Full text of The Money Question of the 51st Congress : Treasury Notes and Silver Bullion : Speech of Hon. Henry M. Teller of Colorado, Debate in the Senate

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TREASURY NOTES AND SILVER BULLION.

SPEECH
OF

HON. HENRY M. TELLER,
OF COLORADO,

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,




M a y 14 a n d 15, 1 8 9 0 .

W A S H IN G T O N .
1*9°.




SPEECH
OF

HON.

H E N R Y M.

TELLER.

Wednesday, May 14, 1890.

T he Senate, as in C om m ittee of th e W hole, h av in g u n d e r consideration th e
bill (S. 2350), auth o rizin g th e issue of T reasu ry n otes on deposits of silver bullion,
th e p en d in g question being on th e am en dm ent proposed by M r. P.LUMB to th e
am en dm ent to th e bill subm itted by Mr. S h e r m a n —
Mr. TELLER said:
Mr. P r e s i d e n t : The question before the Senate, if this maybe con­
sidered a bill in relation to the use of silver as money, is perhaps the
most important question that can be presented or has been presented
to the American Senate, if since the demonetization of silver in 1873
it can be said truthfully that the question was ever presented to the
American Senate.
Mr. President, the silver question, as it is called, is not a local ques­
tion, and I desire for myself to disclaim any anxiety for or any special
interest in advancing the price of American silver, saye and except that
it is an American product Therefore I and all other Americans ought
to have an interest in its advancement, and further as that advance­
ment will tend towards its use as a money metal. In other words, if
silver is not to be used as money, I have but little interest in the ad­
vancement of the price of silver.
The people of the State that I represent have comparatively little
more interest in th6 advancement of the price of silver than other
people; for, while we produce one-sixth of the silver of the world, we
do not depend entirely upon our silver productidn, and we expect very
shortly, in the immediate future, that the other interests of the State
will far outweigh the interest of mere silver production. And the sil­
ver production of the United States, while it has amounted to 50,000,000 ounces, as it is said, last year, is an insignificant production in
comparison with the great interests of this country that we think are
involved in its rehabilitation as a money metal.
The silver question is not local in its character either as confined to
one portion of this country or as confined to the American continent.
It is a question that to-day is attracting the attention of all people
everywhere. It has continued now lor fifteen years to attract the at­
tention of the financial and economic world. The brightest and ablest
men of this generation have given time, attention, study, and thought
to this question, and it can not be cried down as a local measure. It
will not do to simply say that the silver barons of the West are de­
manding it. It will not do to simply say that it is demanded in the




