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JOHN P, JONSS
Coinage of silver dollars

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

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COINAGE OF SILVER DOLLARS.

SPEECH

HON. JOHN P. JONES,

OF NEVADA,

IN THE

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

FEBRUARY 14, 1878.

1878.

'^1

SPEECH

HON. JOHN P . JONES.

The Seuate Laving under consideration the bill (H. K. ^To. 1093) to authorize the
free coinage of the standard silvev dollar and to restore its legal-tender character —

Mr. JONES, of Nevada, saitl:

Mr. Pkksident : The discitssion here and elsewhere upon the remone-
tization of silver in this countrj', and in respect especially to the pay-
ment of the interest and principal of the national bonds in silver dol-
lars of 41'i^ grains, has been made to turn almost entirely upon ques-
tions of equity. The naked, legal propoir^ition that all outstanding
national bonds not specifically payable in lawful money or otherwise
than in gold or silver are payable at the option of the Government
in either gold or silver coin of the old standard is so clear that but
few have been found to squarely deny it and I trust I may not be
deemed discourteous when I say no one has fortified his denial with
arguments that have reached the iilane of serious criticism.

But it is vehemently urged that it would be a violation of every
principle of justice to pay them in accordance with the strict letter
of the law authorizing their issue, on account of the depreciation
which it is alleged has taken place in the A'alue of silver since the
enactment of the law and that the passage now of a law permitting
such payment would dishonor the nation and swindle the public
creditor out of a portion of his honest expectations, if not of his just
demands.

It is also claimed that with some modifications the same violation
of equity would bo involved in the payment in silver of private, cor-
porate, municipal, and State indebtedness.

This proposition involves first a question of principle and nest a
question of fact.

First. As a question of political ethics, are governments morally
bound, in respect of their own debts or generally in respect of the
relation between debtor and creditor, to maintain not only invaria-
bility in the coin standard, meaning thereby weight and purity of
metal, but also to maintain invariability in the commercial value or
purchasing power of such coiu ?

This question was never raised until very modem times nor until
the purchasing power of metallic money manifested a decreasing
tendency, and was never raised except by the creditors, f undholders,
annuitants, and income classes of the world. It was not raised by
the business and debtor interests during the forty years after 181>9,
when, according to recognized authorities, the value of metallic
ftioney, consisting of botli gold and silver, rose fully 145 per cent.
sA^ and when the pressure of debts was constantly increasing in corre-

sponding ratio. The struggling debtor did not then raise this ques-
tion of equity nor demand that crwlitors, public or private, should
be compelled by law to accept such a diminution in the standard
weight of dollars, francs, or sovereigns as would maintain invariiv-

612537

bility m tbeir commeioial value, nor did they propose to effect that
object by increasing the number of the rnouey metals. Nor did the
representatives of the people or the public press then maintain that
it would be dishonorable in creditors to exact from debtors j)ayment
in coin so enormously appreciated.

The e]»ithet8of swindler and repudiator, according to modern ethics,
seem not to apply when, through tlie vicissitudes of mining or other
causes, money is rising in value and creditors are thereby enabled to
reap where they have not sown, to exact more than they have loaned.
Under all circumstances, as it would seem, the interests of the cred-
itor classes are to be protected, and if possible enlarged. The epithets
of swindler and repudiator are reserved for the debtor classes, when,
from the operation of causes which they have not brought about and
over which they have no control, a divergence occurs in the value of
the money metals, in either of which they have the right to pay if
they do not foolishly exercise their option by paying in the dearer
metal. They are denounced as lunatics if they demand the privilege
of paying in accordance with the precise terms of their contracts.
The people are denounced in these dishonoring terms if they dare to
resist attempts either to increase the weight of the coins they have
promised or to diminish the number of the money metals existing
when tlie contracts were made.

The doctrine that governments shonld guarantee the exchangeable
value of metallic money as well as its weight and purity was bi-oached
for the first time when the sudden flood of gold from California and
Australia had begun to make itself manifest through an increase in
general prices. It was then that the creditor interest, which had
never proposed prior to 1849 that the rise in the value of money which
was then occurring should be prevented by legislation, were clamor-
ous in the name of honor and good faith, national and individual,
that the threatened fall should be prevented. The measures pro-
posed to accomplish this end have been to diminish the volume of
money in existence by demonetizing one of the metals, or when that
was impracticable to limit the coinage of one of the metals. These
measures they have induced several governments to adopt, and if
they shall prove insufficient their next steps will be to propose to
demonetize both the metala and to adopt some other kind of money
which shall hold out the promise of greater scarcity.

So far as this question of honor and equity is concerned, I shall con-
tent myself at this time with declaring my deliberate conviction to
be that the metallic-money system loses the only recommendation
which it has if its value is not remitted to the automatic limitation
of production without any governmental interference whatever. On
this point I agree with all the advocates of metallic money, from John
Locke down to the Senator from Vermont, [Mr. Edmunds.] In a
speech delivered in the Senate on December 5, 18G7, Mr. Edmunds
said:

Our own gold and silver coins always have been and arc still defined by law to
contain in each denomination, be it a dime, a dollar, or an eagle, a certain named
wei'^ht ol' silver or gold. They are the ultimates of value, the money of the Gov-
ernment.

And he fortified his position by quotations from John Locke, whose
works he declared to be a " boon to mankind," one of these quota-
tions being as follows :

All contracts or engagements are to be deemed fully discharged and satisfied by
payment of the specitic quantity or sum of money agreed upon, without having
any regard to the value of money with respect to othei' things at the ditfereut times
of contracting and discharging of debts.

This QTiotatii))), of his own Rolection, from his favorite authority,
will, I have no doiiht, be conclnsive with tlie Sitnator from Vermont,
and onght to be concln;<ive with the Senate, upon the .juHtice and
equity of paying debts in strict accordance with the letter of the con-
tract. The question of fnct, whether or not silver has lost purchasing
power in a correspf)ndin sj ratio to the widening of the relation between
it and gold since 1H73, or whether it has lost purchasing power to any
i^xtent whatever since that time, is the particular question which I
now propose brieflj' to discuss. I think it will be made very clearly
to ai)pear that silver since 187;5, although discrowned and shorn of
its monetary function, denied mintage throughout the entire western
world, and degraded to the rank of a commodity, instead of having
become less valuable has nevertheless increased in its command over
services and all kinds of property; that both gold and silver have
gained in purchasing power, and that silver only seems to have fallen
in value because it has not risen to so great an extent as gold.

If these positions can be established, or if all the known facts tend
to establish them, then the equital)le objection to the payment of the
national bonds in silver dollars of 412^ grains completely fails and
must be abandoned. Even if it were true as a question of honorable
interpretation of the contract and of the duties of the Government
relative to its money, that it is bound to maintain the commercial
value of its coin, the payment of its debts in silver dollars of the old
standard could violate no rule of justice or honor if the power in ex-
change of 4124 grains of the commoility silver is now as greater greater
than was the power in exchange of a coined dollar of that weight in
187.3, which was then both the legal and market equivalent of the
gold dollar.

Exchangeable value is the only kind of value with which econo-
mists have to deal. What is it and where does it reside ? This ques-
tion has been often asked and variously answered. I will not elabo-
rate the reasons supporting the definition of it which I shall give.
Exchangeable value resides iu the human mind. It is the mental
estimation or appreciation of desirable objects or things, and is
measured by the sacrifice which it is necessary to make in order to
obtain them. Hence it follows that the value of the money in which
debts are paid must be measured by the sacrifice which nations and
individuals are required to make in order to obtain it. The question
whether money has appreciated or depreciated between two given
periods can be solved only by a compariaon of the sacrifices iu labor
a,nd property necessary for its acquisition at the two periods respect-
ively. Under this definition, has silver depreciated in value within
the last five years ? Does it require less sacrifice of labor or property
to acquire a silver dollar of 412+ grains than it did when it was de-
monetized f Is it a ninety-cent dollar ?

Has the commercial value of silver diminished since September,
1873, when its market price was fifty-nine pence in gold per ounce, and
when, therefore, the silver and gold dollais under the legal relation
in this country were coincident in value f

Will a given weight of silver exchange now for less, of not one
or two but of the general range of commodities that enter into the
consumption and use of mankind, than it would then t Has it lost
since then purchasing power ? Will it buy less of labor, of houses, or
of lands ? Will it purchase less of the necessities, comforts, conven-
iences or luxuries of life now than then ?

Bastiat, in his terse economical definitions, says that value is the
relation which services and commodities bear to each other in ex-
change. Does a given weight of silver bear a lower relation in

excbaiift-e to other tbings generally than it did when the silver dollar
of 412^ grains was the commercial e(iuivalent of the present gold
dollar I It is true that the gold dollar will now purchase 10 per cent,
more silver than it Avould in the fall of 1873 ; is it not equally true
that it will i>urchase in every country an average of twice 10 per
cent, more of all other things than it would then ?

In deciding whether silver has or has not depreciated in value it is
indispensable that all the facts bearing upon the question be viewed
from a proper point of observation. In order to discover the direc-
tion in which a boat ismoving when headed to the current the shore
and not the stream must be observed. Upon an alteration in the ex-
change relations between two commodities or between a single com-
modity and money, it is apparent as between them alone that one has
risen or that the other has fallen in value. But in order to decide
correctly which has really risen and which really fallen, comparison
must be made between their present relations respectively and their
previous relations to all other things in exchange.

A fall in the price of any one commodity would be justly regarded
as a fall in its value and not as a rise in the value of money, and such
fall might, to all appearances, overtake one commodity after another
until the whole range of commodities and services would seem to have
fallen and money would seem to have remained stationary. But all
sound thinkers and writers on economical science agree that this ia
impossible and that a fall in general prices is the sure and only proof
of a rise in the value of money. But to the casual observer it would
seem otherwise, because a rise in the value of the " monetary unit
comes in such an impenetrable disguise that probably few minds are
even prepared to entertain the idea of such an alteration having oc-
curred."

The Englishman who looks through spectacles made of gold sov-
ereigns believes without a single doubt— in fact knows— that for the
past four years he has seen silver fluctuating and falling in value.
The citizen of this country, looking through the metallic monetary
unit last in use here, and with which he is most familiar, or when he
borrows the Englishman's spectacles, thinks he sees the same thing;
But the East Indian, who looks through spectacles made of silver '
rupees, is equally contideut that during the same period he has seen
gold fluctuating' and rising. The occupants of railroad cars on con-
tiguous and parallel lines, one of which is in motion and passing the
other, iuay be easily mistaken, if thfey have no landmark to govern
their conclusions, as to which car is moving. The occupants of each
would be sure that the other was in motion if the cars moved as
silently and insensiljly as do values.

If the cars were moving on east and west lines, they would be very
apt to differ as to the process by which one had reached a point to
the eastward of the other, and it might be true in fact, contrary to
their concurring opinions, that both had moved to the westward, the
one having moved farther to the westward than the other.

