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S

ILYE

SPEECH
OF

HON. W. A. HARRIS,
OF

KANSAS,

I N THE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2 3 , 1 8 9 3 .




WASHINGTON.
1893.




S P E E C H
OF

HON.

W. A.

HARRIS.

T h e H o u s e h a v i n g u n d e r c o n s i d e r a t i o n t h e bill (H. R. 1) t o repeal a p a r t of
an act, approved J u l y 14,1890, entitled "An act d i r e c t i n g t h e p u r c h a s e of
silver b u l l i o n and the i s s u e of Treasury n o t e s thereon, and for o t h e r purposes"—

Mr. HARRIS said:
Mr. SPEAKER : I must confess tliat I occupy the time of the House
with some trepidation. I have been told since I came here that
the people of the West, where money is scarce, where they are poor,
have no right to a positive opinion upon these subjects; that they
must come to the great centers where wealth is accumulated in vast
amounts and where the great operations or exchanges of the country are carried on before this subject can be understood. 1 desire
to say tha,t I do not agree with that idea. I have read a good many
commentaries on the Merchant of Venice; and not even among the
most profound German commentators has there been evolved the
idea that Shyloct possessed any of the qualifications of a professor
of political economy. There was another distinguished accumulator of wealth known not far from New York a great many years
ago; but I have never heard that Captain Kidd " as he sailed " was
supposed to have any of the qualities which rendered him fit to be
a teacher of monetary science. There have been worthy successors
to Captain Kidd in the vicinity of New York in the last twenty years;
but we of the West do not feel that we are obliged to accept our
opinions on these subj ects from men who accumulate wealth by such
or similar processes.
Who are these people in the great West who are so treated with
contumely and scorn—this remote and alien horizon, as it seems to
be to some of these people. Let me call your attention for a moment
to the manner in which that country has been settled and the class
of men who occupy those magnificent plains.
At the close of the greatest war that this world has ever seen,
your younger brothers and your sons turned from the scenes of that
great combat. The flame of battle still in their faces, begrimed
with powder, they turned their steps to the great West. In that
transmissouri region they have built up empires; they have faced
all the privations, alTthe sufferings. With their young wives they
went out into the wilderness, and they have builded an empire
where beats the heart of this great American continent.
Wherever the bread of life is eaten all over this globe men rise
up and call them blessed. And all over the prairies of that region
are dotted the graves of those wives gone down prematurely with
unrewarded, unrequited toil. Those people have been the victims
for twenty years of the avarice, of the remorseless greed, of the
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concurrence of selfish interests which seems to guide and control
the eastern part of the country. It is time, sir, that they should
rise in revolt, and that they should demand of both these great
arties the rights which have been so long denied them; which
ave been so long falsely promised and refused.
The political parties of this country have boasted time and time
again of the loyalty, of the devotion to party, which those people have
displayed. For a quarter of a century Kansas was the tenth legion
in the army of the Republican party. Her eagles never turned their
backs on the enemy nor were ever bowed in defeat. For a quarter
of a century the gentlemen on the other side of the House have admired the dogged persistency and devotion which
the Democracy of
that Statehasdisplayed. Like the " old guard n they migh t die, but
they never surrendered. Again and again they came up in line of
battle and met inevitable defeat, true in every respect to the traditions of the Democracy.
Both of these great parties in their political platforms from 1873
down to 1892 have promised over and over again that the straw
should not tie taken away from them, that their tale of bricks should
not be produced at the expense of any more or greater effort than
when the contract was made.
What were the conditions that these people found when they
went into that region f I happen to know, as I was there with them
at an early day, that they found the whole of that vast region had
all practically been preempted by the widows and orphans/and servant girls that we are told constitute the creditor classes of the
East. These enterprising individuals had all gone out there, and,
through land-grant railroads, through the acquisition of magnificent Indian reservations, and by other means, all of those magnificent prairies had been taken possession of by these people here.
The settlers had to pay an increased price. Instead of getting their
lands, as they should have done, from the Government, they had to
pay millions and millions of dollars of profit into the coffers of these
parties in the East. If they wanted to build schoolhouses, railroads, or any other improvement, the money was always ready and
forthcoming—for a consideration. Bonds were voted everywhere.
These railroads, which liad been endowed by the Government, took
advantage of their opportunities to pit neighborhood against neighborhood, county against county, for the voting of greater and
greater amounts of bonds. We have been covered with debt, because we had faith in the future, because we had faith in our country, and we had faith in the great political parties that we believed
would do us justice.
We believed that the means which were promised for increasing
the amount of money for the payment of these debts would continue
and not be denied us. There were men in those days who said we
could depend upon it.
Let me call your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the utterance of one
of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Americans. Mr. Lincoln, in
an interview with Mr. Colfax, who was about t o visit the West, said
to him on the day he ended his life:
Mr. Colfax, I want yon to take & message from me to the miners whom you visit.
I have veiy largeideas of the mineral wealth of oar nation. I believe it practically
inexhaustible. I t abounds all over the western country, from the Kooky Mountains
to the Pacific, and its development has scarcely commenced. Daring the war, when
we were adding a couple of million of dollars every day to oar national debt, I did
not care about encouraging the increase in the volume of our precious metals. "We
had the country to save first. Bat now that the rebellion is overthrown, and we
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know pretty nearly the amount of our national debt, the more gold and silver w e
mine, w e make the payment of that debt so much the easier. . N o w -

