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S I L V ZED I R . When Judgment is looking for the path of duty in the dark, Conscience hangs out a lamp. SPEECH OF HON. DAVID A. DE ARMOND, O F M I S S O U R I , IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1893. WASHINGTON. 1893. SPEECH or HON. DAVID A. DE ARMOND. The H o u s e h a v i n g under consideration the bill (H. R. 1) t o repeal a part of a n act, approved J u l y 14,1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and t h e i s s u e of Treas ury n o t e s thereon, and f o r other purp o s e s "— Mr. DE ARMOND said: Mr. SPEAKER: If the distinguished gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED], who so ably addressed this House, and has just taken his seat, feels that the Republicans for whom he speaks are in a somewhat awkward position here to-day, I think I may commend to him, as a solace, t i e fact that the Democrats upon this floor who are acting with h: in and his cohorts are in a much more awkward situation. Mr. Speaker, I shall e n d e a v o t o address myself to this question as one desiring to do what is right and for the best interests of the country. I shall also address myself to this House as one who believes that the welfare of the country will be promoted in proportion as those who were elected here as Democrats adhere to and carry out the Democratic creed. Is the silver bullion purchasing clause of the Sherman law responsible for the condition of things which we now have in the country? If it is, then 1 grant that it should be promptly repealed in order to give needed *elief. If it is not, however, the cause of the distrust and distress in the land, then it is unreasonable to hope or believe that relief will come from its repeal. If relief, real or seeming, should come after such repeal, it will be due to the relenting of those who have raised the financial storm, and not to the legislation proposed for calming it. I have no time upon this occasion to discuss at length the general question of the use of gold and silver as money, nor whether or not this Sherman law is responsible for existing evils, but shall content myself with a huri ied view of some suggestions of the other side. It is enough for me to say as preliminary, that I believe not a solitary gentleman who has addressed this House, upon either side, has been bold enough or reckless enough to declare that the Sherman law is re sponsible for our financial troubles. The most that is claimed in this debate is that it has contributed to them, and the mos^ that has been urged is that sixty-five or seventy millions of American citizens are so panicstricken, so lost to intelligence, 30 easily duped that, although this law has not caused their distress, they will accept its repeal as the cure for it. I have too high an estimate of th 3 constituency who sent me here, 313 C 4 and of American citizenship generally, to believe confidence can be restored by any legislative confidence game. There is deeper meaning and purpose in this repeal bill. Some gentlemen are brave enough to avow it. The gentleman from Ohio [MR. HARTER] is one. It is to establish and perpetuate the single gold standard. If that is correct policy, then the Sherman law ought to be unconditionally repealed; otherwise the repeal is only a part of the legislation required. For let me say to friend and foe, that in the light of the message, in the light of current events, in the light of what has been said upon this floor, no man has foundation for any hope that after final action upon this measure there will be further legislation during the life of the present Administration looking to the rehabilitation of silver as a money metal. This repeal bill could have passed both Houses of Congress the first day of this extraordinary session if it had not been the settled purpose of those who now support it to deny us any legislation for the use of silver as money. I concede that it is not incumbent upon a Democrat standing loyally by the Chicago platform to insist that all financial legislation must be embraced in one bill. But when t^y the message —what is in it and what is not in it—when by the arguments made here, by the sense and understanding of the country, we know there will be no legislation by this Congress for the increased use of silver as mopey unless it comes inconneetion with the repeal of the Sherman law, our course appears plain. We must determine, each for himself, whether we shall hold to the little we have as the only hope of securing something better, or at once surrender all. I am opposed to an unconditional surrender. To my mind, the man who claims to be a bimetallist, who repeats here the arguments which the true advocates of an enlarged use of silver make, and yet votes for this unconditional repeal bill, is either himself deluded by following incorrect metal processes, or he is not candid in what he says; and his people will find out which it is and hold him to responsibility accordingly. It is said, Mr. Speaker, that India has taken such action as that, if