1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 2001 

fn~ changes made by this bill in the existing law, especially in reference to the coumge. It would seem that all the small coinage 'of the country is intended to be recoined. 

Nir. Hooper's attention was called especially to the coinage. :M:r. 

HOH.\IAN also feared that all the small currency of the country was intended to be recoined, which would be a costly operation. 

1\Ir: HooPER, of ::\Ia"' chusetts. This bill make3 no changes in the ~xisting 

law m that reo-::1.1·d. It does not require the recoinage of the small coms. On 

the contrary, I understand that the Secretary of the Treasury proposes to issue nn order to to.!? the coi.nnge of all the minor coins, as there is now a great a _bundance of them m the country. Thesn.larics are not increased. They remam as th ·y were. 

.That w~s s::ttisfactory, and the bill, which was believed to be a sub- stl~ute With all the objectionable features as to coinage and changes s~nckcn out, was allowed to p::tss almost unanimously. 

The record flatly contradicts :M:r. SIIER~IAN'S assertion that the 

Hooper substitute, which passed, was ever discussed or considered, and 

provt.'s my assertion that it was passed without members knowing what 

It CQntained. I might add that they were deceived in regard to its 

provisions. 

On the m~tion to suspend the rules and pass the bill the vote was 110 yeas to 13uays. Not a word was saidaboutstriking down the silYer dollar. Now, i3 it true that the bill finally passed, as stated the other 

day by the Renator from Ohio, because silver was worth 3} per cent. 1~1ore than gold, and therefore the silver dollar was sought to be reduced 

1 rom 4121 grains to 383 grains? I have stated how the bill was passed, 

and nine-tenths of the members then in the House will prove what I 

ay is true. Of course, the provision striking clown the silver dollar 

and reducing its leaal-tender quality was in it, but the members of the 

Hou e, except a fa~ored few, were kept in ignorance of the fact. . The bill went to the Senate, reaching there on the day of :final adJOurnment for the session. I have the bill in my band as it :finally 

pa ·ed in conference. I received it this morning from the :file clerk, 

together with the report of the committee of conference, with all the 

changes made after it reached the Senate, with marks showing what 

the conference a,.reed to. I do not care to read details. It would take 

too long. All the provisions ofthe House bill in regard to reducing the va:ue of the silver dollar, because, as the Senator said, the old silver 

COtn was worth 3 per cent. more than gold, which was the pretense on Which he sai.d they were acting, were stricken out, the old dollar was dropped, and a trade-dollar of 4~0 grains substituted. 

b'Ir. SHERMAN. I will ask the Senator from Kentucky now to 

read in his speech the section of the hill in regard to coinage as it came 

~rom tho House of Representatives, and then as it was proposed in the 

eun.te. He bas before him now the document which shows the prop- 0· ~tion of the llouse of Representatives as it came to us. Let that be 

P.rtnted and then let the proposition of the Senator be printe(l side by 8Iue. 

~Ir. BECK. Here they are, sections 12, 14, and 15. 

li.Ir. SHERMAN. I hope the Senator will have that done. 

}i!r. BECK. I will. '\Vith the consent of the Senate, I will have that 

done. 

1Ir. SHERMAN. Let them be read. 

They are as follow!'~: 

?;'he propo ilion in the House bill was: fift That th.e silver coins of the United States shall t;>e a dollar,~ half-dollar o1· . Y-cent Ptece, a quarter-dollar or twenty-five-cent p1ece, and a d1me or ten-cent iJe; and the weight of the dollar shall be 3Si grains; the half-dollar, quartcr- 0~ fhr, 'n~ the dime shall be, respectively, one-half, one-quarter, and one-tenth i . e Weight of said dollar; which coins shall be a. legal tender, at their denomnut10nal >aluc, for any amount not exceeding .$5 in any one payment." 

The Senate sub titute, which Wru'! adopted, reads: 

That the silver coins of tho United Slates shall be a trade-dollar a half-dollar ~ fifty-cent piece, a quarter-dollar or twenty-five-cent piece a di~e or ten-cent fhec~; and the weight of the trade-dollar shall be 420 grains' troy, the weight of 

8 e !1-lf-<lollar shall be 12t grn.ms; the quarter-dollar and t·he dime shall be, re- 8~Jf1~oly, one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half-dollar; and said coins 

in an e legal tender, at their nominal value, for any amount not exceeding 5 Y one payment. 

Then followsc~f~~· 18. ha..4.ncl b~itfm·thcr enacted, That no coins, either of gold, silver, or minor 

inatioge, s ll hereafter be issued from the mint other than those of the denom-

}, ns, standards, and weights herein set forth. 

llo 1r. B~CK. The final change was made from 383 grains, as the 

ra~ bill proposed, to a trade dollar of 420 grains, which was 7& 

fe,.al t m~re valuable than the original standard silver dollar, whose 1:1; ~n er _quality they were so eager to destroy. 

fathc~s ~R~I.A.N. In other words, the dollar, not the dollar of the 

"as pr~>i~!~~ d?llar of 412'} grains, but the token dollar of 385 grains, Nir BECK or 1n t~e House bill. 

men ~ho denied ~hov1ded for by JUr. Hooper and one or two other 

knew anything a:bo~t they were pr?viding for it. T?e House never shown that· Mr G fi · Mr. Blame proved that; ]Ir. KELLEY has 

llECORD sh' · ar eld, over and over again, proved that; and the 

the proce di:s thtt he.:as present 1n the House and taking part in 

·ducin the . gs w en 1 was done. That provision was inserted re- denie8 th: silver dollar ~rolll: 412~ to 383 grains by a few men who 

I h t they were domg 1t. That is what I contend and I think fail~~~ proved it. Of course they got it in, else the schem~ would have 

XIX-126 

Mr. SHERMAN. But what I wish is to have the proposition of 

the House printed, and then side by side the proposition of the Senate, 

which lay upon our table more than two months, and has been read 

over and over again. 

Mr. BECK. What I complain of, and what I think I have proved, is 

that the House never knew what was in that bill. The bill was offered 

as a substitute for all former bills, and it was vouched for by Mr. Hooper, 

who presented it, that it had nothing to do wi~h coinage. It was upon 

the faith of that statement the House allowed It to pass, and the House 

was deceived. 

The Senate amendment is a curious commentary on what the Senator from Ohio the other day said about the old silver dollar being: deliberately demonetized because it was more valuable tha~ gold. When 

the bill came into his hands, a!:! chairman of the committee he struck 

out the provision which the House bill contained r~ducing.tbe dol~ar 

because of its overvaluation; he left no such dollar m the b1ll, but m- serted another dollar altogether; one of 420 grains, or 7~ grains more silver than the original 412} gra.ius, which he said was worth 3'} per 

cent. more than gold; and the bill was sent back to the llouse. and, so far as I can find by sea\Ching the RECORD, the House was never told of 

the change. 'Vbat occurred when it got back to the House? It ~as 

sent at once to a committee of conference. I turn to the RECORD agam, 

part 2, third session Forty-second Congress, page 1189, under the heading "Mint laws:" Mr. HooPER, of Massachusetts. 1\Ir. Speaker, I. rise for the purpose of submitting a report of a committee of conference, which I ask the Clerk to read. 

That was· this report, which no man could ~Y reading tell what it 

meant unless he had the bill carefully bE;fore h1m. 

Signed by the conferees. 

The report was adopted. l\Ir HooPER of 1\Iassn.chusetts moved to 1·econsider the vote by which thereport ~·ns adopted; and also mov~d that the motion to reconsider be laiu on the 

t:\ble. 

That is all the House ever did know. The House was never told, so 

far as the H.ECORD shows, that I C..'tn find, that the Senate had changed 

the bill from a bill reducing the value of a silver doller to a bill cre- ating; a new dollar altogether, one of 420 grains instead of 383 grains. 

When it came to the Senate the Senator from Ohio [Nfr. SIIERl\IAN] 

had charge of it, and it is headed again "Mint laws." 

1\Ir. SHER::\1.\.N submitted the following report. 

The report was concurn:d in, with not one word said about it, so that 

neither House had any opportunity, so far as these reports show, to 

know what they were doing. 

I need not waste time in regard to what took place when the House 

bill reached the Senate. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. STEWART] 

ha shown very fully what took place there. If the Sena·tor from Ohio 

is content with that statement I am. :Nir. Casserly, of California, was 

:in the Senate and other able and distinguished representatives of silverproducing States. Mr. Corbett, of Oregon, and others took part in the 

debate. Will any sane man believe that they deliberately consented 

ta strike down silver coinacre? 'Mr. SrrER~IAN says they all did. I do 

not believe him. When the House bill was brought up by 1\Ir. SIIERM..i~ the RECORD shows that he used this language: 

1\Ir. SHER:ItAN. I rise for the purpose of moving that the Senate proceed to the 

consideration of the l\Iint bill. I will state that this bill will not probably con- sume nny more time thnn the time con!'lumed in readi~g ~t. It pas!'lcd the ,Senate two years ago after full debate. It was t~ken up agam 1.n th.e House dunn?f. the 

present Con~tress. and pa sed there. It IS a matter of vital mt~r~"~ to the Go':'~ 

ernment, nnd I am informed by officers of the Government 1~ IS 1mpor~ant 1t s•10uld pass promptly. The amendments reported by the Comm1ttee<.n Fm;\nce 

]HC:ent the points of difi"eren~e bet\vecn. the two Houses, anti tb~y can g? to a. committee of conference Will10ut havmg a. controversy here 111 the ~cnate 

about them. 

Again he said: 

If the Senator will allow mo, he will see that the preceding section provides 

for coin which is exactly interehangeaule with the English shilling and the fivefranc piece of France; that is, a five-franc piece of France ·will bo tile exact ertnivalent of a dollar of the United ::ltates in our silver coin!\ge. 

Tb:1t was stricken out, and there was no such thing left iu the bill. 

And in order to show this whcrcyer our silver coin hall float-and we are provi<ling that it sho.Il float all over the world-we propose to stamp upon it, 

instead of our eagle, which foreigners may not u~der tn.n~, a~d 'Yhich they may not distinguish from a buzzard, or some other lnrd, the Jntrmsic fineness and 

weight of the coin. In this pra.cticnl utilitarian age the officers of the ~1int 

seemed to think it would be better to do that than to put tho engle on our silver 

coins. I must confess I do not think it is very important, but I think the Senator 

ought to be willing to defer in these matters to the practical knowledge of the 

officers who have charg-e of this branch of the Government service. I ~vill say thot 1\Ir. Linderman, whom the Senator mnst know, l1as auggcsted tins as ue- iug a convenient mode of promoting international coinage. 

Did net every word of that indicate the contiuuance of silver coinage with full legal-tender quality as i.t had always had? . International coinage in a trade-dollar, with a legal-tender quality 

of only $5, and even that poor quality was stricken out in 1875, so as to make it simply merchandise. That was the coin the Senator from 

Ohio said was to float, and they were providing it should float all over the world wherever our flag floated, and that it should be international 

coina(Te equimlcnt to the coins of other nations. LitHe wonder the 

Seuat~r from Nevada said to him, ''Whatever may be your construction of the meauinO" ·now, the words used then induced me to vote with 

vou, because you ~ade me believe that you were sending out a bona 
2002 COi~Gr.ESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARCil 13, 

fide silver dolln.r as good as any in the world." The Senate so believed. The debate showed that 1\Ir. Casserly announced that N emdn. 

alone was then producing $20,000,000 of silver, and the question wns, 

as to whether sil>er owners should pay the coinage charge of half a 

quarter, or one-eighth per cent.; nothiu.; was sug.;ested anywhere that 

the sil>er dollo.r was to be stricken down. The :::len~ tor from Ohio was 

as silent as the grrwe on that subject. 

Dut that wus not all. To show that whenever tbinw; arc not <lone 

as thc:y ought to be the track can lJe followed, alHl it will be in the 

same direction, the Hevised Statutes were adopted shortly afterwards. 

'When it is ~>aid that we hatl coined no sil\"er dollars, practically, up to 

that time, that is not the fact. 'Vc had coined in the month of Janu ury, lSi:>, and in the first twelve days of February, 1873, nearly two m i Ilion st:mdanl silver dollars of 412} groins, nearly one-fourth of all we 

ever had coined. Dy the way, if Senators will turn to Dr. Linderman's 

work on" .. foney and Legal-Tender," which yon willf1m1 in the Librury, 

you will sc we never hacl coined a gold dollar from the foundation of 

the Government until long after the di~covery of gold in California, 

and that we hall up to 181' about as much silver as we had gold coin 

of aU sorts. At the time we fong;ht the war of.J812 and the war with 

:Me.·ico, and acquired Louisiana, we were upon n. silver basi , if that is 

worth sugg tin~. All our acquisitions were obtained with silver coiu, 

the .Mexican dollar being the legal tender, as well as other foreign coins, 

mo. t of the ti~ne. The table furnished by Dr. Lintlerman shows it all, 

:mel the faet is proved by his tables that we had coined nearly two million stunrlard dollars in less than six weeks before this act of 1873 "·as 

pasted. 

I think I cau guess the reason whythobankcrsofEuropewere pu hing the actofl 73. The llothschilds, who held our bonds, and the great 

bankers of the Rhine, at Frankfort and e:l..;cwhere, were: of com~e, all 

anxion ~ for it to p:i! . 1\Ir. Hooper and the other bankers knew why. 

How much the Reuator from Ohio was alloy;ed to know I can not .-tate; 

but Dr. J,iuderruan showed in .._Tovemuer, 1872, that silver was falling, 

and ja.Jling rapidly; it had fallen from 3 per cent. premium down to par 

with gold when the uct was pas ed demonetizing it, and that it was 

snre to fall still more rapidly. All their bondswerep:1.yablc in it while 

it was being f'<tricken down in their countries. Dr. Linderman tells the 

whole story in a report made the ihll of 1872, after the bill had pas.'cd 

the Honse. He takes credit for the trade-dollar as having been lll'!'it 

su).!gestccl in hi report. Ho says e di covered very ~oon alter the bill 

pru·. a tile 1IOlLe-a~ early as September or October, 1872-thnt GerlWUl v -was going to selll1er silver. The Home had passed the bill, recollect, in ~Iay, 1872; it came to the Senate practically in December. 

Dr. Linderman iu hi.s book states what he said in the fh.ll of 1872: 

'11JC mnounL ofsilverbullion nnnunlly produced from tbemin~s of tho Unitecl , tntelllt:l!ll>c u incre cd clnring the last three ;cnr , nod now nmount. toauont S~,IJ0 I,OIJO pernunum, e. <·lu h·e oft he g-old it contains; and o. furtllcr inerca!'le 

in t !tis prcx.luc•t ucing quite <.-crtain, the future value of sil'l'or ns compared with 

gol<l iM n. maUcr of 111\ttono.l importance. 

The flnchmtious in the relntive vnlnc of gold and sil'l'cr dul'ing the last hundrc<l years hn\'O not heen very great, but several can c.'i nre now nt work nil 

tending to: 11 e.xccss of supply over dem ml for sih·cr, nnd its consequent 'dcpred>ttion. Among tllese cause. mny be ~;tated the incrclll:ling production, its 

demouctizntion uy the German Empire, nnd continued di!luse in this country, 

cxt•cpt to n. li111it d extent, a s. part of the circulntin~ medium. lt h:~~ nl o heen 1lemonetizecl by Japan, while in some other countri silver 

>in hns l>L~n wholly or partlully f' polled from cir ·uln.tlon by p p r mon y, the efi'cct of ·hich will IJe to hring to market a hullion large amount hitherto u ed n coin. The amount of ilver coin in the German Empire at th dat of 

tho enactment of the rocent coinn~e lnw (D •emb r, 1871), which elmng d tlle 

tanclm·dfrom ilvcrtogolU,i. estiru t dbycorupetentauthorityat 30,UOO,OOO, bcin~ C<!unl to Hvc year 'total production of the globe. E\'l'n if ~ih·rr shoulc.l be adopted b~r Germ ny for subsidiary coinage, not more than s:;o,ooo,ooo will b rcquir d for that purpo e, which willleo.v $.';00,-

0iJO,Il!lll, or ahout ll.OOO tons, to be di. po ed of a unllion. A mnrket for thi irumen"c supply of. ilvcrcnn onlyb found in snch oftheEuropcnn tatesnsmnintnitl the single Rtandard of sih·er or the douulc . tandard of gold nnd silver, and 

in ( 'hinn. nnd the Indies. 

The facts nuo'\'e" t d indicate the gradual bnt eventually certain adoption of 

the gold 4nmlnrd nnd con equent dcmonetiT.ation of ilver by nil commercial 

rountries. ~ •ot only is the tendency to adopt gold ns the sole standnrd 11.nd 

menAn re of Yn lno, !Jut lo use paper money rcueemo.IJlc in gold n.s the bulk of the 

circulating mcc.lium. 

Then he Jn·oceeds to show that gold would neccss::trily appreciate, ~hich he ·1illmeant the sa. me thing ns depreciation of property by reason of ;:il~er. being stricken down. I mn:y refer to his table giving the 

amount of s!l ver and gold we had then comed nncl the relation they bore 

to c ch otl~er in 1873, showing that the pretense th::tt silver was c1cmonetized hecnu c it wns either not a coin that the people wanted or 

bcc:mse it was more valuable than gold is not true. It was stricken 

do' 'll hec:m ·e the great gold brokers, foreign and domestic, saw that 

gol<l ''~a:; hel'oming morcandmorevalu.'\hle every day, andsilvcrwouhl 

necc.:· nrily fitll because of the al:tion of Germany. The protlnction of 

gold. h::ul J:tllen off in this country from $GG1 000,000 in l&>G to $32,000,-

000 in 11:;, ·uverprouuetion had gone up from less than $14,000,000 

fonr ye:trs before to thirty-od<lmillion dollars in 1873. That was the 

real tame of its being stril::en down in the intercs~ of the bomlholders 

aud the hnnl-e ancl the usurers of Europe and America. 

Bnt ~started to peal· of the fraud-aml I u e the worddeliherntelythe fraud committed by somebodv in the Hevised Statutes in demonetizing the silver coin then in existence. Hecollect the act of 18i3 did 

not do that. It left whatever coin hacl h~n coined as a legal tender 

for all debts. It only provided for coins in the future. The fraud in 

the Hcvi ed Statutes had to he perpetrated to consummate the act and 

to destroy tho e ·isliug sih·er money. The Hevised Statutes prufe sed 

to be simply a compilation of existing laws, nothing more. They so 

state oflicially on their face. General Butler presented them. This is 

"'hat he said, aruon;:!: other things: 

I de ire to pr miRe here thnL yonr committee felt it their bounden duty not to n!low, Fo 1i\r a t.hcy could nscerlnin, uny chann·o of the lnw. 'l'his erubodieH 

the la~v as iL is. Thu t ·mpt.ntion, of course, wns ;cry great, where o.lnw seemed to he unperf<.!ct, to perfect tt by the alteration of words or phr.:u;e.~ or to 1nako some change; but that tcmptutiou ba. , so fnr as I l::uow ancl believe lw.cu re- i. tell. 'Ye llnve not attempted. to dmnge tho In win a single word o~ letter so us to muko n. difl'crcut reading or dillcrcnt sen ·c. All thnt has heen done i!! to strike out the obsolete part mHl to condenRc and consolidate uml bring- together stntut.c. in pari mntc1·in, so thnL you ha"'I."C h<"rc, except in so fur r.s it iR llumnn to err, the laws or tho l:"uitcd ~lutes under which we now live. Audit will ho uce~ssary, if the bill JHI..~es Congrc · , thnt it shall pass' ithout nny one under· 

tnkmg to mnc1~~ the ln.w as it stands in this rcvisiou, hecnu e once beginning to anlC!Hl the revu=uon hy altcrin..,. the law from wlmt it is will leatl into an interminable sen, in whic·h we hnll never 11nd l'!ounding- ntl which will ncYcr fiwl n ~hore .. _]Jut. if there he nny omi"l ion of any proviHion of law the theory of 

th1s revH;;on 1s that thnt halluc supplied; aml to tllnt the committee desire to cnll the attention of the Ilou~e. 

Judge Poland followed, who had charge of the bill, perhaps wa 

chairman, nn'l saitl: 

As my friend from 1\ln. chu <'tis hn. Raiu, the committee have cndcnvor~u to huyc thi!'l redsioa 1\ J>erfcct ref1o:t of the cxi tin~ uationnl ~;lutute.. 'Vc felt awnre thnt if anything- wns introduced hy w y of chnng- • into tho~c statutc'i it would ue impossible thut the tl1ing sllouhl ever be cnrricd throug-h tho Ilou c. In the multitude of mt\!tcrt! that cume hcfure Cong-ress fur con. idcration, if "·c undertake to perfect aud am nd the '"hole body of tho no.tiunnl statute;~ there 

iA an end of any e.xpcctntion that the thing woulcl m·er be t·nrrie<l through either 

lfuu. c of Cougrc"l-4, aml ther fore tho corumiltco luwe cndc:.n·oretl to l!liminutc 

from this cvcrythiug thn.t \'I'Or.il of cllnngo in tho slight tdcgrce of tile exist in:; stntutt•s. 

So the Revisetl Statutes were pa sed; and yet, conplin~ thn.t.with 

what was done in 1873 in regnrd to the sih·er dollar, is it strange th:tt 

we llud in tho. , 1~eYised Statutes all the sil vcr coina.g:e of the country 

tllat was n. full legal tender for every do11ar of deht, public nnd private, 

demonetized and not allo vcd to ue a legal tender for more than '1) 

under and hy virtue of the Hcvi. e(l Statutes? 'Vltoen•r did it committed a fraud, n. palpable fraud upon the country. As I said nml repeat, it refJ.uirc:d such n.11rovi ion in the Hcviscd f-:itntutes to de. troy the 

existing sil Yer coiua~e of the country. 'Vhocvcr in. erte<l it <litl it in the 

interest of the bondholders, willfully and fraudulently. Passin~ from 

that, the Senator from Ohio, a.s the Senator from Kansas said in the 

sperch from ,..,.hieh I r .. d, declared that the strj]dncT down of silver coinage nn<l the suhstituting of the gold unit was nn A1~ericnu idea. I deny 

it, a tho Senator from Kansas did, as every, enator h:t:-J who spoke upon 

this subject. I ask f:icnators to rcall ihe report of .:.fr. HnntN, from 

which I woulcllikc to quote, made in 1838. He there shows ihnt ilver and gold, acting side hy side and treated hoth alike, wns the American idea. Gold, nnd goltl alone, was the itlea of the Senator from Ohio, 

but not of any other Senator or any other lending American that I 

know of. 

Why do I Ray it was his idea? :Ccca.u e he went to Paris in 18G7. I 

do not lmow whether he wrote the letter while in P. l'is or not, but at 

an international convention to which l\Ir. Haggles was the American 

delegate, appointed byl\Ir. Seward, in 18o7, in making his report in regard to the que tion what shoultl be the unit of value-a. question nev r brought up before for action in the UnitCll States, so far a I knm>, 

but ug~ -ted inn convention of European nation -:Hr. Ruggles reports 

to Ir. 1:3eward as follows: 

It wos then stnterl to tho Emperor thnt nn emincntAmcrican tntc.smnn-~ fr. 

SnrntlfAN,l:lenntorfrom Ohio,chairmnn of tho Finan<:oCummittecofthe 'cnnto 

of the United States, and recently in Jlnris-had wl'ittcn nn important nnrl intercl'ting letter, cxprcs ing his opinion thnt the gold dollar of the United States ou ht to be O.J?d r1:atllly might be rctluocd hy Congrcl4.'1, in eight untl yuluo. to eorrc pond Wllh the golclilv -franc pi co of IJ>rnuc ; Umt th h•tter wn.s now h -

fore the int rnationnl commilte , having tho question of uniform coin under lllJech~l cxamin lion, to ~vhich lett r, ns being o.ue of the Le.<~t intcrprctutions of 

the v1ews of the Ame1·1 uu people, tho nttent10n of the public nuthorilics of 

l<'rnnce wns re .. p ctfully in'l'itcd. 

Mr. SnER:'ILL ~'s letter had not then been l>rourrht to the attention of 

the American people, so far as I know. I thinJ:' he represented only 

himself. 

Tho Emperor then closed tho audience, hy repeating the a nrances of his 

grati!icn.tion that tho important international mcnsure in question was likely to rc>ceivo acth'o upport from the Unit<>d States. 

Tho letter of lHr. I:SJTErt.rAN nuovc referred to, dated th lRth of 1\Iny, l8G';', 

originally wriUctl in English, was 11re cnte<l in a. Fr nch translation n fewdnys 

after to tho international committee in fulls ion, when it wn rccc·i\·cd witll 

mtusun.l intcrcllt nncl ordet·etl by the committee to be print£ din ho!h languag-e:"~, 

.A. copy is herewith trnn milled for the informn.lion of the Department of~t tc. 

Further on, 'rhcn ihey reached an agreement on tllc single p;ol<l unit, 

?tfr. Hugglcs tool- uncommon plensure, he aitl, in giving great credit 

to his fdend, the Senator from Ohio, as being the man chiefly insh·umcutal in bringing nhout that 1' :mlt by the letter he had written and 

by the influence he had c.·erted. Mr. Ruggles onys: 

The c tnulishrncnt of tlle Ringle t:!udur«l cxdusi\· lv of gold is in truth the 

cnrtlinnl if not then 11-importunt fcatnre of the plnn propo• <1 hy tho conference, r li viugthe wholeRnhjcd by a single stroke of the pen frnm the p rplcxity,nnd 

ind!'ed theimpo8 ibility, of Jlcrmnucntly unifying the multiplicity of silv r coins 

scnttcrcd throug-h the yn.rious nation. of ].;urope. It ill o. wntter of world-wide 

congratulation th ton thi'! Yital point the dcl<"gates from the nineteen nations 

reprcRcntcd in the ronf!'r noc were nunnimon , not exc pt.ing- Franco i!.sclf, so strougly wcductl by the nntional traditions too. douule standard. 
1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 2003 

Then he goes on to state the controversy they had .among themselves 

and how they finally got together, Great Britain and Sweden standing ou.t alone in favor of their own moneys. Re adds; 

On all these questions the interests of monetary unification were m.aterially advanced by the publication at Paris of the concise but admiTable letter from 

Hon. JoHN SHERMAN, RenR.tor in Congress from the State of Ohio, a copy of 

which has been already communicated to the Departm~nt of State, but whieh 

for more convenient .reference is now transm.itted herewith in duplica.te, with 

its French translation. His opinions are unmistakably expressed in the following extracts: "As the gold fmne piece is now in use by over sixty m.illions 

of people of se'\"eral different nationalitie~ and is of convenient form and size, it may well be adopted by other nations a.<~ the 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." . 

