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GOLD A N D SILVER.
SPEECH
OJ
HON. GEORGE F. HOAR,
OB1
M A S S A C H U S E T T S ,
IN TUB
SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES,
TUESDAY,
AUGUST
15,
WASHINGTON.
1893.
1893.
SPEECH
or
HON.
GEOKGE
F.
HOAR.
P A R I T Y OP GOLD A N D SILVER.
Mr. H O A R . Mr. President, I desire to speak to the joint resolution of the Senator from Missouri [Mr. VEST], if the Chair
will lay that measure before the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The resolution of the Senator
from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] will be temporarily laid aside
and the joint resolution of the Senator from Missouri [Mr, VEST]
will be taken up, if there be no objection.
Mr. H O A R . I ask that it be read.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The joint resolution will be .
read.
The Secretary read the joint resolution (S. R . 4) to maintain
the parity of gold and silver, as follows:
Resolved by the Senate and Houses/ Representatives, etc., That the American
people from tradition and interest favor bimetallism and the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver, without discriminating against
either metal; that it is also the established policy of the United States to
maintain the parity of the two metals, so that the debt-paying and purchasing power of every dollar shall be at all times equal; that it is the duty of
Congress to speedily enact such laws as will effectuate and maintain these
objects.
Mr. P ASCO. I should like to ask what becomes of the pending resolution offered by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
LODGE]. Is it the understanding that it goes over until to-morrow without further action?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It goes over for the present, if
there be no other Senator who desires to be heard upon it today.
Mr. P A S C O . It will be understood that it goes over until tomorrow?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will be no action had
upon it.
Mr. G A L L I N G E R . I give notice that to-morrow I desire to
address myself very briefly to the resolution submitted by the
Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] and the amendment
to it offered by myself.
Mr. H O A R . Mr. President
Mr. S T E W A R T . I should like, before the Senator from Massachusetts proceeds, to give notice that I desire to speak a few minutes on the resolution of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr.
LODGE]. I wish to call attention to the object of the panic and
why the panic was created. I wiJl state just a few facts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The resolution is temporarily
so
3
4
laid aside, but may be called up when the Senator from Massachusetts |Mr. HOAR] has concluded his remarks.
Mr. H O A R . Mr. President, the American people have no
reason to be ashamed of their legislative history. Our American constitutions, as well as the great measures which crowd and
adorn our statute book, have very often been the product of
times of excitement, of depression, and almost of despair. They
have been enacted amid predictions of failure, amid taunts and
expressions of contempt from foreign oritics, and against powerful and angry opposition at home.
It has been the good fortune, as it has been the glory of the
American people, that it has ever plucked the ilower Safety
from the nettle Danger; that it has made times of distress and
commotion and evil its great opportunity. From the gloom of
the Revolution, from the sorry story of the years which followed
the peace of 1783—of feeble government, or disaster, of discontent, of broken faith, of depreciated currency, of stay laws, of
suffering debtors, of cheated creditors, of lawlessness, of Shay's
rebellion, and popular commotions North and South—came the
State constitutions, the ordinance of 1787, the Constitution of
the United States, the judiciary act, and the great legislation,
State and national, which is at the foundation of ail our ins tit utions.
From thertbject history of the Jefferson administration came
the acquisition of Louisiana, the establishment of sailors' rights,
and the great naval glories of the war of 1812. From tho unutterable woe of the rebellion came the abolition of slavery, the
permanent establishment of national authority,' and the legislative achievements of the past thirty years.
I believe that from the present panic, if we will but rise to the
occasion, we may yet get an equal blessing, a sound, secure, and
stable currency. But we must deal with this great occasion as
our fathers, in their time, dealt with like occasions. W e must
keep the panic out of the Senate Chamber.
In one respect the condition of the United States is peculiar.
W e settle our financial policy in accordance with the popular
vote. The great mercantile nations of the world, in fact, and
commonly in form, refer such things to experts. The administration in Great Britain consults the Governors of the Bank of
England, the represent \tives of the chief mercantile houses, a
few men who have become recognized authorities in financial
circles, and acts upon their advice. Very few members of Parliament would think of thrusting their own judgment into a debate on a financial question against that of the men of their own
party who are their recognized leaders on such subjects. I suppose this is still more true of France, of Germany, of Belgium,
and of Holland.
But with us the finances of the country have been for a good
while the football of parties and of factions. Every demagogue
in public office, or seeking public office, ©very theorist desiring
to get notoriety by extravagance, every anonymous and reckless
scribbler who escapes contempt only by concealing his personality, every agitator who would marshal class against class, every
anarchist who seeks to overthrow all social order, every brawler
who would stir the passion of section against section, of labor
5
against capital, of debtor against creditor, of the poor against
the rich, prates glibly about the currency, and uses some misrepresentation or sophistry about the currency as his weapon of
mischief.
Yet nothing is more certain than that a disturbance of the
currency is an advantage only to the classes who are so attacked,
and brings nothing but evil and disaster to the classes to whom
the appeal is made. As Daniel Webster said nearly sixty years
ago:
He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread. He panders,
indeed, to greedy capital, which is keen sighted and may shift for itself; but
he beggars labor, which is honest, unsuspecting, and too busy with the present to calculate for the future. The prosperity of the working class lives,
mo^es, and has its being in established credit, and a steady medium of payment. All sudden changes destroy it. Honest industry never comes in for
any part of the spoils in that scramble which takes place when the currency
of the country is disordered. Did wild schemes or projects ever benefit the
industrious? Did irredeemable bank paper ever enrich the laboriousY Did
violentfluctuationsever do good to hfm who depends on his daily labor for
his daily bread? Certainly never.
All these things may gratify the greediness for sudden gain or the rashness of daring speculation; but they can bring nothing but injury and distress to the homes of patient industry and honest labor. Who are they that
profit by the present state of things? Thej^ are not the many, but the few.
They are the speculators,, brokers, dealers in money, and lenders of money
at exorbitant interest. Small capitalists are crushed, and their means
being dispersed, as usual, in various parts of the country, and this miserable
policy having destroyed exchanges, they have no longer either money or
credit. And all classes of labor partake, and must partake, in the same
calamity.
Mr. President, there are subtleties in these financial questions
surpassing the subtleties of metaphysics. No theologian, no
schoolman, no doctor of the civil law, no writer on contingent
remainders or resulting trusts or executory devises was ever
called upon to deal with more hair-splitting distinctions and profound speculations, more logical puzzles baffling the human intelligence than can be found in the works of writers on finance
in this or other generations. And yet it is not too much to say
that there is no subject of legislation which so demands wise and
dispassionate consideration, and whose clear understanding and
correct resolution is so vital to all the best interests of society.
A s Alexander Hamilton declared in his famous report:
The general state of debtor and of creditor; of the relations and consequence
of price; the essential interests of trade and industry; the value of all property; the whole income, both of the state and of individuals, are liable to be
sensibly influenced, beneficially or otherwise, by the judicious or injudicious
regulation on this interesting object.
Credit is the life-blood of trade. A sound currency is to the
affairs of this life what a pure religion and a sound system of
morals are to the affairs of the spiritual life. And we should
beware of the men who seek to make of this great interest an
instrument of personal or party advantage, or of exciting hatred
or discontent, or disturbing social order, wherever such men
may be found, whether in high places or low, whether speaking
in the Senate Chamber or through the press, as we would beware
of those men who have used the religious feelings of mankind as
instruments for like purposes.
And, Mr. President, as, in dealing with the great religious
problems which concern mankind a few strong instincts and a
few plain rules—the lessons of experience—the authority of a
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G
few s:ifo guides, are found by the mosses of mankind B'ifficiont
unto salvation; as all the law and the prophets are summed up
in two simple commandments, easily to be understood, and easy
to be practiced, so, I believe, the path of safety through the financial difficulties which surround us is in like manner to be discerned.
No man whom the American people have trusted with any
share of political power is entitled to be respected who approaches
the duty of this hour in any partisan or sectional spirit or inspired by the desire to reap partisan advantage from the public
calamity. Our task is to discover and to remedy the great evil
under which all classes and all parts of the country sutler. The
workshops are closing, the banks are stopping payment, workmen are idle, the homes of the poor are threatened with want,
and the property of the rich is in peril.
W e may differ in opinion as to the responsibility. But I hope
we may find substantial agreement as to the cure. If I can find
any opportunity to help save the ship, I care not whether a
Democrat or a Republican is in command. Whatever errors
President Cleveland or those who follow him have committed
in the past—whatever mistaken purposes they may have for the
future—I am willing to act with them in the p resent, if by so
doing I can help to restore my country to the safety and the
prosperity which she enjoyed up to March 4,1893.
