Extention of National-Bank Charters

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:  That any national banking association organized under the acts of February 25, 1883, June 4, 1884, and February 14, 1880, or under sections 5133, 5134, 5135, 5138 and 5154 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, may, at any time within the two years next previous to the date of the expiration of its corporate existence under present law, and with the approval of the Comptroller of the Currency, to be granted as hereinafter provided, extend its period of succession by amending its articles of association, for a term of not more than twenty years

The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Bland] is recognized.

Mr. Bland  [Richard Parks Bland (1835-1899) Lebanon, Missouri, D.;  studied law, admitted to the bar].  Mr. Speaker, in discussing this question I shall undertake to answer some of the points made by the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Crapo] in favor of the national banks.  One of the arguments last made by the gentleman from Massachusetts in favor of the national banking system, and against the proposition submitted by other gentlemen as well as myself, of substituting Treasury notes for bank notes, was that there is a danger of over-issue on the part of the Government if the matter of issuing Treasury notes is confined to Congress alone, and that it is better to transfer this power of regulating the volume of paper money to corporations, to gentlemen whose interest it is to subserve private ends, instead of holding that power in the representatives of the people for the public benefit.  And he eulogizes further the national banking system because, he says, it has furnished the Government and the people with a paper currency secure and valid everywhere.  And why so ?  What is a national-bank note other than a Treasury note ?  When gentlemen come to argue this question I want them to answer that proposition.  What is a national-bank note to-day other than a state paper ?  Nothing.  It is not redeemable in anything but state paper.  It is not based upon coin, but upon paper.  It is redeemable in a Treasury note, which is state paper.  It is made receivable and payable for all public dues, with certain exceptions, and is therefore essentially nothing more nor less than state paper issued by the Government, and handed over to corporations to circulate and receive the profit of the issues.

From that proposition there is no escape.  Under this system is there no danger of banks contracting and expanding the currency, the very danger that the gentleman warns the country against with reference to Treasury notes ?  Is there no danger with reference to bank notes in the same direction ?  Why, when the funding bill was up at the last session of Congress we remember that the national banking institutions, in order to dragoon Congress into passing such measures as they thought would redound to their benefit, secured the veto of the bill by bulldozing the President with threats of contracting the currency and inviting a financial panic.

Let gentlemen who are favoring national banks here to-day remember what took place in the Forty-third Congress.  That Congress assembled in the midst of a panic greater probably than this country ever experienced before.  It was under this national banking system, and it was determined here upon the part of those favoring the national banking system that instead of increasing the volume of legal-tender notes or Treasury notes, the banking law should be extended and amended so as to permit banks to issue the money without limit.  Banking was made free, and other measures and amendments of the bank law in their interest were made at that Congress.  And to-day the same proposition is here.  It is contended by the Treasurer that the banks contract and expand this currency in their own interest and not in the interest of the people.  And if Congress can over-issue Treasury notes, if there is a danger of Congress making these over-issues without the intervention and the coercion of banks, then there certainly is still greater danger that this money which we turn over to our banking corporations for their benefit and use, may be contracted and expanded at the behest of these corporations, where we know they demand their own terms as to our legislation, or, failing to get their demands, paralyze business with forebodings of financial disasters.

When we are told there is danger of centralization also in the proposition to substitute Treasury notes for bank notes, I reply, Mr. Speaker, that the danger of centralization and revolution in this Government comes not from the people or their representatives here, untrammeled by corporations.  The danger of centralization, the danger of revolution, the danger of changing our republican form of government to that of an aristocratic form of government, arises from the vast power of the corporations that Congress has built up in this country;  among the greatest and most powerful and most to be feared are these banks.

Why, sir, the danger of centralization when the people's representatives are left free to act upon public subjects;  when banking corporations that we built up in this land have the power of threatening panic by bulldozing Congress, by saying to us if we do not pass this bill to-day or another bill to-morrow in their interest, the country will go to ruin, and they will bring panics and financial disaster upon us, the danger of centralization is in the power of those institutions, and not in the power of Congress representing the people of this country.

What are the propositions that we are to meet to-day ?  I have the reports here of the Secretary of the Treasury and also of the Treasurer of the United States and the Comptroller of the Currency, all conflicting upon this subject.  I will send to the Clerk's desk and ask the Clerk to read what I have marked on page 190 of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury.

The Clerk read as follows:

If, on the other hand, the corporate existence of the national banks shall be extended, all the advantages of the existing system will be preserved, subject to such amendments as may be hereafter found necessary;  while the circulation of the banks, which is the principal objection urged against the system, will, under existing laws, diminish in volume as the public debt shall be reduced.

Mr. Bland.  I ask the Clerk to turn to page 430 and read what I have marked there.

The Clerk read as follows:

Silver Certificates.

There was a large increase during the fiscal year in the amount of silver certificates in circulation, the amount outstanding at the close of the year being $51,166,530 as compared with $12,374,270 outstanding June 30, 1880.  This increase is due in part to the demand for notes for circulation, but chiefly to the operation of the departmental circular of September 18, 1880, under which exchange on the sub-treasuries in the West and South payable in silver certificates is furnished by the Department for deposits of gold coin with the assistant treasurer in New York.  Under this circular large amounts of silver certificates, chiefly of the denominations of ten and twenty dollars, have been paid out at the sub-treasuries in New Orleans, Saint Louis, Chicago, and Cincinnati, for the purpose of moving the cotton and other crops.  Since the close of the fiscal year the circulation of the certificates has still further increased;  the amount now outstanding being $64,140,910, of which $11,309,470 is held by the Treasury.  The amount of silver dollars in the Treasury at this date is $65,949,279, less than $2,000,000 in excess of the outstanding certificates.

As the certificates cannot be issued in excess of the dollars held by the Treasury, the limit of their issue is likely soon to be reached, although, of course, the certificates held by the Treasury in its cash can be paid out.  Aside from this limitation, the issue of the silver certificates has little relation to the standard silver dollar.  The Treasury pays them out because it finds it necessary to utilize in some way the enormous stock of silver which it is carrying, and they are taken by the public without regard to the silver dollars behind them, because they constitute a convenient form of paper currency.  To the extent of nearly two-thirds of the amount coined, the coinage and attempted circulation of the standard silver dollar have resulted simply in an addition to the paper circulation of the country.  Whatever the ultimate result may be, the immediate effect has not been without positive advantages.  The volume of the United States notes is limited by law, while the national banks do not find a sufficient profit in issuing circulation on United States bonds at present prices to induce them to supply the demand for additional paper circulation, caused by the increase of business.  The issue of silver certificates, by meeting this demand, has averted what might have proved to be a serious public inconvenience.

