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Gold and Silver Against Gold Monopoly—Unconditional Repeal of the Sherman Law Insures the Latter* S P E E C H OF HON. J A M E S OF L. P U G H , A L A B A M A , IN THE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES, Monday, September ll% 1893* The Senate having tinder consideration the hill (H. R. 1) to repeal a part of an act, approved July 14, 1890, entitled 4'An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes"— Mr. P U G H said: Mr. P R E S I D E N T : The Constitution confers upon the President the power of convening Congress on extraordinary occasions, and makes him the sole judge of what constitutes an extraordinary occasion. To be extraordinary an occasion must be "beyond or out of the common order or method; not in the usual, customary, or regular course: not ordinary." The President has decided that an extraordinary occasion exists, and convenes Congress to provide remedies by legislation for the removal or prevention of the evils said to have resulted and those now being threatened by the existence of the extraordinary occasion. The Constitution also makes it mandatory that th > President shall recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall deem necessary and expedient. The President has discharged his constitutional duty in a mes sage in which he describes existing and threatened evils, and recommends but one remedy, and that is the repeal of the act of 1890 known as the Sherman law, without saying whether the repeal shall be unconditional. It is the first time during the existence of our Government th^t Congress has been convened in extraordinary session for the sole purpose of repealing any law without suggesting any substitute or the necessity for additional legislation. Repeal of a law on a purely economic subject that was p issed without any question or its constitutionality, and with no other operation than adding to our volume of currency about $50,000,000 per annum of lawful money, with purchasing and debt paying quality equal to gold in any market in the United States. A law under which the country has enjoyed unusual prosperity since its en805 2 actment. A law that no Senator has stated or believes is the cause of the extraordinary occasion which has convened Congress, or that the repeal thereof will remedy existing derangement. Then, what necessity for the extraordinary session, or why this pressure and clamor for immediate action, which will be a mockery and an insult to the common sense and ordinary intelligence of the people? I have read and reread the message of the President, and if plain words in common use by the English-speaking people can express without ambiguity or uncertainty the meaning of the author, the message of President Cleveland is an explicit declaration in favor of the establishment and maintenance of the gold standard in the currency of the United States, until changed to bimetallism by international agreement, and that such a standard will afford the only remedy that can " mitigate present danger threatening the future." There is not a word or sentence in the message expressing any favor or friendship for bimetallism, or that countenances the addition of one more silver dollar to our currency. Unquestionably the President means that it is utterly useless for our Government to make any effort to secure an international agreement that will secure bimetallism until we repeal the Sherman law, and thereby close out all possibility of our adding any more silver currency to our circulation, except with the cooperation and agreement of gold standard European nations. If the Government of the United States should fail to get an international agreement by the repeal of the Sherman law, and should leave silver here exactly where it is to-day in England, then what does the message propose shall be done by Congress to supply the people with a sound and sufficient currency? The constitutional duty of the Federal Government to supply the people with a sufficient currency to pay debts and purchase property and employ labor and invest in business and industries is admitted by the President. Is there a word in the message expressing the President's belief that the present supply of money is not abundantly sufficient or that Congress should in any way increase the existing volume of currency? I call special attention to a most significant declaration of Secretary Carlisle, made since the passage in the House of Representatives of the Wilson bill, which repeals the Sherman silverpurchase law. Secretary Carlisle was asked if the present stringency was due to lack of money. He replied: No greater mistake could be committed than to assume that the present financial embarrassment is caused by an actual scarcity of money in the country. The fact is that the amount of currency of all kinds in the country, outside of the United States Treasury, on the 25th day of the present month, was $58,452 350 greater than the amount outstanding on the 1st day of the month, and $70,294,783 more than the amount outstanding on the 1st day of September, 1892, when business was active and prosperous. There is money enough to transact all the legitimate business of the people, but the difficulty is that it has been withdrawn from circulation and hoarded. The true remedy is to restore confidence and credit, and thus put the money now In the country in circulation again. On the same line, from the New York Times of the 10th instant: The significance of this fact is most important with regard to the assumption made in Washington by some public men who ought to know better that the situation requires the issue of more currency. It requires nothing of the sort. The currency we have, if it be kept sound, will be ample for all exchanges when credit resumes its normal activitv and utility. Any at- ST95 3 tempt to increase the currency through Governmental agency is peculiarly dangerous, because it is almost certain to result in a doubtful kind of currency. If the national banks be allowed to issue notes to the par value of their bonds, it will provide for all possible legitimate demand for currency, and this plan has the great merit that it would be put in operation only if business required it. It is not at all certain that even this increase would be made to any great extent. Anything beyond this, any attempt by Congress arbitrarily to add to the supply of " money" in the country, will be only too apt to do mischief and to expose us again to the very troubles from which we are emerging. If it be true, as seated by the financial head of the present Administration, that our money supply is abundant, why has he recommended the speedy amendment of the national banking law so as to give these banks the authority to add $20,000,000 more to our circulation? And if his statement be true, what necessity exists for the free coinage of silver? If the country needs no more money, then, after the repeal of the Sherman law, there is no use for any legislation hereafter to increase the volume of currency, and the promise of such legislation is another sham and makeshift. The message clearly means that the Government has discharged its duty in furnishing a sufficient amount of currency, but has failed in the quantity and soundness of the circulation. He declares that we are in an '' unfortunate financial plight:" With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe investment, and with satisfactory assurance of business enterprise, suddenly famine, distrust, and fear have sprung up on every side. Numerous moneyed institutions have suspended because abundant assets were not immediately available to meet the demands of frightened depositors. Surviving corporations and industries are content to keep in hand the money they are usually anxious to loan, and those engagedin legitimate business are surprised to find that the securities they offer for loans are no longer accepted. Values supposed to be fixed are fast becoming conjectural, and loss and failure have invaded every branch of business. What does the President think is the cause of these unprecedented and disastrous conditions? He says, "These things are principally chargeable to Congressional legislation, touching the purchase and coinage of silver—not the purchase alone—by the General Government," and specifies the statute passed on the 14th uday of July, 1890, known as the Sherman law, and which he says was the culmination of much agitation, and may be considered a truce after a long struggle between the advocates of free silver coinage and those intending to be more conservative." How does the President say the Sherman law operated to produce the ruinous consequences and conditions he describes? Undoubtedly the monthly purchase by the Government of 4,500,000 ounces of silver enforced under that statute were regarded by silver producers as the certain guaranty of its increase in price. The result has been entirely different. Tnis disappointing result has led to renewed and persistent effort in the direction of free silver coinage. The foregoing is an unmistakable charge that the renewed and persistent effort in the direction of free silver coinage, caused by the failure of the Sherman law to increase the price of silver, is the originating evil that has contributed to the distrust of our currency. Meanwhile— Says the President, i. e., while the agitation in favor of free silver coinage continues— not only are the evil effects of the Sherman law constantly accumulating, but the result to which its execution must inevitably lead is becoming palpable to all who give the least heed to financial subjects. 395 4 What are the results to which the execution of the Sherman law must inevitably lead that are so manifest in the opinijn of the President? It is the compulsory issue of coined certificates to the amount of $50,000,000 par annum that the Secretary of the Treasury was bound in his discretion to treat and redeem as gold certificates and thereby force the Government to intrench upon the gold reserve of $100,000,000 to redeem greenbacks, or to sell 4 per cent bonds for gold to rede am the certificates to be renewed continuously for that purpose, and that a continuation of the practice of redeeming these certificates in gold and selling bonds to obtain it was unavoidable, as their redemption in silver must lead in the direction of the entire substitution of silver for the gold in the Government Treasury, and that this must be followed by the payment of all Government obligations in depreciated silver. The construction of the Sherman law giving the discretionary power to the Secretary of the Treasury to redeem the coin certificates in gold was an abdication of his discretion, and the transfer of it to the discretion of the holders of the coin certificates, which completely excludes his right, his discretion, from having anything whatever to do with the question, and converts the coin certificates into gold certificates. The change of the law conferring upon him the option to say whether they should be payable in gold or in silver, was a substitution of his option for the option of the holders of the coin certificates. The President's mess.ige presents the square issue whether the United States shall come to the gold standard of Europe and remain there until changed by international agreement or cling to the use of the constitutional union of gold and silver as a standard of values in the United States on the force of national law and not an international agreement. The Senate, as a coordinate and independent part of the lawmaking power has its constitutional duty to perform of considering the occasion which has called the two Houses together, and the recommendations of the President, and all other means and sources of information that will best qualify Senators and assist them in forming wise and just conclusions in relation to the grave and far-reaching subjects which absorb public attention and excite public expectation. There are some facts so public and general that they can challenge and defy contradiction, and one of these is that the currency, the kind of money that is best and has in the highest degree the qualities of stability and soundness and elasticity and is capable of safe expansion as a measure or standard of values to meet the necessary and legitimate demands of trade and com merce and debt paying, is the paramount and overshadowing question of the present age and generation in Europe and America. " The discovery and establishment of a standard of values by which to regulate the commerce and debt paying of mankind has engaged and baffled the capacity, ingenuity, learning, and experience of man in all ages and countries, and especially in this new age of marvelous inventions, discoveries, and improvement in the means and agencies of commerce and national and international intercourse, and after centuries of trial by the most enlightened populations in the world we are confronted to-day with the sume problems and the same difficulties of securing* a wise, safe, and permanent solution suitable to modern conditions that lawmakers have encountered all through time. 895 5 It is a question so full of inherent and invisible and incomprehensible complications, growing out of the operation of the natural laws of supply and demand, and other causes constantly intervening, that it is incapable of satisfactory and permanent solution and settlement. After long trial and numerous experiments in the practice of barter and the use of many articles and metals as measures of value and instruments of exchange in the beginning of human association and intercourse, silver and gold were discovered and adopted universally by common consent, and other metals were abandoned and