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interest of cheap money. It is demanded in the interest of humanity,
in the interest of civilization, in the interest of progress, in the interest
o f ,the whole human race. He who approaches this subject with an
idea that it is localin character, insignificant in importance, ought not
to discuss it at all, ’for it is self-evident that he is ignorant of the great
question that he attempts to handle.
Mr. President, the question presented, not for the American people
alone, but for the entire world, is whether we shall do business in the
future as we harve done business in the past or until within the last
seventeen years by the use of the two precious metals, not made money
by law, not made money metals by the edict of legislative minds, not
by the consent of the merchants, but by the fiat of the Almighty when
He created these two metals. The one goes hand in hand with the
other. You can no more dispense with gold than you can with silver.
The two are twin metals, allied and united by the Creator for benefi­
cent purposes of the human race. It is with that idea that I approach
this question, realizing what the Senator from Nevada [Mr. J o n e s ] so
well said yesterday, that money is indispensable to the civilized world,,
indispensable to the happiness of man, and that the number of units
regulates its value.
Mr. President, I do not want to take time to give you a dissertation
on the philosophy of money. I approach this question in a practical
way and from a practical standpoint. I propose to briefly discuss it to­
day. Should an opportunity be presented later I may present some
other views which occur to me, but to-day I want to deal with it prac­
tically as a practical question affecting, as I say, the American people
and affecting all other peoples, and believing as I do that the action of
the American Congress upon this subject is more potent and more in­
fluential in the financial world than the action of any other Govern­
ment that can be taken upon this subject, Great Britain and France
not excepted.
We are to-day the richest people on the face of the earth. We are
the most enterprising, the most progressive, and we have before us the
greatest hopes and the greatest expectations of any people in the world,
not vain expectations, but expectations that sensible, thinking, intel­
ligent people everywhere admit are rightfully indulged in by us, 65,000,000 people with the number increasing at the rate of 2,000,000 a
year. There are now members of this body who, if they shall sit in
this Chamber as long as some members have sat in it, will see 130,000, OfK)
people in the United States, with wealth untold. Why should not our
action be potent on all nations of the world ?
No, Mr. President, it is not a question simply whether we shall have
four and one-half millions more of money a month or less, but it is,
first, whether we shall provide for the American people a sufficiency of
money with which they may transact properly the business of this
country, and, secondly, whether we shall put ourselves in a position
where we can aid potentially in bringing about what 1‘believe to-day
every practical financier almost in the world, every political econo­
mist almost on the face of the earth admits is essential to prosperity
and progress, the use of silver as money; not as token money, but on
equal terms with gold.
Mr. President, when we assembled here in December last there was
a general demand made in this country for more money. The demand
had been growing year by year; there had been first the small murmur
of discontent and finally it grew until it was like the voice of thunder.
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Everybody heard it. It reached the Finance Committee of this body,
strange as it may appear; they at last bepame sensible that there was a
demand made npon them for circulation in this country which had
been madebefore, but which they had not heeded. The Secretary o f
the Treasury in his report to Congress recognized the necessity of more
money. He saiil we needed it. How much ? Mr. President, I have
not found yet any member of the Finance^ Committee, I have not found
any executive officer yet who has been able to tell how much. The
fundamental inquiry, the fundamental question, when you come to
deal with money, is, how much do you want, what are your necessities?
That question has not been answered by any executive officer,1nor has
it been answered by any committee o f this body. So, we have to grope
in the dark as to what amount we need.
I say we were advised from the proper Department of the Govern­
ment that the legislative department should heed this demand for
more money. There has been in this body for thirteen years since I
have been somewhat famili&r with it in some capacity or another a
-very decided feeling that silver ought to be used as money in this
country on equal terms with gold. That feeling has grown in this
country, by examination and discussion, until there is now a general
feeling, not confined to any class of men or section, that silver ought to
be used as money on equal terms, as far as practicable, with gold. I
know but one Senator in this body who denies that the demand for
more money was a proper demand, one that ought to be heeded, to
which we must respond. Senators who have heretofore been, if not
the avowed supporters o f the gold standard, at least in sympathy with
the movement to make gold the standard, now tell us that we want
silver as money.
Mr. President, it was believed in the early part of the present ses­
sion of Congress that this universal demand coming up from all •eetions
of the country alike would be heeded in the early legislation of this
session, and the Secretary of the Treasury presented early his plan for
the amelioration of the condition of public affairs. At his suggestion
a bill was presented to the Senate and is found now in Senate bill 2350.
This bill is labeled or spoken of abroad as a silver bill. We were told
early when it came hero, when we criticised it, that our criticisms were
unfair, uqjust, and ungenerous, because it was a silver bill and would
raise the price of silver.
The idea appeared to have lodged in the minds of some men con­
nected with the Treasury Department that the advocates of the use of
silver as money were advocating it simply in order that silver might
bring more when produced in this country. It is d o answer to me
when I object to the bill, to say, “ It will put up the price of silver to
129, ” or that “ i t is a silver bilL99 If itshould put up the price of silver
to 150, the bill as introduced, as coming from the Secretary of the
Treasury, would never receive my support. It must be apparent that
silver put up in that way, without its full recognition as modey, will
not remain at the price at which it might be put by special effort.
We were told that the entire product of theAmerican mines should be
taken; that the American miner and the American citizen everywhere
should be satisfied with that. Why, Mr. President, the American
citizen has a right to draw upon all the resources o f the world for money,
if it is needed in his business. He is not confined to the production
of the American mines of gold or silver. The automatic theory upon
which we have been proceeding, and which is so dear to some men
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when it is applied to gold and so objectionable when applied to silver,
goes upon the idea thait a country can draw upon all the productive
mines of the world and not draw upon its own alone. The bill goes
upon the theory that we are to draw upon our own mines and our own
alone and that all other mines are to be tabooed and their products
kept out of circulation and degraded by our refusal to receive and
use them.
A new idea in finance was adopted. Upon this purchase of the Ameri­
can bullion—for that is what it amounted to, although the bill did not
say “ purchase” —upon this deposit of American bullion in the mints
there was to be issued a certificate. That certificate, under some con­
ditions, could be exchanged for another certificate; but, without going
through that, it is sufficient to treat it as a certificate that in the first
instance demanded redemption at the hands of the Government. How
should these certificates that were going out to do duty as money be
paid? They were to be paid or redeemed in what? In coin? No!
In bullion, in silver bullion, and tenaciously the Secretary of the Treas­
ury has adhered to that view from that day to this.
Nothing else will suit the Secretary of the Treasury but a Treasury
note or a certificate payable in a commodity. It is the first time, in
the history of this country at least, that ^e have attempted to pay our
debts in goods. It is the first,time that the store system which we
have heard of in the mining regions and in other sections of the coun­
try is to be applied to the Treasury Department of the United States;
and with that suggestion I am told in the public prints—not by the
Secretary, but in the public prints—that I am recreant to a high duty
which I owe as a member of the Republican party that I do not sup­
port that absurd, that to my judgment wicked and nefarious proposi­
tion to redeem the public paper in a commodity.
Mr. President, this suggestion of the Secretary to pay these certifi­
cates in a commodity brought great satisfaction to a certain class of peo­
ple in this country, that is, the advocates of the gold standard. They
said, “ That is the end of the coinage of silver; there is no longer any
danger that you will get on a silver basis. ” Where are you going ?
On an absolute gold basis, without the use of silver as money. It is to
be taken in as a commodity and taken out as a commodity and always
treat it in the Treasury as a commodity, and yet they said, “ Why, this
is in the interest of silver; you silver men in the West who are inter­
ested in the production of silver ought to be satisfied, for it will put
silver to par.” Ifobody knows better than the men who stood behind
that scheme that it would not put silver to par, and nobody is more de­
termined in this country than the men who fathered that suggestion
that silver shall not go to par, and it never would under that scheme.
I f they have fooled some people there are a great many in this coun­
try whom they have not been able to fool with that kind of a state­
ment. They did not want to put silver to par. I f they put silver to
par its use as money will be assured. The whole world will take silver
if it is put to par, and the men who demonetized silver in this country
and who have steadily, against public sentiment and the public inter­
est and the public demand, prevented its recoinage and its full circula­
tion as money, are not now going to surrender the advantage which
they have held for seventeen years; and I should regard myself as an
imbecile, after the study I have given this subject, if I could not see
what the purpose and object of that scheme is, or if I did not be­
lieve, at least, that I could see the purpose of alleging that they wanted
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to put silver at par, as far as they are concerned, with their interests
the other way.
Mr. President*, that scheme, as I said, met the approval of the gold
monometallists everywhere. I have found one thing pretty safe in my
practical life, that when my enemies want to do a particular thing and
are anxious for it, look out. When I found all the monometallists
everywhere singing praises to this bill, when I found the press that
had been denouncing silver and denouncing every man who supported
the free coinage or even the limited use of silver under the Bland bilj
as money supporting it, and all gold monometallists clapping their
hands in glee over the prospect ol this bill becoming a law, then I had
reason to suspect that it was a Trojan horse. It was pretty certain, in
a week, or I will say in a month, it was morally certain that that
scheme could not succeed. The silver people—I do not mean by that
the silver miners, I mean the silver people, I mean the political econ­
omists of the world who are not in league with the gold people, I mean
the men who have studied finance for years and thought over it—con­
demned it—so far as this body is concerned practically abandoned it.
Even the great influence that a Secretary of the Treasury can bring to
bear upon matters of this kind could not keep it alive.
Then the Finance Committee, composed, as I now understand, of all
silver men except one, for I believe each of its members, save one, claims
that he is in favor of silver—I am not fully informed to what extent—
presented another scheme which was said to be an improvement on
the former, and it is, for it does not have in it the objectionable feature,
the payment in goods. We were to buy $4,500,000 of silver; and was
that to be coined into money? Oh, no, Mr. President, not to be coined
into money, but to be deposited in the Treasury of the United States
as a credit, upon which the Government of the United States was to
issue its money, or the Treasury note was to be issued having no rela­
tion whatever to the coin in the Treasury, save and except that it had
been given for the purchase of it, and the holder of it ltad no more
claim on the bullion in the Treasury than any other citizen of the
United States had or than he had upon any other property of the
United States; and yet we were told that this was a silver bill, and
that it was a bill in the interest of the use of silver as money, and that
it ought to be satisfactory to us, inasmuch as it would raise the price
of silver!
Why, Mr. President, I have not any doubt that it would raise the
price of silver to some extent. It has not, I repeat, the vice in it
that the other bill had, and it did look as if it was in the interest of
silver to some extent, at least it was making a market for silver. Mr.
President, if you want to put silver back to its original price of 1873
you have got more than to make a market for it; you hav# got to rec­
ognize its money function, you have got to treat it as a money metal.
The Government may buy it and drop it in the sea where the depth
is so great that human ingenuity and human cupidity can never reach
it, and you will not put it back to par unless you recognize it as money.
Nobody ought to doubt that
The demand for sil ver must be a demand for it for the purpose for
which it has been used for more than three thousand years, nay more
than five thousand years, and that is for i&oney. That is its great value
and that is its only real value. Compared to its moneyed use, all pther
uses are insignificant. Does this bill propose to use it as money?
Does this bill come here with the recognition of the fundamental idea
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that it is money ? On the contrary, the fundamental idea in this bill,
as in the other, is that it is merchandise and nothing else. Under a
contingency, I admit, by the kind will and good consent of the Secretary
of the Treasury, some of it may be put into dollars; that is, the coinage
of any part of the bullion so purchased is discretionary with the Sec­
retary.
When I complain that I do not like this discretionary power in the
Secretary of the Treasury I am told that that is a reflection upon our
officials. Mr. President, I have been brought up in a political school
that has taught me, and my observation has sustained the teaching,
that that is the best law which leaves the least discretion to any human
agent; that the best law is mandatory in all its provisions, in all its
features. Of course I do not say that there are not exceptions to that
rule, as there are to all others, but that is the principle upon which leg­
islation must proceed, and that is especially the principle upon which
financial legislation must proceed if it proceeds rightly.
Who determines the policy ot the Government ? The people. Who
determine that in the first instance for the people, subject to their re­
vision ? This body and the other that unites with us in legislation,
and not the executive department, for they have no legislative power;
they are to execute the law. Is it not clear that a bill which commits
discretionary power to the Secretary of tJhe Treasury over the finances
of this country is not the proper (Hie, to say the least ?
Mr. President, going back a little, it was said that if. w6 pay these
certificates in bullion we could trust the Secretary of the Treasury not
to abuse the discretion given to him. Admit that we may trust the
present Secretary, do you know that we can trust the next one, whom
we do not know? It is said that this is a power that he never woulduse, and if he did use it he would use it for the public good. Now, I
do not think it would be offensive, nor do I think it would be unparli­
amentary, if I should stop a moment here to consider what has been
the attitude of the several Secretaries of the Treasury with reference
to the question of the use of silver as money. There has not been a
Secretary of the Treasury since the Bland bill passed but has insisted
that the Bland bill was a mistake. There has not been a Secretary of
the Treasury that has not dinned this body and the other to repeal the
Bland bilL
When less than eight millions of dollars were coined in this country
under that act, or a little more perhaps than eight*millions, but less
than twenty millions, anyhow, the Secretary of the Treasury then ad­
vised the suspension of coinage, saying that we should surely reach a
silver basis (of which some time I may more particularly and fully
speak than now of its advantages and disadvantages)—we would surely
reach a silver basis if we did not stop coining silver. At the next ses­
sion of Congress, when less than $50,000,000 had been coined, he said,
‘ ‘ If you coin more than $50,000,000we shall goto a silver basis,” and
all the wise men of this body, and of the other, and of the country,
who believed with him that the greatest possible calamity that could
happen to a country would be to have plenty of silver, joined in the
ciy, “ Suspend the coinage of silver.”
There was no exception in the Administrations that preceded the
last one, and when in the course of events there was a change of Ad­
ministration the great dominant party that had had control of the
finances of the country, that had shaped its financial policy through
war and through difficulties unheard of in any other country, who had
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met and solved in some degree satisfactorily these problems that no
other people had ever met—when they went out of office and a new
Administration came in, with a constituency back of them universally
in favor of silver, the new Administration out-Herode<l Herod in their
desire to get rid of silver. The President of the United States could
not wait until he had taken the oath of office,, but he addressed a let­
ter to Congress, or to Congressmen, in which he demanded that we
should get rid of the silver-coinage act at once; otherwise he declared
we should be on a silver basis, and the gold obligations of the Govern­
ment could not be met.
Sir, if he had searched with a search-warrant and with the power
of a detective he could not have found an obligation of the United
States save those that were specifically payable .in gold—that is, gold
certificates—that could not be paid by asilver dollar. The first message
that came here from that Executive recommended the suspension of
silver coinage; the report of his Secretary of the Treasury recommended £
the suspension of the silver coinage; the Treasurer recommended the
suspension of the coinage; the Comptroller recommended it, and if the
•messengers and doorkeepers of the Department had had an opportunity
to address Congress I have no doubt they would have been heard also
demanding the suspension of the coinage of silver.
Mr. President, this Administration, in which I am glad to say I have
an interest, was elected upon the solemn declaration made in our plat­
form that we were in favor of the use of silver. No, we did not say
that, bat we said we were in favor of the use of silver as money, and 1
every Senator here went on the stump, every member of the other body,
and our speakers everywhere, and arraigned the Democratic party for its
hostility to silver. The Democrats had, in deference to their candidate,
left out of their platform any allusion to silver, notwithstanding, I will
venture to say, if that question had been submitted to the convention
that nominated Mr. Cleveland, there would not have been one dissent­
ing voice out of fifty in favor of not simply the use of it, but of the free
coinage of silver.
We made that contest upon the theory that the Republican party
was in favor of silver as money, not to use it to make teapots, not to
make teaspoons, not to make tablespoons, nor for subsidiary coin.
When we said it was for money, we said it was for all purposes that
money is used for. We said it was to be equal to gold. We said
“ We are in favor of the use o f gold and silver as money,” and we hold
our power now by virtue of that declaration in our platform. So far
as I am concerned I am loyal to that platform as I am to all platforms
to which I subscribe, and 1 intend, so far as my voice is concerned,
here and elsewhere to give it in favor of the use of silver as money in
accordance with that platform, whether it parts me from the Adminis­
tration or whether it does not
Mr. President, I say here that this question of silver, the use of it
as money, is not and never has been before a political question. It is
a question too big to be made a party question. It is of too much vital
interest to the people of this country and it ought not to be made a
party question. We put it in our platform, not as a party principle,
but as one that pervaded the whole country in recognition of a univer­
sal demand in this country for the use of silver as money.
Mr. President, as to the bill before the Senate reported from the
Committee on Finance, does it recognize the right of silver as money
in the broad sense of the platform of the Republican party? Does it
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recognize silver in accordance with the general demand, as I think, of
the country for its use ? I think not. I have not given very much
attention to the bill originally introduced in the Senate and for which
the committee has provided these amendments, for the simple rea­
son that I have supposed, and I will now assume so far as this part
of the bill is concerned, that it is not in favor with any considerable
number anywhere. If I thought it was, I should have occasion to go
over some of its features and give some further reasons why the cer­
tificates ought not to be paid in silver bullion. I could show very
readily the great danger of paying these certificates in bullion.
I believe, as was stated yesterday by the Senator from Nevada with
reference to these certificates, that they would be used simply to take
from the Treasury the silver there deposited and to send it across the
sea. It would be making the Government of the United-States but a
warehouse for the deposit of silver. It would be a convenient place
where the merchants of Great Britain could buy silver for India.
I know it will be said, and has been said to me over and over again,
“ You have no right to suppose that is so; you have no right to suppose
a Secretary of the Treasury would use the power given to him in that
provision to take from the Treasury any amount of silver except it was
for the purpose of strengthening the Government, for the purpose of
giving greater security to these notes.” Why, Mr. President, with a
hostile Secretary from the time the Bland bill was enacted up to to-day,
every one of them religiously believing—because I have no desire to
question their motives—that it is a crime to coin more silver, believing
with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. M cPhekson] that every dollar
is but a 72-cent dollar (and we had that declaration from the prede­
cessor of the present Secretary, that it was cheap money and inferior
money and not worth its face in an official document), what else could
they do but encourage the sending of this silver away to prevent its
undue accumulation in the Treasury of the United States? They say
its accumulation as dollars is injurious to the public, credit and dan­
gerous to the public morals ! Would bullion be less dangerous ?
Mr. President, under this bill these Treasury notes are to be receiv­
able for public dues, but not for private dues. They can be put in the
reserves of national banks of the country and held as money, for the only
parties in the country that they are legal tender for are the banks.
They are legal tender for the banks for the purpose of meeting the de­
mands of the Government, but they are not legal tender in the hands
of any citizen in the country. And when we say that the interests of
the people are paramount to the .interests of the banks, when we say
that all the people of the United States are entitled to as good money
as the banks are, to money that will discharge their indebtedness as
readily as it will discharge the indebtedness of the banks, we are met
