Full text of The Money Question of the 53rd Congress : Speech of Hon. Joseph C. Sibley of Pennsylvania, Debate in the House of Representatives, v.5, H-Z

The full text on this page is automatically extracted from the file linked above and may contain errors and inconsistencies.

If you have whispered truth, do it no longer,
But speak as the trumpet does, louder and stronger.

SPEECH
OF

HON. JOSEPH C. SIBLEY,
O F

P E N N S Y L V A N I A ,

IN

THE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1893




WASHINGTON, D
PBESS

OF

GEO.

1893

B

0.
GBIT,




S

P

E

E

C

H

OF

HON. J O S E P H . C. S I B L E Y ,
OF PENNSYLVANIA,
IN

THE HOUSE

Friday,

OF REPRESENTATIVES,

August

18,

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. SIBLEY said:
Mr. SPEAKER IVIn common with those who favor bimetallism, I had hoped that,
before the consideration of this question should ensue, there would be offered
some measure providing for the immediate relief of the business interests of this
nation. We have heard from all the speakers that the nation is in a state of
panic, and that industry is paralyzed from one commercial center to another can
no longer be denied.
I came to*Washington before the meeting of this body, in the sincere hope that
some financial measure might be provided which should afford adequate relief.
Many had been submitted to me by others. I had some peculiar id*as of my own.
I found, however, that the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. JOHNSON]
had prepared. a measure which seemed to cover the entire ground; a measure
•which,.if acred upon by this body, would set in motion all the industries of this
country, and cause every spindle to hum throughout the length, and breadtjk of
this great land within ten days of its enactment.
Bv the passage of that bill we could have provided relief to the amount of $200,000,000 if necessary. I think I am speaking fo'r*all the friends of bimetallism
when I say we can not be charged with being obstructionists to the business interests of this nation. The welfare of its citizens are as dear to us as to those gentlemen upon the other side. We were ready for the immediate consideration of
a'proposition which provided in simple and plain terms that the holders of United
States bonds might deposit such securities with the Government, in its Treasury
or subtreasuriesor Governmental depositories, and receive therefor Treasury notes;
the interest on the bonds ceasing during the time the notes were inNcirculation,
the Government saving the interest, and the citizens, the business^ men, being
provided with an abundant, capital to carry on the industrial enterprises of the
United States. Not a dissenting voice against the measure, or against any proper
measure of relief, has been offered by those who stand here to-day as the champions of the people in this cause of bimetallism.
I received* and I presume every member of the House has received, a circular
sent ouH from New York. In is a wonderful fact that all our financial wisdom and
intelligence has to come from east of the Delaware River. That circular suggests
legislation .which provides that different classes of securities mav be deposited
with the Treasury, and when the great clearing houses of Ne v York, Chicago, St.




4
Louis, New Orleans, and eome of the oth*=r centers, decide that the country is in a
state of panic, then the Goven ment is to put up the money on their securities.
Gentlemen, in my judgment the time has come in this nation when the clearing
houses of these great cities shall no longer dominate and control the financial
policy for sixty-seven million producers in this land. Their control has effected
enough woe, enough distuibance, and has caused the shedding of sufficient tears.
Mr. Speaker, if the gentlemen on the other side accept the proposition of the
gentl* man from Ohio [Mr. JOHNSON], my speech ends right here. We will come
together, not as partisans, but as patriots, and will decide this question of relief at
this very moment, and relieve more than three million workingmen. You have
told us about the trouble of capital; but there are three million of God's American
citizens to-day who are vainly waiting for the opportunity to secure bread for their
hungry ones. Winter comes on apace, and you will be held responsible for whatever consequences may occur, and not ourselves, for we stand on the pledge made
in favor of bimetaUism, in favor of Ihe money of the people, against your determined; opposition.
Mr. Speaker, it may be well for us to come right down to some of the causes of
this panic. They have been hinted at, but it is about time we had them as they
are. It is stated upon what seems to be the highest authority, before the close
of the last Administration, there were prepared in the Bureau of Printing and
Engraving $100,000,000 of 4J per cent bonds, to be sold to the bankers of New
York—rat what price? At par. And upon what necessity? The necessity of
maintaining the gold reserve at $100,000,000. Everybody well knows that the
next dav after these bonds had been issued and absorbed by these banks in exchange for their gold, they would have commanded a premium of 14,15, or 16,
thus providing a rake off that these people wanted to relieve you of. The stake
was a big one. They had $15,000,000 represented on the board.
I tell you, gentlemen, that this is a big pile to have in front of men with the
average greed and cupidity of the American citizen, assisted by same who are not
American «itizens. The Administration of Mr. Harrison refused that issue. Mr,
Harrison is represented as having paid that he wished his Administration to be
known as one in which the debt had been reduced rather than increased; and
when the new Administration came1 into power they found a diminished reserve,
a reserve below what was called the legal limic of reserve.
NoWj my friends, I do ijot know much about judicial law, but I do know something about the laws of business. In the conduct of my business I maintain a reserve. I consider that the only safe way for me to conduct; my enterprises is to
maintain a reserve fund in the bank, but when, in the exigencies of business, my
deposit account is reduced down to the limit of that reserve, what do I do ? Go
and issue a mortgage upon mf possessions? No, sir. I use the reserve fund that
I have placed in the bank for that very purpose, rather than I encumber my possessions with a mortgage. Why should not the Government do the same thing.?
The Secretary of the Treasury wisely "called" their bluff." He held a "full
hfuid " and they had a "bobtail." [Laughter.]
Further, we commenced to export gold ; we exported it in payment of the balance of trade against us. We exported that gol4 and it went abroad, in part to
pay the expenses of the 24,000 men of this nation who to-day own the half of our
total wealth. They lived in sumptuousness and riotousness abroad, and our gold
went therein part to pay their expenses. Then there were shipped from Sew
Yo'rk nearly five millions of gold each week. Any gentleman can take his pencil
and paper and figure up that, at the rates of exchange prevailing at that time,
e a c h shipment of a million involved a los3 of $2,000. '
.
, We sent out that gold; but, who sent it ? Were they American citizens ? I do
not know; they may have become so; but I know i* was sent out by Heidelbaeh,
Ickelheimer & Co. and by Lazarus, Fifcres & Co. They were, the agents of the
Rothschilds, who were exporting thi i gold. It was needed to refund the Austrian
debt and place that country upon a gold basis. These men paid their premium
of $2,000 on, each $1,000,000 of gold, and then proceeded to get even. How did
they do it? They went into the Btock market and sold that, market one hundred
thousand shares short and gained a million. The depreciation of the values of
securities traded upon in the city of J^ew York since this " bear " campaign began
has amounted to over $1,000,000,000.




5
Do you fear that gold is not going to come back into Jthi3 country ? I never had
a doubt about it. They exported gold in pursuance of their unholy design to
transfer the wealth of a continent into the coffers of a few English bankers located
in Lombard street.
Let me show you, Mr. Speaker, if possible, tiow this thing has worked, and how
it is woiking. All over the Continent of Europe the Rothschilds have their
agencies. There is not a European capital or town where you do not find a
branch of that hojise, and I take it that if matters go oa as thay have been going
heretofore it will not be long until you can not find a city or a town in this
country where the Rothschilds will not have a branch house.
They have drawn off our gold, and securities have depreciated 50, 60, even 90,
per cent in value. Dividend;paying stocks have depreciated, and these gentlemen own them to-day, and have them locked up in their coffers.
Do you not think, then, tint they are going to let gold flow back? I hold in
my hand a copy of the New York World, which, I fear, comes nearer to being the
revelation of the Lord Almighty to some of you than any other document that has
been before your vision for the last few years. [Laughter ] Tnis paper contains
a cartoon which is entitled,/4 Wall street waiting for thelamb's wool to grow agaia."
No one can claim that the New York World is a bimetallic paper/ It is for a
" sound and honest" mmey. [Laughter.] They ara sound, honest men that
own and control this paper; tiiey were " born so*" [Laughter.] Tiiis cartoon
represents a distinguished lot of individuals, with their names, and their buttonhoile bouquets, " waiting for the lamb's wool to grow again." Here is the stock
exchange, where the poor lamb is standing, while the liae of shearers reaches
from the stock exchange away up as far as Trinity Church. See the length of
their shears! Here is the poor lamb, every particle of his wool shorn from him,
and they have even gashed into his hide, s J that the blood is streaming fr:m him I
Of course they have got to wait for the lamb's wool to grow again! [Laughter.]
Why, Mr. Speaker, I raise Angora goats up in Pennsylvania, and 1 shear them
only once a year. I find it more profitable to wait for a second crop. I cut my
grass early in the summer, and I do not keep running the mowing machine over
it every few days j but I wait until the fall for the aftermath. So these people
will wait. There is no fear about the return of gold. They have got our securities, they have got mortgages upon our possessions, and now what do they want?
Why, they want to see the wheels of industry revolve and to hear the spindles
hum again, so that they may grow a new crop of wool, and then repeat the
shearing process.
I see that my New York friends- insist that there is but one remedy for this
trouble, and that is the issue of bonds to maintain gold and put us upon a "solid
financial basis." Well, gentlemen, supoo3e we agree 'to issue the $150,000,000 of
bonds that you demand, how long will it be bifore you will want another $150,000,000? If through your conspiracy you can get this $150,000,000 thatlyou say is
necessary now, why can not you, three months hence, present your Treasury
notes, your legal-tender notes, to the subtreasury and draw out'the gold reserve
again, and then come here and demand $150,000,000 more of bonds as an additional mortgage on the industries of the nation? An so, indefinitely, you can
carry on this process until the wealth of an entire nation will not suffice to feed
the greed of these conspirators.
You ask the cause of the panic. I do not know all the causes; but I know this:
for two years the distinguished gentleman, from Ohio [Mr. H A R T E B ] has been a
missionary in the field. The distinguished ex-member of the House, St. George
Fred Williams, of Massachusetts, ana the other saint from Ohio, have filled the
columns of the Arena. the Forum, the North American Review, the American
Journal of Politics, and other papers with' their predictions of disaster to cojrie if
we did not get upQn a solid gold basis.
5 The news and editorial columns of the metropolitan papers have contained the
paid advertisements of the gold-clique. The country weeklies have been sent tons
of " boiler plates,'^ accompanied by courteous and wily letters, asking the.. editors
to use the matter as news, V for the good of the couatry; " and if they refusad they
were allowed to publish it at advertising rates. I do not blame the papers. Taey
needed the money in these hard times. I only blame them for not-marking their
editorials and news " 11., h aad of column, next to reading matter."




6
The gold standard men .have howled calamity for two years incessantly. And
when a member of this House or a citizen, of this nation predicted that this attack
npon silver, this decrying of the credit of the nation, thislessening of the value of
all products, could but bring disaster, you charged us with being calamity hcwlers.
Yet if there has been more calamity howled than has been howled by our distinguished friends of the other side, I do not know where in the pages of literature to
find it
There have been other causes for this panic. They have b$en numerous. It
has not arisen from any one cause. But I will tell you what in my humble judgment is one thing that was responsible for a portion of it. They have a club over
in the city of New York called the Reform Club. I think the Speaker knows
something about the Reform Club. [Laughter.] And that club undertook in advance of the assembling of this body to fix up and issue to the world what they
called a "tariff" for our adoption.
<
/ (
Why, sir, they make our responsibilities easy and our labors light. But the
people of this nation have said that th«-y never elected those men to frame a tariff,
that they elected us to deal with that question upon business principles, and with
exact justice and honesty to all concerned. They have got a little afraid of your
Reform Club over in New York, that assumes, sometimes even with the appearance of authority, to be responsible for the whole conduct of governmental affairs.
The members of that club have attempted to name members of committees of this
House; they have attempted to tell us what shall be our action on this financial
question.
Another reason for your panic has been chargeable directly to the action of your.
Wall street gamblers, who have circulated rumors by the wholesale. They permitted one of these gamblers to go into their chamber a few Weeks.ago and
announce that one of the greatest banks in New York had failed. And how did
that body punish him for putting in circulation this false report? They suspended
him for a year; and it is said his profits through bear operations since this panic
commenced have netted him in clear cash over $10,000,000. I think he can afford
to stand the suspension.
Another thing^ my friends, that is responsible for this panic is your own New
York bankers. You may stand here, the whole body of you, from that State, and
talk about your patriotism and how you will uphold the business interests of the
nation. But he who has eyes and has read current events knows better than
that. When the Government refused to issue bonds, and when the banks of
California, the banks of Chicago, and the great West; came to the relief of the
Administration by giving it gold, your bankers in published interviews, which are
extant to-day in the colundns of the New York papers, threatened to give the
South and the West a pinch of^hard times. I can show you those threats in your
metropolitan papers/ Your bankers threatened to give the people of the South
/
and West a taste of hard times.
This conspiracy, which has had twenty years for its hatching, has now reached
its culmination; and those who have taken part in is believe -the time is now
ripe for the consummation of these villainies and the wholesale'robbery of the
people.
Another thing, Mr. Speaker, which I think is responsible is the character and
business pursuits of those who demanded this Congress be called in extraordinary
session, or induced the Executive of this nation to call it. What genuine business
interest in this nation asked for the assembling of Congress at this time ? But
the New York bankers and stock gamblers, in their interviews in the columns of
their papers, day after day,said, "Let the call for an early session be issued, and
at once the panic will stop and the country will be all right; business will find its
ordinary channels; prosperity will dawn on every home." Was not that your
prophecy? -'And from the day that the proclamation w&s^issued down to this
time we know that the financial situation has been getting worse.
Who made the demand for this extra session ? Your boards of trade, your stopk
exchanges, your wreckers upon the shores of commerce, your gamblers, your vampires upon human industry. [Applause ] No body of agriculturists in this nation
asked for a special session of Congress. No body of laboring men demanded that
Congress should assemble. No, sir; the demand came not from the producers of a
nation's Wealth, but from the absorbers of a nation's wealth. [Applause.] This
demand came not from the 67,000,000 of American citizens, but from the 24,000




