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It matters not what political party has the President and Congress, so lone as
a high protective tariff and a contraction of the currency obtains {both saddled
xtpon the American people by the Republican party), just so long will the poor
people of this country continue to complain and suffer.
SILVER.
SPEECH
OP
HON. JOSEPH M. KENDALL,
OF
KENTUCKY,
IN THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SATURDAY, M A T 28,
1892.
If I'm designed yon lording's slave,
By natures law designed,
"Why was an independent wish
Erer planted in my mind!
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty and scorn?
Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn I
WASHINGTON.
1892.
S P E E C H
OF
HON.
JOSEPH
M.
KENDALL.
The House being in Co umittee of the Whole on the state of the Union and
having under consideration the bill (H. R. 8224) making appropriations ft r
the service of the FostrOfflce Department for the fiscal year ending June
30,189a—
Mr. KENDALL, said:
Mr. CHAIRMAN: My honored predecessor pledged the convention that nominated him that he would lift their banner
in fir3 against the money-changers, the money lenders, and
the Shylocks of Wall streetf the tariffs of the East and the railroads of the West; questions which were pressing then for
settlement, but which are pressing now, as they never pressed
before, upon the heart and brain of a Federal Congress for solution in a spirit of absolute fairness to all interests, all sections,
and all men. In a much humbler-way, but with an equally fearless and unflinching zeal, not caring what the consequences may
be upon my own fortunes, sir, I am here to redeem that pledge.
It matters not what political party has the President and Congress, so long as a high protective tariff and a contraction of the
currency obtains (both saddled upon the American people by the
Republican party), just so long will the poor people of this country continue to complain and suffer.
It seems to me that the two problems with which we are confronted are, first, how to get more money into circulation: and,
second, how to prevent what we do get from following what we
have gotten into Wall street and Pennsylvania. It can not be
successfully denied that the volume of money is insufficient to
carry on the business transactions of the people. We must either
increas3 the circulating- medium to meet these demands or business will bs cut down to the compass of our present circulation.
The industrial interests of the country can not thrive by reason
of this lack of money, and must inevitably perish unless something is done.
It is, indeed, high time, Mr. Chairman, that we should pause
and reflect. Let us glance at the history of the past and adorn
our present lesson with the wisdom it teaches. For example,
look at England. For centuries the British Government has
made war upon silver and debased it, and what has been the result? Sir, the question hardly requires an answer. It is a wellknown fact that nearly all the lands of that nation have passed
into the hands of the few. Over two-thirds of her 72,000,000 acres
belong- to less than 11,000 persons. This is, to a great extent,
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the result of making money scarce and high, and consequently
products and labor low and cheap. In this way they managed to
get the lands and labor of the former owners, and now these
lords and masters of their own creation compel them to pay annually more than $550,000,000 in rents, and to-day it goes without saying that England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland are ruled
by an aristocracy of wealth wrung from the toil and sweat of
oppressed, down-trodden, discontented labor.
Sir, I speak in no spirit of demagogy when I warn you that in
the same way the same thing is being attempted here. It is astonishing what gigantic strides they have made in that direction
in the last eighteen years. From 1792 to 1873 we had free bimetallic coinage and very few millionaires*. In 1873, however,
the Republican party, under the leadership of Senator SHERMAN,
in imitation of England, sacretly and clandestinely struck silver
in the dark, and millionaires have sprung up in great numbers,
and on the other hand the poor have mostly become paupers.
The attempt made in the Senate on last Wednesday by Mr. SHERMAN, in reply to Mr. MORGAN, to shirk the responsibility for
that direst calamity ever inflicted upon the American people by
Congress was the weakest utterance in the nature of an apology
that ever fell from the lips of Ohio's very able and ingenious
senior Senator.
Mr. MORGAN. I think the people will regard him as the head of the column,
having been chairman of the Committee on Finance at that time, as the Senator was. The history of this matter has been gone over very often, and
there Is a man now sleeping in his grave in Kentucky who made statements
In the presence of the Senator irom Ohio here upon that question, which
were placed in the RECORD; and for the purpose of getting him a little more
conspicuously before the country, I took upon myself the perhaps unwelcome task at the moment of rereading to the Senate of the United States in
a later debate and after he was in his grave all that he said.
