■/ 
 
 m 
 
 
 ij^'.JS'W..- 
 
 tuns 
 
 
 ■a. ..^ ': 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 HG 529.T24 
 
 The silver question, an address . 
 
 3 1924 013 816 982 
 
 New York 
 
 State College of Agriculture 
 
 At Cornell University 
 
 Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 Library 
 
THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 -BY- 
 
 ROBERT S. TAYLOR, 
 
 ■LIVERED AT FORT WAYNE, IND., AUGUST 6, 1896, BEFORE 
 THE SOLDIERS' SONS AND CITIZENS' 
 REPUBLICAN CLUB. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 lople* of thlsaddreu can be obtained by asking for them from the Corresponding 8e«' 
 Elwin M. Hulse, Box 200S, Fort Wayne, Ind. 
 
 JAN 20 1946 
 
 DEFT. OF 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013816982 
 
THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 Although I am a republican and 
 speak to-night to a republican club the 
 subject which I shall discuss is a mat- 
 ter of business rather than politics, and 
 of business which concerns us all ex- 
 actly alike under whatever party flag 
 we have been accustomed to match. 
 
 The Republican platform adopted at 
 St. Louis contains this declaration on 
 the subject of money: 
 
 The Republican party Is unreservedly for 
 sound money. It caused the enactment of 
 the law providing for the resumption of 
 specie payments In 1879; since then every 
 dollar has been as good as gold. 
 
 We are unalterably opposed to every meas- 
 ure calculated to debase our currency or Im- 
 pair the credit of our country. We are there- 
 fore opposed to the free coinage of silver 
 except by international agreement with the 
 leading commercial nations of the world, 
 which we pledge ourselves to promote, and 
 until such agreement can be obtained, the 
 existing gold standard must be preserved. 
 
 All our silver and paper currency must be 
 maintained at parity with gold, and we 
 favor all measures designed to maintain in- 
 violably the obligations of the United States 
 and all our money, whether coin or paper, at 
 the present standard, the standard of the 
 most enlightened nations of the earth. 
 
 A convention assembled at Chicago 
 in the name of the democratic party 
 adopted a platform which contains this 
 on the subject of money: 
 
 We demand the free and unlimited coinage 
 of both gold and silver at the present legal 
 ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid 
 or consent of any other nation. We demand 
 that the standard silver dollar shall be a full 
 legal tender, equally with gold, for all debts, 
 public and private, and we favor such legis- 
 lation as will prevent for the future the 
 demonetization of any kind of legal tender 
 money by private contract. 
 
 The platform of the populist party 
 adopted at its convention at St. Louis 
 echoes the same demand. 
 
 I prefer <not to take the delicate re- 
 sponsibility of deciding whether the 
 men who met at Chicago constituted a 
 democratic convention or not, or wheth- 
 er we are really confronted by one free 
 silver ticket or two. Looked at from 
 the front it appears to be one. but look- 
 ed at from behind there appear to be 
 two. And in order to dodge those ques- 
 tions I shall speak only of the Chicago 
 convention and of its utterance as the 
 Chicago platform. 
 
 It would be Impossible to frame a 
 sharper issue than the one here pre- 
 sented. For once, political platforms 
 say something and mean what they 
 say. The question comes to us with the 
 directness of a referendum. "Shall It 
 be free silver at 16 to 1? All in favor 
 say Aye; all opposed, No." 
 
i . THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 Aud it is well that it should be so. ceecilng $10, and the bank notes are 
 Nothing we can do— no tarifE legisla- not legal tender at all. It has been the 
 tion we can enact, whether it be, as I policy of the government to keep all 
 would have it, in the direction of more this money at an equality of current 
 efficient protection, or as my demo- value— gold, silver and paper, all eir- 
 cratic neighbor would have it, in the culating everywhere, and all equally 
 direction of freer trade, can give us good everywhere. As a result we have 
 
 solid prosperity until we know what a had for twenty-five years pa»t the best 
 
 dollar is and is to be. I am glad, there- money we have ever had, and as good, 
 fore, that the question has come up just in my opinion, as we possibly could 
 
 as it has. trun to meet the fight. Let's have, barring the relaxation in recent 
 
 settle it; think it out, talk it out, vote It years of some precautions necessary ^to • 
 
 out and be done with it. Then we can keep it good. 
 tui-n to other things-tariffs, trusts, standards AND EATIOS. 
 
 monopolies, labor questions— all import- n- j„ ,- „„.i,i j. 
 
 '^ '^ It IS impossible to carry on modern 
 
 ant to the public welfare, but all await- i,„„!„„„„ ji., 4. ^ ^ •, 
 
 ^ business without a money standard 
 
 ing the decision of the money question. fl„„ji,„i„„ mi, 1 ^^ ^ 
 
 * •' ^ fixed by law. The law must define what 
 
 Let me explain first the precise ques- „j„ii„_.i, ^ 
 
 ^ '^ "^ a dollar is by reference to a fixed quan- 
 
 tion which is to be decided. We have ... „, , , ., , ,, 
 
 „, „„„ tity of gold, or silver, or both, or some- 
 
 at the present time about $1,773,000,000 /. . , ^, ^ 
 
 . , ^, .^ , „ ^ thing else. Under our present law 
 
 of money in the United States, made up u , 
 
 ^ „ our gold coins are made of an alloy con- 
 
 approximately as follows: ^ ■ ■ . 
 
 taming nine parts of pure gold to one 
 
 Gold coin $567,000,000 „n,.(. „, ,,„„ ., ^u > 
 
 Silver dollars 430,000,000 ^^ ' °^^^!! "^^f' ^^'' ^^ "^^^'"^ 
 
 Silver fractional. .' 75,000,000 «'«™<^«^'^ 9old. The silver dollars have 
 
 Treasury Notes— green- tl^e same proportion of alloy. Our legal 
 
 backs 346,000,000 unit and standard of value is a gold 
 
 Treasury . Notes — coin dollar contamlng 25 8-10 grains of 
 
 Nattnal-BanknotesV.::: l^'ZS ^'^''^^'^ '''^^ ^^^ """^ ^^^^^ ^'''-'' 
 
 . ^_ which is declared by law to be equal 
 
 $1,773,000,000 to the gold dollar in value and is equal 
 Of the silver dollars $342,000,000 are to it in legal tender power, contains 
 represented by silver certificates and of ^12% grains of standard silver. If you 
 the gold $42,000,000 are represented by divide the latter of these numbers by 
 gold certificates, both of which circu- the former you will get a quotient of 
 late in place of the coin. In statin:; 15.988+. That is, the silver dollar is 
 the amount of money we have it would fifteen and nine hundred ana ninety- 
 be inaccurate to include both, and so I eight thousandths times as heavy as 
 omit the certificates. This gives us as the gold dollar. That figure is so close 
 a classification of our total currency $1,- to 16 that in our common speech we 
 072,000,000 in coin and $701,000,000 in call it 16, and we say that one silver 
 paper. The gold coin, silver dollars, dollar is sixteen times as heavy as one 
 and U. S. treasury notes, amounting to gold dollar. That Is what we mean by 
 $1,472,000,000 are all legal tender in 16 to 1. 
 
 unlimited amounts: the fractional sil- It Is impossible for the government 
 
 ver is legal tender for amounts not ex- to coin gold and silver without fixing 
 
THE ISSUE. 
 
 the weight and fineness of each kind of 
 coin; and this, as I have shown, estab- 
 lishes a ratio of weight, which is called 
 the coinage ratio, or legal ratio. We 
 did not always have a coinage ratio of 
 16 to 1. Under our first coinage law 
 the ratio was 15 to 1; that is, 15 ounces 
 of silver were tal^en to equal in value 1 
 ounce of gold. In France, and a num- 
 ber of other European countries the 
 coinage ratio is 15% to 1. 
 
 There is also a market ratio, or, as it 
 is sometimes called, a commercial ratio. 
 This depends on the relative values of 
 the two metals in the market; that is, 
 on the rate at which one can be ex- 
 changed for the other in the form of 
 bullion. At the present time silver is 
 very cheap. You can exchange one 
 ounce of gold for about 31 ounces of 
 silver. You would express that rela- 
 tion by saying that silver is 31 to 1. 
 Copper is cheaper still. You can get 
 about 3,000 ounces of copper for 1 ounce 
 of gold. Hence you would say that 
 copper is 3,000 to 1. 
 
 The legal, or coinage ratio being 
 fixed by law, remains until changed by 
 law. But the market ratio varies. It 
 has been found impossible to keep the 
 two ratios the same for any length of 
 time. As will be seen later, many at- 
 tempts have been made to conform the 
 legal ratio to the market ratio, but 
 however exactly they may coincide at 
 the start the fluctuations of the market 
 soon separate them. 
 
 All the silver dollars we have were 
 coined on government account; that is, 
 the government bought the silver bul- 
 lion in the market and coined the dol- 
 lars in its mints as its own. The coin- 
 age of our present stock of silver dol- 
 lars began in 1878. Silver was then 
 wortli on the market about 18 to 1. It 
 has been falling gradually since that 
 time, with occasional fluctuations, un- 
 til it is now worth, as I said, only 31 
 to 1. It being the policy of the govern- 
 ment to keep all the money in circula- 
 tion equal in value, it is manifest that 
 the continued fall in the price of silver, 
 and the continued accumulation of sil- 
 ver dollars were 'making that task more 
 and more difficult and dangerous. 4^n<i 
 
 so, since November, 1893, comparative- 
 ly few of them have been coined. At 
 the present time the intrinsic value of 
 the silver in a silver dollar is about 52 
 cents. I shall speak of it for short as 
 50 cents. ; 
 
 The free silver advocates propose 
 now to begin the coinage of silver dol- 
 lars again, and this time, not as hereto- 
 fore, on government account, and with 
 some limitation- of amount, but with 
 the doors of the mints open and an in- 
 vitation to everybody to bring his silver 
 and have it coined at the ratio of 16 to 
 1 without limit. And the dollars so 
 coined are to be placed by law on the 
 same footing with gold dollars, and the 
 people are to be compelled to take them 
 as good dollars,, no matter what they 
 may be worth in fact. 
 
 THE ISSUE. 
 
 This, therefote, is the issue: Shall 
 we stand by our present system, keep 
 our gold, silver, and paper as we have 
 them now, and make it a first object 
 to maintain the equal and stable value 
 of all alike, as the Republican party 
 proposes; or shall we make it a first 
 object to coin all the silver dollars we 
 can and let gold and paper take their 
 chances, as the Chicago platform pro- 
 poses? 
 
 To one who has never looked into the 
 subject this may seem at first blush to 
 be a small question to make so much 
 ado about. "Certainly," you say, "why 
 not coin all the silver we can? If one 
 silver dollar is good, two are better; 
 let's have all We can get." And if it 
 were a mere question of having few or 
 many, I might say so too. 
 
 But suppose the fact to be that our 
 present three-legged system of gold, 
 silver and paper is so organized that it 
 is essential to its stability that there 
 shall be a limit to the proportion of sil- 
 ver in it, and that it is reasonably cer- 
 tain that unlimited silver coinage 
 would destroy the balance of its parts, 
 drive out the gold, break down the sil- 
 ver, upset values, derange business and 
 precipitate a financial crash as impoesi- 
 
THE SILVEK QUESTION. 
 
 ble to forecast as the devastation of an 
 earthquake; then the question becomes 
 a serious one. And that is the view of 
 It which we have to consider. 
 
 THE PHACTICAL USE OF SILVER. 
 Before taliing up the more difficult 
 and important aspects of the subject 
 there are two points which may be 
 touched in passing. The first is that the 
 free coinage program talces no account of 
 the real demand for silver money, but 
 proposes to force it on the , people 
 against their wishes. 
 
 The liind of money which people like 
 best, and which is best adapted to their 
 use is a matter of national habits, tastes 
 and degree of civilization. Barbai'ous 
 tribes have used shells, teeth, stones, 
 and many things which we would con- 
 sider of no value at all. The 383 mill- 
 Ions of people in China use in all ordi- 
 nary transactions a coin made from an 
 alloy of copper, iron and tin worth 
 about one-tenth of a cent of our money. 
 At the trading posts and in large trans- 
 actions silver is used and the govern- 
 ment has lately authorized the issue of 
 a silver dollar. But few of the people 
 ever see any kind of money except the 
 coins which I have described, and 
 which go by the name of "copper cash." 
 That would be poor money for Ameri- 
 cans, but it meets the wants of the 
 Chinese. When a copper coin or two 
 represents a day's work, it is a better 
 money for ordinary purposes than gold 
 or silver. In the United States a week's 
 wages in copper would be more than a 
 man oould carry home. 
 
 A little higher in the scale of civiliza- 
 tion we find India, Mexico and parts of 
 South America, where silver is the 
 standard money, with copper for small 
 transactions. At the top or the scale, 
 in the United States, Great Britain and 
 most of Europe, we find gold, silver 
 and copper— gold as the standard 
 money, the basis of paper and medium 
 of international exchange, with silver 
 for small transactions, and copper, 
 nickel or bronze for the smallest ones. 
 This classification is not the result of 
 chance. It is a process of natural se- 
 lection. Each nation of the earth as it 
 
 works its way upward in wealth, in- 
 telligence, commerce, and the arts 
 wants better and better forms ol 
 money. The people of the United 
 States want silver for daily use in 
 small transactions just as they want 
 nickels and copper cents for still small- 
 er ones. But they do not want silver 
 as the sole or principal money of tne 
 country. 
 
 As proof of that fact see where the 
 silver dollars are now. There are about 
 378,000,000 dollars in the vaults of the 
 U. S. Treasury and about 52,000,000 in 
 the hands of the people; while of gold 
 there are about $100,000,000 in the 
 treasury and $467,000,000 in circulation. 
 And this, although the government has 
 for years used its best efforts to get 
 the silver dollars into 'circulation. The 
 people simply will not have them. I 
 do not mean to say that all the silver 
 dollars in the treasury are serving no 
 function as- money. There are out- 
 standing $342,000,000 of silver certifi- 
 cates which represent that much silver 
 in the treasury and circulate as money. 
 But the fact remains all the same that 
 the people will not take out and use 
 more than about 60,000,000 silver dol- 
 lars, and never have. 
 
 The people are willing, to be sure, to 
 take the paper certificates which repre- 
 sent the silver in the treasury and use 
 them as money. And if we adopt the 
 free coinage policy we shall find that it 
 is no part of the plan to take the un- 
 limited quantities of silver dollars 
 which will be coined away from the 
 mint and circulate them among the 
 people. That would be impossible. 
 Their owners will want silver certifi- 
 cates in place of them and want those 
 made legal tender money by law. But 
 what is the sense in making illimitabl'! 
 quantities of money which the people 
 do not want and will not use? If the 
 dollars are never to be taken out of the 
 U. S. treasury, why coin them? Why 
 not simply deposit the silver bricks and 
 issue the certificates? And if the treas- 
 ury is to be turned into a warehouse for 
 silver, coined or uncoined, which is 
 never to be used directly as money, but 
 only ajs the b£isls of certificates, why 
 
THE FAYOEITISM OF IT. 
 
 limit the deposits to silver? Why not 
 take in iron, copper, nickel and lead, 
 and issue certificates on them? And if 
 the metals, why not other property as 
 well— wheat, corn, cotton, whiskey, 
 lumber? 
 
 In fact that Is, or has been, the mon- 
 etary scheme of the populists. It has 
 been proposed by that party that the 
 government shall establish warehouses 
 all over the country and buy up staple 
 commodities and Issue notes for them 
 as legal tender money. The only real 
 difference between- that and the free 
 silver program is one of degree. And 
 in one respect the free silver program 
 Is more objectionable than the other. It 
 starts in by fixing double the market 
 price on the commodity to be pur- 
 chased. 
 
 3 THE FAVORITISM OF IT. 
 
 This brings me to the second of the 
 two points I mentioned a moment ago. 
 It is that the free, coinage proposal in- 
 volves an unfair partiality toward the 
 silver mine owners. As I have said. 
 It is not proposed that the government 
 shall buy the silver and coin it, as here- 
 tofore, but that the private owner shall 
 have the right to deposit his silver and 
 have it coined for him in unlimited 
 amounts. And as he will not in prac- 
 tice take the dollars away, but paper 
 dollars in place of them, the real trans- 
 action will be a sale of the silver to the 
 government; and at a ratio of 16 to 1 
 it will be a sale at nearly twice the 
 market value. This will be a fat deal 
 for the mine owner, but how about the 
 rest of us out of whom he will make 
 his profits? When the government 
 buys the silver and makes the dollars, 
 as it has done heretofore, the profit, if 
 there be any, accrues to the treasury, 
 and so to us all. But by this scheme 
 the min^ owner will get the profit. He 
 will get a legal dollar for 52 cents' 
 worth of silver. 
 