discarded as standards of values, and it is an undeniable fact that silver has been preferred and always accepted as the most popular coin and most generally used as money by the people in all countries and ages. What is another fact so prominent in history that it defies contradiction? It is that different countries, and the population of the same countries, within the last quarter of the last century have differed in judgment and opinion, and continue to differ, as to whether one or both metals (gold and silver) shall be established or reestablished by law as a standard of value, single or double, to regulate their commerce and debt-paying among nations and individuals. In agreeing upon a standard of values it was and is of the highest importance to secure stability and uniformity in all money units that enter into circulation, not absolute and unvarying stability and uniformity, but proximate and substantial. The ratio between the two metals (gold and silver) in these respects has been and is now the principal and continuing source of the difficulty of uniting them and keeping them united in one standard. Ratio is the word in common use to specify the relative weight of each metal required by law to make the money unit of a dollar. Congress has absolute jurisdiction of the question of ratio between gold and silver, and in the exercise of this power in 1792, with full knowledge of the whole subject derived from the world's history and experience and the most reliable sources of information, Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington, recommended a ratio for consideration by Congress, and set forth in an official report, approved by Jefferson, the reasons that induced him to favor a union of gold and silver into one standard of values and the quantity of each metal that should be minted or coined into the money unit of one dollar. Hamilton's recommendation was enacted into law, passed by Congress, and approved by Washington. In 1822, Mr. Jefferson, in an autograph letter, claimed to be the author of the silver dollar recognized as the standard dollar from 1792 to the present hour. In 1717, on the recommendation of Sir Isaac Newton, as master of the mint, England established the bimetallic standard of value at the same ratio of gold and silver as that adopted by the United States Government in 1792, viz, 15 ounces of silver to 1 of gold. England had been in the uninterrupted use of the gold and silver standard of value by the unlimited coinage of both metals at the same ratio of 15 to 1 for seventy-five years prior to the adoption of the same standard and ratio by the Congress of the United States. In 1803, thirteen years after the United States, and eighty-six years after England, Napoleon's government of France adopted the double standard of gold and silver at the ratio of 15£ to 1. 395 6 The states of the Latan Union, made up of France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece, established the same double standard at the French ratio. Germany and Austria had the double standard at the same ratio, and with this general existence of the double standard of values at a ratio not varying onehalf cent between any country in Europe the internal and international commerce and intercourse of all European countries was prosperously and uncomplainingly conducted among themselves, and also with the United States, until 1816, when England, without consultation or warning, dropped silver from her coinage laws—except subsidiary coins—and made the first break in Europe of the bimetallic standard. England had the greatest advantage of any nation in the world secured by her geographical position, and with her immense manufacturing establishment and transportation facilities she has made herself the creditor nation of the world by the sale in foreign markets of her manufactured exports and the immense income from her merchant marine. Occupying this position with these advantages England saw her interest in the gold standard. The question of the sufficiency of gold to supply the wants of the world was wholly immaterial to her. Her ability to draw from all sources through her exports and foreign bonded indebtedness would keep up her gold supply to meet all emergencies, and the contraction that would follow the elimination of silver from her money of account would increase the value of the interest income from the foreign bond holdings of her people. It must be remembered that England has never entirely demonetized silver. She stopped the coinage of silver in 1816, but she has kept her mints open to the coinage of silver for use by her people in their retail trade and personal transactions, and at the present time and all the time in the past England has kept in constant circulation at home at least $150,000,000 at a greater valuation of silver compared with gold than that required by the laws of the United States. She has never thought of altering the ratio between gold and silver in the face of fluctuations in their mercantile value as commodities. The policy and example of England of dropping silver from her mints, as stated, had no influence upon other nations for over forty-five years— not until about 1873. By one movement, without any necessity growing out of any material difference in the market value of gold and silver bullion anywhere in the world, or any complaint of loss, or inconvenience from the use of both gold and silver, without limit in coinage, or legal-tender quality, the United States, Germany, France, and all the other nations of the Latin Union dropped silver from coinage and made gold the only standard of values without any change in the ratio of silver left in circulation. It is important to keep in view the undeniable fact that no nation in Europe, nor did the United States in 1873 drop silver from coinage on account of any difference, or on the suggestion of any difference, in the value of the two metals in any bullion market in the world. The ratio between the two metals was never discussed or mentioned in the separation of silver from gold in the standard of values. There are two other undeniable and highly material facts that ought to be remembered in the discussion of this question. The 395 7 first is the fact that every nation in Europe,like England, when silver was dropped from coinage and the standard of value, preserved its then stock of silver for use among the people in the'r retail trade, and at this hour England has in circulation at home subsidiary silver coins as money equal to gold about $150,000,000; Germany has in circulation in the same way about $200,000,000; Prance has on deposit and in circulation about $700,000,000, and the Latin and other States at least $200,000,000. The second important fact is that there is now in circulation as money in the gold-standard countries about $1,500,000,000 of silver, and in every dollar's worth of silver in the $1,500,000,000 there is less silver than the laws of the United States require to be coined in the standard silver dollar. No attention has ever been given to any difference in intrinsic market value; it was the commercial purchasing power of the coins from the two metals secured by law and not by intrinsic value. From the foregoing premises I draw the conclusion that no double-standard country in Europe ever stopped the coinage of silver and adopted the gold standard on account of any opposition to the use of silver with gold, and the paper representatives of silver and gold, by the citizens or subjects of such countries in their domestic transactions and internal retail trade and commerce among themselves. The truth is apparent and undeniable that the coinage of silver was terminated and the gold standard adopted solely on account of the foreign trade and commerce of the nations mentioned and to contract the money standard to one metal in the interest of capital. Europe is now one immense clearing house, and all balances between those employed in international commerce are settled with checks and bills of exchange drawn on gold deposits in banks as members of some clearing house, and by the use of these substitutes for gold not more than 5 per cent of actual gold is required in the settlement of daily balances involving many millions of dollars. I shall not deny that the commercial and financial conditions and relations of European nations with whom we are in daily and direct intercourse, resulting in the rapid exchange of commodities and other subjects of contract involving billions of values, require the use of one and the same money standard. I have endeavored to qualify myself to deal with this question as a Senator on public and patriotic considerations, and I am satisfied that no greater mistake was ever made than that of 1873 by the countries then having the bimetallic standard, when they and the United States joined in dropping silver from equal coinage with gold. And the greatest wrongdoer with the least justification for its action was the Congress of the United States in the passage of the act of 1873, from which silver has never recovered. I shall not repeat the history of that remarkable legislation, nor discuss the motives of any Senator who supported it. It is useless to criminate anyone. The failure of those who might have discovered the mistake not to do so under the circumstances is itself remarkable. I can not believe that the coinage of the standard dollar could have been dropped if the question had been raised and discussed and a yea-and-nay vote taken. It is greatly to be lamented that a provision in the bill involving such a radical change in our currency laws and consequences so serious and far-reaching should have gone through all the forms 395 8 of legislation without attracting any general attention or inviting any consideration or discussion that uncovered the real purpose and effect of the legislation. The action of the European nations and the Congress of the United States in 1873 consumes tted an organized scheme, mischievous and revolutionary in its character and effects; and the undertaking to wipe out the wrong and restore gold and silver to unrestricted coinage and legal-tender quality and one standard of values with gold is the most important question now agitating this country and Europe. In my humble judgment force bills and protective tariffs can never equal in importance the currency question in its present condition and perils to the people of this country, although the attempt to bring it into equal importance to tariff reform was ridiculed all over the country, and characterized by the present Secretary of the Treasury in his published letter to Mr. Anderson, of New York, in November, 1891, as " unwise and unsafe leadership," and the silver question was relegated by him to the rear for careful consideration and adjustment among Democrats after tariff reform was accomplished, yet I have never been misled by the cry of tariff reform. I was always satisfied, and so declared publicly over my signature, that the paramount purpose would show itself to be to wipe out all existing laws, however meager and unsatisfactory in their recognition of silver as money and put it back where it was under the law of 1873, and that the McKinley tariff was stretched over the country as the cover under which the Democratic party, the historic Iriend of silver, was to be mustered into the service of the enemies of free coinage. The act of 1873 places silver where it would stand should the Sherman law be unconditionally repealed, and requires affirmative legislation to restore it over the veto power. Just at this point in the line of my remarks, I wish to revive the recollection of Democratic Senators and Democratic Members of the House and the Democratic people of this country of some unquestioned record evidence of the opinion, position, and unvarying action in convention. State and national, of the representatives of the organized Democratic party. I shall use no offensive epithets, nor will I question the motives or integrity of any Democrat; nor do I propose to read any man out of the Democratic party because he differs with me on the terms that may be presented in a bill in the spirit of concession and compromise, as a substitute for the Sherman law, to preserve the unity of both metals and maintain bimetallism by positive law, and not by delusive and worthless promises made by those who have never kept a pledge to support free coinage. My ambition is to preserve the integrity and fidelity and unity of the true friends of bimetallism in this life and death struggle, knowing that on this foundation alone can any future hope of a financial superstructure on the b.isis of bimetalism stand in the confidence of the people. Talk about confidence as an indispensable basis of trade and enterprise; I tell you, Senators, that nothing can stand and grow in strength and succeed in any undertaking to promote the welfare of man in religion, politics, party organization, or in business enterprise, without the faith, trust, and confidence of the people. And no msn, or party, or church, or organization can secure these without fidelity to pledges and promises and history on which has been secured the 395 9 support of the people. Parties and politicians may sometimes win power and place by misleading- the people, but such success is only temporary and short lived. The false pretense, breach of promise, vacillation, trimming, and unreliability will be uncovered and exposed to public view, and the consequences will follow as surely as night follows day. Repeal the Sherman law to restore confidence among money-lenders and you will wake up the lion of discontent among the toiling millions whose roar will shake this continent. I have stated that the act of 1873 was passed by a Congress