Countless generations of men have lived and died in the unhesitat-
ing belief in the geocentric theory of the universe and with the fullest
coutidence that the sun always Jiad revolved and would always con-
tinue to revolve around the earth once in every twenty-four hours.
One of the deputation of distinguished New York and Philadelphia
bankers and merchants that visited this city for the puri)ose of sub-
mitting arguments and jnotests against the passage of a bill remon-
etiziug silver energetically insisted, in a speech before the Finance
Committee of this body, that silver was an uuflt commodity on which
to confer the monetary function on account of its eccentric tendency

to fluctuations in value; that tlioso fluctuations liarl been constantly
occurring and had within a few years covered a range of more than
yO per cent., while on the other hand gold had shown the most stub-
horn immobility, not having changed in value more than one-fourth of
1 per cent, in thirty years. Upon being asked what standard he had
used in measuring the two metals respectively in ascertaining that
one of them fluctuated so largely and the other so slightly, he an-
swertMl tiiat he treated them alike, that he referred them to the same
measure, gold.

In other words, lie sought to demonstrate the invariability of the
value of gold, and consequently its superior fitness for money, by the
astounding historical fact that the fluctuations in value between one
ounce of gold and another had not been more than one-fourth of 1
per cent, in thirty years. Western financiers may not be able to see
clearly how gold measured by itself could in eons of ages fluctuate
even as much as one-fourth of 1 per cent; and in their simplicity I
am sure they will not doubt that lueasui'ed in that way it will con-
tinue for uu)re than thirty years to come as changeless as the events
of the past. They may, however, be dishonest and reckless enough
to assert and maintain that had silver been used as the standard of
comparison gold instead of silver would have seemed to be the fluc-
tuating metal, while the value of silver would have seemed to re-
main iniinovable.

The idea that gold is the nuraovnng, unvarying center of value,
arouiul which all other values rev<dve iu eccentric, irregular orbits, is
exi)ressed in a letter from Mr. Royal Phelps, a distinguished New
York merchant, to the United States monetary commission, in the
following extraordinary statement :

Gold never rises or falls; it is now the sole and nniversal standard of valne.
Everytliii!<!r else which is exchanged or traded for rises or falls in accordance with
theabuudiiucc or scarcity of this one metal.

Literally translated, this language conveys the idea that, while all
other things may rise or fall in value relatively to gold, gold itself,
rising superior to the economic laws that regulate and govern values,
remains unchanged in its relations and unmoved in value.

The present Secretary of the Treasury, in a public speech not long
since dt>livcred, referred to the value of gold as being " as fixed as
the sun."

In one section of this country no other doctrine is promulgated.
An influential school of political economists dogmatically asserts
that it is of no consequence that Germany has made a new and large
<leman<l for gold and that tlie United States is now making another
and still larger demand for it, and that the same thing is being done
by other countries that have <lemonetized silver; and that it imports
nothing th.-tt the yield of gold is diminishing year by year.

This school shuts its eyes to the flood of light that facts and philos-
ophy are sheildiug all around it and stubbornly insists that the laws
which govern and regulate all other values are suspended as to gold,
and that gold never rises and falls, but is as " fixed as the sun." So
did not teach John Locke when he said nearly two centuries ago :

If you increase or lessen the qn.intity of money cnirent in traffic, iu any place,
then the alteration of value is in the nioney.

And, again :

Money beinj; looked upon as the standing measure of other commodities, men
consider and speak ot' it still as if it wore a standing measure, though when it has
varied its qnanUty it is i^Iaiu it is not.

And so have taught ail the economists since Locke's time, until new

and strange {loctrines M'ere found to be nece.ssary to justify the strik-
ing down of one of the two money metals of the world.

The rise or fall in the absolute value of gold and silver, respectively,
cannot be determined by a comparison of their values relatively to
each other. That can only be determined by a comparison between
their present and previous relations to all other things in exchange
by a comparison of their present with their previous purchasing
power over land, labor, and commodities. A decrease of general
prices signifies a rise in the value of money, and an increase signifies
a fall.

The same rule applies to any one single commodity, to the value of
which the values of all other thin^jjs are referred. This test by which
changes in the value of money are detected is not, by reason of the
incompleteness of statistics and of the difficulty of ascertaining the
precise weight of all the disturbing circumstances surroundiug the
case, as exact as the tests by which weights, measures, and distances
are determined. Money is the measure of the value of all other
thijigs, but cannot be the measure of itself. Its value is determined
not by the price of one thing or many thiugs, but by the average price
of all things, by the general relations which it bears in exchange.

If the value of all other things is measured by money and expressed
in the units of money through the medium of price, it follows that
the value of money can only be measured by all other things and
nmst be expressed in the units of property and services. Thus if a
bushel of wheat or a yard of silk or a day's labor is worth a dollar,
these three thiugs only being considered, the value of a dollar would
be a bushel of wheat, a yard of silk, or a day's labor. If a cup meas-
ures a quart of liquid, the quart of liquid determines the capacity
of the cup. If money measures all thiugs, it is plain that all things
measure money, and that to deterraiue whether money has risen or
fallen, during any given period, it becomes necessary to ascertain
whether the quantities of all other things, on the average, offered
in exchange for it are greater or less at the commencement and end
of such period. This plain rule demonstrates how unreliable a meas-
ure gold alone would be of the value of silver. Men are so accus-
tomed, however, to refer the value of everything to money that they
insensibly think and speak of it as if its value were invariable, just
as they think and speak of the sun rising and setting, and of the earth
as fixed, though they know upon reflection that such is not the fact.

It is true that there may be a diversity of methods of determining
what the average range of current prices is, and what it may have
been at some anterior period. Practically, however, unless the change
in prices has been A^ery slight, there can be no difficulty in determin-
ing whether they have generally fallen or risen. While there have
been unimportant dift'erences as to the extent of the fall which oc-
curred in the value of metallic money after the discovery of America,
the fact that a fall in its value did take place at that period has
never been disputed, nor has it ever been disputed that money rose
in value dui'ing the first half of this ceiitury, nor that it again fell
after the opening of the mines of California and Australia. I do not
hesitate to affirm that an examination of all the facts bearing upon
the case, a few of whicli I propose to refer to, will demonstrate that
gold again began to rise about ten years ago, and especially about
five years ago, as measured by commodities, land, and lavOf) siud that
its rise is still unchecked ; and that this last rise of golt, us so meas-
iired, has been so greatly in excess of its rise as compared with silver
as to show that silver has not fallen in value ; or, in other words,
Ihat the average fall in the gold price of commodities has been so

TOiich greater than the fall in thp ffolil pric« of' silver as to niakethe
concla.sion irresistible that silver instead of having depreciated in
value during the last few years has actually appreciated, though not
to the same extent as gi)ld.

The resolution of the German Empire to substitute a gold for asil-
ver standard was adopted December 4, lyTl, and although the Ger-
man law regulating all the details of the substitution was not passed
until 1H7;{, the new gold coinage was commenced at once. By the
<M)d of 1872 this coinage had amounted to twenty-one millions ster-
ling or more than |100,U0(),0(J0. (See London Economist of March
15, 1873.) This was a serious drain upon the gold markets of the
world, and immediately tended to produce a fall in prices which was
temporarily checked by corresponding extensions of credit. The
oifect of the German movement, which is still a continuing one, upon
the v:ilue of gold and, consequently, upon gold prices, is generally
well known, but a careful examination and comparison of market
reports and ])rice8-current since then, especially in gold-standard
countries, will present the facts of the case in a more precise and
definite fctrm.

The New York Public of May 18, 187G, published elaborate tables
of the wholesale prices in New York City of the principal articles of
commerce, foreign and domestic, as they stood on the 1st day of May
in various years, and covering all the years from 1872 to 1876, both
inclusive. As that city is the chief center of the import and export
trade of the United States, and as communication with it from all
parts of the country is unsurpassed in cheai)ness and convenience, the
wholesale prices of any locality must substantially correspond with
those in New York. As is well known, there is a diversity of opinion
as to the true mode of deducing the average of prices from tables of
prices of a large number of articles at anyone period so as to equalize
surrounding conditions and make a satisfactory comparison with the
average of prices of some other period.

The method actually adopted by The Public was to take quantities
of diffei-ent articles, proportioned to the relative quantities produced,
or purchased in this country, and to compare the aggregate cost of such
quantities in ditterent years, the quantities calculated being of course
exactly the same in each of the years compared. This method of
deducing an average of prices has the indorsement of recognized au-
thorities in this country and in Europe. The tables furnished by The
Public show that the same quantities of breadstutTs, cotton, coal, iron,
leather, tobacco, wool, butter and cheese, sugar and molasses, provis-
ions, cottVe and tea, which could have. been bought at wholesale in
New York on May 1, 1872, for $85, could be bought on May 1, 1876,
for $i>i). This shows a fall in the average price of the articles named,
between those dates of about 19 per cent. These were currency
l)rices at both dates, but as the premium on gold was almost exactly
the same at the two dates, the fall in gold prices could not vary much
from the fall in currency prices, and was in fact a little greater, as
the premium on gold was three-eighths of 1 per cent, more in May,
1872, than it was in 1876.

The Loudon Economist, commenting, September 23, 1S76, on the
tables of The Public, said :

Accoidiiig to these figures, $09 would go as far iu 1876 as #85 in 1872, and iii the
opinion of most people would go much further.

The London Economist has never estimated the average decline in
the wholesale prices of merchandise iu England between 1872-'73aad
1876-'77 at less than 20 per cent.

The Economist maiutains in respect to British exports that the
decline in their aggregate values is the accurate measure of the
decline in their prices, and that no reductiou in the quantity of ex-
ports, taken together, is shown. Thus on the lUth of February, 1877,
this journal said :

The exports possess the characteristics we have for many months past endeav-
ored to bring ont, that the diminiithm in the quantities of some of tlie chief
articles exported is trifling as compared with the diminution of their values, la
several other cases there is a real and considerable increase in the qutintities.
Since 1872 there has been a gradual decrease in their value month by mouth. In
that year the average monthly exi)Oit was £-21,355,000. In 1ST3 itwas £2l,'2tj'l,000.
In 1874 it was £19,903,000. lii 1875, £1S,G25,0U0, and during last year the gradual
fall was continued.

The tables of The Economist show that the average monthly export
for 187<i Avas £16,714,U00. The prices of iron and coal have fallen
very much more than 20 per cent., and very much more tlian the
average fall in the prices of other commodities, in Great Britain since
1«72. From a comparison of the quantities and values exported, as
given in the board of trade returns, the following are shown to have
been the average x>i'ices per ton during the year 1873 and the lirst six
months of 1877, respectivelj" :

Commodities.

Iron and steel, law

Pig and puddled iron

Total iron and steel, raw and manufactured
Coal

rir.st six

1873

months of

1877.

$64

$41 23

14 19

42 34

5 05

2 57

appears from these returns that during 1873 the total export of
and steel, raw and manufactured, amounted to 2,957,813 tons, at

iron , , .

a total valuation of £37,731,239, while during the lirst six months
of 1877 it was 1,118,183 tons, at a valuation of £9,792,326. The ex-
port of coals during 1873 was 12,617,566 tons, at a total valuation of
£13,188,511, while during the first six months of 1877 it was 7,344,883
tons, at a total valuation of £3,773,920.