Mr. Bland.  Now, I want the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Crapo] and the majority of the Committee on Banking and Currency, who have reported a bill to demonetize silver, to answer that argument of the Treasurer.  He says that the coinage of silver dollars and the issue of silver certificates has averted what otherwise might have been an incalculable disaster to the country.  That is refreshing in connection with what I will read from the report of the Secretary himself on that subject, as follows:

There need be no apprehension of a too limited paper circulation.  The national banks are ready to issue their notes in such quantity as the laws of trade demand, and as security therefor the Government will hold an equivalent in its own bonds.  The embarrassments which are certain to follow from the endeavor to maintain several standards of value, in the form of paper currency, are too obvious to need discussion.  It is recommended, therefore, that measures be taken for a repeal of the act requiring the issue of such certificates and the early retirement of them from circulation.

And yet an officer in that Department who is noted for his integrity and his ability, who has been there for years and has studied this question, tells us solemnly to-day that the issuing of these silver certificates has been necessary in the past.  And we are told by the Comptroller of the Currency, in one of his arguments in favor of continuing the banks, that their circulation will diminish from time to time.  Now, if it is to be diminished from now on, and we are to carry out the further recommendation of the Committee on Banking and Currency and of the Secretary of the Treasury and demonetize silver, I want to know what the friends of the national banks propose to do for the people ?

Let the gentleman from Massachusetts answer that proposition.  He wants to know what will be better than the national banks;  and he proposes to wait until some system shall be proposed that will suit him better than the banking system before he will stop his advocacy of national banks.  Yet the records of the Treasury Department show that the banking system has the dry-rot to-day and is expiring.  They contract and expand the currency as suits their own interests, as is shown by the following, from page 364 of the Treasurer's report, 1880:

A similar question arose concerning the deposits for the retirement of bank circulation under the fourth section of the act, which was decided in the same manner, so that a bank desiring to reduce its circulation may accomplish its object by depositing in the Treasury gold coin, or silver dollars, or United States notes.  The original theory of this provision was that whenever the paper circulation of the country became excessive, the redundancy would be cured by the deposit by the banks of United States notes for the retirement of their circulation.  Now, however, that the banks may reduce their circulation by the deposit of coin, it is evident that the original theory of the act is destroyed.  In fact, the question was raised by banks desiring to reduce their circulation, who averred that it was difficult, if not impossible, to obtain United States notes for the purpose, plainly showing that banks may desire to reduce their circulation when the currency is already deficient.

Now, on top of that he has reported to this House a bill doing away with the only thing that can supply the place of national-bank notes, unless we substitute Treasury notes for them;  that is, silver coin and silver certificates.

Mr. Dingley.  Will the gentleman allow me to make a suggestion at that point ?  I understood him to say that the majority of the Committee on Banking and Currency had reported a bill demonetizing silver ?

Mr. Bland.  Unless I can have my time extended somewhat, I shall desire to occupy the hour myself.  I would like to yield to gentlemen for questions, and will do so if I can have my time extended.

Mr. Dingley.  I desire to say that the bill to which the gentleman refers does not propose to demonetize silver, but to limit the coinage of silver to the actual demands of the people.

Mr. Bland.  You want to further limit, then, the coinage, practically to demonetize it.

Mr. Springer.  I ask that the gentleman from Missouri. [Mr. Bland] may have his time extended so that he can answer any questions which gentlemen may desire to ask him.

Mr. Crapo.  I must object to that.

Mr. Bland.  I want to make a suggestion in all fairness to gentlemen on both sides.  It is not often that I occupy the attention of the House.  I am sure I have never trespassed upon the patience of gentlemen.  But this is a subject which deserves and should receive full consideration and discussion.  If I should not get through the remarks I propose to submit within the hour, I trust the courtesy of the House will be extended to me for a short time.

Mr. Hardenbergh.  I desire to state that I will yield to the gentleman fifteen minutes of the time to which I am entitled as a member of the Committee on Banking and Currency.

Mr. Bland.  I thank the gentleman.  The gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Crapo] in his argument for the continuance of the national banks, and in defense of the national-bank system, referred to the great benefits rendered by the banks during the war.  Suppose we admit for the sake of argument that at that time they worked great benefit.  But there were other patriots in the land besides those engaged in national banking;  there were other capitalists who should be considered as well as these bankers.  The great mass of the producing people of the country, who must pay all the expenses of these corporations, should be considered as well as the banks;  for the people were as patriotic as were the banks.

What was the effect of banking institutions during the war, and what has been their effect since in demanding legislation on the part of Congress ?  What have been the influences brought to bear by the banks ?  During the war they purchased bonds for legal-tender notes, when those notes were worth but sixty cents on the dollar in coin.  They converted into bonds bearing coin interest paper worth but sixty or seventy cents on the dollar, bonds to full amount of face value of this depreciated paper.

Had the Government gone into the markets of the world and offered its bonds to be sold for coin, and had sold them for sixty or seventy cents on the dollar, we would then have understood the transaction.  We would have seen that we were losing thirty or forty and, in some instances, probably fifty cents on the dollar in that transaction.

Yet we lost the same amount by converting these paper issues into bonds;  paper money that was depreciated on account of the issues of the national banks themselves.  The legal-tender notes issued during the war, had there been no other issue, had bank notes not been issued, might have stood near par all the time.  But every bank note that was issued came in competition with the legal-tender notes, and depreciated them to that extent.  These banks and their circulation depreciated the paper of the Government for which the bonds were sold, and instead of being a benefit to the Government during the war, they cost it not less than $500,000,000.

More than that.  When they had secured these bonds at a low price and had control of them, they came into the Halls of Congress and demanded that bonds thus payable in paper money below par should be made a coin bond.  By the act of 1869 Congress pledged the faith of this nation to redeem its public debt in coin.  This is a specimen of the influence brought to bear by the national banks upon the legislation of this country in the past.  Instead of being a public benefit, these banks have been a public curse;  instead of being in the interest of the people, they have been the grandest robbers of the tax-payers of this country that ever existed under any government.  Yet we are asked now to continue them.  Why ?  Because the Comptroller of the Currency says that their circulation is gradually going out, and that this objection to them is not longer to be urged.  He suggests furthermore that we should not consider what shall be substituted for these national banks when they have ceased to exist;  that some time in the future will be early enough to consider that question.  But, sir, we are paying off the national debt at the rate of over $100,000,000 a year, and, unless we cease to pay off this debt, unless this bill means, as I think it does, that when we have continued and rechartered these banks the next legislation asked on the part of Congress will be to cease the payment of the public debt in order to maintain the banks, the basis on which the national-bank currency has rested must shortly pass away.  The indefinite continuation of the national debt is what the Comptroller of the Currency invites us to, although he has not the hardihood to say so;  for it is confessed here that the banking system cannot exist much longer unless we stop immediately the rapid payment of the public debt.  This bill is simply the preliminary and forerunner of other legislation looking to the perpetuation of the national debt in order to perpetuate the national banks.  Otherwise this bill means nothing;  it is a mere brutum fulmen [futile threat], because the banks whose charters it continues and the very system it seeks to uphold, are expiring ---are dying from day to day, and in a few short years must go out of existence.

