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

Coinage of Silver Dollars.

The Vice-President [William Wheeler].  If there be no further morning business, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumes the consideration of the unfinished business, being the bill (H.R. No. 1093) to authorize the free coinage of the standard silver dollar and to restore its legal-tender character, on which the Senator from Iowa [Mr. Allison] is entitled to the floor.

Mr. Allison.  I understand that the morning business has been completed.  Therefore I called for the regular order.  I yield to the Senator from Kansas, [Mr. Ingalls,] who desires to submit some remarks.

Mr. Ingalls [John James Ingalls (December 29, 1833 - August 16, 1900) Atchison Kansas, R; studied law, admitted to the bar].  Mr. President, the financial system of this country has hitherto suffered much more from its doctors than from its diseases.  It has had drugs instead of nutriment.  It has had constant change, when it needed stability and repose.  Since the assembling of Congress in October, we have been burdened with pamphlets, addresses, essays, memorials, letters, protests, and petitions urging specific legislative action as a cure for the deplorable ills with which the country is afflicted.  Men who have distinguished themselves by conspicuous incapacity to manage their own affairs with prudence and success, have not hesitated to assume that they are qualified to control the concerns of everybody else.  We have been offered panaceas against panics, and patent empirical processes by which universal prosperity is to be restored to the people.  Some prescribe gold, some silver, and others paper as a currency.  Some want bullion and others want coin.  Some want a dollar that will not go abroad and others a dollar that will not stay at home.  Some want to limit the amount that shall be issued.  Opinions as to the weight of the silver unit vary from 400 to 454 grains.  One eminent Senator proposes to establish a sliding scale of valuation to be determined monthly by the Secretary of the Treasury, so that if coin is too heavy at any time the debtor can put it in a lathe and turn off the superfluous grains, and if it is too light he can keep it until the price goes up again.  The Senator from Maine inveighs against the invidious and unpatriotic discrimination of issuing a more valuable dollar to pay the barbarous laborers of China and India than that which is employed for the wages of the intelligent American voters who make Presidents, while no one knows better than he that the workingmen of those countries do not earn on an average sixty cents per week, and the trade-dollars are coined not to pay for labor but to enable merchants and capitalists to effect their exchange.

I do not propose to add to this confusion.  I have no prescription to offer.  Upon a subject that has engaged the attention of mankind for thousands of years and is still open to debate, I may well distrust the soundness of my conclusions, and hesitate to submit them for consideration;  but so much has been said in this debate with which I agree, so much has been said from which I wholly dissent, and so much has been left unsaid which I believe to be true, that I shall venture to detain the Senate by a few observations in explanation of my vote.

Were the proposition to discontinue the coinage of the silver dollar and deprive it of its legal-tender power submitted now, for the first time, to the people of the United States, it would be rejected overwhelmingly in every State in the Union.  I doubt if a single county even could be found, outside a few in the northern Atlantic States, where such a proposition would receive a majority of the votes of either political party.  Even in the Senate, where conservatism is the law of action, twenty-two States favor the restoration of silver.  Eight are opposed and eight are equally divided.  Of the latter, if we can judge by their Representatives in the lower House and the tone of the press, we must include Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina in favor of the pending bill.  I understand that the junior Senator from Mississippi concedes that his State is against him, and I believe Georgia has formally protested against the position taken by her Senator who spoke on Friday of last week.  Estimating their populations by the average ratio of increase since 1870, we have twenty-five States, with nearly thirty-four million people, in favor of the restoration of silver;  eight States, with nearly nine millions, against it;  five States, with a population of about three millions, divided upon the proposition.

I see no proof of the assertion that the demonetization of silver in 1873 was accomplished by corrupt or fraudulent means.  The act was improvidently passed.  The attention of the people was not called to the subject.  It was not discussed nor understood.  Though it was done at a time when the public mind was intensely interested upon financial subjects, and methods of relief were assiduously sought, the demonetization of silver was never suggested by any one as likely to ameliorate the pecuniary distress of the nation.

But there is strong evidence that the destruction of the legal-tender power of silver was the culmination of a scheme long entertained by the holders of the public debt of this country, devised by them for the purpose of appreciating the value of their investments, regardless of the ruin and desolation which it would bring upon the laboring and productive classes of the nation.

In a report made to the Senate June 9, 1868, to accompany a "bill in relation to the coinage of gold and silver," Mr. Sherman, now Secretary of the Treasury, said:

The single standard of gold is an American idea, yielded reluctantly by France and other countries where silver is the chief standard of value.

No statement emanating from authority so respectable could well be more devoid of truth.  The original American idea was a single standard of silver.  Gold was an innovation, and, in my judgment, a grave mistake.  The assertion of Senator Sherman that the single gold standard was an "American idea" is so singularly incorrect that it seems almost like a premeditated preliminary to the fatal error of 1873.

No doubt there must be a money unit which should have a standard value regulated by law.  This unit should be established in the precious metal which is least subject to fluctuations which is most abundant, and has the widest uses.  That metal is silver.

If we are to have a monometallic standard, I believe silver to be immeasurably preferable to gold.  It is less subject to fluctuation;  its production is more steady;  its cost more uniform.

No enduring fabric of national prosperity can be builded on gold.  Gold is the money of monarchs.  Kings covet it;  the exchanges of nations are effected by it.  Its tendency is to accumulate in vast masses in the commercial centers, and to move from kingdom to kingdom in such volumes as to unsettle values and disturb the finances of the world.  It is the instrument of gamblers and speculators, and the idol of the miser and the thief.  Being the object of so much adoration, it becomes haughty and sensitive and shrinks at the approach of danger, and whenever it is most needed it always disappears.  At the slightest alarm it begins to look for a refuge.  It flies from the nation at war to the nation at peace.  War makes it a fugitive.  No people in a great emergency ever found a faithful ally in gold.  It is the most cowardly and treacherous of all metals.  It makes no treaty that it does not break.  It has no friend whom it does not sooner or later betray.  Armies and navies are not maintained by gold.  In times of panic and calamity, shipwreck and disaster, it becomes the chief agent and minister of ruin.  No nation ever fought a great war by the aid of gold.  On the contrary, in the crisis of greatest peril it becomes an enemy more potent than the foe in the field;  but when the battle is won and peace has been secured, gold reappears and claims the fruits of victory.  In our own civil war it is doubtful if the gold of New York and London did not work us greater injury than the powder and lead and iron of the rebels.  It was the most invincible enemy of the public credit.  Gold paid no soldier nor sailor.  It refused the national obligations.  It was worth most when our fortunes were lowest.  Every defeat gave it increased value.  It was in open alliance with our enemies the world over, and all its energies were evoked for our destruction.  But as usual, when danger has been averted and the victory secured, gold swaggers to the front and asserts the supremacy.

But silver is the money of the people.  It is the money of wages and retail.  Its tendency is toward diffusion and dissemination.  It enters into the minute concerns of traffic, and is exchanged day by day for daily bread.  It penetrates the remotest channels of commerce, and its abundance, bulk, and small subdivision prevent its deportation in sufficient amounts to disturb or unsettle values.  If it retires at the approach of danger, or from the presence of an inferior currency, it still remains at home ready to respond to the first summons for its return.  During a late visit to a remote portion of Arkansas I was surprised by the great amount of old silver in circulation, including Mexican and pillar dollars and American halves and quarters coined half a century ago.  Seeking an explanation I was told by the merchants that upon the withdrawal and retirement of the fractional paper currency these old coins immediately appeared in sufficient quantities to supply all the needs of trade;  conclusively showing that when silver vanished at the beginning of the legal-tender paper period, it had been hoarded among the people and had promptly returned to circulation when its presence was required.  I have no doubt that two hundred and fifty millions of silver would be thus readily absorbed among the people of the United States, forming a vast, permanent, stable accumulation which would be an enduring basis of prosperity, less liable than any other currency to the mutations and vicissitudes of financial panics and disasters.

Mr. President, money is one of the subtlest inventions or discoveries of the human intellect.  A rude and unproductive people having no intercourse with other communities would confine themselves to a simple exchange of those commodities which each individual required for his convenience or consumption.  As some exhibited greater skill in weaving cloth, others superior dexterity in the chase, and others more capacity for cultivating the soil, avocations would gradually become special, and the earliest transactions of trade would consist in the exchange of one commodity for another, based upon the amount of labor or skill required for the production of each.

So long as merely enough of any commodity was produced to meet the needs of all, no money would be necessary;  but as soon as there was excess of production, when exchanges increased, transactions multiplied, and interests became more diverse and expanded, ingenuity would devise some method by which traffic should be simplified and rendered less complex, expensive, and inconvenient, and by which accumulations could be preserved.  The obvious suggestion would be to select some one commodity which should accomplish two purposes: one to represent the comparative value of all commodities, and the other to make a medium by means of which they could be exchanged without actual manual transfer.  There is scarcely any commodity which has not at some time or other been used as money;  but with the development of civilization and the introduction of credit as an element of commerce the idea of intrinsic value to the article employed as money has been abandoned, and nearly all extensive business transactions are conducted by means of paper in the form of bank-notes, checks, drafts, and bills of exchange.

Bank-notes were originally issued in amounts precisely equal to the representative value of the gold and silver in the vaults, and they were intended merely to preserve the metals from loss by abrasion from use and from the depredations of thieves.  But gradually they were issued largely in excess of this in order to release for more remunerative purposes a greater amount of productive capital.  If by any process all business were compelled to be transacted on a coin basis, and actual specie payments should be enforced, the whole civilized world would be bankrupt before sunset.  There is not coin enough in existence to meet in specie one-thousandth part of the commercial obligations of mankind.  Specie payments, as an actual fact, will never be resumed, neither in gold nor silver, in January, 1879, nor at any other date, here nor elsewhere.  The pretense that they will be is either dishonest or delusive.

The American people have no special reverence for coin.  They believe that all money, whether of metal or paper, is a creation of law, and has precisely the value that the Government issuing it declares it shall possess.  The creation of money is a power delegated to Congress by the people.  Its unit must necessarily be arbitrary, and its value rests upon the consent of the nation.  The relative value of silver and gold to each other, as compared with other commodities, cannot be ascertained.  It is affected by a thousand circumstances that operate every day and hour.  Production, demand, peace, war, famine, the standard of other nations --all are factors in the insoluble problem.  Monetary commissions, whether national or international, can do nothing except to agree upon an arbitrary ratio that shall be accepted by the parties to the alliance.  The ratio of the silver dollar of 412½ grains to the American gold unit is as 1 to 15.988;  the ratio of our subsidiary coin is 1 to 14.52;  the ratio of the trade-dollar is 1 to 16.27;  the ratio of the Latin union and of Austria is 1 to 15.50;  of England, 1 to 14.2;  of Germany, 1 to 13;  of Portugal, 1 to 14;  of Mexico, 1 to 16½;  of Russia, 1 to 14.75.  In some nations the ratio has remained unchanged for centuries, as in Bogota, where it is 1 to 12.50, and in Egypt, where it is 1 to 12.30.  There are also different standards of fineness established by different nations.  Ours is 900, while that of England is 925.  Congress has not only exercised its constitutional power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coins, but it has repeatedly changed their value by different enactments, diminishing their weight, and debasing them with alloy while retaining them at the same nominal value.

The Spartans made money of iron.  Congress has exercised nearly the same prerogative.  The gold value of the nickel five-cent piece is exactly four-sevenths of one cent;  and the Government has made a profit to this date of four million six hundred and eighteen thousand dollars by this coinage.  I have heard these pieces called "tokens."  They are "tokens" just as the silver dollar or the double eagle are "tokens."  They are convertible into any other lawful money.  A nickel worth four-sevenths of one cent will purchase five cents' worth of any commodity just as certainly and cheaply as five cents' worth of gold, because the nation has so decreed.  The same is true of our subsidiary silver coinage, which has been alloyed to such an extent that the Treasury is nearly six million dollars richer by the seigniorage.

The value of any commodity, Mr. President, is an expression of the relation which it sustains to the needs, the appetites, or the tastes of man.  There is no such quality as absolute value.  All value is relative and comparative.  A thing may be valuable at one time and valueless at another;  to one person it may be priceless and to another worthless.

Money which represents and measures all values is a creature of law.  Gold and silver require labor for their production;  they have their uses in the arts and for ornament, but as coin no person wants them, except to enable him to obtain other commodities.  The holder of a paper dollar does not prize it because he can exchange it for gold, nor does the holder of the silver dollar value it because it contains a certain number of grains of metal, but because he can procure for it a certain equivalent in food, clothing, pleasure, land, or labor.  If it were possible that all the currency of this country could be placed in the absolute possession of one individual, and he be confined in an uninhabited desert, without shelter, raiment, or food, who would be the richer man, the possessor of all this treasure or the humblest artisan who had a roof to cover him, rags to clothe him, and a crust to keep him from starvation, but without a dollar, either in paper or silver or gold ?

If all the legal tender and bank-notes of this country were stacked up and burned at the Treasury, and the ashes committed to the Potomac, the nation would be just as rich as it is to-day.  The only loss would be the paper and paint and the labor which executed them.  If all the gold and silver coins were melted into bars and ingots, and buried in the earth, the world would be no poorer, save by the loss of the labor which was required to raise the metal from the mines and stamp them with the devices which designated their relative position in the scale of representative values.  The result would be inconvenient;  commerce would be deranged.  Instead of purchase and sale, its transactions would be by barter and exchange, corn would be given for cloth, wheat for beef, and labor for all, but beyond this, there would be no change.

The theory that there is any universal money, a money of the world as the antithesis of money that is local or circumscribed in its purchasing power is totally baseless.  A Congress of nations duly empowered might establish a universal currency, but till this is done the money of every country, whether gold or silver, copper or paper, beyond the territorial limits of the jurisdiction that creates it, is as purely an article of merchandise as cotton, beef, or hay.  British gold is not money here, nor is American gold money in England.  If any one doubts it let him try the experiment of purchasing a pair of gloves or paying a hack-fare with a guinea or a sovereign on the Avenue.  It could be converted into money at a broker's, but it has no purchasing power.  And not only is this true of foreign coins, but it is equally true of our own as soon as the stamp of the Government is obliterated.  Take a new double eagle, just coined at the mint, lay it on an anvil and strike it with a sledge, effacing the image and superscription.  It weighs as many grains as before.  It has the same standard of fineness.  It is identically the same substance, but it is no longer money.  It should be worth as much, but it will purchase nothing.  It has lost that subtle quality which makes it current as money.  It has become commodity or merchandise and nothing more.

One noticeable feature in all the arguments of the [gold] monometallists is an elaborate effort to surround capital with some peculiar sanctity;  to hedge it about with special divinity;  to separate accumulations from wages;  to distinguish between the dollar that was earned yesterday and the one that is to be earned to-morrow;  to place capital on an equality with labor, or else above it in the social and political system.  They are willing to permit silver to enter into the monetary circulation, but insist on limiting its paying power to insignificant sums for specific purposes.  They insist that it shall remain the handmaid, the base and common drudge of trade, restricted to petty services and incapacitated for the nobler functions of commerce.  Some are willing that it should be legal tender for sums less than $5.  Others would magnanimously consent to $20 as the boundary;  but all insist on a limitation.  They think it is just to pay the laborer who earns a dollar by a day's labor in the degraded metal, but not the man who holds the coupon of a Government bond for the same amount.  Silver may buy a loaf of bread, but not the barrel of flour from which it is baked.  Silver may buy a steak, but not the steer from which it is cut.  Silver is good enough for the laborer, but not for the capitalist.

The truth is, Mr. President, that labor is antecedent to capital and independent of it.  Capital is the result of labor, and not the cause.  Society could survive without capital, but not without labor.  Both have rights and are entitled to protection, but labor is superior to capital and should have the first consideration.

Leaving these general considerations, I will briefly notice some specific objections that are made against the pending bill.

It is urged that the faith of the nation is pledged to the payment of our bonds and other obligations in gold.  If this be true there is an end of argument.  For nations no less than for individuals, honesty is the best policy.  That nation is "naked, though locked up in steel, whose conscience with injustice is corrupted."