In order to bring down this record of falling prices in England to
the latest accessible dates, I will read the following from an article
on "The course of prices of commodities" in 1877, to be found in the
London Economist of January 5, 1878 :

It was to the end of July, 1877, that we carried our record of weeldy prices,
when last writing upon the 'subject. In nearly every article upon our list, except
wheat and saltp'eter, there had been a decline of market value. Week by week
during the last five months of the year now closed there has been so general a de-
cline of prices that it is scarcely needful to particularize. Iron, coal, and coflee
are, however, all down, tin showing exceptional steadiness, the group ot articles
of food showing a general decline. Beef has fallen since the summer and the
decline in coifee, together with the falling off in excise returns, reminds us that
the laboring mass of the population has now less than of late to spend upon neces-
sities and comforts of life. . . ^ -l.

The close of the year affords a good opportunity for pointing with eflfect to the
steady, continuous," and serious decline which has affected the markets for the com-
modities in which the chief trade of England consists. Although the fall in prices
has been long continued and severe no one can pretend to say that the <lepressed
period is at an end and that prices must soon tend to recover.

The following is a statement of the comparative prices in London

at the close of tlie years 1873 and 1877 of articles selected for the
purpose by the London Economist :

Articles.

Prices at

the close

of 1873.

Prices at

the close

of 1877.

Fall in
prices.

& g. d.
3 18
2 12

4 2

5 5

£ s. d.

2 11 9

2 6

2 10

Percent^

IC. 1

11.5

32.

7.7

115

19 15

2 11
66
66

15 10

48.5
20.5
42.6
19.6
21.6

18
5 7

14
4 4

6
9
4|

19.5
20.8
38.3

I. — Xative products :

Wheat, Gazette average quarter

Flonr, town made

Beef, inferior: per stone

Beef, prime, per stoue

n. — Eaw materials :

Scotch pi^t-iron, per ton

Copper, Chili, per ton

Tin, Straits, per ton

Cotton, niiddlinj;; Upland, per pound —
"VVool, Southdown, per pack

m. — Tropical product.s :
Snfrar, Muscovado, per hundred- weight

Coffee, Ceylon, per hundro<l-weight

Pepper, Natal, per pound

The average fall in price of the above articles, taking them nnmer-
ically and without reference to their relative quantities, is 24.9 per
cent. During the same time the gold price of an ounce of silver in
London fell from 57ld. to 53ff7., being a fall of 7.11 per cent. The
silver prices, therefore, of the commodities named fell 17.79 per cent.
The period covered by this comparison is somewhat dift'erent from
that covered by the tables of the New York Public and the articles
selected for comparison are somewhat dift'erent. Both comparisons,
however, attest the same general fact that silver has recently risen
rather than fallen in its exchangeable value.

As the wholesale prices of articles of commerce in all gold-stand-
ard countries rise and fall in substantial correspondence with their
rise and fall in Great Britain, it is thus conclusively established that
theinirchasing power of gold over commodities generally has increased
in a very much greater ratio since 1872 than it has over silver bull-
ion. I have not deemed it necessary to burden the record, as I might
easily do, with extracts from economical and miscellaneous publica-
tions in every portion of every land giving accounts of a stagnation
of industry and commerce and a fall in gold prices as great if not
greater than has been shown to have taken place in Great Britain,
and with forebodings for the future even more gloomy than those of
the London Economist. This distress, felt everywhere, presses with-
the most intense severity upon the gold-standard countries.

The only great country which exhibits any degree of prosperity is
France, which maintains a silver circulation of $300,000,000, on a val-
uation of silver equal to 400, instead of 412+, grains to the dollar, an
proposed in the bill under consideration. As a proof and illustration
of this is the fact, stated by the Moniteur des Int^rdts Mat^riels of
Brussels, the highest authority on such subjects, that the total new
investments in all Europe in industrial undertakings, including rail-
roads, during the year 1877 was $330,000,000, of which $285,000,000
was invested in France alone. And even in France there are now
unmistakable premonitions of approaching stagnation in trade and
industry, caused doubtless by the unwise suspension for a year and a
half of the coinage of silver. The invasion of " hard times," which

lias scarcely yet reached tlie shores of Fiance, can be successfully mefc
and resisted only by a return without reserve to its old policy of un-
restricted coinage of silver.

It is a proposition whi(;h cannot be overthrown by facts and figures,
that the fall in silver relatively to gold since 1872 has never been as
great as has been the fall in the gold price of commodities except on
one single day, July 8, ld76, which was a Black Friday in the London
silver market, when in the language of a circular issued by Pixley &
Abell, London bullion brokers, there was an " exceptional sale at 4(5f
pence" in gold per ounce. The general i-ange of the recent so-called
depreciation of silver as measured in gold has been about 10 per cent.,
whereas the gold prices of the general range of commodities has fallen
at least 20 per cent. Unless the facts cited as to the condition of the
markets can be overthrown, the conclusion cannot be avoided that the
real value of silver, which is measured by its purchasing or exchange-
able power, instead of having fallen has to a very considerable degree
risen within the last five years.

The conclusion that silver has not fallen in value is further fortified
by the fact, of which the proofs are decisive, that in India, contain-
ing an industrious population of 237,000,000, with silver as their sole
standard, there has been a general fall rather than a rise in the prices
of commodities, including both imports and exports. Nor have silver
prices risen in any other portion of Asia. A. A. Low, a leading mer-
chant of New York, engaged in the China trade, testified before the
United States monetary commission to the fact, which is otherwise
well established, that since l»72-'73 there has been a fall in the silver
price of tea, the principal export of China. It is true that during a
portion of that time, there was a rise in the silver price of raw silk, a
less important but still not unimportant article of export from China.
This rise, however, is well known to have been attributable to the
failure of the silk crop of Italy and France. Silk has since then very
materially fallen in price, and its tendency is still downward. As to
imports in China from Europe, their prices have necessarily fallen in
the same proportion as in India. In those two markets having the
same money standard there must always be a substantial correspond-
ence in the prices of the same articles.

In respect to the silver prices of tiie exports of India, the United
States monetary commission quote from a letter (New York Evening'
Post, October 26, 1876) from J. S.Moore, who had long been engaged
in the India trade and who has never ceased to take an interest in
its condition, and who has carefully observed and collated the facts
relating to it. In this letter Mr. Moore states, among other things :

Indian productions are at present at their lowest ebl) as compared during fiftcea

years.

The monetary commission also note the fact that at a meeting in
London in September, 1876, of the stockholders in the Oriental Bank,
whose principal business connection is with the India trade, the pres-
ident said that with few exceptions India products were so low that
even a general war could not make them worse. The commission
also quote the following as the reported summary of the conclusions
announced by the governor and council of India in a minute adopted
September 22, 1876, on the subject of silver, and as an answer to the
petition of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce that the coinage of the
tjilver rupees should be limited :

First. Gold has riser in valua since March, 1873, and especially since last De-
ceitiher.

Second. It is not shown that .silver has fallen in value, i. e. as compared with
couiuiouities in general, either in London or in India during the aame period.

Nearly every heading journal, financial and otherwise, indorsed with
scarcely any reservation the reasoning and conchLsions of the govtr-
uor ami council.

The full text of the minute of September 22, 187G, has now^een
received, together with a note addressed by the governor general to
the home government, bearing date the 9th of February, 1877. From
the full text of this minute I extract the following :

The recent change in the value of silver measured in gold mav be due to changes
erf one metal or the other, or both. Before a fit remedv can be applied it is essen-
tial to ascertain exactly what has happened, whether go"ld has lisen or silver fallen,
and how much the value of either luetal has changed. It cannot be a.ssuined with-
out decisive pi-oof that the divergence of the two metala is due wholly or even
•hiefly to the fall in the value of silver.

The long continuous equilibrium between the value of gold and that of silver is
due to the two metals having shared, without material change of conditions, the
only great held for the employment of either of them, t. e. the supply of legal-tender
metallic money. This equilibrium has been disturbed by the rapid supersession
of silver by gold in Europe and America as the standard of value, and, therefore,
as the material of legal-tender metallic money. This supersession is calculated
a priori to raise the value of gold no less than to lower the value of silver.

The prices of commodities and precious metals in London and India witness to
a considerable rise in the value of gold since March, 1873, and especiallv since De-
cember. 1875, and do not .show any fall in the value of silver measured'iu commo-
dities other than gold.

On the 2d of February, 1?77, the governor of India telegraphed to
the home goverumeut as follows :

Prices in India do not as yet show any fall in the value of silver.

And on the 9th of February, 1H77, as already stated, the governor
addressed a note to the home government on the same subject. This
note is accompanied by tables of the prices in silver in Bombay and
Calcutta, of the leading articles both of import and export, covering
the entire year ld73 and coming down to February, L677. Upon
these tables he observes in respect to imports " that the Hilver prices of
imported goods in India have hot risen, and the circumstances would ap-
pear to have been unfavorable to importers." And in respect to exports
he observes that " upon the whole these tables do not appear to in-
dicate any decrease in the value of silver."

Of the imports at Calcutta the only article which shows a rise of
price is spelter, (zinc;) to that article are added in the Bombay ta-
bles Chinese silk and coffees from Mocha and Malabar. The fall iu
the prices in imports at both cities has been general, and in the lead-
ing articles it has been great between 1873 and the beginning of
lb77. Thus in gray shirtings it is 15 per cent, at Bombay and 18 per
cent, in Calcutta, and in iron it is about double this.

I need scarcely refer to the condition of the iron trade of this country.
It is graphically set forth in the columns of the Philadelphia Bulletin
of the Iron and Steel Association of December 26, 1877. The prices
given are currency prices, but after allowing for the fall in the gold
premium, a reduction of gold prices during the year 1877 is still shown,
although the enormous reductions of price already reached in 1876 had
created a general belief that they could not by possibility go any lower.
The Bulletin says :

The following table, which we have compiled from the remarkablv accurate
reports of Thomas Hobson, the Philadelphia ioiTe8;)ondent of the Xew York Iron

Age, shows tlie average range of prices of four leading iron and steel products
during the year :

Month B.

Pig-iron in
Philadel-
phia.

Refined bar
in Philadel-
phia.

Steel rails at
works.

Ordinary
iron raiia
at works.