Said 116, speaking with more emphasis—
I am going to encourage that in every possible way. "We shall have hundreds of
thousands of disbanded soldiers, and many have feared that their return home in
such great numbers might paralyze industry, by furnishing, suddenly, a-greater
supply of labor than there will be demand for. I am going to try to attract cliem
to.the hidden wealth of our mountain ranges, where there is room enough for all.
Immigration, which even the war has not stopped, will laud upon our shores hundreds of thousands more per year from overcrowded Europe. I intend to point
them to the gold and silver that wait for tliern in the "West. Tell the miners for
me that I shall promote their interests to the utmost of my ability, because their
prosperity is the prosperity of the nation; and—

Said he, his eye kindling with enthusiasm—
we shall prove, in a very f e w years, that we are indeed the treasury of the world.

In addition to that, sir, X remember well myself hearing a speech
which Mr. Blaine made in our country some twenty years ago, in
which he said that we need no longer concern ourselves with regard
to the rates of freightage to the Atlantic seaboard; that in a few
years the Western mountains would furnish a market for all we
should produce; that it was the great mineral storehouse of the
world; and so from that time on down we have been encouraged to
believe that those who went into these mountains and those who
went on the plains would alike meet their reward.
We have believed that their efforts would be encouraged and that
they would receive the final reward which their unexampled toil
and bravery entitled them to.
Now we have our friends in the East whose eyes seem to be all
turned in the other direction. They are more concerned with regard
to the rate of exchange on London than in regard to the great internal financial interests of this country. They continually tell us
that we will sink into the condition of Mexico. That if we remonetize silver it will put us on a silver basis and drag us down.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask these gentlemen if they consider
that the condition of Mexico is owing to the fact that their currency is silver, or to the fact that they have not enough of silver?
They are a poor people. They produce but little,, and to ascribe
their poverty or ignorance to the metal they use in their exchanges
is absolutely absurd. And I wish to say further that, supposing we
should come to that point, and we should for a time be placed on a
silver basis, as an American I should not consider that an irretrievable mischief.
President Andrews, of Brown University, says:
I propose to consider what in all probability would come to pass should the
United States begin free coinage alone. ISTo doubt after the tirst stringency accompanying the announcement of a free-coinage policy, a stringency arising from
the fact that gold would be instantly withdrawn from circulation, while silver
could be coined to take its place but slowly, our c o u n t y would derive great advantage from siding with the silver status. The fall of prices would be staved,
perhaps some rise of prices ensue, besides the United States would take its place
as the one great manufacturing nation of the silver world, and derive from that
position the immense gain which England has hitherto reaped, but largely lost
by the demonetization of silver, w e should manufacture for Mexico, South
America, China, and Japan, and England, owing to the lack of par exchange w i t h
them, would lose most or all of their custom. 2So doubt here is a splendid chance.
"We may effectually dish England as a manufacturing and commercial nation by
the means suggested. I do not wonder that this prospect carries away so many,
for it is indeed a glorious one.