If we contracted to pay in gold we must do so though leave us beggars.  But did we so agree ?

The act of February 25, 1862, authorizing the issue of 5/20 bonds, provides that the interest shall be paid not in gold, but coin.  That act also provides that duties on imports shall be paid not in gold, but in coin.  The same act created the sinking fund, payable not in gold, but coin.

The act of February 12, 1862, makes its obligations payable not in gold, but coin.

The act of July 11, 1862, makes its obligations payable not in gold, but coin.

The act of March 3, 1863, providing for the issue of $900,000,000, makes them payable not in gold, but coin.

The act of March 3, 1864, for a loan of $200,000,000, makes it payable not in gold, but coin.

The act of June 30, 1864, to borrow $400,000,000, makes it payable not in gold, but coin.

The act of March 3, 1865, for $600,000,000, makes them payable in "coin or other lawful money;"  not gold, but coin or greenbacks.

The act of March 18, 1869, "An act to strengthen the public credit," "to remove any doubt as to the purpose of the Government to discharge all just obligations to the public creditors, and to settle conflicting questions and interpretations of the laws by which such obligations have been contracted," solemnly pledges" the faith of the United States" "to the payment" "of all the obligations of the United States not bearing interest, known as United States notes," "in coin or its equivalent," and of all interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except in cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful money or other currency than gold and silver."

All our debt is payable in coin.  Silver was legal coin when the debt was contracted.  Therefore the debt is payable in silver.

The odious cant about repudiation and dishonor is a knavish device to intimidate a people who have always respected their obligations.  The great journals of Europe entertain no such opinions.  The London Times recently said:  "It could in no sense be called repudiation if silver were made the sole standard of the United States to-morrow."  The London Economist, the special organ of British financial opinions, in speaking of the same subject uses the following language:

If at the present moment, America would become a silver country, the interest and principal of her obligations would be paid in silver.  The evil, of course, would not be what the momentary circumstances of the market would now suggest.  Silver would not be at fifty-four pence per ounce if America was a country with a sole silver currency.  So large a demand as her coin requirements would send up the price very rapidly --perhaps to its old amount.

There can be no doubt of the constitutional authority of Congress to create a silver-dollar unit, containing any number of grains greater or less than 412½.  The only question to be determined is, what shall the weight of the dollar be ?  I am clearly of opinion that while the dollar of 412½ grains is required by the terms of our contract, it will be too valuable for domestic uses.  One of the gold organs of New York says:

It was the fad that in these countries (that is, the states of the Latin union) 15½ ounces of silver could be exchanged for 1 of gold that caused our dollar of 412½ grains to be exported as fast as it was coined, as that coin was based upon 16 to 1, and was therefore worth 3 per cent. more in Europe than at home;  and if silver should recover its lost value and be remonetized on the basis of 412½ grams, it would for the same reason be impossible to keep it in the country.

But even this condition of affairs will not be without its consolations.  The advocates of gold have endeavored to leave the impression that this drainage of silver would be like blood spilled upon the ground to be drunk by the thirsty sands.  But if silver goes abroad, it will travel as merchandise and not as money.  At the distance of three marine leagues from the shore it becomes commodity, and will sell for what it is actually worth in the land to which it goes, and it will send back gold, bonds, silk, wine, cutlery, broadcloth, to the land from whence it came.

The issue of silver will also tend to remedy the evils which have resulted not by operation of law alone, but by those great natural causes which are apparent to the most casual scrutiny.  I do not refer solely to that actual diminution in the volume of the currency by law, but to the practical withdrawal of it from the channels of circulation, so that it ceases to be available for the purposes of commerce and trade.  This condition has resulted from the sudden and unprecedented expansion of our industrial areas;  from the vast extension of our western boundaries;  from the economical restoration of the South by which the enfranchised slave has become lord of himself and master of his earnings.  The great column of emigrants that moves westward with irresistible impulse, peopling the gorges of Montana and Colorado and the valleys of the Republican and the Arkansas, bears with it a vast volume of currency which reduces by millions the amount that would otherwise be available to effect the exchanges of the country.

Were other argument needed to show the wisdom and the justice of the measure before us, it could be found in the tactics of the opposition.  The advice of an eminent lawyer to his pupil was:  "When you have a bad case, abuse the witnesses and counsel on the other side."  For months the air has been dense with the din of denunciation.  The vocabulary of vituperation has been exhausted.  No epithet has been too atrocious to be applied to the people of the West and South by the salt-water despots who are endeavoring to foreclose their mortgage on the whole country.

Mr. President, the State which I represent is almost exclusively an agricultural community.  Its history is a marvel even in an age of miracles.  Its growth is unprecedented.  Its development has no parallel.  Twenty years have seen its population increase from a few thousand adventurous pioneers along its eastern border to three-quarters of a million of people who are rearing to the remotest bounds of its fertile area the enduring fabric of a Christian society.  Already it has single counties that produce annually more corn than any State in New England and more wheat than all the States of New England combined.  It has made the most liberal provisions for education, the most heroic sacrifices for liberty.  Men of all races and creeds have assembled there from every continent, amid the most favorable conditions of nature, assimilated and blended by a common purpose to build a stately edifice, where they and their children and all who love liberty and order and law may dwell in peaceful prosperity.  They are a tolerant, thoughtful, progressive, and laborious people;  and yet they are habitually stigmatized by gentlemen whose only claim to superiority is based upon a difference of opinion, as maniacs, lunatics, repudiators, violators of public faith, robbers, destroyers of the national honor, because they ask that silver may be restored to the place which by law it occupied till 1873 in the monetary system of the United States.

Like all new communities, they have been borrowers and were obliged to anticipate their revenues and pawn the future.  They had to buy their land, to build houses, to make highways, to bridge streams, construct churches and school-houses, and lay the foundations of the State.  The capitalists of the East, captivated by the prospects of secure investments and large interest, advanced money to the farmers and took mortgages on their farms;  they purchased tax-titles;  they induced cities and counties to issue bonds for the construction of railroads and court-houses and works of public improvement.  They loaned their capital at exorbitant rates, beginning at 10 per cent., and thence ranging through the various gradations by which interest passes into usury, usury into extortion, and all into larceny and spoliation.  Even under these conditions, so long as money was abundant and exchanges easy the country thrived;  great enterprises were stimulated;  new industries were developed, and States grew opulent and prosperous.

But soon the circulating medium of the nation began to be diminished by law.  The public debt was declared to be payable in coin, and then the money power of silver was destroyed.  The value of property diminished in proportion.  Wages fell and finally employment ceased.  The value of everything was depreciated except debts and gold.  The mortgage, the bond, the coupon, the tax, have retained immortal youth and vigor.  They have not depreciated.  The debt remains, but the capacity to pay has been destroyed.  The accumulations of years have disappeared under the hammer of the sheriff, and the debtor is homeless while the creditor obtains the security for a fraction of what it was actually worth when the debt was contracted.

As a satisfactory solution of the difficulty we are assured that our prosperity was unreal;  that there had been an unnatural expansion of values;  that our towns and cities sprang like an exhalation from the desert;  that this new empire beyond the Mississippi with its dense populations, its harvest-fields, its permanent institutions, was merely a deceptive mirage which lifted its fragile phantoms above that distant horizon.  At every new crisis in public affairs, Mr. President, the American people give fresh evidence of their capacity for self-government, and of their ability to comprehend any subject, however abstruse, that may be presented for their consideration.

They will not be deterred by threats nor deluded by sophistries.  They know that an abundant and stable currency is the essential foundation of national prosperity.  They know that had not the credit of the nation been utilized as the basis of a circulating medium, the Pacific Railroad would have been to-day the unrealized dream of Benton's brain;  that the Pacific States would have been accessible only by sea or by the ox-wagon and the slow-stage journeying for weeks through the alkali and grease-wood of the plains, and that the footsteps of the pioneer would yet have faltered upon the imaginary confines of the Great American Desert.  They know that our legal-tender period previous to enforced contraction was not, as the gold-worshipers would maintain, a frenzied epoch of wild and eager speculation like that of John Law, when the holders of assignats, based upon church revenues or the confiscated estates of an exiled nobility, having no faith either in the permanence or the honor of the nation, recklessly sought to invest a worthless currency in any scheme that offered a prospect of ultimate reward, but a healthy era of legitimate enterprise, attended with the most beneficent results, not to this nation alone but to the whole limits and boundary of the civilized world.

They know also that their distress is chiefly due to the efforts of those who own the debt and money of the nation to enhance its value;  who are rapidly obtaining fatal control of the railroads, the forests, and the fertile lands of the South and West, through colossal monopolies, which threaten with arrogant menace not only the material prosperity but the social order of the country.

We cannot disguise the truth that we are on the verge of an impending revolution.  The old issues are dead.  The people are arraying themselves upon one side or the other of a portentous contest.  On one side is capital, formidably intrenched in privilege, arrogant from continued triumph, conservative, tenacious of old theories, demanding new concessions, enriched by domestic levy and foreign commerce, and struggling to adjust all values to its own standard.  On the other is labor, asking for employment, striving to develop domestic industries, battling with the forces of nature, and subduing the wilderness;  labor, starving and sullen in cities, resolutely determined to overthrow a system under which the rich are growing richer and the poor are growing poorer;  a system which gives to a Vanderbilt the possession of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and condemns the poor to a poverty which has no refuge from starvation but the prison or the grave.

Our demands for relief, for justice, have been met with indifference or disdain.  The laborers of the country asking for employment are treated like impudent mendicants begging for bread.  The Senator from Connecticut informs us that hundreds of millions of dollars are lying idle in New York and Hartford, which can be borrowed on good security at 4 per cent., and asks with something like a sneer how the coinage of a dollar worth ninety cents will benefit the poor unless they can give good security for their loan.  The laborers of the West do not want to borrow;  they want to earn.  They do not wish to pay interest on other men's capital, but to sell their labor and if possible acquire some capital of their own.  The producers of the West want a market in which the value of their products will not be consumed by the cost of transportation over railroads that pool their earnings and combine to keep their rates at a point where the carrier grows rich and the farmer poor.

The Senator from Wisconsin, in that admirable speech which left so little for others to say, declared that this was not a contest between the East and West.  Let us see.  Against silver, as indicated by the vote on the Matthews resolution, are New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island.  For it are every Western State but Michigan, California, and Oregon and every Southern State but Maryland and Delaware, and all these are divided.

The Senator from Wisconsin was right.  It is not the East against the West.  It is the East against the West and South combined.  It is the corn and wheat and beef and cotton of the country against its bonds and its gold;  its productive industry against its accumulations.  It is the men who own the public debt against those who are to pay it, if it is to be paid at all.  If the bonds of this Government are ever paid, they will be paid by the labor of the country, and not by its capital.  They are exempt from taxation and bear none of the burdens of society.

The alliance between the West and the South upon all matters affecting their material welfare hereafter is inevitable.  Their interests are mutual and identical.  With the removal of the causes of political dissension that have so long separated them, they must coalesce, and united they will be invincible.  The valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, with their tributaries, form an empire that must have a homogeneous population and a common destiny from the Yellowstone to the Gulf.  These great communities have been alienated by factions that have estranged them only to prey upon them and to maintain political supremacy by their separation.  Unfriendly legislation has imposed intolerable burdens upon their energies;  invidious discriminations have been made against their products;  unjust tariffs have repressed their industries.  While vast appropriations have been made to protect the harbors of the Atlantic, and to erect beacons upon every frowning headland to warn the mariner with silent admonition from the "merchant-marring rocks," the Mississippi was left choked with its drifting sands till the daring genius of Eads undertook the gigantic labor of compelling the great stream to dredge its own channel to the sea.  The opening of this avenue of commerce marks the epoch of the emancipation of the West and South from their bondage to the capital of the East, and in asking the passage of this bill they are asking less than they will ever ask again.  When I reflect upon the burdens they have borne, the wrongs they have suffered, I am astonished at their moderation. [Applause in the galleries.]

Mr. Anthony.  I give notice that if this disorder is repeated I shall move that the galleries be cleared.

Mr. Allison [William Boyd Allison (1829-1908), Dubuque Iowa, R;  studied law, admitted to the bar].  Mr. President, debate upon this question has been exhausted and I do not expect that I shall be able, in the few closing remarks I shall make, to add anything new to what has already been said.  There are some things, however, which have been disclosed in the debate that I think ought to be a subject of congratulation to all of us.  This is the first great measure that I have seen discussed in this Chamber that has not met with constitutional objections;  but it seems to be conceded by the friends and the foes of this measure that we have a clear and undisputed power under the Constitution to legislate as we will with reference to the coins which shall circulate as money in this country.  The men who framed that instrument gave to Congress exclusive power and sole power "to coin money and regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins."  It was argued ably by the honorable Senator from Texas [Mr. Maxey] that under the several provisions of the Constitution there does not exist in Congress the power to reject either of the precious metals as money under the Constitution, and the Senator from Maine [Mr. Blaine] expresses the same view.  It seems to me, that the fathers intended at least that the precious metals then known to the civilized world should be the constitutional money of this country, and that Congress is bound to so legislate as to provide for the circulation and use of both gold and silver.

Most of the arguments that have been made against remonetization have been directed against the bill as it came from the House of Representatives, and not to the bill as amended by the Committee on Finance, and Senators upon that committee opposed to this bill have not taken the pains to explain the amendments proposed, nor to show that those amendments materially changed the operation of the bill as it came from the House, but have pressed their opposition as though the amendments do not materially change the effect of the measure.

The House bill contemplates the immediate unrestricted and unlimited coinage of silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1, without cost to the owner of silver bullion.  It does not take into account in any way the changed conditions of affairs since the demonetization of silver in 1873, the chief of which is the reduced price of silver bullion measured in gold, nor does it take into account the preceding history of this country which clearly discloses that prior to 1873 silver was driven from the country from the fact that we undervalued silver in our legislation;  nor does it propose to take care that the two precious metals shall circulate side by side in this country, but it leaves that question to share the fate of the bullion market in London;  nor does it seek to prevent silver from being driven out under the ratio fixed by the bill, as it was expelled from circulation because of the relation of 16 to 1;  nor does it contemplate any agreement or understanding in the future with other nations using silver to secure uniformity of value or fixed relation with gold.

The House bill provides that any owner of bullion shall be permitted to bring that bullion to the mints of the United States and have it coined into dollars, thus giving to him the profit, if profit there be, derived from the difference between the bullion price of silver and the mint value of coined dollars struck at the mint.  To the bill unamended there are objections which the proposed amendments seek to cure.

The Finance Committee of the Senate believed that under the existing condition of things it was not wise to at once open the mints of this country to the free and unrestricted coinage of silver.  Therefore they have proposed two or three amendments, (two of them really incorporated into one amendment,) which are intended in the first instance to restrict and limit the coinage of silver;  not only to limit the coinage within prescribed limits, but also when the silver is coined to so place it that it will pass current side by side with coined dollars in gold;  and if these limitations and amendments do not effect this object, they fail to secure the object intended.  The amendments further propose that whatever profit, or gain, or seigniorage, or whatever it may be, between the bullion and the mint value shall go into the Treasury of the United States;  and unless these provisions are inserted, there will be a loss to the Treasury measured by the difference between the bullion price and the mint value after coinage.

Free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 will keep closed the mints of Europe that have the relation of 15½ to 1 and place upon us the whole responsibility of restoring silver to its old value and relation.  Free coinage here now will have a tendency to place the double-standard nations upon the single standard of gold, and place us wholly upon the single standard of silver by taking away our gold and giving us silver in return.