We hear it proclaimed throughout the country to-day that a national debt is a national blessing.  There are in this country and have been since the formation of our Government, those who believe that the nearer we pattern after the Government of Great Britain, the nearer are we to perfection.  They believe in aristocratic government;  a government controlled by wealth and power as against the people;  a government in which the aristocratic classes shall control the masses.  It is the class who thus believe, who proclaim, that a national debt is a national blessing.  Why ?  Because, in accordance with the English system, we can bank upon a perpetual debt.  It is this species of legislation which in a few short years has raised up in this country millionaires by the thousand, when, before the war, scarcely one was heard of.  The great contrast between extreme poverty and extreme wealth in this country is steadily and surely marking the line between the aristocratic and the laboring classes of our people.

Mr. Speaker,  I have a bill which I propose to print as a part of my remarks, and which I hope to have considered when this question is under discussion in Committee of the Whole.  I will now state the principal features of the bill.  The first three or four sections correspond with the bill of the gentleman from Massachusetts, in providing for the continuance of the national banks as banks of discount and deposit.  In this way will be avoided the calamity of which the gentleman from Massachusetts speaks, compelling the banks to wind up and thereby discommode and inconvenience their customers.  But in this bill I propose to cut off their circulation.

The next proposition of the bill is that the banks, as their charters expire, shall go into liquidation in accordance with the provisions for voluntarily going into liquidation under the Revised Statutes.  In other words, they shall deposit in the Treasury lawful money for the purpose of taking up their circulation.  I provide further that the money thus deposited shall be counted as surplus revenue, and paid out like other surplus revenue in the Treasury, in the current expenditures of the Government and in the redemption and extinguishment of the national debt.  In this way I would require these banks to redeem their circulation, something that they never have done and under the pending bill never will do.  Gentlemen talk about these banks redeeming their circulation;  but I say that for the last twenty years the banks have had the use of the Government paper furnished to them which they have put out at interest;  but never a dollar have they redeemed.

No man goes to the bank counter and demands the redemption of a national-bank bill.  Why ?  Because it is practically Government paper, and is as good as the paper in which it would be redeemed.  The pending bill proposes to extend the charters of these banks for twenty years and thus give them for the term of forty years the use of the Government paper without costing them a dollar.  That is one of the objects of the pending bill.  It proposes to extend the time for the banks to redeem their circulation, and they know it.  Yet they come here and claim that they are acting for the benefit of the people.  This is one of the swindles to be perpetrated.

If they are compelled to redeem their circulation at once in lawful money of the Government, and if this money be deposited in the Treasury, we can use it as other surplus revenues are used, in redeeming the bonds upon which these banks are doing business;  and in order to take up their circulation we can issue Treasury notes having the same monetary functions as the bank notes.  As these bank notes come into the Treasury in the payment of taxes and otherwise, the bill which I have prepared provides that the Secretary of the Treasury shall issue circulating Treasury notes to take their place.

In this there is no contraction ---none whatever.  You will have in circulation the same kind of paper that is out to-day, Government paper issued by Congress;  for the bank paper is nothing but Government paper issued under the authority of Congress, the bank being the agents for its circulation.  How many agents and commissions do we want in this land ?  Are we not capable of doing our own business ?  Thus, sir, I would issue Government paper redeemable like bank notes, and taking the place of the bank notes, and the money deposited by the banks can be used for current expenditures and for the payment of the public debt.  Thus the banks will be required to redeem the circulation of which they have had the use for the last twenty years.  The money paid in by them to redeem this circulation will be utilized in extinguishing the public debt.  By the year 1885, three years from to-day, with the amount of revenue now coming into the Treasury and with the revenue which will come in under my bill, we can redeem the last outstanding 3½ per cent. bond and thus wind up the banking institutions.  They will not then longer survive.

Mr. Hutchins.  I would like to ask the gentleman whether he proposes to have the Treasury note redeemed by the Government ?

Mr. Bland.  I do.

Mr. Hutchins.  You do ?

Mr. Bland.  Yes, sir;  precisely as the bank note is now redeemed.

Mr. Hutchins.  Then you would have a dollar of gold or silver in the Treasury to redeem each dollar of Treasury notes ?

Mr. Bland.  I will explain that;  and I would have done so if the gentleman had not made the inquiry.  The bank note to-day is redeemed by a greenback.  There is not a dollar of coin behind the note of the national bank to-day.  I propose to issue Treasury notes that will have behind them legal tender notes, and to let the Secretary of the Treasury hold as a reserve in the Treasury such coin as may be necessary to keep the legal tender at par.  The Secretary of the Treasury will reserve in the Treasury enough coin to keep them at par.

Mr. Hutchins.  Do I understand the gentleman to say that he would allow such an amount of coin to remain in the Treasury as the Secretary of the Treasury alone should deem sufficient to redeem those notes ?

Mr. Bland.  The gentleman knows that is the law to-day, and that by the law as it now exists the Secretary of the Treasury fixes his own reserve.  There is no act of Congress that limits the power of the Secretary of the Treasury to fix this reserve, and I hope the gentleman from New York or some other gentleman will introduce a bill on that subject.

Mr. Hutchins.  Do I understand the gentleman to say that he was in favor of issuing the Treasury notes by the Government and having in the Treasury a sufficient amount of coin to redeem them;  that amount to be kept there and to be such as the Secretary of the Treasury in his judgment might think proper.  Now, did I understand him correctly ?

Mr. Bland.  I have already answered the gentleman's question, but I will answer it again, and I hope then my time will not be further taken up by interruptions on this point.  I do not propose to disturb the present condition of things except to issue Treasury notes having behind them legal-tender notes to take the place of the national-bank notes.  The Treasury note I propose to issue will be redeemable like the national-bank note.  I propose to issue a Treasury note the same as a bank note, and that has the same thing behind it as a bank note.