with the statement that it is very doubtful whether the Government
of the United States has the power to make a legal tender out of paper.
Mr. President, we have made legal tender out of paper. We made
it in the early history of the war. We made our paper legal tender
for the soldier and the sailor, and we made it .legal tender for every­
body except the Government and the banks and the bondholders.
When the bill that was commonly called “ the greenback bill ” first
came from the House of Representatives to this body it came here as a
legal-tender bill with full force and effect, and the Government of the
United States was bound to take the money issued under it as legaltender paper for all dues. Then the question arose, not as to the right
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of the Government to make it legal tender between citizen and citizen,
but as to the policy of making it legal tender as against the Govern­
ment for public dues, and that was stricken out in the Senate and! agreed
to in the committee of conference, and thus it became legal tender for
some purposes and not legal tender for others.
There never was a better illustration in the history of money of the
ignorance that prevailed when that bill was passed. We were desiring
to make good money. How do you make good money? By giving it
all the functions of money. But here we withheld one of the principal
functions for which money is used in this country, one of the principal
uses of money in this country. We said, “ You can pay certain debts
with it and certain other ones you can not pay with it.” Looking
back now, does anybody doubt that if we had given those notes fall
legal-tender qualities they would have maintained themselves during
the war? The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Gb a y ] shakes his head.
He doubts it, perhaps.
Of course, Mr. President, these are speculations. You can not tell
what might have taken place. But there is one thing nobody will
deny, that it w6uld not have sunk so low as it did, because it had a
valuable use in discharging the debt of one citizen to another. If it
could have discharged another debt of great importance for which gold
alone was used by the Government—that was the payment of duties on
imports—it would have been better money than it was and would
have retained something near its original status when it was issued.
Nobody can deny that. My own j udgment is that all the $400,000,000
issued Qf that money might have been kept at par with gold by proper
management on the part of the Government had it been given full and
complete legal-tender qualities.
Now, Mr. President, here comes this bill: certificates to be issued
to discharge the duty of money. What is lacking in them ? Thepower to "discharge a debt; the very highest and most valuable func­
tion of money is withheld from them, and if they should depreciate as
they will depreciate without that quality if issued in any great num­
ber, then we shall be told they have depreciated because the silver
that has been put into the Treasury is not good enough security and
the people have not faith in it, and we shall be told again that we
shall have a cheap dollar, a dollar cheaper than the gold dollar.
Mr. GRAY. If the Senator from Colorado will allow me, I should
like to ask him a question, because I am interested in the argument
he is making.
Mr. TELLER. Certainly, I yield to a question.
Mr. GRAY. In speaking awhile ago of the fact that the legal-tender
paper of the Treasury notes during the war and for a long time after
were not at par with gold, the Senator attributed that fact to the lim­
ited legal-tender quality which belonged to them by law, that is, that
they were not receivable for duties, and I believe that was the only re*
striction placed upon them. I ask him in that connection if he has
reflected upon the present situation, to wit, that those same legal-tenders, and nearly the same amount, are at par with gold, and what is the
reason that they are at par, although their legal-tender quality is still
of that limited quantity?
Mr. TELLER. That is a mistake. By an order of the Secretary of
the Treasury in 1879 they have been received ever since tor public dues,
and I can show the Senator from Delaware—I can take it out o f my
pocket, for I generally carry that with me—the last financial statement,
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showing exactly how many dollars of the revenues were collected in the
different kinds of money, and the Senator will find that the greenback
is received the same as gold.
Mr. ALDRICH. Will the Senator state in what proportion the re­
ceipts are in greenbacks?
Mr, TELLER. I will for the benefit of the Senator. I have it right
here. The Treasury Department publishes a little statement showing
the total receipts of the Government. The statement is headed No. 51,
“ A statement showing the monthly receipts from customs at New York
from January, 1887, and the percentage of each kind of money re­
ceived.” Here are the several months. We will take January, 1887,
and the United States notes received were 14.7 per cent, of the total.
They were during the last month, April, 2.7 per cent.
Mr. GRAY. Of the total?
Mr. TELLER. Of the total.
Mr. ALDRICH. What percentage in gold?
Mr! TELLER. The gold coin in January, 1887, was nine-tenths of 1
per cent.
Mr. GEORGE. Will the Senator please restate that?
Mr. TELLER. The gold coin received at New York inthe month of
January, 1887, was nine-tenths of 1 per cent.
Mr. GEORGE. Leas than 1 per cent.?
Mr. TELLER. In February four-tenths of 1 per cent.; in March,
eight-tenths ; in April, 1.10. Now I will take January, 1889. In
January, 1889, the first ten days the greenbacks paid in were 8.8 per
cent.; the next ten days, 10.2 per cent, and the next ten days, 10.6 per
cent. In January, 1890, the three periods being given of ten days
each, there were received lor the first period 4.3; for the second, 4.9,
and for the third, 4.6. February was still less. These are United
States notes.
Mr. GRAY. Will the Senator yield for a further question?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly, though I should like to read a little
more of this before I quit.
Mr. ALLISON. • I should like to have the Senator state how much
was in gold.
Mr. MORRILL. I should like to have the Senator state also that'
there was no law passed compelling the Secretary of the Treasury to
receive the notes, but when they rose to par he thought it was saving
the importers of New York and other places some inconvenience to
take the Treasury notes and go to the subtreasury and get the gold
and then pay the duties ?
Mr. GRAY. That was the very question I wanted to ask the Sena­
tor from Colorado, whether, in his opinion, the order of the Secretary
of the Treasury making Treasury notes receivable for customs duties
brought the notes to par with gold, or whether, having passed the re­
sumption act that went into effect January 1, 1879, thereby making
the Treasury notes at par with gold, it is not a mere convenience to
use the money that is convertible into the other at the option of the
holder.
Mr. TELLER. I think I am perfectly familiar with that.
Mr. GRAY. I think the Senator is more familiar with it than I am.
M r. TELLER. I w as quite aware before the Senator from Vermont
[M r . M o r r i l l ] informed m e that there was no statute upon the sub­
ject, but that these notes were taken by order of the Secretary of the
Treasury, and they w ere not taken by an order of the Secretary of the
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Treasury until they were practically at par, or perhaps I may say act­
ually, at par with gold. Before the 1st day of January, 1879, when
resumption by law commenced, resumption had taken effect and there
was nothing done on the 1st day of January, 1879, that had not been
done before except that the Government held itself out ready to pay
gold for greenbacks which the banks had been doing and were glad to
do for many months.
Mr. GEORGE. I should like to ask the Senator a question.
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr.. GEORGE. Is the Senator able ifco inform us whether the green­
backs were paid on the public debt or whether the public creditors re­
ceived greenbacks instead of gold for their interest ?
Mr. TELLER. I understand that on demand at the Department if
a creditor prefers greenbacks he gets greenbacks and if he prefers gold
he gets gold, and if he is away they send him a draft and he takes that
to a Government office and he gets there whatever he wants.
Mr. GRAY. That is a pretty good condition of finance.
Mr. TELLER. It is a good condition of .finance. I am not finding
*any fault with that.
Mr. McPHERSON. Will the Senator yield to me for a question ?
Mr. TELLER. I will yield to the Senator for a question, but I
know the Senator’s method of making a speech when he asks a ques­
tion, and I agreed to quit in, about an hour.
Mr. McPHERSON. I promise the Senator not to make a speech.
Mr. TELLER. I will yield to a question.
Mr. McPHERSON. The Senator says the Treasury pays all cred­
itors in the money they demand. That I believe to be true. If the
Treasury were ip a c6ndition to force silver upon the creditor, I want
to know what would be the condition then as between the silver coin
and the gold coin ?
' Mr. TELLER. How is that ?
Mr. McPHERSON. If the Treasury, by reason of a suplus of silver
and the absence of gold, should be compelled to pay the creditor in sil­
ver, instead of any money that he wanted or asked for, would not then
gold be at a premium and would not the public outside begin to look
out for themselves?
Mr. TELLER. Gold is at a premium now, and that is exactly what
we are complaining about. That is just exactly the trouble with this
country and with the world. Gold is at a premium of more than 30
per cent, of what it was when we demonetized silver, at a premium
over everything on the face of the earth.
I will answer the Senators question. That is just what the Govern­
ment does to-day. The Government has more than three hundred mill­
ions of paper out that is payable in silver, and it has never paid a dollar
of it in gold and will not pay a dollar of it in gold if the holder demands
it, but pays it in silver.
I heard it outside the Senate the other day that the way the silver
certificates were kept at par was that the Government would and did
redeem them in gold. I have an authoritative statement from the
Secretary of the Treasury that not a dollar has ever been redeemed in
gold, but they have always been and are redeeming at all times in sil­
ver, and they are as good everywhere as a gold dollar, as good in Great
Britain as a gold dollar, as good in Germany as a gold dollar, as good
in Canada as a gold dollar, and certainly as good in the hands of the
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American people, and they are redeemable in silver and are redeemed
in practice in silver and in nothing else.
Mr; McPHERSON. Will the Senator yield to me for one small ques­
tion ?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly I yield for a question.
Mr. McPHERSON. I think, if I remember correctly, the debate of
1878, in which the Senator from Colorado took a very active part-^—
Mr. TELLER. Not much.
Mr. McPHERSON. A declaration made, I think, by that Senator,
certainly by almost every Senator upon the floor, that if they thought
the then pending bill would not have the effect to bring silver back in
value to its former status they would be disinclined to vote for the bill.
At that time silver was at 8 per cent, discount. We have taken two
millions a month of silver bullion which has made more than two mill­
ions a month of silver dollars, and we have used it in our coinage, and
the price of silver bullion has fallen since that time 20 per cent. more.
Now, if I understand the Senator aright, he proposes, instead of any
limit upon the use of silver, to go into the free coinage of silver when
there has been 20 per cent, reduction in its value since we remonetized it.
Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, that is not a question, but that is a
speech of the Senator.
Mr. McPHERSON. I want to know if the Senator proposes----Mr. TELLER. If the Senator will allow me to proceed, I will say
it is a good deal like a lawyer I knew once, who, when he had heard
the judge charge the jury, as they do in some States, rather severely
against his client, was asked what he thought of the charge. He said
he did not call that a charge at all, but he called it an unfair summing
up. [Laughter.] So what the Senator has said is not a question, but
it is an unfair statement. If, however, the Senator will allow me to
go on I will answer it.
The Senator never heard me say, either in a public or a private
speech—and he may hunt the R ecord , and when he does I will give it
up—that two millions a month coinage would put silver at par, put it
up. That bill was as illogical and as absurd as the present proposed
makeshift is. It was dallying with the question, and was not the plan
of the silver people.
Why did we not go to free coinage ? Simply because Senators like
the Senator from New Jersey assuming that they knew all about what
would be the current of events in the future said if you take free coin­
age foreign silver will flood this country and we can not take care of it,
but if you will take two millions a month that will put it to par. It
is the Senator from New Jersey and his coadjutors who made that state­
ment, and not I. I never supposed it would put silver to par. I
thought it would do what the world sees now it did do, that it would
sustain in some respects silver and prevent its great fall. It was so
said before the English commission by all the scientists who testified,
without a solitary exception, that but for the Bland bill silver would
be lower than it is now, and when Mr. Comber, I think, one of the in­
telligent gold men, was asked what he thought about that, he said that
the Bland bill helped, but it had not been sufficient to sustain it. That
is all there is about it, and the Senator from New Jersey can not find,
if I recollect the debate, a single Senator who was a silver man who
expressed his belief that two millions a month would put silver to
par.
We advocated free coinage. We said perhaps $4,000,000 a month
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may put it up. We said so again and again, but we have not been
able to get the Treasury Department to try it. Why ? Simply be­
cause there has never been a Secretary of the Treasury, except it might
have been a few months when somebody was accidentally there, but
there has been no man in charge of that Department for any consider­
able length of time ■who has not been determined that silver should
not go to par, and anything that would put it to par he was opposed to.
Mr. BLAIR. If, as the Senator claims, free coinage would put sil­
ver up to par, why would not the coinage of $2,000,000 a month put it
up some?
Mr. TELLER. Two million dollars a month did put it up. It sus­
tained it: In another part of my speech, if I can be permitted to make
it in consecutive order, I shall touch upon that question. I promised
to give an opportunity for an executive session, and when I touch upon
a few other things I propose to leave the matter until to-morrow.
I want to go back to the statement I was making •when I was inter­
rupted by the question of the Senator from Delaware [Mr. G r a y ],
not wishing to decline to answer it, and I want to call attention to the
amount of silver certificates that are paid in.
I recollect the debate of 1878, when I was a member of this body,
and it was a matter of some interest to the people of my State, and I
remember very distinctly that the Senator from Vermont who sits now
in front of me, chairman of the Finance Committee [Mr. M o r r i l l ] ,
thought that if these certificates were received for public dues every­
body would grab for them and the result would be that all the dues
would be paid in silver, and so he offered an amendment which can be
ifound in the R e co rd that they should not be received or that only a
certain portion of the dues should be paid in silver certificates—a quar­
ter, I think, was the first, and then something else, and so on, saying
that there would be such a desire to get rid of them that everybody
would put them into the Government coffers and they would always
return to the Government, and the Government would get nothing but
silver; and I believe Mr. Cleveland frad that same trouble in his mind,
and Mr. Manning had it in his mind when they first came into office.
They said we were threatened with the increased mintage of silver,
with such a redundancy of silver certificates that the people would not
want them and they would come into the Treasury in payment of duties
on imports, and the Government would have no gold with which to
meet its obligations. Let us see how much we have received since
1887. That is as far as I have got the statement.
In January, 1887, there .were 16.2 per cent, of silver certificates; in
February, 10.1; in March, 11.4. These are the silver certificates paid
in for duties on imports that thus found their way back to the Treasury.
In July, 1888, these fell to 8.3 per cen t; in August, to 5.5 per cent. ;
in September, to 4.4 per cen t; in October, to 3.6 per ce n t; in Novem­
ber, to 5.4 per- cen t; in January, 1889, to 6.2 per cen t; in February, to
5.3 per cen t; and in April, 1890, to 1.6 per cent
Mr. GEORGE. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. GEORGE. I should like to know what percentage of these silver
certificates could have been paid in by the permission of the Secretary
of the Treasury?
Mr. TELLER. All of them.
Mr. GEORGE. The whole duty could have been paid in that way?
Mr. TELLER. All could have been paid in silver certificates. The
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payments in gold certificates were as follows: In January, 1887, 67.8
per ce»t. ;f in February, 74.2 per cent.; in January, 1888,77.6 per cent.;
in February, 75.8 per cent.; in January, 1890, 92.5 per cent.; in April,
95.4 per cent.; and, so far in May, 94.9 per cent.
Mr. President, a Senator asks me the explanation of that. I suppose
the explanation is that the gold certificates are largely kept in New
York. They do not circulate as money; they are in large denomina­
tions, there being now in actual existence 190,000,000 of gold certifi­
cates that are either of the denomination of five or ten thousand dollars
each, and it is simply a question of convenience. Gold is not, as the
Senator from Nevada [Mr. J o n e s ] said yesterday, in circulation in this
country to any considerable extent. I do not deny that it is doing duty
as money to some extent, but it is not in general circulation.
Before I leave this Subject—because when I commence again I de­
sire to take up another feature of the bill—I want to call the attention
of those who are in favor of increasing the circulation and who believe
it ought to be increased, to one provision in this bill as it is reported by
the Finance Committee which I think is dangerous.
The certificates are redeemable, according to this bill, in lawful
money. They are not legal tender; they can not perform the highest
money duty; they can not discharge debts. “ Oh,” it is said, “ every­
body will take them.” Mr. President, everybody will take them when
they do not need the legal-tender quality; everybody will take them
when business is all right. But what you need the legal-tender quality
for is the time of distress, of financial convulsions and panics.
I have heard it said recently that there has been no trouble about
legal tenders. We people of the West know better. I have seen in
the State in which I live telegrams to send legal tender from Qmaha by
special train to Denver more than once. I know two parties left New
York with the legal tenders for the city of Denver in 1873 to meet de­
mands for legal tender during the panic of that year. Why should this
not be legal tender for all parts of the country? These notes are prac­
tically legal tender for New York City, for Philadelphia, and for the city
of Washington, because they have a Government agency with money
stored of a legal-tender character to which they can go and exchange
their certificates for legal tenders, but in the city of Denver, in the city
of Omaha, in Kansas City, no man can exchange these certificates for
legal tenders, and if he wants legal tenders he is at the mercy of banks
that have them, or more likely the banks will not have them and he
is at the mercy of his creditor.
Can anybody give me any reason why this certificate should not be
a legal tender? There are constitutional objections, I am told. The
Supreme Court of the United States has twice decided that we were
able to make legal tender in our judgment.
Mr. REAGAN. On our naked promise.
Mr. TELLER. On our naked promise, without a dollar back of it.
It is too late for any body to stand here and say, “ I object to the legaltender quality of these bills because of a constitutional doubt.” It is
a power that is potent here and it is potent everywhere in this country,
that has dominated legislation in the interest of capital,, and it is that
power which stands back and says “ You can not make this legal tender. ’ ’
Why, we do not need it as legal tender in New York. It is good enough
for us, it is held in the bank reserved. We can go to the Treasury or
subtreasury and can get legal tender. Any bill that gets my vote will
have a legal-tender clause, and I want to say to the Senator from Ar­
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[Mr. J o n e s ] , who charges that this is a caucus bill, that even a
caucus can not make me vote for a bill upon a money question that I
believe is inimical to the great interests of the people of the United
States.
The certificates or nfctes are to be used to buy bullion. There are
two classes of people interested in this bill.. One class feel that they
want silver to go up and they have a special interest in that. The
other class say they want more money, that everything else may'go
up. You want to make this money as good as it can be made, and the
Secretary is to buy silver at the market price with these notes—where?
In the bill introduced in another body it says “ the markets of the
world. ’ 1 That is what the Secretary wiil do, buy in the markets of the
world, and what he has been doing under the Bland bill. He has been
inquiring what has been the price of silver in Hamburg, what the price
of silver in London, what the price of silver in New York, but he never
bought it on New York prices; he bought it on the London price less
transportation. All Secretaries of the Treasury have bought it that
way, and that is what they will do again; so it will be the price in
London or Hamburg that will fix the price of the bullion bought, al­
though, of course, the New York price may be taken.
If these Treasury notes lack the confidence of the people and they
depreciate the eighth of 1 per cent., if they go down at all, there will
not be a dollar of silver bought; nobody will take them and give silver
of the market price. The certificates or notes are to be practically
used in this country, and if they depreciate then silver must go
up in order to meet that depreciation. Then the price of silver in
this-country will be higher than it is abroad, and no silver will be
bought at all, and that, in my judgment, is what commends this bill
to the consideration of a great class of men who are clamoring for its
passage to-day, who are the opponents of silver, and who declare we
need no more money.
Mr. President, I am not mistaken when I say that the dominant
class in this country in finance—the creditor class—do not want any
legislation that shall put silver up, nor do they want any legislation
that shall give to the country more money. Why ? They have studied
the financial question, and they understand that it is the number of
units that determines the value of money, and they say: ‘ 1The number
is great enough now: we want to stand where we are; we do not want
any more.” And the whole influence of that class of men will be to
put down the value of these certificates that they may be below the
gold value, and then they will buy no bullion here or anywhere else,
and there will be a practical suspension of bullion purchase and a prac­
tical suspension of the issue of money under this bill.
Mr. President, should this bill meet with favor and become a law
it will be possible to put silver up in the markets to par. A combina­
tion can be made to suspend the coinage of silver in this country, with
untold capital. Millions and millions of money can be aggregated to
destroy silver as money in this country, and of that I shall speak later
on. All the great interests that hold the credits of this country, amount­
ing to nobody knows how much, are interested in having what some
of the Senators here have been in the habit of calling “ the best kind
of a dollar,” and if they can destroy silver by putting silver to par
they will do it, and if it is put up to par for one hour that is the end
of this bill, and then the special agencies that put it up will be inter­
ested in putting it down. There is no provision if silver goes down
kansas