I can -conceive of no better evidence of the prosperity of a nation than that its people are universally well employed at a rate
of wages, or other form of compensation, which yields to them
the necessaries and comforts of life. Indeed, it is not so proper
to speak of this state of things as an evidence of prosperity as to
speak of it as the definition of prosperity. That was the c ndition of the American people, beyond any other known, in the
autumn of 1892, and for a long period before. The -President
himself, in his late message, describes the situation:
With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production
and manufacture, with unusual Invitation to safe investment, and with
satisfactory assurance to business enterprise.
Not only did this condition of things exist, but by the confession of our eminent statisticians, free traders, and monometallists, as well as protectionists and bimetallists, it was a condition of things which had been improving year by year. The
purchasing power of wages had been increasing for twenty years,
although the tendency at the same time had been to diminish
the length of the day's work. The problem before us is to restore that condition of things. If there is any law on the statute
book which has had the effect to disturb it, or if there be any
threat or fear of new legislation which is to affect or disturb it,
it is for us to change that law and to make that legislation impossible.
The misfortune of the American people, in regard to this currency question, is the spirit and temper in which it has been debated on both sides of this and the other House of Congress, and
in the press. It is difficult to find upon either side an honest
statement of the other's position or an honest answer to the other's argument. W h a t bimetallist, what advocate of the free
?oinag« of silver at the old rate can recognize himself, or his opin20
7
ion, or anything he believes in and stands for, in the portraiture
drawn by his antagonist? What man who believes either that
we must submit to the standard of value established by the consent of the commercial world, or who even believes that the
world's supply of gold is enough to meet its demands for a standard, or a currency, without sensible fluctuation or change of value,
entertains any Qf the opinions or desires that are imputed to him
by the pressor by public speakers in certain sections of the country?
Mr. President, any man or party in the Eastern States who
should desire to have the value or the purchasing power of the
dollar increased in order that the value of debts, or that assured
and' pormanent incomes might be increased, or in order that
speculation in gold or in credits might be rendered more profitable, would be hurled from power and buried in infamy by the
swift and righteous indignation of the whole people of those
States. The prosperity, the power, the happiness, the rapid
growth of the Northwest and the South are as dear to the people
of New England as their o w n / W h a t they want, what they desire and strive for, is not an appreciating standard of value but
an unchanging standard of value, so far as the lot of humanity
will admit.
The merchant, the manufacturer, the builder of railroads in
the Eastern States is a constant and perpetual debtor. The
wage earner, the depositor in savings banks, the holder of the
policy of life insurance, the widow and orphan who are living on
the spare savings of the husband and father in his lifetime are
constantand perpetual creditors. They are alike interested that
the obligation contracted to-day shall be precisely the same obligation, no greater and no less, when it is to be discharged, five
or ten or twenty years hence, or whenever its annual or semiannual interest is to be paid throughout that period. The present value of the dollar as a medium of present exchange can bo
ascertained with reasonable accuracy by the parties to any contract.
Appreciation and depreciation can be ascertained and provided
for. But, to use the expressive phrase of Mr. Balfour, "money
is the record of obligations extending over long periods of time."
And it is an injury, it is destruction to any community which has
risen in civilization above the pirate stage, when that record
Is liable to uncertainty or is the subject of speculation or gambling. If the people of the Northeast seem to the people of another
part of the country to be contending for anything likely to bear
hardly upon them, it is because they do not soe or anticipate
such a result, and not because they desire it or are indifferent
to it.
So, Mr. President, on the other hand, I do not believe that
any large number of the people of the Northwest desire the
destruction of property, impairment of credit, or any injury
whatever to the people of the Northeast. Their ambition is to
acquire property, their hope is in the establishment and maintenance of credit. They always have depended, and for a long
time in the future they must depend, for these things on a close
alliance and an interchange of advantages with the people whose
children they are, with the States whence they came, and with
20
s
communities frpm whose institutions they have modeled their
own, and with whom in the great and glorious future they must
live or bear no life. Chief among the resources of the West is
its alliance with a wealthy and prosperous East. The wealth of
the Bust must perish but for its alliance with a wealthy and
prosperous West.
There are wild utterances everywhere. They are heard from
Boston and New York and Chicago as often as from San Francisco or Denver. But they do not come chiefly from Americans,
and they do not represent the prevalent spirit of any American
community.
Tho people of the United States are divided on this question,,
The two sides are, in my judgment, equally honest ana equally
intelligent. One believes that the policy of the other leads to
an increase of the burden of debt, to the .contraction of the
world's supply of currency, and to that worst form of fluctuation
in the standard of value, the constant increase of the purchasing
power of money, with its consequent full of price and strangulation of business. Another portion of the people believe, with
equal sincerity, that the free use of silver, at its old rate, by a
single nation alone leads to the destruction of the obligation of
existing debts, the impossibility of any secure credit for the
future, and turns all fixed business into speculation and gambling.
Each party is equally honest and sincere, and the two parties
desire, in my opinion, the same thing—a currency which shall
be sufficiently abundant for all exchanges, domestic and foreign,
and a standard of value which shall be as unchangeable through
the years and generations as tho wit of man c m devisa. The
proprietors of silver mines not unnaturally desire to Fell their
product to the beat advantage. But I do not think they or their
advocates on this floor will claim that we shall adopt any policy
with regard to the currency merely that they m;;y sell their
product at a profit. What they would say, I suppose, is that,
believing as they do, the disuse of silver for the purpose of currency to be attended by consequences disastrous not only to tho
people of this country, but to nil mankind, the fact that laborers
and capitalists who are engaged in their special industries are
likewise to be ruined by it, does not render it any more acceptable to them.
The great and fundamental difference between these two parties is the difference as to two questions of fact.
First. Is the existing stock of gold available for currency sufficient. with the yearly addition to that stock, to maintain prices
at their present level and keep the burden of debt from growing
heavier year by year in the future?
If it be, then the advocates of silver havo no right to demand
its consideration when we are regulating the currency, but
must, like other producers, stand or fall by the general policies
by which we encourage American industries.
"But if it be not sufficient, it' the cord of indebtedness is to
tighten year by year around the neck of the debtor by the rapidly increasing value of the gold dollar, then the advocates of
bimetillism are justified indomanding that every lawful resource
of the Government shall ba exhausted and every energy of the
American people taxed to its utmost to prevent such a result.
so
9
Now, Mr. President, I can not find that the researches of our
statisticians enable us as yet to decide this question to our reasonable satisfaction. The tables which are used by the bimetallists show a constant increase in the value of gold since 1873.
As compared with the forty-five principal commodities selected
by Mr. Sauerbach, they show a constant increase in the purchasing power of gold as measured in those commodities, and
show, on the other hand, a comparatively small falling off in the
value of silver. On the other side, the monometallists point
out that if you strike out from the list the articles who^e production has been greatly cheapened by increased labor-saving
appliances, or whose price in the market has been lessened by
the vast recent saving in the cost of transportation, there has
been very little fluctuation in gold.
I can not myself escape the apprehension that the bimetallists
are at least partially in the right. It may be that the appreciation
of gold has not yet taken place to the extant of their belief. But
there is a large stock of silver still in use in the United States
and on the Continent. W h a t has been done as to Tndia, and
what is to be done by us, have not yet had an effect which can
be measured.
\ The second question is not so difficult. Is it possible for the
United States to maintain a standard of value in separation or
isolation from the rest of the civilized world?
Upon this question, if I could see any escape from the reasoning of the President in his message, I find no escape from the
lesson of our recent experience. While I do not attribute our
present disasters in any part to the legislation of 1890,1 do
attribute them, to a serious extent, to the failure of the present
Executive to assure the country and the world that he would
use the power given him to maintain the two metals at par.
This, with the prevalent dread of what a distinguished member
of this b o i y described as " a war of extermination upon the
protected industries of the country," accounts, in my judgment,
for our existing condition.
I have been, ever since I was old enough to have an opinion
on the subject, a bimetilliat. I think that is true of all the
Americanj)eople down to 1873, with a very few exceptions. But
it h is be&n the bimetallism of Alexander Hamilton, of Washington and his Cabinet, of the framersof the Constitution, of the
members of the First Congress, and of the Constitution of the
United States. It always recognized and took for granted that"
the money standard of the world's dealings must be settled by
the usage of* commercial nations. It recognized also that if
there were a change in the relative value of the two metals the
more valuable metal must, in the end, prevail. I do not understand that there is any purpose anywhere to discard the use of
silver. It is still, and always must be, a large instrument in the
commerce of daily life in all countries. Even when the use of
silver is directly confined to that of subsidiary coinage, it is not
insignificant or unimportant. W e have about $50,000,000 of
subsidiary coinage, but every dime of that coinage passes from
hand to hand a hundred times where the gold dollar would so
pass once.
