45th Congress, 2nd Session
Birchard Hayes, President by vote-fraud
Almon Wheeler, vice-president
John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury

Coinage of Silver Dollars.

Mr. Allison.  I insist on the regular order now, whatever it is.

The Vice-President.  The regular order is the unfinished business, which is the bill (H.R. No. 1093) to authorize the free coinage of the standard silver dollar and to restore its legal-tender value, upon which the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Merrimon] is entitled to the floor.

Mr. Sargent obtained the floor.

Mr. Sargent.  [Aaron Augustus Sargent, San Francisco California, R.; studied law, admitted to the bar, wrote the 1861 Pacific Railroad Act, voted for greenbacks & national currency banks, "Senator for the Southern Pacific Railroad"]
Mr. President, recently I received the following telegraphic dispatch from San Francisco:

San Francisco, February 9, 1878.

To the members of California delegation in Congress, Washington, D.C.:

Chamber of Commerce,
San Francisco, February 9, 1878.

At a meeting held on 6th instant the following preamble and resolutions were adopted:

"Whereas the question of the remonetization of silver, which is now occupying the attention of Congress, is exerting a vast influence upon the credit of our Government at home and abroad;  and

"Whereas the solution of it is destined to have a serious influence upon the prosperity of the entire country;  and

"Whereas the production of silver is one of the leading industries of this coast, and any measures tending to affect its demand or value cannot be regarded with indifference by our people;  and

"Whereas through all the fluctuations and changes in the currency of the country we have rigidly adhered to a solid coin basis and proved beyond question the soundness of that policy, we now look with alarm and disfavor upon any measure likely to disturb this sound system, and we believe any attempt to give a false and fictitious value to a coin by a stamp of the Government is unworthy of a great and wealthy nation, and will inevitably result in most serious consequences to the whole country;  and

"Whereas the gradual recuperative energies of the country and the act of Congress fixing resumption on the 1st of January, 1879, are rapidly bringing the currencies of the country to an equilibrium, we should regard as a great evil any attempt to postpone the consummation of that act:  Therefore,

"Resolved, first.  That we view with alarm the proposed passage of the Bland silver bill, remonetizing the silver dollar of 412½ grains, with unlimited tender clause, as a severe blow at the private and national faith and at the best interests of the country.

"Second.  That we view the proposed repeal of the resumption act as ill-advised and in the highest degree disastrous to the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests of the whole country, a fatal step backward in our prosperity at home and financial credit abroad.

"Third.  That this chamber is opposed to any congressional action that will increase the legal-tender quality of silver coin or that will authorize its use other than as subsidiary coin.

"Resolved, That the secretary be ordered to telegraph the foregoing resolutions to our delegation and request them to use every effort in opposing the Bland silver bill."

James Patrick, president.
Henry Mel, Secretary."

I believe this dispatch expresses the general sentiment of the business men of the Pacific States, and further that it is dictated by sound sense and a due regard to national prosperity and public honor.

Bad Morals and Bad Policy.

I have no wish to defer the vote on this bill or to go over the ground so well covered by Senators who have opposed this bill.  No Senator's vote can be changed by further discussion.  I do not believe that any vote has been changed by all that has been said in several weeks past.  Our minds are made up, and, except in explanation of votes, words are useless.  I only hope that the majority of the Senate wbo draw such happy auguries from the passage of this bill may not be bitterly disappointed;  but I have no faith in such result.  To my mind we are taking a fatal step backward, deranging the business of the country, robbing labor of its legitimate wages, the public creditor of his due, receding from real specie payments, banishing gold from the country, and debasing the coinage, all for fanciful fruits that will turn to ashes on the lips.  I believe that this bill embodies both bad morals and bad policy.  I represent in part a State which has a right to require of its representatives a scrupulous regard to national honor.  In 1856 the supreme court of California decided that a State debt of California of $4,000,000 was unconstitutional.  That debt had been improvidently incurred and the State had little or nothing to show for it.  The Legislature submitted the question to the people of the State whether or not the debt should be paid, and the people at a popular election decided that it should be paid, principal and interest, to the last dollar.  Representing such a people I cannot consent to scale down the public debt or give a doubtful vote that may tend in that direction.

Silver not Demonetized for Government Creditor.

I deny that silver was demonetized to favor the Government creditor.  At the date of demonetizing, the dollar of 412½ grains was worth more than the gold dollar, and the apparent effect of demonetization, so far as any man could then foresee, was to compel the creditor to take his pay in the cheaper of the two metals.  Now that silver has so fallen by the vast production of silver and its demonetization elsewhere, to remonetize it at a value less than the gold dollar, and pay the public creditor in it, savors of indecency.  The Government, and not the creditor, Congress, and not the bondholder, passes laws here and is responsible for the demonetization of silver.  It seems to me that we seek to take advantage of our own wrong, if any wrong was done by demonetizing silver.  One wrong done by us is the excuse for doing another, and the public creditor is to suffer in any event.  This is not sound national morality, and it is not wholesome for a government to have its good faith and honor in the keeping of contracts even discussed.  In that regard it should be above suspicion.

True National Faith.

England made a contract guaranteeing to parties who were to lay a submarine cable at the Suez Canal 4 per cent. on their investment, to commence when the first message was sent through the cable.  The cable was laid and several messages were sent through it, when it ceased to transmit them and became useless.  When the question arose in Parliament as to the payment of the subsidy, it was objected that as the cable did not continue to work the obligation of the government was canceled.  Gladstone declared in debate that Great Britain could not afford to have the question discussed whether it kept its contracts, and the subsidy was unanimously voted.  Such should be our national honor;  and any pecuniary benefit gained by saving per cent. of the debt by paying in a debased coin does not compensate for the disgrace that attaches to the act.

In a national point of view we lose by this scaling of the debt more than we gain by it pecuniarily.  We were rapidly refunding our debt from 6 into 4 per cent. bonds, saving millions thereby annually.  The funding has virtually been stopped by the action of Congress, and will never be resumed with such action by Congress.

Demonetization was not a Legislative Trick.

The advocates of this species of remonetization have lashed themselves into fury over the assertion that the silver dollar was unfairly and surreptitiously demonetized;  that a legislative trick was played in the interest of the Government creditor;  that the bill was hastily pushed through Congress without reading in the House of Representatives, and under a suspension of the rules.  It is true the bill was finally passed under a suspension of the rules, as was the silver resolution the other day, and as the promoters of this bill sought to pass it.  Such process is not unusual or improper.  But the bill was previously lengthily discussed, and although a substitute was finally adopted, that substitute was a copy of the original bill in every particular to which objection is taken.  Furthermore, the Record shows plainly that the substitute was read at length by order of the House, and part of it, by request, read twice, immediately preceding the final vote.  That it was explained in the House as omitting ex industria to authorize the further coinage of the silver dollar, and for the reason that the greater value of silver than gold made it unprofitable to coin it, is shown by a speech of Hon. Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, who cannot be accused by the promoters of this legislation of sinister motives, for he stands in the very forefront of their ranks.  In the debate in the House, January [sic, April] 9, 1872, Mr. Kelley said:

I wish to ask the gentleman who has just spoken [Mr. Potter] if he knows of any Government in the world which makes its subsidiary coinage of full value ?  The silver coin of England is ten per cent. below the value of gold coin.  And acting under the advice of the experts of this country, and of England and France, Japan has made her silver coinage within the last year twelve per cent. below the value of gold coin, and for this reason:  it is impossible to retain the double standard.  The values of gold and silver continually fluctuate.  You cannot determine this year what will be the relative values of gold and silver next year.  They were fifteen to one a short time ago;  they are, sixteen to one now.

Hence all experience has shown that you must have one standard coin, which shall be a legal tender for all others, and then you may promote your domestic convenience by having a subsidiary coinage of silver, which shall circulate in all parts of your country as legal tender for a limited amount, and be redeemable at its face value by your Government.

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 two half dollars, and that, so long as those provisions remain, you cannot keep silver coin in the country.

I should like to ask if there is any doubt whether it was understood by Mr. Kelley or the House in whose ears this declaration was made that the effect of the bill was to do away with the coinage of the silver dollar ?

Mr. Potter, in his remarks, referred to by Mr. Kelley, had said:

this bill provides for the making of changes in the legal-tender coin of the country, and for substituting as legal-tender coin of only one metal instead as heretofore of two.  I think myself this would be a wise provision, and that legal-tender coins, except subsidiary coin, should be of gold alone;

Certainly here was a clear statement in the presence of the House of the meaning of that bill.  Hon. William L. Stoughton, of Michigan, said:

The silver coins provided for are the dollar of 384 grains troy---

For this was subsequently substituted the trade-dollar, made to be shipped out of the country for the use of China and Japan or of our citizens in dealing with those countries, to furnish a better market for our silver and take the place of the Mexican dollar in its competition with it.

the half dollar, quarter dollar, and dime of the value and weight of one half, one quarter, and one tenth of the dollar respectively;  and they are made a legal tender for all sums not exceeding five dollars at any one payment.  The silver dollar, as now issued, is worth for bullion 3¼ cents more than the gold dollar, and 7¼ cents more than two half dollars.  Having a greater intrinsic than nominal value, it is certain to be withdrawn from circulation whenever we return to specie payment;  and to be used only for manufacture and exportation as bullion.

In further evidence that it was fu1ly understood that the bill discontinued the coinage of the silver dollar of 412½ grains, is the fact that it was originally accompanied by a report from the office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which contained the following explicit statement:

The coinage of the silver-dollar piece, the history of which is here given, is discontinued in the proposed bill.  It is by law the dollar unit and assuming the value of gold to be fifteen and one-half times that of silver, being about the mean ratio for the past six years, is worth in gold a premium of about 3 per cent., (its value being $1.0312,) and intrinsically more than 7 per cent. premium in our other silver coins, its value thus being $1.0742.  The present laws, consequently, authorize both a gold-dollar unit and a silver-dollar unit, differing from each other in intrinsic value.  The present gold-dollar piece is made the dollar unit in the proposed bill, and the silver-dollar piece is discontinued.  If, however, such a coin is authorized, it should be issued only as a commercial dollar, not as a standard unit of account, and of the exact value of the Mexican dollar, which is the favorite for circulation in China and Japan and other Oriental countries.

And that recommendation was followed by Congress.

Wide Publicity Given.

Furthermore, five hundred copies of the bill had previously been printed with this report, with wide margins for notes and comments, and a large number of copies were sent to persons in various parts of the country who had been connected with the Mint or whose suggestions, from their experience in matters to which the bill related, might be regarded as of value.  One of the objects of the proposed measure, the discontinuance of the silver legal-tender dollar, was most explicitly proclaimed at the outset, and the attention and criticism of the public invited and challenged in the most effective manner possible.  Numerous replies were received.  The bill was favorably reported to the House by Mr. Kelley, chairman of the Coinage Committee, on the 9th of January, 1872;  came up for consideration on the 9th of April, [and January 9, and 10.] and was debated at length.  On the 27th of May the bill was again called up by Mr. Hooper, a member of the committee, for the purpose of offering an amendment in the nature of a substitute, and was passed, as amended, by a vote of 110 to 13, the substitute being identical, as I have said, so far as demonetization is concerned, with the bill which was discussed at length.  The bill, after consideration by a conference committee, became a law on the 12th of February, 1873. ---[How smoothly you skipped over the proceedings in the Senate on January 27, 1873.]  Nearly three years elapsed from the introduction of the proposition demonetizing silver till its final passage.  During the whole time every possible means were resorted to to give it publicity and to invite whatever opinion or criticism could aid in coming to a wise and temperate conclusion.  It was during this whole time urged in his reports by the Secretary of the Treasury.  The bill was considered at length by the Finance Committee of the Senate and the Coinage Committee of the House during five different sessions of Congress.  It was repeatedly read in full in both Houses.  It was printed in full, with the amendments, by order of Congress eleven different times, and twice in addition in the reports of the Comptroller of the Currency.  The debates on the bill in the Senate occupy sixty-six columns of the Congressional Globe, and those in the House seventy-eight columns.

Opinions of Experts.

I hold in my hand a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, being Executive Document No. 307 of the Forty-first Congress, second session, communicating a report of John Jay Knox, deputy comptroller of the currency, giving the correspondence of the Department relative to the revision of the mint and coinage laws of the United States, which letter was referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, and ordered to be printed, June 29, 1870.  And in this report, laid upon the table of every member and Senator, as is the practice of Congress, is a full discussion upon this matter, containing among others thirty-nine letters from prominent men all over the country giving their views upon that bill, and many of them expressly discussing the question of the discontinuance of the coinage of the silver dollar of 412½ grains.

The preponderance of opinion was in favor of such discontinuance, because that amount of silver was worth more than the gold dollar, and the silver dollar was out of circulation.  Some of them were in favor of retaining it upon the ground that silver some time might fall and that it was not worth while to strike this unit from the currency.  But, at any rate, and that is the point I am making, the subject was fully and broadly discussed.  Thus, in a letter of Dr. Linderman, laid before Congress at that time, under the head of "discontinuance of the silver dollar," (and I hold here the original print in my hand, and this is a caption in small capitals, calling especial attention to the matter,) he says:

Section 11 reduces the weight of the silver dollar from 412½ to 384 grains.  I can see no good reason for the proposed reduction in the weight or this coin.  It would be better, in my opinion to discontinue its issue altogether.  The gold dollar is really the legal unit and measure of value.  Having a higher value as bullion than its nominal value, the silver dollar long ago ceased to be a coin of circulation;  and being of no practical use whatever, its issue should be discontinued.