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that there shall be any further purchases. The Secretary stops when
silver goes to par, and could not, if he would, buy more. I do not
mean to say that the committee anticipated that that would be done.
I do not charge anything upon the committee. I charge nothing upon
any member of this Senate, either now or in the past, but I simply say
that this can be done, and, this being so, it is a dangerous bill, either
for the men who want to put up the price of silver or the men who
want to increase the circulation of this country.
Mr. President, I promised the Senator from Kansas [Mr. I n g a lls ]
that I would yield for an executive session, and, if it is agreeable to
the Senate, I will yield now and go on later with my remarks, or re­
sume to-morrow, as shall be the pleasure of the Senate.

Thursday, May 15, 1890.
Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, yesterday in my remarks upon the
bill as recommended by the Committee on Finance there were two
features to which I endeavored to call the attention of the Senate, which
seems to me should be amended by the friends of the proposed measure
if they seriously intend to do what the bill on its face purports, namely,
in the first place, to raise the price of silver and, in the second place,
to give to the country an increased circulation. If, under any circum­
stances, the silver bullion to be purchased be purchased at the market
price in the world’s market, as the Secretary of the Treasury in his re­
port suggests it should be and as the bill of the House which has been
presented to that body declares it shall be and there should be a depre­
ciation in these notes of the slightest amount, there would be no further
purchases of silver bullion under the provisions of this bill.
We understand very well that the Treasury notes which are to be
issued in the payment of the purchase of silver are the only money that
the Secretary of the Treasury will be authorized to pay out for silver
bullion. Under the existing law, what is called the Bland bill, he does
not pay out silver certificates, but in practice, as I understand, he pays
out whatever the seller of silver bullion desires, gold, greenbacks, or
silver certificates. So, practically, the purchase of silver under the
present statute is a purchase for gold. This bill is a departure in that
particular, that it is to be purchased by this kind of paper, and this
kind of paper alone. As I said yesterday, if this paper depreciates the
eighth of 1 per cent, it will cease to be current money, and it will cease
to buy silver in this country. If the silver in this country is to be
sold at the market prices of the world; that is, if the silver-bullion
holder is not allowed to raise the price of silver to correspond with the
depreciation of the paper, he will not sell it to the Government. I
think that is plain and clear; and it is very doubtful if the market
price of silver went up materially in the city of New York, no matter
how the Secretary of the Treasury might feel, no matter if he was
friendly to the scheme and anxious to promote the object professed in
the bill—it is very doubtful whether any Secretary of theTreasury would
be willing to pay a higher price than the markets of the world indi­
cated it should be in the city of New York. So, there would be no
opportunity for the silver-bullion-holder to meet by advance on his bull­
ion the depreciation of the money with which the bullion is to be
bought.
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Therefore, it becomes of absolute importance, essential to the success
•of this scheme, if it can be at all made a success, that this paper money
should have the highest possible money function, that it should have
all the value that we are capable of giving by law to paper money. It
we withhold one of the principal duties of money, the discharge of in­
debtedness, or if its full legal-tender quality is denied to it, we invite
its depreciation and a suspension of purchases under this bill. So there
would be an end of this effort to do the two things that it is professed
it is intended to do, to put up the price of silver and, what is of in­
finitely greater importance to the great masses of the people in this
country, to famish them a sufficiency of money for the proper trans­
action of their business, and thereby increase the prices of ail human
products in this land.
So, Mr. President, it seems to me that no friend of tho amendment
offered by the Committee on Finance ought to object to giving these
notes full legal-tender qualities.
There is another way, as I suggested yesterday, by which this scheme
can be rendered abortive, and that is by putting silver above par. It
it is put above par one single moment, if one single honest transaction
in this country puts silver above par—that is, if it is an honest purchase
o f a single quantity of silver—I do not mean if there is a fraudulent
purchase, but if by any circumstances, natural or artificial, forced or
otherwise, silver can be put above par, so that one man will buy of
another honestly any quantity of silver above par, there is an absolute
suspension of all purchases of bullion under this bill, and no notes can
be issued thereafter.
Mr. ALLISON. When the Senator says par he means above par?
Mr. TELLER. I mean above par., That is what I mean. That is
the language of the bill, no matter how little or how much above par.
Mr. ALLISON. That is not probable.
Mr. TELLER. The Senator from Iowa says that is not probable.
It is not probable, in my mind, that any legitimate effort in the direc­
tion that this bill goes will ever put silver to par. I have not any doubt
that it will put silver up. I have not any doubt that it will sustain
the price of silver for a time. We have seen the very introduction of a
scheme to recognize silver in this country as a commodity to be bought
by the Government has pui silver up. Why? Because it has been
apparent to the people abroad that if we should consume our entire pro­
duction, one-third of the world’s product and more, there would be
a demand for silver that could not be met, and so it will put silver up.
Suppose it puts silver within 10 or 15 per cent of par—I do not know
exactly what would be par, but I suppose 129 would be called par in
this country----Mr. MCPHERSON. Par in gold ?
Mr..TELLER. Par in gold. It would be lees in Great Britain; it
would be less in France.
Mr. President, I cabled attention yesterday to the great interests in
this country arrayed against silver. It is not any vain supposition; it
is not the imagination of the people who want to use silver; it is borne
out by the facts and admitted everywhere that there is a party, not in
this country alone, but in all parts of the world, the party that holds
the credits of the world, the party that takes toll from us, that takes
toll from all the industries, that levies tribute upon all enterprises.
They are arrayed against silver as money. They have held this coun­
try in defiance of public opinion against silver. That influence has
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been powerful enough to hold Germany against heeding the demandsmade by the Germans in various departments of business, notably the
agriculturists of that country, who to the extent, as I have mentioned
before, of eight hundred and forty associations petitioned the Govern­
ment to return to the silver standard. It has held Europe in spite of
the opinions of the most learned writers on political economy that it
would be disastrous to abandon the use of silver.
For seventeen years it has held the whole civilized world in its bonds.
It has its seat in*the East, on the other continent. It has had its in­
fluence here. It still has it. It added to the national debt of this
country by legislation one-third more than it was. It added to all the
debts, State, municipal, and individual, one-third more, nearly if not
quite. Its members have enriched themselves at the expense of the
many, and colossal fortunes have been built up in this country and in
Europe within seventeen years, to which there is no parallel in the
history of the world—fortunes equal in extent to the fortunes that were
brought back to Rome by the Roman conquerors when they invaded
Asia and despoiled the people of that continent of the accumulation of
ages.
Does anybody believe they are now ready to surrender their advan­
tage and adopt a financial system that we know and they know will
relieve the tax-ridden and burdened debtors of this country and the
world and put- them on the plane where they were in 1873 ? Why,
Mr. President, the energies of these people are beyond calculation.
Their avarice is only equal to their energy, and they can put silver to
par when they want to do so if they can by so doing destroy it as a
money metal, and then come back and say to us, “ Silver will not do
for money. We told you it was not a stable money metal, and you
have got to go to the only stable money metal, gold.” Is it a delusion
to suppose that that may be done when you consider that by some
method unknown in this country they succeeded in demonetizing sil­
ver? whether corruptly and wickedly, as is charged, or whether it was
by the ignorance of the American Legislature, I do not know and will
not pretend to say. Does anybody here to-day doubt that the demon­
etization of silver was procured and that it is not an accident ? Had
there been in this country any agitation of the question, had there been
any demand, had there been any discussion, had there been any call
for demonetization from any portion of the world? There had been
from a few doctrinaires in Europe. It had been attempted here, and
it met defeat when it was attempted openly.
Surreptitiously and in the dark, like a thief in the night, it stole
into the bill wickedly or corruptly, or on account of the weakness or
ignorapce of the men who were charged with the examination and
consideration of that subject, a bill that destroyed in this country
silver as a money metal and put the great financial country of the
world, the great producer of silver, producing one-third or more of the
world’s product, the richest country in the world, upon a gold basis
without the knowledge of the Executive of this country who signed
the bill, without the knowledge of the men in this Chamber or in the
other House, save it might be the committee and the committee alone
that were in conference over that bill; and it is doubted by many
whether even they or but a portion of them knew of this crime against
the people of this country and the world.
Mr. President, the demonetization of one metal was resolved upon
in 1856-’57. Up to 1848-’49 the production of gold in the world had not
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exceeded for very many years $40,000,000 per year. Silver was pro­
duced in a limited extent. All at once, without an opportunity for the
nations of the earth to provide for increase of a money metal and to
change their financial condition, gold production increased until there
were produced $200,000,000 a year; and the men who then held the
credits, the men who were making a bold attack upon the industries
o f the world, were alarmed at the increase of the product of gold.
Then they took steps to demonetize gold. They demonetized it in Ger­
many. Great Britain demonetized it in India. Other sections of the
world demonetized it. Then in course of time gold fell off and silver
came to the front, its production having largely increased.
Mr. GEORGE. To what time does the Senator refer?
Mr. TELLER. The time when the California and Australian product
was brought into the market. Silver then began to be produced in
excessive quantities, and gradually year by year increased from noth­
ing in this country to twelve, fifteen, twenty millions, and then these
same parties, intent upon what they had been trying to do for a series
of years, that is to demonetize one of the metals and do business with
the other for the purpose of making dear money, changed their base
and determined that they would demonetize silver.
Mr. President, can any mortal man give any reason or can anybody
tell me why silver in this country should not have been treated as
money when we demonetized it? We were then producing $70,000,000
o f gold and silver. We were without either in the commercial circles,
practically without either, being on a paper basis, and yet silver was
demonetized, demonetized when it was apparent to all that the pro­
duction of silver was to be greater in this country than the production
of gold. In 1868, the Committee on Finance of this body, under the
leadership of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman], who is still a
member of that committee, reported to the Senate a bill to demonetize
silver. The Senatoj from New York [Mr. Mobgan], who was then a
merchant, as he had been for many years, put in an adverse report, and
no further steps were taken in that direction. The reason given at that
time why silver should be demonetized was that we were producing
gold in greater quantities than silver; but when we did actually de­
monetize silver, I repeal, we were not only producing it in great quan­
tities, but every observant man in this country knew that the silver
production must rapidly increase and ultimately double that of gold,
as it eventually will.
Mr. President, knowing all these facts of history, knowing the effort
that has been made to demonetize silver, knowing that the advantage
that the men who secured its demonetization have obtained by it, I am
prepared to suspect that they will do anything which is within the
range of legislative enactment or of commercial transaction to accom­
plish their purpose, and so any bill that comes here with a provision in
it that will allow such a state of affairs is not a perfect bill. If there
wasa provision in this bill that when silver went to par the mints should
be opened and silver should be coined, there would be no inducement
for anybody to force the price of silver temporarily and thus compel
the abandonment of purchases under this bill.
The demonetization of silver by Germany'and the United States was
the result of an effort, as I said, that started in 1856 or 1857. In 1863
there was a conference at Berlin for the purpose practically o f uniting
upon some universal coin. It did nothing. In 1867 there was another
conference and at that conference we were represented. We were not
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represented at the conference of 1863 as I recollect, for perhaps it is
needless to say that at that time we had not much interest in coin one
way or the other.
In 1867 Mr. Ruggles represented us at that conference. There were
seventeen or nineteen nations—I have forgotten now the number, but
it is immaterial—represented in that conference which was held at
Paris. In that conference they determined that there should be a single
standard and that should be gold, and it was in accordance with that
determination that the Senator from Ohio introduced into the Senate
the bill of which I have spoken, with his report, which can be found
if any Senator is curious to look at it. In that report it was recom­
mended that the gold dollar should be reduced in value 3J per cent,
to conform to the French coinage. Save and except England, I think,
nearly all the countries in the conference had agreed to it, and yet noth­
ing was done.
I find that in 1878 when a conference met in Paris one of the learned
men who addressed the conference stated that this movement for the
demonetization of silver had its origin with the doctrinaires, with
the philosophers. That is undoubtedly true. But it was, as I have
stated, the moneyed influences, the capitalists of the world that in­
duced the final action in Germany and in this country. They took
advantage in Germany of the fact that the German nation having been
composed of a variety of provinces had united themselves under one
general head, had consolidated, you may say all, under the Emperor
quite recently, and they began to demand a national coin and a national
money. Previous to that time the various provinces making up the
German Empire had to some extent been independent of the German
Empire with reference to coinage. Then it was demanded that there
should be a general coin.
Germany had been a silver country, having demonetized gold when
it was coming in in such great quantities. She demanded at the close
of the French war of the French people $1,100,000,000. She received
that practically in gold. She received $250,000,000, the first payments,
in. gold, and then received for the balance exchange on the great cities of
the world, and those drafts were paid in gold. So Germany had ac­
cumulated a vast sum of gold. Believing that Great Britain’s success
in a great measure had depended upon the fact that it was a gold-stand­
ard country, some of her statesmen .fell into the trap of making gold
the only legal-tender money of Germany. It was asserted in Germany
that they would stand side by side commercially with Great Britain,
if they became a gold country,
Mr. DOLPH. If it will not interrupt the Senator, I wish he would
state the precise date at which the indemnity was paid to Germany by
France. As he has given the subject much attention, he will perhaps
be able to state it without difficulty. * I would like him to state also
what the legislation of Germany was for the demonetization of silver—
what the provisions of the acts of 1871 and 1873 were.
Mr. TELLER. I can not state that except from memory and I will
not undertake to do it. It is not material. I believe, however, it is
not disputed that they received this vast amount of money in gold and
that that was the moving cause of the abandonment of silver and
making gold the standard in Germany.
Mr. DOLPH. I do not wish to interfere with 'the Senator-----Mr. TELLER. I have not the documents before me, and I can only
state from memory. If I had the documents I could show it exactly*
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Mr. McPHERSON. Will the Senator yield to me for a question?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. McPHERSON. Will tbe Senator inform me from what sources
he derives his information touching the payment of the French indem­
nity to the German Government in gold? I ask the question for in­
formation, because the Senator’s statement is so entirely in conflict with
the information I have touching that subject that I presume he has
some source of information on which he makes the statement, and 1
should like to know what it is.
Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, it would be no more than fair, I sup­
pose, that I should ask the Senator from New Jersey where he gets his
information.
Mr. McPHERSON. The Senator has made a statement tor which I
supposed he had authority, and therefore I asked him the question.
My own information has not been verified.
Mr. TELLER. I will answer the Senator as well as I can. No man
comes into this body to discuss a question with his proofs as he does
in a court of justice. I make the statement as an historical fact, and
the Senator c*n not find any respectable authority to dispute it. I
would be unable to tell the Senator where I have found a hundred
things that I think I know touching this question, but I can go to my
library or I can go to the general Library, perhaps, and put my hand
on them. I assert that that is a truthful statement of the facts, that
two hundred and fifty millions of the indemnity was paid in gold, the
balance in exchange.
Mr. McPHERSON. And the exchange was payable in what? Was
it payable in thalers ? Was it payable in tbe coin of Germany, in the
silver coin, or was it payable in gold ?
Mr. TELLER. The Senator from Louisiana [-Mr. E u s t i s ] assures
me that tbe payment in gold was provided for in the treaty. I do not
remember about that, because at this moment I can not tell where I
got these facts. But France did not pay in German money, as tbe Sena­
tor from New Jersey seems to think. France did not draw on Germany.
She drew on the places where she had money on credit.
Mr. EUSTIS. Sterling bills on London.
Mr. TELLER. She drew sterling bills on London, as suggested by
the Senator from Louisiana. I would not undertake to say where the
bills were drawn. They were acceptable to tbe German people and
they got money for them, and if they were going on a gold basis they
did not take silver. They had silver of their own to sell, which they
put on tbe market, and lost $20,000,000 in making tbe sale of silver,
a loss of 80,000,000 marks, which is about $20,000,000, as I recollect.
They did not take silver. I think that may be admitted.
They said “ It is a good time for us now to put ourselves commer­
cially in accord with Great Britain,” a nation with which they'had
great commercial transactions and have had for many years. The
principal commercial relations of Germany are with Great Britain
and its colonies. I think the Senator perhaps will not dispute that.
So they put themselves on a plane financially with Great Britain, be?
lieving, as I said, that much o f the prosperity of Great Britain was
due to the fact that it was a gold-paying and a gold-receiving nation,
although Lord Beaconsfield said in 1873 that that was not true; that
the prosperity of Great Britain came before and did not come because
of gold. On the contrary, he indicated very clearly that the gold basis
had not been profitable to Great Britain as early as 1873, before this
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great controversy respecting the use of silver had disturbed the whole
financial world.
When Germany had demonetized silver they were wise enough not
to attempt to put the law in practical operation immediately. Little
by little they put their silver out on the market. Practically they
put no silver on the market to amount to anything until about 1872
and 1873, and mainly in 1873 their silver came on the market. We
had in the mean time, without the knowledge, I repeat, of the Ameri­
can people, without the knowledge of the President who signed the
bill, Without the knowledge ot the most illustrious men who sat in.this
body at that time, declared that we were on a gold basis also. We had
said that we had joined Germany in proclaiming that there was to be
but one money metal hereafter, and that gold.
Mr. President, I do not intend to spend any time over the method
in which this was done. It has been asserted repeatedly in the public
press, whether truthfully or not I do not know, that an Englishman of
very great repute, of considerable learning and considerable reputation
as a political economist, thoroughly imbued with their notions of polit­
ical economy, was the real mover and the cause of the demonetization
of silver in this country.
It has been stated in the public prints—whether truthfully or not I
do not know, and nobody can know—that a large sum of money was
raised in Great Britain to be brought here to secure the demonetization
of silver and put this country on a gold basis. This man, Mr. Seyd,
did come here and was before the committee charged with this matter
in.the House of Representatives, and this is proved by the speech of
Mr. Hooper, the chairman of the committee, who, on the 9th day of
April, 1872, declared that the committee had received valuable sug­
gestions from Mr. Seyd, a distinguished political economist. Whether
there was any improper conduct or not, nobody can say. It is very pos­
sible that the men who did know that the silver dollar was left out
believed that they were doing a valuable thing for the country, that
they were putting us where we would not get on a silver basis.
There have been a great many men m this country within the last
twelve or fifteen years who believe that, notwithstanding the fall in
prices, notwithstanding the whole world has been shaken financially
by these two transactions, and there are men here who still insist that
the danger of going to a silver basis and being classed with the ignorant
barbarians of Asia who use silver and silver only is a sufficient justi­
fication for the increase of all debts, public and private, for the des­
truction of one-third of the values in this country, for the practical
financial enslavement of the great laboring masses of this country; and
so it is not strange, believing as they believe now in the face of these
facts, that the men who surreptitiously or openly or in any other way
demonetized silver believed that they were doing God’s service when
they did it. But it was done; and when we woke to the fact that we
were on a gold standard, when we found prices tumbling in every di­
rection, when we found property shrinking in value, enterprises stand­
ing still, when we found that all our industries were being injured and
and that the debtor class were being ground down beneath the strong
hand of the creditor class, without the hope or the prospect of getting
out from under their control, even then there could not be found a
sufficient number of men in the legislative department of the Govern­
ment who had the moral courage to stand up and say ‘ ‘ We will put
this country back financially where it belongs, and if it works disaster
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to the creditor class we will offset that against the disaster that they
have worked to the debtor class.”
Mr. President, silver fell. Why would it not fall as measured by
gold? Germany had demonetized silver; she had said, “ Our mints
are now forever closed to i t ” She had $350,000,000 of silver to sell.
The American Government had demonetized silver and closed her
mints to it; and when the Latin Union—a union of which we have
heard so much, a union composed of only a few more millions of peo­
ple than there are in the United States—we hear it talked about as i f
the Latin Union comprised all the nations of the earth, when the Latin
Union was only 72,000,000 strong, and, compared with us in financial
strength, as a boy is to a giant—when they said “ We will limit the
coinage of silver,” then silver went further from gold; and when, a lit­
tle later, still frightened, they closed their mints completely and they
said there is no demand among these 72,000,000 of people lor silver as
money, and then the Scandinavian countries, and then other regions
abandoned silver, and the great demand for silver for mintage, which
is the only demand that makes silver valuable, as shown by the Sena­
tor from Nevada* [Mr. J o n e s ] the other day—all other demands and
all other uses are infinitesimal in comparison to the great demand for
it as money—-when that demand was closed and when the labor which
was done by the millions and the millions of silver was thrown upon the
'decreasing millions of gold, does anybody wonder that gold depreciated
when measured by gold? Does anybody wonder that prices fell when
measured by gold ? That is what the men who procured the demone­
tization of silver intended. They were students of finance. They
knew that the use of one metal and one metal only enhanced the value
o f that metal and destroyed the value of everything on the face of the
earth save that which was payable in that metal and that alone. They
held the securities; they held all our Government bonds, then millions
of them; they held almost all of our railroad bonds, how many, I do
not know, but the Senator from Nevada [Mr. S t e w a r t ] can perhaps
tell me how many millions of railroad bonds they held. They held
them practically all.
Mr. STEWART. They held in 1873 about five thousand millions.
Mr. TELLER. Five thousand millions of railroad bonds of the
United States they held in 1873—practically all that were then out.
They held largely of our debt and they held the debts of all the
world. At a dinner in Great Britain some time ago the Argentine min­
ister stated that the people of the Argentine Republic owed to Great
Britain £100,000,000. Mr. Norvin Green, a man of some reputation
in this Country, testified before the Labor Committee of this body that
we owed in Great Britain $2,000,000,000, on which we were paying on
an average 6 per cent interest, or $120,000,000 a ytfar, and we were
paying it in gold, and paying it in the enhanced price of gold with an
addition of 25 per cent, or 30 per cent, at first, and now at least 33 per
-cent
Mr. President, it is said that silver is unstable, that it is not fit for
tmoney. We have heard that in this Chamber. I have heard mem­
bers of the Finance Committee, in defiance of history, in defiance of
the universal consensus of mankind—I mean of the men who have
studied finance—stand here and declare authoritatively to the Ameri­
can people that gold was the measure of all values, and was now, as it
always had been, immovable in price. Why, sir, the veriest novice in
the study of finance knows that gold has varied in price, not only as
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compared with silver, but as compared with commodities more than
silver in the history of money.
In 1845 in The Netherlands they abandoned the gold policy and went
to silver upon the distinct statement then made that silver was the
stable money of the world, and not gold; that gold was fluctuating
money, and when the great output of gold in California and Australia
came on to the European markets nobody pretended that gold had not
depreciated. Why, sir, in the Paris conference of 1867 the president
in .making his report declared that $ne of the objects was to gefc rid o f
gold coin and to recoin the silver, because gold had depreciated and sil­
ver had risen, and it had gone to the metal pots and then5gone to the
East.
Mr. BUTLER. If it will not disturb the argument of the Sena­
tor----Mr. TELLER. Not in the slightest.
Mr. BUTLER. I should be obliged to him if he would give his
opinion of the effect of the unlimited free coinage of silver in this coun­
try upon an international monetary arrangement, upon which great
stress has been laid and upon which I should be very glad to have the
opinion of the Senator; that is to say, if it suits the Senator at this>
point of his argument to give i t
Mr. TELLER. I intended to do that before I got through, and it
is quite immaterial whether I do so now or later on. My own judg­
ment is in favor of the unlimited coinage of silver, and since the Sen­
ator from South Carolina has asked me that question I will drop the
point I was on and touch on that, and go back to the other later.
Mr. President, everybody must admit that this proposed bill, whether
it be the scheme of the Secretary of the Treasury to buy bullion and
to pile bullion up in the Treasury Department and pay it out again on
the demand of the note-holder, or whether it is the committee’s amend­
ment, is a temporary scheme. I believe that not one of the committee
will claim that it is a permanent thing. They say it is temporary.
They are stopping to see; they are waiting to see what is going to be
the current of events and what is going to happen, and they say to us:
“ You ought to accept this. It is true it is not k lull restoration of silver
to its money function, but it is a half-way house at which you can stop
forawhile, and when you gather strength you can go on.*1 Not long since
I was looking over the debates of 1881 in the Paris convention, of which
the honorable ex-Senator from Ohio, Judge Thurman, was a member,
and I was struck with the statement he made, to which I will call the
attention of the Senate. In that convention we were asked as a nation
to take some half-way measure. We were not asked to go nor were we
permitted to go to free coinage with their assistance, but they said,44Here
you can do something that will keep your gold and hold up the price of
silver. ’ ’ Various schemes were suggested and Judge Thurman said what
I shall read. We all know that Judge Thurman was a man of remarkable
judgment and ability, and that he had a fund of practical sense in all
affairs. Let me read what he said on page 428 of the proceedings of
the International Money Conference held in Paris in 1881:

