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SILVER. " I am a natural born rebel against oppression and wrong." S P E E C H OF H O N . J O H N OF M . A L L E N , MISSISSIPPI, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SATURDAY, A U G U S T 26, 1893. WASHINGTON. 1893. S P E E C H OF HON. JOHN M. ALLEN. The House having under consideration the hill (H. R. 1) 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"— Mr. ALLEN said: Mr. SPEAKER: Most of the gentlemen who have addressed the House in this debate have disclaimed being financiers or political economists. Sir, I am both. [Laughter.! But I insist that I am in no way responsible for the present panic and financial trouble. I have kept my money in circulation [laughter], and any person who doubts this has leave to search my stockings for i ' hoarded " currency. [Laughter.] Mr. Speaker, I have been studying the money problem for the last forty years. [Laughter.] When, as a child, I first began to observe, one of the problems that claimed my attention and aroused my budding curiosity was, why people would exchange their good candy and cakes, for these were the commodities of commerce I most desired then [laughter], for little pieces of silver that were neither beautiful to look on nor good to eat or wear. I soon discovered that while the money for which everybody seemed to be struggling and contending was not desired for the intrinsic qualities in the metal of which it was made, but for the function it performed in the affairs of the human race—I found that by law and common consent it had been made the medium of exchange, and the standard by which values were measured and time contracts liquidated; that it was the yardstick by which the transactions of the human race were measured; that men parted with what they had that was desired by others, and gave their labor and made all sorts of sacrifices to get money, not because they wanted a piece of gold or silver, but because they wanted money which would, in turn, buy them such commodities as they desired and pay such debts as they had contracted. It is the important function in the affairs of men performed by money that puts every man in competition with every other man to obtain it, and not the material of which it is made. All sorts of things have been made to perform this function in various ages of the world, and, except as a matter of convenience, it makes but little difference of what material it is made, so long as it can be made to perform its high and important function. And, in my judgment, much of the confusion that has grown up 326 3 4 on this question arises from the fact that people fail to discriminate between the money function and the commodity value of the material of which money is made. Take gold, for instance, W h o doubts that it is the coining privilege, the money use of that metal, that gives it its commodity value? Who can give any estimate of what gold would be worth per ounce if it were not for its money use? Then, how absurd to say that nothing but gold shall be coined as money unless its commodity value in the dollar shall equal the commodity value in the gold dollar, a value that has been given it by the special coinage privilege that has been conferred upon it and denied to other metals by governmental action. Advocates of gold have induced the Government to destroy the parity between the commodity value of gold and silver, denying one the privilege accorded the other, and they now insist that silver shall never be coined again, because of the want of parity thus destroyed. They are unwilling to undo the wrong done to silver. Let us put it back where it was prior to the act of 1873, by which it was demonetized, and then see if it will not take care"of itself. The gentleman from New York [Mr. HENDRIX], in his speech the other day in favor of gold monometallism, spoke of the friends of silver going around like a lot of " gibbering idiots " worshiping silver. Did it ever occur to him that a " gibbering idiot " might worship gold as well as silver? ML*. Speaker, I suppose it will not be denied, that as money is the measure of values, the amount of money in the world regulates the money value of all the property in the world. That is, money being the standard by which all property is valued, and money being- the one thing desired and competed for by everybody, it is therefore more essentially affected by supply than anything else. It therefore follows that the destruction of onehalf of the money of the world would destroy half the money value of all property. It is true the property would have the same inherent value that it had before, but it would have but half the money value. In other words, the property is the same, but the supply of money having been cut off one-half, its value or purchasing power is doubled. Under these conditions a man who had contracted to pay a certain sum of money before one-half the supply had been destroyed, would afterward have to pay twice the amount in property or labor, in other words he would have to make double the sacrifice that he contemplated when the debt was contracted, or that he would have had to do had the volume of money remained the same. Gold and silver have been the metals mainly used for the coinage of money for many centuries. Certain ratios have been fixed under the coinage acts of the various governments using these metals which have not been exactly the same at all places and all times. But the variations were very slight up to the time the leading nations of the world began to discriminate against the one and in favor of the other. The two metals worked well side by side and performed well the functions assigned to them, until certain classes, whose interest it was to make money scarce and high and give it the largest purchasing power, began to conspire 326 5 to curtail the supply of money and to contend for the use of a single metal as money. Tiieir attacks were made sometimes on gold and sometimes on silver; but it was always made on