On page 38, J.R. Snowden, formerly Director of the Philadelphia Mint, under the head in small caps, as before,"the present silver dollar should not be discontinued," says:

I see that it is proposed to demonetize the silver dollar.  This I think unadvisable.  Silver coins below the dollar are now not money in a proper sense, but only tokens.  I do not like the idea of reducing the silver dollar to that level.  It is quite true that the silver dollar, being more valuable than two half dollars or four quarter dollars, will not be used as a circulating medium, but only for cabinets and perhaps to supply some occasional or local demand;  yet I think there is no necessity for so considerable a piece as the dollar to be struck from metal which is only worth ninety-four cents.  When we speak of dollars let it be known that we speak of dollars not demonetized and reduced below their intrinsic value, and thus avoid the introduction of contradictory and loose ideas of the standards of value.

On page 70 of the report under the head, again in small capitals, "the silver dollar, its discontinuance as a standard," E.B. Elliott, who was applied to and to whom the bill was sent for his suggestions, says:

The bill proposes the discontinuance of the silver dollar, and the report which accompanies the bill suggests the substitution, for the existing standard silver dollar, of a trade coin of intrinsic value equivalent to the .Mexican piaster or dollar.

Now, I will not take up the time of the Senate by reading further from this document.  I have read specimens enough to show that the country was put upon its notice, that those who were supposed to be able to throw the most light upon it were notified with regard to it, and that they did discuss it, and the result of their examination was laid before Congress.

Discussion by the Press.

Furthermore, the matter was fully discussed in the press.  The Bankers' Magazine of New York, which is more universally read by financial men than any other periodical of its class in this country, published the full report of the deputy comptroller of the currency of April 25, 1870, in its number for July, 1870, in which it is twice mentioned that the bill proposed to discontinue the silver dollar;  and the editor of the magazine informed its readers that "copies of the entire report, with tabular returns, will be supplied to subscribers to the Bankers' Magazine without charge."  The same magazine again, in February, 1871, printed extended extracts from the report of the deputy comptroller of the currency of June 25, 1870, containing his correspondence with several gentlemen, in which it is again twice mentioned that the coinage of the silver dollar was to be discontinued by the proposed bill.

Nor is this all.  The Chamber of Commerce of New York City, in June, 1872, ten months before the passage of the coinage act of 1873, after examining and considering the provisions which discontinued the coinage of the silver dollar, recommended, in a resolution transmitted to Congress, that the weight of the silver dollar should be made precisely equal to that of the five-francs silver coin of Europe, in place of the dollar of 384 grains, which was provided for in the bill under discussion in Congress, that is to say in place of the dollar for which was substituted the trade-dollar.

Mr. E.B. Elliott, in his printed letter of June 10, 1870, had previously proposed that a dollar equal to the pillared Spanish-Mexican piaster, containing 25 grammes of pure silver, should be substituted, and that the subsidiary coin should be subdivisions of the French silver coin of five-francs.

The National Board of Trade, which assembled in New York City on the 15th of October, 1872, only six months previous to the passage of the coinage act of 1873, after an examination of the subject concurred unanimously in the recommendation of the Chamber of Commerce.

On the 31st of December, 1872, a paper prepared by Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles, of New York, giving the facts and reasons urged in favor of the amendment proposed by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Board of Trade, was printed for the information of the members of the chamber, and separate copies of this statement were sent to the members of both Houses of Congress.  My authority for this statement is the New York Tribune.

Appeal to the Record.

Never was a measure more fully, intelligently, and exhaustively considered.  Can anything be more incredible than that, in the face of all this, the assertion should be made, and perhaps believed by some, that the bill in question was the result of a conspiracy, was surreptitiously worked through Congress, and that as a consequence it is just to demand a restoration of the status in quo ?  I have shown that one of the principal managers of the demonetization, now eager for this bill, explained his and his committee's reasons for their action, that silver was worth three and a half cents more than gold, and to coin it was to banish it from the country.  In that debate he also said that his committee had taken extraordinary care by studying the bill line by line.  I appeal from the heated declarations of the present, made to inflame popular passions or to excuse an act of questionable faith, to these deliberate and unequivocal declarations, which are part of the res gesta, and to the history of the transaction.

Certainly it cannot be maintained, in view of the fact that silver was thus at that time three and a half cents above gold and so declared in that debate, that the bondholder conspired to demonetize silver lest he should be paid in it, or that it is just to scale down his debt now on the pretense that he sought to magnify it then.  If that legislation had any meaning in reference to him, it was adverse to him, as he who runs may read.

The Government Option.

I desire to say further in this connection that when it is said the Government has the right of option and had that right of option from the start, and retained it under the declaration of 1869 that the debt should be paid in gold or silver coin, by this act of Congress, so deliberately made, so fully discussed and thus arrived at, it exercised that option and declared that gold was the cheaper of the two coins, and it elected to pay the creditor in gold.

Was the Bill Explained ?

Mr. Hereford.  Would it interrupt the Senator from California to ask him a question ?

Mr. Sargent.  No, not at all.

Mr. Hereford.  I desire to ask the Senator from California if upon the 27th day of May, 1872, when the bill passed the House of Representatives, it was discussed at all ?  I will ask the Senator furthermore, if Mr. Hooper, who was chairman of the committee, did not offer a substitute for the bill of the committee, and if it is not a fact that the substitute which was then offered by Mr. Hooper never was printed until after it passed the House of Representatives ?  In other words, I ask if when that substitute was pending before the House of Representatives, it at that moment had been in print, and if on the day that it passed the House of Representatives the question whether it was demonetizing silver or not was in the most remote degree alluded to ?

Mr. Sargent.  My friend sticks in the bark.  It is true, as I have said, that the amendment in the nature of a substitute passed under a suspension of the rules, which excludes further discussion;  there is no doubt of that.  In the same manner, as I said before, the silver resolution which we debated here for weeks passed the other day through the House by a suspension of the rules without a word of debate.  Will it be said hereafter that the House did not understand that resolution ?  Of course they understood it.  It had been discussed in effect weeks before.  When the Bland bill passed the House the principles of the resolution were discussed in effect for several days, and the members had not forgotten their speeches nor the impression created by those speeches when subsequently this resolution, embodying somewhat the same principle, passed under a suspension of the rules.

What I do say is that the substitute which passed was in this particular exactly like the bill which had been discussed and printed a short time before;  that the bill originally presented to Congress, recommended by the Treasury Department, did demonetize silver;  the bill sent out to every part of the country and suggestions asked upon it did demonetize silver;  the bill that was discussed demonetized it;  the substitute which was proposed demonetized it;  and it was distinctly understood by the House, if the speeches of a dozen gentlemen calling their attention to it and the reports laid upon their table with large captions calling their attention to the fact that it did demonetize it could enlighten them.  It was distinctly understood by those who voted for it that such was the effect of the bill.

Mr. Hereford.  If it will not interrupt my friend from California, I will reply to his statement.

The Presiding Officer.  Does the Senator from California yield to the Senator from West Virginia ?

Mr. Sargent.  Oh, certainly.

Mr. Hereford.  Of course I would not interrupt the Senator against his wish.  He says that the original bill was discussed.  I now ask the Senator from California if as a matter of fact when the original bill was up before the House of Representatives, of which we were both members, when Mr. Hooper, who had charge of the bill, was asked to explain the bill section by section, which he did do, he in explaining it section by section, proposing to tell the contents of it, referred to any one section or ever adverted to the fact that any section or any number of sections had the tendency in the most remote degree to demonetize silver ?

Mr. Sargent.  Does the Senator refer to Mr. Hooper himself ?

Mr. Hereford.  Yes, sir.

Mr. Sargent.  I have not read his speech lately, and I do not remember it distinctly, but I think he did.  I have, however, quoted copiously extracts from the speeches of other gentlemen who spoke on that occasion, pointing out the effect of the bill, reciting that it did demonetize silver and giving the reasons why it was policy to do so, particularly of Mr. Kelley, also Mr. Stoughton and Mr. Potter.

Mr. Hereford.  I admit that Mr. Stoughton made a speech on that subject, and that Mr. Kelley did;  but when the gentleman who had charge of the bill, who was chairman of the committee, was asked to explain it section by section, and undertook to do so, taking it up section by section, for instance, saying that section first contained so and so, section 2 contained so and so, and so all the way through the bill in explaining all of those sections he never intimated, (and I charge it knowing it cannot be gainsaid, having recently read the whole of it,) that any section, or the whole bill taken together, attempted to demonetize silver in any respect whatever;  and when the substitute for the bill that was discussed five or six weeks before then, on the day that I referred to--

Mr. Sargent.  The Senator is not making a speech, I trust.

Mr. Hereford.  No, sir.

Mr. Sargent.  Then you are proceeding to make one.

Mr. Hereford.  I say that when the substitute was offered and up to that time it had never been printed and never was in print until after it passed the House of Representatives.

Mr. Sargent.  Now, Mr. President, the only reply I have to make to my friend is this, and I challenge him to an examination of the record.  Of course I must speak from recollection, for I have not read Mr. Hooper's speech for several years.  I say to him that he will find in the speech of Mr. Hooper explaining the bill the statement that the bill did drop the silver dollar of 412½ grains from circulation, giving the same reasons therefor that Messrs.  Kelley and Stoughton did.

Mr. Hereford.  I beg your pardon.

Mr. Sargent.  Yes, sir.

Mr. Hereford.  He never intimated it.

Mr. Sargent.  He said that the gold dollar was made the unit by the bill, and that the silver dollar was excluded for the future, and he gave as a reason that the silver dollar was worth more than the gold one and could not circulate with gold coin.  If he did not state it, if I am in error in my recollection, and I feel sure I am not, for the matter comes back to me since the Senator referred to it, I have piled here proof mountain-high that if my honorable friend, then a member of the House, did not understand it he should have understood it.  I should have understood it, and every other member of the House, for there were the documents before us.  It was a matter that excited great interest in the press, and the speeches made in the House over and over again proclaimed this feature and justified it.*

footnote in the Record
* Mr. Hooper, in explaining the bill section by section, used the following language:

The silver dollar, which by law is now the legally declared unit of value, does not bear a correct relative proportion to the gold dollar.  Being worth intrinsically about one dollar and three cents in gold, it cannot circulate concurrently with the gold coins.

The committee, after careful consideration, concluded that twenty-five and eight tenths grains of standard gold constituting the gold dollar should be declared the money unit or metallic representative of the dollar of account.

Section sixteen reënacts the provisions of existing laws defining the silver coins and their weights respectively, except in relation 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 denomination, to secure its concurrent circulation with them.  The silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and a half grains, by reason of its bullion or intrinsic value being greater than its nominal value, long since ceased to be a coin of circulation, and is melted by manufacturers of silverware.  It does not circulate now in commercial transactions with any country, and the convenience of those manufacturers in this respect can better be met by supplying small stamped bars of the same standard, avoiding the useless expense of coining the dollar for that purpose.

Was the Government Creditor Responsible ?

Admit all that is said about it;  admit that the demonetization of silver at that time was done even in the manner that is here indicated, through the ignorance or inattention of Congress, let me ask how it shows that now we are justified in taking some steps admitted to be a hardship upon the bondholder by that fact.  Will it be asserted logically that they were conspiring to prevent themselves being paid in a coin that was worth three or four cents on the dollar more than the gold dollar ?  Can that be said ?  If not, I ask where is the logic or reason in thus arraigning the bondholder when he received a disadvantage from that legislation so far as any man could see ?  That has not been answered on this floor and it cannot be answered, and for that reason I say my friend sticks in the bark.  He does not get to the merits of the controversy.

But the public creditor is not merely the bondholder.  By paying your pensioners in depreciated silver you reduce their pittance by the amount of the discount.  The bonds themselves are the basis of the credit of our savings-banks, which aggregate the little savings of the poor.  Every laborer in the employ of the Government will feel the effect of your legislation in reduced remuneration.  Labor everywhere throughout the country will be underpaid just so much as this debased dollar is worth less than an honest dollar.

I have listened here to tirades against the bondholder as if to be a Government creditor is to be a criminal, and to arguments the effect of which was to show that it served him right to pay him in this inferior coin;  and Senators have seemed to promote this legislation because the creditors of Connecticut and New York would get from the West a coin of less value in payment of debts than the gold dollar or the greenback.  Do Senators reflect that if they are correct in this, labor also is to be paid for its daily honest toil in that same inferior coin, and the advantage is given to capital of 10 per cent. reduction of labor ?  If you are not deceived in your anticipations of gaining an advantage over the public creditor and eastern creditors how is the laborer to shield himself from the effect of your legislation ?  Yet this seems to be the animus of the whole movement, to get cheaper, less valuable money, that these creditors must take;  and we are told that if this is not done the people are to be transformed into raging communists.  On what people is reliance placed to work these dire results ?  Is it on the laborers who are to be pinched down in their wages, or the small farmer who must exchange his products for poorer money, or the artisan whose skills to be paid for in this money invented for hated creditors ?  However much they may be deceived now, they will be the first and the last to suffer the effects of this clipped coin designed by this bill.