R elying on th e goodness of its cause an d believing in its u ltim ate triu m p h , it
could afford—
Speaking of bimetallism—

I t could afford to m arch step by step in stead of in sisting upon reachin g th e
goal, a t a single bound. B ut, if w e be invited to h a lt a t a half-w ay house an d
ta rry in it for a season, w e m ust, before w e accept th e in vitatio n , be w ell assured
th a t the tenem en t is n o t a dangerous one for us to occupy. N ow , here, it seem s
to m e, lies th e chief obstacle to th e acceptance of th e propositions in question.
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So, I say of this scheme, it is a half-way scheme; it is a half-way
house. It affords to us no relief whatever, except that we make a spe­
cial demand or a special market for our silver in excess of oar present
demand of two and a half millions a month.
Mr. President, I said yesterday, and I repeat—and I do not believe
on that there will be any controversy—that the way to restore silver
to its former position as the chief money metal of the world (for, rotwithstanding the 4idolizing of gold, silver from the earliest history of
the race has been the money of the people) is to give it free and un­
limited coinage. When the Senator from Nevada [Mr. J o n e s ] spoke
of the claim that by doing this we should be put upon a par with
India and barbarous nations by using silver, I was struck byfhis re­
mark. Mr. President, the great lights of history, prior to the Chris­
tian era, the men of the classics, whom we delight to study, rarely or
never saw a gold coin. They handled silver and silver alone. Gold
was for ornament, for the storing of wealth. It did not do money
duty until later than their day to any considerable extent, and did but
little money duty until at least the beginning of the Christian era.
I repeat, if we propose to restore silver to its normal condition as the
chief money of the world, we must give it the full functions of money.
Why, there are at least nine men in the world calling for silver as
money where one man calls for gold. There are not to exceed in the
civilized world 125,000,000 of men who prefer gold to silver, while
there are more than a thousand millions of men with whom by prefer­
ence and by law silver is the chief money, or at least equal with gold.
Silver is better adapted to the use of men than gold; and while I am
a bimetallist myself and anxious to maintain the two metals, because
I do not believe that either one is sufficient, if w« have got to have only
one money metal I will welcome for myself, in the interest of the race,
in the interest of the people of my country, a silver basis, and the sooner
we reach it the better, the better for our industries, the better for our
commerce, the, better for our trade, the better for everything.
Mr. President, you can trad« with nine hundred or a thousand mill­
ions of the human race to-day with silver, and but little more than
one hundred millions demand gold. You can trade with all the peo­
ple of the American continent from the extreme north to the extreme
south with silver better than you can with gold. This is a makeshift;
and if this question is ever settled, if we are to go to a silver coinage in
the old-fashioned way, automatic coinage, and have the automatic prin­
ciple, why is this not a good time to do it now?
In 1878, when silver and gold had parted only 10 or 19 per cent., as
I recollect—I think the Senator from New Jersey said yesterday 8 per
cent., and perhaps a little more—then we were met with this problem:
The House of Representatives sent us a bill for free and unlimited coin­
age. If we had had the courage to pass that bill, if we had done what the
Secretary says would be a heroic movement, if we had provided for the
unlimited coinage of silver, does anybody believe that silver would
have parted with gold to the extent it has ? Does anybody believe there
would have been falling prices, there would have been increasing bank­
ruptcy all over the world? No, we should have staid the downfall
of silver and we should have held up silver, and we should have done
for silver what France did for gold in 1849 and subsequent thereto :
we would have maintained the relative position of silver to gold and
we should now be the great money center of the world. Instead of
having: to play second fiddle to Hamburg, and Berlin, and London, we
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should have the great financial center of the world on this continent,
where of right it belongs—the city of New York.
What would have been the result? We should have kept at home
every ounce of silver; no man would have sent it abroad if he could
walk to the mint and have it coined. The moment that we ceased to
send silver to Europe the Latin mints would have been opened,
France would have continued to coin silver, and all the countries that
were departing from silver would have gone back to it, and the former
demand—the money demand, which is what makes silver valuable—
would have been what it was before; and free coinage here will open
all the mints of Europe to silver coinage that were open in 1871 and
1873.
Can anybody tell me why suddenly there should have been a part­
ing of gold and silver except for the reason I have given, that the de­
mand for silver as money had been destroyed by legislative enactment of
the two great countries first, Germany and the United States, and then
by the other countries of Europe, who were afraid that we would put
upon them all the silver we had ?
There has been a question in this body for a number of years as to
what was the cause of the so-called depreciation of silver. I have stood
here and repeated over and over again, not on my own mere judgment,
but after the most careful researches—researches made in anxiety to find
the facts—that it was produced by legislative action and legislative
action only.
I was supported in that by the very nearly unanimous opinion of the
conference of 1881. Nearly all of the men who were in that conference
declared that the divergence between gold and silver was not the re­
sult of overproduction, not the result of vice in the silver, but was the re­
sult of legislative disbarment from the mints of the world. On the other
hand, those who are now afraid of free coinage, notably the members
of the Committee on Finance, who stand aghast at the suggestion that
there should be free coinage, have said here and have gone into the pub­
lic press and everywhere declared that it was not the legislative action,
but it was overproduction and a lack of money qualities in the silver
itself. The Royal Commission agreed unanimously that there was no
overproduction of silver; that the so-called depreciation was due to
legislation.
Mr. HOAR. May I ask the Senator a question?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. HOAR. The question I desire to ask the Senator is this: Sup­
pose the law had remained as it was prior to the statute of 1873, does
the Senator think that the decline in the price of silver would have
been stopped or seriously lessened ? I do not say this by way of sug­
gesting any argument against that of the Senator, but to get his opinion
lor information.
Mr. TELLER. When silver was demonetized in this country every
silver dollar was worth 3 cents and a fraction more than a gold dollar;
that is, the material in it was worth that. You could take the bullion
and melt it up and go to Great Britain or anywhere else and buy gold
enough to make a dollar and three cents and a fraction.
Mr. President, there was nothing anywhere that indicated that sil­
ver was going to fall if there had been an increased production, but an
increased production from thirty millions—I mean the entire world
now—to eighty or ninety or possibly one hundred millions.
Mr. STEWART. Eighty-one millions.
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Mr. TELLER. The Senator from Nevada says eightv-one millions*
It is a little difficult to say just how much. There had been some in­
crease, but nobody had suggested in the public prints of the world, in
the financial circles of the woriel, that there was danger from overpro­
duction of silver. If we had remained upon the double standard with
our mints open, if the demonetization of silver in Germany had cast
down the price of silver and the Latin Union had restricted it as they
did and as probably they would because of the advent of German silver
on the market, then our mints would have been opened immediately
to the coinage of silver in this country, and every silver-miner and
every silver-owner, every man who had an ounce of silver, could have
taken it to the mint and converted it into legal-tender money, against
which, then at least, there was no prejudice heje or anywhere in the
world.
When Germany had disposed of silver and it entered into the cur­
rent traffic of the country as it would, it being only 350,000,000, it was
an infinitesimal amount when passed out compared with the great bulk
of silver in the world, and in a little while it would have been spread
all over the world, and it would have gone into the interior of Asia,
where it goes by the million, never to be heard of and never to be re­
turned again. When it was thus dissipated a normal condition of things
would have been arrived at. The mints would have been opened and
silver, being there rated at 1 to 15J, and in India at 1 to 15, would have
found a market better than even our mint market, and tlfen the doors
of our mint would have been closed, not by law, but for the lack of
silver to coin, and we should have been in no danger of a silver basis.
We should have realized the ideal of a gold standard, but not a gold
standard appreciated 30 per cent., but a gold standard of a normal
kind, where it is as good as any other standard that can do money duty,
as it has done in the past with silver as its handmaid and assistant.
So there would have been no financial convulsion.
The demonetization of silver in this country was of infinitely greater
importance to the financial world than the demonetization of silver in
Germany, because when Germany demonetized silver she produced
practically no silver, or only a trifle, and when she got rid of it she
had no more to put on the market, and Germany could never have been
allowed by her people to sell three hundred and fifty millions. The
people rose in arms, as it were, and demanded that the silver should’
be retained, and the demonetization of silver in Germany has never
been completed to this hour. It is doing duty there as money, and
the $170,000,000 that was devoted to sale is still doing money duty in
Germany, and, as I said a little while ago, eight hundred and forty agri­
cultural societies made demand upon the German Government that
they should cease, and the German Government, not insensible to pub­
lic opinion and public desire, stopped the.sale of silver, and there is no
more probability of selling it now than there is that we shall sell the
silver dollars in our Treasury, not a particle.
So, Mr. President, if we had kept on the double standard basis we
should have saved the world immense difficulty, we should have saved
bankruptcies at home and abroad, and we should have taken our posi­
tion in the first rank as the leading financial nation of the world, as we
have a right to do. But instead of that we stand here and h&ggle and
higgle and say, “ Well, what is England going to do; what is France
going to do; what is Germany going to do ?” and we producing the sil­
ver of the world, practically one-third of all that enters into money, if
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not more, and likely in a few years to produde one-half of it, and what
we do not produce our neighbors do produce by the side of us—Mex­
ico, with whom we ought to be allied in interests commercially, and
South America—the 110,000,000 ounces of the world’s production of
silver we have produced all except 15,000,000—I mean the Amer­
icas have produced 90,000,000 to 95,0(K),000, and with this vantage
ground are afraid to take the step to give silver its old place as money
and to open our mints. Why ?
First, they fear that we shall be overflooded with silver and that
gold will be driven out. That is the first great fear. The second is
that you will inflate the currency to such a degree that the men who are
suffering under debt, under taxes fixed, under mortgages and under
bonds, will be able to get out and to stand once more erect in their
manhood, having their debts paid.
Suppose the silver of Europe comes here; you can put into the circu­
lating medium of this country and not inflate it t6-day $250,000,000.
Two hundred and fifty million dollars are needed in this country right
now for circulation for the benefit of trade and the benefit of commerce.
Where can $250,000,000 of silver be found? Where is it ? France has
a thousand million dollars of silver; the Treasury Department says
$700,000,000, but the better authority is that it is nearer $1,000,000,000
than $700,000,000. Will she send it here ? The Bank of France bolds
to-day, as I see by the last Economist that came to me in my mail this
morning, $2^1,000,000 of silver. Can she spare any of it? She has
notes out to cover that silver; she will not spare it.
France is determined to remain upon the double standard. There
is no sentiment in France in financial circles or anywhere else in favor
of the single standard. She could not send us silver without losing at
least 3 cents on every dollar, besides the cost of transportation, insur­
ance, and interest. Where would it come from? I have stated that
Germany could not send it to us. Germany has some silver now, but
she needs it and needs more. There is no surplus of silver anywhere.*
Indi^ is the great depository of silver, and has been taking it in un­
told quantities for generations, more particularly, though,, of late years.
Nobody knows how much she hus; but silver is coined in India at 1
to 15, or a difference of nearly 7 per cent, from ours, and every rupee
of India silver is doing duty in India exactly as it did duty thirty years
ago; there is no variation.
If there is this great store-house of silver somewhere why has it not
gone to India ? Why is it that India takes less silver now than she
took years ago ? India from 1856 to 1870 took more than the entire
production of the world of silver. She took last year $46,000,000 of
silver. She has taken on an average for the last six years $35,000,000
of silver. Now, the mints are open, India is full of goods, India is full
of everything that people want. Why has not all the silver of the
world found its way into India to be coined ? The mints of Mexico
are open, the mints of Japan are open, and they have been open all the
time, for silver in Mexico at a little more than our ratio, and in Japan
at still a little more than that, and now even China has opened her
mints to the silver of the world.
We were told in 1878 that all the silver of the world would come
here, that we should be overwhelmed with it. We have since that
time exported silver and not imported it. We were told then that gold
would be driven out. We have imported gold in untold amounts. I
repeat what I have stated here before, there is not in the history of the
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■world any nation that brought such an amount of gold into its country
in the ordinary methods of trade and commerce as ours in the last few
years.
Mr. STEWART. And no country ever purchased it at a greater sac­
rifice.
Mr. TELLER. The Senator from Nevada tells the truth when he
says no nation ever purchased it at a greater sacrifice or at a greater
price.
Mr. EDMUNDS. Does the Senator mean that we paid too much for
silver?
Mr. TELLER. I am talking about gold. I say that this country
has paid a great price for gold. Gold does not go to any country where
the price is not the highest. It is like every other commodity. Wheat
goes to the country where the price is the greatest; goods go to the
country where the price is the greatest. The best market in the'world
is where the prices are greatest. Gold would not have come to this
country if we had not given it its full value and an appreciated value.
Mr. EDMUNDS. Have we bought any gold?
Mr. TELLER. The Senator from Vermont asks if we have bought
any gold. Yes, we bought gold, but not in the way that the Senator
means. We bought it with our products, and we have sent our prod­
ucts to a fallen market. We have sent them to Great Britain to com­
pete with the ryot of India. We have by this method of ours destroyed
the wheat market of this country, not only for to-day, but, in my judg­
ment, for all time. You may not only charge against this gold craze
the losses that have occurred now, but you may charge up the losses
that will occur for years to come. You have stimulated the industries
o f India, the wheat-growing, the corn-growing, and the cottoc-giowing
in that country to such an extent that India has become a competitor
with us for wheat and cotton and corn, which she never was before,
and which she could not be now but for the cheap silver. But having
established this industry in India she will keep it up probably to our
detriment for all time.
Mr. EDMUNDS. Do I interrupt my friend?
Mr. TELLER. Not a particle.
Mr. EDMUNDS. My friend has stated that we have bought gold,
not buying it as we have bought silver, by the Government, but that
the farmer and the wheat-owner has bought it by selling his wheat in
London, or wherever, and getting gold for it. Now, I should like to
ask him whether he means by that to say that the farmer was com­
pelled to take gold against his will for his wheat or whether it was a
thing he was glad to get for it?
Mr. TELLER. Oh, Mr. President, the Senator from Vermont is
playing* with words.
Mr. EDMUNDS. Not at all: I am trying to get at tbe real point.
Mr. TELLER. This is a question, in my judgment, o f importance.
I do not care to have it belittled by any sharp controversy or little
suggestions of that kind. The Senator from Vermont does not misun­
derstand me. What I mean to say is that you have put us in compe­
tition with the India wheat-grower, and we have sold our wheat at 30
per cent, discount to what we would have sold it at if we had not been
put in competition with the India wheat-grower.
Mr. EDMUNDS. That is quite another thing.
Mr. TELLER. That is why I say we paid a great price for gold.
Mr. EDMUNDS. Now I understand the Senator.
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Mr. TELLER. Mr. Pi esident, I did not intend to speak of India
wheat at this stage of my remarks, if I did at all, because I might
leave that for a future occasion, but inasmuch as this has come up I
will.
I do not think that anybody can understand how this works. There
is pot any question that the price of wheat in India has remained
practically where it has been for years. Heretofore India could not
produce wheat and send it to Great 'Britain and compete with us; it
cost too much for transportation and too much to raise it, and the dis­
tance was top great. To-day shesends her wheat to England and buys
gold for it just as our people buy gold for it. She takes the gold price
for her wheat in London or Liverpool, and buys silver with the gold,
not silver dollars, but silver bullion, and instead of buying it at $1.29
an ounce, which it ought to be, she buys it for 92 cents, as she did last
year. She would buy it now for a little over a dollar. The exporter
of the wheat takes that bullion to India and coins itr into rupees* So
what would have cost him originally $1.29 costs him 92 cents. He
coins it into rupees, and the rupees buy just as much as they ever
bought in India.
Mr. COCKRELL. And pay as much.
Mr. TELLER. And pay as much. Mr. President. I make the state­
ment now as a fact; if anybody disputes it I will simply refer him to
the testimony taken before the British commission on the depreciation
of the precious metals, where it was admitted that that condition of
affairs existed, and where'it was asserted by the gentleman who repre­
sented India in his official station that the purchasing power of the
rupee in India had remained practically undisturbed; and that by
means of this bounty, as they termed it, by buying cheap silver and
coining it into dear money (f^r it is dear compared with what it costs),
they had been enabled to send not only wheat, but corn, and cotton,
and cotton yarn to England. One witness testified before the British
commission of which I have spoken that it took them fifteen years in
England to raise their spindles from 150,000,000 to 250,000,000, and
that India under this impetus given to it by the cheap silver had added
a hundred million spindles in ten years.
Mr. McPHERSON. Would it trouble the Senator if I should ask
him a question there?
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. H a r r is in the chair). Does the
Senator from Colorado yield to the Senator from New Jersey?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. McPH ERSON. 1s the Senator anxious to have the United States
of America placed upon the same position with respect to her market
that India is to-day with respect to her market in England? In qther
words, does the Senator want the Government or the people of this
country to pay tribute to England as India does now?
Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, we are paying tribute to England
now. Does the Senator from New Jersey believe that England is anx­
ious to see us remonetize silver?
Mr. McPHERSON. I do not think she is.
Mr. TELLER. England has been buying cheap silver and sending
it to India and using it there at its full value. Every ounce of silver
that is bought at 92 cents and taken to India, leaving out any question
of seigniorage, will coin into 137T% cents, because their ratio is 1 to
15. Now, England is not anxious that we should go to free coinage.
The dominant influence in that country is against it, and we should
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not be paying tribute to England if we went to free coinage. If we
did go to free coinage, how could it be said that we paid tribute to
England ? In what way ? I will let the Senator from New Jersey now
tell me how he thinks we should pay tribute to Great Britain if we
should go to free coinage.
Mr. McPHERSON. I will answer the Senator, if he jwill give me an%
opportunity, as briefly as possible.
Mr.*TELLER. I do not want the Senator to make a long speech.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Colorado yield
to the Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. McPHERSON. The Senator, during the delivery of his speech,
has called attention to the fact of the large amount of debt that the
people of the United States owe to England, in the shape of bonded
debt upon railroads and other things, the interest and principal of which
in most cases is payable in gold. India in like manner owes to Eng­
land a large sum annually, which India can not pay in the products of
India. As to the balance of that debt, India pays it in gold. Her
rupees are taken to London and are translated into English sovereignsj
and must pay the debt due to England in gold. Whatever may be the
price of silver, the lower the price the greater percentage she will have
to pay in order to translate that money into money acceptable to Eng­
land and money in which the debt is due. Therefore, if the Senator
will place this country on a silver basis, which he proposes to do by the
free coinage of silver, it will put us in exactly the same position with
respect to all commercial transactions with England that India occupies
to-dav, aud necessarily so.
Mr. TELLER. Mr. President----Mr. HISCOCK. I suppose the Senator from Colorado can answer
two questions as well as one. As I understand his argument he be­
lieves that the free coinage of silver will have the effect to appreciate
prices. I am right in that, am I not?
Mr. TELLER^ Certainly.
Mr. HISCOCK. What is to be the effect in India, provided the value
ot the rupee in currency is appreciated and its purchasing power en­
larged or increased, as affecting the industries ot India ? Suppose you
add 20 per cent, or 10 per cent, or any other per cent, to the value of
the India silver; i^hat effect is that to have on the industries of India?
Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, I am not solicitous about India.
Mr. HISCOCK. I of course put this question aod made this sugges­
tion with reference to the Senator’s bill.
Mr. TELLER. If the Senator has not put the 'question let him put
it to suit him.
Mr. HISCOCK. I have put it, but the reason I made the suggestion
or put the question, whichever you choose to call it. was that I under­
stood the Senator from Colorado to say that in the free coinage ot sil­
ver we would have a remedy against cheap India competition, and that
we.should be better able to maintain ourselves in the markets of the
world against their products.
Mr. TELLER. I do not know what the effectof the remonetization
of silver in this country or in the world will have upon India; that is
a matter of speculation of course and there has been a good deal of
speculation about it. I do not propose to speculate except to say that
India is a country that i3 immovable in its habits and in its customs.
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It is practically, except so far as English enterprise has changed it,
what it was three hundred years ago.
The enterprise I spoke of in India is the enterprise not of the Indian,
but o f the Englishmen who have gone there. They are the men who
are building mills, they are the men who are manufacturing, and they
are the men who are drawing the real benefit from all these transac­
tions. Nobody knows what the effect would be. The question is what
would be the effect here in this country. The first question is, what
is the danger? Is there any danger in going to free coinage? I know
what the Senator from New Jersey would say. I have heard that. I
know what the Finance Committee^ some portions of them, would say,
for I have heard them. I know they will say “ you will be on a silver
basis.” Two years ago this month when we passed a bill here which
provided that as each dollar of national-bank notes went out of circula­
tion a silver dollar should take its place; I heard the Senator from
New Jersey say, if you pass that bill and it becomes a law, in sixty days
you will be on a silver basis. The bill did not become a law. We
passed it through here, but it failed in the other body; but sipce that
time we have added more than $60,000,000 of silver to our hoard of
silver, and still we are not on a silver basis. I f we open our mints to
free coinage of silver we will not go to a silver basis, but we will by so
doing not only relieve our own people, but open the mints o f Europe to
the free coinage o f silver as before the demonetization of silver in 1871.
Mr. McPHERSON. W ill the Senator yield to me a moment more?
Mr. TELLER. Yes, sir.
Mr. McPHERSON. The Senator is probably aware of the fact that
in the past two years it has been necessary for the Treasury Depart­
ment to make large loans of gold in the city of New York for the pur­
pose of maintaining its obligations, which the Treasury Department
received to be payable in gold At one time no less than $10,000,000
was borrowed by the Treasury Department from the New York bank­
ers. Therefore we have been pretty near the /point when we should
have been obliged to pay some o f the obligations of the Government in
silver.
Now, let me ask the Senator a question. He has made the statement,
I believe, that there is but a very small quantity o f silver bullion any­
where in the world. Conceding it to be true that there is but a small
quantity available for coining purposes, suppose that you pass a law to­
day providing for the free coinage of silver without any particular stock
of silver anywhere whence to draw a supply to make dollars; let us
suppose, for instance—and I may possibly be right for once in my as­
sumption— that the moment you pass afree-coinage bill you drive all the
gold in the country, some five or six hundred million dollars, from its
hiding-place, where are you going to get the money to take the place of
the gold that you drive out of circulation? Would you not suffer?
Would not the effect of it be the greatest contraction of the currency
we have seen in this country ? Where could you supply the place of
five or six hundred million dollars of gold simultaneously driven out of
circulation by reason of the fact that thegold-holder sees, and with cer­
tainty, that we are going to a silver basis as hastily as we can go ? What
resort then have you but again to apply to the printing press to meet a
contraction, which is as certain as doomsday?
Mr. TELLER. I do not know whether I understand the Senator.
Does the Senator say that the Government has borrowed gold ?
Mr. McPHERSON. I do.
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Mr. TELLER. When did the Government borrow gold ?
Mr. McPHERSON. Under Secretary Manning’s administration.
Mr. TELLER. That is rather an old story, but since the Senator
has injected that into my remarks, so that if I should ever have them
published it will be there, I think I shall take occasion now, although
I had not intended to do so, to call the attention of the Senate and o f
the country to that remarkable transaction. I had supposed that was
one which the average Democrat did not care to mention, and I w ill
venture to say that there is not another one on this floor who would
have been proud of that transaction or would have mentioned it.
Mr. McPHERSON. The Senator-----Mr. TELLER. I will go on to make my answer, Mr. President.
Mr. McPHERSON. I simply want to make the statement here, if
the Senator will permit me, that he has found one Democrat-----The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Colorado yield ?
Mr. TELLER. I do not see that I can help it.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will see that the Senator
does help it, unless he desires to yield. Does the Senator yield?
Mr. TELLER. Yes, certainly.
Mr. McPHERSON. I will repeat my answer. The Senator has
found one Democrat who will admit everything that is a fact and is
known to be a fact, whether it hurts his side of the question or not.
Mr. TELLER. It is pretty well known that in July, 1885, Mr. Jor­
dan, who was then Treasurer of the United States, was present at a
congregation of bank presidents in New York who got together ostensi­
bly for the purpose of sustaining the credit o f the American Govern­
ment, which was on the verge o f bankruptcy! The new Administra­
tion had just come in. The President had appealed to his party asso­
ciates to demonetize silver. They had told him, in terms polite but
emphatic, that they would not do it; that the Democratic party was
not in favor o f the single standard o f gold; and then this remarka­
ble convocation of bankers in New York City got together to prevent
the Government o f the United States from paying its obligations in
what? In silver. Every obligation that the Government had out was
by law payable in silver. It was the money of this country and o f the
contract, and not even the gold barons had any right to complain that
they were getting silver, for they had ^stipulated that they would have
silver or gold. It was on the face of the bond. They had put it in the
bond themselves and demanded that it should be put there before they
would take the bond.
Mr. STEWART. It was printed on every bond.
Mr. TELLER. It was printed on every bond that it was payable in
coin of the then standard value silver o f July 14,1870. Now, that was
the dire calamity that might overtake the Government. So they got
together and said, “ The Government is in danger.” Of what? Dis­
gracing itself by paying according to its contract. The next morning
every financial region of the earth contained the statement that the Gov­
ernment o f the United States was on the verge of bankruptcy. Had
there been any executive officer in that meeting officially he ought to
have been impeached. A more shameless attack upon the public credit
has never been known in the history of the finances o f this country.
Was the Government in danger o f bankruptcy ? I demonstrated in
a speech that I made he're, but I will not go over it, that there was an
abundance o f gold to pay every maturing obligation of the Government.
There was not the slightest suspicion o f danger of paying a silver dollar,
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and the Treasurer, and the Secretary, and the Chief Executive knew
it. They said that they were not responsible for the transaction. They
said they did not get it up; it was these loving bankers who were anx­
ious to give the Government a lift and keep its credit at par. And Mr.
Jordan, the Treasurer, said he was only a looker-on and not there of­
ficially.
Mr. President, the Government o f the United States is able to take
care o f its paper and pay its debts without the help o f the bankers of
this country or any other. There was gold in the Treasury; there were
greenbacks in the Treasury; there were national-bank notes in the
Treasury more than they borrowed; and there was silver there. I f the
Government wanted gold it could have turned its securities into gold;
I mean not its bonds, but the notes that it held, its greenbacks. It did
not need to do it. Besides, the amount loaned was six millions, and not
ten.
That, I assert here now, was a combination and a conspiracy o f the
bankers of New York to frighten the American people, to compel them
to bring the influence of public opinion upon the legislative department
to compel the suspension o f the coinage of silver. That is one of the
methods that they took to create a public sentiment and to create a
fright in the city o f New York and other financial centers, to make the
people believe that the Government could not pay its obligations in
gold.
How many men in this country look at the financial statements o f
the Government? Not one man out of a hundred, not one out o f a
thousand, probably, knows what the financial statement is, and when
the report of that proceeding was spread broadcast over the land, when
it was known that the Treasurer was there, not, as I said, in his official
capacity, but in a capacity which indicated that at least he was giving
indorsement of this pretense, the people had a right to suppose there
was some danger that the Government could not pay its debts accord­
ing to contract.
The Government of the United States was in no danger o f bank­
ruptcy. They had a surplus all the time. They had $100,000,000 o f
gold to meet the demand. They had more than that. At that time,
in addition to the $100,000,000 in gold, they had $37,000,600 as good
as gold, besides their silver. I repeat, a more shameful transaction
never has occurred, and if the Treasurer had been there in his official
capacity or if any other official o f the Government had been there, he
ought to have been impeached.
The Senator from New Jersey can not bring that up and say the Gov­
ernment has been on the eve of paying silver. But if it was, it would
be all right, because it is according to the contract, and not>ody has a
right to complain. You may strangle the industries o f this country,
you may depress and destroy the profits o f labor everywhere, and no­
body complains; but i f you threaten one o f these bondholders with
taking the money o f the contract that he stipulated-for, then there is
a cry of alarm, and then the Government is to be disgraced.
I f they had taken the 72-cent dollar that the Senator is so fond o f
tal king about they would have made money off the Government. They
bought the bonds for 60 cents on the dollar, but we are willing to pay
them according to the contract in a dollar that is as good as any other
dollar that ever went into the hands of man, the dollar of the contract
which the Senator from Nevada [Mr. J ones] said the other day was
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the honest dollar, and it is always the honest dollar, and no man has a
right to demand more.
Mr. GORMAN. W ill the Senator from Colorado yield to me for a
moment?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. GORMAN. Merely as a matter o f justice to the officer whom
he is now criticising, I think he ought in fairness to state that the Sec­
retary o f the Treasury immediately preceding Mr. Manning, Hon. Hugh
McCulloeh, as late as February, 1885, within one month o f the time
when Mr. Manning assumed the office, in a telegram to his officials in
New York, Which I remember to have produced in this body, himself
said that we were threatened with suspension at the time. The trans­
action o f which the Senator now speaks, which occurred under Mr.
Jordan and Mr. Manning, was immediately after they had come into
office with that fact staring them in the face. Mr. McCulloch himself
believed we were getting to a silver basis, and this transaction, the ex­
change o f thirty or forty million dollars o f silver for gold, was because
o f the unsettled condition of affairs produced, not by Mr. Manning or
any transaction under his administration.
Mr. TELLER. Oh, I remember all about Mr. McCulloch; and that
is rather ancient history in connection with the finances o f this coun­
try. It is. not worth while to go over that; it is a chapter that no
man, whatever may be his political faith or political affiliation, can be
proud of. I do not speak of his last administration, but I speak of the
first. I speak o f the contraction that cast a blight over this country
and prevented us from recuperating from the war, as we would have
done in a few years but for the contracting policy o f Mr. McCulloch.
J do not doubt, in fact I know that he entertained precisely the same
fears that Mr. Manning entertained.
Mr. President, I have said before that I believe every Secretary o f
the Treasury has been imbued with the same sentiment and Controlled
by the same influences, and I have said that that is not the exception
in this present Administration; nay, more, I have said that I doubted
whether it would not always be the case, whether the people could suc­
ceed in putting into that great Department o f the Government a man
who would be in sympathy with. them. It is nothing to me what Mr.
McCulloch may have done; it does not excuse the transaction o f which
I have spoken.
Mr. President, I want to revert to one thing now before I leave the
question o f free coinage, and to say that the American people are not
so much alarmed about a silver basis as the Senator from New Jersey.
In 1880 the then Secretary o f the Treasury gave notice that he would
receive gold for silver certificates, and now the highest character that
a silver certificate has is that it is paid in silver dollars. The certifi­
cate can not be more valuable than the dollar in which it is payable.
It may be more convenient, but it can not be more valuable than the
dollar. He gave this notice on the 18tji day o f September, 1880, and
for some reason, I do not know what, revoked it November 1, 1881,
and during that time $80,000,000 o f silver certificates were exchanged
for gold.
Eighty million dollars o f the gold now hoarded in the Treasury, or
that has been there in the past, was practically put there by the ex­
change of silver dollars. Yet the Senator from Ohio and the Senator
from New Jersey and other Senators will tell us that we are in danger
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o f a silver basis if we go to free coinage, and that will be a public ca­
lamity.
Mr. President, I am not afraid of free coinage; the people are not
afraid of free coinage. What they are airaid of is contraction. What
I am afraid o f is an attempt to do the business of the world on one of
the money metals. I realize that the day for the use of money metals
in the way o f coin passing from hand to hand is practically over, but i f
you have paper money there must be a coin basis. It is useless to talk
about it and say we can maintain a large amount of paper without coin.
I do not so believe. I believe that the base must be as broad as possi­
ble. It is too narrow to put it on gold. The necessities of the country
will demand more paper than the gold will carry. There must be a
certain relation, as all political economists declare and as our experience
proves, between the amount o f paper and the metallic money for which
it is to be exchanged if the citizen holding the paper desires to so ex­
change it.
Nay, more than that; the credit of the world, which is infinitely
greater in the transactions o f mankind than the money which dis­
charges money duty, infinitely greater in enterprises and useful to a
greater degree than all the money, either paper, gold, or silver, must
be based also upon metallic money, and when you get an excess o f
credit over and above the metallic money, then there is a breakdown
in the credit. That has been the history o f finances everywhere. So
metallic money is absolutely essential not only for international trade,
but it is essential for stability o f domestic trade as well, in my judg­
ment. I do not believe that you can do business without it, and be­
cause if you attempt to do it you mu^t contract the currency and put
the people upon a short supply of money. I have said that this ques­
tion is one of vital importance, of importance to the people of this coun­
try, who have suffered from contraction inaugurated in the admin­
istration of McCulloch and kept up until this time.
It was Mr. J.-B. Say, a French political economist, who declared
that Europe had suffered fifty years of war because of errors in politi­
cal economy. Another politico economical writer declares that the
sufferings of the human race have been greater by mistakes in political
economy than by all the great wars. While that may seem an ex­
aggeration, yet I believe it to be true. I believe to-day the whole
world is suffering from contraction. Silver has been practically demon­
etized. While France maintains it at parity with gold by an effort,
while Germany maintains it in a limited quantity, and while we main­
tain a limited amount of it, yet practically silver has ceased to be the
money of the world; yet the world without exception is demanding its
return to money. A great party has risen in Great Britain. A tele­
gram was read the other day from Mr. Gibbs, ex-governor of the Bank
of England, in which he says:
The bimetallist party in the United Kingdom, now including over one hun­
dred members of the House of Commons, attach the greatest value to the
debate about to commence in your illustrious Chamber.