who, through this financial villainy, have taken one-half of your total wealth, and
now want to gain as quickly as they can the balance of it. [Applause.]
Mr. Speaker, I have heard much about the e^ils of a high protective tariff. I
realize the force of what is said in that direction. But where tariff Saul has slain
his thousands this financial David has slain his tens of thousands, and mutilated,
maimed, and crippled his tens of millions. [Applauss.]
Another reason for financial distrust and doubt is the fear of the people that the
designs of those who have determined to destroy one-half of the metallic base of
commercial transactions may prove successful. Bankers want bonds. Why, my
friends, here is a proposition which I make to you bankers in this House and the
240Jawyers who are members of this body. I wish you would get together and
illustrate to us how it is that a bond which rests only on the faith of the Government is good, is desirable, is wanted, is howled for, is conspired for; and yet a
greenback, a Treasury note, which rests upon the same faith of the people in this
Government, you denounce as " fiat money." I want to understand where and
how you make your distinction.
Mr. LANE. The interest is the distinction.
Mr. SIBLEY. Yes, as my friend from Illinois [Mr. L A N K ] suggests, one carries
interest and the other does not; one goes to a premium and the other maintains its
parity.
My friends, it has been amusinst to sit in this Hons3 and hear the diagnosis that
the different schools of physicians and empirics have given of the malady of the
patient And they have got as many different maladies as there are different
schools of doctors for their treatment. Here comes one who says the patient is
sick,and \ h * trouble with him is that there is lack of confidence. All he needs is to
have confidence and he will s3on be well again. Why, up in Pennsylvania the
other day a bauk closed its doors where* I had several thousands of dollars on
deposit.
Now, I have absolute confidence in the president of that bank; the people of
that community have confidence in him, and he has confidence in me; but
neither of us has any money. That is what is the trouble. [Laughter and applause.] I want to tell any anan who proposes to heal this disease by administering a dose of confidence medicine that he has got to inject that medicine into
every patient at the same time, everywhere in the countiy, or it will not work.
You can not give a dose to a man in this community ana another to a man in
another community, and hope that your confidence medicine is going to cure.
But another says the difficulty arises from overproduction—overproduction of
wheat, of wosl, of oil, of coal, of corn, of cotton, and beef. Overproduction of
cotton^ Why, I drove out through the slums of Chicago four weeks ago and
saw men, women, and children in tatters. Overproduction of wheat, and we read
that in the West people are starving for the very necessities of life. Overproduction of fuel, and yet they froze to death in Pennsylvania, the land of fuel, last
year. Overproduction of oil, and a million of our people roam in darkness this
night for want of it. No, sir, it is not because of overproduction. It is because
of underconsumption, because of the lack of the necessary money to purchase
these absolute necessities of human existence. [Applause.]
Bat there are other classes of doctors, other schools, who tell us that we are
getting down to " hardpan," that we have been going through an era of inflation,
and that it is necessary for us to get down to first principles jiurti they say we are
going down to hardpan. Why, my friend, the farmers, the workingmentof this
country* were down to hardpan fifteen years ago. [Applause.] They got down
to bed rock ten years ago. They went down to where they scorched the soles of
their shoes five years ago, and they are getting to-day, in this year of our Lord
1893, down to the point where it is scorchiug their feet and the fumes and odors
of hell come up to meet them. [Applause.] And yet we are told we are getting
down to hardpan. I want to kjxow how much further towards sheol we have got
to go before we get there ? [Laugater and applause.]
v
Mr. Speaker, I have been told, with others, that I must support this measure
because it is a Democratic measure. When did the new prophet of the Lord arise,
and when did he receive the last revelation of the Democracy ? [Applause.] Certainly it must have bsen since the last national platform adopted by the Demicratic party at Ghica^. [R«ra«wed applause.] Mjr friends, you can not turn to a
platform, with one exception, from the consummatim of the crime of 1S73 down




8
to the present era that does not denounce that crime, that does not designate the
men as criminals who perpetrated it, and that one exception is the old Bay^State.
Every State and every national platform has stood upon that principle, has declared this to be its judgment, this to be its pledge, that this crime against the
laboring people, this crime against their happiness, should no longer go unpunished.
I may not understand Democracy, Mr. Speaker. I stand for the Democracy
which n as regard to the interests of the great masses as well as to those of the
privileged few. I revere that Democracy which was taught by the fathers of the
Republic, the Democracy of Jefferson, who stood for the rights of the people as
against the aristocratic tendencies of New York and New England, which existed
in those early days. New York and New England denounced him as a socialist,
as a communist, and as a demagogue. He is what I call one of the father* of the
Democracy. Thomas Jefferson once wrote: " I can scarcely withhold myself from
joining in the wish of Silas Deane that an ocean of fire rolled between the old
world and this." Why, how that utterance would make some of our modern
anglomaniac statesmen jump. *
I stand by the Democracy of Andrew Jackson; and, my friends from New York
and New England, Democrats and Republicans, what did you say of Andrew
Jackson ? He denounced your national banks and your stock exchanges, and
said they were leeches and vampires upon the body politic. [Applause.] .
What, I ask, did New York and New England say of Andrew Jackson in those
days? They assailed him with every vile epithet that could be found and applied
in the English language. Demagogue was your pet name for him. Why, your
Democracy of New York made medals portraying Andrew Jackson sitting down
behind a rail fence with the epaulettes on his shoulders, smoking his old corncob pipe, and his head surmounted by asses' ears. These medals are still extant,
and you Democrats of New York issued them. And you people of New England,
with your boasted seats of learning—your Harvard College conferred the degree
of LL. D. on Andrew Jackson and then passed resolutions regretting such action.
[Applause.]
Mr. Speaker, I stand by the Democracy of the old fathers of the Republic. I
stand by the men whose voices have been raised always for human liberty • a
Democracy that has' regard to the cries of the suffering that have been heard-in
this lanti in all of its decades and history. I have regard for a Democracy that
has respect to the man who toils, as well as the man who absorbs. I have respect
for the Democracy that considers the right of the workers in the busy hive of industry, as well as of the drones who bask oh the sunny side thereof.
Mr. Speaker, I stand by Democracy as exemplified by the first great Democrat
who ever walked the face of God's fair earth; who said that he who was naked
and hungry and sick was my brother; and that when we ministered to such
an one we ministered to the very Christ; a Democracy which said that he who
had fallen among thieves and was grievously wounded was my neighbor. And
yet they crucified and put to death that first Democrat of the ages. My friends,
did'you ever think why they crucified the Lord Jesus Christ ? They never crucified him because of aiiy religious ideas that He p<* s3essed different from the masses.
Babylon and Nineven, Rome and Greece, had erected their altars of Pagan worship under the very eyes of the people without a protest; but they crucified that
man because He said, " W o e unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," [Applause.] Thev crucified Him because He had condemned the extortioner ana the
oppressor, and had dared to scourge the money- chingers from the temple of the
living God. [Applause.] And whoever boldly stands to-day in the cause cf
humanity against the greed and rapacity of the few is a marked victim for crucijfixion.
x
I have been asked repeatedly, since*I came to Washington, now it occurred that
a man of some reputed means, and hailing from Pennsylvania, could ially myself with the disordered ideas of bimetallism ? Why, my friends, they still print
and read Bibles up ia the State of Pennsylvania. [A pplawe.] And on the page
cf that eood old bock the command is jost as plain ae it was the day it was thundered from Sinai, " Thou shalt not steal 1" [Applanse and laughter.] Why, my
friends, if a man from Pennsylvania fhaU not e'and for bimetallism, from what
land shall the man hail to stand for it ? William Penn came to Pennsylvania and
he dealt justly and honestly with the poor red m^n; and be stir has his folowers




9
in that blessed Keystone State who are willing to deal honestly and justly with
the poor white man. [Applause.] Pennsylvania is rich in treasures of coal and
iron, of oil and wheat, but she is richer still in her millions of sons and daughters
who " know the right, and, knowinsr, dare maintain." [Applause.]
My friends, you tell us that we can not win this fight. Gentlemen get up here
and cite the fact that England is against us, that Germany is against us, that Spain
is against us, that France is against us, and they even come to me and tell me that
the Administration is against us. [Laughter.} But I tell you, you may league all
your forces, but you can not destroy the sparks of liberty on this continent [Applause.] Switzerland has stood for years, a little gem surrounded by the crowned
thrones and monarchies of Europe, and maintained her liberty. But you tell us
the odds are against us. Well :
Granted' the odds are against us, granted we enter the field,
When fate has fought and conquered, broken the sword and shield,
When then? shall we ask for quarter, or say our work is done ?
Say, rather, a greater glory is our?;, if the field be won.
It is war with the wrong of years, with prejudice, pride, and hate,
Against the world's decrees and the frown of an evil fate.
A crown to the one who wins, and the worst is only a grave;
And somewhere, somewhere still, a reward awaits the brave.
A broken shield without, but afyero'sheart within,
And grasped with the hand of steel the broken blade may win.

[Applause.]
Why, Mr. Speaker, gentlemen tell us that all our aiguments are as rot. I quote
their exact language. They meet our arguments with subtle sophistries. The^
hurl walking encyclopedias, loaded to the muzzle, at us, and they justify their
conduct upon any pretext or pretense they please. I remember when a boy reading in JSsop the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb. A wolf met a lamb, and was
determined to devour-it; but wishing to justify himself even in the sight of the
lamb, held converse thus with him :
"Sir, last vear you insulted me."
" No,' meekly bleated the Iamb, "last year I was not born."
" But you eat the grass out of my pasture."
"O, n o ; so far I have never tasted grass."
" But you drink at my spring."
u No ; so far my mothers milk has been both food and drink to me.''
Whereupon the wolf seized him and ate him, saying, " My fine fellow, in spite of all your argument you shall not rob me ot my dinner."

[Laughter.]
The moral of the tale is that tyrants never lack pleas to justify their crimes.
But you call us cranks. I have heard that term applied to almost every man
who in twenty years has stood out in advance of the common horfle. Any man
,who stands in a d v a n c e t h e present is called a crank. They did not then have
the name invented, but I fanc^ Columbus, Luther, Gallileo, Garrison, Lowell,
Patrick Henry, and the great men who have made lasting impressions on the
pages of the past were all denominated cranks or the equivalent term therefor.
You say that we are weak and obscure, and a lot of fanatics from the West that
come from the farms," and what can such men know about finance?" Why, my
Mends, I do not know but what these men, while they have been turning the
furrow, have had as good opportunities as other people to turn over in their
minds these great living problems which so closely affect their own well-being.
The mechanic has stood at the lathe, and as the shaft revolved has also revolved
in his own mind these problems; and I can not for the life of me^understand why
he can not attain as perfect an apprehension of them as the man who walks into
the stock exchange at 10 o'clock in the morning and stays there till 3 o'clock in
the afternoon, goes to his office and balances up his accounts, saunterJ up-town
for a dinner at IMmonico's, goes to the theater, takes a box for the evening, and
then eits in with the boys and plays draw poker until 4 o'clock the next morning.
{Laughter.]
,
The very best business men, my friends, you have known in your lives came
irom the farm, and the only argument that I have seen that all those remaining
on it were fools was from thos 9 who had not remained. [Laughter.] Oh, you




10
say that they are a lot of obscure cranks back in the country. Why, your great
New England poet, tht champion and herald of human liberty, once said:
Oh,' Truth ! Oh, Freedom! How are ye still born
In the rude stable, in the manger nursed ;
What humble hands unbar those gates of morn,
Through which the splendor of the new day bursts.

[Applause.]
My friends, I am not going to shoot much longer into the air, but going to
come down to something practical!
I want to eay a word, first, about the Administration. Men are told, and men
have told me, that I have got to be very careful; that my political JFulure was at
stake; that they had grand schemes laid out for me for the future; and I had
better be very cautious, or assume, at least, a very conservative attitude upon this
great, question. My friends. I have not got a paiticle of principle that is not too
dear for me to trade for all the patronage that could ever be given out at the
White House. [Loud applause.] And that office has never yet been created for
which 1 will barter away any portion of that moral Bense of obligation which I
owe to my fellow-man and my God. [Renewed applause,]
I have too much respect, I have too much confidence in the honor and the
integrity of the man who occupies that hou^e to believe that such things are true.
I believe that when he comes tome for an honest expression of opinion concerning
the merits of any man, that be wculd rather take the opinion of one who has
stood up boldly and told the truth, as it is given him to know the truth, than to
take the opinion of a milk-and-water, namby-pamby man, who is always willing to
Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning."

[Loud applause.]
President Cleveland is an honest man from the ground up; he has the courage
of his convictions, and I believe he has sincere respect for others «rho exercise
such convictions. [Prolonged applause.]
Mr. Speaker, we have read of wreckers who, in olden days, giving false lights
along the dangerous Coast, would lure a stately ship, freighted with a valued
cargo* upon the sunken rocks, that in the death and ruin they had by their false
signals created they might revel in the spoils and plunder of wreck and ruin.
And so we see to-day the grand old Ship of State freighted with the hopes and
happiness of sixty-seven millions of human souls, sailing through a stormy sea;
the blackness of darkness overhead; even the trusted captain of the craft, bewildered by the false signal lights of the wreckers of Wall street, has given orders for
steering the craft upon a false course, and gone below. The underofficers of tbe
ship, knowing the perfidy of his advisers, knowing that death and ruin are not six
cable lengths ahead, deem it no disrespect to the honest commander in his absence
to thwart the designs of the wreckers, assist in putting the helm hard over, and
guiding the ship into a smooth and open sea. The members of this House are the
second officers in command of the great Ship of State, and charged with equal
v s
responsibility for her safety.
The President knows, and every intelligent man must know, that the unconditional repeal of tbe Sherman act means a further fall in the price of silver bullion^
and its utter destruction as a legal-tender metal in this country and all over tbe
world. What, then, must be the opinion of the President touching the honesty
and intelligence o f tftose gentlemen , on the floor of .the House who, to justify
themseives to an outraged constituency* state tnat they are in favor of free-silver
coinage, but shall vote against any substitute to accompany the bill for repeal?
You are in the attitude of old Pete Jonee, who said, concerning a stringent liquor
law, " I am in favor of yer law, but agin its enforcement." You are in favor of bimetallism; nevertheless, "tu Brute" art willing to give it the death-stab in the
back. All humanity admire positive men and, even though they deem them
wrong, honor those who have at all times and under all circumstances the courage
of thtir conscientious convictions. But for the trimmer, the time server:"Thus
saith the Lord :
1-4 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceana write:
*

*

*

*

*

*

*

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of m y

mouth.