It is cruel to allow the people to be deceived on this matter.  It is unstatesmanlike and unpatriotic to follow their lead if it will be to their injury.  Better that these Halls be emptied of their occupants than that were done.  I doubt not that there is a strong sentiment in the country for the passage of this bill, and I doubt as little that it will work serious harm to those who ask us for it, at least to the industrial classes, who constitute eighteen-twentieths of the people of the country.  Thus by this legislation you take away from the laboring classes of the country a greenback currency that is now worth at least ninety-eight cents in gold and replace it with what is at least worth 5 per cent. less, and thereby rob them of 5 per cent. of their scanty possessions.  No Government stamp, no human device, can ever prevent debased money from falling to its true value as compared with other commodities.  The silver dollar of 412½ grains may still be called a dollar, but the debasement not apparent on its face will betray itself in the increased price of every commodity which the poor man's family consumes.  The error of the silver advocates most insisted on is that the depreciation of silver is caused by American demonetization and that our recoinage would restore its value.  Those causes are manifold.  The vast yield of the Nevada, Arizona, and other mines, the demonetization by Germany, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and Japan, and the closing of the mints of the Latin monetary union against the coinage of silver are the efficient causes.  Mrs. Partington facing the ocean with a broom would aptly illustrate Columbia combating the world's action by opposing an official declaration that silver shall not be depreciated.

Strange Inconsistency.

The advocates of this bill are strangely inconsistent with each other.  Entirely inconsistent with the anticipations of cheap and less valuable money, to be foisted on the creditors of the country, is the assumption made in this debate that putting the Government dollar mark on 412½ grains of silver will make that amount of metal worth a gold dollar.  If it were certain that such would be the effect, the most of the advocates of this bill would not want it passed;  for they clamor for cheap money, not money as dear as gold.  Who among the supporters of this bill are being deceived ?  Those who hold one of these propositions or those who hold the other.  They cannot in reason stand together.  I believe, as I have said, that the effect of the bill will be to stamp less silver than makes an honest dollar as a dollar, and that the stamp will not appreciably increase its value;  and those who see in this bill a mode of reducing debts are correct in their anticipations.  Unfortunately by the same act honest labor is the greatest sufferer.

The Example of France.

Over and over in this debate the example of France has been held out to us as carrying an immense silver currency without depreciation, and it has been triumphantly asked, "If France can maintain a silver piece at the rate of 15½ why cannot we at a rate of 16 to 1 of gold ?"  The argument would be good if the fact were as assumed.  In fact it is otherwise, and silver in France is at a considerable discount compared with gold.

The London Economist of January 19, 1878, as a matter of news, states that the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce complains in a letter to the Bank of France, which is published in the Economiste Français, "that while the convenient one-hundred-franc notes have been almost completely suppressed, the country has been flooded with five-franc pieces in silver, which, though undoubtedly of great use in retail transactions" --I quote their language-- "are not suitable to payments of any magnitude."  The bank is strongly entreated to continue its notes in circulation, or, if these are to be withdrawn, to issue gold and not silver in their place.  The chamber ask "if the Bank of France succeeds in substituting silver for £20,000,000 of notes, which is not called for by the public needs, if there is not danger that from that factitious cause there will result an excessive fall in the value of the metal similar to that which has been occasioned during recent years by the demonetization of silver in Germany.  Is it not to be feared (they say) that this new depreciation of silver will augment the difficulties which are necessarily involved in the maintenance of our bimetallic standard ?"  These men see in the inordinate issue of silver the same troubles that we anticipate, and speak from present experience when we reason from analogies.  They also dispose of the idea that government coinage or stamp will avert depreciation of silver and destroy the value of France as an admirable illustration of the beneficial effects of silver inflation.

Effect on the Protection of American Industry.

One effect of the passage of this bill will be a reduction of the tariff 10 per cent.  If all obligations of the Government are to be paid in silver, this will not relatively reduce, it may increase, the revenue by inducing larger importations of foreign goods.  But I have observed during this session petitions from workingmen all over the country, in view of the movements for tariff revision, praying that there may be no reduction, because it will discourage American industry and transfer the business of our manufacturers, our woolgrowers, our iron furnaces, &c., to foreign soil.  I noticed such petitions presented by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McCreery] the other day.  Pennsylvania has sent a great many.  Large meetings on the subject have been held in that State.

On Saturday last a grand tariff demonstration was held in Pittsburgh.  It was a meeting irrespective of parties, as the local papers declare, and showed deep feeling upon this question of vital interest alike to the workingman and millionaire.  Fully fifteen thousand men walked in the procession along the streets, which were lined with numberless spectators.  The Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette says of it:

In point of numbers the demonstration was simply immense;  in respect to spirit and enthusiasm it was intense;  in character, as influential as it was imposing;  and as a representative assemblage it fittingly spoke for the brain and the brawn of every profession, trade, and business.

The preface to the resolutions adopted at this immense gathering designates the localities from which it had assembled.  It declares that they are "the agriculturists, merchants, manufacturers, and workmen of Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, West Virginia" --I wish my friend would attend;  these are his own constituents-- "and Maryland, in mass convention assembled, representing all shades of political opinion."  The resolutions of this great assemblage were unanimously adopted;  among others the following:

Resolved, That reiterating our abiding faith in protection and its beneficial effect to the whole country we protest against any departure from its principles in the framing of our tariff laws.

Resolved, That we deem it unwise, inexpedient and hostile to the best interests of the country to make radical changes in a law which an experience of sixteen years has shown to be highly advantageous to the welfare of the nation and the largest factor in the development of our resources.

Resolved, That a due sense of patriotism, a proper regard for the development of the resources of our country, and a becoming attention on the part of the Government to the welfare of all its citizens, require that the paramount object to be kept in view in all tariff legislation is the protection of the people and their concerns rather than any concessions to foreign solicitations or interest.

Resolved, That upon this question the interests of employer and employe, of labor and capital, are identical

Resolved, That the proposed revision of the tariff must result in the curtailment of the quantity and variety of our products, and in imposing burdens thereon which cannot but bear heavily upon the class of men who by their skill and labor contribute to the production of these varied articles, and that it is neither wise nor humane to take such a step as shall result either in the enforced idleness of thousands of laboring-men, or in the necessity of such wages as shall afford only the most meager subsistence to their families.

These men evidently earnestly believe, and I believe it with them, that there is danger to our industrial interest by a reduction of the tariff proposed under the name of revision.  They believe that American labor is menaced by advantages that will be given to foreign competition.  They plead for adequate wages, for the dignity and comfort of American labor, and deprecate its reduction to the condition of the foreign laborer.  As one of their speakers said:  A people chained to the wheel of toil for such scanty recompense as starves body and mind, can never reach that plane of culture and enjoyment upon which it is the right of all God's creatures to stand, and up to which every sentiment of patriotism bids the American legislator to help.

I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but such appeals reach my feelings, while my judgment approves the soundness of the conclusions to which they arrive, that a reduction of the tariff at the present moment, when the country is just emerging from the greatest depression known to our history, is a serious obstacle thrown in the way of returning prosperity.

I repeat that the effect of this legislation will be, just as soon as the mints can supply the silver coin to replace gold in payment of duties, a horizontal reduction of the tariff on all dutiable goods --about 10 per cent.  Yet the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Wallace,] in whose State this great demonstration was held, and the Senators from West Virginia and Ohio, whose constituents assembled there, argue elaborately for this bill which, so far as the tariff is concerned, could just as well read, "All duties levied on manufactured articles shall hereafter be reduced 10 per cent."  I know this argument will recommend the bill to the advocates of free trade, to those who hate the American system of incidental protection of our industry.  But to those who desire to have our manufactures flourish, our labor, skilled and unskilled, employed, this bill making a 10 per cent. undervalued dollar receivable in place of a gold dollar for customs should be an abomination.  I call attention of Senators and their constituents who are opposed to an assault on American industry by an indiscriminate, horizontal reduction of the tariff to the necessary effect of this measure.  If they deny this effect let them answer the arguments of the friends of the bill who argue in favor of it on the ground that it will furnish a poorer kind of money, good enough for creditors.  The poorer the money paid in duties the less the duty.  Let those whose constituents are interested in pig-iron satisfy them that it is right to discriminate against pig-iron in favor of pig-silver.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  If it is disagreeable to the Senator, I will not interrupt him.

Mr. Sargent.  Not at all.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  The Senator has referred, among others, to some of the constituents of my colleague and myself in West Virginia, and he has spoken of a meeting lately assembled in Pittsburgh.  I would ask the Senator whether that meeting had one word to say about the dollar in any form or manner ?  On the contrary, I would ask the Senator if it has not been shown here that the dollar of 412½ grains was worth more than the dollar in gold at the time it was demonetized in 1873 ?

Mr. Sargent.  I cannot remember too many questions at a time.  Let us have them one at a time.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  There are at least twenty questions I could put that the Senator should answer in connection with the debate now.

Mr. Sargent.  If the Senator will reduce his questions to writing at his desk and hand them to me, I will answer every one;  but of the two he has already put, I have already answered certainly the second.  The first one is whether that meeting said anything about the silver dollar.  They showed an entire lack of interest in this legislation by not asking for it.  If the workingmen are for it, why did they not ask for it ?  I have said that it is cruel to deceive the people as to the effect of this legislation.  One effect, it cannot be denied, is to reduce the tariff, because, instead of paying gold, a high-priced money, for duties, importers can pay in a money which can be obtained 10 per cent. less;  the necessary effect of which is to reduce the barrier against foreign competition 10 per cent.

Mr. Withers.  That is on the assumption that silver will remain depreciated.

Mr. Sargent.  I think it will remain depreciated at least 10 per cent.  I carefully expressed my meaning by saying that as soon as the mints are able to supply the silver to take the place of gold, this effect will be produced, and it will continue.  The subject started by the second question of the Senator from West Virginia is that the demonetization of silver in this country had been the efficient cause of the reduction in the value of silver.  Now, before it was demonetized, and as a reason for its demonetization, it was worth 3½ per cent. more than gold;  but the causes which led to its fall were the fact that nearly the whole world ceased using it as money, and simultaneously with that there came out from the mines of this country vast volumes of silver, working a depreciation.  But if our remonetization will produce the effect of rehabilitating silver, let the Senator answer the argument of the Economiste Français, which I have already cited in my remarks, wherein it deprecates the further issuance of silver on the ground that it is being depreciated by overissue, although there is the government stamp and the government coinage to operate to keep it from depreciation.  Can our stamp have such a virtue ?  Is there something that is so much more effective in the American eagle that if put upon the coin it will keep it up, when the insignia of France being upon it it nevertheless sinks ?

Besides, what becomes of the argument of certain friends of this bill, that an inferior money is good enough for creditors, and a cheaper, less valuable money must be had, and will be furnished by this bill ?  Do not let us forget the considerations so recently urged and combated.  Which horn of the dilemma shall we avoid ?  Will the bill produce money as good as gold as the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Withers] thinks, or the cheap, depreciated money to be paid to the Connecticut creditors of Indiana, as the Senators from Indiana think ?  Let the friends of the bill choose, but let them inform us of their choice.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  Now shall I interfere with the Senator if I say a word ?

Mr. Sargent.  I should like to conclude my remarks;  but I will yield to a question.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  The poor man appears to have found friends here.  I have not heard of, and I venture to say there has not been, a single poor man in all this broad land who has entered a protest against the remonetization of silver.  I do not know of a single man.  A single such petition has not been presented here, although almost every speaker and my friend just now has talked about the poor man and referred to West Virginia.  The truth is, so far as my knowledge goes, that nine out of every ten poor men certainly, perhaps every one of them, is in favor of the measure, and the opposition comes from the opposite class, but I have nothing to say about those who own money.

But I will now ask my friend a question;  I offer an apology for having made a sort of argument.  I should like my friend from California to answer this:  he says the stamp makes no difference in the coin;  how is it that two half dollars containing 385.8 grains are worth to-day in the market between ninety-five and ninety-six cents, when 412½ grains or nearly 20 grains more in silver are worth less ?  How is it now that the smaller amount of silver coin is worth much more than the larger amount in the form of bullion ?

Subsidiary Coinage.

Mr. Sargent.  For one very simple reason that the half dollar is coined on Government account solely;  it is not as proposed by this bill that anybody can take silver to the Mint to be so coined;  and, furthermore, for the reason that it is only exchanged for greenbacks, and it must approximate somewhere near the value of greenbacks.  That is one reason.  But when you start a mill which will enable anybody who has an old tea-pot to go and coin it, and he is not compelled to give an honest gold dollar or an honest greenback for his dollar, what will be the depreciation ?  That is an argument which appeals to the Senator's own common sense.  Again, subsidiary coin is used only for change, and its convenience gives it circulation over and above its intrinsic value, as five-cent nickel which is intrinsically worth scarcely anything readily passes at its face value.  As to those who have petitioned for this bill---

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  The Senator from California knows that the amendment of the Senate committee does not propose free coinage.

Mr. Sargent.  I am talking of the bill before us.  I admit that the free-coinage clause stricken out would remove some of the objections to the bill.  Make it an honest dollar, considering the present relative value of gold and silver, that is: make the dollar which you now stamp as a dollar equivalent in value to the gold dollar, and I will not object to the bill at all, except that it aims at an impossible double standard.  You may remove some of the difficulties by paring down the House bill.  You can remove them all by an honest remonetization of silver, except those that will arise in future if the metals draw apart, either by the discovery or failure of mines, or by the varying financial action of the commercial world.

Mr. Saulsbury.  Will the Senator yield to me ?

