of the Democratic party, if they be self-constituted,
or the authorized leaders of the Administration party, if they
be so authorized, should not have seen fit to do that which common prudence would have suggested to wise men, in order that
they might avail themselves of all the elements on this floor
who are in favor of the President's theory of this question.
But I regret to say—and I speak not in anger, but in sorrow—
that these gentleman, whoever they are, for their names are beneath the shadow, have seen fit to assume two conditions of
things: first, admitting that without about one hundred votes of
the Republican party on this floor the Administration will be
driven to the wall and defeated, they nevertheless assume that
there are but two parties on this floor—the one, the Democratic
party, in favor of free silver, and the other, the Administration,
or, as the free-silver party term it, the Wall street party of the
President and of the Administration.
And so the negotiation has b9en brought about and we are
precipitated under the iron-clad force of the previous question—
a condition of parliamentary procedure that has no written authority to sustain it, and which is but the declaration of the
Speaker of this House—following, I will admit, former authority
upon that question—into a condition so that the free-silver wing
of the Democratic party—and I am afraid it is going to become
the free-silver body of the Democratic party—shall have a certain series of rights, immunities, and privileges, and that the
" gold-bug" wing—I fear it will become the gold-bug tail of the
Democratic party—shall dictate all else, and that the 126 members of the Republican party—who are to furnish 100 votes,
without which the Administration is to be beaten in a contest
that will be so disgraceful to it that under other forms of government it would relinquish power and go to the people for an
affirmation of the judgment, or a vindication of the position of




3
the Government—are to march in the columns of the triumphant
Democracy as the trophies of the battlefield. Whether the
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. BLAND], if this Administration
measure is passed and adopted, will be on the right of the line
of the victims of the overwhelming defeat, or whether the Republican minority will occupy the right of the line of the victims chained to the chariot wheels of this triumphant Wall
street Democracy, I know not; but our position is to be that of
the hewers of wood and drawers of water, and we are not to be
allowed to suggest in what form we will take our water, or in
what quantity we will hew our wood. [Laughter.]
Our wishes were not consulted in ordering this long debate and
this complicated plan of campaign. W e were not permitted to
state our wishes as to the debate, or the form of the question.
W e are not to be allowed to suggest even one amendment. The
leaders on this side appealed for even fifteen minutes of debate in
order that the country might know our position, but we were
denied even so simple a request as that.
The Republicans on this floor have some views on the question here involved, as they have on all important questions of
politics. They are charged in the proclamation of the President, and in the message of the President, with being the guilty
originators of all this trouble, and it is a most singularly audacious position that the friends of the passage of this bill have
assumed on this floor. The Democratic party here, the head of
it or the tail of it, I know not which [laughter], come here and
modestly suggest that the result of this legislation is to prove
to the country that we got the country into all this trouble, and
then they call upon us to help gain a great victory for them,
and when we are through with it they will go to the country
and declare that the Democratic party has rescued the country
from the pernicious legislation of the Republican party, and
while the process is going on they demand of us that there shall
be no partisan politics here.
They demand that the Republican party and its representatives, with elections pending in a large number of important
States in the Union, shall sit silently here and from day to day hear
the simple, modest, very mild, and gentle assumption made that
the Republican pirty h caused all this trouble in the country,
and, lest we should provoke partisan discussion, we are to be
Bilent and this volume of denunciation is to go through the press
to the country, not even demurred to by the Republicans on this
floor, not even a general denial of the fairness and truthfulness
of the statement to be made. I, for one, will not submit to this.
The other day, in the State in which I live, in whose representation upon this floor I bear a part, the following was put
forth to the people of that State as the issue upon which the
camp aign in Ohio in the coming election, on the 7th of November, is to be fought out: and the Democratic press from Maine
to California insist that the Republicans must sit and take that
and hear that; and if they deny the statement or go into history
to show what the facts are they are to be denounced as unpatriotic and trying to have politics drawn in. And it would be a good
thing for the Democratic party in this country, the two Democratic parties in this country, both ends of the Democratic party
for that matter, to play the end against the middle of the Demoo




4
ocratic party [laughter], in that way to have judgment by default upon their utterances here.
I clipped this extract from a leading Democratic paper of Ohio
to show exactly what the spirit is; and it is no better in Ohio
and no worse than in New York and New England. The spirit
is exactly the same. It is the spirit of crimination and recrimination through th3 public press, and in the action of the political
parties. Speaking of the Democratic platform in Ohio, this paper says:
The platform is shcrt hut thoroughly Democratic, and tells in a few plain,
direct words, what it is Democracy contends for. The first two planks are
especially worthy of deep Democratic consideration. They are as follows—

I commend this pl mk to both ends of the Democratic party on
this Hoor, and I.will have a few words to say about the construction to be given to that plank—

We hereby approve the platform of the Democratic party adopted hy the
national convention :tt Chicago and especially those portions of it referring
to the tariff and to currency legislation. We congratulate the country upon
the early prospect of measures of relief as outlined hy the President's late
message to Congress, and we have confidence that the Democratic Congress
will devise laws to furnish such relief.

I pause hore to know what relief is outlined in that famous
message. [Lnughter.]
A MEMBISH.

I g i v e it up.

Mr. GROSVENOR.

I read the second plank:

Second. The financial situation is the unfortunate legacy of RepubUcan
administration. It is the natural result of the McKinley tariff, the Sherman
silver law, extravagance of the revenue of the party lately in power, and the
creation and fostering of trusts and corrupt combinations by that party, all
combining to shake credit, to create distrust in the money of the country,
and to paralyzo its business.

I stop here to inquire of some authorized agent of the Administration—but I want it to be understood that if any Democrat
should deign to reply thnt he must accompany his opening statement with the basis of his authority; I can not allow any deviation from the rule of law that the agency shall not be proved
by the declarations of the agent; the principal must be heard—I
should like to have some authorized representative of the Executive of this Government tell me what it is 1hit the Administration proposes as a remedy for the evils which have made it necessary to precipitate this Congress into the middle of this dogday weather.
He wants Congress to repeal the Sherman act, so called. He
wants the truce put an end to; he wants the white flag of 1890
pulled down: and, of course, Ave all understand that when a truce
is put an end to, war goes on. What war'? I make this single
proposition: That the message of no President of this country
convening an extra session of Congress ought to weigh a feather
in the estimation of intelligent gentlemen which simply inveighs
against an existing evil and does not point out to Congress the
suggestion of a remedy. But it is said it is the duty of Congress
to provide a remedy: that is to say. that it is in the discretion of
Congress to meet this emergency without any suggestion from
the Executive.
Very well. Carry that rule backward along the line and it
results in this: The existing conditions in this country were to
be made known to the people of thv co ntry by the Executive,
and Congress was then to be called together. Now, if it was not
incumbent upon the President to suggest some remedy, for the
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evil, then it was his duty to call Congress together and say
nothing about the repeal of the Sberm-m act; because, for aught
he knew, and certainly upon his own suggestion and that of his
friends, it was within the discretion of Congress to decide for
themselves whether they would repeal that act or not.
If the President dared not trust his party to follow his leadership in the direction of a measure of reform and relief, certainly
he ought to have trusted Congress to decide for themselves
whether they would repeal the Sherman law'or not. Instead of
that he makes the issue that the Democratic party demands the
the repeal of the Sherman law, but he makes no suggestion as to
what should be put in its place.
Mr. Speuker, for the purpose of approaching another branch
of this subject and to answer the suggestion that the McKinley
law has had something to do with all this—and I think it has
had a great deal to do with it—I want to read brief extracts from
two Presidential messages. One of them is from the message
of the last Democratic President of the United States before the
war, who had a Democratic Congress behind him. The present
Executive is a man of original ability. Instigated in his u- e of
language by the conditions that surround him. he does not have
to copy from somebody else, and yet we find him using substantially the same language that his Democratic predecessor used
thirty-five years ago, when he, too,had both branches of Congress.
In 1S57 Mr. Buchanan, under the conditions which I have described, sent a message to Congress containing the following language:
"With unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and all the elements of
natural wealth, our manufacturers have suspended; our public works are
retarded; our private enterprises of different kinds are abandoned; and thousands of useful laborers are thrown out of employment and reduced to want.
We have possessed all the elements of material wealth in rich abundance,
and yet, notwithstanding all* these advantages, our country, in its monetary interests, is in a deplorable condition.