The lesson of all experience points to the use of gold and silver
so
10
to effect exchanges and to me tsuro values for the commerce of
mankind. From the foundation of the world they have performed
this great o3ice. They are known ai the precious metals in the
universal language of civilized men. They are adapted and ;hey
alone are adapted, by permanenca, by their capacity for b n n g
coined and stamped fo.* the convenience with which they m iy
be kept and transported, to perform this service for mankind.
They are the onty complements of each oth^r. If the weight
and size of silver, in proportion to its value, be too great for use
in large transactions, the size of gold, in proportion to its value,
is too small for safety and convenience in the smaller and commoner transactions of life.
Silver circulates everywhere to-day, and will circulate everywhere until time shall be no more, as the money of the common
people, whatever may be the action of the Government.
In the countries where gold is the only recognized lawful
standard of value, silver is still the instrument of the commerce
of man's daily life. Sometimes one has risan for a few years,
perhaps for a generation, in value as compared with its companion, and sometimes the other. Sometimes mistaken financial
policies, sometimes popular excitement, sometimes the schemes
of designing speculators, may have depreciated or exalted one
at the expense of the other. But this august and regal pair—
the queenly silver and the royal gold—have maintained throughout all ages, and through all time will maintain their companionship and their supremacy. If you undertake to settle this question by driving either from the country, you will have no peace
until it is restored. The principle which recognizes both has
its foundation in nature, and in the experience of man.
Naturam expellas furca;
Iteruin iterumque rediblt.
Y o u may drive out nature with your legislative fork, but
again and again she comes running back. This doctrine is recognized in the Constitution. , l No State shall make anything but
gold and silver coin a tender." " No State shall coin money, emit
bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender
in payment of debts."
That the words " m o n e y " and 14 gold and silverJ| were regarded as equivalents in constitutional meaning is shown by th3
fact that the Constitution makes a separate provision as to bills
. of credit and does not include them in the sentence which applies to money. It is not gold or silver that a State may make
a legal tender, but gold and silver, the legal value of which, by
another clause of the Constitution, is to be determined by Congress.
Chief Justice Ellsworth and his associate, who represented
Connecticut in the constitutional convention, in their report to
their constituents of the proceedings of the convention, say that
the new Constitution provides that no State u shall make anything but money a legal tender for the payment of debts," showing that, in their judgment, the word •• money " and the words
" g o l d find silver" are identical or equivalents.
Alexander Hamilton considered this question in his great report on the mint and the coinage. He gave fullest weight to the
arguments of the monometallists. He admitted that the money
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unit had up to that time virtually attached to gold rather than
io silver. But with the fullest concurrence of President Washington and the statesmen of his time, he declared for the pi^nciple of bimetallism. His arguments have not lost their original
force. They have not been answered in any discussion. The
people of the United States, when the tempest has passed, will
sett'e down and be reconciled to the solution of this great problem ia which Washington and his Cabinet joined. They never
will be permanently reconciled to any other.
To annul the use of either of the metals as money is to abridge the quantity of circulating medium, and is liable to all the objections which arise
from the comparison of the benefits of a full with the evils of a scanty circulation.—Hamilton's Report, Lodge's Edition, page 243.
Daniel Webster declared more than once, and with great emphasis. that the Constitution requires the coin age of both metals;
and it would be a disobedience to our constitutional duty were
Congress to discard either.
Mr. President, all our great financial authorities of both parties,
from the framersof the Constitution, from Alexander Hamilton,
and Jefferson, and Webster, and Calhoun, and Benton, and Chase,
and Fessenden, Federalists and Republicans, Whigs and Democrats, down to the disturbed period which followed the war, have
agreed upon this policy. There were differences which divided
political parties. Whather Congress should authorize a paper
currency, under careful safeguards, redeemable in coin, or should
leave that to State discretion, or to private enterprise, was a
question which divided parties and made and unmade Presidents
and administrations. But down to the year 1863 it never was
heard in this country that the legal tender and the standard of
value should be anything but gold and silver; nor was it ever
claimed until 1873 that both gold and silver could not be relied
upon to perform this service.
I have no doubt that the Committee on Coinage, who reported
and enacted the statute of 1873, were actuated solely by a conscientious desire for the public good. I would give no countenance
to the miserable slander that they were acting in the interest of
capitalists or monopolists or of creditors; or that they desired to
conceal what they were doing from the American people, or from
anybody. They selected for their single standard what was then
the cheaper metal, a metal not only then the cheaper, but of
which a large and constantly increasing supply was confidently
expected. The scheme was proposed in the "report of the Director of the Mint, was recommended by the Secretary of the Treasury in his report, was printed in the House of Representatives
thirteen times, was called to the attention of chambers of commerce, was the subject of deliberate discussion in some of them,
and was well known to leading financiers.
The Senate first voted to request the President to open a correspondence with other countries in relation to the unit of value.
That correspondence took place. Then the Director of the Mint
proposed, in his report, to adopt.a single gold standard. Then
the Secretary of the Treasury urged the measure in his report
to Congress. Then the matter was referred by Mr. Hooper of
the House, to public bodies for their opinions.
I have the pamphlet report made to the New York Chamber of
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Commerce by Mr. R u g g l e s on the subject. It was well known to
leading financiers. Is_iw some resolutions the other day, passed
in Chicago, in regard to Mr. Ernest Seyd, and I think the honorable Senator f r o m Nevada (Mr. STEWART) denounced him on this
floor as an agent who came over here f o r the bankers of England
to get Mr. Hooper to do this mischief. A m I mistaken?
Mr. S T E W A R T . H e was here on two occasions. He spent
tho winter here.
Mr. H O A R . Mr. Ernest Seyd was an authority on all practical mechanical measures connected with coin. Mr. Hooper wrote
to England asking his assistance in the matter. Mr. Seyd wrote
him quite a long letter early in the year 1872, and he then came
here. I have his letter to Mr. Hooper, making the final discussion upon the bill which Mr. Hooper submitted; and after suggesting in that letter various practical reforms, which are of little or no importance in this connection, Mr. Seyd goes on with
an able and elaborate argument against monometallism, and says
the great fault he finds with Hooper's bill is that he undertakes
to bring this country to the gold standard, which he thinks
would be destructive, and against which he liad written a book
at home; and ho urges upon him the free coinage of silver at the
rate of 400 grains to, the dollar.
M r . S T E W A R T . W e never had any doubt that his public
writings were to that effect.
Mr. H O A R . I am speaking about the letter, which I think I
will bring down to show my friend f r o m Nevada, and which is at
my rooms at this moment. Mr. Seyd wrote it to Mr. Hooker after
the bill was framed, most earnestly and laboriously urging him
not to adopt monometallism and recommending that the standard
of silver be 400 grains instead of 415.
Mr. G R A Y . Mr. PresidentT h e P R E S I D I N G O F F I C E R (Mr. PASCO in the chair). Does
the Senator f r o m Massachusetts yield to the Senator from Delar
ware?
Mr. H O A R . Certainly.
Mr. G R A Y . If the Senator f r o m Massachusetts will permit
me, I should like to ask, in view of the exceedingly interesting
statement he has just made in regard to Mr. Seyd, whether thero
is anything that would prevent his putting that letter in the
RECORD as part of his speech?
M r r H O A R . I will state very frankly that I wrote to Mr,
Hooper's son-in-law, asking him if he had any correspondence
on this subject, and stated in the letter that I should treat what
h e sent me as confidential unless i t were otherwise agreed: and
although I have given that assurance I feel sure that there will
be no objection to the publication. I have ventured to make
this statement, and I expect to obtain leave to have the entire
letter printed before long.
M r . S T E W A R T . I should like to see the letter in proof as
part of the evidence showing what business he had here at the
time.
Mr. H O A R * Mr. H o o p e r wrote to a gentleman named A l f r e d
Latham, who. I think, was then or had been recently the Director of the Bank of England. Mr. Latham wrote back a letter
in which he commends Mr. Seyd, and says he first showed Mr*
so
13
Hooper's letter to Mr. Seyd, who is the great authority on that
matter, except that Mr. L i t h im thinks that Mr. Seyd is in error
in regard to the matter of monometallism. Thereupon this correspondence takes place. This is not avvery important matter,
but it shows the wild and excited state of mind which worthy
gentlemen {some gentlemen, I am afraid, not very far from where
I am speaking at this moment! get into in regard to the conduct
and motives of those with whom they differ.