130 75
20 00
20 00
19 50
19 00
18 75
18 25
18 00
18 25
18 50
18 00
18 00

«48 72
47 60
47 04
44 80
44 80
44 80
44 80
44 80
44 80
44 80
1 44 80
44 80

$49 00
49 00
49 00
49 00
47 25
46 50
45 25
44 75
44 00
42 25
40 50
40 50

$34 .50

February

33 75
33 00

April ..--

33 00

"Nf av

33 00

(Tiilv ......>>

33 00

August

32 75

September

31, 00
30 50

31 00

December

32 00

18 92

45 55

45 58

32 54

The figures above given show a steady decline in the price of pig-iron from S20.75
in January to |18 in August, when the decline may be said to have been perma-
nently arrested, as prices have since remained practically stationary, with a hard-
ening tendency. In bar iron the price has fallen from $48.72 for best refined in
January to 144.80 for the same quality in December. Steel rails have fallen from
$49 at the works in .January to 140.50 in December. Iron rails of ordinary quality
have fallen from S34.50 in January to $32 in December. All these are the lowest
prices ever quoted in this country, if we except the price of pig-iron in colonial
days. In later days, prior to 1877, the lowest average yearly price of No. 1 anthra-
cite foundery pig-'ii-on was in 1661, the first year of the war, when it was $20.25, the
lowest average monthly price touched during the year being $18.62^ in October.
The lowest monthly average price in 1877 was in Auiiist, November, and Decem-
ber, when it was |18 ; the average for the year was |18.92. Charcoal pigiron has
never been so low as anthracite. Previous to the present era of low prices, the
lowest point touched in the price of best refined bar iron was $52.50 per gross ton
from March to July, 1852 ; and the lowest average reached in any year was $54.66
in 1851. In April, '1877, best refined bar iron fell to $44.80 a ton, and at this price it
remained to the close of the year. The average price for the year was $45.55. Steel
rails were first made on order in this country in 1867, and in January, 1868, they
were sold at $165. In December, 1877, contracts for steel rails were made at $40,
and the average price for the month was only §40.50. Tlie average price for the
year was $45.58. Previous to the present perioii of low prices the lowest point
touched in the price of iron rails was $36.50 a ton in November and December, 1861,
and in January and February, 1862 ; and the lowest average reached in any year
was $41.75 in 1862. In October, 1877, iron rails fell to $30.50, and the average price
for the year was $32.54.

The foregoing comparisons exhibit the depressed condition of the American iron
trade at the close of 1877 in a lisrht that requires little comment. The low wages,
the small profits or no profits at all, the bankruptcies, the pinching, the anxiety,
and the weariness of spirit which have accompanied the great faU in prices can
easily be surmised.

The closing year has been one of extreme discouragement to American iron-
masters and their workmen.

The depression in nearly every industry in this country has been
most severe, although in iron it may be exceptionally great. Volumes
might be filled with the evidences of falling markets and of the uni-
versality of the business disasters since 1873.-

No answer is made to these exhibitions of the fall of general prices
since 1872-73 except the shallow and deceptive one of selecting hero
and there some isolated article which may have risen in price during
that period from peculiar causes, or some isolated article which rnay
liave risen in price during apart of that period, such as wheat during
the first part of 1877, from the breaking out of the Russo-Turkish
war, or the rise in raw silk, which continued for a short time after the
failiu-e of crops in leading silk-producing countries. Few will be

deceived by answers of that kind, except those wlio wish to be de-
ceived. The broad j^cneral fact, that within live years the general
prices of coninioditifs have fallen more than has'the gold price of
silver during the same period is written all over the market quota-
tions of every part of the world and is known to everybody iu the
current experience of life.

The Public, from whose tables I have quoted, is now behind none of
the New York newspapers in the glibness and llippancy which charac-
terize a majority of them in afitirming that the only wise and honest
thing for this country to do is to i)ay its debts, national, corporate,
and individual, in gold, which its own tables of prices as well as its
own editorials, which I shall hereafter quote, show has been enor-
mously appreciated by depriving silver of the monetary function and
by^devolving upon gold alone the functions before performed by both
metals.

The Public now goes as far as those who go farthest in denouncing
as a swindling scheme the proposition to restore to silver the func-
tions of which it was shorn by legislation foolishly criminal, or cuini-
inally foolish, and in the denunciation of its advocates as the con-
trivers of a delKised, degraded, and depreciated money, and as idiots,
swindlers, and lunatics. And I may here remark that this discussion
has signally illustrated the long-known fact that the deniicr ressort ot
the supporters of a bad cause is always to supply the place of solid
arguments which they lack with ridicule, vituperation, and abuse,
which are always as cheap as they are abundant. In the case of The
Public there is added to the pique of a defeated casuist the zeal of
a new convert, as will api^ear from the following short extracts from
its columns in 187G :

[From The Public, August 3, 1876.]

Prices of commoditiea generally have declined iu all lauds in which gold is the
measure at least as much a,s 20 per cent, within four years. The pnrch.isiug power
of silver in countries where that metal is the measure has not materially declined
excepting with respect to gold. This phenomenon, if we put it into a few words,
is this, that gold has risen ao per cent, iu puichasing power, while silver has fallen
but Lttle, if any.

[From The Public, August 10, 1876.]j

Has silver fallen in value 1 Thousands assert it. Not a man has sabmitted a
single proof. * * « Every intelligent man understands that if silver sold iu
1872 at si.Kty pence per ounce in gold, and sells now at tifty-one pence, that change
may have been produced either by a decrea.se of 15 per ceut. in the value ot silver, or
by a corresponding rise in the value of gold. * * * Gold will buy more of silver
and more of everything else than it would in 1873. The decline in silver from fifty-
nine and a quarter pence in 1873 to fifty-one pence in 1876 has been 14 per ceut. As
we have repeatedly sliown, the decliuein the price of other commodities generally
ha.s been about as much iu other countries in which gold is the standard, and con-
siderably more in this country, where prices have been in part by a depreciated
currency. On the other haiul. tliere is no proof that prices of comiuodities gener-
ally have changed appreciably in tho.se countries where silver is the measni-e of
value. Gold is relatively scarce and de.ar. Prices fall, industries are prostrated.
Silver al.so falls in countries which have driven it from use as a mea.snre of values,
and deprived themselves of the protection which that use would give iu such a
strait.

[From The Public, September 28, 1876.1

In point of fact there is a ''corner " in gold. Its price iu silver and its purchas-
ing power rise rapidly in the western world.

And yet to-day, when the corner iu gold is a closer one than in 1876,
The Public echoes and re-echoes what is with a few honorable excep-
tions the voice of the New York press, th.it all debts, public and pri-
vate, shall be paid in the cornered metal in unblushing detiance of
both the letter and spirit of contracts.

It has been persistently urged that if silver has not yet depreciated,
its tendenci«s are in that direction, and that if we remonetize it, we

shall be overwhelmed by the discarded, refuse stock of other nations,
and that this country will be cursed with a fluctuating, depreciated,
unreliable, and worthless money.

Look to whatever quarter we may for the source of this threatened
flood, it cannot be found. France has none to spare. The $300,000,000
of silver which she has is all urgently needed as a basis for her paper
issues. She can only discard it by supplying its place with gold. If
she enters upon that experiment now, or in the near future, it would
postpone indefinitely any attempt at gold resumption in this country.
Our legislation must therefore be based on the idea that France must
continue her present money system indefinitely. Reliable informa-
tion from Germany shows that the disposable stock in that country
does not now exceed $70,000,000, and the London Economist estimates
it to be considerably less. This amount might be emptied into th^^ee
or four of the Western States without producing a flutter in the
financial atmosphere. England has not now and never keeps any con-
siderable stock of silver on hand, but is constantly obliged, in order
to meet the demands of her commerce with India, to telegraph orders
for silver on San Francisco.

There are no disposable stocks elsewhere either in Europe or Amer-
ica, and silver never returns from the eastern world.

Whenever the prediction has been made that the markets were to
be flooded with any other articles than silver, such as cotton or wheat,
it has generally been deemed necessary, if the object was to aft'ect the
prices, production, or use of those articles,to point out specifically from
what quarter of the globe the flood might be expected.

But in respect to silver, there has been a beating of gongs and a
universal shont of warning to the people to maintain legislative
dikes against the incoming floods of that metal, whose sources they
have been unable or unwilling to point out. This Chinese system of
warfare against silver has proved ineffectual, because upon examina-
tion the masses of the people could not see that any evil would result
to this country even if the entire stock of German and French silver
should be sent here. On the contrary, the people believe that a sil-
ver flood of only that magnitude could result in no injury whatever,
but would only serve to revive the stagnant industry and commerce
of the country, like rain upon the parched, thirsty, and sun-cracked
earth.

As no dangerous quantity of silver existed in known localities the
gold worshipers and bondholders have been obliged to cause it to
be invented or discovered, and in this, as might be expected, they
have not failed. The discovery was promptly made about a year ago
by a reliable newspaper correspondent in the distant and inaccessible
mountain ranges of Peru, which threatened, upon the completion of
nearly completed tunnels, to pour through them in a deluging stream
uncounted thousands of millions of that contaminated and contami-
nating metal. These fabulous deposits were wisely located in such
remote regions that it was safe to affirm almost anytliing in respect
to them, but thus far they have stubbornly refused to leave their
adamantine sepulchers.

The stories concerning them were regarded at the outset as absurd
by all who knew anything of the history of silver mining, and they
have since been revamped so often that they have ceased to attract
any attention.

The Comstock lode, confessedly one of the greatest mineral-bear-
ing veins ever discovered and in the hands of the most vigorous,
pushing, energetic, ingenious and euterprisiug people, has yielded

less than !|!200,000,000 of silver since its discovm-y twenty years ago.
Daring that time exiiauHtive oxpiorations liave been made along ifc«
entire lengtli to a depth of two thousand feet. In view of faots like
these something more immediately threatening to tlie value of silver,
and more plansible than a deluge of that metal from the distant
mountains of Peru, was neeiled to frighten the people from restoring
their ancient money standard.

The fundholders of the world who deal in mortgages on past and
future enterprises instead of inaugurating them, and who are exclu-
sively engaged in the improvement of the value of debts, and never
in the improvement of the value of property, fertile in expedients,
have been equal to the occa-sion. They have developed a new and
imminent danger described in a startling and bewildering dispatch
of a recent date to their organs in New York, which I read :

Recent discoveries of chemists and metallurgists in the science of cnpellation
have been so important that some of them claim that they can even melt up sheet
lead and piping in ordinary n.se and extract a sufficient percentage of silver to
make the operation largely profitable, and anangements have alieady been made
to reopen the workings of many abandoned mines of poor ores under the now
eupellating processes ii the bill should pass.

The process of cupellatiou applied to lead, as here de.scribed, might
have been important in some remote ages of the world, but it is now
so dwarfed by improved and more scientific applications of that pro-
cess as to be of little consequence.

Cupellation applied to paper in 1869 extracted fifteen hundred
millions of coin out of paper-ciirrcucy bond.s, and a still later refine-
ment of the process seeks to transmute seventeen hundred milliona of
coin into gold.

The cupellators of 18G9 made a clear profit of $500,000,000 without
investing a single dollar in lead or in any metal or material or mine.