Mr. Sargent.  For a question, not for a speech.

Mr. Saulsbury.  Does not the Senator predicate his whole opposition to this bill on the present relative value of gold and silver ?

Mr. Sargent.  Not the whole.

Mr. Saulsbury.  The whole that I have heard.  I ask whether he considers, in view of the history of the two metals in all the past, that it is a fair assumption that the present relative value of the two metals will continue in all future time ?

Bimetallic Standard Impossible.

Mr. Sargent.  I do not think it is a fair assumption;  and one reason why I think there should be a single standard, and that a gold one, is that it is impossible to maintain a bimetallic currency.  I think that impossible.  I think the history of the world shows it.  I notice that writers in France, speaking of the present condition of their affairs, say that they find it difficult, almost impossible, to maintain it, and they deprecate the withdrawal of the one-hundred-franc notes and the substitution therefor of silver, because it will make the task still more Herculean.

But, in reply to my friend from West Virginia, I say that he would obviate the principal objection to this bill in my mind by making an honest dollar.  Let us start that, and then if by subsequent changes in the value of the metal it is found that to keep an honest dollar we must make another change in the coinage, then let us make that other change.

What is an Honest Dollar ?

Mr. Merrimon.  What is an honest dollar ?

Mr. Sargent.  In my judgment an honest dollar is that which contains silver enough to come up to the standard of the gold dollar recognized by law.

Mr. Merrimon.  Will you allow nothing for coinage and nothing for legal tender ?

Mr. Sargent.  I would not allow anything for either coinage or legal tender, for I believe the stamp put upon it is simply an indication to the public, supposed to be reliable because made by the Government which ought not to deceive, of the amount of metal which is contained in the piece of money;  and this is true of all coins, except those little tokens or nickels which perhaps have very little intrinsic value, and silver change.

Mr. Merrimon.  Then I understand the Senator to say, putting it in another way, that coinage adds no value to the metal and that the legal-tender capacity adds no value to the metal.

Mr. Sargent.  I say that it affects it so little that it is not worthy of consideration in fixing the contents of the dollar.  This is illustrated by the fact that the moment the silver dollar got above the value of the gold dollar it went to the melting-pot or abroad.

Mr. Merrimon.  How do you account for the value of the Mexican dollar ?

Mr. Sargent.  By its intrinsic value.  When it is taken to China, the Chinaman assays it and weighs it in his scales;  the stamp is of no account to him except as a certificate of weight and fineness.  He has found by long experience that the Mexican dollar is honestly coined and that it contains so many grains of metal, and he therefore, as a rule, goes by the stamp.  Convince him that the stamp is erroneous and he will throw it out;  he would have no further confidence in it.  It is because that stamp represents to him correctly the intrinsic value of the coin, which he tests from time to time with the scales and by assaying.  One difficulty we had in introducing the trade-dollar as a substitute for the Mexican dollar was to get the Chinamen to have confidence in our stamp, not that it had on it an American eagle or "In God we trust," for they do not trust in Him, but that when those inscriptions were upon it, it meant that it had as many grains of silver as it purported to have.

Mr. Merrimon.  But the trade-dollar is worth more than the pure silver.

Mr. Sargent.  No, sir;  not to those who use it.  It is not worth the fiftieth part of a grain to the Chinaman for the stamp on it.

Mr. Merrimon.  Then why coin it ?

Mr. Sargent.  Because we have induced their confidence that a certain piece of metal of a certain shape and with a certain stamp, contains a certain amount of metal intrinsically, and because if it were a rude block, unstamped, they would put it through their processes in order to arrive at the value of each particular piece, whereas they take the stamp as honestly indicating the amount of it, and it facilitates trade with them.  It is a certificate of the intrinsic value of the coin, which they accept because experience has shown that it is an honest certificate.

Mr. Merrimon.  The Mexican dollar is worth 99.8 cents in gold.  Here is a statement from the Treasury Department to that effect.  Now we know that the pure silver in the Mexican dollar is not worth that much.

Mr. Allison.  There is one matter in connection with the Mexican dollar which perhaps ought to be stated.  The Mexican dollar contains a small particle of gold.  In addition to the silver contained in the coin, their coinage of silver contains a small portion of gold.  It is a ruder coinage than ours, and for that reason it is more valuable for the number of grains contained in a dollar than the American dollar of 420 grams, containing as it does a small per cent. of gold, which their processes do not fully extract.

Mr. Merrimon.  Mr. President---

Mr. Sargent.  Now, Mr. President, with the consent of my friends, I will resume the thread of my argument.

Mr. Merrimon.  Very well.

Bill will Banish Gold.

Mr. Sargent.  I object to this bill because it will banish gold from the country.  The national Government will have no further use for it to pay the principal or interest of the debt, and will collect none at the custom-houses.  Merchants will not need it to pay duties.  It will be without employment, and will go abroad where it can find employment.

A piece of gold coin will not be found in use in any part of the country even in the Pacific States, unless it is held by our specific contract act, after this bill is in full operation.  The law is immutable that the poorer currency drives out the better.  The necessity for coin for dues at the custom-houses, and by the Government to pay interest on the debt, has prevented our being stripped wholly of it when our greenback currency was depreciated.  But these safeguards are removed by this legislation, and we are about committing the stupendous folly of deliberately expelling from the country its whole stock of gold coin.  Who is to be the gainer by this insane act ?  Neither the Government, nor the people of the United States.  Germany and England and France may gain by such transfer, but we are fearfully the losers.  It is easy by such a bill as this to expel gold;  but by no bill that can be devised can it be called back again.  A blow will have soon struck at our prosperity, useless in every aspect, that it will take two generations of patient labor, economy, and self-denying legislation to recover from.

Three evils, namely: the arrest of the funding of the debt at a lower interest, the withdrawal of protection to American industry by indirect reduction of the tariff, and banishing gold from the country, all three directly attending this legislation, may be averted by a simple amendment providing that the silver hereby authorized to be coined shall be a legal tender for all debts, public and private, except for customs and interest on the public debt.  If all that is desired is cheap money for the people, that will be the most effectual way to get it, and that object will be fully accomplished without an assault on the Government credit and on American industry, except so far as the latter is injured by being paid for honest labor in clipped coin.  All evils of any kind from this legislation, except those arising from bimetallism, may be avoided by remonetizing silver through a dollar of adequate intrinsic value.

The objection is not to silver;  it is that the majority would recur to an old coin which was worth as much or more than gold when it formerly was issued, but by changes in the relative values of these metals is now worth much less.  This old coin would be a solecism.  Its antiquity is its only recommendation.  Not one of you, Senators, if that dollar had not existed years ago, if called upon to fix the amount of silver in a dollar, would set it at 412½ grains.  You would put it at much more, and ascertain how much to put in a dollar by a comparison of gold and silver in the market.  The fall of silver has made the old quantity inadequate, and ordinary business sagacity requires us to legislate accordingly.  Such legislation cannot be had, as I have said, because the greater number of the friends of this bill want a debased coin to pay public and private creditors.

Who are to be benefited by this legislation ?  Not the Government, even in its power to pay its debts in depreciated silver coin, for by this bill the silver bullionist makes all the profit between the crude bullion and the coined dollar.  The Government takes his raw material, manufactures it into dollars for him free of cost, and requires him to furnish less metal than is necessary to make the dollar worth par.  If the stamp of the Government enhances the price of crude bullion, as Senators insist, so that the inadequate piece of bullion becomes a dollar by virtue of the stamp, while without it it is worth but ninety-two cents, why give this enormous profit to the silver producer, and without even charging the cost of the stamp ?  Why should not the Government buy this ninety-two cents' worth of bullion and put the magic stamp on it and realize the enhanced value ?  Does it not look like inconsiderate action to put the Government, thus bound and blinded, to grind the mill of the speculator in silver ?

It would be difficult to show where any benefit can be derived by any class of the people except the class of silver speculators who are especially pushing this bill.  It is admitted in debate here, by those in favor of the bill, that there is money enough in the country;  and there is.  But that money does not readily go out to start new wheels of industry because confidence is lacking in the stability and good faith of our financial legislation.  In one Congress repudiation is advocated, but is sternly met by a public declaration that the debt is payable in coin.  Next came a more concerted movement for unlimited inflation of the greenback currency, which is only arrested by a presidential veto.  Now comes this bill for the stamping of a debased dollar, and it is doubtful if even a veto will prevent its disastrous passage.

Under this bill for remonetizing silver can be seen peeping out the snake's eyes of greenback inflation.  The congressional league calls itself the Silver and Greenback League.  The prominent advocates of this legislation all over the country were and are yet the devotees of inflation.  Senators who firmly resisted that demoralization, are carried off their feet by this one.  I warn them that they will next be again confronted with greenback inflation, pure and simple, and they must yield to it, or, resisting, forfeit the cheap popularity now gained by this concession to unsound finance.  Under such circumstances of continual assault upon the public credit and opposition to a return to a specie basis --the normal condition of business-- how can it be expected that confidence will exist ?  Old enterprises falter, and new ones are rejected, because business men are discouraged and uncertain of the future.  No, sir;  it is not for want of money that the business of the country stands still, that laborers suffer, that farmers and manufacturers have poor markets.  It is for want of confidence, and this bill kills confidence.

Mr. President, before I conclude I wish to make one remark with reference to the statement of the Senator from West Virginia, which I had momentarily forgotten, that no poor man has petitioned against the passage of this bill.  I say to him that I know that is not correct;  that we have had petitions from various States, signed by poor men and speaking for poor men, deprecating the effect upon their wages of legislation like this.  But whether they themselves understand this question as statesmen should, or not, it is our duty to see that we protect their interests, and if the effect is of throwing out a depreciated dollar in which they shall be paid their little savings which they have hoarded up in the savings-banks;  of reducing the amount proportionably of the interest which shall be paid to them by savings-banks on account of the lesser amount paid to those savings-banks holding the bonds of the Government;  if this causes a reduction of the tariff by which furnaces may be stopped or wool-raising be made unprofitable, any effect by which labor may be injured, it is our duty as statesmen to stand up, no matter what may be the undertow of opinions that sweeps in here to carry us from our feet.

I do not believe in expediency legislation, in looking to see which way the wind blows from the people upon any of these measures, and subverting my conscience and judgment thereto.  This is a question affecting national honor and the welfare of the people in every part of the country, not only of corporations but of laborers, and we ought to stand here judicially and fairly and examine the facts for ourselves, and legislate as shall be for their benefit;  and if the result is that their indignation, when we treat them judiciously and properly, carries us from these halls back into private life, we can at least take back with us a good conscience, a sense of duty well performed, and I believe we can trust to the future for our vindication.

I have heretofore said little in this long debate.  I have now spoken, not that I hope to convince any Senator, but to discharge a duty to my own conscience.  I could do no less, for I look upon this legislation as tending to stain our national honor by repudiating sacred obligations.  I believe it will disastrously affect American industry by an improper and undiscriminating reduction of customs does;  that it will create a coin under the deceitful name of a dollar to underpay the wages of labor and the pittance of the pensioner;  that it will displace a good and improving currency by a hopelessly debased one;  that it will banish gold from the country;  that it gives an unconscionable advantage to the speculator in silver at the expense of the Government and the people.  For these and other reasons that I have named, and others that I have not taken time to discuss, I am opposed to the passage of this bill.  But I trust the decisive vote will soon be taken.  The uncertainty and delay attending this legislation is almost unendurable to the country, and only less mischievous than would be its passage.

Mr. Jones, of Nevada, obtained the floor.

Mr. Whyte.  If the Senator from Nevada will give way I will move an adjournment.

Mr. Dorsey.  I hope the Senator will withdraw that motion to let us have an executive session for a short time.

Mr. Whyte.  Very well.

Mr. Dorsey.  I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of executive business.

Mr. Hereford.  I ask the Senator to yield to me for a moment.

Mr. Dorsey.  I withdraw the motion temporarily.

Mr. Jones, of Nevada.  It is understood that I have the floor for to-morrow.

Several Senators.  Certainly.

Mr. Hereford.  Mr. President, I did not desire to interrupt my friend from California [Mr. Sargent] in the course of his remarks, and, therefore, I did not read what I propose now to read in regard to the manner in which the bill of 1873 became a law.  I took occasion on the 14th of December last, just before the adjournment of Congress for the holidays, to submit my views on the subject of remonetization of silver, at which time I referred at length to the manner in which it was demonetized.  May 27, 1872, was the day on which the bill demonetizing silver passed the House.  Mr. Kerr on that occasion said:

"I want the House to understand that it is attempted to put through this bill without being read."

Mr. Holman also participated in that discussion, and so did General Garfield, of Ohio.  The record shows that it was passed without being printed or read.  At a subsequent time, when the question came up in the House of Representatives as to whether this bill was ever printed or laid on the desks prior to passing the House of Representatives, Mr. Holman again participated in that discussion with a view to ascertain the fact whether the bill had ever been read or whether it bad ever been printed or discussed, and upon that occasion Mr. Holman said:

It --meaning the bill demonetizing silver-- was never considered before the House as it was passed.  Up to the time the bill came before this House for final passage the measure had simply been one to establish a Bureau of Mines;  I believe I use the term correctly now.  It came from the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures.  The substitute which finally became a law was never read, and is subject to the charge made against it by the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Bland] that it was passed by the House without a knowledge of its provisions, especially upon that of coinage.