the metil that would, on account of the amount produced at the time, diminish the supply most, until they settled down on gold as the money metal and determined to destroy silver, so far as its future coinage was concerned. I will not attempt to go into the history of just how they have done this; but suffice it to say that in 1816 silver was demonetized in England; that is, it was denied the right of coinage, and in this country the same thing was done in 1873, and has now been done in all the leading nations of the world. I will pass over the methods by which it was accomplished in the United States, but I do say wherever it has been done it was in the interest of and at the dictation of a small minority in numbers of the people, and against the interest and over the protest of four-fifths, if not nine-tenths, of the human race. It may be asked how this could be done. I answer that, while it was a small minority in numbers that accomplished it, it was nevertheless a very powerful force by reason of the great influence exercised by the moneyed classes in legislation. They h ad their lobbies and their agents, who looked well after their interest, and by many questionable means procured their ends, while the great masses of the people were following their avocations, unmindful of what was taking place until after it was done. W e all know that there are a great many people who think that only those who have plenty of money are financiers, and that only financiers should be heeded as to what the financial policy of governments should be. Now, Mr. Speaker, when the people of free America found out what had been done, they took a hand in the matter themselves and demanded the restoration of silver to the position it occupied prior to 1873. This demand was stoutly resisted by what is known as the money power, but finally resulted in the partial restoration of silver in 1878 under what was known as the BlandAllison act. That act gave us limited coinage and was passed over the Presidential veto. The Bland-Allison law was a compromise measure and not satisfactory to either the friends or opponents of silver. The classes to whom I have referred as the opponents of silver were dissatisfied that silver was recognized at all, and the masses were not satisfied because silver was not fully restored and given the same chance as a money metal that gold enjoyed. The gold monometallists began the efforts for the repeal of the law, but were unsuccessful, and in 1890 we found in each end of the Capitol a majority of the representatives of the people in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and to checkmate them the Republican majority in both branches coerced the silver Republicans into voting for and passed what the last Democratic national convention denounced as the "cowardly makeshift" known as the " Sherman law." This law was passed by Republican votes—every Democrat in both branches of Congress voting against it. It repealed the Bland-Allison law of 1878 and provided for the purchasing of 4,500,000 ounces of silver per month at its market price and the 326 6 issuance of Treasury notes for the same, which added to our circulation from forty to fifty millions of dollars a year. Now, we are called together in extra session and we find the country in the midst of one of the most serious financial panics it ever experienced, and we are told that the Sherman law is responsible for it, and that we must repeal that law without accompanying that repeal with any other act save a declaration in the repealing act which, in effect, declares that all the silver and paper money of the Government outstanding, amounting to nearly $1,000,000,000, shall be redeemable in gold at the pleasure of the holder, with only ninety or one hundred millions of dollars of gold in the Treasury to redeem with! Mr. Speaker, I will not vote for the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law [applause], and especially for the bill known as the Wilson bill. I never favored the Sherman law. I voted against it, and standing right where I now stand. I spoke against it at the time of its passage. I did not like it then and I do not like it now, bat, sir, it is the only law on our statute books providing for m y increase in the volume of our currency, and to remove that without substituting anything in its place would, in my opinion, put us very much in the condition of the negro's cow. I saw a letter here some time ago, written to some friends of mine by the negro man who was left in charge of the home in Mississippi, and among other things he said: The cow have been very sick; I give her some medicine, and she are now well of the disease, but I think she will die of the remedy. [Laughter.] Mr. Speaker, I am as anxious as any member on this floor to cure the country of the disease, but I do not intend to vote for a remedy that will be worse th m the disease itself. Mr. Speaker, I am no defender of or apologist for the Sherman law. The Republicans who passed it over our protest have abandoned it, and I am not going e to the rescue of their bastard offspring. I never favored the p'urchase and storage of silver bullion and I do not favor it now. I favor silver money, but, sir, I do not believe for a moment that the Sherman law or our silver money is responsible for the distressing financial condition with which we are confronted. I have not the time to give in detail the causes which have, in my opinion, brought us to this condition, but this depression is worldwide and is affecting the people of all n xtions, more or less where the Sherman law can have no effect. Besides this, in this country we have been living for many years in the midst of great governmental and individual extravagance. People have overtraded themselves, and pay-day has come. In my judgment one of the most potent causes of this trouble lies in a fact that has been stated here by almost every advocate of monometallism who has spoken in this debits, that is, that 95 per cent of the business of the