And I should be proud if we could have a financial arrangement
with the vast empire south of us, the vast undeveloped region which
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affords the nearest market for our manufactured products, our agricultural products, and our steel and iron, for years to come.
We can well afford to drop our financial relations in the way of
borrowing money with Great Britain or with any of the other powers. In fact, on this subject of borrowing money, which seems to
be the leading argument of the gentleman from New York, I have
pretty nearly reached the opinion of old Polonius, that for a time
it would be better for us—
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

I do not regard our condition as a perpetual borrower of Great
Britain to be one that will lead us ultimately to the high position
that we ought to occupy. I believe that by the adoption of a
liberal remonetization of silver, as it was prior to 1873, we will
so encourage the production of wealth, we will so encourage the
accumulation of capital, that we will in a short time be rendered
independent of those people. Capital is timid, but after all I have
never yet known conditions to be so risky or so fearful that capital
will not seek the more profitable investment. A great and growing country like this will attract capital, whether the par of exchange
be maintained at all times or not. That has nothing whatever to
do with it, and would not present any insuperable obstacle to the
doing of business with those great people.
A great many of the gentlemen who have spoken on this subject,
who call themselves international bimetallists, seem to be willing
to aid to precipitate in Europe another fall in prices so aggravated
that the most obdurate banker of Lombard street will have to admit
that gold can not be safely taken as the sole metallic money in order
to bring a bout silver coinage in this country. They seem to be
willing to perform the part of "Sampson. They are willing to pull
the pillars of the temple down, to destroy tlieir enemies, regardless
of the consequences to themselves or to their countrymen. 1 have
no special desire to destroy Great Britain or to destroy France.
The prosperity of those people is a matter which vitally affects us,
but I certainly would not seek to advance it by first destroying
ourselves. I am more inclined to respect the opinion of the great
people in the West on these matters when I recall the speech which
Edmund Burke delivered on the floor of the House of Commons in
defending Woodfall, the publisher of the Letters of Junius. He
exclaimed:
The wisdom of the whole nation can see farther than the sages of Westminster
Hall. The collective knowledge and penetration of the people at large are more to
be depended on than the boasted discernment of all the bar. The reason is clear:
Their e \ e s are not dazzled by the prospects of an opposite interest. The Crown
has no lure sufficiently tempting to make them forget themselves and the general
good.