Another amendment proposed by the committee is that after we shall have established a policy which shall include the utilization of silver as well as gold, we shall invite other nations who believe with us in the utilization of both metals, to meet us in conference and agree upon a prescribed ratio between the two metals so as to secure uniformity of circulation and value.  The Senate amendments look to the use of both metals;  the utilization of both as the metallic money of the country, not only now but in the future, by limitations in the beginning, to be followed at an early day by the unrestricted coinage of both metals and full legal tender of both.  If they accomplish their intended purpose they will secure the circulation of both on a par with each other, each interchangable for the other, while the House bill will place us wholly on a standard of silver, which I think is not desirable;  but if we are to have monometallism now, I agree with the Senator from Kansas [Mr. Ingalls] that our best interests for the future would lead us to the single standard of silver rather than monometallism of gold, because if we adhere to gold alone, all other nations must in time follow, and silver would disappear from the world's circulation.  But the bill as reported by the Committee on Finance does not propose monometallism, but proposes the utilization of both metals.  It contemplates that by an agreement of nations such a fixity of value or relation can be made as will enable silver and gold to circulate side by side, and when such agreement is made, then the amendments contemplate that there shall be a free and unlimited coinage of both metals in this country as well as in the countries who unite with us to maintain both metals.  This amendment contemplates that a sufficient number of nations will join to create such a demand for silver as will keep the commercial and Mint values of the two metals at par with each other at the ratio fixed.

Now what is necessary under these amendments ?  The first amendment provides that the coinage shall be on Government account.  The first object of that provision is that the gain upon this coinage shall go into the Treasury, and not into the hands of the owner or holder of bullion;  but that is only part of the object, because under the free-coinage provision the gold would naturally be expelled and silver come in to take its place until all the gold is driven out, or until an equality between silver and gold is established on the ratio of 16 to 1.  Therefore the object of coinage on Government account is two-fold:  it means to retain the gold we have in the country as well as to provide for the profit upon the silver coinage.

It is objected by many Senators, notably by the honorable Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Eaton] and by the honorable Senator from California, [Mr. Sargent,] that even with these amendments the inevitable effect of this bill will be to drive out gold and substitute a silver coinage;  that a limited coinage upon Government account will not have the effect to retain gold in the country.  I ask Senators who believe that this will be the result to answer me why it is that in France, and Belgium, and Holland, and all the Latin union states gold and silver circulate side by side and are exchangeable for each other day by day among the people and in all the banks upon the relation of 15½ to 1, a relation which overvalues silver 3½ per cent. as compared with the dollar provided for in the bill.

Mr. Eaton.  Does the Senator desire an answer now ?  He said he desired an answer;  or shall I wait until he gets through, because the answer is an ample one ?

Mr. Allison.  I will take the Senator's answer now.

Mr. Eaton.  It is this:  It has been said here by distinguished Senators that there was $300,000,000 of silver in circulation in France.  It is not true.  There is no such circulation.  I am prepared to tell what the circulation of silver in France is, and that will give the reason the gentleman asked for.

Mr. Allison.  If the Senator can do that, he can do more than anybody I have ever heard of.

Mr. Eaton.  I am very happy to be able to instruct my honorable friend from Iowa. [Laughter.]

Mr. Allison.  I have no doubt you can. [Laughter.]

Mr. Eaton.  It has been said by the United States monetary commission as a maximum estimate that there is $413,500,000 silver in circulation in France.  Mr. Seyd reckons the quantity at $350,000,000 "in France," not in circulation;  Cernuschi, at about 286,000,000 "in France," not in circulation;  Leroy Beaulieu and Victor Bonnet agree that the amount of silver in France is 240,000,000 --"in France," not in circulation.  Last July the Bank of France had $154,626,000 as a reserve fund, leaving, therefore, in circulation in silver but $86,000,000, while the paper of the Bank of France was more than seven times that amount;  and I undertake to say to-day, this very day, that the silver in France is 1½ per cent. below the paper of the Bank of France, and the cable will so tell you.

Mr. Allison.  Mr. President, the Senator from Connecticut is sticking in the bark.  When I say there are $350,000,000 of silver in France, I do not say it all circulates from hand to hand.  I mean to say it furnishes a basis of paper circulation equal in value to and exchangeable for gold;  and the fact that there is only $150,000,000 of it in the Bank of France and $270,000,000 or $280,000,000 of gold in the bank shows that the two together form the metallic basis upon which the bank circulates over $450,000,000 in paper money.  It is true that if you carry one of those notes to the Bank of France you get either silver or gold, as you may choose.  It is true that if you carry either silver or gold into any store or shop or business place in France you may pay either without diminution or discount.  It is true that all the government revenues are received in silver and gold interchangeably.  It is true that French rentes, the obligations of the Republic of France, are paid in silver and gold interchangeably and that they make no distinction or difference in the country with reference to their transactions of any character between silver and gold;  and yet the money equivalent of their silver franc or five-franc piece is 3½ per cent. less than the money equivalent of our silver dollar as compared with the gold dollar and as proposed by the bill under consideration.

At this point I think I must call attention to the remarks made by the honorable Senator from California upon this subject.  He quoted briefly from an article in the London Economist of January 19, 1878, to show that silver money in France was depreciated as compared with gold money.  I have that article before me.  I can gather no such conclusion from the article.  On the contrary, what was the language of the governor of the Bank of France in replying to the Chamber of Commerce at Bordeaux, who complained not "that silver was being put in circulation," but that they could not get notes of the Bank of France ?  They were like some of our good friends;  they wanted more paper money.  That was what the Chamber of Commerce of Bordeaux wanted.  The governor of the bank in replying said:

I am unable to concur altogether in your opinion as to the inconvenience of maintaining silver in circulation, and I do not hesitate to ask you rather to use your influence in causing it to permeate among the still numerous classes who desire it, but who are prevented from obtaining it in consequence of the reluctance of intermediaries to burden themselves with it.

Here is a complaint coming from one of the cities of France that silver is being substituted for paper, and they ask that the paper may continue in circulation.  Now the editor of the London Economist in closing the article says:

We are informed that much of the inconvenience of which the Chamber of Commerce complains arises from the uncertain action of the bank.  One day the Bordeaux branch, which draws daily its supply of money from Paris, will issue notes freely;  another day it will pay only gold;  and on another there is perhaps nothing to be had except silver.  Merchants are thus needlessly harassed, and a stable policy on the part of the bank might do something to lessen complaints.

A stable policy on the part of the bank is what they desired.

Mr. Paddock.  I should like to interrupt the Senator a moment to ask him a question.

Mr. Allison.  Very well.

Mr. Paddock.  Is it not true, in accordance with the statement just made by the Senator from Iowa, that the Bank of France exercises a sort of dictatorial policy in respect to the legal-tender quality of silver ?  Is it not true that there is with it a discretion that it may make arbitrary rules in respect to the amount of silver that may be received by it as a legal tender, which operates, so to speak, as a limitation of the legal-tender force and quality of silver ?  I do not ask this question because I antagonize the position of the Senator from Iowa, but because I seek light.

Mr. Allison.  If I understand the inquiry of the Senator from Nebraska, I answer that the Bank of France has no power, absolutely no power, over the question of legal tender.  It is a public bank.  It receives deposits.  It is the depository of the republic.  It must take the silver that is paid in as taxes, and receives it.  The honorable Senator from Nevada [Mr. Jones] has just shown me the London Economist of February 2, which I had not seen, which answers most thoroughly the question of the honorable Senator from Nebraska, namely that silver is accumulating in the vaults of the Bank of France, showing that they have no power over legal tender, or at least they cannot reject silver offered by the public.

Mr. Paddock.  Does not the very fact of the accumulation show and prove that the Bank of France has absolute control over the silver currency and over its legal-tender force ?

Mr. Matthews.  If the Senator from Iowa will allow me a moment, I am in a position from having read the whole of that issue of the paper to state in answer to the question that the Bank of France has so little control over the question of what it will or will not receive in respect to silver coinage, that by the terms of the Latin union, which forms a part of the law of France, it cannot even refuse to receive the five-franc pieces which are coined in Italy or in Switzerland or in Belgium, and that in consequence of there being no domestic demand in Italy for the use of silver coinage by reason of the fact that they have an inconvertible currency, all the coinage of the mint in Italy goes into the Bank of France without their being able to reject it.

Mr. Allison.  And this article distinctly states that that is the reason: for the accumulation.  Of course under the monetary union established in 1865 the coins of those countries are interchangeable in all, so that the five-franc piece is received in Belgium and in Italy and in Switzer]and, and the reverse.  But the fact remains the same;  and I have heard it controverted here so often and so stoutly that I have been amazed, when the facts are so conclusively and incontestably otherwise.  Here is a country that has the double standard, silver and gold, with a constant and continuous accumulation of both silver and gold, when both are a full legal tender, and yet we are told in the face of this indubitable testimony drawn from the experience of other countries that if we establish silver here with the same limitations and under the same conditions the effect will be to drive gold from our country.  Now, gold will not go from this country except upon two conditions.  The first one is that the sum of the two precious metals together shall constitute more of a metallic money basis than is needed in this country.  When that occurs then, of course, one or the other of these metals will go to some other country to restore the equilibrium, and it will be that metal which at the moment is most valuable.

But I understand the opponents of this bill to be in favor of a return to specie payments immediately.  If we are to come to specie payments, I should like to know how long it would be before we should have a superabundance of both metals so as to drive out one of them.

The other contingency which will take gold from this country is that the balance of trade or the exchanges shall be against us.  If that shall occur at any time, of course the most valuable metal will go out, and that will be very likely gold for the present.  While the exchanges are in our favor it will be otherwise.  I believe the honorable Senator from Delaware, or perhaps some other Senator, stated the other day that for the last two years the exchanges have been over 350,000,000 in our favor, comparing our exports and imports.  But if the exchanges are against us, will not gold go out any way, with or without remonetization ?  That certainly does not affect the exodus of gold.  Our ability to retain either gold or silver, or both, rests upon our ability to keep the exchanges in our favor, because if they are against us the precious metals will inevitably go out.  I might say here that if we are to resume specie payments upon the single metal of gold, we probably would not maintain specie payments;  it is not likely that we could maintain specie payments for any length of time.  A short cotton crop or the foreign demand for cereals failing for a single year would turn the exchanges against us, and $50,000,000 of export of gold coin would drive us into a panic and into a suspension of specie payments.  Yet Senators here are rushing us on to specie payments upon the single metal of gold and say that we will be able to maintain specie payments with $650,000,000 of paper money in circulation.

Of course if France had an unlimited free coinage of silver then her gold would likely go out and silver take the place of it;  but France having restricted the coinage of silver, when Germany, or California, or Nevada present their silver bullion at the mint of France they have got to take for it the bullion price, and cannot draw from it five-franc pieces at will.  It is this restricted coinage on government account that enables France and the other countries of the Latin union to maintain their specie, both gold and silver.  It is our coinage upon Government account that will enable us to retain our gold here, and also any accumulation of silver that we may secure by coinage, unless one of the two conditions which I have named shall take place, namely, that the two metals together shall create a surplus of metallic money;  or, secondly, in case the exchanges shall run against us.  In either of these two events gold or silver, whichever at the moment may be the most valuable, would be expelled from the country.

But then we are told that the effect of this measure will be to bring home to us our bonds that are now held abroad, and that by this process the exchanges will be turned against us.  That also depends upon another fact, which fact is not likely to take place, namely, that the people who hold our bonds can with the money that they would receive for them reinvest in a better security.  Where can that be done, or how can it be done ?  Our bonds held abroad are five percents and six percents.  It is a singular fact that of the $75,000,000, which we find in the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury negotiated at 4 per cent., only $10,000,000 of them were taken abroad.  The remainder were subscribed by our own people at home.  Therefore our bonds will not return unless the people returning them can reinvest the money they receive in a better security.

I have heard it stated upon this floor that the effect of the agitation of the silver question has been to bring our bonds back to us and that they are coming now in large sums to our country.  Do not our friends know that that is not the reason why our bonds come back to us ?  They come back to us because our exports are largely in excess of our imports, and if these countries who take these products from us do not return to us something else instead, they must return to us gold.  England, Germany, and France are not prepared to return to us gold.  They have not the gold to spare, and hence they send us our own securities.

Mr. Eaton.  Will my friend permit me to interrupt him ?

Mr. Allison.  Certainly.

Mr. Eaton.  They would certainly return the gold if the bonds had not depreciated in value.  They would have kept that security unless that security had depreciated.  That is a plain mercantile fact that nobody will deny, I apprehend.

Mr. Allison.  So far from that being a plain mercantile fact, it is a notorious fact that there is a struggle going on in Europe for the retention of gold there.  The moment the Bank of England mises the rate of interest, the same moment the imperial bank at Berlin raises its rate, so that gold may not flow from Germany to England.  This process has been often repeated within the last year, because Germany and England both are struggling to-day for gold, and France, this silver country, is drawing away gold from both.  Why ?  Because the exchanges are in her favor as compared with other countries.

Mr. Hereford.  The Bank of England refused to send gold here.

Mr. Allison.  My friend from West Virginia reminds me of what has been so often said in this debate, quoting from the late honorable Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Boutwell, with reference to the fifteen millions that were awarded to us by the commission at Geneva and with reference to an accumulation of twenty-one millions of gold in the vaults of the Bank of England some years ago in our manipulations of United States bonds.  Mr. Boutwell tells us that the Bank of England, a private monetary institution, notified the Government of the United States that that institution would not permit this country to draw $21,000,000 in gold coin from its vaults.  It is probable that a hundred million of these bonds have been returned to us during the last year.  Why ?  Chiefly for the reason I have named, that they would not spare the gold.  The struggle for gold is the chief reason for sending our bonds home and it is not any question of silver agitation.  Our bonds will continue to come to make exchanges so long as our exports so largely exceed our imports.  Upon this very point, and I may as well allude to it now as elsewhere, the London Economist of January 16, 1875, shows that whereas the average annual production of gold in the years 1852-'56 was £29,176,000 it had fallen in the three years 1872-'74 to £18,713,000.  It proceeds to point out the channels into which this gold production has gone and states:

That Germany and latterly France have evidently absorbed the larger part of the available supply from the production above recorded and that the distant countries which we (England) provide with a gold currency have like ourselves been stinted in their supplies. * * * In other words, the supply has been obviously stinted everywhere, and there can be no stock in any quarter to be drawn upon.  The present position of the gold question is thus a very simple one.  The annual production of all the mining regions --which are worth reckoning is at the outside about £20,000,000;  but in this sum the Russian production is reckoned at about a fourth or fifth, and this does not really come into the general market of the world, being either retained in Russia itself to support the paper circulation or absorbed in Germany, without fully supplying the extraordinary demand for that quarter.  Of the £15,000,000 a year, again, which appears to be generally available, the annual supply necessary for England alone is £5,000,000;  for France on a specie basis, which is now returning, it was always more than that, or say £8,000,000;  and at least £5,000,000 was required for other countries which we coin for.  This makes £18,000,000 a year;  and how is the amount to be supplied, even without an extra demand for Germany and without any resumption of specie payment in the United States ?  At some point or other we venture to say the pressure in the money market must again become severe, or one of the great gold-valuing countries must abandon its standard, or the supply from the mines must be increased;  and the chances, we fear, are altogether against the concurrence of either of the two latter alternatives.

Thus measured the Economist, the special organ of the gold-standard party, three years ago.  All that has since transpired in respect to the production and demand for gold goes to confirm its wise predictions in 1875;  the annual gold production has not since exceeded £20,000,000, and the absorption by Germany and France has gone on in increasing proportions.  Whereas the new gold coinage of Germany amounted in January, 1875, to only £55,000,000, it now amounts to £74,000,000;  whereas the Bank of France held at the earlier date only about £53,000,000 in coin, it now holds nearly £80,000,000, of which about three-fourths is gold;  whereas the estimated annual absorption of gold by France, according to the Economist, was only £8,000,000, that country actually absorbed in the first eleven months of 1877 more than £16,000,000.