country is done by checks, drafts, and credits, and they argue that for that reason we do not need much money. I admit the fact that 9o per cent, or maybe more, of our business transactions are clone with drafts, checks, credits, and clearing-house certificates; but I do say that that is a condition 326 7 which intensifies rather than mitigates such conditions as confront us now. Our whole financial machinery is overloaded with credit. It is top-heavy, and whenever there comes the least distrust, panic and financial disaster is the logical consequence of our present system. Let me illustrate: At the beginning of this trouble the national, State, and savings banks in this country owed about $5,00 J,000,000, and they had in their vaults about $500,000,000; about 10 per cent of their liabilities. I can not imagine a condition more fraught with danger of financial disaster. It is well enough while everything moves on smoothly and everybody has confidence and the people are willing to let the banks keep their money and lend it to others; but the very moment distrust sets in, the banks begin to gather in all the money they can get to meet runs made on them, by their depositors; distrust widens as money grows scarcer, and people who have money on deposit get uneasy lest the banks will not have it, and they begin to call for their own and lock it up or hide it; and the conseq uence is that the larger the proportion of credits to the amount of actual money the greater the danger of financial disaster. When the confidence that supplied the difference between the $500,000,000 and^the $5,000,000,000 is shaken, panic and ruin is the necessary result: and this, although used as an argument by those who claim we have more money than is necessary, is, in my opinion, one of the strongest points against their contention. 1 have tried this scheme of doing 95 per cent of my business on a credit basis [laughter and applause]; but, Mr. Speaker, it does not work well, for now my creditors are clamorous for me to do something to restore confidence. [Great laughter.] W e are told by the advocates of repeal that the cause of this panic is the distrust of our money on account of the purchase and use of silver. It does seem to me that if there ever was a contention, the untruth of which is clearly demonstrated by the facts, this is one. The very money you say the people are afraid of is the very money they are hoarding. If they thought it bad money they would be getting rid of it instead of hoarding it. The very money they say the people are- afraid of is at a premium to-day over gold. No; it is not a want of confidence in the money that is making the trouble; but it is the fear the people have that they can not get their money when they want it that is making the trouble. In my opinion the opponents of silver, in their anxiety to have the Sherman law unconditionally repealed, have manufactured this panic. I do not charge that all of them intended it, or that any of them intended to make it as bad as it is, but I do believe that, by their predictions of the evils that were coming and their advertisement of the drainage of gold, and the manipulation of some of them of the shipment of gold abroad, in the hope of forcing the repeal of the Sherman law and the sale of gold bonds, they have been the chief factors in destroying public confidence in the financial condition of the country. They have started a panic they can not control, and now they are appealing to us to take such action as they say will restore confidence and induce the people to put their money back into 326 8 the banks that they may lend it out at a larger rate of interest than ever. I am squarely at issue with those gentlemen. Several of them who have spoken on the other side of this question have contended that the cause of the trouble is we have too much money. There may be too much for those who have money and fixed incomes and money obligations due them, but not for nine-tenths of the people. I also am at issue with those who claim that we have even a sufficient supply of money. I would be willing today to submit that question to the voters of this country, feeling assured that at least three-fourths of them would vote with me in favor of an increase of our money circulation. I do not agree with my friend and colleague [Mr. CATCHINGS], who in his very able speech against silver the other day contended that our people in the South were, of all others, least interested in a larger volume of currency. He argued that even a contraction of the currency only affected people who owed long-time debts, and that what indebtedness there was due by our Southern people was on contracts of only a few months duration. My notion is that the people of my State are largely debtors, and that these debts are made up of balances that have gone over from year to year for many years back, and that the increased value of money, as compared with the value or prices to be obtained for their products or their property is so great that it is almost impossible for a person to make money to pay debts with. If he will go to the records in our counties and see the large number of mortgages given to foreign money lenders, when they would not advance more than two-thirds or one-half the supposed value of the lands when the money was loaned, he will find that many of them have been foreclosed and that many others are ready to be foreclosed, and that the lands will not now pay the mortgage debt. He will then see how appreciating money is serving our people. He is also mistaken in supposing that our people do not need or want much money in their business transactions. The man he spoke of, who carried his cotton to town and sold it to one man and got an order with which he paid a debt, or got meat from another, is not satisfied with that system. Our farmers who raise cotton like to handle the actual cash, even if they have to pay it out. It makes them feel better and richer ana restores confidence with them to have money, even