Mr. STE W A R T . If the Senator from Massachusetts alluded
to me, I say frankly
Mr. H O A R . I alluded to the Senator particularly.
Mr. S T E W A R T . I say frankly I believe the bill was by design kept from the Sen ite.
Mr. H O A R . The Senator voted for it.
Mr. STE W A R T . I deny that.
Mr. H O A R . I do not want to go into any argument of that
kind, but the Senator voted for it himself. It was printed
thii teen times.
Mr. S T E W A R T . I deny that.
Mr. H O A R . He did not vote against it.
Mr. S T E W A R T . There was no vote upon it at all. I shall
show right here, if the Senator will give me time, that nobody
voted for it.
Mr. H O A R . But, nevertheless, it iB true that it attracted
little general notice. Mr. Hooper, the chairman of the committee, stated clearly to the House the effect of the bill and complained that he cOuld not get the House to listen. Other members of the committee made the same statement.
Now, Mr. President, I suppose the fact is that all mankind,
with the exception-of a few experts, were very little instructed
in regard to that measure.
Mr. S T E W A R T . Has the Senator a reference to the speech
of Mr. Hooper?
Mr. H O A R . No; but it has been quoted in debate more than
once.
Mr. S T E W A R T . If the Senator has the reference I should
like to see it. I have looked over the RECORD and have not
found it.
Mr. H O A R . I have read it within three weeks.
Mr. S T E W A R T . I should like to see it.
Mr. H O A R . I do not believe that, in itself, it has ever seriously injured the finances of* the country, or that it has had any
considerable effect upon the price of labor or upon other prices.
W e were not having specie at all and had not any specie circulation for three or four years after that time, and in 1878 in
came the Bland act restoring silver and providing for a larger
coinage of silver every year than we had had before in the whole
seventy-three years of the century put together. I say this in
justice to an old colleague [Mr. HooperJ, but it has been the occasion and pretext for an agitation which has excited certain
communities in this country, and the excitement which it has
occasioned has been wholly to their harm.
Now, Mr. President, to return, both the great political parties
in this country were of this way of thinking down to the last
national election. It is needless jto add that in the pledges of all
20
14
other parties the retention of gold even to boar its part in a bimetallic system has no place. I read the Republican platform
and the Democratic platform of 181)2.
Mr. PEFFER. I wish simply to state to the Senato in answer
to the suggestion of the Senator from Massachusetts, that so far
as the Populists are concerned, we demand the retention of gold
and silver and ask that whatever deficit there is to meet the
business needs of the people shall ba supplied with paper.
Mr. HOAR. I shall not detain the Senate very long by reading these platforms.
Here is the Republican platform of 1892:
Silver—The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as
standard money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of the parity of
values of tho two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of
the dollar, whether of silver, gold, or paper, shall be at all times equal. Tho
Interests of the producers of the country, its farmers and its workingmen,
demand that every dollar, paper or coin, Issued by the Government shall be
as good as any other.
I now read from the Democratic platform of 1892:
Silver— * * " • We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver, with*
out discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dol*
lar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value or be adjusted through international a<?reement, or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the
two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets
and in payments of debts; and we demand that all paper currency shall be
kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. We insist upon this policy
as especially for the protection of the farmers and laboring classes, the first
and most defenseless victims of unstable money and afluctuatingcurrency.
This declaration of the Democratic party is, in substance, the
same with that made by them in 1888 and in 1884. In all these
years the present President has expressed his full and hearty
approbation of the platform adopted by the convention whose
nomination he accepted.
(Democratic platform of 1880.]
Honest money, consisting of gold and silver and paper convertible Into
coin on demand,
[1881.]
We believe in honest money, the gold and sliver coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money without
Reaffirms the platform of 1884.
Grover Cleveland says, in his letter of acceptance, August 18.
1884:
1 have carefully considered the platform adopted by the convention, and
cordially approve of the same.
But the great question, of course, is the question of ratio.
Here, too, we must follow—whoever may be disappointed and
whatever the cost —
First, the principle laid down by our earlier authorities;
Second, the precedents of our legislation.
#
Alexander H.imilton declared that if the two metals, at any
time, were separated the more valuable metal must be the
standard for the re ison that the fluctuations would ba the more
likely to attach to the inferior metal. No respectable American
sso
15
authority, until tae recent discussions, can be found to the contrary. W e can not establish a contrary policy to-day without
entailing- upon the country infinite mischief, and disregarding
the opinion of the whole commercixl world and without a separation from all the leading nations of the world in this matter of
the standard. I hold that this is a thing almost as impossible as
attempting to exempt our portion of the planet from the operation of the law of gravitation itself.
Everything points to an enlargement of intercourse and to
closer relations in the future. The ocean voyage between the
two hemispheres has been reduced from an average of thirty
days to less than six days, and the time is at hand, in the opinion of the b^st naval architects, when ocean lines will make their
ordinary voyage within a hundred hours. One-half of'the population of the United States are within speaking .distance of
Washington by telephone. The time is undoubtedly at hand
wh in the Atlantic will be no impediment to audible communication between the two continents.
Besides, the precedents of our own legislation, down to the
time when the opinion of this country was divided upon this
question, all point to the same result. If silver were queen, gold
was king.
There is nothing which points to any considerable rise in silver in the near future, unless there may be some brief and temporary diminuation of the product. If it come, however difficult,
there must be a new revision of the relation between the two
metals. That can only take place by the common consent of
commercial nations, and it will ba idle and hopeless to expect it
otherwise.
Believing, therefore, with Hamilton, that the bimetallic standard is that upon which alone this country can permanently and
safely rest, and believing also, with Hamilton, that whenever
the two metals separate the standard must be conformed to the
more valuable, I am in favor of at once putting a stop to the
purchase of silver for coinage. Otherwise it seems to me clear
that our gold will take its departure, and we shall be left in that
most wretched of conditions, a nation with a single 'monometallic
standard composed of an inferior metal, constantly fluctuating
and rapidly degenerating—a condition from which every wealthy
commercial nation in the world, now including India, has escaped.
Another course may be suggested which might, under circumstances different from those which now surround us, prove practicable and desirable. That is, to coin a legal-tender silver dollar of a weight sufficient to make it equal in value to the gold
dollar; make the gold and silver dollars receivable for all debts,
public and private; make them interchangeable s^t the Treasury
at the will of the holder; pledge the credit of the Government
to maintain this relation, and provide that if at any time the bullion value of the silver dollar should fall to a point more than 2
or 3 per cent below the gold dollar the coinage of silver shall
cesse until the ratio be restored. This plan will go far to answer the arguments of those persons who think the stock of
gold in the world insufficient to supply the world's need of a
currency and dread falling prices, increased burden of debts,
and strangulated business. But I fear we can not adopt it now.
so
1G
First, it would not be accepted by the sped il representatives
of the producers of Bilver, without whose concurrence it can not
be adopted.
But, second and chiefly, because we have on our hands four
hundred and twenty million of standard silver dollars, of which
three hundred and eighty million are in circulation, either as
coin or by the certificates which represent them, not now taking into account upward of fifty million of subsidiary coin. If
this policy were to bo adopted now, we must either attempt to
maintain, side by side, two standard silver dollars of different
weight or we must call in and recoin our existing silver currency
at a cost to the Treasury of a sum which might not improbably
equal 50 per cent of the entire value of our silver coinage. W e
must, therefore, abandon for the time being an attempt to make
our present silver product useful for currency and remit that
question to the future. It will be all we can do to support our
present stock of silver coin Without depreciation.
Mr. President, no man can regret more than I do any tempo;
rary distress which may fall upon those young communities
which have lately taken their places in the sisterhood of American States. I would go, as I have heretofore gone, to the very
limit of public safety, in my regard for their special condition.
But they must not e x p e c t — d o not believe that their representatives here will seriously claim—that we should be affected, in
regulating the currency, by a desire to promote the sale of a particular product. If I recollect rightly, the representatives in
this Chamber of the six new States were divided evenly on the
question of the free coinage of silver.
Mr. T E L L E R . Mr. President
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the S e c t o r from Massachusetts yield to the Senator from Colorado?
Mr. H O A R . I do.
Mr. T E L L E R . The Senator from Massachusetts says he does
not think the representatives of the silver States would insist on
that. I wish to ask the Senator if he does not know the representatives have repeatedly declared that they would not insist
on it?