I have here a statement o f the representatives o f the different coun­
tries in the conference of 1881 who said that they were in favor of sil­
ver. France was in favor o f it; Russia was in favor of it; Italy wa­
in favor o f it; The Netherlands were in favor of it; Belgium was in favor
o f it, at least one o f her delegates: the German people were demands
ing it. It was declared that there was a sentiment all over Europe in
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favor of the use o f the two metals. But we have not succeeded in get­
ting the two metals into use.
An illustrious and distinguished writer, Mr. Alison, in speaking of
the decline of Rome, declared that the decline of•Rome and its final
destruction were to be attributed to the lack o f money, and Mr. Hume
says the same thing. The historian Arnold says the same thing, that
it was the lack o f money. Rome, that had been the mistress of the
world, that had dominated all the civilized races, that had taken trib­
ute from every country on the face of the earth then known to man,
went down into darkness and oblivion and disappeared from the map
of nations for the want of money. Alison andxother historians say
that the Dark Ages were the result of a lack of money. The money
shrank from the days of Augustus from £385,000,000" to <£34,000,01)0
when Columbus set sail for the Americas, and with it had come dark­
ness and blight, a lack of enterprise, a lack o f industry. The world
in 1492 was but little further advanced in civilization than it was be­
fore the Christian era.
The whole human race were in darkness. There had been a little
light given, it is true; there had been a little progress for the preced­
ing hundred or two hundred years, but there was great darkness, and
Alison says, when he speaks o f Columbus, that when he set sail he
bore the fortunes o f mankind in his bark. He did, Mr. President. He
discovered this continent, and then there was produced from this con­
tinent gold and silver which gave new impetus to trade and commerce.
Circulation was increased,and little by little business revived, and with
the revival of trade came civilization. It is a notable fact that the high­
est civilization, the highest culture, was in the regions that got the
most o f America’s money. * For forty-five or fifty years, or more, the
influence was scarcely felt. Then came the great discoveries of Potosi,
where three or four times as much money as had been in circulation
was poured into the marts o f trade, and then the world took new heart
and new courage, and business revived everywhere and civilization
sprang forward.
Mr. President, it is as impossible to do business without money and
to have civilization and progress and culture as it is to have human
happiness without light and air. It is indispensable. There is no na­
tion that ever made progress that did not have a sufficiency of money.
Therefore we bring this question before the American Senate, and it is
a question of vital interest to the people of this country. It is a ques­
tion whether we are going* to continue our advancement or whether we.
are going to stand still. It is a question whether the continual drop
in prices o f fifteen years is to continue to the enslavement of men, to
the suspension of enterprises, and to the especial destruction of the
debtor class, the great, numerous class in this country as in all others,
the class that create, the class that make and sell and buy things, that
•make civilization and culture possible—it is a question whether they
shall be ground down under the iron heel of the creditor class or whether
they shall have a fair opportunity for existence.
Mr. President, I insist that the men who prophesied in December,
1878, when we passed the Bland bill, are not to be heeded as prophets
to-day. I say that, if the Bland bill did not at least bring prosperity,
it saved us from absolute bankruptcy in this country. It saved us from
distress unparalleled. The American farmer is complaining in every
portion o f this country. There is a voice o f discontent coming up from
labor, labor organizations, farmers’ associations. But that is not conTEI*




40
fined to this country. It is as great in Great Britain; it is as great in
Germany; it is as great in every other country that I can mention save
and except France, where there is perhaps a sufficiency of money, France
having $45 o f gold afid silver per capita, according to the statement of
the Treasury Department, and we having, according to the same state­
ment, $22 per capita, which is not a correct statement after all, for we
have not that amount.
I wish to call the attention o f the Senate very briefly to what was
said when the Bland bill was before this body, and I wish to see whether
the prophecies indulged in by the then advocates o f the single stand­
ard and the now professed friends of silver were true. We were told
not only by members of this body, but we were told by the then Sec­
retary of the Treasury, in a statement before the committees of the
House and Senate, that $50,0(H),000 of silver money would drive all the
gold out of this country, and every man who doubted that was regarded
as an inflationist, a* one who desired to have cheap money at the ex­
pense of the best interests of the country. Let us see if that was true.
* During the ten years preceding the 31st o f December, 1877, we pro­
duced in the United States not less than $425,000,000 o f gold and of
sil ver not less than $270,000,000, or a total o f gold and silver of $695,000, 000.
Yet in the month o f February, 1878, when the Bland biU became a
law, our total amount o f gold and silver, exclusive of subsidiary coin,
was less than $180,000,000, of which $167,500,000 was gold.
During the ten years named, that is the ten years preceding Decem­
ber 31, 1877, we had exported $335,000,000 more gold than we had im­
ported, and $185,000,000 more silver than we had imported, making
$520,000,000 o f gold and silver in excess o f imports.
During the ten years succeeding the passage of the Bland bill we im­
ported $198,634,76*3 o f gold in excess o f our exports and we kept at
home our own production, amounting to more than $420,000,000.
So that in ten years we added to our stock o f gold more than $600,000,000, less What might have been used in the arts; and our stock of
gold is now estimated by the Treasury Department to be $684,000,000.
With less than $180,000,000 gold and silver, exclusive o f subsidiary
coin in 1877, we now have o f gold and silver $1,0;>8,000,000.
Surely the coinage o f silver did not drive gold out o f the country,
nor did it keep it out.
We were told that it would ruin the credit o f the Government; that
we would be unable to refund our debt at reduced interest.
We refunded our debt on most favorable terms, and Government
bonds became the most desirable of all securities, at a rate o f interest
unheard* o f before 1878. And since that time we have reduced the
public debt by more than 3 thousand million dollars, and we have paid
the interest promptly, according to contract.
We were told that the coinage of fifty or a hundred million dollars
would destroy the prosperity of the country and would be destructive
of all financial enterprises.
The national banks had in 1877, capital stock-----------$417,128,771
Undivided profits and surplus---------------------------------172,148, 365
Individual deposits--------------------------------------------------604, 512,514
Specie........................ ...................................... ................
32,907,750
Total resources_______________________________ 1, 226, 697, 400
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The national banks in 1889 had, capital stock________ $612,584,995
Undivided profits and surplus______________________
282, 260,629
Individual deposits_________________________________ 1,475,667,560
Specie_____________________________________________
164,326,448
Total resources__ -__ :________________________ 2,534,839,632
Mr. President, it is apparent that the silver act o f 1878 did not drive
gold out of the country, did not keep it out, and did not destroy finan­
cial enterprises.
During the preceding ten years our imports o f merchandise had ex­
ceeded our exports of merchandise by $399,426,600. That is, we
bought more than we sold by that amount.
During the ten years succeeding—that is, 1878 to 1887, inclusive—
our exports o f merchandise exceeded our imports o f merchandise by
$1,381,864,180; and this was not because our imports fell off, but by
reason of increased exports; for during the ten years mentioned our’
imports o f merchandise were more than $6,200,000,000, which was
more than $1,000,000,000 more than our imports o f any other ten years
of our history.
So the coinage o f silver did not destroy our foreign trade.
And the coinage of silver did not injure or disturb the business o f
the country.
What would our financial credit be without silver money?
Who dare contemplate it? Who dares to suggest that we discon­
tinue its use as money?
It is said by the ignorant or dishonest that it is not a suitable money
metal. The history of the world disproves this assertion. It has been
the foremost money of commerce, and is in daily use by three-filths o f
the people o f the world in preference to gold.
Its demonetization by Germany in 1871 and the United States in
1873, the closing o f the mints of the Latin Union in 1874, has inflicted
great evils on the human race.
It has brought disaster and poverty where there was prosperity and
wealth.
It has increased the burdens o f the debtor and filled the courts of
bankruptcy with its victims.
It has put a clog on civilization and retarded the progress of the
human race.
If its dire etiect has passed the palace of the rich, it has industriously
sought out the home o f the poor and people o f moderate means.
It has depressed prices o f all the products o f labor lower than they
have been in one hundred years.
It threatens to return us to the prices o f the fifteenth century, and, with
such prices, the degradation that comes o f ill-paid labor.
It threatens us with all the evils o f a discontented population, who
find the burden of debts and cheap products too great to be borne.
The measurement o f all values by gold has caused a continued drop­
ping in prices since 1873.
Notwithstanding so much has been said about the fall in the price
of silver, an ounce o f silver bullion will buy more o f the products of
the country than it would when it sold l6r 62 pence per ounce in gold.
I have taken the pains to get from the Treasury Department a state­
ment o f statistics that I desire to put in as, a part o f my remarks. This
table is made in periods o f five years.
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Table showing the annual averag'e export prices o f the following-named do­
mestic commodities f o r each o f the quinquennial periods ending. Ju n e 30,
1873 and 1889; also the average value p er o unce o f fin e silver during the
same periods, showing the decrease in 'values in United States money and
in percentages.
Average export price
for the five years end­
ing June 30-rCommodities.
1873.

Bacon and hams........
Cheese........................ .......do......
Corn.............................
Cotton:
Unmanufactured (not Sea
Island)...............
Cloth, colored.....
Cloth, uncolored,
Iron and steel:
Bar-iron...............
Pig-iron...............
Railroad bars......
Lard.............................
Leather.......................
Rice.............................
Sugar:
Brown..................
Ketined.................
Tobacco, leaf..............
Wheat......................... ....bushel...
Wheat flour............... .
Wool, raw...................
Silver, tine.................

1889.

Decrease in price dur­
ing the five years
ending 1889, as com­
pared with the five
years ending 1873.
United
States
money.

Percent­
age.

§0.119
.256
.140
.793

$0.084
.166
.092
.508

§0.035
.090
.048
.285

29.4
35.1
34.3
35.9

.203
.160
.148

.099
.065
.068

.104
.095
.080

46.8
59.4
54.1

5.326
2.184
4.071
.134
.257
.065

3.183
.953
2.169
.076
. 185
.055

2.143
1.231
1.902
.058
.072
.010

40.0
56.4
46.7
43.3
28.0
15.7

.103
.130
.105
1.360
7.029
.309
1.320

.056
.066
.091
.874
4.703
.223
.982

.047
.064
.014
.486
2.326
. 086
.3s8

45.6
49.2
13.3
35.7
33.1
27.8
25.6

r e a s u r y D e p a r t m e n t , B u r e a u o f S t a t i s t i c s , January 4.1890.
S. G. BROCK, Chief of Bureau.
Hon. H. M . T e l l e r ,
United States Senate Chamber, Washington, D. C.