11
Mr. Speaker, that is our idea of about what the President must fee like telling
some who hold their convictions as a stock of trading capital, and, whatever the
opinion of the Executive, I am prone to the belief that, throughout the wheat and
cotton belts a year hence, there will be a tremendous spewing of loads which rest
heavily upon the stomachs of the producers.
I was in the country the other night, driving, and saw a sign stuck out on the
side of the road, " Cash paid for hides." [Laughter and applause.] And along
on the fence was a string of them, the tails hung over to the road; and I said to
myself: " Are men going to sell not only their hides, but bodies,souls, conscience,
moral obligations, and sense of duty, to steal from their families and throw them
into despair end ruin, and not even get the cash price for it?" [Laughter and
applause.] And I imagined, Bir, that there would oe seen a year from next November, by those who would ride through the rural highways, on the fences of
the different eections of the agricultural communitiep, the hides of many so-called
etatesmen who think they can curry favor by fulsome fawning. [Laughter and
applause.] I will take my chances of loss along those lines if you are willing to
take yours. [Renewed laughter and applause.]
Mr. Speaker, the proposition is to repeal the Sherman act, without any attempt
to carry out the other pledges of the platform, which deirands the free and equal
coinage of both gold and silver. Well, we want the Sherman law repealed. It is
acknowledged by its author as a mere subterfuge adopted by the enemies of silver
to prevent free coinage, which was demanded for the undoing of the villainy of
1873. Every man has joined in execrating that villainy and the villains, and
they believe that along with the names of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold
will be placed those who were guilty of that crime; that in a blacker page of
American history than that in which any American name has been written will
be inscribed the authors of that monstrous crime.
We have denounced it, and yet to-day what are we asked to do? We are asked
to say that all the Democrats of the past who drew up such platforms were unwise
and unpatriotic; that they wer^ mistaken. We have been told by members of
this House, who profess to be Democrats, that this plank was made up of pure
ratchwords, and we are asked to say that there was one man of transcendent
genius, who was twenty years ahead of his fellows, and we are asked here at this
time and at this hour'to come together and bend our knees and offer an apotheosis
to that Senator, who sits enshrined at the other end of this Capitol Building. For
one, I never will. [Applause ]
Mr. Speaker, when the Lord led the children oi Israel out of captivity and the
prophet, the leader, and the lawgiver had gone up into the mountain to meet the
living God, these same people who to-day demand the unconditional repeal of the
Sherman bill, these eame people whose chief interests lie along in that direction,
erected a golden calf and fell down and worshiped* it; but the prophet of the Lord
ground.that calf into powder and spread it out upon the waters; and the Lord
was sorelv vexed with Israel because thereof. My friends, you can let them fall
down and worship at. this shrine. There may be manv who still will worship at
the shrine of Baal and Moloch, but there are still a majority of the citizens who
know not these false gods.
'
I ask you, my friend, if you are a banker, if you are a manufacturer, an agriculturist, if you area laboring man, if you own interests in railroads and draw
xiividepds, or if vou manage and conduct these affairs, when was your greatest
era of prosperity ? It was from 1866, or after the close of the war, down to 1873,
was it not? Your railroad stocks were dividend payers at that time. You had no
strikes, you had no boycotts, and no granger lfg'slation. All classes of the
people were at peace with each other. Your factories were not closed, and you
did not have to call out armed forces to keep the employ6 from the throat of the
employer.
Since 1873 what ha3 been the history ? Disaster has followed disaster as upon
the speed of the whirlwind. The conditions have grown more strained every
moment,' and are growing more and more so with each recurring year Statesmen
and patriots may well ponder this condition.' You have had warnings all along
the - pas V which sho w you the natural trend of such cnnditior s And now the
people, the great producers of the world, come to you and ask for jinta^e.
My farmer friend, when was it that you uro $1.50 for you - wheat, and when did
you get 60 or 70 cents for your corn? In 1873 vou received 118 cents per. bushel.




12
en an averfge, for wl eat, ar d in 1873 ycur silver was demonetized. You planters
and growejs of cotton, tell me in ^hat year was it that you received 23 cents a
pound for ycur product ? It was in 1873; but in that year we demonetized silver,
and what happened ? Why, we turned over the interests of the prcducers of this
nation into the hands of British financiers. Let us look at it* Silver at that time
was worth 129.29 cents per ounce; that was i's coin*g« value. And at that
time we had the grain markets and the cotton markets of the world; and in 1873
India export* d only 735,000 bushels of wheat.
Now, there has never been a time in the history of India when silver has not
been its money, and there has never been a time from the day when they commenced raising wheat down to the present hour that one ounce of silver did not
measure the value of one bushel of wheat. It makes no difference What the value
of the rupee is, The pame numbfr of rupees buy the same number of bushels of,
wheat ^11 the time. But England could not afford to buy an ounce of silver at
129.29 and take it to India to measure the value of her Wheat, so she took our
wheat from us and paid us a little less, from 120 to 123 cents, in 1873.
Mr. BRYAN. Mr. Speaker, as the time of the gentleman from Pennsylvania
[Mr. SIBLEY] has almost expired, I ask unanimous consent that he be permitted
to conclude his remarks without limit.
There was no objection, and it was so ordered.
Mr. SIBLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the members of the House for their
courtesy.
In 1874 the shipments of wheat from India commenced. England bought her
ounce of silver here at 110 cents, and she could take that to India and exchange it
for a bushel of Indian wheat; and in five years after the demonetization of silver,
England had increased her shipments from 735,000 bushels to 11,900,000 bushelBr
In ten years, with the continuous depreciation in the value of silver, the ship,
ments of Indian \¥heat had increased from 11,000,000 to 26,C00,000 bushels. In
fifteen years the shipments of Indian wheat to Europe had increased from 735,000
bushels in 1873 to 43,000.000 bushele, and last year she exported 59,000,000 bushels.
The seme ounce of silver England could not buy, to develop the grain markets of
India, at less than 129 cents, before this demonetization and hostile legislation,
she now buys at 70 cents, and takes it to India and still gets the same bushel of
wheat for it, as when silver was worth $1.10. We have played all these years
into the hands of England against the prosperity of cur own American wheat producers. And yet some gentlemen from the Mississippi Valley and from the great
wheat-growing States come here and say that this metal must go lower still in
order that their constituents may continue to feed the European nations at even a
less price than they are able to command to-day.
Mr. Speaker, let us look at cotton, and see if the analogy does not hokL true
there also. They established cotton mills in India in 1863, and from that year
down to 1874 they were never able to export one pound of cotton yarn; eleven
years of attempts to introduce cotton-spinning in India, with abject failure as the
result. But in 1874, one year after the demonetization of silver, they shipped
1,000,000 pounds of cotton yarn. The next year they shipped 5,000,000 pounds,
"With each decreasing quotation in the value of the ounce of silver bullion there
was an increase in the export of cotton yarn from India. In 1889 it had gone up
to 65,000,000 pounds.
In 1891, the last year for which I have been able to secure figure3, the exports
of cotton yarn from India amounted to 165,000,000 pounds; the same thing has
been equally true of the exports of raw cotton. TVlr. Speaker, I have observed
that the prosperity oi the farmers and the railroads went hand in hand, and are
there no lessons that the managers and stockholders of railroads can learn from
these conditions above described? Which is better for your corporations, to be
able to earn money at the expense of Europe or to be able to borrow it from
Europe at your own-expense? Permit me to show the position of fchoee in England who are so much opposed to bimetallism. At a .meeting of the British and
Colonial Chambers o f Commerce, held in London in 1886, Sir Robert N. Fowler,>
member of Parliament, a banker, and ah ex-mayor of London, said—
that the effect of the depreciation of silver must finally be the ruin of the wheat and cotton industries of America, and be the development of India as the chief ^ heat end cotton < x x>rter of the

world.




13
Russia, another silver nation, and the great competitor of America in the production of wheat, has also furnished to European nations her quota of wheat,
paid for in the depreciated ounce of silver that we by legislation have degraded
and debased. Oh, I tell you, my friends, it is very fiae to bear you talk here about
a "degraded and debased dollar;" but I would rather have a degraded dollar than
a degraded ccuntry—rather have a debased coin than a debased people. You
have closed the market to American wheat and American cotton; and yet gentlemen from the cotton States stand here and say that the cotton-planter demands
that the Sherman act shall be repealed.
The people of the cotton States, I believe, are equal in intelligence to the people
of the wheat-producing States and the other great States of this Union where
greed for gain and lust for riches are not the one dominating and controlling
f >rce. You have seen your cotton crop increase. I will not take time to go into
statistics as to the acreage ; but you have planted millions more cf acres; you
have raised hundreds of millions more pounds of cotton; and your net receipts
to-day are not one-half what they were in 1873. Every year a little greater shrinkage in value becausejof the shrinkage of value of silver bullion.
Now, I want to make my friend from Ohio [Mr. HARTER] a proposition. I
know he is out for converts. I know tbe corridors of this Capitol are thronged
with a lobby that are trying to,make converts; and the hotels are full of them.
Now, I want to tell the gentleman -how he can make one convert right here. I
make this proposition: That silver has not declined in value one iota from 1873
down to this minute; if it has, 1 will vote on the other tide of this proposition. It
has maintained its parity and its ratio with every product of human industry, save
one. This ounce of bullion silver which to-day you tell me is worth but 70 cents,
measures as much wheat and more than it ever measured in the last fifty years ;
it measures more pounds of beef, more pounds of pork, more pounds of cotton,
more pounds of iron, more barrels of oil, more of every product of human industry, save one, than it ever measured even when it sold at its legitimate value, 129
cents an ounce. If you will show me any other than on© exception to this proposition, you have a convert right here. The one exception is gold. The 70 cent
ounce of silver will not buy as much gold to-day, but it will buy more of every
other pre duct of human in du3try.
Now, then, inasmuch as silver has maintained its ratio—its parity with your
wheat, and your corn, and your cotton, with every product of human labor, why
do you eay that silver has gone down and that this metal is debased? Why do
you not say that gold has gone up and has been deified? You cry out in these
Halls fcf an^" honest dollar.*1 You do not want an honest dollar—not one of you
that makes this cry. [Applause.] You want a scarce dollar. You do not want
an honest dollar; if you do, come^over and vote with us, and we will give it to
you. [Applause.] We will give you a dollar that is as honest to day as it was in
1873. But you are not going to force your 150-cent dishonest dollar upon the
great producers of the necessities of human existence—not if we can prevent the
consummation of that effort. [Applause.] Talk absut a dishonest silver dollar,
when within the last week they have been so scarce as to command a premium
of 2 and 3 per cent to assist in moving^the cotton and wheat crops.
I love to hear gentlemen talk about*1 intrinsic value." That word tk intrinsic "
has a irolden sound. I do not know what'it paeans, and I do not think anyone
else does; but I will give you my idea of intrinsic value. The intrinsic value of
anything is what it will do for you in your hour of direst need, of supreinest
peril. What is the intiinsic value of a piece of plank 24 feet long, a foot wide, and
2 inches thick? Gentlemen may take out their pencils and commence to figure
out tHfe intrinsic value of that piece of plank, and their results will vary accor.iin*
to their methods of computation; but, my friends, the intrinsic value of that plank
is a million dollars to the man who is drowning.
Men talk about the intrinsic value of g>ld. A banker told me the other day
that he couM not assent to my propositions because he believed the time had come
when we must join hands with the other great nations and come djwn to the use
of a metal which had intrinsic value behind* it. I said to this gentleman: " I do
not know that I can raise the funds just at present; I have seiious doubts if I can
raise a percentage of the amount; bit suppose I can get $20,000 worth of gold bullion. You pay 3 psr cent on tim^ deprs'ts, do ycu not?"
sir." " Well,
now I will get $20,000 jvorth of gold bullion arid bring it to you as a deposit. Ycu




14
would rather have that than paper, because paper has no intrinsic value, while
gold bullion has. I will deposit this bullion for six months and draw 3 per cent
interest on this time deposit." What do you think he said ? " Oh," said he, u I
can not give you 3 per cent on that." " Why not," eaid I ? " Well, I could not
use it." "Well, then," said I, "I will take the bullion down to the mint at
Philadelphia and I will get the people there to put upon it the stamp and f uperscription of the Government of the United States ; will you take it then ?" He
paid: " Oh, yes ; I would be glad to." " Well, then," said I, " what has your
intrinsic value got to do with the matter? What is it gives this metal its power
as monty so that you are willing to pay me 3 percent interest upanit? Is it
the-intrinsic value of the metal? No; it is the image and superscription of Caesar
that makes it money?"
,
I have been amused to hear gentlemen talk about^the impossibility and absurditv of having two yardsticks. Well, my friends, I believe we have two yardsticks.
I believe that when you attempt to appreciate gold we will set silver against it at
129 cents an ounce, and we will hold it so that the gold dollar shall be worth just
100 cents; and the gold dollar shall sustain the silver dollar so that it shall stand
at 100 cents; so, that we can have two measures for the same thing. Why, sir, 32
quarts of oats make a bushel, do they not? And 32 pounds of oats make a bushel.
There you have two yardsticks, have you not?
Now these measures are of the same ratio. Bat 32 quarts of corn make a bushel,
and 56 pounds of corn make a bushel. There is the varying ratio. There are 60
pounds of wheat in a bushel, but only 32 quarts. Is there any great discrepancy
in using the two measures? Why, one says the seller shall not take a hoop and
scoop out down below the level of the rim, and the other says the man who buys
it shall not heap up the measure to running over. That is what it is. That is
why we place one coin against the other.
Now, my friends say that silver has gone down all over the nations of the world,
and that it can not be maintained at a parity or fixed ratio. No wonder it has
gone down. What criminal has ever been pursued with such zealous and malignant fury,such thorough and complete conspiracy? What criminal has ever been
followed with such relentless hatred? The energies of tiie entire money
Eower of the whole world have been concentrated against the white metal. Why
aa this been done? Because they were afraid it was going to bs too abundant. The Creator in his loving kindness to this nation, when the foundations of
the world were laid, stored our mountains and our hills with great veins of silver
and gold, that ought to make us the greatest, the grandest the noblest, the richest
nation on earth, in order that we might enlighten, civilise, and carry glad tiding*
of great joy to all the dwellers of the earth. They became afraid of the quantity
of silver in this country, ju*t as they were frightened about gold in 1857; the only
difference was that they got afraid ol a different thing.
The discovery of the gold mines of Australia in 1853, following the discovery of
those in California in 1849, made these same gold bugs fear that there was going
to be too much gold, and they called their m metary conferences together to conspire against gold. They used then precisely the same arguments against gold
that they have directed against silver at th^ present time, and they had a better
argument They said silver was the money of the common people, adapted to the
transaction of small business as well as great; that the people could use it freely
and safely; that its size was such as to make it a safer m e m for many purposes,
and that the loss by abrasion in silver coin was so little and in gold so much that
gold ought never to have been made a money metal at all; and that the gold
should be used only as bullion and have a basic value.
* Listening to this series of arguments which have been put forth by thos6 men
who desire to control all human industries and valhes, several nations in Europe
did demonetize gold and take away its legal-tender value no longer ago than
1857. Austria demonetized it, and every state of Germany demonetized it; and
now we are told this debased metal, silver, ought to be demonetized merely
because they are afraid of such an abundance of it!
What wonder that it is disgraced when every factor, every power not only of
the whole American continent but all the world, has been used against it? Your
banks have denounced it. Your metropolitan press, under the control of the gold
power, have issued column after column attacking it. Your very Director of the
Mint* or Acting Director, has discredited it vithiA the la§t four weeks. He haa




