United States Coinage Laws.

Mr. Stewart.  Mr. President, the United States Mint was established by the act of Apri 12, 1792.  The gold coins consisted of the ten, five, and two-and-a-half-dollar pieces.  The silver coins consisted of dollars, half-dollars, quarter-dollars, dimes, and half-dimes.

The act declared---

That the proportional value of gold to silver in all coins which shall by law be current as money within the United States, shall be as 15 to 1, according to quantity in weight, of pure gold or pure silver, that is to say, every fifteen pounds' weight of pure silver shall be of equal value in all payments with one pound weight or pure gold, and so in proportion as to any greater or less quantities of the respective metals.  (Laws relating to loans, currency, etc., 1886; page 213.)

The silver dollar was the unit of account, and consisted of 371¼ grains of pure silver, or 416 grains of standard silver.  The dollar contained 3½ grains more of alloy than the present silver dollar, but exactly the same amount of pure silver.  There was no gold dollar coined.  The eagle, which was $10, contained 247½ grains of pure gold, which would make the dollar, if such a coin had been struck, contain 24¾ grains of pure gold.

Section 14 of the act declared---

That it shall be lawful for any person or persons to bring to the said mint gold and silver bullion, in order to their being coined;  and that the bullion so brought shall be there assayed and coined as speedily as may be after the receipt thereof, and that free of expense to the person or persons by whom the same shall have been brought.

The act of June 28, 1834, reduced the quantity of gold in the gold coins and made the eagle or ten-dollar piece contain 232 grains of pure gold or 258 grains of standard gold, which would require only 23.20 grains of pure gold to make the dollar, or 25.8 grains of standard gold.  This reduction changed the ratio from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1.

The act of January 18, 1837, reduced the alloy in the coins to one-tenth of the weight.  The standard dollar by that act contained 371¼ grains of pure silver, or 412½ grains of standard silver, which is the same as the standard dollar now coined.  The gold dollar, if such a coin had been authorized, would have contained 23.20 grains of pure gold, or 25.77 grains of standard gold.  The fourteenth section of the act of 1837, declared---

That gold and silver brought to the mint for coinage shall be received and coined, by the proper officers, for the benefit of the depositor. ---Ibid., page 235.

By the ninth section of the statute of 1837, the half-dollar contained 206¼ grains of standard silver, and the quarter-dollar, dime, etc., weight in proportion.

The act of February 21, 1853, reduced the weight of the subsidiary coin, making the weight of the half-dollar 192 grains of standard silver, and reducing the weight of the minor coins proportionally.  By that act, the legal tender of the half-dollar, quarter-dollar, etc., was limited to $5, the dollar remaining a full legal tender.

The act of February 9, 1793, declared---

That from and after the 1st day of July next, foreign gold and silver coins shall pass current as money within the United States, and be a legal tender for the payment of all debts and demands, at the several and respective rates following, and not otherwise ---Ibid., p. 217.

Spanish milled dollars, at the rate of 100 cents for each dollar, the actual weight whereof shall not be less than 17 pennyweights and 7 grains;  and in proportion for the parts of a dollar.  Crowns of France, at the rate of 110 cents for each crown, the actual weight whereof shall not be less than 18 pennyweights and 17 grains, and in proportion for the parts of the crown. ---Ibid., p. 217.

This law remained in force until the 21st of February, 1857, when it was provided that subsidiary Mexican and Spanish coin, when received at the mint, should be recoined;  and all former acts making foreign coin a legal tender were repealed.

By the act of February 12, 1873, the silver dollar was omitted from the list of silver coins, and a gold dollar of 23.22 of pure gold, or 25.8 grains of standard gold, was substituted for the silver dollar as the unit of account.

The act of February 28, 1878, restored the standard dollar of 412½ grains of standard silver, as provided in the act of January 18, 1837, and provided for the purchase, at the market price, of not less than $2,000,000 nor more than $4,000,000 worth of silver bullion each month, to be coined into standard dollars.

The act of July 14, 1890, provided for the purchase of 4,500,000 ounces of silver bullion per month, at the market price, and the issuance of legal-tender Treasury notes in payment of such purchases.  The act made these notes redeemable in gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.

The third section of the act declared---

That the Secretary of the Treasury shall each month coin two million ounces of the silver bullion purchased under the provisions of this act into standard silver dollars until the 1st day of July, 1891, and after that time he shall coin of the silver bullion purchased under the provisions of this act as much as may be necessary to provide for the redemption of the Treasury notes herein provided for. ---United States Statutes at Large, volume 26, page 289.

Coinage of Silver Before 1873.

From the establishment of the mint, in 1792, to 1873 there was no year in which there was not more or less legal-tender silver coins struck at the mints.  There were many years in which there were no dollars coined, but there was no year, month, or day, Sundays and holidays excepted, when the owner of silver bullion could not take it to the mint and have it coined into dollars or some other denomination of silver coins.  The total amount of silver coinage previous to 1873 was $105,437,025.60.  Only about $8,000,000 of this amount was legal-tender silver dollars, but all the balance was full legal-tender silver money, excepting the subsidiary coin coined after 1853.

Between 1860, the date of the opening of the Comstock, and 1873, the date of the demonetization of silver, there were 4,337,610 standard silver dollars coined;  in the year 1871, 1,115,760;  in 1872, 1,106,450;  and between January 1 and February 12, 1873, the date of the passage of the mint act, there were 293,600 dollars coined.

These figures are taken from the report of the Director of the Mint for 1890, page 247.  I call particular attention to the fact that there were coined during the years 1871 and 1872, 2,232,210 standard silver dollars, and that there were coined between the 1st day of January, 1873 and the 12th day of February, 1873, when the mint act took effect, 293,600 standard silver dollars.

If the coinage had continued at the same rate during the entire year there would have been coined in 1873, 2,492,185.  The statement which emanated from the Senator from Ohio that the silver dollar was obsolete at the time of the passage of the mint act, and which statement has been constantly repeated by the gold press and gold orators ever since, is absolutely untrue.

After the adoption of the ratio of 16 to 1 in 1834, silver was undervalued in our coinage, and the bullion value of silver for export was 3 per cent more than its coinage value.  Consequently the silver dollars and silver bullion produced in this country were exported with profit.

But in the beginning of the seventies we produced more silver than could profitably be exported, and our silver miners found it desirable to take silver to the mint for coinage.  At that time vast and extensive silver mines had been discovered in this country, and the prospect of a large increase in our current coin from our silver mines and from the mines of Mexico and South America was encouraging.  The right of the owner of silver bullion to take the same to the mint and have it coined for his own benefit was of the greatest value.

The Gold Monometallists

Since silver was demonetized by the mint act the gold monometallists have continually and persistently asserted that the silver dollar was suppressed by previous legislation, and that no existing valuable right was taken away by the legislation of 1873.  I call attention to the following dialogue, which occurred in the Senate of the United States on March 30, 1876, in which Senators Conkling, Sherman, Bogy, and McDonald participated.  It will be found on pages 2062 and 2063 of the Congressional Record, volume 4, part 3, Forty-fourth Congress, first session:

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

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

Mr. Conkling.  Is there power to issue it ?

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

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

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

* * * * * * * * *

Mr. McDonald.  Permit me to ask the Senator from Ohio whether we have any law on the subject of the silver coinage of the United States except section 3513 of the Revised statutes !

Mr. Sherman.  I read that section.

Mr. McDonald.  Is not that the only law we have defining the present silver coins of the United States ?

Mr. Sherman.  Yes, sir.  I read that.

Mr. McDonald.  Does not that leave out the old standard dollar entirely ?

Mr. Sherman.  Undoubtedly;  but I say there has been none coined since 1853.  The question of restoring that dollar is a question that is not in this bill at all.

The Senator from Ohio, in his speech of August 30, 1893, after he had undertaken to give figures as to the coinage of silver, which he obtained from the reports of the Director of the Mint, said:

After the passage of the act of February 21, 1853, gold in great quantities, the product of the mines in California, was freely coined at the ratio of 16 to 1, and was in general circulation.  If, then, the purchase of silver instead of the free coinage of silver is the demonetization of silver, it was demonetized practically in 1835, and certainly in 1853, when the purchase of silver and its use as money increased enormously.

Comment upon such statements is unnecessary.  The record of the mint, which I have given, is the best evidence that they are untrue.

The reasons why there was no more silver coined previous to the discovery of the Comstock mines were that the United States produced little or no silver, and the silver imported came in the shape of coin, and was made a legal tender.  The Comstock mines were discovered in 1859, and, although specie payments were suspended, the coinage of silver dollars in the two years preceding the demonetization of silver was many times greater than in any preceding year.

It is true that the change of ratio in 1834, from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1, undervalued silver and overvalued gold, as compared with the valuations of Europe and Asia.  At the ratio of 16 to 1 an ounce of silver is worth $1.2929.  At the ratio of 15½ to 1, which is the prevailing ratio in Europe, an ounce of silver is worth a little over $1.33 in gold.  At the ratio of 15 to 1, which prevailed in this country from 1792 to 1834, and which now prevails in Asia, an ounce of silver is worth a little over $1.37.  This was the reason why the silver in the silver dollar was 3 per cent premium over the gold in the gold dollar.  Europe would give $1.33 an ounce, while the United States paid only $1.2929.  This was no reason for demonetizing silver.  It might have been a reason for changing the ratio to conform to the European ratio by making a lighter silver dollar.

History of the Demonetization of Silver.

Previous to the Napoleonic wars silver was the principal money of Great Britain, sometimes the only coin.  But after the battle of Waterloo, and when peace had been fully established throughout Europe, England, in 1816, passed a law demonetizing silver and adopting the single gold standard.  During the fifties, and while there was an enormous output of gold from California and Australia, an effort was made by Chevalier, of France, and Maclaren, of England, and other writers upon political economy, to demonetize gold.  Germany, Austria, and Holland adopted the single silver standard and closed their mints against gold.  The effort to demonetize the yellow metal, because it was plenty and cheap, would have succeeded if England could have been satisfied that gold would continue to be the plentier metal.  In 1854 England sent commissioners to California and Australia to investigate the probable continuance of the output of gold, and after thorough investigation it was ascertained that the great gold placers would soon be exhausted.

From the discovery of America up to 1850 all writers who have investigated the question agree that there were more than 31 ounces of silver produced for every ounce of gold.  England inferred, and correctly inferred, from the experience of three hundred and fifty years that in the long run silver would be more plentiful than gold, and she therefore adhered to her gold policy.

Our war closed in 1865.  In that same year a union was formed between France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, and Switzerland, by which it was agreed to establish common coins, weights and measures.  In 1867 the French Emperor extended an invitation to the United States and all the nations of Europe to hold a conference in Paris for the purpose of extending the principles of the union throughout the commercial world.  Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles was appointed commissioner for the United States.

The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman], who was then chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, visited London in the summer vacation of 1867.  He afterwards visited Paris, where the conference was in session, and wrote to Mr. Ruggles the following letter:

Hon. John Sherman to Samuel Ruggles, esq., advocating the gold standard,

Hotel Jardin des Tuileries, May 18, 1867.

My Sear Sir:  Your note of yesterday, inquiring whether Congress would probably, in future coinage, make our gold dollar conform in value to the gold 5-franc piece, has been received.  There has been so little discussion in Congress upon the subject that I can not base my opinion upon anything said or done there.  The subject has, however, excited the attention of several important commercial bodies in the United States, and the time is now so favorable that I feel quite sure that Congress will adopt any practical measure that will secure to the commercial world a uniform standard of value and exchange.  The only question will be how this can be accomplished.

The treaty of December 23, 1865, between France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland, and the probable acquiescence in that treaty by Prussia, has laid the foundation for such a standard.

If Great Britain will reduce the value of her sovereign 2 pence, and the United States will reduce the value of her dollar something over 3 cents, we then have a coinage in the franc, dollar, and sovereign easily computed, and which will readily pass in all countries;  the dollar as 5 francs, and the sovereign as 25 francs.  This will put an end to the loss and intricacies of exchange and discount.

Our gold dollar is certainly as good a unit of value as the franc, and so the English think of their pound sterling.  These coins are now exchangeable only at considerable loss, and this exchange is a profit only to brokers and bankers.  Surely each commercial nation should be willing to yield a little to secure a gold coin of equal value, weight, and diameter, from whatever mint it may have been issued.

As the gold 5-franc piece is now in use by over 60,000,000 of people of several different nationalities, and is of convenient form and size, it may well be adopted by other nations as the common standard of value;  leaving to each nation to regulate the divisions of this unit in silver coins or tokens.  If this is done France will surely abandon the impossible effort of making two standards of value.  Gold coins will answer all the purposes of European commerce.  A common gold standard will regulate silver coinage, of which the United States will furnish the greater part, especially for the Chinese trade.

I have thought a good deal of how the object you propose may be most readily accomplished.  It is clear that the United States can not become a party to the treaty referred to.  They could not agree upon the silver standard, nor could we limit the amount of our coinage, as proposed by the treaty.  The United States is so large in extent, is so sparsely populated, and the price of labor is so much higher than in Europe, that we require more currency per capita.  We now produce the larger part of the gold and silver of the world, and can not limit our coinage, except by the wants of our people and the demands of commerce.

Congress alone can change the value of our coin.  I see no object in negotiating with other powers on the subject.  As coin is not now in general circulation with us, we can readily fix by law the size, weight, and measure of future issues.  It is not worth while to negotiate about that which we can do without negotiation, and we do not wish to limit ourselves by treaty restrictions.

In England many persons of influence and different chambers of commerce are earnestly in favor of the proposed change in their coinage.  The change is so slight with them that an enlightened self-interest will soon induce them to make it, especially if we make the greater change in our coinage.  We will have some difficulty in adjusting existing contracts with the new dollar;  but as contracts are now based upon the fluctuating value of paper money, even the reduced dollar coin will have more purchasable value than our currency.

We can easily adjust the reduction with the public creditors in the payment or conversion of their securities, while private creditors might be authorized to recover upon the old standard.  All these are matters of detail, to which I hope the commission will direct their attention.

And now, my dear sir, allow me to say in conclusion that I heartily sympathize with you and others in your efforts to secure the adoption of the metrical system or weights and measures.  The tendency of the age is to break down all needless restrictions upon social and commercial intercourse.  Nations are now as much akin to each other as provinces were of old.  Prejudices disappear by contact.  People of different nations learn to respect each other as they find that their differences are the effect of social and local custom not founded upon good reasons.

I trust that the industrial commission will enable the world to compute the value of all productions by the same standard, to measure by the same yard or meter, and weigh by the same scales.  Such a result would be of greater value than the usual employments of diplomatists and statesmen.

