HE GREAT DEBATE. BETWEEN ROSWELL G.^_HORR, of New York AND WILLIAM H. HARVEY, of Illinois PUBLISHERS. DEBATE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 134 Monroe Street, Fort Dearborn Building, CHICAGO. Series, Issued Quarterly, $1.00 Per Year. Vol. 1, No. 1. September, 1895. Trade Supplied by The American News Company and its Brandies. THE GREAT DEBATE ON THE FINANCIAL QUESTION BETWEEN HON. ROSWELL G. HORR OF NEW YORK AND WILLIAM H. HARVEY OF ILLINOIS THE SIX CHAPTERS OP "COIN 8 FINANCIAL SCHOOL" THE SUBJECT OF THE DEBATE THE ONLY OFFICIAL AND AUTHORIZED COPY OF THE DEBATE CHICAGO DEBATE PUBLISHING COMPANY 134 MoNROK Street Copyright 1895 BY AZEL F. HATCH CHICAGO, ILL. HON. ROSWELL G. HORR. WILLIAM H. HARVEY. THE GREAT DEBATE. CHAPTER I. HOW THE DEBATE CAME ABOUT. In June, 1894, William H. Harvey of Chicago pub- lished a little book entitled "Coin's Financial School," in which various prominent business men and politicians of Chicago were introduced as pupils attending a school opened in the Art Institute by "Coin, a young finan- cier," who taught that the United States mints ought to be re-opened to the free coinage of silver at the ra- tio of 16 to 1. The book was discussed generally through- out the United States and was the subject of editorial comment by the newspapers. Following the public notice attracted by the book, the author, Mr. W. H. Harvey, was invited by a com- mittee of prominent gentlemen in Chicago to meet in joint discussion Hon. Roswell G. Horr of New York, as shown by the accompanying letter and reply thereto. Chicago, May 18, 1895. Mr. W. H. Harvey, Author of "Coin's Financial School, " City. The undersigned, believing that the usual method of public debate, wherein disputants indulge largely in alternate set speeches, is far from being satisfactory or convincing to the average reader or auditor, and believ- ing further that in a question involving the monetary 3 4 THE GREAT DEBATE system of the United States, where the interests of all people are so largely concerned, it is important to reach the truth in the most direct and convincing manner, stripped of all romance or rhetoric, do hereby invite you, as one of the most prominent exponents of free coinage ideas in this country, to meet the Hon. Roswell G. Horr, of New York, not upon the public platform, where the excitement of the hour might sway the judg- ment, but in the quietness and calm of a deliberate discussion, where questions may be put and answers made and all aspects of the subject may be brought forward and carefully considered, and proper authority furnished in support of the same. Said discussion to be based upon the propositions laid down in "Coin's Financial School," the rules governing the same and all the details to be arranged by yourself and Mr. Horr latnr. (Signed) E. S. Dreyer. Sigmund Zeisler. Ferd. W. Peck. E. F. Lawrence. J. J. P. Odell. Azel F. Hatch. Alexander H, Revell. Chas. Henrotin. John R. Walsh. Wm. T. Baker. E. G. Keith. E. S. Conway. Wm. a. Vincent. Jno. Ela. L. C. Collins, Jr. Geo. R. Peck. Chicago, May 27, 1895. Messrs. E. S. Dreyer, J. J. P. Odell, Jno. R. Walsh, and others, Chicago, III. Gentlemen : I am in receipt of your communication of the 18th inst., which on account of press of business has not heretofore received my attention and careful consideration. You invite a discussion by your challenge covering the facts laid down in "Coin's Financial School." In view of the fact that the gold-standard press of the country have charged that the cardinal facts stated in "Coin's Financial School" are , false, misleading and untrue, and knowing as I do that they are true, it would THE GREAT DEBATE 5 probably be of great benefit in the educational cam- paign now in progress, were this question settled. If the facts in said book are true, and the people should be convinced that they are true, then I have no doubt but it would lead to the conversion of all the people, including yourselves, to the truths of bimetallism and be of great value to this country. With a view, therefore, to sustaining the facts set forth in said book, and defending it against the charges of falsehood made by the gold-standard press, I consider favorably your challenge for a joint discussion with the Hon. Roswell G. Horr, to take place before a stenog- rapher in the manner which you have indicated, pro- vided rules can be agreed upon that will protect us from misquotation, and where we can read our own proof in print of what we say and the authorities used, before giving it to the public. And for the purpose of determining whether we can agree upon suitable rules governing us in case said de- bate takes place, 1 name Mr. Howard S. Taylor of this city as my next