15
wiggled and haggled over the price and value of it, and if the holders offered it at
70.71 cents an ounce he woul4 offer them 70.31 cents an ounce. When still lacking 2,000,000 of ounces to comply with the plain terms of the law he would, when
his offer was accepted, take 30,000 ounces instead of half a million. Instead of, as
an American, being animated by an impulse to maintain its value at parity if
possible, he pursued methods which in this nation seldom obtain outside the
second-hand clothing shops of Baxter street. That certain elements have conspired against it to degrade it and take away its value in this country, who can
longer doubt?
Mr. Speaker, let us place the responsibility for this panic where it belongs.
India closed her mints to the free coinage of silver a few weeks ago; and I want
to call your attention in this connection to a reputed interview which had a dominating and controlling force in that direction. A member of the Administration,
the Secretary of Agriculture of this Union, ostensibly at the head of the agriculturists of the nation and who is said at times to imagine he hears the Presidential
bee buzzing in his bonnet, was interviewed a fejv weeks ago, and in that intsrview
he is reported to have said: " I have recommended*to the Secretary of the Treasury that he condemn all the silver in*the vaults of the Government and sell it as
old junk, for whatever it will brine." He said, We have a law which allows the
appointment of committees to condemn worthless material lying around the Departments." And three days after that interview silver was demonetized in
India.
Whether the Secretary of Agriculture spoke seriously or in jest, we know not
If this was a jest it was one that has cost more closing of banks, more foreclosures
upon farms and houses, closed more workshops, put out more fire3 in happy
homes, caused more loss, more hunger, more tears, more misery, more woe, than
any jest ever recorded on the p*ges of the past. The utterances of cabinet ministers are supposed to be those of deliberation, and the result of fullest consideration, and presumptively reflecting and outlining governmental policy.
What wonder in the face of such declarations, made ujpon the authority of one
holding soexajted and dignified a position, that the British ministry was suddenly
convened to protect the Indian mints from such an avalanche; and from that
moment to this, disaster has trod upon the heels of disaster, ever thicker, ever
faster. Such sorry jests should entitle the'discoverer of Arbor Day to an indefinite leave of absence, where, beneath the umbrageous foliage of his planting, he
may repent his costly folly. Silver fell from 8 2} cents per ounce to 70 cents as
the result of this man's utterance; and wheat, always following the price of silver,
declined from 74 cents per bushel to 54 cents per bushel.
A few days since our worthy Secretary was interviewed again, and thiB id his
latest reported utterance of financial wisdom :
Agricultural products are lower, but this is rather a blessing than otherwise, for if our products
are not taken gold will be exported.

This utterance, if correct, ought to make it all right with the farmers, who care
nothing whatsoever about the price of the products of their toil, so that the yellow
god may not flee from the presence of his devout worshipers.
Mr. Speaker, the farmers have for years been great suflerers from the ravages of
bugs. You of the South have had the cotton bug. You of the West have had the
chinch bug. We of the North have had the potato bug, and scattered around
promiscuously has been the bedbug; but indigenous to Lombard and Wall
streets, thrives and fattens another bug. They even break their way into this
Capitol at times, and these bugs—golu bugs—have bitten and annoyed more
people than all the bedbug tribe, and their ravages in your fertile fields exceed in
damage in a single year the damage wrought by the combined efforts of all other
bugs for a century.
Mr. Speaker, I .like the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. HARTKR]. He has got such a
frank, manly way of stating things. He states a proposition squarely and fairly,
while many others are apt to hedge. He admits the question to-day to be this!
Silver is going to be money equal in value to gold in this country, and that issue
is. to be .determined now; or silver, its money value, is to be absolutely lost forever. I like the way he states his propositions. He says squarely that to-day we
have too much fiioney, and therefore he proposes to take away one-half pf it.




Why do not some others stand up on this floor, and say publicly what they say
in private conversation? Why do; you not announce your intention manfully
and boldly« from your places here ? You have announced privately that your
intention is to offer resolutions, after the repeal of the Sherman law, to take away
the legal-tender power of silver in all sums in excess of five dollars. Why do you
not tell what justification you are going to offer for that ? Privately, you eay you
are going to justify it by the fact that when you have unconditionally repealed
this bill, Bilver will fall to forty cents an ounce or even less, and then you can urge
the folly of putting out a twenty-five cent silver dollar and making it a full legal
tender.
Why, my friends, the great temple of industry and commerce rests upon two
pillars, one of silver and the other of gold. This one of silver has but 6 per cent
more strength than the other, and with both these pillars under this temple it is
all it can do to maintain its place. Why, every passing financial wind rocks it
upon its foundations; and yet you propose to absolutely destroy one of these
pillars. There is only 6 per cen$ more silver on the whole globe than of gold;
only $2.68 per capita of silver in the world. Yet you propose to take it away.
Over three-fifths of the nations of the world to-day are either upon a silver or a
bimetallic basis. Your $3,600,000,'000 of gold is inadequate for the use of the
nations that are already upon a gold standard, and how aie you going to move the
wheels of industry when you have destroyed one-half the metallic base.of all commercial credits and transactions, the globe around?
But they cite England, old England, and Spain and Germany. Yet they dodge
the issue. There is jupt one country on the face of the globe where they do not
have panics, and she has got more money than any other, civilized nation on the
face or the globe, and that country is France. No financial revolutions or panics
or disasters there. The Eanama Canal scheme may fail, and it does not make a
ripple on the financial surface. It causes great waves to heave and swell upon the
political tide, but it never touches the financial situation or affects its stability.
They have $54 of money to every man, woman, and child in France, They have
an abundance to meet the needs of business in that little nation, smaller than
some of our States; and yet in this great nation, whose territory stretches 3,000
miles from ocean to ocean, we are asked to do business with lens than half as much
per capita. If silver makes panics, why was it that Australia, which is on a gold
basis, has a panic worsa than ours; a panic in which the bank failures in six
weeks amount to over nine hundred millions of dollars? Their panic was only
caused, like ours, by Rothschild shearing his sheep.
My friend, let us deal fairly with silver. Supposing that by your legislation
here to-morrow you enact a law that no man in this country who possesses wheat
shall be permitted to take it to the mill and have it ground. Shut every mill in
the land to the grinding of wheat, and what do you think wheat would be worth
six months from to-day ? Do you think wheat would maintain its value as silver
has.done? Corn would go up, corn would be king, and wheat Would be worth its
fodder value for dumb brutes. That is precisely what you have done against silver. You have shut down the mills against it. You have denied it to the public
for its use, and yet you cry against it that there are only 53 or 56 cents in the silver dollar.
. . .
Now, my friends, I want to make you a little prediction right here, and let us
see who tells you the truth, whether it is these people from New York or the
friends of free coinage. Oh, I love the New York people 1 I know them well.
It is the State of my nativity; There are grand men and noble women in New
York. But I know "New York City well, and I know, lying right alongside of
New York-City, is a place they call Hell Gate, and I think most of you, coming
from ther^, have been through it. [Laughter ] I know our friends from New
England, who speak so boldly for the honest dollar, in coming through the Sound,
have come through Hell Gate. [Laughter.]
But I want to tell you, my friends, that we have been getting the financial policy of this nation for twenty yearp from the gates of hell, but we are not going to
accept such dictum any longer. [Applause ] Why, did you ever stop to think
that when the wise men started out to seek the Saviour of mankind, the Light of
the World, in what direction they traveled? Did they go to the East to look for
the light? No; they left the East and came to the West for the source and
fountain of all light and truth. [Laughter and applause.]




17
When Columbus embarked, in which direction did he steer to find a nobler,
better, and happier.land? Did he turn to the East? No! Misery, woe, monarchs, oppression, crime, and crowns were in the EaBt. He headed his course
Westward ; and so. my friends, to-day you will never find a financial savior who
comes up through Hell Gate. [Laughter,] On this rock of justice we have
founued our faith, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. [Laughter.]
They have told us about the great loss that the country submitted to in the purchase of silver, and I want to eay right here, my friends, first, that I used to be a
monometallist of the monometalllsts; could not be anything else. All my friends
were monometallists. I was a director in a rational bank, and they were all
4
monometallists.
Everybody I met in the East was a monometallist. But I one day heard a man
talk who astonished me. He read from official documents, and I doubted their
accuracy. I said, u That man has the appearance of honesty; .he has the courage
of truth shining from his soul through his eyes, but he must be mistaken." So I
said, " For my part I am going to make a study of this question." And never
thinking to be here in political debate and discussion within these Halls, or dny
other public place, I devoted my time to studying these questions. I sent here to
Washington for the reports of your Director of the Mint, Comptroller of the Currency, and Treasurer, and triea to apply business rules and methods to them, and I
am no longer a monometallist, because I would rather be honest than be a monometallist. [Laughter and applause.]
• My friends, we are told that the Treasury, and the country through thejreasury, has lost vast sums of money in buying 70-cent silver and storing it in our
vaults. Now, let us see the facfs about that. Mayba we have been driving a
better trade than we thought. If that bullion has gone into dollars it will pay the
Government's debts. It hal done so up to this time, at least, but I do not know
what it will do if you succeed in your schemes, but up to.this time it will pay a
dollar's worth ofcfcbt, public or private, anywhere in the nation when it is coined
into standard silver dollars. ..
How much have we lost? Have we lost anything? Every ounce in the
Treasury bought below $1.29 an ounce, its coinage value, is SD mu jhgtin., Instead
of issuing bulletins to the people eh >wing the great loss in'the purchase of silver,
why do not they say that the Government is 50 cents ahead on every ounce of
silver that it has purchased, and that ihe Government is $100,000,00 ahead by the
purchase of silver, instead of sending out reports that the Government has been
a loser by ihe transaction ?
But supposing we had been loier. Supposing, Mr. Speaker, that we had as a
Government chartered one of the ocean greyhounds sailing from New York and
had loaded every ounce of silver in the country that has been produced since 1873
to the preeent time, had bought that silver for $1.29 an ounce, and had that ship
to sail just off beycnd the banks of Newfoundland, and gone into sufficiently deep
water \*here you could not reach soundings, and sunk it to the depths of the
ocean, where it would have remained forever beyond the reach of man* what
would have been the effect on the producers of the United States?
The highest production of silver in any year has been $73,000,000. We will
say it is $75,000,000. But we produce 450,000,0Q0 bushels of wheat a year, which,
since the demonetization of silver, has fallen from $1.20 to 54 cents per bushel.
The American farmers have lost from 60 to 70 cents a bushel on wneat. The
price has gone down because England can come here and take 70 cents* worth of
silver and measure it against a bushel of wheat in India, just as well as she could
do when it was worth $1.29 before we demonetized it by legislation, and degraded
and disgraced it by our silly and wicked follies. Now, then, Mr. Speaker, we
have a loss of 50 cents a bushel on wheat—I want to make my statement modest.
We have a loss of 50 cents a bushel on 450,000,0(30 bushels of wheat a year, which
makes a loss to the American farmer of $225,000,000.
I am not here talking for the silver mine owners of Idaho, Colorado, Nevada,
Montana, and Utah. I do not know them. They are only a small factor in this
question. I am looking to the producers of Wheat and corn, cotton and tobacco,
and all the wealth of the nation. 'We have lost $225,0100,000 each year in the value
of wheat. Why, if we had bought that 75,000,000 ounces of silver and sank it in
the depths of the sea, so-that England could not have got it at 70 cents an
ounce, the American wheat-grower would have been a gainer of $225,000,000 an-




18
nually. We produca 2,000,000 000 bushels of com, and corn has fallen 26 cents a
bushel. Wheat ic the grt at staple, the great leader, and corn i* but a follower pfwheat among the c r^ais. Now, then, I will say that we 1 *t 20 cents a bushel on
com ; and so our American growers of corn have lost $400,000,000 annually upon
their crop of corn, so that if tbey had bought all this silver and sunk it the corngrowers would have been $325,000,000 to the good.
We produce 3,212.000,000, pounds of cotton annually, and in 1873 your cotton
sold at 22 cents a pound. To-day it is bringing 7 and 8 centB. You have lost
12 cents a pound* on every pound of cotton; and if the cotton-producers had
bought all the silver and sunk it in the depths of the $cean they would have been
each year $210,000,000 ahead on the transection. In these three leading articles
of production in the Union (I will not go through more of them) the los3 to the
producer each year has been $910,000,000 more than the value of the silver that
it woui 1 have b»"en necessary to have purchased.
Oh, my friends, they argue against silver. They say that our legislation is for
the benefit of a few mine owners. Why, they are the most insignificant factor in
the whole problem, although by their industry thev have added to our wealth
$75,000,000 annually. But this a drop in the bucket, and yet we can afford to
be just, even though they are not a great factor. I eat in Chicago at the Audi-'orium Hotel a few days ago conversing with a gentleman. I noticed that he was
looking rather blue. He finally reached me a copy of the Chicago Tribune, and
said: u Mr. Sibley, I want to call your attention to one fact. Here is-a statement
made, as by authority, showing th« cost of production of silver. They have taken
the leading min#*»?, and have figurfd it out here'that it only co^ts 40 cento an ounce
to produce it. Now," he says, u I want you to look at that mine, where they fay
the cost is only 40 cents an ounce. Four weeks ago we took our pumps out of that
mine, and the wat«r covers our levels to-day, a,nd there never will be an ounce of
silver produced from that mine again. The average cost of mining of silver iu that
mine is much more than $1 an ounce; and we .have been rahning it for the last
few years, hoping and praying for better times, until we could get our money out
of the production." It is unfair to take four or five of the leading mines in silver
producing and, taking the cost of production in those mines, say that that ia the cost
of the production of silver. It is just Vs unfair as it would be to come to us in
our Commonwealth' and take four or &ve* producers of petroleum whose wells
yield 300, 500, and even 10,000 barrels a day, and assume that petroleum only costs
10 cents a barrel to produce, because these men who are producing thousands of
barrels a day may be making a profit.
To-day the market for petroleum in Pennsylvania is 58 cents, and for two years
it has been produced at a loss of not less than 10 cents a barrel. You say, " Then,
why don't they shut down ?" Why, their case is like that of the fellow who had
hold of the bear's tail and wanted some one to help him let go. [Laughter.] If
they close down those wells the salt water will flood them, and the oil will never
come again; so, in desperation, they have held on to their little wells and pumped
them at a loss, waiting and praying for the better times which the Democratic
platform promised to give the country. [Applause.1
Now, let us deal fairly with silver- Statistics that are in the hands of gentlemen
upon this floor—as authoritative statistics, I presume, as those of the Treasury
Department—Bhow that the average cost of production of an ounce of silver has
been nearer to $2 than to $1.
Mr. PENCE. If the gentleman will pardon the interruption, I will state to the
House: by way of illustrating the point he i& making, that the report of the Senate
Committee on Mining, which was made to the Senate last March, but is not ye r , I
believe, generally in the hands of members here, shows that the cost of production
of gold and silver is more than its coinage value. Let me say, further, that the
verified records show that in the most important silver mining camp in the world,
Leadville, Lake County, Colo., where the silver mining indu;try began in 1879,
there were located, recorded, and worked, from 1879 to Jnne 1 nf this year, 19,300
mining locations. Upon each of them an average of ten acres, $100 worth of work
has been done, at an average cost of $10 per acre. The result has been that but
3,800 of them have been considered of sufficient value to be patented, and for the
last twelve months but eighteen of those mines have been worked at a profit. I
present these figures as illustrating the gentleman's point.
Mr. SIBLEY. I am much obliged to the gentleman.