 And that will be no small sum. The 
 average production of silver in the 
 United States for three years past at 
 its commercial value has been about 
 $40,000,000 per annum. I suppose it 
 has paid to work the mines at the mar- 
 ket price of silver, or they would have 
 
 been stopped. If so, a sale of the whole 
 output to the government at double 
 price would mean $40,000,000 per an- 
 num more profit. Is there any justice 
 in the purclrase by the government of 
 the product of the silver mines at this 
 exorbitant price while the product of 
 the farms is left to find a market the 
 best way it can? 
 
 THE MILK IN THE COCOANUT. 
 
 This exposes to view one of the main- 
 springs of the free silver movement. 
 On the part of the mine owners it i« 
 simply a huge speculation. That is 
 • why the senators and representatives 
 from the silver producing states stand 
 together on that issue to a man, and 
 are ready, as the republican senators 
 from those states were, to break faitli 
 with their party, boycott the govern- 
 ment and bankrupt the treasury In or- 
 der to force a concession to their de- 
 mands. Do they know the truth so 
 much better than any one else? Has 
 Wisdom established her sole habitation 
 in the Rocky Mountains? Nonsense. 
 So far as these men are concerned, 
 they are simply on the make. To what 
 extent they may think that they have 
 convinced themselves that they are 
 right I will not undertake to say. Self- 
 interest will do wonders in that kind 
 of conversion. But the fact remains 
 too plain to be disguised that the im- 
 pelling force .of the free silver move- 
 ment in the silver producing states is 
 to make a market for their product at 
 the expense of the rest of the people. 
 
 THE CHEAP MONEY DELUSION. 
 
 But this interest, powerful as it is, 
 would not have been able of itself lo 
 set In motion the free silver cyclone 
 which has blown down the Democratic 
 party. Ever since the close of the war 
 there has been a considerable sprink- 
 ling of men in the United States who 
 believe in cheap money. The funda- 
 mental points of this philosophy are (1) 
 the more money the better; and (2) the 
 cheaper the material you make it of, 
 the more you can have of it. This Idea 
 found its culmination in the proposi- 
 tion of the greenback party that the 
 government should supply the people 
 
8 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTIO]Sr. 
 
 with money by the Issue of flat paper; 
 that is, paper in the similitude of bank 
 notes but not carrying any promise of 
 paying anything to anybody. Thus, 
 there was to be printed on one piece 
 of paper "This is a dollar," and on an- 
 other, "This is ten dollars." These 
 were to be made legal tender by law, 
 and talien out and used by the people 
 as money. 
 
 THE FOLLY OF THIS IDEA. 
 
 The kindest thing which can be said 
 of a man who believes in such a scheme 
 is, that he has lost his head on the sub- 
 ject of money. Much abstract specu- 
 lation has made him mad. This is the 
 way. he reasons: "Money is a measure 
 of relative values; we say a horse is 
 worth a hundred dollars and a cow 
 twenty-five; that means only that a 
 horse is worth four times as much as a 
 cow. It is also a medium of exchange. 
 A man sells his horse for a hundred 
 dollars, not because he wants the hun- 
 dred dollars, which he can neither eat, 
 nor drink, nor wear, but because he 
 wants a cow, which he buys for twen- 
 ty-five dollars, and a suit of clothes, 
 which he buys for twenty dollars, and 
 so on. In order to perform these func- 
 tions it is not necessary that the money 
 shall have any value. A golden yard- 
 stick will measure cloth no better than 
 a wooden one." And so by this sort of 
 philo'sophizing a man works himself 
 around by and by to the idea that all 
 tlie uses of money are conventional 
 and artificial, and that therefore any 
 kind of token authenticated by the 
 stamp of the government as the com- 
 mon authority will do just as well as 
 gold or silver, or promises to pay in 
 those metals. 
 
 MONEY IS PEOPEETY. 
 
 It is quite true that money is a meas- 
 ure of value and a medium of ex- 
 change, but it is also something mor(; 
 than these; it is property. And it is as 
 property that it attracts human desire 
 and stimulates human effort. It is as 
 property that men think of it, covet it, 
 and struggle for it. It is for this that 
 they toil without ceasing, brave all dan- 
 gers and take all chances, not for imag- 
 
 inary units of value or instruments 
 exchange. The fact that money is e 
 changeable for other things adds to : 
 value— may be said, indeed, to impa 
 to it its chief value. It is all kinds 
 property in one — food, drink, cloth( 
 travel and amusement. Neverthele 
 it is as property in the true and co 
 Crete sense of that word that men thii 
 of it and desire it. It is property fir 
 and a standard of value and medium 
 exchange next. 
 
 Hence it is that there is no such thii 
 as good money that is not good pro 
 erty. And to be good property mom 
 must be something which men value 
 and of arid for itself, or to which thi 
 attach a value because of some promi 
 or assurance which it carries of som 
 thing behind or beyond itself. 
 
 The value of a thing is the estima 
 of its desirability in the minds of me 
 The measure of its value is the inte 
 eity of human desire to possess 
 What nobody wants to possess as h 
 own has no value as property; wh 
 all people or some people want a litt 
 has some value; what all people wa: 
 very much has great value. It wi 
 decided by the foremost nations of t) 
 world centuries ago that gold and s 
 ver are the best forms of pro|)erty f 
 use as money. From that decisi< 
 there is no appeal. It was in Ignorii 
 that fact that the greenbackers mac 
 tlieir fvtndamental mistake. The 
 thought the question was open to arg 
 ment. They supposed that if th( 
 could prove by reasoning that irredeei 
 able greenbacks ought to serve tl 
 purpose of money as well as coin th( 
 would have good right to expect thi 
 they would be adopted by the peopl 
 And their party came to grief becaui 
 it collided with the rocky fact that tl 
 world has made up its mind that it w! 
 not extend its confidence to any kind i 
 money which does not consist of go 
 or silver, or some reliable promise 
 pay in those metals. 
 
 THE MAIN QUESTION. 
 
 All that I have said so far touchi 
 only the easy parts of the subject. Tl 
 objections to free silverism which 
 
GEESHAM'S LAW. 
 
 9 
 
 have stated are valid ones, but not the 
 most important ones. Of those which 
 I regard as more important the first is 
 that the thing which »the free silver- 
 ists propose is impossible. They tallt 
 about gold and silver as the money of 
 the constitution. They call those of us 
 who stand by the present system gold 
 monometallists, and call themselves bi- 
 metallists. They give the people to 
 understand that by placing gold and 
 silver on an equal footing at the mint 
 we shall have the fullest possible ben- 
 efit of the circulation of both of them 
 as money. That, I say, is impossible. 
 I say that with free coinage of both 
 gold and silver at such a ratio that the 
 gold in a gold dollar is worth more 
 than the silver in a silver dollar 
 the two metals cannot both stay 
 in circulation. You might as well 
 try to circulate two kinds of gold dol- 
 lars, one having more gold in it than 
 the other. In such a case every bank, 
 evei-y ticket agent, every merchant, 
 every person through whose hands 
 money flows becomes a strainer to 
 strain out the more valuable coins for 
 speculation and pass the others on for 
 circulation. 
 
 Hence the free silver plan is a delu- 
 sion and a snare. It cannot accomplish 
 whaA it promises. It cannot give us 
 gold and silver. It will make the circu- 
 lation of gold impossible, and leave us 
 only silver. It is not bimetallism, but 
 silver monometallism. 
 
 This is such an important fact in this 
 discussion that 1 am not content mere- 
 ly to state it. I must prove it. And I 
 can do that only by the facts of history. 
 The recital of them will be somewhat 
 tedious and I cannot promise that they 
 will be interesting except as your own 
 interest in the subject shall make them 
 so. But if you want the bottom facts 
 there is no other way to get them. 
 
 gresham's law. 
 For a good many centuries after gold 
 and silver came into fashion as money 
 little attention was paid to the laws 
 affecting their circulation. So far as 1 
 know, it was in England, and about 
 
 three hundred years ago, that the sub- 
 ject was first studied. Her wide com- 
 mercial relations brought her both gold 
 and silver from all parts of the world, 
 but she experienced much difficulty in 
 keeping"them Ijoth in circulatioa. The 
 cause of the trouble was first pointed 
 out by Sir Thomas Gresham, a finan- 
 cier of the time of Henry the Eighth, 
 in the statement that "if debased coin 
 is attempted to be circulated with full 
 valued coin all of the latter will disap- 
 pear from circulation and debased coin 
 alone will remain, to the ruin of com- 
 merce and business"; or, as it is some- 
 times put, "bad money drives out 
 good." This principle is known as 
 Gresham's law. 
 
 The first attempt to conform legisla- 
 tion to it, so far as I Know, was in 1717. 
 At that time silver was being exported 
 from England, leaving only gold in cir- 
 culation, to the great inconvenience of 
 the people. Sir Isaac Newton (the as- 
 tronomer), who was then director of 
 the royal mint, made a report to Par- 
 liament pointing out that the reason 
 why silver was leaving the country 
 was, that it was over valued by the 
 law as compared with gold. In his re- 
 port he said this: 
 
 The demand for exportation (of silver) 
 arises from the higher price of silver In other 
 places than in England In proportion to gold 
 ♦ • * and may therefore be diminished by 
 lowering the value of gold in proportion to 
 silver. If gold In England, or silver in East 
 India, could be brought down so low as to 
 bear the same proportion to one another in 
 both places, there would be here no greater 
 demand for silver than for gold to be ex- 
 ported to India. And if gold were lowered 
 only so as to have the same proportion to the 
 ailvKr money in England which it hath to sil- 
 ver in the rest of Europe there would be no 
 temptati'.n to export silver rather than gold to 
 any other part of Europe. 
 
 At the time this was written the Eng- 
 lish guinea passed by law at 21s 6d in 
 silver, whereas the actual value at 
 market rates for silver was only 20s 
 8d. That is, silver was over valued in 
 its legal ratio nearly a shilling to the 
 pound, and was iu consequence leaving 
 the country to make room for tlie 
 cheaper gold. Sir Isaac Newton's pro- 
 posal, which was adopted, was, to try 
 
10 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 as an experimental measure, a reduc- 
 tion of the legal yalue of the guinea 
 from 21s 6d to 21s. But it proved that 
 he did not carry his equalizing process 
 far enough. Silver veas still over- 
 valued and still continued to leave the 
 caimtry, until England came to have a 
 gold currency. 
 
 From that time until 1816 the Eng- 
 lish monetary system was based the- 
 oretically on the double standard. That 
 is, gold and silver were entitled to coin- 
 age on equal terms, and both were legal 
 tender without limit at a ratio of 21 
 shillings of silver to one sovereign of 
 gold. But as this was an overvaluation 
 of silver the only silver coins in circu- 
 lation were those which had been worn 
 or clipped to such extent that the real 
 value of the silver in them was less 
 than the gold value of a shilling. As 
 Sir Isaac Newton had pointed out, there 
 was no temptation to export such coins, 
 and they remained in the country; and 
 they were too scarce to drive out the 
 gold. But they formed a very scanty 
 and inferior money for ordinary trans- 
 actions. 
 
 PRESENT ENGLISH SYSTEM. 
 
 In 1805 a discussion of the subject 
 began which led the way to a law en- 
 acted in 1816, which forms the founda- 
 tion of the present English system. Un- 
 der that system the standard coin Is 
 the gold sovereign, which, with the 
 ' half-sovereign, is legal tender without 
 limit as to amount. The unit of silver 
 coinage is the shilling, equal in value 
 by law to the twentieth part of a sov- 
 ereign, and to about twenty-five cents 
 of our money. There ar-e several other 
 silver coins, some larger, some smaller. 
 The silver coins were all made original- 
 ly of less intrinsic value than their face 
 value— a difference which has been 
 very much increased since by the fall 
 In silver. They are legal tender to the 
 amount of forty shillings— about ten 
 dollars in our money. All the silver 
 money is coined by the government on 
 its own account from silver purchased 
 in the market. The amount of it is lim- 
 ited to the practical wants of the peo- 
 ple. As much is furnished as will stay 
 
 in circulation. The amount in eircula 
 tion at the present time is estimated b; 
 the Director of the U. S. mint at $115, 
 000,000, or $2.9S»per capita, which i 
 nearly twice as much as we have ii 
 active circulation. We do not begin t 
 use as much silver in daily busines 
 as is used in England. 
 
 This system, established eighty yean 
 ago, was the beginning of what is nov 
 known as the gold standard compositi 
 legal tender system. It is a systen 
 based on Gresham's law. It recognize 
 the fact that if two metals are put ii 
 circulation without limit at a ratio fix 
 ed by law they will both stay in circu 
 lation only so long as that ratio corre 
 sponds with the market ratio; As sooi 
 as the fluctuation of the market makei 
 one metal more valuable than thi 
 other, as compared with the coinage 
 ratio, it will disappear from circnla 
 tion. At the time this system wa) 
 adopted in England the object aimec 
 at, so far as silver was concerned, wai 
 not to exclude or limit its circulation 
 but to get it into circulation and keei 
 it there. Prior to that time the law ii 
 England was in substance just wha 
 the free silverists propose to give ui 
 now. It fixed the legal ratio at 21 shil 
 lings in silver to the sovereign in gok 
 and gave both metals equal rights o: 
 coinage. But at that ratio full weigh 
 silver was worth more than 21 shillingi 
 to the sovereign, and so would not staj 
 in circulation. To remedy this evil th( 
 law of 1816 was passed. And it sue 
 ceeded in accomplishing that objec 
 perfectly. It gave to the people of Eng 
 land a practical bimetallism— the actua 
 circulation of gold and silver withou 
 the disturbance of either by the other 
 and this in a higher degree than hat 
 ever been enjoyed for so long a tim( 
 by any other people in the world. Bu 
 for all that I think there is a better sys 
 tem. It is international bimetallism, o: 
 which I shall speak more fully here 
 after. 
 
 THE FRENCH SYSTEM. 
 
 In 1803 France established a doubli 
 standard system by providing for thi 
 coinage of gold and silver on equa 
 terms at a ratio of 15% to 1. The prln 
 
FALSE ASSUMPTION OF THE CHICAGO PLATFORM. 
 
 11 
 
 cipal silver coin was the five franc 
 piece, about the weight of our silver 
 dollar. The ratio adopted was almost 
 exactly the commercial ratio at the 
 time, the average for 1803 being 15.41 
 to 1. But within two years silver fell 
 to 15.79 to 1, and for fifty years follow- 
 ing 15% to 1 was, as a rule, a slight 
 overvaluation of silver. The difference 
 was very little. Only three times with- 
 in that period did silver fall as low as 
 16 to 1. But that overvaluation, slight 
 as it was, was enough to set Gresham's 
 law in operation, and the gold money of 
 France disappeared, leaving her little else 
 besides silver five franc pieces for use. 
 
 The discovery of shining yellow sand 
 in the tail race of a California saw-mill 
 in 1848 was the beginning of a greatly 
 increased production of gold. For the 
 ten years preceding 1850 the world's 
 average annual production was about 
 $36,000,000; for the ten years following, 
 $133,000,000— an increase of nearly 
 four-fold. This disturbed the commer- 
 cial ratio between gold and silver 
 somewhat, although the change was 
 not great. The ratio was between 15.19 
 to 1 and 15.46 to 1 from 1851 to 1860. 
 But this made 15% a slight undervalua- 
 tion of silver in France, and in accord- 
 ance with Gresham's law again sHcer 
 flawed out of France and gold flawed in 
 until there was a great scarcity of silver 
 coin. 
 
 In the meantime Belgium, Italy, 
 Switzerland and Greece had adopted 
 the double standard system with coins 
 of the same value as those of France, 
 and in 1865 these nations entered into 
 a convention or treaty with each other 
 by which was formed what is Isnown 
 as the Latin Union. By its terms all 
 the powers which were parties to it 
 engaged to coin silver and gold at a 
 ratio of 15% to 1, and to support each 
 other In the maintenance of that ratio 
 by receiving at their respective treas- 
 uries and baniis the five franc silver 
 coins and all gold coins of the other 
 powers at their face value. The ar- 
 rangement worked well uut^ 1871, 
 when silver began to fall. In 1872 it 
 was 15.63 to 1; in 1873 it was 15.92, and 
 in 1874 it was 16.17. It became mani- 
 
 fest that unless something were done 
 to prevent it the inexorable operation 
 of Gresham's law would talie gold 
 away again and leave them only the 
 cheaper silver. And by special con- 
 ventions In 1874, 1875, 1876, and 1878 
 the coinage of silver was limited and 
 then entirely suspended in the Latin 
 Union. By Its terms the original con- 
 vention of 1865 expired in 1880, but it 
 has been twice renewed, and is still 
 in force, as modified in the manner just 
 stated. 
 
 FALSE ASSUMPTION OF THE CUICACO 
 PLATFORM. 
 