And I desire to commend that extrac t to gentlemen who some day
may find inconsistency a hobgoblin if they do not now find consistency having anything frightful to them.
Why should we not do then, Mr. Speaker, what the great majority
of the people have so often desired, what they have time and time
again expressed themselves as in favor of? How should we arrive
at what is the opinion of the majority of those people, or what is
the opinion of the great mass of the people? Is there any better
means of arriving at it than to study the political platforms which
for twenty years have been made with special reference to catching
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the majority of votes? There is not a single solitary exception in
any of the platforms in any of the parties, where the delusion has not
been held out that they intended to remonetize silver. Ever since
the great revolt in 1878 no public man has dared to face these people
upon any other kind of pretense. They have one and all endeavored
to give the impression, no matter what their real opinions were,
that they would consult the wishes and the will of the people; ana
I wish to say that the time has come when the people are becoming
indignant, when they deem it a crime that public office is not treated
as a public trust, when political expediency and jugglery will no
longer avail.
Now, sir; we are told that the sum of iniquities, that the cause
of all this trouble and unrest, is the purchasing clause of the Sherman bill: and we are brought here for the express purpose of repealing that law. That is supposed to be all that is necessary to put
us back upon the high road to prosperity.
Why, gentlemen, we in the West some five to eight years ago began to see that there were a great many causes conspiring to this
unfortunate end. The present condition is but the culmination of
those causes, most of them antedating by years this Sherman bill.
The people of the West as a rule did not approve of the Sherman
bill. They did not consider that it was in accord with, true monetary principles; but the Republican party enacted it and the Republicans of the West accepted it as affording some measure of relief. It was not-all that they desired, yet they thought in time free
coinage would come; and it did make a positive addition to the
currency; and had it been administered by its friends, I have no
doubt that it would have been a powerful auxiliary in reestablishing the remonetization of silver.
We do not regard it as a vital thing in the present condition.
While, as I say, we do not regard it as a proper monetary measure,
yet we do not propose to repeal that which we have, without some
knowledge of that which will come hereafter. We desire to know
that the pledges of the Democratic party—that being the party in
power, that being the party which we have all looked to more or
less as intending to act in good faith and honestly in this matter—
we look to that party to carry out the platform as an entirety. We
do not consider that it is legitimate to select a single clause and to
act upon that in a manner which will jeopardize for years to come
the vital principle of free coinage.
In the State of Kansas there is no division on this question;
Democrats, Republicans, and Populists alike are all agreed that we
will stand by the Sherman act until we get free coinage of silver at
a ratio of 16 to 1. [Applause.] There is nothing indistinct in the
utterances from that part of the country. There are no juggleries
in language out there. They say exactly what they mean, and propose to do exactly what they say. There will be no chance for any
party in this country that does not stand upon that platform so far
as that part of the country is concerned.
Now, sir, this question has been thoroughly examined. It has
been taken before conferences and before commissions without
end, where the ablest and most expert financiers have controlled.
The argument has beeii gone over and over, and our people out there
are impatient of delay. They say the time has come when you must
act, when you must say what you mean. I desire to have the Clerk
read an extract from the unanimous decision of the great English
monetary commission, which practically covers the points that have
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been so much discussed. It will show that a commission composed
of twelve men, six bimetallists and six monometallists, unanimously
agreed on the power of a single nation to fix the ratio, not only in
her own limits, but in ontside countries, a nation not comparable
in strength, commerce, importance, population, territory, or resources, to this great country of ours.
The Clerk read as follows:
Now, undoubtedly, the date which forms the dividing line between an epoch of
approximate fixity m the relative value of gold and silver and one of marked instability, is the year when the bimetallic system which had previously been in
force in the Latin Union ceased to be in full operation, and we are irresistibly led
to the conclusion that the operation of that system, established as it was in countries the population and commerce of which were considerable, exerted a material
influence upon the relative value of the two metals.
So long as that system was in force we think that, notwithstanding the changes
in the production and use of the precious metals, it kept the market price of silver approximately steady at the ratio fixed by law between them, namely, 15J to 1.
Section 193. Nor does it appear to us a priori unreasonable to suppose that the
existence in the Latin Union of a bimetallic system with a ratio or 15£ to 1 fixed
between the two metals should have been capable of keeping the market price
of silver steady at approximately that ratio.
The view that it could only affect the market price to the extent to which there
was a demand for it for currenov purposes in theXatin Union, or to which it was
actually taken to the mints of those countries, is, we think, fallacious.
The fact that the owner of silver could, in the last resort, take it to those mints
and have it converted into coin which would purchase commodities at the ratio of
ISA of silver to 1 of gold, would, in our opinion, be likely to affect the price of
silver in the market generally, whoever the purchaser and for whatever country
It was destined. It would enable the seller to stand out for a price approximating
to the legal coin and would tend to keep the market steady at about that point.

Now, sir, this is what the people believe and have a right to believe.
,
And, sir, as the doctors are so confused, would it not be well as a
representative body to be guided by what the people want, and to
make an honest effort to execute the popular will? Is there doubt
in any man's mind what that is? That in spite of the tremendous
enginery that has been employed to turn them, the vast majority
of the people of this country for twenty years have steadily and
continuously struggled with wonderful patience and persistency to
have silver placed back on the throne from which it has been expelled, but which it has never abdicated.
The simple fact that every political party in this country has in
all this time recognizedthis demand, and every where has promised,
or pretended to promise, to be governed by it, is an all-sufficient
proof of the fact. That they have juggled with words till they
quarrel among themselves as to what their platforms really mean
only adds to their deeper damnation.
Let me quote from a distinguished Senator [Ingalls]:
I say, if without impropriety I may do so, to the Executive of the nation, that
there will come a time when the people will be trifled with no longer on this subject. Once, twice, thrice, by Executive intervention. Democratic and Republican,
by parliamentary proceedings that I need not characterize, by various methods of
legislative jugglery, the deliberate purpose of the American people, irrespective
of"party, has been thwarted; it has been defied; it has been contumaciously trodden under foot; and I repeat to those who have been the instruments and implements, no matter what the impulse or the motive or the intention may have been,
at some time the people will elect a House of Representatives, they will elect a
Senate of the United States, they will elect a President of the United States, who
will carry out the pledges and execute the popular will.