So far as a contest between the bank note and the Treasury note is concerned that is all sufficient for the purposes of my argument.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I will read from the report of the Comptroller of the Currency, submitted December 5, 1881, in which, on page 188, is the following statement:

The principal reason urged by those who favor a discontinuance of the national banking system is that money can be saved by authorizing the Government to furnish circulation to the country;  in other words, that the profit to the banks upon their circulation is excessive.  Sixteen years ago the banks had on deposit, as security for circulation, $276,000,000 in United States bonds, of which amount nearly two hundred millions was in 6 percents and seventy-six millions in 5 percents.  The banks now hold thirty-two millions of 4½ percents;  ninety-two millions of 4 percents;  two hundred and forty-one millions of 3½ percents, converted from 5 and 6 percents;  and also three and a half millions of Pacific Railroad sixes.

For sixteen years, then, Mr. Speaker, these national banks held bonds drawing 5 and 6 per cent. interest to the amount here stated.  What was their profit at that time ?  It is claimed there is but little profit in national banks, and I admit there is not so much profit now as formerly.  But during the war and shortly afterward, their profits were very large.  I have made a calculation and I find during these sixteen years, referred to in the report of the Comptroller of Currency, the banks drew as interest 256,000,000 in coin, and on bonds that did not cost them over sixty to seventy cents in the dollar of coin.  Their circulation is $248,000,000 of banking paper, which was at a discount with legal-tender notes during all that time.  Of course it was redeemable in them.  Now, if they are compelled to redeem their circulation in lawful money they will not have refunded to the Treasury the amount they have already drawn.  In other words, Mr. Speaker, the tax-payers of this Government have paid into the coffer of the national banks during this sixteen years in coin more than sufficient to redeem the last bank note which they issued.  They have had it all for nothing.  That is where they received their profit, and therein lies the infamy of a system we are called on now in this House to continue.[*]

footnote in the Record:
*      Theory of Money, London, 1844, pages 188, 189.

The six years during which the advance of those three millions of promissory notes carried no interest having expired in the year 1806, it was proposed to the bank [of England] by the minister of the day that, instead of the notes being then repaid or returned to the bank, the advance of them should be continued by the bank to the public until the end of the war [against Napoleon];  the public, which had converted all the notes of the bank into state paper money, and had excused and prohibited the bank from the payment of them until the end of the war, paying interest to the bank for the same during the war at 3 per cent., or at the rate of £90,000 per annum.

It is needless, of course, to say that the bank agreed to the proposal, (although the directors had the modesty to qualify their consent to it with conditions;) for it is manifest that the effect of the arrangement was that from the year 1806 until the end of the late war, and thereafter until the resumption of its payments by the bank in the year 1822, a period of sixteen years, the corporation received back annually, under the name of interest, £90,000 a year of those three millions of notes ---from the payment of which they were excused by the public--- to be canceled.

And thus, instead of paying anything for the renewal of the charter in 1800 for thirty-three years, the bank actually received, at the public expense, no less than £90,000 a year from 1806 to 1822 for having accepted it !

If any beggar could have purchased a charter for the loan of three millions of his promissory notes, which he was excused and even prohibited from paying by the borrower, how would that beggar be enriched if for the continuance of such a loan he were for sixteen years to receive back annually, under the name of interest, £90,000 of his notes to be canceled, and payment in full of the three millions over and above, in coin or money of the realm at the end of that period ?

Yet such and no other was the bargain which the corporation of the bank had the dexterity to drive, the minister of the day the folly to consent to, and Parliament the want of sagasity to confirm, on the renewal of the charter of the bank in the year 1800.

Ninety thousand pounds a year, accumulated at compound interest of 5 per cent., which rate of interest could be obtained during all the period from 1806 to 1822, amounts to more than two millions;  that is the sum therefore which the bank took by the bargain of the year 1800 for the renewal of its charter in addition to all the other enormous advantages and exclusive privileges thereby secured to it.

If we are to continue them as they now exist, they will cost us not less than $12,000,000 annually, and if they are to exist for twenty years under this new life, they will then have received from the Government sufficient money, and more than enough, to twice redeem the last note the Government has ever given to them.  They will have lived for forty years, and the circulation absolutely given to them without charge and to be used at their own discretion for that time.

Under this bill they can be rechartered for twenty year more, and then for twenty years more, and so on perpetually.  So that this proposition is nothing more nor less than the perpetuation of this whole national banking system.  That is just what it is.  They are never to redeem their circulation.  Gentlemen who can stand upon this floor and defend such a system or can go before their constituents and tax-payers and defend such a system have, in my judgment, more ability than I give any gentleman on this floor credit for.  It is absolutely indefensible, this giving to these national banks, in addition to all they have already received, $12,000,000 a year bounty for twenty years longer.

Many newspapers throughout the country complain and denounce Congress as extravagant if we happen to give ten or twelve million dollars to improve the vast waterways of this country.  If we appropriate five or six million dollars for improving the navigation of the Mississippi River and its tributaries from mouth to sources to secure cheap transportation for the vast products of the Mississippi Valley, worth untold millions to the Government, we are denounced as being extravagant.  Yet, sir, they soundly berate us if we intimate an objection to subsidizing national banks at the rate of twelve millions annually.

Let us subsidize the Mississippi and its tributaries at the rate of twelve millions per annum for the half of the twenty years, and we will have deserved the thanks of the people.  Stop the banks and give it to the river.

Mr. Speaker, I remind gentlemen this will go home to the people in the coming elections, and gentlemen who vote to perpetuate this system will find it hard to explain their action in favor of this bill.  It shall go before the country, and such a system of legalized plunder, never before heard of under any form of government, shall have its infamy denounced in terms which are befitting and just.

They cannot exist, sir, unless we continue these bonds and pay this subsidy;  and that is what this bill means, as I said a moment ago, if it means anything.  Then the issue comes up squarely and fairly, are we in favor of continuing the public debt indefinitely or perpetuating that debt in order to perpetuate the national banks ?  It is nothing else.  It can mean nothing else;  and that is what this bill means, or it means nothing.

I have sometimes tried in my feeble way to convince gentlemen favoring the national banking system that there might be something else under the shining Sun that was better, and the gentleman from Massachusetts stated in his speech that he would favor the national banks until some one devised a better system.  That is the argument that is offered.  But I have not seen one of them yet who would devise another scheme or who could agree with any one else as to the system they could devise to take its place, and I would like to know what better friends the national banks have than those gentlemen who claim that there is no better system or plan that can be devised ?