19
L&r. PICKLER [to Mr. SIBLEY]. Will you diecues the ratio,before you close ?
Mr. SIBLEY. Mr, Speaker, a gentleman near me asks me to discuss the question of the ratio before I sit down. I am not particular about the ratio, but I
would rather see it 15£ to 1 than 16 to 1, because I would rather see the people
get 11 or 12 cents a pound for their cottor, and $1.10 a bushel for their wheat. I
would rather see the "ratio 16 to 1 than 17 to 1, because if the people are to be
robbed at all I would rather they were robbed of ten cents than of twenty*
I will agree to a ratio of 18 to 1 upon the same principle. I will agree to a ratio
of 20 to 1, because I would rather see the farmers get 65 or 70 cents a bushel for
their wheat than that they should be compelled to take the price they will get
the day you pass this measure of repeal without providing a substitute for the,
existing law. I will make this prophecy, and ^e shall see who prophesies cor?
rectly: The day you repeal the Sherman act, or within four weeks from that time,
if you repeal it without a substitute, silver will strike 45 or 50 cents an ounce and
wheat will sell below 45 cents a bushel. When silver strikes 40 cents an ounce
your cotton will strike 4 cents a pound.
What had England to gain by stopping the mintage of^ silver in India? The
two great English political parties, tne Conservatives and the Liberal?, are very
evenly divided, and although the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. HARTEK] 1 as talked
so eloquently about the happiness and prosperity of England, yet we know that
for three years past ruin, distress, and starvation have pievailed there. The Liberal party, in order that it might maintain itself in power, jump*>d at the occasion
to stop the silver mintage in India, depressing the^price from 82£ to 70 c*nts an
ounce, and you saw how the wheat market followed it from 75 cents to 53 cents
per bushel.
You never'saw the day when silver went up that wheat did not £o up, and cotton ako. We know that after the passage of the Sherman law, Vhich men said
was going to remedy the then existing evils, silver bounded to 120 cents an ounce,
and wheat bounded up with it. If you give us free-silver coinage at a ratio of
16 to 1 we, as the friends" of silver, are ready to-day to pledge our fdith to the farmers of the West and the cotton-growers of the South that they will get 11 cents
« pound for their cotton and $1.10 for their wheat
Mr. HICKS. May I ask the gentleman a question?
Mr. SIBLEY. Yes, sir. x
Mr. HICKS. If limited coinage has reduced the price of wheat in Pennsylvania
to 60 cents a bushel, how does the gentleman make out that free and unlimited
coinage will raise it to a dollar ?
Mr. SIBLEY. Because of the ability of England to take the ounce of silver
which she buys here at 70 cents, and go to India and buy as much wheat with it
as she evtr could buy at any time with an ounce of silver. As I have said, the
ounce of silver still measures the value of the bushel of wheat in India. If she
has to pay Uf, as she will* under a free-coinage act with a ratio of 16 to 1, $1.29 an
ounce for silver, she can not take it to India to exchange for wheat, but must
-come to us and pay a dollar or more for wheat.
A MEMBER. Laid down,in Liverpool?
Mr. SIBLEY. Yes.
Mr. HICKS. One more question. What was the price of wheat when the Sherman law was enacted ?
Mr. SIBLEY. Do you mean the law of 1890 ?
Mr. HICKS. Yes.
Mr. SIBLEY. Eighty-three cents.
Mr. HICKS. What is it worth to-dav ?
Mr. SIBLEY. It sold last week at 53 cents in Chicago.
Mr. COX It ha^sold in South Tennessee for 38 cents.
Mr. HICKS. Now, will the gentleman please answer this question: If limited
coinage has reduced the price of wheat from .83 4o 53 cents, how can free and unlimited coinage raise the price?
Mr. SIBLEY. Mr. Speaker, I think that is a fair question. We have not had
any coinage in the propsr ssnse; we have not coined our silver; we have denied
its money value; we* have debased it and degraded it and have made it a tool for
England- to U3e to destroy thd wheat-growers and cotton-growers of this nation.
We have coined only a part Free coinage will do this: You coin fifty-four millions out of a production of seventy-five millions, and the twenty-one millions of
surplus determines the value of the balance.



20
We have said that $54,000,000 of this is money and the balance pig metal; ard it
has been tbe pig metal that has fixed the prices all the time, and not the money. I
invite the lawyers of this body to jump on that proposition, if they can. The lawyers and the bankers are standing together here pretty solid. [Laughter.] The
lawyers came on one occasion to the incarnate God, and thought to confuse him
by asking some questions; and I remember he turned to them and said :
Woe unto you also, ye lawyers 1 for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
Woe unto you, lawyers I for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

[Applause.]
Mr. HICKS. - 1 would like to ask the gentleman another question. He has said,
as I understand, that it .is the pig-metal silver that has regulated tbe price of
wheat. Am I correct in understanding him that way ?
Mr. SIBLEY. I did not catch the gentleman's remark*
Mr. HICKS. Do you say that the price of the pig metal regulates the price of
wheat ?
Mr. SIBLEY. I say that the price of this difgraced, debased, decried surplus
has regulated the value of wheat at jail times eince 1873. I will maintain that
proposition at any and all hazards.
'
Mr. HICKS. For every bar of silver that has been placed in the Treasury silver
notes have been issued, have they not?
Mr. SIBLEY. I do not know' that there has been a silver note issued for every
bar. I can tell the gentleman the exact amount in a moment if he desires.
Mr. HICKS. I understood the gentleman to say that the silver is lying idle in
the Treasury; but I also understand that a note has been issued representing every
dollar's worth of silver that is in the Treasury.
Mr. SIBLEY, [t is the amcunt that has not come into the Treasury that hjas
caused the distress to the farmers and producers of this nation.
Mr* HICKS. I am a farmer like yourself, and I am also a lawyer. I farm at
long range, just as you do. I am very anxious, however, to know how the repeal
of the Sherman law can in any way affect the price of wheat or raise the value of
farm lands. If you can convince me that free and unlimited coinsge will have
the effect that you state, I am ready to vote for it.
Mr. SIBLEY. p Well, I am going to convert you right now, if you will stand by
your proposition. [Laughter.]
Mr. HICKS. All right.
Mr. SIBLEY. We can only judge of the future by the i>ast and the present.
Everything has declined since you demonetized siKer, since you commenced
hostile legislation against it. Pennsylvania farm lands to-day are not wdrth 40
cents upon the dollar of what they were in 1873. Is not that correct?
Mr. HICKS. I am sorry to say it is the fact.
Mr. SIBLEY.. And none of the products of the Pennsylvania farm—your wheat
and corn and beef—bear a higher ratio than that, compared with the price in 1873;
is not that the fact? Now, then, we know that something happened in 1873, that
permitted England to come here and buy an ounce of Eilver at 70 or 80 or 90 cents
and take it to India and exchange it for a bushel of wheat. And that very fact—
that we have not given silver the place that rightfully belongs to it as one of the
precious metals of the earth, as one of the foundations of credit, has enabled her
to use that depreciated metal—which if we had free silver coinage would at all
times be worth 129 cents an ounce—has enabled England to come here and get
this metal at 90 cents an ounce, and with it purchase wheat and cotton to come
into competition with our products. For the information of the gentleman let me
send to the desk to be read an extract from the language of Archbishop Walsh of
Dublin.
The Clerk read as follows:

The classic prediction in this matter is that of the French economist, M. Ernest Seyd. So far back
as 1871, two years before the calamitous success of the doctrinaire crusade against the maintenance
of the bimetallist system as it was then in operation in France, M. Seyd used the following remarkable words:
_
" I t is a great mistake to suppose that the adoption of the gold (standard of value) by other States
besides England will be beneficial. It will only lead to the destruction of the monetary equilibrium
hitherto existing, and cause a fall in the value of silver from which England's trade and the Indian
silver valuations will suffer more than all other interests, grievous as the general decline of prosperity all over the world will be."




21
Then comes a singularly no'eworthy passage:
The strong doetrin'airism existing in England as regards the gold valuation is so blind that, whenthe time of depression sets in, there will be this special feature;
The economical authorities of the country win refuse to listen to the cause here foreshadowed:
every possible attempt will be made to prove that the decline of commerce is due to all sorts of
causes and irreconcilable matters; the workman and his strikes will be the first convenient target;
then 41 speculating" and ,f overtrading " will have their turn; many other allegations will be
made, totally irrelevant to the real issue, but satisfactory to the moralizing tendency of financial
writers.

Mr. BRYAN. May I interrupt the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. SIBLEY]
a moment ?
Mr. SIBLEY. Certainly.
Mr. BRYAN. I wculd like to read in support of the gentleman's position an
extract from the agricultural report of 1890, page 8—a report issued by Mr. Harrison's administration:
The recent legislation looking to the restoration of the bimetallic standard of our currency, and
the consequent enhancement of the value of silver, has unquestionably had much to do with the
recent advance in the price of cereals. The same cause has advanced the price of wheat in Russia
and India, and in the same degree reduced their power of competition. English gold was formerly
exchanged for cheap silver, and wrheat purchased with the cheaper metal was sola in Great Britain
for gold. Much of this advantage is lost by the appreciation of silver in those countries. It is reasonable, therefore, to expect much higher prices for wheat than have been received in recent years,.

Mr. OUTHWAITE. Will the gentleman from Nebraska answer a question?
Mr. BRYAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. Where was this cheap wheat, to which you refer, bought?
Mr. BRYAN. What chean wheat ?
Mr. OUTHWAITE. The cheap wheat that is alluded to in that article.
Mr. BRYAN. In Russia and India.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. What was the eurrercy used in payment at that time ?
Mr. BRYAN. Silver. But, let me say to the gentleman^ the silver price was as
high in India'then as it is now—that is to say, it was as high in 1873—while the
gold price has jrone down in this country just as silver has gone down.
Mr. OUTHWAITE. In other words, they got a silver price for silver wheat.
Mr. BRYAN. I was only giving the article as it appears in this report; gentlemen can draw their own conclusions.
Mr. SIBLEY.' Mr. Speaker, when I was interrupted first I was about to state
the reasons that England desired, especially at that time, to depreciate further the
value of silver. Parties were very evenly divided in Great Britain, and in order
to maintain a majority Mr. Gladstone found it necessary to feed thejr people with
cheaper food, to be able to put on the markets of England wheat at a lower price,,
and they accomplished their purpose by shutting up the coinage of silver in the
India mint, and made the difference in price between 75 cents and 53 cents per
bushel in the cost of wheat.
.
' . x.
But you fear that she will not restore the coinage of silver to India. ,Not the
slightest trouble about that. Why did she not put India on a gold basis? 'She
did not allow the gold dollar or an ounce of gold to become a legal tender in India*
Let her throw India open to gold coinage, and the whole problem will be solved,
and we will not care what disposition we make of this question. Why it will
solve the whole thing in a moment. It will solve itself. There would be no longer
a problem as to where India wou?d be.
Mr. Speaker, I have been amused at the attitude of Eastern Democrats on this
question. I had to smile the day before vesterday when the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. GROSVENOK] spoke. If I ever heard the old Democratic party ripped up the
back, jumped on, trampled on, shaken up, rolled all over the floor, he did it[Laughter.] But when he wound up his speech with a declaration that as things
were he thought he would vote for the unconditional repeal of the Sherman act,
I saw one of my Democratic friends on this floor from New York clap his hands
long and loud after everybody else had got through; a n d l could not tell whether
he was applauding the first part of the gentleman's speech or the second part*
[Laughter and applause.]
" Mr. B R Y A N . May I interrupt the gentleman from Pennsylvania long enough
to insert in the RECORD in this connection what that gentleman from Ohio said in
regard to the Sherman bill three years ago?
Mr. SIBLEY. Yes, Bir.




22
Mr. BRYAN. On the 12ch day of Juae, 1890, the gentleman from Ohio just
referred to said on this floor:
The Republican party, true to its faithful guardianship of the people's interests, has determined
to give to the people of the country a great increase in the circulation, and you resist, you refuse to
have it.

Mr. SIBLEY. They tell us, Mr. Speaker, that if we adopt; free-silver coinage
at any ratio, or re-enact the Bland bill, gold will go outrof the country. Well, now,
we are not to be forever frightened by the bugaboo of ^old. Suppose it does go
out of the country. Nations are merely aggregations of individuals, and are governed by much the same laws, the same ideas, and rules that control individuals.
No man gets a dollar of gold out of my pocket that I do not think I get an equivalent for in some way, shape, or form. Other countries will not get the gold from
us unless they have something to give us that we would rather have than the gold.
They must h"ave something to exchange for our gold. And supposing that it does
go out and they take it all. What then ? They do not want to do it. They hold
too many of our bonds, that under the present law are payable in coin of standard value, which means either silver or gold, to run any risks. They want gold
in payment of these bonds, and they do not want all the gold to go from our
country. But supposing again, I say, they take it all.
Why, what will happen then ? They say gold will go to a premium. Well, it
has been to a premium for twenty years, and you did not know it. Let it go to a
premium, and when the Ward McAllisters and the other Four Hundred want to
go to Europe for their summer outlng3, it will cost them a little more to make
their exchanges, and if they bring home fine clothes, the products of European
countries, it will cost them a good deal more money; and we will build a better
tariff wall round our industries than that builded by the gentleman from Ohio.
Why, if they will not take our money, we will not take their goods.
What trade will we lose ? What nations do we wish to trade with ? England,
Germany, and France will not buy a dollar's worth of products of American labor.
They take only the necessities of life, our wheat, our pork, our corn, and our cotton
and beef; those they have got to have any way, and they must pay us in the
money we specify. Now, suppose they will not take our money. We will just
atop buying of them, and that will start our own factories running, start our own
spindles to humming and our own wheels to revolving.
Why, Mr. Speaker, as a man who is somewhat interested in a bank, and wishing
to protect it, I say that for the safety of the small banker there is but one course,
and that is bimetallism in this country. And whenever you make the foundation
too narrow, whenever you set up the great pyramid upon its apex, and build up
thereon, the higher you build the greater will b<s the ruin when some adverse
circumstance runs up against your pyramid. Y o i build it on a single standard,
and your foundation is too narrow for safety, and whenever a wave of distrust runs
-over the country your little saving3 of a lifetime will be swept away.
The census showed'that in 1890 twenty-four thousand people owned one-half
of the total, wealth of the nation; and since the shaking up you have given us
over in New York the probabilities are that about fourteen thousand have got it
to-day; and if you carry out your designs, four thousand will have it in the year
1900- We are going to save you from your own folly. We propose to help the
people, so that they can have money with which, to travel on the railroads, with
which to transport their products, and so that your stocks will earn you dividends
in spite of yourselves.
We are going to make your stocks in railroad securities, or in every legitimate
enterprise, pay you dividends whether you want them or no. Your course is to
put them into the hands of receivers. Our course is to put the profits into
the hands of the stockholders and into the hands of every man who has put an
honest dollar into these enterprises. We have respect for the wishes and the
needs and the opportunities and successes of the rich as well as the poor; but we
cannot divide and say that one class shall have all and the other class none of the
benefits of government.
But, Mr. Speaker, I am told that the Republicans are going to join with the
Democrats to repeal this bill. And what Republicans? The Republicans of the
East and the Democrats of the East. I tell you, the man who thinks over the
situation of this nation to-day is forced to the balief that the salvation of this
country, if we are to have a country worth saving, depends upon the men living




23
west of the Delaware River and south of Mason and Dixon's line. [Applause. 3
You can not longer commit your interests to those whose interests are antagonistic
to your own. I find that you gold men agree, and you applaud each other, regardless of your politics; and there comes to my mind a scene that is depicted in Holy
Writ,\the blackest scene, the most cruel and wicked scene, where truth incarnate
was betrayed to-tbe rulers,and which tells us that Pilate, finding no fault in Him,
sent Him to Herod; but Herod, not having the power of death, sent Him back
to Pilate, demanding His crucifixion; and Pilate delivered Him over to death.
And right following that comes this passage:
And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were at enmity
between themselves.