I myself asked the question of Mr. Hooper, who stood near where I am now standing, whether it changed the law in regard to coinage.  And the answer of Mr. Hooper certainly left the impression upon the whole House that the subject of the coinage was not affected by that bill.

I said a moment ago that at the time the original bill passed, General Garfield also participated in that discussion, and I will read what he has said with regard to the manner in which it passed through the House of Representatives.  In a speech which that gentleman made at Springfield, Ohio, during the last fall, he said:

"Perhaps I ought to be ashamed to say so, but it is the truth to say that I, at that time being chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and having my hands overfull during all that time with work, I never read the bill.  I took it upon the faith of a prominent democrat and a prominent republican, and I do not know that I voted at all.  There was no call of the yeas and nays, and nobody opposed that bill that I know of.  It was put through as dozens of bills are, as my friend and I know, in Congress, on the faith of the report of the chairman of the committee;  therefore I tell you, because it is the truth, that I have no knowledge about it."

There General Garfield says it was put through upon the faith of the chairman of the committee, and Mr. Holman tells you that the chairman of the committee told him that that bill did in no way affect the coinage question.  So then I say that beyond the possibility of a doubt (and there is no disputing it) that bill which demonetized silver, as it passed the House of Representatives, never was printed until it passed, never was read, never was discussed, and that the chairman of the committee who reported it, who offered the substitute, said to Mr. Holman, when inquired of, that it did not affect the coinage in any way whatever.  Not only that, but the President who signed the bill, in a letter to Mr. Cowdry, nearly a year afterward, to which I referred in my speech of the 14th of December, showed by the language he used that he did not know that he had ever signed such a bill.

Mr. Dawes.  Mr. President---

The Presiding Officer, (Mr. Rollins.)  Does the Senator from Arkansas yield to the Senator from Massachusetts ?

Mr. Dorsey.  For a few minutes.

Mr. Dawes [Henry Laurens Dawes (1816-1903) Pittsfield Massachusetts, R; studied law, admitted to the bar; rep. 1857-1875, senator 1875-1893.].  I do not intend to take up the time that belongs to the Senator from Nevada for his speech in the morning, and perhaps the Senate will indulge me as well at this time as any other in occupying its attention for a few moments upon a point which I alluded to in an earlier part of the day, and which has been brought before the Senate by the Senator who has just taken his seat, [Mr. Hereford.]  It seems that the idea that the bill demonetizing silver was in some way improperly put through Congress is one to which the advocates of remonetization cling with a tenacity which shows that it is a very great staple in the agitation of the present day.  The junior Senator from Indiana, [Mr. Voorhees,] in the very able speech which he delivered the other day, put it in this form:

Throughout all the financial panics that have assailed this country no man has been bold enough to raise his hand to strike it down;  no man has ever dared to whisper of a contemplated assault upon it;  and when the hour of its danger and destruction drew nigh, when the 12th day of February, 1873, approached, the day of doom to the American dollar, the dollar of our fathers, how silent was the work of the enemy !  Not a sound, not a word, no note of warning to the American people that their favorite coin was about to be destroyed as money;  that the greatest financial revolution of modern times was in contemplation and about to be accomplished against their highest and dearest rights !  The tax-payers of the United States were no more notified or consulted on this momentous measure than the slaves on a southern plantation before the war, when their master made up his mind to increase their task or to change them from a corn to a cotton field.  Never since the foundation of this Government has a law of such vital and tremendous import, or indeed of any importance at all, crawled into our statute books so furtively and so noiselessly as this.  Its enactment there was as completely unknown to the people, and indeed to four-fifths of Congress itself, as the presence of a burglar in a house at midnight is to its sleeping inmates.  This was rendered possible partly because the clandestine movement was so utterly unexpected, and partly from the nature of the bill in which it occurred.

But, sir, having pointed out the false pretenses under cover of which the American silver dollar was eliminated from our money system, it yet remains to inquire into the real reasons for such an act.

A distinguished member of the monetary commission, Hon. W.S. Groesbeck, in an address which be delivered in New York before the American Bankers' Association on September 13, 1877, used the following language:

In 1873 and 1874, I believe without a single recommendation from the press, or from boards of trade, or chambers of commerce, or from any other direction, and when, for the first time, our public debt had become heavy and burdensome, and private indebtedness was larger than ever before, and we were in a state of suspension upon a currency, amounting to more than seven hundred millions;  in such an exigency, and with the knowledge that we were richer in mines of silver than any nation on the globe, we threw our silver away and set up gold alone.

Mr. Halsted, of the Cincinnati Commercial, who is the leading and persistent and unscrupulous advocate for the coinage of silver as expressed in the House bill now pending in the Senate, in a published letter in the New York Nation of December 27 last says:

I have advertised in vain for a member of Congress who can say that he voted for the demonetization of silver, knowing when he cast his vote what it meant.  I have appealed to the press for an editorial article published in the year 1873 or 1874 for or against the change from the double to the single standard;  and the conclusion is that no such article appeared in any American newspaper.

The Chicago Tribune of January 19, 1878, says:

The clause in the consolidated mint bill stopping the coinage of silver dollars was furtively inserted;  not one member of Congress in fifty knew of it;  not one man in the thousand outside of Congress knew anything about it.

And the distinguished Thurlow Weed, although when the evidence was placed before him in part as to the open and deliberate manner in which this bill was put before the public frankly withdrew the charge, has, it seems, come back to it afresh, unwilling to give it up, and has concluded on the whole that it was stealthily put through Congress.  The distinguished Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Hereford] has repeated to-day his charge that it went through Congress without Congress knowing what it was, and that it was never read in the House of Representatives.  Under these circumstances, and because I believe that much of the prejudice against that measure itself has arisen from the impression spread abroad among the people and insisted upon by the advocates of this measure that for some wrong end and in some dark corner and in some unusual way the bill was passed, it is due to those who were instrumental in its passage to spread upon the records of the Senate the evidence that shows, as I said on another occasion, that no measure of that importance for the last twenty years has been so spread before the public, so deliberately examined, and so commended to the public mind, the mind of the financier and the banker and the moneyed man, his opinion invoked upon it, and those provisions of it which demonetized silver criticised pro and con before it came before Congress, and after it came before Congress in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and everywhere until it became a law.

Sir, the bill in its rough draught, two years before it became a law, was sent by its authors to all the distinguished financiers and moneyed men of the country, and their opinion invoked upon its provisions.  They replied in letters, some of them for it and some of them against it, some suggesting a dollar of 385 grains instead of 384, some protesting against the demonetization of the dollar at all;  and all views which moneyed men familiar with the effect of such a measure upon the currency of the country were likely to entertain and entertain at this time were communicated to the Treasury Department on its invitation with the proposed bill before them.  The House of Representatives then took interest enough in the measure after this was done to call, by a resolution passed by the House, on the Secretary of the Treasury to lay before the House of Representatives that correspondence.  I bold in my hand the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury in response to that call, printed by the House of Representatives at that time.  The letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, addressed to the Speaker, bears date June 25, 1870, and is as follows:

Treasury department, June 25, 1870.

Sir:  I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a resolution of the House of Representatives, under date of the 4th instant, directing the Secretary of the Treasury---

I ask Senators who think this was done in the dark to listen to the resolution adopted by the House---

"to furnish this House copies of all correspondence between the Department and officers of the different mints and assay offices, and other persons, touching a bill and report submitted April 25, 1870, by the Secretary of the Treasury to the Finance Committee of the Senate, to revise the law relative to the mints, assay offices, and coinage of the United States."

I inclose herewith a communication from the deputy comptroller of the currency, transmitting, as far as practicable, copies of the correspondence called for by the resolution.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
George S. Boutwell,
Secretary of the Treasury.

Hon. J.G. Blaine,
Speater of the House of Representatives.

Then comes the letter of Mr. Knox, and then comes the entire correspondence.  This is the heading to it:  "Correspondence pertaining to the proposed revision of the mint and coinage laws of the United States."  I hold the printed document in my hand.  If anybody desires to know whether it was concealed under anything else, if he will look to the manner in which it was printed in this book, he will be entirely satisfied.  I propose to read extracts from different letters in this book, both pro and con, submitted to the House of Representatives for their information nearly two years before the bill became the law.  The first of these letters is that of Mr. James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia.  He says:

Sec. 11.  The reduction of the weight of the whole dollar is approved, and was recommended in my annual report of 1861.

As long ago as the year 1861, the then Director of the Mint, in his report to Congress, recommended the same thing.  I am not discussing the propriety of the passage of the law, but the knowledge that those had who did pass it.  Here is the first letter calling attention to that section of the bill which demonetized silver.  Mr. Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, who had for many years been connected with the mint service, proposed that---

The silver dollar, half dime, and three-cent piece should be dispensed with.

And his proposition was printed in this book with capital letters at the head in these words:

Silver dollar, half dime, and three-cent piece discontinued.

And these are the words, touching that matter, of Mr. Patterson, published in this book:

The silver dollar, half dime, and three-cent piece are dispensed with by this amendment.  Gold becomes the standard money, of which the gold dollar is the unit.  Silver is subsidiary, embracing coins from the dime to half dollar.  Coins less than the dime are of copper-nickel.  The legal tender is limited to the necessities of the case;  not more than a dollar for such silver, or fifteen cents for the nickels.

That is the proposition of Mr. Patterson touching this proposed furtive, burglarious attempt to demonetize silver.

Hon. H.R. Linderman, who had before been Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, a recognized authority on such questions, now at the head of the Mint Bureau in the Treasury Department, opposed the substitution of a dollar of 384 grains for the dollar of 412½ grains, and suggested the discontinuance of the latter altogether, and this paragraph was printed with a heading also in capitals, as follows:

DISCONTINUANCE OF SILVER DOLLAR.

Section 11 reduces the weight of the silver dollar from 412½ to 384 grains.  I can see no good reason for the proposed reduction in the weight of this coin.  It would be better, in my opinion, to discontinue its issue altogether.  The gold dollar is really the legal unit and measure of value.  Having a higher value as bullion than its nominal value, the silver dollar long ago ceased to be a coin of circulation;  and, being of no practical use whatever, its issue should be discontinued.

Whether that be sound or not it was signifying to the Congress of the United States, when the call was made upon the Secretary of the Treasury for this information, that there was in this bill the proposition to discontinue the use of the silver dollar.

Hon. James Ross Snowden, of Philadelphia, was formerly Director of the Mint.  In his letter of March 10, 1872, published in this book, he opposes the proposed discontinuance of the dollar in a paragraph which was headed in capitals:

THE PRESENT SILVER DOLLAR SHOULD NOT BE DISCONTINUED.

I see --he says-- I see that it is proposed to demonetize the silver dollar.  This I think unadvisable.  Silver coins below the dollar are now not money in a proper sense, but only tokens.  I do not like the idea of reducing the silver dollar to that level.  It is quite true that the silver dollar, being more valuable than two half dollars or four quarter dollars, will not be used as a circulating medium, but only for cabinets, and perhaps to supply some occasional or local demand;  yet I think there is no necessity for so considerable a piece as the dollar to be struck from metal which is only worth ninety-four cents.  When we speak of dollars let it be known that we speak of dollars not demonetized and reduced below their intrinsic value, and thus avoid the introduction of contradictory and loose ideas of the standards of value.

Mr. George F. Dunning, formerly superintendent of the United States assay office in New York, proposed that a silver dollar of 384 grains should be retained, and that the section in regard to coinage should read as follows.  This is his proposed substitute for the section in the bill which finally became the law:

Section 11.  And be it further enacted, That the silver coins of the United States shall be a dollar, a half dollar, a quarter dollar, a dime or tenth of a dollar, and a half-dime or twentieth of a dollar.  And the standard weight of the silver coins shall be in the proportion of 384 grains to the dollar;  and these coins shall be a legal tender in all payments not exceeding $5.

Mr. E.B. Elliott, the distinguished statistician of the Treasury Department, wrote a very long letter in favor of the proposition as it originally came.  It is headed in the print of the House of Representatives, "The silver dollar--its discontinuance as a standard," in capital letters:

THE SILVER DOLLAR -- ITS DISCONTINUANCE AS A STANDARD.

The bill proposes the discontinuance of the silver dollar, and the report which accompanies the bill suggests the substitution, for the existing standard silver dollar, of a trade coin of intrinsic value equivalent to the Mexican silver piaster or dollar.

If the existing standard silver dollar is to be discontinued and a trade coin of different weight substituted, I would suggest the desirableness of conforming to the Spanish-Mexican, silver, pillared piaster of 1704, in preference to that authorized by the Spanish law of 29th, 1772, or by the Mexican law of 27th November, 1867.

The first-mentioned of these coins, that of 1704, contained, as nearly as may be, according to English assays, a weight of pure silver equivalent to 25 grams.  The last-mentioned, that of 1867, and which is intended to be equivalent to that of 1772, contains of pure silver 24.441 grams.  The existing silver dollar of the United States contains 24.056 grams (i.e., 371¼ troy grains) of pure silver.

In the year 1704, by proclamation of Queen Anne, based on assays at the English mint, the Spanish and Mexican pieces of eight (or dollars) were declared to be each of the value of 4s. 6d. sterling.  At this time, and until the year 1816, sixty-two shillings could be coined from a troy pound of standard silver, 111/126 fine;  consequently, the dollar of 4s. 6d. sterling was equivalent in value to 386.71 troy grains, or 25.059 grams of pure silver.  Of these dollars, there would, of course, be four and four-ninths in a pound sterling, (silver standard.)  The sterling par of exchange from that time to the present day has been one pound sterling, equal to four dollars and four-ninths of a dollar, although silver has ceased to be a standard in Great Britain and has practically ceased to be a standard in the United States, gold taking its place.  This dollar, divided into six shillings, became thenceforth the standard of lawful money in the American colonies of Great Britain.