Then, sir, if no better system than the national-bank system can be devised by Congress, we are driven to the necessity of stopping the payment of the national debt to continue them.  If we believe that is wrong, we are recreant to the trust reposed in us if we do not now and here seek to devise a better system, because according to the reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, and according to the admitted statement of the Committee on Banking and Currency, if their doctrine is to be carried out, and we continue to pay off the bonds, we start on the downward road of contraction, contraction, contraction !

What does that mean ?  Need I point you to the contraction of the currency from 1873 to 1879 and to its effects ?  Need I cite you to all authors of monetary science as to the effect of contracting the volume of currency upon the business of a country ?  Why, sir, a contraction in the volume of currency going on from day to day means simply enhanced value of money, or, in other words, a depreciation of all commodities and of labor.  There is a gradual shrinkage everywhere, and the merchant who to-day purchases a bill of goods does not know to-morrow at what price he can sell them, and if he has six months within which to pay for the goods, he does not know if at the end of that time he will not be a bankrupt because of the depreciation of property and shrinkage of the currency.  And so it is, Mr. Speaker, with the manufacturer;  so it is with the wage-earner;  an so it is with every business man.  He cannot enter upon business of any kind or embark in any business enterprise because he knows that the volume of money is contracting and prices falling from day to day.  He cannot afford to buy to-day, for next week's falling prices will leave him with his property or goods on hand, and worth much less than he paid for them.  For the same reason a manufacturer cannot operate, for the wares he makes will not bring cost in a falling market.  The shrinkage of money always brings falling prices and sudden panic.

And that is what you are invited to by this bill or banking system, unless you mean to say that you are going to perpetuate the public debt.  That is the condition you must face, and you cannot escape it.

Why not look at the facts as they really are;  and if we do not mean to perpetuate the national debt, then we must devise another system to take the place of the national-bank system, whether it be a better system or a worse one.  That is a situation we cannot escape.  We cannot postpone it, because contraction will go on continuously from time to time, from month to month, or from year to year, as we pay the debt.  And the idea of the Secretary of the Treasury that while the contraction of the paper currency of banks is going on, he will recommend that we shall also demonetize silver and further contract the currency is certainly not serious.

The gentleman from Maine a moment ago spoke with reference to the bill introduced here for the purpose or upon the subject of silver certificates, and I did not understand him to say what the policy of the bill was, but I understood what the report of that committee or the recommendation that it has made is.  I have stated that the object is to do away with silver dollars and silver certificates.  If I am mistaken in that I would like to be corrected by the gentleman.

Mr. Dingley.  I said that the bill did not demonetize the silver dollar, but limited the coinage to the actual demands of the people for circulation.

Mr. Bland.  I understand, then, Mr. Speaker, what it is, and the country will understand it.  It is simply to demonetize silver and have it coined in such quantities as the national banks shall determine.  That is what it is.  Why, we had just as well abandon the idea of Congress regulating the question of coinage, weights, and measures entirely.  We have just as much right to turn over to the national-bank agents the duty of coining money and regulating its value as we have to give them the right to issue Government paper and set a value upon it.  If we are going to abandon our duty to supply the people of the country with currency;  if Congress is going to abandon its duty under the Constitution of the United States, and refuse to exercise its functions in furnishing money to this Government, either paper or coin, let us turn it all over to the banks.  If they say demonetize silver, we obey.  If they should say gold must go, it will have to go.  Let the banks do the business for us.  The theory is that the banks are our agents, but the truth is we are agents of the banks.  What they demand a subservient Congress obeys.  They asked through the Secretary of the Treasury that the further issue of silver and silver certificates be stopped.  The Secretary has made the recommendation to that effect.  The bill is for that purpose.  The Secretary says in his annual report that we should stop issuing silver and let the banks supply the money.  The Banking Committee comply with the recommendation.

That is what it means.  It is a demand of the national banks that silver shall be demonetized.  And we may just as well let them do that thing without asking us to become cat's-paws for them;  we may as well turn over the whole subject to their discretion, and let them go on with it.

Sir, in the days of Benton, in 1834, when this same subject was up, rechartering the National Bank, the national banks were very much opposed to his proposition to so amend the coinage laws as to induce gold as well as silver to flow to this country to take the place of bank notes.  They denounced gold then as they do silver now.  They ridiculed gold and ridiculed Benton.  And because we to-day seek to bring silver back to where it was before its demonetization, because we desire coin in this Government that is contemplated in the Constitution, these same institutions that denounced gold in Benton's days are denouncing silver now, and denouncing those who favor it as silver humbugs as they called him a gold-humbug.  This proposition is intended to accommodate them.  They would demonetize gold to-day if it was necessary to do so in order that their paper should circulate.  For the purpose of supplying the vacuum that would be occasioned by withdrawing the coinage of silver and silver certificates for the purpose of supplying that vacuum with bank paper, they ask this Congress to stop the coinage of silver and the issue of silver certificates.  And that is the sort of legislation that we are asked from year to year to enact in order to accommodate national banks.

Mr. Speaker, while upon this silver question I desire to submit a few reflections in reference to it.  In the first place, a few days ago Congress abandoned its duty in reference to the tariff and turned that over to a commission.  We are asked now to abandon our duty in reference to the state paper of the Government and turn that over to a banking commission.  We have been asked heretofore with reference to silver to stop coinage and turn that over to another commission to meet with foreign governments and ask their aid.  When we talk of bills regulating railroad corporations there must be a commission for that also.  When it is sought to perpetuate these enormities and iniquities and to increase the power of these vast corporations that have grown up here, they are afraid to trust the representatives of the people and ask us to turn over everything to commissions to be controlled by them.  No, Mr. Speaker, we want no commission to meet with foreign governments on this silver question.  It is simply cowardice to talk of sending agents to foreign governments to ask them to restore silver to circulation as money.  As the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reagan] just now remarks to me, it is worse than that;  it is corruption.  And why ?  You take Great Britain, France, and other European countries, and their production of silver is simply nothing.  You take the American continent, and here is the production of that metal.  In the United States one-half of the annual supply of the silver of the world is produced.  There were in the year 1879 about eighty millions of dollars' worth of silver produced in the civilized world, and forty millions of that were produced in our own country.  That being our product, we ought to protect it, because the Constitution requires us to do so, by making money of it.  We produce one-half of the silver produced in the civilized world to-day, and yet we are too cowardly to take hold of our own product and establish its value in the market.  We must go to nations who produce nothing of it;  we must ask their co-operation to rehabilitate it !