[Laughter.]
Now I can understand how there are no party lines on this question. When
you have the people nailed to the cross you can agree to become friends from that
day forward. [Laughter ]
My friend from Ohio [Mr. IIARTEE] told us about the prosperity of England and
the prosperity of every nation that had a monometallic standard. He told you
how since the stoppage of silver coinage iti Iiidia prosperity had dawned over the
whole nation. Now ; I have not got time to answer the gentleman, but I will just
read some headings in the New York Sun of yesterday, a good Democratic paper :
B A N RIOT IN BOMBAY—FURY OF RELIGIOUS HATRED BEYOND MILITARY CONTROL—GREAT LOSS OF LIFE
AND PROPERTY—EUROPEANS FLOCK TO THE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS FOR SAFETY.

A Cabinet Consultation it) London—Late Dispatches Indicate that the Government Hopes Soon ta
Check the Turmoil— * * * —A Bombay Merchant's Opinioji—'The Silver Situation has
Created a Great Army of Unemployed in India,
,
Damoder Gordhundas, a merchant of Bombay, who is staying at the iKfth Avenue Hotel, wa&
greatly- interested in the reports of the rioting in that city. " I feel that the reports are exaggerated," said he. " T h e action of the government in suspending the free coinage of silver has
closed the mints and the mills until the army of the unemployed in Bombay numbers in the thousands. This great body of unemployed laborers and mechanics may have taken advantage of the
occasion offered by the religious riot to make a serious demonstration."

New, against the gentleman from Ohio I set the gentleman from India. [Laughter.] But I enjoy hearing the Ohio man talk, for he come3 out and says just what
he wants. He argues that the less money a nation has, the happier it is, and the
more prosperous; and by a parity of reasoning, the less money the gentleman has,
the happier he is; but I do not believe that. [Laughter.] I believe that the gentleman uses this expression in a Pickwickian sense.
Why, my friends, just consider that proposition for a moment. If we could
draw a line about the city of Washington and erect a wall, do you not suppose if
you could take away half of all the money in the city of Washington that the
one-half of the money remaining would still buy all the products of industry that
are for sale in the city of Washington, just as effectually buy them as the whole
would before?
If you could give three hundred men in the city of Washington $100 apiece,
and that was all the money there was in this city, all that could get into it, that
money would buy every dollar's worth of property in the city of Washington that
was for sale. The price goes down to correspond with the volume. That has been
the history of the ages.
Let me state some economic axioms: When you double the money of a nation
you divide the debt; and if you divide the money you double the debt. Double
the money, you double the price; divide the money, you divide the price.
I learned when a boy at school that old mathematical axiom, that when you
double sums you double the differences. That twice two is four audtbe difference
between two and four is two, and that twice four is eight, and the difference between four and eight is four. Apply the same reasoning here, and you see that it
does not make any difference whether it is little or much, it will just be the same
in result. If a man works for a dollar a day and works for thirty days, he will
recieve $30; and when be pays $5 a barrel for flour, you will say that if he works
for $2 a day he receives $60, and if he pays $10 a barrel for flour he would be no
better off Now if he worked for a dollar a day and paid $5 a barrel for flour
he has $25 left; when he has worked thirty days at $2 a day and paid $10 for his
barrel of flour he has $50 left, has he not ? Now, in which case is he the better
off? Especially if he is a debtor. It would not make so much difference if all




u
men were out of debt and paying cash, but th§re are $32,000,000,000 of indebtedness in the United States, national, State and corporation, municipal and private.
With $3,600,000,000 as the total gold of the whole world, how are we going to
pay off this debt? Da you want to double it? You carry out your designs to
make silver a mere legal tender for sums of $5. which are your designs, and which
you do not hesitate privately to avow—you divide the money, and*just as sure as
twice two is four you have doubled $he debt of every debtor; you have doubled
the income of every creditor.
Anglo-American bondholders wish a gold standard because in 1907, only fourteen years hence, some five hundred and fifty millions of bonds now payable by
their express terms in coin of standard value will fall due. If we destroy silver
as coin of standard value the bond will then by its term become payable in gold.
These people well know that the Government will have enough silver and gold in
the Treasury to pay these bonds at maturity, but never enough gold, and they
wish to force a new mortgage upon the industry of the nation and dictate their
•own terms concerning such mortgage.
Mr. Speaker, the Republican party, who have for over thirty years had control
o f the finances of the nation, proudly poiat to their successful management thereof
They eice the fact that the indebtedness of the nation in 1866 was about $2,800,000,000, and that now the bonded debt of the nation is only $585,000,000. With
their boasting they forget to tall you that in principal, interest, and premium on
the bonds we have paid about $4,000,000,000, and that it would take about as much
of the products of industry to pav the little balance yet remaining as it would to
have raid the whole debt'in 1866. It would take to-day to pay off the little balance 312,(j00,000 nonnds more of cotton than would have sufficed to payoff the
entire debt in cotto$ in 1866. Year after year production has been paying off interest and principal, and all the time the debt, instead of diminishing, has been
increasing.
/.
Let me entreat, gentlemen, to fully consider the consequences that must ensue
if you, by unconditional repeal, further lower the price of silver. Consider what
plea shall justify you to the producers of wheat, corn, and cotton. What plea will
be accepted by the toilers of the nation who see by your votes their debts doubled
and the opportunities for a comfortable existence forever swept away? Mr.
Speaker, my vote shall b i cast before you as it would be cast before the great white'
throne which has decreed that I am my brother's keeper.
How I like to hear the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. HARTER] bubble over, because
he does it in such an easy, pleasant way. He heaves and pitches, and springs a
leak here and springs a leak there. [Laughter. ] The only thing that I can think
of that reminds me of my friend is Mark Twain's description of the storm on the
Erie Canal. Speaking of tin caual boat in a storm, he says:
She heaved and sot, and sot and heaved,
And high her rudder flung,
And every time she sot and heaved
A mighty leak she sprung.

[Great laughter.]
Mr. Spaaker, history has built great monuments upon the plains of the past to
mark the point where two roads part. She has erected great lighthouses along
the shores of Time to warn the passing mariner of the sunken' rocks and hidden
reefs; Let us observe some of these lights. Moses went down to old Pharaoh, in
Egypt, and demanded the deliverance of the people of Israel from the house of
bondage, and Pharaoh's answer was the same tale "of brick without straw."
Charles the First attempted to coerce Parliamant, and he lost his head, and human
liberties took a long step forward and upwards. When the people of France cried
for bread, a flippant queen asked, " Why they ate not cake." Some day, when a
complacent De Brezi, knight of the bedchamber, saall enter these Halls and intimate the king's pleasure and our duty, there shall arise some modern Mirabeau,
who, driving him hence, will tell him we are here by the will of God and the voice
•of the sovereign people, to whom alone we owe allegiance and to whose mandates
alone we bow.
Oar fathers in these colonies pleaded, humbly entreated, of oi l England to stay
the hand of oppression, and asked her to remove the hands.of greed which plucked
from them the fruits of their toil, and the repljr of George III was the imposition
of heavier burdens. Our reply was the Declaration of Independence; that wonder-




25
fill document which embraces the rights of man; if I were to read it in this House
I fear it would be a strange message to many. Like the preaching of Paul, " to
the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishnees." [Laughter and applause.] It would be held as a communistic production and its authors demagogues [laughter], because it dared to tell England the truth, and that we were
independent and existed without carifcg either for her crowns or favors.
Why, my friends, to-day all over this land the c*y of the people is heard, the
banks are failing, not from lack ot abundant assets; they have got large surpluses,
they even hold great quantities of Government bonds, arid yet are forced to suspend. Factories are being closed, mechanics are unemployed, stores are without
customers, three millions of idle men are walking up and down asking for an opportunity to earn bread for the hungry ones at home.
Why is this ? Is it because of too much money ? Is it because of Bilver money ?
No; for silver will pay a debt, will buy as much bread, will clothe as many naked
as any other dollar.. These results come because of the lack of a dollar of
any kind; they come from the inability of the people to effect exchanges
between one commercial center and another. These New York bankers
started their little panic in pursuance of their plan to pinch the West and
South and coerce the members of this body, into their views. I have read of
great masses of rock so nicely poised upon a point that a child could set them in
motion, but an army could not stay them after they were once started down the
declivitj.
"
.,
So it is with this panic. It is like a conflagration, and we are not here to inquire
into the cause cf the conflagration. It may bsa case of arson [laughter] or it may
be a case of " logical evolution," for the gentleman from New York [Mr. HENDEIX] told us that we are " evoluting " toward the gold standard. [Laughter.] I
agree with -the gentleman that the proces? of evolution' has been going on for
twenty years, and it has evoluted th$ wealth heretofore so evenly distribute*! among
the people of this country into the pockets of the twenty-four thousand. While
we have been " evoluting" toward a gold basis we have been "evoluting"
toward that condition which confronted all the nations of ancient times just before
they lost their liberties. ^Evolution! It has been sail that evolution cornea from
a full stomach, but there is another thing that comes from an empty stomach,
and it is called " revolution." [Laughter and applaus?.]
I warn you, gentlemen, that the people of to day are arous td. For years the
people have demanded more money, and you meet that demand with a proposition
to take away one-half qf what they already have \ Is that your answer? Can
statesmen be so blinded to th<* interests of the people, the rich and the poor
alike, as to carry this design further, in face of the protests of the sixty-seven
,
.;
million toilers of this land ?
Oh, Mr. Speaker, in 1776 our forefathers, despite the protests of the Tories of
that day, declared their political independence of Great Britain, and BO to-day,
despite the howling of the " Tories" of this House and their friends in the lobbies,
the time has come when by the grace of God we can well declare our financial
independence of the same power. [Applause.]
Mr. Speaker, the friends of bimetallism stand here and plead the cause of those
who have not easy access to the seat of power* of the men who can not afford to
maintain lobbies to throng the corridors of this Capitol building, of the men who
can not afford to go to the ejnpensive hotels of this city and sit down to influence
the members of this body. But, gentlemen of the other side, you can keep your
lobby, if you please, of stock-brokers and gamblers and Chevalier d'Indus trie.
[Laughter.] Tney can stay here and drink their champagne frappe, eat their
canvasback and terrapin. Very few of those who are back of us are present
here, but we have thousands of communications telling us that the people are on
their knees in prayer while we are fighting their battles here, and that is more to
s
us than all your packed lobbies.
,
Mr. Speaker, we have come to the fork of the roads. This means either bimetallism, free-silver coinage with 100 cen*s in every dollar from this time forth,
or it means the utter annihilation of silver as money all over the globe. We have
indeed come,to the fork of the roads. We h p e traveled the one road before and
we have found it safe. It is no eaperiment. Along this way <ur fathers eaw the
ration grow and exp ir d, and from small bf ginninga become one of the mightiest
of the earth. We have been this way before. Along th s road our fathers carried




26
to a successful termination two great foreign wars, and on this road was maintained the mightiest conflict of modern ages, which preserved intact the liberties
and the unity of the State. This is no new road. This is sush a road as was
described by the Psalmist when he said *
Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.

But there is another road that leads, no man knows where. No human foot
upon this continent has ever trod its trackless wilds. I am afraid it is the road
that old Solomon spoke of when he said:
There is a way which seemeth right uato a man, hut the end thereof are the ways of death.

[Lau^hter^ and applause.]
Mr, Speaker, I think this must be the occasion that the prophet Amos had in
mind, looking down through the long vista of the future, when he said:
Hear this, 0, ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail; * * *
making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit. * * * Shall
not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that d welleth therein ?

Mr. Speaker, that is pretty nearly propheov. Our land is in mourning and
trembling to-day because these men nave made the bushel small and the shekel
great.
.
v
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. Will the genPeman permit a question?
Mr. SIBLEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. McOLEARY of Minnesota. I beg the gentleman's pardon for interrupting
at this point, but I could not sooner get the opportunity. The gentleman has been
speaking of prophecy. A short time ago he sent a prophecy to the desk to be
read; will he please name the gentleman whose prophecy he had read by the
Clerk?
.
Mr. SIBLEY. That was the prophet of the devil. This is the prophet of God
Almighty. [Laughter and applause.] That prophet belonged on your side.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. I did not ask the gentleman to characterize
the prophet; I asked him to name him.
Mr. SIBLEY. Ernest Sayd.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. Is that the same gentleman whom you accuse
of hiving come over bere in 1873 as an emissary to "down" silver?
Mr. SIBLEY. I did not utter such accusa'im. I will append to my remarks
what distinguished gentlemen have Raid—how, sent herp as a friend of silver, that
man betrayed it—how he came into this House, went with your committees, and
shewed his dexter hand all through. That will b3 incorporated in my remarks.
I will try to make it plain to the gentleman.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. My question is, Is this the same gentleman
whom you accuse of that" villiany ?"
Mr. SIBLEY. No doubt about it, sir.
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota.' Then I ask that the Clerk read that prophecy
again.
Mr. SIBLEY. Everybody has heard it read. If it is the same quotation
Mr. McCLE AR Y of Minnesota. The same.
Mr. SIBLEY. Then why have it read twice?
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. If you object to it, then I ask gentlemen to
read it in the quiet of their closets, and ask themselves whether the man who used
that language could have done the thing you say he did.
Mr. SIBLEY. Yes, sir; I have sean men sell out within the last two months.
[Laughter.] Eroih the time he uttered that prophecy two years had elapsed. I have
known men to change their minds in twenty minutes. Wise men, it is said^
change their minds often; fools, neve*-.
/
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. What the gentleman says can not be true of a
man who died in tae cause of silver, as Ernest Ssyd did.
Mr. PE Nu'E. When th«* gentleman speaks of his having * died " does he mean
he changed his colors? [Laughter.]
,
<
Mr. McCLEARY of Minnesota. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, had sufficient regard for Mr. Seyd to qiote him as an authority in behalf of silver. Simple
justice demands that his memory b3 treated with fairness. B »th before and after
1873 Ernest Siyd was rec ignizjd as one of the fjrennst champions of Bilver in




27
Europe, a man whose opinion was eagerly sought by the silver commission of
1876, and of whom Mr. Horton, the bimetallism said, speaking of Mr. Seyd's death
at the international monetary conference of 1881:
It was the profound Interest which he took in the conference which brought him here and hastened his death.