By act of the congress of the Confederation, passed 8th August, 1786, and by the ordinance of 16th October, 1786, a silver dollar was established as a unit of account, although not coined, containing of pure silver 375.64 troy grains, (or 24.338 grams.)  This unit differed --as has been clearly pointed out by John Quincy Adams, in his able report as Secretary of State, in 1821, "on weights and measures"-- from the true dollar of 1704 as defined by the proclamation of Queen Anne, by a deduction of 2 per cent. for estimated wastage in coining, and by assuming the fineness of the metal to be 11/12, whereas the fineness of standard British silver was then, as now, 111/126.

The law of 2d April, 1792, of the new Congress, which established the Mint of the United States, also fixed the contents of pure silver in the standard silver dollar at 371¼ grains, (or 24.056 grams,) a reduction of 4 per cent. from the standard established by proclamation in 1704, and of 1 per cent. from the dollar prescribed in 1786 by the congress of the Confederation.

This dollar (unlike the preceding) is not based on the Spanish-Mexican dollar of 1704, but on the Spanish-Mexican dollar of 1772, from which it was derived by weighing of a large number of such coins as found in actual circulation, and consequently considerably reduced by abrasion, nearly 1.6 per cent., below the standard at which they were issued from the Mexican mint.

The weight of pure silver in the dollar has continued unchanged from that time to the present, although the standard weight of the coin itself, reduced by a withdrawal of 3½ grains of alloy, has been somewhat diminished.

It appears, therefore, that the existing silver dollar, although professedly based on the Spanish or Mexican silver dollar, does not fairly represent any coin ever issued from those mints;  that it is merely a representative of the average of abraded Spanish-Mexican coins.

The coins most in demand for oriental commerce were for many years the pillared Spanish-Mexican piasters;  and such was their popularity that they continued to be preferred long after their intrinsic value had been considerably reduced by wear in use.  The restoration, as a trade coin, of a silver dollar approximating to the old standard, to wit, one containing 25 grams of pure silver, is a subject which would seem to demand favorable consideration.

It may be well here to call attention to the fact that the French silver coin of five francs contains, of standard gold, nine-tenths fine, just 25 grams, which also is the weight proposed for two half dollars of the token or subsidiary coinage of the United States, in case that a metric coinage is adopted. (See Table in pages 30 and 31, Appendix to Report on the Mint and Coinage Bill.)  The intrinsic value of the proposed subsidiary coinage would therefore be less by just one-tenth than that of the commercial silver coin here proposed.

This bill, as I have said, was submitted to the National Board of Trade.  These resolutions were passed unanimously by the National Board of Trade, consisting of representatives from nearly all the chambers of commerce and boards of trade within the United States, at its annual meeting in the city of New York, October 19, 1872, about four months before the bill finally became a law and some months after it had passed the House of Representatives;  and a copy of these resolutions was sent to every member of Congress:

Resolved, That the National Board of Trade of the United States, now assembled in the city of New York, after due consideration of the difficulties and the delays which have prevented thus far the unification or the assimilation of the gold coinage of the United States with that of any of the nations of Europe, deems it highly desirable for the increase of commerce and intercourse throughout the world that the necessary measures be taken, without loss of time, for unifying the silver dollar of the United States with silver coins of equal weight and quality in the other nations of America and in those of Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Resolved, That this object, so important to the advancing civilization of the age, may now be readily attained and without encountering any of the difficulties experienced or apprehended in the unification of the gold coinage, by a slight amendment of that portion of the bill now pending in Congress for the general revision of the coinage of the United States, which proposes to reduce the existing weight of the silver dollar (412½ grains) to 384 grains.

Resolved, That in view of the very important fact that such a weight for the United States silver dollar would allow it immediately to pass unchanged in name and without recoinage or other impediment and bearing our national emblems side by side with the silver coins of those European nations having a population now exceeding one hundred and twenty millions, reaching from the Atlantic Ocean to the western boundary of Turkey, and in view also of the strong probability that the same weight will be eventually adopted by all the coining nations of the world, the National Board of Trade hereby respectfully urges upon Congress the adoption of the amendment referred to of the pending bill.

Resolved, That copies of these resolutions, duly authenticated, be transmitted to both Houses of Congress.

The New York Chamber of Commerce unanimously passed similar resolutions on the 6th day of May, 1872, in these words:

Resolved, That, in view of the bill now pending in Congress for revising the laws relative to the coinage of the United States, the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York respectfully requests the Senators and Representatives from said State to urge upon Congress the propriety and importance of exempting the coinage of gold and silver from all charges beyond the actual cost of refining and coining and a small percentage sufficient to provide a fund for withdrawing from circulation and recoining the gold and silver coins of the United States whenever worn by use "below the standard weight and limit of tolerance" prescribed or to be prescribed by law.

Resolved, That the chamber perceives with great satisfaction that the pending bill provides that the gold dollar shall be "the unit of value" and that the silver dollar shall hereafter be a legal tender only for amounts not exceeding $5, thereby putting an end in the United States to the absurdity of a "double standard" for legal money and establishing gold as the single and only standard.  The bill further proposes to reduce the weight of the silver dollar (now 412½ grains, at which it has virtually ceased to circulate) to 384 grains, being double the present weight of the half dollar and other subdivisions of the dollar.  In view, however, of the important fact that by an addition to the proposed weight of 384 grains of only one grain and four-fifths of a grain, (being in money value less than half a cent) the weight of the new dollar may be established at 385.80 grains, practically the exact equiponderant of twenty-five even metric grams, that increase is strongly recommended.

Twenty-five grams is the actual legal weight in silver, nine-tenths fine, of the five-franc coin of France, Belgium, and Switzerland, of the five-lire silver coin of Italy, of the five-drachma silver coin of Greece, of the five-peseta silver coin of Spain, and is precisely equivalent to that of two florins of the new coinage proposed for Austria and about to be established.  The new dollar of the United States, having a population of forty millions, with this metric weight would circulate side by side with the silver coinage of all those nations, having a population of one hundred and twenty-five millions.  The wide-spread unification in silver thus established, without loss or inconvenience to the United States, and with a change so trifling from the existing subdivisions of its silver coin, would in its turn inevitably lead to the more important unification of the present varying gold coinage of the world.

It is in view of these facts that the chamber ventures to express the hope by the present resolution that the Congress and the executive authorities of the United States will not hesitate to adopt this weight of twenty-five metric grams, or 385.80 grains, for the new silver dollar, leading to results so important to the civilization of the age.

These resolutions were sent to each member of Congress;  and they were published the next day after their adoption in the New York Times.  The New York Bankers' Magazine, which I have before me, in the July number, 1870 [page 52], contained this bill and the original report from the Treasury Department recommending its passage.  In February, 1871 [page 577], the Bankers' Magazine in its first article was devoted to "The proposed revision of the coinage of the United States, as now before Congress," reprinting the bill, and the comments and the reasons for it, and among others things said:

The amendments proposed by the bill were as follows:

"The new features of the bill now submitted are chiefly:  the establishment of a Mint Bureau at the Treasury Department, which shall also have charge of the collection of statistics relative to the precious metals;  the consolidation of the office of Superintendent with that of the Treasurer, thus abolishing the latter office, and disconnecting the Mint entirely from the office of assistant treasurer;  the repeal of the coinage charge, and authorizing the exchange of unparted for refined bars;  a reduction in the amount of wastage, and the tolerance (deviation in weight and fineness) in the manufacture of coin;  requiring the token coinage to be of one material of uniform value, and to be redeemed under proper regulations when issued in excess, and the expense of its manufacture to be paid from specific appropriations, and not from the gain arising in its manufacture, as heretofore;  an entire change in the manner of issuing the silver (subsidiary) coinage;  discontinuing the coinage of the silver dollar;  limiting the amount of silver to be used as alloy, so as to make the gold coinage of uniform color;  the destruction of the dies not in use annually;  requiring vouchers to pass between the different officers of the Mint in all transfers of bullion or coin;  requiring increased bonds from officers of the Mint, and authorizing each officer to nominate his subordinate before appointment;  and also making it an offense to increase or diminish the weights used in the Mint."

In June, 1873, after the passage of the bill, the Bankers' Magazine contained a revision of the whole work in a report made to the Board of Trade of New York by Hon. Samuel B. Ruggles, in which he set forth the marked feature of the discontinuance of the silver dollar as then existing as a portion of the silver currency of the United States, and says:

The bill, thus amended, duly passed the Senate.  The House disagreed to the amendments, which led to the appointment of a committee of conference---

Which he names--- [Sherman, Scott, Bayard, Hooper, Stoughton]

After much discussion in these committees the amendments in question were unanimously approved, and the respective reports of the committees were unanimously concurred in by both Houses ---[as in:  those five gentle men agreed amongst themselves that they won't say anything about the elimination of the $1 silver coin, and the House recedes from every disagreement with John Sherman's bill], to wit, in the Senate on the 6th and in the House on the 7th of February, and finally passed, and the bill was approved shortly after by the President.  Previously thereto, on the 31st of December, 1872, a statement prepared by the undersigned of the condition at the time of the measure and of the facts aud reasons urged in favor of the amendment proposed by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Board of Trade, and especially the importance of a preliminary unification of silver coin in greatly facilitating the eventual unification of the different coinages of gold, had been printed for the information of the members of the chamber, a copy of which is hereto annexed.  Separate copies of this statement had also been sent to each of the members of both Houses of Congress who consequently legislated on the bill with full knowledge and appreciation of all the objects, aims, and contemplated effects of the proposed amendments.
---[when the conference report was presented to the House for approval, not a word was mentioned about $1 silver coin of any kind]

This was in June, 1873, before any question was raised, before any effect of the bill was known or felt, or before the relative price of silver and gold had so changed as to make it at all desirable in the mind of any gentleman in Congress to have silver restored.

Mr. Voorhees.  Mr. President---

The Presiding Officer.  Will the Senator from Massachusetts yield ?

Mr. Dawes.  I am nearly through, and then I will answer any question.

Mr. Voorhees.  I did not know whether it would be convenient to the Senator to allow an interruption or not.  If it is inconvenient, I will not interrupt him.

Mr. Dawes.  If I can throw any light on this subject by answering any question, it will be convenient for me to yield for that purpose.

Mr. Voorhees.  I only wish to know whether I understand the Senator correctly in saying here that the character of the bill of February, 1873, demonetizing silver, was fully known and appreciated by the two branches of Congress when it was passed.  I wish to know whether the Senator means to assert that.

Mr. Sargent.  It is the object of his argument.

Mr. Voorhees.  It may be the object of his argument, but he may not squarely assert it.  I wish to know whether be does.

Mr. Dawes.  Mr. President, I want to have this matter entirely understood---

Mr. Voorhees.  So do I.

Mr. Dawes.  I have here some extracts from what was said in the House of Representatives when the bill was considered there.

Mr. Voorhees.  While the Senator is looking for his notes, let me say this in reply to the drift of his argument, inasmuch as the Senator from California suggests what the object of his argument is---

Mr. Dawes.  I will answer the Senator now.  I was looking for a pamphlet, one in the series.  In the original print of the bill which was sent, as I have stated, to all the boards of trade and financiers, and which was originally reported to Congress, I want to call attention to the last section.

Mr. Voorhees.  When the Senator said he would answer my question---

Mr. Dawes.  I will answer the question.

Mr. Voorhees.  Does the Senator understand what my question is exactly

Mr. Dawes.  Yes, I understand it exactly.  I did not want to answer it right at this point.  That was all.

Mr. Voorhees.  All right.

Mr. Dawes.  The last section of the bill as sent to all these boards of trade and as originally reported left no possible doubt that the plan and purpose of the bill --and I speak of this in reference to the statement of the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Howe] and the charge that this thing was actually completed in the Revised Statutes-- the purpose and object of the measure from the outset was to do what has been done now, I have never said rightly or wrongly.  That was its purpose, as I will show, if the Senate will listen to the last section of the first draught of the bill that went to all these people for their opinion, that came back, that was submitted to the House of Representatives with their comments, and was reported back:

Sec. 71.  And be it further enacted, That this act may be cited as the "coinage act, 1870;  "and all the other acts and parts of acts pertaining to the mints, assay offices, and coinage of the United States are hereby repealed.

The intention was to have the entire law in reference to the coinage and currency that was in force after the passage of this act contained in the act itself, repealing everything else pertaining to coinage and mints and currency.  That was the purpose.  There is no question but that those who thought this a desirable act designed to codify the whole mint laws into one act;  and that there might be no question whatever on that point they proposed to repeal every other enactment pertaining to the subject.  I have stated before that the bill---

Mr. Voorhees.  Does the Senator call that an answer to my question ?

Mr. Dawes.  That is no answer to the Senator's question.

Mr. Voorhees.  I think not.

Mr. Dawes.  The Senator is unduly impatient, certainly, for I told him I did not want to answer him right at that point.  I have stated before that this bill was printed eleven times by order of the different Houses.

Mr. Voorhees.  What bill ?

Mr. Dawes.  The bill that passed the Congress of the United States.