friend and representative to meet such representative as you or Mr. Horr may appoint to con- sult in regard to the same. Respectfully, W. H. Harvey. A few days after the gentlemen above named received Mr. Harvey's reply, Mr. Horr came on from New York and he and Mr. Harvey met in a room at the Palmer House in Chicago, and discussed the arrangements that would govern the debate. Later the conclusions they reached were embodied in written rules, as will more fully appear hereafter, and were signed by them. The date fixed by the rules for the debate to begin was July 16, 1895, and the place Chicago. The rules provided for the debate to take place in a room or small hall where only a limited number of people would be present, and to be taken down by official stenographers. () THE GREAT DEBATE 1 1 was provided that a verbatim report was to be fur- nished the press,and that later an officip-l report appear properly bound in book form. The referees, Mr. Lyman G. Gage, President of the First National Bank of Chicago, representing Mr. Horr, and Mr. Howard S. Taylor, a prominent attorney of the same city, representing Mr. Harvey, selected a com- mittee to have charge of the arrangements connected with the debate. This committee was composed of the following named gentlemen: Henry G. Miller, W. A. Vincent, F. J. Schulte, Howard S. Taylor, George R. Peck, Azel F. Hatch, George E. Bowen, and Ralph M. Easley. Judge Henry G. Miller, Judge William A. Vincent and Ex-Solicitor-General Charles H. Aldrich were se- lected and presided as judges. The Union League Club, the Marquette Club and the niinois Club each tendered the use of their audience halls to the committee as a suitable place for the de- bate. The hall of the Illinois Club was selected and a limited number of invitations were issued to prominent men of the nation, also to men prominent in banking and commercial business, professors of political econ- omy and students in finance. Mr. Horr arrived in Chi- cago on July 13, and made his headquarters at the Palmer House. The officers of the Illinois Club tendered to both Mr. Horr and Mr. Harvey quarters in their ele- gant club house. Mr. Horr preferred to remain at his hotel and Mr. Harvey accepted the invitation of the club, so that when the day arrived everything was in readiness for the great debate. THE GREAT DEBATE Y BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HON. ROSWELL G. HORR. Roswell G. Horr was born in Waitsfield, Vermont, November 26, 1830. In the spring after he was four years old he was taken with his father's family to the Western Reserve, near Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew to manhood on a small farm. His father died when he was ten years of age, and left his mother with a large family of children, of which he was one of the eldest. At nineteen years of age he went to work for himself as a hired man on a neighboring farm. During seven years he worked his way through college, graduating from Antioch College, Ohio, in 1857. Immediately after graduation he was elected clerk of the court of Lorain County, in which he lived, and served six years. Dar- ing that time he studied law and was admitted to the bar, but practiced his profession only two years. In 1866 he moved to Missouri and engaged in the mining of lead for six years. In 1872 he removed to Saginaw, Mich., and engaged first in banking and afterward became a lumberman. In 1878 he was nominated for, and elected to, the 46th Congress, and afterward was elected to the 47th and 48th Congress, serving in all six years. After leaving Congress in the spring of 1885 he went upon the lecture platform, and for sev- eral years did nothing except that and campaign work. In the fall of 1890 Mr. Horr became a writer on the (litorial staff of The New York Tribune, where he is still engaged. There is hardly any man in the United States who has engaged in as many public discussions or made as many public addresses as Mr. Horr. THE GREAT DEBATE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WILLIAM H. HARVEY. William Hope Harvey was born August 16, 1851, at Buffalo, a little village on the big Kanawha River, in Putnam County, West Virginia. His father, Colonel Robert T.Harvey, a Virginian now living in Huntington, West Virginia. His mother's maiden name was Anna M. Hope, of wensborough, Kentucky. His early life was spent on a farm near his native village. He received his early education in a country school, spent two years at the Buffalo Academy, and three months at Marshall College, in Cabell County, West Virginia. At -ixteen years of age he taught school for three months, und again for the same period at the age of seventeen. He then began the study of law, and was admitted