And thereupon Mr. Buchanan asked the Congress of the United
States to pass a high protective tariff law.
The panic of 1857 was not so widespread as that of 1893, and
yet the paralysis to business was in proportion to the business of
the country very similar, and a Democratic President, without
condemnation, so far as I ever heard, from the Democratic party,
called upon Congress and insisted that the repeal of the protective tariff law of 1S42, which had taken place in 1856, was the
cause of the breaking up of the industries of the country, and
the far-famed panic of 1857.
Mr. Cleveland in his message to this Congress, dated on the
8th of the present month, said:
With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production
and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe investments, and with
satisfactory assurance to business enterprises, suddenly financial distrust
and fear have sprung up on every side.

And then, for quantity, he goes on and tells the same tale of
woe that Mr. Buchanan in 1857 was compelled to tell as the
result of the repeal of the protective tariff law of 1842.
Mr. Speaker, the President might have gone a good deal farther. He might have said that there was a condition not only
similar in many of its features to that described by his Democratic predecessor in 1857, but also that there were many other
striking features of the situation that had not been described by
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that predecessor. He might have stated that the unemployed
men in this country amounted in number probably to millions,
I do not know how many; that there is not a paying, remunerative industrial institution in this country to-day; that there are
more idle men in the United States at this time than there have
been during the whole period from 1861 down to the present
time. Labor is for the most part unemployed, and that which is
employed is running upon short time and at reduced wages.
Tha*miners of my district, nine-tenths of them, are without
remunerative employment, and the great industrial concerns of
the country are standing idle, hopelessly looking to a Democratic Congress for relief. Railroad securities, bonds, stocks,
and representatives of the interests of the people, in all the manufacturing and industrial institutions of the country, have depreciated in value beyond all former precedent; the real estate
of the country can not be sold at any price; the wage-earner is
looking forward to a winter in which starvation will stare him
in the face upon every hand; the iron furnaces are silent; railroads and other corporations are going into the hands of receivers: business in every direction is paralyzed; prosperity on every
hand has fled from the country: ruin stares every business man
in the face; there is a widespread destruction of values; and the
conditions are such that the business men of the country are
looking on the scene of distress and destruction with-little hope
of the future.'
And, Mr. Speaker, we look backward along the line, under
this challenge of the President, under this challenge of the Democratic party, to ask what has done all this. It is pertinent to
this debate, and I am not here to apologize for bringing it in.
The President says that the Sherman law ought to be repealed
because of the condition of the country, and it is pertinent to
study all these conditions and all the events of past years to see
whether or not the Sherman law should' be made the scapegoat
to carry into the wilderness all these burdens. I want to submit
a few propositions, based upon a text of Scripture, and I introduce my subject without reading the text first. [Laughter.]
I am one of those who believe that a very small, meager, infinitesimal percentage of the troubles under which we are laboring are to be justly traced to the existence upon the statute book
of the Sherman act. and 1 believe that the attitude of the Democratic party which supports the Administration to-day is the
result of an acute, wise, far-seeing, shrewd, ncceptmce of the
situation, in view of the dangers with which they were threatened the very moment the news flashed over the wires that
Cleveland was elected President, and that both branches of the
Congress was to be Democratic. From that time to this there
has been a steady purpose upon the part of a certain portion of
the Democratic party to select a scapegoat upon which to load
the burdens that were sure to fall upon the people of this country as a result of Democratic success at the polls. I call the attention of the House to the 16th chapter of Leviticus, which is
particularly apropos to this situation. The fifth verse of that
chapter reads as follows:
And he [Aaron] shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two
kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
7. And he shall talre the two goats, and present them before the L<ord at
tbe door or the tabernacle of the congregation.

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8. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and
the other lot for the scapegoat.
9. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer
him for a sin offering.
10. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall "be presented
.alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for
a scapegoat into the wilderness.
*

*

*

*

*

*

*

21. And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and
•confess over him all the Iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their
transgressions, In all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat,
and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man unto the wilderness.
22. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not
inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
•

*

#

*

*

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•

26. And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes,
and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into camp.

[Laughter.]
Mr. Speaker, when the timber began to fall and disaster be^an to ensue, following the Presidential election, and the inevitable seemed to be coming1,1 think I can see the members of
the present Administration assembled with the President. He
had with him the regenerated free-silver representatives in the
•Cabinet, disenthralled from their allegiance to free silver, and
they consulted together at Buzzard's Bay, or somewhere else,
about how to proceed to turn aside the public judgment of the
country from the real cause of the coming crash, and they concluded that a scapegoat was necessary; and the member of the
Cabinet representing Aaron probably brought before the Pi*esident two kids, one of them the McKinley act and the other the
Sherman silver-purchasing act, and I fancy a deep and prolonged consultation was held as to \yhich one of these goats
should be consecrated to the Lord and which one should be dispatched into the wilderness.
After due consideration it was decided that, inasmuch as it
would probably be impossible to execute the Chicago platform,
as amended by the distinguished resident of my own district—
resident in Ohio—and inasmuch as all New York and all London
would join in pointing out the Sherman silver act as the proper
scapegoat, it was decided that the silver act should become the
scapegoat; and they thereupon dedicated the McKinley law,
temporarily at least, to the Lord, and decided to send the Sherman law out into the wilderness. And now the scapegoat was
backed up in the neighborhood of the temple, and over its head
the high priest confessed all the sins and iniquities of the people; he confessed without qualification that all of the evils pressing upon the business interests of the country were caused by
the Sherman silver act, and was the willful and malicious act
and purpose of the Republican party.
The Republican party having no representative at this procedure it was an easy matter, and the confession was broad and
sweeping, and thereupon it was decided that a u fit man " should
be detailed to send that goat " into the wilderness," and I fancy
that certain movements goingon about this Capitol justify me in
saying that the " f i t man" selected was the distinguished Secretary of the Treasury, and that he has piloted the goat " into
the wilderness," and doubtless on his return, if victory shall
crown his enterprise, he will perform the duty made obligatory
upon him by the 26th verse of the chapter which I have read,
[Laughter.]
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I will not pursue this illustration any further, but will simply
say that the whole trouble has arisen because the selection, by
whatever means it was brought about, destined the tariff law to
be dedicated for a short time further to the service of the Lord
and the Sherman law was to be the scapegoat. And from that
day to this, through all the channels and communications by
which the Democratic party console themselves, and encourage
the hope that the time has not come when they shall b3 punished
for their sins, and through all the channels in which they rally
the people of this country to the support of their party, the
people have been taught that the Sherman law is the root of all
this evil.
Why, Mr. Speaker, this law went into effect in 1890, on the
14th of July. It was enforced honestly i.nd persistently by the
Administration. Four and one-half million ounces of silver were
purchased e very month. At the end of the coina ge period silver
certificates were still issued upon the bullion deposited in the
Treasury, and nobody ever heard of any injury resulting. I
desire at this point to insert in my speech the plank adopted by
the Democratic party at Chicago on this subject.

We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 18C0
as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with possibilities of danger in the future
which should make all of its supporters, as well as its author, anxious for its
speedy repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver ap the standard
money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit
of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable valufr
or be adjusted through international agreement or by such safeguards of
legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metal3,
and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the
payment of debts; and we demand that all paper currency shall be kept at
par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy as especially necessary for the protection of farmers and laboring classes, the first

and most defenseless victims of unstable money and a fluctuating currency.