I am, very truly, yours,
John Sherman.

(Senate Executive Document No. 14, 40th Congress, 2nd session, pages 107 to 110.)

Mr. Ruggles, soon after the receipt of the above letter, obtained an interview with the Emperor Louis Napoleon, and in the report of that interview, among other things, says:

It was then stated to the Emperor that an eminent American statesman, Mr. Sherman, Senator from Ohio, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate of the United States, and recently in Paris, had written an important and interesting letter, expressing his opinion that the gold dollar of the United States ought to be, and readily might be, reduced by Congress in weight and value to correspond with the gold 5-franc piece of France;  that the letter is now before the international committee having the question of uniform coin under special examination, to which letter, as being one of the best interpretations of the views of the American people, the attention of the public authorities of France was respectfully invited.  The Emperor then closed the audience by repeating the assurances of his gratification that the important international measure in question was likely to receive active support from the United States.

The letter of Mr. Sherman above referred to, dated the 18th of May, 1867, originally written in English, was presented in a French translation a few days afterwards to the international committee in full session, where it was received with unusual interest and ordered by the committee to be printed in both languages.

(Senate Executive Document No. 14, 40th Congress, 2nd session, page 9.)

This letter was presented by Mr. Ruggles to the international committee, as appears from the following extract from his letter to Mr. Seward of July 18, 1867:

On the 17th of May the undersigned presented to the international committee the letter of Senator Sherman in a French translation, which was received with lively interest and forthwith ordered, with the approbation of the imperial commission, to be published both in French and English.  It is but due to the history of unification of money to state that the earnest and active agitation of this subject in a practical form, on the part of the United States, exerted its full share of influence in leading the Government of France to adopt the decisive measure of inviting in diplomatic form an authoritative "conference" of delegates, duly accredited from all the nations of the European and American world practically accessible, to meet at Paris on the 17th of June, not merely for an exchange of views or a discussion of general principles, but "practically to seek for the basis of ulterior negotiation" between the nations. ---Senate Executive Document No. 14, Fortieth Congress, second session, page 13.

Sherman's Powerful Influence for Gold Monometallism.

In his report of November 7, 1867, pages 99 and 100, Mr. Ruggles said:

The establishment of the single standard exclusively of gold is, in truth, the cardinal, if not the all-important feature of the plan proposed by the conference, relieving the whole subject, by a single stroke of the pen, from the perplexity, and, indeed, the impossibility of permanently unifying the multiplicity of silver coins scattered through the various nations of Europe.  It is a matter of world-wide congratulation that on this vital point the delegates from the nineteen nations represented in the conference were unanimous, not excepting France itself, so strongly wedded by its national traditions to a double standard.

It will be seen by the report of the discussions (sixth "seance," pages 79 to 82) that the subject of the "common denominator," or unit of gold, elicited a considerable difference of opinion.  A denominator or unit equivalent to and equiponderant with the existing gold 5-franc coin of France was actively supported by the United States and by Austria, Russia, Switzerland, Portugal, and other nations.  The delegates from Great Britain and from Sweden urged, in preference, a denominator or unit of 10 francs.

The question was finally decided by a formal vote by ayes and noes, on a roll call of the nations, which resulted in a large majority in favor of the denominator or unit of 5 francs, thirteen (13) nations voting in its favor, and two (2), Great Britain and Sweden, in favor of the 10 francs.  The delegates from Prussia, Baden, Bavaria, and Würtemberg abstained from voting, mainly in view of existing stipulations in local monetary conventions, which temporarily embarrassed their nation.

On all these questions the interests of monetary unification were materially advanced by the publication at Paris of the concise but admirable letter from the Hon. John Sherman, Senator in Congress from the State of Ohio, a copy of which has been already communicated to the Department of State, but which for more convenient reference is now transmitted herewith in duplicate with its French translation.

His [Sherman's] opinions are unmistakably expressed in the following extracts:

As the gold 5-franc piece is now in use by over sixty millions of people of several different nationalities, and is of convenient form and size, it may well be adopted by other nations as a common standard of value, leaving to each nation to regulate the divisions of this unit in silver coin or tokens.  If this is done France will surely abandon the impossible effort of making two standards of value.  Gold coins will answer all the purposes of European commerce.  A common gold standard will regulate silver coinage.

In England many persons of influence and different chambers are earnestly in favor of the proposed change in the coinage.  The change is so slight with them that an enlightened self-interest will soon induce them to make it, especially if we make the greater change in our coinage. ---Senate Executive Document No. 14, Fortieth Congress, second session, pages 99, 100.

The English Government was represented at the conference as an advocate of the single gold standard.  Mr. Rivers Wilson, the delegate, read the following declaration:

Before recommencing a discussion of the lists of questions, the English delegates deem it their duty to the Government they represent, to the members of the conference, and particularly to the Government of the Emperor, by whose invitation they are present, and to prevent any misunderstanding, to indicate their delicate and exceptional situation.  They are convinced of the necessity of this declaration from the serious and practical turn the discussion has borne to this time, and particularly from the high signification that must attach in public opinion to the presidency of his imperial highness, Prince Napoleon, and to the labors which must result from it.

The English Government was obliged to accept the cordial invitation from the Government of the Emperor to participate in this conference, because a refusal would have shown a want of courtesy and would have made it liable to accusations of prejudices upon this very important question.  Indeed, the English nation is in a position much more independent upon this question than most continental nations.  So long as public opinion has not decided in favor of a change of the present system, which offers no serious inconveniences, either in wholesale or retail trade, and until it shall be incontestably demonstrated that a new system offers advantages sufficiently commanding to justify the abandonment of that which is approved by experience and rooted in the habits of the people, the English Government could not believe it to be its duty to take the initiative in assimilating its coinage with those of the countries of the continent.

But the English Government will always be ready to aid any attempt to enlighten and guide public opinion in the appreciation of the question, and facilitate the discussion of the means by which such an assimilation, so advantageous in theory, may be effected.  Thus, while consenting to be represented in this conference, the English Government has found it necessary to place the most careful restrictions upon its delegates;  their part is simply to listen to the different arguments, to study the situation as developed in the discussion, and to report to their Government.

Thus far they have found no difficulty in voting in favor of all the propositions adopted by the conference, because their principles agree with the system now in force in England.  But they cannot vote for any question tending to bind their Government, or express any opinion to induce the belief that Great Britain will adopt the convention of 1865. ---Senate Executive Document, No. 14, Fortieth Congress, second session, page 55.

Mark the language:

The English delegates had found no difficulty in voting in favor of all the propositions adopted by the conference, because their principles agree with the system now in force in England.  But they can not vote for any question tending to bind their Government or express any opinion to induce the belief that Great Britain will adopt the convention of 1865.

The convention of 1865 established the Latin Union, which was the bimetallic union of Europe.  The earnest efforts of the English delegation, of Mr. Ruggles, the delegate from the United States, and of Mr. Sherman, chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate of the United States, procured a decision of the conference in favor of the single gold standard.  England and the United States inaugurated the movement for a gold standard in the conference of 1867, and by the aid of Mr. Sherman's letter secured the recommendation.  The report of Mr. Ruggles, portions only of which have been quoted, abundantly establishes this most important fact.

Mr. Hoar.  I should like to ask the Senator, while he is giving the history of that question, whether that report of Mr. Ruggles was not asked for by a vote of the Senate at the time, and whether it was not communicated to the Senate by the Treasury Department, and published as a Senate document ?

Mr. Stewart.  At the time ?

Mr. Hoar.  Yes.

Mr. Stewart.  It was sometime afterwards, I believe.

Mr. Hoar.  Within a few weeks or months ?

Mr. Stewart.  Did the Senator ever read it ?

Mr. Hoar.  Yes;  I read it.

Mr. Stewart.  At the time ?

Mr. Hoar.  I was not a Senator at the time, and I do not know whether I read it at the time or not.

Mr. Stewart.  I suppose the Senator asked the question in order to have me read it.

Mr. Hoar.  I wish to add, if the Senator will pardon me, as he was giving the history of that transaction, I thought he would himself desire that so important a part of the history of legislation as that report should be spread before the Senate.

Mr. Stewart.  I do not care about a speech being injected in mine.

Mr. Hoar.  I ask the Senator if that is not true ?

Mr. Stewart.  I am spreading before the Senate all the facts.  If the Senator will not interrupt me, he can draw his inferences afterwards.

Mr. Hoar.  What I stated is a fact.

Mr. Stewart.  I am referring to the documents, and every document that I quote I refer to in my speech, giving the page, date, and everything connected with it.

Mr. Hoar.  Will the Senator allow me ?

Mr. Stewart.  I do not wish to be interrupted, because it breaks the thread of my remarks.

Mr. Hoar.  I desire to ask the Senator a question of fact purely, not to interrupt his remarks.  I desire to ask whether the report to which he has referred was not asked for by the Senate by resolution, communicated to the Senate by the Treasury Department, and published by the Senate as a document ?  There is no doubt about that.

Mr. Stewart.  Of course it was.  If the Senator wants to know any particulars about it, he can see it.  I refer to it.  I can not get the report and read it now.

Mr. Hoar.  I put my question, if the Senator will pardon me---

Mr. Stewart.  I decline to be interrupted to put a whole lot of trash in my speech.

Mr. Hoar.  Very well.

Mr. Stewart.  It simply breaks up the narrative I was giving.

Mr. Hoar.  I shall endeavor to make my point after the Senator gets through.

Mr. Stewart.  After I get through the Senator can talk.

First Attempt by Mr. Sherman to Demonetize Silver.

On the 6th day of January, 1868, Mr. Sherman introduced the following bill, which was referred to the Committee on Finance:

[Fortieth Congress, second session.]
Senate bill 217.

Mr. Sherman asked, and by unanimous consent, obtained leave to bring in the following bill;  which was read twice, referred to the Committee on Finance, and ordered to be printed:

A bill in relation to the coinage of gold and silver.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, with a view to promote a uniform currency among the nations, the weight of the gold coin of five dollars shall be one hundred and twenty-four and nine-twentieths troy grains, so that it shall agree with a French coin of twenty-five francs, and with the rate of thirty-one hundred francs to the kilogram;  and the other sizes or denominations shall be in due proportion of weight, and the fineness shall be nine-tenths or nine hundred parts fine in one thousand.

Sec. 2.  And be it further enacted, That, in order to conform the silver coinage to this rate and to the French valuation, the weight of the half dollar shall be one hundred and seventy-nine grains, equivalent to one hundred and sixteen decigrams;  and the lesser coins shall be in due proportion, and the fineness shall be nine-tenths.  But the coinage of silver pieces of one dollar, five cents, and three cents shall be discontinued.

Sec. 3.  And be it further enacted, that the gold coins to be issued under this act shall be a legal tender in all payments to any amount;  and the silver coins shall be a legal tender to an amount not exceeding ten dollars in any one payment.

Sec. 4.  And be it further enacted, That in the assay of the gold coins to be issued under this act there shall be no greater deviation allowed from the standard of fineness than one-thousandth part above or below.

Sec. 5.  And be it further enacted, That the devices on the coins shall consist of such emblems and inscriptions as are proper to the Republic of the United States, but plainly distinct from those now in use;  each coin shall express its proper date and value;  and the value of the gold coins shall be stated both in dollars and in francs;  and whenever it is ascertained that Great Britain has conformed the pound sterling to the value of the piece of $5, then the value in British terms shall also be stated;  and the devices as well as the diameters of the coins shall be fixed by the Director of the Mint, under the control of the Secretary of the Treasury.

Sec. 6.  And be it further enacted, That foreign gold coins, conformed to the basis herein prescribed, shall be a legal tender in all payments whatsoever, so long as the standards of weight and fineness are duly maintained;  and it shall be the duty of the commissioners of assay, meeting at the Mint in the month or February of each year, to try a sufficient number of such foreign coins of the preceding year, to be procured for that purpose by the Director of the Mint, and if any serious deficiency be found, the Secretary of the Treasury shall have power to suspend the right of legal-tender in the particular case.

Sec. 7.  And be it further enacted, That when the gold and silver coins of the United States are brought to the mint or its branches for recoinage, such coins shall be received by weight, and those of them which have been issued as nine-tenths fine shall be so received, but all others by assay.  And in payments at the mint for both gold and silver coins above specified, the value shall be rendered according to the weights prescribed in the first and second sections of this act;  and there shall be no charge for coinage, seigniorage, or internal revenue;  and on all other deposits of gold for coinage the charge shall be one-half of one per centum.

Sec. 8.  And be it further enacted, That for the uses of the Treasury and the custom-houses, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, as soon as this act takes effect, publicly declare the rates at which the coins or the United States and of foreign countries now current shall be reckoned upon estimates furnished by the Director of the Mint.

Sec. 9.  And be it further enacted, That this act shall take ellect on the 1st day or January, 1869, but to expedite the recoinage it shall be lawful for the mint and its branches to receive gold and silver coins of the United States for that purpose on and after the 1st day of October next, and to give certificates therefor, payable in the order or receipt in the new coins, and to convert the metals thus received into ingots and planchets to be ready for stamping when this act takes effect.  And in respect to other deposits of gold or purchase of silver the like certificates may be issued if demanded, on and after the 1st day of October next.

Sec. 10.  And be it further enacted, That the weights to be used at the mint when this act goes into operation may be either troy weights or French gram weights, or both, as the Secretary of the Treasury shall direct.