Mr. Voorhees.  The substitute offered by your colleague, Mr. Hooper, that was never read in the House and that contains the demonetization of silver !

Mr. Sargent.  I think the Senator from Indiana assumes---

The Presiding Officer.  Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield ?

Mr. Dawes.  I intend to treat the Senator from Indiana fairly, and I know he does not intend to treat me otherwise.  It was in fact printed thirteen times;  and now I want to say that the provision in the bill touching the demonetization of silver never was altered, at all, from the clause in the original bill.  I now answer my friend.  There is some question whether the substitute offered by my colleague was ever read in the House.  There are those who reading the Record think it was;  I do not think it was read;  but when any gentleman says that the law demonetizing silver was never read in that House he unintentionally conveys a wrong meaning.  The original bill was read many a time.  The substitute offered by my colleague and the bill for which it was a substitute, touching the demonetization of silver, are word for word in to tidem verbis, and while it cannot be true, and I think the record shows that it is not true, that the substitute was read---

Mr. Sargent.  The record shows that it was read, and that part of it was read twice at the request of Mr. McCormick, of Missouri.

Mr. Dawes.  Yes, there is some question about it.  The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] and the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Hereford] both insist that it was not read.

Mr. Voorhees.  And you agree with us.

Mr. Hereford.  I understand the Senator from Massachusetts to agree with us ?

Mr. Dawes.  I think with those two Senators that that substitute was not read.

Mr. Voorhees.  Exactly.

Mr. Sargent.  Will the Senator allow me a moment, as the Senator differs from me on that point ?

Mr. Dawes.  I do not wish to be interrupted now;  but what difference does it make when the substitute contained the matter about which we are having this controversy ?  That provision in the bill about which and for which my colleague was arraigned as having done something stealthily is found in the substitute and in the original bill, both word for word the same, and that provision was read over and over again.

When any one says that that provision was not read in the House of Representatives, because he thinks that the substitute was not read there, he does not tell the whole truth to the country, and misleads the country upon that point.  Of course I do not mean to say that any Senator intends to mislead the country, but the Senator from West Virginia a moment ago, with the record in his hand, stands up here and says that the substitute never was read, when, if he had compared that substitute with the original bill clear back to the first point and run all through and compared it with the bill then pending in the House of Representatives and for which it was a substitute, he would have found that the provision in the substitute demonetizing the silver dollar was precisely the same in the substitute that it was in the original pending measure.

Mr. Sargent.  Now will the Senator allow me one moment ?

Mr. Dawes.  If the Senator will allow me.  I will now answer the Senator from Indiana.

Mr. Sargent.  I do not wish to insist, but I should like to make one remark if the Senator will allow me.

Mr. Dawes.  I will before I sit down.

Mr. Sargent.  Very well.

Mr. Dawes.  The Senator from Indiana is impatient to know whether I presume to say that the bill was passed by the House of Representatives having any knowledge of what it contained touching the demonetization of silver.  All I know about it is what the members of the committee having it in charge said to the House about it, and I pray the Senator from Indiana to listen.  Hon. William D. Kelley, of Philadelphia, in discussing that very feature of the bill, reported once by him, then pending after a recommittal and reported by another member of the committee ---Hon. William D. Kelley, with a voice somewhat loud;  surely he does not speak in a low voice;  he speaks intelligently;  he speaks ably;  he speaks clearly;  and speaks so that all except those who are deaf are sure to hear;  Hon. William D. Kelley said this:

it is impossible to retain the double standard.  The values of gold and silver continually fluctuate.  You cannot determine this year what will be the relative values of gold and silver next year.  They were fifteen to one a short time ago;  they are, sixteen to one now.  Hence all experience has shown that you must have one standard coin, which shall be a legal tender for all others, and then you may promote your domestic convenience by having a subsidiary coinage of silver, which shall circulate in all parts of your country as legal tender for a limited amount, and be redeemable at its face value by your Government.

But, sir, I again call the attention of the House to the fact that the gentlemen who oppose this bill---

There was opposition to the bill.

Mr. Hereford.  Will my friend from Massachusetts allow me right there to ask him a question ?

Mr. Dawes.  Let me read through what Mr. Kelley said---

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 two half dollars, and that, so long as those provisions remain, you cannot keep silver coin in the country.

Hon. Clarkson N. Potter who opposed the bill alluded to the same provision.

Mr. Hereford.  Now will my friend yield to me ?

Mr. Dawes.  Yes, sir.

Mr. Hereford.  Will not the Senator from Massachusetts admit that when that speech of Mr. Kelley was made, it was made upon the original bill and not upon the substitute which passed, and that it was made some five or six weeks before the substitute that finally became a law was before the House of Representatives at all ?

Mr. Dawes.  Mr. President, I will do that if the Senator from West Virginia, the next time he gets up to say this was stealthily put through Congress, will state that the substitute, which he thinks was not read, contained the same provision in it which the original bill had, and about which Mr. Kelley was speaking.  Mr. Kelley was speaking about the same provision in the original bill that was in the substitute.  It is true that he spoke about this provision pending the original bill and not pending the substitute.  Now;  if the Senator from West Virginia wants me to state that I will do it, because truth requires that I should, and all I will exact in return is that he shall not omit to state any part of the truth the next time he feels it his duty to tell the country that this was not fully considered.

Mr. Hereford.  I still say that when it became a law it was not understood.

The Presiding Officer.  Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield further ?

Mr. Dawes.  No, sir.  I want now to read what an opponent of the bill said about this provision.  Mr. Potter said:

this bill provides for the making of changes in the legal-tender coin of the country, and for substituting as legal-tender coin of only one metal instead as heretofore of two.  I think myself this would be a wise provision, and that legal-tender coins, except subsidiary coin, should be of gold alone;  but why should we legislate on this now when we are not using either of those metals as a circulating medium ?  The bill provides also for a change in respect of the weight and value of the silver dollar, which I think is a subject which, when we come to require legislation about it at all, will demand at our hands very serious consideration, and which, as we are not using such coins for circulation now, seems at this time to be an unnecessary subject about which to legislate.

That was Mr. Potter.  Now what said Hon. Thomas McNeely, of Illinois, another member of the committee ?

Mr. Voorhees.  I will not interrupt the Senator if it is disagreeable to him.  He and I have served long together, and we understand each other.  He says I am impatient, but I am not.  I will ask the Senator if it is disagreeable for him to be interrupted to say so, and I will not interrupt him at all.  But I want to ask this question whether it is not a fact that after the original bill had thus been exposed by Kelley and Potter, and its true character commenced dawning on the mind of Congress and the public mind, it was not pressed to final action, but a substitute that was not read and that nobody knew contained the same provisions that were objectionable in the original bill, was put in its place and it was passed then without the slightest consideration, debate, or discussion.  Is not that the fact ?

Mr. Dawes.  Mr. President, nobody when the attention of Congress was called to these particular features objected to them at all.  If the Senator will read the debates in the House on that occasion he will understand that there was a controversy between Mr. Potter and Mr. Kelley over nickel.  If the Senator has read the debates I appeal to him that when these members of that committee, one after the other, called attention to this feature no one from the beginning to the end objected to this feature.  Now I want to read what Hon. Thomas McNeely, of Illinois, said:

As a member of the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, having carefully examined every section and line of this bill and generally understanding the subject before us, I am satisfied that the bill ought to pass.

Hon. Samuel Hooper, of Massachusetts, explained the section in this way:

Section 16---

Now I expect some Senator will get up and inquire if I do not know that Mr. Hooper afterward introduced a substitute for this which was never read.

Mr. Voorhees.  Well, why did he ?

Mr. Dawes.  Not for the purpose of getting through Congress a section which had run through the bill in thirteen different prints, had met the universal approbation of all parties, against which not a syllable had been uttered in the House of Representatives, but for the purpose of modifying objectionable features touching the details of coinage, not touching the silver dollar in any respect;  and I defy --no, I do not like to use that word-- I submit to the Senator from Indiana that he may search the Record of this bill from the time it left the Comptroller's office in 1870 till the time it was made a law, and he will find nowhere anything that justifies the charge that anybody having charge of the bill or having considered it officially anywhere differed with this provision of the bill.

Mr. Voorhees.  Will the Senator from Massachusetts, then, while he is explaining everything else --and he is very fertile in explanations---

Mr. Dawes.  I want to read something more, and then I will listen to the interruptions of the Senator from Indiana.  I have detained the Senate much longer than I desired to do;  but I propose to put upon the records of the Senate evidence to show the gross impropriety of the attempt to make the American people believe that this provision of the bill of 1873 did not receive more than the usual consideration attached to measures of that importance.  I say it received more than any Senator can point to as given to any measure for the last twenty years.  I want the American people to have these facts before them as an answer to this charge.  Hon. Samuel Hooper explained this section of the bill:

Section sixteen reënacts the provisions of existing laws defining the silver coins and their weights respectively, except in relation 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 denomination, to secure its concurrent circulation with them.  The silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and a half grains, by reason of its bullion or intrinsic value being greater than its nominal value, long since ceased to be a coin of circulation, and is melted by manufacturers of silverware.  It does not circulate now in commercial transactions with any country, and the convenience of those manufacturers in this respect can better be met by supplying small stamped bars of the same standard, avoiding the useless expense of coining the dollar for that purpose.

Hon. William L. Stoughton, of Michigan, another member of the committee, said:

The silver coins provided for are the dollar, 384 grains troy, the half dollar, quarter dollar, and dime of the value and weight of one half, one quarter, and one tenth of the dollar respectively; and they are made a legal tender for all sums not exceeding five dollars at any one payment.  The silver dollar, as now issued, is worth for bullion 3¼ cents more than the gold dollar, and 7¼ cents more than two half dollars.  Having a greater intrinsic than nominal value, it is certain to be withdrawn from circulation whenever we return to specie payment;  and to be used only for manufacture and exportation as bullion.

Sir I have shown:
the fact that these members of the committee which reported this bill thus explained this provision of the bill;
the fact that those opposed to other provisions of the bill, though agreeing in this, called attention to this feature and approved this feature without approving other features of the bill;
the fact that the bill was submitted to the National Board of Trade for their opinion, and that they passed a resolution in favor of demonetizing the silver dollar and sent that resolution to each member of Congress;
the fact that the New York Chamber of Commerce did the same thing, and that its resolutions were published in the daily papers in New York;
the fact that the House of Representatives took so much interest in all the correspondence in reference to it that they passed a resolution calling upon the Secretary of the Treasury to submit for their consideration the letters of different gentlemen specialists on this subject in regard to demonetizing silver;
the fact that the Secretary of the Treasury submitted those letters, and that they were printed by order of the House of Representatives, in which each one of the writers discussed this feature;
the fact that the bill was pending in two Congresses and passed the Senate in one and went to the House, and then was passed by the House in the next Congress and came back to the Senate, and at last became a law through a committee of conference, in all of which stages it was printed thirteen times, and in every one of all these prints was this provision, against which, although thus discussed in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, no voice was raised;  and there is reason enough in the nature of things at that time to account for the fact that everybody seemed to acquiesce in the provision, because silver was more valuable then than gold, and therefore it was impossible to keep it in currency.

This leads me to answer the Senator from Indiana by saying that I do believe the members of the Congress which passed that bill understood the scope and meaning and purpose of the provision.  In the light of all this evidence, if any Senator can point to a measure that has passed Congress in the last twenty years in reference to which so much pains was taken to enlighten the public and call for the criticism of the public by the friends of the measure in order to avail themselves of the benefit of those criticisms, I wait for any one to tell me what that measure is.

Mr. Dorsey rose.

Mr. Sargent.  Mr. President---

Mr. Dawes.  The Senator from California desired to put a question to me and I have kept him waiting.  I am now ready to hear him.

Mr. Voorhees.  You have kept me waiting longer.

Mr. Sargent.  I did not exactly desire to put a question to the Senator from Massachusetts, but to make a suggestion.

Mr. Dorsey.  I yielded the floor about an hour and a half ago to the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. Hereford] to make a statement, and out of that have grown two or three speeches.  Now I will yield again for a moment to the Senator from California.

Mr. Sargent.  I am much obliged to you.  It is a matter of very little consequence, so far as the object attempted to be made in this debate is concerned, whether a substitute which apparently passed the House of Representatives came to the Senate, and subsequently went to a committee of conference, was read or not.  In other words, it is no excuse for oppressing the creditors of this country on the ground that they then sought unfairly to demonetize silver, and that they ought not to be paid, because as silver at that time was worth more than gold they were obviously working against their own interests;  and such an inference is logically absurd.  But I insist, as the fact, that the substitute was read in full in the House of Representatives.  This is the history of the matter as shown in the Congressional Globe, word by word:  Mr. Hooper, some weeks after the debate of 1872, wherein he had explained that the bill did demonetize silver --and I make this remark in reply to something that was said by the Senator from West Virginia, [Mr. Hereford] brought forward an amendment in the nature of a substitute and asked that it be put upon its passage under the two-thirds rule.  Some one asked that it be read.  He said "it is long, and I hope not."  He insisted that it should be passed under the operation of the rule without being read.  The yeas and nays were called upon the complex proposition that the bill be passed without reading, and the motion was voted down.  The record next says that the Clerk commenced reading the substitute.  Some little debate occurred and apparently the Clerk finished the reading.  That is sustained by the further fact that Mr. McCormick, of Missouri, said: I ask that the nineteenth section be again read.  Not "be read," but "be again read," showing that it had been read once.  In other words, the House deliberately voted down the proposition to pass the bill without reading.  The Clerk had started in the reading by the record, and then Mr. McCormick, of Missouri, asked that the nineteenth section be "again read."  Yet with facts like these spread upon the record a quibble has been attempted to be raised that the substitute was not read in the House.  I insist, as a matter of recollection, that it was read in the House;  and if Senators will refer to the debate they will find that I was there attentively watching it, because I interjected some remarks as you will perceive.  I think the Senator from Massachusetts is entirely mistaken when, with a record like that, he says the substitute was not probably read.  I say it was read, according to the record and according to my recollection.