Mr. H O A R . Well, I said a little more than that I did not
think they would insist on it. I said I did not think they would
seriously claim—and I will do justice to the Senator from Colorado,
although I do not recollect any o c c a s i o n s his life when he over
did justice to me—I will do justice to the Senator from Colorado
and say he never has put this silver argument upon the grounds,
which are imputed to him by his Eastern critics. He has never,
in my hearing, from the beginning of our financial discussions,
stated that his people have a right to sell to the Government a
product in the creation of which they are deeply interested, and
that we must conform our currency policy accordingly.
Mr. T E L L E R . I have never claimed that.
Mr. H O A R . I do not think such a policy would, in the end, be of
advantage to the silver-producing States themselves. I believe
that if this country should be put on what is called a silver basis,
and our home supply of coinage could be furnished by Colorado
and the othe~ silver States—I believe if the whole world could
be put on a silver basis, and these silver States could furnish all
20
17
the silver, it would be an unmixed evil to them. No nation, no
State ever got permanent strength or prosperity from its wealth
of the precious metals. There always has been, and there always
will be, an element of chance, not to say gambling, in that product. Spain and Mexico and Peru tell their own story. The
true prosperity of California began when the great profits of
her yield of gold ceased and other industries appeared. I was
specially gratified by the note of courige in an utterance attributed to the senior Senator from Colorado, in which he told his
people not to be down-hearted—they could be a powerful State
without silver. I am not sure that it would not have been better, both for Nevada and for the country, if there were ,not a
mine within her borders.
I believe that the idle silver miners of Colorado will find some
other employment than shedding blood, and some better leader
than their present governor.
I am told that Colorado produced in 1892, fifty-five millions
of coal, sixty millions of farm products, thirty-four millions'
worth of cattle, end that her manufactures wore seventy-five
millions, while her silver product was about twenty-three millions. Two hundred and twenty-four millions of these products,
the demand for which no legislation can affect,4 is a pretty good
showing for a Stite not yet twenty years old. Of the wealth she
produces even now, her silver product is not a tenth.
I do not think we shall gain much by discussing here the responsibility for the condition of things that exist in this country*
It is our duty to agre3, if we can, upon a remedy. W e shall
probably, all of us, have something to say to the people when they
are asked to determine to what leaders they shall give their confidence hereafter. But I voted, after the best consideration of the
subject of which I was capable, for the much-abused statute of
1890. I have seen no reason to change my opinion of the wisdom
of that vot3 in the light of subsequent experience. That law has
been most bitterly attacked. I desire to leave on record somewhere, and the records of the Senate seem to me the fittest place,,
the reason which governed my action.
The law of February 28,1878, commonly known as the Bland
bill, as it passed the House of Representatives, provided for the
free coinage of silver without limit, at the rate of 412£ grains to
the dollar. The owner of the silver bullion, under the operation of that bill as it passed the House, could have taken it to
the mint and received a legal-tender dollar, coined and stamped,
for every 412£ grains of silver. This not only would have enabled the owner of the silver to make a large profit, as the process of its degeneration went on, but it would have been an issue
of fiat money, pure and simple, so far as the difference went between the bullion value of the silver dollar and of the gold
dollar.
The Senate amended the House bill by limiting the amount to
be purchased to a sum which was not to be less than two million
and not more than four million dollars' worth a month, at the
discretion of the Secretary. The Secretary was to purchase the
bullion at its market value and coin from it all the 412£-grain
dollars it would make. The bill so amended passed both Houses
20—2
18
over,the veto of President Hayes. But the fiat money remained,
and for twelve years had been accumulating in the Treasury.
For that issue of fiat money the act of 1890 substituted the
purchase of silver at the rate of 4,500,000 ounces a month. But
it declared it the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to maintain its parity with gold, to do which it would becomo his duty
to use all the powers committed to him by the resumption aot of
of 1875.
Mr. S T E W A R T . I ask if that is in thelaw?
Mr. H O A R . That is his duty, and he has the power.
Mr. S T E W A R T . T o declare that that is the policy?
Mr. H O A R . Yes, sir; if that is the policy in passing the law
it is the duty of the public officer who executes the law to carry
out the policy.
Mr. S T E W A R T . Then there are other provisions in the statute which directed specifically what he should do for the purpose of carrying out the law.
Mr. H O A R . I understand that. There are other provisions
in it, and there are a good many other reserved powers in the
statute of 1890 which have not been very publicly discussed, and
which it may be necessary hereafter to discuss; but I am speaking now of this provision.
Mr. S T E W A R T . I will discuss that hereafter.
Mr. H O A R . In other words, instead of the fiat money of the
Bland bill, every dollar of the property and the utmost limit of
the credit of the people of this country were pledged to the maintenance of our silver currency on an equality with gold.
It is true that the amount of silver to be purchased was increased by the act of 1890 from the limit of from two to four
million dollars' worth a month—at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury—to a fixed amount of 4,500,000 ounces a
month, without discretion; to be purchased, however, at its market value, so that the profit of the transaction inured to the
Treasury*
It is true also that since the Bland bill was enacted but two
millions* worth a month had been in fact purchased. Butthatcondition of things could only continue so long as there should be a
Republican Secretary of the Treasury, or a Democratic Secretary
differing wholly from his party. In the not unlikely accession of
the Democratic party to power we had every reason to expect
that silver would be .purchased to the largest monthly limit permitted by law.
This was not only the opinion of Democrats who might be
termed extremists, but of the leaders of the party in Congress,
with perhaps, half a dozen exceptions. Certainly no man represented, then or now. what would be called the moderate and conservative opinion of his political associates more than the present
Secretary of the Treasury. He had, and deserved, their full
confidence, as he had and deserved the friendly regard of all who
have been his associates in the public service. If the personal
inclination of his party had been followed, without considerations
of special availability in one or two States, he would have bean
preferred to Mr. Cleveland as a candidate for the Presidency itself. It was natural and almost inevitable that, in the case of
Democratic success, Mr. Carlisle should be called to the Treasury,
so
19
and should be clothed with the discretion given by the Bland
bill.
Now Mr. Carlisle had voted for the free coinage of silver, of
which he was an'avowed advocate, although he desired that the
profit should go to the Government and not to the owner of the
bullion. In his very able speech in favor of the Bland bill, as
it finally passed the House, delivered in the House of Representatives February 21, 1878, he gives his opinion on this subject,
and especially his opinion as to the proper exercise of this discretion by the Secretary of the Treasury. He say a:
My position upon the subject Is briefly this: I am opposed to free coinage
of either gold or silver, but in favor of unlimited coinage of both metals
upon terms of exact equality. No discrimination should be made in favor
of one metal and against the other; nor should any discrimination be made
in favor of the holders of either gold or sUver bulUon and against the great
body of the people who own other kinds of property.
He goes on to denounce Mr. Sherman, then Secretary of the
Treasury, as well known to be hostile to the purposes of the
Bland bill, and to denounce the resumption act of 1875 as a destructive scheme. He says:
The Senate has declared by a large vote that the coinage should be limited
to a sum not less than $2,000,000 per month. If the execution of this measure could be intrusted to a public officer whose opinions upon the subject
were in accord with those of the great majority of the American people,
and whose sympathies were with the struggling masses who produce the
wealth and pay the taxes of the country, rather than with the idle holders
of idle capital, the provisions alluded to would be of little consequence, because he would coin the maximum instead of the minimum amount allowed
by the amendment.
.Let me not be understood for a moment as desiring to cast any
imputation either upon the integrity or the wisdom of the present Secretary of the Treasury. I suppose that he has changed
his opinion as to what would be a wise exercise of his discretion
under the Bland bill, even if he were vested with it. But I suppose that, in common with a large number of his countrymen,
his change of opinion has been brought about naturally and
honestly, as well as inevitably, by a change of situation. The
argument which might have convinced as honest a public officer
as Mr. Carlisle in 1878, appears very differently in 1893. In 1878
all parties in the United States expected to continue the coinage
of silver. The question was whether it should be limited or unlimited. Thece was no reason to doubt that if the consent of
Great Britain could be had, every other European Government
would gladly open its mints again to silver. Many great and
conservative British financiers then thought that the way to
^protect India was not to put her on a gold basis, but that England herself should resume the coinage of silver at a proper ratio.
It is no secret that some of the cabinet of Lord Salisbury and
that Mr. Goschen himself inclined to this view and were ready
to adopt it as the policy of the Government, if the consent of the
business men of Condon, with anything near unanimity, could
have been had. This opinion has within a few days been reaffirmed by Mr. Balfour. I have never agreed with the opinions
expressed in favor of the free coinage of silver by Mr. Carlisle,
and those who then thought with him; but justice to them requires it to be admitted that the question was a very different
80
20
one when the policy of the commercial world, outside of this
country, was still undecided, f r o m what i t is now when that policy is settled.