On the 9th of June, 1868, Mr. Sherman reported the foregoing bill favorably, and advocated its passage by an elaborately written report, in which he referred to and relied on the reports of Mr. Ruggles of the proceedings of the monetary conference which had been held in Paris the previous year.  He then said:
---[
Senate of the United States
Tuesday, June 9, 1868.
       "Mr. Sherman.  I am directed by the Committee on Finance, to whom was referred the bill (S. No. 217) in relation to the coinage of gold and silver, to report it back with amend­ments, accompanied by a report which I ask to be printed.  The Senator from New York [Mr. Morgan] desires to submit a written minority report adverse to it.  The committee direct me to ask that these reports be printed and that the subject be postponed until the next session of Congress without further action.
       "Mr. Morgan.  As a member of the Com­mittee on Finance I am not in favor of Senate bill No. 217, nor in favor of any other bill on the subject of coinage at the present time.  I have submitted to the Finance Committee a report in writing, which by their direction I now present to the Senate, and I move that it be printed.
       "The motion to print the majority and minority reports was agreed to.
       "Mr. Sherman, from the Committee on Finance, submitted the following resolution;  which was referred to the Committee on Printing:
       "Ordered, That five thousand copies of the amended bill reported from the Committee on Finance relating to international coinage, together with the re­ports thereon, and the report of Samuel B. Ruggles, commissioner of the United States to the Paris monetary conference, be printed for the use of the Senate.
       "Mr. Sherman, from the Committee on Finance, to whom were referred the message from the President of the United States concerning the International Monetary Conference, at Paris in June, 1867, the resolutions of the Toledo Board of Trade, protesting against any change in the system of coinage, and a memorial of the American Statistical Association, in relation to the metrical system of weights, measures, and coins, asked to be discharged from their further consideration;  which was agreed to.
       "He also from the same committee, to whom was referred the bill (S. No. 412) to promote uniformity of coinage between the moneys of the United States and other countries, asked to be discharged from its further considera­tion;  which was agreed to."
]

The second inquiry of your committee was whether the plan proposed by the Paris conference was the best mode to accomplish the end desired.  It proposes:

1.  A single standard exclusively of gold.

2.  Coins of equal weight and diameter.

3.  Of equal quality of fineness --nine-tenths fine.

4.  The weight of the present 5-franc gold piece to be the unit.

5.  The coins of each nation to bear the names and emblems prepared by each, but to be legal tenders public and private in all.

The single standard of gold is an American idea, yielded reluctantly by France and other countries, where silver is the chief standard of value.  The impossible attempt to maintain two standards of value has given rise to nearly all the debasement of coinage of the last two centuries.  The relative market value of silver and gold varied like other commodities, and this led first to the demonetization of the more valuable metal, and second to the debasement or diminution of the quantity of that metal in a given coin.

He then gave further reasons in favor of the gold standard, and continued---

For the reasons that induced the adoption of this unit of value, reference is made by your committee to the report of Mr. Ruggles.  They may be summed up as follows:

"1.  The coin proposed is the smallest gold coin in use, and therefore the most convenient unit of value.

"2.  It approximates more nearly to existing coinage of the great commercial nations than any other proposed.  The dollar reduced 3¼ cents at the mint becomes the unit of value, and its decimal divisions and multiples enable us to retain all our well-known coins, both of gold and silver.

"A very slight reduction of the English sovereign makes it conform to the multiple of the dollar and franc, so that 5 francs are a dollar, and $5 are a sovereign, or half-eagle.  The same unit is easily adapted to existing coinage of other nations.

"3.  The franc is already in use by 72,000,000 of the most industrious and thrifty people of Europe --France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Holland.

"4.  The actual gold coinage in francs from 1793 to 1866 was 1,312,220,814, while the gold coinage in dollars during the same period was $845,536,591, and in sovereigns was $935,341,460, thus showing that in France alone the existing gold coinage on the proposed standard is greater than upon any other that could be adopted."

France, whose standard is adopted, makes a new coin similar to our half-eagle.  She yields to our demand for the sole standard of gold, and during the whole conference evinced the most earnest wish to secure the co-operation of the United States in the great object of unification of coinage. ---Senate Committee Report No. 117, Fortieth Congress, second session, pages 4, 5, and 6.

Demonetization Defeated in 1868.

Senator E.D. Morgan, of New York [voted for reduction of currency, for credit strengthening], from the same committee, submitted a minority report from which I make the following extracts:

In June last, while the Universal Exposition was in progress, an international monetary conference was held in Paris under the presidency of the French minister of foreign affairs.  Delegates from the several European nations were present.  Mr. Samuel B. Ruggles represented the United States, and his report on the subject has been communicated to Congress through the Department of State.  From this it appears that a plan of monetary unification was there agreed upon, the general features of which are:

1.  A single standard, exclusively of gold.

2.  Coins of equal weight and diameter.

3.  Of equal quality, nine-tenths fine.

4.  The weight of the present 5-franc gold piece to be the unit, with its multiples.  The issue by France of a new coin of value and weight of 25 franc was recommended.

5.  The coins of each nation to continue to bear the names and emblems preferred by each, but to be legal tenders, public and private, in all.

Senate bill 217 is designed to carry into effect this plan.  Its passage would reduce the weight of our gold coin of $5, so as to agree with a French coin of 25 francs.

It determines that other sizes and denominations shall be in due proportion of weight and fineness, and that foreign gold coin, conformed to this basis, shall be a legal tender so long as the standard of weight and fineness are maintained.  It requires that the value of gold coin shall be stated both in dollars and francs, and also in British terms, whenever Great Britain shall conform the pound sterling to the piece of $5.

It conforms our silver coinage to the French valuation, and discontinues the silver pieces of $1, and 5 and 3 cents, and limits silver as a legal tender to payments of $10.  The 1st of January, 1869, is fixed as the period for the act to take effect.

The reduction which this measure would effect in the present legal standard value of the gold coin of the United States would be at the rate of three and a half dollars in the hundred, and the reduction in the legal value of our silver coinage would be still more considerable.

A change in our national coinage so grave as that proposed by the bill should be made only after the most mature deliberation.  The circulating medium is a matter that directly concerns the affairs of everyday life, affecting not only the varied, intricate, and multiform interests of the people at home, to the minutest detail, but the relations of the nation with all other countries as well.  The United States has a peculiar interest in such a question.  It is a principal producer of the precious metals, and its geographical position, most favorable in view of impending commercial changes, renders it wise that we should be in no haste to fetter ourselves by any new international regulation based on an order of things belonging essentially to the past.

* * * * * * *

The American continent, too, produces four-fifths of the silver of commerce.  The mines of Nevada have already taken high rank, and Mexico alone supplies more than half the world's grand total.  Our relations with the silver-producing people, geographically most favorable, are otherwise intimate.

Manifestly our business intercourse with them can be largely increased, a fact especially true of Mexico, which, for well-known political reasons, seeks the friendliest understanding.  This must not be overlooked.  These two streams of the precious metals, poured into the current of commerce in full volume, will produce perturbations marked and important.

Other countries will be affected, but the United States will feel the effect first and more directly than any other.  The Pacific Railway will open to us the trade of China, Japan, India, and other Oriental countries, of whose prepossessions we must not lose sight.  For years silver, for reasons not fully understood, has been the object of unusual demand among these Asiatic nations, and now forms the almost universal medium of circulation, absorbing rapidly the silver of coinage.  The erroneous proportion fixed between silver and gold by France, and which we are asked to copy, is denuding that country of the former metal.  Our own monetary system, though less faulty, is not suitably adjusted in this respect.  The silver dollar, for instance, a favorite coin of the native Indian and distant Asiatic, has well nigh disappeared from domestic circulation, to reappear among the Eastern peoples with whom we more than ever seek close intimacy.

As they prefer this piece we do well to increase rather than discontinue its coinage, for we must not deprive ourselves of the advantages which its agency will afford, and "it would be useless to send dollars to Asia inferior in weight and value to its well-known Spanish and American prototype."

Mr. Ruggles says that nearly all the silver coined in the United States prior to 1858 has disappeared.  A remedy is not to be found in the adoption of a system that undervalues this metal, for that commodity, like any other, shuns the market where not taken at its full value to find the more favorable one.

It is a favorite metal, entering into all transactions of daily life, and deserves proper recognition in the monetary system.

It is said that "to promote the intercourse of nations with each other, uniformity in weights, coins, and measures of capacity is among the most efficacious agencies."  Our weights, coins, and measures now correspond much more nearly to the English than to the French standard.  Our commerce with Great Britain is nine times greater than with France, and if the former does not adopt the Paris system of coinage --and we have no assurance that she will-- the United States would certainly commit a serious error in passing this bill.  No argument is needed to enforce this.  And what of the rising communities ?  A properly adjusted coinage would stimulate commerce with those great parts of the continent lying south and southwest of us, with the West Indies and the countless millions of trans-Pacific countries.  We stand midway on the thoroughfare of traffic between these two widely-separated races.  Our railways, canals, our natural highways, and merchant marine may be made to control their carrying trade.

But here, as everywhere else, a well-adjusted coinage becomes a wand of power in the hand of enterprise.  Tokens are not wanting to mark the favor in which the United States are held by China.  The unusual honor recently conferred by that government upon a citizen of this country was not alone because of his fitness as an ambassador at large, but was a mark as well of a friendly disposition towards this country.  Future harmony of intercourse is assumed, too, by their adoption as a text-book in diplomatic correspondence of a leading American authority on international law.  Much might also be said about the growing partiality of Japan towards this country, but it is enough that the recent opening of certain ports indicates an enlightened change in the politics of these two old empires, of which commerce, especially our own, is availing itself.

Our coinage is believed to be the simplest of any in circulation, and every way satisfactory for purposes of domestic commerce:  it possesses special merits of everyday value, and should not, for light reasons, be exchanged where the advantages sought to be gained are mainly theoretical, engaging more properly the attention of the philosopher than the practical man.  The instincts of our people lead them to believe that we are on the eve of important business changes, and we may therefore safely hold fast for the present to what experience has proven to be good, following only where clear indications may lead, and a future of great prosperity opens to our country.

The war gave us self-assertion of character, and removed many impediments to progress;  it also proved our ability to originate means to ends.  Its expensive lesson will be measurably lost if it fails to impress upon us the fact that we have a distinctive American policy to work out, one sufficiently free from the traditions of Europe to be suited to our peculiar situation and the genius of our enterprising countrymen.

The people of the United States have been quick to avail themselves of their natural advantages.  The public lands, not only, and the mines of precious metals, but our political institutions, have likewise powerfully operated in our favor, and will continue to do so with increasing force. ---Senate Report, Com. No. 111, 40th Congress, second session, page 13.

I observe we are doing business without a quorum.  I do not ask that a quorum be present in my case, but I give notice that during the remainder of this session, when other Senators are speaking, who are giving facts and information so much needed by Senators who spend their time in the cloak rooms, we shall have 43 Senators in their seats.

Mr. Pugh.  Mr. President, the absence of a quorum being suggested, and it being manifest that a quorum is not present, I move a call of the Senate.

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Lodge in the chair).  The Secretary will call the roll.

The Secretary called the roll, and the following Senators responded to their names:

Aldrich, Allen, Allison, Bafe, Berry, Blackburn, Brice, Butler, Caffery, Call, Camden, Carey, Coke, Cullom, Davis, Dixon, Dolph, Dubois, Faulkner, Frye, Gordon, Gray, Hale, Harris, Hawley, Hoar, Jones of Ark., Lindsay, Lodge, McMillan, McPherson, Manderson, Mitchell of Oreg., Morgan, Palmer, Pasco, Peffer, Perkins, Pettigrew, Platt, Pugh, Quay, Ransom, Roach, Shoup, Smith, Stewart, Stockbridge, Teller, Vance, Vest, Voorhees, Walthall, Washburn, White of La., Wolcott.

The Presiding Officer.  Fifty-six Senators have answered to their names.  A quorum of the Senate being present, the Senator from Nevada will proceed.

Mr. Stewart.  The bill was never called up for action.  If it had been, the reading of Mr. Morgan's report would have settled its fate, and it would not have received a single vote in the Senate.  The author himself would certainly have repudiated it in view of the cogent reasons why it should not pass which Mr. Morgan presented to the country.  Neither the bill nor the report attracted the slightest attention, and it is doubtful if any Senator who was not on the Finance Committee ever knew that such a bill had been introduced.  The title was, "A bill in relation to the coinage of gold and silver," and gave no indication of the real character of the legislation proposed.

But the report of Mr. Morgan must have satisfied the promoters of the scheme to demonetize silver that it could not be accomplished by open and direct means, and that a discussion in the Senate would be fatal to the object of their desire.  Mr. Morgan's report stood as an absolute bar against the demonetization of silver.  He had full knowledge of the objects of the bill, which he defeated, but the Senate and the country were ignorant of the whole transaction.  No discussion in either House of Congress had taken place with regard to the demonetization of silver, and the Senate as well as the country were ignorant of what occurred in the Finance Committee.  Senators are too busy to examine the reports of committees upon bills which are never called up for action.  It would not do to bring up the question again while Mr. Morgan was a member of the Finance Committee of that body.  His term of office expired March 4, 1869, and Mr. Reuben Fenton took his place.

Second Attempt at demonetization of Silver.

Gen. Grant became President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1869, and Mr. Boutwell was his Secretary of the Treasury;  John J. Knox, Comptroller of the Currency, and Mr. Linderman, Director of the Mint.  A revision of the mint laws was undertaken.

Mr. Sherman says:

What is the history of that bill ?  I have here the original bill.  It was a bill framed in the Treasury Department.  It did not come into Congress in the ordinary way, but it was framed in the Treasury Department by a distinguished body of experts, every one of whose names is now borne with honor wherever it is mentioned.  Most of them are dead, but some of them are living.  Mr. Pollock, long a Director of the Mint;  Mr. Secretary Boutwell, who, as I shall show you, claims to be the author of the bill, and properly so, because he was at the head of the Department;  Mr. John Jay Knox, who held the office of Deputy Comptroller of the Currency;  Mr. Linderman, who was Director of the Mint;  Mr. Patterson, who was Superintendent of the Mint at Philadelphia, and a whole host of other experts, framed that bill after a most elaborate correspondence, which is contained here in the official documents communicated to Congress at the time.

The bill contained seventy-one sections, and was sent to Mr. Sherman, chairman of the Committee on Finance, with the following letter from Mr. Boutwell:

Treasury department, April 25, 1870.

Sir:  I have the honor to transmit herewith a bill revising the laws relative to the Mint, assay offices, and coinage of the United States, and accompanying report.  The bill has been prepared under the supervision of John Jay Knox, Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, and its passage is recommended in the form presented.  It includes, in a condensed form, all the important legislation upon the coinage, not now obsolete, since the first mint was established, in 1792;  and the report gives a concise statement of the various amendments proposed to existing laws and the necessity for the change recommended.  There has been no revision of the laws pertaining to the Mint and coinage since 1837, and it is believed that the passage of the inclosed bill will conduce greatly to the efficiency and economy of this important branch of the Government service.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
George S. Boutwell,
Secretary of the Treasury.

Hon. John Sherman, Chairman Finance Committee, United States Senate.

It will be observed that Mr. Boutwell's letter transmitting the bill makes no mention of any change in the coinage laws, but he called it a bill revising the laws relative to the mint, assay offices, and coinage of the United States.  This was the harmless title of the bill.  He states that the bill was prepared under the supervision of John Jay Knox, Deputy Comptroller of the Currency.  Mr. Knox was soon after promoted from that office to the presidency of a leading national bank, one of the great financial institutions of New York.  Such promotions of Treasury officials who have been faithful to the banking interests have been too frequent to escape observation.