The evidence presented by the then Senator from Kentucky convinced my
mind, I think it convinced the minds of the people of the United States generally, that the Senator from Ohio had a greater responsibility for the destruction of silver in 1873 than he now seems disposed to admit. I applaud
that feeling In the Senator's heart which causes him to try to rectify the
wrongs that he has done to the people*of the United States, but if he were
speaking with manliness to us on this side of the Chamber and to the friends
of silver to-day, and had reflected for a moment how elegantly and beautifully manly it would be in him to come out and put some distinctive measure
into operation that would restore the people of the United States to the constitutional rights of which they were bereft by him in 1873,1 could admire
him even more than I do; and yet I admire him very much.
Undoubtedly there is something wrong in our financial system
when after thirty years of Republican legerdemain legislation
less than thirty thousand persons own more than one-half of the^
wealth of this superb Republic, inhabited by 65,000,000 population, commonly called, and supposed to be, free.
The times are out of joint, but the Republican party is responsible for the fact. These laws were made by the Republican financiers and the Democratic party has come up through great trials
and tribulations to repeal them. Unless they are repealed, Mr.
Chairman, at the present rate it will only be a few years more
when they will not only own the money, but they will own our
lands and liberties as well. But we have inherited the spirit of
freedom and, unlike continental Europe, we are not ready to be
enslaved.
The outraged and the indignant have called a halt. The pub498
5
lie servant who permits their protests to go unheeded does so at
his own peril. All indications point, like index fingers, to the
fact that the political revolution of 1890 is permanent if the Democratic branch—the people's branch—of Congress only does its
duty. The fact, I think, ought to ba understood that the onward
movement of the masses will camp in the saddle until the circulation is augmented to $50 per capita. Sir, they have been
trampled under foot in some of our Western States, andw§ are
somewhat oppressed ourselves, hut we are coming to their relief.
Sir, one of the strongest counts in the indictment upon which
we arraigned, tried, convicted, and sentenced the force bill and
the billion-dollar Congress (and I observe with satisfaction that
the leader of that Congress [Mr. REED] honors me with his attention) before that great jury, composed of their own constituents, in that memorable uprising in which the Democratic banners danced in the Kansas breezes, unhorsing. the politically
emasculated, sarcastic Ingalls and waved triumphantly over the
three great Commonwealths that have given to the constitutional Democracy of the Union, the sage PALMER, the wizardlipped YILAS, and the diplomat'.c Dickinsjn, was the charge that
they had stifled the silver bill passed by the. Democratic and
silver-State Senators. Whatever may have happened since,
there was not at that time, sir, any dark division in the Democratic ranks. I do not believe we are at the parting of the ways,
hut should such a fact develope I shall follow, but not blindly,
along the path blaled by the illustrious Beck. The many brilliant
•^atesmen "out of a job" ought to a ilmonish gentlemen on this
floor to look well to their financial bearings, even though the justice and humanity of the cause do not commend itself to them.
W e are told, Mr. Chairman, that the Bland bill is an infamous
measure, in the interest of silver-owners, and that a silver dollar is only worth 70 cents. I must admit that I am astonished
at that assertion, coming from the source it does. Why, sir,
silver was as gpod as gold until 1873, when the Republican party
demonetized it. If it is now worth only 70 cents to the dollar they made it so. I am unable to see the consistency of any
Democrat advocating this radical wrong and its perpetuation.
If Congress has reduced the value of silver 30 cents, and consequently made a dollar worth only 70 cents, it seems to me
that we should now restore to silver the 30 cents of which it
was robbed by nefarious legislation. I am unable to see anything wrong in this position. If there is, I have read and studied
this question to no purpose. If we robbed the silver men of 30
cents on the dollar let us be honest—let us give it back.
Mr. Chairman, the enemies of silver talk about the old exploded
idea of the intrinsic value of money. We all know that gold and
silver have intrinsic values as commodities in the markets, but
not as money. If it were otherwise we could not make money
out of paper at all, for comparatively it has no value. It is not
the value the thing is made of that makes it money, but the stamp
of the Government, and when it issues its fiat and says " this is
worth a dollar," and places its stamp upon it, it becomes as good
as gold, whether it be gold, silver, lor paper.
Sir, it is held by some that paper money must have specie or
bullion to back it to make it good, and this bill is based upon
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that idea. I make no objection to it upon that ground, but, sir,
this is not absolutely necessary. The Republic of Venice had
nothing* but paper money, issuad upon the faith of the Government alone, for six hundred years, and it was perfectly good.