wholly uninformed of the provision that dropped the standard silver dollar from our coinage laws and thereby placed silver already coined in the United States in the position of subsidiary money for use in retail trade at home, and"silver bullion in the position of merchandise or commodities to be valued in the home and foreign markets by gold as the only money unit or standard of val ues. It is highly important to remember that at the time silver was dropped from coinage by the act of 1873 there was less silver, and less had been coined in the United States than in England or Germany, and eight times less than in France. The bulk of our volume of circulation at that time was Treasury notes, or greenbacks, and the notes of national banks. Greenbacks and national-bank bills had free circulation because both were issued by the Government and founded on the confidence of the people in the faith and credit of the Government. There were two classes of our people who favored the action of the European nations and the United States in stopping the coinage of silver in 1873. First, the money-owners, made up of bondholders, money-lenders, creditors, and importers; and second, the stockholders in national banks. These two classes united make up the controlling membership in all clearing houses and boards of trade or commerce, and generally in the exchanges, organized in every city of importance in the United States, and all acting together on notice to accomplish any purpose decided by the representative organization at New York as the money center, in carrying out the common purpose of expelling silver from all association with gold in the money unit, or standard of values in the sale of all commodities, all property, all labor, and all productions. These classes constitute intelligent, capable, successful, and useful business men, all of them having their share of human nature and wide-awake to the strictest observance of the paramount law of self-preservation. The actual and immediate interests of these two classes individually and collectively in placing silver where it was in 1873 by the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law can not be estimated in figures. It would reach billions in the certainty of results produced by laws well understood by these coworkers in the crusade against silver. It is a fact admitted by every intelligent and honest man who has any opinion upon the subject worthy of respect and attention that the amount of gold in Europe and America is wholly insufficient to supply the demand and the necessity for money in commerce and debt-paying. Mr. Goschen, the English exchanceller of the exchequer, and one of the directors of the Bank of England, who is as well informed on the subject as any man living, stated two facts in the House of Commons—first, that it had been established that the gold supply was insufficient to 395 10 meet the demands of increased and increasing population and commerce of the world, and that the supply was diminishing, and the experiments of the employment of checks and hills of exchange on banks and clearing houses as a substitute for gold had proven inadequate and was unsatisfactory as a remedy for the evil of the scarcity of gold: and, second, he stated that monometallic England and Germany were confronted by the problem whether the world's supply of both gold and silver would not at an early day prove insufficient to meet the unavoidable demands of increasing population and commerce in the world. No act of Congress ever produced greater surprise or aroused the people of this country to a higher degree of indignation and the determination to restore silver to the position it occupied with gold in our coinage laws during the life time of the Government than the act of 1873. The first action of Congress to give silver its old standing with gold in our coinage laws was the act known as the Bland-Allison bill, in February, 1878. That bill was elaborately and exhaustively discussed in both Houses of Congress, and three-fourths of the House passed the Bland bill for unlimited coinage of silver and gold, the same as under the law of the First Congress, in April, 1792. The House was fresh from the people, and the friends of free coinage could not be separated or stampeded by the most powerful and tempting appliances and influences employed by the two classes I have described. Faithful to the interests of their constituents and the obligations they were under to obey the will of those who had honored and trusted them, three-fourths of the House stood like a rock wall for free coinage. When the bill went to the Senate, where gold was then stronger than in the House, the opponents of free coinage forced an amendment into the House bill known as the Allison amendment. After protracted debate the Allison amendment was agreed to, limiting the coinage of silver to $2,000,000 per month absolutely, or $4,000,000 at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury. The bill passed with the Allison amendment and was vetoed by President Hayes. It would be instructive to read the veto message, as it contains the substance of every message and every speech against the use of silver since made to or in either House of Congress. Notwithstanding the veto and all the outside and inside pressure of the money power, organized as it is to-day, the bill became a law, and is known as the Bland-Allison law. I desire to call the attention of the Senate and the country to the well-considered and able speech of Secretary Carlisle in the House of Representatives on the 1st of February, 1878, found in the Appendix of the seventh volume, part 5, of the CONGRES- SIONAL RECORD of t h e F i f t y - f i r s t C o n g r e s s , p a g e 41, o n t h e B l a n d bill and Allison amendment. I commend the whole speech to the careful reading of every Senator, especially that portion relating to ratio and the conspiracy to destroy silver. I make the following quotations from the speech: The Senate has decided by a large vote that the coinage should be limited to a sum of not less than $2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 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 a 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 but little consequence, because he would coin the maximum instead of the minimum amount allowed by the amendment. But, situated as we are, we all 395 11 know, or at least we all have reason to believe, that not a dollar beyond the minimum amount will be coined, and consequently the process of getting this money into circulation will be too slow to afford the full measure of relief which the people now demand and need. But it will certainly afford some relief. It will reverse the grinding process that has been going on for the last few years. Instead of constant and relentless contraction—instead of constant depreciation of money and depreciation of property—we will have expansion to the extent of at least $2,000,000 per month, and under its influence the exchangeable influence of commodities, including labor, will soon begin to rise, thus inviting investments, infusing life into the dead industries of the country, and quickening the pulsations of trade in all its departments. * * * I shall not now enter into an examination of the causes which have combined to depreciate the relative value of silver and to appreciate the value of gold since 1873. but I am one of those who believe they are transient and temporary in their nature, and that when they have passed away or have been removed by the separate or united action of the nations most deeply interested in the subject, the old ratio of actual and relative value will be established on a firmer foundation than ever. I know that the world's stock of precious metals is none too large, and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever become so. Mankind will be fortunate, indeed, if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase of population, commerce, and industry. According to my view of the subject, the conspiracy which has been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic currency of the world is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age. The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilences, and famines that ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction of half the entire movable property of the world, including houses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for carrying on commerce, while it would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would not produce anything like the prolonged distress and disorganization of society that must inevitably result from the annihilation of one-half of the metallic money of the world. With an ample currency, an industrious and frugal people will speedily rebuild their works of internal improvement and repair losses of property, but no amount of industry or economy on the part of the people can create money. When the Government creates it or authorizes" it the citizen may acquire it, but he can do nothing more. I am in favor of every practicable and constitutional measure that will have a tendency to defeat or retard the perpetration of this great crime, and I am also in favor of every practicable and constitutional measure that will aid us in adjusting a permanent ratio of value between the two metals, so that they may circulate side by side and not alternately drive each other into exile from one country to another? Our ratio, as recognized by the present bill, is 15.98 to 1, while the ratio established by the States composing the Latin Union—France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and, L believe, Greece also—is 15 to 1. We therefore undervalue silver as compared with the valuation put upon it by those countries. Silver is now appreciating in the market. and its remonetization and restoration to the coinage by this country will undoubtably accelerate its appreciation in the future. What, then, will happen? Whenever the market value of the metal becomes greater than the legal value fixed by our statute, we will witness precisely the same thing that occurred under the operation of the statute of 1887. Silver will leave the country, and go where it is justly and equitably valued by law. Like every other article, if left free to follow the natural laws of trade it will always find the best market. * * * England having demonetized silver in 1816, and having steadily adhered to the single gold standard ever since, can not properly have any representation or voice in the proposed conference unless she is prepared to consider the propriety of restoring to silver coin its money function throughout the British Empire; but the States of the Latin Union, which the President is especially directed to invite, are deeply interested in the questions to be considered, and I therefore think there is reason to hope that some wise and practicable measures may be proposed looking to the permanent adjustment of the relative legal values of gold and silver upon a basis that will be just and equitable to debtors and creditors alike. It seems to me now, notwithstanding the present temporary depreciation of silver, that the more probable result of the proposed conference will be the recommendation of a small diminution of the quantity of silver in our dollar and a small increase of the quantity in the 5-franc piece, and that the countries using the two coins may stand hereafter on common ground with reference to this subject. I have now stated hurriedly, and without much method of arrangement, my views of the amendments proposed by the Senate, so far as they have made material alterations in the original bill, and I desire to add only in con395 12 elusion that while the measure, in its present form, is not what the country had a right to expect, it is infinitely better than anything the people have ever been able to obtain at the hands of Congress during the last fifteen years. It is the first victory won by the people after many years of warfare with the consolidated wealth of this and other countries, and although it ?.s not by any means a complete triumph, it marks the beginning of a new and more popular era in national legislation; it attests a mighty revolution in public sentiment as represented here at the Capitol, and it places the great industrial and producing masses of the people in the front and the nonproducers in the rear. For fifteen years the people have been on the defensive, and, although fortified by the plainest provisions of law and the clearest principles of equity, they have been continually driven from one position to another, until they stood at last upon the very verge of financial ruin. Gathering all their energies for this struggle, they have advanced, not very far, it is true, but they have advanced far enough to cover a part of the ground lost in previous conflicts; and, sir, I trust their representatives will faithfully hold it for them. Our power of legislation over this subject will not be exhausted by the passage of this measure, and we ought not to halt for a single moment in our efforts to complete the work of relief inaugurated by it. The struggle now going on can not cease, and ought not to cease, until all the industrial interests of the country are fully and finally emancipated from the heartless dominations of syndicates, stock exchanges, and other great combinations of money-grabbers in this country and in Europe. Let us, if we can do no better, pass bill after bill, embodying in each some one substantial provision for relief and send them to the Executive for his approval. If he withholds his signature, and we are unable to secure the necessary vote here or elsewhere to enact them into laws notwithstanding his veto, let