Mr. Sherman states that Mr. Linderman and others assisted Mr. Knox in the preparation of the bill.  Mr. Linderman was well qualified to render service in that behalf.  His familiarity with the mint laws and his devotion to the cause of monometallism after his return from England made him a most efficient agent in securing gold monometallism after the example of Great Britain.  Mr. Knox was also familiar with the English coinage laws, for he states in the documents which the Senator from Ohio had printed in his speech in the Record (page 922) that the appendix to his report recommending the bill which the Secretary sent to the chairman of the Finance Committee contained a copy of the English coinage act of 1870.

The title of the bill, "Revising the laws relative to the mint, assay offices, and coinage of the United States," was altogether misleading.  No one would suspect from the title that it contained any device for the demonetization of silver.  The Senator from Ohio in his speech of August 30, 1893, sets out in full the sections which deceived the senate.  He says:

The bill contains seventy-one sections.  Sections 15 and 18 of the bill are the only ones to which this imputation has ever been made.  I have here sections 15 and 18 as originally introduced by the Secretary of the Treasury and sent to the Committee on Finance.  Here are the original sections:

Sec. 15.  And be it further enacted, That of the silver coins, the weight of the half dollar, or piece of 50 cents, shall be 192 grains;  and that of the quarter dollar and dime, shall be, respectively, one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half dollar.  That the silver coin issued in conformity with the above section shall be a legal tender in any one payment of debts for all sums less than $1.

This is a literal copy, word for word, from the act of 1853, except that it drops the 5-cent piece, I believe it is.

Mr. Mills.  The act of 1873, the Senator means ?

Mr. Sherman.  No;  I say the bill that was sent to us reenacts the law of 1853, and is an exact copy of it;  but as the law of 1853 applied only to the fractional coins, in this draft they added to the four or five sections fixing the gold and silver and other coins the following section:

Sec. 18.  And be it further enacted, That no coins, either gold, silver, or minor coinage, shall hereafter be issued from the Mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights herein set forth.

Two sections intervene between the fifteenth and eighteenth sections quoted by Mr. Sherman.  A person reading the bill without any previous notice of the change in the currency would not have known that a change was contemplated.  On the contrary, believing, as all did believe, that it was a mere codification of the mint laws, with only such changes as were necessary to harmonize and make them a consistent system, no one would suspect that anything had been omitted, much less the standard dollar, which had survived all changes since it was ordained by Hamilton and Jefferson.

The bill was introduced by Mr. Sherman on the 28th day of April, 1870, and referred to the Committee on Finance.  On December 19, 1870, it was reported to the Senate with amendments.  On the 9th day of January, 1871, the bill came up in the Senate, and was discussed in Committee of the Whole.  No allusion whatever was made during that discussion to sections 15 and 18;  in fact, there was nothing in those sections to discuss.  They contained nothing objectionable.  It was not what the bill contained, but what it did not contain, that worked the wrong and demonetized silver.

The silver dollar was omitted from the list of coins, which omission was not observed and the attention of the Senate was not called to it.
---[And everyone of those senators needed someone to call their attention, to explain to what is in the printed text before them ?!  Is it not reasonable to expect those who represent the interests of their State in the Congress of the Union to be able to read and understand written text ?  Is it not reasonable to expect Senators to show some interest in the bills they are asked to vote on ?  Is it not reasonable to expect Senators to have some knowledge of state craft ?]

After two or three unimportant amendments relating to salaries reported by the Committee on Finance had been disposed of, the following amendment [on page 12, section 25] reported by the committee came up for consideration in the Committee of the Whole:

For coinage, whether the gold and silver deposited be coined or cast into bars or ingots, in addition to the charge for refining or parting the metals, three-tenths of 1 per cent.

This amendment was regarded as a direct attack upon the mining industry of the United States, and also upon domestic coinage.  It was argued that such a provision of law would discourage the minting of gold and silver in the United States and encourage its exportation, because the mints of the leading nations of Europe made no charge for coinage after the metal had been refined and parted.  The discussion which followed on this amendment occupies eight pages in the Congressional Globe.  The amendment was finally agreed to--- yeas 25, nays 22, absent 25.

Other sections, having no relation to sections 15 and 18, were then amended, and the Senate went into executive session.  On the following day, when the bill was reached in its order, the proceedings were commenced as follows:

Mint Laws.

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the bill (S. No. 859) revising the laws relative to the mints, assay offices, and coinage of the United States.

The bill was reported to the Senate as amended.

The Vice President.  Unless a separate vote be demanded, the question will be taken on concurring in the amendments made as in Committee of the Whole in gross.

Mr. Cole.  I ask for a separate vote.

The Vice President.  Does the Senator from California ask for a separate vote on the amendment in regard to the coinage charge ?

Mr. Cole.  Yes, sir.

Mr. Sumner.  There is one suggestion I wish to make.  It comes under section nineteen.

The Vice President.  That will still be in order after the amendments agreed to in Committee of the Whole shall have been acted upon.

Mr. Sumner.  Very well.

The Vice President.  The Secretary will report the amendment upon which a separate vote is demanded.

The Chief Clerk read the amendment, which was in section twenty-five, after the words "as follows," in the third line, to insert "for coinage, whether the gold and silver deposited be coined or cast into bars or ingots, in addition to the charge for refining or parting the metals, three tenths of one per cent."

The Vice President.  The other amendment in the same section, inserting the words in line twelve, "other than for coinage," will be considered at the same time, as they are dependent upon each other.  The remaining amendments made as in Committee of the Whole will be regarded as concurred in.  The question now is on concurring in this amendment, made as in Committee of the Whole.

The coinage charge was discussed at great length.  The entire discussion on the last day, as it had been on the first, was confined to the charge of three-tenths of 1 per cent. on the coinage of gold and silver bullion.  The yeas and nays on the adoption of this amendment in the Senate were taken, resulting in the negative--- yeas 23, nays 26, absent 23.

Mr. Sherman then said:

Mr. Sherman.  I should like to have a vote by yeas and nays on the passage of the bill.

The yeas, and nays were ordered;  and being taken, resulted--- yeas 36, nays 14;  as follows:

Yeas--- Messrs. Bayard, Boreman, Brownlow, Casserly, Cole, Roscoe Conkling, Corbett, Davis, Gilbert, Hamlin, Harlan, Jewett, Johnston, Kellogg, McCreery, Morton, Nye, Patterson, Pomeroy, Pool, Ramsey, Rice, Saulsbury, Spencer, Stewart, Stockton, Sumner, Thurman, Tipton, Trumbull, Vickers, Warner, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates --36.

Nays--- Messrs. Abbott, Ames, Anthony, Buckingham, Carpenter, Chandler, Fenton, Hamilton of Texas, Harris, Howell, Morrill of Vermont, Pratt, Scott, and Sherman --14.

It will be observed that Mr. Sherman voted in the negative and that I voted in the affirmative.  I now desire to call particular attention to the amendment, which was substantially the only matter in controversy in the Senate, and about which all the debate took place.  I will repeat it:

For coinage, whether the gold and silver deposited be coined or cast into bars or ingots, in addition to the charge for refining or parting the metals, three-tenths of 1 per cent.

Mr. Aldrich.  Mr. President---

Mr. Stewart.  I do not wish to be interrupted now.

Mr. Aldrich.  I should like---

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Cullom in the chair).  The Senator from Nevada declines to be interrupted.

Mr. Aldrich.  I wish to put in a section of that bill at that point.

Mr. Stewart.  Let the Senator put it in his own speech.  The facts I am giving follow consecutively.

Mr. Aldrich.  I wish to put in a section of the bill, so as to show the exact facts.

---[
Intended amendment is in italics
Sec. 25.  And be it further enacted, That the only charge on deposits of bullion for coin, bars, or disks shall be as follows:  For coinage, whether the gold and silver deposited be coined or cast into bars or ingots, in addition to the charge for refining or parting the metals, three tenths of one per centum.  For refining, when the bullion is below standard;  for toughening, when metals are contained in it which render it unfit for coinage;  for copper used for alloy of gold;  for separating the gold and silver, when these metals exist together in the bullion;  for separation of bars or disks.  And the rate of these charges, other than for coinage, shall be fixed, from time to time by the Director, with the concurrence of the Secretary of the Treasury, so as to equal but not to exceed in their judgement, the actual average expense to each mint of the material and labor employed in each of the cases aforementioned.
]

Mr. Stewart.  The Senator can not put it in my speech.  Let him make his own speech.  Of course, it is very aggravating to Senators to have the facts of the matter brought out, and I appreciate their position.

This amendment assumed that silver bullion could be deposited at the mint for coinage for the benefit of the depositor, and imposed a tax on the person so depositing for the privilege of coining.  If the Senate had been advised, as Mr. Sherman says that he was, that no silver could, under that bill, be deposited at the mint for coinage, is it probable that it would have spent two days in hot debate over the question of taxing bullion which could not be deposited, and therefore never could be taxed ?  For what purpose did Mr. Sherman violently advocate the tax on silver bullion deposited for coinage in a bill which denied it the right of coinage, and denied to the owner of bullion the right to deposit it for that purpose ?

Under the act of 1853 and under the provisions of the bill then under consideration, the subsidiary silver coin mentioned in section 15 could only be coined on the account of the Government.  No private party could present it for that purpose.  But the owners of bullion could under existing laws, from the foundation of the Government, present the same to the mint and have it coined into standard dollars.  Mr. Sherman says he knew that he had taken that right away, and that we all ought to have known the same.  Why, then, was he combatting for a charge on the abolished coinage ?
---[the record indicates that the discussion was about gold.  Silver was not mentioned.]

On the other hand, why should the Senate occupy two days of its time debating such a charge, if it also knew that the right of coinage of silver on private account was abolished ?  The disingenuousness of the senator from Ohio was manifested at that time by advocating a charge on the coinage of silver for private parties, as well as of gold, when he knew that gold only could be coined on private account, if he succeeded with his measure.

I can draw no other inference from his course at that time than a purpose to conceal the fact that the silver dollar had been omitted.  The fact that Mr. Sherman voted against the bill is most suggestive.  Why should he vote to prevent a useful revision of the mint laws and the passage of so important a bill as the one then under consideration because the Senate would not consent to a charge for mintage which was not in the original bill introduced by him ?  He knew very well that his vote would not defeat the bill nor endanger it in the slightest degree;  but by voting against it he made the Senate believe that he attached more importance to a charge of three-tenths of 1 per cent. on the coinage of gold (and of silver bullion, the coinage of which on private account had been abolished) than to the systematizing of the various confused mint laws of the country, by a measure which had been the labor of experts so eminent as those he describes.

Mr. Sherman says he knew that silver was demonetized by the bill, and that everybody else ought to have known it.  Is it not barely possible that, knowing that fact, he desired to avoid the odium of voting for it which would attach after its farreaching consequences should have been realized ?  Is it not barely possible that that amendment was introduced at the early stage of the consideration of the bill to attract the attention of the Senate and divert attention from the other provisions of the bill to make it seem the most important provision ?  Is it not a little strange that after his visit to London and Paris and his celebrated letter to Mr. Ruggles, which I have quoted, that he took no further interest in the demonetization of silver ?

Does not the fact that he introduced a bill for the demonetization of silver, and made a most elaborate report in its favor, which bill was consigned to oblivion after the minority report of Mr. Morgan came in, add to the mystery of his conduct ?  Can it be supposed that the man who contributed so largely to swing nineteen nations into line for the gold standard, and who induced all the Finance Committee except one to favor the demonetization of silver, would forego this master desire of his heart, which he declares was "an American idea," because he could not impose a paltry charge of three-tenths of 1 per cent. upon gold and silver coinage after the free coinage of silver had been abolished ?

This disposes of the charge so often made by the gold monometallists and repeated by Mr. Sherman, that in 1871 I voted for the demonetization of silver and he voted against it. ---[No, it does not.]

In the report of Mr. Knox, printed in the remarks of the Senator from Ohio of August 30, 1893, the following further history of the bill is given:

On January 13, 1871, on motion of Hon. William D. Kelley, the Senate bill was ordered to be printed.  On February 25, 1871, Mr. Kelley, the chairman of the Committee on Coinage, reported the bill back with an amendment, in the nature of a substitute, when it was again printed and recommitted.

The bill, therefore, was never heard of again at that session, and it never was debated in the House for a moment.

History of the Demonetization Act of 1873.

Mr. Kelley again, on March 9, 1871, introduced a bill in the Forty-second Congress, when it was ordered to be printed, and referred to the Committee on Coinage when appointed. On January 9, 1872, the bill was reported by Mr. Kelley, chairman of the Coinage Committee, with the recommendation that it pass.

Its general objects were stated by Mr. Kelley.  He informed the House that it had been prepared in the Treasury Department for the purpose of codifying and simplifying the mint laws.  He informed the House that the most important change made by the bill was creating a Director of the Mint, with headquarters in the Treasury Department.  He said:

It is of the highest importance, therefore, that the one single cardinal change that the bill proposes should be made.

Mr. Maynard stated what this cardinal change was:

It contemplates that the Mint shall be a bureau in the Treasury Department, and that the head of that bureau shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a period of five years, unless sooner removed for reasons given to the Senate.  Now, I would ask the gentleman, why limit the official term ?

Mr. Kelley.  The nickel coins are part of the coins of the country to-day, in the proportion provided for in this bill.  If those provisions were stricken out, there would be no provision for producing subsidiary coinage.  Therefore, I shall not consent to striking them out.  In 1868, when the Committee on Coinage was presided over by Mr. John A. Kasson, of Iowa, copper-nickel coins, in the proportion of 23 to 77, I think, were provided for, and since then no other coins of the denominations of three and five cents have been made.  Now, to strike these out without inserting a provision for other coinage, would leave us practically without a supply of these small coins.  This bill is symmetrical in all its parts;  it is a mere revision of the mint laws, suggested by the Secretary of the Treasury, and concurred in by every man who sees the difficulty of managing mints and assay offices scattered over this country as they are, without having a responsible head.  Its sole function is to so codify the laws, and to appoint a responsible head, under the Secretary of the Treasury, that our coinage may be uniform and honest, and that if we issue base coin we shall issue them for not more than their value, as our fathers used to do, and shall redeem them wherever they are found in excess among the people.

Some discussion was had with regard to the salaries of officers, but the main contention was with regard to nickel coinage, and how the nickel should be obtained.  The House adjourned that day without action on the bill.