The ancient alchemists tried to transmute base metals into gold. The
capellators referred to in the dispatch I have read hope to extract
silver from lead. But by a practical application of their process the
cupellators of 1869 extracted more coin out of paper than was ever
yielded by the Comstock lode and Potosi combined. No talk about
a process of eupellating silver out of lead will divert the people
of the United States, who have suffered so deeply by the double
process of eupellating coin out of paper and gold out of coin, from
ascertaining the exact nature of the operation. It may be that when
its details are thoroughly understood the process may be reversed,
and made to work in the interest of the masses of the people. When
the exact nature and result of the process is exposed it will not be
surprising if the name of cupellator shall become as odious as that
of inflationist and repudiator.

I have so far considered the rise in the value of gold since 1872 as
demonstrated aud measured by the average fall in the prices of com-
modities. But the rise in its value, as shown by the fall in the prices
of land and labor, has been vastly greater and has contributed much
more powerfully to the business prostration everywhere prevailing.
Land and labor immeasurably overshadow in magnitude and impor-
tance the aggregate of mere merchandise that was ever in existence
at any given period. Land in all civilized countries is the great basis
and bulwark of credit, aud a geueral or considerable fall in its price
has never failed to be ruinous to every commercial and industrial
interest. It constitutes a great if not a major portion of the posses-
sions of mankind. Cities are built upon it, and all the dwellings and
structures of man. All the permanent works of utility for the amel-

ioration of tlie condition ot tlie race are constructed upon and become
a part of it.

From its generous breast all the wants of man must be supplied.
Land, together with all the permanent structures built upon it, con-
stitutes what in law is dignitied by the name of real estate. A gen-
eral fall in the prices of real estate would not seem to be possible
nnless caused by an absolute appreciation in the value of the medium
in which it is measured, except nnder the blows of great national
calamities, or except nnder the influence of one of those mysterious
cycles of national decadence which at long intervals in the past have
frowned darkly now upon one portion and again upon another of the
civilized world.

Adam Smith, if not the founder of the modern science of political
economy, was at least one of its greaitest exponents. In treating of
labor, he said:

Labor is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.

This view he maintained with the most conclusive arguments, and
the same view is maintained by all reputable economical writers
whose works are either read or remembered.

Testing the value of gold by these great measures, labor and real
estate, what results do we iind ? Details need nor. be given. I hazard
nothing in saying that under this crucial comparison it will be found
that gold has very nearly if not quite doubled in value within the last
five years. The most careless observer cannot fail to discover the gen-
eral correctness of this statement, and the most careful scrntiny in
every locality will confirm it. The universal experience of those who
have real estate or labor to dispose of will attest its truth. The reason
of this greater fall in the prices of land and labor than in commodities
in general use is not difficult to discover.

If the articles given in the tables of the New York Public, which
show an average fall in price of 19 per cent., are divided into two
groups, it will be found that the group consisting of breadstulfs,
butter, and cheese, provisions and tobacco, sugar and molasses, and
tea and coftee, all of them under the habits of the people of the
United States being articles of necessary consumption, fell in i^rice
only 13 per cent., while the other group, consisting of raw material
for manufacture, coal, iron, cotton, leather, and wool, fell in price
26 per cent.

The inevitable consequences of a rise in the value of money, or in
other words of generally falling prices, are stagnation of industry,
decreased amount of employment, and shrunken wages. The luxu-
ries of the rich find the comforts of the middle classes are at such
times largely curtailed and in many instances cut otF altogether, but
the wage classes, even when they earn more than the needs of sub-
sistence, rarely indulge in superfluities or extravagance in living.
For the purpose of getting ahead in the world they pinch and save and
live in the most frugal manner consistent with health and strength.

Hence during a period of falling prices the demand for the actual
necessaries is impaired the least, and the demand for things not in
exigent requisition is impaired the most. Changes in the prices of
necessaries and luxuries, respectively, must be in correspondence with
the changes in the demands for them. A constantly increasing pro-
portion of the aggregate earnings of labor and capital must be appro-
priated to the actual necessities of subsistence, and consequently
the fall in their prices will be the least.

The aggiegate of wages will be largely reduced because there will

1)6 no incontivo to tho employment of labor l)e,voiul that docreaising
amount required to produce the necessaries of life and to produce also
such a sujijily of comforts and luxuries as will suffice for the few who
may still be able to indulge in them ; the profits of both these kinds of
production will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with their
being maintained at all. It is easy to perceive that a long-continued
rise iu tho value of money and fall in general prices would destroy all
credit, and that the resulting sufferings of the people would finally
drive them to seek relief in a direct exchange of commodities. The
price of the raw material which enters into all kinds of nuuiufacture
falls in a greater ratio than do the necessaries of life, because the
manufactured article can be dispensed with, while the coarse food
essential to the existence of the laborer fs indispensable.

The tables of The Public do not give the prices of luxuries at dif-
ferent periods, nor have I been able to find them elsewhere in reliable
form. Nor do I deem it necessary to furnish them in order to illus-
trate what is so familiar. The fall of prices is, of course, greatest in
those articles for which there is the greatest decrease in the demands,
and all experience shows that the depressing effect upon the prices of
property of an increasing value in money falls first in point of time
and greatest in degree on luxuries.

Tho wage classes lose half their accustomed earnings through a re-
duction of their wages, and more esx>ecially through unsteady em-
ployment and lack of employment altogether. This is not compen-
sated by a corresponding fall in the prices of what feeds them. On
the other hand such consumers of luxuries as are still able to com-
mand them find a large ofl'set to the diminution of their incomes iu
the very great fall in the prices of what they buy.

These obvious principles furnish an easy explanation of the present
depressed condition of labor and real estate. Very little is being
]>roduced, especially in mannfacturing industry, except what is ui'-
gently needed, and therefore sure of a market. As production declines
wagesdecline, and, what is even more disastrous, employment becomes
intermittent and precarious. The aggregate of a laborer's annual
earnings depends quite as much iipon the constancy of his employ-
ment — the number of days in the year that he can get employment —
as upon the rate of his wages when he is fortunate enough to find
work to do.

In respect to real estate, nothing is salable except what is actually
and immediately wanted. Houses to the extent that occupants are
ready to pay rent for them, and stores and warehouses within the
limits of the restricted and still diminishing demand, will command
a price, although a low one. But with the spirit of enterprise crushed
out as it is now, by the striking down at a blow of one-half of the
metallic currency of the world, by the absolute shrinkage in this
country of accepted paper currencies, and by the still greater shrink-
age of such currencies relatively to advancing population and com-
merce, property having merely prospective value has ceased to be re-
garded as property at all. It is wholly unavailable, and when forced
to the auction-block sells for little more than the value of the paper
on which conveyances of it are written. Unimproved lots in growing
cities, undeveloped mines and water-powers, buildings for the mo-
ment unoccupied, agricultural lands beyond the immediate demand,
are all in this category. Unless under exceptionable conditions, they
are entirely unavailable as security for loans.

Money is the oxygen of exchange, and when through a decrease in
quantity it is rising in value, commerce and industry become asphyx-

iated. The business of the world is now writhing and stifling under
the exhausted receiver of a standard shrinking and shrunken to the
constantly appreciating metal gold alone.

Savings-banks, trust companies, and insurance companies are
tumbling into ruin every day in all parts of the country. In the
great miijority of cases the real-estate securities, now tiinking in
value on their hands, were judiciously selected. Their mortgages
are weak, not because they were dishonestly or unwisely taken, but
because prices have been struck down by legislation impossible to
have been foreseen and guarded against. The condition existing
everywhere is faithfully described in the following language of the
bank and insurance commissioner of Maine. Reporting January 2,
1878, upon a large savings-bank in Bangor, which was being pressed
by its depositors, he said :

Depositors mnst be aware that a forced sale of the assets, especiallv real estate,
at this time, when depression rests so heavily upon this class of property, would
result injuriously to their interest and induce additional and needless loss. Ko
one can place his real estate upon the market at the piesent and get much above
one-half of its actual value.

Mr. A. J. Warner, of Ohio, in a collection of able essays lately pub-
lished, predicts that if the gold policy is persisted in prices of prop-
erty will fall to one-third of the valuation of 1874, and in reference
to present prices adds:

No small parti of the property of the country has already fallen to that level, and
notably tools and machinery designed for reproduction.

The fall in real estate is hardly greater in cities where it has been
the subject of speculation, or in the newer and more heavily indebted
sections of the country, than it is in the most staid and wealthy
regions. For example, the blue-grass regions in Kentucky, where
speculation in lands and mortgages upon lands are least known, have
not escaped the general collapse. A recent number of the Lexington
(Kentucky) Press says, that at no time in twenty-five years has land
in that section been so low, and that farms heretofore selling at from
$100 to $150 per acre, will not now command more than from $60 to

From every city in the Union, from Galveston to Bangor and from
New York to San Francisco, we have but one report. Of San Fran-
cisco, where business has always been done on a coin basis, I can speak
from personal knowledge. Outside property in all the cities has
ceased to be a basis of credit, while inside property is dull of sale and
has very largely decreased in price.

The columns of the local newspapers are filled with notices of fore-
closures of mortgages and of sheriffs' sales. More property is being
sacrificed for taxes than was ever before known in the history of this
country.

The fall that has taken place in the price of real estate under the
menace and aj)proach of gold payments is not confined to the United
States.

Wherever the gold standard has been or is being established, a
similar depression prevails.

In the Loudon Economist of December 22, 1S77, its regular Vienna
correspondent, writing four days previously in respect to affairs in
Germany, says :

Not even the news from Plevna and Paris has produced the least improvement.
Tlie stagnation of business still continues. Landed property is beginning to feei
the consequences of the crisis severely. It is said that in Berlin seventeen thou-
sand to eighteen thousand private apartments are lo be let. This statement may
be somewhat exaggerated. On the other hand, the Credit Fonoier banks are in a

position of {rreat difticnlty. Thoir mortgacp debttirs are not a>»le to pay their intor-
«*»t, and whore the »ale. <iif their propeity takes place the produce or the sale often
realizeH less than the niortgage.

The Pomeranian Mortsa'^e Bank in Coslin has been oblij;ed to pnrchaae an estate
at the piii e of 300,000 niarks, moituaged t-o the aiiiount of l.i'iJO.UOO marks. Sev-
eral similar cases have occurred, and as tlie German niorti;age banks ha%-e about
tiOO,000,000 luaiks in circulation, a crisis is generally feared.

The fall in tlie wajjes of labor, measured in fjold, hsm extended to
every part of the -westem world and over all fields of industry. It
has been greatest, !is always at periods of stagnation, in the wages of
unskilled labor, but has been great in all employments. It is scarcely
an exaggeration to say that average wages, measured in gold, have
fallen one-half since 187*i-'73. It is certainly no exaggeration to say
that the receipts of the wage classes have diminished to a much
greater extent, if to the fall in wages are added the losses from en-
forced idleness. The particular class of employes on the Baltimore
and Ohio Kailroad who commenced the disturbances of last summer
did not complain so much of the reduction of their pay. They prob-
ably would not have risen in riotous assemblage if their employment
had been constant. The number of days in the month they were un-
employed was to them a much more grievous burden. This reduction
of employment is not coutined to railroads, but extends to every in-
dustrial department.