 It is worth a moment's time in pass- 
 ing to point out in this connection a 
 misleading statement in the Chicago' 
 platform. It is there, said: 
 
 Gold monometallism Is a British policy, 
 and its adoption lia,3 brought other nations 
 into financial servitude to London. It is not 
 only un-American, but anti-American, and it 
 can be fastened on the United States only 
 by the stifling of that indomitable spirit and 
 love of liberty which proclaimed our polit- 
 ical independence in 1776 and won in the 
 war of the revolution. 
 
 The import of this declaration is that 
 the present coinage system of the 
 United States which its friends are try- 
 ing to maintain is British monometal- 
 lism. It means that or nothing. It 
 was intended to be so understood and 
 to affect the minds of men accordingly. 
 Now the fact is that the present Ameri- 
 can system is more unlike the British 
 system than that of any other great 
 European nation. In England there is 
 no full legal tender silver at all. There 
 is silver, as I have said, and more of 
 it in active circulation than with us, 
 but.it is legal tender for only forty shil- 
 lings. 
 
 In France, on the other hand, we find 
 a system almost identical with our own. 
 In both countries gold and silver are 
 legal tender without limit, and in both 
 countries the coinage of silver has been 
 suspended because it became manifest 
 that to continue it longer would make 
 it impossible to keep the gold. Accord- 
 ing to the estimates of the director of 
 the U. S. Mint, France had, on Jan. 1, 
 1895, $850,000,000 of gold, and $430,- 
 000,000 of full legal tender eilver— just 
 
12 
 
 THE SILVEE QUESTIOJS^. 
 
 the amount we have dow. Of other 
 European countries the following had 
 at the same date the amounts stated 
 in full legal tender silver: Germany, 
 $105,000,000; Belgium, $48,000,000; It- 
 aly, $21,000,000; little Switzerland, $10,- 
 000,000; Spain, $126,000,000; Austria- 
 Hungary, $80,000,000; and Holland, 
 $53,000,000. That's the company we 
 are in; not that of England at all. And 
 nobody is proposing to adopt the Eng- 
 lish system in this country. 
 
 What shall we think of a convention 
 which puts such a mis-statement in its 
 platform? Did the men who wrote it, 
 and the convention which adopted if 
 know no better? Or were they simply 
 practicing on the credulity of the peo- 
 ple?' 
 
 IIISTOEY OF COINAGE IN THE UNITEti 
 STATES. 
 
 When the victorious colonies emerged 
 from the revolutionary war and took 
 up the problem of self-government un- 
 der a constitution they had little metal- 
 lic money of any kind, and that of the 
 most miscellaneous character. Nearly 
 all the coins in circulation were o* 
 foreign mintage. The one among them 
 best known was the Spanish silver dol- 
 lar. The establishment of a mint and 
 a system of coinage was a subject 
 which engaged the attention of the 
 ablest statesmen of the young republic. 
 Among the discussions of it are three 
 great papers worthy to stand beside 
 any studies in finance ever given to the 
 world. The first is the report of Rob- 
 ert Morris to the Congress of the Con- 
 federation Jan. 15, 17S2, of a plan of 
 national coinage and for the establish- 
 ment of a mint; the second a paper on 
 the same subject by Thos. Jefferson, 
 understood to have been communicated 
 to Congress at the same time as the re- 
 , port of Robert Morris; and the third a 
 report of Alex. Hamilton, then Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury, to Congress, Jan. 
 28, 1791. It is to be regretted that these 
 papers are not accessible to the general 
 reader. Their wise, calm, sagacious 
 discussion of the subject would make 
 wholesome reading in these feverish 
 times. 
 Each of these papers recognizes as a 
 
 first consideration the propriety of 
 adopting the Spanish silver dollar as 
 the unit of value of the new systepi 
 because it was already the unit in use 
 and the coin most familiar to the peo- 
 ple. On this subject Mr. Jefferson said: 
 In fixing the unit of money these clteum- 
 stances are of a principal importance. 
 
 1. That It be of a convenient size to be ap- 
 plied as a measure to the common money 
 transactions of life. 
 
 2. That its parts and multiples be In an 
 easy proportion to each other so as to facili- 
 tate the Money Arithmetic. 
 
 3. That the unit and its parts or divisions 
 be so nearly of the value of the known coins 
 as that they may be of easy adoption for 
 the people. 
 
 The Spanish dollar seems to fulfill all 
 these conditions. 
 
 The unit or dollar is a known coin and the" 
 most familiar of all to the minds of the peo- 
 ple. It Is already adopted from South to 
 North, has identified our currency, and 
 therefore happily offers itself as a Unit al- 
 ready introduced. Our public debt, our 
 requisitions and their apportionments have 
 given it actual and long possession of the 
 place of unit. The course of our commerce, 
 too, will bring us more of this than of any 
 other foreign coin, and therefore renders it 
 more worthy of attention. 
 
 On the subject of the ratio between 
 gold and silver he said: 
 
 Just principles will lead us to disregard le- 
 gal proportions altogether; to inquire into the 
 market price of gold In the several countries 
 with which we shall be principally connected 
 in commerce, and to take an average from 
 them. Perhaps we might with safety lean to 
 a proportion somewhat above par for gold, 
 considering our neighborhood and coipmerce 
 with the sources of the coins and the ten- 
 dency which the high price of gold in Spain 
 has to draw thither all that of their mines, 
 leaving silver principally for our aud other 
 markets. It Is not impossible that 15 for 1 
 may be found an eligible proportion. I state 
 it, however, as conjectural only. 
 
 His final recommendations com- 
 prised the following, among others: 
 
 To appoint proper persons to assay and 
 examine with the utmost accuracy practica- 
 ble the Spanish milled dollars of different 
 dates in circulation with us. 
 
 To appoint also proper persons to inquire 
 what are the proportions between the values 
 of fine gold and fine silvp.r at the markets of 
 the several countries with which we are, or 
 vrobably may he connected in commerce, 
 and what would be the proper proportion 
 
OUE FIRST COINAOE LAW. 
 
 18 
 
 here, having regard to the average of their 
 values at those markets and to other circum- 
 stances, and to report the same to the com- 
 mittee to be by them laid before Congress. 
 
 The inevitable operation of' Gresh- 
 am's law was clearly seen and recog- 
 nized by Hamilton. On yiat subject be 
 said: 
 
 One consequence of overvaluing either 
 metal, in respect to the other, is the banish- 
 ment of that which is undervalued. * * * 
 This consequence is deemed by some not 
 very material; and there are even persons 
 who, from a fanciful predilection to gold, 
 are willing to invite It, even by a higher 
 price. But general utility will best be pro- 
 moted by a due proportion of both metals. 
 If gold be most convenient in lai-ge pay- 
 ments, silver is best adapted to the more 
 minute and ordinary circulation. 
 
 He was fully alive to tbe importance 
 of conforming the legal ratio -to the 
 commercial ratio with the utmost pos- 
 sible exactness. On this he said: 
 
 In establishing a proportion between these 
 metals, there seems to be an optio& ot one 
 of two things: To approach, as nearly as can 
 be ascertained, the mean or average propor- 
 tion in what may be called the commercial 
 world ; or, to retain that which now exists in 
 the United States. As far as these happen to 
 coincide, they will render the course to be 
 pursued more plain and more certain.* * • 
 
 In Holland, the greatest money market of 
 Europe, gold was to silver, in December, 
 1789, as 1 to 14.88; and in that of London It 
 has been, for some time past, but little dif- 
 ferent, approaching, perhaps, something 
 near 1 to 15. It has been seen that the exist- 
 ing proportion between the two metals in 
 this country is about 1 to 15. * * • 
 
 The only question seems to be, whether the 
 value of gold ought hot to be a little lower- 
 eu, to bring it to a more exact level with 
 the two markets which have been mentioned; 
 but as the ratio of 1 to 15 is so nearly con- 
 formable to the state of those markets, and 
 best agrees with that of our own, it will 
 probably be found the most eligible. 
 
 Observe the scrupulous care with 
 which these great thinkers approached 
 the question, what pains they were at 
 to be sure that the gold dollar and the 
 silver dollar should be of the same in- 
 trinsic commercial value, and then turn 
 to that wild gathering at Chicago, rush- 
 ing madly in where statesmen tread 
 softly with its clamor for silver dol- 
 lars at 16 to 1, regardless of all values, 
 Independently of all creation and reck- 
 less of all consequences. And to cap 
 
 the climax they invoke the sacred name 
 of Jefferson in the platform that sets 
 forth the demand. 
 
 OUK FIRST COINAGE LAW. 
 
 The act of Congress establishing the 
 mint and regulating the coinage was 
 passed April 2, 1792. It provided for 
 the coinage of $10, $5 and $2.50 gold 
 pieces weighing 24% grains of fine gold 
 to the dollar, and silver pieces weigh- 
 ing 371% grains of fine silver to the 
 dollar, being at the ratio of 15 grains of 
 silver to one of gold in weight. The 
 silver dollars were described as "Dol- 
 lars, or units, each to be of the value of 
 a Spanish milled dollar as the same is 
 now current." The gold and silver 
 coins were all legal tender for all pay- 
 ments without regard to amount, and 
 were coined on the same terms at the 
 mint. 
 
 This was a double standard system., 
 pure and simple, and the first one, I be- 
 lieve, ever expressly and intentionally 
 enacted by law. The French double 
 standard system was enacted, as I" 
 have stated, in 1803— -nine years later. 
 
 THE UNIT. 
 
 Great stress is laid in the arguments 
 of free silverists upon the point that 
 the original unit of value was the sil- 
 ver dollar. That is true, as respects 
 the language of the law. But in a pure 
 double standard one metal has the 
 same legal relation to value as the 
 other in every substantial sense. And 
 so thought Mr. Hamilton in our own 
 case. In his report referred to he said: 
 
 The next inquiry toward a right deter- 
 mination of what ought to be the future 
 money unit of the United States turns upon 
 these questions: Whether it ought to be pe- 
 culiarly attached to either of the metals, in 
 preference to the other or not; and, if to 
 either, to which of them. 
 
 The suggestions and proceedings hitherto 
 have had for their object 'the annexing of it 
 emphatically to the silver dollar. A resoVi- 
 tion ot Congress on the 6th of July, 1785, de- 
 clares that the money unit of the United 
 States shall be a dollar; and another resolu- 
 tion of the 8th of August, 1786, fixes that 
 dollar at 375 grains and 64 hundredths of u 
 grain of fine silver. The same resolution, 
 however, determines that there shall also be 
 two gold coins; one of 246 grains and 268 
 
14 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 parts of a grain of pure gold, equal to ten 
 dollars; and the other, of half that quantity 
 of pure gold, equal to five dollars. And It Is 
 not explained whether either of the two 
 species of coins, of gold or silver, shall have 
 any greater legality in payments than the 
 other. Yet it would seem that a preference in 
 this particular is necessary to execute the 
 idea of attaching the unit exclusively to one 
 kind. II each of them be as valid as the 
 other, in payments to any amount, it is not 
 obvious in what effectual sense either of them 
 can be deemed the money unit, rather than the 
 other. 
 
 If the general declaration, that the dollar 
 shall be the money unit of the United 
 States, could be understood to give it a su- 
 perior legality in payments, the institution 
 of coins of gold, and the declaration that 
 each of them sliall be equal to a certain num- 
 ber of dollars, would apear to destroy that 
 inference. And the circumstance of making 
 the dollar the unit in tJie money of account, 
 seems to be rather a matter of form than of 
 substance. 
 
 When Congress took up the subject 
 the dollar was the unit of account In 
 use; that is, the word dollar was the 
 term in which values were expressed 
 and computations made; and the thing 
 represented by the word was the Span- 
 ish silver dollar which was in practice 
 the measure of value. Congress adopt- 
 ed both the word and the thing. It as- 
 certained the number of grains of sil- 
 ver in the Spanish dollar and made that 
 quantity of silver the U. S. silver dol- 
 lar. It divided that number of grains 
 by fifteen and made that quantity of 
 gold the U. S. gold dollar. Then it 
 made both kinds of dollar equal under 
 the law. The silver dollar was called * 
 the unit because it was, in fact, the 
 starting point. But the money would 
 have been the same, its value the ' 
 same, and every element of its utility 
 the same if the law had called the gold 
 dollar the unit, or called them both 
 units. So that the mere circumstance 
 that the silver dollar was called the 
 unit is of no significance in this discus- 
 sion. 
 
 SUBSEQUENT LEGISLATION. * 
 
 Our double standard worked very 
 well for a little while, but after a few 
 years the market value of silver as 
 compared with gold began to decrease, 
 and so the balance of our double 
 (jtandard began to he disturbed. By 
 
 1821 the commercial ratio was nearly 
 16 to 1. Oresham's law came into play. 
 Qold being of more value as bullion than 
 it was as money went out of circula- 
 tion and left the country. The 
 subject was several times before Con- 
 gress. In 181& the then Secretary of 
 the Treasury, W. H. Crawford, made a 
 report on the subject. In that report 
 he said: 
 
 It is believed that gold, when compared 
 with silver, has been for many years appre- 
 ciating in value; and now, everywhere, 
 commands In the money markets a higher 
 value than that which has been assigned to 
 it in states where its relative value is 
 greatest. If this is correct no injustice will 
 result from a change in the relative legal value 
 of gold and sliver, so as to make it correspond 
 with their relative marketable value. 
 
 In 1821 a committee of the House 
 made a report on the subject in which 
 they said: 
 
 That they are of the opinion that the value 
 of American gold compared with silver 
 ought to be somewhat higher than by law 
 at present established. 
 
 On inquiry they find that gold coins, both 
 foreign and of the United States, have, in a 
 great measure, disappeared; and from the 
 best calculation that can be made there is 
 reason to apprehend they will be wholly ban- 
 ished from circulation, and it ought not to be 
 a matter of surprise, under our present regu- 
 lations, that this should be the case. 
 
 To remedy these evils and bring gold 
 back into circulation, Congress, on 
 June 28, 1834, provided by law for a 
 diminution in the weight of gold coins, 
 making it 23.20 grains of pure gold to 
 the dollar, instead of 24.75, as in the 
 act of 1792. The weight of the silver 
 dollar remained at 371.25 grains, as be- 
 fore. If you will divide that by 23.20, 
 the weight of the new gold dollar, you 
 will find the quotient to be 16.00 as 
 nearly as you can state it in two de- 
 cimals. 
 
 In 1837 the weight of the gold coins 
 was increased by law (for what reason 
 I know not) to the extent of two hun- 
 dredths of a grain to the dollar, mak- 
 ing the weight of it 23.22 grains of pure 
 gold instead of 23.20. This made the 
 ratio 15.99 to 1, as nearly as it can be 
 stated in two decimals, which has re- 
 mained the legal ratio to this time. 
 
NEW RATIO FOR FRACTIONAL COINS. 
 
 15 
 
 And this, we call without substantial 
 inaccuracy, a ratio of 16 to 1. 
 
 But this ratio did not exactly hit the 
 market value, either. It was a sliqht 
 undervaluation of silver. Consequent- 
 ly silver left the country as gold had 
 done before. The discovery of gold in 
 California in 1848 added largely to our 
 supply of that metal, and by 1853 we 
 had practically a gold metallic cur- 
 rency, but not even enough silver for 
 the purposes of small change. 
 
 NEW RATIO FOB FRACTIONAL COINS. 
 
 By the act of 1792, which up to this 
 time had not been changed as regards 
 silver, the fractional coins were of the 
 same relative value as the silver dol- 
 lars. That is; the half dollar contained 
 just half as much fine silver as the 
 dollar, and so of the quarters and 
 dimes. And they were all legal tender 
 without limit. Consequently the frac- 
 tional coins were just as valuable to 
 export as the dollars, and when silver 
 was worth more in the marliet than the 
 coinage ratio they left the country. 
 
 By an act approved Feb. 21, 1853, 
 Congress undertools to remedy this 
 evil in this way: the amount of fine 
 silver in the half dollar was reduced 
 from 185.62% grains, which was its 
 weight under the law of 1792, to 172.08 
 grains, and the other fractional coins 
 In proportion; and these coins were 
 made legal tender for emly five dollars. 
 This made a coinage rati(>for the frac- 
 tional silver coins of 14.82 to 1, while 
 the market ratio was 15.83 to 1. In 
 that situation a pound of silver was 
 worth more as bullion than as fraction- 
 al coin, and there was therefore no in- 
 ducement to export the coin. And we 
 did not export it. It remained in cir- 
 culation until the suspension of all 
 specie payments after the beginning of 
 the civil war. 
 
 THE SILVER DOLLAR. 
 
 In the meantime the silver dollar had 
 a curious history. As I have said, by 
 the act of 1792 the silver dollar was 
 made the unit of value and legal ten- 
 der to unlimited amount. But for all 
 that It would not stay in circulation. 
 