temporarily. I have heard gentlemen in this debate talk much of the evils of an inflated currency, but I believe that more of wrong and misery and ruin and cruel oppression has resulted from the contraction of the supply of money than from any other cause, and I believe the history of the world will bear me out in this statement. What can be worse than a declining scale of prices? It drives people out of business, causes bankruptcy, checks enterprise, unsettles and destroys confidence, and either brings the world to a standstill or turns it back in the march of progress. I have heard a great deal said here about an k£ honest dollar." It is a great u f a d " here for gentlemen to proclaim their devotion to an honest dollar. I do not know when I have ever witnessed such an exhibition of verbal honesty. [Laughter.] They are very solicitous about an honest dollar for the creditor, but I do 326 9 not hear much about it for the debtor. If a man owes a debt that he can pay in silver or gold you come along and take away from him the right to pay it in silver by robbing silver of its place as a coin metal and force him to pay it in gold, which is made dear and harder to get by this action, and do this in the name of an honest aoilar. What a mockery! I am no advocate of anything dishonest, but if legislation is to help one or the other, or one class at the expense of the other, is it not better that the weaker, the debtor class, should have the benefit of the legislation? I am, at least, unwilling to restrain all progress for fear some one will have an easier time in paying his obligations than those he owed desired. My information is that the nation that is suffering the least to-day from the depression of the times is France, which country has the largest per capita circulation of money of any country in the world, and the largest amount of silver money. With but little more than half the population of the United States, with not one-tenth the area and nothing like the facility for absorbing money that we have, they have twice as much money as we have and twice as much silver. I am a believer in a much larger circulating medium than we have, and I want to warn gentlemen here to-day that in my judgment the people are going to have it. They are willing to take it now in silver, but if you deprive them of silver anql attempt to hold them down to monometallism and the gold standard you may look out for the Greenbackers, who have been so much derided by some of the speakers in this debate. And I say now that I prefer an inflation with greenback paper money to a contraction of the currency. I am not an advocate of silver for silver's sake, but I am contending for more money than the gold standard will give, and I do not think the free coinage of silver would give us too much—at least not for a long time—and then when we get enough we can quit. Silver and gold have been for a long time money metals and they have not afforded more money than the world needs in my opinion. ' T h e difficulty of procuring them is a good safeguard against the business being overdone; but if those who are wanting us confined to gold succeed now, in my judgment the people who have been forced to do without silver will after awhile conclude to do without metallic money at all. W e are told we must have a dollar good in every part of the world. Now, Mr. Speaker, I never needed a dollar outside of the United States in my life, and I think most of our people are in the same condition. W e do not propose to be impoverished in our money supply in order to accommodate people who want a dollar good somewhere else. I am a great believer in our own country. This lovely land of ours, so boundless in its resources, so salubrious in its climate, so benign in its government, so incalculable in its strength, so matchless in its people—all in all it is the pride and glory of its own people, and the envy and admiration of the rest of the world. With this view of our own America, how humiliating it is to hear it argued here that we are dependent on other nations for our financial system. I repudiate the idea. I believe we can 326 10 have and maintain a financial system for our people, independent of England and other nations. W e do not expeot to terminate all relations with the outside world by regulating our own financial system. W e will have many things they will want and must have; we will send them our wheat, cotton, corn, meat, and other products in exchange for what we get from them if they will not take our money; and I want to dissent right here from the position so much contended for here, that we must so shape our legislation as to attract to our shores foreign money. Mr. Speaker, I have given this subject much consideration, and my judgment is that people are better off who do business on their own capital. If foreign money comes here it comes to earn dividends and interest, and in times like these it runs away and aggravates our trouble at the very time we need it most. I want plenty of American money for Americans. [Applause.] W h y is it that England insists on the single gold standard? It is because England is the creditor nation of the world, and she desires just what creditor classes generally desire—a dearer money returned than she let out? Mr. Gladstone in a speech of few months ago, spe-aking of the international monetary conference at Brussels, made use of the following language: Why continue the conference? What necessity is there for England to send any more commissioners? We do not intend to have anything but the gold standard; we are the creditor people of the world, and we want money to have the highest purchasing capacity, the largest quantity of which can be put in the smallest bulk. This states the whole case in a nutshell. Now, the trouble with us is that New York and the East occupy to us just the same position England occupies to the rest of the world". They constitute the creditor classes in this country, and they are interested just as Mr. Gladstone said