us as a last resort suspend the rules and put them into the general appropriation bills, with the distinct understanding that if the people can get no relief the Government can get no money. I make no comment or criticism, Mr. President. I have already stated that silver was not dropped from coinage by England, Germany, France, or the United States on account of any difference in the value of the two metals in any bullion market of the world. The primary and controlling object was to stop the use of silver as a standard money in circulation (except in retail trade as subsidiary coin), or as a redemption basis of bank issues as currency founded on gold, and thereby come to the gold standard. The inevitable effect of the limitation to gold exclusively in the coinage laws, and the contraction of coin supply to gold alone in commerce and debt-paying would necessarily reduce prices to the volume of currency supply, give gold greater purchasing power and those who owned it unrestrained control over money lending and interest rates; over prices of property, labor, and productions, and the quantity of labor, property, and produce necessary to pay existing debts and longtime obligations, increase the value of bonds, and secure to the banks a monopoly in the supply of paper currency to the people in their trade and commerce and debt-paying. The dropping of silver from coinage for these purposes was a wonderful achievement of the money power and banking corporations. It secured to them the valuable advantage of the negative in legislation. It required affirmative and concurrent action in all the coordinate departments of the Government to restore silver to its old position in our coinage laws, and all financial legislation for the relief of the people. The advantage of the negative position in law making was fully illustrated in the effort to dislodge the gold forces from their entrenchment behind the act of 1873, the same position they are n4w seeking, and will have after the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law. In the House the silver forces dismounted the guns of the enemy and captured their fort in the Bland bill and held it until the 395 13 reinforcements of the gold brigades in the Senate compelled a division of the fort upon the most unequal terms of occupation. W i t h a much greater numerical force silver was granted a partial restoration of its rights, and this small concession was resisted by the veto power of the President, who was then, as he is now, the reserve force of the gold monopolists. This partial restoration of silver to its former position could only be secured by a vote of two-thirds in t h e Senate and House, and the advantage of having the negative position in legislation ought to be a sufficient warning in future to the friends of silver to hold their fort and never give up the advantage of being in the negative as a useful strategic position in a mercenary, formidable, and heartless warfare against the money of the people and the Constitution. The Bland-Allison law was an unmistakable makeshift, as much so as the persecuted Sherman law. I am satisfied t h a t the limitation of the coinage of silver contained in that law secured to the enemies of silver a most dangerous and destructive power. The t r u t h stated by Hamilton and approved by Jefferson in 1792, in support of the unlimited coinage of gold and silver and their union in one standard of values, will always be the everlasting t r u t h , and t h a t is that free and unrestricted coinage of both metals is an indispensable and unalterable basis of bimetallism; t h a t parity of t h e two metals is impossible on the basis of free coinage of one metal and limited coinage of the other metal, as i t will follow necessarily t h a t the metal of limited coinage will be forced into the position of merchandise to be valued like other merchandise by the other metal t h a t will secure the function of a money standard of values by its exclusive advantage of free coinage. How can it be disputed t h a t if a metal ever gets any more value on account of its being coined into money, that met.il admitted to the r i g h t of free coinage as money will necessarily be in greater demand and bring more in the bullion market than the metal that is limited in its most valuable use as money, and the less quantity of it that is admitted to coinage without reference to the demand ? One is valued as bullion but the other as money. The enemies of silver seized upon the disadvantage of the limited coinage of silver in the Bland-Allison law and they have used it persistently and effectively to drive down the price of silver in the bullion market and then pressed the demand for equality in "intrinsic" value of the two metals. "Intrinsic value" have become common words in the money vocabulary and were made to figure conspicuously in the descriptive phraseology of t h e Chicago platform of 1892 by the gold members of the committee. The crucial test of honest money has always been purchasing power in the sale and exchange of commodities, property, labor, and debt paying. Money is necessarily a mere instrument of exchange. There has been no time in the history of the country when a dollar in silver and a dollar redeemable in silver was not as current as a gold dollar and equally valuable with gold in any use that can be made of money except in the settlement of balances due on foreign account. I t can not be denied that ever since silver was subjected to limited coinage its bullion prices have been unable to keep up with gold prices. The position that the enemies of silver have gained in the bullion market, as I have shown, secured to them in t h e 395 14 effort to restore it to its old position under the law of 1792 a most formidable advantage, and yet there never has been a time when the Bland-Allison law could be unconditionally repealed. Mr. Cleveland tried to suspend coinage under it and met with signal failure. The causes and their origin that have operated against silver are well understood by its friends and enemies. The original wrong was in the act of 1873, which placed it in the position of demonetization requiring affirmative legislation to restore it to free coinage or other recognition. The Bland-Allison law restored $2,000,000 to coinage and by the inevitable effects of the limitation left all silver bullion in the position of a commodity with considerable advantage from having only $2,000,000 coined into money monthly. The addition of $24,000,000 per annum necessarily increased the demand for silver. Silver remained in this condition and all the time suffering from limited coinage for twelve years. In the meantime the objection to the use of silver dollars on account of their weight was avoided by the law authorizing the issue of silver certificates. The national banks seeing the advantage to silver of certificates, at their Saratoga meeting, soon after the passage of the law, resolved not to receive silver or silver certificates in payment of their balances in the clearing houses. These banks arrayed themselves in open hostility to silver and silver certificates, and did everything in their power to discredit both, in utter disregard of the law and the declared public policy of the United States. The Constitution of the United States confers upon Congress the power, and enjoins it as a duty, to create money and regulate its value, and to supply the people of the United States with a circulating medium made up of such money or its equivalent and sufficient in quantity to answer the demands of the people in their commerce and debt paying. Congress has undertaken to discharge the duty by coining gold and silver at a fixed ratio and stamping it as money. Also by issuing Treasury notes known as greenbacks. Also by chartering banks and issuing to them for circulation as money notes founded on the security of the United States bonds. The object of the creation of the national banks was to make them the trusted fiscal agents of the Government to aid the Government in discharging its duty to keep the people supplied with a sufficient volume of currency. Congress has passed laws for the supply of currency and to regulate and insure its circulation. Whenever these laws have been passed by Congress to promote the circulation of silver and silver certificates the national banks of the East, and especially those in New York making up the membership of the most powerful and controlling clearing house, immediately call a meeting and sit in judgment on the legislation of Congress and publicly condemn it and declare their purpose not to obey the law, but nullify it and defeat the will of the Government that created them, and to prostitute their agency to the most dangerous breaches of trust. The claim of supervision over the financial legislation of Congress and the execution of the law by the executive department of the Government has been recognized and tolerated until it has grown into an established practice, and to-day no other authority is consulted in the formulation of remedial or other financial legislation, and since the creation of national banks their power has 395 15 never been more far-reaching and more audaciously and dangerously exercised than at the present hour. As an evidence of their usurpation of power and audacious assertion of it, I call attention to the following special from New York a few days since: NEW YORK BANKS OPPOSE THE SCHEME.—HOW THE PROPOSED REMOVAL OF THE TAX ON STATE BANKS IS REGARDED. [Special to the Post.] NEW YORK, September 4. Because of the day being a bank holiday, there was no expression of banking sentiment on the reported conferences over a new banking bill between President Cleveland and the members of the Cabinet. But it is already known that immediate action ia this respect will meet with the disapproval of the big banking men of this city. President Frederic D. Tappen, of the clearing-house, says he favors the appointment of a banking commission, rather than the passage of any new laws by the present session. " It is impossible, "he says, •' for Congress to act with knowledge in such a matter when banking men themselves do not agree on what should be done. Neither in this city nor in the other national bank reserve cities is there any concerted opinion as to what changes should be made in existing laws, or whether entirely new laws should be framed. It is obvious that the opinions of the bankers generally must be ascertained before intelligent action can be accomplished, and a month's careful investigation would do much to clear the way." Presidents Simmons, of the Fourth National, and Williams, of the Chemical National, are both inclined to think that investigation is necessary before any new measures are introduced in Congress. Officials of the other hanks were positive that no changes should be made that have not first been considered and either approved or condemned by the New York bankers in meeting. That is a special to the Post here in Washington from New York when they heard the President and his Cabinet were consulting together for the purpose of devising some compromise upon which they could unite both Houses and the President, but they put their veto on it as soon as they heard it. I do not know whether anjr such matter was considered,or that it was the purse to consider it. I do not know anything about it. I do not lieve half they say is true. It is all speculation. After conceding to our national banking system the merit of approaching nearer to perfection than any system of banking ever devised, and to the stockholders and directors and officials as much public spirit, capacity, integrity, and business experience as can be found among the same number of men anywhere, yet I am constrained to express my belief, founded on undeniable facts, that their immense wealth and the use they have made and are making of it in the corporate character of their powers and privileges are preparing the people of this country to decide that our national banking system under the present management and the methods and practices demonstrating its overruling powers in the regulation of financial policy and commerce among the States and with foreign nations is a standing menace to free, honest, representative government, dangerous and obstructive to the powers of Congress to create money and regulate its value, to regulate commerce among the States and with foreign nations, and that the public safety requires that the system be abolished, and that the National Government resume its powers and duties under the Constitution of creating and supplying directly to the people a sufficient circulating medium to answer their legitimate demands in their trade an»5 commerce and debt-paying at home and abroad, and guaranteeing its soundness and convertibility and ultimate redemption, at the pleasure of the holder, in coin of equal purchasing and debt-paying capac395 16 ity anywhere in the United States. To support my conclusions I will recall the attention of the Senate and the country to an address of the present Comptroller of the Currency: Born of the exigencies of a great war, embodying many of the defects of the legislation of that period, and embarrassed by the conflicting interests that then confronted a struggling Government to maintain the nation's credit, it has so thrived that to-day there are inactive operation 3,806 banks— A good many have been created since this address— scattered throughout the Union, capitalized to the amount of $688,643,876, and having assets to the amount of three and one-half billions, and so conducted that no point is too remote or too unimportant to be gathered within the sweep of the mighty volume of its basis. It has kept pace with the growth of the country