 And 'the reason was this: It contained a 
 little less silver than the Spanish dollar. 
 We had at that time a considerable 
 trade with the West Indies where the 
 Spanish dollars abounded. The dif- 
 ference between the two dollars was 
 not so great but that our silver dollars 
 were readily talcen in the West Indies. • 
 There was therefore something to be 
 made by exporting our silver dollars 
 to that country and bringing back 
 Spanish dollars to be re-coined at our 
 mint. And so our mints were kept 
 busy at the public expense coining dol- 
 lars for the benefit of the money brok- 
 ers. To stop this unprofitable business 
 President Madison, in 1806, ordered 
 that no more silver dollars should be 
 coined. And no more were coined for 
 thirty years. This would have ended 
 the exportation of silver except for the 
 fact which I have stated that the frac- 
 tional coin had the same value propor- 
 tionally as the dollar. It was only 
 when that was reduced in 1853, as 
 just detailed, that we were able to 
 keep our fractional coin at home. 
 
 And so it happened that up to 1853— 
 a period of sixty-one years after the sil- 
 ver dollar was made the unit of value, 
 less than four million of them were 
 coined in the United States, all'told, 
 and of them almost none were in circu- 
 lation. Within the same period $231,- 
 000,000 in gold had been coined, of 
 which an abundant supply remained in 
 circulation. Although we started out 
 on a coinage ratio adjusted to the mar- 
 ket ratio as closely as we could make 
 it the change in the market ratio soon 
 drove out our gold. In 1834 we changed 
 the ratio in order to coax the gold back. . 
 It came, and then the silver went out. 
 We couldn't even keep our silver dimes 
 until we reduced the silver in them. 
 And during all this time the variations 
 of the market ratio at a yearly average 
 never exceeded a point and a quarter 
 between extremes. The highest price 
 of silver between 1792 and 1853 was 
 15 to 1 and the lowest 16.25 to 1. And 
 yet there are men who think -o;- wno 
 say, rather, for It seems to me impossi- 
 ble that those men think at all— that' 
 we could have free coiuage at 16 to 1 
 
16 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 with a market ratio of 31 to 1, and keep 
 both metals In circulation. 
 
 THE SYSTEM Of 1853. 
 
 The law of 1853 gave us practically 
 the English system of 1816. That law, 
 as I have told you, gave the English 
 people gold coin as unlimited legal len- 
 der with silver as legal tender for foj'ly 
 shillings. The law of 1853 gave tlie 
 people of the United States gold coin 
 as full legal tender, and silver for legal 
 tender for five dollars and in both cases 
 the real value of the silver coins was 
 made less than their nominal value to 
 keep them from being exported or melt- 
 ed down for bullion. So far the two 
 systems were exactly the same. There 
 was only this difference. There was 
 on our statute book authority to coin 
 full legal tender dollars. But that 
 statute was a dead letter. There were 
 no dollars — or next to none, in circula- 
 tion, under it, and no incentive to make 
 more at that time because silver was 
 not worth as much as dollars as it was 
 as bullion. So that,' for all practical 
 purposes the law 01-1853 introduced in 
 this country the English system of 
 1816. And that lasfeS until the suspen- 
 sion of specie paymeiits at the breaking 
 out of "the war. 
 
 I have kept the promise I made you 
 awhile ago in two particulars; I have 
 taxed your patience pretty heavily, as 
 I forewarned you I would, but I have 
 proved the truth of Gresham's law by 
 the world's experience for a hundred 
 years. History teaches no more cer- 
 tain lesson; the law of gravitation is no 
 more inexorable in its operation. The 
 circulation of gold and silver on the 
 Chicago plan is impossible. It is 
 silver monometallism in disguise. 
 
 BRYAN TO THE FORE. 
 
 There is only one imaginable sem- 
 blance of an answer to this argument. 
 It is that the opening of the mints to 
 the free coinage of silver would make 
 such a demand for it that the price 
 would rise to parity with gold at 1(' to 
 1. Mr. Bryan was in such a liurry to 
 get that claim to the front that on the 
 day of his nomination he seat the fol- 
 
 lowing telegram to the New Yorlf 
 World: 
 
 Chicago, July 10. 
 To the Editor of the World: 
 
 The restoration of silver to its ancient 
 place by the side of gold will, in my Judg- 
 ment, restore the parity between both kinds 
 of money and thus permit a general return 
 of prosperity. 
 
 The World, which did such effective work 
 In behalf of an income tax, will find a still 
 larger field of usefulness in supporting the 
 gold and silver coinage of the Constitution. 
 W. J. BRYAN. 
 
 Is there any reasonable foundation 
 for such a judgment? I grant that the 
 first tendency of free coinage in the 
 United States would be to :idvanee the 
 price of silver. But to what extent 
 would that tendency be effective? An 
 increase of price would tend to in- 
 crease production. Only the high grade 
 silver mines are being worked now. 
 Hundreds that are now idle would 
 start into activity upon even a small in- 
 crease in the price of silver. This in- 
 creased production would tend to check 
 the advance in price. Besides this, an 
 opportunity to sell silver here at more 
 than Its market value would tend to 
 draw it hither from all other countries. 
 The world's total stock of silver coin 
 is estimated at four thousand million 
 dollars, to say nothing of bullion and 
 plate. A high price here would start 
 vast quantities of it toward our shores. 
 And it would c(ftne and keep coming 
 as long as the^rice here was substan- 
 tially above the market elsewhere. In 
 short, before we could bring silver to a 
 parity with gold in the United States 
 we would have to lift up the price of 
 all the silver in the world to that level. 
 And this against the increased produc- 
 tion of all the mines in the world, turn- 
 ing out no one knows how much mor^ 
 than ever before. 
 
 What do you think of the man who 
 thinks he knows that that can be done? 
 And what shall we say of the prudence 
 and solid sagacity of a man who, the 
 day of his nomination for the great 
 oflSce of President of the United States 
 tosses off such a prediction as careless- 
 ly as though he were guessing at the 
 weight of a Nebraska steer? 
 
THE CONSEQUElSrCES. 
 
 17 
 
 And mind you, it will not sufBce to 
 raise the price of silver part way to 
 parity— to 25, or 20, or 18 to 1. I have 
 shown you that it talies only a fraction 
 of a point in variation between the 
 coinage ratio and the market ratio to 
 drive out the dearer metal. The price 
 of silver must come to 1,6 plump, or 
 within a minute fraction of it, to keep 
 both metals in circulation. Mr. Bryan's 
 prediction is a rash and unfounded 
 conjecture. 
 
 THE CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 Let us consider now in the light of 
 these facts what we have good right to 
 believe will be the certain consequences 
 of the adoption of the Chicago plan. 
 The first consequence will be a tremen- 
 dous shrinkage in the volume of money 
 in the United States. We have now 
 about $1,773,000,000 of money, all told. 
 About $567,t)00,000 of that is gold. 
 This gold will not circulate with free 
 silver worth only half as much as it is. 
 It would become a commodity to be 
 bought and sold just as it was when the 
 greenbacks drove it out of circulation 
 during the war. And this change 
 would have to take place suddenly. It 
 will be as impossible to come to it 
 gradually as to go over Niagara with- 
 out a plunge. The moment that it is 
 known for sure that the change is com- 
 ing there will be a scramble for the 
 gold. Indeed, the scramble is liable to 
 begin at any time from the mere appre- 
 hension of the change. And to take the 
 gold out of use as money means a 
 shrinkage of $567,000,000 in our cur- 
 rency—practically one-third of the 
 whole. 
 
 Free silverists sometimes attempt to 
 parry these facts with the statement 
 that there is no gold in circulation now, 
 that the banks have it all cornered. It 
 is quite true that most of the gold is 
 held by banks, and trust companies, 
 and monied corporations of various 
 kinds, although there is more or less 
 of it scattered over the country. A 
 man can get it upon request in reason- 
 able amount by asking for it at any 
 time. But it is held, wherever it is, as 
 money. It is part of the reserve which 
 
 banks and other institutions hold. If 
 that reserve were not held in gold it 
 would have to be held in some other 
 form of money. Tlie.gold which they 
 hold is part of the aggregate money 
 stock. It is counted in the per capita 
 supply of $21.15 which the U. S. Treas- 
 ury department reports for July 1, 
 1896. The moment it becomes un- 
 available as money the total stock will 
 be reduced that much, and the per 
 capita supply will be only about $14. 
 That is what I mean by a stringency— 
 a sudden contraction of the total sup- 
 ply. 
 
 No thoughtful man will suppose that 
 such an event could occur without a 
 financial crisis of unparalleled severity. 
 To measure the destruction of credit, 
 business and values that would attend 
 it is beyond human foresight. 
 
 But we can foresee that amid the 
 crash and the chaos there would be 
 two sets of men looking indifferently 
 on, Itke Nero at burning Rome, and 
 making money out of the general dis- 
 aster. They would he the silver mine 
 owners, pocketing two dollars for one, 
 and the gold owners reaping a harvest 
 from the premium on gold. And to 
 considerable extent they would be the 
 same men. No one knows what the 
 premium on gold would be. It reached 
 a hundred and fifty per cent, during the 
 war. If it reached only fifty it would 
 put a profit of nearly $300,000,000 in 
 legal tender money into the coffers of 
 the men who held the gold. 
 
 The second consequence would be 
 but a continuation of the first— t/ie per- 
 manent estahUshment of silver mono- 
 metallism. I say permanent, because 
 that condition would be as permanent 
 as the law which created it. But does 
 any one believe that we would be con- 
 tent to stay there; to take a place per- 
 manently with China, India and South 
 America, as a silver standard nation? 
 
 I referred a moment ago to the idiot- 
 ic raving of the Chicago platform about 
 English domination over our money af- 
 fairs—the silliest stuff ever put in a 
 political platform. It says: "Gold 
 monometallism is a British policy, and 
 its adoption has brought other na- 
 
18 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 tions into financial servitude to Lon- 
 don." 
 
 England does hold a large part of the 
 trade of the world with an iron grasp; 
 but what are the nations which are 
 subject to her? Are they gold stand- 
 ard Germany, Norway, Sweden, Den- 
 inark, United States? No, indeed; they 
 are the silver standard nations— China, 
 India, South America. If we want a 
 place among the commercial slaves of 
 Great Britain the way to get it is to 
 adopt the silver standard; if we want 
 to be her rival we must arm ourselves 
 with the same weapons she uses— gold 
 and silver. The doughty warriors who 
 met at Chicago are not only spoiling for 
 a fight with England, but propose to 
 make It with a bass-wood club and 
 give her the gun. 
 
 THE BAD FAITH OF IT. 
 
 My last and greatest objection to free 
 coinage on the Chicago plan is that it 
 would be a breach of public -faith. 
 As before, I cannot content myself 
 with the mere statement of this propo- 
 sition; I must prove it. And to do that 
 I must go back again to history. I 
 must trace the steps by which we have 
 come to the place where we are now, 
 and show how and why it is that free 
 silver coinage at 16 to 1 would be a vio- 
 lation of good faith on the part of the 
 government. And for this I invoke 
 again your considerate patience, for I 
 can not make it either short or enter- 
 taining. 
 
 RECENT LEGISLATION. 
 
 I have already sketched the course of 
 legislation in the United States on the 
 subject of coinage and ratios from 1792 
 to 1853. The next important law was 
 that of Feb. 12, 1873. This statute has 
 been the subject of more misrepresenta- 
 tion than ever befel any other legisla- 
 tive act. It was a law covering many 
 matters relative to the mints and coin- 
 age; it was intended, in fact, as a re- 
 vision of all pre-existing laws on that 
 subject. It contained five or six sec- 
 tions relating to the coinage of gold and 
 silver. The substance of them was 
 about as follows: The gold dollar, with- 
 out change in weight or fineness, was 
 
 made in terms the unit of value; the 
 other gold coins were continued without 
 change, and all gold coin remained 
 legal tender without limit, as before. 
 The fractional silver coins were chang- 
 ed slightly in weight to make them con- 
 form exactly in value to corresponding 
 coins of the patin Union, and they were 
 declared to be legal tender for five dol- 
 lars, as in the law of 1853. The coin- 
 age of the full legal tender dollar of 
 1792 was suspended, and the trade dol- 
 lar substituted. This coin contained 
 378 grains of pure silver besides the al- 
 loy (420 grains standard), being 6% 
 grains more than the old silver dollar. 
 The old dollar of 371% grains of fine 
 silver (412% grains standard), was then 
 worth three per cent, more than a gold 
 • dollar, and so would not circulate as 
 money. Much less would the more val- 
 uable trade dollar circulate. And it was 
 not intended for that purpose. It was 
 made expressly for foreign trade— espe- 
 cially with China, and to compete with 
 the Mexican dollar in that trade. Nev- . 
 ertheless, it was included with the frac- 
 tional coins as legal tender for five dol- 
 lars. Apart from the extra value of the 
 trade dollar this statute gave us, as 
 matter of law, the English gold stand- 
 ard composite legal tender system 
 which we had for all practical purposes 
 under the law of 1853, as I have pointed 
 out. So that the change in our system 
 of which the free silverists complain so 
 bitterly, really took place in 1853, in- 
 stead of 1873. 
 
 THE "CRIME OF '78." 
 
 But the misrepresentations respecting 
 this statute of which I spoke a moment 
 ago relate not so much to its terms as 
 to the manner of its passage. It has 
 been dinned into the ears of the people 
 for years that the law of 1873 was pass- 
 ed by irregular and clandestine meth- 
 ods, and by procurement of English 
 emissaries. There is no practical im- 
 portance in the question, because the 
 present situation and the facts which 
 give character to it and which deter- 
 mine what we can do and what it is 
 our duty and interest to do are all the 
 same, no matter how the law was pass- 
 ed. But such things naturally afCect 
 
THE CHARGE IS FALSE. 
 
 19 
 
 men's feelings. I would resent the in- 
 terference of English agents in our na- 
 tional legislation with indignation. And 
 I would have an unfriendly predisposi- 
 tion toward a law passed by any sort 
 of dark-lantern methods. The free sil- 
 verites realize th's and so keep up no 
 end of clamor over the "crime of '73." 
 They have put it in the Chicago plat- 
 fai-m, and I suppose we may expect to 
 hear it from now to November. 
 
 THE CHARGE IS FALSE. 
 
 The answer to all this is that there 
 Is no truth In it. The legislative his- 
 tory of the bill from its introduction to 
 its passage is matter of record, and 
 demonstrates the regularity, fairness, 
 and openness of the proceedings be- 
 yond possibility of doubt, and by your 
 leave I will put aside the main line of 
 my thought for a bit to give you a 
 sketch of this history. 
 The bill was drawn up in the Treasury 
 department, in the office of the Comp- 
 troller of the Currency, and was trans- 
 mitted to the Senate by the Secretary of 
 the Treasury, April 25, 1870, with a let- 
 ter and report from the Comptroller of 
 the Currency, explaining it in detail. 
 It was introduced in the Senate TDy John 
 Sherman April 28, 1870. See. 14 of the 
 bill provided for tlie coinage in gold 
 of twenty, ten, five, two and a half, 
 three and one dollar pieces, the one dol- 
 lar coin to be the unit of value, and all 
 of them to be legal tender in all pay- 
 ments. 
 
 Section 15 provided for the coinage in 
 silver of half dollars, quarter dollars 
 and dimes, to be legal tender for all 
 sums less than one dollar. 
 
 Sec. 17 provided for the coinage of 
 nickels and copper cents, to be legal 
 tender to the amount of fifteen cents. 
 
 Sec. 18 provided that no coins of gold 
 or silver should thereafter be issued ex- 
 cept as in that act provided. 
 
 The bill was taken up in the Senate 
 Jan. 9, 1871, read in full, debated dur- 
 ing that day and the next, and passed 
 by a vote of 36 to la 
 
 It then went to the House and was re- 
 ferred to the Committee on Coinage, 
 Weights and Measures, and printed as 
 It had passed the Senate. On Feb. 25, 
 
 1871, a substitute was reported by the 
 Commjjtee, which was ordered printed. 
 In the substitute these changes were 
 made: In Section 14 the words, "and 
 these coins cthe gold coins) shall be a le- 
 gal tender in all payments," were 
 changed to "which coins shall be a le- 
 gal tender in all payments at their de- 
 nominational value." And in Sec. 15 
 the words, "that the silver coins issued 
 in accordance with the above sectioti 
 shall be a legal tender in any one pay- 
 ment of debt for all sums less than o»ie 
 dollar," were changed to read, "which 
 coins shall be a legal tender at their 
 denominational value for any amount 
 not exceeding five dollars in any one 
 payment." The 51st Congress closed 
 without further action on the bill. 
 
 In the next Congress, on March 9, 
 1871, the substitute bill just referred to 
 was introduced as a new bill in the 
 House by William D. Kelley, and re- 
 ferred to the Committee on Coinage. 
 On Jan. 9, 1872, the Committee reported 
 the bill without amendment and a rec- 
 ommendation that it pass. It was then 
 taken up and debated for two days. 
 Upon the suggestion of Mr. Garfield it 
 was re-committed to the Committee for 
 the reason, as he said, that it involved a 
 considerable increase in salaries. 
 