The most deplorable accounts of the condition of labor in England
and Germany reach us constantly. In Berlin revolutionary outbreaks
have been kept down only by the bayonet and the breecli-loader.
In England large groups of laborers are on the verge of starvation,
and that catastrophe has thus far been staved oti"only by straining the
resources of public and private charity to the utmost.

In this country the distress of labor, reaching a point never before
known, has culminated in mobs which have given ominous expression
to the des]tair of the people. The Army of the United States, never
before used for such a purpose, has been called upon within a twelve-
month to perform police duty, to preserve social order, and to protect
private property. The advocates of the gold policy, cousciousappar-
ently that it will make chronic this condition of things and perma-
nently demand the same remedy, have insisted that the numbers of
the Army should not only be ke]it up but enlarged, not to resist fvir-
eign enemies, guard forts, or enforce the laws of the United States,
but to repress the riotous uimsiug of a hungry, naked, freezing, and
frantic populace.

The New York Tribune of the7tli instant editorially says:

One of the most terribly significant incidents connected vrith the loss of the Me-
tropolis last week was the fact that one hour after the news that the ship bad gone
down arrived in Philadelphia with all the exaggerated horrors of a first dispatch,
the office of the Messrs. Collins was besieged with hundreds of hunger-bitten, de-
cent men, beggiag for the places of the drowned laborers. In this city there h.ave
been orer a thousand applicants at the agency for New Snnth Wales, to be sent out
as laborers and mechanics on the clipper ship starting this month for Sydney.

These people represent but a fraction of the great mass of unemployed poor in
the cities; men who are not paupers from inclination any more than the most re-
spectable reader of the Tribune : honest, industrious, frugal, in the ma.iority of
cases beads of families, who are out of work, and are ready to go to the other side
of the globe, or to the forests of Brazil, to get work to keep their wives and children
fi'om starving. It is useless to ignore this miserable, gaunt fact, which stares us
in the face at every corner. It Ls not to be dispelled any longer by soup-houses on
the one band, organized precautions asain-st tiamps on the other. "We have had
enough discussion on the relative advantages of occasional and organized charity.
It is not charity that is wanted ; it is work, and the only work which od'ers now as
a relief to the suffering in the cities is farming. How the unemploysd uiechanioa
and laborers have got through this; winter, God only know.s — they have been greatly
helped by the mild wt-atLer. But in three week's spring will" open, and what is

22,

then to be done? TLe revival of business will be too slight to afford them any
tangible help. Arc they all t« sink down permanently into tramps and paupers!
Or, m case of a revival of the labor troubles of last July, are we to keep them as a
reserve corps, ready, as then, to join, with terrible efle'ct, the side of disorder, riot,
and rapine I

This simple description of the deplorable condition to which the
laboring populations of New York and Philadelphia have been reduced
has about it a touching jiathos which speaks straight to the heart,
and with a power all the greater that it is but too easily recognized as a
description of miseries everywhere prevailing. The woes and wretch-
edness of war have been often portrayed ; but have Senators consid-
ered that their sweep is far narrower than that of the calamities
which follow contraction and an appreciation in the value of money ?
The fiery pathway of revolution can be trod with less suifering than
the burning plowshare of falling prices, decaying industries, enforced
idleness, and destitution of laborers — conditions absolutely insepara-
ble from contraction.

The sacrifices of the people of this country in the civil war have been
the inspiration of eloquence since it closed, and will continue to be so
as long as there is a slave to be freed or an imperiled right to be main-
tained and wherever self-denial and heroism shall be considered hu-
man virtues. Five hundred thousand of our choicest youth returned
from it no more to wives, to mothers, and to children. Others
without number returned mangled and maimed. The substance of
the country was consumed in the support of armies, and jiroperty
was destroyed by millions upon the land and upon the sea. But the
exaltation of the heroic sentiment made it all endurable, and pride
mingled with and assuaged the grief with which the dead were
niourned. On the one side was attachment to the Union and the be-
lief that both liberty and country depended upon the struggle. On
the other side was an exaggerated and, as I think, misdirected but
none the less sincere attachment to local franchises and to long-
cherished political theories of State sovereignty.

But all the miseries and all the sacrifices of that war, incalculable
as they are, were small in comparison with the miseries and sacri-
fices inflicted upon the country since the war by the contraction of
the currency and its inevitable results, the increased pressure of debts
and the shrunken incomes of laborers. No exaltation of heroic senti-
ment and yn-ide aids in sustaining these later and greater sacrifices.

Those whose husbands, fathers, and sons sink in the struggle with
grim poverty or wander outcasts and tramps over the face of the
earth have the blow softened to them by no reflected luster of heroic
deeds. Those whose accumulations, large or small, are swept away
by mortgages insidiously swollen in magnitude by an appreciation
in the value of money, are not consoled by the proud thought that
their property has been a contribution to sustain the existence of the
Government or the liberties of the country, or that they have been
reduced to beggary in order that the nation might live.

Have Senators considered the true significance of a reduction of the
money incomes of the wage-earning classes by one-half ? Have they
sounded the depths ? Have they gauged the proportions oi a calamity
like that ? With all the mitigations of which it admits it is a pro-
tracted and corroding misery. The money cost of the things which
workmen buy may be reduced, but not at all in proportion to the re-
duction in their incomes. There is no reduction, however, i n individual
debts, nor in that enormous mass of public debts, national. State,
county, municipal, the burden of which rests largely upon the always

overloadetl back of labor. When this Govcrnineut pledges its credit
the property in existence bears but a small part of the burden of its
redenii)tiou, compared with the portion which must be exacted from
the future earnings of the people. The iuterest on the mortgage is
paid not in money drawn from hoards, but from the annual produc-
tions of the country. . . , ^ i ■ ■>
Let prices range as they may, interest and principal must be paid
in the full number of dollars promised, without reference to their
value. The lower prices fall, tlie greater will be the proportion of
annual productious re([uired to make payment, and the less will be
the proportion which is left to reimburse capital and labor. In a di-
vision of losses between these it is always capital which escapes with

a minimum. . . j. j-

The annual interest on public debts in this country is not tar trom
0-200 000 000— a vast amount to be taken out of the current earnings of
the people. To double the weight of this obligation by doubling the
value of money, and reducing money wages one-half, is to render a
burden, already great, well-nigh insupportable.

It is a comparatively small portion of the people ot tins or any
other country that obtain the gold and silver with which debts must
be paid by delving in the mines. The vast majority work for gold
and silver, not in the mineral regions but in the rice, tobacco, wheat,
and corn fields; at the anvil, forge, and lathe; in the seams of coal
and iron : and in ships on the seas. The debt-paying power of the
country is measured bv the amounts of gold and silver for which the
products of these and all otlier industries can be exchanged. 1 his
gau'^e measures the value of money. These scales weigh the burden
of cfebt. It is only because the money function has been conferred
on o-old and silver,'and that debts are expressed and solvable in them,
that it becomes so transcendently important that their i)r(>ductiou
should increase with the increasing population and money demands
of the world. , . , , .,

It is because of this, that any eflfort to deprive gold or silver or
any portion of either, of the debt-paying function, without fur-
nishing something to take its place, is treason to the human race.
Measured against the consequences of that treason, the disappoint-
ment of what are called, whether in grim joke or not I am unable to
say, "the honest expectations of creditors," pubhc or private, sinks
into utter nothingness. As commodities, whether in production, use,
or amount of existing stocks, gold and silver are utterly insignificant
factors in the world's economy— the least useful and necessary of all
the metals. Stripped of the money function vested in them by legisla-
tion, there are probably no two commodities whose entire destruction
would interfere less with the happiness of the human race. How com-
paratively insignificant the labor employed in their production ls
will ai»pear from a single reflection. The aggregate annual produc-
tion of both metals does not exceed 1200,000,000, while the annual
productions of this couutrv alone, as measured in them, amounts to
thousands of millions of dollars, and of the whole world to a sum
too vast to be appreciated. In view of these facts it needs no close
calculation to reveal the enormity of the crime of striking down any
portion of the money metals upon whose volume depends the debt-
payin"' canacitv of individuals as well as of nations. If the money
of this country "be computed at 3700,000,000. an addition of 10 per cent,
to its value would be a gratuity of $70,000,000 to the possessors of
mouey, and a gratuity of 10 per cent, to the creditors of the country
on all'<lebts due them. On the other hand, the property of the

country, which is estimated at $40,000,000,000, would be valued at
$4,000,000,000 less than before ; and to that extent the credit of its
owners and their ability to pay debts would be curtailed, to say noth-
ing of its paralyzing effect upon industry and commerce.

This is a direct premium to those who are engaged in swapping dol-
lars and a ruinous tax upon those wlio are engaged in earning them.
The ettect of a diminution of the value of the metallic mouey of the
world by striking down any portion of it may be illustrated by the
dealings in the stock of an incorporated company, as (say) Pacitic
Mail Company, whose capital stock is represented by two hundred
thousand shares. Suppose that sales to deliver to a very large
amount had been made on this basis, wouAd it not be considered a
bald robbery on tlie part of those who held the agreements for the
delivery of the stock to procure the passage of laws to reduce the
number of the shares by one-half, or by any other amount, without a
corresponding reduction of the number of shares to be delivered ?
Would not those who had made promises to deliver shares be justified
in renouncing and repudiating their contracts, unless such corre-
sponding reduction were made?

There can be but one answer to this. Is a similar juggle with money
any the less a robbery ? It cannot be controverted that whoever
is in debt has, in the language of the stock exchange, sold money
" short." In the first supposed case parties had agreed to deliver iii
the future that of which they were not then in possession, to wit,
shares of stock. In the second case they have agreed to deliver in
the future that of which they are not in present possession, to wit,
money. The distinction between the two cases is in the thing to be
delivered, and not in the underlying principle. If half the money
upon which the promisors have recourse for the fulfillment of theiV
obligations were stricken down by legislation, would it contain less
of the ingredients of rascality than in the other case ? And if the
sufferers should make vigorous efforts to resist the operations would
they merit the epithets of lunatics, swindlers, and repudiators ?

Would not the epithet of swindler be more justly apjilicable to the
other party *

The one of the Comstock lode yields in value about one half gold
and one-half silver. If some evil spirit could by magic and incan-
tation eliminate either all the gold or all the silver, the miner would
have to extract and reduce double the quantity of ore in order to ob-
tain the same results as before. It may not be so obvious, but it is
just as certainly true that if by charms and wiles silver should be
eliminated from the money metals of the world, one-half of the money
profits and debt-paying capacity of every species of industry would
be destroyed.

The case briefly summed up shows that while silver has fallen
since lb72-'73, about 10 per cent, as measured in gold, commercial
commodities measured in the same way have fallen twice 10 per cent. ;
and that wages and real estate have fallen perhaps one-half in all
countries which use the gold standard, or in which paper currencies
are referred to gold and regulated by it. In other words the pur-
chasing power of silver although imj^aired by demonetization has
risen 10 per cent, in relation to commodities and 90 per cent, in rela-
tion to land and labor. There is not a town or city in Europe or
America where a given number of Mexican silver dollars, or of United
States silver dollars, if their coinage were permitted, would not to-
day buy more houses, more stores, more of general commodities, and
more labor than they would have bought in 1^72-73.