in every line of material prosperity, and each year adds to its ever-increasing numbers. The one just closed has witnessed the organization of a hundred and fifty national banks, located in thirty-two States and four Territories, employing a capital of $14,500,000. From reports made by the bank it appears that the capital stock, surplus, and profits increased from about $475,000,000 on January l, 1866, to more than $1,000,000,000 on March 6 last, while the individual deposits intrusted to their keeping, which, on October 8,1870, were hardly $500,000,000. had on March 6 more than trebled, reaching the enormous sum of $1,751,000,000, and in the same proportion the loans and discounts increased from $500,000,000 on January 1,1866, until now they show the astounding sum of over $2,000,000,000. During the period that this vast increase was going on the circulation, the furtherance of which had been the original motive for the establishment of the system, and which, on December 26,1873, was $341,000,000, had, by October 2,1890, fallen to hnt $122,000,000, and, though there has been a gradual increase since, through the compulsory features in the law requiring a minimum amount of bonds to be deposited by each new bank commencing business, it is even now scarcely more than $150,000,000. This address is a reliable presentation of the facts and figures showing the working of our.national banking system, its asstounding accumulations and transcendent powers over currency—its character, supply, and circulation—and over prices of property, labor, and productions. President Cleveland was first inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1885, and found the Bland-Allison law in operation. In December he sent his first annual message to Congress, the House having*a large Democratic majority earnestly in favor of bimetallism and opposed to repealing the Bland-Allison law unconditionally or suspending the coinage of silver under it, although silver dollars were worth as bullion in the London and New York bullion market about 73 cents in the gold dollar's worth. In the Spring of 1885, before the meeting of Congress in December. Mr. Cleveland sent up a rocket in the shape of a letter to the House preliminary to the general engagement in the coming Congress, advising them of his views on the subject of silver coinage under the Bland-Allison law, and urging suspension of silver coinage. The letter was earnest and able against coining any more silver, and set forth in strong terms the ruinous consequences that were bound to follow compulsory obedience to such a mischievous measure. He then made the suspension of silver coinage an Administration measure. The House responded respectfully, but firmly and manfully, that there would be no suspension of silver coinage, and the Senate concurred by nonaction. Congress met in December and received the President's message and the report of Secretary Mani^ing. The powerful guns of the President and Secretary were opened against the certain ruin that would follow to our currency, industries, commerce, and Federal securities and credit, if silver coinage were continued at the rate of $2,000,000 per month. The disastrous consequences of continuing the addition of 395 17 $2,000,000 par month of the 73-eent dollar were just as st/ongly and earnestly presented by the President and the Secretary of the Treasury as it was in the power of man to formulate, and the reasons, facts, and arguments then urged against the Bland-Allison law are in substance the same contained in the message of the President to the present Congress against the further existence ani operation of the Sherman law. The appalling amount (to the President) of $215,003,000 of standard silver dollars had been added to our currency by silver coinage, and while he thought we might be able to st igger along with it by judicious and careful management, it was very certain, in his opinion, that we could carry no more silver without breaking down everything worth preserving. The coinage of silver was not suspended. Silver was bastardized and disinherited by its lawful father, the Government, and allowed no sustenance, favor, or companionship with gold; but the people took care of every dollar they could get, received it on all contracts, accepted it in exchange for property, labor, and commodities as readily as gold, and there hns been no discrimination against it except in the Treasury, in the banks, and in the clearing houses, and by these enemies, in utter disregard of law and public policy expressed and unmistakable. I opposed the recommendations of Pr3sident Cleveland and Secretary Manning in a speech published in the RECORD, in which I maintained the same position for the same reasons I am urging in this debate. The speech I then made was indorsed by every leading paper in Alabama. Coinage continued under the Bland-Allison law until 1890* and, notwithstanding the powerful influence of Presidents and Cabinets, banks and clearing houses, boards of commerce, and a formidable array of great daily newspapers, full of ability, preversion of facts, and misleading argument and information, sent broadcast over the country, and while silver continued to go down in the gold markets oi New York and London it continued to go up in the confidence of the people, who never inquired in the sale of property, labor, or productions, whether it was the 73-cent dollar or the gold dollar called honest money; and in 1890 silver had survived cruel treatment and persecution, and in the Senate and the House of the Congress of that year secured an admitted majority in favor of restoring it to free and unlimited coinage, and. such a law would certainly have been enacted but for the veto power in a hostile President who defied Congress and the people. Mr. President, I can not believe that any candid man who is acquainted with the facts can or will deny that if a friend of the free coinage of silver had been in the Presidential office at the date of the passage of the Sherman law a bill for the free coinage of silver at the existing ratio would be the law at this hour and in no danger of being repealed. I will express another opinion, about the accuracy of which I have no more doubt than I have of my existence, that if Mr. Cleveland were known to be willing to approve a bill for the free coinage of silver on some reasonable ratio, such a bill would become a law this session of Congress. A Congress known or believed by those who elected it to be favorable to the free coinage of silver has been convened in extraordinary session by a President elected at the same time* and on the same platform of the same party that has always 395—2 18 elected in every Congress a majority of its representatives in favor of the free coinage of silver. It would be most remarkable to elect representatives to pass a law and at the same time elect a President to veto it. But that seems to have been the fact. The veto power of the President has overridden the representative power and absorbed all the departments of the Government. Why delay free-coinage legislation until the Sherman law is repealed, except to go to the gold basis on the demand of those we know to be anxious to stay there and who know the advant ige they get in compelling the friends of free coinage to accept the situation. Here we are, and what are we going to do or say about it? The people expect us to say and to do what we told them in print ought to be done, and what we promised we would try and have done; and the people having done all they could and we having obtained their support on our promise to be faithful, the responsibility is on the representative to do what he promised, or to go home and acknowledge that he was mistaken in making the promise, and when he got to Washington he learned batter what they wanted, and the sources of information were so much better and more reliable that he qualified himself to serve them to their advantage, so he took the responsibility like a true, courageous representative to act on his convictions and betray his constituents. To use the illustration of a plain old farmer in my State, who understands the situation, " Some of our representatives roost with the chickens at home and when they get to Washington they will gobble with the turkeys." [Laughter.] The declaration of principles, measures, and policies were deliberately made in national convention of the representatives of the organized Democratic party June 21,1892, as follows: SEO. 7. We denounce the Republican legislation known as the " Sherman act "of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift, fraught with possibilities of dangers in the future, and which should make all of its supporters, as well as its author, anxious for its repeal. We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country— Not one standard and the other subsidiary— and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, or be adjusted through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as bhall 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 the payment 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 a fluctuating currency. SEC. 8. We recommend that the prohibitory 10 per cent tax on State-bank issues be repealed. It stands out by itself unassociated with any other provision. The Democratic platform is an unmistakable declaration of a national financial system in the words commencing at " W e hold," in the seventh section, and including the balance of that section, and also including the next section, 8. There are affirmative and negative propositions in the platform; the affirmative propositions enter into and make up the whole system without any allusion to international bimetallism: the negative propositions are condemnatory of what is not approved and what is to be excluded from the system when it is formulated into law. It was understood and accepted by the people as an American system to be established by and for the United States, and not 395 19 an international system that was to he made with England's consent. You weaken and imperil the establishment of the system when you undertake to secure it by separate and independent legislation, or by the indispensable concurrent action of foreign governments. The strength of the system is to be found in the support each part has in the common united pledge of a convention made up of delegates with different and conflicting opinions, who are responsible to the people of the United States. The following are the affirmative essentials of the system: 1. The use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country. This proposition is not approved by a single bank in any clearing house in the United States, and I do not believe it is indorsed by a single board of commerce in the United States, or by a single newspaper in New York, Philadelphia, or Boston; but all these powerful influences are now actively combined to defeat the enforcement of this fundamental article of Democratic faith by an unconditional repeal of an existing law which is in the way of absolute free coinage to which the repealers are known to be opposed. Instead of aiding Democratic representatives in " holding on to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country," they are united and determined in the purpose to employ all means, foul and fair, to force Democratic representatives to let go and cease the use of silver, one of the two metals, and to hold on to but one metal as the standard money of the country. 2. The coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal or charge for mintage. I make the same charge of opposition by the same parties to the second article in the platform. 3. All paper currency shall be kept at par with and redeemable in such coin. 4. We recommend that the prohibitory 10 per cent tax on State banks be repealed. I repeat the same charge of opposition by the same parties to these recommendations in the Democratic platform. Now we come to the negatives and qualifications in the articles of the Democratic creed: We denounce the Republican legislation known as the Sherman act of 1890 as a cowardly makeshift, frau -lit with possibilities of danger in the future which should make all of its supporters, as well as its autnor, anxious for its speedy repeal. 