to the bar when he was nineteen years old. He practiced for five years in Cabell County in his native state, and then removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he continued the practice of his profession. It was while living here in 1876 that he married Miss Anna R. Halliday of Gallipolis, Ohio, a daughter of Mr. John T. Halliday of that city. In 1878 he removed to Chicago, and two years later he became the special attorney of some wholesale houses in Ohio, and made his home in Galli- polis, Ohio, till 1884, when he removed to Colorado. At this time he retired from the practice of law, and made investments in Western property his business, spending his time between 1884 and 1898 in Colorado, Utah and California. In May, 1893, he returned to Chicago, where he began the work that has resulted in the phenomenal sale of his books on the financial subject. His business experi- ence has been varied, but always attended with success. THE GREAT DEBATE 9 At one time he was part owner in a wholesale dry goods .Hid notion house, and for a time managed the credit clppartment. His law practice took him to many parts of the United States, which, together w^ith his subse- quent experience, has made him a man both metropol- itan and cosmopolitan in character. CHAPTER 11. THE FIRST DAY. THE MONEY OF THE CONSTITUTION. At 2 P. M., July 16, 1895, there was a decided atmos- phere of expectancy at the Illinois Club, on Ashland boulevard, Chicago. Its beautiful hall, the walls lined ith masterpieces of art, had been fitted up with tem- porary seats, making a convenient amphitheater, to ac- (^nmmodate two hundred persons. Most of the seats re filled with invited guests, among whom were Lyman J. Gage, President of the First National Bank, E. S. Lacey, Ex-Comptroller of the Currency, George R. Peck, General Solicitor for the A. T. & S. F. R. R., Howard S. Taylor, Alexander H. Revell, E. G. Keith, Ferd. W. Peck, A. B. Humphrey of New York, Col. J. C. Roberts of Tennessee, _ Gen. Joseph C. Sibley, of Pennsylvania, and Vincent Tissera, of Ceylon. It was not until twenty minutes of three that the procession of judges, the disputants with their "sec- onds," the official stenographers and time-keepers filed into the audience room. Both Mr. Horr and Mr. Har- y were warmly applauded. Mr. Horr sat at the north end of a long table at the east end of the room, beyond which were the judges on a raised platform. With him at L. G. Powers of Minnesota, Dr. S. A. Robinson of New York and Charles H. Sergei of Chicago, ready to assist in case of need. At the south end of the table lit Mr. Harvey, with Miss Josie Hix, his secretary, who kept his notes and reference books ready for use. Mr. 10 THE GREAT DEBATE 11 Harvey's assistants all occupied seats in the audience through the whole debate. Excepting his secretary, he was alone in the arena where the memorable contest occurred. All being ready, Dr. Homer M. Thomas, president of the Illinois Club, arose and spok*^ as follows: ADDRESS OF WELCOME. Dr. Thomas (President of the Club): The Illinois Club extends to you a cordial welcome. The occasion which assembles you here is one of great public interest. The subject discussed is of vast com- mercial and financial importance. In a club so dis- tinguished for men eminent in the civic, business, financial, professional, and judicial life of our city, it is fitting that your discussion should take place here. Much of the future stability and prosperity of our country depends upon the correct solution of the silver question. Assembled here are distinguished gentlemen who have made this problem a life-long study. Let us hope that from the long, careful and able consideration this question will receive at their hands may come such conclusions as will lead to permanent prosperity in our country. The Illinois Club unites with you in the belid that general good to all may be the result of these delibera- tions. It is now my pleasure, gentlemen, to present to you the Judges of the discussion, Hon. H. G. Miller and Judge W. A. Vincent, to whose care the further proceedings will be given. (Applause.) rules of the debate. Judge Miller: Before introducing the contestants 12 THE GREAT DEI^ATE the Comuiittee of Arrangements desire to say a few words to the guests here present. The parties to this debate, Hon. Roswell G. Horr, of New York, and William H. Harvey, of Illinois, have consented to the discussion which is about to begin, under fixed written rules which have been accepted and signed by both parties. These rules are as follows: 1. Before this discussion begins, each disputant shall submit to the other such currency laws and statistics* as he may regard as undisputed facts forming in part the basis of the discussion, and such as are accepted in writing by both parties shall form the agreed facts to be printed first in the official report after the title- pages. Said agreed facts in no event to consume more than fifty pages of the official report, and should they not consume fifty pages, the shortage is to be divided equally between the disputants in addition to the space hereafter mentioned. 