 On Feb. 9 following the bill was re- 
 ported back from the Committee, read a 
 first and second time, re-eommltted to 
 the Committee, and ordered printed. 
 
 On Feb. 13, it was reported to the 
 House again, ordered printed as correct- 
 ed by the Committee and made a special 
 order for the second Tuesday of March 
 following and from day to day until 
 disposed of. 
 
 On April 9 following it was taken up 
 on third reading and debated until the 
 adjournment for the day. The leading 
 .speech was made by Mr. Hooper of Mas- 
 sachusetts, who said among other 
 things: 
 
 Section ' 14 declares what the gold coins 
 shall be, and their respective weights, and 
 malies them a legal tender in all payments 
 at their nominal value, when not below the 
 standard weight and limit of tolerance pre- 
 scribedT and at a valuation proportioned to 
 their actual weight when below the stand- 
 ard weight and tolcranca. Tbsa fu the sec- 
 
20 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 tion is a re-enactment of existing iaws. In 
 addition, it declares the gold dollar of twenty- 
 floe and eight-tenths grains of stan&ttrd gold 
 to be the unit of value, gold practically 
 having been in tills country for many years 
 the standard of value, as it is legally in 
 Great Britain and most of the European 
 countries. The silver dollar which hy law is 
 now the legally declared unit of value, does not 
 bear a con-ect relative proportion to the gold 
 dollar. Being worth intrinsically about one 
 dollar and three cents in gold it cannot circu- 
 late concurrently with the gold coins. 
 Mr, Potter, of New York, said: 
 Then, in the next place, this bill provides 
 for the making of changes in the legal ten- 
 der coin of tlie country, and for substituting 
 as legal tender coins of only one metal in- 
 stead as heretofore of two. I thinlc myself 
 this would be a wise provision, and that legal 
 tender coins, except subsidiary coins, should 
 be of gold alone. 
 
 In the course of the debate some 
 flings were made at the greenbacks 
 which stirred up Saml. J. Randall to 
 this vigorous protest: 
 
 Now, I will go with the gentleman from , 
 New York for a resumption of specie pay- 
 ments whenever he is ready; but the idea 
 of his getting up here and describing, as he 
 does, our currency as rags I tell him is be- 
 neath his intellect, beneath his position in 
 this house. It is beneath his Americanism. 
 Sir, our greenbacks are not rags. I am in 
 favor of this bill, after an examination of 
 its provisions, because I believe the 'former 
 mint laws were confused, and I believe that 
 this codification of the laws will make them 
 plain and the execution simple. 
 
 On May 27, 1872, the bill passed the 
 House by a vote of 110 to 13. It then 
 went to the Senate and on May 29, 1872, 
 was referred to the Committee on Fi- 
 nance. 
 
 On December 16, 1872, it was report- 
 ed back with amendments and ordered 
 printed. On Jan. 7, 1873, further 
 amendments were reported by the Com- 
 mittee and the original bill ordered re- 
 printed with the amendments. On 
 Jan. 17, 1873, the bill was again taken 
 up, debated and passed. 
 
 The amendments which had been 
 made by the Senate were non-concurred 
 in by the House; a committee of con- 
 ference was appointed which reconciled 
 the differences; the report of the com- 
 mittee was concurred in without a di- 
 vision in either body, and the bill was 
 approved Feb. 12, 1873. 
 
 It has been said, I believe, that the 
 law was changed at the last minute 
 and some advantage taken of an un- 
 suspecting Congress in that way. I 
 can not take time to follow the amend- 
 ments In detail, but a brief reference 
 to them will dispose of that claim. As 
 I have shown, Sec. 14 of the original 
 bill fixed the weight and value of the 
 gold coins, made them legal tender--dri 
 all payments and made the gold dollar 
 the unit of value. Some changes were, 
 made in the wording of this section, 
 but no change was made in its sub- 
 stance at any time. Sec. 15 of the orig- 
 inal bill provided for the coinage of sil- 
 ver halves, quarters, and dimes. But not 
 dollars, and made silver coin legal ten- 
 er to the limit of one dollar. This was 
 amended by the House Committee in 
 its first report to raise the limit to five 
 dollars, and was in that form when the 
 bill was re-introduced March 9, 1871, at 
 the beginning of the 42d Congress. 
 
 As reported by the House committee 
 Feb. 13, 1872, the section on silver coins 
 —Sec. 16— provided for the coinage of 
 dollars, halves, quarters and dimes, 
 the weight of the, dollar to be S8k grains 
 standard and the others in proportion. 
 The weight of the pre-existing silver 
 dollar was 412% grains standard. This 
 was worth more than a gold dollar and 
 hence it could not be kept in circula- 
 tion. The reduction to 384 grains made 
 the intrinsic value of the silver dollar 
 less than that of the gold dollars and 
 proportional to that of the fractional 
 currency. On this point Congressman 
 W. D. Kelley said during the debate on 
 the bill as thus amended: 
 
 But, sir, I again call the attention of the 
 House to the fact that the gentlemen who 
 oppose this bill insist upon maintaining a 
 silver dollar worth three and a half cents 
 more than the gold dollar, and worth seven 
 cents more than the half dollar, and that, 
 so long as these provisions remain, you can 
 not keep silver coin in the country. Certain 
 bullion dealers of New York are making 
 from fifty thousand to one hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars a year out of yd^ir govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Hooper said: 
 
 Section sixteen re-enacts the provlslon4 
 of existing laws defining the silver coins 
 
WISDOM OF THE LAW. 
 
 21 
 
 and theit weights respectively, except In re- 
 lation to the silver dollar, which Is reduced 
 In weight from four hundred and twelve and 
 a half to three hundred and eighty-four 
 grains; thus making it a subsidiary coin in 
 harmony with the silver coins of less de- 
 nomination, to secure its co-ncurrent circu- 
 lation with them. The silver dollar of tour 
 hundred and twelve and a half grains, by 
 reason of its bullion or intrinsic value being 
 greater than Its nominal value, has long 
 ceased to be a coin of circulation, and Is 
 melted by manufacturers of silverware. 
 
 The five dollar legal tender limit was 
 retained in this amendment and 
 through all subsequent changes. In 
 this form the bill passed the House, 
 and went to the Senate. 
 
 In the Senate the bill as reported by 
 the Committee Jan. 7, 1873, provided 
 for the coinage of trade dollars weigh- 
 ing 420 grains standard, instead of the 
 subsidiary dollar of S84 grains standard, 
 thus amending the bill as it had passed 
 the House. This was done because the 
 trade dollar was considered desirable 
 for the China tra.de, and for the partic- 
 ular convenience of the people of Cali- 
 fornia. And in tliis form the bill passed 
 and became a law. 
 
 To sum up the whole matter the law 
 made these changes in our gold and 
 silver coinage: 
 
 1. It made the gold dollar the unit of 
 value. 
 
 2. It discontinued the coinage of the 
 old legal tender silver dollar of 412% 
 grains standard. 
 
 3. And limited the legal tender func- 
 tion of silver to five dollars. 
 
 ■ 4. And so established in place of the 
 former double standard the composite 
 legal tender gold standard. These broad 
 changes were in the bill when it was intro- 
 duced, and remained in it from beginning 
 to end. There was no provision in it 
 at any time for continuing the coinage of 
 tlie old legal tender dollar. 
 
 Such is the history of the coinage bill 
 of 1873. It was before Congress for a 
 longer Time, considered and reported oii 
 more frequently and printed oftener 
 than one bill in ten that becomes a 
 law. It is true that the provisions af- 
 fecting the gold and silver coins were 
 not the ones which attracted most at- 
 teutioB. The numerous debates on the 
 
 bill were mostly over other matters in 
 it. The last one was chiefly about the 
 American eagle. As the bill came from 
 the Senate Committee after its last 
 reference it knocked that old bird off 
 from his perch on the half {ind quarter 
 pieces. But his friends rallied in force 
 and he roosts there still; and long may 
 he roost. 
 
 But the only reason why the question 
 of units and standards was not dis- 
 cussed more fully was that there was 
 no difference of opinion about it — not 
 even enough to provoke debate. There 
 was no general discussion of the sub- 
 ject in the press and among the peo- 
 ple because there was no public inter- 
 est in it. I kno* that some Senators 
 and Representatives have said since 
 that they, did not know what was in the 
 bill when it passed. But the history of 
 the proceedings on the records of the 
 two Houses shows that every such 
 Senator or Representative was either 
 seeking to dodge responsibility by his 
 statement,. or was guilty of some inat- 
 tention to business in his place in Con- 
 gress. Th&t the latter should happen 
 to the extent of omitting to take no- 
 tice of the sections of the bill affecting 
 the coinage would not be strange nor 
 particularly disgraceful. The bill was 
 one relating to the operations of the 
 mint. It had the endorsement of the 
 Comptroller of the Currency and the 
 Treasury Department. There ' were 
 Committees whose business it was to 
 look after it, and they did look after it. 
 That it should not excite the particular 
 interest and attention of every mem- 
 ber of Congress was entirely naturaL 
 But it was not put through in the dark, 
 nor by crooked ways and means. On 
 the contrary, it was an open and 
 straightforward piece of legislation, as 
 honestly and fairly introduced, consid- 
 ered and passed as any law that ever 
 received the President's signature. 
 
 WISDOM OF THE LAW. 
 
 The question of the wisdom of the 
 law of 1873 opens a wide field of dis- 
 cussion — one impossible to occupy with- 
 in the limits of this address. It opens 
 the whole subject of the comparative 
 advantages of the single and the double 
 
22 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 standard systems. I can do little more 
 towards the discussion of it than to 
 state the general situation in 1873. 
 
 As I have told you, the first pure 
 double standard 'system ever set up by 
 law intentionally and by deliberate 
 choice was our own in 1792. France 
 followed in 1803. In 1816 England set 
 up her single gold standard system 
 which I have described. So that when 
 the law of 1873 was Introduced in Con- 
 gress the two systems had been on 
 trial in three of the leading nations of 
 the world for more than fifty years. 
 
 The essential feature of the English 
 system Is to take one metal as a stand- 
 ard and coin it without limitation and 
 then, in order to keep both metals in 
 circulation, coin the other in lim- 
 ited quantities, and at. a ratio 
 which will keep the money value 
 of the coins above the market value 
 of the metal m them. The standard, 
 might be either gold or silver. In the 
 discussions which preceded the passage 
 of the law of 1816 some of the ablest 
 thinkers in England advocated the use 
 of silver as the standard, eminent 
 among whom was John Locke. Gold 
 wa« chosen, partly, perhaps, because it 
 was preferred by those in control, nota- 
 bly Lord Liverpool, but principally, I 
 think, because there was more gold 
 than silver on hand at the time, just 
 as our government in 1792 adopted the 
 silver dollar as the unit of value be- 
 cause the people had it already. 
 
 xne French system did not work as 
 well in practice as the English system. 
 As I have pointed out, the fluctuation 
 of the market ratio between the metals 
 upset the balance of the system and 
 made it impossible to keep both metals 
 In circulation. The discovery of gold in 
 California in 1848 and in Australia in 
 1851 put a new complexion on the 
 money question. The world's prodjic- 
 tion of gold from 1851 to 1870, inclu- 
 eive, reached the incomprehensible fig- 
 ure of $2,596,000,000. It was more than 
 the whole stock in existence in 1850. 
 
 This enormous expansion of gold pro- 
 duction was a serious menace to the 
 stability of the ratio between the two 
 metals. No one could tell what would 
 
 come next. ,0f all nations England was 
 best prepared to meet such changes. 
 Her single gold standard ibade her 
 comparatively indifCerent to fluctua- 
 tions in the commercial ratio. But on 
 the continenl^ there was great anxiety 
 for, the future. The formation of the 
 Latin Union in 1865 was a defensive 
 measure for the protection of the money 
 of the nations who joined it. By agree- 
 ing to a common system with a com- 
 mon coinage ratio, and that each mem- 
 ber of the Union should receive the 
 coins of the others at par they fortified 
 themselves to some extent against the 
 operation of Gresham's law. As among 
 themselves there could be no tempta- 
 tion to export or import one kind of 
 money in preference to the other, just 
 as there is no such temptation as be- 
 tween the States of our Union. This ex- 
 periment was undertaken with some 
 misgiving at the time. Although Bel- 
 gium, Switzerland and Italy had adopt- 
 ed the French system some years be- 
 fore, they all favored the adoption of 
 the single gold standard as the basis of 
 the Union. The influence of France, 
 however, prevailed, and the double 
 standard was retained. Two years 
 later, in 1867, the French government 
 called a monetary conference at which 
 the leading European nations and the 
 United States were represented. The 
 result of its deliberations, was an , ex- 
 pression of judgment in favor of the 
 single gold standard, but it was rec- 
 ommended that until all were ready to 
 move in unison the double standard of 
 the Latin Union should remain. 
 
 In the following year a commercial 
 convention representing one hundred 
 and nineteen German cities endorsed 
 the conclusions of the Paris conference 
 and urged the immediate adoption of a 
 uniform monetary system for the em- 
 pire, based on the single gold standard. 
 In 1871 the German Parliament resolv- 
 ed to adopt that system and passed the 
 laws necessary to inaugurate the 
 change. 
 
 This, then, was the situation in 1871. 
 Fifty-five years of experience had left 
 the English government satisfied with 
 bar gold standard; Germany was la the 
 
IKTERNATlONAL BIMETALLISM. 
 
 23 
 
 act of adopting It; and all Europe was 
 apparently on the eve of following her 
 example. There were some able think- 
 ers and economists on the other side, 
 but the prevailing judgment of the com- 
 mercial world was in favor of the gold 
 standard. To adopt it was no immedi- 
 ate inconvenience to us. It was a mere 
 continuation by law of what we had 
 had in fact for twenty years— since 
 1853. Germany was going to the tre- 
 mendous sacrifice of substituting gold 
 for silver; we had no substitution to 
 make, not a penny of expense to incur. 
 
 Now, when we take all these facts in- 
 to account, and in the light of them put 
 ourselves back into the shoes of a mem- 
 ber of Congress from '71 to '73, it is 
 plain that the law of 1873, so far from 
 being a crime against light and knowl- 
 edge, was an expression of the wisest 
 and soundest judgment which it was 
 possible to form at that time. Since 
 then the discussion of the subject has 
 gone on more actively than before, with 
 some gain, I believe, on the side of bi- 
 metallism. But that Is not to be af- 
 firmed too confidently. While the bi- 
 metallists appear to have the best of 
 the argument the drift of events Is 
 rather the other way. In 1874 the Scan- 
 dinavian Union, formed by Denmark, 
 Sweden and Norway, adopted the gold 
 standard composite legal tender sys- 
 tem. The same system came into force 
 In Germany in 1873, although she still 
 retains a considerable amount of IfuU 
 legal tender silver. It was this practi- 
 cal consolidation of all Northern Eu- 
 rope upon the gold standard that com- 
 pelled the Latin Union in 1875 to sus- 
 pend the free coinage of silver. It was 
 either to do that or have their gold 
 taken from them by their gold stand- 
 ard neighbors. 
 
 At the present moment the nations of 
 Europe which favor the double stand- 
 ard are doing Just as we are— holding 
 fast to the silver they have, keeping it 
 good by limiting its coinage and look- 
 ing for an opportunity to promote inter- 
 national bimetallism. No nation in the 
 world that uses gold is coining silver 
 freely, and nowhere outside of the Uni- 
 ted States Is it proposed to do bo ex- 
 
 cept upon the basis of International 
 agreement 
 
 INTEKNATIONAI, BIMETALLISM. 
 
 It will be convenient to explain here 
 my remark made a while ago to the 
 effect that I consider international bi- 
 metallism a better monetary scheme 
 than the gold standard composite legal 
 tender. If all the nations In the world 
 would unite on the plan of the Latin 
 Union, agreeing to give free coinage 
 to gold and silver at a prescribed ratio, 
 and to receive one another's coins at 
 their treasuries, custom houses and 
 banks, it seems to me that there would 
 be no room for the operation of 
 Gresham's law. The relative value of 
 gold and silver being the 'same in all 
 countries, there would be, as Sir Isaac 
 Newton said In 1717, no temptation to 
 export or import one metal rather than 
 the other. I do not suppose, indieed, that 
 In order to accomplish this result It 
 would be necessary to take the whole 
 world Into the combination. But It 
 would have to be large enough to con- 
 trol the bulk of the world's commerce. 
 