2. But the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value. The use of both metals is enjoined on the Government without limitation of time or quantity, or by any joint use by foreign countries. There is not a single qualification in the pledge of fidelity to the equal use of both gold and silver as money. The only qualification is in the pledge of fidelity to " the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal," and that is that 4 4 the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value." Is the qualification relating solely to ratio to be construed into a limitation of the quantity of the metals to be coined, and when thus coined of the " use that is to be made of the dollar unit of both metals" ? There is no reason or good faith in any such construction. It is a manifest perversion of the plain meaning of the platform, invented after the election as a false pretense for nonperformance of the promise. I call special attention to the alternative pre395 20 requisites in the coin qualifications. How is the parity in the dollar unit to be established and preserved? First. By international agreement if that mode is practicable. It is impracticable after fifteen years of negotiation and the effort and failure of four international conventions. What next? The platform answers, that the United States Government shall determine the ratio for itself and by itself by Congressional legislation. But the proposition is now that no effort shall be made to settle the ratio except by international agreement, and if that is impossible, then the United States shall have no more coinage of silver and come down to the iron rule of the gold standard. The following injunction of the Democratic platform is to be permanently abandoned: The dollar unit of coinage of both metals may be adjusted 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 the payment of debts. According to the plain meaning of the platform, it is not indispensable that " the dollar unit of the two metals shall be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value" for the reason that in the place of a dollar of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value a dollar unit of both metals can be coined on any basis "of adjustment by international agreement." By such an agreement 15 ounces of silver could be admitted to coinage with 1 ounce of gold and be made standard money with gold the world over, without regard to the intrinsic value of either metal. It is the agreement and the law adopting it that establishes and maintains the parity, and not intrinsic value. So that it is manifest that at last in the absence of international agreement the Democratic platform makes bimetallism—that is, "the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country and the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal"—a matter of adjustment by Congressional legislation. The adjustment must contain " safeguards " that " 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 the payment of debts." The stamp—the law of Congress—takes the place of the international agreement and will have the same potentiality in preserving parity. Can such a safeguard in legislation be provided without absolute equality in the intrinsic value of gold and silver? I say here and now that if absolute and unvarying equality in the intrinsic value of silver as bullion, to be ascertained without the benefit of free coinage by gold as money, then bimetallism as defined and sanctioned in the Democratic platform is an established impossibility, and such a construction of the Democratic platform makes it a cheat and a fraud on the friends of free coinage. Mr. Cleveland repudiated such a construction in his letter of acceptance of the nomination on which the South and West supported him for the Presidency. Here is his letter of acceptance: The people are entitled to sound and stable money, abundantly sufficient in volume to supply their business and needs. But whatever may be the form of the people's currency, national or State, whether gold, silver, or paper, it should be so regulated and guarded by Governmental action- Governmental action, national action, not international— and by wise and careful laws, that no one can be deluded as to the certainty 395 21 and stability of its value. Every dollar put in tae hands of the people should be of the same intrinsic value or purchasing power. With this condition absolutely guaranteed, both gold and silver can be safely utilized upon equal terms in the adjustment of our currency. In dealing with this subject no selfish scheme should be allowed to intervene and no doubtful experiment should be attempted. The wants of our people, arising from the deficiency or imperfect distribution of money circulation, ought to be fully and honestly recognized and efficiently remedied. It should, however, be constantly remembered that the inconvenience or loss that might arise from such a situation can be much easier borne than the universal distress which must follow a discredited currency. * * * I indorse every word in Mr. Cleveland's letter of acceptance, and there is not a word or sentence in it inconsistent with the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the existing or any other ratio that may be adjusted by legislation. But how about the intrinsic value of the two metals to be coined into the unit dollar? I always contended that intrinsic value in the platform was intended to be construed as meaning the same as purchasing power, but the goldites deny this, and insist that the word 44 intrinsic" is coupled with the words " exchangeable value " by the conjunction " and," which makes the language require both intrinsic and exchangeable value in the market value of the two coins; but Mr. Cleveland construes the platform as I do. The language of his letter of acceptance is that every dollar "put into the hands of the people should be of the same intrinsic value or purchasing power," striking out "and" and inserting "or," thereby making intrinsic value and purchasing power synonymous in meaning. On the subject of the intrinsic value of the metal that is coined and stamped as representing so much money value, I quote the following from two of the most eminent writers on economic questions. Adam Smith says: Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with; and, though the wages of the workman are commonly paid to him in money, his real revenue, like that of all other men, consists, not in the money, but in the money's worth; not in the metal pieces, but in what can be got for them. Again the same author says: A guinea may be considered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and conveniences upon all the tradesmen in the neighborhood. The revenue of the person to whom it is paid does not so properly consist in the piece of gold as in what he can get for it. or in what he can exchange it for. If it could be exchanged for nothing it would, like a bill upon a bankrupt, be of no more value than the most useless piece of money. On this subject, Mills says: There can not, in short, be intrinsically a more insignificant thing, in the economy of society, than money, except in the character of a contrivance for sparing time and labor. It is a machinery for doing quickly and commodiously, what could be done, though less quickly and qommodiously, without it; and, like many other kinds of machinery, it only exerts a distinct and independent influence of its own when it gets out of order. The question has been often asked why the Democratic party in convention refused to insert the word "free" in the platform if it was intended to pledge the party to free silver coinage. The answer is perfectly conclusive, that it was entirely useless to insert the word "free," as by existing law gold was entitled to free and unlimited coinage, and the platform as reported pledged the party "to the coinage of both gold and silver without discriminating against either metal." ' This is an explicit pledge to make silver coinage as free and unlimited as gold coinage, which by law was entitled to free and unlimited coinage, and the insertion of the word free would 395 have been mere surplusage and could add nothing to the plain meaning of the words of the platform. I have already shown that the platform provided for two modes of establishing a basis for free coinage that negatives the construction that "intrinsic value" of the two metals coined into the unit dollar is indispensable, as urged by the goldites. When the Democratic platform was framed and adopted and Mr. Cleveland nominated, and when he and the present members of Congress were elected, it can not be denied that three-fourths of the Democratic Senators and a large majority of the Democratic members of the House were in favor of the free coinage of silver at the existing ratio. The same free-coinage Congress, except changes strengthening free coinage, has been convened in extraordinary session for the sole purpose, certainly for the principal purpose, of repealing the Sherman law of 1890. This law was passed as a "makeshift." It had no real friends when it passed, and no Senator now approves it or desires its continued existence. It is a bantling of the Republican party. It came into the world half made up. It had no' ''rocks, stockings, or shoes to grace it." To the goldites it is a hideous deformity, full of the microbes of epidemic disease and out of the reach of any treatment except the gold cure, which is certain death. The gold cure is a specific for the malady of bimetallism which afflicts some members of Congress and converts them into voters for the gold standard. While the friends of silver admit the imperfections of the make-up of the bantling, they deny that it is diseased or has been the cause of disease or ill health anywhere. On the contrary, the evidence is conclusive that it has been persecuted, perverted, caricatured, and shamefully treated by its enemies and by the Government that was bound to take good care of it, and it is now the victim of a conspiracy to take its life, because it is in the way of the gold standard. What is the Sherman law, that has caused such an upheaval of the earth's surface, and deranged the machinery of all industries, commerce, finance, and business enterprise, and brought into exercise the capacity, learning, experience, and statesmanship of the country to meet the unprecedented calamity, and provide relief against the perils of the situation? The following are the sections of the law that have raised the flood gates and spread panic and disaster everywhere: The first section Compels the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase each month 4,500.000 ounces of silver bullion at the market price thereof, the ounce to contain 871J grains of pure silver, and to issue in payment for such silver bullion Treasury notes of the United States. The second section provides That these Treasury notes shall be redeemable on demand, in coin, at the Treasury or the office of any assistant treasurer, and when redeemed may "be reissued; and such Treasury notes shall be a legal tender inpayment of all debts, public and private, except where otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract, and shall be receivable for customs, taxes, and all public dues, and when so received may be reissued. That upon the demand of the holder o1 any of these Treasury notes the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem such notes in gold or silver coin, at his discretion, it being the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other at the present ratio or such other ratio as may be provided by law. The third section provides That the Secretary of the Treasury shall coin $2,000,000 per month until the 1st of July, 1891, and after that time he shall coin of the silver bullion pur395 23 chased as much as may be necessary to redeem the Treasury notes issued under the act. What is there in this so-called Sherman law that makes it such a terrible and destructive monster? In what respect does it differ from the Bland-Allison law? The Sherman law compels the monthly purchase of silver bullion. So did the BlandAllison law, the only difference being that under the latter $2,000,000 per month were purchased and coined, and under the former 4,500,000 ounces must be purchased and stored as bullion upon which the legal-tender coin certificates are issued instead of standard silver dollars, which under the Bland-Allison law could be exchanged for silver certificates, the bullion purchased having the right of coinage, which ought to have been exercised, if the plain intention of the law had been respected and executed. The Sherman law is far more beneficial to the people than the Bland-Allison law for the plain reason that the former puts into circulation each month about $4,000,000 of legal-tender coin certificates having the same purchasing power in all our markets as gold, and the latter added only $2,000,000 per month to our circulation. This explains why the national banks, the boards of trade, made up of bank stockholders and officials, and money-lenders, and bondholders are so furious against the Sherman law and were so moderate in their opposition to the Bland-Allison law as to allow it to run twelve years. It is the greater amount of silver employed in giving the people more currency, thus taking the place of national-bank bills in circulation. The Sherman law turns into our circulation with absolute certainty every year about $50,000,000 of legal-tender money with undisputed purchasing and debt-paying power. Go to the bottom of this contention, find the parties to it and the motives that animate the crusaders, and you will identify the same individuals and the same corporations, with a few reinforcements from the Democratic silver forces, striking for contraction of the country's supply of currency by the destruction of at least one-half of the metallic money supply from our own mines, just as they have been doing, with the same instruments of warfare used by them the last twenty years, 90 per cent of the advocates of unconditional repeal being enemies of free coinage. They are great sticklers for honest money and dear money, because they own most of the gold and expect to own the property of the country. Let them dictate the amount and the kind of currency and in what volume it shall circulate,*and you will get no information from them or their newspapers except that money is plenty, business active, and times pro sperous. Under the Bland-Allison law we got 24,000,000 coined dollars in the Treasury represented by silver certificates. Under the Sherman law we get $50,000,010 of silver in bullion stored in the Treasury like coined silver dollars represented in coined Treasury notes with a legal-tender quality and undoubted purchasing power, every dollar of which is in constant use by the Government in paying salaries and appropriations, and by the people without complaint. Where is the materiality, the real substance of the difference between coined silver dollars and silver bullion, when both are the redemption basis and both represented exactly alike in money circulation by legal-tender certificates, having equal copurchasing power with gold in all