This then was the condition of things under the bill for which
the Sherman bill was a substitute. T h e Bland bill of 1878 required the addition to our silver coinage of $2,000,000 worth a
month, not redeemable in gold, and legal tender for all oblig at ions,
public or private. T h e Secretary of the Treasury was bound to t he
purchase of at least $2,000,000 worth a month, and to coin from
it all the dollars it would make. But he was at liberty in his
discretion to purchase and coin 34,000,000 worth a month.
If we had a Secretary entertaining the then opinion of Mr.
Carlisle, w h o favored and voted for free coinage of silver, and
who favored the passage of the Bland bill over the veto of P r e s ident EL yes, we were to have $4,000,000 worth a month, o r $48,003,000 worth a year. N o w this, so far as the difference between
gold and silver was concerned, was fiat money pure and simple.
W h a t would have come if this law had been continued? If we
had had a Democratic Administration—if that Administration
represented the opinion of nine-tenths of the Democratic party—
we were to have forty-eight million dollars 1 worth of fiat money
a year. T o what condition would this have brought us, inevitably and swiftly, even if the smaller quantity alone were coined?
I will let M r . Cleveland himself answer this question.
H e declares in his message, December 8 , 1 8 8 5 : '
This operation wiU result in the substitution of silver for all the gold the
Government owns applicable to Its general purposes;
That the—
hoarding of gold has already begun;
That—
the two coins will part company; • * • then will be apparent the difference between the real value of the silver dollar and a dollar in gold; * * *
gold, still the standard of value, and necessary in our dealings with other
countries, will beat a premium over silver; * * * rich speculators will
sell their hoarded gold to their neighbors who need it to liquidate their foreign debts, at a ruinous premium over silver, and the laboring men and
women of the land, most defenseless of all, will find that the dollar received
for the wage of their toil has shrunk in its purchasing power.
That disaster has not already overtaken us furnishes no proof that danger
does not wait upon a continuation of the present silver coinage. We hare
been saved by the most careful management and unusual expedients* by a
combination of fortunate conditions, and by a confident expectation that the
course of the Government in regard to silver coinage would be speedily
changed by the action of Congress.
In his letter to A . J. W a r n e r and others, members of the F o r t y eighth Congress, February 24,1885, Mr. Cleveland says:
Gold would be withdrawn to its hoarding places, and an unprecedented
contraction in the actual volume of our currency would speedily take place.
Saddest of all, in every workshop, mill, factory, store, and on every railroad
and farm, the wages of labor, already depressed, would suffer still further
depression by a scaling down of the purchasing power of every so-called
dollar paid into the hand of toU. From these impending calamities it is
surely a most patriotic and grateful duty of the representatives of the people to deliver them.
M r . President, the representatives of the people did deliver
them.
W i t h no help f r o m Mr. Cleveland o r his political supporters, the Republican party arrested the swift progress of
the danger which threatened us, and removed a large part,
20
21
though not the whole, of the evil of the Bland bill. The act of
July 14, 1890, while it for a fcbort time increased the amount of
silver which the Secretary of the Treasury might purchase and
coin, declared the " established policy of the United States to
maintain the two metals at a parity with each other."
By the statute approved January 14,1875, the act to provide
for the resumption of specie payments, the Secretary of the
Treasury is authorized to use any surplus revenues not otherwise appropriated, and to issue, sell, and dispose of, at not less
than par, any bonds of the United States described in the act of
Congress of July 14,1870. Those bonds were: A bond bearing 4
per cent interest, running for thirty years; a bond bearing 4£
per cent interest, running fifteen years; a bond bearing 5 per
cent interest, running ten years.
So that the act of 1890 substituted for the issue of twenty-four
million gold dollars'worth of fiat-silver money yearly the present
purchase of silver, with the whole faith and resources of the Government pledged to maintain its equality with gold.
It is said that we had in the Treasury June 30, 1893, $362,000,000 of silver in coin and $118,000,000 in bars; and this is true.
But of this four hundred and eighty millions, three hundred and
forty millions, or thereabouts, is in practical circulation in the
form of silver certificates.
W e had, at the same time, in the Treasury, $110,000,000 of gold
in coin, and seventy-eight millions in bars. Of this one hundred
and eighty-eiefht millions, ninety-four millions, or about 50 per
cent, was in practical circulation in the form of gold certificates.
While the gold certificates in circulation amount to only onehalf or thereabouts of the gold in the Treasury, the silver certificates in circulation are about two-thirds of the silver in the
Treasury. W e have one hundred and fifty millions of silver certificates in circulation against ninety-four millions in circulation
of gold certificates.
I suppose it will not be claimed that, so far as the silver is in
practical circulation, the most convenient form of that circulation is not the deposit of the bullion, or coin, in the Treasury,
and the transfer from hand to hand of its paper representative.
1 suppose that if all the silver now in the Treasury should be replaced by an equal value in gold dollars, and the silver destroyed
or sent out of the country, as large a.proportion of the gold as
the amount of the silver certificates bear to the entire mass of
silver would circulate in the form of gold certificates.
Under the statute of the United States, which differs in that
respect from that of some States, the repeal of an act which
itself repeals a former act does not revive such former act. So *
in voting to repeal the act of 1890, or any part of it, we do not
revive the legislation from which Mr. Cleveland anticipated
such mischievous consequences in the near future. W e r e the
Bland bill now to be revived I, for one, should not consent to repeal the law of 1890, and to vest in Mr. Carlisle the discretion
which he is so solemnly pledged toexerciss, of purchasing silver
and issuing fiat dollars of 412i grains at the rate of 4,000,000
gold dollars' worth, or at present rate 7,371,428 silver dollars a
month.
This discretion it will be remembered, was vested by law
20
22
wholly in the Secretary and is beyond the control of the President himself.
Mr. COCKRELL. Will the Senator from Massachusetts yield
for just one word of explanation?
Mr. H O A R . Certainly.
Mr. COCKRELL. I simply wish to ask the Senator why he
calls the standard silver dollar, now commanding a premium in
gold in the city of New York in the hands of the bankers there,
a fiat dollar?
Mr. H O A R . It is a fiat dollar for so much of it as is not worth
the dollar for which it passes. Of course a fiat dollar may pass
at an equality and sometimes at a premium, but it is none the
less a fiat dollar in the ordinary definition of the word.
But, Mr. President, there was another reason equally controlling:
One party, the Democratic party, almost unanimously—ai^ed
by Republicans enough to make a majority of both Houses of
Congress—were well known to be in favor of the free, unlimited
coinage of silver at the rate of 4 1 g r a i n s to the dollar. There
were a few exceptions in the Democratic party. But that tho
friends of free coinage of silver represented its settled opinion
and its deliberate purpose is shown by the fact that at its advent
to power the Secretary of the Treasury and every Democratic
member of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, with a single exception, is a person who was then of that way of thinking.
Now, Mr. President, it is notorious—no honest man who remembers the history of that time will deny—that the alternative
presented to us was the passage through both Houses of Congress of a bill for tho free coinage of silver or; the adoption of
the measure of 1800—a measure far better than the existing law
which it repealed, on the one hand, and infinitely better than
the new law with which we were menaced, on the other. It is
true that President Harrison undoubtedly would have vetoed a
bill for the free coinage of silver. But it is also true that the
passage of such a measure through both Houses of Congress—
arrested only by the opinion of the Executive—would have
caused infinite mischief in its effect upon the public credit, both
abroad and at home.
Mr. T E L L E R . Mr. President
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield to the Senator from Colorado?
Mr. H O A R . Certainly.
Mr. T E L L E R . I should like to ask the Senator from Massachusetts if he has forgotten that the House of Representatives
had voted down a free-coinage biil?
Mr. H O A R . I understand it
Mr. T E L L E R . And that when the chairman of the conference committee reported the bill, he called our attention to the
fact that the other House had determined not to have free coinage?
Mr. H O A R . I understand that very well, but it was because
of this compromise law of 1890.
Mr. T E L L E R . No compromise had been made.
Mr. H O A R . The House of Representatives would have passed
a bill for the free coinage of silver by a very considerable ma20
23
jority, in my judgment if we had re-'ected th^ conference report.
Mr. S T E W A R T . The Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN]
stated
'
Mr. H O A R . I know all about that.
Mr. S T E W A R T . He sated that it was impossible to get a
free-coinage bill, and therefore the conference agreed upon this
measure.
Mr. H O A R . I do not so understand it. He did not say so.
He said they had voted against it.
Mr. S T E W A R T . That is the fact about It.