In all this discussion as to the single standard and double standard it is strange that no mention has been made of that which is
the single and only standard by which we form the mental concep150




9
tion, which we call exchangeable value, and that is, human effort or
labor. The average labor cost of the greatest number of articles
involving human effort would be the nearest possible approach to
an unvarying standard. Gold and silver bullion are simply two
commodities selected and used by society at something near the
average cost in labor, as an expression of this idea, having in the
smallest bulk the greatest labor cost. That the accidents of mining and the vicissitudes attending the
production of the two would have an average of fluctuation less
marked in range than would one is unquestionable, and the average
price line which is established by the mean between the two metals is the nearest approach to stability which we can have.
The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. HARTER] is partiallyright in contending that there is a tendency to the alternate actual use of the*
metals, and it is in that very fact that, as so superbly shown by the
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. BRYAN], exists the automatic regulation which tends to insure stability. As a man in walking rests
his weight first on one foot and then the other, his stability would
not be increased by cutting off one of his legs and leaving him to
hop on one alone. [Applause.]
Here the hammer fell.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from
Kansas has expired.
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, if I can be recognized, I will state that
the only speaker to follow the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. HARRIS] is my colleague [Mr. BELL], and at his suggestion, I ask that
the time of the gentleman from Kansas be extended at least five
minutes, so that he may follow the present thread of his argument.
There was no objection.
Mr. HARRIS, i simply wish to add a quotation from Francis A.
Walker:
The abandonment of silver will result in the enhancement of the burden of all
debts and fixed charges, acting as a drag upon production, and suffocation, strangulation, are words hardly too strong to express the agony of the industrial body when
embraced in the fatal coils of a contracting money.

Now, sir, the supply of the two metals has never been so great
that the prices of other things have been very greatly raised at any
time, and now that a determined effort to destroy the use of one
metal, and thereby double the demand for the other, is being made,
as an undoubted result prices have been falling all oyer the world
with all of the dire results which universally follow such a condition, and which will result in the ruin of all debtors and the steady
concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.
One of England's truest poets once, at such an era, exclaimed:.
Ye friends to truth, ve statesmen who survey
The rich man's joys Increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis yonra to mark how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.

Whenever men have protested against the metallic base as narrow, fluctuating, often insufficient almost to ruin, at other times
flowing in with such abundance as to lead to wild excitement and
speculation for short periods, as unscientific and unphilosophic,
they have been met with the argument that God made these metals
for man's needs.
With our catechism we have been taught that the precious metals
were provided for the use of mankind as money, that the automatic
theory was something sacred; that human intelligence and honesty
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were all insufficient to regulate or restrain human authority in providing society with a medium of exchange and that only the limitation of nature could and should be trusted with this greatest of
functions. When darkness covered the world and civilization was
about to perish it was a providential interposition that inspired
Columbus to open the way to the metallic treasures of the New
World. Again, when from the same cause, in the first half of the
century, poverty, suffering, and discontent opened the bloody gates
of revolution upon Europe, divine pity directed men to the golden
store of California and Australia, and hope returned to the hearts
of the people, civilization, with its science, art, and literature received a mighty impetus and the world laughed.
Allison, alluding to the discovery of the silver mine® of Mexico and
Peru in the sixteenth century, and of the gold mines of California
and Australia in this, says:
I f ever the benevolence of the Almighty was clearly revealed in human affairs,
i t was in these two decisive discoveries made at such periods; and he who, on considering them, is not persuaded of the superintendence of an ever-watchful Providence would not be convinced though one rose from the dead.

Predicting the great output of gold, he says:
Before half a century has elapsed prices t>f every article of commerce will be
tripled, enterprise proportionately encouraged, industry vivified, debts and taxes
lessened.

And—
W e can now contemplate with complacency any given increase in mankind;
the growth of their numbers will not lead to the aggravation of their sufferings.

Hardly, however, had these words been written when a new gospel was discovered and preached. It was found that this " happiness of mankind" was about to interfere with the interests of a
small but powerful class, debts were being paid too rapidly and
easily, "the financial world was becoming saturated with gold"
(Chevalier), the debtor was about to escape, and human intelligence
and honesty were now invoked to stop the flow of God's beneficence. But the memories of revolution were too fresh. As Mr. A.
Allard (delegate of Belgium to the Brussels conference) says:
We had just left 1848 behind us. Besides, both prophets of good and of evil were
disappointed, and the stream of gold gradually diminished.