Why, Mr. Speaker, all this is the demand of the national banks.  It does not come from the great mass of the people of this country.  Not at all.  When the Senate struck from the bill we passed in this House the unlimited coinage feature of the silver bill, it infracted every principle of monetary science.  It was that act that depreciated silver.  And why ?  Because it laid an embargo upon it.  It said to gold, "You can come into the mints and the Treasury, and go free in and out every door;  you are here recognized;  you are here honored."  But it said to silver, "You can come to the mints in limited quantities only;  and if you come in greater quantities than that we will barricade the doors and shut you out;  we will go into the market to depreciate you and purchase you at cheap rates."  And worse than that, it violated the very theory of metallic money.

What is the idea of metallic money ?  The theory upon which metallic money is based is simply this:  that gold and silver, being produced in limited quantities, by consent of mankind have become money, and that if both are taken to the mint free, given unlimited coinage, you may charge something for the coinage;  that is not the question;  but it shall be coined unlimitedly;  and thus nature supplies the demand for money.  That is to say, all the jurisdiction Congress has over the coining of gold and silver is to declare the relation existing between the two as to value, to declare what shall constitute a dollar in silver and a dollar in gold, and open the mint to both.  When it has done that its functions cease.  I do not pretend to say it is even necessary to declare it to be legal tender, for I believe it to be so under the Constitution.  Usually we authorize its circulation, we declare it to be a legal tender, and there we stop.  Nature, through the labor of mankind, in his industries in opening mines, in carrying on trade, supplies the volume of money more regularly than does the legislation of Congress when applied to the regulation of paper money.

Nature will supply these metals to this nation and to all nations alike;  and hence the volume of money will be steady;  it will not be contracted to-day and expended to-morrow for the purpose of enriching a few at the expense of the great mass of the people.  It will come in in a steady volume, so to speak.  You will have all the stock which has been dug from the mines for centuries back, and all the product of the future to draw from, which has been relied upon and upon which contracts have been based heretofore.  Hence it becomes a national and an international money, and is supplied to all peoples alike.

When you do away with that argument, you knock from under it the foundation upon which it rests.  And when Congress undertakes to say that it will regulate the volume of metallic money by demonetizing gold or demonetizing silver, or by limiting the coinage, it infringes every principle of metallic money and does violence to all true monetary theories.  You may as well go upon a paper basis and do away with the monetary metals entirely.

When you throw open the mints to the gold and silver of the world then you will have a parity between the metals in this country and in all countries.  We are able to maintain it ourselves without the aid of foreign governments.  They are not able further to demonetize silver.  On the contrary, the last monetary conference showed that they had gone as far in that direction as it was possible for them to go, and a little further than it was safe to go.

I say, then, that this nation, with its vast extent of territory, reaching as it does from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the lakes to the Gulf, with its fifty millions of busy people handling and transacting all kinds of business with a population increasing by immigration at the rate of a half a million annually, this great nation is able to utilize our own product of the precious metals without asking the permission of foreign governments.  Hence I denounce as a crime the attempted demonetization of silver or its limited coinage as embraced in that bill.  I denounce it as a swindle;  I denounce it here, upon this floor, as being in the interest of the banks and other corporations in this country and against the interests of the people;  I denounce it as a species of robbery which ought to be kicked out of this legislative hall, and I hope will be, and the authors left at home the next election.

I mean no disrespect to the gentlemen of the committee who have reported the bill.  I may have said a little too much in making that statement;  but I will admonish them of one thing:  they must answer for this before the people of the country.  If silver and gold had been in circulation in 1873;  if we had then been on a coin basis as we are now, and the proposition had then been made to demonetize one or the other of these metals, the people would have understood what it meant, and the proposition would have been denounced from one end of the Union to the other.  It never could have been accomplished.  And now that the people of the country have silver in circulation, although in limited quantities, you never can take it from them until the national banks shall step into the Hall of this House and into the other end of the Capitol, and, by threatening panics and otherwise, induce the representatives of the people to obey their behests and their will.

The Speaker pro tempore [Mr. Updegraff, of Iowa.]  The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. Bland.  If I could have ten or fifteen minutes more I would like it.

Mr. Burrows, of Michigan.  I regret the necessity for me to object.

Mr. Reagan.  The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Hardenbergh] said he would yield fifteen minutes of his time to the gentleman.

Mr. Smith, of Illinois.  I am next on the list, and I will yield five minutes of my time to the gentleman.

The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from Missouri can proceed for five minutes longer.

Mr. Bland.  I understood that I was to have fifteen minutes of the time of the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Reagan.  The gentleman from New Jersey, [Mr. Hardenbergh,] as a member of the Committee on Banking and Currency, said he would yield fifteen minutes of his time to the gentleman from Missouri.

The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from New Jersey has not yet been recognized.

Mr. Hardenbergh.  I yielded ten minutes of my time to the gentleman;  I am entitled to an hour.

The Speaker pro tempore.  The Chair cannot recognize the gentleman from New Jersey now for that purpose.  The Chair has recognized the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Smith,] who yields five minutes of his time to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. Reagan.  There has been a sort of courtesy extended in every debate of interest on this floor.  This is the first time I have seen any deliberate effort to choke down that courtesy.

Mr. Hutchins.  I move that the gentleman be allowed to proceed at pleasure.

The Speaker pro tempore.  That requires unanimous consent, and objection is made.

Mr. Hutchins.  I did not understand that objection was made.

Mr. Smith, of Illinois.  The gentleman from Missouri asked for five minutes more and I yielded that time to him.

Mr. Bland.  I did not state five minutes.

Mr. Smith, of Illinois.  How much time does the gentleman want ?

Mr. Bland.  I stated that I would like ten or fifteen minutes more.

Mr. Smith, of Illinois.  I will yield to the gentleman ten minutes of my time.

Mr. Bland.  I thank the gentleman.

I have spoken with reference to these national banks as they existed during the war and as they must continue to exist if they are perpetuated.  I have also referred to the fact that there are propositions pending here now looking to the extinguishment of these banks and the substitution of another system of currency.