On the 10th of January the House resumed consideration of the bill.  The debate was confined to the question of salaries.  The bill was finally recommitted to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures.

No allusion whatever was made to the omission of the silver dollar.  If it was omitted in the bill offered by Mr. Kelley, as alleged, the original can not be found.  I again quote from the report of Mr. Knox, printed in the speech of the Senator from Ohio:

On February 9, 1872, it was again reported from the Coinage Committee by the Hon. Samuel Hooper, printed and recommitted, and on February 13, 1872, reported back by Mr. Hooper with amendments, printed, and made the special order for March 12, 1872, until disposed of.

The bill came up for consideration on April 9, 1872.  Mr. Hooper made a lengthy explanation of the provisions of the bill, occupying four pages of the Record, from pages 2304 to 2307, both inclusive.  The only allusion made by Mr. Hooper to the silver dollar is contained in the following extract from his remarks, published in the speech of the Senator from Ohio, on page 924, as follows:

Section sixteen reënacts the provisions of existing laws defining the silver coins and their weights respectively, except in relation to the silver dollar, which is reduced in weight from four hundred and twelve and a half to three hundred and eighty-four grains;  thus making it a subsidiary coin in harmony with the silver coins of less denomination, to secure its concurrent circulation with them.  The silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and a half grains, by reason of its bullion or intrinsic value being greater than its nominal value, long since ceased to be a coin of circulation, and is melted by manufacturers of silverware.  It does not circulate now in commercial transactions with any country, and the convenience of those manufacturers in this respect can better be met by supplying small stamped bars of the same standard, avoiding the useless expense of coining the dollar for that purpose.  The coinage of the half dime is discontinued for the reason that its place is supplied by the copper-nickel five-cent piece, of which a large issue has been made, and which, by the provisions of the act authorizing its issue, is redeemable in United States currency.

Mr. Hooper correctly states the weight and fineness of the dollar contained in the bill then pending and as it finally passed the House, but be does not state that it was a legal tender for only $5.  It is true he classes it with the subsidiary coin, but a person listening to his remarks might well suppose that the weight of the dollar was simply reduced, because he states at considerable length that the silver dollar was at a premium over the gold dollar, and the natural inference would be that he intended to establish the parity between the two metals.

Mr. Stoughton did say, in the course of the debate, that---

The silver coins provided for are the dollar, 384 grains troy, the half dollar, quarter dollar, and dime of the value and weight of one half, one quarter, and one tenth of the dollar respectively; and they are made a legal tender for all sums not exceeding five dollars at any one payment.  The silver dollar, as now issued, is worth for bullion 3¼ cents more than the gold dollar, and 7½ cents more than two half dollars.  Having a greater intrinsic than nominal value, it is certain to be withdrawn from circulation whenever we return to specie payment;  and to be used only for manufacture and exportation as bullion.

But it was reserved for the Hon. Clarkson Potter, of New York, to develop the real character of the bill and show that it adopted a gold standard.  The speech of Mr. Potter, from which the following extracts are taken, developed the radical character and far-reaching scope of the bill, and furnished material for a protracted discussion, which must have defeated the object of our English friends and American doctrinaires to demonetize silver:

I confess, therefore, that the introduction of the bill at such a period excited my suspicion.  I was and am at a loss to gather from anything I know or can learn that there is any necessity for the adoption of this measure now.  When the bill comes to be read section by section, I shall make such suggestions in the way of amendment as I think are calculated to make it better if it should go into operation.  But for the present I desire to avail myself of the few minutes allowed me to state generally my objections to the adoption of any such law now.

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

But beyond that, the bill provides for an entirely new subsidiary coinage.  It provides for the coinage of new five-cent, three-cent, two-cent, and one-cent pieces, and it provides that these new coin shall be of a certain alloy of copper and nickel.  Now, we have at present in circulation several hundred million pieces of subsidiary base coin.  They are familiar to every one of us, and have been in circulation for some years.  There is the ordinary nickel five-cent piece, the ordinary nickel three-cent piece, and the bronze two-cent piece, and the nickel one-cent piece;  for which there has been substituted of late years the bronze one-cent piece.  Of these pieces of subsidiary coinage, I repeat, several hundred million pieces are in circulation;  and it is proposed that in place of these pieces we shall have another set of minor subsidiary coins of nickel copper, according to the form prescribed in this bill.  For what reason ?  It has been suggested for the purpose of uniformity.  That reason, however, seems to me so insufficient that it has occurred to me that behind this provision of the law lies the real motive power of this bill;  that is, that it will make necessary a great consumption of nickel-copper for several hundred million pieces of this new subsidiary coinage.

He continued at considerable length, pointing out other objections to the bill.  The speech of Mr. Potter excited a general debate, which made it very clear that the passage of the bill by ordinary methods was impossible.  The House adjourned pending the consideration of the bill and terminated a very exciting controversy.  The debate which did occur occupies ten pages.

The opposition to this bill was so determined and aggressive that its friends professedly abandoned it and brought in a so-called substitute which, they asserted, obviated the objections made.  On the 27th day of May the following extraordinary proceedings were had in the House of Representatives:

Mints and Coinage.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I desire to call up the bill (H.R. No. 1427) revising and amending the laws relative to mints, assay offices, and coinage of the United States.  I do so for the purpose of offering an amendment to the bill in the nature of a substitute, one which has been very carefully prepared and which I have submitted to the different gentlemen in this House who have taken a special interest in the bill.  I find that it meets with universal approbation in the form in which I offer it.  I move that the rules be suspended, and that the substitute ---[which is H.R. 2934] be put on its passage.

Mr. Brooks.  I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hooper] to postpone his motion until his colleague on the committee, my colleague from New York, [Mr. Potter] is in his seat.  It is my impression that he does not concur in this substitute.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  It is so late in the session that I must decline waiting any longer.

Mr. Brooks.  I would again suggest to the gentleman that he should wait until my colleague comes in.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I cannot do so.

Mr. Holman.  I suppose it is intended to have the bill read before it is put upon its passage.

The Speaker.  The substitute will be read.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I hope not.  It is a long bill, and those who are interested in it are perfectly familiar with its provisions.

Mr. Kerr.  The rules cannot be suspended so as to dispense with the reading of the bill ?

The Speaker.  They can be.

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

The Speaker.  Does the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hooper] move that the reading of the bill be dispensed with ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I will so frame my motion to suspend the rules that it will dispense with the reading of the bill.

The Speaker.  The gentleman from Massachusetts moves that the rules be suspended and that the bill pass, the reading thereof being dispensed with.

Mr. Randall.  Cannot we have a division of that motion ?

The Speaker.  A motion to suspend the rules cannot be divided.

Mr. Randall.  I should like to have the bill read, although I am willing that the rules shall be suspended as to the passage of the bill.

The question was put on suspending the rules and passing the bill without reading;  and (two thirds not voting in favor thereof) the rules were not suspended.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I now move that the rules be suspended, and the substitute for the bill in relation to mints and coinage passed;  and I ask that the substitute be read.

The Clerk began to read the substitute.

Mr. Brooks.  Is that the original bill ?

The Speaker.  The motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Hooper] applies to the substitute, and that on which the House is called to act is being read.

Mr. Brooks.  As there is to be no debate, the only chance we have to know what we are doing is to have both the bill and the substitute read.

The Speaker.  The motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts being to suspend the rules and pass the substitute, it gives no choice between the two bills.  The House must either pass the substitute or none.

Mr. Brooks.  How can we choose between the original bill and the substitute unless we hear them both read ?

The Speaker.  The gentleman can vote "ay" or "no" on the question whether this substitute shall be passed.

Mr. Brooks.  I am very much in the habit of voting "no" when I do not know what is going on.

Mr. Holman.  Before the question is taken upon suspending the rules and passing the bill I hope the gentleman from Massachusetts will explain the leading changes made by this bill in the existing law, especially in reference to the coinage.  It would seem that all the small coinage of the country is intended to be recoined.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  This bill makes no changes in the existing law in that regard.  It does not require the recoinage of the small coins.  On the contrary, I understand that the Secretary of the Treasury proposes to issue an order to stop the coinage of all the minor coins, as there is now a great abundance of them in the country.  The salaries are not increased.  They remain as they were.

Mr. Holman.  Is not the salary of the sub-Treasurer at New York increased ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  No, sir;  it is not increased.

Mr. Garfield, of Ohio.  Does the gentleman say that no salary is increased by this bill ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  No salary is increased by this bill.

Mr. Farnsworth.  Are there any additional offices created ?

Mr. Sargent.  The bill dispenses with some existing offices.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  It dispenses with certain officers now in the mints, and the saving on their salaries will more than pay for the expenses of the new bureau of the Treasury Department.

Mr. Holman.  What is the new bureau called ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  The new bureau is to be called the bureau of mines and coinage.  There is now no general superintendence;  each mint runs on its own hook.  There is really now no law regulating the mints, and no responsibility.

Mr. Holman.  How many mints are provided for by the bill ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  No new mints.

Mr. Holman.  Did the Committee on Banking and Currency consider the subject of discontinuing any of the mints ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  They did consider it, and did not deem it expedient.  The Secretary of the Treasury has authority now, independent of this bill, to discontinue certain mints if he deems it expedient;  one at Charlotte, for instance.  This bill does not change his power at all in that respect.

Mr. Merriam.  Has this bill been submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury;  and if so, does it meet his approval ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  It has been submitted to him, and he not only approves it but strongly urges its passage.  He deems it exceedingly important, as there are irregularities in the Mint now, which cannot be controlled by any existing law.

Mr. Kerr.  Does the nickel clause, so called, and which led to some controversy a month or so ago, remain in the bill as it was at that time ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  It has been changed.  Any nickel to be purchased is to be subject to bids after advertisement.

Mr. Brooks.  My colleague from the Westchester district [Mr. Potter] stated the other day that this bill provided for the recoinage of more or less of the small currency of the country and the creation of a new currency.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  That is not the case with the bill as it now stands.

Mr. McCormick, of Missouri.  I ask that the nineteenth section be again read.

The section was read as follows:

Sec. 19. That upon the coins of the United States there shall be the following devices and legends:  upon one side there shall be an impression emblematic of liberty, with an inscription of the word "liberty," and the year of the coinage;  and upon the reverse shall be the figure or representation of an eagle, with the inscriptions "United States of America" and "E Pluribus Unum," and a designation of the value of the coin;  but on the gold dollar and three-dollar piece, the dime, five, three, and one cent piece, the figure of the eagle shall be omitted;  and the Director of the Mint, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, may cause the motto "In God we trust" to be inscribed upon such coins as shall admit of such motto;  and any one of the foregoing inscriptions may be on the rim of the gold and silver coins.

Mr. McCormick, of Missouri.  What I wish to inquire of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Hooper] is whether, under the provisions of the nineteenth section, the Director of the Mint is not authorized to recoin all the nickel coin of the United States in order to make it conform to this section ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  He is not.  On the contrary, under the existing laws, as I stated before, the amount of minor coinage is so large that the Secretary of the Treasury has prepared an order prohibiting any further coinage until further notice.

Mr. McCormick, of Missouri.  I understand that the Director of the Mint says that it costs the Government almost as much to coin a five-cent nickel piece as it does to coin a ten-dollar gold piece.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  There is nothing in this bill to compel a recoinage.

Mr. McCormick, of Missouri.  Would the gentleman have any objection to strike out that section ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  Certainly I would.

Mr. Garfield, of Ohio.  Does this bill provide what shall be done with those officers of the Treasury that are now called Assistant Treasurers, and who are ex officio officers of the Mint ?  By this bill they are evidently separated from the Treasury, and belong wholly, to this new bureau which is to be established.  Now, will it not be necessary for us to establish new offices in their cases, and to give them a salary appropriate to the duties they will have to perform in the Treasury ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  The Superintendent of the Mint (and that officer now exists) takes the place of the sub-treasurer, who acted ex officio as an officer of the Mint, and provision is made in this bill that the sub-Treasurer, who acted ex officio, shall go back and confine himself to his duties as Assistant Treasurer, and disconnect himself from the Mint.

Mr. Garfield, of Ohio.  Go back to the Treasury ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  Yes.

Mr. Garfield, of Ohio.  The gentleman will then see that that entails upon us the necessity of providing a sufficient salary for those going back to the Treasury.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I beg the gentleman's pardon;  it leaves the Superintendent of the Mint with the same salary as before.

Mr. Garfield, of Ohio.  I mean that the officers who go back into the Treasury must have salaries provided for them.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  They were ex officio officers of the Mint;  their salaries were not increased.

Mr. Garfield, of Ohio.  I beg the gentleman's pardon;  they had one salary as ex officio officers of the Mint and another as officers of the Treasury.

Mr. Sargent.  That was not so except in one instance.

Mr. McNeely.  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.

Mr. Sargent.  I hope we will now have a vote.

The question being taken on the motion of Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts, to suspend the rules and pass the bill, it was agreed to;  there being-- ayes 110, noes 13.

The amendment which demonetized silver and which finally found its way into the statute was the substitute brought in by the Finance Committee for section 16 of the House bill, which I now repeat:

The silver coins of the United States shall be a trade dollar, a half dollar, or 50-cent piece, a quarter dollar, or 25-cent piece, a dime, or 10-cent piece;  and the weight of the trade dollar shall be 420 grains troy, the weight of the half-dollar shall be 12 grams and one-half of a gram, the quarter dollar and the dime shall be, respectively, one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half dollar;  and said coins shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding $5 any one payment.

The debates and proceedings show that the amendments of the committee, according to the rules of the Senate, were first considered in their consecutive order, with the exception of section 16, which we will hereafter consider.  The parts in brackets were to be stricken out, and the parts in italics inserted.  The proceedings followed the usual order to and including section 15.  That section was included in brackets;  after debate it was stricken out by a vote of the Senate.  Section 16 was also included in brackets, and the part in italics, which is the substitute I have already cited, was recommended by the committee to be inserted in its place.  But the proceedings recorded in the Globe show that this substitute was never read or acted on in the Senate.

When the debate on section 15 was concluded, the following proceedings occurred, as appears in the transcript I have already given.

The Presiding Officer.  The question is on the amendment striking out the fifteenth section.  The amendment was agreed to.

The next amendment was to strike out section [seventeen] sixteen, in the following words:

It will be observed that the word "seventeen" is in brackets and the word "sixteen" follows.  The fifteenth section having been stricken out, the sixteenth became the fifteenth and the seventeenth became the sixteenth.  When amendments are made striking out a section, the remaining sections are given their new numbers and the original numbers are placed in brackets.  The seventeenth section was then read and amended, and after that the consideration of the amendments of the committee was continued in regular order.