In 1872-'73 silver aii>l g'>iu j-nces in llu; v\.',stf,rn wc>rld ^\^'.^e iden-
tical. Now silver prices are ascertained by addiiij^ 10 p<T cent, to
current f?old prices. Makinj^ this simple calculation we find tbat
in purchasing tlie entire ni:i:ss of articles exported from Kn;^land
£18,3d.5,000 in silver wonld <!;o as far in 1577 as £21.:ir.5,00U of the
same metal in 1872. We lind tiiat .975.90 in silver would buy asnnich
at wholesale of the leading articles of commerce in the city of New
York, May 1, 1876, as S85 in silver would buy May 1, 1872. We find
That an average ton of iron and steel of all kinds, raw and manufact-
ured, which in 1672-'73, would command in England $(J1.)^4 in silver
will now command only .$4ti.57 ; and that a ton of coal whi( h would
then counnand iji.').0.') in silver will now command onlj' S2.fc0. We
also find that in reference to a large group of commodities, selected
by the London Economist, the purchasing power of silver rose 23 per
cent, in London during the four years ending in December, 1877.

By what facts and arguments, then, is it proven that silver has
depreciated except in relation to gold i? Is not its command over the
entire range of the objects of liuman desire greater than it was five
years ago? Will it not in all markets of Europe and America
exchange ff>r more and better food, shelter, and clotliing, and for uioi-e
comforts and luxuries generally than it would five years ago f Mast
not greater sacrifices in sweat and toil and property be made to obtain
412^ gi-aius of standard silver now than were required to obtain eil hc-r
a gold or silver dollar when silver was demonetized ?

In the face of these patent and accumulated facts, it is still claimed
that silver has dejireciated to such a degree that it would be dis-
honest to pay debts in it, even if it would legally discharge them.
An eminent jurist once said of a certain legal proposition that he
could not conceive of a human mind so constituted as to entertain it.
I am equally incompetent to conceive of a human mind so constituted
as not to see that sih'er has appreciated rather than fallen in value,
and that gold has been so euormou.sly enhanced in value that to
gratuitously require debts to be paid in it is either the most gig;iutic
folly or the most gigantic fraud of all the ages.

Mr. President, in the remarks which I have had the honor of sub-
mitting to-day, I have endeavored to demonstrate that silver has not
depreciated in value since its demonetization, and that the general
reference to the silver dollar proposed in this bill as a dishonor'ng
medium of payment and as a depreciated coin, shows a strange mis-
apprehension of the facts or a sinister perversion of the truth. Before
taking my seat, however, I ask the forbearance of the Senate while I
make brief allusion to matter jiersonal to me and of special interest
to my State.

It is certainly not my wont nor agreeable to me to obtnide my pri-
vate affairs upon the attention of the Senate or the public ; but I am
advised by those whose judgment I hold in high esteem that it is my
duty to notice charges persistently and extensively made. It has
been widely iterated that I have special and individuiri interests to
be subserved by remonetizing silver, and that my advocacy of it is
influenced by sordid and igiwble motive. It is not needed to give my
constituents assurance that these charges are false. The people who
honor me with a seat in the Senate have universally treated such
charges with the derisive scorn that slander merits. And whatever
may be the conflict of opinion on the Pacific coast as to the wisdom
of ujy course, I am proud to say that I do not believe there is to be
found there a reputable man or woman of whatever shade of i)olitical
faith who would asperse me with dishonorable motive.

I am not vaiu enough to suppose that anytbiiig relating tome could
be of the slightest public interest, except' in so far as it might affect
the character of this high body which it is the universal wish to see
maintained unsullied.

I have not been unobservant of the efforts to create a general pub-
lic impression that in advocating the rehabilitation of silver I am
controlled by unworthy and sinister motives. Nor am I insensible
to the labored endeavor to disparage my action by the repetition of
the statement that I am one of the owners of these fruitful proper-
ties known as the bonanza mines and that my personal gains would
be directly and immensely enhanced by the remonetization of silver.
To this I now proceed to make specific reply. I never had any con-
siderable interest in the bonanza mines, and the little interest I did
once have has long since been disposed of. The fact that I have not
had connection with productive silver mines since the silver question
was agitated other than occasional unimportant transactions in stocks
in San Francisco by my business agent on my account, so inconsider-
able that I did not keep informed of them, is well known to my con-
stituents and to all others who have knowledge of my affairs. I do
own stock in one of the very lai"ge number of non-paying mines on
the Comstock lode. This mine ceased to be productive more than
three years ago. A vast amount of money has been paid by its stock-
holders to carry on the extensive explorations continuously made since
that time. That it ever will again become a productive mine is a
ruatter of only distant hope. I have no investment in productive
silver mines, and my investments in non-productive silver mines are
much less extensive than in mines which produce gold exclusively.
Each and every statement to the contrary I declare here in this pres-
ence to be utterly and unqualifiedly untrue. I advocate the remone-
tization of silver because both justice and expediency demand it, and
because, even if it does not restore a full measure of prosperity, it
will check the rapidly spreading bankruiitcy and poverty which
threaten to overwhelm the country.

In the summer of 1876 a law was passed here to substitute $50,000,000
of subsidiary silver coins for the fractional paper currency. The direct
effect of that law was to make the Government a large purchaser of
silver bullion and consequently to maintain or advance its price. Had
I no other motive in advocating the restoration of silver than that its
value might be enhanced, I should certainly have supported that law.
I voted against it because I believed, as I then stated, that —

This sort of a scheme will in no wise relieve the wants of the country or remove
the pall of doubt and uncertainty which now hangs over it, and causes complete
stagnation and paralysis in every industrial department.

We have had within twelve months three several accounts from the
same newspaper press relative to the attitude of the principal owners
of the bonanza mines on the question of remonetizing silver. The
first, and this was the report longest persisted in, wa« that they were
in favor of it and, without specifically stating how, that they were
corruptly promoting it by every means in their power. Second, that
they were opposed to it. This second report hardly had time to be
echoed and re-echoed between New York and San Francisco before
the press in the first-named city revived the original account, and this
time with the addition that they had raised a fund of $500,000, to be
corruptly placed and corruptly used.

Althougli I am personally acquainted with the gentlemen referred
to and with all otliers on the Pacific coast who are largely interested
in productive silver mines, I have no knowledge other than such as

Komes to iiie tlironyh piiblii; ninior what their views and wishes on
the silver question really are. I have not at any time held communi-
cation with them, either collectively or individually, personally or
through correspondence or otherwise on this subject.

Of the four gentlemen composing what is known as the bonanza
firm, I believe, although I have no authority for stating it, that the
two who have personally devoted all the years of their manhood to
gold and silver mining are in favor of the reraonetization of silver.
They know l)y long practical experience the impossibility of flooding
the world with cheap silver. The other two who have always been
en«Taged in business pursuits in San Francisco and have never been
themselves practically engaged in mining, I believe to be opposed to
the reinonetization of silver. Whatever their views may be, I be-
lieve them to be honestly entertained.

The statement that $500,000 or any other sum has been contributed
by the bonanza owners or by anybody else to procure the renione-
tization of silver, is, in my belief, without foundation, and was so
known to be by those who uttered it. The charge that venal com-
binations have been formed and money raised for such purpose by
those interested in silver mining would imply idiocy on the part of
the mine-owners, if it be true, as is maintained by a majority ot
those who make the charge, that the remouetization of silver would
tend inevitably to depreciate its value. I know of no money raised
for such purpiise, and it is my unhesitating belief that none has been
furnished or attempted to be furnished for such purpose. I know
that the State whi(!h I have the honor to represent in part upon this
floor is too patriotic and high spirited to support any measure, how-
ever advantageous to itself, which would be prejudicial to the gen-
eral interests, or to indorse its representatives in doing so.

But denying asldothatlam personally interested in the remoueti-
zation of silver, I wish to have it distinctly uuderstood that I do not
even by implication admit that my right to legislate on the subject
would be lost or in any way impaired if the reverse were true. A fas-
tidiousness of this delicate order would be more nice than wise. It has
never been required of anyone here except the alleged owners of silver
mines. Has it ever been regarded as dishonorable for legislators, who
may have personal interests in iron, copper, lead, and salt mines, in
cotton factories, or in any other manufacturing industry, or in wool-
growing, to vote for or against tarifis and other laws directly aflect-
ino- those interests ? Has this gauzy virtue restrained owners of stock
in national banks from voting in controlling numbers for laws directly
benefiting those institutions i? Has the metropolitan press demanded
that persons so interested should abstain from voting here on such
questions ? If such a rule were insisted upon might it not leave one
or both branches of Congress without a quorum ? ISlight not the strict
enforcement of t-ut h a rule render necessary the creation of an idle
and i)rivileged class to legislate for the country ?

The silver miners of the United States have shirked no duty either
in peace or war. They demand neither protective legislation nor ex-
emptions from their full share in the burden of taxes, nor special privi-
leges of any kind; but they have special interests in the production
of'silver, and it is a task equally easy and grateful to me to vindicate
them. Thev are engaged in a lawful and honest industry, and who
between the two oceans are better entitled to fair treatment than

they?

The people of Nevada do not shrink from any comparisons to
which they can be subjected. It was because they were known to be

- 28

loyal aud patriotic that Nevada was admitted as a State into the
Union. It was admitted during the crisis of the civil war, as an added
bulwark to the defense and liberty of the country. If their numbers
were and are few they have maintained good government, efficiently
protected life and property, liberally endowed institutions of educa-
tion and beneficence, and have so well ordered their finances that
their governor has been recently urged to convene the Legislature in
extra session to reduce taxes in order to prevent the accumulation of
an inconvenient surplus in the treasury.

I am ready to meet here and everywhere any comparison between
fehe vague, shadowy, and unsubstantial after-born expectations and
understandings of the holders of bonds promising coin that they
shall be paid in gold as against the equitable and lawful claim of
my constituents that (me of the money metals of the Constitution
shall not be stricken down after they have crossed a continent to ex-
plore for it and devoted their lives and fortunes to its development
aud production. I confront the charge that they seek an unjust addi-
tion of 10 per cent, to the value of silver by its remonetization with
the demand that the robbery of 10 per cent, of their just earnings by
its demonetization shall no longer be persisted in. When they em-
barked in the business of silver mining they had evei-y right to ex-
pect and understand that it would continue to be money, as it had
always been as far back as history or tradition goes. They had no
reason to believe that it would be denied the money function to which
it had been consecrated by the unwritten law of all the ages, and to
which it was dedicated by the Constitution of the United States.

Have the recently formed expectations of bondholders to be paid in
gold any foundation either in equity or antiquity comparable to the
right of the miner of the Pacific coast to expect that silver would
continue to enjoy its ancient franchise of coinage?