We have this paper money now.  It is no use for gentlemen to talk about paper-mills, for we have a paper-mill in one of your finest buildings, situated on the banks of the Potomac.  The mill is there continually issuing bank paper at the expense of the people, I might say, except what is paid by the banks for their circulation.  There is your paper-mill;  it has already issued you paper money.  All that my bill proposes in lieu of this is to stop the issue of paper money at what it is and continue it at its present volume;  that is to say, to substitute Treasury notes for the amount of national-bank notes now outstanding.  For it is supposed (and the Department seems to so state) that the volume of bank notes now outstanding is as great as it will ever be, and in fact greater.  Stop the operations of your paper-mill at this point and issue your Treasury notes instead of bank notes.  That is all there is in this proposition.  Then let gold and silver come into the mints of this country free, and issue, if you please, your gold certificates and silver certificates to supply whatever demand there may be hereafter for paper.  The laws of supply and demand will bring gold and silver to us to supply the increased demand for currency hereafter.  Thus you have a system that is safe ---safer than the present one, because the volume of the credit paper currency will be fixed and cannot be contracted or expanded, and the supply hereafter must come upon a coin basis.  If that is not a better system than your national banking system, I know nothing of the theories of money.

Now, Mr. Speaker, why not adopt this system ?  Even if you do not allow the unlimited coinage of silver ---if you maintain the present limit--- you will have an increased volume of $2,000,000 per month, which will come in to supplement the Treasury notes outstanding.  We shall thus have a credit paper circulation fixed in amount, not to be diminished or increased;  and we shall have the metals to draw upon to supply any extraordinary demand.

The bill I introduce is as follows:

A bill to retire the circulation of national banks, and to continue them as banks of discount and deposit.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any national banking association organized under the acts of February 25, 1863;  June 3, 1864, and February 14, 1880;  or under sections 5133, 5134, 5135, 5136, and 5154 of the Revised Statutes of the United States may, at any time within two years previous to the date of the expiration of its corporate existence under present law, and with the approval of the Comptroller of the Currency, to be granted as hereinafter provided, extend its period of succession, by amending its articles of association, for a term of not more than twenty years from the expiration of the period of succession named in its articles of association, and shall have succession for such extended period, unless sooner dissolved by the act of shareholders owning two-thirds of its stock, or unless its franchise becomes forfeited by some violation of law.

Sec. 2.  That such amendment of such articles of association shall be authorized by the consent in writing of share-holders owning not less than two-thirds of the capital stock of the association;  and the board of directors shall cause such consent to be certified over the seal of the association, by its president or cashier, to the Comptroller of the Currency, accompanied by an application made by the president or cashier for the approval of the amended articles of association by the Comptroller;  and such amended articles of association shall not be valid until the Comptroller shall give to such association a certificate under his hand and seal that the association has complied with all the provisions required to be complied with, and is authorized to have succession for the extended period named in the amended articles of association.

Sec. 3.  That upon the receipt of the application and certificate of the association provided for in the preceding section, the Comptroller of the Currency may, if he deems it necessary, cause a special examination to be made, at the expense of the association, to determine its condition;  and if after such examination or otherwise it appears to him that said association is in a satisfactory condition, he shall grant his certificate of approval provided for in the preceding section, or if it appears that the condition of said association is not satisfactory, he shall withhold such certificate of approval.

Sec. 4.  That any association so extending the period of its succession shall continue to enjoy all the rights and privileges and immunities granted and shall continue to be subject to all the duties, liabilities, and restrictions imposed by the Revised Statutes of the United States and other acts having reference to national banking associations, and it shall continue to be in all respects the identical association it was before the extension of its period of succession, with the same rights, immunities, and liabilities:  Provided, That said associations are hereby prohibited from issuing circulating notes, and hereafter no national banking association shall increase its circulation or be organized with authority to issue notes to circulate as money.

Sec. 5.  That when any national banking association has amended its articles of association as provided in this act, and the Comptroller has granted his certificate of approval, any shareholder not assenting to such amendment may give notice in writing to the directors, within thirty days from the date of the certificate of approval, of his desire to withdraw from said association, in which case he shall be entitled to receive from said banking association the value of the shares so held by him, to be ascertained by an appraisal made by a committee of three persons, one to be selected by such shareholder, one by the directors, and the third by the first two;  and in case the value so fixed shall not be satisfactory to any such shareholder he may appeal to the Comptroller of the Currency, who shall cause a re-appraisal to be made, which shall be final and binding;  and if said reappraisal shall exceed the value fixed by said committee the bank shall pay the expenses of said reappraisal, and otherwise the appellant shall pay said expenses;  and the value so ascertained and determined shall be deemed to be a debt due to said shareholder from said bank until paid;  and the shares so surrendered and appraised shall, after due notice, be sold at public sale, within thirty days after the final appraisal provided in this section.

Sec. 6.  That national banking associations that may be continued by this act, and those whose corporate existence shall expire, shall be required to comply with the provisions of sections 5221 and 5222 of the Revised Statutes in the same manner as if the shareholders had voted to go into liquidation, as provided in section 5220 of the Revised Statutes;  and the provisions of section 5224 not inconsistent herewith shall also be applicable to such associations.

Sec. 7.  That all the moneys deposited in the Treasury of the United States for the purpose of redeeming the circulation of national banking associations shall be deemed surplus revenues, and used in the payment of the current expenditures of the Government, and in the extinguishment of the interest-bearing debt of the United States, in the same manner as other surplus revenues are authorized to be expended.

Sec. 8.  That for the purpose of retiring and canceling the notes of national banking associations surrendering their circulation the Secretary of the Treasury shall cause to be printed and engraved Treasury notes of the United States of the denominations of five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, and one thousand dollars, bearing such inscriptions and devices as he may approve, to be exchanged for the bank notes above described on presentation of the same at the Treasury;  and the Secretary of the Treasury shall cause to be issued said Treasury notes in lieu of such bank notes as shall become the property of the Government in payment of taxes or otherwise;  and that the bank notes for which Treasury notes shall be substituted shall be destroyed.

Sec. 9.  That the Treasury notes issued in pursuance of this act shall be receivable and payable for all dues and demands for which national-bank notes are now by law receivable and payable, and shall be exchangeable for legal-tender notes when presented, in sums of one hundred dollars or more, for that purpose at the Treasury of the United States, but when so exchanged shall be paid out of the Treasury again as other current funds;  and that said Treasury notes shall be redeemable at the pleasure of the United States, in legal-tender notes or coin, at the option of the Government.

Sec. 10.  That the Secretary of the Treasury shall make such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry any of the provisions of this act into effect.