 Of course this Is only a theoretical 
 scheme so far. It has never been tried. 
 But there seems every reason to be- 
 lieve that it would work and give to so- 
 ciety the benefit of the free use of both 
 metals as money. The prospect of its 
 early adoption is not fiattering; never- 
 theless it is to this as the only possible 
 way of attaining their object that the 
 practical and real bimetalllsts of the 
 world are looking. It is to this that the 
 Republican platform refers in the state- 
 ment that it is opposed to the free coin- 
 age of silver "except by international 
 agreement with the leading commer- 
 cial nations of the world, which we 
 pledge ourselves to promote." And It is 
 to this that the Chicago platform refers 
 as though it were a mere question of 
 courage whether to adopt free silver in- 
 dependently and alone, or hold on to 
 the gold and silver we have until we 
 can form some such international union. 
 In the same sense we may say that it 
 is a mere question of courage whether 
 to go over Niagara in a tub or go round 
 by the wagon road. It Is no exhibitioa 
 Of courage to figbt a{;alnBt tbe )awB ot 
 
^ 
 
 THE SILVER Question. 
 
 nature. Could all the men that were in 
 the Chicago convention keep the Mis- 
 sissippi river from running down to the 
 Gulf of Mexico? Would they prove their 
 courage by saying that tbey proposed 
 to do It? Can the Populist party lift 
 this side of the Atlantic ^ocean an inch 
 higher than the other?" It is not En- 
 gland that the free silv^i-ists are fight- 
 ing against; it is the lawb of nature, as 
 irresistible in their operation as the 
 flow of the Mississippi,' or the forces 
 that hold the ocean to its level. 
 
 OUK MOEE RECENT, LEGISLATION. 
 
 As I have told you, when the law of 
 1873 was passed the silver in a silver 
 dollar was worth three per cent, more 
 than a gold dollar, so tha-t there was no 
 object in coining the .silver dollar to 
 use as money, and nobodyJost anything 
 by dropping it out of the Jaw. But the 
 situation began to , change very soon. 
 The world's production o4 silver which 
 had been averaging about $50,000,000 
 per annum for two years prior to 1870, 
 took a sudden jump in 1874 and '75 to 
 $100,000,000 per annum,, largely from 
 the output of the bonanz^,|mines in Ne- 
 vada. The general movepient toward 
 the gold standard also, ^nded to de- 
 press the price of silver, a^pd by 1875 it 
 was down to 16.59 to 1. ^hen the min- 
 ing interests and the cheap money theo- 
 rists became clamorous for immediate 
 free coi&age at the old ratio. Mr. Bland 
 (the same whom the Chicago conven- 
 tion didn't nominate for the Presiden- 
 cy), Introduced a bill for that purpose 
 into the House Nov. 5, 1877. 
 
 But that was an unwise proposal. We 
 were then just preparing for the re- 
 sumption of specie payment, having 
 had only paper money in use from the 
 beginning of the war. The act passed 
 Jan. 14, 1875, fixed Jan. 1, 1879, as the 
 day when the Treasury would begin to 
 pay United States notes in coin. It 
 was necessary to accumulate coin for 
 that purpose. We were bound to know 
 that we could not keep gold in circula- 
 tion against free silver coined at 16 to 
 1, but worth less in the market, as it 
 was at that time. If the bill had passed 
 in that form we would have been com- 
 pelled to resume specie payment, If we 
 
 could have done it at all, on a silver 
 basis. 
 
 THE BLAND-ALLISON BILL. 
 
 Mr. Bland's bill passed the House, 
 but was amended in the Senate on mo- 
 tion of Mr. Allison to provide for the 
 coinage by the government from silver 
 purchased in the market of not less 
 than two nor more than four million dol- 
 lars per month. The bill also restored 
 the unlimited legal tender function of 
 the silver dollar. ' In that form it passed 
 Feb. 28, 1878. From the standpoint of 
 a bimetallist I hold that this was a wise 
 law. It was a safe experiment if not 
 pushed too far, ;and kept the matter 
 within the control of Congress to be 
 dealt with as future developments 
 should indicate. : 
 
 THE SHERMAN BILL. 
 
 But the free silyerists were not satis- 
 fied. The price,,of silver did not ad- 
 vance. They said: "Two millions a 
 month does not ^ake a sufficient mar- 
 ket; make it freej'and the price will go 
 up." And this s sentiment was so 
 strong in Congress that the passage of 
 a free silver bill was imminent. Then, 
 as a compromise, the Sherman bill was 
 passed, July 14, 1890. It provided for 
 the purchase by the government in the 
 market of 4,500,000 ounces of silver per 
 month, to be paid for by treasury notes 
 redeemable in gold or silver coin, such 
 notes to be legal tender for all debts, 
 public and private. It directed the 
 coinage of $2,000,000 per month of the 
 silver so purchased for a year, and after 
 that of as much as should be necessary 
 to provide for the notes issued in pur- 
 chase of the silver. The quantity of 
 silver named in the bill-^,500,000 
 ounces per month, was supposed to be 
 substantially equal to the output of the 
 silver mines of the United States. The 
 act repealed so much, and only so much 
 of the Bland bill as required the pur- 
 chase and coinage of from two to four 
 million dollars per month. Under this 
 law treasury notes to the amount of 
 $155,000,000 were issued for the pur- 
 chase of 108,000,000 ounces of silver. 
 These are called "coin notes," and 
 $129,000,000 are in use now. 
 
REPEAL OF PUECHASING CLAUSE OF THE SHERMAN LAW. 25 
 
 This experiment was a failure. In- 
 stead of going up the price of silver 
 went down. In the summer of 1893 
 the mints of India were closed ts the 
 free coinage of silver, followed by a 
 silver panic and great fall in price. By 
 that time we had over 350,000,000 sil- 
 ver dollars in the treasury and the gold 
 reserve had run down to less than $100,- 
 000,000. The greenbacks and coin notes 
 issued for the purchase of silver, all 
 redeemable on demand, amounted to 
 nearly $500,000,000. It was clear that 
 we could not go on in that direction 
 veny long without coming to a point at 
 which the XJ. S. Treasury would have 
 nothing to pay with but silver. And 
 as the only thing that upheld silver was 
 the credit of the government that 
 meant silver monometallism at once. 
 
 REPEAL OF PURCHASING CLAUSE OF 
 THE SHERMAN LAW. 
 
 In this critical situation Congress met 
 in special session Aug. 7, 1893, and on 
 Nov. 1, 1893, an act was passed re- 
 pealing so much of the Sherman law 
 as required the purchase of 4,500,000 
 ounces of silver per month. It will be 
 observed that the Bland-Allison law of 
 1878 and the Sherman law of 1890, are 
 both still in force except as to those 
 parts of them relating to the purchase 
 of specified amounts of silver. That 
 part of the Bland-Allison law which 
 made the silver dollar legal tender in 
 unlimited amount is still In force. And 
 that part of the Sherman law which re- 
 lates to the coinage of the silver pur- 
 chased under it is still in force, and 
 by authority of it the coinage of sliver 
 dollars is still going on at the mints, 
 but in comparatively small amounts. 
 For the fiscal year just closed the num- 
 ber coined was 7,500,822. 
 
 THE GOVERNMENT'^ PLKDGKS. 
 
 It Is SO long since I mentioned it that 
 you may have forgotten that we are 
 now considering what I have stated to 
 be the greatest of all objections to free 
 coinage on the Chicago plan, viz. : that • 
 it would be a breach of public faith. 
 All that I have said since that state- 
 ment contributes to the proof , of it. 
 
 The act of 1890 (the Sherman law) 
 
 contains these words, after the pro- 
 visions authorizing the purchase and 
 coinage of silver and issue of treasury 
 notes to pay for it. " I^ being the es- 
 tablished policy of the United States 
 to maintain the two metals on a parity 
 with each other upon the present legal 
 ratio or such ratio as may be provided 
 by law." 
 
 And the act of Nov. 1, 1893, contains 
 the following: "And it is hereby de- 
 clared 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 interchangea- 
 ble 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 equal power of 
 every dollar in the markets at all 
 times and in the payment of debts." 
 
 Did you ever stop to think why it is 
 that silver dollars and gold dollars cir- 
 culate upon an equality among us, not- 
 withstanding the silver dollar is in- 
 trinsically worth only about half as 
 much as the gold dollar? I have shown 
 you the reason. It is because the govern- 
 ment has promised that the silver dollar 
 shall be kept as good as the gold 
 dollar. I have read, you the promise, 
 and I have traced for you the course of 
 events which led to it. Let me recap- 
 itulate them briefly. 
 
 In the beginning the government gave 
 us the double standard. It was the 
 intention of the law that the silver 
 should be as good as the gold. It 
 proved not to be, and the gold left us. 
 In 1834 Congress changed the ratio in 
 order to bring back the gold, and it 
 came. Then the' silver left us. In 1853 
 a special ratio "was adopted for frac- 
 tional silver vyhich over-valued the 
 coins. Then they stayed with us. In 
 1873 Congress made gold the legal 
 standard of valtie. That part of that 
 law has never been repealed. In 1878 
 the unlimited, Ifgal tender function. of 
 the silver dollar •was restored and pro- 
 
28 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 vision made for coining it under limi- 
 tations. But gold was still the legal 
 standard and it was implied on the face 
 of the law that the silver dollar was to 
 be as good as gold. The law of 1890 
 provided for still larger use of silver. 
 In the face of the conditions then ex- 
 isting it was pertinent to ask, Is the 
 United States going to abandon the . 
 gold standard and go to silver? The 
 law answered the question. It said, 
 "No, these silver dollars shall be as 
 good as gold." And when in 1893^ the 
 minds of men were full of distrust, the 
 law said again the faith of the govern- 
 ment was pledged to keep all the 
 money of the people— gold, silver an<i 
 paper, of equal value. Now you see 
 why the silver dollar circulates at par 
 when its real value is only fifty cents. 
 It is because the promise of the gov- 
 ernment goes with it. It is a 
 sort of cross between a coin and a 
 promissory note. Half of its value is 
 in the metal contained In it; the other 
 half is Uncle Sam's guaranty. 
 
 There never has been a time siaee 
 1792 when it has not been the purpose 
 of the law to keep all the money of the 
 people as good as gold. And ve stand 
 now upon the solemn and express 
 covenant of the government that it 
 shall be so and kept so. On tho faith 
 of that covenant we take what the 
 government gives us and extend to 't 
 our unquestioning confiden>?e and 
 trust. 
 
 The government has not always been 
 able to keep its promise to the letter. 
 In its life-or-death struggle with rebel- 
 inon, it gave us its notes for money and 
 asked us to trust it awhile. Those 
 notes were not always as good as gold, 
 but it made them so as soon as it could. 
 So that even the greenback money con- 
 stitutes no exception to my statement 
 that it has always been the purpose of 
 the law to keep all the money of the 
 people as good as gold. 
 
 The sacredness of a promise is not to 
 be measured by the number or the form 
 of its words, but by its meaning and the 
 sense In which it is proposed and ac- 
 cepted. The promise of the government 
 that the money wblcb It issues shall be 
 
 kept good is an engagement with all 
 the people and every one of them. It 
 is a promise to every depositor in a sav- 
 ings bank that his money shall not rot 
 in the bank, but that he shall take out 
 as good as he put in. It is a promise to 
 every working man who takes stock in 
 a building and loan association that the 
 association shall pay his matured 
 shares in money as good as it received 
 from him. It is a promise to every 
 child in the land that its dead father's 
 life insurance shall be paid in money 
 as good as that which his living hand 
 paid to the company. 
 
 And this covenant, so vast, so beyond 
 all statement in the interests that hang 
 on it, the free silverists propose to 
 break as though it were a rostten reed. 
 They do not say so, any more than they 
 say that they propose to banish gold 
 from circulation, but the thing which 
 they propose to do will do it as certain- 
 ly as it will banish the gold. 
 
 It is no part of the free silver pro- 
 gram that the value of the silver coins 
 shall be guaranteed by the govern- 
 ment. It would be an impossible pro- 
 posal If It were. It is practicable for a 
 government to guarantee a limited 
 amount of silver and keep its guaranty 
 good. The United States is doing it to- 
 day, and so is France, and all the other 
 nations of the Latin Union, and several 
 European powers besides. But an un- 
 limited guaranty of the value of all the 
 silver in the world, or all that anybody 
 and everybody should bring to the 
 mints would be a preposterous and ab- 
 surd undertaking. It would be impossi- 
 ble to inspire confidence in such a guar- 
 anty. 8o that free silver coinage is of 
 necessity a flat repudiation of the govern- 
 ment's promise to keep the silver dollars 
 good. The moment that step is taken the 
 silver dollar must stand on its merits and 
 it will be worth what the silver in it is 
 worth, and no more. 
 
 EVERYTHING WILL BEST ON SILVER. 
 
 Gold and silver being each and equal- 
 ly legal tender for all obligations, when 
 gold retires from circulation every- 
 thing will be lawfully payable in silver. 
 If you take greenbacks to the United 
 States Treasury you will get silver; if 
 
THE FREE SILVER BICYCLE. 
 
 27 
 
 you take bank notes to the bank for 
 redemption you will get silver. The 
 value of paper is measured by the value 
 of the money in which it is redeemed. 
 So that, once on a silver basis, the value 
 of all our money will be measured by 
 the value of the silver dollar, and that 
 will be worth the silver in it, and not a 
 grain more. Now we can see the full 
 meaning of the free coinage scheme. 
 First, It will take away from us nearly 
 one-third of our money by driving gold 
 out of circulation, and then destroy half 
 the value of the remainder by placing 
 it on a silver basis. 
 
 THE FBEE SILVER BICYLE. 
 
 One of the jokes which free silver 
 cartoonists are fond of illustrating is 
 to picture a gold standard rider wab- 
 bling about on a one-wheeled bicycle 
 labeled "Gold," while the free silverist 
 is riding serenely by on a two-wheeled 
 "safety," one wheel labeled "Gold" and 
 the other "Silver." But the real joke 
 is on the artist. He ought to picture 
 the free silverist on a bicycle with 
 nothing to hold its two wheels lo- 
 gether — two sepai-ate wheels, each run- 
 ning independently of the other. And 
 a little way down the road he should 
 show the rider with nothing left but 
 his silver wheel, while his gold wheel 
 is running away in the distance. 
 
 The guarantee of the government Is 
 what holds the two wheels together, 
 and the only financial "safety" which 
 there is in the market is the one we 
 are riding now, and which the republi- 
 can party pledges itself to keep and 
 keep in good order. The point of this 
 illustration is to emphasize the state- 
 ment I made some time ago, that the 
 free silver cohorts march under a false 
 banner. Their pretence to be bimetal- 
 lists is a fraudulent one. To deal fairly 
 with the people they ought to say, "We 
 do not want any gold money; we do 
 not expect to have any; we intend to 
 place the country on a silver basis." 
 
 HONEST MONEY. 
 
 Our free silver friends take great um- 
 brage at the phrase "honest money" 
 and say, "Is not silver as honest as 
 gold?" Certainly; all nature is honest 
 except when man puts a lie in her 
 
 mouth. This Bubject was all threshed 
 over In this country eighteen years ago. 
 I remember taking a greenback from 
 my pocket in the course of a speech in 
 the campaign of 1878, as I now take this 
 silver dollar, and arguing in this fash- 
 ion. "This old greenback is an honest 
 note; it says, 'the United States will 
 pay the bearer Five Dollars;' that is an 
 honest promise; it was made to be kept, 
 it can be kept, and it will be kept. But 
 your new fangled greenback will be a 
 dishonest note from Its birth; it will 
 say, 'This Is Five Dollars;' or, if it con- 
 tains a promise it will be one impossi- 
 ble to keep and not intended to be kept. 
 It will be dishonest money from the 
 start." 
 
 I say the same thing of this silver dol- 
 lar. It is an honest coin. It says to 
 you, "I am a dollar, not because the sil- 
 ver in me is worth a dollar, but be- 
 cause I bring with me the guarantee of 
 the United States that I shall be kept 
 as good as gold." The free coinage sil- 
 ver dollar will say, with the effrontery 
 of Satan, "Nobody vouches for me; I 
 am what I am, and I am a dollar." Ani 
 that will be a lie, for it will be only fifty 
 cents. Will that be honest money? 
 NOT NEW. 
 
 Things like this have been done be- 
 fore. In bygone ages it was a common 
 resource of kings who had wrung all 
 the money they could out of the people 
 by ta.iation to debase the currency, to 
 issue coins of light weight or loaded 
 with cheap alloys, and compel the pub- 
 lic to take them at face value. But these 
 things are recorded in the annals of the 
 past among the crimes of tyrants- 
 crimes perpetrated against weak, ig- 
 norant and helpless people. It will as- 
 tonish the muse of history to write down 
 that at this age of the world a free 
 and intelligent people deliberately re- 
 surrected this old instrument of plun- 
 der in order to defraud themselves. 
 
 AND FOR WHAT? 
 