The Economist at various dates during the last year has complained of the decline in the English stock of gold, fixing the amount last August at £9,000,000, as compared with the same date a year earlier, and Germany has complained of an absorption of its new gold coinage by Russia.  The four largest banks in Europe, those of England, France, Germany, and Belgium, lost an aggregate of bullion between the beginning and end of the year 1877 (chiefly gold) amounting to nearly £10,000,000, equal to more than half the year's production of £19,000,000.  Whether this has gone into the hands of the French people, or to Russia, or into the United States Treasury is merely matter of conjecture.  The fact so accurately predicted by the Economist remains, that the supply of gold has not been sufficient to supply the demand of the countries already using it as a standard.  England and her tributaries have been stinted, and the Bank of England has kept up a constant war upon commerce by establishing excessive and unnatural rates of discount, in a vain struggle to keep gold from going to Germany and in a still more fruitless attempt to win it back again.  So small are the means at the command of that once despotic institution, as compared with the mass of loanable capital centering in London, that with a rate of interest of 5 per cent. in November it failed to attract gold from Germany, while Paris, with a rate of 2 per cent., was all the time drawing gold from that country.  The explanation is that the English Bank rate was not a true indication of the price of money in the London market, and foreigners knew it, and were not to be beguiled into sending it thither, while in France a continual probable balance of trade has steadily drawn gold to Paris.  The two great gold banks of the world, those of England and Germany, have watched each other with Argus eyes and regulated their respective rates of discount not by the conditions of the home market, but by the rates established by each other, in order to prevent the success of any artificial movement against their accumulated stock of gold.  "Only once during the past year," says the official journal of the Berlin Bourse, "was an alteration in the rate of discount on the part of one of these banks allowed to pass without a corresponding movement by the other."

And all this strife for gold has been going on without, to repeat the language of the Economist, "an extra demand from Germany and without any resumption of specie payment in the United States."  The supply of gold has not increased, though the pressure in the money market to influence its movements has been as severe as the prostrate condition of industry and trade would permit.  Which of the great gold-using countries (to recur again to the Economist's article) is prepared to abandon its standard in order that the United States may be able to resume specie payments on a gold basis without plunging the country into a hopeless crisis ?  Neither England nor Germany seems as yet disposed to do so.  Therefore I only follow the statement of the London Economist when I say that a struggle is going on in Europe to retain gold, and, if so, it follows that whatever we may do with silver our bonds will continue to return to us until this struggle ceases and that other causes than silver agitation are at work to send back to us our own securities.

Mr. President, if we are to come to specie payments, as we all hope to do, we must have a metallic basis in this country of not less than from three to four hundred million dollars.  I have shown that we cannot largely increase our stock of gold because we cannot draw gold from Europe.  If this bill passes as proposed, it will take four years to coin one hundred and sixty millions of silver dollars, only sixty millions more than Great Britain now circulates, depreciated 7 per cent. below the standard of 15&frac2; and with a limited legal tender amounting only to forty shillings.  Does any one believe that gold will go out of the country until this point at least is reached;  always bearing in mind that while we continue to coin on Government account it will not be profitable to import silver and export gold in exchange ?

Before I leave this point I must thank my honorable friend from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] who spoke so well and so ably upon this question some days ago, for furnishing me an argument on this subject.  My honorable friend undertook to give a reason why silver and gold remain together in France.  The reason he said was that in France they have a restricted coinage of silver on account of the government, which is just what we propose in this bill.  The Senator said:

And let me say that Belgium in the last year, although authorized to issue a certain number of millions of francs did not do so because they knew that unless they controlled the emission of their silver, it being cheaper relatively than gold, it would drive the gold out of circulation and therefore they would not let silver pass into circulation with the gold.

The Senator from Delaware has stated the exact truth, namely, if the coinage of silver is limited in amount and on account of the Government, the effect will be to keep both gold and silver in circulation side by side.

Mr. Bayard.  I have been under the impression that there was a good deal of concurrence in actual opinion between the mind of the honorable Senator from Iowa [Mr. Allison] and my own.  At the same time in regard to this subject of the power of the French government to maintain two metals in circulation at a declared equivalency of legal value when their bullion value is divergent, the honorable Senator scarcely states all the facts necessary to give the reasons for that state of things.  In the first place, this bill provides an unlimited coinage on behalf of the Government, restricted only in its volume by the simple mechanical capacity of the mints;  that is all.  So far as the bill is concerned, with the amendment reported by the Senate Finance Committee, the power of the Government is as to the amount of its silver coinage unlimited.  Now, the difference between the relations of the Government of France and of the United States to the question of coinage of silver will be this:  that France will be restricted by a monetary union with other nations in regard to her silver coinage unknown in the United States;  so much so that last year under the system and under the arrangement between France and other members of the Latin union, so called, the amount of silver coin, under the joint commission between those countries that met to determine how much of silver coin it was safe to put in circulation at a declared legal value to circulate with gold, awarded to the thirty-five million people of France was not much more than a single month's coinage that would be accomplished under the present bill by the United States Government.  Even the amount of $5,000,000 that was authorized to France under the terms and stipulations of this monetary union was not availed of, and the amount of coin was actually not struck;  and yet that would not be more than one month's coinage, or at the utmost two month's coinage, by the United States Government under the present bill.

Further, this fad comes in, Mr. President, that the whole monetary system of France and the United States, owing to their machinery of banking, is totally diverse.  They have but one bank in France, with its seventy branches, all controlled by a single will, having the power to lower or raise the rate of discount, if they please, except where the loan is to the government.  How can you compare the circulation of such a country with the circulation of a country like our own, where we have banks by the thousand in addition to private banks ?  Indeed there is no parallel as to the fact.  When my friend talks of our maintaining a circulation of gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, when we know the bullion value is 18 to 1, I think he is counting without regard to the comparatively restricted coinage under their laws in France, and the whole system and habits of their people.  Let me ask my friend would he to-day vote for a bill that should place us upon the basis of the Latin union as to the relative value of the two metals ?

Mr. Allison.  Mr. President, I will answer some of the suggestions made by the honorable Senator from Delaware, and then I will answer his question.  The Senator from Delaware mistakes one essential element in this problem.  He says that the government of France refused to coin the twenty-five millions of francs awarded to them under the annual meeting of the monetary union.  Why ?  Because they had already in existence from $350,000,000 to $400,000,000 of full legal-tender silver coin, and therefore they did not think it wise to increase the coinage under the existing condition of things.

As I said awhile ago, it will take four years to reach $160,000,000, of silver.  We will then have 200,000,000 less than France has to-day, with greater facilities, greater area of territory, greater population, and greater means of consuming coined money than France has.  So that at the end of six years, if this bill goes into full force, our situation with reference to the volume of silver money will not have reached the present situation in France.

The remark made by the Senator from Delaware brings me to another point with reference to the position of France.  France had a full and free coinage of silver up to 1874.  There was no limitation upon the free coinage of silver under the Latin union in 1865.  The only limitation was with reference to subsidiary coin, the token coinage, and not with reference to the full legal-tender silver.  Any citizen of any country in the world could take silver bullion or silver material to the mints of France and secure five-franc pieces prior to the readjustment of the monetary union in 1874.  Under that readjustment they limited the coinage of full legal-tender silver.  The Senator from Delaware quoted a few days ago a telegraphic dispatch with reference to the action of France recently upon this subject, and he did it with some little exultation, I thought.  He stated that the senate of France had just passed a unanimous vote suspending the obligation of the French mint to coin silver.  Now, what is that obligation ?  It was a temporary suspension simply extending for another year a law that was passed last year temporarily suspending the free coinage of silver.

It was in pursuance of the Latin agreement;  but there is in this very dispatch a most significant statement, to which I beg to call the attention of the Senator from Delaware.  It is that this temporary suspension is made necessary --by what ?  Made necessary by the "American situation."  That is what the finance minister of France says is the reason why he urges the temporary suspension of the coinage of silver.  It is the American situation.  What is that situation ?  It is that the people of this country desire the utilization of both silver and gold, and that there is only one barrier in the way, namely, a statute passed in 1873, demonetizing silver, passed without public deliberation in the country although fully discussed here, and without the attention of the people of this country being called at the time especially to the effect of its passage.  Mr. Leon Say, the finance minister, very clearly indicates that if the American situation will justify it, the mints of France will be again open, and it will justify the opening of the mints of France when the bill under consideration shall be enacted into a law.  That is the situation to which he alludes, plainly meaning that if we adhere to our declared policy they must keep their mints closed;  if we change our policy and coin silver, France will remove the restriction and follow our example.

Mr. Merrimon.  What is their volume of silver ?

Mr. Allison.  It is variously estimated.  I believe the best authorities state that they have in coined silver full legal tender from $350,000,000 to $400,000,000.  The report of our own monetary commission fixes the sum at $413,000,000.  Mr. Ernest Seyd estimates from $300,000,000 to $350,000,000 in all.

Mr. Merrimon.  What is their volume of gold ?

Mr. Allison.  Their volume of gold is much larger, probably twice as large.

But there is another advantage in the bill as proposed to which I desire to call the attention of the Senate;  and that is, that if we coin on Government account the probability is that France, or rather the monetary union, will at once commence the recoining of silver on government account.  This they can do as long as the bullion price is below the mint price on their relation.  They cannot open their mints to free coinage if we open our mints to free coinage, because their relation is different from ours.  If they open their mints to free coinage our mints will close to free coinage, whether we will or no, because they will have not only their own silver but ours.  Therefore, Mr. President, it seems to me perfectly clear that for a long period of time under the bill as proposed gold and silver will travel side by side as coin money, whatever may be the bullion price of either metal in the London money market.

The Senator from Delaware asked me if I would vote to-day for a bill which should propose the coinage of silver at the rate of 15½ to 1.  I unhesitatingly answer yes;  and if this bill is to be amended so as to provide for free coinage it ought to be amended so as to provide for a free coinage at the rate of 400 grains instead of 412½, in order to put ourselves upon the relation which these two metals bear to each other in the countries that use and have the bimetallic standard.

Mr. Saulsbury.  Will the Senator allow me to ask him whether if we had a dollar of 400 grains any part of the coin would be used to pay the interest or principal of the public debt ?

Mr. Allison.  If that were done so far as the public debt is concerned the law of 1870 stands directly in our pathway, and that provision was inserted in the law of 1870 to cover the exact contingency named by the honorable Senator from Delaware.

Mr. Cockrell.  There are only three items of the public debt now under the act of 1870.

Mr. Allison.  Very well.  Whatever they are, in that act a provision was inserted for the reason that it was proposed then in this body and in the other House to place ourselves upon the relation of 15½ to 1.  But when the secret history of this bill of 1873 comes to be told, it will disclose the fact that the House of Representatives intended to coin both gold and silver, and intended to place both metals upon the French relation instead of our own, which was the true scientific position with reference to this subject in 1873, but that the bill afterward was doctored, if I may use that term and I use it in no offensive sense of course---

Mr. Sargent.  It was amended in the Senate and went to a committee of conference, if that is "doctored;"  and the report of the committee of conference was concurred in by the two Houses.  I should like to know if the word "doctored" applies to our legislation here where there has been three or four days' debate.

Mr. Allison.  I said I used the word in no offensive sense.  It was changed after discussion, and the dollar of 420 grains was substituted for it.  I have here, if the Senator from California doubts what I say, the report of Mr. Ruggles to the Chamber of Commerce of the city of New York, showing that it was the original intention of the promoters of the bill of 1873 that both silver and gold should be coined, and that they should be placed upon the French ratio.  He says:

The bill as introduced proposed to reduce the weight of the silver dollar from 412½ grains to 384 grains.  The Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York on examining and considering that provision by resolution, duly transmitted to Congress in June last, respectfully recommended that the weight of the silver dollar should be made precisely equivalent to that of the five-franc silver coin of Europe, &c.

Mr. Sargent.  I am not doubting the Senator's facts;  I was simply objecting to his epithet.  I wish to say that although the original draft of the bill, and as it passed the House in its substitute, did provide an extremely undervalued dollar, it is doubtful whether it would have been well to have adopted it, or whether any one in the country would have been in favor of adopting a dollar of American currency that would be worth no more than the five-franc piece.

Mr. Allison.  I do not suppose any one would be in favor of adopting a coin of 385.8 grains.

Mr. Sargent.  That is what it was.

Mr. Allison.  That is what it was then;  but I was only stating the history of this legislation in answering a question of the Senator from Delaware.  Of course if we were to adopt the French ratio, which would be a dollar of 400 grains, and not a dollar equivalent to the five-franc piece, justice not only to the public creditor but justice to every existing creditor would require that it should apply to all future contracts only and not to existing contracts or debts, whether public or private.  Therefore if we reduce the coined silver dollar 3½ per cent., as that would do, of course we must for the existing debts pay three and one-third dollars additional upon each hundred dollars provided for under existing contracts.  That would be the solution of the question so far as all existing contracts are concerned.

Now, Mr. President, at the risk of repeating what has been said at some length before, I desire right here to review briefly some of the legislation in our own country upon this question of money.  We have from the very beginning it seems made mistakes in this regard.  In 1792 we fixed the relation between silver and gold, and fixed it by a distinct section of the statute, saying that the relation should be 15 to 1, and now it is claimed that because we did that and because of the subsequent legislation of 1834, silver has never played a prominent part in our currency.

I cannot understand why it is that this objection has been made so strenuously and so continuously.  We had nothing but a silver currency until 1834 practically.  The debts of the Revolution and the debts of the war of 1812 were paid almost exclusively in silver coin, because we overvalued silver and undervalued gold, the latter disappeared and left us only silver.  We not only made our own silver dollars and half dollars and all fractional silver a full legal tender, but we made all the silver coins then current in the world's commerce legal tender in our country.  From 1792 up to 1827, and again by the legislation of 1834, silver coins of Mexico and the South American States and of France and Spain were made a full legal tender in this country, and some of them continued to be a full legal tender until 1857.  Therefore for nearly seventy years of our country's history we not only had a legal tender of our own silver, but the silver of other nations was a full legal tender in our country.

Yet Senators say silver has played but an insignificant part in the great work of distributing the products of our country, and in our exchanges;  and they triumphantly say there were only eight millions of silver dollars coined at our Mint from 1792 to 1873.  We had of full-coined silver money more than a hundred millions coined at our Mint between those periods, I think $140,000,000, and we had all the silver of the world made legal tender in addition.  Mr. Moore, the Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, stated in his report of 1832 that there were only $500,000 of gold money in the United States and that all the rest was silver.  Yet we have the insignificant pretense made here day by day that silver has never played a prominent part in the history of our money.

With reference to the legislation of 1834, the honorable Senator from Vermont [Mr. Edmunds] the other day said that the object of that legislation was to fix exact commercial equivalents between the two metals.  Was that the object of the legislation of 1834 ?  Does not every Senator know that we clipped the gold coin in 1834 ?  Mr. Webster reduced the gold dollar from 24¾ grains to 23.22 grains of fine gold, thus reducing the gold dollar in 1834 6 per cent., and made no arrangement with reference to the creditor class in this country.  In other words, there was a debasing of the coin to that extent by actual reduction of the metal in the gold dollar.

The Senator from Michigan [Mr. Christiancy] prophetically said the other day that these debasers of the coins would themselves become debased.  Who is there that from 1834 to the present moment has ever raised one word of adverse criticism with reference to the reduction of the gold standard in 1834 ?  Yet it proposed a reduction nearly equivalent to the reduction that is now proposed under what is known as the Bland bill with reference to silver and gave a free and unlimited coinage.  So careful was that law that the creditor class should not take advantage of this matter, and that no class should, that they provided that the gold coins then in the country should be received as legal tender at the new rate fixed.  What was the object of making this change ?  Every committee that reported upon that question reported in favor of a relation of about 1 to 15.625, and the bill was so reported from the committee, but it was changed at the last moment and the relation of 16 to 1 was fixed, and the late Horace Binney, then a member of the House, and others, stated in the debate that the effect of this overvaluation of gold would be to expel from our country all the silver coinage.

That was the precise effect of it, and the result was that in 1853 we had no silver coin in existence in this country or very little, and Congress that year provided for a debased subsidiary coinage in order that this subsidiary silver might continue in circulation.