The Democratic party see a thing generally after they pass
it—sometimes as they approach it; and if it is wise in them to
make a denunciation of a measure passed by the Republican
party they never hesitate. That law had been in effect for almost two years when the Chicago convention met. It had added
to the currency of this country about $40,000,000 per annum.
When the Democratic party, with all its wisdom, assembled at
Chicago it declared, in a voice that had to be interpreted fas it
always does), its opposition to the Sherman silver law. I assume they said about everything that they knew of it at that
time.
It was then two years old. Under it there had been four and
a half million ounces of silver bought every month. A hundred
million ounces or more in the aggregate had been bought. And
what did they say ? They did not say that the Sherman law had
harmed the people ; they did not say that it had driven gold out
of the country. There was no cry coming up from Wall street
that the honor of the American people was being swamped under
the purchase of silver—not a word of that kind. They never
said that this law was an unwise law, an injurious law, a harmful law—not at all. I assume they embodied in that national
platform all there was known of the delinquencies of the culprit
up to that time.
I imagine they did not try it for petit larceny when it had been
guilty of highway robbery. They said this law was a "cowardly
makeshift." and demanded its repeal; and during the whole
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of the campaign which followed—and from that day to this—the
question, what were the objectionable features which caused
this law to be thus denominated and denounced? has been the
subject of discussion in the Eastern and Middle States, as it has
been the ground of the comforting suggestions that have been
made to the free-silver men of the West. What did the Democratic party mean when they said that this law was a "cowardly m a k e s h i f t ? W h y , the man of Wall street says the Sherman act is a concession to the silver interests of the country,
and is "cowardly;' ! therefore the people are asked to vote the
Democratic ticket.
In the Northwest, where combinations were formed, this question was fully discussed. And I beg to remind my Populist
friends that they ought not to feel surprised or dissatisfied.
They voted for Cleveland, either directly or indirectly, every
mother's son of them. They did it with their eyes open; they
knew what they were doing; they knew the grand conspiracy
and combination in which they were at work; and when they
assisted in the election of Cleveland they knew of the existence
of the Warner letter of 1SS5. They knew there was no more
determined antagonist of bimetallism upon the face of the earth
than Grover Cleveland. And they voted for him in preference
to the gentleman from Indiana, who my accomplished friend from
Ohio says stood ready to approve a free-silver law if Congress
had passed one.
In the Northwest, and everywhere where the free-silver sentiment prevailed, voters came up and asked, " W h a t is the meaning of this platform; it speaks of a k cowardly makeshift'; what
is that about?" The reply was, " I t is cowardly on the part of
the Republican party to pass a law to buy 4,500,000 ounces of silver monthly when they ought to have adopted free and unlimited coinage of silver." And without exception from one end of
the Northwest to the other, and down in the South, the free-silver men either voted directly for Cleveland upon that construction of the platform, or they voted indirectly for him by defeating the electors for Harrison. And now they come up here and
wonder that the man who in 18S5 could not wait to be inaugurated President before issuing his fulmination against the freesilver sentiment of the country should now fail to carry into execution a platform on which they themselves say they have put
their own construction.
And now comes the very eloquent gentleman from New York,
who, as I gathered his language on Saturday, said that while
the platform meant a certain thing—while it meant bimet allism
under certain conditions which would protect the value of the
coin, it was known then and is known know, and always was
known, that no power on earth could execute that platform.
Mr. Speaker, why was there not an injurious drain of gold from
Wall street during those two ye:irs and upward? I admit that a
vast quantity of gold went out of the country; but the country
was not harmed thereby; and I want some gentleman who is wiser
than myself (and there are plenty of them on the other side who
are denouncing the Sherman silver law as iniquitous and against
all principle) to answer me this question.
The condition of this country when we came together was a
condition which had been growing from a period which I will
mention a little later and had been becoming rapidly worse; and
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I ask this,question in all good faith: If it was the drain of gold
from this country caused by the passage of the Sherman act that
brought about the evil condition of the country—the failure of
the banks, the closing of industries, the ruin of fortunes—.ill
happening within a very few months, why is it that now, when
nearly $2lJ,000,000 of gold has either landed on our shores or is
coming, there is not a particle of perceptible cessation to the
terrible condition that oppresses the country.
We have lost in gold $58,000,000 during the current year, and
have drawn back $29,000,000, leaving $29,000,000 only lost of currency in the form of gold, while we have added $10,000,000 in the
circulation of the national banks, and have just before us a prospective large increase in the same sort of currency; and yet
there is no practical change in the conditions. Is it possible that
when a patient is bleeding to death under the administration of
Wall street finance, the stoppage of the flow of blood and the flow
of the current back into the system is not to have any beneficial
or appreciable effect whatever?
Mr. Speaker, the difficulty lies in another direction entirely.
The difficulty lies in the fact that for thirty years in this country—and I am now going to discuss this question from a nonpartisan standpoint [laughter]—for thirty years in our history
we h tve builded the institutions of the country upon a protectivetariff system. There was not a condition on the 8th day of last
November in this country that was not due to the protectivetariff system. Right or wrong, wise or foolish, the industrial
system of this country was the product of the protective tariff.
Everything had been constructed on that basis. Our manufacturers manufactured the articles for consumption. They used
the raw material of our country, the product of our own labor.
They borrowed the money of the banks and employed their
labor with a view to prices and conditions that had been established by this system, and with which they were familiar. The
merchant imported his goods from abroad, and bought from the
domestic manufacturer on the basis of this structure of mercantile growth and greatness which has resulted from that system.
He bought his goods at a price that he understood, for a market that he understood. The laborer contracted his labor upon
the basis of a demand fixed upon the value of the product which
he was to produce. The farmer raised his produce with a view
to the demand and necessity, and the capacity to buy of the
laborer and the manufacturer.
But suddenly there came into existence, at the end of almost
the third of the century, a political party that declared to the
country by the action of the Chicago convention, by striking
out of that platform three srreat leading propositions by a majority vot e: first, that the Democratic party in this country cared
nothing about capital invested in manufacturing industries, and
would pay no attention to them in the adjustment of the tariff;
second, that it declared the question of wages should not be considered in the readjustment of this new condition of things; and,
third, that the stocks on hand and the business of the country
should not be considered by the Democratic party in the adoption of what? Why the new policy of the Democratic party.
The Chicago platform as it came from the committee on resoolutions contained the following declaration:
In making reduction in taxes it is not proposed to injure any domestic
Industries, but rather to promote their healthy growth. From the founda-

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tion of this Government taxes collected at the custom-house have been the
chief source of Federal revenue. Such they must continue to be. Moreover,
many industries have come to rely upon legislation for successful continuance, so that any change of law must be at every step regardful of the labor
and capital thus involved. The process of reform must be subject to the execution of this plain dictate of justice.

When the resolutions were presented to the convention Mr.
Neal made an out and out free-trade speech, and moved the above
paragraph be stricken from the platform and the following plank
substituted, which was done by a vote of 564 to 342:
We denounce Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the great
majority of the American people for the benefit of the few. We declare it to
be a fundamental principle of the Democratic party that the Federal Government has no constitutional power to impose and collect tariff duties, except for the purpose of revenue only.

, The plank of the Democratic party that was put there by a
large majority of the convention, and which Mr. Cleveland accepted, and the Democratic party accepted, and on which they
carried him to a triumphant election, was that all forms of Republican protection were robbery and that it is a fundamental
doctrine of .the Democratic party that the Constitution confers
no power on Congress to levy duties for any other purpose except for revenue and for revenue only.
That party, Mr. Spe.iker, came into power on the 8th day of
November on that platform; that is to say, that the country had
notice that on a given day the Executive Departments and the
Senate and House of Representatives would b3 turned over to
that party which had declared war on the system upon which
our whole industrial fabric had been erected.
Now. sir, it is well for a student of history to go back to last
November and take a survey of the situation. I undertake to
say, and challenge contradiction, that on that fateful day, when
the Democratic party carried this country on this platform, this
country was in a condition more prosperous than it ever was before on any preceding date in its whole history, or than was any
other country in all the range of human knowledge. There
were fewer idle men to be found, and I challenge contradiction
of that statement. Labor commanded a higher price than it
ever before commanded. There w^is not an idle dollar in the
country, and Wall street itself was more prosperous than even
it had ever been before since it was known in business transactions. There was no hoarding of money in the banks. There
was nobody who had not full and complete confidence in the system, confidence in the men who had administered the system,
and confidence in Providence, that in its wisdom the s.;me
party which had done all this would be allowed to continue to
administer jt.
Prices were remunerative if not high. As compared with
present prices they were remunerative. Our foreign tr.;de had
grown until it exceeded the wildest dreams of the greatest friends
of foreign traffic that had ever been known. We hid it run up
to more than $2,000,000,000 per annum, trade was being increased
and business was being inaugurated everywhere. New lines of
steamships were putting out from Pensacola and other points on
your Southern coast. Institution after institution was being organized. Railroads were being pushed into the unoccupied territory. Iron furnaces throughout the country were in full blast,
and their cheerful light was going up to heaven notifying the