American markets? Why is 395 24 the Sherman law denounced in the Democratic platform as a 4i cowardly makeshift' ? Because it was passed by the enemies of silver to defeat free coinage when its supporters did not have the courage to declare their real purpose. Why was the bill opposed by every free-coinage Democrat in the two Houses of Congress? Because they well understood the intention of the bill to be to side-track the free-coinage bill with one that was an improvement of the Bland-Allison law in the increase it made in the use of silver as money, and thereby cripple the free-coinage Democrats and Republicans in their demand for free coinage and save President Harrison from the perils of a veto in the Presidential election. The representatives of the bank corporations, boards of trade, bondholders, and money-lenders approved the passage of the Sherman law as a makeshift to defeat free coinage, and with characteristic audacity now ask the lifelong supporters of free coinage to go back on their record in history and join their ancient enemies in relieving them from the corner made ior the friends of free coinage, when it is apparent to these goldites that they are cornered and have entrapped themselves in their own makeshift. If the enemies of silver were successful in defeating free coinage by the use of the makeshift, as is admitted by its author, surely the friends of silver can not be blamed for making use of the same corner and makeshift in securing a restoration of their losses. Give us back free coinage and we will agree to destroy your makeshift. The friends of silver are implored by the goldites to let them out of the trap they caught us in, so that all hands can go back to where they were twenty years ago under the advantage of the act of 1873. But it is urged that the formidable objection to the Sherman law is that it puts silver in the position of bullion—mere merchandise. The Bland-Allison law produced the same effect by its limitation of the coinage of silver as declared by Hamilton and Jefferson. Both these great and wise men gave their opinion a century ago that the limitation of the coinage of one metal over another would necessarily force the other to the position of mere merchandise. And I would like to be informed how the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law makes silver any less merchandise than it is now under that law? The unconditional repealers declare that silver as a commodity shall no longer be used as a basis to add to our currency supply in paper that is as good as gold Jn its debt-paying and purchasing power. To any Democrat and Republican who is a real friend of silver this proposition is very well understood. Its purpose is too transparent to mislead. The unconditional repeal of the Sherman law is a clear loss to silver of everything, every position, every advantage, every recognition ever secured for it by its friends in a struggle of twenty years, and certainly impairs, if it does not destroy, all hope of restoring silver by affirmative legislation. The goldites achieved a great victory in the act of 1873, by which silver was admitted to be demonetized. That act was no makeshift. It made a clean sweep of silver as money. If it held remained a law we would now have less silver than England, and five hundred millions less than we h ive since secured by the Bland-Allison law and the Sherman law, although both laws were makeshifts. Whu,t would be our condition to' 395 25 day without the $500,000,000 of silver money put in circulation on a par with gold by the Bland-Allison and the Sherman laws? An unconditional repeal of the Sherman law necessarily remands silver back where it was under the act of 1873, and where it is in all gold-using countries. Such a repeal is not a cowardly makeshift, it is an unconditional surrender to the goldites who procured the act of 1873, and for the same purpose. It would be an unmistakable indorsement of the act of 1873, and of the policy aimed to be established by it. It would amount to an unquestioned vindication of the financial policy the organized Republican party has been struggling to establish and enforce for the last twenty years, and the only party in the track of their endeavor was the Democratic party, who is now asked to surrender silver to the keeping of those who have used all their power to destroy it, and that, too, by influences which the people well understand. I would as soon trust young chickens in a hawk's nest to be cared tor as to leave silver where it will be if the Sherman law is repealed unconditionally. Every enemy of silver in the • United States is clamorous for unconditional repeal with the avowed purpose of putting this country on a gold basis. President Cleveland is in a position of greater responsibility than any other man who has ever been President. His ability, integrity, and patriotism, I do not question. I believe he enjoys more of the good will of the voting people of the United States than any man living, and no Democrat has any other desire than that his Administration snail be a success in redeeming the pledges of the Democratic party, and not in violating or disregarding them by majorities in the two Houses of Congress furnished by Republican representatives, admitted to be hostile to free silver coinage on any ratio. His great qualities in his great office enable him to do gre.it good or great harm in the adjustment of existing complications. For the purpose of carrying out the recommendations of the President, a majority of the Finance Committee of the Senate, made up of the chairman and five other paembers, have reported a bill for the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law, with the remarkable declaration that the bill is not intended to have its unquestioned legal effect. The bill is a typical likeness of Janus, the Latin deity represented with two faces looking in opposite directions. His temple at Rome was never closed except in times of universal peace. When the times were troublous and threatening and the people distracted and divided Janus was out in full view with his two faces on exhibition, attracting the admiration of both parties. The following is the bill reported to the Senate: An act to repeal a part of an act approved July 14. 1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes." Be it enacted, etc.. That so much of the act approved July 14.1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes," as directs the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase from time to time silver bullion to the aggregate amount of 4.500.000 ounces, or so much thereof as may be offered in each month at the market price thereof, not exceeding $1 for 371.25 grains of pure silver, and to issue in payment for such purchases Treasury notes of the United States, be. and the same is hereby, repealed. And it is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to continue the use of both gold and silver as standard money, and to coin both gold and silver into money of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, such equality to be secured through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as will insure the maintenance of the parity in value of the coins of the two metals, and the 395 26 equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of debts. And it is hereby further declared that the efforts of the Government should be steadily directed to the establishment of such a safe system of bimetallism as will maintain at all times the equal power of every dollar coined or issued by the United States in the markets and in the payment of debts. This is the makeshift presented to take the place of another makeshift, and leaves the subject-matter of both makeshifts in the care of the enemies of free coinage until they confer with England and ascertain what shall be American policy on the ratios and standards of coin money. In the mean time the friends of silver are promised in familiar language, once before used by the same parties, who now employ it for the same purpose of construing it in the future as they have done in this debate, and that is, that there is to be no more coinage of silver until gold-using and gold-standard countries agree with the United States upon the ratio and the amount of coinage. Talk about "cowardly makeshifts." The bill before the Senate places the Government of the United States in a position of cowardly humiliation and dependence upon England". The Sherman law expressly repeals the Bland-Allison law, thereby making the Sherman law the only statute of the United States that provides in any way for adding another dollar to our currency on the basis of silver coin or bullion. The passage of the bill before the Senate wipes out every law of the United States that requires the creation of another dollar of silver currency, aaid keeps no silver alive as money except that which has been heretofore coined and its representative certificates. The act of 1873 dropped silver out of our coinage laws when we did not have but few American standard dollars (some authorities put the amount at $8,000,000), the other silver then circulating being foreign coins made a legal tender. The Bland-Allison law was in existence twelve years and when it was repealed by the Sherman law we had in coined standard silver $378,000,000. Since the passage of the Sherman law we have coined silver to the amount of about $40,000,000 and have bullion purchases to the amount of about $130,000,000, besides subsidiary coins amounting to some $73,000,000, and if the bullion purchased under the Sherman law is coined by the Government we would have in round numbers silver currency amounting to about $621,000,000. For the sake of my argument I will say that we have in gold currency in the United States at the highest estimate about $740,000,000. So that the United States has reached approximate parity in one important particular, and that is in the amount of gold and silver money. The proposition is (and that is the object and effect of the repeal bill before the Senate) to break up the parity in the quantity of our gold and silver currency by stopping the coinage and increase of our silver money in every form. The committee bill before the Senate gets all its strength and plausibility from the fact that England, Germany, and France, with whom we have our largest trade and commerce, have adopted the gold standard, ceased coining any more silver, and are standing on their present supply of silver money, and that the United States should follow this foreign example and practice. If we fail to stop the coinage of silver and continue the increase of our volume of currency from that metal the prediction is made that the United States will lose all its gold and be forced to the silver standard. 395 27 I consider this apprehension and prediction utterly unfounded. I know that the friends of silver are opposed to silver monometallism. They are earnestly and honestly in favor of the equal use of both metals, and the coinage of both metals without discrimination against either metal, with such a ratio between them established by law as has been shown in every bimetallic country to be acceptable to the people in their trade, and commerce, and debt-paying. The whole question is in a nutshell: Shall the United Stutes stand on the present supply of silver money and go to the gold standard until England,Germany, and France are willing to join the United States in giving up the gold standard and returning to bimetallism or the use and coinage of both metals? Free silver coinage will arm the United States with silver as a reserve for home use in developing our resources and supporting our industries, and make us invineib 7 e in any contest with foreign countries for our share of the gold of the world. The apprehension is expressed that we will be forced to silver monometallism by free silver coinage in this country with the gold standard in all the nations with which we are in daily commercial intercourse, on the operation of Gresham's law, which drives out of circulation the best currency to give place to the inferior currency. Everybody knows that such has not been the result in France, where an equal quantity of both gold and silver is now in circulation with a per capita money supply twice as much as in the United States and one-half the resources and commerce or export trade of this country. Then it is admitted that the United States has inexhaustible resources and capabilities with unrivaled forces in active operation in development and progress, and supplying the markets in gold-using countries with commodities indispensable to their existence, for which we leceive nothing but'gold, amounting to hundred of millions annually: also, the gold supply from our own mines amounting annually to $25,000,000 or $30,000,000. In the face of these undeniable facts it is unreasonable that the United States can not maintain bimetallism against gold-using countries combined. If we go to the gold basis we will have a more difficult struggle to keep our gold supply for foreign and home uses. It is against common sense and plain natural laws to say that if we are aided by silver money for home uses we are not thereby made stronger in our contention with other nations who have a smaller supply of silver to help them in the fight for an equal share of the world's limited and insufficient and decreasing supply of gold. I shall never vote for the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law. What, then, do I propose as a substitute? I undertake to state, as a lawyer with more than forty years practice and experience in my profession, including eighteen years work in lawmaking, that when a statute law passed to supply a remedy or to correct or prevent