 Why should we take such a step? 
 Some one says "to make money plen- 
 tier." But how will free silver give us 
 more money? Its first effect will be, as 
 I have pointed out, to take away near- 
 ly one-third of what we have by driving 
 
28 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 the gold out of circulation. How shall 
 we supply the place of it? The United 
 States mints as they now stand are not 
 capable of coining more than 40,000,000 
 silver dollars per annum, if they were 
 to do nothing else. At that rate it 
 would take more than twelve years to 
 coin silver enough to take the place of 
 the gold which we would drive out in 
 thirty days. Of course we could build 
 more mints, but what would we do in 
 the meantime— in the two, or three, or 
 more years which must elapse between 
 the election of Mr. Bryan and the time 
 when we would have supplied the place 
 of the gold with coined silver? We 
 would have to issue some kind of paper, 
 or else suffer from a prolonged con- 
 traction of the currency. And if it is to 
 be paper money, why go to silver for it? 
 We can provide it now in any one of 
 several ways, fend have it as good as 
 gold instead of as good as silver. 
 
 PRICES. 
 
 It is said that free silver will raise 
 prices. How can it in any useful, bene- 
 ficial sense? Will it make people eat 
 more food, buy more clothes, furniture, 
 books, or railroad tickets? Will it make 
 work so plentiful that labor will be 
 scarce and in demand? These are the 
 things that raise prices normally and 
 healthfully. By cutting a dollar in two 
 halves, and calling each half a dollar 
 you can raise prices in the sense that 
 you will state values in larger num- 
 bers. In the same sense you can double 
 the productiveness of your farms by 
 passing a law that thirty pounds of 
 wheat shall be a bushel. An increase of 
 prices caused by diminishing the value 
 of the money is fictitious, not real; it is 
 a mere increase in figures, not in facts. 
 
 Think what it would cost to effect 
 such a change. It would have to reach 
 everything alike. All price lists would 
 have to be revised — wages, farm prod- 
 ucts, manufactures, freights, railroad 
 .fares, everything. What a fight that 
 would make. It would be a period of 
 universal disorganization, a general 
 scramble, every one for himself and 
 the devil for the last one. What 
 quarrels it would breed between em- 
 ployers and employes, what strikes, 
 
 lockouts, boycotts, and turmoils. And 
 when we were through with it, what 
 would we have gained? More dollars 
 and smaller ones. A day's work would 
 buy no more than it does now; a bushel 
 of wheat would exchange for no more 
 than it does now. 
 
 DEBTS. 
 
 It is said, however, that it would be 
 easier to pay old debts; that the free 
 silver dollar, although worth only half 
 as much as the present dollar, and' 
 capable of buying only half as much, 
 would be a dollar by law and would 
 pay a dollar on a mortgage as well as 
 tlie present dollar. This is the main 
 argument of the free silverists and it is 
 addressed with special assiduity to a 
 class of men who are in a distressed 
 situation and to whom it comes with 
 much seductive force. The farmer who 
 is in debt is just now traveling a hard 
 road. The prices of all the things which 
 he produces for sale have gone all to 
 pieces. This does not hurt him so seri- 
 ously if he owes no debts. His acres 
 will produce his food as they always 
 did. And while his surplus produces 
 less cash than formerly that cash buys 
 proportionally more things. His bur- 
 dens have been increased' somewhat, 
 like those of all the rest of us, by the 
 altered manners and customs of llie 
 times. We and our families all want 
 more things than we dreamed of a 
 generation ago. But the farmer who 
 is not in debt, and is content to live 
 with something like old-time economy 
 can enjoy all his old-time comfort and 
 independertce. A great many farmers, 
 however, are in debt, and their case is 
 one which deserves all the considera- 
 tion we can give it. 
 
 WOULD IT BE EIGHT? 
 
 The first question to speak of in re- 
 spect to the easy way of paying dcV>ts 
 which the free silverists profess to 
 offer the farmer is, Would it be right? 
 Nothing can be made right by law 
 which is not right in fact. An honest 
 man can not afford to vote to change 
 the law so as to enable him to do a 
 thing under color of law which he 
 could not conscientiously do aside 
 from the law. Let me put an illustra- 
 
THE CREDITORS— WHO ARE THEY ? 
 
 29 
 
 tion. The Mexican dollar has, I wilj 
 say, the same amount of silver in it as 
 our silver dollar. You can buy them, 
 I will say, for fifty cents apiece. Now 
 suppose you owed a debt to a neighbor 
 who was a simple-minded, credulous 
 person, and you had it in your power to" 
 buy a bag of Mexican dollars and pay 
 him with them, dollar for dollar. Could' 
 you do it as an honest man? Much less 
 could you take him by the throat and 
 force him to take his debt in Mexican 
 dollars. How then can you vote for a 
 law to compel him to take his pay in 
 Mexicanized United States dollars? 
 
 THE CREDITORS — WHO ABB THEY? 
 
 Of course there can be no debtor 
 without a creditor, and whatever the 
 debtor may make by paying his debt in 
 debased money the creditor must lose. 
 And it is worth while to ask. Who are 
 the creditors that are to stand this loss? 
 Those mostly talked about in this dis- 
 cussion are holders of mortgages on 
 Western farms, and they, it is assumed, 
 are monied corporations and capitalists 
 of the Bast. We forget the millions of 
 unreported, unrecorded debts between 
 neighbor and neighbor, debts to mer- 
 chants for goods sold, to manufactur- 
 ers for machinery purchased, to ad- 
 ministrators and guardians, to women 
 for their little Investments of savings" 
 of estate money, the sum total of 
 which, if we could find it out, would 
 far exceed the mortgages, that fill so 
 much larger a place in our thoughts. 
 But they would all be subject to the 
 same sweeping horizontal cut, all pay- 
 able in the same debased dollars. 
 
 And if we think a minute we shall 
 see that the larger part of the mort- 
 gage debts to Eastern lenders are in 
 reality debts to Individuals, many of 
 whom are ourselves and our neighbors. 
 Nine-tenths of the loans are from trust 
 funds. Nearly all life insurance, for 
 example, is now done on the mutual 
 plan. The company collects the pre- 
 miums, invests the money, and re- 
 turns it to the beneficiaries under the 
 policies, less the expenses of the busi- 
 ness.. So that the real creditor in a 
 mortgage to a life insurance company 
 Js not the great company about wbich^ 
 
 we think and talk, but the women and 
 children who are to receive the noney. 
 And these are a great multitude. I 
 have taken the pains to obtain from 
 some of the ablest life insurance sta- 
 tisticians in the country the facts in 
 reference to the magnitude of the busi- 
 ness. Speaking in round numbers, 
 there #re 8,000,000 life insurance poli- 
 cies in force in the United States at 
 this time, covering $5,600,000,000 of in- 
 surance. The total invested assets are 
 reported at $1,142,000,000, of which 35 
 per cent., or $400,000,000, are in bonds 
 and mortgages, and 40 per cent., or 
 $456,000,000 is in State, municipal and 
 railroad bonds. This includes only the 
 regular or "level" premium insurance 
 companies, not the co-operative or fra- 
 ternal societies conducted on the as- 
 sessment plan, which really are to be 
 included in this statement. For while 
 they do not accumulate and Invest 
 funds, like the regular companies, the 
 assessments which their members have 
 been paying in years past take the 
 place of premiums and entitle their 
 families to the death benefits just as 
 though the certificate of membership 
 were a regular policy. The only dif- 
 ference is that, instead of collecting 
 and investing their insurance fund 
 these societies let it remain in the 
 hands of the members until it is need- 
 ed. The number of policies held in 
 these societies is estimated at 1,850,000, 
 and the aggregate amount covered by 
 them at $5,500,000,000. So that we 
 have a grand total of ten million poli- 
 cies in force covering ten billion dol- 
 lars of insurance. 
 
 It is impossible to tell how many per- 
 sons are interested in this insurance. 
 It is not uncommon for one man to hold 
 several policies. If we suppose the 
 average to be two it will give us 5,000,- 
 000 as the number of lives insured. If 
 we suppose the number of persons in 
 the families of these policy-holders to 
 average three, we shall have a total of 
 fifteen million women and children for 
 whom their husbands and fathers are 
 and have been making provision In the 
 form of life insurance by payment of 
 good money from month to month. And 
 
80 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTIOK. 
 
 these women and children are the 
 creditors under the $400,000,000 of 
 mortgages that are to be paid off in 
 fifty-cent dollars under the free silver 
 program. 
 
 SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS. 
 
 The savings banks of the United 
 States holds $1,800,000,000 belonging to 
 4,800,000 deiMJsitors— an averagrf of 371 
 dollars for each depositor. The bulli of 
 this money has been saved out of earn- 
 ings in small sums — from ten cents up, 
 and put in the bank for a rainy day- 
 all in good money. Here are nearly 
 five million more creditors t6 be wrong- 
 ed by forcing them to take damaged 
 money for good. 
 
 BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 There are reported 6,000 building and 
 loan associations in the United States, 
 Into which their members have paid 
 $500,000,000 in dues, all in good money, 
 but to be paid back in inferior money 
 If the free silver scheme goes through. 
 There are nearly two million more cred- 
 itors to be wronged by forcing them 
 to take damaged money for good. 
 
 THE PEOPEBTr LOSS. 
 
 Every debt now owing is property. 
 If we change the law so as to compel 
 the creditor to receive money of less 
 value than that in which it is now pay- 
 able we destroy that much of its value. 
 To take away half the value of our 
 money, by putting it on a silver basis 
 will itself be a great destruction of 
 property, but it will be a small matter 
 compared with the loss of property 
 which will be caused by making all 
 debts payable in depreciated money. 
 
 Let me illustrate: Here is a man who 
 has insured his life for $2,000 for the 
 beneUt of his family. The free silver 
 policy goes into effect and the man 
 dies. The widow receives the $2,000. 
 We are promised that with free silver 
 prices will go up. That is the induce- 
 ment held out to farmers, and the high- 
 er the better, so they are told. Suppose 
 they have doubled. The widow's $2,000 
 will only go as far in keeping the wolf 
 from the door as $1,000 goes now. Has 
 not half of the value of that policy been 
 destroyed? And the game would hap- 
 
 pen to all kinds of Investments upon 
 which people are relying for support in 
 the Iiour of need. Those I have men- 
 tioned are but samples. These are all 
 proijerty, and the most sacred kind of 
 property— the product of thrift, frugal- 
 ity and affection; the reliance of age, 
 infirmity and helpless childhood. Don't 
 accuse me of trying to make an oratori- 
 cal display over these things. I am 
 talking hard facts. I am utterly una- 
 ble to state them with adequate em- 
 phasis. No figure of speech, no simile 
 of fire, flood, pestilence, earthquake, or 
 war will help us to any sufficient con- 
 ception of the destruction of property 
 which will follow the sudden and vio- 
 lent- change in the value of money 
 which the free silverists propose. 
 
 Do you not see now a deeper meaning 
 tlian I couid express to you by mere 
 statement in that solemn promise of 
 the Government that the equal value 
 of all money which it has given to the 
 people shall be maintained? It was 
 like the promise of God when He set 
 His bow in the sky that seed time and 
 harvest shall not fail. And if govern- 
 ments are ordained of Him to cari-y out 
 His purposes among men, it was the 
 promise of the highest authority which 
 He has placed on earth to make and 
 keep promises. How any God-fearing 
 man can cast his vote to break th&t 
 promise is a question for every voter 
 to take home to his conscience for 
 serious consideration. 
 
 THE AFTER EFFECT. 
 
 You cannot destroy property without 
 producing distress. The millions of 
 people who are to be made poorer by 
 bad money will have to economize. 
 And when millions of people skfmp 
 trade shrinks. The annihilation of val- 
 ues which must attend a drop to the 
 silver basis will reach on through yeai's 
 in its .after effects. The hardest ques- 
 tion tliat confronts society to-day is 
 how to find more employment for hu- 
 man hands. There is one way and only 
 one to solve it; and that is, to find some 
 means to enable people to constime 
 more things. To impoverish them by 
 a financial revolution will compel them 
 to consume less. 
 
WILL IT WORK? 
 
 SI 
 
 I am considering now the argument 
 tliat free silver will help the farmer 
 pay his del>ts. I have been trying to 
 show wliat that proposal means. It 
 means that the public faith is to be 
 violated; that wrong is to be done to 
 millions of innocent people; that bil- 
 lions of dollars worth of property is 
 to be destroyed, and the means of the 
 people to buy and consume diminished 
 for years to come, and that when at last 
 the farmer comes to pay his debts in 
 dollars of diminished value he will do 
 an act under color and compulsion of 
 law, which, if done outside the law he 
 would himself pronounce to be dishon- 
 est. 
 
 WILL IT WORK? 
 
 Whatever a farmer may think of the 
 right and wrong of the business it is 
 hardly imaginable- that he will vote 
 for free silver in order to pay his debts 
 in little dollars unless he has good rea- 
 son to believe that the plan will work. 
 It will take time to do it. We must 
 elect a President and Congress, chajige 
 the law, make the new money, get it 
 into circulation, force up prices, raise 
 the stuff and sell it. In the meantime 
 what about the debt.s? AVhat good will 
 it do a man to be entitled by la w to i)ay 
 a dollar with fifty cents' worth of silver 
 if he hasn't got tlie silver? I have given 
 you the reasons wHy we cannot expect 
 to go from the gold basis to a silver 
 basis by any smooth and easy transi- 
 tion. It must be by a slump, a jump,. a 
 crash. In the midst of that crash, 
 with factories closed, business suspend- 
 ed, everything in cimos, and no set- 
 tled value for anything, where would 
 the farmer find a high-priced market 
 for his products? He would be like a 
 man who has torn down his old house 
 before he has the material to build a 
 new one. He would be camping in the 
 woods, shelterless from the storm. 
 Would his creditors wait on him under 
 those circumstances? Either the farm- 
 ers are paying their interest and princi- 
 pal as it matures with reasonable 
 promptness now, or the lenders are tol- 
 erably lenient, for there are not very 
 many forecl»sures in the courts. But 
 wften tUe farmers s^rve notice o» tjjeir 
 
 creditors that they inteqd to pay in de- 
 preciated money it must be expected 
 that the creditors will proceed to take 
 the land wherever they can get it with- 
 out delay. 
 
 THE DEPRESSION OF AaKICULTURB. 
 
 There is nothing the matter with agri- 
 culture except that'prices of farm prod- 
 ucts are low and have brought down 
 with them the price of land. The rea- 
 son why is no mystery. Machinery 
 and competition have done it, as they 
 have in the case of all other prices. 
 With steamships carrying wheat a 
 thousand miles for scarcely more than 
 the farmer can haul it to market, all 
 parts of the world are alilte to the Eu- 
 ropean consumer. He can get his sup- 
 plies from one quarter of the globe as 
 well as another. With increasing areas 
 under cultivation in all countries, every 
 element of cost reduced by machinery, 
 and all the world competing, how could 
 the pi'ice of wheat keep up ? More than 
 this, the electric car and bicycle are 
 taking the place of horses at such a 
 rate that they are scarcely worth as 
 much as cows, and the prices of oats 
 and com suffer in consequence. That 
 Jiurts the price of wheat. Again and 
 further, the growing variety of our 
 modern food supply affects the price of 
 the great staple. With oatmeal, cheap- 
 meat, cheap sugar, and cheap fruits, 
 man no longer lives by bread alone. All 
 these things count 
 
 Free silverists sometimes point to the 
 fact tliat wheat and silver have pre- 
 served a degree of parallelism in their 
 price changes as evidence that silver is 
 steadier in value than gold. The true 
 inf ei'ence is the other way. It is rso cer- 
 tain that under the influence of' the 
 myriad causes tending to that end the 
 price of wheat has fallen that the fact 
 that silver has in some measure kept 
 pace with it is evidence that silver has 
 fallen. 
 
 TlIE APPRECIATION OF GOLD, 
 
 Our free silver friends claim that the 
 fall in prices is all due to the apprecia- 
 tion of gold. "Nothing has fallen," they 
 say, "gold has risen." Let us consider 
 that question. It is undoubtedly true 
 
82 
 
 THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 that no form of property In the world is 
 absolutely unchangeable in value. And 
 this fact makes some kinds of change 
 very difficult to detect. It has recently 
 been discovered that a change of rela- 
 tive level between the Gulf of Mexico 
 and the land at the mouth of the Mis- 
 sissippi River, amqunting to about a 
 foot, has taken place within a few 
 years. Either the gulf has risen, or the 
 land has gone down; but which? And 
 so of gold. Has it gone up, or have 
 other things come down? What we need 
 is some third standard of reference — 
 something which we can safely say has 
 not changed, or which has changed 
 least of all things, with which we can 
 compare gold on one side and other 
 things on the other. There is such a 
 third standard to which I shall refer in 
 a moment. 
 
 In discussing values we usually look 
 first at the conditions of supply and de- 
 mand. So far as these can be relied on 
 they do not indicate an appreciation in 
 the value of gold. I have prepared a 
 table showing the world's production of 
 that metal for the present century, ar- 
 ranged in decades, and with the totals 
 for the first half and the last half of the 
 century added up separately. The pro- 
 duction for the present decade is esti- 
 mated from the known production 
 since 1890, which has averaged $163,- 
 000,000 per annum. 
 