But the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Edmunds] made another statement to the effect that no matter what we do with the coin here in an attempt to add to its value or take away its value by legislation, it is the commercial value that fixes the value of coin in circulation.  That is true generally under a system of free coinage, but that only half states the case.  What is it that fixes or establishes the commercial value of money ?  Gold and silver are commodities, and like other commodities their value is regulated by supply and demand.  The annual supply of the precious metals exerts very little influence over their value, because the annual supply is very small compared with the total quantity actually in use.  It cannot be truthfully said that the insignificant increase in the production of the mines of the Comstock lode exert any material effect upon the value of silver.  The annual production of either silver or gold or both amounts to little or nothing compared with the great sum of gold and silver already in existence.  Therefore the annual supply of the precious metals has little or nothing to do with their value.  What is it, then, that affects their value chiefly ?  It is the demand.  The commercial value is controlled by the demand.  What constitutes the demand ?  Why is it that we have silver quoted every day in the London market ?  Is it sold to be worked up into plate by the silversmith ?  Not at all.  Its present demand in the London market is for shipment to India or China.  What is it that constitutes the demand for gold ?  Is it for use in the arts ?  Very little of it can so be used.  Therefore it is its use as money by so many civilized states that creates a demand for it and gives it its value.  If all the European states and our country were to-day simultaneously to demonetize gold and remonetize silver, would not these two metals immediately change places, and would not gold depreciate vastly below the fall of silver in 1875 ?  Silver is used by six or seven hundred millions of people living in oriental countries, while gold is not used by them at all, or scarcely at all.  Therefore, if gold were demonetized, if the laws of legal tender were taken away from it, it would be the metal to depreciate instead of silver.

Now, if that be true, what is it that creates the commercial value of the precious metals ?  It is legislation.  Legislation gives value to the precious metals, and the commercial value simply records the condition of legislation with reference to the precious metals.  It is said here that you must go to the money markets of the world to ascertain the value of the precious metals.  Where are they ?  You go to London, and the value of silver is quoted in gold.  You go to Hamburg, or rather had you gone there before 1873, you would have found gold quoted in silver.  In all the states of Germany they then had an exclusive silver legal tender.  In Great Britain they had an exclusive gold tender.

Now, if legislation creates the chief demand for money, if we legislate so as to utilize silver, we increase the demand and thus increase the value of silver.  All the authors concur in stating that it was the action of Germany that primarily depreciated silver as measured in gold.  Germany in 1873, with an exclusive silver standard, changed her policy and provided an exclusive gold standard.  What was the effect of that ?  She had in circulation from $350,000,000 to $400 000,000 in silver.  By a single act of her imperial parliament and council she said that silver should not be money and that gold should be the sole legal tender in Germany.  That had the effect to create at once a new demand for $250,000,000 at least of gold.  It had the effect to suddenly throw upon the market 250,000,000 at least of silver money, making a displacement by a single legislative act of $500 000,000 in the money of the world, a necessary displacement of $500,000,000 in coin.  Every writer since that time of any note agrees that the action of Germany is the sole cause of the depreciation of silver, and I want to quote from one of our own careful thinkers on this subject, Mr. Francis A. Walker.  He says:

The extensive fall in the value of silver since 1873, which is often referred to as proving the unfitness of silver to be joined with gold in the office of money, appears to me to show most strikingly the power of legislation in keeping the two metals together.  If gold and silver actually held a course through three centuries so nearly parallel:  yet, when silver was demonetized by the United States and Germany, and the Latin union ceased to coin silver in unrestricted amount, the price of gold, expressed in terms of silver, mounted upward in four years from 15.63 to 17.77 rising momentarily even to 20.17.  These two facts taken in connection would seem to afford a very strong proof of the effects of their interchangeable use as money.

Now I read from the foot-note:

That the changes in the comparative purchasing power of the two metals between 1873 and 1876 were wholly or mainly due to changes in supply, or to changes in demand, disconnected from the acts of governments dealing with the legal relations of gold and silver, I really cannot conceive any intelligent and candid man as now maintaining.  That it was so held in perfectly good faith, for a year or two after demonetization, I do not doubt.

And so Mr. Ernest Seyd, who is an acknowledged authority on this subject, states in the most distinct terms that---

The true cause of the depreciation in the value of silver is its demonetization by law---

Mark the language and that only.  England took the initiative in 1816;  but as long as Germany maintained silver, the equilibrium was maintained.  Germany having followed England's course that equilibrium is lost.  So, Mr. Bagehot, in his testimony before the British commission, agrees that the primary cause was the act of Germany substituting gold for silver.

Mr. Morrill.  May I ask the Senator from Iowa if he finds any author, even as late on the science of political economy as Mr. Francis Walker or any other, that does not lay down the broad proposition that coin will bear a proportionate value to the whole bullion and coin existing at the time in the world ?

Mr. Allison.  Undoubtedly that is true.

Mr. Morrill.  Then if there has been a large increase does it not follow as a logical inference that a large increase must necessarily depreciate its value ?

Mr. Allison.  Yes, but, Mr. President, my honorable friend, the chairman of the Committee on Finance, does not find such an increase lately.  The total sum of the two precious metals annually now is less than it was ten years ago, it is continually declining, taking gold and silver together.  It is estimated that there are some seven thousand millions of the two metals together.  You add only 1 per cent. to that stock and you have $70,000,000, or nearly one-half of the entire sum of the annual production of the precious metals in the world to-day, and yet the best political writers --I need not name them-- all concur in saying there ought to be added to the total sum of coinage for growth in civilization, growth in trade, growth in commerce, at least 2 per cent. to the whole supply in existence at the time.  So that, if you take the 2 per cent., you would have a demand for coinage alone of $140,000,000 without any appreciable decrease in the value of the total quantity.

The annual consumption of the precious metals has long been a subject of speculation by writers on the subject.  This consumption cannot be stated with exactness;  many estimates have been made varying largely in statement;  but taking the mean of them all, it is quite certain that the two metals taken together are not likely in the near or distant future to fall in comparison with commodities.  Therefore the creditors who hold evidences of deferred payments, whether maturing in the near or remote future, cannot be injured by the continued use of both metals as money.  Mr. McCulloch in his commercial dictionary estimates that there should be an annual addition to the stock of money in Europe, Australia, and America of $50,000,000 to keep pace with the increase of business, industry, and commerce, under our progressing and advancing civilization.  And that in Europe, Australia, and America some $60,000,000 are used annually for purposes of the arts.  Then about $30,000,000 more must be allowed for abrasion or loss of coin, or a total required for these countries annually of $140,000,000 in order to keep their value stable as compared with commodities.  Not only that, but the Senator from Vermont takes no account of the fact that those great populations living in oriental countries form great reservoirs for the use of silver, and have annually swallowed up large quantities for generations of time.  During this very year there has been exported, I see by the public print, to India and China, $105,000,000 of the precious metals, $25,000,000 more than the total production of silver in the world during the year.  Can it be said in face of these facts that there is or is likely to be, such an increase in the supply of the precious metals as can diminish their value as compared with the commodities which they exchange ?

No, Mr. President, it cannot be claimed for a moment that any supply or probable supply of the precious metals, taking into account the most sanguine dreams of the explorer in the mines, can cause such an increase in their volume as to materially change their value;  and it is still a question among political economists whether the great influx of gold from 1849 to 1867 did actually change values, whether the value of gold fell or not during that period.  I know it is estimated that gold did fall in value some 20 per cent. compared with values;  but Mr. McCulloch, a careful writer on these subjects, states, in his article on precious metals in the British Encyclopedia, that all this rise in commodities can be accounted for upon other considerations than the increase of the total quantity of gold from the mines of our country and Australia from 1849 to 1867.  Why, Mr. President, taking the estimate of Hector Hay, an undoubted authority upon this subject, there was exported from Europe and America to China and the East Indies from 1852 to 1875, inclusive, £199,815,000 of silver, and the total production of silver from 1852 to 1875 was only £241,890,000, leaving but £42,075,000 of silver between 1852 and l875 to be coined as money in European and American states and used in the arts, as silver is known to be used more largely in the arts than is gold.  And yet we are met here with the strange argument that it is the supply of the precious metals that compels us to demonetize and discard nearly one-half of the total metallic money of the world's circulation.

No, Mr. President, it is legislation that has destroyed silver and legislation can restore it again.  Why, how often have I heard here that the Latin union had abandoned silver and that the Scandinavian States and others had followed Germany ?  Why did the Latin union temporarily, as is shown, discard the coinage of silver ?  It was because she was driven to it in self-defense by the action of Germany and she still clings this day to her double standard and to her silver and suspends from year to year the coinage for what ?  Waiting for the "American situation," is the language of Monsieur Léon Say in the French senate.

Then we are met again by the statement that silver and gold cannot be made equivalents by legislation;  that is to say, that any standard we may fix is subject to fluctuation and change.  I do not undertake to say that there can be established an absolute equivalent between the two metals.  As was said so eloquently by my honorable friend from Nevada [Mr. Jones] yesterday, and so well by my honorable friend by my side [Mr. Ingalls] to-day, the value of these two metals depends upon so many other considerations that it is impossible for us to say what their value will be compared with commodities from day to day.

Gold yesterday was a half per cent. higher than it was the day before.  What was the reason of that ?  Was it because my honorable friend from Vermont made a speech against this bill ?  Not at all.  It was because the situation at the Golden Horn and in the Dardanelles is a doubtful situation;  it is because there is impending there a possible conflict between the great nations of the world, and, therefore, the value of the metals with reference to commodities may change by the changed conditions of nations or things.  Who does not believe that if this mingled fabric of ignorance, superstition, and tyranny which until recently and perhaps now has an existence upon the Black Sea shall be overthrown by the nations of the world, whether by conjoint action of the European powers or by the single power of the Muscovite, there will be a new demand and a new creation for the precious metals that will far more than occupy and utilize any increased supply that is likely to take place in the near future. But it is said we cannot maintain the double standard.  The double standard is maintained to-day by seventy-two millions of people upon the ratio of 15½ to 1;  and taking even the London market as a guide with reference to this standard, I have here a table taken from the best English authority which shows that from 1817 to 1873 the variation of these precious metals in the London market stood between 15 and 16, less than 1 per cent. in the ratio for a period of more than sixty years, and during that time there was first a great decrease in the production of the precious metals beginning in 1809 with the revolutions of the South American states and ending in 1829, and again beginning by an increase of the precious metals in 1849 by the discoveries of gold in California supplemented by the great discoveries in Australia in 1852, which last discovery in four years added four hundred millions of coined gold dollars to the world's circulation from Australia alone.  Here is a statement showing that under the double valuation for a period of sixty years, with all these great changes in the production of the precious metals, there was a variation of less than 1 per cent. in the ratio between gold and silver as fixed by European states.  If this large increase had taken place in a single year it would doubtless have had a marked effect on prices, but being extended over a considerable period of time it only had the effect to stimulate enterprises and industry and create new demands for money, which kept prices very nearly what they were before the great influx began.

Mr. President, this war on silver began in 1867 and culminated in 1873.  It was the Paris conference that inaugurated this disarrangement of the precious metals.  We had a representative at that conference, one of our distinguished citizens from the State of New York, familiar with this subject, who represented this Government as being in favor of a single gold standard;  and the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Finance of this body, Hon. Mr. Sherman, only echoed the sentiment of the Paris conference when he said that America demanded the single standard of gold.  The monetary disturbance which followed began at Paris in 1867.  I have here a statement of the prime minister of England (Mr. Disraeli) alluding to these monetary disturbances, and tracing their causes directly to the conference at Paris.  He says, speaking in November, 1873:

I attribute the present state of affairs very much to a commission that was sitting in Paris at the time of the great exhibition.  That was a commission the object of which was to establish a uniform coinage throughout the world --a very beautiful idea of cosmopolitan philantropy.  This, I know myself, arose from an opinion extremely prevalent among the government statesmen of Europe, and among distinguished economists and merchants abroad, that the commercial prosperity and preponderance of England were to be attributed to her gold standard.  When the various states of Europe suddenly determined to have a gold standard, and took steps to carry it into effect, it was quite evident we must prepare ourselves for great convulsions in the money market, not occasioned by speculation or any old cause, which has been alleged, but to a new cause with which we are not yet sufficiently acquainted, and the consequences of which are very embarrassing.

He uses also these significant words:

Our gold standard is not the cause of our commercial prosperity, but the consequence of our commercial prosperity.

Or, in other words, if England had not enjoyed great commercial prosperity she could not have maintained the gold standard.  Yet we are asked now, in our depressed commercial and monetary condition, to imitate her example.

Mr. President, the Paris conference began the war on silver, and Germany completed the evil work in 1873.

Now if we plant ourselves firmly in favor of the policy of the utilization of silver, we take measurably the place of Germany in this regard, because by our own legislation from 1834 to the time of absolute demonetization we banished silver, and if we restore it we shall require very nearly as much silver in our circulation as Germany has lost by demonetization.  And the equilibrium in the value of silver, as compared with gold, will be rapidly restored.  But this bill proposes not only that we shall do this, but that we shall invite the other nations who favor the use of silver to join us in fixing a uniform ratio between the two metals;  and if that is done, as I believe it can be very soon --if a concurrence of those nations shall take place, then it will be but a brief period until the restoration of silver will be complete and absolute.

It follows from this that the dollar of 412½ grains is the highest standard dollar that we ought to adopt.  If we could this day come to the relation fixed by the Latin union, there would be a likelihood that the Union would again join us in restoring silver to its old relation without a conference with them, but this seems impracticable now;  and the further we depart from the standard of 15½ to 1 so much the more difficult it wi11 be for us to come back to the relation which must be established if silver is to be used continuously as a part of the money circulation of the world.

But, Mr. President, it is said, and has been often said here, that this conference of nations should precede our remonetization of silver.  The honorable chairman of the committee stated that to remonetize silver and then call a conference was like calling a council of physicians after the death of the patient, and it has had other similar characterizations here.  Why, Mr. President, our policy to-day is monometallism of gold;  and with what fact can we ask the bimetallic nations of Europe to join us in a conference with reference to the fixing of a relation between the two metals when we have a declared policy of monometallism !

Our interest is first to declare our own policy and then invite the nations to join us in that policy, and by doing so we shall have weight in such a conference.  Without it we shall have little or no weight.  We can force, if I may use that term, the nations of Europe to the use of silver again.  They have been driven from it with great difficulty in Germany and have not been driven from it at all in the Latin union as has been so often said here.  Germany finds it very difficult to get rid of her silver, and she has in circulation now a large amount of silver full legal-tender at the ratio of 15½ to 1.  If we readopt silver,  I think it is quite probable;  more, I think we may feel certain, that the Latin union nations will join us in continuing the use of silver.  I do not see how they can discard silver.  They have still from five to six hundred millions of legal-tender silver in circulation, or forming the basis of circulation.  If this silver is discarded, gold must take its place, and from whence is that gold to come ?  This struggle for gold is now going on.  You add new demand for $500,000,000, and what will be the effect ?  Certainly to largely advance the price of gold and make it impossible for all the nations to secure it.

Mr. President, there are other questions in connection with this subject which I would gladly discuss, but I feel sure the Senate is wearied with debate and would gladly vote on the questions involved, and I will not occupy the attention of the Senate longer, and will conclude by calling attention again to the fact that the question now before us is, whether we shall place this country upon the gold standard alone and with it compel the nations of Europe to discard silver and thus secure universal monometallism of gold in all European states and in America, or whether we shall change our present policy and utilize both silver and gold as metallic money and thereby sustain and uphold the Latin union and other states in the continued use of silver.

They cannot stand alone against England and Germany and the United States.  If we do not use silver they must discard it, and it will be banished as money from Europe and America except as a token coinage, and the world's commerce must be conducted upon the single standard of gold.  Mr. Dana Horton, one of the most learned and careful writers in our country, predicts the fatal effects of such a policy upon civilized states to be universal bankruptcy and destruction of all values.  All values will be reduced from 10 to 50 per cent., measured in gold;  credits in this country will be scaled up from 30 to 40 per cent.;  the means of debtors to pay those debts will be scaled down in like proportion.  That is the effect of the proposition of universal monometallism of gold;  and it will not do to say we are in favor of a limited standard of silver or of a token coinage of silver, because when the nations are placed upon a limited coinage of silver it will be but a few years until silver must be discarded entirely.  It is certain that if it should fall 30 or 40 per cent. below its present value it would be impossible to keep it in circulation as a token coinage.  We are called upon to defeat this bill and thus lend our aid and influence to complete this work of destruction.  I believe, and the people of my section believe, in fulfilling every national and individual obligation.  We believe that the creditors of this Government and the creditor classes should be paid according to the contract and stipulation made with them;  but we do not feel ourselves called upon by legislation to at once strike down one-half of the means of payment of these debts and by legislation increase the value of debts to the creditor.  We feel that when we have maintained our obligation according to the letter and the spirit of it at the time the contract was made, we have done all that we can be required to do.  The single standard of gold means a reduction in the volume and an increase in the value of money.  The double standard means that the present volume and value shall be maintained as near as may be;  that the same commodities which at a given price and the same labor will pay a debt to-day, will pay it next year;  that our debts shall not be scaled up for the benefit of creditors, nor scaled down for the benefit of debtors, but that each shall stand on the values fixed when the obligations were incurred.