He was for the one sta.ndard and thougbt France could be brougbt 

into it. 

Gold coins will answer all the purposes of European commerce. A common. gold standard will regntate silver coinage. In England many persons of influence and different chambers are eru·nestly in favor of the proposed change in the coinage. 'l'he change is so slight with them that an enlightened self-interesb will soon induce them to m.ake it. especially if we m.ake the greater change in our coinage. We can easily adjust the reduction with the public .credit1)rS in the payment or conversion of their securities, while private creditors m.ight be authorized to recover upon the old standard. 

When Mr. Ruggles's report was ma.de Mr. SHERMAN took it up and 

sought to carry its recommendations through Congress, and no doubt 

this is one of the things that he thonght attracted so much public attention. During the Fortieth Congress, June 9, 1868: Mr. SHER~IAN 

made a. report to the Senate in which he recommended a single standard 

exclusively of gold, and in that report used the language which the 

Senator from Kansas [Mr: INGALLs] quoted in the speech which he 

made: · 

The single stando.rd of gold is an Am.erican idea, yielded :reluct:J.ntly by France and other countries, where siiver is the chief standard of value. 

.A.t the clo~e of his report be said:. 

posed to be the representative of Wall street, in every form opposed it, 

and made a minority report in 'vhich he sa.id: 

A change in our national coinage so grave as that proposed by the bill should 

be m.ade only after the most mature deliberation. The circulating: m.edium. is a ma.tter that directly concerns the affairs of every~dny life, affecting not only the varied, intricate, and multiform interests of the people at home to the·mi- nutest detaii., but the relations of the nation with all other countries as well. 

The United States has a pecuJiar interest in such a question. It is a principal producer of the precious metuls, and its geographical position, most favorable 

i'a view of impending commel'<'ial changes. renders it wise that we should be in no haste to fetter Olll'selves by any new international regulation based on an order of things belonging essentially to the past. 

.Again he says: 

The movement proposed in the bill appears to be in the wrong direction. 

The standlu·d value of gold coin should be inereased-broughtup to our own, 

rather than lowered. 

He gives many reasons for that. Again he says: 

Th~ two streams of the precious metals, poured into the current of com- merce in full volume, will produce perturbations marked and important. Other co~rntries will be affected, but the United States will feel the effect first and nwre directly than any other, The Pacjfic Railway will open to us the trade of China, Japan, India, and 

other oriental countries, of whosa prepossessions we m.ust not lose sight. For 

years sil'\"er,fo:r reasons not tully understood, has been the object of unusual demand among these Asiatic nations. and now forms the almost uni'\"ersal me- diUlll of circulation, absorbing rapidly the &il'\"er of coinage. The enormous 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 sys- tem, though less faulty, ms 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 East· ern peoples, with whom we more than ever seek close intimacy. As th~y pre- fer this piece w-e would do well to increase rather than discontinue its coinage, for we must not deprive ourselves of the advant.a.,.ooes 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 Mexican prototype." 

So when Mr. SHER:\IAN and Mr. Ru!!gles managed to agree in regard t<> the single gold uuit, rind when 1.1r. SHERMAN presented it before the American Congress, it was met by a minority report from Mr. 

These reasons induce your committee to earnestly urge the adoption by tbe MORGAN and then dropped, it became .J·ust and proper for the Sen- United States of the g.eneral plan of the French conference. 

He attempted to show that the sole legal standard of gold was the ator from Kansas Cfr. INGALLS] to remark as he did in the speech I 

have just read: 

{)ne object most to be desired, while he insisted most urgently in re- In a .report made to the Senate .June 9, IB68, to aecompany ".A. hill in relation 

gard to public debts that it was dishonest and dishonorable to require · to the coinage of gold and silver," Mr. Sherman, now Secretary of the Treasthe holders to take pay in a. coin less yalua.ble than the coin of the ury. said: 

contmct. He said if we reduce the metal in our coin, as our public F~';~: a~~~&~~~~~~ ;;,o~~r~ss~~e~~h~~w!~:~ti.J1:~<ie~~:.\~~~~,ntly by 

debt is veTy large, we .shall have to pay our creditors $90,000,000 in No statement emanating from authority so respectable coul.d well be more addition to the face of the bonds. That was a small matter, however, devoid of truth. The original American idea was a single standard of silver. though he afterwards urged, as Secretary and Senator., earnestly and Go1d was an innova.tion, aud in my judgment a grave mistake. The as3ertion 

repeatedly, that the silver coin of the contract should be increased and of Senator SHEruiAN that the single gold standard was an "American idea" is so singularly incorrect that it seems almost like a premeditated preliminary to paid t<> the bondholders. In his report he urged the gold unit, chang- the fatal error of 1873. 

ing ours to the French standard, and providing for payment in addi- It seems as though the onlypressuTe for that action, so far as I know, 

tion to the bondholder. I will quote his language exactly: from any of the public men of the country was from the Senator f1·om 

As to public debts, the contract of loan is the only1aw that ought to afJ'ect the Ohio himself. He confounds the American idea with his ·OWn and as- Cl'editor until his debt is fully discharged. sumes that they mean the same thing. Mr. President, the truth is, 

Now, pay attention to this. I expect to read this again, because the and there is no use denying it, that from the beginning of the war till 

act of July 14, 1870, made all public debts payable in the gold and silver now the moneyed men of this country and Europe and theiradYocates 

coin of the standard value of that day, and eYery effort of Mr. SHER- in and out of Congress and their supporters everywhere ha>e sought 

MAN or anybody else to increase the weight of the silver dollar, by any persistently to make money out of the distress of this country. '!'hey 

additional number of grains, simply seeks _to impose a tax upon the peo- have attempted, and generally succeeded, at all hazru:ds, by means foul 

ple to the extent of the increase, in violation of the contract that he and fair, lawful and unlawful, to make themselves rich at the expense 

regarded as so sacred, when he sought to reduce gold. Perhaps poor of the great mass of this people. The demonetization of our silver coin 

debtors have not the same contract rights as rich creditors, especially was but one step in that line, a step that was in perfect accord with all 

when bondholders are the beneficiaries. ' the oilier steps that had boon taken and were afterwards taken,· and the 

:Mr. TELLER. What is the date of that? ! fr::mdnlent act perpetrated in the Revised Statutes, Tihatever may be 

Mr. BECK. J nne V, 18G8 ; it is Ur. SHERMAN'S report from the 1 said of the motive-s of men, of the openness or secrecy of the act of 1873, 

Finance Committee, on the relation of the coinage of gold and silver: · consummating and making possible the benefits they expected to derive 

Does nota4iifferent principle prevail as to public debts? As to public debt•, from the act of 1873, was ~nother and the decisive step in the same dithecontract ofloanis the only law that ought to affect the creditor until his debt rection. No man will e'l"er aYOW that he knew who perpetrated the 

isfnllydischarg·ed. fraud in the Revised Statutes. 

Note that. It ought to apply to the debtor ~swell; he has rights in When legal-tender notes were first circulated war was made on them 

all contracts as well as the creditor, in my opinion at least. by .all the bankers and money-changers from the beginning. That 

Congress- war was kept up, and kept up persistently, and by none more perSays l'l1r. SHERMAN- siste~tly than by the Senator from Ohio to the •ery end, and, indeed, 

. as tho authorized agent of the American people, is one party ,to the contract, and to th1s day. When the greenback was first issued the combinations of 

it may no more vary the contract by subsequent acts than any other c:lebtor bankers got together and determined that the greenback should be re- may vary his contract. As to the publi.c creditor, no legislative powet· stands di t d f: th d Th ll d that 't h ld between him and the exact performance of his contract. Publie faith holds the pu a e so ar as ey were concerne · ey a agree · 1 s on scales between him and the United States, and the penalties for a. breacl1 of this be go~d enough for everybody but them; good enough for the soldiers, 

faith are far mol'e severe and disastrous to tbe nation thR.n courts, consto.bles, the sailors, the contractors, for everybody except the men who held. the 

and sheriffs can be to the private debtm·. These penalties are nn.tional dishonor money-bags of the United States. That repudiation was consummated and inability to borrow money in case of war or public distress, and the ulti- m.ate result is the sure and speedy decline of national power and prestige. When in the Senate of the U ni.ted States-no doubt in the Finance Committee 

changes in our coin were m.ade in 1834and 1853, the United States had no public of the Senate of the United States. of which the Senator from Ohio was debt of anysiguificauce, and the precedents then made do not app1y to the pres- then n. distin!!uished member. The gold interest on bonds paid for in ent time. Now the public debt is so large that a change of 3~ per cent. in the ~ 

value of om· coin is a. reduction of the public debtof$90,000,000. Somnchofthis greenbacks at par brought the first evils upon the country and placed 

debt us exists in the form of legal-tender notes will be received and disbursed and kept aU the interests of the people under the money kings. For as money, and as its value for some time will be less than the new coin, no pl'o- .fi I b ha d 'th k' tate h I b vision need be made for it: but for so much of tbe debt as is payable, principal ear may e c rge Wl rna ·mg S ments t at can not su stan- or interest, in coin of a specific weight and '\"alue, proYision ought to be m.ade tiate I will read from a speech by Hon. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, quoting 

for its exact discharge in _ J; coin or its equivalent in tho new. Your commit- Mr. Stevens, who I suppose is at least respectable authority. J'lir. KELtee, therefore, propose an a ,endment to that effect. ~EY in b11r,:1peech at Philadelphia said, speaki.Qg of the money that was 

That quotation may be useful in the further discussion of some other 1ssued w .. $ the Senate inserted .the coin payment of interest on the 

points made from time to time by that distinguished gentleman. His bonds. 

proposition met with no favor as far as the history of American legis- Mr. KELLEY said: '"" 

lation publicly shows. Even Mr. Uorgan, of New York, who was sup- The House refused to eoncttr, and appointed a collllllittee of conference. with 
' -

·' 

2004 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. }[ARCH 13, 

Mr. Stevens as its chairman. They contested the matter until further contest was in vain. I remember the grand "Old Commoner"-

Said Mr. KELLEYwith his hat in his hand and his cane under his arm, talking to myself and 

another, when be returned to the House after the final conference, and shedding bitter tears over the result. "Yes," said he, "we have had to yieid; the 

Senate was stubborn. We did not yield until we found that the country must be lost or the banks be gratified, and we have sought to save the country in 

spite of the cupidity of its wealthier citizens." The bill went through, but not until he had expressed to the House and the country his fears. 

That crime perpetrated by the Senate of the United States or that blunde r worse than a crime, has cost the American people more than ah the war would 

have cost had the House bill been adopted as originally passed. That crime or blunder called into existence the gold room of New York; it invited from all 

the money centers of the world their most voracious vampires to come and fa t- ten upon the life-blood of the American people. It converted commerce into a mere system of gambling, and made such crea tures as Jay Gould and Jim Fis k 

possible in American history. Do I speak too severely? If I do, I will summon a voice from the grave to temper my severity. I have here the Congressional 

Globe. in which I find the following remarks, made February 20, 1862, by Thaddeus Stevens, chatrma.n of the committee of conference on the disagreein~ 

vetes of the two Houses on the Treasury-note bill. In submitting the report he 

said: 

".Mr. Speaker, I have a very few words to say. I approach the subject with 

moredepression of spirits than I ever beforeapproachedanyquestion. Nopet·-

sonal motive or feeling influences rue-1 hope not, at least I have a melancholy fo1·eboding that we arc about to<;onsummateacunningly-devisedscheme 

which will carry great injury and great loss to all classes of the people through- out this Union, except one. With my colleague, I believe that no act of legislation of this Government was ever hailed with as much delight throughout the 

whole length and breadth of this Union, by every class of people, without any exception, as the bill which we passed and sent to the Senate. Congratulations 

from all classes-merchants, traders, manufacturers, mechanics, and laborel·spoured in upon us from all quarters. The boards of trade from Boston, New York, Philadelphia., Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago, and 1\Iilwaukee 

approved its provisions and urged its passage as it was. I h :we a dispatch from 

the Chamber of Commerce of Cincinnati, sent to the Sec1·etary of t·he Treasury 

and by him to me, urg ing the speedy p::~.ss ge of the bill as it passed the House. It is true there was a doleful sound came up from the caverns of the bullionbrokers and from the saloons of the associated b:wk'l. Their cashiers and agents were soon on the ground, and p ersuaded the Senate, with but li< tie deliberation to mangle and destroy what it had cost the House months to digest, consider, 

and pass. They fell upon the bill in hot haste, and so disfigured and deformed 

it that its very father would not know it. Instead of being a beneficent and invigorating measure, it is now positif'ely mischievous. It has all the bad qualities which its enemies charged in the original bill, and none of its benefits. It now creates money, and by its very t erms declares it a depreciated currency. It makes two classes of money-one for the banks and brokers, and another for 

the people. It discriminates between the rights of difterent classes of creditors, 

allowing the rich capitalists to demand gold, and compelling tbeordinarylender 

of money on individual security to receive notes which the Government had 

purposely discredited." 

Again, in still more emphatic terms, and almost in repetition, only 

stronger, he repeats that it was the conspiracy between European bank- ers and the rich men of America, through the Finance Committee of the 

Senate, which brought about that condition ofthings. They bankrupted 

the country and made themselles the richest men in the world. 

What followed? I need not go over that history. You all know it. 

The usurers of the world bought the bonds of the United Stat.es with 

that very depreciated currency, averaging only about 50 cents to the 

dollar in gold, at the time. Of course they p3.id the greenbacks for them 

at par. One gold dollar bought two in paper; the paper dollar bought 

bonds at par, with6 per cent. gold interest. Thus12percent. wassecured, 

and they called that patri0tism ! They next had all the currency of 

State banks legis~ated out of existenca by a tax, so that their currency 

and theirs alone, as national bankers, slwuld circulate over the land. 

The principal of their bonds was made expressly payable in greenbacks. 

E,·en Mr. SHERMAN admitted that in 1868, in a celebra.teclletterwhich 

bas been read time and again, in which he denounced them as extortion- ers for claiming that the bonds should be paid in coin. Of course he was right, because each note had written on its back that "this note is a legal tender at its face value for all debts, public and pl'ivate, except 

duties of imports and interest on the public debt." Yet in the face 

of that, when Congress met in March, 1869, it declared, and Mr. SHERl\IAN led the column in the assault on greenbacks, that the greenback 

should not berecei>ed in payment of the principal of the bonds, although 

it was written.upon it that it should be, and that the bonds should all 

be paid incoin. Tho Senator from Nevada [Mr. STEWART] very properly said i~e other day that the advantages the bondholders bad reeiHd from Congressional legislation had added to their value 50 per 

cent. before the act of 1873 was passed. 

To make a lon6 story short, the advocates of the money power followed up and sought new advantages promptly. July 14, 1870, an- other act was pas ed, in which it was agreed that their bonds should be 

paid iu gold and silver coin of the then standard value, which is the same as the standard siher dollar of to-day and the gold dollar of today. They required that stipulation to be inserted in face of all the 

contracts, and the bonds were exempted from all taxation, State, Federal, and municipaL No tax has since been paid by any holder of 

them to State, county, -or city, or to the United States, no matter 

though the bondholder might be worth millions. Perhaps the Senator from Ohio was guarding his friends in that act from his proposed 

change in the gold unit. Ought they not to have stopped there? Had 

they not received benefactions enough to have satisfied any cormorant? 

They had degraded for their own benefit the currency issued by the Government to carry on the war and depreciated it for their own advantage, to the ruin of all others. They had become the sole bankers of 

the country that could furnish CUl'rency. They had declared that their 

own bonds should be paid in gold and silver coin in the face of an obligation written on the greenbacks with which they had bought the 

bonds; and then they had their bonds exempted from all taxation, 

State, Federal, and municipal. · All this time the distinguished Senator from Ohio was chairman of 

the Committee on Finance, and every one of those acts met his cordial 

approval, so far as I know, even if he did write in 1868 the letter which 

I believe I will again reproduce for the edification of the people, in 

which he said they were extortionists if they demanded anything elsa 

than greenbacks. 

He said to his friend: 

DEAR Sm: I was pleased to recei>e your letter. 1\Iy pe rsonal int erests are the same as yours; but, like you, I do not intend-to be infl uenced by them. My 

construction of the law is the result of careful examination, and I feel quit-e sure an impartial court would affirm it, if the case could be tried before a. court. I 

send you my views as fully stated in a speech. Your idea is, that we propose to repudiate or violate a promise when we offer to redeem the "principa l " in 

legal-tenders. 

I think the bondholder violates his promise when he refuses to take the sn.me kind of money he paid for the bonds. If the case is to be tested by law, I am right; if it is to be tested by Jay Cooke's advertisements, I am wrong. I hate 

repudiation, or anything like it, but we ought not to be deterred from doing 

what is right by fear of undeserved epithets. If under the law as it st~;tnds the holders of the five-twenties can only be paid 

in gold, then we are repudiators if we propose to pay otherwise. If tbe bondholder can legally demand only the kind of money be paid, then he is a repudi- ator and an extortioner to demand money more valuable than he gave. Truly yours, JOHN SHERMAN. 

But greed is never satisfied. Not content with all these extortions, 

they bad the law of 1873 passed striking down the silver coin. Why? 

Because Germany had united with England in doing so after she had extorted a thousand millions from France us a war indemnity. Silver was coming into use rapidly by the increasing prodnct of our own mines. 

Tb us the people would be able to Pfl.Y their debts and discharge the public obligations of the country with it more easily than they could with 

gold. But, if the money kings could strike down silver, which was one- half of the world's money, in conjunction with England and Germany, 

they knew this would make them the richest men in the world and impoverish e>erybody else. After securing the act of 1873 they changed 

the Revised Statutes, in the face of the solemn pledges given that thiU'e 

was no change in them, so as to destroy the legal-tender quality of,That 

there was of silver coin at the time, and about $2,000,000 of standard 

dollars bad been coined in the six: weeks preceding the passage of the 

act of 1873. Not content with that, it was not a ye:tr until we had a scramble in the other House, when the Senaror from Ma.s....:;achusetts 

[Mr. DAWES] was chairman of the committee, and Black Friday came, as we remember, in New York. The greenbacks cut quite au impor- tant figure at that tlm.e. The Committee em Finance of the Senate reported against legalizing an increase of some $5,000,000 or $10,000,000. 

But Black Friday, as I said, C!tme in the mean time and an increEI5e was made by executive order. I may not give the exact figures, but 

the increase was from $354,000,000 to $382,000, 000-some $28,000,000 

added to the greenback circulation by executive action. Several bills 

we1·e introduced in the House of Representatives and the question was e1'lborate1y discussed us to how much should be allowed as the maxi- mum of that currency. I\Ir. DAWES moved, as the RECORD will show, 

that the amount should be limited to :S356,000,000. Mr. Ellis H. Roberts, another member of the Committee on Finance, moved to make it 

$382:000,000. I, then a member of the Committee on Finance, moved 

to make it $4.00,000,000, and after a long debate iu the House it was 

made $400,000,000. 

The bill came to the Senate, and wn.s pnt into the hands of the setl:.ttor from Ohio. I think the committee reported $382,000,000. It was made $400,000,000 by a majority of the Senate, and it passed the Senate at $400,000,000. It was sent to the President, and because there were some other banking privileges in it he vetoed it; but it had pa...~ed 

both Houses, and a few months afterwards an act was passed fixing the 

limit at $382,000,000, and the President approved it. 

Recollect they had silver quietly stricken down during this period. 

The Revised Statutes bad been adjusted to that end fraudulently. No 

man will deny that the change in the compilation of the statutes was fraudulent; I repeat that with emphasis. The act of 1873 was, as I 

think I have shown, secret aml unknown to a large majority of the 

Representatives of the States and people; the change in the Revised 

Statutes was a fraud, purposely committed to consummate the advantages the money power bad gained by the other act. There is not a man in either Honse who will dare appear before the American people and 

say that he knew at the time that the Revised Statutes were altered so as to take away the legal-tender quality from the existingsilver dollar. 

TbeSenaror from Ohio will notadmitthatheknew ::mythingaboutthat. 

That change was secretly made, so secret that even the Senator from 

Ohio did not know it, I assume. Yet it was done; and after it was done and the bankers and the moneychangers were having everything their own way, the next great movement in their interest was to strike down the greenbacks, destroy their 

.legal-tender quality; indeed, destroy them alrogether. The Senator 

.from Ohio labored in season and out of season to strike down everything but national-bank notes and gold. Silver had been effectually destroyed, as they assumed by prohibiting any J110re coinage, and no legal 
; 

1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 2005 

tender beyond $5; even the $5legal-tender quality was taken away from 

the trade- dollar; the national banks, through their currency, were sought 

to be made omnipotent over the land. 

That was the next move of the Senator from Ohio as chairman of the 

Finance Committee. Recollect every national-bank note is a legal 

tender to you, and to me, and to every contractor, and to every soldier, 

and to every sailor, and for every obligation of the Government except 

interest on the public debt and customs dues. Their bank notes were re- deemable in lawful money. The greenback was assumed to be lawful 

money, whether it had a legal-tender quality or not. The banks would 

not take their own notes in discharge of the obligations due to them by 

the Government; but you and I and everybody els~ had to take them. 

With gold, and gold alone, with the greenback destroyed, with silver 

out of the way, who could get a dollar to pay his debts with unless he 

went to a national bank and paid whatever premium they saw fit to 

ask him? Nobody. That was the next grea,t move on the boards, and 

the Senator from Ohio was the leading player. 

Under his management the banks were to be made masters; that was the great struggle the Senator from Ohio was making all the time. 

Take the act about which he and others have boasted so much, theresumption act. 1 hope Senators will read it carefully. You will find 

it in volume 18 of the Statutes at Large, page 296. The second section 

allows gold to be coined free of charge. '.rhat was another move. They 

had paid one-eighth of 1 per cent., or perhaps one-fourth of 1 per cent., 

before that time. This was in 1875 recollect, while silver was still 

demonetized. They were to have thereafter all their bullion coined 

ii·ee. England had, they said, done the same thing. England, of 

course, to carry out her policy, bad done just what ~fr. SH~l\IAN and 

his friends were doing here, making gold, and gold alone, the standard, 

and the bondholder or the holder of consols who cont.rolled the gold, 

and he alone, was master of the situation. England had provided by 

statute that for every standard ounce of gold offered to the Bank of En~1and the bank should pay in their own notes, which could be con- verted into gold iu a minute, £3 17s. 9d. They had thus fixed the 

value for gold so that it could not fluctuate. This statute had ours coined free of charge, and in the same statute they provided tha,t all 

limitations should be taken away from national-bank notes; they 

should issue just as many as they pleased, a thousand millions if they 

wanted to. Let me read: 

That section 5177 of the Revjsed Statutes of the United States, limiting the ag- gregate amount of circulating notes of national banking associations, be, and is 

herebv, repealed; and each existing banking association may increase its circulating notes in accordance with existing law without respect to said aggre- gate limit ; and new banking associations may be organized in accordance with 

existing law without respect to said aggregate limit; and the provjgions of law 

for the withdrawal and redistribution of national bank currency among the 

several States and Territories are hereby repealed. 

That was another of their schemes. When the original banking act was passed the provision was to divide the currency allowed, about 

$350,000,000, among the States according to wealth and population. 

Kentucky had about the same population as Massaehusetts, paying more taxes, not perhaps quite as rich in previously accumulated wealth 

according to the census, but needing mone:t quite as much. Yet Massachusetts was allowed about $60,000,000 of national currency and Kentucky was allowed $7, 000,000. 

That same year I raised the question of a legal redistribution in the 

Ways and Means Committee. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. 

DAWES] agreed that I was right. We forced a redistribution. Fiftyfive million dollars was to be taken from those banks in the East which 

hftd received it in violation of law, and which Mr. Knox had favored 

beeause of their loyalty-for that seemed to be one of the things that was necessary for national banking under him-and Congress ordered a redistribution. Then came the panacea. They did not want to give 

up the money. They had all the bonds, they had all the circulation, 

they said, '' Oh, no; make banking free, make the circulation without limit," and they did so in order to keep the $55,000,000 that the 

law the year before had ordered them to give up. When they got that 

done, they said that the legal-tender notes should be reduced down to 

$300,000,000 before resumption day, which was January 1, 1879, and 

after that day they were all to be destroyed. 

The resumption act provides: 

And to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and provide for the 

redemption in this act authorized or required, he is authorized to use any sur- plus revenues, from time to time, in the Treasury not otherwise appropdated, 

and to jgsue, sell, and dispose of, at not less than par, in coin, either of the descriptions of bonds of the United States described in the act of Congress approved 

July 14, 1870, entitled ·~An act to authorize the refunding of the national debt," 

with like qualities, privileges, and exemptions, to the extent necessary to carry this act into full effect, and to use the proceeds the1·eof for the purposes aforesaid. 