otherwise there might be hope for increased coinage of silver in this country and increased use of it, that hope must now be abandoned. But, sir, it is misleading to speak of India taking action. India has taken no action. By decree of a governing council of foreigners, the voiceless millions of India are to be subjected to a change of standard for the purpose of drawing from them, indirectly, larger contributions in tax money. The report of the Hersctiel commission, a British committee which officially considered the scheme, and from which my colleague [Mr. BLAND] read some passages, abundantly proves this. This report has been published by order of this House as a public document, and I shall not quote at length from it. But note the following: The difficulties w h i c h the Indian government have i n m e e t i n g h o m e charges are aggravated by the fact that the fall in exchange h a s led t o c l a i m s o n the partjof their officers, civil and military, who receive salaries i n rupees, t o some compensation for the loss which they sustain o w i n g t o the fall i n exchange. * * 313 * * * * * 5 I t i s further objected to the propos als of the Indian g o v e r n m e n t t h a t t h e y w o u l d m a k e the v a l u e of the rupee greater t h a n i t otherwise w o u l d be, and t h a t thereby t h e burden of I n d i a n t a x a t i o n w o u l d be increased. T h a t part of t h e r e v e n u e w h i c h consists of fixed p a y m e n t s would r e m a i n unaltered i n n u m e r i c a l value, w h i l s t each rupee w h i c h the r y o t p a y s w o u l d be w o r t h more, and the rupee prices of h i s products would be less t h a n t h e y w o u l d be if silver continued t o fall. The a r g u m e n t i s n o doubt sound, but there are a n s w e r s t o this objection w h i c h w o u l d h a v e n o little w e i g h t . W h e t h e r silver is f a l l i n g or gold r i s i n g i n value, or both m o v e m e n t s are t a k i n g place, and w h e t h e r an appreciating or a depreciating standard i s the l e s s o p e n t o objection, are q u e s t i o n s of g r e a t difficulty. To increase the salaries of salaried officers, to swell the enormous tribute of India to England, to get more from those who can not be made to contribute more directly, because taxation can not be enlarged in form and ingenuity can not invent better means of extortion, the money standard itself is to be changed, and money is to be made more valuable in fact, though the coins retain the old names. This means the contribution of more labor, a surrender of more of the products of labor, a heavier burden upon the taxpayer, and a larger amount of revenue for those who receive and who eat the revenues. Should we adopt the Indian policy of robbery? I think not. Mr. Speaker, I defy any man to say that I have not stated truly the reason for the proposed change from the silver to the gold standard in India. The change is not made to promote the welfare of the people; it is not for the good of the people, but to fill faster the coffers of their oppressors. 1, for one, would welcome the time when Britain shall extend her empire in comparative justice and mercy, when, in forcing her policies upon an unwilling world, she shall not shed oceans of blood, sufficient to float all her navies. I am not here to defend the Sherman act, the unconditional repeal of which we are forced to resist or give up silver coinage. But it is not so bad as the annulment of its provisions by those charged with its enforcement. Under the Administration of Mr. Harrison and his Secretary of the Treasury, from the first day, the first hour the law went into effect until that Administration passed out, after the people had weighed it in the balance and found it wanting, the whole purpose was toodiscredit silver, to beat down the price of silver, and to prepare the way for such legislation as is urged in this bill now before the House. And, as a Democrat, Mr. Speaker, I note with shame and mortification, and say with regret, that the giant intellect of the present Secretary of the Treasury—the distinguished gentleman who once served and presided in this House, and later was a member of the Senate—that the shining intellect of that great man has arisen to no higher financial achievement in his new office than to copy and follow and sanction the obnoxious financial policy of his predecessor. If the Sherman act had been executed as it should have been executed, if it were executed to-day as it should be executed, that " parity " which the plain people understand would be established and maintained. The United States by law compel every citizen within our borders to receive as money, when tendered in discharge of debts, these silver dollars and the certificates issued upon them. The Government itself accepts them 313 6 in payment of all debts and demands. Nowhere within the United States of America, except at the counter where the Government pays out the monejr of the people, as the agent of the people, is this money discredited. The Secretaries of the