Mr. President, I believe that if we shall adopt the amendments proposed by the Finance Committee, first limit coinage in amount on Government account, then provide for a conference of nations to agree upon a standard, it will be but a brief space of time until silver and gold, with free and unrestricted coinage of both, will circulate side by side upon a common ratio, and each will be exchangeable for the other and each an equivalent of the other.

Mr. President, this demand for remonetization does not come from our country alone or any section of it.  It receives the support of the best writers and thinkers in our own and in other countries.  It does not have its origin in petty malice toward the public creditor, nor is it a dishonest demand made by debtors.  It receives the sanction of the many men who have devoted their lives to the study of economic subjects, and if we follow such guidance we are not likely to be led astray.  Those who favor this measure do not propose to violate any promise, and least of all to tarnish or impair the public credit, but rather to establish it upon more enduring foundations by increasing our ability to pay, according to promise, the heavy public burdens which now weigh us down.  We see on every hand loss of confidence, loss of security, and loss of employment.  The cure for all these evils is beyond legislative control.  We can do something to relieve this general depression by removing the apprehension that by legislation the value of money is to be enhanced at the expense of all other things.  We will check the rapid fall of prices by stopping this crusade against one of the precious metals which with the other, until recently, has formed the basis of all contracts.  Those who predict evil from this legislation will be disappointed;  those who hope from it any present relief from our monetary troubles are likely to be disappointed as well.  That it is a wise, proper, and necessary measure for all classes and sections of our country I do not doubt;  and I trust it will in the near future receive the universal sanction I believe it deserves.

Mr. Sargent.  I wish to ask a question of the Senator from Iowa.  A few days ago, in a few remarks which I submitted on this bill, I referred to a statement in the London Economist of January 19, 1877, which published as a matter of news that the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce had objected to the Bank of France to the withdrawal of the one-hundred-franc notes and the substitution therefor of silver, and expressed the opinion that by withdrawing £20,000,000 of those bank-notes and substituting silver therefor, a great depreciation of silver currency would take place.  I understand that during my temporary absence from the Chamber the Senator from Iowa has read from a succeeding number of the Economist, which I hold in my hand, some statements, which I fail to find in it, wherein, as I understand, the Senator considered the Economist takes back its previous statement upon this matter.  If he will be kind enough to read to me the passage which takes back the remarks of this paper of January 19, I shall be very much obliged to him.

Mr. Allison.  I regret that the Senator from California was not present, because I did not quote from the London Economist handed to me except for one purpose;  but I read and commented upon the article alluded to by the Senator from California to show that, in my opinion, the conclusions which he drew from that article were not sustained by its letter.

Mr. Sargent.  That is another proposition;  but this certainly is sustained, and it was all that I deduced from it, that the Chamber of Commerce of Bordeaux expressed a fear, and I now read their own language, that---

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

And they ask again:

Is it not to be feared that this new depreciation of silver will augment the difficulties which are necessarily involved in the maintenance of our bimetallic standard ?

The only inference I drew from this statement was that they reasoned from the facts before them, and we were reasoning from analogy and reaching the same conclusion.

Mr. Allison.  I understood the Senator in his remarks the day before yesterday to state that those who maintain that silver and gold now circulate in France simultaneously and without discount or premium were mistaken, and that silver was at a discount in the circulation of France as compared with gold;  and then the Senator proceeded to quote from the London Economist of January 19 to prove that statement.  Now I understand from that article that it is only an apprehension to be derived from a withdrawal of 100,000,000 of paper money and the substitution of 100,000,000 of silver money.  I so understood the Senator, and I only meant to quote from this article with the view of showing that the article itself, in its context and in the letters written by the governor of the Bank of France, and the statements made by the Chamber of Commerce of Bordeaux all concur in showing that silver does circulate with gold side by side.

Mr. Lamar.  Mr. President, having already expressed my deliberate opinions at some length upon this very important measure now under consideration, I shall not trespass upon the attention of the Senate further.  I have, however, one other duty to perform --a very painful one I admit, but one which is none the less clear.  I hold in my hand certain resolutions of the Legislature of Mississippi, which I ask to have read.

The Vice-President.  The resolutions will be read by the Secretary.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

Concurrent resolution instructing our Senators and requesting our Representatives in Congress to vote for the acts remonetizing silver and repealing the resumption act:

Whereas, in the judgment of the Legislature of the State of Mississippi and the people whom they represent, the acts now pending before the Congress of the United States remonetizing silver and repealing the resumption act will restore public confidence and relieve the existing public distress, and will not violate the faith of the General Government, nor impair the national credit:

1.  Be it resolved by the senate of the State of Mississippi, (the House of representatives concurring,) that our Senators be instructed and our Representatives requested to vote for the acts remonetizing silver and repealing the resumption act, and to use their efforts to secure their passage.

2.  Be it further resolved, That the secretary of state transmit immediately a copy of these resolutions to our members of congress.

Adopted by the house of representatives, February 4, 1878.
W.A. Percy,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Adopted by the senate, January 29, 1878.
Wm.H. Sims,
President of the Senate.

Mr. Lamar.  Mr. President, between these resolutions and my convictions there is a great gulf.  I cannot pass it.  Of my love to the State of Mississippi I will not speak; my life alone can tell it.  My gratitude for all the honor her people have done me, no words can express.  I am best proving it by doing to-day what I think their true interests and their character require me to do.  During my life in that State it has been my privilege to assist in the education of more than one generation of her youth, to have given the impulse to wave after wave of the young manhood that has passed into the troubled sea of her social and political.  life.  Upon them I have always endeavored to impress the belief that truth was better than falsehood, honesty better than policy, courage better than cowardice.  To-day my lessons confront me.  To-day I must be true or false, honest or cunning, faithful or unfaithful to my people.  Even in this hour of their legislative displeasure and disapprobation, I cannot vote as these resolutions direct.  I cannot and will not shirk the responsibility which my position imposed.  My duty, as I see it, I will do, and I will vote against this bill.  When that is done my responsibility is ended.  My reasons for my vote shall be given to my people.  Then it will be for them to determine if adherence to my honest convictions has disqualified me from representing them;  whether a difference of opinion upon a difficult and complicated subject to which I have given patient, long-continued, conscientious study;  to which I have brought entire honesty and singleness of purpose, and upon which I have spent whatever ability God has given me, is now to separate us;  whether this difference is to override that complete union of thought, sympathy, and hope which on all other and, as I believe, even more important subjects binds us together.  Before them I must stand or fall.  But;  be their present decision what it may, I know that the time is not far distant when they will recognize my action to-day as wise and just;  and, armed with honest convictions of my duty, I shall calmly await results, believing in the utterances of a great American, who never trusted his countrymen in vain, "that truth is omnipotent and public justice certain."

Mr. Thurman.  Mr. President, what is the first amendment to be voted on ?

The Vice-President.  The Secretary will report the amendment proposed by the Committee on Finance.

The Chief Clerk.  The first amendment reported by the Committee on Finance is in section 1 after the word "contract" in line 12 to strike out "and any owner of silver bullion may deposit the same at any United States coinage mint or assay office, to be coined into such dollars, for his benefit, upon the same terms and conditions as gold bullion is deposited for coinage under existing laws;"  and in lieu thereof to insert the following:

And the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to purchase, from time to time,·silver bullion, at the market price thereof, not less than $2,000,000 per month, nor more than $4,000,000 per month, and cause the same to be coined into such dollars.  And any gain or seigniorage arising from this coinage shall be accounted for and paid into the Treasury, as provided under existing laws relative to the subsidiary coinage:  Provided, That the amount of money at any one time invested in such silver bullion, exclusive of such resulting coin, shall not exceed $5,000,000.

The Vice-President.  To this the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Morgan] proposes an amendment, which will be reported.

The Chief Clerk.  The proposition of the Senator from Alabama is to make the amendments just reported read:

And the owner of any silver bullion may deposit the same at any United States coinage mint or assay office in quantities of the value of not less than $100 in a single deposit, and not to exceed the value of $100,000 during any calendar month, to be coined into such dollars.

And the proper officer in charge of such coinage mint or assay office shall, under regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, issue certificates to such owners of silver bullion so depositing the same, in which certificates the weight of the bullion so deposited, and its value at the then market price in legal-tender notes of the United States, shall be stated;  and such bullion shall be coined into silver dollars of the weight and fineness hereinbefore prescribed.

And the Secretary of the Treasury is required, within not less than thirty days nor more than ninety days after the date of such certificate, to pay, or cause to be paid, to the owner of said certificates the sum stated in such certificates, as the value of the bullion so deposited, in legal-tender notes of the United States or in silver dollars, which are made a legal tender by this act, at the option of the Government.

And all the existing laws applicable to the assaying and minting of gold bullion, and in reference to gains and seigniorage therefrom, except as herein otherwise provided, are made applicable to the coinage of silver bullion, and after twelve months from the date of the approval of this act, the coinage of silver bullion shall be regulated in all respects by the same laws that relate to the coinage of gold bullion.

Mr. Morgan.  That amendment has not yet been offered, Mr. President.  My object in submitting it to the Senate and having it printed was to secure the further consideration of the subject.  From the beginning I have been in favor of the bill as it came from the House with amendments adding to the bill the sections which have been proposed by the Senator from California [Mr. Booth.]  I presented the amendment just read to the consideration of the Senate in order that it might be ascertained whether there was any possible ground on which those who opposed the bill as it came from the House and those who agreed to that bill might meet in reference to the method of bringing the bullion into circulation through the agency of the Mint.  In the debates which have been had upon this question, there seems to have been no direct attention given to the subject of desiring any middle ground upon which Senators could stand who are opposed to each other upon the merits of the controversy;  and finding that that amendment will not effect any particular good and may only embarrass that view of the question for which I am disposed to vote, I ask leave to withdraw my amendment.

The Vice-President.  The Senator is at liberty to withdraw the amendment.  The next in the order is the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. Beck.]

Mr. Thurman.  Is the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky an amendment to the amendment reported by the Committee on Finance ?

The Vice-President.  An amendment to the committee's amendment.

Mr. Thurman.  I have not so understood it, Mr. President, but I shall say nothing at this moment upon the amendment offered by the Senator from Kentucky.  I wish to occupy not over five minutes of the time of the Senate upon the amendment first reported by the Committee on Finance.

The Vice-President.  Does the Senator from Kentucky desire that his amendment shall be considered as pending ?

Mr. Beck.  For the time being, yes.

Mr. Thurman.  To what I have to say on this subject I particularly invite the attention of my friend from Iowa who has charge of this bill.  First, however, I wish to say that among the resolutions of the General Assembly of Ohio that I presented to the Senate a few days since is the following:

Resolved, That we approve of the Bland silver bill, passed by the lower House of Congress, and that our Senators in Congress be, and they are hereby, instructed and our Representatives requested to support said bill without any amendments limiting free coinage.

Mr. President, upon a question of mere policy I feel bound to respect the will of the people of Ohio as expressed by her General Assembly, particularly when I believe that that will is truly expressed, as I have no doubt it is in this resolution.  It is very true that in my judgment the practical effect will be very little different between the Bland bil1, as it is called, if passed as it came from the House, and if passed with the amendment reported by the Finance Committee of the Senate, if always the amendment reported by the Finance Committee shall be faithfully executed in the spirit in which it was framed.

This amendment of the Finance Committee authorizes and directs the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase in every month not less than two nor more than four million dollars of silver bullion, and the same shall be coined into silver dollars of 412½ grains.  If we suppose that the Secretary of the Treasury shall exercise that power in its least degree and purchase but two millions a month, making twenty-four millions in the year, and coin twenty-four millions a year, that will very nearly exhaust the capacity of the mints if they are to coin any gold coins at all.  Then, practically, there is very little difference between the amendment reported by the Finance Committee and the bill as it came from the House.  But I want to call the attention of my friend from Iowa and the attention of the Senate to more than one obscurity that is in the amendment reported by the committee.  That amendment declares that---

the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to purchase, from time to time,·silver bullion, at the market price thereof, not less than $2,000,000 per month, nor more than $4,000,000 per month, and cause the same to be coined into such dollars.

That is the dollar of 412½ grains.  The first obscurity I notice is that it is not perfectly clear from this provision whether the Secretary is to .employ $2,000,000 or $4,000,000, "not less than $2,000,000 per month, nor more than $4,000,000 per month," in the purchase of bullion;  or whether he is to purchase bullion that when coined will make $2,000,000, or when coined will make $4,000,000.  The difference will be readily appreciated.  My own impression is that the true interpretation of the provision, taken in connection with what follows, is that he is to employ not less than $2,000,000 in the purchase of bullion, nor more than $4,000,000 in the purchase of bullion in any one month.

Mr. Allison.  This provision, the Senator will see, is somewhat with a view to the capacity of the Mint.  If the Secretary of the Treasury were to purchase two million dollars' worth of silver bullion and coin that silver bullion into dollars, it would be more than $2,000,000.

Mr. Thurman.  But if he buys two million dollars' worth of silver bullion---

Mr. Allison.  If there is any ambiguity it shall be changed.

Mr. Thurman.  A single word will change that:  "that he shall buy not less than two million dollars' worth, nor more than four million dollars' worth."

Mr. Edmunds.  Which kind of dollars, according to the present standard, or according to the new standard;  according to the gold rate of valuation, or the silver rate ?

Mr. Thurman.  Whatever the dollar commands for the time being.

Mr. Edmunds.  That does not relieve the obscurity.

Mr. Thurman.  The next obscurity is more marked, and that is this:  the amendment provides that he shall purchase not less than two millions nor more than four millions of silver bullion in any one month, "and cause the same to be coined into such dollars;"  but it does not provide when the coinage shall take place, and with a hostile Secretary in the Department I am not quite willing to leave it in this obscure condition.  I am aware that the proviso to some extent may be supposed to remedy this obscurity, for the proviso is:

That the amount of money at any one time invested in such silver bullion, exclusive of such resulting coin --- that is, resulting from seigniorage--- shall not exceed $5,000,000.

Now, as the Secretary is compelled to invest at least $24,000,000 a year in the purchase of bullion, and the amount to be invested at any one time ·shall not exceed $5,000,000, it would seem to follow as a plain matter of arithmetic that he must coin at least $19,000,000 a year;  and that it seems to me is all this bill with the amendment will require him to coin, $19,000,000 a year.  That is, a hostile Secretary would not be compellable under this bill to coin more than $19,000,000 a year.

There is another thing that bears upon this question of how much will be coined if this amendment be adopted, and that is this:

And the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to purchase, from time to time, silver bullion, at the market price thereof, not less than $2,000,000 per month nor more than $4,000,000 per month.

"Out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated."  The amount, therefore, of purchases will depend upon the amount of money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and in view of the fact that our revenues have been decreasing so far this year, both from customs duties and from internal-revenue taxes, it is hardly safe, I think, to leave this provision as it now stands;  because when you come to consider the great amount of what are called permanent appropriations, the decreasing customs revenues, and the decreasing internal-revenue taxes, it may well be doubted whether or not you would have $24,000,000 surplus not otherwise appropriated with which to purchase this bullion.

Mr. Kernan.  The five-million-dollar provision regulates it.