Every greenback was to be destroyed after January, 1879, and all 

but $300,000,000 before that date, by the act which the Senator from 

Ohio had passed. He would not say so distinctly at the time, that the 

greenback was to be absolutely destroyed. He did not like to speak 

out. That was one of the things that he was very particular about, 

but that he did intend to destroy all the greenbacks absolutely I suppose he will hardly deny himself, although I believe he said he changed 

his mind afterwards. Mr. Bayard, then a Senator from Delaware, was 

making a speech in the Senate of the U nitecl States on the 27th of January, 1880, when the question came up whether this resumption act _ necessarily destroyed the greenbacks and authorized the sale of bonds 

at any rate of interest that the Secretary of the Treasury n:llght see fit 

in order to get the money to do it with. Mr. Bayard said: 

During the debate which attended the pasgage of the resumption act the 

present Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Sherman, who had charge of the bill in 

this body, was asked by several Senators, myself among the number, whether 

by the redemption of the United States notes under that act they were finally to be retired and destroyed, and he declined to gi >e any construction whatever to the law on that point. :Mr. EDMUNDS. :May I ask the Senator if in his mind there is any doubt at all as to what the construction of that act was? :Mr. BAYARD. I was unable to say what its construction was. 

Mr. Bayard became quite complimentary to the Senator from Ohio, as he will observe; 

I was unable to say what its construction was. I thought it was a doublefaced juggle intended to catch the votes of contractionists in one direction and 

of inflationists in the other. I said so at the time, and I withheld my vote, for I thought it was not treating a great subject mth proper respect to legislate upon it in such a way. I therefore came to no construction. I was disposed to believe that with a Secretary favoring one view it would be made a. means of 

contraction; under the other view, which it seems has been adopted by many, it would become a means solely of inflation, because there was no limit put upon the notes to be issued by the Government to the national banks, and there was no security that the Treasury notes retired nominally in the course of re- demption would not be reissued again by the Treasury; and when the author 

of the bill-no, I will not say the author of the bill, for I have understood he was not the author of the bill, but he was the gentleman in ~barge of the billdeclined to say what was intended by it, and what its effect would be, I believed 

then that there was some snare, and that it was an improper way of dealing 

with the subject, and hence the measure was not fit really to be before the leg- jglative body. Mr. EDMUNDS. My apology for interrupting my honorable friend, to all of 

whose very interesting and satisfactory speech I am sorry I have not been able to listen on account of an engagement elsewhere, jg that I thought it right it 

should appear in that connection that I voted for the act of 1875, because, on o. careful examination, it was to my mind perfectly clear, no matter what the pres- ent Secretary of the Treasury chose to think about it or chose not to say abou~ 

it, but on the bill itself that I was ,·oting for, it was perfectly clear that the re- demption that that act provided for, both before the 1st of January, 1879, and 

afterward, was a redemption which took out in point of law from exjgtence aU the United States notes that should come in in the methods provided by that act. And I am inclined to think that if my honorable friend would now exam- ine the statute he would not have any doubt upon it at all. 

Therefore I am justified in assuming that to be the object and intent 

of the resumption act. They had destroyed silver, and they now passed an act to destroy the legal tender. Everything ·was working as they 

desired, when the representatives of the States and people began torealize what was going on, and they stepped in and prevented these things 

from being done, first by restoring silver us a legal tender, and by the 

act of 1878, forbidding the reduction of the greenbacks below $346,000,- 000. Then the struggle began to take away their legal-tender quality; 

that was the next best thing for the bankers. Recollect, and I want Sen a.- tors to examine tor themselves, when the act rechartering the banks was- passed all their notes were made redeemable in lawful money, not in 

legal-tender money. The word ''legal tender" wasneverinsel'tedonce; 

it was kept out on purpose, so that the legal-tender quality should be 

striken down from these very notes and yet be of sufficient quality to 

redeem the national-bank circulation. 

In view of what I read in regard to our solemn obligation to our public creditors in the report made by the Senator from Ohio, as to the 

public debt being such a sacred public obligation that the coin in which 

it was payable could not be changed, I wish to call attention to what he was told by the law officers of the Government when he insisted that 

the bonds should be paid in gold and in gold alone. He asked for an 

opinion from the then Attorney-General of the United States upon that 

subject, and he received it. April 27, 1877, Mr. SHERMAN wrote the 

following letter, which I have read before, asking Mr. Devens whether or not the bonds he was about to issue could be made payable in gold 

and gold alone, which he thought for many reasons might be desired: 

.TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, 

Washington, D. C., April21, 1877. 

SIR: I beR: leave to call your attention to, and ask your opinion upon, the following questions gromng out of the refunding act of July 14, 1870, to wit: 

Can I stipulate in the body of the 4 per cent. bonds about to be issued that 

they shall be redeemable in coin of the present standard value; that is, the 

standard value at the date of their issue, or mnst it be the date of the law? 

I submit a statement prepared byRon. H. F. French, Assistant Secretary, having reference to the laws. It may become important to the public interests to make the new bonds payab Ie in coin of the present standard; that jg, gold coin. 8ome doubts have been ex- pressed upon whether previous bonds issued under acts passed prior to 1873 are not legally payable in silver coin. This question may become impot-tant, as any doubt upon the legal terms of a public security affects its value. 

Very respectfully, 

Hon. CHARLES DEVENS, 

.Attorney-General. 

JOHN SHERMAN, Secretary. 

:M:r. Devens told him officially on the 26th of .April, 1877, in answer 

to his question, that he regarded it as his bounden duty to recognize 

the fact that all obligations were payable in the coin of July 14, 1870, 

silver as well as gold, which every lawyer has recognized since, although it may be Jay Cooke's pronunciamientos and declarations have 

been paraded here once or twice and all sorts of sophistry flung in to 

make a show of equitable doubt. Mr. En:rtroNDs, Mr. Matthews, 

Mr. Thurman, everybody, as well as Mr. Devens, has declared that 

the bonds of the United States can all be paid fairly, honorably, justly, 

I I 
', 2006 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARcH 13, 

in the lawful money that existed July 14, 1870, of t,he then standard 

value. 1\'fr. Devens's letter is as follows : 

DEPARTllillNT OF JUSTICE, Washington, .April26, 1877. 

Sm: In answer to your letter of the 21st instant, requesting my opinion upon the following question growing out of the refunding act of July 14,1870, to wit, ''Can I stipulate in the body of the 4 per cent. bonds about to be issued that they shall be redeemable in coin of the present value, that is, the standard value at the date of their issue, or must it be the date of the law?" I have the honor to reply: 

The act provides for the issue of bonds "redeemable in coin of the present standard value." The word "present" undoubtedly refers as a matter of date to the time when the act was passed, and not to the time when the bonds were thereafter issued. It contemplated that a long period would elapse bef.ore it would finally be carried into effect, and that changes in the coinage of the coun- try might occur duting that period. · Whatever changes in the coinage should occur, these bonds were, however, to be redeemed in coin of the standard value as it e.Usted at the date of the net. By this provision the holder was guarded against any depreciation that might take place in the value of the coin, and the Government would not be com- pelled to pay the additional value should the coinage be appreciated. All the bonds issued unde1· the act were to stand alike, no matter what was the date when such bonds were issued. Each was to be redeemable in coin which was included in the authorized coinage of the country at the date referred to, it being of the standard value as it then existed. Since the law was passed no change bas taken place in the standard value of the coin. It is understOod that there has been a certain change in the coinage of the country, and that sih·er dollru·s have now ceased to exist practically as coin. It bas been further provided by the statute of February 12, 1873 (Revised Stat- utes, sections 3585, 3586), that "the silver coins of the United States shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for n.ny amount not exceeding $5 in any one payment." 

Notwithstanding this practical change in the coinage of the country and the passage of this act in regard to legal tenders, the form of bond to be issued by you should not be changed so far as the mode in which it is to be redeemed is concerned. It was not intended that this should be varied fl<!cording to the changes which might be made in the coinage, because a definite rule was given 

by reference to the coin of a. particular date. That which will pay the bonds heretofore issued under this act will pay the bonds which you may hereafter issue. 

It can not be authoritatively said that the words "payable in coin" or "paya,ble in gold" are eq u ivalentto the words used by the statute. Even if this leaves opeu for discussion the question whether bonds issued under this act are or are not redeemable in silver coin of the character and standard which existed July 

14, 1870, it is not a doubt which it is in your power to remedy by the use of wor<ls in tbe bond other than those which this statute provides . . While I comprehend the difficulty suggested in your letter and the conven- ience that there might be in removing any question upon this matter, I am, therefore, of opinion that it would not be safe to issue the bonds, except as re- deemable in coin of the standard value of July 14,1870. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

OHAS. DEVENS, AUomey-Gen.eral, Hon. JoHN SHEB.MAN, 

Secretary of the T!·easury. 

Although Mr. Sherman had received that opinion from the AttorneyGeneral, and although every bond that was issued had written upon 

its face that it was so payable, five months after that opinion was re- ceived by him, on the 3d day of December, 1877, that distinguished 

gentleman, as Secretary of the Treasury, with the opinion of the Attorney-General in his hand, wrote this to Congress: 

hJ:~~:~e~~~~~cf~blic interests demand the issue of silver dollars-a subject 

This was in 1877, recollect, when he was resisting it with all his 

mightit is respectfully submitted to Congress that an express exception be made requiring that gold coin alone shall be paid for principal or interest on bonds issued to public creditors since February 12, 1873, the amount of which is $592,-

990,700. '.rbese bonds have entered into the markets of the world. If the mar- ket value of the silver in the new coin is less than the gold dollar, a forced pay- ment in the new coin is a repudiation of a part of this debt. • 

That was his opinion and recommendation; that was what he desired 

to ad upon in the face of an opinion from the Attorney-General, in the 

face of the written indorsement on the back of every bond that it was payable in coin of the standard value of July 14, 1870. Yet us Secretary of the Treasury be denounced the Jaws of his country, as construed 

by the Attorney-General, when they militated against the views that 

he entertained in the interest of the bondholders, and called the law 

repudiation of a part of the public debt; and be was EO anxious to get 

clear of the silver dollar that in 1879, in his report as Secretary of the 

Treasury, he demanded that there should be no more than 50,000,000 

silver dollars issued at the outside, saying that beyond that they could 

not be maintained. This is what he said; let me read it: 

In the last annual report the Secretary statedHe began very early-

" It would seem to be the best policy for the p1·esen t to I im it the aggregate issue of our silver dollars, based on the ratio of 16 to 1, to such sums as can clearly be maintained at par with gold, until the price of silver in themarketshall assume a definite ratio to gold, when that ratio should be adopted and our coins made to conform to it: and the Secretary respectfully recommends that he be author- ized to discontinue the coinage of the silver dollar when the amount outstanding 

shall exceed $50,000,000." 

That was in the report of 1878. I read from the 1·eport of 1879. 

After quoting the recommendation in his report of 1878, which I have 

just read, he says: 

He again respectfully calls the attention of Congress to the importance of further limiting the coinage of the silver dollar. 

He demanded payment m gold alone in the face, as I have said, of 

his own declaration demanding that we should pay $90,000,000 to the 

public creditors because by the change of coin he proposed in 1868 the 

credit.or would get over 3 per cent. less value. Now, in 1878 he wanted 

to pa.y the creditor in gold, and gold alone, on the bonds that he had 

issued, and denounced payment in silver as repudiation because it had 

depreciated 10, 15, o~ 20 per cent. by his own bad legislation. He 

cared nothing for the tax-payers or their rights; his sympathies were onl_y aroused when the money was to go into certain rich people's pockets. That is one reason why I said to the Senator from Ohio the other 

day that while he may be the President of these United States his con- duct in regard to the act of 1873, with all his great financial ability, 

exercised as it has been always in the interest of the money power, 

will not be a record he will be proud of when he comes before the people for their votes. I am done with that matter, and think I have 

made my promise good. Now as to my coin-certificate bill. The sil- ver dollar! 1\Ir. President, war has been made upon the silver dollar ever since its recoinage was ordered in 1878. I have more than once shown how absurd and how untrue all the predictions about the silver 

dolln.r driving gold out of the country have proved, and I need notrepeat my former statements. 

Every Secretary of the Treasury, all the bondholders everywhere, 

all the men who wanted to depreciate the price of property (and they 

have the world over since 1873 reduced the va.lue of all the property of 

the people 35 per cent. by striking down half of the world's coinagethat I will prove before I sit down-by reports made afte1· ca1·efu1 investigation) predicted the dire effects of remonetizing silver. Yet I can show that when gold was abundant, coming from Australia and 

California from 1850 to 1873, and silver was an equal partner, the 

property of the world increased in value 40 per cent., while from 1873, 

after we struck down silver and put all the money of the country and 

power over the property and products of the country into the hands of a few men, property bas gone down 35 per cent. by this reverse action; 

yet those men ~1 tell you that we should stop silver coinage, because 

that is the way to force the European nations to agree to use it. "Do 

not coin any more," they say, and you will ultimately put up the value 

of silver. What keeps it at even thepointwbereitis? Simply Ameri- can coinage; simply its scanty use by this great leading country in spite 

of the combinations of Europe, in spite of the efforts made here in 1873, 

and maintained even now. The people rose in their might and overrode . the veto dictated by the able Se~retary of the Treasury at the time 

President Hayes vetoed the bill of 1 78. The then Secretary of the 

Treasury, now Senator from Ohio, was no doubt the inspiring cause of 

that veto of Ur. Hayes; but the American people had found out what 

had been done. Their representatives promptly passed the bill for re- coinage overwhelmingly over the veto, and the bondholders commenced 

clamoring from that day on that we ought to stop it. . 

Those who urge this courSe say they are the friends of silver. What 

does England want us to do? Stop coining silver, of course. Wha.t does 

Germany want us to do? Of course they want us to stop coining sil- ver. We are the great silver-producers of the world; the moment we stop our silver coinage down silver goes; that is what England wants 

for India; that is what they all want for their own colonies. That is 

what they want us to do, and we are told that will make them, after we break down our silver coinage and all our silver indus tries, return to 

silver coinage. . Who ever heard of an army sun;endering to the enemy on the battle-field at discretion as the best means of gaining a victory'? 

What kind of a friend would you regard him who ad vised such a course? 

That is what they want; all the advocates of gold, at home :md a.broad, 

advise us to do nothing more and nothing less than surrender at discre- tion. Advice of that sort is simply humbug, or the baldest hypocrisy. 

A few plain facts upset all their speculations and gloomy predictions. 

Here they are: 

When the act of 1873 was passed there were only $13G,OOO:OOO of 

gold in the Unit-ed States. When the act of February 2 , 1878, was passed there were $213,000,000. This is from the official statements of 

the Secretary of the Treasury. On the 1st of July Just, ali the close 

of the last fiscal year, we had $654,520,000 of gold; we had only coined 

$266,000,000 of silver, all told, since 1878. 

The amount of gold that was added to our stock was $175,000,000 more of gold since 1878 than we have coined of silver since 187 . And 

yet we were told by the honorable Sena.tor from Ohio, when Secretary 

of the Treasury, and it has been dinned into our ears ever since by all 

the doctrinaires that Gresham's law would make gold take wings and 

fly to more favored climes; that we would be on a silver basis every six 

months for the last eight years, and loss of credit at home and abroad 

would involve widespread ruin and national dishonor. I staml on the 

facts to disprove all their speculations; one fact is worth a thousand 

theories. One hundred and seventy-five million more of gold doUar.s 

ha>e come to this country since we began to coin silver than we have 

coined of silver dollars, and in the year just closed the official report 

of the Director of the 1\Iint shows that the surplus gold imported over gold exported was thirty-three and one-half millions. 

The report further shows that the average annual product of gold in 

thiscountryl1as been less than $33,000,0001orthe last ten years, and that 

nearly $13,000,000 are used in the arts, in making watcbe, and the 

ten thousand things which it goes into leaving only $20,0UO,OOO per 

annum, or $200,000,000 for the decade for use as coin, so that we ha.T"e 

drawn from foreign countries under this system of silver coinage o•er $200,000,000 of gold in excess of all produced in this country. Does 
•. 

1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 2007 

that look as though we are being ruined by silver or by Gresham's law? 

What else have we done? We have paid off every bond of the United 

States that can be paid. Since Cleveland's administration began we 

have reduced the national debt over $250,000, 000-I think nearly 53001 -

000,000, but certainly over $250,000,000. We have paid off Sl94,000,-

000 of3 per cent. bonds. We have bought S27,000,000 o:: $28,000,000 

of fours and four-and-a-halfs, besides other things, until now there is 

over $250,000,000 paid, and we have a. surplus of over $300,000,000 on 

hand; one of the last official reports shows the net gold in the Treasury 

to be: gold, $202,000,000, supplemented by $44,500,000 in silver and 

$60,000,000 more of our money is deposited with the national banks to 

keep the money which the people have paid in needless taxes from being 

locked up in the Treasury. 

Think of .it! Over two hundred and fifty millions of debt have 

been paid off, over three hundred millions of surplus are on hand, two 

hundredaudoddmiUions of gold,forty-four millions in silver, and sixty 

millions loaned out, and yet a struggle is being made every day to make 

the country believe that we are on the verge of ruin ! We have only 

succeeded in keeping the b.ankers, and bondholders, and their representatives here from ruining the country. I have a paper in my band 

showing that with all the pretense of England, of Germany, and of 

France, there is to--day more silver by twenty-fi>e millions of dolJars 

in the continental banks than they have gold. Here is a table showing what was in the Bank of France on the 9th of February, 1888, the 

banks of Austria, the banks of Germany, and the silver exceeds the 

gold in their banks ~lone, saying nothing of what is in the hands of the 

people, over £5,000,000 or $25,000,000. The table is as follows: 

to secure circulation were reduced from $362,000,000 to $182,000,000, 

and there are $102,000,000 of greenbacks n~w locked up in the Treasury in order to guard these outstanding notes on which the bonds have 

been withdrawn. 

The Secretary of pbe Treasury bas been compelled fu put in the hands 

of national banks over $60,000,000 for nothing, which is being loaned 

at interest to those from whom it was taken in order to keep the money 

from being locked up in the Treasury. In view of these facts I ask 

Senators what would have been the condition of this country if we bad 

been left fu the tender mercies and the policy of the Senator from Ohio 

and of the national bankers. 

If the advice of men like the Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN] and 

his allies bad been followed, and no resources to furnish currency bad 

existed outside of the n.ational bankers when they reduced their circulation one hundred and sixty million in the last four years, paying no 

attention to the wants of the people, I ask whether we would not have 

been bankrupt to-day? The despised silver dollar and the certificates 

based thereon has saved the co.untry from ruin. When we trea.t silver 

and gold as equ.ah; before the law, as they should be treated, all will 

be well. The restoration of the legal-tender quality to the silver dollar was all there ever was of resumption, e>erything else was false pretense. Whv should we be told now in the face of the movements of the 

world that we shall not put the two metals and the paper based on 

them on an equality? I have never believed thatsilvermoneybas had 

fair play, but at the same time I have never belie>ed that it ever had 

an enemy tb.at bas persistently done it as much harm as the distinguished Senator from Ohio. He has worked to degrade it from the 

Table indicating the amount of bullion in the principal European banks time 1\fr. Ruggles made his report to Mr. Seward, and from the time 

Februat·y 9, 1888. that he sought to establish gold as the sole unit in 1868; from the time 

that be denounced all payments to bondholders except in gold as reBanks of- Gold. Silver. TotaL pudiation; from the persistent efforts he made e-verywhere to destroy 

all legal tender but gold. I do not say they were not honest efforts. 

I have said often and I believe that he is, if not the ablest, one of the 

Engl!llld. ...... ............................. ...... ...... £21,629,758 ...... ............. ... £21.629,758 >ery ablest men whom I have ever seen in pn blic life; and it is because France... ............................................. 41,3.50,768 £47,600,696 91,%1,464 of his great ability, differing as I do with him, that I regard his finanGermany ..... :....... ............... .................. 2.l, 514• 820 19• 079• 180 4

2

°l' ~· 000

00J 1 cial policy as dangerous, yes, ruinous to the best interests of the people Austria.-llunga ry .............................. ·- 6, 910,000 14,578, 000 , 'ioOO' 

Netberlo.nds ................................ ......... 4, 300,000 8, 200, ooo 12, 5:;0, ooo of this country. I have made no charge against him of corruption or 

Nat~onalBelgium....................... ......... 2,783,000 1,3 ~,000 4,175,000 ofanytbingwrong. I differ from him in policy and I oppose~ meas- Nationo.lltaly.-.................................... __ _·~· 000 __ 1_,ll8•000 _ 8•101•000 ures, in defense of the best interests of the masses of the people as I uuTotal this ~veek...... .................... 108,4TI.3l6 1 91,967,876 1 200,439,222 derstand them. I ha>eno doubt that his great abilities have a powerful 

Total prevwusweek.................... 107,410,104 91,541,213 198,951,317 influence over masses of men in high places in this country, as they bad 

in Paris when the gold unit was tir.;;t sought to be established, and his 

Mr. President, I repeat th::Lt the bill which I introduced, and which · known power aids strongly in keeping up and in giving encouragement 

was voted for by five out of the eleven members of the Finance Com- to the movement that is now going on in Europe by the royal commismittee, to issue coin certifica.tes instead of gold and silver certificates, sion and otherwise to perpetuate the power of gold. 

is the first great step for this Congress to take in order to place the two I have no doubt the present President of the United States, who bad 

metals in proper 1·elation. Why should we haYe a silver certificate no means of knowing half as much about _financial matters at home or 

and a gold certificate except that the leading bankers of the country do abroad as the Senator from Ohio did, or as much as many people wbo 

not want to acknowledge that silver i;;; equal to gold? Therefore, they have been in public life for a long while knew in regard to public matwant their own certificates in gold, and let others who are as subsidiary ters, wa..q alarmed when he came into the hjgb position of Chief l\1agfu them as they claim silver is to gold take silver certificates, so that a istrate of the Republic by. the elamor that bad been kept up through 

hue and cry can be raised whenever they choose to suggest that silver every administration and through every Secretary of the Treasury 

is to be merely a t-oken meti.c'l.l and shall not have equal rights with their against sil >er, and that leading men of both parties in New York City 

gold. This country will never assume the proper relation to its own endeavored to persuade him, and did convince him before he came here, 

money and its own coin eel metals until it does away with all discrimi- that unless be did something promptly to stop the coinage of silver ruin 

nation between them. The national banks are forced to admit that wouldspeedilyfollow. IbavenodoubttbePresidentwasalarmed; and 

they are faHures now in furnishing currency for the use of the people. I know that when he came here first he thought the advice so ably adThe country knows it. The whole system was wrong in principle from vanced by the Senator from Ohio and other Secretaries of the Treasury 

the beginning, and was gotten up for the purpose of making money for during former udministra tions was good. I made a speech at the first 

a few rich men. It worked well for a time in the way of safe and un- session under our Administration whicb gave positive offense to some 

form circulation, but it never was run in the interest of the country. distinguished gentlemen in New York and elsewhere. They regarded 

The Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Texas will recol- it as impertinence for an outside Western Senator to assume to dictate 

lect--as they took active part in 1882 when we were rechartering to Wall street. Theythongbtitwonderful that any one should assume 

those banks-that we by law forbade them from entering into any to know anything that they did not want to know. My speech was ancombination to discountenance or boycott silver certificates; we inserted swered by many able men, and Ur. Horace White, of New York, was a stringent provision in the law; yet they defied us, they formed alii-~ one of them. He admitted substantially that efforts were made to ances in defiance of us, and our own creatures, our fiscal agents, the create a panic. This is what he said in a review he made of my speech. 

national banking organizations, would not take silver or silver certifi- The same ideas were presented by lli. Hewitt in a speech in the Hon~e 

cates over their counters, so that silver could not get into their clear- 1 of Repl'esentatives. I will read what Mr. Hewitt said first: 

ing 'houses in ::my form. ~be~ overcertified checks to suit themselves, I have reason to know when the present Administration came into power its 

and laughed at us for thmking we could control them. Now they first and chiefest concern was to avoid the danger which had been predicted 

ba>e contracted their currency about one bllltdred and sixty million in by the Republican Secretary in his official statement and in his private comth ] b fi · tb .c. f' b · ts f tb fi munications. The amount of gold in the Treasury on the 4th of l\Iarch, 1885, e as our years m e ~e 0 t e· gr~wrng wa~ 0 • e country_ or was $126,000,000. This was a much smaller sum thlln had usually been held in more. When we have built 11,000 miles of railroaclm the year JUSt tbe Treasury in gold since the 1·edemption of specie payment. It was steadily 

dosed when we needed Sl60 000 000 more of circulation than we did running down . The public confidence was gone. '£he boarding of gold had ~ ' a tb t. t' d <:!160 000 000 f' th · The" begun-not by the mass of the people, not in stockings, not in secret hiding- .aour years a'='o, ey con rae e ., ' ' O eJIS. II excuse I places, but by the ma'-!ters of fu1ance, the men whose business it is to handle 

may be good, but what good does the excuse do the country. They millions and to preyent deteriomtion; they began to prepare for the hour of 

say they did it because we required them to surrender the bonds which 1 danger and the collapse which they thought was impending. 

t b b · ftb · · uJ t" . f d"d· hadt d . IknowthreeofthegreatestinstitutionsinthecityofNewYork-Ishallnot were e asis o eir crrc a IOD 2 o course we 1 ' we o o so or I name them, lest it might possibly brbg down upon them the condemnation of 

allow the money to be locked up Ill the Treasury. Every 3 p~r cent. those who are prejudiced against bank s-but I know three institutions in the 

bond has been paid; twenty-seven or twenty-eight million of the fours city of ~cw York which had accumulated more _than $25,000,000 of gold as a. 

·and four-and-a-balfs ha>e been paid; and they say they can not afford to preparatiOn for the ~lla~se the: th~ught was commg .. 

pay the premium now asked for other bonds and take out new circula- Mr. Horace Wh1te, m rev1ewmg my speech, sa1d: 

tion. A sort of panic ensued in the money market, and it camo to my knowledge 

I hold in my band a table sbowinsr what they had in November, that Governor Tilden was one of a considerable number of persons who, with- ~ out any concert of action, had bought large amounts of sterling exchange in 1883, wh.at they had in February, 1888, which shows that the bonds order to protect themselves against loss in case silver should become our mon· 

,-
·. 

l 

.• 

2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARon 13, 

etary standard. Sterling exchange means gold in London. Why was Gov- ernor Tilden buying sterling exchange? Because, happening to have on hand n certain number of dollars worth 100 cents each in gold, and apprehending that if left in bank they would presently be worth only 90 or 80, or perhaps 75 cents each, he took the precaution to insure that they sh.ould continue to be 

worth 100 cents. He had only to write a few lines to his banker to insure this 

result. This was a typical case of the domineering "organizations of wealth" 

that Mr. BECK bas conjured up. 