This is the system we propose.  It is the system advocated by Jefferson.  I want to speak here to-day as a Democrat.  From the beginning of this Government there have been two opposing theories, one represented by Hamilton, the other by Jefferson.  Hamilton represented the idea of an aristocratic government;  he advocated national banks.  Jefferson represented a Republican form of government;  he did not favor national banks.  The Democratic party in all its history never established a national bank, while it has always been in favor of the free, unlimited coinage of gold and silver.  The Democratic party never oppressed the people of this land by legislation for the creation or extension of banking corporations.  It has never built up institutions of this sort, but has always done what it could to put them down.  In the days of Benton this war was waged;  and now to-day, nearly one hundred years from the formation of the Government, we meet the same issues and the same doctrines that prevailed at that time;  divided parties at that time.

We are called upon to-day to defend on this floor the doctrine that ours is a Government of limited powers, against centralization of power in the Federal Government.  Wealthy corporations seek to centralize power for their own aggrandizement.  This idea of centralization is dangerous to the interests of the masses of the people.  Centralization may protect wealth, but it destroys liberty.  Following Jefferson and the teachings of the Democratic party, I am opposed to building up corporations in this country upon theories or centralized government.  The same ideas that distinguished the Federalists from the Republican party nearly one hundred years ago distinguish the two existing parties at the present day.  I am glad to know that the Democrats as a party, with very few exceptions on this floor, will oppose the committee bill;  and this simply shows that history repeats itself;  that principles live eternally, although men may die.

Mr. Speaker, I have said that this national banking system must go out of existence, and that it is the duty of this Congress to institute some other system.  When the time comes for the consideration of this bill in Committee of the Whole, I trust that such amendments will be placed upon the bill of the gentleman from Massachusetts as will carry out that idea.  Let us wind up these institutions.  Let us require them, as their charters expire, to redeem their circulation by depositing lawful money in the Treasury;  and let this lawful money be used in redeeming the bonds of the Government.  In this manner we can pay off the public debt and get rid of a national menace.

Thanking the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Smith,] who has kindly yielded me a part of his time, I surrender the floor.

Mr. Smith, of Illinois.  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Dingley] desires five minutes to answer a few points made by the last speaker, [Mr. Bland,] and I yield to him for that purpose.

Mr. Dingley.  Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Missouri who has just taken his seat has made certain representations in reference to a bill reported by a majority of the Committee on Banking and Currency in relation to the coinage of the silver dollar, I deem it proper at this time to correct his statements.  If I understood him correctly he represented that the national banks, through a majority of the Banking and Currency Committee, had contrived a bill to demonetize the standard silver dollar and to take away from the people that dollar.  Am I correct ?

Mr. Bland.  Does the gentleman ask me the question ?

Mr. Dingley.  I do.

Mr. Bland.  I have shown that the demand for the demonetization of silver comes from the national-bank interest.

Mr. Dingley.  I am correct, then.

Mr. Bland.  Let me continue my statement.

Mr. Dingley.  There is no necessity for repeating it.  I wish to show, without taking up more than two minutes of time, that the bill reported by the majority of the Committee on Banking and Currency with reference to the coinage of the silver dollar simply provides that coinage shall be limited to the demands of the people.  Its sole purpose is to prevent the accumulation of silver dollars in the Treasury which the people do not want.  And allow me, in this connection, to give some facts bearing on that subject---

Mr. Bland.  Allow me, there.  In my argument I showed the demands of the people should control;  that the coinage of the silver dollar should be in accordance with the wishes of the people.

Mr. Dingley.  Precisely.

Mr. Bland.  But under the proposition brought forward on the other side, who is to judge of the demands of the people ?  You are to issue these as the people shall demand them.  Judged by whom ?  Judged by the national banks, the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Secretary of the Treasury, and not by Congress.

Mr. Dingley.  I agree with the gentleman that it is the people who should determine the amount of coinage of the silver dollar, and they will indicate their wants by the demand they make for them at the Treasury.  Now, what has been the demand of the people for the silver dollar ?  On the 1st day of January there were in circulation 35,758,043 silver dollars.  Since that time we have coined 9,183,700, and have paid out over half of them, and over half of those paid out have come back to the Treasury and accumulated there.

More than that, Mr. Speaker.  Of the $35,758,043 that were in circulation on the 1st day of January, $3,455,969 have also been returned to the Treasury and are there to-day.  Thus we have accumulated in the Treasury since the 1st day of January 12,639,669 silver dollars that the people do not want.  The people do not demand them, and the people not wanting them, the Committee on Banking and Currency say only those should be coined that the people want.

Mr. Bland.  Will the gentleman allow me ?

Mr. Dingley. Certainly.

Mr. Bland.  Now, Mr. Speaker, with all due deference to the gentleman from Maine, I suppose he would not demonetize gold for the same reason that he proposes now to demonetize silver.  Now the Secretary of the Treasury says that he will not issue gold certificates.  Why ?  Because all the gold in the country would be locked up in the Treasury.

Mr. Dingley.  I do not want the gentleman to make a speech.

Mr. Bland.  I am not making a speech.  I am merely saying for the same reason the gentleman would not propose to demonetize gold certificates.  There would then be no gold in the country, if gold certificates were issued, because it would all be locked up in the Treasury.

Mr. Dingley.  There is no law authorizing the issue of silver certificates for gold.

Mr. Bland. Oh, no.

Mr. Dingley.  There is a law authorizing the issue of gold certificates on deposit of gold. [Mr. Bland rose.]  I do not yield.  Allow me further to say in this connection there are $3,406,750 less of silver certificates in circulation to-day than there were on the first day of January.  So, practically, by silver coinage and the issuing of silver certificates, we have accumulated in the Treasury since the 1st day of January 16,046,419 silver dollars and silver certificates which the people do not want.  And the Committee on Banking and Currency simply say we should coin no more than the people desire.

Mr. Bland. The gentleman from Maine evidently did not understand my question. Will he yield for a question ?

Mr. Dingley.  I will for a question, but not for a speech.

Mr. Bland.  It is this:  Will the gentleman state why the Secretary of the Treasury will not now issue certificates for gold ?

Mr. Dingley.  My own judgment is on that subject---

Mr. Bland.  I ask the gentleman to read the Secretary's report.

Mr. Dingley.  I cannot answer for the Secretary.

Mr. Bland.  I will answer by referring the gentleman to his report.

Mr. Dingley.  I understand that.

Mr. Bland.  If you understand that, then you know that he says that he will not issue them because all the gold in the country would be locked up by certificates going out therefor, and that all the gold would be there in the Treasury and there would be none left for redemption purposes.

Mr. Dingley.  I cannot yield further.

Mr. Bland.  By this plan gold will be locked up just the same a silver.

The Speaker pro tempore.  The time yielded to the gentleman from Maine has expired.