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people of the United States of existing prosperity and warning
them against change of conditions.
Under the operations of the AlcKinley law, which went into
effect in October, 1890, foreign capital had been attracted to our
shores and invested in manufacturing industries; a new impetus
had been given to the industrial enterprise of our own country,
and far and near the signs of speedy and rapid development and
growth were heard and seen on every band; the day of enormous
prosperity was approaching, and there was hope and confidence
everywhere displayed. Too much hope and too much confidence
and too much assurance of the fate of our industries and the prosperity of our country did not depend on the election or the nonelection of a political party.
What happened? Bear in mind, now, that this silver law which
you are attacking had been in full force and operation for two
years and four months. It was not twenty-four hours—the records show it and no man can succassfully deny it—it was not
twenty-four hours from the moment that the intelligence went
over the wires that a complete revolution was ordered in this
country until the present condition was inaugurated, and from
tliat day to this the headway and pathway of this Government
may well have been described by the maxim,41 It is a swift road
to hell." [Laughter.]
One by one the furnaces went out, one by one the mines closed
up, one after another the factories shortened their time. Why
did they do that? Was it a mere senseless stampede? Was it a
Wall-street panic? Was it an unintelligent curtailment of the
business of the country? I say not. Where is there an intelligent man to-day, if he were a manufacturer, with this threat of
the presence of the Democratic party in power; the menace of
its presence, the threat of its mere existence imder that platform, and confiding as human nature does in the belief that a
great political party will do what it says it will do—a violent
presumption, I will admit, in the present instance [laughter]—
what one of you at the head of an industrial institution would
carry on your business?
Let me ask you now to put this question to your constituents:
What one of you at the head .of an institution that manufactured
something, anything, any one of the great institutions of the
country employing laboring men, would make anything if you did
not have a contract for its reception, and payment on reception? And you would not even dare do that for fear the party
who contracted to buy would find himself unable to comply with
the contract at the end. What one of you who was a merchant
would dare to buy anything to-day; and if so, what? The merchants of the country are buying just what they are compelled
to buy from day to day. The manufacturer is making to-day
just what he has orders for, from undoubtedly solvent persons
1 who have ordered the goods; and this has worked a revolution
from ono end of the country to the other.
Bear in mind, now, I am not discussing the tariff question. I
am not here to have that controversy now. We shall have a
great dbal of that, or the Democratic party will go to protest for
default of its promises, for the " robber " is at our throat yet,
and you are passing away a great deal of valuable time while the
robber is taking your substance from you, according to your
views of the case. But I am simply pointing out how true H is
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that it is an entire revolution in this great industrial system,
and that it is not by any means the product of this Sherman
law.
Mr. Speaker, it is said by the distinguished gentleman from
Missouri [Mr. BLAND] that the volume of money is affected by
the opening of every new industrial enterprise. As I understood
his language the other day, he said that the erection of every
new industrial institution made an additional call for an increase
in the volume of the currency. If that be true, and if there was
a fairly adequate volume of currency last November, there ought
to be an almighty surplus in the country now; for I take it that
the logic of that argument goes both ways, and that if the opening of a new industrial pursuit makes a demand for money, the
closing of one will likewise congest the money somewhere; and
therefore, rather than be trying to make more money, we ought
to be operating upon the industrial organizations of the country.
Mr. Speaker, f hope that the Democratic party will be patriotic
Mr. BOUTELLE. The gentleman is the possessor of a very
sanguirie temperament.
Mr. GROSVENOR. The Republican party will always be
patriotic; and we have the strongest assurance that the Democratic party will be in the present instance, or they would not
dare to launch an Administration measure upon the country and
challenge defeat, or battle for success, basing their hopes upon
the Republican minority of this Rouse, when that Republican
minority have been treated as we have been treated hare.
And now, Mr. Speaker. I have a suggestion to make looking
to the restoration of confidence in this country. The imperfect
organization of the House has been such that I have not had an
opportunity to pressnt to the country my remedy, but as a part
of ray speech, in my time. I ask to have read at the desk of the
Clerk a joint resolution which, in my judgment, would have done
more than any tampering with the" currency of this country to
have restored confidence if it could have been introduced and
then triumphantly enacted.
The Clerk read as follows:
[Fifty-third Congress, House of Representatives.]
Joint resolution declaring the intention of Congress in the matter of legislation touching the condition of the country.
Whereas the causes that have led to the present deplorable condition
of the business of the country are not known so definitely as to present an
agreement of opinion, it is nevertheless universally agreed that one of the
elements, which has become a potent factor, is the fear everywhere felt that
Congress will change the tariff duties upon articles imported from abroad
coming in direct competition with American products, and thus unfavorably
affect home production; and
Whereas the declaration of the platform of the Democratic convention
of 1892 has caused fear in the country that the provisions of that platform
would be carried into execution by Congress, and such fear has cause<1 great
reduction of production in all classes of manufacture, thereby throwing
out of employment large numbers of workingmen and causing a reduction in
the wages of all who remain employed, whereby many workingmen have
become dependent upon charity for subsistence; and
Whereas It this condition is not immediately checked and confidence be
speedily restored, at least in some important measure, wider spread demoralization in all branches of business will follow, with all the horrors of
destitution, idleness, bankruptcy, and all the incidents of such conditions:
Now, therefore, as one measure of relief, belt—
Resolved, That it is not the intention of the Fifty-third Congress to make
radical or important changes in the principles of tariff taxation, and it is
hereby solemnly declared that Congress will not undertake a sweeping revis90




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Ion of the tariff laws, nor will it remove from American products, either of
the farm, the mine, or the shop, that protection which now stands between
the American producer and the foreign producer; and especially is it hereby
declared that Congress will not remove from the products of agricultural industries the full measure of protection now afforded bylaw, to the end that
wages may be maintained at present rates and the producer be rewarded for
hlslabor and capital by adequate prices.

This declaration is demanded by the business interests of the
whole country. This declaration'by Congress would loosen the
crippled wheels of industry. The cry comes up from all over the
country, '4 Let alone the tariff; let the McKinley law stand where
it is." The cry comes—
Prom forges where no fires burn,
From mills where wheels no longer turn,
From looms o'er which no shuttles leap,
From merchants' shops—which sheriffs keep—
From banks gone up, from stocks gone down.
From God-made country, man-made town,
From Wall street men, from sons of toil,
From the bronzed tillers of the soil,
From North, from South, from East, from West,
Business is crying with a zest—
" Don't monkey with the tariff."

Mr. BOUTELLiE. Have that passed by unanimous consent,
Mr. GROSVENOR. Under the rules, Mr. Speaker, I am not
permitted to ask unanimous consent to adopt this resolution,
and I doubt that it ever would be adopted, but would be sent to
some committee and be forever forgotten. If it could be passed
and this body adjourn without day, the evils which now confront
the country would speedily end.
But now, Mr. Speaker, coming to the question more immediately involved in this debate: Asserting, as I have already
asserted, that one of the necessary incidents to a cure is to ascertain the causes of the disease, the comments which I have made
are directly in line with the real heart of this discussion. All
along through this debate it has been said that a great many
conspiracies and crimes have been committed by the Republican
party in the matter of the demonetization of silver; and the eloquent gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. BLANCHARD] has used
the same words, which has become a sort of stale utterance by
our free silver friends in a great portion of the Union, that the
coinage act of 1873 was the result of " conspiracy, fraud, and
stealth."
I do not see how it is very pertinent in a debate like the present one to discuss that question. I can not understand how it is
important us a step towards relief to ascertain who the man was,
or who the men were who were guilty of this great crime. In
most States of the Union we have a statute of limitation for
great crimes; and I believe under the laws of the United States
felonies are barred by a special statute of limitation. But twenty
years dees not seem to bar the repetition of this stale and untruthful allegation.
Why, Mr. Speaker, there never was such a reflection upon the
intelligence of the American Congress uttered by mortal mail
as to proclaim to the people of this Union that the Congress of
the United States dropped out of the coinage of the country the
leading item of silver coinage and nobody knew it. I will briefly
recapi tulate the history of this transaction, and do it only because I want to treat gentlemen who come here, who seem to
think that this is an important factor in this debate, with consideration for their zeal, if not for their judgment.
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The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. MCMILLIN in the chair).
The time of the gentleman has expired.
* Mr. HARTER. I move that the time of my colleague be extended indefinitely , to allow him to conclude his remarks.
There was no objection.
Mr. GROSVENOR. Mr. Speaker, in 1870 the Secretary of the
Treasury [Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts,] sent to the Senate of the United States a bill, with a report strongly advocating
the passage of that bill, and that bill contained three proposed
changes in the coinage of the United States. It was proposed
to omit the dollar, the 5-cent piece, and the 3-cent piece.
That bill wi'S pending in the Senate of the United States for
nearly three years. Whole columns of debate ensued. Document after document from the Director of the Mint, and the
leading experts upon the coinage of the country were sent to the
Senate, all of them but one, perhaps, advocating the dropping
of the dollar, and one of them in strong language advocating the
retention of the dollar.
I shall put into my remarks a fuller and more detailed history
of this transaction which I myself prepared for the purpose of a
discussion on this subject which I have the honor to be engaged
in with the distinguished member of this House from Colorado
[Mr. BELL], and soon to appear in a newspaper in Ohio.
Away along in 1873 the bill finally came up for its passage and
on its passage Senator SHERMAN of Ohio and Senator MORRILL
of Vermont voted against the bill, and every Pacific coast Senar
tor, headed by the distinguished Senator from Nevada [Mr.
STEWART], voted " a y e " upon the passage of the bill.
That bill was not, as the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. BLANCHARD] supposes, a bill without a dollar in it. It was the original simon-pure bill of the Secretary of the Treasury, unaltered,
without a Senate amendment being put into it: the bill which
had been spread upon the record of the Senate for three years,
and which had been discussed in untold pages of discussion; and
yet gentlemen stand up and say it was done surreptitiously.
Twenty years afterwards there are found in this country men who
voted aye upon that bill who declare that they-did not know what
the bill was about.
There had been no recoinage act, as I understand it, from
1831 (possibly I am not right in the date), and the Secretary of
the Treasury thought the changed conditions had rendered it
important, and so it was that he recommended this bill. The
bill came over to this House, and on the motion of Judge Kelley,
of Pennsylvania, the dollar was added to that bill—not the old.
dollar, not the silver dollar, in ke )ping with the coinage of the
country, but a token dollar, worth four times what the quarter
was, ten times what the dime was worth, with 380 and not 412
grains of silver that there had been originally in the silver
dollar.
That bill, after a long discussion, and after the whole subject
had been considered in this House, went over to the Senate,
with the addition of this dollar to the coinage; and then a committee of conference of both Houses adjusted the bill to the
original condition, and both Houses of Congress indorsed it. The
paper to which I have referred is as follows:
I enter upon the discussion of the questions submitted in this debate protesting that the first question is totally irrelevant to the great issue before