Little wonder the President, then comparatively a new man in national politics, was staggered. These \\ere the men, these were the or- g::mizations fortified in their assumption by all the predictions of the 

Senator from Ohio and other gTeat leadeTS of both parties, that silver 

and silver alone would become our currency if we did not stop coining 

it, at once they urged it when we had less than $100,000,000; now, in 

the face of their failure the result of the efforts they made and combined 

in making is still to prevent the people of this country from recognizing _ gold and silver both as part of the money of the country. They have 

at last to admit tbat the national banks are a failure. They are no 

long~ of any value as the fiscal agents of the people. Still they are here keeping up their hostHity, and they meet as usual in convention 

denouncing sih'er, and demanding that it be demonetized as loudly as if they were important factoTS in supplying currency to the country. 

The national boards of trade that meet here in Washington unite with 

the..m in denouncing silver, and e>en now insist that it shall be demonetized, just as earnestly as if national-bank notes were being issued fully 

up to the wants of the people. The banks have bills before Congress now asking us to give them the right to increase the issue of their currency 

from 90 up to 100 or par on their bonds, as though they were going to 

be of any use to the country in furnishing the currency of the people 

any longer. " 

They are simply asking us to make their bonds mo>e >aluable so that we will have to pay ihem that much more premium when we buy 

them, as we now must do, in open market. That is the only use their 

bonds now are to them, except for the present, till we reduce taxation, 

they can deposit them and get dollar for dollar of circulation already 

existing which belongs to the people and loan it to the tax-payers who 

furnished it at 6, 8, or 10 per cent. interest. That condition of things, 

the President says in his message, is indefensible, and ought promptly 

to be remedied by Congress. He was obliged to resort to it as the best 

be could do under the circumstances. Turning for a moment to Mr. 

Atkinson's report, I have only to say that all the agents who go to Europe go there, not to help us, as far as I am able to observe, but to give 

aid and comfort to the men who are seeking to brea.k us down. I have 

gren.t respect for Mr. Edward Atkinson as_a gentleman, a man of learningand;ofhigh integrity and ability. Mr. Edward Atkinson bas made 

a report which has been laid on our tables in which he does not even pretend to notice the fact that a gre~t committee under Lord 

Iddesleigh have looked into the question of the demonetization of 

silver, and that they have reported evidence showing that the depression of the world's business, the depreciation of property, and the prostration of commerce grow out of what the witnesses call the great con- spiracy of 1873 between England, Germany, and the United States. 

Lord Iddesleigh was then a member of Parliament. I have the report. 

There is no indicationSays Mr. Atkinsonthat the subject of bimetallism has received any intelligent or sel'ious consideration outside of a small circle in each country named, as a probable. or possible remedy fo1· the existing causes of alleged depression in trade. 

When he said that he had before him the report of a commission 

which took volumes of testimony. It was perhaps the ablest committee that ever was raised in England. Its report was exhaustive upon 

all branches of business. That commission, which 1\fr. Atkinson does 

not deign to notice, made a report June 18, 1886, addressed to the 

Queen, saying, among other things: 

In recent years the purchasing power of gold has increased, or, in other words, 

the prices of commodities in general, as measured by a gold standard, have 

fallen· and this appreciation of gold, taken in combination with other circumstance's, has disturbed the 1·elations between the two precious metals. An in con- venient depreciation of silver, as measured in gold, has for some time prevailed, 

and is still proceeding. Without going into minute detail, we may point out that these changes result 

from a. twofold set of causes. Not only bas the supply of gold diminished, but 

the demand for it has increa-sed. That is to say, the actual production of gold from the mines has declined, while the demand for it has been largely incre~ed 

by its substitution for sil\"er in the coinages of Germany and other countr1es; at the same time the supply of silver has been increased both by the somewhat 

larger produce of the mines and by the demonetized silver thrown on the mar- ket by Germany and Holland. 

It seems unnece sary at this moment to refer in detail to the other changes in 

the monetary system of the world, such as the alter.ed policr of th~ Latin 

Union the resumption of cash payments on a gold baslS by natiOns which had suspe~ded them and the increased absorption of gold in India. Questions may also arise ~s to the possibility of other circumstances having occurred 

which have affected the value of orecious met,als, such as, for example, any addition to or diminution of the quantities used for other than monetary purposes. All these subjects should have their proper weight given to them in the fuller 

and special inquiry which we recommend shoul~ be instituted: 

Neither do we propose to enter upon the very unportant subJect of the effect 

which the fluctuations in the value of the precious metals have upon the I·elations between the home and Indian governments in their large monetary trans- actions. That India ha.s to receive her revenue in silver and to make h~r pay- ments for a large portion of the interest on her debt, for the articles wh10h she 

purchases or for the services which she commands, in gold, and that a fall in 

the value ;,f silver seriously disturbs her budget, is obvious and is not unnatu- rally disquieting. But it doe3 not appear to us to be directly within the limits 

of our inquiry, though indirectly it may have a bearing on the trade of India, 

and we may have occasion to recur to it. We ha;ve not thought it desirable to take any oral evidence specially directed to this question; but we append a series of questions which we circulated among a limited numbe1· of gentlemen, who, either f1·om their pra.ct.ical expe1·ience or from their researches in the subject, appeared likely to be able to afford useful 

information or to express opinions of value. Many of those to whom we ap- plied have been unable from various causes to draw up answers to the questions. We annex those which we have received, and we venture to think that they 

will afford valuable material for prosecuting further inquiry into the subject. We are strongly of opinion that the question deserves early and separate ex- amination from other pointsofviewtban that of our commission, and that apart 

from its general connection with the depression of trade it should be treated 

with reference to our currency as a whole, and to our monetary system at home 

and to its relations to our colonies, to India, and to foreign countries; and we humbly submit to Your Majesty that f1·om the 2:eneral anxiety expressed on the 

subject the necessity for such an inquiry is urgent, and that it would both save time and facilitate investigation if a special inquiry into the group of questions which relate to the currency were seton foot and were intrusted to such persons as might seem to Your 1\lajesty the most proper to conduct it under an order of 

reference carefully prepared and drawn so as to include all branches of the subjecgil which we humbly submit for your Majesty's gracious consideration. 

IDDESLEIGH. W. H. HOULDSWORTll. 

DUNRA. VEN. W. L. JACKSON. 

G. SOLATER BOOTIT. GEO. A. JAMIESON. 

JOHN AIRD. N. LUBBOCK. 

JAMES J. ALLPORT. P. ALBERT 1\IUNTZ. 

THOS. BIRTWISTLE. R. H. I. PALGRAVE. 

UONEL L. COHEN. CHAS. M. PALMER. 

JAl\IES P. CORRY. WM. PEARCE. 

DAVID DALE. B. PRICE. 

C. J. DRUMMOND. SAMUEL STOREY. W. FARRER ECROYD. GEO. IL 1\IURRAY, Secretm·y. HENRY HUCKS GlBB!:;. 

18TH JUNE, 1886. 

Observe they call for a special committee on silver coinage. The 

royal commission was the result. And in the appendix which I hnxe 

before me-l do not want to take time to rean it; but I asked on one oc- casion that this testimony might be published and I borrowed from my 

friend, the Senator from Hhocle Island [Mr. ALDRICH], his copy, bec:.it:S.) 

I have cut ofi the testimony from my own copy which our minister to England was kind enough to send me-I have marked in red pencil so as not 

to swell the RECORD too much, but to give a clear idea of what all the:e 

gentlemen said that answered the questions propounded by Lord Iddesleigh's commission. Nine prmted questions were put and were r<n- swered by twenty-seven leading men in England, presidents of banks, 

cham ber.3 of commerce, and with almost one accord they agreed that 

tbe restoration of silver to the coina:;e upon substantially the old basis was the only solution of the troubles now crushing the commerce of 

the world-there is no other-and they agree that it does not require an increase of value of metal in the silver coinage. 

The restoration of it to a legal t ender is all that is wanted. Some of 

them furnished valuable tables to show an aYerage decline of 35 percent. 

in values because of what they do not hesitate to call the great crime 

of the age when Germany ::md the United States in 1873 united with 

England to strike down legal-tender silver coins. They also show t.lJat 

up to that time as long as gold u-as being furnished in large amounts 

from Australia and California. every business was prosperous and prosperity was the ruleaud not the exception, not only in England, France, 

and Germany, but in the United States, indeed allover the world, and that 

property values from 1850 to 1873 increased 40 per cent. hall ci>ilized 

nations. Thereissomuch of this testimony thatoughtto be scrutinize<! 

by Senators, of course I will not take time to read it, but I will ask 

leave to print what I have mn.rked in red marks, and I shall upon some proper occasion ask the Senate to order the whole of it to he printed as a proper accompaniment to the views and opinions of Mr. Atkmson. .Mr. STEWART. Ask unanimous consent to print it. 

Mr. BECK. There is too much of it to be made part of a speech 

[exhibiting]. I will insert as much of it as I think will illustrate and 

prove what I say about it. 

APPENDIX C. 

· Questions on the subject of currency nnd prices, circulated by the royal com- mission on the depression of trade and industry. 1. Has there been, within a period which can be distinctly defined, a fall (i) in 

the gold prices, or (ii) in the silver prices, of com:nodities in couutrie3 where 

those metnls are respectively the standards of value? 

2. If so bn.s the fall extended uniformly to all commodities, or has it been con- fined to s'ome particular class or classes of commodities? 3. Apart from any circumstances which have tended to lower the price of par· ticular commodities, or of commodities generally, a1·e there any circum tauces which have enhanced the value of the metal used as the standard? 

4. Have similar circumstances ever occurred before, nnd what 1·esults did they 

produce? 5. To what causes d.:> you assign the fluctuations which have occurred in re- cent years in the ratio of the precious metals to one another? 6. Are there any indications that the development of the credit system, or other similar means of enconomizing the use of the precious metals, bas tended to counteract or retard the fall of prices? 7. What circumstances, apart from an appreciation of the metal used as the 

standard have tended to bring about a fall of prices generally? 8. Ho~ is trade affected by alterations (i) in the value of the metal used as the standard and (ii) in the value of the precious metals inl£r se, especially in 

the case of tr'ade between gold-using and silver-using countries? 

9. What is the effect of the present relations of gold and silver upon the internal and external trade of India, and upon prices in that country? 

LIST OF ANSWERS RECEfVED • Page. 

I. 1\Ir. Robert Barclay, I Dickinson street, 1\Ianchcster................... 3(2 II. 1\Ir. J. W. Birch. director of the Bank of Englanrl ......... ........... 3!!3 III. Mr. Hammond Chubb, secretary to the Bank of England ......... ~! 
- 1888. CON-GRESSIONAL RECORD- -SENATE. 2009 

Page. IV. Mr. 1\I. W. Collet, deputy governor of the Bank: of England....... ::195 V. l\lr . .J.P. Currie, governor of the Bank of England........................ 396 VI. Mr. A. Dell\Iar, mining en~ineer, London and San Francisco..... 396 VII. 1\Ir. Clarmont .J. Daniell, Bengal civil service.............................. 397 VIII. l\lr. Moreton Frewen, 18 Chapel street, London............................ 399 IX. 1\Ir. H. R. Grenfell, director of the Bank of England..................... 402 X. 1\Ir. S. 0. Gray, chief accountant of the Bank: of England.............. 403 XI. Glasgow Chamber of Commerce................................................... 404 XII. 1\Ir. Luke Hansard, 68 Lombard street, London...... ...................... 405 XIII. Sir Hector llay, Throgmorton avenue, London........................... 414 XIV. Mr. W . .Jackson, Chartered Mercantile Bank of I:1dia, London, 

and China................................................................................... 415 XV. l\Ir . .J. N . Keynes, Cambridge.................................... .............. ...... 415 XVI. 1\Ir. D. Larnach...... ...... .................................................................. 417 XVII. l\Ir. Edward Langley, C11arlcombe, Bath...................................... 417 XVIII. Rt-. Hon. Sir Louis Mallet, C. B., late under secretary of state for 

India...................... ..................................................................... 419 XIX. Professbr 1\Iarshall, Cambridge...................................................... 421 XX. Mr. F. May, chief cashier Bank of England ............................ .... 424 XXI. l\Ir. Samuell\lontague, M.P........................................................ 424 XXII. Professor .J. Shield Nicholson, Edinburgh................................... 425 XXIII. Mr . .J. H. Norman, 121 Highbury, New Park, N ........... ;...... ......... 426 XXIV. Mr. R. H. Patterson, Wingate Road, Hammersmith..................... 4..?7 

XXV. 1\Ir. Prideaux Selby, Bank of Australasia, Threadneedle street, E. C............................................................................................. 427 XXVI. Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P., Delahay street. Westminst-er............... 428 XXVII. Mr. Paul F. Tidman, Lcadenhall street, C. C............................... 431 

I. Mr. Robert Barclay says: 

1 DICKIXSON STREET, Manchester, May 5,1886. 

1\IY LORD: I have much pleasure in replying to the questions you have submitted on behalf of the royal commission on the repression of trade. 

• * * • • * * 

3. Yes. The closing of the mints of France and the Latin Union dest-royed 

the par of value between gold and silver, which the free mintage of the'!e met- als at the fixed-ratio of 15& to 1 had maintained as long as these mints were open to silver as fully as gold, was practically int-ernational money; but since then 

gold has been regarded by all the European nations and also by America as the only standard of value for international purposes, and the increased work 

thus thrown upon it as a stOl'e of value has led to its enhancement. 

• * • * * 

Improved credit appliances facilitate the transference of value, but when 

property of any kind is parted with for money it is something that may, if 

wished, be a permanent possession that is sought, and credit as an aid to money in this sense can not be exp~ded, except in due proportion to the metallic money on which it is supposed to give an absolute lien, just as a banker's obligation must be in due proportion to his reserve. 7. Apart from monetary causes there have been many other things at work 

tending to cheapen production, say, new inventions, scientific discoveries, and new applications of chemistry, an increased use of labor-saving machines, and 

the higher speeding of machinery, rendered possible by the greater mathematical perfection and accuracy of its construction; but all these causes combined 

would not, I think, account for, perhaps, more than, say, a sixth or a fifth of 

the actual difference which is seen. 8. The appreciation in the value of the monetary metal, gold, upon which our Eoglish values are based, has hadandcan notbuthave,amostseriouseffectupon 

trade. It means declining prices for commodities, and when prices are continuously declining all enterprise is banished from trade. The trader must work 

with t-he barest possible stock, as everything held over becomes dear as com- pared with the price at which it could be replaced. The whole fabric of trade is built up on credit and time contracts, and stability of the money . basis on which it rests is all-important. Transactions entered into in the hope of profit may result in loss if prices, from an appreciation of the monetary mea-sure, fall 

before the transactions can be completed. An enterprise requiring the invest- ment of capital may offer strong inducement for entering upon it; but when the 

question is considered, How will the property to be acquired be affected by the 

decline of prices going on? the risk of loss in this respect count-e1·balances the 

inducement. 

* * * * * * * The fact of India being upon a silver basis has, I think, so far been in many respects an advantage to her. Her internal trade has not suffered from the decline in prices which has been so disastrous in Europe, and the divergence of 

the relative value of gold and silver has had no practical effect upon the welfare of the great body of her people. The development of her external trade 

has also so far not been seriously impeded, rupee values of European articles 

laid down in India not having risen with the fall in silver, gold prices having 

conformed to the standard of India and not rupee prices to the gold standard 

of Europe. The lower European value of the rupee has also helped to stimulate 

her exports. On the other hand, the exchange difficulty makes it impossible 

for India to borrow in her own currency, and the disadvantage she suffers in 

this respect in very great not only as regards the carrying out of public works, 

but in many ways in which the outflow of British capital would both enrich 

India and benefit England. 

III. Mr. Hammond Chubb said: 

3. The circumstances which led to tho enhancement of the value of the meta (gold) used as a standard were those connected with the substitution of gold for 

silver by Germany and other countries. To these must be added the increased nse of gold in the Unifed States, a diminution in its production, and the growing 

reqnhements due to increased population. 

* * * * * * * But if, as seems to be inferred by the question, it is admitted that a fall is due to the appreciation of gold-and I entirely concur in such an opinion- it is difficult to estimate what proportion of the fall is due to that cause. If it is admitted not only that gold has appreciated, but continues to appreciate, then prices not only have fallen, but continuo to fall; and but for this permanent cause of depression it is possible that the other causes pilt forward to account for a fall in 

prices would have only a limited operation and take rank amongst the ever varying incidents of a healthy competition. 

* * * * * * $ But the effect upon trade is, no doubt, that of a tendency to its contraction; 

and capital, which would have been used to stimulate trade, will1 by preference, 

be invested in securities yielding a fix:ed interest in gold, thougn the payment 

of this interest be to the disadvantage of those, chiefly governments and other 

public bodies, who have contracted such arrangements. The modes in which the results offallingpricesdue to anappreciatingstand- nnl would be manifested would vary with the trades affected, but the opera- tion of the principle would be continuous, and not the less hurtful that it is not generally apparent .. 

* If it be the case th:1.t produce can be grown in India at the same cost in silver 

as that which has long prevailed and be sold in England for gold, which, at present, commands more rupees than formerly, this would be to the advantage 

of India, and lead to increased exports. And, again, if the cost of labor in India has not increased, it might lead, in 

certain cases where practicable, to the amount l'ealized by such exports being 

used for the establishment of factories in India, rather than t{) the purchase 

here of ma.nufactru·ed goods. If the present relations of silver and gold were final, this condition would probably be modified in course of time as prices r ose in India; but if the present ratio between the two metals widens more rapidly 

than prices rise in India, an advantage would continue to accrue to India, as against gold-using countries. This leaves out of view the loss by exchange in· cm·red by the government of India through its indebtedness to England. 

IV. Mr. M. W. Collet su.ys: 

3. This question I assume to mean whether the standard itself as a measure of value has allered, and, if so, what has caused the alteration? Whatever the answer, it does not admit of exact proof, but by inference it is to be a&sumed 

that the abstraction of gold in large quantities for coinage purposes by G1lr- many, Italy, and other States and Treasury reserves in the United States, the 

increased application of it for ornamental and artistic purposes beyond former 

requirements, together with the simultaneous decrease in the annual production of this metal, must have rendered it relatively more valuable; and this 

view is consist-ent with the fall in prices noted in the answer to the first ques- tion. 

VI. Mr. Alexander Del Mar says: 

This fall of prices has been ascribed by some persons to "overproduction;" 

but apart from t-he consideration that if overproduction, including the precious 

metals, were general it could have no effect upon prices, and if not general it 

would rectify itself by the shifting of industries and avocations ina briefer space of time than thirteen years, it is to be remarked that previous to 1873, when the 

forces of production were as great and the actual production of commodities per capita of population was not leli!S than it is now, there was no complaint or pretext of overproduction. 

The true cause has been-here I speak as a practical miner and producer of 

gold, well acquai~:.~ted with the conditions surrounding its production and use generally-the true cause has been the dwindling product of the gold placers 

of California and Australia, and the utter inability of quartz mining as a whole to put gold on the markets of the world at the lower equivalent, in commodities 

and services, at which it was previously put by the placer mining. This d wind ling product of gold, suddenly and enormously aggravated by the demonetization of silver in G1lrmanyand the subsequent suspension of free coinage for sil- ver in France, the Unit-ed States, and other countries, has been, in my opin- ion, the true cause of the recent fall in the prices of commodities. Your commission asks if similar circumstances ever occurred before. Yes; 

they occurred after n. similar failure of the Roman mines, an event which pre- cipitated the disruption of the Western Empire, and was followed by the tre - mendous consequences so ably depicted in Sir Archibald Alison's "Essays; " tlley occurred after the dismemberment of Charlemagne's empire, an event which occasioned the secret hoarding of the vast quantities of gold and silver 

which that monat·ch had captured in Saxony and Hungary, and had made into money; and they occurred again during the eighteenth century, when the plun- der of America and the Orient was quite over, and the metallic product of Span· ish .America. although it continually increased under the cruel stimulus of the 

lash, yet it failed to increase fast enough to supply a rapidly-growing Europe 

with the materials for money. In the latter instance the evil effects of dimin· ishing moneys manifested themselves in every country of the European world, 

including America; in each of them it was due to the failure of the supplies of 

tho precious metals to keep pace with loss, wear and tear, and increasing de- mand to sustain prices ; in nearly all of them it was followed by similar conse- quences; a. continued and uneven fall of prices, industrial distress, social disor· ders, turbulence, anarchy, revolution, wars, and the dissolution of empires. 

* * * * * * :l 

From what I have seen of gold and silver mining during the past thirty years, I should say that in the long run it probably costs as much effort to find and 

bring to grass-roots a pound of silver as a pound of gold, and that in all newlyopened countries gold would even be cheaper than silver, because in such Coun- tries the former is always to be found on the surface, whilst the latter is hidden away in the uncertain convolutions of volcanic rocks. 

* "' * * * * * Among those who admit the entire amenabilityoftheratiotolegislation there are some who deem it necessary at the present time to procure an international concert. of action on the subject. With the highest respect for those who advo- cate this policy, it seems to me unnecessarily cautious and timid. It did notre· quire a concert of the nations to break down the rat.io, and it needs no concert to resto"te it. Either one of the four leading nations can do it, for each of these 

has enough gold t{) exchange for all the silver that will probably be offered to its mints. But foremost among nations in its lar~;e control of tJie precious metals 

stands England, whose financial investments m foreign countries and whose 

widespread commerce have conferred upon her the hegemony of the commer- cial world. She can certainly afford to permit one-fourth of her £100,000,000 of 

gold to flow out in exchange for £25,000,000 of silver, which is far more than the 

combined world will be likely to offer to her mints during several years. This sum, coined upon the same terms as gold into full legal-tender money- first, 

and in order to d.iscourage counterfeiting, at the so-called market ratio of 20, and afterwards recoined at the American ratio of 16 or the French and German 

ratio of 15-/r-wonld not only yield England a handsome profit, but, what is far more important, it would arrest the present depression of trade and avert from 

impending disaster England's commercial interests in India. 

VII. Mr. Claremont J. Daniell says: 

The statistics of imports and exports of gold treasure which the government 

of India compiles show that in a little more than fifty years India has imported, 

and not re-exported, gold to the value of £127,000,000 sterling. To this must be 

added the gold treasure which India had continued to absorb during more than two thousand years, the amount of which may be inferred from historical rec- ords extending from very ancient times to the present century. I consider that I estimate the gold treasure existing in India in 1835 (when our statistics of im- ports and exports of treasure began to be compiled) at a low figure in putting 

it at £100,000,000 more. It is sufficient to notice the extent of this absorption of gold by India since 1835 for the purposes of the question (£127,000,000). 

'.rhis drain of the precious metals to India arises from peculiarities h! the com- mercial productions of that country and in the condition and habits of the peo- ple. The country produces commodities which are to a great extent superfluous to the wants of the mass of its people, while at the same time these ar~ readily sold to Western nations. This circumstance enables the people of India to ex- port these commodities without any enhancement of the price of articles neces· sary to their own existence resulting from this exportation. This is a condition of very great influence on the development of an export trade. 

The simple habits of the people oflndia.; immemorial custom which precludes them from the use of many commodities of secondary necessity, convenience, 
. .. 

2010 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-=-SEN.ATE. ~lARCH 13, 

or luxury; and the variety of the natural productions which the soil of the country supplies, exempt the people from the necessity of import~ more than a limited number of commodities of foreign manufacture for their own use. H(!ooe it follows that the exports of Indian productions generally exceed in value the imports of goods from foreign countries, and the balance has to be paid di- rectly or indirectly in treasure. · I y so much, by way of explainiug why I believe that this drain of treasure from the West into India is likely to contiuue-it has been going on for the last five years at the rate of £4.,700,000 a year-and also in order to show that what has been going on in India baa probably (I know no reason why I should not .y certainly) been going on in other parts of Asia, e. g., Chitu~., where similar climatic, industrial, and social conditions are found to exist. If this is the case, the appreciation of gold in the \Vest must be largely due to this cause, and the proper remedy appears to me to consist in the remonetizing of gold in India~ 

where the metal used from the most ancient times as money baa, in British In- dia at least, been disc1uded from that employment since 1835. 

"' * * * * * * I assign the fiuctuations which ba,·e occurred iu recent yea:rs in the ratio of the precious metals to one another to the following causes: (l) The great yield of silver from the mines in North America between 187.0 and 1880. (2) The par- tial disuse of silver as money by Germany, France, aud the United States of Arocl"ica during the same period. (3) The drain of gold into India between 1870 and 1885. During those fifteen years India has withdrawn from usc as money in the 'Vest a gold treasure valued at £38,250,000 and upwards, and has not used it as money herself. Thus, while the supply of silver from the mines increased, the demand for it, 

owing to its exclusion from its proper field of employment as money, fell off, and measured by the _gold standard its value necessarily declined. At the same time gold became appreciated both by reason of part of the supply being ab~ 

sorl>ed and rendered useless as money by J ndia, and from the circumstance that upon the gold currencies of the West was thrown the work not only which U1ey 

formerly carried on, but in addition a great part of the work which the silver currencies of t-he same regions had hitherto been used to transact. The relation which one of the precious metals bears to the other as money isa.~certained by the quantity of the same commodity which a. giYen amount of each of them will suffice to buy in the same market. If gold and silver are coined and circulated without restriction of quantity in any country, and, say, an ounce of gold money will buy fifteen and one-half times as much of any com- modity as an ounce of silYer money, then the relation of gold to silver money in tbat counh·y stands at 1 to 15t. But if, n.s has happened in Europe since 1870, restriction is placed on the free coinage and circulation of silver money, its real value in gold money can neYer be ascertained, because its purchasing power, in consequence of the restriction placed upon its use as money, is deprived of nll freedom of action. Had gold and silver money been nllowed to circulate freely 

throughout Europe and Korth America, n.nd had India been using gold money siuce 1870, a. fixation of yalue between gold and silver money exactly corre- sponding with that educed by the:competitions of commerce would pl·obably have been arrived at long since. As the case stands, the ownel'S of silver, seek- ing every opportunity to sell their commodity at a profit, ha-ore been obliged to o1l'er it for sale, sometimes at one price and sometimes at another, and the price of silver hns necessarily beeu subJect to similar fluctuations as against gold truu. other articles a.re liable to, which take their value from gold in a falling market. 