England was, and want money to have the highest purchasing and smallest debt-paying power. I have had some requests from boards of trade and other commercial bodies to vote for the unconditional repeal of the Sherman bill, but I prefer to respond to what I believe to be the interest and wishes of the great body of the people who sent me here to represent them. I came here determined to give my vote for every practical measure that was offered me for increasing the currency. I will vote, when I have a chance, for the repeal of the 10 per cent tax on State banks. I will vote for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, and for every other measure looking to an increase of the currency except that of giving increased facilities to national banks. I have never fought national banks. I expected when I came here to vote for a liberal policy towards them. I have thought they might perform a good office in our financial system, but I have become convinced that they are a dangerous power in this land and that they have determined to control the finances and financial policy of this country in their own interest, and I am against them, and I propose to light them. If I had the time I could give many good reasons why I have arrived at this conclusion. I believe it is a power the people must destroy or it will destroy the people's rights. 326 11 I think most of the great metropolitan papers are in their pay, and I see many other signs of their corrupting power. I want to give you an additional reason why some of the people who are urging this repeal should not be gratified. It just proves what I have said about the methods resorted to for the destruction of silver. Now, this is the honest confession of Mr. WALKER, who is a leading Republican light on finance, in his speech for repeal on the floor of this House the other day, he said: That the purchase clause of the silver law of July 14, 1890, is a menace to the best economic conditions of our people and ought to be at once repealed is practically unanimously agreed to by all. None see its uneconomic provisions or are more earnest to wipe them from the statute books than those who framed it. They see them now no more clearly than they did on- the day they framed it and secured its passage. Gentlemen, that is an awful acknowledgment by the gentleman from Massachusetts and a terrible arraignment of the Republican party. I have said a good many hard things about the party, but I never said anything that was as hard as that. I never said that they foresaw this ruin that has now overtaken us, that has prostrated every industry of the country, in order to get rid of silver. He gives the reason for its enactment. He goes on to say: It was framed and passed to repeal the far worse Bland-Allison act of 1878, and to break up and defeat the free-coinage forces of 1890; to be itself destroyed, after having done its work, which is already accomplished. It now stands as the last fortress of error, in which are massed all the forces of unsound financial theories. When its walls are leveled to the ground the enemies of sound money, who were skillfully allured within its walls in 1890, will be dispersed, never again to win another strategic position. There, Mr. Speaker, is the opinion of the gentleman from Massachusetts. The gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED] spoke to-day in much more bitter and severe language than I am able to command of finesse in legislation by which the people are unduly deprived of something that they esteem as worth something to them. Bat here one of the framers, promoters, and advocates of the Sherman law says it was— framed and passed to repeal the far worse Bland-Allison act of 1878, and to break up and defeat the free-coinage forces of 1890. In other words, the walls that protected silver were to be torn down and the friends of silver will never again obtain a strategic position in this country. Gentlemen, there is a great deal of truth in it, and I admire the candor of the gentleman who has the manhood to come up here and tell how it was done. Those of you who think it is your duty to help them tear down the walls upon us go with them; but I tell you, gentlemen, for one I am not willing to do it. [Applause.] I am a rebel by nature against oppression and wrong. [Applause.] I do not propose to be driven or bullied into doing that which, in my humble judgment, is a bad thing for the great mass of people who have sent me here as their representative. Mr. Speaker, I have made many speeches against the financial policy of the Republican party. I have made a great impression on my audience when I have denounced their policies and practices. [Laughter.] I know of many of my Democratic friends over here who have achieved some of their greatest victories in denouncing in thunder tones the " d e e p 226 12 damnation" of the " taking off "of silver by the Republican party. I did the same thing, but I meant and believed in what I said. Now, I find some of the loudest-mouthed Democratic orators— some who always supposed they were real and devoted friends of silver—making speeches here, the only logic of which is that the best the Republicans could have done and the only wise thing they could do was to demonetize silver; and if I occupied the position of a good many of my friends over here on this side of the House, I should get up now and make an apology to the Republican party for having denounced it. [Laughter.] There is a story that I once told in this House, but as the personnel of the House has changed a good deal since then, and as the story seems very appropriate to this occasion, I may venture to tell it again for the benefit of some of my friends here who are in such thorough accord with the Republican financial policies now, although they have secured their own election and the success of their party by denouncing those policies in the past. Two of my constituents were candidates for the office of county treasurer of Alcorn County. One of them had held