Mr. H O A R . The Senator does not question *my statement
that I voted for the law of 1890 under that belief?
Mr. S T E W A R T . Oh, no.
Mr. H O A R . Now, you tell us that the main cause of the present difficulty is that foreigners will not keep our securities so
long as they are afraid they will be paid in depreciated silver, although the whole credit of the Government of the United States
is pledged to m i k e every silver coin as good as gold coin anywhere. What do you think would have been the effect on our
credit of the continuance of the coinage of silver dollars under
the Bland bill, there beinsr neither oblig tion nor authority resting upon the Government to exchange these silver dollars for
goLd dollars, and the purpose of the American people being
learned only from the fact that under its existing law it was
coining 824,000,000 worth of fiat money annually, to grow to
$48,000,000 worth whenever a Secretary of the Treasury agreeing
with Mr. Carlisle should come into power; and that there was a
Congress, both of whose Houses were purposing to substitute for
that an unlimited coinage of depreciated silver whenever they
could get rid of the constitutional restraint imposed only by an
individual will ?
There has never been a day since the resumption of specie payments until long since the'present Administration came into
power when, if you had taken a thousand dollars in gold and a
thousand dollars in silver into any national bank in the country,
the bank would have given a dollar for its choice between the
two as a deposit. It may be that a bank—one of whose customers was paying a large body of workmen their wages on a pay
day—might have given something for the silver for convenience
of making change. The silver currency of the country was maintained practically on an equality with gold.
I believe that if President Cleveland in his inaugural address
had declared that every authority vested in him, or in the
Treasury Department, would be used to keep every dollar of our
currency as good as every other, and had been left at liberty by
the pledges of the platform on which he was elected to add assurances that there should be no change made in the protective
system which should not take effect far enough ahead to allow
existing industries to adapt themselves to the new condition of
things, the calamity which is upon us would not have come.
The purchase of silver under the act of 1890, in my judgment,
is a wasteful and extravagant expenditure of the public money.
It never could have been excused, but as an escape from the fiat
money of the Bland bill, and from the threat of an absolute free
coinage of silver. But we could have maintained our national
go
329
cverlit and the integrity of our national currency in spite of it,
without disaster or panic, but ^or the aa vent of President Cloveland to power.
Mr. DUBOIS. Mr. President
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield to the Senator from Idaho?
Mr. H O A R . Certainly.
Mr. DUBOIS. I should like very much if the Senator from
Massachusetts would make a little clearer his statement in regard to the danger of free coinage at that time. I was a member
of the other House then and rec ill the fact very distinctly. I
think we could not pass a free-coinage bill through the House,
and I understmd that the Senator himself says th<:t President
Harrison would have vetoed a free-coinnge bill. I should like
to have the Senator make it a little clearer why the act of 1890
was passed to save us from free coinage.
Mr. H O A R . I have made it as clear as I know how. I will
repeat in substance what I said. Undoubtedly Mr. Harrison
would have vetoed the bill for the free coinage of silver. There
is no doubt aboutthat whatever; but they tell us—aiifl that is the
p:>int I am making and I ropeat it—the monometallists or whatever, President Cleveland in his messige says, that the p m i c was
caused by the fact that foreign nations are afraid we are going
to jmy them in depreciated silver currency, which, whatever may
be its credit here, whatever it may bo maintained at here, they
can not tike home with them and pass for their dollar's wortli,
and that is what has caused oar trouble.
My proposition is that, if foreign nations take that view of the
present law, what would they have taken of the Bland bill? I
am going to show in a moment that you c^uld have coined a good
many mare dollars under it than under the Sherman law. W h a t
would be the'effect on the credit of the American people? If
they are frightened by an existing condition of things which
maintains silver on a pirity with gold, what sort of fright would
they have had when you put out $24,000,000 or $48,000,000 worth
of silver with no obligation to keep it even with gold, and that
only as an alternative to a condition of things in which both
Houses of Congress wanted the free coinage of silver and could
not get it over the President s veto. That is the point.
It may be well, before leaving this subject, to point out exactly the extent of the difference in the matter of purchasing
silver under the operations of the much-reviled law of 1890 and
that of which it took the place. Taking the aver age price of
silver from the time when the Bland bill was repealed and the
law of 1890 took its place, down to the first day of August, 1893,
at the rate of §2,000.000 worth a month—the smallest amount
which the law made it the duty of the Secretary to acquire—it
appears that only $23,000,000 more of silver has been purchased
under the Sherman law than would have been uttered if the
Bland bill had continued in force.
A t an expenditure of $23,000,000, therefore, this country escaped from the evil which President Cleveland anticipated as
coming upon us in the near future, and which he so vividly and
cloqu nt'y portrayed; escaped the certain addition of upwards
of thirty-seven millions a year, or upwards of one hundred and
20
25
t e n m i l l i o n s in t h r e e y e a r s of fiat s i l v e r c u r r e n c y , and t h e n o t
i m p o s s i b l e a d d i t i o n of t w i c e t h a t a m o u n t ; and e s c a p e d , also, t h e
d a n g e r of h a v i n g b o t h H o u s e s d e c l a r e f o r t h e u n l i m i t e d c o i n a g e
of s i l v e r . W e h a v e a l s o t o s e t a g a i n s t t h i s e x p e n d i t u r e t h e
actual v a l u e of t h e b u l l i o n r e c e i v e d f o r t h i s t w e n t y - t h r e e m i l lion so expended.
B u t t h i s is n o t all. If t h e o t h e r l i m i t i n t h e d i s c r e t i o n of t h e
Treasury Department had been reached—in accord with nearly
t h e u n a n i m o u s d e s i r e of t h e D e m o c r a t i c p a r t y — w e s h o u l d h a v e
h a d a b o u t $112,000,000 m o r e of t h e fiat m o n e y , and t h e b a l a n c e
w o u l d h a v e b e e n $89,000,000 i n f a v o r of t h e l a w of 1890.
T a k i n g t h e p r i c e of s i l v e r as i t w a s o n t h e first of t h e c u r r e n t
m o n t h (70 c e n t s an o u n c e ) , $2,000,000 w o r t h , c o i n e d i n t o d o l l a r s ,
w o u l d h a v e p r o d u c e d $3,685,714, w h i l e 4,500,000 o u n c e s of s i l v e r
a t t h e s a m e p r i c e c o s t o n l y $3,150,000; s h o w i n g t h a t t h e p u r c h a s e
or s i l v e r u n d e r t h e S h e r m a n l a w , a t t h e p r e s e n t p r i c e s , is m o r e
t h a n a half m i l l i o n d o l l a r s a m o n t h less than w o u l d b e c o i n e d
under the Bland bill.
M r . M C P H E R S O N . T h a t is t h e m i n i m u m ?
M r . H O A R . T h a t is t h e m i n i m u m . I h a v e m a d e t w o t a b l e s
here to show that very clearly.
T h e f o l l o w i n g s h o w s t h e o p e r a t i o n of t h e B l a n d b i l l a n d t h e
Sherman law compared:
Minimum. Maximum. Absolutely.
Monthly purchases of sliver under
Bland bill, at 83 cents (estimated average) an ounce, coined Into dollars,
would have produced, since Sherman
law was enacted:
One month
$3,108,433 $6,216,866
Three yeurs
.....
111,903,588 233,807,176
Four million five hundred thousand
ounces silver, at 83 cents, cost:
One month
....
......
Three years
.................
A monthly purchase of silver under
Bland bill, at present price of silver
(70 cents), coined into dollars would
produce:
8,685,714
One month
7,371,428
Four million five hundred thousand
ounces silver, at present price (70
cents), would cost
Monthly indebtedness under Sherman
law less than it would be under Bland
bill, at present price of silver
635,714
4,221,428
Average monthly excess of the amount
of silver certittcates over market
value of the silver (or silver dollars
they represented) when coined, which
would have been issued under Bland,
bill since Sherman law was enacted
(silver at 83 cents an ounce):
One month
1,108,433
2,216,863
Three years
39,903,588 79,807,176
Monthly excess at present price of sil1,685,714
3,371,428
$3,735,000
134,460,000
8,150,000
NOTE.—(1) U n d e r S h e r m a n l a w t h e c o i n e d d o l l a r s (and c e r t i f i £0
26
cates) represent the market value of the silver, when coined, and
no more.
(2) Under the Sherman law the entire credit of the Government is pledged to keep silver at a parity with gold. Under the
Bland law there was no such obligation.
Or to restate the comparison a little more compactly:
One
month.
Three
years.
UNDER SHERMAN LAW.
4,500,000 ounces of silver, at 83 cents (average)
$3,735,000 8134,460,000
UNDER BLAND BILL.