* * • * • * The purchasing power of the standard money depends on the pmportion which the quantity of it in circulation bears to the amount of the merchandise which it serves to exchange one kind with another kind. This view of the case is not affected by the use of the credit contrivances (cllecks, promissory notes, etc.) with the "iew of minimising the employment of metallic money, because their efficiency ultimately rests upon the stock of metallic standard money in use in the country. If that stock increases while the commodities brought to ma:rket do not increase, prices will rise, and 1:ice 

'VCI'SG , 

1f the standard money of any nation or group of nations is required to do more work than it was required to do before, the effect on trade is the same as if the quantity of goods under exchange had increased while the amount of money available to effect the exchanges had remained stationary. Prices in that case would fall. 

* • * * .:.~ * ;.~ 

If, on the other hand, the State decides to use both kinds of money on equal . t erms, that is, so to regulate its currency system that the silver and gold coin in u se shall always exchange at their natural value in one another, which would be the rate elicited by the competitions of commerce, the supply of coin of both kinds will exactly correspond with the requirements of commerce and always be fully eufficient for the exchanges of goods, however numerous they may be. T he currency, whether of gold or silver, will always be kept at full .supply, be- cause no one will hesitate to put his gold or silver metal into circulation, under t he conviction that neither can ever become undervalued and that he can in no c ircumstances lose by doiug so. 

• :): "' oe: * • "' 9. The rela.tion ()f value between gold and silver has altered in favor of gold 

by from 20 to 25 per cent. during the last fi!t;ecn yea:rs, and in India, where silver alone is used as legal-tender money, the value of silver money, as against com- modities, has not depreciated to an e::rlent at all approaching that figure. It fol- lows that traders in gold-using countries can obtain in India, say, 20 per cent. m.ore o f the silver money of that co untry with a. given value of gold than was pos- sible fifteen years ago, and with it buy a correspondingly larger amount of the productions of India. This state of things provides a wide margin to cover the risks of trade and the chances of profit, and iB one among other causes which accounts for the great increase in the export trade of I ndia to gold-using coun- tries which has occurred during the last few years. 

* * * * * * * This consideration must also not be lost sight of, t hat, a-s above stated, India has, during the last fifty years. absorbed gold treasure to the value of £127,000,- 000 sterling. This treasure can only have come into the country directly or in- directlyaspaymentfortheproductionso!India, whethersoldinlndiaorabroad~ 

it bas not gone into circulation as money, and its withdrawal from use as money bas had an enormous influence in preventing that rise of prices which would have taken plaoo in India if it had gone to swell the volume of the currency. 

* * • .* * * 

VTII. 1\fr. Moreton Frewen says: 

Since 1873 (from which t:i.me Germany commenced to take great m.a.sses of gold to enable her to effect a e.hange from a. silver to a gold standard) there has been a general fall of pri()es, which Mulhall estimates (History of P1·ices, page 1) at the amount of the difference between 135 and 84.. The average of prices is !ower now than in 1850, ntwhich time Newmarch remarks that prices had been falling stea.dily since 1809 on account of an increasing scarcity in the supply of the precious metals. "Between 1809 and 184.9 prices fell in the ratio of 100 to 41." (.TevonF,) I think it is safe to say that in gold-standard countries there has been a gen- eral average decline of prices since 1874 of 85 per cent. Now, as to silver· atand a:rd countries ther e is a. yaluable chapter (16) in Fawcett's Political Econ- . 

omy which appears to have been written within two years of the professor's death. The select committee on Indian finance which satin1874established the fact that while for eight years previous to 1867the net annual import of silYerinto India. was at the 1-ate of £15,000,000ste~:ling, the expansion of the currency there which resulted from this importation of£J~,000,000 sterlingofsilyer, had caused a rise of all prices, which rise was estimated to be from 30 to 4.0 per cent. Now, since 1873, when the (gold) price of silver began to fall rapidly, there bas been no such rise of prices in India as we should have naturally look:e<ijfor, but, on the contrary, the: Economist has been at some pains to point out., while there bas been a great fall of silver in terms of goW, there has also b en even a slight rise in the >nlue of silver measured by its power to purchase Eastern com- modities. 

This, it seems to me, is the greatiuterest that England hn.s in the" silYer ques- tion." For it is clear that if silver in Asia is worth at the rate of COd. an ounce to buy everything Indian, it is not coming to Manchester if it can help it, where it is only worth 46d. To recapitulate, it is interesting to observe that prices iu India. between 1860 and 1870rose rapidly withont the price of silver falling below 60fd. the ounce, but whereas since 1873silver has been continuously falling from 60f-d. to 46d., yet so far from silver losing its value at home, Jn the En tit is slightly more valuable-will buy a. little more wheat, cotton, or labor tb.a.n be- fore. If a man saw both sides of a balance scale go down at the same time he would hardlv witness a. more puzzling phenomenon. 

* • * * * * ~ There are a number of circumstances that have combined to enhance the value of gold; chief among the e n.n enormou increa.se in demand, while pad pas.m a great diminnlion in supply. Increased demand may be classed under two heads: The increased demand in gold~standard countries, the result of in- creased population. n.nd increased production of commodities; for example, the amount of gold and silver current in the United States is about £3 per bead of population to measure an annual p1·oduction of wealth estimated by 1\Ir. At- kinson (Dish·ibution of Products) at £2,000,000,000 st~rling. The population of the United SL'\.tes is doubling every twenty-live years; hence the United States twenty-five year.s hence, her population and production doubled, will callEris 

paribus require more currency. 1 will not hazard an opinion as to the amount of coin ])er capita needed to insure a healthy system of currency. France, how- ever, with almost £9 per capita, showed by tbe rapidity of the payment of her war indemnity to Germany the benefit of a full and well distributed currency at a. time of crisis. Butit is more important to draw attention to the increased area of the demand for golu. 

Since 1873 Germany has taken over £80,000,000 sterling of gold. Since 1878 the United States has taken more than :£80,000,000; Italy has taken £16,000,000 (Grenfell); besides which in the last ten years India has taken £4.0,000,- 000of gold. These extraordina.rydeDlJlnds have averaged more than £20,000,000 a year, or more than £L,OOO,OOO more than the cnti re annual output of the earth; the while also that some £12,000,000 is being annually absorbed by the arts and manufactures (Soetbeer). No wonder that since 1877 England has lost gol~ from cunency to the amount of £25,000,000, or about one-quarter of her entire stock. In M . ue Laveley's 

words, "Gold, like water, if spread over a layger surface lowers in level at its original basin." 

* "' * >!' * * 4. Is it the intention of que tion 4 to discover what has been the result in times past of a. diminished prod!Wt of the preciou metals? If so, it is of inter- est that Alison (History of Europe) says that the fall of the Roman Empire was brought about by a violent contraction of the cireulatin17 medium, resultiug from the failure of the mines in Spain and in Greece, the buraen of' debt was inci-eased and the general conditions of human industry paralyzed. The two greatest events that haye occurred i.n the history of mankind ba've been directly brought about by a. successiye contraction an~ expansion of the circulatingmedium of society. The fall of theRomanEmpire, solong cribed in ignorance to sl::~Yery, heathenism, and moral corruption, was in reality 

brought about by a decline in the silver and gold mines of Spain and Greece. 

.,., * "' * $ * * And as if ProTidence bad intended to re>eal in the clearest manner the influ- ence of this mighty agent on human affairs, the resurrection .of mankind from the :ruin which those causes had produced was owing to a dil·ectly opposite set of agencies being put in operation. Columbus led the way in the career of ren- ovation; when he spread his sails ac1·oss the Atlantic be bore mankind n.nd its fortunes in his bark. * * * The annual supply of the precious metals for the use of the globe was tripled; before a. century had expired the prices of every species of produoe were quadrupled. The weight of debt and taxes insensibly wore off nuder the influence of that prodigious increase; in the renovation of industry the relations of society were changed, the weight of feudalism cast off, the rights of man established. Among the many concurring causes which con- spired to bring about this mighty consummation, the most important, though hitherto the least observed, was the discovery of .l\1exico and Peru. 

* * * $ * $ 

If the circulating medium of the globe ha~ remained stationary or declining, as it was {rom 1815 to 1849, fmm the effect of South American 1·evolntion and EngJ.ishlegislation, the necessary result must have been that it would have be- come altogether inacdequate to the wants of man; and not only would industry 

hftye been everywhere cramped, but the price of produce would have uniYer- sally and constantly fallen. Money would have every day become more valu- able; all other articles measured in money less so; debt and taxes would have been constantly increasing in weight and oppression. The fate which crushed Rome in ancient, and has all but crushed Great Britain in mode.rn times, would have been that of the whole family of mankind. All tlaese evils haye been en- tirely obviated, and the opposite set of blessings introduced by the opening of the great 1·eserve treasures of nature in California and Australia. * * * Be- fore half a century has elapsed the prices of every article will be tripled, enter- prise proportionally encouraged, industry vivified, debts and taxes lessened.- Al" on. After the fall of Rome no considerable mines were discovered and prices fell steadily for a thousand years, till Columbus sailed to America. From 1539 to 18l'(), for near three hundred years after the discovery of Americn. had 1·e ulted in a tenfold increase in the annual output of gold n.nd silver, prices rose stead- ily; then after 1816, silver haying been demonetized and specie psym.ents re- sumed in England. prices steadily fell till there was a price 01·isis like the pres- ent, which extended and intensified just as now, till the Californian di coveries in 184.9. The effect of those great discoveries did not make any Yery consider- able impression on the great volume of the precious metals till1854, after which year _Price· rose stendily and every branch of industry was stimulo.ted. It 1s evident that "demand" created by legislation- in other words, the pre- rogati-ve of" legal tender"-is the great factor in determining the value of the precious metals. This i particularly tru~ of silver, because tho percentage of the annual output of silver which is absorbed in the arts is quite incon ider- able. Thus the tax paid on manufactured silver in England in 1.875 ([ can not lay my hands on n.ny later returns of sih·er consumed in the arts) showed that the entire home manufacture was less than -~'200,000. 

It seems that legislation c.'l.n fix and keep steady the ratio of one metal to the other, provided the area of operation be sufficiently wide. But if either metal be proscribed by legislation it is certain that theh· ratios must fluctuate wildly. 
, .. 

1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD--SENATE. 201 1· 

If legislation the world over decreed to-morrow that silver should be demone- tized nnd should be sold as mere merchandise for what it would fetch, it might be th~t area railings would be made of silver! Certainly the price would fall toward 1s. per ounce. The value of gold also would be enormously depressed if that metal were universally demonetized. * • • * * * * A fall of prices is itself a contraction of credit. To take a very simple instance, 

SUP.pose I bought through a broker and on cr~dit cotton futures, or w_heat, ora railroad stock at 100, I should pay up a margm of 10, the broker or hiS banker lending me the other 90; now, if prices fell from 100 to 95, the broker would r~ 

quire a further margin; in other words, owing to the fall of prices my credit with my broker is contracted, and a. further demand arises for sovereigns. If, on the contrary, the price instead of falling rose to 110, the broker would allow me to buy a second hundred shares of stock, and on account of the rise in the price of the first hundred he would not require me to advance the ten sover- eigns margin on the second transaction. And this illustration holds good for all kinds of credit transactions, including the credit any wholesale dealer gives to any retail dealer. 

* * * * * * * Trade may be expected to stagnate when pri.ces are declining, but to be brisk when prices are risif}g. Falling J?rices can .not fail to check industry and e~­

terprise; if a man w1th £10,000 to mvest believes that because values are sttll falling he will be able to buy a farm, a ship, or a mill tweh·e months hence for much less gold than at the present time, he will prefer to leave this £10,000 at his bank idle, even though the bank rate is only 1 per cent. Suppose such a one bad invested at the higher prices of 1874, if be sold out now he would find that his ten thousand bad shl'unk t.o £6,500 (assuming that the average fall of prices in twelve years has been 35 per cent.). And this seems to be the present 

position· intending investors are waiting year after year for the fall of prices to be compiete. When, on the other band, the tendency of prices is upwards, then enterprise and investment is brisk. The investor prefers to buy a farm to-day rather than to pay the higher price that be anticipates will be asked six months 

hence. * • • * :j: 

Until1873 the 1 to 15~ "par of exchange" between the J;lations that used gold and those that used silYer bad never been impaired; but in the last twelve years we have bad perpetual fluctuations, and at the present moment no En- glish merchant trading with the East bas any idea when he makes a forward contract whether, owing to a further fall in the exchange rate of silver, the transaction may not involve him in heavy losses. Ask any 1\Ianchest.er mer- chant what would be the condition of his trade with his best customers, India and China, if silver suddenly fell 6d., and be will tell you that half the mills in Lancashire would be closed; and yet it has lately depended upon the mere ac- cident of foreign legislation that this did not happen; if the clamor of the East- ern cities- in other words, of the creditor community- bud prevailed and silver coinage had been suspended in the United States, then the silver ounce would have fallen at least 3d. It is, indeed, the opinion of those most competent to judge that this suggested suspension must inevitably have been followed by tb<.> demonetization of silver in the United States, and tllCreufter also in France, 

* • Hence it happens that a wheat speculator who used to buy 10 rupees with his sovereign can now buy 13, and each oftbe 13 buys as much wheat (sa.y a bushel) as did each of his previous 10 rupees. In other words, the fall of silver has brou,.ht about a decline in the price of wheat represented by the difference be- twee';;. 13 and 10. And if, owing to legislation in Washington or ParL~. silver is to be still further depressed at:.d the rupee falls to 1s., I see no reason why that rupee should at all depreciate in India, and if it does not, then the fall in wheat in 1\Iark Lane will be represented by the difference between 20 and 10, because the sovereign will buy 20 rupees instead of as before 10. Keeping in view the fact that silver retains its value in the East, although it bas by law been de- priYed of its value in the 'Vest, it follows that by reason of the absence of all tariff' regulations in England our fnrmers are at the mercy of foreign monetary 

legislation at Washington or Berlin. If Sir .James Ca.ird can foretell what will be lbe price of the silver ounce in the tw~nti~tb .century, be .can tell approximately what will be the area. o( wheat cultiVatiOn mEngland, m Dakota, or the Punjaub. With the rupee at ls. no wheat could come forward from America or Russia and we might expect a. further fall in the prices of maize and raw cotton, and it 'bas been this consideration that bas influenced recent legislation at Washington. 

IX. Mr. H. R. Grenfell says: 

Trade is affected by alterations in the value of the "metal used as a stand- ard" in proportion to the indebtedne s oftbose carrying on various trades or call- ings connected with production. If no one was indebted in fixed sums of the standard metal it would not matter in the long run whether the counters were x·ed counters with a 6 marked on them or blue counters with a 1; but where indebted producers have made specific contracts to pay in nothing but red counters the relation between these counters and productions is altered, and the debtors have to pay the result of perhaps two years' labor instead of one. Agricultural producers are indebted all over the world, and have always been so since the day when Adam brought a store of apples and damsons out of Par- adi e to keep him ali•·e while be dug for the next year's crop, and tQey are be- ing ruined by this alteration in the amount of existing counters. 

X. Mr. S. 0. Gray says: 

1. It would appear that during the period since 1873 there has been a. fall in the price of most commodities alike, but different in degree, in countries using 

gold or silver or both metals us a standard of value. 

* * * * "' * * 3. There bas been an increased demand for gold for the purposes of coinage by countries, Germany, Italy, and others, that have during the period men- tioned aboYe adopted a gold standard, and simultaneously the production of the metal bas fallen off. For silver, on the other band, the demand for the pur- poses of coin~e in Europe and for the manufacture of plate has materially de- minished, while the available supply has been increased both by a larger pro- duction of fresh metal and by the demonetization and conversion into bullion if considerable amounts of previously existing silver coin. 

XI. Gla gow Chamber of Commerce, by l\Ir. William H . Hill, secretary, says: 

3. Since 18i3 about two hundred millions of gold have been required to sup- ply Germany, Italy, and the United St.ates with a new gold currency. This ab- sor})tion of the metal occurred concurrently with its lessened prodl!ction. In 1851-'52 the annual production throughout the world had risen to about thirty- six millions sterling, but it is nowle sthan twenty millions. Assuming that ten millions are needed for the arts and manufactures, it follows that twenty years' net . upply of the met..'l.l was absorbed by the two hundred millions, leaving noth- ing- aYailable for replenishing (repairing) the waste on a greatly enlarged cur- reucy, or for the purpose of meeting the wants of an increasing population, grow- ing- wealth, and consequent enlargement of business transactions. 4. T he directors bavc no personal knowledge of the previous occul'rence of such circumstances. 

5. As respects silver, there has been an increased supply with a diminished use; as regards gold, there bas been a diminished supply with an increased use. These results are due to the closure of the mints of the Latin Union for indis.- criminate coinage of both metals at a fixed ratio; to the action of Germany in demonetizin~ her silver cun·enoy; and to the effect that the large stocks of silver held in America and Europe have on the market. 

XII. 1\Ir. Luke Hansard says: 

It appears to me that" the value of the metal used as the standa.1·d" must necessarily be measured by "the prices of commodities generally." In this country the standard is gold, and the yalue of gold is what it will purchase in commodities generally. If a general fall of prices is admitted, it follows tl1at there is an appreciation of the metal in which those prices are expressed. The expressions •· fall in prices" and "appreciation of gold" are, in my opinion, synonymous, and it only leads to confusion of ideas in speaking of the two ex- pressions as distinct and arising from separate causes. I have frequently beard it stated in discussions, and have read in print, that the "fall in prices" is caused "by an appreciation of gold." This appears to me an error, for the two phrases mean really one and the same thing. If you have a fall in prices you have an appreciation of gold, and if you. have an appreciation of ~old you have a fall in prices. In fact the two expressions are exchangeable terms for the pur- poses of the present subject. 

XIII. Sir Hector Hay says: 

The specious argument that it is for the advantage of the working classes that all their requirements should be as cheap as po sible is misleading, because a. universal cheapness implies that the article or commodity wh icb gives the means of living to each class of workers is cheap also, the consequence of which must be low wages or less employment, generally the latter, us is shown by tho pres- ent state of the labor market and the large number ot the unemployed . It is no benefit to a working man that all he wants is very cheap if be has n o wages wherewith to purchase it, and for the community it is better that all should be employed at moderate wages than that some should receive higher wages and the rest none. Low prices invariably bring depression of trade and 1::tck of employment, and high prices prosperity to all classes with the exception of annuitants, who are after all but a comparath-ely small section of the people. 

* * * * * * * Another disastrous effect is that the Indian government, having to draw some fifteen millions per annum from India, have bad to submit to an enor- mous loss hy exchange, beginning in 1 i4 with about one million and increas- ing every year till it amounts now to nearly four millions a year. It bas been said that tbis loss is only apparent, or, in other words, a mere matter of account, but this idea ignores the fact that this loss by exchange must be covered by in- creasing the amount of taxation in Ir:.dia, and therefore some thir~y millions sterling base, during the last thirteen years, been wrung from the tax-payers more than would have been necessary had the rupee remained at its nominal value of about Is. lOkd. Taking this into consideration it will be apparent that India has lost much more by taxation than she bas gained by the low price of silver. 

The whole question of the ratio between gold and silver lies in a nut-shell. In England, and practically in Europe generally, gold only is the measure of va.lne; in the East silver is the measure. In order to enable trade between the - Eas~ and 'Vest to be conducted with reasonable confidence there must be a standard of conve1·sion, that i , a fixed ratio of gold to silver. If this is admitted it is difficult to sec how it can be denied that the most ad- Yantageous ratio would be 15! to 1, simply for this reason, that it would cause less inconYenience than any other, for practically all the silver money existing in the world (except merely the subsidiary coins) bas been coined on or close to that basis. To adopt any other ratio would neces i~ate the recoin age of hundreds of mill- ions or the circulation of the present coins at a cllang-ed valuation, whereas the restoration of lbe old bimetallic basis of15t to 1 would affect only the few mill- ions of siiYer which remain at present in the shape of burs, and the future pro- duction, say e ighteen to twenty millions a ycur. Such a measure as this by S..,"Teement among- the principal nations, most of whom are more than willing to adopt it, would most certainly restore to the trade of the world that elasticity which of lale years it bus entirely lost. 

XIV. :Mr. w_ Jackson Eays: 

Trade is affected by an appreciation of t.he metal used as the standard, b y handicapping the producing classes to the benefit of the moneyed classes. By rendering the trade between gold and silver using countries uncertain, and thus speculative. . The appreciation of gold in relation to silver has, in my opinion, tended to stimulate the exports of India, while the imports into India have also shown. an increase, owing to the fall in prices in the gold countries. The internal trade of India bas developed by the greater exports a.nd imports, and industries have received an impetus which will probably lead to the establishment of manufac- tories on a large scale. Silver is, however, being imported into India in excess of the average of former years, and if this continues a rise in the prices of com- modities in India seems inevitable, which must in time react prejudicially upon the export trade of India. 

* * 

XV. M r. J . N. Keynes says: 

There bas not, I believe, been a corresponding fall in silYer prices in countries where silver is the standard of value. Still, notwithstanding the depreciation of silver, prices appear to have fallen rather than to have risen in India witbin the last ten or fifteen years. This points to the conclusion that the depreciation of silver is a depreciation relatively to gold only, and not relatively t.o com- modities in general, but rather the reverse. 

The point that remains to be mentioned is perhaps of greater importance than any of the preceding. 'l'raders in a large way of business are accustomed to work to some extent with borrowed capital. Upon the sum borrowed inter est bas to be paid in money,and ultimately the capital itself may have to be re- funded in money. It is clear that if money, measured in commodities, bas an enhanced value, the burden of debts is increased, and with falling prices fixed preference charges mean diminished profits. Thus lenders gain at the expense of borrowers, and, what is pertinent;to the present discussion, they gain at the expense of those who are taking an active part in trade, and upon whose indi- vidual effort the success of large enterprises frequently depends. Trade is the more depressed and demoralized because it is those.who have the greatest busi- ness capacity who naturally employ, in addition to their own capital, the P.apital of others. Similar remarks apply to fixed charges of any kind. 

* * * * ., * * The internal trade of a gold-using country is not sensibly affected by an alter- ation in the value of the precious metals inter se, but it is otherwise with trade between gold-using and silver-usingeountries. Frequentalteratic;msin the g old price of silver obviously introduce an additional element of speculation into a.ll 

dealings between such countl'ies. If a. trader in a gold-using country is sellin~ 
2012 CONGRESSIONAL REOORD-SENATE. }f.AROH 13, 

commodities in a silver-using count.ry, his profits depend not merely on the sil- ver~ricewhich his goods will fetch, but also on the gold price of silver when he receives payment. Fluctuations, therefore, in the relative value of the precious metals tend by their effect on the foreign exchanges to disorganize and render uncertain the tta.de between countries which have respectively a gold and a sil- ver standard. A permanent alteration, however, when once established, will 

only affect the nominal exchanges between the countries. 

XVI. Mr. D. Larnach says: 

4. I recollect perfectly that prior to the discovery of gold in 1849-'50 in California, and in 1851 in Australia., trade was depressed all over the world. Those discoveries gave a wonderful impetus to trade, which would have been much more felt in England but for the Crimean war. 

XVII. Mr. Edward Langley says: 

Taking wheat as perhaps the best illustration of an article of universal pro- duction and universal consumption the facta are beyond dispute. Wheat has fallen to a. price in gold-using countries that renders it ba rely remunerative, or even unremunerative. In India the fall is estimated by 1\:lr. Pcins ep at I7 per cent. 

3. The following are some of the circumstances that have enhanced the value of gold: 

.Reduced production, which is a. natural cause; increase of population, which is also a natural cause. But the circumstance that has caused the greatest en- hancement in the value of gold is one that is not natural, but has been the at- tempt by Germany to convert her single silver currency to that of single gold, as by so doing Germany has stimulated other nations to do likewise; such, for instance, as France: who within the last twelve months alone has increased her stock of gold by £12,000,000 (increased since this was wl'itten to £16,000,000, or, say, to £56,000,000 in all from £46,000,000 twelve months ago, more than equal to the year's production). This action of France is still proceeding in full force, and can hardly fail to have a still further serious effect on the purchasing power of gold. Then the action of the United States in resuming specie payments 

mainly in gold. Also of Italy of the same character, as well as the continued absorption of gold by Germany, which is clearly still in operation, notwithstanding that she haa t;Uspended all sales of silver. Then again, India is a large absorber of gold, a circumstance that can not be looked upon except with anx· iety, as indicating a preference for that metal rather than for silver, her stand- ard of '"alue. Australia and New Zealand also produce not only less gold, but practic:llly absorb more, largely the result of their great borrowings in England, and indications are not wanting that those countries may draw gold from England, instances of which, though isolated, have actually occurred. 