Treasury have repudiated the truism that the debtor and not the creditor shall determine what kind of lawful money shall be used to discharge a financial obligation This defiance of law and common sense, and common fairness, and common honesty, they call maintaining a parity between gold and silver. Once, when the last spark of patriotism had apparently been quenched in blood in unhappy Poland*, a field marshal of despotic Russia, his sword reeking in blood, his hands red with blood, could send back to the Czar a bulletin announcing that "Peace reigns in Warsaw." With this law disregarded, and the money of the law and of the American people, good enough everywhere and for everybody except the speculator who makes a raid upon the Treasury in order to injure the Government and its credit, unused, discarded, 4and dishonored at the Treasury, we are complacently told that 4 parity has been maintained, but at a great strain." Mr. Speaker, I have a contempt for that sort of parity; I have a contempt for the sham policy which calls i t parity. In the thoughtful and powerful speech just made by the gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED] there" is food for reflection, not only for the present but for the future There is in it much that it will be well to think over, and it will be read and studied at the firesides of the people. The gentleman has said that the Sherman act is not responsible for the troubles that are upon us; that distress and financial embarrassment and ruin are to be found everywhere over the globe, in every country under the shining sun. As before stated, I agree with the distinguished gentleman, and all seem to agree with him, that the distress which has visited all the children of the earth can not be attributed to a law of a single nation which provides for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver per month, and the issuance of silver certificates, which I consider good money, in payment therefor. I repeat that no Democrat has been able to show, and I predict none will be able to show, good ground for a belief that this purchasing clause of the Sherman act is the cause of present troubles. The Democrats have told the people of this country, over and over for years and years, and told them truly, that the villainous protective tariff has been the great agency in bringing hardship and ruin upon the common people of the land, while vastly and wrongfully increasing the wealth of the favored few. This is the situation in wtich as a party we find ourselves, and to it the gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED] has adroitly called attention. I implore my Democratic brethren who are to-day cooperating with the gentlemen from Maine, and with those whom he so ably leads—I beg of you to note what he has just said. While we Democrats have attributed very much of evil to the protective tariff, he says that the condition now prevailing is largely due to fear that we shall endeavor to revise this tariff, as we are pledged to do, as we are in honor bound to do, and as we must do, or sink beneath the contempt of all decent men in all parties. 313 7 Democrats who go with the gentleman from Maine for unconditional repeal, "to restore confidence," will find it far from easy to resist the pressure for a further supposed " restoration of confidence" by a postponement, and perhaps a substantial surrender, of tariff reform. If you repeal this bullion-purchasing clause of the Sherman act upon the ground taken here by Democrats who claim to be bimetallists, that such action will tend to restore confidence; that while the Sherman law is not the cause of the present troubles, its repeal is a proper tribute to popular alarm and liable to quiet the public mind, do you not stultify yourselves with reference to the tariff question? Would you not by administering a quack remedy for a real complaint, as the prescription of the great Democratic party, be consenting, in advance, to postpone or abandon tariff reform, to further restore confidence?" The gentleman from Maine is not warning you; he is only notifying you of what will be demanded, after you and he and his Republican following shall have beaten the Democracy of the West and South. He says the popular alarm is brought about in the main by the fear of the people that we will tinker with the tariff, and in due time he will lay before you an abundance of such chamber of commerce evidence as influences you now. If you yield and say ''We will repeal this Sherman act, not because we believe its repeal will remove the cause of trouble, but because we hope thereby to hoodwink the people into the belief that repeal is a cure," how can you stand for tariff reform when the advisers whom you now heed demand postponement or abandonment? Or take the other horn of the dilemma: If you insist that the Sherman law is the real author of our troubles, what have you left to say for tariff reform, early or late? Even now it is said that certain grave and reverend seigniors, Democratic members of the other body of Congress, have