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the American peonle. and its decision is absolutely unimportant. The resolution is as follows: First, Resolved, That silver was demonetized in 1873
through conspiracy and fraud, for selfish ends.
What can be gained by a discussion of this question? Did Adam procure
Eve to purloin the apple and eat it, and thereby entail moral, physical, and •
spiritual woe upon the human family, or did Eve, with her seductive arts,
get Adam and his descendants into this scrape? We are here, and the subject of our environment and who caused it is a matter of no importance.
It is said that something that happened to silver by reason of the action of
Congress, in a former period of our history, has entailed financial woe and
misery upon us as a people. It has projected bankruptcy and hard times
all along the line, and if this be so, it is pertinent to consider a remedy: but
it is irrelevant and, in my judgment, absurd, to discuss the origin of, or partition a responsibility. If a man finds his house on fire and his goods being
destroyed, he will not prove his distinguished greatness by suspending his
efforts to extinguish the fire and save his goods until he can ascertain
whether it was the hired girl in the kitchen upsetting a can of gasoline or a
flash of lightning from a passing thunder storm which set fire to his property. It would not be a very intelligent physician, in the estimation of men
of common sense, on finding a patient suffering with fever, who should refuse to administer remedies and save the patient from impending death until he could investigate the sewerage and plumbing of the residence, and ascertain the original cause of the fever.
What has the question of responsibility for the act of Congress which it is
said demonetized silver, to do with the condition of the country to day? It
was either a good thing or a bad thing, and who did it is totally unimportant.
There is a large class of our fellovv.citizens who differ radically with Mr.
B e l l as to tne whole question, in gross and in detail, of who was responsible;
but if it was settled, and settled beyond a reasonable doubt, it would not
make a hair black or white in the pending issue before the country. The
question is not, Who did it? The question is, What is the condition of the
country to-day, and what is wise, best, and effective to relieve the country
from the present situation? But this is one of the resolutions which we are
called upon to discuss, and I stand ready to discuss it. I do it as a matter
of courtesy to my opponent, and In recognition of the terms of the debate;
but I protest without qualification that there is no possible good that can
come of it.
Now, it will be insisted in this paper that there is not a shadow of proof or*
earth available to any mortal sustaining any one of the allegations of Mr,
B e l l , He says, first: " That a certain class was particularly interested in securing the demonetization of one of the money metals." Replying to this,
It may well be said that, if it is true as st ated, it is a matter of supreme indifference. Sellishness and self-interest are the motives from which a great
many valuable things have sprung. Every invention that the wit of man
has conceived has sprung from self-interest. The establishment of our early
Independence of Great Britain was a matter of self-interest to our people.
There was a class during the Revolution interested in declaring and maintaining our independence. The suppression of the rebellion and the restoration of the Union found a mighty class interested on the loyal side. Every
good thing done by man has emanated from a class particularly interested
in securing the result.
But it is further said, second: "The same class raised a vast sum for this
purpose, and had their agents present in conference with the Coinage Committee. " This statement is demurrable. The raising of avast sum is not a
crime in this country, nor immoral, although just at this time rather difficult of performance. He does not,state in this subdivision that any improper
use was made of the money,but in his third subdivision he says "thatthe
agent expended the fund raised for this purpose." If it is herein intended to
be charged that any man in Congress was corrupted to vote for the passage
of the so-called demonetization bill, the statement is absolutely, without
qualification, wickedly and maliciously false. If it is intended to cast suspicion by innuendoes and ask the reader to draw an unfavorable inference,
then the act of writing and publishing this statement is not courageous,
manly, fair, nor justifiable. I challenge Mr. B e l l to the proof of his charge,
and if he fail I demand that he withdraw it.
His fourth proposition, that silver was demonetized by a committee and
not by Congress; that the purpose to demonetize was shielded from the
people, is ridiculous, untrue, and a mere fable. It is a fiction that has been
so often published and so often harped upon that some people have actually
come apparently to believe it.
His fifth proposition is worthy of discussion, and is the only one worthy
of a moment's consideration, and I propose now to show that the act of
1873 was a legislative - '
aboveboard, without anything clandestine;
done after a full and eiau^ate discussion, upon the recommendation of the
Secretary of the Treasury, and done by the procurement and support of the
present advocates of free and unlimited coinage of silver, And this will be