existing evils is repealed for the reason that the law has failed to accomplish the object of its passage or has proved inadequate as a remedy, or corrective, or cure of existing evils, such repeal has never been proposed in a bill that did not contain other and better remedial leg slation to accomplish the objects and remedy the evils which the repealed law failed to reach and accomplish. The new rem395 28 edy or substitute always accompanies and precedes the repealing section in the same bill. I challenge a denial by any reasonably informed man of the correctness of that statement. There never was a law repealed on account of its failure as a remedy that was not in the repealing act substituted by a better remedial law; and this is without precedent, and what nobody but these conspirators are capable of conceiving and enforcing. An unconditional repeal of any law without substituting other remedial legislation is an unqualified admission that no such legislation is necessary, and the chances of securing the new remedy in a separate bill are diminished. I have no doubt that the desire of the supporters of the bill before the Senate is that silver shall be left in the United States where it is in England, Germany, and France, until those countries agree to the renewal of silver coinage on such terms as these foreign countries shall dictate. This is the sole reason for delay in supplying other remedial legislation. We are asked to abdicate the powers of our own Government to be exercised hereafter in subordination to the will and financial policy of foreign nations. I will never be a party to such humiliation of my own country and Government. Tne question recurs on the substitute. I will support any bill as a substitute for the committee bill that is in the line of the financial policy set forth in the platform of the Democratic party, adopted in its last national convention at Chicago, and which provides for a faithful performance of its pledges and obligations. I am not at all pleased with the substitute reported by the minority of the Finance Committee for the single reason that it changes the existing ratio of 16 ounces of silver for 1 ounce of gold to 20 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold. I am satisfied that such a change in the ratio will make a large expenditure that is unnecessary and cause great confusion and inconvenience in making the change, and will be an additional obstacle in the way of an international agreement, in the possibility of which I have very little hope. There is now circulating in the goldstandard nations with which we expect to negotiate about 1,500,000,000 of silver coins at a higher valuation of silver than our present ratio of 16 to 1, besides another billion in India. What difference can it make with these foreign countries that silver bullion is selling for so much in London and New York when all the silver coins in those countries, at the gold price, is worth less than one-half, especially when it is known that the moment a common ratio is agreed upon internationally it will settle at once the market value of silver bullion everywhere in the world? I understand fully the value of an international ratio and the importance of securing it, but I differ widely with those who are willing to try the experiment of the committee bill of destroying one of our greatest resources and industries, and driving seven of our sister States into the perils and suffering of starvation, mob violence, and probable revolution. Any act of Congress that will produce or tend to produce such terrible and destructive consequences, without regard to any other ruinous consequences, would be brutal, tyrannical, and merciless in the highest degree, and its passage ought to be resisted upon the highest considerations of Christian and patriotic duty and for895 29 bearance by every method that is constitutional and parliamentary. The merit of the substitute of the minority of the Finance Committee is that it puts no limitation upon the coinage of silver or either metal, and in that respect meets my unqualified approval. I am aware of the impossibility of passing a freecoinage bill on the existing ratio, which I favor during the existence of the present Administration. Under existing conditions and complications I shall support the substitute of the minority of the committee if it can not be improved. But there are several changes I prefer and shall support. The determined purpose of the supporters of the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law is to stop absolutely any more coinage of silver or the addition in any form of any more silver currency to our present volume of money. This is demanded as a condition absolute and precedent to any attempt at negotiation for an international agreement, and as an indispensable prerequisite to obtaining such an agreement, and it is also demanded as a condition precedent to any effort to save bimetallism and protect this country from the dire consequences of the gold standard. The real friends of bimetallism who are fighting this battle on principle as dear to them as liberty itself are deeply and earnestly convinced that the unconditional rape il of the only law of the United States that holds us away from the gold standard, however imperfectly, will be an inestimable loss in the struggle to maintain bimetallism. The real friends of silver have no confidence in 90 per cent of the supporters of unconditional repeal that they will join us at a future and more opportune time in securing legislation that will restore silver as money on an equality with gold and secure all the benefits of genuine bimetallism, because these unconditional repealers have been lifelong enemies of silver, and under the most favorable conditions have never shown it any favor or friendship, and now ask that they be armed with the additional advantage of an unconditional repeal of the only silver law in existence. Why not meet the friends of silver upon some common ground that we can occupy together until we try some compromise, and in the meantime consider in good faith all the propositions and evolve from them some wise and safe system of finance. Such an adjustment would save the friends of silver, the friends of gold, and all the parties to this terrible contention—the humiliation, the heart burnings, and antagonisms that are certain to be generated by a dictatorial and arbitrary policy and the success of an unconditional surrender to the gold standard. If the Sherman law must be repealed, why not put silver where it was when the Sherman law was passed and let us stand where we were in 1890 until we can devise some better system of finance than the Bland or the Sherman law? Amend the committee bill by restoring the Bland law which the Sherman law repealed. This would be a truce that would be honorable to both parties and bridge us over present complications to conditions more favorable to a wise and permanent adjustment at the coming regular session of Congress. If the restoration of the Bland-Allison law is refused, or any other compromise accepted, it is conclusive evidence to my mind that the spirit of compromise and the promises of those who pro395 30 fess friendship for future bimetallic legislation are utterly unreliable. I predict that if the Sherman law is unconditionally repealed the next demand the supporters of the repeal will make, founded on the necessity for gold which they have themselves created, will be the issue of an indefinite amount of bonds to supply the Government with gold to maintain the gold standard. The repeal of the Sherman law will be followed necessarily by the issue of gold bonds. It is the determined and unalterable purpose of the opponents of unconditional repeal to stand upon their convictions of public duty and fidelity to their pledges to the people whom they represent and who have honored them with their confidence on this vital question until physical strength is exhausted and the power of speech is left to no Senator to prevent the success of the conspiracy denounced by John G. Carlisle as equal in its consequences to war, pestilence, and famine. The issue of bonds will be supplemented with another measure, always dear to the gold-standard advocates, and that is to retire the $346,000,000 of greenbacks, as recommended by Secretary Manning, with President Cleveland's approval, when the suspension of silver coinage under the Bland-Allison acb was urged by them in 1885, so as to give place to the circulation of national banks and secure to them the monopoly in supplying currency. Secretary Carlisle has furnished the Senate with an estimate of the loss to the Government of about $120,000,000 that will be necessary to change the ratio of the two metals to 20 to 1, which is partial and utterly unfair, as shown by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. VEST]. If we are to have bimetallism on an international agreement, what will be the cost of a necessary change of ratio in all nations who are parties to the agreement? If no agreement and no bimetallism, who can estimate the billions of loss caused by the gold standard and the striking down one-half the coin money of the world? Mr. President, the struggle of silver with gold that has been protracted through the last quarter of a century has been precipitated upon the country by this extra session, under circumstances of great disadvantage to the cause of silver, which explains why it has been brought to the front as paramount to tariff reform. The advocates of free coinage of both gold and silver have not been aggressive. They have generally been on the defensive. The Sherman law was passed by the enemies of free silver as a makeshift for free coinage, which would be more assailable than free coinage itself, and now these same enemies of silver who practiced this deception upon the supporters of free coinage take advantage of the Democratic opposition to the makeshift and fraud, and unite With Democratic representatives and Republican representatives of the gold standard, and Democratic enemies of the Sherman law (the Republicans furnishing the majority in both branches) in striking a mortal blow at free coinage and at the integrity and fidelity of Democratic pledges by the unconditional repeal of the only law that stands in the way of an absolute gold standard. In this life-and-death struggle between the two metallic standards the gold standard has the tremendous advantage of having the Executive power in the shape of the veto, and the patronage and the necessary influence 395 31 of a President elected by the only party that is or has been the life-long friend of the free coinage of both metals and the author of every victory that silver has achieved by legislation. The Eastern States have been and are the gold-standard States, and the Southern and Western States have been and are the free-coinage States. There are about 12,000,COO of voters in the United States, and I believe 9,000,000 of them favor free coinage. The State of New York is regarded by both national parties as the pivotal State in Presidential elections, and the city of New York is the national money center, and is dominated by national banks, their clearing-house, boards of commerce, and stock exchanges. This tremendous association of money power, exercised and directed to the establishment of the gold standard, in common with the same power in London, Paris, and Berlin, is supported by the most superior ability, intelligence, skill, and experience in legislative bodies, clubs, and the metropolitan press, and this combination reaches every quarter of the globe. So much power thus organized and exercised and directed to a single object is, indeed, most formidable. It gives New York almost irresistible power in all matters affecting financial policy by legislation. The Southern and Western States have been induced to subordinate everything to keeping national parties together to insure success, to keep the offices and let principles and promises be sacrificed to spoils, and have allowed the money combinations of New York and New England to dictate party action and the financial policy of the Federal Government, and preside over its administration. The people of the South and West elect Senators and Representatives to take care of free coinage of gold and silver, and when they come to Washington and are subjected to the powerful influences and agencies of the gold power always present and in active operation in this Federal city, poor human nature in some representatives is unable to withstand the temptations and resist the powerful machinery of the gold kings. These representatives are not corrupt—they are perfectly honest in their action—it is the goodness of their hearts and the absence of backbone, which nature failed to supply, and they are not responsible. '' Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." I have no idea the people will be so tolerant and forbearing. This struggle for bimetallism on the basis of free coinage will never end by submission to the gold standard as long as ours is a free representative government. The faithful friends of free coinage may be cheated in platforms and misrepresented. They may be induced once to accept a platform which declares for the use of both gold and silver and the free coinage of both, without discriminating against either, but, being told by those whom they trusted that the pledge only means the use and coinage of both metals when England agrees to the amount and the ratio of the two metals, the free-coinage Democrats and Republic;.ns will never again be misled and deceived by those who betray them in the pending emergency. [Applause in the galleries.] 395 O
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