suggested that the tariff can be made to wait, can be thrust aside, if the passage of this measure of unconditional repeal can thus be secured. I do not believe that is true: I can not believe it. But I do believe and realize that there is that sort of association here between the Democrats who are insisting upon unconditional repeal and will hear of nothing in the way of compromise—who offer nothing, suggest nothing, accept nothing—that sort of association or combination, perhaps without words, perhaps without full comprehension on the part of some of them, which will surely cripple the tariff-reformers. When the Republicans shall have lent their valuable aid here upon this bill, these Democrats will help the Republicans to postpone tariff reform. I am apposed to such course. I am in favor of pushing tariff reform. I thought, and still think, that tariff reform should have been taken up in special session last spring. I am in favor of treating the American people as an intelligent people. I have faith in thei r intelligence. I believe the men who legislate here upon the theory that the people can be hoodwinked, can be persuaded to take the shadow for the substance, and pretense for sincerity, underestimate and misjudge this great American nation. Those upon the Democratic side who are with the gentleman from Maine on this question will be forced by the irre313 8 sistible logic of events of their own creation, by the requirements of their new association, to be with him on the other question, and with him they will be, directly or indirectly. They are driving the nails into the coffin of tariff reform. They may be doing it unwittingly; I believe some of them are, but they are doing it just as surely. They are making material for Republican campaigns; they are causing the Democratic masses to distrust, upon the tariff issue as well as upon the financial question, the sincerity of those whom they have chosen to serve them. I say, and the Democrats who elected us believe, and we taught them to believe, that the greatest agent in bringing hardship and calamity upon the plain people of our land is the protective tariff. If, as your cure for present ills, you insist upon the unconditional repeal of the silver-purchase clause of the Sherman law, you must admit that that law and not the tariff is the great source of evil, or that you are content to vote as boards of trade suggest or demand. Your only escape from the full force of this admission, which your vote will fairly imply, is through the confession that your repeal measure is a species of false pretense. In either case, I leave you to the tender care of the gentleman from Maine and his confreres, who will make it very plain to you and to the country that you are in the path of tariff reform as obstructions. If the Sherman law be the great offender, tariff reform is little needed. Or, if the chambers of commerce and boards of trade shall tell you they will lose confidence if tariff reform be not delayed or abandoned, you misguided Democrats are subscribers in advance to their creed. It is said, sir, that we alone can not venture upon the experiment of the free and unlimited coinage of silver. Assertion goes against assertion. I deny it. Everything that has been said about the greatness and grandeur of this American people, everything that can be said, all that we know, contradicts bur adversaries. Our Government is peculiar, and gentlemen who oppose us certainly lose sight of that fact. Here is ago vernment where, if we, the representatives of the people, are true to ourselves and to those who sent us here, the people's voice shall be omnipotent, the people's policy shall prevail. The people are the sovereign. Silver has been demonetized in Europe. By the people? No. By governments grown hoary in the perpetration and perpetuation of abuses which we denounce. As well might we undertake to conform our governmental plans and policies generally to those of the Old World as to accept tamely dictation from abroad in money matters. A queen and aristocracy ruling in Great Britain, an emperor and aristocracy in Germany, an autocrat in Russia, a little liberty here and a little there, but the people in large part, deprived of popular rights, and in many lands the ropular voice completely hushed—it is under such conditions that gold monometallism has been fixed in those countries Their governments differ from ours in principles and in traditions, move in a different direction; they block the way of progress in this nineteenth century. In the Old World we do not find models to follow, but examples to shun. Our Republic has 313 9 shown on many occasions that we can stand alone and make ourselves heard and felt, if need be, against a hostile world. In 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was penned, there were probably doubters and moral cowards and insincere people who whispered in the ears of the immortal signers that the experiment was hazardous; that it was sure to end in ruin; that all the governments of continental Europe, the powerful