The numbers and needs of mankind continued to increase, however, to 1860 to 1870 found half the civilized world on a paper
basis, the arts and natural loss depleting the accumulated stock
more and more, the strain and stress again began to be felt, when
lo! a miracle—dn the West the dawn of light appeared.
A third time (under the automatic theory) God turned again His
face towards His creatures, and from the frowning heights of our
Western mountains a silver rivulet began to descend. The parched
and thirsty earth was gladdened at the sight and mankind rejoiced.
Here in our own country we were inexpressibly exhilarated, saved
from the reaction of a great war; a new field opened for the bold
and active j the road to resumption made plain and easy; the great
debt of the nation to be paid as no other had ever been. We girded
up our loins, and, full of hope and courage and patriotism, we
started on our great work. But we reckoned without our host* A
new power now essayed to dominate the world; somewhat timid in
1857, it had grown great on the world's misfortunes or mistakes.
The "bondholder" asserted his right to limit the means of the
debtor to pay, and the "financier" waved his glittering wand before
the eyes of the people, and from the rosy mists of confidence evolved
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oastles of credit-currency upon the steadily thinning foundation of
gold, and claimed that under the modern art of exchanges (swapping
checks) practically so much metal money was a burden, a relic of
barbarism, cumbrous and to be abandoned; and so the work was
done, this time silver, the selected victim. Here it was done "in
the night/' no man daring openly to avow the full design, nor to
this day has any party dared to face an Indignant people with a
frank avowal of such a purpose.
The two great parties have
Paltered with us in a double sense,
Keeping the word of promise to otir ear
Ana breaking it to our hope.

Grudgingly have they been forced to concede various paliative
measures, all alike unfairly and dishonestly administered. The last
(the Sherman law), a compromise forced upon us, a monstrosity, a
violation of every principle, and, as administered, an open dishonoring of silver as a money metal, and yet to-day it, instead of being
the cause of gold leaving us, is, to the extent to which the currency
has been increased, standing between ns and panic.
Gold is leaving us. Why? Because the world is trying to keep
warm under a blanket all too small, and each nation is tugging for
a part of it. Austria is paying a premium (4 per cent bonds at 95£
or less). The Baring failure, and later the Australian crash, started
a flood of our bonds home, to save the gold based English credit
syBtem from a collapse not yet ended.
An unfavorable balance of trade, in spite of high tariff, if not
caused by it, and a determined effort to scare the nation from its
purpose, ana this outflow was in no way to be prevented or cured
by going in debt or issuing bonds. "We are like children who
make a shadow on the wall, and are as alarmed at it as if it were a
reality."
Had we never demonetized silver "the shadow would never have
existed and we would still be in that era of prosperity which we
regret to-day " (Allard).
If the flow of gold is a misfortune, which X do not believe, why
not check it, as would England, France, or Germany when demanded
for export? The law gives Mr. Carlisle the option in payment of
Treasury notes to coin silver and use it. The "honest dollar" is the
dollar of the contract; no more, no less. Open the mints, coin dollars "of the present weight and standard of fineness." Establish
"parity" by parity of use. To expect the bullion values of gold
and silver to1 approach equality, with one sustained by an increased
demand originating in legislative action, and an open mint with its
fixed unfailing price, while the other is made a commodity, to be
purchased at the lowest bid, is an absurdity and a sham.
Give both equal treatment and fixed mint values, then if in due
time there should be any inequality, exercise the constitutional
right "to regulate the value thereof" in the interests of the great
"plain people" of the country. But, says some bright genius,
"the silver miners will be benefited." Why should we hate the
silver miner or love him less than the man who with a minimum of
cost washes the gravel of placers for gold? Shall we freeze because
the coal miner might make a profit on coal?
Let no one think that there is unjust prejudice against thelegiti-.
mate and well-guarded use of bank credit currency: ^but no one will
deny that it is the most subtle and dangerous form or inflation known
to the world, and capable of being used to the greatest injury of
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mankind, especially when the reserve of money of redemption is
admitted by all to be inadequate, as is the case with gold.
With all the gold and all the silver the world will still be scantily supplied ana the arts will more and more encroach on the stock
accumulated.
Let us lead the way alone, and the world will follow. Otherwise
the metallic basis for money, or automatic theory, will be forever
destroyed by the calamities which will follow and overwhelm us in
the attempt to do the business of the world on bank credits resting
on the basis of diminishing gold, for the benefit of the "financiers."
[Applause.]
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