Then, again, the market which exists in London for the issue of foreign loans tends to enhance the value of gold, as such issues are generally followed by an export of gold to the countries issuing such loans. • " * 

Nothing can restore the profitable character of the enormous trade of Eng- land with silver-using countries but n. restoration of the ratio that prevailed 

between I803 and I876, when the bimeta.lli(' law of France during all tbat time acted as a regulator to the mercantile machine that was working between Eng- land and her silyer-using customers. Whatever the mei'its are that are claimed for t.he single gold standard, it is utterly unsuited to a manufacturing nation like England, whose existence depends very largely on the profitable trade sbe can carry on with nations that have a currency composed of a. silver metal. 

'.rhis lll'gument has been maintained by what is known as the bimetallic s chool, 

a.nd ten years of experience only go to confirm their a ssertions. There is not an article that is produced in India , and that is also produced in England, the continent of Europe, and in the United States, that is not subject to a protection bonus in India in the shape of the extent of the yariation of the ratio between 

the preci~us meta~. 

The effect of the cessation of a fixed ratio between gold and silver has been a continuance of t.he fall in t11e value of silver, measured in gold, unt.il at the present moment a rupee, the intrinsic value of which at 5s. the ounce for silver is close on Is. 6d. in gold, can now be bought at under Is. 6d., or a fall in its va lue of more than 20 per cent., and therefore at the present moment 1s. 6d. will 

buy in India more wheat than 2s. could have bought before the demonetization of silver took place, or, say, about thirteen years ago. This gives the pul'chaaer of Indian wheat au export bonus amounting to the reduced cost of the rupee, and thus enables Indian-grown wheat to compete with English wheat under a bonus of more than 20 per cent. over and above the cost of production. This is bad enough, but the position is made wo1·se by the appreciation of the rupee in Indialtself. 

This, of course, secures cheap food, 19ut at t.he cost of the destruction of the ag- ricultural interests not only in England but also in Europe and the United 

SUJ,tes. This is the reason why wheat is 30s. per quarter, with. the prospect of a lower price should silver fall lower. The same argument applies to cotton in the United States, which is now selling atlessthan 5d-. a pound, a price, I under, 

stand, which in America it can not be produced to pay. On the oU1er hand, the same fall in the ratio of silver to gold operates in the opposite direction against Lancashire cotton manufactures. Cotton goods may sell in India at the same prices as heretofore in rupees, but when a manufacturer proceeds to bring the proceeds of his goods back to England, in other words, so soon as he attempts to convert the rupees into gold, aa he must do to complete .the transaction, be is confronted by the same 20 per cent. depreciation in the price of silver as a. cbarge against the operation. He is thus compelled either to r.sk a higher price, that is to say, more rupees in India, to counteract the 20 per cent. loss by the depreciation in silver, or he must reduce the cost of pro- duction in England by paying less wages and less cost for his cotton. Ex- perience shows that he can not get higher prices for hi~ goods in India, where this fact stimulates native manufacturers, and thus he is driven to reduce the cost of manufacture in England, and thus the reduction in the ratio of value be- tween silver and gold falls direct-ly on the English artisan and the American producer." 

XXV. Mr. Prideaux Selby says: 

In its relation to commodities, silver has changed much less than gold, as is p roved by the comparative stability of prices in silver-standard countries, and by this stability has proved itself, for the time, the more reliable standard of value of the two. . The fall in prices has, I believe, been much retarded by developments of the credit system, and would be intensely accentuated by any check to credit. From my point of view the phraaes used are but different ways of expressing the sRme fact, "appreciation of the metal usedaa the standard" means simply, as shown above,' a fall of prices generally." 

* * * 

XXVI. M:r. Samuel Smith, M.P., says: 

Speaking broadly, I believe the question to be this: Up till1873 the gold and 611 ver bullion produced in the world flowed into Europe and waa coined equally into money and performed exactly the same functions;. since I873 silver haa vil·-

tually been excluded from the mints of the great commercial nations of Europe, and Ule gold supplyhaa also greatly fallen off. The necessary result is that instead of that st-eady replenishment of the currencies which the growing needs of commerce require there is a diminution of supply, causing contraction and a fall of prices. The result is analogous to that which took pla ce after the resumption of spe- cie payments was decided on in I8I6, which produced many y ears of falling 

prices and great depression and suffering among the masses of the people. 

* * * * * .. * Trade is very greatly and injuriously affected by a sudden alteration in the ~~~~~rd of value, especially when the alteration is, as now, towru·d~ increased 

lt arises in this way: Trade is largely carried on by borrowed capital, or, in other words, by the use of credit in some shape or anothe r; the vast banking 

deposits are mostly lent to traders; a. very great deal of the invested capita l of this country is lent upon mortgage of trading property, such as ships, factories, 

warehouses, etc. A prudent trade r usually considers it safe to trade consider- ably beyond his floating capital, and to borrow, say,50 percent., on the security of his plant or fixed capital. Now, the constant decline of prices the la~t few years has virtually swept away his own porlion oi the capital, and only left him enough to pay the loans and mortgages; for instance, a ship or a factory built at a cost of £20,000, of which £10,000 was borrowed, is now worth only 

£12,000, or 40 per cent. less, and so the mortgage now 1·epresents five-sixths of the value instead of half, the trader's interest having sunk to £2,000 in place of £10,000; probably, if trade is unprofitable1 he fails to pay the interest, and the mortgage is foreclosed, and the property 1s forced off at just sufficient to cover the loan, and he is ruined. I have no doubt that this process exactly describes the condition of vast num- bers of the traders of this country, and of other countries having agold stand- ard. A great portion of the commercial capital of this country haa silently 

passed into the hands of the mortgagees and bondholders who have neither "toiled nor spun"; the discouragement this state of things produces is intense; after it has gone on for several years a kind of hopelessness oppresses the com- mercial community, all enterprise comes to a standstill, many works are closed, labor is thrown out of employment, and great distress is felt both among labor· ers and the humbler middle class; indeed, it strikes higher than this, for multi- tudes of people who were once prosperous traders have now become dependent on cha.rity. I know many such myself; indeed, but a small portion of thosfl who were prosperous ten or fifteen years ago are well off now. 

* "' * * * , "' It is a. foolish reply to this tha t the aggregate wealth of the nation is not changed because it is only a transfer from one class to another; one might as well say that the craft of the pick-pocket or cn.rd·sharper is innocuous because it only transfers wealth from one pock et to another. The prosperity of the nation depends upon the just distribution of wealth and the security of indus- try; nothing affects it more vitally than unjust alienation. 

* * * * * * * One more point I would add. This appreciation of gold, with its-corresponding decline of trade, throws the finances of all gold-using countries into confu- sion; it leads to deficits and increased duties, and makes foreign tariftil more and more protective. India suffers in a somewhat different way, for she has to remit £15,000,000 in gold t.o England annually and is now losing £4,000,000 a yes.r in exchange, and may in course of time lose £5,000,000 or £6,000,uJO and find it almost impossible to carry out the railway extensions resolved upon, owing to the danger of borrowing in gold and the impossibility of borrowing in silver. 

These extra-cts illustrate the views of all, or ne..'\.rly all, who testified. 

It is shown that there were meetin~ held in Liverpool, in Glasgow, in 

Manchester, and among the leading chambers of commerce, le..'lding men everywhere taking part, and by large ml,\jorities reports were made 

favoring the restoration of silver to its old-time honored reL-ttion, yet our commissioner did not think it worth while to say anything about 

them. I was not astonished at it; they were not his productions, and 

of course he thought they were of no value. I insert some of them by 

way of illustration. of the feeling existing in Europe in regard to silver. 

Hon. George Walker, consul-general at Paris, sent to Secretary Bayard, August 20, 1885, a letter in regard to coinage, from which I read the 

following extract: 

The parliamentary inquii·y in England, which has just been initiated by the appointment of a royal commission, distinctly recognizes that the d iscord at present existing between the precious metals is one of the alleged causes of in- dustria.} .and commercial distress. The appointment of 1\Ir. Gibbs, on e of the ablest English defenders of the bimetallic system, and of Sir Louis 1\.falle t, who, 

with Lord Reay (now governor of Bombay), represented the India n office in the international conference of 1881, to lead the inctuiry on this subject, gives as· surance that the investigation will be intelligent and thorough, and that all the facts which are believed to establish the impossibility of .conducting the commerce of the world on a gold basis will b~ brought out in their true rela.-

tions. 

The chambers of commerce of Manchester, Bil·mingham, Liverpool, and Gla s- gow, four M the largest towns in the United Kingdom, have adopted resolutions calling on their members in Parliament to support this branch ofthc g en er a l investigation; and it is very clearly indicated in the debates of the mee tings at which these resolutions were passed, that an intelligent majority in th ose great commercial centers has reached the conclusion that the silver q uestion is largely responsible for the existing distress, and !think I am justified in sny ing that they believe that bimetallism, to be established by interna tional trea ty, is the only sufficient monetary remedy. * k '4· * * * * 

With the adhesion of Great Britain, the adoption of international bime tallism would be very simple. Without tha.t a{fuesion, it would be equally practicable, 

safe, and effective if the system were accepted by Germany. Of this the re is much reason to hope, inasmuch as the prevailing sentiment of tha t coun try is unmistakably in favor of the re!ltoration of silver to full moneta ry functions. - In Germany the learned body has taken the lead in this diJ·ection, and it h as been followed by all the industrial classes, agricultural and manufacturing, a nd by the leading commercial houses in Hamburg and elsewhere. It is also asserted that a majority of the national parliament haa reached a similar conviction, and may, at an early day, be persuaded to act. 

On the 8th day of July, 1866, the following is gh·en of a meeting of 

the British and Colonial Chambers of Commerce, in which, by a majority of 28 to 15, they decided in favor of recoining their silver money: 

The silver question-An animated discussion by English bankers in London- They resolve that to remonetize silver means greate r prosperity. 

Lmmo:., July 8. 

.An important meeting of the British and Colonial Chambers of Commerce w·as held yesterday, at which there was an animated discussion of the silver question and its bearings upon the commerce of India, Austmlia, and Great Britain. Mr. Henry H. Gibbs, ex-governor of the Bank of England, opened the proceedings 

. I 
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1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. "2013 

by a strong speech, showing the world-wide importance of restoring the mone- tary valuf'; of silver. Sir Robert W. Fowler, ~1. P., the London banker and ex- lord mayor, opposed the idea in a speech which was feeble in comparison with tllat of l\Ir. Gibbs, and was followed by two Indian members. Both of these contended that the effect of the depreciation of silver must be finally the ruin of the wheat and cotton industries of America, and the development of India as the chief wheat and cotton exporter of the world. They, therefore, protested agains~ England's aiding America to restore the value of silver at the expense of the interests of India. M1·. Paul F . Irdman, an East India merchant, argued that England had other interests besides those of India, which stood sorely in need of the restoration of silver, and trusted that Mr. Gibbs's ideas would be adopted by the meeting. Mr. (;'rump, of the London '.rimes, denounced the agitation of the silver ques- tion as the work of the silver miners of Ne>ada, and their allies, the Washing- ton ring-. :M:r. 1\Ioreton Frewen opposed Mr. Crump in a strong speech in behalf of the farmers in the West and the planters in the South of America, and a resolution was passed by a vote, 28 to 15, amid great excitement, declaring that the re- monetization of silver would relieve the depression under which trade is now staggering. The meeting is regarded as highly important, and its influence upon the coming silver demonstration in Lancashire must necessarily be very strong. 

I may as well add: A year ago last June at a meeting of the British and Colonial Chamber of Commerce held in London, Sir Robert Fowler, member of Parliament and ex- lord mayor, is reported to have said "that the effect of the depreciation of sil- ver must finally be the ruin of the wheat and cotton industries of America, and be the development of India as the chief wheat and cotton exporter of the world. 

.And also a high authority at home: 

In the report of our Silver Commission made in 18i7, Governor Boutwell, late Secretary of the Treasury (volume 1, page 138), says: "It is no doubt true that the demonetization of either metal adds to the pur- chasing power of the metal retained for use, by diminishing the price of every article or merchandise, while it increases the burden of debts both public and pri>ate." 

The resultf of this mass of intelligent testimony may be stated 

briefly as proving that so long as England alone maintained gold as the single standard there was no contraction of the circulating medium 

in the world's commercial transactions, and consequently no depression in trade because of a contracted currency. France acted as the 

great clearing-house of the nations, but when tbe United States and 

Germany struck down their silver coinage in 1873 France, drained 

as she had been of $1,000,000,000 of gold by Germany shortly before, 

could no longer maintain her gold and silver coins on equal terms with 

free coinage, and had to protect herself against the combined attack 

of England, Germany, and the United St~tes as best she could. 

It also proves that the result of the withdrawal of silver as an equal 

factor with gold has been to reduce the value of all the past accumulations and present products of labor f1·om 30 to 35 per cent. since 1873, 

by appreciating the value or purchasing power of gold to that extent, as they aU agree that the appreciation of gold and depreciation of 

property mean the same thing, being only a different wriy of stating 

the same proposition. They further agree that the annual product of 

gold is almost, if not entirely, absorbed in the arts aud uses to which 

it is applied outside of coinage and by absorption in India and other 

silver-using countries, whose exports exceed their imports, and, when 

so absorbed, it never again appears as part of the world's coinage. 

They assume as a proposition too plain for argument, that the effort 

to destroy one-half of the world's circulating medium and force the 

remaining half to perform the functions of both metals largely increased the burden of all the obligations of the debtor class by requiring 35 per cent. more of the property they hold or labor to produce 

to be sold to pay their debts than was needed when gold and silver 

were both legal-tender money at fixed rates, as they were when most 

of the present la.rge obligations were contracted. 

It did not require any evtdence to prove what they all assumed as a necessary sequence of the facts they furnished, that steadily-falling 

values contract trade and production of every description to the limits, of absolute necessity, as no man can buy, borrow, or spend money to 

produce anything which he knows will be worth 10 per cent. less when 

his obligations mature than it is at the time he buys or produces it. 

Of course, money is apparently abundant. When these conditions 

exist nobody dares borrow it, no matter how low the rate of interest. 

Labor suffers perhaps more than all else by enforced idleness and inability to change as production dwindles. 

India alone, of all the possessions of Great Britain, has, as a country, 

profited by the rapacity of the gold-worshipers. England, in 1835, 

prohibited the coinage of gold coin in that country, while she granted 

the colonial government the right to coin silver without limit. Since 

that time the official tables which I hold in my hand show that the 

silver coinage of India has amoirnted to over $1,500,000,000. 

.As soon as the report and testimony taken by Lord Iddesleigh's committee appeared some very distinguished gentleman who did not sign 

his name, but his paper is evidently semi-official, took up the silver 

question in an elaborate article and with great ability he showed that 

all that was needed for England to crush out the export of agricultural 

products by the United States was to induce the United States to stop 

the coinage ofsilverto keep down theprice ofit, and thatindiawould soon supply England with all the cotton goods, with all the hemp products, with all the wheat, with all the tobacco she wanted, and the 

United States would be broken down, but above all he pleaded that 

England must never consent to restore legal-tender silver to her own 

coinage, as that would simply be building up the United States at the 

expense of England's leading colony. 

One of the gentlemen who testified before Lord Iddesleigh's com- mission, Mr. Moreton Frewen, a very intelligent man, who I met once 

in the Northwest, sent me a copy of that pamphlet, which is entitled 

"The Silver Question, or Sacrifice of India," accompanied by a letter, in 

which he said, among other things: 

A study of this pamphlet will, however, demonstrate the special diffice.lties 

by which England is beset. One part of the Empire, in which gold alone is legal 

tender, is evidently suffering severely from the rapid appreciation of the stand- ard; another immense portion of the empire, in which the standard silver is depreciating, is as clearly gaining, and this gain, while partly at the expense of British agriculture, is more particularly at the expense of the United States. If England now supports any legislation which restores to silver its old value and the old "par of exchange," then the wheat exports of British India will cease and also the cotton industry of India, now expanding so immensely, may be paralyzed. The sole object of the writer of the "Sacrifice of India" is to pro- test against any legislation in England which, by restoring to silver the pre- rogative of legal tender, may keep silver steady at its former price, and thus secure to the United States the control of the export trades in cotton and wheat, a control which now promises to pass to India. 

In this pamphlet the writer goes on to show-and I may take the 

liberty to make some extracts from it-after showing the increase of 

India's trade in whea.t and other things and the immense increase of 

her exp:>rts and imports, which I laid before the Senate the other day, 

and therefore need not repeat. He says: 

I trust 1 have succeeded in making clear tl'le effect of low exchange upon the Indian wheat export-. Other articles of Indian produce which enter into com• p etition with gold-using countries would simila'\'ly suffer by a rise in exchange and in the same proportion, forsi[lce thatditl'erence or loss could not be made up out of t·eductions in the cost of transport or out of traders' profit.s (these being 

alt·eady lowered to a minimum), it would have to come out of the pockets of the cultivators. With articles such as iudigo, or jute, or shellac, which are com- parative monopolies of Indian production, A.nd tea, wbicll is produced only in silver countrie3, the b e nefit derived from low cxchan.zeThat is, cheap sil\er- is in the cheapening of the selling cost, and the consequent extending of con- sumption. A return of exchange to the old ratio would increase the cost of tea in London by about 2.'5 p er cent. Thus consumption would be checked, and consequently also the pwduction in India and China. The disturbance thus created would in cour.:;e of time be adjusted by the ordinary law of supply and demand, but at the cost of the producing country. Another important benefit conferred upon India by low exchange, but which is little noticed by the Government, is the encouragement to her loc.'\l manu- factures, of which the two most important, although there are many others, are the jute and cotton manufactures. In these, besides an enormously extended consumption of both these manufactures within the country itself, their exports have increased as follows: Cotton yarn, 1830-'81, 26,901,345 pounds; 1885-'86, 78,233,471 pounds; cotton print goods, 1880-'8t, 3J,434,032 yards; 1885-'86, 51,574,372 yards; jute, ISSG-'81, 

45,354,0-!4 bags; 1885-'86, 82,774,207 bags. In these industries alone, as already noticed, about one hundred millions of rupees are invested, and many thousands of well-paid operati>es are happily 

employed. The effect of raising exchange to the old ratio would be to interfere with these industrie'l, but more particularly with the cotton. 

't'hen he adds, in substance: "Take care bow you restore this silver 

coinage and bring back our old rival, the United States, into this trade. You are not only protecting India, but you men in England are the 

principal beneficiaries. You have increased our taxes threefold, you are making us support the Indian army of the Queen, you have pensioned your hungry sons, otherwise unprovided for, upon us as a legacy 

of the old East India Company, andyouare demanding all these tributes 

and subsidies in gold, so that while we hnse increased in prosperity 

very largely yon are, in fact, getting the lion's s1Jare out of us at last." 

Therefore by every appeal, in every form, tho effort is to get England 

to stn.nd by her single gold standard. I have thought that the Hoyal 

Commission now in session will do it, although very many of the best men in that country desire that it shall be otherwise. 

I hope the .American Congress will show by equalizing our own coins 

and their uses that we do not intend to pander to them. The Director 

of the Mint, M:r. Kimball, sent me a. letter the other day when he saw that! was looking into this subject. He said that the royal commission 

is being made to believe from the arguments before it that silver is 

produced so cheaply in this country that if its coinage is restored we can furnish it at less than 1s. Bd. (38 cents) to the dollar, their leading 

statistician is so declaring, and that the royal commission has in a pre· 

liminary report given great weight to it. Mr. Kimball says this in 

his lette1·: 

Your remarks in the Senate on the report of the royal commission suggests sending you a copy of a blank recently prepared by me. 

I diJ not know he was going to write to me. 

I beg you to observe the note at the foot of the page. Mr. Atkilason told me that he found great disinclination toward any chc'lnge in ihe status of silver in Grea t Britain on account of the prevalence of the idea that silver is, or can be, 

produced at about half of the present bullion value, and that indeed it would be" shoveled" out in unprecedented volume if the status be improved. '.rhis im- pression seems to mainly rest upon the preposterous estimates of Professor Ans- tin, of the Royall\:lint, whose testimony was taken by the commission, and with an exhibit of detailed statements, to be found in the appendix, which claims to be based on a technical analysis of industrial cost. Nothing ceuld be more misleading. Yet I notice that more import-ance attaches to this testic:wny than to anything else brought forward during the whole proceedings. Seve ral Eng- lish writers have since based arguments upon it. I may say that no American technical authority has ever ventured to put forth a general estimate of cost of production in the case of the precious metals, the truth being, as pointed out by me in my Report on Production, 1835. page 26, that their cost as well as the supply, is to be considered subsidiary to a large extent to the production and reduction of misceilaneot.LS ores, their part in the · value of which is none the less an integral one. A la1·ge part of the produce 

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2014 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. \ · MARCH 13, 

o f both metal'! corresponds to the aggregate of small products, which bear a. small, but widely varying, proportion to their cost. Estimated as in the case of any other staple, the cost of silYer is believed by most men acquainted with our mineral industries to be some multiple of its value. 

While a few ventures yield a. rich profit, a. majority of gold and silver mining ventures fail to pay any interest on outlay, though in the aggregate contribut- ing the larger part of the silver produced in the world. This is a. curious fact, and due mainly to the fascination which the search for the precious metals has for a large class in all countries where a few examples of successful operations are to be found. I may take some occasion to follow out the methods of Pro- fessc!" Austen, whereby he has reached so false o. conclusion. I allude to his as- sumptions of cost of production, to the arbitrary way in which he bas excluded all but successful ventures. If the silver mo.rket had alone the product of these to depend upon, it would be in sad traits indeed. Truly yours, J . P. Kil\ffiALL. 

He furnishes the note which he is going to send out, and perhaps bas 

sent out now, to leading men of the country to get in1ormation to contracl ict this report. 

The note appended to the printed questions to which he cn.lls my 

attention reads as follows: 

The Director of the :l\Iint hopes to be able to deduce some approximate esti- mate of the cost of producing silver under different circumstances1 in order to meet certain obviously erroneous statements before the present • royal com- mission appointed to inquire into the recent changes in the relati\'"e values of the precious metals." (London.) This cost has been represented in testimony before that commission as low as1s. 8d. 

I referred a while ago to what the national banks were doing. I 

happen to have in my band a letter, which I intended to read, and may 

perhaps as well do it now, from a very distinguished gentleman, Hon. 

Edwards Pierrepont, dated November 22, 1887, in which he calls my 

attention to the action of these gentlemen; and as he agrees precisely 

with my opinion about it, I will read what be sa.ys: 

No. 103 FIFTH AvE.r..'UE, Kot:embe1· 22,1837. 

Hon. J AMES B. BEcx, United Slates Senator: 

MY DEAR SIR: 'Vhat your letter says about coin-notes I haYe read with inter- est; but judging from the report of the bankers' convention held at Pittsburgh last month, 1 think that you will see a renewed effort to suspend silver coinage 

indefinitely. On page 60 of the report is the following: "The British Government has appointed a royal commission to investigate the silver question, which has made a preliminary report ad,·er;;e to the double standard. As the assent of England bas been recognized by tlle most em!nent bimetallists as essential to anyeffectJal agreement upon thesilYerquestion, the commiltee recommend that this association delay action for the present, and awr.it the final report of the royal commission to Parliament and the action of Parlirunent thereon. "' * * The committee further recommends that the coinage of silver dollars by the United States, under the acL of February, 1818, be suspended until the points at issue of the silver question be settled by inter- national agreement." 

These distinguished bankers are waiting until they can get an adYerse 

report from England, which they are encouraging by every means in 

their power. The moment they get it then the hue and cry will be 

r aised aga;in with redoubled energy that we are keeping dishonored 

money in circulation after the world has decided nga inst it. When they 

have done all they can to bring about the result they will claim that we can do nothing. What Congress has to do to tb wart their schemes is 

to t..'l.ke some honest step forward and show the ""odd that we intend to 

h old on to what we have and to progress steadily and not retrograde 

at the dictation of any power, foreign or domestic. Mr. Pierrepont 

adds: · 

This means an indefinite suspen ion of sHYer coinage, and nothing else. It is well known that the" final," like the preliminary, report will be" adverse to the double standard." :l\1any honest men h!we been duped into the belief that by suspending our silver coinage we can force England into an international agreement about silver. The smiling contempt with which the ruling class in .England receives this suggestion is not complimentary to our intelligence. The suspension of our sil>er coinage is exactly what they want. Such suspension, they imagine, would 

largely increase the purchasing power oftl!eir gold; howe>erfallacious this •iew may prove in the longrun, they now entertain it, and it will take many years to change them. It is well understood in Great Bt·itain that if Congress will once suspend the coinage of silver, the gold forces of England and America combined can prevent its restoration. Some tell us that we ought to stop the coinage of silver, because they say that the intrinsic value of the silver dollar is worth less by 30 per cent. than the gold dollar. This is an entire mistake. In 1851 the silver dollar of the exact weight and fineness as now was at a premium of 3.42 per cent. above the gold 

dollar, and for a period of forty year3 next prior t.o 1813 it was continuously at a. premium; and in 1851 the gold of the world, in proportion to silver, was far less than it is to-day. Was the intrinsic value of 100 cents of silver in 1851 3.42 per cent. more than the intrinsic value of 100 cents of gold? The legal value of a five-pound Bank ofEngland note is five gold sovereigns-the legn.l value of a ten-dollar greenback is a gold eagle. But the intrinsic value of the Eng] ish bank-note and the Amer- ican greenback together is nothing; their only value is a value imposed bylaw, a. fiat value, there is nothing intrinsic about it. By far the chief value of all coins is fiat yalue. All the gloomy predictions about the coinage of sih·er in our country ha•e proved false. We need not distress oursel>es about the royal commission or the action of the British Parliament on the silver question. If the continental governments which coined silver prior to 1873 would restore its coinage, there can be no reasonable doubt that the silver dollar would be quite equal to the gold dollar in the whole of continental Europe, as it now is in every corner of the United States. But for the silver, what would have been our condition this last summer, with the national-bank notes reduced from three hundred and fifty-six millions to one hundred and sixty-five millions, and one hundred and ninety-four miliions locked in the Treasury? In any country who e currency is reduced to gold, it is always easy for a few rich operators to "corner" the currency, throw down the price of stocks, wheat, cotton, and other commodities, and force those who 

have bills falling due to sacrifice their properLy to escape bankruptcy. The member of Congress who shall vote to suspend the coinage and "await there- p ort of the royal commission," will be a bold man or an idiot. Is it possible 

that this great and powerful nation, quite the richest in the world, co.n not de· vise a financial system suited to its conditions, instead of waiting in dazed be- wilderment for the action of a British Parliament? I am, ever, faithfully yours, EDWARDS PIERREPONT. 