Mr. Dawes.  I did not say it was not probably read.  I only spoke of my own impression about it.  I did not desire to enter into the controversy whether it was read or not, because it is utterly childish to make an argument about whether it was or was not read, when this provision had been read over and over again in the pending bill.  It is utterly childish to undertake to build an argument against the manner in which it was done, by saying that the substitute was not read, when the very words in it were in the pending bill.  Therefore I did not desire to enter into that controversy.  My own impression, however, was that it was not read.

Mr. Voorhees.  Mr. President, it is too late to-day to enter into any further discussion about this matter, and I shall not detain the Senate.  I am not going to make a speech.  I only want to say that I do not propose to try to settle the controversy between the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from California as to whether the substitute was read or not.  As I look at the Globe it was not read, and there was objection made to its being read by the member from Massachusetts, Mr. Hooper.

Mr. Sargent.  Was he not overruled by the vote of the House ?

Mr. Voorhees.  But it was never read afterwards.

Mr. Sargent.  How does the Senator prove that ?

Mr. Voorhees.  Because it does not appear that it was afterwards read.

Mr. Sargent.  The record says that the Clerk commenced reading.

Mr. Voorhees.  It does not;  I beg pardon.

Mr. Sargent.  That he commenced ?

Mr. Voorhees.  Why did he not finish, then ?

Mr. Sargent.  I say he did.

Mr. Voorhees.  Would it not appear so if he did ?

Mr. Sargent.  Certainly, it does.

Mr. Voorhees.  It does not appear so to me.  At any rate, I will not take up time at this late hour.  The Senator from Massachusetts agrees with me, and when I get him on my side I feel as if it was so much clear gain.  All I desire to say is this:  I know the ingenuity of the Senator from Massachusetts by long years of service with him in the House.  His special pleading here this afternoon on this floor, however, cannot change the fact that this legislation took place without the knowledge of the American people.  He has submitted accumulated testimony here upon the point that persons wrote letters to each other upon this subject, that bankers schemed about it, and that certain public officers considered the matter and exchanged views with each other;  but that this question was discussed as it is being discussed now, that the American people heard it, or thought of it, or were advised of it, is simply not so;  not one word or syllable of it.  I reiterate every word that the Senator from Massachusetts read from the speech I made a few days ago.  When the day of the destruction of the American dollar drew nigh, there was no sound or note of warning given to the American people of such a financial revolution.  It seems, and I have learned that from the lips of the Senator here to-day, more than I knew before, that a bill was brought forward, according to his statement --and indeed I only have his statement for it;  of course I accept it as true-- containing a provision like that which is now the law, and when members like Mr. Kelley and Mr. Potter and others discussed it, and its provisions became known, for some reason or other, the Senator's then colleague in the House moved a substitute in which it was not known that the same or a like provision was contained.

Mr. Dawes.  On what ground does the Senator say that it was not read ?

Mr. Voorhees.  On the ground of the Senator's admission awhile ago that this substitute was not read.

Mr. Dawes.  I never admitted it.

Mr. Voorhees.  I appeal to Senators and to everybody who heard the Senator;  and in the discussion which arose between the Senator from California and the Senator from Massachusetts, the latter did so admit it, and the Senator from California had no other purpose in rising than to antagonize the Senator from Massachusetts on that very point, and to prove that he was incorrect in his admission that it was not read.  When I asked the Senator why Mr. Hooper moved this substitute, if it was similar on this great question to the original bill, how did he answer me ?  He answered that he did it not for certain purposes, not for this and not for the other thing, but he did not answer why a substitute was moved which, according to his own admission, was not read and its provisions not made public.

Now, sir, I am willing that this issue made by the Senator from Massachusetts shall go to the country: whether in point of fact, as he has sought to make us believe here, the provisions of this bill demonetizing silver were known or not.  I ask him in that connection how he accounts for the fact that so able, so vigilant, so careful a legislator and attendant upon his public duties as James A. Garfield, then chairman of the Committee on Appropriations in the House, stood before his people in the last canvass in Ohio and candidly acknowledged that he knew not when this act was done;  how he accounts for the fact that a man charged with such important public duties as he, well known for his high ability and his close vigilance in the discharge of those duties, stood in a debate with Mr. Pendleton and admitted that he did not know when it was done;  that so far as he knew it was not read or heard;  that so far as he knew the yeas and nays were not called ?  Sir, such testimony as that is of the highest and most important character.

I ask the Senator to account for another thing.  Never was a more vigilant or watchful legislator than my colleague, Mr. Holman, and he has borne similar testimony.  Higher and stronger and above them, and above all testimony of members and Senators, is the testimony of the American people that they did not know this thing had been done.  Your President, nearly one year after he had signed the bill, spoke of the relief that was to come to the country by the use of silver in its increasing flow from our mines, and he did not know that he had signed such a bill.

The Senator from California says that it is absurd to say that the creditor class or the bondholding interest were seeking to demonetize silver, because it was higher then than gold.  That is a disingenuous argument, for the reason that everybody knows there was then a promised increase of silver, which was the motive for remonetizing and thus lessening the specie or metallic basis to which we have eventually, in the estimation of Senators and perhaps of the country at large, to attain.  I repeat, sir, that I am willing for this issue to go to the country just as it is made.  The public did not know and Congress did not know, with the exception of a very few, that this act was being done.

Mr. Dawes.  Mr. President, I desire to be set exactly right in the matter of saying that I agreed with the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from West Virginia that the substitute was not read.  I said it was my impression that it was not read, and in that impression I agreed with those Senators, but that I did not desire to go into that controversy.  I do not know whether it was read or not.  My impression is now with the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from West Virginia, that it was not read through.  I went upon the ground, and I am not going to repeat it, that when a Senator stops short with simply stating that it never was read, and omits to state that the provision, which he says never was read by saying that the substitute never was read, had been submitted to Congress and read a dozen times, he does not tell the whole truth.

The Senator from Indiana says that the public did not know anything about this legislation.  I called attention to the fact that the New York Chamber of Commerce and the National Board of Trade in open convention discussed and approved of it, and passed resolutions asking that it be done, and sent a copy of their resolutions to each member of Congress;  and the action of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the very words of the resolution which I have read here, was published in the New York dailies the next day.  The Senator from Indiana assumes to speak for the great public, and says that the public did not know that there was the slightest intention to demonetize silver.  He brings up the fact that a distinguished member of the House of Representatives has been found who being absent from the House when it was passed or engaged in committee---

Mr. Hereford.  I beg pardon, General Garfield was present and participated in the discussion on the very day that the measure passed.

Mr. Voorhees.  The record shows that he did.

Mr. Hereford.  And the record shows that he was there upon that day in his seat and participated in the discussion.

Mr. Dawes.  I cannot make these remarks if interrupted.  Being absent, I repeat, from the House when the bill passed, or being engaged in the duties of a laborious committee, or otherwise engaged, he did not understand, as he does most of the legislation, this particular, about which he was not called upon officially, as a member of any committee, to understand.  There is no doubt about that.  The Senator says that the President of the United States a year afterward had forgotten, if he ever knew, that it was in the bill that he signed.  There is no question that it was in the bill which he signed;  there is no question that he approved of the bill;  and it is no part of my duty here to undertake to convince the Senate or the public that the President approved a bill without knowing its provisions.

But, sir, the Senator from Indiana wants to know why it is that my then colleague offered a substitute if it was not to get this measure through.  Why, sir, had my colleague the least difficulty in getting this feature of the bill through ?  The bill had been reported and recommitted twice before, discussed at different times, and in a previous Congress also, and nobody opposed this feature of the bill.  Some did oppose the nickel feature;  some did oppose two or three other features of the bill, which threatened to swamp the bill.  If the Senator will read the debates he will see that it was to get along with and harmonize these features of the bill that the bill was recommitted and finally a substitute passed.

The Senator from Indiana has taken too much stock before the people in the charge that this measure was furtively put through Congress because somebody thought then that six or seyen years hence silver was going to be cheaper than gold to be expected to take it all back.  I did not expect that the Senator would take it back.  The material, the chief stock of the speeches that go to the country and inflame the public mind and delude the people has been that this measure was stealthily and furtively put through Congress, when it was proclaimed on the housetops and discussed in every assembly and convention where it was proper to discuss it.

Mr. Maxey.  Will the Senator from Massachusetts permit me to interrupt him ?

Mr. Dawes.  Certainly.

Mr. Maxey.  I will state to the Senator from Massachusetts that on the 9th of April, 1876, in this body, in reply to a question which I asked, Mr. John Sherman, then the chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, declared that no law repealed the silver dollar.  That was three years after the pretended demonetization of silver, and the record shows the fact just as I have stated it.

Mr. Dawes.  That grows out of the difference between lawyers upon the construction of the Revised Statutes, and not upon what was in the act, for the then Senator from Ohio explained the measure and those features of it in this body before the bill became a law.  There is no doubt when he ingrafted into that bill in the Senate the trade-dollar in the place of the dollar of 384 grains that he knew just what he was doing.

Mr. Maxey.  Mr. Sherman stated that there was no law which repealed the silver dollar;  that whenever it was to the interest of the Government, we had a right to recoin the "dollar of the fathers," using the very expression "dollar of the fathers," and that occurred on the 9th day of April, 1876, as shown by the record.

---[
April 9 was a Sunday.  It happened on Monday, April 10, 1876, page 2343.
John Sherman said this:--- "Those are all the changes, so that the silver dollar of our revolutionary fathers is the silver dollar of to-day if we choose to restore it.  The trade-dollar has been introduced simply as a commercial dollar."
John Sherman fluently lied.
Some days earlier (March 30), this exact same John Sherman said in debate:

Mr. Conkling.  Will the Senator allow me to ask him or some other Senator a question ?  Is it true that there is now by law no American dollar;  and if so, is it true that the effect of this bill is to make half dollars and quarter dollars the only silver coin which can be used as a legal tender ?

Mr. Sherman.  I will answer the Senator from New York that since the law of 1853 the use of the silver whole dollar has been discontinued and none has been issued.  That has been so since 1853.

Mr. Conkling.  Is there power to issue it ?

Mr. Sherman.  There is no power and has been none.

Mr. Bogy.  The power to issue existed from 1853 to 1873;  but since 1873 I think there has been no power.

Mr. Sherman.  There has been no silver dollar issued since 1853, and my impression is that the law of 1853 did not confer the power to issue it.  The Senator thinks it did confer the power;  but the law of 1873 cut off the power, in my judgment, if it existed.  The dollar was practically dropped from our coinage system for the best possible reason, the same reason that the five-franc piece and the large coins of England have been dropped out of their currency, simply because it is inconvenient in size and form for ordinary coinage and ordinary business.

]

Mr. Dawes.  I am not to be led off from this testimony, accumulated as it is, which cannot be blown out of sight, by any side question or issue.  I am not to be led off into a legal discussion as to the proper construction of the Revised Statutes or whether previous to this the dollar was extinguished or not.  When I read the concluding section of the original bill as it was sent here, different from that which passed, I showed that it was the intention of those who submitted the measure and who reported the measure to make it extinguish the silver dollar.

Mr. Maxey.  If the Senator will permit me, I will state that I was not quoting Mr. John Sherman as a lawyer.  I was quoting Mr. John Sherman as the chairman of the Finance Committee, whose business it was to investigate and examine that measure and to report the bill to the Senate.  Three years after that bill was reported to the Senate he declared that there was no law which repealed the silver dollar.

Mr. Dawes.  I understand from the Senator from California that that was the statement of the senior Senator from Ohio [Mr. Thurman] the other day in discussing the present measure.

Mr. Sargent.  So I understand;  a statement made by the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Thurman.]

Mr. Dawes.  I do not desire to take up the time of the Senate any further on this point.

Mr. Voorhees.  If the Senator will allow me, upon one point he has evidently in an allusion to me spoken of an attempt to delude the people, perhaps successfully.

Mr. Dawes.  I beg pardon if the Senator supposed I meant that he intended to do that.

Mr. Voorhees.  Of course I cannot misunderstand the Senator from Massachusetts as meaning to accuse me of desiring to delude the people, but as having led them into a belief that the act of 1873 had been furtively passed.  If the measure had been openly passed and well known in its passage by the American people, how could they be deluded into the belief that it had been furtively done ?  If it was an open and public act, I should like to ask the Senator from Massachusetts how the American people, knowing a thing to have been done, could be persuaded into the belief that it had been furtively and silently and surreptitiously accomplished ?

Mr. Dawes.  The Senator from Indiana can persuade the people of anything.

Mr. Voorhees.  Ah !

Mr. Dorsey.  Now I move that the Senate adjourn.

The motion was agreed to;  and (at five o'clock and forty minutes p.m.) the Senate adjourned.