This unfounded charge against the memory of a man now unable to defend
himself (and I believe that the gentleman from Pennsylvania would not willingly
do anyone an injustice) has nothing to do with the merits of this discussion, even
if it were true; and I*am glad that the gentleman from Pennsylvania has selected
so good a quotation to show the real position of Mr. Seyd.
Mr. SIBLEY. Thank you; in the name of sixty-seven millions .of American
citizens we plead for more money; and in the name of twenty-four thousand you
not only refuse our demand, but purpose the taking away of one-half of what we
have left. Prompted alone by our love for rich and poor, by our love for the welfare and peace of our common country, let us warn you that the masses of the
people are aroused. All over this fair land they are on their knees in prayer.
Their wails have been heard at the throne of the Almighty. My friends, hungerand cold know no philosophy and respect no laws; and when these twin devils
are let loose and you force them out upon the world—
Then woe to the robbers who gather
In fields where they never haye sown;
Who have stolen the jewels from labor,
And builded to Mammon a throne.
For the throne of their god shall be crumbled,
And the scepter be swept from his hand,
And the heart of the haughty be humbled,
And a servant be chief in1 the land.
For the Lord of the harvest hath said it,
Whose lips never uttered a lie,
And his prophets and poets have read it,
In-symbolsof earth and of sky ;
That to him who hath reveled in plunder
'Till the angel of conscience is dumb,
The shock of the earthquake and thunder,
And tempest and torrent shall come.

[Loud applause.]
The following are the articles and notes to which Mr.
remarks and Which he a&ked to have appended thereto :

SIBLEY

referred in his

Here is what Mr. Hooper, the chairman of the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, and
who reported the bill, said in regard to the measure, and of Mr. Ernest Seyd, on the floor of the
House'.
" The bill was prepared two years ago, and has been submitted to carefUl and deliberate examination, It has the approval of nearly all the mint experts of the country and the sanction of the Secretarv of the Treasury. Ernest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer and bullionist. is now here,
and has given great attention to the subject of mints and coinage, and after examining the first
draft of the bill made various sensible suggestions, which the committee accepted and embodied in
the bill, While the committee take no credit to themselves for the original preparation of this bill,
they have no hesitation in unanimously recommending its passage as necessary and expedient."
(See page 2304, Congressional Globe, Aprils, 1872.)

Below wlll be found a few extracts from different United States Senators and Representatives as
they appear in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. Let US take the words ef Senator ALLISON, of Iowa,
first They aie:
w But when the secret history of this bill of 1873 comes to be told it will disclose the fact that the
House of Representatives intended to coin both gold and silver, and intended to place both metal3npott the French relation instead of our own, which was the true scientific position with reference
to this subject in 1873, but that the bill afterwards was doctored, if I may use the term, and I use it
"
in no offensive sense, of course
*

*

*

;

*

*

*

*

*

*

»

" 1 said I used the word in no offensive sense. It was changed after the discussion, and the dollar
of 420 grains,was substituted for it."— Cvhure&rirmal Record, volume 7, part % Forty-fifth Congress,
second session, page l(3o.




28
In connection with the charge that I advocated the bill which demonetized the standard silver dollar, I say that, though the chairman of the Committee on Coinage, I was ignorant of the
feet that it would demonetize the silver dollar or of its dropping the silver dollar from our
•system of coins as were those distinguished Senators, Messrs. Blaine and VOORHEES, who
were then members of the House, and each of whom, a few days since, interrogated the other:
' Did you know it was dropped when the bill passed ?1 ' No,' said Mr. Blaine. • Did you ?' * No,*
said Mr. VOORHEES, I do not think that there were three members in the House that knew it.
doubt whether Mr. Hooper, who, in my absence from the Committee on Coinage and attendance
on. the Committee on Ways and Means,.managed the bill, knew it. I say this in justice to him."—
Judge Kelleu, of Pennsylvania, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, volume 7, part 2, Forty-fifth Congress, second session, page 1605.
Mr. BECK. Will the gentleman from Massachusetts [Senator Dawes] aAow me to say a word ? The
Senator from Massachusetts will recollect that I have not said a word about the history of the
demonetization bill, except in a response to questions from the Senator from Iowa [Mr. ALLISON].

Mr. DAWES. The distinguished Englishman, to whom I referred, who was charged with having
•come over here to do the opposite of what he did, was Ernest Seyd.
Mr. BECK. I observe, if the gentleman will allow me, that on the 9th day of April, 1S72, when
the bill was read up to its sixth section and laid aside and never taken up again, the gentleman
from Massachusetts [Mr. Hooper] remarked:
- ,
" The bill was prepared two years ago, and has been submitted to careful and deliberate examinations. It has the approval of nearly all the mint experts of the country, and the sanction of the
Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Ernest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer who has given great
•attention to the subject of mints and coinage, after examining the first draft of the bill, furnished
many valuable suggestions which have been incorporated in the bill."
" I suppose he is the same person."
Mr. DAWES. There is no doubt about that fact. (See page 125 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, December
v
12, 1877.)
Mr. VOORHEES. I want to ask my friend from Maine, whom I am glad to designate in that way,
whether I may call him as one' more witness to the fact that it was not generally known whether
silver was demonetized. Did he know, as the Speaker of the house, presiding at that time,, that
the silver dollar was demonetized in the bill to which he alludes ?
" Mr. BLAINE. I did not know anything that was in the bill at all. As I have said before, little
was known or cared on the subject. [Laughter.] And now I should like to exchange questions
with the Senator from Indiana, who was then on the floor and whose business, far more than mine,
t o know, because by the designation of the House I was to put the question; the Senator from
Indiana, then on the floor o f the House, with his power as a debater, was to unfold* them to the
House. Did he k n o w ? "
" Mr. VOORHEES. I frankly say that I did not ."--Congressional Record* Feb. 15,1878, page 1063.
" It passed by fraud in the House, never having been printed in advance. being a substitute for
the printed bill; never having been read at the Clerk's desk, the reading having been dispensed
with by an impression that;the bill made no material alteration in the coinage laws; it was passed
without discussion, debate being cut off by operation of the previpus question. It was passed, to
my certain information, under such circumstances that the fraud escaped the attention of some of
the most watchfhl as well as the ablest statesmen in Congress at the time. * * » Aye, sir, it was
a fraud that smells to heaven. It was a fraud that will stink in the nose of posterity,.and for which
some persons must give account in the day of retribution."—Mr. Bright, of .Tennessee, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, volume 7, part 1, i&cond session Forty-fifth Congress, page 584.
** Why the act of 1873, which forbids the coinage of the silver dolhir, was passed no one at this
day can give a good reason ."—Senator Bogy, of Missouri, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, volume 4,
•part 5, Forty-fourth Congress, first session, page 4178.

" I t [the bill demonetizing silver] never was understood by either House of Congress. I say
-that with full knowledge of the facts. No newspaper reporter—and they are the most vigilant
men I ever saw in obtaining information—discovered that it had been done."—Sena tar Bech,
•O/ Kentucky, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, volume 7, part 1, Forty-fifth. Congress, second session,
page 260.
The Coinage act of 187S, unaccompanied by any written report upon the subject from any committee, and unknown to the members of Congress who, without opposition, allowed it to pass under the
iielief, if not assurance, that it made no alteration in the value of the current coins, changed the
unit of value from silver to gold.—Kr. Bucftard of Illinois, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, July 13; 1876,
pageSSL
I have before me the record of the proceedings of this House on the passage of that measure, which
n o man can read without being convinced that the measure and the method of its passage through
tWs, House was a "colossal swindle." I assert that the measure never had the sanction of this House
and it aoes not possess the moral force of law.—Mr. Holman of Indiana, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD'
volume 4, part 6, Forty-fourth Oongress, first session, Appendix, page 193.




29
This legislation was had in the Forty-second Congress, Februajy 12,1873, by a bill to regulate the
mints of the Uniied States, and practically abolished silver as money by failing to provide for the
coinage of the silver dollar. It was not discussed, as shown by the RECORD, and neither members of
Congress nor the people understood the scope of the legislation.—Joseph Cannon, fn CONGRESSIONAL
BBCORD, volume 4, part 6, Forty-fourth Congress, first session, Appendix, page 193.

Did the people demonetize silver 7 Never! It can not even be fairly said that Congress did it.
It was done in a corner, darkly. It was done at the instigation of the bondholders and other
money kings, who now with upturned eyes deplore the wickedness we exhibit in asking the question even, who did the great wrong against the toiling millions of our people ?
*
*
*
Ho\y will Congress answer these people except to say that the silver dollar weighing 412% grains
, was an honest dollar until the 12th of February, 1873, when we destroyed the money in your pockets
and left a vast debt hanging over you, since when, our bonds have been sold from hand to hand in
the markets among stock gamblers. They knew that we had stricken down your rights and trusted
to our honor that your rights should be restored. It would be dishonest in us to restore your
money to its value and vitality. It is bullion now—mere pig metal—and is no longer money.—
Senator Morgan, in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, December 12, 1877, page 144.

Mr President I now come to one of the most remarkable and to my mind one of the most
fraudulent pieces of legislation this or any other country ever saw. I ^efer to the manner of
the passage of the bill demonetizing silver. I will not occupy, the time of the Senate by going
over the whole history of this most iniquitous transaction. Mr. Hooper, since deceased, was at
the time chairman of the committee having charge of a bill which had been referred to his
committee, and on May 27, 1872, reported -a substitute and moved to suspend the rules and pass
the substitute, upon which motion, among other things, the following occurred, which any
Senator can find by turning to the CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE, part 5, page 3883, and is as follows:
Mr. HoLsiAN. I suppose It is intended to have the bill read before it is put on its passage.
The SPEAKER. The substitute will be read.
^
Mr. HOOPER of Massachusetts, I hope not. It is a long bill, and those who are interested in K are
perfectly familiar with its provisions.
. Mr KERR. The rules can not be suspended so as to dispense with the rending of the bill.
The SPEAKER- They can be.
Mr. KERR. I want the House to understand that it is attempted to put through this bill without
being read.
The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hooper] move that the reading of the
bill be dispensed wTith.
Mr. HOOPER of Massachusetts. X will so frame my motion to suspend the rules that it will dispense with'the reading of the bill.
The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Massachusetts moves that the rules be suspended and that
the bill pass, the reading thereof being dispensed with.
Mr. RANDALL. Can »ot we have a division of this motion ?
The SPEAKER. A motion to suspend the rules can not be divided.
Mr. RANDALL. I should like to nave the bill read, although I amywilling that the rules shall be
suspended as to the passage of the biil.
The question was put on suspending the rules and passing the bill without reading ; and (twothirds not voting in favor,thereof) the rules were not suspended.
*

*

•

•

*

Mr. HOOPER of Massachusetts, I now move that the rules be suspended, and the substitute for
the bill in relation to mints and coinage passed; and I ask that the substitute be read.
The Clerk began to read the bill.
.
Mr. BROOKS. Is that the original bill ?
The SPEAKER. The motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hooper] applies to the substitute, and that on which the House is called to act is being read.
Mr. BROOKS. AS there is to be no debate, the only chance we have to know what we are
doing is to have both the bill and the substitute read.
'
The SPEAKER. The motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts being' to suspend the rules
and pass the substitute, it gives no choice between the two bills. The House must either pass
the substitute or none.
v
'
Mr. BROOKS. How, can we choose between the original bill and the substitute unless we hear
them both read?
The SPEAKER. The gentleman can vote " a y " or " no " on this question whether this substitute shall be passed.
.
Mr. BROOKS. I am very much in the habit of voting " n o " when I do not know what ia
going on.
Mr. HOLMAN. Before the question is taken upon suspending the rules and passing the bill, I
hope the gentleman from Massachusetts will explain the leading changes made by this bill in
the existing law, especially in reference to the coinage.
It would seem that aU the (Small
coinage of the country is intended to be recoined.
Mr. HOOPER of Massachusetts. This bill makes no changes in the existing law in that regard.
It does not require the recoinage of the small coins.
*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

The question being taken on the motion of Mr. Hooper of Massachusetts to suspend the rules
and pass the bill, it was agreed to; there being—ayes 110, noes 13.
.JfAud so the rules were suspended, and the substitute passed without its ever being read or
any member of that body knowing the contents of i t (See speech of Senator Hereford of West
Virginia in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, December 14, 1877, page 206.)




30
I know that the bondholders and monopolists of this country are seeking to destroy all the industries of this people in their greed to enhance the value of their gold. I know that the act of
1873 did more than all else, to accomplish that result, and the demonetization act of the Revised
Statutes was an illegal *md unconstitutional consummation of the fraud. I want to restore that
money to where it was before, and thus aid in preventing the consummation of their designs.—
Speech hy Senator Beck, of Kentucky, page 25S, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, January 11, 1878.