No one who will read the debate and observe the criticisms of Senators on every amendment acted upon, can possibly doubt that if the substitute for section 16, which demonetized silver, had been read, it would have challenged debate and defeated the demonetization of silver.

When section 19 of the original bill, and 18 of the new number, was reached, the amendment of the committee, among other things, provided that "on the gold dollar, the three-dollar piece, the silver dollar, the half dollar, etc., the figure of the eagle shall be omitted, and on the reverse side of the silver dollar, half dollar, quarter dollar, etc., respectively, there shall be inscribed the weight and fineness of the coin."

Mr. Casserly, of California, called attention to the omission of the eagle;  whereupon Mr. Sherman gave the following explanation of that omission:

Mr. Sherman.  If the Senator will allow me, he will see that the preceding section provides for coin which is exactly interchangeable with the English shilling and the 5-franc piece of France;  that is, a 5-franc piece of France will be the exact equivalent of a dollar of the United States in our silver coinage;  and in order to show this wherever our silver coin shall float --and we are providing that it shall float all over the world-- we propose to stamp upon it, instead of our eagle, which foreigners may not understand, and which they may not distinguish from a buzzard or some other bird, the intrinsic fineness and weight of the coin.

There was a dollar in section 16 of the House bill, the exact equivalent of the 5-franc piece of France.  It contained 384 grains of standard silver.  This is the dollar which Mr. Sherman describes when discussing section 19 as being still in existence in a preceding section.  If he then told the truth, section 16 had not been amended.  The trade dollar, which was at some other time or place incorporated into the act, contained 420 grains of standard silver.  This statement of Mr. Sherman corroborates the record, which shows that no action was taken on the substitute for section 16.

---[

Mr. Casserly.  We cannot have an international coinage on the basis of our silver coin unless our silver coin is up to the standard of all the nations with which we expect to have relations.  Now, I ask the Senator whether this bill proposes a silver coinage of that character ?

Mr. Sherman.  This bill proposes a silver coinage exactly the same as the French, and what are called the associated nations of Europe, who have adopted the international standard of silver coinage;  that is, the dollar provided for by this bill is the precise equivalent of the five-franc piece.  It contains the same number of grams of silver;  and we have adopted the international gram instead of the grain for the standard of our silver coinage.  The "trade dollar" has been adopted mainly for the benefit of the people of California, and others engaged in trade with China.  That is the only coin measured by the grain instead of by the gram.  The intrinsic value of each is to be stamped upon the coin.
]

The other amendments proposed by the committee were acted upon, and the bill passed without a division.  No word was spoken or allusion made in the Senate at any time, when any bill was pending, to the important fact that a change was to be made in the silver coinage of the United States, except the statement of Mr. Sherman that the proposed dollar was the exact equivalent of the 5-franc piece.  This statement that the bill contained a 384-grain dollar equivalent to the French 5-franc piece was made by him, notwithstanding the fact that his committee had reported a 420-grain trade dollar;  and the Senate, at the time he was speaking, had passed beyond the consideration of the section in which the trade dollar proposed by him was to have been inserted.  How could the 384-grain dollar be in the bill while he was discussing section 19, if the 420-grain dollar had been substituted for it in section 16 ?

I am aware of the fact that, as it came from the House, it limited the legal-tender quality of the new dollar to sums of $5, but that limitation was passed over in the Senate without observation.

Mr. Sherman enters into an elaborate argument in great detail to show the number of times the mintage bill was printed with the standard silver dollar omitted, and also to show that it was originally prepared in that form by experts in the Treasury Department;  but he has never given any explanation of his own conduct as chairman of the Finance Committee in not calling the attention of the Senate to this important change.  He knew the importance of the change, and that it demonetized silver and adopted the gold standard.  His efforts, as before remarked, to secure the recommendation of the monetary conference of Paris in favor of the gold standard, and his elaborate report on the bill, which was defeated in the Forty-first Congress, show how important it was in his mind.

If he had supposed that it would result in a great benefit to the American people would he not have called attention to it with pride and emphasis ?  It had been the labor of years, as I have shown, and its accomplishment should have been a great event in his life.  The contest for the last twenty years to reverse that legislation, and Mr. Sherman's persistent opposition to all efforts to restore the silver dollar, show what importance he must then have attached to his work.  And yet he gave the Senate no intimation of this important change.  When we witness the columns of editorials and correspondence with regard to the pending controversy we can imagine what interest would have been excited in the country if it had been proclaimed by him that Congress was about to demonetize silver.  No word escaped his lips and the metropolitan journals of that day had no knowledge of what occurred.  No mention of the demonetization of silver at that time can be found in their columns.  The parliamentary history of the world may be searched in vain to find a parallel for the accomplishment of a great financial revolution by a leading financial statesman without an announcement by him of what he was doing or what he had done.

The conference report which is set forth in the foregoing transcript affords very meager information of the changes which were made in the joint committee of the two Houses.  Nearly all the amendments are referred to by numbers, and those which are not simply mention words and phrases, which were inserted or omitted without giving the context.  A comparison of the report with the engrossed bill shows that the amendment or substitute for section 16 was numbered 6.  That harmless number imparted no information of the important change demonetizing silver, to which it related.  The report was made and adopted in each House without a word of explanation which would indicate its scope and effect.  No mention was made in either House on the presentation of that report as to the character of any of the amendments agreed to.  It was understood that it was simply a bill to revise and codify the mint laws, and under such circumstances it was natural that there was no anxiety to inquire as to its details.

The fact that silver was demonetized by the bill did not become generally known until the Latin Union suspended the coinage of silver.  Silver then fell in price, and an inquiry as to the cause became general.  When it was ascertained that silver had been demonetized by the mint act, there was a general demand throughout the country for its remonetization.  This demand came about two years after the passage of the bill.  In the latter part of 1875, the mints of the Latin Union having been finally closed, intense interest was excited in the United States in 1876.  Nearly all the leading journals of the country demanded the restoration of the silver dollar to the place it occupied as a legal-tender coin previous to 1873.

A Presidential election was to be held in the fall of 1876, and politicians were shaping their course with a view to the coming contest.  The strong popular expression against the demonetization of silver and in favor of its restoration made it important for aspiring men in each of the great political parties to espouse the popular side of the question.

Mr. Sherman took an early opportunity to newly define his position.  On the 6th of March, 1876, he made an elaborate argument against a resolution of the Chamber of Commerce of the city of New York in favor of repealing the resumption act of 1875.  In the course of his remarks on that resolution he said:

Our coinage act came into operation on the 1st of April, 1873, and constituted the gold one-dollar piece the sole unit of value, while it restricted the legal tender of the new silver trade-dollar and the half dollar and subdivisions to an amount not exceeding $5 in one payment.  Thus the double standard previously existing was finally abolished, and the United States, as usual, was influenced by Great Britain in making gold coin the only standard.  This suits England, but does not suit us.  I think with our large silver-producing capacity we should return to the double standard, at least in part, and this will constitute one of the means by which we will be enabled to resume specie payments.


---[
Senate of the United States
Thursday, December 21, 1893.

Mr. Stewart.  Mr. President, I rise to a question of privilege.  In a speech which I delivered on the 5th of September last I made a misquotation.  I quoted what I am about to read as having been said by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman], whereas it was said by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Bogy].  In the hurry of the debate I did not observe in the print that the speakers were changed.  In looking over the speech of the Senator from Ohio I did not observe that I had reached the end of his remarks and I quoted the passage from Mr. Bogy as coming from him.  I wish to correct this error.  The passage from Mr. Bogy, which I ascribed to the Senator from Ohio, is as follows:

Our coinage act came into operation on the 1st of April, 1873, and constituted the gold one-dollar piece the sole unit of value, while it restricted the legal tender of the new silver trade-dollar and the half dollar and subdivisions to an amount not exceeding $5 in one payment.  Thus the double standard previously existing was finally abolished, and the United States, as usual, was influenced by Great Britain in making gold coin the only standard.  This suits England, but does not suit us.  I think with our large silver-producing capacity we should return to the double standard, at least in part, and this will constitute one of the means by which we will be enabled to resume specie payments.

This speech was delivered on the 5th of September last and I make the correction and will prepare it for the Reporter.

In this connection I would say that the honorable Senator from Ohio delivered a speech on the 12th of August, 1876, at Marietta, Ohio, which was reported at length, with sub-headings, in the Cincinnati Gazette of August 14, 1876, in which he said:

I do not now, fellow-citizens, enter fully upon the great question of the restoration of the old silver dollar, as the money of account, for it has not yet assumed a party aspect.  I have given the subject the most careful consideration, and was the first to propose the recoining of the old silver dollar.

Again, in the same speech, the Senator is reported to have said:

I was a member of the conference committee of the two Houses on the silver bill.  I am not at liberty to state what occurred, except as is shown by the action of the two Houses.  Both Houses were in favor of issuing the old dollar --the dollar in legal existence since 1792, containing 412.8 grains, and only demonetized in 1873, when it was worth 2 per cent more than the gold dollar.  It was then, and for twenty years had been, only issued for export, and was not in circulation.  Still, it was a legal standard of value, as well as gold, always had been, and it was the right of any debtor to pay in silver dollars as well as gold dollars.  It was his legal option.

The relative value of the two metals had often varied before, and still the right remained to the debtor to pay in either dollar, and, therefore, in a cheaper dollar.  The mere disuse of the coinage of the silver dollar could not, and ought not to affect pre-existing contracts.  And now, when all our domestic contracts have been based upon depreciated paper money, made a legal tender for all debts, public and private, except customs and duties and interest of the public debt, it would seem not only legal, but right, in the broadest sense of the term, that we should avail ourselves of the rapid and remarkable fall of silver bullion to recoin the old silver coins, including the old silver dollar, the oldest of our coins, and with them pay our depreciated notes, and thus restore the old coin standard.

how unfortunate that Stewart now builds an entire tenet upon a false premise;  Sherman wasn't in the chamber while Stewart addressed his audience]

This remarkable utterance of the original hero and the present advocate of gold monometallism appears on page 1481 of the Congressional Globe, Forty-fourth Congress, first session, volume 4, part .

The statement of the Senator from Ohio that the United States was influenced by Great Britain in making gold the only standard is in accordance with the opinion of all who have investigated the question;  but it may be suggested that it is slightly in conflict with the Senator's report on the bill of 1868, entitled "A bill in relation to the coinage of gold and silver," wherein he 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.

This report will be found in Senate report of committee, No. 117, Fortieth Congress, second session, page 4.

The Senator from Ohio, who secured the demonetization of silver, had the means of knowing by what influence the standard silver dollar was stricken down in the United States, and when he states that it was by British influence, full faith and credit must be given to that statement.  His visit to London and Paris in 1867, and the powerful aid he rendered in co-operation with the English delegation at the monetary conference at Paris to secure the consent of continental Europe to recommend the gold standard, gave him ample opportunity to know from what source came the influence which secured the demonetization of silver in the United States and robbed the people of this country of the benefits of an ample supply of metallic money from the great discoveries of silver mines which had then been made in the mountains of the West.

Why the Senator from Ohio yielded to that influence, an explanation is wanted.  The remarks I have quoted show how important he regards the large silver-producing capacity of this country in the resumption of specie payments.  He knows how much more important it now is to maintain specie payment.  Why has he, from that time to this, so persistently resisted every effort to restore silver to the place it occupied previous to the passage of the act of 1873, which, he informs us, was obtained by British influence ?  If he was influenced by Great Britain in the passage of the act of 1873, why does he continue under that influence, and insist that the act of 1890 shall be repealed, and that the act of 1873, secured by British influence, shall be reaffirmed and made the permanent policy of the United States ?  If silver was demonetized in 1853, why was it necessary to invoke British influence to demonetize it in 1873 ?

The Senator from Ohio informed us in his speech the other day that after the repeal of the Sherman act we must issue bonds and increase the national debt to buy gold to maintain specie payments.  What influence is forcing the passage of the bill now under consideration, which denies the people the right to mine and coin money, and compels them to buy British gold ?  Our annual interest account to-day on the money we owe Europe is more than $150,000,000.  Is all hope of financial independence for this country to be abandoned ?

In the course of his remarks the Senator from Ohio uses the following language:

The law was passed in February, 1873, and I do know that within a year from that time the Senator from Nevada knew that silver was demonetized, because he said so;  and he said it February 11, 1874, as will appear in the document which I have before me, and to which I gave him reference, so there can be no mistake about it.  On page 1392, volume 2, part 2, of the Congressional Record, first session 43rd Congress, he said:

"I want the standard gold, and no paper money not redeemable in gold;  no paper money the value of which is not ascertained;  no paper money that will organize a gold board to speculate in it."

Again, only a week or two after this, on the 20th of February, to be found in Congressional Record, volume 2, part 2, page 1677, when he was speaking in favor of the resolution instructing the Committee on Finance to report a bill providing for the convertibility of Treasury notes into gold coin or 5 per cent bonds, he said:

"By this process we shall come to specie basis, and when the laboring man receives a dollar it will have the purchasing power of a dollar, and he will not be called upon to do what is impossible for him or the producing classes to do, figure upon the exchanges, figure upon the fluctuations, figure upon the gambling in New York:  but he will know what his money is worth.  Gold is the universal standard of the world.  Everybody knows what a dollar in gold is worth."

It was of no consequence whether or not I knew in February, 1874, that silver was demonetized in February, 1873. It was too late to prevent what had been done in the previous year.  My position at that time, as well as my knowledge, were entirely immaterial and irrelevant to this discussion.  I did not know that silver was demonetized for more then a year after February, 1874, since which time my bitterest enemies will hardly blame me for not doing all in my power in and out of Congress to remonetize silver.

But the statement of the Senator from Ohio that I knew on the 11th day of February, 1874, that silver was demonetized, or that I said so, has no foundation in fact.  The quotation from the speech which he held in his hand when he made the statement does not prove it, and the speech itself disproves any such inference.  I was opposing an additional issue of bank circulation and arguing in favor of specie payment.  The use of the term "gold" for specie was inaccurate, but it was a common practice at that time.  Gold was simply a synonym for coin, and it was in that sense alone in which I used it, as the speech shows.  His second quotation is taken from a speech advocating the return to the specie basis.  At that time there was no difference in the bullion value between gold and silver coin.  The mints of the Latin Union were still open, and the silver in the silver dollar was worth as much as the gold in the gold dollar.