and the mighty of earth, were conducted upon different principles. The appeal was not heeded. The Declaration was mads, the war was carried on. The command was sternly given through fire and smoke and blood, i ' Get thee bebind me, Satan." The die was cast. The battle was won. The new bark launched upon the sea of national existence has survived every storm, and still rides the waves in triumph. And now, with a century of glorious life and glorious achievements behind us, the pride and the model and the hope, everywhere upon this earth, of those who love free government, we are told here by grave gentlemen, even by members of our own party— a party pledged to the conservation of popular rights; a party a century old, and a century old because it has been true to popular rights—we are told that we can not do what is just, can not even try what is wise and politic because, forsooth, King William of Germany and the Czar of Russia are not with us! [Applause.] Mr. Speaker, I believe we can make the experiment and make it safely. If I doubted this I would still say try it. The people's representatives should feel, as I have no doubt those heroes felt at Lookout Mountain when they were charging up into the unknown region of cloud and fire and smoke, that whenever the command is given to go and wherever duty calls, the true man should go or die trying to go. I believe that though we may be leading a forlorn hope for the people, deserted in this hour of need by many elected on the same platform as ourselves, having to combat foes in our own household, seeing our chosen captains falling away and leading toward the enemy's camp—I believe that, with the devoted heroism of that thin line of gray which charged through a veritable " valley of death " at Gettysburg, we should go forward. Those who fall in a righteous cause in the line of duty are nobler in their fall than life and opportunity can ever make such as prolong existence by desertion or surrender. I am willing to dare the experiment. The American people are willing to dare it. The people who sent us here from the South and the West, the plain people, the guardians of whose rights we are now, insist upon trying it. Mr. Speaker, this question is a sectional question. I bring not here sectionalism; I invoke not here the spirit of schism. But I recognize what is before me. Twenty-seven votes from bond-holding and coupon-clipping New England solid for unconditional repeal. Of the 73 votes from the Middle States, powerful New York and imperial Pennsylvania, with New Jersey and Delaware following, but a solitary one is with us. Shall the South and the West be broken and scattered and defeated in this contest which has been forced upon us? W e did not bring it here. 313 10 No party ever existed in American politics which went before the American people upon a platform demanding the single gold standard. Scarcely a man in the West or the South, be he the greatest or the best man that ever breathed the breath of life, could have come to this Congress upon such a platform. Not a man from the South or the West, excepting the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. HARTER], brave in the advocacy of what I believe to be errors, but gallant and manly still—not another one, I believe, came here except upon some platform—none of which I will analyze now for lack of time—demanding the coinage of gold and silver upon equal terms. Surely this consideration should admonish us to stand firm for the money of the Constitution, gold and silver, and enlarge the circulating medium of this country by pouring into it the silver dollars which ought to be coined under just law, not discriminating against any metal, class or section. Mr. Speaker, I am the last man who would voluntarily raise a sectional issue. I am the last one who would (except that I am convinced of the absolute propriety of it under the circumstances) appeal to the sentiment of sectionalism. But when I see massed against us all those who represent concentrated wealth, all whose interest it is to make the dollar represent more of property and call for more of toil and sacrifice and hardship; when I see missed upon the one side the great creditor class of this Union, backed by the great creditor class over the water—I have no trouble in determining my alignment as the Representative of a Southwestern constituency. When Judgment is looking for the path of duty in the dark, Conscience hangs out a lamp. If I had nothing else to guide me in this matter I could take my course from the fact—a fact that will sink deep into the minds of the people, a fact that nothing can eradicate, a fact that will live through the months and years, a fact that will be potent in the next election and the next and the next—the fact that as you make the dollars scarcer and more valuable you make all other things sink in price and less valuable. You would increase the burdens of those who are burdened, and enlarge the possessions of those who have much already; and l e a n not go with you, you queerly banded Democrats and