The silver dollar is peculiarly the laboring man's dollar, as far as he may desire specie. * * *
Throughout all the financial panics that have assailed this country, no man has been bold enough
to raise his hand to strike it down ; no man has ever dared to whisper of a contemplated assamt
upon i t ; and when the 12th day of February, 1873, approached, the day of doom to the American
dollar, the dollar of our fathers, how silent was the work of the enemy ! Not a bound, not a word,
no note of warning to the American people that their favorite coin was aboilt to be destroyed as
money; that the greatest financial revolution of modern times was in contemplation and atiout to
be accomplished against theift highest and dearest rights! The tax-payers of the United States
were no more notified or consulted on this momentous measure than the slaves on a Southern plantation before the'war, when their master made up his mind to increase their task or to change
them from a corn to a cotton field.
Never since the foundation of the Government has a law of such vital and tremendous import, o r
indeed of any importance at alii crawled into our statute books so furtively and noiselessly as this.
Its enactment there was as completely unknown to the people, and indeed to four-fifths of Congress
itself, as the presence of a burglar in a house at midnight to its sleeping inmates. This was rendered possible partly because the clandestine movement was so utterly unexpected, and partly from
the nature of the bill in which it occurred. The silver dollar of American history wag demonetized
in an act entitled " An act revising and amending the laws relative to the mints, assay offices, and
coinage of the United States." (See speech of Senator VOORHHES in CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, January 15,1878, page 332.)
I wonder that silver is not already coming into the market to supply the deficiency in the circulating medium. * * * Experience has proved that it takes about 640,000.000 of fractional currency
to make the small change necessary for the transaction of the business of the country. Silver will
gradually tike the place of this currency, and, further, will become the standard of values, which
will be hoarded in a small way. I estimate that this will consume from $200,000,000 to 6300,000.000
in time of this species of our circulating medium. * * * I confess to a desire to see a limited
hoarding of money. But I want to see a hoarding of something that is a standard of value the
world over. Silver is this * * *
Our mines are now producing almost unlimited amounts of silver, and it is becoming a question,
" What shall we do with it? " I here suggest a solution which will answer for some vearsto put it
in circulation, keeping it there until it Is fixed, and then we will find other markets.—"Extract from
a letter written by President Grant to Mr. Coudry, October 13, 1873, eight months after he had
signed the bill demonetizing silver, not knowing what that measure contained. See page 208, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, D e c e m b e r 14, 1877.

Horace Greeley saw what but comparatively few saw as clearly as he did, viz., that the establishment of the British system meant slavery not only to the blacks, but to the whites; and
these were the words for which the bankers of New York drove him from'the office of the
Tribune with a broken heart to the grave. He said:
*'We boast of having liberated 4,000,000 of slaves. True, we have stricken the shackles from
the former bondsmen and brought all laborers to a common level, but not so much by elevating
the former slaves as by practically reducing the whole working population to a state of serfdom. While boasting of our noble deeds we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our
iniquitous monetary system we have nationalized ,a system of oppression more refined, but none
the less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."

Senator Ingalls said in a speech in this city on February 15, 1878: " N o people in a great emergency evei* found a faithful ally in gold. It is the most cowardly of all metals. It makes no
treatv it does not break. It has no friends it does not sooner or later betray.
"Armies and navies are not maintained by gold. In times of panic and calamity, shipwreck,
and disaster, it becomes the agent and minister of ruin. No nation ever^fought a great war'bjthe aid of gold. On the contrary, in the crisis of the greatest peril, it becomes the greatest
enentf, more potent than the foe in the field; but when the battle is won and peace has been
secured, gold reappears and claims the fruits of victory. In our own civil war it is doubtful if
the gold of New York and London did not work us greater injury than the powder and lead and
iron of the rebels.
'
t
" It was the most invincible enemy of the public credit. Gold paid no soldier or sailor. It refused
the national obligations. It was worth most when our fortunes were the lowest. Every defeat gave
it increased value. It was in open alliance with our enemies the world over, and all its energies
were evoked for our destruction.
/
" But as usual, when danger had been averted and the victory secured, gold swaggers to the
front and asserts the supremacy."
CHICAGO PLATFORM.

The following is the full text of the resolutions adopted at Chicago:
"Whereas bimetallism is as ancient as human history: certainly for more than three thousand
years gold and silver came down through the ages hand in hand, their relations to each other
having varied but a few points in all that vast period of time, and then almost invariably through
legislation; and




31
"Whereas I the two metals are named together indissolubly united in the Constitution of the
United States as the standard of value of this country, placed there by George Washington, Thomas
Jeflerson} John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and their associates, and subsequently indorsed and
defended by Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln ; and
" Wherea^silver, one of these ancient metals, was, in the year 1873, without any previous demand by any political party or by any part of the people, or even by any newspapers, and without
public discussion, stricken down from the place it had occupied since the days of Abraham and
the Pharaohs, under circumstances of such secrecy that Allen G. Thurman, James B. Beck, WILLJAM M. STEWAKT, DANIEL W. VOOBHEIS, James G. Blaine, then Speaker of the House; James A.
Garfield, William D. Kelley, and others present and voting for the bill, as Senators or Representatives, subsequently, repeatedly and publicly declared that they did not know until long afterward
that so great and gTave a change had been made in the financial system founded by the fathers of
the Republic; ana
" Whereas the debates in Congress show that the parentage of the measure was in part ascribed
by friends of the bill to one Ernest Seyd, a London banker, who, it is claimed, was sent over to
Washington by the moneyed classes of the Old World to secure its passage by secret and corrupt
means; and
"Whereas President Grant, who signed the bill, declared long subsequently that he did not
know that it demonetized silver; and
•'Whereas the purpose of this attack upon one of the two ancient precious metals of the world
was,'by striking down one-half of the money supply, to wit, silver, to double the purchasing power
of the remainder, gold, by making it the equivalent of everything possessed or produced by the
labor of man, thus reducing the price of all commodities, arresting enterprise, impoverishing the
toiler, and degrading mankind ; that these results were not only inevitable but forseen appears by
the following language used at that time by the then president of the Bank of France, wno said:
* If by a stroke o f the pen they" suppress one of these metals in the monetary service they double
the demand for the otner metal, to the ruin of all d e b t o r s a n d
f Whereas the awful consequences thus prophesied are now upon the people of the whole world,we
stand in the midst of unparalleled distress and in the shadow of impending calamities which are
beyond estimate. The ruling industry of the people who inhabit one third of the area of this republic has been stricken down, property values1 destroyed, and the workmen compelled to fly as
from pestilenee. Everywhere over this broad land the honest toilers, numbering hundreds of
thousands, have been thrown out of employment and will have to eat the bittefr bread of charity or
starve. The products of industry, of the iarm and the workshop have depreciated in price, as
shown by official and public statistics, until production ceases to be profitable ; the money In the
country, inadequate for th$,DUsinesss of the land, has gravitated to the banks ; while the people,
distrusting the banks, have demanded their deposits to hoard or hide them : mercantile houses are
going to the wall bv thousands, because the masses have not the means to buy even the necessities
of life ; to supply the lack of currency, the banks of the great cities have issued a substitute for
money, unknown to. the laws, called clearing-house certificates : the movement of the great crops
now being gathered demands a vast amount of currency, which the banks are unable to furnish ;
and in the midst of these conditions the daily press is clamoring for the repeal of the act of July 14,
189^, called the Sherman act, although the repeal of that act means the stoppage of the issue of more
thon $3,000,000 every month ; thus shutting oft* of the supply of funds for the business of the country
in the midst of the terrible conditions which surround us, and ignoring the fact, that to hold the
balance level between the debtor and creditor classes the supply of currency must increase side by
side with the increase of population and business, and that in this nation the growth of population
is at the rate of about 37 percent every ten years, while the increase of business is much greater; and
"Whereas the great expounder of the Constitution, Daniel Webster, said: f Gold and silver, at
rates fixed by Congress, constitute the legal standard of value in this country, and neither Congress
nor any State has authority to establish any other standard or to displace that standard ;' and
"Whereas the Hon. James G. Blaine, quoting this utterance, adds: 'On the much-vexed and
long-mooted question as to a bimetallic or monometallic standard my own views are sufficiently indicated in the remarks I have made.. I believe the struggle now going on in this country and in
the other countries .for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster in
and throughout the commercial world. The destruction of ^silver as money and establishing gold as
the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property except those investments
which vield a fixed return in money. These would be enormously enhanced in value and would gain a
disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other species of property. If. as the most reliable
statistics affirm, there are nearly $7,000,000,000 of coin or bullion in the world, very equally divided
between gold and silver, it Is impossible to strike silver out of existence as money without results
which will prove distressing to millions and utterly disastrous to tens of thousands.'
41 Again he said : ' I believe gold and silver coin to be the money of the Constitution; indeed the
money of the American people, anterior to the Constitution, which the great organic law recognized
as quite independent of its own existence. No power was conferred on Congress to declare eithejr
metal should not be money. Congress has, therefore, in my judgment, no power to demonetize both .
If, therefore, silver has been demonetized, I am in favor of remonetizing it. If its coinage has been
prohibited, I am In favor of ordering it to be resumed. I am in favor o f having it enlarced;' and
"Whereas the present Secretary of the Treasury, the Hon. John G.Carlisle, on the floor of the
House of Representatives, February 21, 1878, said : * I know that the world's stock of the precious
metals w none too large, and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever become so. Mankind
will be fortunate, indeed, if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep jface with the
annual increase of population, commerce, and industry. According to my views of the subject,
the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and
otherwise, from three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic money of the world is the most gigantic
crime of this or any other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail
more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilences, and famines that ever occurred
in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction of half the entire movable
property of the world, including houses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for carrying
on commerce, while it would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would not produce anything
like the prolonged distress and disorganization of societ> that must inevitably result from the
permanent annihilation of the metallic money in the w o r l d a n d
"Whereas Senator JOHN SHEUMAN of Ohio, who mo-e than any other man is responsible f<JR
Che demonetization of silver, clearly understood the evil consequences of shrinking current*




32
below the legitimate demand of the business of the country, as evidenced by what he said in
the Senate in 1869, to wit: 'The contraction oi the currency is a far more distressing operation
than Senators suppose. Our own and other nations have gone through that operation before.
It is not possible to take that voyage without the sorest distress. To every person except a.
capitalist out of debt, or a salaried officer or annuitant, it is a period of loss, daijger, lassitude
of trade, fall of wages; suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy, and disaster. It means ruin to all
dealers whose debts are one-half their business capital, though one-third less than their actual
property. It means the fall of all agricultural production without any great reduction of taxes.
What prudent man would dare to build a house, a railroad, a factory, or a barn with this certain fact before him?'
" Therefore, in view of all these facts, we declare:
1. That there must be no compromise of this question. All legislation demonetizing silver
and restricting the coinage thereof must be immediately and completely .repealed by an act
restoring the coinage of the country to the conditions established by the founders of the nation
and which continued for over eighty years without complaint irom any part of our people.
Every hour's delay in undoing the corrupt work of Ernest Seyd and our foreign enemies is an
insult to the dignity of the American people, a crushing burden on their prosperity, and an
attempt to place us again under the yoke from which George Washington and his compatriotsrescued us.
(< We protest against the financial policy of the United States being made dependent upon the
opinion or policies of any foreign government, and assert the power of this nation to stand on its
own feet and legislate for itself upon all subjects.
**2. We declare that the only remedy for our metallic financial troubles is to open the mints of
the nation to gold and silver on equal terms, at the old ratio of 16 of silver to 1 of gold. Whenever silver bullion can be exchanged at the mints of the United States foi; legal-tender silver dollars,
worth 100 cents each, that moment 412J^ grains of standard silver will be worth 100 cents, and as
commerce equalizes the prices of all commodities throughout the world, whenever 412% grains of
standard silver are worth 100 cents in the United States they will be worth that sum everywhere
else, and can not be bought for less. While it will be urged that W c h a result would enhance the
price of silver bullion, ft is sufficient for us to know that a similar increase wou d be immediately
made in the price of every form of property, except gold and credits, in the civilized world. It
would be a shallow selfishness that would deny prosperity to the mining industries at the cost o f
bankruptcy to the' whole people. The legislation to demonetize silver has given an unjust increase
to the value of gold at the cost of the prosperity of mankind. Wheat and all other agricultural
products have fallen side by side with silver.
>'3. That while the * Sherman act* of July 14, 1890. was a device of the enemy to prevent the
restoration of free coinage, and is greaily objectionable because it continues the practical exclusion of silver from the mints and reduces it from a money metal to a commercial commodity,
nevertheless its repeal without the restoration of free coinage would stop the expansion of our
currency required by our growth in population and business, widen still further the difference
between the two precious metals, tnus making the return to bi netaliism more difficult, greatly
increase the purchasing power oi gold, still further b*eak down the price oi th* products of the
farmer, the laborer, the mechanic, and the iradesman, and plunge still further all commerce,
busine s, and industry into such dtptbsof wretchedness as to endanger peace, order, the preservation of free institutions, and the very maintenance of civilization. We, therefore, in the
name of the Republic and of humanity, protest against th^ repeal of the said act of July 14,
1S90, except by aa act re-toring free bimetallic co.nage. as it existed prior to 1873. We suggest
that the maintenance of bimetallism by the Unitel States at the ^atio of 16 to 1 will iocrease
our commerce with all the silver-u^Ing countries of the world, c mtaining two-thirds of the
population of the world, without decreasing our commerce with those nations which buy our
raw material, and will compel the adoption of bimetallism by the nations of Europe sooner than
by 8 ny other means.
" 4. We assert that the unparalleled calamities which now afflict the American people are not
due to the so-called Sherman act of 1890; and in proof thereof we call attention to the fact that the
same evil conditions now prevail over all the gold standard nations of the world. We are convinced that, bad as is the state of affairs in this country, it would have been still wor$e but for the
Sherman act, by which the nation has obtained to some extent an expanding circulation to meet
the demands of a continent in process of colonization, and the business exigencies of the most energetic and industrious race that has ever dwelt on the earth, and we insist upon the execution of the
law without evasion so long as it is upon the statute books and upon the purchase each month of
the full amount of silver that it provides for, to the end that the monthly addition to the circulating
medium the law secures shall be maintained
**5. That we would call the attention of the people to the fact that in the midst of all the troubles
of the time, the value of the national bonds and the national legal-tender money, whether m£tde of
gold, silver, or paper, has not fiallen a particle. The distrust is not of the Government or its money,
but of the banks which have, as we believe, precipitated the present panic on the country in an illadvised effort to control the action of Congress on the silver question and the issue of bonds. »We
invite the bankers to attend to their legitimate business and permit the rest of the people to have
their full share in the control of the Government. In this way. they will much sooner restore that
confidence' which is so necessary to the prosperity of the people. * It must not be forgotten that,
while boards ot trade, chambers of commerce, bankers, and money-dealers are worthy and valuable
-men in their places, the Republic can more safely repose upon the great mass,of its peaceful toilers
and producers, and that this ' business man's age' is rapidlv exterminating the business men of
this country. The time has come when the politics of the nation should revert as far as possible to
the simple and pure condition out of which the Republic arose.
"6. We suggest for the consideration of our fellow citizens that the refusal of the opponents of
bimetallism to propose any substitute for the present law or to elaborate any plan for tne future,*
indicate-either an ignorance of our financial needs or an unwillingness to take the public into
their confidence, and we denounce the attempt to unconditionally repeal the Sherman law as an
attempt to secure gold monometallism in flagrant violation of the last national platform of all the
political parties.'