T

Mr. President, that proves that silver as bullion will buy more of
the products than it would in 1873, or the period I have mentioned.
It is said by the advocates of the gold standard that it is practically
immaterial what prices the farmer gets for his produce, the merchant
for his goods, the laborer for his hire provided that everything falls.
That is true. It was said by the Senator from Nevada [Mr. J o n e s ]
the other day that the country could be put upon a basis o f a little
money if everything could be put on that basis, if everybody could
start anew. What is the difference whether we give 10 cents a bushel
or a dollar if everybody starts alike ? That is, if nobody has any con­
tracts out, if nobody owes anything. Money is not simply to make
exchanges. Money is not simply to measure values. It is to dis­
charge indebtedness; it is to complete contracts.
As to contracts made in 1873 or prior thereto, it is true gold was
jit a premium, but it takes from 35 to 40 per cent, more wheat and corn
and oats to pay the debts contracted in 1873 than it would take to have
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paid them then in gold. I f a farmer had contracted in the period I
have mentioned to pay a certain amount and expected to sell hams and
.bacon to. make payment he must under present prices, or the prices at
the beginning o f the year, when this table was made, sell 141 pounds
where before he would have paid by the sale o f 100 pounds. I f he con­
tracts for butter he must sell 152 pounds where he would have paid by
the sale o f 100 pounds before. I f he contracts for corn he must sell 151,
and cotton 154 where he would have sold 100 pounds before. I f he is a
raiser of wool and depended on his wool crop, where he expected to
pay a certain stim with the sale of 100 pounds he must add 30 pounds
to it. So it is through all the products o f human labor.
I repeat, if we could all start in the same place and on the same plane,
having the same amount o f goods and owing no debts, there is but
little difference how much money you start w ith; but when you make a
contract upon the basis o f the money in existence and the money is sud­
denly contracted, what is the result ? More products are demanded, more
com and more wheat. What is that but a legislative change of the
contract?
Mr. President, the act of 1873 was equivalent, as I have said before,
to adding to every debt in the land, private and public, if to be paid
to-day, from 30 to 33 per cent, more than the party contracted to pay.
Suppose the attempt had been made by the creditor dass by law to add
to their holdings 30 per cent., to compel the debtor to give them 30 per
cent, more o f money or products, the whole country would have been
in arms; there would have been revolution and war, and rightfully, too.
What right has the Government to do. by indirection what it dare
not attempt to do-by direction, and what the moral sense o f mankind
would be shocked at the suggestion of doing, to add to the debt of all
the people o f this great country, to compel the wheat-grower to add
fifty more bushels to every hundred, when he pays his debts by,the
sale o f wheat?
Ah, Mr. President, it is not only that. It is not simply that he has
to give more hours of labor, more time, more sacrifice. He may be ren­
dered absolutely unable to meet his engagements. The wheat-grower
who was farming his farm to the lull extent, the cotton planter who
was cultivating his land to the full extent, is called upon to add 50 per
cent, to his culture. But he can not do it; he does not have the land;
or, if he can do it, the fall in the price of cotton and wheat may make
it so low that he is actually working without a profit, and then bank­
ruptcy stares him in the face.
Mr. BLAIR. I should like the Senator to state in that connection
the further fact, if it is a fact, and I understand it to be, that the sev­
eral necessaries o f life he has mentioned, like wheat and corn, have
not increased in production, in quantity, so as to account for the de­
clination in price. How is that?
Mr. TELLER. I do mean to say that the Senator asserts that, but,
he is attracting my attention to the claim of overproduction, the claim
that we have heard for the last twelve or thirteen years in this body,
whenever any one complained of falling prices. It has been said there
is overproduction. The witnesses who went before the British com­
mission on the depression of trade were many o f them prolific in that
statement, that the fall o f prices in Great Britain had been because ot
overproduction or overcompetition Yet very many o f the most in­
telligent witnesses declared that there was no overproduction, and the
Witnesses asserted, I think as a pretty general rule, that there had
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44
been no cheapening o f the creation of products of any kind to justify
the fall in prices or to explain that fall. Now, the Senator wants to
know if there has not been more corn and wheat and oats and hay
raised-----Mr. BLAIR. I will say to the Senator that I do not want to know how
that is. but I desired the Senator in that connection to state the fact.
Mr. TELLER. Very well. The Senator asks me if that is not the
fact.
Mr. BLAIR. No; I do not ask if it is not the fact that the declen­
sion is on account o f increased production. I understand precisely the
reverse, and I thought it essential that the Senator should state in
this immediate connection that the decline in prices is not owing to
an increased* quantity or an increased production.
Mr. TELLER. I will give my view upon that subject then, if that
is what the Senator wants.
Mr. BLAIR. I thought it important to the country to have the
Senator state it.
Mr. TELLER. As I have stated, the claim of overproduction is a
general claim to account for low prices. I do not mean to say that the
Senator has that view. We have heard it here recently, and when we
have shown that in the same articles in this country the prices have gone
lower and lower, with smaller production, it has been said it was because
o f an overproduction in other sections of the world. It is pretty difficult
to meet that sort o f a statement when it is said it is overproduction
somewhere else.
Mr. President, what the trouble is in this country is underconsump­
tion. That is where the trouble is. It is a lack o f demand, a lack of
ability to buy. Now I will call the attention of the Senator from New
Hampshire to a statement I have here o f agricultural prices that will
perhaps illustrate the question o f overproduction as well as anything
that I can present to him.
AGRICULTURAL PRICES— CORN.

The average production o f corn during the years 1880,1881,1882,1883,
and 1884 was 1,575,144,286 bushels.
The average price was 61.1 cents per bushel, and the average value
was, in round numbers, $962,000,000.
The average production during the yeiars 1885,1886,1887,1888, and
1889 was 1,831,452,000 bushels.
The average price was 50.8 cents.
The Senator will see, if he will take the trouble to fighre on this and
some of the subsequent statements, that the increased production o f
corn bears a very dose relation to the growth of population, and that
the decrease in price bears no relation to the increase in product.
The average value of the corn crop for the period I have named, from
1885 to 1889, was in round numbers $930,000,000. In 1889, when the
crop was very much larger, it will be seen that there was a falling off
in the total value.
With a crop o f 256,000,000 bushels more than the average during the
preceding five years, it brought $32,000,000 less.
This estimate is based on the average price o f corn for five years at
ports o f export. I f we compare the value o f the great crop o f 1889,
2,112,890,000 bushels, with the crop o f 1880,1,717,434,000 bushels, we
find an excess over 1880 of 396,458,000 bushels.
The crop of 1880 was worth 54.3 cents per bushel, or a total in round
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numbers of $932,000,000, while the crop o f 18S9, computed on the price
o f December, 1889, January and February, 1890, was worth only $762,000,000, or a difference in favor of the smaller crop of $170,000,000.
Mr. ALLISON.' I think the whole question is not stated clearly, if
the Senator will allow me to interrupt him for a moment, unless it be
also stated that the things which corn would purchase have also de­
creased, perhaps not in the full proportion, but certainly very near the
full proportion, and that the price of corn o f whujh he speaks is meas­
ured in gold, and not in commodities.
Mr. TELLER. That is true. I wish to say to the Senator from
Iowa that there are some things which have not fallen. Taxes have
not fallen. Mortgages have not fallen. Interest has not fallen.
Mr. COCKRELL. United States bonds.
Mr. TELLER. United States bonds have not fallen.
Mr. GEORGE. Salaries.
Mr. PLATT. Interest has fallen in some places.
Mr. TELLER. Interest has fallen in some places, but the men who
made contracts when corn was worth 61 cents a bushel find themselves
compelled to pay interest contracted for then with corn at very much
less.
Mr. COCKRELL. It is 15 cents now.
Mr. TELLER. It is 15 cents now, as the Senator from Missouri
suggests.
Mr. ALLISON. *Mr. President-----The YICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Colorado yield to
the Senator from Iowa?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. ALLISON. With the promptings of the Senator from Missouri,
etc., and a personal allusion made by the Senator from Colorado be­
cause I interrupted him with a statement o f fact which I think worthy
of statement in this connection, it is not necessary lor the Senator to
address himself to me as to the other points, because I may agree with
him on all of them.
Mr. TELLER. I hope my allusion to the Senator was not offensive
to him. I did not mean it to be so at least. I have no doubt the Sen­
ator knew all about it. I have no doubt he has heard the complaint
o f the people o f his State, and that he is just as anxious as I am to rem­
edy the evil.
Mr. BLAIR. I hope the Senator from Iowa w ill take all this in
good part. I rose with the effort to draw irom the Senator from Colo­
rado a fact in the direction of his argument, and am in tull sysmpthy
with his argument, trying to help him, but the Senator has been so
accustomed and under such necessity to combat gentlemen from the
East that he supposes his friend was really his enemy.
Mr. TELLER. I am glad to welcome a recruit from the East. I
am glad to find that the Senator from New Hampshire is on my side of
the question.
Mr. PLATT. W ill it interrupt the Senator if I say a word ?
Mr. TELLER. Not at all.
Mr. PiiATT. I do not understand the Senator to say that the ques­
tion of increased production has no relation to prices. I suppose the
Senator will admit that the old rule o f supply and demand and those
elements considered together enter into the relation of prices.
Mr. TELLER. I have not said that they did not. The demand, of
course, is the main thing. When I get through with giving some of
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these statistics I shall speak of my view about that. I admit, of course,
that supply and demand have much to do with the prices. I think I
shall show the Senator before I get through that when the supply is
less and the demand greater the prices still grow lower.
Mr. PLATT. For instance, I suppose the Senator would admit that
if it were possible that the increased production of silver next year
should equal 50 per cent, over last year and there was no additional
demand lor it, the price o f silver would fall.
Mr. TELLER. Undoubtedly, with the mints closed.
Mr. President, I will proceed with this table. It is somewhat in­
structive.
If we compare the great crop of 1889, 2,112,892,000 bushels, with the
small crop ot 1882, 1,617,025,100 bushels, there is a difference in favor
of 1889 o f 495,866,900 bushels.
The value of the crop of 1882 was__________________ $1, 080, 000, 000
The value o f the crop of 1889 was__________________
762’ 000, 000
Difference__________________________________

318, 000, 000

Corn is cheaper than it has been since 1825, except a short time in
1887. During the great panic o f 1857 com brought more money than
it will to-day, and the average price throughout the year was nearly
double the price of to-day, or 69 cents, against 36 to 37 cents, in New
York.
Mr. GEORGE. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question ?
Mr. TELLER. Certainly.
Mr. GEORGE. Was the production o f corn last year excessive? Was
it much larger than usual?
Mr. TELLER. It was not. The export will be, as it always is, small,
and the total crop will be consumed.
I call the attention of the Senator from New Hampshire, and other
Senators for that matter, to the production of wheat in this country.
Wheat has been a great article of export for American farmers. We
have sent a large amount o f wheat from time to time abroad, and it
has been a source o f profit.
W HEAT.

In 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, and 188^, a period o f five years, the aver­
age production of wheat in the United States was 443,973,317 bushels.
Its average price was $1,147 per bushel, and the average value of the
crop was $532,177,394. In 1885,1886,1888, and 1889, the average pro­
duction was 435,417,400 bushels and the price was $0,874 per bushel;
average value o f the crop xu round numbers, $400,000,000—a difference
of about 8,000,000 bushels in yield, yet a difference o f $132,000,000 in
value.
It can not be said that this is due to overproduction, for in 1880 we
produced 498,£49,868, and the price was $1,245 per bushel. The value
of that crop, was $620,694,585.
The crop of 1882 was 504,185,470 bushels, and the average price was
$1,185, and the value of that crop was $597,459,981.
The crop o f 1882 was less valuable than the crop o f 1880 by $23.,234,904, while the crop o f 1889, only about 8,000,000 bushels less than
the crop o f 1880, was worth only $440,033,320, or $180,661,265 less
than the crop o f 1880.
It will be observed that the average yearly product o f the first five
years of the decade is larger than during the last five years, and with
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a smaller crop continue to come smaller prices per bushel, or a fall o f
23.9 per cent, or 2.73 cettts per bushel; and it is cheaper to-day than on
June 30,1889. I believe, since I made these figures, with the advance
o f silver wheat has advanced correspondingly and corn also.
It is said that this fall in the price o f wheat is due to new wheatfields, cheaper production, etc. While new wheat-fields have been
opened and production driven to the cheap lands, yet it has. not been
cheaply produced. I f wheat does not bring at least $1 at the ports o f
export, it is certain that it has not been raised at a profit. The price
of wheat at the place o f export governs the price of wheat in other
parts of the country ; and at a price less than $1 at such points it may
be assumed that the farmer is raising wheat for a bare subsistence, but
not for profit.
Mr. President, I make that statement as to the profit upon the best
evidence that I can get from the most enterprising and thoroughly in­
formed farmers of the country.
If it is still claimed that the low price of wheat is due to overpro­
duction, I call attention to the fact that after deducting the exports
from the crop o f 1880 we had left for home consumption 318,000,000
bushels, and the price was $1,245, while the next year, 1881, we had
only 258,000,000 bushels left for home consumption and the price fell
to $1,114, and that in 1885, when there was lei t for home consumption
only 262,000,000 bushels, the price was only 86.2 cents per bushel.
That shows that it is not overproduction, for, after deducting all ex­
ports, the large crop of 1880 o f318,000,000 bushels brought$1,245, while
the 258,000,000 bushels of 1881, the next year, brought only $1,114.
I f it is claimed that the fall in price is due to overproduction in other
parts of the world, I deny it. The average yearly product of the world
is not far from 2,100,000,000 bushels. In 1888 it was 53,000,000 bushels
more than in 1885, while the crop of 1885 was 68,000,000 bushels more
than the crop o f 1886; yet the greater crop of 1885 brought the highest
price per bushel.
During the last twenty years our average consumption of wheat has
been about 5|- bushels per capita. This is a smaller estimate than that
of political economists, but is doubtless correct. According to this we
ought to consume out of the crop of 1889 about 340,000,000 bushels,
which will leave us 150,000,000 for export.
The difference in price between that o f 1880 and the price o f 1889
is what the farmer loses on his salable wheat by the decline since 1880.
I f we deduct for the farmers’ home use 50,000,000 bushels, this loss
must be counted on 440,000,000 bushels, and the loss will be about
$160,000,000. But if it is said their loss is the gain of those who do
not raise wheat, but buy it for their use, we must consider that the
difference in price of the 150,000,000 bushels exported is a loss to
the country of $55,000,000; besides, it should be borne in mind that
the power to purchase other productions has been taken away from the
farmer to the extent of his loss, although that loss may be made up
by the gain of somebody else, but that does not help the farmer.
The low price o f silver has stimulated the export of wheat from coun­
tries using silver or having a depreciated paper money, notably India,
a silver-using country, and Russia, with a depreciated paper currency.
In 1880 India exported 4,000,000 bushels and Russfa exported 36,000,000 bushels, a total of 40,000,000 bushels.
In 1888 India exported 32,000,000 bushels and Russia 126,000,000
bushels; total, 158,000,000 bushels.
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In 1880 the United States exported 180,000,000 bushels and in 1888
119,000,000 bushels; difference between 1880 and 1888, 61,000,000
bushels.
In 1889 we exported 88,000,000 bushels; difference between 1880 and
1889, 92,000,000 bushels.
During the last six years the average export o f India wheat has been
about 35,000,000 bushels. The increased export o f India wheat is not
due wholly to cheaper transportation, as is sometimes asserted, nor to
cheaper wheat in India. The price of wheat in India is substantially
the same that it has been for years. The India mints coin silver at a
ratio of 1 to 15, and at that ratio the mints are open to all the silver
offered for coinage. The purchasing power of coined silver is as great
in India to-day as it was when silver sold in London for 62 pence per
ounce.
An ounce o f pure silver at the ratio o f 1 ounce o f gold for 15 ounces
of silver is worth $1,376, and that is its mint value, less the small
amount charged for mintage.
During the last year silver has sold in London for 92 to 95 cents per
ounce. The holder of India wheat, selling his wheat in Liverpool for
gold, buys silver bullion, at 92 to 95 cents per ounce, takes it to the
mints of India, coins it into rupees, and thus clears not less than 38 to
45 cents on each ounce. If he sells his wheat for enough per bushel to
buy one ounce of silver, he has in fact received the value o f the ounce
of, silver, after mintage, less the small charge for mintage and trans­
portation; say, from $1.35 to $1.36 per bushel for his wheat.
The American wheat-grower must sell his wheat at the same price
that the India merchant does, and take his pay in the same ipetal, gold;
but if he buys silver with the price o f his wheat he can not coin it and
he can make no profit. So the India wheat-grower has the advantage
over the American wheat-grower of from 38 to 45 cents on a bushel.
The business o f Russia being conducted on a depreciated paper, the
premium on silver in that country is a bounty to the Russian wheatgrower, and that is the cause of the large increase in Russia’s export of
wheat. This is true o f Chili and other South American silver-using
countries, who buy cheap silver and coin it into dear money.
Our financial policy applied to silver (a policy that we borrowed
from England) has put our farmers in competition with the ryot of
India, the serfs of Russia, and with the labor of all the countries of
small wages and poor living.
It has put the farmer (outside of the vicinity o f great cities) in the
position of farming “ not for profit, but simply for bare subsistence.”
It compels him, in order to meet obligations assumed under differ­
ent and better conditions, to raise and market from 40 to 60 per cent,
more to discharge his obligations than he was required to raise at the
time he incurred such obligations.
I f he has an abundance of land and can make a greater crop, he may
escape bankruptcy, but if his farm is so small that he can not increase
his crop to keep pace with falling prices he is ruined, for his principal
and interest and taxes remain the same as when the profits from the
farm were much greater. A fall in the price of wheat of 35 per cent, may
destroy ail profit, and even if he double his crop he may have no profit.
We can hardly expect to maintain the prices o f 1870, when we were
doing business with a depreciated paper money, but we ought to be able
to maintain at least the gold prices of 1870; that is, a bushel of wheat
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or corn ought to bay to-day as much gold as it bonght in 1870, unless
there are special causes for lower prices.
In 1880, one year and more after resumption o f specie payment,
1,000 bushels o f wheat was worth in New York $1,250; to-day it is
worth $800 to $850. This is an estimate based upon coin, and not
greenbacks. I f the holder o f wheat has the very best in the market
he may realize $1,250 by the sale o f a little more than 1,400 bushels,
but if he has the average marketable wheat he will be required to sell
more than 1,500 bushels to realize that sum. I f he sells corn he must
sell 1,550 bushels to realize the amount he could have got for 1,000
bushels in 1880, and corn was cheaper then than it had been since 1855.
I f we consider the price of corn in New York in 1870, on a gold value,
it will take now more than 2,000 bushels o f corn to buy the same
amount o f gold that 1,000 bushels would buy in 1870. It takes twice
as many pounds o f cotton now to buy the same amount o f gold that it
did in 1870.
It is no relief to the farmer to be told that he is no worse off than the
farmers of Great Britain, nor does it relieve him to be told that he is
raising too much; that thei* is overproduction o f all farm products;
that what he needs is a better market. The average American farmer
does not depend on one crop or one kind of produce; he raises corn and
wheat, or cotton and corn-beef and pork, and he finds all that he raises
brings small prices and that the price grows less each year.
I f the American farmer has suffered because of the mistaken finan­
cial poliey o f England, followed by the United States with slavish sub­
serviency, the English farmer, not having the many natural advantages
possessed by the American farmer, has suffered much more.
I have here a statement made in March, 1886, by the senior land
commissioner o f Great Britain, Sir James Caird, before the Royal Com­
mission of Trade and Industry, which I have had copied. I do not
desire to read it, but I desire to put it in the R e c o r d . I desire that
the American people may see what this financial policy with reference
to silver has done for the agriculturists of Great Britain as well as this
country.
Mr. Caird came before the commission and said he was the senior
land commissioner o f England; that he had prepared himself to give
his testimony before the commission as to the condition o f the agri­
culturists o f that country.
His statements were quite startling, and can be found in the second
report, on page 293 and the subsequent pages to, and including, page
308.
One member o f the commission spoke o f the statement as “ having
regard to the very fearful condition o f things as shown by you. 1y (7795.)
The condition o f 1886 was compared with ten years before, and it was
stated that on an average the landlords had lost 30 per cent., the ten­
ants 60 per cent., and laborers 10 per cent., or a total loss to tenants,
farmers, and landlords of spendable income o f £42,800,000 during the
last year; and in this estimate Ireland was not included. He declared
that the price o f wheat had been less each year (except the year 1877),
and the loss to farmers on wheat, comparing prices with the price of
1874, had been, ten years, £97,100,000, or nearly $500,000,000. He
declared that the Irish agriculturist no longer “ farmed for profit, but
simply for bare subsistence. ’ ’
It was asserted that while wheat had fallen more than other farm
products all farm products had fallen below the price at which they
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could be profitably produced. Barley has fallen in price within five
years 40 per cent. The fall in the price of wheat from an average of
the preceding fifty years was 34 per cent.
Mr. President, I ask that I may be allowed to put this in without
reading.
7664. ( C h a ir m a n .) Y o u are the senior land commissioner for England, I
think ?
I am.
7665. Have you made any inquiry into the loss sustained in recent years by
land-owners p,nd farmers in this country, and as to how such loss may have in­
fluenced the general depression of trade ?
I have, and I may state that those inquiries have extended over Great
Britain with the exception of some few counties, and have been made by gen­
tlemen resident within the districts to which they especially answer the ques­
tions, and men, I think, very capable of forming correct opinions upon the sub­
ject. They are the inspectors under my office, the land office, and are conver­
sant with all agricultural subjects within their districts. They are men of the
districts within which they are placed, and are intimately acquainted with the
circumstances of landlords, tenants, and laborers, and they have said that they
have used their best means of information and consideration upon the ques­
tions which I sent down to them specially to answer.
<The questions which I put to those gentlemen, and requested from them the
best answers that it was in their power to afford, were three: First, with ref­
erence to the counties of which you have knowledge, how much per cent, do
you estimate the present loss of spendable income, first by the landlords, sec­
ondly by the tenants, compared with ten years ago, and how far that has di'
minished their power to spend, regarded as a factor in the general depression of
trade? That was the first question that was put. The second question was:
Has the production materially increased in the last twenty years in consequence
of the expenditure of capital by landlord and tenant, and can you offer any esti­
mate per cent, of such increase ? And the third question was: Has there been
any recent fall in the wages of labor, and how much per cent.?
These were the three questions to which I understood it was desired by your
lordship and this commission that I should endeavor to find an answer. I have
abstracted the answers to these questions and will shortly go through each one of
them, beginning with the northern county of Northumberland and coming
down the east coast, and having got to the south coast of England I shall go
back to the west coast and come down it, and finally take some of the more cul­
tivated districts of Scotland.
Beginning with Northumberland and the adjoining counties, and part of the
borders (of Scotland, the answer is that on the farms which are chiefly arable
the landlord’s loss of spendable income is 40 per cent. The spendable income,
as I would define it. would be what was left after meeting the usual charges
upon the estate, and therefore any reduction of rent or other loss of rent would
mean a diminution of the spendable income.
7666. (Mr. J a m ie s o n .) A s a charge in ascertaining that spendable income, do
you include the expenditure on up-keep and repairs, or do you look to the
merely necessary legal charges?
I requested my correspondents to consider the usual expenditure upon an es­
tate in up-keep and repairs and all other charges; but there are extraordinary
expenditures as well in many cases now.
First, 40 per cent, loss on farms which are chiefly arble; secondly, upon farms
which are half pasture and half arable, 30 per cent.; on hill farms, where it is
all moor or grass, 20 per cent. That is with regard to the landlords. With re­
gard to the tenant, my informant puts down in the first case—that is, chiefly
arable farms —capital ordinarily lost, and no income as a matter of fact from the
farm.
7668. (Mr. M untz.) You did not give the commission the percentage to which
the capital is reduced?
I can not say that.
On the first class, the chiefly arable farms, the tenant’s loss is 40 per cent.;
on the second class, 25 per cent., and very little income; and on the third class,
10 per cent., and very little income. With regard to the question of production
from 1866 to 1876, it was increased by drainage and other improvements by 20
per cent, or more; but from 1876 to 1886 that was entirely lost by the succession
of bad seasons and the impoverishment of the tenants and their inability to do
full justice to the farms. With regard to wages, they have fallen 15 per cent,
from what they were ten years ago to something like what they were at the
beginning of the twenty years to which we have been referring. The rates have
increased, especially on the present reduced letting val ue. That is to say, if you
were dealing with a farm yielding £500 a year formerly, and it is now only
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worth £300, of course if the rates remain the same over the whole district they
must press more heavily on the £300 than on the £500.
7671. «Ehave here returns from two large farms, one in Essex and the other in
Hampshire, in which the accounts are kept with the greatest possible care; and
therefore the results are quite reliable. With regard to the first, the rent has
been reduced 30 per cent.
7672. ( C h a ir m a n .) I understood you to say that those were accounts that were
very carefully kept for particular farms, and therefore probably would be a
good guide for us ?
Yes; I think you may take it that as between 1876 and the present time, ten
years, the rent has been, reduced recently with regard to the first farm 30 per
cent., and the tenant's profit has been reduced 100 per cent.; there is no profit;
the manures bought have been reduced 48 per cent.; the labor applied has been
reduced 30 per cent., and the general expenses 10 per cent. This is purely a
farmers* return in Essex. The Essex farm is on clay and gravel. The next
farm, which is in Hampshire, is on chalk. The rent there has been reduced 25
percent., and the tenant’s profits 50 per cent., and expenditure for manures,
cake, and everything of that kind, has been reduced 40 per cent. The expendi­
ture on labor has been reduced 19 per cent., and the general expenses 20 per
cent.
7673. Have you made any generalization of the results?
Yes; I have. The present as compared with ten years ago, as deduced by
me from these figures which I have already given, would show on an average
that the landlords have lost 30 per cent., the tenants 60 per cent., and the labor­
ers 10 per cent., and putting that into figures it brings out that on £65,000,000
of rental for the United Kingdom the landlords’ loss of 30 per cent, would be
equal to about £20,000,000, and the tenants* 60 per cent., inasmuch as their in­
come majf be taken at half the rental, would be just the same, that is to say, 60
per cent, on half the rental is also £20,000,000. With regard to the laborers,
there was a difficulty in estimating the amount of reduction; but 1 will place
before your lordship the way in which I endeavored to arrive at it. I have
taken of the lands shown in the agricultural upturns, the whole of the lands in
corn crops, and in green crops, in clover, and in saint-foin, at £1 an acre for
labor expenditure—taking the broad view of it, it can not of course be regarded
as accurate, but I think it approximates to it—that would be £1 an acre on 22,000.000 acres of land; and 1 have taken 5s. an acre on cultivated grass land,
24,000,000 acres for the United Kingdom.
7675. And you have only taken £1 on arable land?
The£l is on arable and grass land regularly cultivated. I take that for the
United Kingdom, knowing that the commission would desire to know as nearly
as we could approximate to it what was the whole loss of spendable income.
That brings out for labor £28,000,000, and 10 per cent, reduction upon that would
be £2,800,000, and the total loss to tne landed interest in spendable income for
the last year comes out in that way to £12,800,000. Of course, I offer these figures
with much caution, and one can only use them as approximate figures in any
case; but, at all events, so far as the landlords and tenants go, they are deduced
from the public returns, and I have explained the manner in which 1 have en­
deavored to arrive at the laborers* loss.
7688. Would you kindly say what you understand by the tenant’s profit?
The tenant’s profit that I have been taking here is his return upon the capital
which he employs in the farm and the return necessary to guard him against
unforeseen losses, and that which is also due to him for his personal superin­
tendence and care.
7689. Would you include in his profit that portion of his maintenance which
he derived directly from the farm and which is consumed by himself and hia
family?
That is always considered by the farmer.
7690. You would not limit the word “ profit” to something which he is able
to put by?
No; it means his full income.
7691. What do you mean by a tenant living on his capital?
If he had not any capital laid by and had to sell some farm stock and thereby
raise the means of living, in that way he would diminish his power of fully cul­
tivating the land.
7692. It means, then, that the tenants are making no profit at all ?
Yes; getting no interest for their capital and no remuneration for their own
skill and labor.
7731. You have given the reduction of the capital of the tenants; have you
any doubt now that that capital has been very materially reduced although the
tenants may have been all the time living upon their capital?
I have no doubt that it has been much reduced.
7732. So reduced, do you think, as to corroborate the evidence which was
given that in one or two cases the farmers had to refrain from cultivating their
farms as they were doing?
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Undoubtedly. I think not only in consequence of the reduction of capital,
but the— * * * compared with the value of the home Wheat crop in 1874,
which was an average crop, and at the average price of the preceding twentyfive years, since the introduction of free trade, during which time the average
was 6s. 9d. a bushel, the farmers’ loss in quantity and quality and price in the
ten following years, eight of which were bad seasons, works out to £171,000,000
or £17,100,000 a year on the average; but there would be no average, for some of
the years were much worse than others. There has been some compensation
for this in an addition toother crops and stock, namely: There has been 100,000
acres more barley and oats, worth £800,000, and 936,000 more cattle, worth £12
each, £11,232,000; but the reduction of 3,100,000 sheep at 30s. diminishes the gain
by £4,650,000, making altogether again of £7,382,000 to be deducted from the loss
annually on wheat of £17,100,000, showing a net loss to the farmers on the wheat
crop alone in these ten years of £97,100,000—loss of spirit of late which has come
upon the whole agricultural interest with regard to the impossibility of mak­
ing a fut ure profit.
77S3. That they have lost their heart?
I would not say, perhaps, lost their heart entirely; but I say that it has very
much diminished their hopes.
7758. Can you offer any estimate of the loss sustained by the whe^t-growers
by continuous bad seasons and by the lower price during the last ten years?
I have endeavored to do so.
7780. Do you suppose that the depression in agriculture has been greater in
degree than that of other British interests of great magnitude?
1 am speaking before gentlemen who are very much better informed upon
that question than I am, and I can only venture to offer a calculation which has
been made by a gentleman who placed it before me, and which shows that whilst
the fall of price in all kinds of food up to 1885 was 25 per cent, the fall in iron,
copper, tin, lead, and coals was 35 per cent.; in textiles, cotton, flax, hemp,wool,
and silk, 32 per cent.; in sundry materials* hides, leather, indigo, and other
things, 26 per cent.; and therefore it would appear that many of those great
British interests are suffering from the fall of price quite as much as agricultural
interest.
7795. Having regard to the very fearful condition of things as shown by you,
particularly respecting the tenants, can you offer us any suggestion as to how
that could within a reasonable period be dealt with?
I think it is a very ugly prospect altogether. On very good land in this
country, whether for agriculture or for grazing, tenants will get on and sooner
or later recover themselves; but on the poorer clay lands of the country 1 do
not see the least hope for them.
7847. I am taking it for the last five years at the rather low figure of 45s. for
the best quality of barley, and 1 am taking the recent fall to 28s., which shows a
loss of something like 40 per cent. ?
Here is the statement which 1 made upon that point. The fall in the price of
wheat from an average of the preceding fifty years is 34 per cent.; that qf bar­
ley, 13 per pent.; and of oats, 9 per oent.; and that is all taken by careful calcu­
lation.

