Year: 1878




Hon. John M. Bright deliy-
cred a mastery speech in the
House of Representatives, JAN
uary 26, on the "Remonetiza-
tion and Free Coinage of Sill
yer." His arguments are CO.
gent and unanswerable; we have
room to publish only the clos
ing paragraph of it, which
shows the drift of his reason
ing:


Let any member who votes to
tax the coinage of the silver go
andStell his constituents that he
did it to pay the expenses of
coming gold, "the money of the
rich;" let him tell them that he
did it to raise revenues for the
people by the clandestine means
of a mint tax on their money;
let him go and tell them, by the
way of apology, that England
does it, and thus grinds the faces
of the poor for the benefit of
the rich. That is the reason
you have the silver taxed on
your mints for the advantage Of
the rich of the country, while
$5,O0O,O00 ale ground out Of
the poor and laboring men of
the country per annum to favor
the gold-mongers who get their
coinage free of expense. Sir,
that measure had q double OBJ
ject. 1t was not only to favor
gold, but it was to drive silver
from the country, and a tax up
on it always has this tendency.
But what should be the policy
of our country? Why, sir, in
stead of driving it out of the
country our policy ought to be
that which was intended by the
fathers of the country, 10 throw
our ports open as wide as the
gates of heaven and admit it
from the four quarters of the
globe, and give our own people
the advantage Of coinage and
placing our currency upon the
terra .frma of specie basis.
Sir, the Constitution of our
country has been violated by the
policy that has been forced Oh
and is running this country.
Oh, but they tell us there is
to be an Atlantic flood of silver
in consequence of its demone-
tization in Germany. Sir, in
the language of distinguished
orator Of the Revolution, "Let it
come, l repeat it, let it comet"
We will roll back the silver bill
lows upon them IN payment oil
our national debt.


Why, sir, we have a debt re-
deemable now of $660,G00,000,
and by the first day of January,
1881. we shall have q debt OF
| 81, ,452, 100000, according to the
report of the Secretary of the
Treasury. And if we adopt
proper measures in this era.
they will galyanize our trade;
our industries will spring from
the dust, and again the march
of prosperity will begin. Sir,
France is not so delicate as the
United States. When her OBJ
legations in part were payable
in silver to Germany she did
rot scruple upon the point of
honor when she fell short to go
into Germany and purchase
100000 of silver there and
take it to her own mints for
coinage to pay her own obliga-
tions with. France did not
scruple to do that. 1t is time
we were getting down from our
stills and showing that some
dint of pity for the bond-ridden,
bank-ridden, monopoly-rid, en-,
mortgage-ridden, ,tax-ridden,a ,and
poverty-ridden people.


And yet, sir, we are told a.
bout bad faith. When they
talk about bad faith We hurl the
SANDER back into the teeth Of
the slanderers. We propose to
pay according to contract. The
! bondholder shall have his pound
of flesh, but we do not intend
that his victim shall be bled to
death in addition to that pound
which the law gives him.


Why, sir the bondholders
have no right to complain. In
the first place, We funded their
debt and gave a double value to
lit; in this way we gave double
rate of interest upon it and paid
the interest in gold, making it
now equal to 10 per cent. Of
the original value of the funds.
In addition to that, under the
act of 1869, at a time when the
Ifive-twenties and other bonds


were payable in legal-tenders,
they prevailed upon Congress