Mr. Thurman.  It is true no more than $5,000,000 is to be invested at one time.  Suppose you purchase $5,000,000 and coin that, and that coin is all paid out;  then you want $5,000,000 more, and so on.  So it is not simply $5,000,000 unappropriated, but it will be $5,000,000 again and again unappropriated;  or, if I am mistaken in that, it may be said that the $5,000,000 are purchased and then they are repaid;  and perhaps upon reflection the Senator from New York is right in his suggestion to me.  Still there is an uncertainty of $5,000,000 of the surplus unappropriated.

These are all the remarks that I care to make about this.  Practically I really think there will be found to be very little difference between the amendment of the Finance Committee and the bill as it now stands.

Mr. Davis, of Illinois.  There is the question of seigniorage.

Mr. Thurman.  There is the question of seigniorage.  That I am not prepared at this moment to speak about.  In the technical sense there is a seigniorage even in the coinage of gold;  that is, if the Government purchase gold bullion and the money coined from that is worth more than the gold bullion and the expense of coining it, the difference is called in the technical language of the Mint seigniorage.  It is also true that if a man deposit bullion and the Mint agrees to give him so many dollars for that bullion and the Government can make more dollars out of the bullion than it agrees to give him in return for his bullion, that is also called seigniorage.  In respect to gold there is no seigniorage charge;  and aa to the term "seigniorage" here, I do not know whether it refers to the charge upon the coinage of subsidiary silver money, or whether it means simply that profit which the Government might make in purchasing silver bullion and coining it into dollars of 412½ grains.  I suppose it is in the latter sense the word is used.

I said that I do not believe practically there will be much difference whether the amendment be adopted or whether it shall not be adopted;  but I am not very willing to leave the matter in the hands of a hostile Secretary.

Mr. Blaine.[James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893) Maine, R; studied law, admitted to the bar]  Mr. President, I do not desire to detain the Senate if we are coming to a vote on this bill; but there is one point, not, I think, of any special importance, but I have received possibly twenty-five letters addressing an inquiry to me, and I have had the inquiry addressed to me very often verbally, in regard to a point which I say is not of any importance really, but which has been magnified to a very considerable degree, until it at last has formed a public opinion;  and that is in regard to the mode of the passage of the bill in '72-'73, in which the silver dollar was demonetized or its coinage forbidden;  and the inquiry addressed to me was in regard to the reading of that bill, and whether it passed the House of Representatives without being read, and the inquiry has been addressed to me because at that time I happened to be the presiding officer of the House and was in the chair at the time the bill was pending.  Of course it would be rather a venturesome matter for any man after five years to put forward his personal memory of a transaction of that kind, and, although I thought I had an accurate personal recollection, yet I would not ask any one to rest his belief or faith upon it;  but any one who will read the Globe, as was done by the Senator from California [Mr. Sargent] in a discussion that took place here the day before yesterday, will see very plainly that the bill was read in the House.  The Clerk began its reading, the report states.  There is nothing else in the Globe to show that the reading was anywhere interrupted, but in the subsequent notes which the Senator from California called attention to, a member from Missouri, Mr. McCormick, called for "the reading of the nineteenth section again," which, of course, implied that it had been read once.  I took the pains this morning to examine some files of newspapers of that day, and I find in the Washington dispatch of the New York Tribune the following:

Mr. Hooper called up the voluminous bill to codify and amend the mint and coinage laws, and offered a substitute, which he asked the House to pass without having it read.  The proposition was then voted down.  An hour was then consumed in reading the bill.

The Washington Republican and Chronicle, which do not contain the regular Associated Press dispatches of congressional proceedings, or did not then --for the dispatches that went abroad to other papers did not state whether the bill was read or not-- but the report made for the local papers --I do not know whether they have the Associated Press report now or not but they did not in those days-- in both the papers of the morning of the next day this is reported:

Mr. Hooper called up the bill to revise and amend the laws relating to the mints and coinage of the United States.  The bill was read at length and was then passed under a suspension of the rules by a vote of 110 to 13.

I think that settles it definitely.  I do not think the matter is of great importance, but a great deal has been made of it, as though there had been something very furtive or stealthy done in the matter.  In the same debate Mr. McNeely, of Illinois, the day it passed, whom Senators who were members of the House at that time will remember as a very bright, active, intelligent member from the State of Illinois on the democratic side of the House, states just after the bill had been read:

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

So that all that has been made out of that, all that has been attempted to be made out of any stealthy effort to pass that bill, has no foundation whatever.  The truth is, nobody cared about it;  there was no general attention called to it.  We are all a great deal wiser about it to-day than we were then.  I remember a little incident when Dr. Johnson, I believe in the first edition of his dictionary, defined the pastern joint of a horse to be the knee, and a lady asked him why he did that.  Said the gruff old moralist:   "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance."  Now let us all be equally frank.  We were in pure and absolute ignorance of that whole subject.  It was not known.

Mr. Voorhees.  Was the Senator from Maine equally ignorant with the rest of us ?  If he will say he was we shall be somewhat content.

Mr. Blaine.  I do not mean ignorance of this particular provision, but I mean ignorance of its effect.  At that time there was no attention called to the silver question;  there was no dollar circulating.  I do not imagine my friend from Indiana had had one in his pocket for twenty years.

Mr. Voorhees.  No, I presume not. [Laughter.]

Mr. Blaine.  So that there was not any such thing as a silver dollar.  The question was merely one of administration of the law;  it was a mere change of the departments of the Mint at Philadelphia and its relations to the Treasury Department, and there was no attention called to the silver question.

Mr. Voorhees.  Now I will ask my friend from Maine---

Mr. Blaine.  Undoubtedly we must admit that it was legislation conforming to the then existing state of facts.  I think now very clearly, with the light before me, that it was a great blunder.  I think that then was the time, if the Senator from Indiana and myself could have foreseen what we now see, for this Government to place the ratio at 15½ to 1; and if it had done so at that time when silver was a little above gold, had gone upon the basis of the French unit;  and had unified with the Latin union, we should not have had this trouble now.  All I want is that there shall be nothing of public opinion based on that and, therefore, that nothing shall be reflected, if anything has been, upon the memory of a gentleman who was then chairman of that committee, the late Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts, who was a faithful, extraordinarily intelligent, and very industrious member of the House of Representatives, who did a great deal of valuable work, did it well, did it conscientiously, and there was not a man in the House at that time on financial subjects who was his peer in intelligence.  I say that without reflecting on any other gentleman of the House.

Mr. Voorhees.  I want to ask my friend from Maine, whom I am glad to designate in that way, whether I may call him as one more witness to the fact that it was not generally known whether silver was demonetized ?  Did he know, as Speaker of the House, presiding at that time, that the silver dollar was demonetized in the bill to which he alludes ?

Mr. Blaine.  I did not know anything that was in the bill at all.  As I have before said, little was known or cared on the subject.  [Laughter.]  And now I should like to exchange questions with the Senator from Indiana who was then on the floor and whose business it was, far more than mine to know, because by the designation of the House I was to put questions;  the Senator from Indiana, then on the floor of the House, with his power as a debater, was to unfold them to the House.  Did he know ?

Mr. Voorhees.  I very frankly say that I did not.  I do not claim to have been as attentive a participant in the proceedings of the House at that time as perhaps others were.  I cite the names, however, of men whose business at the heads of committees called them to look especially after matters of this kind.  I was in a minority, I had no charge of a committee.  I cite such men as Garfield, and the Senator from Maine himself, and the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Dawes,] as proof that the bill demonetizing the silver dollar was not read, and its provisions not known if it was read.

Mr. Blaine.  Very well.  Now, how does the gentleman reconcile that with the fact that the member from Illinois with whom he was very well acquainted, and for whose intelligence and capacity as a legislator he must have had a high regard, Mr. McNeely, stated on the floor, probably to compose some troubles in the minds of the democratic side, that he had examined every section and every line of the bill and so stated on the very eve of its passage ?

Mr. Voorhees.  Did he in that connection state to the House what was in the bill ?

Mr. Blaine.  I read exactly what he stated.

Mr. Voorhees.  He was a member of the committee that had charge of the bill, and had examined it for himself;  but he did not proclaim to others what was in the bill.  If he was satisfied with the bill, it was his own affair, but he did not declare his knowledge to others.

Mr. Blaine.  The bill was passed by the House and was read, every section and every line of it, at the Clerk's desk aloud.

Mr. Voorhees.  What was the necessity for Mr. McNeely, of Illinois, announcing that he was satisfied with it, if it had been read to the House so that everybody else could determine as well as he, what was its effect ?

Mr. Blaine.  On that day the debate was very brief;  but on previous days by Mr. Kelley by Mr. Potter of New York, now a member of the House, and by Mr. Hooper, I think you will find that the whole subject was unfolded.

Mr. Voorhees.  They never spoke to the bill that was passed.  The bill that was passed was a substitute for the bill they had spoken to six weeks before.

Mr. Blaine.  But the question they spoke to was as to dropping the silver dollar and the double standard.

Mr. Voorhees.  Six weeks before the substitute was offered by Mr. Hooper and six weeks before it was voted on.

Mr. Blaine.  Precisely, and the dispatch in the other papers, notably in the papers that have taken very prominent ground for the pending bill, those I have read, show the fact I stated;  and a dispatch in such papers as the Cincinnati Commercial, known to be a very earnest advocate of this bill, says:

This bill was substantially identical with the one which had been before discussed.

They state so in their dispatches, that it was substantially identical;  and the Washington dispatches of those dates state so.  The Senator from Indiana will see with me that this is certainly not an important point, but it is a point which for a man in his grave might involve an idea that he had attempted to deceive and palm something upon the House.  There is no ground whatever for that.  There is no possible ground for making any such imputation.

Mr. Voorhees.  I agree with the Senator from Maine that it is not of vital importance;  but inasmuch as the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] yesterday read a portion of the speech I had the honor of making a few days ago in the Senate I thought it was not improper for me to vindicate the correctness of my views.  If the question is sufficiently important to justify an assault, it will certainly justify a defense.  But since the Senator from Maine agrees with me that neither he nor I knew when this great financial revolution was accomplished, I am content with the situation.

Mr. Blaine.  But if both the Senator from Indiana and myself had neglected our duty as attentive listeners, it certainly ought not to be lain at the door of any other person.  Let us take our share of the neglect openly and publicly, and do not saddle it upon anybody else.

Mr. Voorhees.  Certainly;  but so many others share in our apparent neglect of duty that our responsibility in that respect becomes very light indeed.  Therefore it becomes a matter of small importance so far as he and I individually are concerned.

Mr. Thurman.  Will the Senator from Maine allow me a word ?

Mr. Blaine.  I only rose on a single point to respond to an inquiry which has been so frequently addressed to me whether that bill was read, and I think the Senator from Indiana will agree with me that it has been very widely stated and has been the hinge on which the accusation has hung that that bill never was read in the House;  that it was passed stealthily and furtively.  Now, I maintain that I have utterly disproved that charge.

Mr. Thurman.  I beg leave to state that this is a very curious catechism that has been passing here.  The Senator from Maine asks the Senator from Indiana "Did you know that the coinage act of 1873 demonetized silver ?"  The Senator from Indiana says "no," and then repeats the question, "Did you know it ?"  The Senator from Maine says "no."  Now, Mr. President, neither of them knew it, and no other human being knew it, because it did not do it. [Laughter.]

Mr. Blaine.  That is quite true;  I accept the correction;  but it forbade the coinage of the silver dollar.  That is all.  The Senator has said so all through.  I do not know whether the Senator from Ohio has taken any stock in this widely spread rumor that the bill was stealthily passed in the House of Representatives.  I do not know whether he has or not;  nor do I know whether the Senator was any better informed as to the provisions of that bill when it reached the Senate than my friend from Indiana was when it was pending in the House.

Mr. Thurman.  I cannot say what took place in the House, but I know when the bill was pending in the Senate we thought it was simply a bill to reform the Mint, regulate coinage, and fix up one thing and another, and there is not a single man in the Senate, I think, unless a member of the committee from which the bill came, who had the slightest idea that it was even a squint toward demonetization.

Mr. Blaine.  The Senator from Ohio will agree with me in this, and he has served in the House, and will therefore know the point of my remark, that in the House when a bill is passed under a suspension of the rules, and under the snap of the previous question, a man may have some excuse for not knowing all it contains, but the leisurely way business is done in the Senate, when no motion can be put until every man has had his say, until every paper is read, no man in the Senate has any excuse for not knowing exactly what was in that bill.  So, if the Senator agreed with me on that point, I have no further difference with him. [Laughter.]

The Vice-President.  The question is on the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. Thurman.  Mr. President, there was one thing I wished to say, that I omitted in respect to the amendment offered by the Committee on Finance.  It has been said that if the bill pass as it came from the House, it will be a bonus of 10 per cent. to the owners of the bonanza mines, to the bullion holders.  It seems to me that a very little reflection will show that whatever profit the owners of silver bullion may make, it will be substantially the same whether the bill pass as it came from the House or whether it pass with the amendment proposed by the Finance Committee.  I think there is no real substantial difference between the two, because if you pass the bill with the amendment of the Finance Committee of the Senate, then to the extent that bullion shall be needed by the Government in order to comply with the provisions of the bill, to that same extent will the price of bullion rise;  and on the other hand, if you allow the bullionists to deposit the bullion, it can only rise in price, so much of it as can be coined in the ordinary transactions of the Mint, $25,000,000 or $30,000,000 a year, of which they will get the benefit;  and they will get the benefit of the rise in bullion if the Government buys the bullion and coins it itself.  There is substantially very little difference between the two propositions.

Mr. Wallace.  The Senator from Ohio certainly misunderstands the intent of the Finance Committee.  The bill as it came from the House provides that any owner of silver bullion, whether an American citizen or an importer of German silver, may deposit his silver at the Mint and have it coined into dollars.  On the other hand, the amendment of the Finance Committee provides that the Government itself shall buy the bullion that is to be coined into silver dollars, and that all the difference that is made between the price of the bullion and the value of the dollar when coined, shall belong to the Government, not alone as seigniorage, but the words are, "gain or seigniorage," and this is to pay for tne use of the mints and the expense that is put upon the bullion.  In addition to that, under our laws it gives the Treasury the opportunity out of that seigniorage to distribute the dollars, thus coined, throughout the country.  The dollars without that power will remain in the subtreasuries or at the mints, while by the power given to the money realized from the seigniorage thus made, the Treasury can disperse these silver dollars to every locality in the country, and when legal-tender money is sent here or gold coin sent in exchange for silver dollars, the express companies are made use of and the cost of transportation is paid out of the seigniorage.  Thus the money finds its way to the extremities of the country and is disseminated for us in every locality in the country.

Then again at once in the mints silver bullion accumulates to a large amount, millions of dollars are stacked in the mints in the form of bullion bricks.  That is there, and of course "the earliest come, the earliest served."  Those who come first with their bullion will have their dollars coined first.  Thus the market caused by the bill, the law of demand and supply, is absolutely given, while under the amendment of the Finance Committee there is a continuous monthly demand which cause an increase in the price of the bullion.  We do not buy one hundred millions at once, but buy each month.  There is a continuous demand graded ahead for $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 a month on the part of the Government.  The Government will take but two millions or four millions whichever it may determine to coin, and of course it would be foolish for it to spend more money than was needed.  As that demand goes on month by month, it is understood by the owners of silver bullion that they have that opportunity to dispose of it, and it increases the value of the silver bullion.  It seems to me that the provision put upon the bill by the Finance Committee is a very important one for these reasons.

Mr. Beck.  I ask that the Secretary may read the amendment that I offered.  I wish to say a word upon it.

The Vice-President.  The Secretary will report the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky.

The Chief Clerk.  The proposed amendment is to strike out after the word "Treasury" in line 16 of the amendment proposed by the Committee on Finance to the end thereof, and insert in lieu thereof the following:

And the Secretary of the Treasury is directed, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to purchase from time to time silver bullion at the market price thereof, not less than $3,000,000 per month, and as much more a can be coined at the mints of the United States, and cause the same to be coined into such dollars.  And any gain or seigniorage arising from this coinage shall be accounted for and paid into the Treasury as provided under existing laws relative to subsidiary coinage:  Provided, That whenever the market price of silver bullion is such that it cannot be purchased by the Secretary of the Treasury as herein provided, at less than par with legal-tender notes of the United States, he shall give public notice of that fact;  and then any citizen of the United States who is the owner of silver bullion may deposit the same at any United States coinage mint or assay office, to be coined into such dollars for his benefit, upon the same terms and conditions as gold bullion is deposited for coinage under existing laws.

