Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-21

yer could be raised to a parity of value with gold at the ratio of 16 to 1 by the separate action of the United States, was willing to make the experiment, but I was never willing to make it by legis- lation providing for the free and unlim- ited coinage of silver at that or any other ratio The only speech l ever made in congress on this subject was delivered in the house of representatives more than seventeen years ago, at time when the value of the bullion contained in a silver dollar was only about ' cents less than the value of the bullion contained in a gold dollar, and l, together with many other opponents of free coinage, belieV- ing that a restoration of silver to our hints would bring 1t to a parity with gold, supported a measure providing for the limited coinage of silver dollars on private individuals and corporations as is now proposed. Fifteen years eXperi- ence, however, demonstrated that those of us who believed in 1878 that larger use of silver by the United States would enhance it's price or value were mistaken.
 Instead of increasing the price of sil- yer, it continued to fall with greater rapidity than before, notwithstanding all the efforts made by our government to uphold it, until now the bullion con tained in a silver dollar is worth only about half as much as the bullion con S have entirely changed since 1878, and l do not understand that even our free coinage friends in Kentucky or else where now contend that any Legislation by this country alone could place silver on a parity with gold at ratio Of l6 to l. On the contrary, they insist that the free and unlimited coinage of silver at that ratio would give the people cheap money, and l agree with them that it would have that effect, but It would not be cheap money if it were equal in value to gold. The speech made by me on the occasion referred to has been garbled and twisted and per verted in and out of congress during the past two years with a malicious ingenu- ity which has scarcely ever been equaled in the discussion of a public question, and yet no one has ever ventured to make the direct assertion that it con tained a. single word in favor of the free coinage of silver. It was in fact made in opposition to free coinage, and in sup port of the senate substitute for a free coinage bill, as can be seen by any one who will take the trouble to read it. Certain sentences, in which 1 denounced in strong language the attempt to de stroy' silver as a money metal, have been separated from their context and quoted again and again in congress, on the stump and in newspapers by men who never read the speech and who ap- pear wholly incapable of understanding the total disuse of that metal as money and it's free and unlimited coinage at the public expense for the benefit of pri- vate individuals and corporations. l have copy of the speech here, but will not detain you by reading extracts from it to show what my position was, be- cause any gentleman who desires to do so can find it in full in the appendix to the Congressional Record for the second session of the forty-fifth congress. Some of the opinions then expressed have been modified and some of them have been. changed altogether by subsequent events and by a more thorough investigation of the subjects to which they related; but on the question of free coinage my convictions have never been shaken for a moment.
 I thank you most sincerely for the pa tience with which you have listened to my remarks, and will detain you no longer.