Republicans, in your crusade against the people. Mr. Speaker, there is another phase of this question to which I invite the attention of the House. I may or may not overestimate its importance. It has been urged here that we should go into the scramble for gold—how? That will come by and by— that will come in the proposed issue of gold-bearing bonds. The surest, safest, cheapest way to secure the aid of bondholding Europe in extending the use and upholding the value of silver money is to cling to silver and gold money and coin and use it ourselves. It is said that Europe has grown distrustful of us. Our own American people, our own sovereign citizens, the nob).e men by whose votes we occupy our seats here in this Hall, have not grown distrustful of this great Government. They do not doubt the value of any of our United States money. They are willing to accept it and use it, as they are now doing when they can get it, in the daily concerns of life. They only complain 313 11 that there is not enough of it, and they ask for more. But the capitalists of Europe, they say, who have purchased our bonds, have grown distrustful of us, and, therefore, say our Eastern mentors, we should pass this unconditional repeal bill, not especially to please or relieve the American citizen and taxpayer, but to remove the fears and restore the confidence of the bondholders in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and beyond the water. Gentlemen who choose to make laws for that purpose are, of course, their own judges, but for my part, sir, I would feel that I should be beneath the contempt of the humblest and meanest of my constituents if I could forget for one moment that the true object of my being here is to secure as far as I can such action, and raise my voice when I can for such measures as will probably be beneficial to the people of this country. Sentimental gentlemen may suffer from excessive grief over the doubts and distrust of the owners of Government bonds. I shall not intrude in the winter of their discontent, but shall let my sympathy expend itself upon our American tax-paying citizens. I confess that I would rather do something for the taxpayer than for "those who have invested in our securities." I am for what shall seem to me good, wholesome legislation for the American taxpayer, and shall be willing to leave the unhappy millionaire bondholder to his fate, always remembering that whenever laws are made to suit the creditor they are apt to be hard laws for the debtor. Nor shall I join the growing procession of the " poor man's" professional friends. What gentleman, in speaking for the gold standard, say for " the poor man " is but a repetition of what the tariff baron has been saying for the same poor man, while tryto perpetuate the policy of protection which has made men poor and will keep them in poverty. Gentlemen say that after adopting the single gold standard we shall be better able to go into the market for gold and to compete for its possession with England and Germany and the other gold-gathering and gold-hoarding monarchies, where the people are voiceless, where money speaks with an authority not resting on the will of the people and absolutely damned by the will of God as the source of power. [Applause.] Suppose it is true that the bondholders of England and Germany are frightened lest we pay our indebtedness in the money nominated in the bond, as I shall continue to believe we have a legal and moral right to do; and, suppose, further,that we should provide for the coinage of gold and silver, upon equal terms, according to the policy declared in the Chicago platform. Then these foreign bondholders, and the governments which they control, would be interested in entering into such international agreements as would tend to keep our money on a parity, because the United States bonds held by them would be paid in the money of the United States. If we persist in using both gold and silver upon equal terms our creditors will be interested in the maintenance of the value of our silver coins, for they may be paid in them. But if we rest our finances upon the gold standard, gold will naturally and surely appreciate, and the bondholders will surely get gold from 313 12 us, for we shall have denied ourselves the use of silver in our dealings with them. Why should they care, then, to help us by means of an international agreement? There would be just one more great nation depending upon gold, and the bondholders would be happy. There would be another nation in the fierce, remorseless struggle for gold, with none but the poor and powerless concerned about turning silver toward the mints. Our people would be still further crushed under the added oppressions of new millionaires, created by act of the American Congress. But suppose we keep both metals in circulation, and coin both as they come toour mints; suppose, according to our convenience, and not the creditor's choice, we use such money as we have, which means to our people everything that is desirable in finance. Then Europe may join in