Sec. 2.  That hereafter all the silver half dollars, quarter dollars, and ten cent pieces coined at the mints of the United States shall contain the same relative quantity of pure and standard silver as the dollar authorized to be coined by this act, to wit, the half dollar one-half, the quarter dollar one-fourth, and the ten-cent piece one-tenth part of 412½ grains, troy, of standard silver.

Mr. Beck.  Mr. President---

Mr. Allison.  I ask the Senator from Kentucky to give way for a moment until I ask the Senate to apply the five-minute rule now to debate on the amendments.

Mr. Edmunds.  Not a bit of it.

The Vice-President.  Objection is made.

Mr. Beck.  Mr. President, I am very willing that it shall be applied to me.

Mr. Allison.  I beg the Senator's pardon.  I had no special application to him.

Mr. Edmunds.  There is no five-minute rule that applies to this bill.

Mr. Beck.  I will endeavor to act as though it did, at any rate.  The reason why I offered the amendment I did as a substitute for the amendment of the committee was --and I want to say before I begin that if all the amendments are voted down, I shall vote for the bill as it came from the House;  but I prefer that the Government of the United States should have whatever seigniorage there may be, and when I say "the Government," I mean, of course, the people, in the purchase of bullion so long as it is worth less than legal-tender notes.  It is said to be now 8 per cent. or 10 per cent. below par.  If it is, I am unable to see why any man in Europe or America or any European government shall have the right to furnish bullion to our mints and demand coin for it, when we can buy it 8 per cent. cheaper than they offer it in open market.  But my amendment provides that as soon as it comes to par with our legal-tender notes, which I have always endeavored to make as good as gold as soon as possible then I would allow any one owning silver bullion to make a deposit of it at the mints and have it coined on the same terms as gold now is.

Another objection to the Finance Committee's amendments is that they limit the coinage to not less than $2,000,000, nor more than $4,000,000.  I propose not less than $3,000,000, and that the maximum shall be limited only by the capacity of the mints of the United States.  I want the coinage to go on as rapidly as possible.  Again, I object to the committee's amendment, because it allows, what was so well said by the Senator from Maine [Mr. Blaine] the other day, the representatives of the German empire, either through their agents or ministers, and they are the people who hold our bonds, to pour their silver into our mints and demand coin for it.  I object to their throwing their silver into our market and getting the benefit of the seigniorage, instead of the people of the United States.  I object to our Government dealing with any body but our own citizens.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  I ask my friend, suppose some foreign governments or individual should ask for coinage to the full extent of the Mint, if they got there first could they not have it done to the exclusion of the people of the United States ?

Mr. Beck.  I think beyond all question they could under the House bill or the amendment of the Finance Committee of the Senate.

Mr. Davis, of West Virginia.  Then it may be that the United States would not have power to coin any for itself.

Mr. Beck.  I spoke fully to this question before, and said then that I did not want the people of the United States to feel that the Senate of the United States had allowed any man in California or Nevada or anywhere else, who had an immense amount of bullion, to take possession of the mints of the United States and make a seigniorage of 6 per cent. or 8 per cent.;  and especially I did not want to allow the German government or any foreign power or citizen to take possession of our mints and have the benefits of that seigniorage, when we could obtain and apply it for the benefit of the tax-payers of the country.

In the coinage of our fractional currency, as shown by the report of the Director of the Mint, we bought enough bullion for 34,500,000 to make thirty-nine million and odd dollars of fractional currency, and the Government (the agent of the people) obtained $5,500,000 of seigniorage, which relieved us of that much other taxation.  As long as there is such a difference, I feel that the people ought to have it, and not any individual in Europe or America, or any other government than our own.  That was the object I had in view.  In addition to that, I did not want to deal with foreign nations;  I did not want to deal with citizens of foreign nations.  I wanted our mints and the directors of them to deal with our own people;  and if any complications arise, let them be at home.  I desire especially that no foreign complications arise in our dealings with our mints.  I want, in other words, silver to be coined as rapidly as possible for our own people to circulate at home.  There can be no danger of a currency that is based upon either gold or silver, and in that view I desire to say that I will vote for the amendment of the Senator from California, [Mr. Booth,] which I regard as more valuable even than that which I offered:

That any holder of the coin authorized by this act may deposit the same with the Treasurer or any assistant treasurer of the United States, in sums not less than $10, and receive therefor certificates of not less than $10 each, corresponding with the denominations of the United States notes.  The coin deposited for or representing the certificates shall be retained in the Treasury for the payment of the same on demand.  Said certificates shall be receivable for customs, taxes, and all public dues, and, when so received, may be reissued.

I regard that amendment as the most valuable provision of the whole bill.  I had prepared a similar amendment that silver may be deposited, when it is coined, by any bolder of it with the Treasurer of the United States or any assistant treasurer or any depositary, and that a certificate shall be issued based upon it, which shall circulate as money, so that neither gold nor silver need be used or carried from hand to hand, but those certificates shall be taken on demand by the Treasurer, by the assistant treasurer, or by the depositaries, and gold or silver paid for them, so that the paper so issued shall pass in all business transactions as money among the people and for all customs dues and all taxes due to the United States.  That done we have, based on our silver coinage, the product of our own mines, a paper currency which will be readily taken all over the world, as it is receivable for every demand of the United States and so arranged that any holder of it may go and demand coin upon it at any depository wherever he may happen to be.  There can be no inflation about that;  there can be no better basis for a paper circulation, and there can be no danger about its absolute security;  there will be no two to one or three to one, or any other basis of metal credit, but it will stand dollar for dollar, and all the talk about tons of silver and tons of gold being an obstacle in the commercial relations of the world will be conveniently disposed of by the fact that the people can deposit coined dollars at all times in the Treasury and use the paper based upon them and thus have a silver dollar on deposit for every paper dollar that is in use.

Entertaining these views and believing that to be the effect of the amendment, I shall certainly vote for the amendment of the Senator from California, which, as I said, I regard as a valuable adjunct to, indeed as more important than, my own amendment.  I would not make the paper thus issued a legal tender for private debts and obligations.  Indeed I deny the power of the Government to make a legal tender of anything but gold and silver.

Mr. Whyte.  Will the Senator from Kentucky let me ask him a question ?  I should like to know how by his amendment he prevents a foreigner from selling his silver to the United States.  Is there any provision against foreigners selling it ?

Mr. Beck.  I use this language:

That whenever the market price of silver bullion is such that it cannot be purchased by the Secretary of the Treasury, as herein provided, at less than par with legal-tender notes of the United States, he shall give public notice of that fact;  and then any citizen of the United States who is the owner of silver bullion may deposit the same at any United States coinage mint or assay office, to be coined into such dollars for his benefit, upon the same terms and conditions as gold bullion is deposited for coinage under existing laws.

Mr. Whyte.  Would that prevent a foreigner from transferring bullion to a citizen of the United States ?

Mr. Beck.  I do not desire to prevent that;  but I ask the Senator from Maryland, would it not prevent our Government from having any contracts or any complications with any foreign government or with the citizen of any foreign government ?  Our dealings under my amendment will be with our own citizen, will it not ?  There is no trouble about it, I think, if any foreigner sees fit to give bullion to our citizen or sell it to him or make him the bona fide owner of it;  then we deal with our citizen, and no complication can arise with any foreign government.

Mr. Morrill.  Will the Senator from Kentucky allow me to make a suggestion which I think is in the line of the policy he desires to pursue and will improve his amendment ?  After the word "bullion" I propose to him to adopt the words "produced from the mines of the United States."

Mr. Beck.  No, I do not care even about going that far.  I am willing that all the gold and silver in the world may come to us, so it comes into the hands of our own citizens and is owned by them.  I want all the bullion possible, no matter where obtained, made into United States coin;  but, as I said, I want our Government to deal with our own citizens.  I want the day to come, and come speedily, when the silver coinage shall be put on the same footing as the gold coinage;  but if I cannot get my own amendment adopted I will vote, as I said, for the House bill that makes coinage unlimited from the beginning.  The only fear I have of the amendment of the Finance Committee is that, as we have a hostile Secretary and a hostile Director of the Mint, both of whom I would like to remove from their places if I had the power;  but not having the power I would put upon them all the orders possible to make them coin silver to the utmost capacity of the mints;  and if they fail to do it by any chicanery, by any misconstruction, by any device whereby under the mere letter of the law they can get clear of it, I would use whatever power there is in Congress to put other men in their places who will execute the popular will.

I mean no personal disrespect to those gentlemen;  they differ with me, and I would get clear of them if I could.  I have no concealment about this matter.  I believe in obtaining the largest amount of gold and silver coin, and paper based upon such gold and silver coin, and I believe that the moment you make the silver coin of the same standard that it was when it was demonetized and put it in the same position where it was then, it will bear the same relation to gold coin that it did then.

I do not want to discuss again the question of how the bill was passed striking down the silver dollar.  I made a speech on the 10th of January.  I stated the facts on that subject then and they cannot be denied;  one fact stands out in that connection which no man can deny, that every man who sought to demonetize it in the House, did it because, he urged it was then 3½ per cent. above gold, and that when the bill reached the Senate the silver dollar was made eight grains more valuable than the dollar they were demonetizing, although the dollar they were demonetizing was claimed to be 3½ per cent. more valuable than gold.  The Senate amendment was inserted into the bill without one word being said in the Senate upon that subject and a conference report was put through both Houses without one word being said to either House that such a change was made.

If the argument was, "You cannot keep your silver dollar," as Mr. Kelley and .Mr. Stoughton said, "because it is 3½ per cent. more valuable than gold," why did they put upon us a silver dollar of 420 grains instead of 412½ grains, as the old standard dollar had been, and put it through that House of Representatives without even saying to the House "We have reversed your policy, and instead of reducing it to 3½ per cent., at which you pretended it was necessary to keep it, we put in 7½ grains more."  Nothing of that sort ever was said, and the Record shows it, and now it is admitted that neither the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, nor the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, nor the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, nor myself, nor my friend, [Mr. Voorhees,] nor Mr. Holman, nor anybody else knew what was in that bill.  I never have spoken of myself and did not intend to do so, but I watched legislation in the House as closely as most men, and I never suspected that such an act was being passed.

The President of the United States did not know it, nobody knew it, and as was well said by the Senator from Kansas to-day, if it had to be done now, it would not be indorsed by the vote of a single county in any State in the United States.  Mr. President, I intend, if I can, to restore it to the position it occupied when that act was passed, and then if we have not made a proper adjustment of it, I am willing to consult any body of men or any other nation as to what is the proper thing to do, but I will first secure silver money, actual money, and not silver bullion, against gold coin before I go into that settlement.  Under no other circumstances can we go into conference on fair and equal terms.

But I did not expect to occupy so much of the time of the Senate.  The only reason I offered the amendment was that I believed it was an improvement on the committee amendments.  I now believe it is.  If it is voted down, I cannot help it.  I am willing, if I cannot do any better, to let anybody take the seigniorage.  I intend to have the silver dollar restored if my vote can restore it and put it back where it was in the beginning, even if I have to take the bill just as it came from the House.

Mr. Kirkwood.  I should like to ask the Senator from Kentucky a question.  Would it not meet his views as well to adopt the amendment of the committee increasing the amount of money to be coined per month from two to three millions, making the minimum three millions instead of two ?

Mr. Beck.  I have done that.

Mr. Kirkwood.  But would not the amendment proposed by the Committee on Finance with that change in it meet his views as well as his own amendment ?

Mr. Beck.  I understand the Committee on Finance have limited the minimum to two millions.

Mr. Kirkwood.  But if that should be changed to "three" would it not suit the Senator as well as his own amendment ?

Mr. Beck.  Then there will be three for the minimum and four for the maximum.  I propose to make three the minimum, and the limit of the capacity of the mints the maximum.

Mr. Allison.  But my friend from Kentucky for a maximum must still trust the present Secretary of the Treasury [Sherman] and the Director of the Mint.

Mr. Beck.  I know that, and I am sorry I am compelled to do it. [Laughter.]  I do not want it understood that I am impeaching the integrity of the present Secretary of the Treasury or of the present Director of the Mint.  They differ radically with me as to what is best to do.  Therefore they will do as little as they can.  I desire as much done as possible and I want to put all the power and all the orders upon them to make them do all that we can.  That is all I meant to say in making the remarks I did about these gentlemen.  I have deferred with the gentlemen on the other side of this Chamber on many, many things, but I do not impeach their integrity --of course not.

The Vice-President.  The question is on the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky to the amendment of the Committee on Finance.

Mr. Bayard.  Mr. President, I cannot believe that any man who has read or considered anything upon this subject will be able to find an instance where any government, republican or monarchical, undertook to mint coin and declare its value superior to its bullion value, and not do it solely on government account.  I think if the Congress of the United States shall set the example of giving a minted value to coin over and above its bullion value in the world, and do that for private account, it will set the example, and it will be the first of which we have any knowledge.  I cannot imagine that so foolish a thing will be attempted.

Now, Mr. President, it is very plain that we must make our laws for affairs as they exist.  There is not a man in or out of the Congress of the United States who will deny that there is this large divergence of 10 per cent. to-day between these metals;  and if you propose to legislate, in the face of this fact, to declare ninety cents in silver to be the equivalent in legal value of one hundred cents in gold, then retain for your own Treasury the benefit of that declaration and do not give it to other people or to private account.

Next, as to the second section.  The honorable Senator from Kentucky avers in one breath, with others who think with him on this floor, that this free coinage of the silver dollar and the declaration of a minted value of its equivalence to a gold dollar will of itself restore its value to that of gold.  If this be so, then, Senators, all the experience of your forefathers or your predecessors of the necessity of retaining a subsidiary coin by taking from it a portion of its value in order to keep it as a currency for your people, will have gone for naught.  All the lessons you have had on that point given you by the report of Mr. Hunter in 1852, and the experience of your own Government that led to that report, the successful working of the coinage law of 1853 which took 6.7 per cent. from your fractional silver coins for the purpose of enabling you to retain them --all that you have been taught and all that you have learned is to be thrown away by this suggestion of the Senator from Kentucky, because it is true that if you shall by your action propose or hope or assert that you will restore these metals to an equivalency and make your fractional coin equal in value proportionately to your unit of value, then you may be sure that whatever difference between you and Europe sweeps your units of value from you will sweep your fractional coins with them.  If for the sake of the convenience of your people you desire to retain these fractional coins as you did retain them under the act of 1853, until the unhappy issue of paper money and the abandonment of the specie standard in 1862 --if you wish to retain them, then let your fractional coins bear a less proportion in value to the units than the units bear to each other, unless you desire to see that which shall sweep away either unit, sweep away the fractional coin which you have made for the convenience of change among your own people.

Mr. Maxey.  Mr. President, I shall vote for the Bland bill pure and simple, because it brings us back to the first act passed, after the adoption of the Constitution, making gold and silver exactly equal.  It leaves us where the act of 1837 left us, with gold and silver, a low seigniorage only paying for the impurities to be removed from the bullion.  To require our silver to pay a seigniorage and gold to go free is to put the Saxon's collar of servitude on silver and let gold go free like the Norman.  I look on them both as free metals of the Constitution, and if you make one pay seigniorage, make both.  Therefore, as gold does not pay seigniorage, I am opposed to making silver the servant of gold and to making it pay that which the gold does not have to pay.  Hence I say I shall vote against every one of these amendments so as to get back to the Bland bill, which is in effect the bill passed by the first Congress after the adoption of the Constitution.

Mr. Beck.  I desire to ask leave to withdraw the second section of my amendment relative to the subsidiary coinage.

The Vice-President.  The Senator has a right to modify his amendment.

Mr. Beck.  I withdraw that part of the amendment.

continue