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done by reference to the record and by proofs that no man can gainsay. It
will be met by declamatory statements and loua, senseless, and unsupported
shouts. The record will not be denied or modified, but the charges will be
repeated, as they have been heretofore, in the face of all the evidence and all
the facts.
On the 9th day of June, 1890, In the Senate of the United States, Mr. Sherman arose to denounce as Infamously false the charge that the bill to demonetize silver, as it. is called, was passed 44 surreptitiously, done by stealth,
unlawfully." His speech may be found beginning on the 6039th page of the
Congressional Record for June 9,1890, and I will only quote certain authorities presented by him on that occasion, and refer the fair-minded reader
to the documents at large as they are referred to by him. And it may here
be stated that it is a confession of weakness or stupidity on the part of any
member of the Congress of 1871 to 1873 who now states that the American
people and the American Congress had no knowledge of the passage of that
The bill about which so much of false statement has been made was sent
to Congress by the Secretary of the Treasury on the 25th of April, 1870. It
came from the Treasury Department, and the fifteenth section of the bill
read as follows: "Sec. 15. And be it further enacted, That of the silver
coins the weight of the half dollar piece of 50 cents shall be 192 grains, and
that of the quarter dollar and dime shall be respectively one-half and onefifth of the weight of said half dollar; that the silver coins issued in conformity with the above section shall be a legal tender in any one payment of
debts for sums less than one dollar." And the eighteenth section of that act
provides as follows: "Sec. 18. And be it further enacted, That no coin,
either of gold or of silver, or minor coinage shall hereafter be issued from
the mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights
herein set forth." Thus it was especially proviaed what coins should be
issued, and all other coins were forbidden, and this same act, when passed,
repealed all other coinage acts. There was an express provision that no
other coins except those mentioned should be issued from the mint. The
names of the coins, designs, their weights and measures were fixed and all
others were absolutely prohibited by the face of the law of 1873, and on the
face of the bill.
Mr. Boutwell, Secretary of the Treasury, accompanied that bill, when it
was sent to the House, by one hundred printed pages. The report fully
stated the object of the bill and the reasons for the changes, and there were
accompanying the bill reports from Robert Patterson, P. Peale, H. R. Liinderman, James Ross Snowden, G. F. Dunning, E. B. Elliott, all scientific experts, and the principal officers of the mints and assay offices. The necessities for the revision provided for in this law had been set forth by Secretary
Chase and his assistant, Mr. Harrington, by Mr. McCulloch and his assistant,
Mr. Chandler. There had been no codification of the mint law for thirtyfive years. The sections of the bill which discontinued the coinage of the
dollar were elaborately discussed in these reports by all the experts.
Robert Patterson pointed out the propriety of the abolishment of the silver dollar, the half dime, and the three-cent piece, and I quote from his report as follows: " Gold became the standard, of which the gold dollar is the
unit. Silver is subsidiary, embracing coins from the dime to the half dollar." The heading of this paragraph was as follows: Silver dollar, half
dime, and three-cent piece discontinued, and coins less than dime of copper,
nickel, legal-tender one-cent piece of one gram in weight." In this report
was a letter from E. D. Elliott, late actuary of the Treasury Department,
headed in capital letters as follows: " The Standard Silver Dollar—Its Discontinuance as a Standard." The bill proposes the discontinuance of the
silver dollar, and the report which accompanies the bill suggests the substitution for the existing standard silver dollar of a trade coin of intrinsic
value equivalent to the Mexican silver peso or dollar.
The Director of the Mint headed his report as follows: "Discontinuance of
Silver Dollar."
Hon. James Ross Snowden headed his report as follows: "The Present
Silver Dollar Should not be Discontinued."
This showed that there were two sides to the question. It should be remembered that at this time the silver dollar of our coinage was worth more
than the gold dollar, for at the time of the introduction of the bill, to wit,
the 25th of April, 1870, the silver dollar was worth $1.0312 in gold in the markets of the world. There was, as I have said, the 100-page document sent by
Secretary Boutwell, and the statement of these experts, and there was a letter
from the Deputy Comptroller of the Currency who had charge of the Mint, recommending the passage of the bill, with a copy of the bill; and copies of the
bill were sent broadcast, omitting entirely the silver dollar, and calling especial attention to that omission in every possible way. With all this, before Congress and before the country, the bill was reported to the Senate by
the Committee on Finance on the 19th of December, 1870. The members of
the Finance Committee at the time of the passage of the bill, and who had
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c h a r g e o f t h e hill, w e r e J o h n S h e r m a n , J u s t i n M o r r i l l , G e o r g e H . W i l -

liams, Alexander Gt. Cattell, Willard Warner, Renhen Fenton, and Thomas
F. Bayard.
The Committee on Coinage in the House haying charge of the bill consisted
of William D. Kelley, Samuel Hooper, John Hill* Noah Davis, Peter W.
Strader, and John A. Griswold. It takes a man with some nerve to charge
these men with surreptitiously and fraudulently procuring the passage of
the bill. The man who does it ought to have a very large accumulation of
good reputation standing behind him to justify him in such a charge.
On the 9th and 10th days of January, 1871, the bill was debated in the Senate,
mainly upon other questions than upon the omission of the silver dollar, it
is true. Everybody understood the dollar was omitted, and everybody
agreed to it. The bill was read in full and a number of amendments made,
and finally the bill passed by a vote of 36 yeas and 14 nays, on the 10th of January, 1871. Morrill and Sherman voted against the bill. Casserly, Cole, Corbett, Nye, Stewart, and Williams, being every Senator from the Pacific coast,
voted for the bill; and ever since Senator Stewart gave that vote to demonetize silver he has been howling like a maniac that the bill was a fraud, its
passage a crime, and its authors scoundrels. It is not the first time that a
man has cried "Stop thief I" to divert attention from his own record. He
voted for the bill that omitted the silver dollar from our coinage, and that
forbade the silver dollar being coined.
The bill was debated elaborately in all its details, and if any man present
In the Senate when that bill was passed, and who voted for it, or who voted
against it, now says he did not know what it contained, he ought to be compelled to resign his seat in the Senate and apply himself to some position
the duties of which he is competent to discharge. The bill went to the House
of Representatives, and efforts to amend were made by several gentlemen
restoring the old dollar, but with fewer grains of silver. Mr. Kelley did insert into the bill a subsidiary dollar with 385 grains, being 26J fewer grains
than the old silver dollar, but 'this amendment was not finally agreed to,
after full and elaborate discussion. The bill finally became a law on the 8th
of February, 1873, nearly three years after it was introduced into Congress.
In the dobate in the House Mr. Hooper of Massachusetts, a most distinuished financier, pointed out that it was not only proposed to drop the old
ollar, but to substitute a dollar containing
grains less than the old
dollar; but when the House bill went to the Senate it contained this 384grain dollar, but the Senate rejected the amendment, and a conference was
ordered, and the trade-dollar provision was put into the bill in place of the
384-grain dollar, l h e conference report was signed by John Sherman,
John Scott, and Thomas F. Bayard, members of the Senate, and Samuel
Hooper and William L. Stoughton, members of the House. It was read in
the Senate February 6,1873, and in the House the next day, and was agreed to.
Now, it will be seen that it is idle for any honest man to pretend that it
was not known what the conference report contained, because the Senators
knew that the bill as passed by them omitted the silver dollar, and Stewart
and others voted for it, and Sherman and Morrill voted against it. The
House knew that the dollar was omitted, for it amended the bill in that re*
spect, and inserted a subsidiary dollar of smaller weight. Both bodies knew
that there was a conference report upon the matters of difference between
the two Houses. The Senate knew that the necessity for that conference
had arisin because the Senate had rejected the House amendment. So everybody had notice, and it is a baby and cowardly and mean act to now set up
that they had no knowledge of the facts as they existed. This charge of
clandestine work in connection with the passage of this bill is old, stale, and
utrid. It has no place now in the financial history of tb« United States
etter than that assigned by John Randolph to the dead mackerel—"it Is fit
to shine and stink, and stink and shine.1'
The late lamented Senator Beck, of Kentucky, as late as March, 1888, was
misled into making this charge, and upon proof he magnanimously withdrew his statement, and acknowledged that he had been misguided.
But in 1976, tn the House of Representatives following the act of 1873, somebody made the charge which Mr. b e l l has the misfortune now to repeat, and
thereupon Mr, Abram S. Hewitt, of New York, a Democrat, who had given
the subject a most careful and exhaustive study, in a speech in the House of
Representatives on the 5th of August, 1876, said as follows: " The gentleman
from Missouri [Mr. Bland], on the 3d instant, stated that the coinage act of
1873 *was passed surreptitiously and without discussion, and was one of the
grossest measures of injustice ever inflicted on any people.' The honorable
Senator from Nevada [Mr. Jones] and the honorable gentleman from Indiana [Mr. HOLMan] have made similar statements, and these statements
have been reiterated by the press of the country and repeated again to-day
by the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Bland] and the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Fort], In answer to these charges I propose, at the risk of being
tedious, but in order to refute them once for all, to give, in a note at the foot
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of my remarks, the history of the coinage act of 1873, as shown by the records
of the Treasury Department and of Congress.",
In that speech Mr. Hewitt cites the letter of Mr. Boutwell, dated at the
Treasury Department, April 25,1870, and gives the substance of all the reports to which I have already alluded, and then gave in his speech a complete history of the discussion in both Houses of Congress upon the bill,
showing conclusively that every member of the House and Senate and aU
the officers of the Treasury Department either had full personal knowledge
of the character of the bill or had opportunity to know. Thus having exhaustively broken down the whole claim of Bland's, he closes his speech
with the following fact: "I have felt it necessary to make this weary statement in order to prove that the legislation of 1873 was not surreptitiously
enacted, traveling over ground that has been occupied in part by other
members who have addressed the House, and in part by the daily press, because there is nothing so unpalatable to the American people as * tricks * in
legislation, of which the Committee on Mines and Mining will be fully conscious when it comes to be generally understood how far they have exceeded
the legitimate line of their duty in bringing forward this bill, which could
never have been reported from the Committee on Banking and Currency, to
which it properly belonged.*'
Thus it is shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the passage of the coinage act of 1873 was deliberate, above board, and perfectly understood by the
men whose duty it was to understand it and to know all about it. A faint,
feeble, and shadowy attempt is made to quote Mr. Bright, of Tennessee, who
is alleged to have said "that it passed by fraud in the House, never being
printed in advance, being a substitute for the printed bill, never having been
read at the Clerk's desk. It was passed without discussion, the debate being
cut off by operation of the previous question." Now, the record shows that
it passed the Senate with the dollar out. The record shows that after
a "battle in the House the Senate bill passed amended with another dollar in it, and then the matter came again to the House and Senate through
the medium of a conference report. Now, Mr. Bell, at the end of two years,
will know how silly his position is, and how weak and contemptible is the
position of the person who is attempting to cover up his own blunders and
misrepresentations to his own constituents by pleading the baby act in regard to this measure.
Accompanying the conference report was a statement made by the conferees, Mr. Hooper and Gen. Stoughton, than whom there never lived more
honorable men. Stoughton lost a leg on the battle field, but never lost his
honor or integrity as a man or Representative in Congress. The statements
of the conferees show wherein they had made concessions to the Senate. In
other words, they said, " we have agreed to do so and so and so and so," and
among the rest that the House receded from its amendment to the bill providing for a silver dollar, and that the Senate agreed to the same. This report exhibited at once to the House what was pending and what concessions
had been made by the House conferees. Thus it was that the coinage act was
amended, and years afterwards, when the scheme of the free-silver men was
inaugurated, the men who had voted, as Stewart did, to pass the original bill
in the Senate with the dollar left out, began to throw filth and dirt and slime
and vile epithets and personal detractions against the men who first fought
the measure and afterwards yielded to the weight of opinion in Congress.
The statement that the engrossing clerk made an entry in that bill which had
not been agreed to in the bodies has been announced as false and ridiculous
so often thit the author of the statement has even himself ceased to state It.
An apology is due for the space occupied for this defense. It is a very
grave charge that has been made, one which involved the integrity, honor,
knowledge, wisdom, acumen, and foresight of the Congress of the United
States. It was false in its conception, ignorantly false, perhaps. Ignorantly
false then and maliciously false now.