 1801-1810 $118,152,000 
 
 1811-1820 76,063,000 
 
 1821-1830 94,479,000 
 
 1831-1840 134,841,000 
 
 1841-1850 363,928,000 
 
 Total forthe half century. $787,463,000 
 
 1851-1860 $1,332,981,000 
 
 1861-1870 1,263,015,000 
 
 1871-1880 1,150,814,000 
 
 1881-1890 1,060,052,000 
 
 1891-2000, partly estimated 1,630,000,000 
 
 Total for the half cen- 
 tui-y $6,436,865,000 
 
 As will be seen, the production for 
 the fifty years just closing, is over 
 eight times that of the preceding fif- 
 ty. It would seem as though, so far as 
 
 ■production has anything to do with it, 
 that gold ought to be getting cheaper 
 instead of dearer. On the other side it 
 is to be said, however, and quite truly, 
 that within the last fifty years there 
 has been a vast expansion of business 
 throughout the world and so an in- 
 creased use for gold as money. It Is 
 hard to measure this increase, but if 
 the business were transacted at the 
 present time by the same methods 
 which were in use during the first half 
 of the centuiy, perhaps we would need 
 eight times as much money to do it 
 with. But that is not the case. More 
 than ninety per cent, of the business of 
 this country is transacted by checks; 
 notes, drafts, credits and clearing house 
 settlements without the use or handling 
 of any money of any kind, either coin 
 or paper. And it is measurably so 
 throughout the world wherever the 
 largest volumes of business are done. 
 Hence the argument based on the in- 
 creased amount of business to be pro- 
 vided for is fairly met by the fact of 
 the increased facilities for doing it. It 
 is to be borne in mind, also, that this 
 six billions of gold produced within fifty 
 years has not been used up, as the 
 wheat and cotton produced within the 
 same time have been, but is on hand to- 
 day less the small natural diminution 
 by loss and wear. , 
 
 There is one cause in operation tend- 
 ing distinctly to enhance the value of 
 gold as compm-ed with silver; and that 
 is the recent drift toward the gold 
 standard throughout the world. And 
 possibly that tendency may be effectual 
 in slight degree to enhance the value of 
 gold as compared with other things. 
 But upon the whole, all the facts relat- 
 ing to production, use and demand 
 taken together, fail to afford any ground 
 for belief that the general fall in prices 
 is due in any substantial degree to an 
 appreciation in the value of gold. 
 
 THE WAGES STANDARD. 
 
 I said a moment ago that there waiJ 
 a third standard by means of which 
 we could get some light on the ques- 
 tion whether gold has risen or other 
 things fallen. If it takes a man a day 
 to make a chair, he ought to receive as 
 
THE WAGES STAKDARD. 
 
 33 
 
 wages the money necessary to buy a 
 chair— neglecting for this illustration 
 the profits of the middle man. If, by 
 the introduction of machinery, his 
 labor is made so much more efficient 
 that he can make two chairs a day, he 
 ought to receive as wages the money 
 necessary to buy two chairs. Now 
 this does not mean that he ouglit to re- 
 ceive twice as much money as before, 
 but that he ought to receive the chairs 
 at half the price he paid before. The 
 only absolutely just measure of a man's 
 wages is his proportionate share of the 
 product of the labor of all. If a million 
 men co-operating in all the pursuits of 
 life, produce a certain aggregate 
 amount of food, clothing, furniture, 
 books and houses, each man is en- 
 titled, upon an average, to one mill- 
 ionth part of the whole. Of c6urse, I 
 do not mean that the product of labor 
 ought to be divided equally per capita. 
 Each man's share ought to be propor- 
 tional to his effective contribution to 
 the general aggregate of work done. 
 But that gives the average man an 
 equal share in the result. If then by 
 organization and machinery this mill- 
 ion men make' their labor so much more 
 effective that the aggregate product of 
 it is twice as much food, clothing, fur- 
 niture, books and houses as were pro- 
 duced before, each man ought still to 
 have, on an average, one millionth part 
 of the whole. And that would give liim 
 twice as many things. And to give 
 him this it is not necessary to increase 
 his wages in money. It accomplishes 
 the same end to decrease the money 
 price of the things. 
 
 That is exactly what has been going 
 on before our eyes for twenty-five years 
 and more, and is going on still. The 
 . decreasing price of commodities repre- 
 sents the increasing efficiency of labor, 
 the money standard remaining un- 
 changed. We assume in all our trans- 
 actions that money is an unchangeable 
 thing. I borrow a thousand dollars for 
 ten years upon the assumption that at 
 the end of that time a thousand dollars 
 will represent the same value that I' 
 borrowed. And it will represent the 
 same value if it represents the same 
 
 amount of human labor; otherwise not. 
 All property except land and its natur.il 
 appurtenances are the product of labor. 
 The real unit of value is a day's work. 
 As long as the money value of a day's 
 work remains unchanged, the money 
 itself is unchanged. A rise In the 
 world round value of gold would mean 
 a fall in the world round rate of wages. 
 That tliis has not taken place is the 
 highest possible evidence that gold has 
 not risen in value. Other things have 
 fallen and are continually falling be- 
 cause they represent less and less hu- 
 man labor. This must be so and mr.st 
 continue, or society ca,n not exist. .-Vs 
 the countless army of machines invade 
 one occupation after another what are 
 the displaced workmen to do? As the 
 efficiency of labor increases where 
 shall it find its market? It must find 
 one somewhere or else more and more 
 persons must go unemiJloyed. .'\nd 
 when we come to the point tliat only 
 half of the people can find euiplojniont, 
 what will the other half do? 
 
 There is but one answer to these 
 questions. As the efficiency of labor 
 increases the marlcet must grow hy 
 increased consumption of the products 
 of labor. We must all use more things, 
 and more, and more and more. Ancf 
 how can we do that unless they .grow 
 cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper? 
 This is the answer that God Almighty 
 is giving us as he unrolls the scroll of 
 time in our sight. The efficiency of 
 labor is increasing day by day; prices 
 are falling day by day; we are using 
 more things day by day. And we must 
 go on in that way or society will go to 
 pieces. We cannot stop the march of 
 events; we cannot suppress Invention; 
 we can not keep the machines out of 
 the world. And we ought not to want 
 to. That is the way onward and up- 
 war. That is the way to distribute the 
 largest number of blessings among the 
 largest number of people. As '"things 
 fall, men rise." 
 
 You will understand, of course, that 
 in these remarks I am taking a very 
 broad view of the subject. When we 
 come to consider the price of a particu- 
 lar thing at a particular time and place 
 
84 
 
 • THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 these general influences are subject to 
 be modified by many particular cir- 
 cumstances. Thus, while machinery 
 has made chairs generally very cheap, 
 it has not made walnut chairs very 
 cheap, because walnut timber is scarce. 
 While clothes generally are cheap, seal- 
 skin coats are not cheap because the 
 Canucks have killed off the seals. The 
 American farmer is at this time the suf- 
 ferer from a combination of special cir- 
 cumstances of the kind referred to. 
 The era of railroad extension has 
 passed its climax in this" country, but 
 has not reached it in the tardily mov- 
 ing quarters of the earth. The use of 
 machinery and Improved methods of 
 cultivation are showing their effect ev- 
 erywhere. Old Egypt, a country which 
 we have been accustomed to think of 
 only as a page of history— a mummy 
 land, comes to the front this year, it is 
 said, with 1,500,000 bales of cotton— 
 one-eighth of a sufficiency to supply the 
 whole world. That hurts not only the 
 cotton farmer of the South, but the 
 wheat farmer of the North as well. For 
 in the face of such prices as confront 
 him, the cotton farmer must change his 
 methods; he must take to raising his 
 own food. He is doing so now to a 
 greater extent than ever before. An- 
 other unfavorable circumstance affect- 
 ing the farmer is that the things which 
 he has to sell are peculiarly sensitive 
 to adverse conditions. They are perish- 
 able, costly to transport, and tiie mar- 
 ket for them is inelastic. When the 
 world has food enough it has no use 
 for any more. A surplus damages the 
 price of the whole more injuriously 
 than any other kind of surplus. More- 
 over, the farmer is unable to do any- 
 thing for his own protection. In other 
 crafts men unite for self defense. 
 Workingmen organize to maintain their 
 wages; manufacturers combine to hold 
 up their prices; but the farmer has to 
 take things as they come. And so at 
 this particular juncture, with every- 
 thing in the world seeming to be con- 
 spiring against him, the Suez Canal, 
 the North Sea Canal, the new ocean 
 freighters, the expanding railroad sys- 
 tems of foreign lands, the universal in- 
 
 troduction of machinery, the electric 
 car, the bicycle, and the swarrai.ig in- 
 to his business of millions of competi- 
 tors all round the world, all of wh'.ch 
 h« has to meet with a millstone of 
 debt hanging about his neck, it is no 
 wonder that the American "armer is 
 in a state of mind bordering on despera- 
 tion. 
 
 It was not always so. Twenty-five 
 years ago he was the happiest of men — 
 if he had known it. He was the first 
 in the field under the new dispensation. 
 He was the first to use the seed drill 
 and the harvester. He was the first to 
 have a railroad from his barn door to 
 the sea. He was farming lands of 
 virgin fertility which cost him little— 
 in the far West nothing, and which 
 grew In value while he slept. He did 
 not stop to think— why should he— that 
 these conditions could not last forever. 
 He accustomed himself and his family 
 to modes of life easy enough to main- 
 tain at the time and contracted debts 
 easy enough to pay as things were. 
 But things have changed. 
 
 His turn will come again. The world 
 depends on him for subsistence as it, 
 always has. He can never be counted 
 out. And while in the round of econ- 
 omic changes continually going on he 
 may be pinched for a time; it cannot 
 be for always, nor in our own country 
 for long. The population of the United 
 States increases yearly; its acres of 
 land do not. They are practically all 
 occupied. Their productiveness has 
 passed its maximum. The time is 
 coming— it is bound to come — when it 
 will be all he can do to feed his neigh- 
 bors, and there will be no surplus to 
 export. I thought eight years ago that 
 we would reach that point before this. 
 I missed it in that expectation, but, as 
 I still believe, only as to the time; not 
 as to the fact. The time may be long 
 yet to an embarrassed debtor, but it 
 will be short in the history of the age. 
 
 I know it is not much comfort to say 
 all this. Men in distress want relief 
 now. And the free silver orator who 
 offers it in his hand, who tells the tarm- 
 ers that nothing is necessary but ten 
 lines of legislation to give them plenty 
 
THE KETUHN OP CONFlUKNCE. 
 
 SS 
 
 Of money to pay their debts Is the man 
 who has the easy part in this cam- 
 paign. Mine is a more thankless taslc. 
 To prick so shining a bubble, to ilaah 
 such alluring hopes, to expose the iftter 
 Impossibility of so inviting a seiieme 
 Is a tluty to bo performed; not a yh-MS- 
 ure to be enjoyed. It is I, not these 
 Don Quixotes who have enlisted to 
 fight England, whoso appeal is truly to 
 your courage, your patriotism, your in- 
 tegrity. The noblest courage is the 
 courage to do right. The truest piitriot- 
 Ism is that which holds alike in i.'stima- 
 tion the Just rights of all. the abiding 
 welfare of all, and the sacred honor of 
 the government. 
 
 THE RETURN OF CONFIDENCE. 
 
 While I have no such glittering prom- 
 ises to offer as those '■ liich are sown 
 broadcast by our free silver friends, I 
 have that which seems to me to be bet- 
 ter. It is the assurance of "tlie return of 
 natural and wholesome business ac- 
 tivity as soon as we know for sure that 
 the faith of the government Is to be 
 kept and the value of our money pre- 
 served. For years the free silver move- 
 ment has been an Impending threat to 
 all business. The relations of parties 
 to it have been such that no decisive 
 settlement of It was possible until now. 
 But now it is with our reach. A defeat 
 of the Chicago ticket that will speak a 
 Judgment of condemnation against the 
 free silver scheme so clear and emphat- 
 ic that It cannot be misunderstood will 
 be a signal of emancipation. I do not 
 say that the conditions will be perfect 
 for the highest development of our re- 
 sources. But the first condition — the 
 condition without which all else is 
 vain— the possession of sound money, 
 will be achieved. Confidence will bs 
 restored. Millions of dollars now lying 
 Idle will seek employment In useful 
 channels. With seventy millions of 
 people within our own borders to be 
 fed, clothed and housed, with the most 
 perfect Industrial and social organiza- 
 tion in the world, with railroads thread- 
 ing every part of the land, with shops 
 built and machinery in place, there is 
 nothing wanting to our reasonable hap- 
 piness and prosperity but that we shall 
 
 go to work cheerfully and hopefully 
 and use the fruits of our labor wLsely 
 and economically. All of that we can 
 do and will do as soon as we get our 
 feet on the solid foundation of restored 
 credit and general contlden*e. In the 
 blessings of this awakened activity ev- 
 ery home and every farm will par- 
 ticipate. By the natural and healthful 
 expansion of trade it will increase con- 
 sumption, enlarge the market and stim- 
 ulate prices wherever they are ab- 
 normally low. That it will at once 
 solve all the diffloullies that face us it 
 would be foolish to pretend. But it will 
 be a step toward that end by the only 
 road that leads to It. 
 
 I feel to the full the force of that 
 pitiful, blind, despairing argument that 
 comes at the end of the silver discus- 
 sion and nearly all other political dis- 
 cussions from thousands of men who 
 know not what else to say that "there's 
 something wrong." Yes, there is some- 
 thing wrong, and a great deal that is 
 wrong. Wo founded this government 
 on-the declaration that all men are 
 born equal and equally entitled to life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of liappiness. 
 But we have not lived up to it. We 
 have let that equality be turned into 
 inequality. We have not seen to it that 
 the law shall secure to every man his 
 equal and just opportunity. We have 
 let the shrewd over-reach the simple 
 and the strong bear down the weak. 
 The land is full to-day of organized 
 bands of men who differ from the 
 brigand bands of old only In their 
 methods of plunder. Millions are ac- 
 cumulated in hands that never earned 
 them. The genius of the Inventor and 
 the skill of the artisan, which have 
 made labor so otKcient that its burdens 
 ought to be abridged and its rewards 
 multiplied, have their first fruits con- 
 fiscated by the sharp and the smart. 
 We passed a law six years ago intend- 
 ed to thwart the rapacity of trusts and 
 combines. It has been effectual only 
 to repress strikes. 
 
 Those who suffer most from these 
 wrongs do not know how to remedy 
 them. They listen to pleasing tales 
 from demagogues who are as unworthy 
 
THE SILVER QUESTION. 
 
 as the plutocrats. They strike blindly 
 at corporations, and employers, and the 
 rich with blows that react on them- 
 selves. The great parties that hold in 
 their hands the power and have in 
 theii: ranlis the men wlio could doll 
 with these questions do nothing. We 
 are all guilty and our punishment will 
 come as surely as justice lives. 
 
 This very free silver movement is one 
 of o'.ir warnings. It has behind it many 
 forces. Some of them rest on mere 
 selfish greed which time will expose 
 and which we can afford to despise. 
 Some of them rest on innocent delu- 
 sions which we can regard with com- 
 passion and without grave apprehen- 
 sion. But under and behind all is the 
 ominous growl of discontent. The so- 
 cialist supports it. Tlie anarchist sup- 
 ports it. It seems to all the unreason- 
 ing, sullen, dissatisfied elements of 
 society to furnish an opportunity to 
 fitrilie a blow at the rioli and the pros- 
 perous. And we' shall be altogether 
 wanting in the dischai'ge of our duties 
 If we are content merely to put down 
 what some are pleased to call the "free 
 silver craze." The country must be 
 
 rescued from its imniincnt danger. Th«;| 
 honor of its government must be vin 
 dicated, and the purity of its life blood-j, 
 the money of its business, must be pre| 
 served. Tliat is our first duty. Bufj 
 next will come the duty to give oui] 
 thoughts and our energies as wo liavij 
 never given them before, to tlie greatci;] 
 work of bringing our laws and oui- in-j 
 stitutions up to the level of our profesj 
 siona, and under and by means of then" 
 securing to the simple and the wealj 
 and the poor that protection against the 
 oppressions of the crafty and tlie strond 
 which will alone give every man equal 
 opportunity, according to the gifts with 
 which his Maker has endowed him, td 
 enjoy Ills equal right to life, liberty and 
 the pui-suit of happiness. I hope and 1' 
 believe that this deep lesson of thie; 
 campaign of 1896 will not be lost on us 
 If it shall be so then we shall have an- 
 other illustration following many in 
 tlie world of the wonderful ways iBJ 
 whicli the wrath of man is made tcj 
 pral:ie God. Bryan, and Altgeld, and] 
 Tillman will have served their day and 
 generation well, though not as they in-; 
 tended. 
 

 ■''^^M l^M 
 
 liSSS 
 
 '■^^- -'--^'S.