The following January the specie-resumption act, providing for the redemption of Treasury notes in coin, was passed.  No mention was made in the discussion of the bill providing for resumption of specie payment of the demonetization of silver.  On the contrary, the assumption was that the redemption was to be in gold and silver. On this subject Mr. Sherman said:

I may say the whole credit and money of the United States is placed by this bill under the direction of the proper executive officers not only to prepare for, but to maintain resumption, and no man can doubt that if this bill stands, the law of the land from this time to the 1st day of January, 1879, specie payments will be resumed, and that our United States notes will be converted at the will of the holder into gold and silver coin.

Mr. Bogy, of Missouri, said:

Gold and silver are the only true measures of value not only here, but throughout the world.

Mr. Hamilton of Maryland offered a substitute for the bill, as follows:

That from and after the 4th day of July, A.D. 1876, nothing but gold and silver shall be a legal tender for the payment or debts contracted thereafter.

The Senator from Ohio says:

Sir, I would rather stand this day before you defending a law which has been denounced and vilified, as this has been, boldly avowing that I did read the law, and that I knew its contents, than to plead the baby act, and say I did not know what was pending here before us for two or three years as an act of legislation.

Such a charge under ordinary circumstances might be regarded as a reproach.  If I stood alone I would not feel complimented by the charge.  But I was in illustrious company, and I will now introduce some of those associates to whom the charge of "pleading the baby act" equally applies.

Senator Thurman, on the 15th of February, 1878, in debate said:

I can not say what took place in the House, but 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.

Senator Conkling, in the Senate, on March 30, 1876, during the remarks of Senator Bogy on the bill (S. 263) to amend the laws relating to legal tender of silver coin, in surprise, inquired:

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

Senator Allison, on February 15, 1878, when the bill (H.R. 1093) to authorize the free coinage of the standard silver dollar and to restore its legal-tender character was under consideration, observed:

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 on our own, which was the true scientific position with reference to this subject in 1873, but that the bill afterwards was doctored, if I may use that term, and I use it in no offensive sense, of course.

Mr. Sargent interrupted him and asked him what he meant by the word "doctored."  Mr. Allison said:

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.

On February 15, 1878, during the consideration of the bill above referred to, the following colloquy between Senator Blaine and Senator Voorhees took place:

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. ["all that has been made out, 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."]  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.

Senator Beck, in a speech made in the Senate January 10, 1878, said:

It [the bill demonetizing silver] never was understood by either House of Congress.  I say that with full knowledge of the facts.  No newspaper reporter --and they are the most vigilant men I ever saw in obtaining information-- discovered that it had been done.

Senator Hereford, in the Senate, on February 13, 1878, in discussing the demonetization of silver, said:

So that I say that beyond the possibility of a doubt (and there is no disputing it) that bill which demonetized silver, as it passed, never was read, never was discussed, and that the chairman of the committee who reported it, who offered the substitute, said to Mr. Holman, when inquired of, that it did not affect the coinage in any way whatever.

Senator Howe, in a speech delivered in the Senate on February 5, 1878, said:

Mr. President, I do not regard the demonetization of silver as an attempt to wrench from the people more than they agree to pay.  That is not the crime of which I accuse the act of 1873.  I charge it with guilt compared with which the robbery of two hundred millions is venial.

Gen. Garfield, in a speech made at Springfield, Ohio, during the fall of 1877, said:

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

Mr. Bright, of Tennessee, said of the law:

It was passed by fraud in the House, never having been printed in advance, being a substitute for the printed bill;  never having been read at the Clerks desk, the reading having been dispensed with by an impression that the bill made no material alteration in the coinage laws;  it was passed without discussion, debate being cut off by operation of the previous question.  It was passed to my certain information under such circumstances that the fraud escaped the attention of some of the most watchful as well as the ablest statesmen in Congress at the time.  It was passed near the closing days of the session, when in the bustle and precipitate rush of business it was most favorable for the concealment of fraud.  It was passed without previous discussion or agitation before the people and without having been voted upon by the people.  Ay, sir, it was a fraud that "smells to heaven."  It was a fraud that will stink in the nose of posterity and for which some persons must give account in the day of retribution, and God grant "that no guilty man may escape !"

Mr. Holman, in a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, July 13, 1876, said:

I have before me the record of the proceedings of this House on the passage of that measure, a record which no man can read without being convinced that the measure and the method of its passage through this House was a "colossal swindle."  I assert that the measure never had the sanction of this House, and it does not possess the moral force of law.

Again, on August 5, 1876, he said:

The original bill was simply a bill to organize a bureau of mines and coinage.  The bill which finally passed the House and which ultimately became a law was certainly not read in this House.

It was never considered before the House as it was passed.  Up to the time the bill came before this House for final passage the measure had simply been one to establish a Bureau of Mines;  I believe I use the term correctly now.  It came from the Committee on Coinage Weights, and Measures.  The substitute which finally became a law was never read, and is subject to the charge made against it by the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Bland,] that it was passed by the House without a knowledge of its provisions, especially upon that of coinage.  I myself asked the question of Mr. Hooper, who stood near where I am now standing whether it changed the law in regard to coinage.  And the answer of Mr. Hooper certainly left the impression upon the whole House that the subject of the coinage was not affected by that bill.

Mr. Cannon, of Illinois, in a speech made in the House on July 13, 1876, said:

This legislation was had in the Forty-second Congress, February 12, 1873, by a bill to regulate the mints of the United States, and practically abolished silver as money by failing to provide for the coinage of the silver dollar.  It was not discussed, as shown by the Record, and neither members of Congress nor the people understood the scope of the legislation.

Mr. Burchard, of Illinois, in a speech made in the House of Representatives on July 13, 1876, said:

The Coinage Act of 1873, unaccompanied by any written report upon the subject from any committee, and unknown to the members of Congress who, without opposition, allowed it to pass under the belief, if not assurance, that it made no alteration in the value of the current coins, changed the unit of value from silver to gold

Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, who had charge of the bill, in a speech made in the House of Representatives on March 9, 1878, said:

In connection with the charge that I advocated the bill which demonetized the standard silver dollar, I say that, though the chairman of the Committee on Coinage, I was ignorant of the fact that it would demonetize the silver dollar or of its dropping the silver dollar from our system of coins, as were those distinguished Senators Messrs. Blaine and Voorhees, who were then members of the House, and each of whom, a few days since, interrogated the other: "Did you know it was dropped when the bill passed?"  "No," said Mr. Blaine;  "did you?"  "No," said Mr. Voorhees.  I do not think that there were three members in the House that knew it.  I doubt whether Mr. Hooper, who, in my absence from the Committee on Coinage and attendance on the Committee on Ways and Means, managed the bill, knew it.  I say this in justice to him.

Again on May 10, 1879, Mr. Kelley said:

All I can say is that the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, who reported the original bill, were faithful and able, and scanned its provisions closely, that as their organ I reported it, that it contained provision for both the standard silver dollar and the trade-dollar.  Never having heard until a long time after its enactment into law of the substitution in the Senate of the section which dropped the standard dollar, I profess to know nothing of its history;  but I am prepared to say that in all the legislation of this country there is no mystery equal to the demonetization of the standard silver dollar of the United States.  I have never found a man who could tell just how it came about, or why.

President Grant was also ignorant of the demonetization of silver.  Eight months after the passage of the bill he wrote a letter to Mr. Cowdrey, from which the following extract is taken:

The panic has brought greenbacks about to a par with silver.  I wonder that silver is not already coming into the market to supply the deficiency in the circulating medium.  When it does come, and I predict that it will soon, we will have made a rapid stride towards specie payments.  Currency will never go below silver after that.  The circulation of silver will have other beneficial effects.  Experience has proved that it takes about forty millions of fractional currency to make small change necessary for the transaction of the business of the country.  Silver will gradually take the place of this currency, and, further, will become the standard of values which will be hoarded in a small way.  I estimate that this will consume from two to three hundred millions, in time, of this species of our circulating medium.

It will leave the paper currency free to perform the legitimate functions of trade and will tend to bring us back where we must come at last, to a specie basis.  I confess to a desire to see a limited hoarding of money.  It insures a firm foundation in time of need.  But I want to see the hoarding of something that has a standard of value the world over.  Silver has this, and if we once get back to that our strides toward a higher appreciation of our currency will be rapid.  Our mines are now producing almost unlimited amounts of silver, and it is becoming a question, "What shall we do with it ?"  I suggest here a solution that will answer for some years, and suggest to you bankers whether you may not imitate it:  To put it in circulation now;  keep it there until it is fixed, and then we will find other markets.

Recapitulation.

I will now recapitulate.  In 1867 the mints of the United States and every mint on the Continent of Europe were open to the free and unlimited coinage of silver.  The mints of Germany, Austria, and Holland were closed against gold.  The mints of England were open to the free coinage of gold, but closed against silver.  A conference was in session at Paris which had been called by the Emperor to consider the unification of coins, weights, and measures.  Samuel Ruggles represented the United States, and Rivers Wilson represented Great Britain.  These two delegates, representing a hundred millons of English-speaking people, with the powerful aid of the Senator from Ohio, chairman of the Committee of Finance of the Senate, obtained the reluctant consent of the nations of the Continent of Europe to join England and the United States in recommending the single gold standard.

The Senator from Ohio undertook to carry out that recommendation by the legislation of Congress.  He returned to the Senate, and in the following session introduced a bill, making gold the standard of value and reducing silver to token money.  He induced the majority of the Finance Committee to sanction his elaborate report recommending the passage of the bill, and in claiming that the single gold standard was an American idea yielded reluctantly by France and the associated nations of the continent.  Senator E.D. Morgan, of New York, a member of the Finance Committee, submitted a minority report, which exposed the scheme and settled the fate of the bill.  It was never called up for action, and the country was ignorant of the fact that such a bill had been introduced or such reports made.

After the expiration of the term of office of the Senator from New York, a clique in the Treasury Department, headed by John Jay Knox, prepared an elaborate bill of seventy-one sections --professedly to revise and codify the mint laws-- which omitted the standard dollar from the list of coins.  The bill was introduced by the Senator from Ohio, referred to the Committee on Finance, and by him reported to the Senate, with amendments.  All the amendments were inconsequential except one, and that one imposed a tax of three-tenths of 1 per cent. upon the coinage of gold and silver bullion in addition to the charges for parting and refining.  Such a charge was opposed, because it would discourage coinage in the United States and encourage exportation of gold and silver.  Two days' debate were had over this amendment.  There was no other controverted matter debated in the Senate.  The amendment was finally rejected, and the bill passed by an overwhelming majority,  Mr. Sherman voting in the negative.  He knew very well before his name was reached in the calling of the roll that the bill would pass by an overwhelming majority.  But by voting against the bill he would say by his vote that he attached more importance to a tax of three-tenths of 1 percent upon gold and silver bullion deposited for coinage --when he knew, but the Senate did not, that no silver could be deposited for that purpose-- than he did to the very important bill which he had introduced for the codification of the mint laws.

A bill which had been prepared by a commission of eminent men whom he described in his speech the other day, earnestly recommended by the Secretary of the Treasury, and introduced by him without the charge of three-tenths of 1 per cent. for minting gold and silver coin, was declared by the vote of the Senator from Ohio to be of less consequence than the tax he proposed on deposits of gold and of silver, which could not be deposited under the provisions of the bill.  His vote was either in good faith, showing that the tax proposed was of paramount importance in his opinion to the codification of the mint laws, to the recommendation of the gold standard by the Paris conference, and to the adoption of the gold standard in this country, so earnestly and elaborately urged in his report from the Finance Committee in 1868, or that he desired by that amendment and that vote to conceal the omission of the silver dollar from the list of coins which had escaped the attention of the Senate.

The history of the bill in the other House was equally suggestive, and after the fact was developed by Hon. Clarkson Potter, member of Congress from New York, that it contained a provision demonetizing silver, Mr. Hooper of Massachusetts, who had charge of the bill, affected to abandon it.  Some days afterwards, and in the absence of Mr. Potter, Mr. Hooper presented a substitute for the bill, which he falsely claimed did not contain any of the objectionable features which had caused debate on the original bill.  The House passed the substitute under the erroneous belief, produced by the statements of Mr. Hooper, that the substitute contained none of the objectionable features contained in the original bill.

The substitute as it came from the House, contained, in the sixteenth section, a dollar of 384 grains, the equivalent of the 5-franc piece with legal tender limited to $5.  The Senator from Ohio, as chairman of the Committee on Finance, reported the bill to the Senate with various amendments, among which was a substitute for section 16, which contained a trade dollar of 420 grains, and limited the legal tender of all silver coins to $5.

Notwithstanding all the other amendments reported by the committee are recorded in the Globe, according to the practice of the Senate, no mention is made of the substitute for the sixteenth section.  After the sixteenth section had been passed over and the nineteenth section was reached and under consideration, Mr. Casserly, of California, made inquiry why the eagle was omitted from the silver dollar and other coins, whereupon the Senator from Ohio said:

Mr. Sherman.  If the Senator will allow me, he will see that the preceding section provides for coin which is exactly interchangeable with the English shilling and the five-franc piece of France;  that is, a five-franc piece of France will be the exact equivalent of a dollar of the United States in our silver coinage;  and in order to show this wherever our silver coin shall float --and we are providing that it shall float all over the world-- we propose to stamp upon it, instead of our eagle, which foreigners may not understand, and which they may not distinguish from a buzzard, or some other bird, the intrinsic fineness and weight of the coin.  In this practical utilitarian age the officers of the Mint seemed to think it would be better to do that than to put the eagle on our silver coins.

The remaining amendments of the committee were disposed of, and the bill passed without a division. The conference report designated the substitute for section 16 --which, as before remarked, does not appear in the Senate proceedings recorded in the Globe-- as No. 6, and thus made it a part of the statute.

I have shown that the leading members of the two Houses who were present during the consideration of the bill were ignorant of the fact that the silver dollar was omitted in the codification of the mint laws.  The Senate and the country must judge whether a fair opportunity was afforded the members of the two Houses to know of the omission of the silver dollar from the list of coins.

It was repeatedly stated by the Senator from Ohio, who had charge of the bill in the Senate, and Mr. Hooper of Massachusetts, who had charge of the bill in the House, that it had been carefully prepared in the Treasury Department by competent experts, which statements naturally inspired confidence that it was a conservative and honest compilation of existing laws, without any radical or revolutionary change.  No reference was made in the debate in the Senate either to the gold standard or to the omission of the silver dollar from the list of coins, as will appear from a perusal of that debate, every word of which will be printed in these remarks.