Mr. President, I wish to call the attention o f the Senate to the con­
traction that has taken place in Great Britain. I have here a state­
ment which shows the contraction o f money in Great Britain. There
are two ways in which you can contract the money in a country. You
can contract it by keeping it at a sum stated and let the population
continue to grow. There is not, I will admit, any arbitrary rule to
determine how much money there ought to be in a country. I do not
know that anybody has ever attempted to fix an arbitrary rule. One
country may require more than another. The richer, the country, the
more money it should have; the greater its activities, the more monqy
it must have; the greater its volume of business, the more money it
must have, and the greater its population, other things being equal,
the more money it should have.
The Senator from Ohio who sits in front of nie [Mr. S h e r m a n ] , a
member o f the Finance Committee, stated in 1868 in a report he made
to this body that the American people required a larger amount per
capita o f money than other nations of the world.
Mr. COCKRELL. In what report was that?
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Hr. TELLER. That was a 'report that the Senator from Ohio made
on the proposition to decrease the amount of gold in the gold dollar.
Mr. COCKRELL. In what year?
Mr. TELLER* In 1868. I have it here, and I can show it to the
Senator.
I believe that to be true. I believe a people spread, as we are, over
a great extent of country, with such activities as ours, require a great
deal o f money. The people o f Great Britain,* who $re equally, or nearly,
as active, are confined to an area exceedingly small; and the same may
be said of France and other European countiies, while we are spread
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the British line to the Gulf, and
we do need more money; but just how much we need nobody appears
to know, but all admit that we need more than we have.
Great Britain has now about twenty to twenty-one dollars per capita.
They have no money tied up in their treasury. Their money is either
in circulation or in the banjos ready to do money duty. There has been,
as I have shown, in the agricultural circles o f that country extreme
depression, but it is not confined to agriculture. It extends to every
branch o f human industry in Great Britain to-day, largely attributed,
as I think I can show, to a contraction o f the currency, by their failure
to import gold for the last twelve years as they had before, and by their
failure to increase their currency to keep pace with the increased ac­
tivities of their people and the increase o f population.
In the United Kingdom the net imports o f gold from 1858 to 1865,
inclusive, were £29,658,000, or an average o f £3,707,000 per annum;
from 1865 to 1876, the last inclusive, the net imports of gold were <£50,108,000, or an annual average o f <£5.011,000, or say $25,000,000 o f our
money a year. Those are- the imports in excess o f the exports. In
the next eleven years to 1888, inclusive, the net exports were £1,207,000; that is to say, that £1,207,000 went out o f Great Britain more than
came in, and during that time it was estimated by a witness before the
commission o f which I have spoken that the gold on hand was re­
duced by use in the arts £26,000,000. This, added to the exports,
makes the loss o f gold in Great Britain during the eleven years I have
mentioned, £27,207,000.
Now, had the imports during the eleven years I mentioned continued,
there would have been fifty-five millions more of money in Great Britain,
which added to the stock, estimated at £125,000,000, would give £181,000,000. That is, the circulation is now 31 per cent, below what it
would have been if the imports had continued during the eleven years
as they were during the preceding ten years. That is the same thing
as a contraction, because, if the markets demand this £5,000,000 that'
comes in every year for the transaction o f business and that has dis­
appeared by use in the arts, it is apparent that there is left a vacuum
there by a want o f circulation. From the time that these imports of
gold ceased then the price began to fall, and there has been a steady
depreciation in all the products o f human labor for the past fifteen or
seventeen years; and it is claimed there, as it is here, that it is over­
production, or it is improved methods o f creation, or it is improved
methods o f banking, or something else. It is want o f money.
The testimony before the board, which I have mentioned, to con­
sider the depreciation in trade was almost universally that production
had not become cheaper in proportion to the fall in prices, and all the
practical men declared that it must be attributed to something besides
improved methods of production and cheaper production.
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Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut said that I would not
deny the proposition that supply and demand had something to do
with these questions. I do not. I do not ignore the fact also that
valuable machinery has been added, that valuable agents to human
labor have been discovered. I do not deny that. I do not deny that
the skill o f the laborer has become greater.
All these agencies tend to cheapen human products. But if these
agencies cheapen human products, it is a natural and desirable result,
and with such cheapening come the blessings that always attend prop­
erly paid labor, because the lower price will still pay the agent of pro­
duction a fair consideration- for his labor and his sacrifice. But the his­
tory of the world shows to-day that we are suffering from somet hing
else. It was William Jacobs who said in 1830 that if there was all over
the world a general condition in finances, in industries, all must admit
that that general condition must spring from some general cause.
Now, we hear of cheap labor and cheap prices in every part o f the
world, and not only that, but complaints in every part of the world.
I f labor was properly being paid, if sacrifices were properly rewarded,
i f industry was properly compensated, there would be no complaints.
Does not everybody hear the great roar o f discontent that is going up
in this country to-day? I want Senators not to underrate that great
complaint. Do you hear the uniform complaint that is being made by
the people o f this country against low prices, against the great weight
o f debt and the b.urden o f taxation? Does anybody believe that is
without cause? Are the American people inclined to grumble? Are
they inclined to find fault? Has the world in its history presented
men of more courage, men who have more resolutely compelled ad­
verse circumstances to yield to them and to minister to their wants in­
stead o f destroying them ? Is there anywhere a people who have taken
hold o f the natural advantages given to them and made so much of
them as our people have done? They have made wonderful progress
in the history o f the world.
Are they complaining to-day without cause? Is this discontent
simply the work o f a lew demagogues ? Does not the farmer know
whether he is being destroyed or not? Does he not know whether the
mortgages are increasing ? Does he not know whether he is bearing a
burden that he can not stand erect under ? Does he not know that
something has gone wrong somewhere ?
Who compose the American people ? The farmers, the laborers, 20,000,000 strong, are the American people. W e are accustomed to hear
persons talk about the ‘ ‘ business m en” of the country, and I have
heard within the last few days more than one person say, “ You must
be in sympathy in your legislation with the business men of the coun­
try. ’J Mr. President, the business men o f the country are the men
who till the soil, who operate the machines, who work in shops and
in mills, and who create. It is not the men who stand behind storecounters. It is not the men who deal in futures. It is not the men
who handle money, checks, drafts, and money futures. They have
but little to do with the creation of business and with production.
The product o f the farmers is infinitely greater than the transactions
of the banks. I heard a Senator in this body once say that the prod­
uct o f the hens o f the country was of greater value than the whole cap­
ital o f the national banks.
Mr. President, there is something wrong in the financial policy o f
this country, and we are here now expected by the people, as they have
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a right to expect, to address ourselves to the remedy; that we shall at­
tempt to find some way by which the burdens o f taxation may be lifted,
by which the people may have the ability to pay their debts; some way
by which they may save their homes; some way by which the Ameri­
can farmer may continue to keep on the high plane he has occupied in
the past, by which he shall be enabled to continue to send his sons to
this body, as he has ip the past, to send them into every department
o f life, fitted to discharge every duty imposed on them, and to continue
to furnish the brains and the moral worth of the American people, as
he has done lor a generation or more. He can not do it weighed down
by burdens; he can not do it if he can not have remunerative prices for
his com, his wheat, and his oats; his very independence is destroyed
by cheap prices.
The very existence o f this country depends upon the prosperity of
labor and the laboring people. They believe and I believe and hun­
dreds o f people who have* studied this question believe that the whole
thing is here in our hands if we have the courage to give the people a
sufficiency of money, good money, sound money, silver money, inter­
national money, money that has discharged the duty o f money for all
time, even if it drives gold out of the country. I do not want to see
gold go. I want to see gold stay here if it can remain, and perform
the beneficent functions o f money in connection with silver, as it has
done in the past. I f it can stimulate industries, if it can promote happi­
ness among men, then I want gold; but if you have got to have a gold
standard at the expense o f the best interests o f the country, at the
degradation o f the best elements of society, then I am willing to see it
go, and it can not go too quickly to suit me. But it will not go. It is
a bugaboo that is brought here to frighten us from doing o u t duty as
we see it and as the people to whom we are responsible see it.
There is in this body a majority o f men who believe that righteous­
ness and justice demand the free coinage of silver. Some o f them may
be deterred by fear o f opposition from other quarters. They may be
retarded by the fear that they will not be enabled to enact such a bill
into a law. My duty is done when I have exercised my judgment here
as my Maker gives me to see it, and not as the Executive or any­
body else may see it, and I propose to do my duty from my seat here
according to my understanding o f what my duty is, and I believe that
if every Senator here will do that we shall pass a f ree-coinage act, an
act that w ill relieve the suffering industries o f the prostrate people,
will increase opportunities, and bring prosperity and happiness and
content not to the farmer alone, but to every class of men deserving the
good will and special attention o f the legislative mind. [Applause in
the galleries.]
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