$2,000,000 worth of silver a month, at 83 cents
Excess represented by certificates (and the coined
dollars)
................
Against Sherman law
.
$2,000,000 worth of silver, at 70 cents (approximately
rate of last purchase)
„
Excess when coined
4,500,000 ounces of silver, at 70 cents
In favor of Sherman law at present time..
2,000,000
72,000,000
1,108,433
39,003,588
3,103,433
626,567
111,903,588
22,556,412
5,000,000
1,685,714
3,685,714
8,150,000
535,714
NOTE.—Three hundred and seventy-one and one-fourth grains
silver (amount in one silver dollar) being by law worth a
Singure
ollar in gold, 1 ounce of silver (480 grains) is worth $1.29, makthe Bland dollar at par when silver is 81.29 per ounce.
W e are told by our Democratic friends of sound money in the
Eastern States, we are told by the newspapers w h o are the special organs and supporters of the President that it is our duty
in this day of our country's trouble to forget party and to cooperate with the President in renewing public confidence and restoring a sound currency. They tell us we must say nothing and do
nothing that will weaken his authority or impair his just influence.
They tell us we ought to stand by him in all honest efforts and
all lawful and healthy measures. T h e advice is good. W e will
take it. W h e n he cries to the Republican party to lend a hand
to get him and the country out of the morass m which he and
the country are sinking, we will do it. W e will neither taunt
nor upbraid him till he is safe on dry land out of the swamp,
and not then unless he tries to plunge the country into another.
Now let them deal with us in the same way. L e t them deal
out to us the same measure of justice they ask for him. T h e
weight of this burden is upon *the shoulders of Congress where
the responsibility for all legislation rests. The President's duties, as he said when he accepted his first nomination, are chiefly
executive. He has sent in his message, and his constitutional
relation to that whole subjeci is over until we send him a bill.
Now let him and his organs do justice to the men who have
fought this battle. W h e n he or they have occasion to discuss
our action in enacting the law of 1890, let them repeat to the
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27
people what he said about the condition of things from which
that bill extricated the country. When they say that the increase of our silver under the Sherman act hurts our credit
abroad, let them tell the people that we should be now purchasing $500,000 worth a month more if the law which it repealed
were in force. When they say that our securities are sent home
because foreign investors are afraid we shall come to pay them
in silver, let them in honesty and decency tell the people how
foreign investors would, in their judgment, have felt if, instead
of the pledge of the honor and all the resources of the American
people to maintain the silver dollar at a parity with gold, no
such obligation existed anywhere, and both Houses of Congress
had declared themselves in favor of the free coinage of silver
into dollars, worth from 60 to 70 cents in gold, and the measure
had been kept from becoming law only by the interposition of
a single will.
Now, Mr. President, I have but a word or two more to say in
regard to the necessity which seems to me to be upon us, and
which I regret as much as any man in the country, of temporarily suspending the coinage of silver under the Sherman law.
Gentlemen must remember, Senators representing the especial
silver interest must remember, what we have got and what we
are to have in the way of silver coinage in this country for along
time to come. The stock of gold on the 1st day of January, 1893,
in this country of coin was $597,981,390, and the bullion in the
Mint $81,826,630 more, making together $679,788,020. A t the
same time we had a stock of silver amounting to $501,378,706,
and bullion at itscostvalue $99,824,220 more, making $601,202,926.
But if this bullion be coined into dollars under the present arrangement, the money value of the silver bullion to be coined
would make in dollars $183,961,740. If you deduct its cost, $99,824,220, and add the $84,137,520 balance, you are to have, as
against a stock of gold coins, in this country $S79,788,020, and
a stock of silver coin and to be coined of $685,340,446. The
present gold coinage is only about $30,000,000 a year. Nobody
supposes that our silver will leave the country or be melted up
at that rate of value in dollars. So it will take two and one-half
years to have a stock of gold in this country, of gold coin, equal
to theexisting stock of silver coin. W h e n you remember that
there were but $8,000,000 of silver coined by this country down to
the year 1873,1 do not think our silver friends are quite warranted
in calling us gold bugs, and threatening to wade up to their horses'
bridles in blood, when the policy which is proposed maintains
for them $685,000,000 of silver, $70,000,000 more than the stock
of gold coin in this country, and equality even between the two
coins will not arrive for two and one-half years.
There is a great difference b3tween a" declaration by this
country, in time of panic, of a purpose to establish and adhere
to an exclusively gold standard of value and an exclusively gold
currency as a medium of exchange, and the declaration that we
will adopt the policy to which all the commercial nations of the
world have come, until by their consent a bimetallic standard
can be adopted. A t present, and for a long time to come, our
supply of silver in circulation and in th3 Treasury must largely
exceed our supply of gold. Advocates of silver, or bimetallism,
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28
can not complain unless they take the ground that we shall establish a currency of our own in order to maintain a market for
their product—an av nval which I think no Senator on this floor
will have thecouraga to make.
No candid advocate of silver currency can affirm that the people of the United States have not gone to the extreme limit of
public safety in the struggle to maintain silver in connection
with gold as the monetary standard. W e have purchased this
metal and coined it and given it a legal-tender power beyond its
value for fifteen years. W e have, at the expense of the ^e pie,
purchased it in large quantities beyond any public necessity and
beyond any desire of the people to use it as money. During till
this time it has been constantly on the decline. Even India has
abandoned it. Certainly the experiment has been fully tried
and the Government has gone to the extent of its resources in
obedience to their desire.
I suppose, Mr. President, that with the coinage of the silver
dollar stopped this country could maintain without difficulty our
presant volume of silver currency on an equality with gold.
Some of our friends are apt to point with dismay to the mass of
silver coin in the Treasury. But every coin in the Treasury
that is represented by a silver certificate is in practical circulation in the most convenient way. I do not believe that the
great commercial nations of the world will long submit to be deprived of the great advantage which seems to me to come from
the use of both the precious metals. I look still for an international agreement upon this subject. If that shall come, the
relation of the two metals to each other will be carefully reconsidered.
But I believe one can be—I will not say established by law, but
I will say—ascertained by experience which, when recognized
by law and by the common consent of mankind, can be maintained without substantial change for generations to come. From
such a condition of things the communities upon whom the present crisis baars the hardest will reap, in my opinion, the most
abundant harvest. They will cease to depend on a single product, fluctuating in price, with its ever-present temptation to
gambling and speculation.
I am not unmindful of the opinion of some of the wisest and
best financiers that the supply of gold is sufficient fop the world's
wants Jor a metallic currency and a standard of value. I do not
agree with them; but it may be that the product of gold will increase, at least, to the world s needs in that respect, if not sufficient now. This opinion may, in the end, prevail. I do not
think anybody who can be trusted has settled yet what are the
wants of the World's business, or has any very clear idea on the
subject or knows very accurately what is likely to be the world's
product of gold.
•
Within twenty years silver has been discarded as a measure
of value in every country of importance but Mexico. It is not a
measure of value in the United States, and has not been'since
1834. There is no human probability that it will ever be restored
to that function unless some time in the future the supply of gold
shall become subject to great fluctuation and the supply of silver
become steady. W e can not provide for such contingencies and
so
29
it is needless to speculate about them. But I am utterly opposed
to a declaration that we will never use silver again as currency,
or will never again coin it for a legal tender.
To make such a declaration by Congress, or to adopt such a
policy, would, in my opinion, arm every agitator and anarchist
•and socialist with an almost irresistible weapon. They would
say that by the perpetual adoption of a single standard the world's
burden of debt would be constantly gr6wing heavier, and that tho
prices of the world's product would gradually and constantly be
falling. In support of their contention they would point, not
only to the opinions of the fathers, but to the recent utterances
of nearly every pub ic man of all parties; of candidates for the
Presidency; of nominating conventions; and, with scarcely an
exception, of every person clothed, or likely soon to be clothed
with legislative authority. They would point to the fact^ that
even in England the representatives of the last Tory administration inclined more and more to the bimetallic standard, properly
adjusted, and to the policy of giving silver a share in the function assigned to the precious metals. I suppose they adhere to
that view now. I do not believe that a policy of eternal monometallism, adopted in a time of panic, could stand.
r
It is enough for the present occasion to say that there should
be no further coinage of silver, except by the unanimous consent
of commercial nations. Upon that policy, if we adopt it voluntarily, we can stand. If we decline to adopt it voluntarily, we
shall be compelled to it, alike by the loss of trade and by the
necessities of all classes; chiefly, however, of the laboring men
of the country, who can not live without a stable currency and
a steady credit.
90
O
@FedFRASER