And, sir, did not France only a few years ago, when she, by reason of war, became indebted to Prussia a billion of dollars," after
all her spacie was exhausted in the,payment of the same, issue
five hundred millions of paper money on the credit of the Government alone? And she grew prosperous and happy and paid
her debt before it was due. I am neither a repudiator nor an
inflationist, but with all our wealth and credit it seems to me
that we can issue as much money on paper as we really need—
that is, increase the actual circulating- per capita to its old
standard, and that it would be as good as gold, but with silver
equality restored this, in my judgment, would be unnecessary.
Some of our Democratic friends tell us that this bill is all right,
but that it is bad policy to pass it now. I am no friend to policy,
because I regard it as the natural enemy of principle. Mr.
Clay, our great commoner, once said that he would rather be
right than President. But aside from this the emergency is
upon us. Our constituents are in distress, and I feel that this
bill will give great relief. If Congress ignores the people, the
people might ignore Congress. I challenge any gentleman on
this floor to point to a time when the Democratic party failed to
strike a blow for financial freedom. But it is^laimed that the
President will veto this bill if we pass it. That is no excuse for
us. Let us do our duty; let us still be true to tha people, to the
history, traditions, and legends of the Democratic faith, and he
can do as he pleases.
Again, it is said that if this bill passes, our country will become
the dumping-ground of all the silver in the world. Sir, we had
free bimetallic coinage from 1792 to 1873, a period of eighty-one
years, and no calamity overtook us. Such arguments are chaff,
sophistry, and the sheerest nonsense. The world has no more
silver than we can use in our business. Our-experiencefor those
eighty-one years prior to 1873, inmy humble judgment, hangs a
bow of promise in the political sky which assures us that this
country will never be destroyed by a silver deluge. We can
coin all that comes, place our eagles upon it, and send it forth
with our fiat on its mission of mercy to the laboring masses. By
giving them adequate return for their products and labor we can
enable them to discharge their mortgages and debts. Then, sir,
the eagle engraved upon an honest, constitutional dollar, containing 412£ grains, may ba truthfully styled the emblem of our
liberty.
If you continue to legislate to increase the purchasing power
of money by making it scarce and consequently decrease the price
of labor and production the ultimate result will be the pauperism and degradation of our people and their lands will go where
their money has gone. Then we. like England, will be owned by
a relentless*landed aristocracy: and, as their tenants, bear the
yoke of slavery and disgrace. The history of the world demonstrates conclusively that when the farming classes lose their
lands they lose their liberties. The republic may then exist in
name, but in name only. W e should not only encourage our
498
farmers to hold their homes, but as far as we can we should enable them to do so.
No nation, Mr. Chairman, can maintain a financial system based
upon its debt, as we have attempted to do under our miserable
national-banking system by suffering1 them to issue money upon
the bonds we owe tham. Becauss, when the bonds are paid the
banks must cease to exist. Basides, we have grown weary of
paying these pets of the Government the interest on their bonds
m gold and at the same time of paying them more than double
interest on tte money they are allowed to issue on the bonds.
Sir, I was not astonished whilst this House was discussing one of
its great appropriation bills, to observe the disputation suddenly
turn upon the infirmities of our financial system. We can not long
live, much less prosper, under such a system. Outside of Wall
street and its tributaries that fact is generally understood. The
Western people, upon whom their rapacity has fed and gorged
until they are well-nigh exhausted, much as they love thair children, would rather see them devoured by the wolves of the West
than to see them become serfs to the money kin£s of the East.
They know their rights, and under God and a free ballot they
are going to have them. European history will not be allowed
to repeat itself here. The hour of deliverance is at hand. The
stars in their courses are fighting the battles of the poor, plain
people.
Mr. Chairman,* when I heard the honorable gentleman from
Kansas upon this floor describe how the money-lenders were extortioning upon his people and taking from them their homes, and I
can personally testify from actual observation to the fact upon
which he rests the gravamen of his complaint, it brought to my
mind a stanza from that sweetest and tenderest of all the poets,
Robert Burns, the mountain bard of Europe, who, when he, like
my friend, saw his fair, rugged Scotland, to him the loveliest
land on earth, its very soil polluted by the coach wheels of some
ancient Carnegie or Blaine, some mushroom landlord, amid the
humiliation and gloom that fell upon his great, warm heart,
exclaimed:
If I'm designed yon lordling's slave,
By nature*s law designed,
Why was an independent wish
JE'er planted in my mind?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty and scorn?
Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn?
I trust, Mr. Chairman, that such may never be our own fate,
and that the Bland bill, or a similar measure, may become a
law. [Applause.]
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