The fact that so many prominent and leading members of the two Houses, and the President of the United States, who signed the bill, were ignorant of the omission of the silver dollar, is significant.  The fact that the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman], who did so much to secure the recommendation of the gold standard by the Paris conference, introduced in 1868 a bill with a harmless title adopting the gold standard, claiming that the gold standard was "an American idea," had charge of the mint bill from beginning to end and failed to notify the Senate that it demonetized silver, is most astonishing.

But, in conclusion, let me say that the important question above and beyond all that is, was the legislation demanded or approved by the American people ?  It certainly was not.  They knew nothing of it.  It was not discussed in any political campaign.  It was not published or commented upon in any of the great dailies.  It remained a profound secret, so far as the masses of the people were concerned, for more than two years, and did not become generally known until the mints of the Latin Union were closed against silver and the price of silver declined in the markets of the world, since which time the people have demanded the restoration of silver to the place as a money metal which it occupied previous to the passage of the mint act.

No political party has ever at any time in national or State convention declared in favor of the single gold standard. On the contrary, every convention, State or national, has either ignored the question or declared in favor of bimetallism, and at every Congress since the discovery was made that silver was demonetized, a majority of the members of each House professed at the time of their election to be in favor of bimetallism.

In the last campaign the platform of all political parties declared in favor of bimetallism, and all parties were pledged, in case of success, to legislate to that end.  The great dailies of the Republican and Democratic parties claimed that no party was opposed to bimetallism, and that it was not a party question, and that the tariff was the main issue to be decided by the people.

It is true that the Republican platform favored a national election law, which gave the Democratic party an opportunity to frighten the South by the ghost of negro domination and secure a solid South without regard to other considerations.

I did not believe that the organs of the two great parties were sincere in making the tariff the only issue with the ghost of negro domination as an adjunct.  I returned to my State, and informed the people whom I in part represent that the pending contest between the Democratic and Republican parties was a sham battle over the tariff and the force bill to secure power to be used for another and very different purpose.  I told them that it made no difference which party succeeded, the result would be the same.  Both Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Harrison were gold monometallists, and if either succeeded, the power and patronage of the Administration would be used to destroy silver and establish the single gold standard.  I also told my people that I would support neither Mr. Cleveland nor Mr. Harrison, and that I repudiated the false pretenses of the managers of both of the great political parties.  But the great mass of the people in the United States would not believe me that the parties to which they belonged intended to deceive them, and reluctantly voted the party ticket, hoping for the best.

The deception was not universal.  More than a million votes were cast for Mr. Weaver, who was running on a free-coinage platform without hope of success.  Another million remained away from the polls and refrained from voting.  The people of my State, irrespective of party, voted for members of the Legislature and other officers pledged to the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and elected every member of the Legislature and Member of Congress by more than a two-thirds vote.  When the Legislature met, my position was indorsed by the unanimous vote of each house.  I am here to represent the people of my State and the vast majority of the people of all the States who by their votes for the last twenty years have signified their desire for the restoration of silver to its place as a money metal.

I was severely censured, especially by Republicans, for the position I took as to the aims and purposes of the leaders of the two great political parties to deceive the people by proclaiming their intention to do one thing to obtain power with the design of doing the opposite after they gained control of the Government.  I saw no difference in the position of the two candidates and could trust neither.  The Administration of President Cleveland is doing to-day just what I predicted in the canvass. Immediately after the polls were closed, the bondholders and the national banks claimed that the victory was theirs, and that the verdict of the people demanded repeal of the only law which recognized silver as a money metal.  This law which, notwithstanding the numerous violations by the executive department of its most beneficial provisions, has added one hundred and fifty millions of the new legal-tender money to the currency of the country, can not have caused the scarcity of money which produced the panic. It has not been shown, and no effort has been made to show, that the Sherman act has up to this time inflicted any injuries upon the country.  On the contrary, it is admitted that thus far it has been beneficial, and the Senator from Ohio informs us that it prevented a panic in 1890.

The country is familiar with the predictions of the gold monometallists.  They have denounced every law and every bill looking to the restoration of silver as pregnant with calamity.  From 1878, when the Bland act was passed, to the present hour they have declared that silver legislation would ruin the country, but they have been unable to point out any instance where legislation favorable to silver has been injurious.  The evils they predicted from the use of silver as money are always in the future;  never in the past.

The bankers' panic was inaugurated to force Congress to demonetize silver and prevent predicted evils;  not to remedy evils already produced by the Sherman act.  The co-operation of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cleveland was to degrade silver, the former by suspending coinage in India and the latter by refusing to obey a mandatory law requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase four and a half million ounces of silver per month.  They accomplished their object by closing the silver mine and increasing the panic.  The President in his message, finding it impossible to point out any injury the increase of $150,000,000 of new money had done, was compelled to rest his demand for the repeal of the Sherman act upon the apprehension of future evils.  He said:

It may be true that the embarrassments from which the business of the country is suffer1ng arise as much from the evils apprehended as from those actually existing.

He failed to inform Congress that the apprehended evils which produced the panic existed only in the imagination of the bondholders;  the bankers, and their newspaper organs, who had created the present distress in the country for their own selfish and sordid purposes:  the bondholders to make money scarce and to increase the obligations of their debtors;  the banks to destroy silver, to create the necessity to sell bonds and buy gold for more national-bank circulation, and the newspapers to do the bidding of the banks and the bondholders for their patronage and other considerations.

Every day the false pretenses of the hue-and-cry against the Sherman act become more apparent.  No member of either House of Congress since the debate began has been able to show how the $150,000,000 of new legal-tender money issued under the Sherman law has made money scarce or in anyway injured the business of the country.  No one has shown or attempted to show that the continued issuance of legal-tender notes, until the voice of the people can be again heard on the main question of bimetallism or the gold standard, will produce any possible injury.  On the contrary, the experience of the past abundantly demonstrates the beneficial effects of more new money.

The machinations of the banks and the bondholders have created dire distress in the country.  The immediate duty of the hour is to relieve that distress.  There is an honest remedy and a dishonest remedy.  The honest remedy is to restore silver.  If that can not be done, utilize the silver in the Treasury Department belonging to the Government by issuing silver certificates thereon, and issue enough greenbacks to relieve the distress.  The dishonest remedy is to pass the bill under consideration and ratify and sanctify the infamous act of 1873 and fasten a perpetual gold standard upon the country;  donate $20,000,000 of the people's money, as is proposed in another bill, to the banks without any consideration from them;  sell bonds, increase the national debt, and levy more taxes for the purpose of allowing the national banks to usurp the power of the Government in furnishing the people money.

I am in favor of honest legislation. I am in favor of utilizing the $50,000,000 of idle silver in the Treasury by the issuance of silver certificates thereon.  I am in favor of putting out whatever greenbacks may be necessary --$100,000,000, $200,000,000, or any amount that may be necessary to relieve the distress which has been inflicted upon the country by the false pretenses o! the money power.

In view of the conspiracy inaugurated by concentrated capital to reduce the masses of the people of this country to poverty and want, it is the duty of every Senator who loves his country to resist by every possible parliamentary means the perpetration of this great wrong.  I do not wonder that bondholders, bankers, and their organs demand an immediate vote.  They want no discussion.  They fear the result of an exposé of their conspiracy.  It is significant at this time that the great journals of New York say, "Vote first, and debate afterwards."  Surrender and give up your arms;  then fight if you can.

We notify them now that the fort occup1ed by the defenders of the people will never be surrendered.  The armies of avarice, fraud and deception must take it if they can.

To-day the united metropolitan press applaud bimetallists who will vote for monometallism.  The service of deserters is always gratefully received during the hour of battle;  but when the war is over there is but one opinion of their conduct by both friends and foes.  Seventy millions of people constitute the tribunal which must ultimately pass upon the proceedings of this extra session.  They will not view with approbation the men or parties whom they trusted with power, on the promise to restore the money of the Constitution, who use that power to rob them of that money and transfer their property to an organization of gold monopolists.

The pretext for the passage of this bill is not only flimsy, but it is absurd.  We are told that the object of the bill is to restore confidence.  Confidence in what, and in whom ?  Confidence in the Government ?  Nobody has questioned the solvency of the Government or the quality of any money bearing the stamp of the Government.  Confidence in the people themselves ?  Nothing has happened to shake the confidence of the American people in their own ability to live and prosper, except the robbery which has been practiced in the past and is threatened in the future.  Confidence in the bondholders and banks ?  They have sufficient confidence already in their power to acquire the wealth of others.  They have been in the habit so long of reaping where they did not sow that their confidence in their own ability is sufficiently strong.  The fact that they regard the Sherman act as an obstacle to their schemes of plunder is no reason why it should be repealed.

On the contrary, it is the strongest possible reason why it should be retained until all the Sherman acts, from 1873 to 1890, both inclusive, can go, and go together.  The country wants no more Sherman acts.  But before we repeal the act which was extorted from him, let us blot from the statute book the act which we placed there without the knowledge or consent of the American people in 1873.  When that is done, prosperity will be restored, and not till then.  There can be no progress or prosperity while the iron grasp of contraction binds the limbs of enterprise.  Contraction can not be permanently prevented without the remonetization of silver.  The metallic basis of gold is too narrow for the present generation, and will continue to grow narrower and narrower as the supply grows less and less.

The creditor class may as well know first as last that the people of this country will not consent to continual falling prices, hard times, and stagnation.  If the bondholders can change the contract and make it payable in gold and take away the option of the debtor to pay in either gold or silver, the people will ultimately see to it that the debtor has money of no more or less value than the money of the contract.  The people do not ask to change the contract;  the bondholders do.  They have already doubled the value of gold, and by so doing they have doubled the obligations of the debtor.  This was revolutionary.  It is dangerous for capital to engage in revolution, and I appeal to the Senate to-day to listen to the voice of the people as expressed in twenty years of elections, and turn a deaf ear to a subsidized press and bankers' petitions extorted from their trembling debtors.

Mr. President, there are many other branches of this subject which it is necessary to discuss, and to discuss in good faith.  I do not know whether I can get through to-night with what I wish to say;  I do not suppose I can;  but I wish to refer to a few additional facts.  When the false pretense is made that this bill is the road to bimetallism, we should examine that question carefully.

What is the situation of the world in this respect ?  In the first place, England is the creditor nation of the world.  The outside world owe her $10,000,000,000 upon what she has received, and she is receiving $500,000,000 annually in interest.  When I speak of England I mean the bonded aristocracy, for the poor people of England are suffering the same as are our poor people;  but the England that governs is concentrated capital with claims against the balance of the world of $10,000,000,000.  I do not know how much of that this country owes, but I am inclined to think that we owe very nearly half of it.  I said in my remarks that we had to pay England $150,000,000 annually.  I think we are paying more than that.  I think we are paying $200,000,000 to England.  See what a position she has !  The outside world has to pay her $500,000.000 a year;  which is an enormous contribution to England, besides the supremacy she has in the carrying trade and other commercial advantages.

The continent of Europe is poor and prostrate.  It is said that they are supporting 22,000,000 soldiers at an expense of more than $800,000,000 a year.  Most of those countries are bankrupt, and owe England, particularly Austria and Italy.  It was England and the United States which destroyed silver.  The United States joined England to destroy silver, and for what purpose ?  For the obvious purpose to enhance the value of money.  Now, it is said that we must go on a gold basis with England;  that there is no other mode;  that there is nothing else for us to do.  The president says we must have the same kind of money that England has.  What does that mean ?  We have to pay her $200,000,000 a year now, and she has demands enough against us at present to break us down, if we attempt to compete with her for gold.  If we undertake to buy gold, where is the gold ?  It is all locked up;  $536,000,000 in Russia, for instance;  $150,000,000 probably in Austria, most of which she got from us;  she can not pay it out;  eight or nine hundred millions are in France, and she dare not pay any of it out.  She protects herself by paying out silver.  The same condition exists in Germany.  She can not pay out gold.

England has the advantage of collecting gold from all the world.  That does a good deal toward keeping up her gold supply, but she adopts an expedient to keep her gold at home.  Whenever an attempt is made to draw out her gold, she raises her rate of interest. England has never allowed any country to draw out her international money. From the earliest history of England, whenever that attempt has been made, she has suspended specie payments or raised the rate of interest, and in that way protected her people.  During the Napoleonic wars she would not allow any international money to circulate in the country;  no nation could draw her gold out and bankrupt her.  If she allowed such an enemy, as the gold board in New York, to exist in London she never could have sent a soldier to the Continent.  Since that war she has suspended specie payments three or four times, and she has time after time raised the rate of interest, so that the money would not be drawn out of the country.  She had to do that, notwithstanding she was a great creditor nation.  We, the only country in the world which pretends to have an international money, allow gold to go where it pleases.

Now, what position are we in ?  It is said that we must Sell Bonds to Buy Gold.  Suppose we do it.  In that event greenbacks will be presented and take the gold out.  I know the banks want that, because they want the bonds to bank on.  That is what makes them so intensely anxious for this plan.  If we sell bonds and buy gold, you can not keep it;  it will be taken away from you, and the same trick will be played on you which has been played this year.

When they want to carry out the Austrian scheme, and when they want gold in Europe for any purpose, they come here and sell our bonds, create a panic, and then the gold goes.  The gold went last spring in that way;  securities were sold, dumped on the market, and a panic created.  That was one of the processes by which it was created in connection with the New York banks, who are agents for the English bondholders.  They are simply investors and collectors on foreign account.  They started this trouble.  They sold the securities, got the gold, and took it away, and when the panic came the securities went down 40 or 50 cents on the dollar, and the gold is coming back to buy them up.  The gold which is coming now is to devour the carcasses of those who were killed and destroyed by taking it away.

It is said we must fight with England for this gold and that we can bring England to time.  When we buy gold she call it back by calling on us for three or four thousand millions.  We can not compete with England in that way.  We are a great country, but we are a debtor nation, with vast unimproved resources, and if we begin to draw that gold out they will draw it back when they want it.  They will take the foundation right out of our financial system.  Do you not see what game was played in New York regularly some years ago when we were buying bonds every year for two three years ?  There would be a little combination in New York that would buy up the bonds during the winter and summer months, invest in them, get the interest, and when the stringency came to move the crops in the fall they would call on the Treasury to buy bonds, and $30,000,000 or $40,000,000 would be thrown in the hands of those men.  The stringency had created a panic;  stocks would be down 20 or 30 per cent. and they would have the gold to buy them, and then they would make their regular harvest;  and while we were buying bonds the harvest was as regular as the returning seasons.

Do you not suppose that our English friends who can draw this gold out when they please will have that harvest all the time ?  They will have it this year.  They will make hundreds and hundreds of millions.