To show why I have no confidence in our late commissioner ou the 

silver question, I will add that Mr. Atkinson is a doctt·inaire; he is an 

able man and beyond doubt a man of integrity, but Mr. Atkinson is 

not the man whom anybody who knows him would select as a friend 

of silver money. He testified before the commission of which the Senator from Ne\ada [1\I.r . • JONES] was chairman. 

Mr. HOAR. The Senator from Kentuc1..-y will permit me to s.ay, as 

he has alluded to an eminent constituent of mine, that the present Administration did send him to Europe on precisely that errand. 

Mr. BECK. I know it did, and that is what I do not like. 

Mr. HOAR. I understood the Senator to say that nobody ever sent 

Mr. Atkinson on any sncb errand. 

Mr. BECK. No. We have made blunders. 

Mr. HOAR. You did say so. 

l!I.r. BECK. I read the 1·esolution some time ago-perhaps the Sena- tor wag not in- of the Senator from Delaware [Mr. SAULSBURY], reciting that Mr. Atkinson bad been sent, but that we do not propose to 

send him or any one el e any more on such missions. I propo e tofuYOr that resolution mainly because we ha\e not sent the kind of men who were likely to do the most good. There are gold worshippers in 

the Democratic party, I am sorry to eay, as well as in the Republican 

party. We are not strictly divided as parties on that line, there are 

some Senators who st::md by me very earnestly on this question on the 

other side of this Chamber in sustaining our silver coinage and in giving it equal rights, I am happy to say. 

Ur. Atkinson was asked the following questions by the silver commission in 1876 and answered them in this way. 

After insisting that there were causes which made silver no longer fit 

t:> be a legal tender, be said, in answer to questions: 

Q. 7. Are these causes temporary or permanent? A. No positive answer can be made to this question. It is certain that silver has been recently subject to such great fluctuations that it is for the time being a most unfit substance for a standard of yalue. 

Q. 8. ' Vould the relative yalue of gold and silver be affected by the remone- tization of the latter in this country, coupled with the resumption of specie payments? 

A. The temporary increase of demand for silver would, I doubt not. increase its >alue in relation to gold, but only temporarily, and its ultimate relation to 

gold would be determined by the cost of production and the general demand for it in the world. If the question implies the resumption of specie payments in silycr, as a full legal tender, I think it implies an impossibility. The resump- tion of specie payments depends upon confidence being restored. To make a.n unlimited tender of this metal, at its old weight, would be so bad a breach of faith, and would imply such want of perception in regard to the needs of the time. as to destroy what little confidence there is now existing, and defeat tho attempt itself. . Q. 9. Which standard, the single gold or the double standard of gold and silver, is best calculated to facilitate a return to specie payments? A. I think resumption will be retarded and not fn.cilitated by any present al· teration in the rel!Uion of gold and sil>er coins to each other, and that the silver 

coinage should remain a token coinage, carefully restricted to the actual de- mands of the country for tokens, o.nd be as strictly limited as was the amount of fractional paper currency. Q. 10. If the donblestandru·d is adopted, what relation of value should be fixed between gold and silver? A . That which is changing from week to week, or from day to day, can not be fixed by any statute. I think no change should be made at present in the relation of the weight in our coins, nor should any change be attempted until the value of silver is fixed more than it is now. Then there will be a basis for legislation ns to the weight each coin should contain. 

Q. 11. If the United State should establish the double standard, would it have n tendency to confirm France, Italy, and Belgium and the other nations of the Latin Union, Austria., Russia, Holland, Mexico, Asia, and South America in their present policy of employing silver as an IUllimited le~al tender? A . I do not think the example of the United States wtll affect intelligent statesmen anywhere. I think we have blundered too much in the last ten years to have our example copied by any intelligent nation, until at least ten more years have expired, in which we have shown our fitness to teach. · 

If Senators will read the whole of the testimony of Mr. Atkinson, 

they will find that be was not only bitterly opposed to the restoration 

of silver to any position above mere subsidiary tokens, but he showed 

scant respect for the intelligence of those who differed from him. I 

confess, therefore, to being astonished at his selection as the agent of 

the United States by the Secretary of State to induce England and 

other nations to aid us in restoring gold and silver as joint factors or 

units of value; and I was not astoni'>hed that be ignored all the testimony taken before the Iddesleigh commis ion, which was in direct 

opposition to the views he has expressed before our Congressional joint 

committee. 

That is not the kind of a man I should send to Europe to take caro 

of silver. But waivi.llg all that and believing that the first thing for 

Congress to do is to assert our own rights and to let England, France, 

and Germany, and the bondholders of America, the bankers, and everybody else know that when we put out our coin, or any paper based 

upon it, that it is as good as any other coin or any other paper, and that 

we have not one coin for the rich and another for the poor, that gold 

and silver recognized by us at the standard value of July 14, 1870, in 

which all bonds are payable, is good enough for anybody, and that we 

intend tQ stand upon it and maintain it with all onrpower, and as every 

prediction up to this time in regard to what would happen if we attempted to do so bas been falsified, we have a right to a~ume that the 
·- ·~ 

1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 2015 

thirty-odd million dollars of gold coming in this year more than we exported, $174,000,000 having come since we began coining silver more 

than we have coined of silver with the effort made in 1 80 to deposit 

gold and get silver certificates, when men deposited S80,000,000 of gold 

for them until they were stopped by the Treasury Department., if they 

do not deposit it now no harm can be done. They are not obliged to 

do it. 

'Ve have su:rplus enough belonging to the people on which we can 

issue coin certificates, backed by the coin in the Treasury, whenever 

we please: because the coin is in our own hands and will never be demanded if we have it on hand. I do not see how anybody can 

object to that, except those who want to keep up a distii:lction and make 

a discrimination between the two metals and hold out to England and 

her Royal Commission that we are still undetermined, and if they will 

only struggle a little longer to maintain her single standard that we 

will give way to her and abandon our silver coin as hopeless. 

I have thus imperfectly stated the object of the bill. l shall endeavor to argue its merits moreclearlyandsbowourne&lfor it when it 

comes up for a vote. I know I have to give way to the Senator from Iowa 

[Mr. ALLISO:N] to call up what is knowp. as the undervaluation bill 

which has the right of way, but at some very early day I will call up 

this bill and I will try to press it to a vote, and I will see whether the 

Senate of the United States will agree with me in believing that it is a 

step in the right direction. Our present gold certificates are of no sort 

of use as circulation. More than half of them are in denominations of 

$10,000 and over, so we are simply insurers of rich men's gold without 

pay; that of course they want, as they want all else. They are not 

currency in any sense. In the mean time I win say now that I agree with the Senator from 

Delaware that there is no use in begging England, or Germany, or 

France, or any other country any more. ·we are able to stand by ourselve and maintain a policy of our own, and I am not sure, in view of 

what is going on in the world, that we ought not to coin eilver up to 

the maximum limit instead of the minimum. That, however, is a 

que tion which may be discussed hereafter. 

Gentlementalka.boutcompulsorycoinage. Why, Mr. President, the 

present law is simply a J imitation upon a pre-existing right that all men 

could avail themselves of until the limitation was put on it, and as all 

holders of gold bullion get gold coin now free of charge. We had to 

require that silver should be coined to the amount of at least $2,000,000 

per month, because if we had not required it it would not have been 

coined at all. How many dollars do you think would have been coined 

under the administration of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. SHERMAN] if 

he had not been required by law to coin at least $2,000,000 of silver 

per month? How many millions a month would have been coined 

under the administration of any Secretary of the Treasury from that 

day to this? Not a dollar. 'l"'hey have been begging us all the time 

to stop it, and then call silver coinage compulsory. There is free coinage of gold without a penny cost. 

England by statute requires the Bank of England to pay for bullion, 

in bank notes which. may be immediately exchanged for gold, £3 17s. 

9d. for each standard ounce of gold that is offered, thus fiunishing a 

market to everybody, we are inviting them all to coin their gold free. 

When men produce silver we call it repudiated, depreciated stuff, 

token money, and everything else that is vile. Unless we had required something to be done, nothing, I repeat, would have done, and 

yet that is charged as being compulsory coinage. 

I am not sure that we can maintain free coinage of silver by ourselves. I am not clear about that. That is a question for discussion. 

But whatever we do put out as money we ought to maintain as equal 

to any money that we put out, and when we say that gold and silver 

shall st.:'tnd upon an equality by our law, Congress having the power to 

coin money and regulate the value thereof, and the States having no 

right to make any thing a legal tender but gold and silver coin, either 

metal, coined by Congress the value of which has been thus regulated, 

when it is once in the hands of the people Congress must see that eYery 

particle of gold and silver is made equal for all uses; and if we treat it 

as such ourselves we shall maintain it against the world as we can do, 

and the moment we do that then the nations of Europe will follow our 

example. 

I mea.nt to read some other papers, but I have talked very much too 

long. I can show by offi.cLo'l.l statistics that Austria can hardly keep her 

debts afloat; Russia. is substantially bankrupt; Germany, with a great 

army, is staggering; France, perhaps, is more in debt than any of them. 

England confesses the depreciation of all values of 35 per cent. since 

1873 until she, too, is staggering and her gold is leaving her. They 

are all using more silver to-clay than gold in their ordinary transactions 

and in spite of all their protests they will have to come back to it as~ 

fu:rlegal tender; and when they do the double standard using both metals, 

will not be more than enough to meet the growing wants and needs of 

commerce and the growing wants of people whose needs are becoming 

greater as they are becoming richer and their commerce is becoming more extended. 

I beg pardon of the Senate for having detained it so long. 

ll.fr. SHERMAN. Mr. President, as a matter of course I shall not 

undertake to reply to the argument of the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. 

BECK] upon the silver question, but I wish now, before the subject 

passesfrom the attention of the Senate, to briefly reply to one or two 

matters of a personal character which the Senator from Kentucky feels 

himself justified in lugging into this controversy. I say "lugging" because this debate is but an addendum to the debate bad the other day 

when the Senator fmm Kentucky started off against a bill intended to 

grant pensions to certain disn,bled soldiers of the Union Army. He extended from that point until be got upon the tariff, very naturally, perhaps; he thinks so at least, becy1use every road leads to the tariff with 

him. When the ta._riff got to be a little tiresome he commenced talking about trus~ and said that the great trusts were caused by the tariff. 

I ventured in a mild-mannered way to suggest to him a doubt whether 

trusts were caused by the tariff; whether trusts did not exist in domestic as well as foreign productions, and he answered promptly that the 

tariff was the great cause of all. I named to him the whisky trust, 

the oil trust, the cotton-seed trust, and other trusts of that kind, and 

wanted to know how they grew out of the tariff. Thereupon the Senator changed his ground and got onto the silver question, and then he 

commenced assailing me for the coina~e act, and said I. had been responsible for the coinage act of 1873. He spoke of it as having been 

secretly passed, surreptitiously done, etc., that! didit, that I kuewit. 

I was very indifferent to the previous part of his speech, but I felt a. little sensitive that I was charged with having the management or 

custody of any bill whatever that was not openly and manfully dis- . 

cussed, and, although my opinions often differ with those of the Senator from Kentucky, I believe that he is as sincere and honest in his 

opinions as I am in mine. When the heat was over be should have 

withdrawn his imputation. He will never find me dodging responsibility, or evading or concealing a measure, in whole or in part, as long 

as I live; and in reply, I think I convinced the Senate that I did not 

in this case. And now, Mr. President, his answer, nearly three hours 

long, is "lame and impotent" to the last degree. How does he answer? By going to the public records and showing by them whether or 

not the law was put through the Senate in a secret and suppressed and 

indefinite way? Not at all. The records are the evidence of our acts 

here; but instead of going to them, he quotes speeches which have been 

made on the stump, one by yourself: sir, [Mr. L~GALLS in the chair], 

which he grossly misapplies. He cites what several gentlemen say 

they did not know. 

He quotes trom a speech made by Mr. KELLEY, of Pennsylvania, 

and other members of the House of Representatives, and a speech made 

by my friend from Iowa [Mr. ALLISON], not one of them bearing upon 

the question as to whether the bill tmder my charge was openly and 

manfully presented and discussed; and now, thank fortune, I am able 

from the original records of the Senate to show that that bill was more 

openly discussed, was more fully considered than any bill pending in 

Congress. It was submitted in every possible form to public opinion 

inside and outside of Congress, as is shown by the original records here 

upon my table. 

What was the coinage act of 1873? Was it a bill of my devising? 

No, I never saw it until it was sent to me here, in a letter dated April 

25, 1870, addressed to me as chairman of the Committee on Finance, 

from :Mr. Boutwell, the SecreL'lfy of the Treasury. It was a long bill 

containing many sections that I had never before seen. With that bill 

came a history of the bill; that it had been prepared nearly a year before that time. At a time when we hopefully looked for the resumntion 

of specie payruents, then faintly in the glimmering distance, 1\J.r. Linderman, not a man of my politics at all, but a leading DP-mocrat, who 

had held for a long time the office of Superintendent of tlie Mint at 

Philadelphia, and Mr. Knox, Comptroller of the Currency, framed a bill 

to codify or include in one l::tw all the coinage acts of the United States 

which were then in force. The bill was sent to us with a formal letter 

and it was p1·inted. Here is the printed letter: 

TREASUll.Y DEPA.RTME:liT, ,.4pril25, 1810. 

Srn: 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 hill has been prepared under the supervision of John Jay Knox. Deputy Comptroller of the CurreHcy, and ils 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 ~lint was establi'Jhed, in 1792; and the report gives a concise statement of the various amendments pro- posed tq existing laws and the necessity for U1e 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 importn.nt branch of the Government service. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

GEO. S, BOUTWELL, 

Secretal'y of the Tl'easury. 

The report and the bill were referred to the Committee on Finance 

April 28, 1870, and printed, and 500 additional copies printed for the use of the Treasury Department. 

The report says: 

The method adopted in the preparation of the bill was first to arrange in as concise a. form as possible the laws now in eXlStence upon these subjects, with such additional sections and suggestions as seemed valuable. Having accom· plished this, the bill as thus prepared was printed upon paper with wide mar- gin, and in this form transmitted to the diffe rent mints and as ay offices, to the First Comptroller, the Treasurer, the SQiicitor, the First Auditor, and to such other gentlemen as are kuown to be intelligent upon metallurgical and numis- matieal subject~. with the request that the printed bill should be returned with such notes and suggestions as experience and education should dictale. In 

. ' 
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.·· 

I . 

2016 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MARon 13, 

this way the views of more than thirty gentlemen who are conversant with 

the manipulation of metals, the mnnufadure of coinage, the execution of the 

present Jaws relative thereto, the method of keeping accounts, and of making t·eturns to the Department, have been obtained with but little expense to the 

Department and little inc~nvenience to coiTespon<;lents: Having rece~ved ~he~e 

suggestions, the present bill has been framed, and IS believed to compnse w1thin 

the compass of eight or ten pages of the Revised Statutes every important pro- vision con tained in more than sixty different enactments upon the Mint, assay offices, and coinage of the United States, which are the result of nearly eighty years of legislation upon the~e subjects. 

The Senator says that the silver do\}ar was surreptitiously and secretly suppressed by the operation of this bill. It did not become a 

law until three years afterwards, and, as I will show; it was printed 

thirteen different times, over and over again debated, and the debates 

upon the bill in the Senate occupied sixty-eight columns of the Globe, 

and in the House seventy-eight columns of the Globe, probably ten 

times as many columns devoted to it as the Senator's speech will make, 

and that is a long standard for debate. It was debated day after day. 

The first proposition submitted to us was the discontinuing the coinage 

of the silver dollar. The report of Mr. Knox called special attention to 

the discontinuance of the silver dollar as a standard, as may be seen 

from the following paragraph on page 11: 

SILVER DOLLAR-ITS DISCONTIYUANCE AS A STANDARD. 

The coinage of the silver-dollar piece, the history of which is here given , is 

discontinued in the proposed bilL n is by law the dollar unit, and, assuming 

the value of gold to be fifteen and one-ha lf times that of silver, being about the mean ratio for the past six years, is worth in gold a premium of about 3 per cent. (its value being 103.12) and intrinsically more than 7 per cent. premium in our other silver coin, its value thus being 107.42. The presentlawsconsequently au- thorize both a gold-dollar unit and asih·er-dollar unit, differing from each other 

in intrinsic value. The present gold-dollar pi ece is made the dollar unit in the 

proposed bill, ~nd t?e silver doll~r piece is discontinued. ~f, however, such a coin is authonzed, 1t should be 1ssued only as a commercml dollar, not as a standard unit of account, and of the exact value of the Mexican dollar, which is 

the favorite for circulation in China and Japan and othe r Oriental countries. 

This original bill and report were sent., as I have stated, to all the 

leading specialists familiar with this subject, to the officers of the mints 

all over the country, to the leading bankers of the country, and to 

members of Congress, inviting their criticism. In the first bill that 

was thus sent there was this section, which I will read: 

That of the silver en ins the weight of the dollar shall be 384 grains (now 412& 

grains) the weight of the half-dollar or piece of 50 cents shall be 192 grains; and 

that th~ quarter-dollar and dime and half-dime shall be, respectively, one-half 

and one-fifth and one-tenth of the weight of said half-dollar. 'l'ha.t the silver 

coin issued in conformity with the above sections shall be a legal tender in any one payment of debts for all sums not exceeding $5, except duties on imports. 

That was substantially the form in which that section appeared in 

the last bill sent by the House here in the spring of 1872, two years 

afterwards, and that particular section which abolished, as you say, or 

dropped the silver dollar, was in the bill during all its historY: fi·om the. 

beainning to the end. The dollar proposed by Mr. Knox, rnstead of 

th~ old dollar of 412 ~ grains, was a dollar of 384 grains, or just the 

exact equivalent of two of the minor half-dollars, and reduced the dollar by their proposition to a minor, a subsidiary coin, and he specialJ y 

called attention to this by saying the dollar was "now 412~ grains,'' 

and proposed to make the new coin a legal tender for only ~5. That 

was the proposition. 

blr. DAWES. Just what the fractional currency was. 

Mr. SHERbfAN. Just what the fractional currency was. So in the 

original bill the old dollar was displaced and in its place was put a 

minor coin equal to two half-dollars coinEd under the old act of 1834. 

That was the proposition, and it was sent to California. and other gold 

and silver regions. 

It was objected in California that the dollar proposed would not answer commercial exchanges, that they wanted a dollar even larger than 

the old silver dollar of 412! grains, that they wanted a convenient coin 

into which silver, then being mined largely in that region of country, 

might be put for exportation. It was said if we would give them a 

coin of 420 grains, it would. be worth about 3 grains more than the 

Mexican dollar, and that such a coin as that would fill the channels of 

commerce and enable them to export silver, at that time only valuable 

to be exported, not used by the people of our country, beca.use we were then using paper and fractional currency entirely. 

During this time the officers of the San Francisco branch mint made 

the following suggestion: · 

Would not the proposed change in the weight of the silver dollar dis"turb the 

relative value of all our coinage, affect our commercial conventi~ns, and pos- sibly impait· the validity of contracts running through a. long perwd? Might not the dollar be r etained as a. measure of value, but the coinage of the piece 

for circulation be discontinued? 

Mr. E. B. Elliot, of the Treasury Department, gave a complete history of the silver dollar and suggestedThe issue of a commercial dollar of nine-tenths fineness, and containing of pure silver just 25 grams, in place of the then existing silver dollar of 412_l grains; the proposed silver dollar being almost the exact equivalent of the sliver con- tained in the older Spanish-Mexican pillared dollar, established in 1704 by proc- lamation of Queen Anne as n. legal te nder of p ayment and accepted as par of 

exchange for the British colonies of North America at the rate of 54 pence sterling to the dollar, or four and four-ninths dollars to the pound sterling. 

Mr. Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, long an officer of the Mint and 

an expert, recommended that this dollar of 385 grains be stricken out, 

and there is here a petition from the California Legislature-! had it 

in my hand a few moments ago; it is on the Secretary's desk- in which 

they ask Congress formally to raise the standard of silver and not to use th i8 diminished dollar of 385 grains. 

I n consequence of this diversity of opinion among experts the Comptroller of the Currency dropped out the silver dollar entkely, said nothing about it, made no provision for it, but instead of that told us that 

if not omitted entirely a dollar ought to be inserted, as demanded by 

the PacificCoast, for commercial purposes, containing 420 grains. 

Mr. President, from the beginning, from April, 1870, until the passage of the law on February 27, 1873, the provision discontinuing the 

old silver dollar of 412~ grains stood in that proposed law, printed here 

over and over again by both Houses through nearly three sessions of 

Congress, and yet members of Congress are quoted, forsooth, as saying 

that they never saw it! Whose fault was it? 

Why, Mr. President, I have here the last print of the bill. Here it 

is, with the old-time appeamnce of decayed bills, folded away for good. 

Here it is in the very last print of the bill. Look at the history of it, 

and see whether there was anything secret about it. Here is the bill: 

May 29, 1872.-In the Senate of the United States. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance. 

December 16, 18i2.-Reported by Mr. SHERMAN with amendments, namely: 

"Sh·ike out the parts in bra.ckets and insert the parts printed in italics." 

Then follows: 

January 7, 1873.-1\Ir. SHERMAN, from the Committee on Finance, rt>portedad- ditional amendments; which were ordered to be printctl with the bill. 

Then, two or three weeks afterwards, I do not kuow exactly ,,·hen, 

although the date cau be easily had, I called up the bill for consideration. Here it "~Vas, printed in double-leaded type. 

I will read what I asked the Senator from Kentucky to put in his 

remarks, but I will put it in mine. Here is the proposition of the House. 

I have already read the proposition as it came to us origina.lly. The 

proposition of the House was: 

That the silver coins of the United Stales shall be a dollar, a half-dolla r or fifty- cent piece, a quarter-dollar ot· twenty-fh'e-cent piece, a nd a dime or ten-cent piece; and the w eigh t. of the d ollar s ha ll be 38-igm.ins; tue half-d olll\r, q uarter- dollar, and the dime shall be, r esp ecti\·ely, one-half, one-quarter, and one-tenth 

of the weight of s::tid doll ar; wllich co ins shall be a legal tende r, at the ir d e nom- inational yalue, for any amount n ot exceed ing $5 in any one payment. 

That is substantially as it stood at the beginning of this controversy, 

an<l yet the Senator says it was secretly, surreptitiously inserted. 

The Senate, on the other lland, iu deference to the demands made 

from the Pacific Coast, where the great body of the silver bullion was 

produced, offered, instead of that, this proposition (and it is now the l~w), to strike out what [have read and insert: 

That the silver coins of tl1e U nited States slmll be a tra d e-dollar, a half-dollar or fifLy-cent piece, a quarter-dollar or twenty-fi ve-cent pi ece, a dime or ten-cent piece; and the weight of the trade-dollar sha ll be 420 grai ns troy, the we ight of 

the half-dollar shall be 12k g rams; the quarter-dollar ttnd the d ime shall be, re- spectively, one-half a nd one-flfth of the weight of said half-dollar; and said coins 

shall be legal tender, at tbeil· nominal Ynlue, for any cmo nnt not exceeding$;) in any one payment. 

The following section was contained in all the different bills aud the 

coinage act of 1873: 

Sr.c. 18. And be i.t fm·ll.cr enacted, That no C'>ins, either of gol<l, silver, or minor 

coinage, shall hereafter be is."'ued from the Mint other than those of the denomi- na tions, standards, and weights herein set forth. 

The amendment of the Senat.c converted the grains of the old halfdollar into the grams of the French. Instead of taking the diminished 

minor dollar proposed by the House, not the old dollar of the fathers 

that the Senator bas been talking about, but the dollar of 3 4 grains, 

we struck that on t and put in the trade-dollar of 1:.20 grains, and then 

we adapted the minor coins exactly to the FTench gram, so that two 

half-dollars would be precisely equal to 5 francs iu the French currency. 

Th~t was done by common coru:- nt. It only amounted to a change of 

one-half of 1 per cent., 12! grams being, I believe, the equivalent of 

about 193 instead of 192 gra.ins. The precise fraction I will not pre- tend to state, but that was all. 

Here was a proposition printed which lay upon that table for three 

months. Yes, the bill came over to us in the session before. It lay over through a vacation and was then taken up, and after some days, 

probably with considerable debate upon other questions, this propo- sition was put and carried almost nem. con. 

Can any Senator say that he did not see this bill? No, Senators; no 

man would plead the baby act in that way. I never would. I did see 

it. I did see that the original proposition of the House was to convert 

the silver dollar into a minor coin, a.ncl I did not believe in that. I 

did believe that it was better to have a coin according to the desire of 

the California people; to give them a coin of commerce, a trade-dollar 

into which they might convert their silver bullion, mined from the 

American mines, to be exported in the best form for the Oriental markets. 

That is what I thought; and every Senator and Member had the &'\me 

opportunity to see it, aud no doubt did see it. But there is one thing 

which, it seems, some did not see, and the Senator from Kentucky did 

not and does not s eem to know, and that is, tho difference between 

seeing what is past and what is to come in the future. We did not see into the future, and it is not given t o man to see into the future. 

We did not know that while we were acting here upon the official 

statement that a silver dollar was worth over 3 per cent. more than a 

gold dollar, by changes of production and other causes that position 
1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. 2017 

would be re\ersed. If any man bad then said to me that within 

twenty years, yea, within :fiiteen years after that time the silver dollar 

would only be worth 70 cent-B on the dollar, I would have thought 

biro crazy,. All there is about it is that we did not foresee the great 

cl1ange in the value of silver bullion. 