the office for two terms and the other was running against him in opposition to the third term. This man who was running for the office the first time followed his competitor all over that county denouncing the proposition to elect a man to office for a third term. The people indorsed him and he was elected in opposition to the third-term candidate. He held the office himself for two terms and the election was approaching. The time was coming when he must get out of office himself or go back on the platform upon which he had been elected. The situation was serious. [Laughter.] He came to town one morning and said, "Boys, have any of you seen anything of Beech Mitchell?" Beech Mitchell was the man whom he had beaten. They told him that Beech was in town. " W e l l , " said he, " I want to see him; I feel that I owe him an apology. [Laughter.] Four years ago I ran against him for the office of treasurer in this county and I beat him on the third-term issue. I had heard this talk about Grant and the third term and I thought the third-term principle was all wrong. At that time I had never reflected very much about the question, but since that time I have thought about it a good deal, and when you come to apply that principle to the office of county treasurer there is not a thing in the world in it, and I thank God I have the manhood when I see I am wrong to acknowledge it." [Great laughter.] And now, my friends, those of you who received compliments from the distinguished gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED]to-d )y, and those who have been lauded for bravery and acumen in this debate, everyone of you who has been going around the country denouncing the Republican party for its financial policy and the ruin and the wreck it wrought on the country by demonetizing silver, you ought like my friend, when you find you are wrong, have the courage to get up here and say you apologize humbly to the Republican party. [Laughter and applause.] Mr. Speaker, I never believed I was wrong, and I do not believe it yet, so I will not apologize. W e have heard a great deal of oral bimetallism from the anti326 13 silver men in this debate. They are going- to kill silver to get bimetallism. When I see these gentlemen who say they are advocates of bimetallism traveling along the same road with men who admit that they are advocates of monometallism, I can not help but believe that somebody is on the wrong road, and I think that the friends of monometallism know just where they are going. But we are told, Mr. Speaker, that we are going very wrong about this matter because the President of the United States has marked out a different programme for us, and all gentlemen who occupy a position antagonistic to the one I occupy to-day are set down now as the friends of the Administration. Why', Mr. Speaker, I would have to retract a great deal more than any of these gentlemen who have retracted their views on silver, if I were not a friend of the Administration. Why, I helped to make the Administration. [Laughter.) I have made more speeches and more good speeches [laughter] and bragged more on the Administration! [Laughter.] Why, in a private conversation between my friend PATTERSON and myself last winter, after the election, it was mutually conceded by both of us that we had done more to bring about his election than any other two men in the country. [Laughter.] Why, we are getting into a pretty position here, if these gentlemen's ideas are correct—if the men who favor the repeal are the only friends of the Administration. Just think of it! The gentleman from Maine [Mr. REED] and the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. HENDERSON] and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. BURROWS] the friends of the Administration, and all of us fellows kept out in the cold! [Laughter.] Why, gentlemen, do you know what it is that gave President Cleveland such a hold upon the affections of the American people? It was the fact that he had backbone and the courage of his convictions. [Applause.] I would like to know what sort of an estimate he puts upon gentlemen here in the House who can give no other reason for their change of front than that the Administration wants it. [Laughter and applause.] Mr. Speaker, a conversation I had with the President one time, in one of our long, pleasant interviews [laughter], when he said to me that the Democrats were not like the Republicans: that they could not be controlled and hurled as a mass, but the Democrats were men of independent thought, and that was what made a great party. [Loud applause.] Why, gentlemen talk about breaking up, by reason of my exercising my convictions, the long-standing intimacy between the President and myself. You can not do it. [Great laughter.] My good friend from New York [Mr. CUMMINGS] got a little off the other day and gave some of the Southern Democrats a little lecture about having put Grover Cleveland on them, and now " w e must take our medicine." W e put him on you as President, and then we elected ourselves here as members of Congress. [Applause and loud laughter.] I think, Mr. Speaker, that we had better have another bill or two introduced h e r e one to restore a parity between the executive and legislative branches of the Government [great laughter and applause], and then another to restore a parity of backbone to some great men. 326 14 [Laughter.] No, sir; I know that I could pay the President no greater compliment than to imitate him by doing-, in my official capacity here as a Representative of a district in Mississippi, 'ust what the dictates of my conscience direct me to do. I know, ! am sure, that will meet his approval, and if it would not, gentlemen, I would have to take back many thousands of the good things I have said about him. [Laughter and applause.] The SPEAKER. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. ALLEN. What a pity I have not an hour longer. [Great laughter;] i m O
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