I submit, Mr. Speaker, that no member of Congress has the
right, in the face of such a history as that, to say that he did not
know what was in that bill. Tears afterwards, when it was discovered that some people thought they had been injured by the
passage of the bill, gentlemen who had promoted its passage,
gentlemen who had urged no objection to it, took cover by declaring that it was a "trick " and a " conspiracy," and that they had
had no notice of it. And once for all X now proclaim that henceforth I shall as readily b3 drawn into a discussion as to who it
was that performed the seduction act in the Garden of Eden,
whether it was Adam who gave the apple to Eve or whether it
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was Eve who gave to Adam, as Into a discussion of the question
of how silver became demonetized in this country. [Laughter.]
It is a question of no earthly importance now. Our Democratic
friends say the house is on fire, and it is not important to determine whether the servant in the cellar upset the benzine can or
lightning struck the cupola. [Laughter.J The important thing
is to put out the fire. The whole body politic of this country
has become saturated with the idea that it is the Sherman silver
law that has caused our difficulties. That was a law, in the first
place, not based upon sound financial principles. It was an obstruction placed under the destructive car that was being driven
over the credit of this country by almost the entire body of the
Democratic members of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The Senate had passed a free-silver bill; the House of Representatives was an uncertain quantity upon that question, as it is
now, and fear was everywhereimanifested that a free-silver law
was to be passed by that Congress. Whether my friend from
Ohio [Mr. HARTER] is right, as he thinks, when he says that
President Harrison would have approved that bill, or whether
he is eternally wrong, as I know, is a matter of no particular importance.
It would have been an unwise act on the part of the majority
of the House of Representatives to have permitted such a bill to
be passed if, by any honorable means, its passage could be prevented. It was unwise from a political standpoint: it was unwise
from a patriotic standpoint, and, in my humble judgment, it was
unwise from a financial standpoint. So it was that the Republicans on this floor, to prevent a headstrong, reckless act of the
Democratic party, obstructed their forward movement by the
passage of a law which was understood at the time to be a makeshift.
It wa© very much such a "makeshift" as the launching of a
lifeboat in a storm when the vessel is about to be wrecked. It
was very much such a " makeshift" as the forlorn hope that
seeks to explode the enemy's magazine as a desperate, last resort.
So it was that the Sherman law was enacted, and the Democratic
party stood at that time, as they have always stood as a body in
this country, in favor of what we are now told by Wall street is
dishonest money. Why, sir, it sounds to me like the echo of an
old-fashioned love feast to hear a Democrat announcing himself
in favor of honest money!
Away back in 1868, when the " young e agle of the West," Pendleton, came to New York with his followers by the thousand,
with greenbacks pinned all over them, flaunting the banner of
irredeemable p iper money, without the remotest hope that there
would ever be any redemption for it, the Democratic party of
New York stood paralyzed under the power and domination of
that influence, ^nd into the platform on which Seymour and Blair
were nominated they refused to put an honest-money plank, but
simply declared that they were in favor of the payment of the
public debt with the currency of the country:" and, sir. from
that time to this, out from the Democratic and around the Democratic party—as apolitical excrescence, if you pie ;se: as a legitimate outgrowth, if you please—has come every scheme of dishonest money, every scheme of'two values for money, every
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scheme of one money for the laborer and another for the bond-holder.
When was it that the Republican party hesitated to dc clare itself
in favor of a proposition looking- to the making of the money of this
country honesty And yet we find Democrats, constituting themselves leaders of the minority upon the majority side of this
House, calling upon the Republican party to stand by honest
money. Why, God bless you, we were born hone st. [Laughter.]
Way back in 3870-odd, when emerging from the war, we found
ourselves with a dishonest paper dollar, with scarcely the hope
in the minds of the bravest men that specie resumption could
ever be reached, the Republican party, in 1875, proclaimed to
the people of the country the unalterable purpose of their party
to redeem every dollar of the paper money of the country in gold
and silver. The Democratic party opposed resumption. The
Democratic party everywhere denounced it as an impossibility;
und when, pending the period between the passage of the resumption act, which was a Republican act, and its execution on
January 1, 1879, by John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury,
the Democratic party everywhere, in the press and on the stump,
took advantage of the pressure of hard times to proclaim the
impossibility of resumption.
The breaking of a bank, the failure of a commercial institution, was heralded from one end of the country to the other, as having been "Shermanized." They danced with ghoulish glee
around the prostrate industries everywhere, and when resumption came and every dollar of our paper money became worth its
par in gold, the Democratic party laid every possible obstacle in
the way of its full fruition. The name of JOHN SHERMAN stood
then, as it stands now, the synonym for sound currency, honest
money, and unfailing public and private credit; and to no man in
this country do the business interests owe so much, and yet no
man has been misrepresented and abused by the Democratic
party upon this very question in a greater degree than he.
The Republican party does not need to be admonished by gentlemen from New York to be honest.
W e have been honest all our lives. For thirty years we have
fought the battle of honest money. W e have sometimes won
aiid sometimes lost. Standing here as the representative of a
sentiment on this side of the House, I am glad that the Republican party has lived. One of its greatest honors, one of its
chiefest glories, one of its grandest triumphs is that it has at lastbrought even a small proportion of the Representatives on the
other side of this floor to a consideration of this great question
and to a repudiation of the sins of their party and the announcement that they are in favor of honesty at last. We have not
lived in vain, my countrymen. [Laughter.] The Democratic
party, or rather one end of it, is camping to-night where we
camped thirty years ago. To-morrow night, or two weeks from
to-morrow night, I trust the whole party will be in line with the
platform and principles and declarations of the Republican
party—the glorious structure upon which that party has been
built.
The Democratic party is responsible now for what is to come.
The gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. BLANCHARD] said, and he
said it with a sort of prophetic utterance, in form so portentous
and in voice so solemn that it made a thrill of horror run through
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me, that if they repeal the Sherman act the Democratic party
will never do anything again that is honest and right on this
question. If I could only believe that—if I could only realize
that his party as such will continue Its he idlong course to destruction, I would have no hesitation in bringing about the cause
of the disruption; for out of the chaos of Democracy would come
an element that would fortify the Republicans of the country so
that they could march forward to victory in the future.
What sort of an opinion has my friend from Louisiana of his
party? Does he believe that they will procure the repeal of the
Sherman act by fraud and false pretenses—by dishonestly assuring the people of the country that they are going to take care
of this question of bimetallism? We shall never charge them
anything on account of any fraud in that line, for we are acting
upon our own principles and not upon their promises. We are
in favor of the repeal of the Sherman law because it has had the
effect in this country, among other reasons, to cause the people
of the country to look at it as a scapegoat, when in our judgment
it has nothing or scarcely anything to do in fact with the existing condition of things in the country. And because I believe
that the Democratic party ought to have in the fullest measure
uncontrolled jurisdiction of this mighty question, and because
it is the opinion of the Democratic Administration that this law
stands in the way of the prosperity of the country, and because
of the reasons which I have assigned for the original passage of
the Sherman act, I stand ready to vote for its repeal ultimately,
if compelled to do so, without conditions. *
In this connection, and in further support and explanation of
my vote, I here incorporate in this discussion the remaining
portion of the paper to which I have heretofore referred, and
which was a part of the newspaper debate about which I spoke.
The question was submitted to us in the form of a resolution,
and that resolution and my argument thereon is as follows:

Now, then, the second resolution Is as follows: "Resolved, That the
United States should immediately pass a law for the free and unlimited
coinage of silver on a parity of 16 of silver to 1 of gold." I propose to present a few very simple suggestions in regard to this question, and address
those suggestions to the farmer, mechanic, laboring man, business man, and
others of the United States not directly interested in the sale of the commodity known as silver ore, and which is mined in enormous quantities
from the mines of the State of Colorado and the little spot of earth called
Nevada, upon which exist about as many men, women, and children as are
in one-third of the city of Toledo, but who are represented in Congress by two
Senators and one Representative, all of them not only owners of silver
mines, but one of them one of the largest silver operators in the world, but
representative of the special natural monopoly known as silver mines.
The mints of the United States are the property of the people of the United
States. They were builded with the money of the people. They are maintained for the purpose of benefiting the people. The cost of their construction, their management, and all other expenses are paid out of the
ockets of the people of the United States, and the money therefor is derived
y taxation. The existing plan of operation is to meet the wants of the
Treasury, and the people, by permitting the owners of silver to sell it to the
United States Government at what it Is worth per ounce, and have it either
coined into silver dollars or deposited in the Treasury, and certificates representing silver upon their face, but redeemable in gold, issued against the
bullion. In this way, whatever profit there is in the manufacture of the silver dollar goes indirectly into the pockets of the people to compensate them
in a degree for the cost of the mints and their operation.
For the purposes of the Government it becomes necessary to buy of the productions of the people, horses, cattle, woolen goods, cotton goods, powder,
shot, shell, guns, stationery, pork, bacon, beef, flour, salt, and more or less
of substantially all the products of the people. In purchasing these commodities the people of the country are requested to oiler amounts required, aad

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the prices for which they are to sell them. The manufacturer and the farmer
and all the producers of the country come in competition, and the commodities of the lowest and best bidder are accepted by the Government. It is now
coolly proposed by the owners of these mines that their commodity shall be
treated differently; that the product of their mines shall not stand on an
equal footing with the iron mines of Michigan or Alabama, or the coal mines
of Ohio or West Virginia, but that they shall be permitted to carry anywhere
from 56 to 70 cents' worth of crude silver to the mint and take out either a silver dollar backed by this Government, and as good as gold, or take the note of
this Government, the note of the farmer, mechanic, and laboring man of this
country for a dollar, and speculate to the extent of from 30 to 44 cents on
the dollar.
Prices of everything else that we produce are to be regulated by the great
law of supply and demand, but the price of silver is to be regulated by a castiron measure, and that measure so adjusted as to pay an enormous profit
into the pockets of these producers. This is a bird's-eye view of this question. It is the sublimation of impudence. The utterances now going out
from the silver States, when they are not threats of blood, carnage, civil
war, and anarchy, are statements that the silver-mine owners of Nevada,
Colorado, and other localities can not produce silver profitably at 70 cents
per ounce. Well, Mr. Editor, neither does the farmer of Ohio produce wheat,
oats, horses, cattle, or wool profitably. Shall the Government step in and
aid the one and refuse the other? The laboring men of the country are not
being compensated as a whole very liberally. Shall the Government interfere and raise their wages? Upon what meat does this Csesar of natural
monopoly feed that he has grown so great in his demands upon this Government, and upon the people of this Government, and upon the taxes paid by
the peopleof this country?
Mr. BULL states that a large portion of our national and other indebtedness
was created when silver was money, and asserts that common honesty requires these debts to be paid in silver money At a hasty glance, there seems
to be much force in this suggestion, but when we consider that when these
debts were contracted silver was worth nearly 50 pence per ounce In the
markets of the world, and that it has now managed to fall to about 38pence
per ounce, what does he say to this proposition from the standpoint of honest dealing among honest men? The claim that gold has appreciated and
that silver has not depreciated will not bear careful scrutiny, when it is considered we are buying silver at the Treasury Department now and paying
for it in silver certificates representing silver dollars, and at par with gold.
Nor is it true that the free and unlimited coinage of silver would appreciate
the actual value of silver in the markets of the world. It would appreciate
silver in the hands of the silver-mine owners and nobody else. It was ad*
mi t ted on all hands, when the Sherman silver bill went into effect, that it was
a mighty gain for the silver owners, for it provided a constant market for
substantially the entire silver product of the United States. And silver
rapidly advanced until, I recollect, an ounce of silver sold for $1.20, within 9
cents of par with gold; then it was claimed on all hands that "fair treatment will bring silver up to an equality, and we shall have no disparity in
these coins between gold and silver." But the mine owners began to develop unheard-of reserves of silver wealth, and notwithstanding the Government has furnished a constant market for the American product, silver
is a drug on the market at a little above 70 cents per ounce. Why? Simply
because silver is a metal and commodity.
At the time of the passage of the Sherman bill the silver production of the
world was, in 1889,125,000,000 ounces, and because of thi3 increased demand
the production of 1892 was 152,000,000 ounces. It had been but ninety million
in 1885. And the price fell from 42 pence per ounce in 1885 to 38 pence at the
end of 1892. So we find that the product of the world rose to an enormous
per cent per ounce, and the price dropped as above stated. And everybody
knows that the production of silver can be increased indefinitely. The clearheaded men of Colorado, not tainted by anarchy, with no "blood on iheir
bridle reins," and who are not doing any act to encourage and stimulate
mobs and threats of violence, know very well that with the present condition
of the Colorado mines, silver to an indefinite amount, with such gold product
as is found mixed with it, can be produced at a much greater profit to the
mine owners than is paid In the markets of the country for the wheat and
other products of the farmer. If the prices of silver under the enormous
impetus of the Sherman act had remained then at the prices it was bringing
when the bill passed, there would have been some ground for the friends of
silver to stand upon. But it did not. It fell in the market, and dragged down
all the commodities of the country.
The gentleman says there 13 no country in the world which can come so
near existing with a Chinese wall around it as can the American continent,
and then closes his argument by a strong inferential appeal to protective
legislation by the Government. He should remember that the doctrine upon
which he and his party stand is that legislation by the Government to favor
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one Interest above another Is unfair. He must remember that It is no more
Justly the province of our Government to legislate to create value in Colorado metal than to create value in Ohio wool. And it is a poor and contemptible government that will listen to the appeals of men who are simply
proclaiming that their profits are not sufficient to justify the production of
a commodity, and at the same time refuse to protect the markets of their
own country for the benefit of the labor and capital thereof.

But I warn the Democratic party of the country that they
must come together upon some issue. The people of this country are aroused on this question as they never were before; they
are determined that no party in power shall longer exist if it is
divided on this great question. You must have something upon
which you can stand.. You must have some platform upon
which you cap agree; you must never again (and I trust I shall
be gratified in this respect) issue a platform that can be declared
to be one thing in New York and a vitally different thing in another section of the country. I never tad any doubt what the
legal construction of the Cnicago platform was.
I never had any doubt that it was a declaration in favor of free
and unlimited coinage of silver. To my mind it was always clear
that no intelligent man reading that platform, giving to the
English language its due force and allowing to all parts of the
declaration their just construction, could avoid the conclusion
that it was a declaration in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver. It was so discussed in my part of the country; it
was so understood out there; and it seems now that it was so understood by gentlemen who were willing to trust the Democratic
party; and it is even now so understood by some of the members
of one end of the party on the other side of this House.
The people of this country can rely upon the Republicans in
Congress to do their duty. We can not afford to vote to put the
Administration of Mr. Cleveland " in a hole." We can not afford
to be influenced in our vote upon this momentous question by any
desire for partisan advantage or any hope of the disruption of
the Democratic party. The criterion of our vote, the basis of
our judgment, must be whatever intelligence we have on this
subject, and we will be instigated and inspired by our never ceasing love of country and patriotic devotion to that which is her
best interest. [Loud applause.]
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