But when any one in the light of these fa<lt"B willsayofthemembers 

of that Senate or the members of that House, tbatthey sought to do 

anything by indirection or by secrecy, be does injustice to himself; be can not do injustice to me, because the records are there, and the Senator has seen them. 

Now, :Mr. President, let us goa little further. I answered promptly 

to the Senator from Kentucky, and made this statement, not so clear as I ha\e now made it, because I have the documents before :p1e. He 

brings a collateral witness to prove that after all I was a secret con- spirator, because at one time or another I proposed to make gold the 

single standard. There again he misrepresents my position. I did not 

make or propose to make it the single standard. I proposed to make 

gold an international coin, and to so change the coinage and the gold 

coins of all the peoples of the world that one would be easily converted 

into the other. 

As these coins now exist, a franc is worth less than one-fifth of a dollar, and yet the dollar only passes for :five francs, and the loss falls 

upon our people. So a pound sterling is not worth $5, and yet in common account we call the pound sterling $5. It has been the desire of 

scientists for more-than a hundred years, commencing with Newt{)n 

when he was director of the mint in England, that this difficulty of 

exchanges among peoples should be abolished, and it was the common sentiment of all the men who met in Paris, of all the nations, you 

may say, of Europe and Asia, that this difference should be in some way or other got rid of, so that the traveler might start in America and 

cross two oceans, traverse the world, with one America,n coin of unchangeable value. 

What was the proposition? The proposition was that we should take 

the franc, which was the lowest standard or unit of value, as the unit, 

and then change our gold coins so as to make 5 francs of French coin 

exactly equal in size, in material, in shape, in form, to the :five-franc gold 

piece. But as gold coins could not be readily issued in such small 

sums, it was proposed that we should take what is called the international, a gold coin of 25 francs, as a standard, and we recommended 

that the United States should make the half-eagle a coin of the exact 

commercial equivalent of 25 francs, and that England should make 

her pound sterling conform to this standard, so that 5 francs should be 

equal to $1 and $5 would be equal to £1. Austria, then greater even than Germany, was to make her 10 :florins equal to 25 francs. So we should have an international coin of commerce which would go over 

the world. .: Mr. President, that was the proposition. I was there, a citizen of 

the United St..'l.tes "and a member of this body. I was not a member 

per se of what is called the Paris conference, but I was invited. I went 

there. They published what was said in different languages. They 

gave me no special compliment in publishing what I wrote in two languages as if it was an extraordinary thing. All the proceedings were 

published in two languages. I read them, and after reading them all 

and :finding a concurring opinion that what they meant to do was a good 

thing to do, I wrote the letter, not one word of which I now withdraw; 

not one word of which, fairly interpreted under the circumstances which 

then surrounded me, would bear the meaning that is now suggested. 

The Senator from Kentucky uses this letter, which I will ask to have 

put in the RECORD. It is not very long, not one-half as long as some of the schedules attached to the speech of my friend from Kentucky. 

What we intended to do is plain and manifest. The Senator introduces this to prove what? That! was wrong in seeking to get an international coin? No; that was not it, but in some way or other that I 

wanted to conspire against silver; that it was silver I was striking at. 

Why at that time the silver dollar was worth over 3 per cent. above 

par. It was shortly before that time that Chevalier proposed to demonetize gold, and take the better metal, as be called it, silver, as the single standard. It was because silver had been practically abandoned for circulation, and, every country in modern Europe and our own had been compelled to lower the standard of our coins in silver in 

order to prevent their exportation. 

Does the Senator from Kentucky know that Tom Benton and the men of 1834 and 1837 who met this difficulty in the :first place demonetized silver, and from that time to this we have been pnctically upon 

the unit of gold coin? Although nominally in law the silver dollar 

stood as the unit of value, yet in fact and in practice gold was the on1y 

standard of value. But the silver was coined freely into what are called 

minor coins, 50 cents and 25 cents, and there was 7 per cent. iess silver 

put in them, so that they would not be exported. The whole object 

of this demonetization of silver was to prevent the silver dollar from 

being exported, as it always was exported, because it was worth more 

in the mints of Eurone than in our own. One difficulty grew out of the difference between our ratio in this 

country and that in Europe. In France it was 15~ ounces of silver to one of gold. In our country it was 16 ounces of silver to one of gold. 

The result was~ as we undervalued silver according to the market value, 

XIX-127 

our silver dollar, whenever coined, went abroad, and therefore for forty or :fifty years there was none of it coined, although' any man had a right 

to carry silver bullion to the 1\iint and have it coined. Therefore, so 

far from intending any reproach or dishonor or depreciation of silver, we were trying to meet a difficulty entirely outside of the scope of that 

controversy between the two ratios. 

The Senator from Kentucky must take notice that I say this letter, 

which I will ask to have printed in this plaee in my remarks, expressed 

my opinion better and more carefdly than I could do now in anything 

that I would say. 

The letter referred to is as follows: 

~ HOTEL JARDIN DES TUILERIES, May 18,1867. 

MY DEAR Sm: Your n<>te of yesterday, inquiring whether Congress would probably in future coinage make our gold dollar conform in value to the gold five-franc piece, has been received. There has been so little discussion in Congress upon the subject that I c.an not base my opinion upon anything said or done there. The subject has, however, excited the attention of several important commer- cial bodies in tho 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 com- mei·cial world a uniform standa1·d of value and exchange. T·he only question will be, how this can be accomplished. The treaty of December 23, 1865, between France, It.lly, Belgium, and Switz- erl:md, and the probable acquiescence in that treaty by Prussia, has laid the foun- dation for such a standard. If Great Britain will reduce the value of her sov- ereign two pence, and the United States will reduce the value of her dollar son.ethingover three cents, we then have a. coinage in the f1·anc, dollar, and sov- ereign, easily computed, and which will readily pass in all countries-the dol- lar as five francs, and the so\ereign as twenty-five 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 a considerable loss, and this exchange is n. profit only to brokers antl 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 five-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 the common standard of value, leaving t<> 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 com- merce. A common gold standard will regulate silver coinage, of which the United States will furnish the greater pa1·t, especially for the Chinese trade. I have thought a good deal of howtheobjectyouproposemaybemostreadily 

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 welimitthe 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 requiremorecurrencypercapita. Wenowpro- duce 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 circula- tion 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. "\Ye will ba'\"e 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 in coin will be of more purchasable value than our currency. 'Ve c..-.n 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 t<> say in conclusion, that I heartily sympa- thize with you and others in your efforts to secure the adoption of the metrical system of 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 Jearn to respect each other as they find that their differences are the ef- fect 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 pro- ductions by the same standard, to measure by the same yard or meter, and weigh by the same scales. Such a result would be of great{)r value than the usual employments of diplo- matists and statesmen. I am, very truly, yours, JOHN SHERMAN. SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, E,;q. 

Mr. SHERMAN. There I stand, and would to God this day that a spirit might exist among the nations of the world that we should agree 

not only upon a ratio between silver and gold, but that we should agree 

upon a coin which, bearing the image of every nation according to its own devices, should be of equal and. exact weight, value, and metal, 

travel over the world, and be the supreme standard of value among the 

nations. 

The Senator from Kentucky says he does not know how the plan for an international coin was dropped out. He seems to think there was some- thing suspicious about it. I can tell him. He need not have explored 

ancient history to have found it. It is true when this question came before the Committee on Finance we substantially agreed, with the 

sin~le exception of Senator Morgan, ofN ew York. He thought it might 

derange affairs in New York, the profits of exchange, the effect upon existing contracts, and perhaps it would; and he presented some difficulties in reducing our coins down to the standard proposed by the French 

ratio. 

It would have created some trouble, but still the Senate would have 

passed it without much debate, and Senators around me were continu-

'· 
2018 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE. MAROII 13, 

aily complaining of me for not bringing up that bill. The reason why 

it was not brought up was because Great Britain took ground against 

it, though her representatives bad given a qualified assent. 'l'hey said 

they would not change their pound sterling to conform fu the proposed 

coin, because, in the first place, it was a matter of pride; in the next 

place, it would disturb the value of the shilling and farthing; that it 

would disturb the current of their m{)ney in the smaller payments of 

human life; that it would disturb fu a slight degree the value of the 

farthing. When England had thus refused to enter into this international union, this international coin, as it may be called, it was found 

not to be feasible to proceed any further in the matter. 

Then soon came on the war between France and Germany, and then 

these two nations were in no condition fu negotiate with each other 

about coinage or anything else. This was the reason why this great 

effort at reform failed, for which Ur. Ruggles is fairly entitled to credit 

by the people of the United Stares. It was because England, from her 

exclusive pride and supreme selfishness, would not enter into this ar- rangement, and it fell dead. But I hope the time may come yet, in 

the lifetime of some of us at least, when this idea, so honorable to all 

the nations represented in that conference, so useful to mankind at 

large, so beneficial fu every.one who travels or trades, fu every one who emigrates or migrates, will be finally adopted by the common consent of the great nations of the world. So much for that. 

Now, what el e is there that I care to answer in the speech of the 

Senator from Kentucky? He said we insisted upon paying our bonds 

in coin. So we did, and I thank God we did. If we had not paid our 

bonds in coin during the war, or promised to pay them in coin, what 

would have become of our credit? Even as it was, with the interest 

fairly secured by revenues collected in coin, our bonds went at one time 

in the markets of the world at about 40 oents on the dollar. Suppose we had not supported our credit, and maintained the standard that we 

h~ proclaimed, that we would not only pay the principal but the interest in gold? In the direst times of the war we bought coin and paid 

untold premiums almost to get it, in order to pay the public creditor. 

But thati was fu sustain the public credit and maintain the public faith. 

the Committee on Finance by the large vote of 33 to 10, and was perhaps the most carefully prepared of any of the financial measures of 

the Government. In opening the debate I called the attention of the 

Senate fu the great advantage the Government had derived from waking its bonds redeemable at brief periods like the 5-20 bond , the 10-40 

bonds, and the Treasury notes. I also called attention to the fact that 

the same principle of maintaining the right to redeem had been in grafted 

in the bill then before the enate, that the duration of the bonds was 

divided into three periods of ten, fifteen, and twenty years, during which 

tin e, by the gradual Dpplication ofthe~nrpln rev enue, thewholedebt 

might be paid. Truswus the billsentbythe Senate totheHonseofllep- re ntatives, and if it bad been adopted by the House there would be 

no trou~le now about the application of the surplus revenue, but by common consent it would be used in the speedy extinction of the public 

debt. 

The bill was ent to the Honse ofRepresentatives on the 11th ofl\Iarch, 

1870, and tbereseems to haveslept.fornea.rlythreemontbswithout any 

action on the part of the House. 

On the 6th day of June, 1870, the Committee on Ways and 1\Ieans 

reported Rouse bill 2167, covering the same subject-matters as were contained in the Senate bilL The consideration of this bill was com- menced by ections on the 30th of June, 1870. The material part of 

the first section of this bill is as follows: 

Thut the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby a.uthorized to issue, in a sum or sums not e.xceeding in the aggregate ,.l,OOO,OUO,!JOU coupon or registered bonds 

of the United State , in such form as be may prescribe, and of denomination of ... 50 or some multiple of that sum, redeemable in coin of the present standard 

value at the pleasure of the United Slates aiLer thirty years from the date of 

their issue, and bearing interest payable semi-annually in sucll coin at the rate 

of 4 per cent. per annum. 

Thus it will be perceived that instead of the three seri~ of bonds 

provided by tbe Senate, the Honse proposed to authorize the issue of 

$1,000,000,COO, redeemable in coin after thirty years from the date of 

their issue, with 4 per cent.; and this difference in the description of 

the bonds was the chief difference between the proposition of the House 

and the Senate. To empba ize this difference I will read what was said by the chairman of the House committee reporting the bill: · The Senator said some harsh words-be will find them when be looks over his remarks i.fbe does so-about the men of business during the It is a. proposition to ~fund a. porti?n of the })~blic debt of the country at a. ' . . very mueh lower rate of mterest.. It lS a. propos tton that .,.l,COO,OOO,OOO of thnt 

war, that they were grabbers, seekrng somethmg more than they de- debt shall take the form of bonds, upon which the United St.a.tes will agree to 

sened. My countrymen, it required patriotism, heroism, courage, and pay o~ly ~per cent. per annum. But in order~ ~ak~ thMe bonds acceptable hope to take the bonus of the United States during that fearful war. I to capitalists at home and a.bro3:d, further prov1 1on 1s m~c that the bonds . themselves shall have a. longer time to run, notwerelyforthiTtyyears, butthnt All of you know how severely at times we were pressed, and how dan- , they shall only beredeemableafterthirty years; thu giving them, without tile 

gerously our credit was affected, and yet without that strong anchor of ' objections, the advantages which in a great degree att ch to a perpetual Joan. 

coin interest our bonds would have disappea.red like the Confederate This bill, with a very limited debate, passed the House on the 1st of 

bonds into thin air, dishonored and unsung. July, 1870, and then immediately was offered as a substitute for the 

But, sir, thanks to the courage of the people of the United States, Senate bill and was adopted. 

they stood by that policy, and by that means we are able now to legis- Those two rival propositions, differing mainly upon the question of 

late forarestoredanda.dvancedcountryofuntarnisbed creditand to bor- thecharacterofthe bonds to beissued, were sent to a committee of eon- row money at a less rate than any country in the world. ference composed on the part of the Senate of Messrs. SHERMAN, SumLet us go a little further to illustrate the wisdom of the financial ner, and Davis. It appears that the chief controversy in the conference 

policy of the Senate. Senators may now be forgetful of on A fact w hicb was as to the description of funding bonds to be provided for. After 

I will state, not for the purpose of criticising any one-perhaps it may many meetings it was finally agreed that the bonds authorized should 

be new to the Senator from Kentucky, and yet be wos here at the time be $200,000,000 5 per cent. bonds, $300,000,000 4t per cent. bonds of 

it was done. When it became necessary to refund the public debt, after the character described in the Senate bill, and 1,000, 000,000 of 4 per 

the first five-twenties had matured, everybody demanded a refundin~r cent. bonds, as described in the House bill. In other words, it was a 

act to lessen the burden of our debt. It was a very difficult thing to compromise which, like many other compromises, was in its results an do. The Senate of the United States, after more care and deliberation injury of J!;reat magnitude, but it was an honest difference of opinion 

than, so far as I know, it has ever bestowed on any bill, finally reported between the Senate and the House, in which, te t.ed by the march of a bill to.fund the public debt, to aid in the resumption of specie pay- time, the Senate wa.s right and the House was wron~. But it is perments, and to advance the public credit. fectly manifest that without this concession by the Senate to the Honse 

On the 3d day of February, 1870, I was directed by the Committee the bill could not have passed, and even with this concession the first on Finance to report Senate bill No. 380, "to authorize the refunding report of the ccmmittee of conference was disagreed fu by the Honse 

and con olidation of tbe national debt, to extend banking facilities, and because of certain provisions requiring the national banks to provide 

to establish fixed specie payments." The Congressional Globe shows the new bonds as the basis of banking, as circulation. This disagreethat this bill received the most careful consideration. Its first form is ment by the House compelled a second committee of conference, in 

printed on page 1587, Congressional Globe, part 2, second session Forty- which the contested bankillgsection was stricken out and the bill agreed 

first Congress. to as it now stands on the statute-books. 

The first section authorizes the issue of four hundred million of bonds And thus thirty-year securities now at a premium of more than 25 

redeemable in coin at the pleasure of the United States at any time per cent. were forced into the law by the determined action of the 

after ten years, bearing interest at 5 per cent. Honse. Where the Senator from Kentucky stood on this question, or The second section authorizes the issue of bonds fu the amount of other gentlemen who now make complaint, I b.·we not stopped to in-

~00,000,000, redeemable at the pleasrue of the Government at any quire, because I wish to make no personal issue. No doubt the mem- time after fifteen years, and bearing interest at 4~ per cent. hers were honest in their convictions that long 4 per cent. bonds were The third section authorizes the issue of $400,000,000 of bonds, re- bestfor the Government, better than the issue of short bonds bearing 

deemable at any time after twenty years, and beaTing interest at the 4~ or 5 per oent. interest, but certain it is that the then Horu e of Reprate of 4 per cent. resentatives is responsible for the terms of these bonds, and that I at 

The proceeds of all these bonds were to be applied to the redemption least am free from this blame, if there be any, and am rather entitled 

of 5-20 and 10-40 bonds and other obligations of the United States then to the credit, whatever .it may bE; of forming a better estimate as to 

outstanding. . what was best for the interests of the people of the United States. 

It will be perceived that this bill provided for the issue of securities Every man now who can see backwarrls can see what a terrible misa11 of which were redeemable within twenty years and two-thirds of take that was. It makes a difference of one or two hundred millions 

which were redeemable within 1ifteen years; so that if the bill as re- of dollars. But does any man reproach those in public life who bonported by the Committee on Finance had become the law no such dif- estly believed that the time would never come when the Government of 

ficulty as we now labor under would exist, but four hundred millions the United States could borrow money at less than 4per cent.? They 

of these bonds would be within reach of the Government at this mo- thought so, and I never would reproach them. I do not mention a 

meut, and the four hundred millions would be due within two years. name; I will not quote their language, because they were as ho1 ~ 

The bill passed the Senate in substantially the form reported from as I was in insisting on other terms and conditions. 
1888. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD~HOUSE. 2019 

I\Ir. President, these are the three things about which I have been 

arraigned, ~nd a kind of personal attack has been made upon me. The 

Senator talked about resumption. I do not want to say anyth~ about 

resumption. Who does not feel that that great work of courage, not 

only in Congress but in the Departments and among the people, was 

one of the proud triumphs of our age and generation? I have no apologies to make for it. 

As to the silver question, I am perfectly willing to dehateit. I am not opposed to silver. I wish to God I could add more than 30 per 

cent. to the value of every grain of silver in the mines and in the world. 

The interest of our country is to have both gold and silver. You 

never can keep them at the present ratio except by doing one of two 

things, and that the Senator from Kentucky wants to break down. You 

must maintain the silver dollar at the gold standard by receiving them 

as gold and hoarding them when they are not readily taken by the 

people. If you would force the silver dollars now in the Treasury 

out among the people, yon would break down their credit so that they 

would full more and more. You therefore have either to maintain 

them at the gold standard by redeeming them at par with gold or you 

have got to put more silver in them to make them equal in market value 

to gold. I do not want to precipitate this question, and do not care to 

discuss it. The arguments are old. I do not care to have them repeated and printed at every session. 

Wbene"Ver I can see the way clear, by general consent of the people 

interested in this product, wjth the consent of Colorado and Nevada. 

and California, to take any s~ps to den.l with the silver question, I am 

willing to do it. I think the time may come when we can make the 

sil•er production in our country the basis for coin certificates; but then 

we must buy it at market value; we must not take it at an artificial 

value. But after all the efforts of om· silver friends, by these fierce 

attempts to get their money into circulation, silver has gone down 

steadily under this process. I should like to see it advanced, and I 

believe I can see my way clear to measures which if agreed to by 

them-reasonable in their character-would bring up sUver nearer to 

its old standard. 

When finally a fair ratio is fixed by the commercial nations of the 

relative value of silver and gold in the world, all we can do is to adopt 

that ratio and base our action "ftpon it. This Senate and this nation 

are powerful in many things, but they have not the power fu fix the 

value in anything. You may hold a thing up tO a standard of value 

by receiving it and redeeming H, but you can not make the value of a 

plate or a bar of iron or a grain of wheat. That is beyond the power 

of man. It must be fixed by the general market value among commercial nations. I do not intend to be led off into that discussion. Whenever the time comes when a bill of this kind, such as the Senator bas 

introduced, shall be taken up and discussed in an orderly way, so tl:Ja~ 

we can present our views to each other, not in the presence of a captivating audience, not for the purpose of filling the tomes of our RECORD, 

put for legitimate debate to comince each other as to what is best for our 

country, I shall be present with my friend from Kentucky prepared to 

consider the question. 

ADDITIONAL REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 

Mr. PALMER. I desire to make a report out of order. I report 

amendments from the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry to the 

bill (S. 2083) to provide for the estalilishment of a Bureau of Animal Industry, and to facilitate the exportation of live-stock and their 

products, to extirpate contagions pleuro-pneumonia and other diseases 

among domestic animals, and for other purposes, and move that they 

be printed with the original bilL This will supersede the motion 

that I made yesterday, and I ask the reference of the motion to print 

the bill and amendments be made to the Committee on Printing. 

The PRESIDENT JYI'O tempore. It will be so referred. 

l\1r. BLAIR. I present a report from the Committee on Pensions on 

the bill (S. 373) for the relief of women enrolled as Army nurses, etc., 

proposing an amendment to the bill, which is already on the Calendar. 

I a.qk the Secretary to note a correction in the Calendar entry. The bill 

is reported with an amendment and not "without amendment," as stated on the Calendar. 

Mr. BLAIR, from the Committee on Education and Labor, to whom was referred the bill (S. 405) providing for the adjustment of accounts 

of laborers, workmen, and mechanics arising under the eight-hour law, 

reported it with an amendment, and submitted a report thereon. 

REPORT OF CAPT. EUGENE GRIFFIN. 

Mr. DAWES submitted the following resolution; which was considered by unanimous consent, and agreed to: 

Resolved, That the commissioners of the District of Columbia be, and are hereby, directed to communicate to the Senate a. copy of the report of Capt. Eu- gene Griffin to 1\Iaj. William Ludlow, late one of said commissioners, on the 

subject of electricity as a motor power for street cars, made in January last, and 

of all papers connected therewith. 

HOUSE BILLS REFERRED. 

The bill (H. R. 2017) to incorporate the Rock Creek Railway Company of the District of Columbia was read twice by its title, and referred 

to the Committee on the District of Columbia. 

- be bill (H. R. 5373) to change the location of a certain alley in the 1 city of Washington was read twice by its title. 1 

Mr. Y ANCE. I desire to have that bill lie on the table, with a view 

of substituting it for a bill already reported in tbls body. 

The PRESIDENT JJro tempore. If the Senator desires to substitute 

this for the bill on the Calendar, that can be done, and the Senate bill 

indefinitely postponed. 

Mr. Y ANCE. The Senate bill is in precisely the same words as the 

House bilL It is the bill (S. 1519) to change the location of a certain 

alley in the city of Washington. I move that it be indefinitely post. 

poned. 

The motion was agreed to. 

Tho PRESIDE...·"n.'pro tempore. The House bil15373 having been read 

twice, will be substituted on the Calendar for the bill just disposed of. 

The bill (H. R. 4601) io amend the naval r ecord of Nicholas Leuschen, 

Peter Leuscben, and Loth Possum was read twice by its title, andreferred to the Committee on Naval Affairs. 

The bill (H. R. 5617) to provide for the leasing of premises for the 

Washington city post-office was read twice by its title, and referred to 

the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads. 

The bill (H. R. 6591) for the relief of S. Dillinger & Sons was read 

twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Finance. 

The bill (H. R. 8309) to secure for the District of Columbia a compilation of the laws of said District was read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia. 

vALUATION OF IMPORTED MERCHANDISE. 

Mr. ALLISON. I ask that the regularordet· he laid before the Senate. 

The PRESIDENT pro tempm·e. The unfinished business will be re- ported. 

The CHIEF CLERK. A bill (8. 977) to reguL1.te the importation of 

foreign merchandise and to secure uniformity in the classi:fica.tion and 

valuation thereof, and for other purposes. 

Mr. ALLISON. I desire to say one word r especting this bill. I 

give notice that to-morrow morning, after the morning business shall 

have been concluded, I will ask the Senate to proceed with the consideration of the pending bill, hoping that we may conclude its consideration to-morrow. I now move that the Senate adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to; and (at 5 o'clock and 3 minutes p. m.) 

the Senate adjourned until to-morrow, ·wednesday, March 14, 1888, at 

12 o'clock m. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

TUESDAY, March 13, 1888. 

The House met at 12 o'clock m. Prayer by Rev. J. H. CUTHBERT 

D. D., of Washington, D. C. 

The Journal of yesterday's proceedings was read and approved. 

SIGNAL CORPS. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House a letter from the 

Secretary of War, transmitting, -with a letter from the Chief Signal Officer, a draught and recommending the passage of a bill to make enlisted men of the Signal Corps responsible for public property; which 

was referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, and ordered to be 

printed. 

FORT 1\fEA.DE, DAK. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore also laid before the House a letter from 

the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting an estim'lte from the Secre· 

tary ofW ar of appropriation for purchase of land ne.1.r Forh Meade, Dak., 

for the purpose of obtaining a water supply; which was referred to the 

Committee on Appropriations, and ordered to be printed. 

HOT SPRINGS, ARK. 

The SPEAKER pro fempare also laid before the House the joint resolution (H. Res. 117) to enable the Secretary of the Interior to utilize 

the hot water now running to waste on the permanent re ervation ah 

Hot Springs, Ark., and for other purposes, with Senate amendments; 

and a message from the Senate that it insisted upon its amendments to -

the joint resolution, agreed to the conferenc~ asked by the Hour:e on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses thereon, and bad appointetl 

Ur. TELLER, Ur. PAD DOCK, and lllr. W ALTH.A.LL to be the conferees on the part of the Senate. 

LEAVE OF ABSENCE. 

By unanimous eonsent, lea•e of absence was granted to :ur. MORGAN 

for ten days, on account of sickness in his family. 

REPRINT OF DILL. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore also laid before the House tbe following 

request: 

Mr. STEELE, from the Cor:1m.ittec on Military .Aff.oirs, states that the bill (II. R. 6106) for the relief of certain volunteer soldiers is exhausted, and to accom- modate members asks that a. reprint of said bill be ordered. 

There was no objec"tion, and it was so ordered. 

W ASHTI\GTOY CITY POST-OFFICE. 

Mr. ANDERSON, of Illinois. Mr. Speaker; I ask unanimous con-

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