The bondholders have invested their money upon a contract em-
bodied in a law, which was constructive notice to them of its terms.
Direct notice was also given them by the law itself being referred to
on the face of each bond, together with the terms on which they are
by that law made payable. The bondholders' right to a faithful per-
formance of this contract is as earnestly insisted npon by the advo-
cates of this bill as by its opponents. The miners have not only in-
vested their money, but have risked health aud life upon the faith of
then existing law, which was a solemn pledge to them that the pre-
cious nietals were both to continue to be used as money. The bond-
holder asks that laws shall be continued in force which were enacted
after his contract was made, aud which changed its terms to his ad-
vantage and to the disadvantage of the nation, and especially of the
silver miner, whose industry it threatens to destroy. The miner asks
that the Constitution shall be observed, and that the law under which
his industry was organized and upon which it was founded shall be
restored. These two demands are incompatible with each other. To
the impartial judgment of the American people the miner submits
their comparative equity. The prizes in mining are few, the failures
many, but there is always hope enough to inspire continued effort ;
there is always doubt enough to check undue expansion. A compar-
atively small number have reached the plane of success, while many
have fainted and fallen by the way. Shall those who are now hope-
fully toiling be punished for the successes of the few ? No braver or
hardier men ever courted fortune by the straightforward road of toil,
faacritice, and iirivatioii.

President Lincoln, in one of his messages to Congress, declared them

worthy not merely of the ordinary protection of law and juotice, but
of " extraordinary " measures of encouragement.

The miuint-; regions of this country frown witli the most forbidding
aspects of nature. In his restless wanderings in search of the precious
metals the miner sees no stately forests, no smiling lawns nor lus-
cious fruits to enchant the senses or soothe the mind; but it is iu torrid
valleys and on bare, bleak, and trackless mountains that gold and
silver are sought and only occasionally found. In this search the
miner leaves behind him every luxury of life, every convenience of
comfort, and every necessity of growth. _

The metal which the silver miner seeks to obtain is not as is usual
in gold mining gathered from alluvial sands by unskilled toil ; it cau
only be wrenched from its embraces of adamant by exhausting labor.
It can only be separated from its baser surroundings by expensive
machiuerv'and the efforts of patient science. No dollar of gold or
silver obtained by mining has ever involved the robbing of one man
by another, but lias been fairly won in a struggle between the ruile
forces of nature and the dauntless energy of man, and was an addi-
tion to the wealth of the human race. My constituents have rights
as sacred as those of the national creditor. It is my high duty and
privilege to defend them on this floor, and I shall make no apology
for the'ardor and persistency with which I discharge this duty and
exercise this privilege.

Does anybody doubt that the Senators from Massachusetts would
rise with indignation if anybody should stigmatize as blubber-gam-
blers, whalebone-speculators, and members of an " oil ring," the
bronzed whalemen of Nantucket and New Bedford who, when fortune
has favored, bring safely into port the wealth which they have not
obtained by wrecking railroads or by watering railroad stocks or by
puts and calls and short corners in stocks, but which they have created
by struggling with the cold, the darkness, the storms, and the crush-
h\<r ice-floes of Arctic seas. And why should I restrain my indigna-
tion when I hear the stigmatizing epithet of "bonanza swindlers"
applied to my constituents who are to-day toiling in gloomy passages
under exhausting heats, two thousand feet below the surface of the
earth, away fiom the cheering light of day, in an industry which is
believed to pay less profit upon the average than any other known
to man? I do not shrink from the comparison of the ways and
methods of the acquisitions of wealth iu the mining industry on the
Pacific coast with the ways and methods of its acquisition anywhere
on earth, and least of all with the ways and methods of Wall street,
where these attacks upon my constituents originate.

Leaving personal and local matters aside, I will conclude with a
brief reference to the frantic appeals that come to us from certain
quarters to rally to the rescue of the ancient honor of the Republic,
which it is declared is now held aloft by less than a dozen States in
the Union. It is said that this nation will lose the high position
which it has maintained for a hundred years in the family of nations
if the pending bill shall pass. It is said that even the discussion of
a measure to restore to the country the power to perform its contracts
in the terms in which they are written has to no inconsiderable
extent disparaged us in the eyes of the world.

Whence come the really dangerous assaults upon the good name of
the nation ? Is it not from certain members of Congress who de-
nounce this bill as a " pickpocket bill " and as a scheme to issue clipped
coins, forgetting that the clippings were stolen from the ])Ockets of
the people and are now found in the pockets of their creditors ? And

is it uot from the leading metropolitan and eastern press, which de-
nounces the supporters of the bill as swindlers and repudiators, and
declares itself to have the honor of this nation in its special charge ?
By what title does any faction set itself up as being ^Jwr excellence the
guardians of the honor of the country? Sir, that honor can repose
nowhere so securely as in the keeping and hearts of the peox>le.
There is its shrine and there alone can it find protection.

In what manner and by what methods has the New York and east-
ern press sustained the honor of the nation of which it proclaims itself
the special guardian ? Only by libels upon the character and per-
sonal motives of every public man who cannot see the justice of
robbing the Government and people by enhancing the value of the
money in which debts are to be paid ; by open and shameless appeals
to the President to make a corrui)t use of his patronage, to influence
votes in Congress against the silver bill ; by the |jretension, as false
as it is humiliating, that Congress dares not resist the decrees of or-
ganized capital.

The New York Tribune of January 7, 1878, said:

The President knows that men can he held true to republican pledges as to finance
if they know that their truth will mean favor as to appointments.

Three days later the same paper said :

The capital of the country is organized at last and we shall see whether Uougresa
will dare to fly iu its face.

These newspapers claim to be read largely in Europe, and undoubt-
edly the newspapers of the commercial cities are the only American
newspapers read on the other side of the Atlantic. What impression
of our i^eople and our public affairs and public men is likely to pre-
vail in Europe, which sees only those American newspapers in which
the majority in Congress is daily denounced as made up of silver
swindlers, repudiators, or lunatics, and in which it is daily repre-
sented that Congress can be corrupted by the President's patronage
and intimidated by the threats of organized capital ? What better
than a roaring farce is it for the editors engaged in this work of
defamation to style themselves the peculiar cliampions of the honor
of the nation ?

The attempt to persuade the President to use his patronage as a
corrupting agency seeming to have failed and Congress by votes at
various times and iu decisive numbers having exhibited a determi-
nation to " fly in the face of the organized capital of the country," the
latest movement has been to defame those who could neither be pur-
chased nor intimidated. No longer invoking the President to buy
Senators, these gold organs charge that Senators have sought to sell
their votes, and they furnish us with lengthy homilies upon the decay-
, iug morality of this body. The same press that day after day has
declared that it was the most urgent duty of the Chief Magistrate to
trade patronage for votes in favor of what is called honest money
uow shed bitter tears over a story of their own invention, that mem-
bers of this body have been waiting, watching, hoping, and asking
o be bribed. The New York Times of the 12th instan t editorially says :

The United States Senate has sunk so far below the standard with which it was
ormerly associated that the propositions which we yest^irtay gave as in circula-
tion at Washington excite little or no surjirise. There are Seuatois who have so
little intelligence and pi iuciple that they do uot know their own minds in regard
to the silver question, oi' so little conscience that they are I'eady to vote for or
against the pending bill. They imagine that it is popular. Provided they receive
a, quid j)ro quo, howevei', they are wiling to ruu the risk of unpopularity. They
are ready, in short, to Htdl their votes to the President, and aid in defeating the
bill if he will only pay their price. It is hiited that bj' adopting this bribery plan

tliePreHidwitmavnntoiilv.l.-fcat llio Hland liilllmt also may cstal.li.sh aniiC;»ble
rclatioiifi IxitwiM'ii hU aclmiiii«tratii)ii and Scnalor.s who aro^ at present miimcal.
The explanation does hut add to the dis^'iaco of those who ofl'er it.

It waa Joal) who said to Araasji : " Art thon in health, my Ijrother ?''
ancl"Hoho8inotohim * * * in the tilth lib." The. journals from
which 1 hav«i quoted seom to liave been eqnully Holicitonscoucerninc
the national lionor, and while tenderly inquiring aa to ita health deal
deadly stabs like these.

How would British honor and credit stand in the world s estimation
if the London newspapers should combine to represent that the Brit-
ish Parlianieut dared not resist the dictation of organized capital ; that
the Crown could secure any legislation by gifts of coininissions to
offices, and that the members of the Lords and Connnous were wait-
ing and eager to be bribed ? How much of the British honor and
credit would be left if these same newspapers should represent that
the constituencies in a majority of the boroughs au<l shires of England
were as corrupt as their representatives, and were fully in accord with
them in the passage of laws designedly and wickedly framed to rob
creditors and violate national faith ? How much of British honor and
credit would be left if these same newspapers should urge the Crown
to bribe the Lords and Counuons with ])atronage, to pass laws or to
refuse to pass laws in order that that honor might be protected against
the knavish instincts and designs of the great mass of the citizens of
Great Britain.

But if the British Parliament should refuse to be bribed and, carry-
ing out the wishes of the peo])le, should enact the laws denounced as
being dishonest, and if the world should discern that the laws so
passed, insteadof violating contracts, promoted the f ul lillment of their
strict letter, would British honor then be tarnished ? Would it not
rather be the London press, that had vilitied its own people, which
would receive the brand of public reprobation?

In this country the national honor has never been tarnished and
never has been in danger of being tarnished by those who propose to
restore the ancient money in which every national bond is on its
face payable. If the credit of this country is in any danger, it la
from the charges of the opposing faction that a majority of the citi-
zens of a majority of the States of this Union are innately dishonest.
Let the gold press of this country not forget that while ])ower usu-
ally begets intolerance it always begets resistance. It is boastfully
declared that capital is now "organized at last, and that we shall see
whether Congress will dare to lly in its face." How long is it since
the slaveholders of this country, intoxicated l\y the long possession of
absolute sway, declared that cotton was king, and that grass should
grow on the streets of northern cities if its royal prerogatives were
interfered with ? The southern men who hear me know that it was the
arrogance begotten of irresponsible power, the dominating spirit en-
gendered by slavery, that provoked and precipitated the revolution by
which id was destroyed. Are the same people who carried that revo-
lution through lire and blood on the bayonets of three millions of men
likely to be patient under the taunt that their chosen representatives,
sitting here under the Dome of this Capitol, dare not ily in the face of
the organized money-lenders and bondh(jlders of tlie country ? Thank
God and the Declaration of Independence and the patient heroism that
made it a vitalizing loroeand the Constitution thatcrystallized it into
law, the ])eople of this country are furnished with a better method of
righting wrongs and asserting rights than a resort to arms; and with
noteless resolution and enthusiasm than wars against oppression

This 1- ^o'

inspire will they in peaceful methods and under the forms of law
trample under foot any power that seeks through corruption or intim-
idation to intrench itself in this citadel of their liberties. They will
fiee to it that this remains a popular government in fact as well as in
name, and. despite the craft of the cunning and the wiles of the wicked
that their representatives in this Capitol register through constitu-
tional laws their imperial will. [Applause in the galleries and on
the iloor.]

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