endeavoring to bring about the rehabilitation of silver; then may the rich men of the Old World be interested in keeping all our money at par; then may come the international agreement for which some gentlemen here seem to long with a longing quite pathetic. I have said, and all must know, that we are now on a sectional issue, with the Representatives from the Northeast in solid phalanx on the one side. How about the opposing phalanx? A time may come when in rural Maryland there will be a new meaning to the old familiar line of the song— The despot's heel Is o n t h y shore, Maryland. And Maryland may be but a name for the South and West. With Indiana and Ohio and Illinois and Kentucky rests the fate of this bill. Oh, for one hour of Hendricks to-day! One blast u p o n h i s b u g l e h o r n W e r e w o r t h t e n Congressmen. [Laughter.] Ten is not prophetic accuracy. I yield to the natural inclination toward round numbers. Later on, the yeas and nays will reveal everything. Oh, for the clarion voice of Allen G. Thurman, and the presence of the grand old man, " The noblest Roman of them all," in this council! 'Tis the s u n s e t of life g i v e s m y s t i c lore, And c o m i n g e v e n t s cast their s h a d o w s before. In his prime Thurmanys vision was clear, and now, with almost mysterious prescience, the old man, in the calm of his retirement from a glorious public career, speaks, as he always spake, for the people! Oh, for Douglas or Lincoln to speak and vote for Illinois! Oh, for both those giants! for there were giants in those days who rested in the confidence of the people and reflected the popular will. Mr. Speaker, in kindness of feeling, with regret and with sorrow, I state as my deep conviction that few men from south of the Potomac or west of the Alleghenies who in this Congress are found leagued with the Northeast, forgetting, I fear, their people and the pledges of the past—few of these men will survive the wrath of those who sent them here. The movement toward the consolidation of the Southern and 313 13 Western Democracy has just begun. It will acquire impetus. It will go on. It will be resistless. The West has hardly yet awakened to a realization of its vast power, but it will be heard from soon. And the South? The South, traduced, suffering, beaten down—the South, when all things dear to freemen were denied her, when all afflictions and humiliations were heaped upon her, when her rights were memories, when she was robbed and crashed—the South yet remained solid. Proud, glorious record—the solid South! And, now, what sorrow to the men who have struggled through adversity, the men who have adhered to the Democratic party in all times of trial— what sorrow to them to find in this crucial hour, in this trying time, any Representative from the South breaking away and joining with the representatives of the coupon clippers from New England, to vote for what Wall street demands and the bondholders generally desire. The South will view with interest the ground of the new faith of some of her representatives. She will fairly judge motives as well as deeds. If any Representative shall have been found wrong with his eyes open, may God forgive him! I do not know whether the people will. [Applause.] The man who talks our way and votes the other way is to me a curiosity. He calls himself a bimetallist. He is too modest by at least two syllables. He is a by-and-by metallist. And " The road of By and By leads to the house of Never." He goes forward by moving backward. He climbs up by sliding down. He turns his back upon the Lord when he prays, and keeps one eye open. Of him and his by-and-by metallism we shall probably say by and by in the language of the Psalmist: T h e w o r d s of h i s m o u t h w e r e s m o o t h e r t h a n butter, but w a r w a s i n h i s heart. Or admonish him in Emerson's lines: Go p u t y o u r creed i n t o y o u r deed, N o r speak w i t h double tongue. In Proverbs we read: " The borrower is servant to the lender." I shall not vote to lengthen or harden the service. Mr. Speaker, upon the average, each Representative in this House is the agent and mouthpiece of more than 180,000 American freemen—men, women, and children. How careful he should be to represent them truly and faithfully. You might liken the people of each district to an army sleeping upon their arms, weary and worn with marching and fighting. The Representative is doing picket duty. He should not sleep at his post. He should not disturb the camp through causeless fright, nor suffer the foe to surprise the sleepers and destroy them in their confusion. The people have honored the Representative with their confidence; base he must be if he fails to serve and protect them to the best of his ability. His promises to them are sacred. For the "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," coming from one's constituents, there is no equivalent—it is priceless. Let us stand firm for our people though the heavens fall. [Applause.] 313 O
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