2. The basis of the discussion is to be the doctrine set forth in "Coin's Financial School." Neither dis- putant, however, is to be confined to the points and propositions contained in said book, but either may in- troduce any point that may seem to him pertinent to the subject under discussion. 3. Neither disputant is to use more than 1,000 words in any one statement, question or answer, except where tables or statistics or statute laws are read as a part of said statement, question or answer; when such quota- tions are among those agreed upon as before provided, the same are not to be counted as a part of the 1,000 words, but all other quotations shall be considered as a portion of the 1,000 words to which the disputant using them is entitled. 4. That said official report, including the agreed facts above provided for, shall not contain more than 140,000 words, 5,000 of which shall be divided between the two contestants (2,500 words each) for use at the end of the discussion, and after it is through for such use in sum- marizing as the writer desires to make of it. And each *Left out by agreement and intrudiiced in debate. THE GREAT DEBATE 13 will be entitled to 800 words additional, to be used as a r(3 joinder to the matter contained in the said 2,500 words summary. The remaining words, after deducting the agreed facts, are to he divided among the contestants equally. The 60,000 words or more thus left to each disputant shall be divided into six parts of about 10,- 000 words. In discussing the topics of any one of said chapters or other matter which he may deem import- ant, he shall have the number of words not thus used in reserve to be added to his 10,000 words in any sub- sequent chapter, and he may elect to use more than 10,- 000 words in any one chapter, by having the number of extra words so used taken out of the number at his dis- posal in any chapter or chapters subsequently reached, and he may elect himself to which chapter or chapters tlie shortage of words is to be applied. 5. The contestants respectively may take the affirm- ative or negative in said discussion at their pleasure; the discussion to be a running fight at close range, un- der the rules hereby agreed upon, and to be conducted with decorum and politeness. (5. Each contestant is to have what he says taken down by a stenographer. The words thus taken down are to form the substance of the official report, except the agreed facts and summary of 2,500 words each heretofore provided for, and the rejoinders thereto, and also the questions by visitors and the an- swers thereto hereinafter provided for, and also such introductory matter as may be agreed upon between the disputants in the way of introduction to the official n^port, following the title-page. 7. Each disputant is to submit said summary to the other within seven days after the close of the debate, and the rejoinder is to be returned within two days thereafter. 8. Each contestant is to have the privilege of invit- ing ten gentlemen to be present at said discussion with whom each contestant shall be permitted to consult if he so desires during the progress of the discussion; the other invitations shall be equally divided. 9. Said discussion is to proceed daily, unless, from 14 THE GREAT DEBATE sickness or other cause, either one of the disputants shall ask for a continuance, in which case it shall be granted for one day between each session. Each ses- sion is to last for three hours. 10. Said discussion is to begin on Tuesday, July 16, 1895. 11. It is agreed that during the last twenty minutes of each session any visiting gentleman may ask not to exceed three questions of each disputant, which, with the answers given, shall be embodied in the report as part of the discussion; each of said questions not to contain over fifty words, the answers not to exceed 800 words each. The committee of arrangements have been legally advised that it is doubtful if the proceedings of a public debate could be copyrighted and thereby protected from mutilation. The committee therefore has arranged for this hearing as a private one, each person present be- ing here only upon written invitation as the private guest of the committee and with no right to take or report any portion of the debate, such right being re- served solely for the official stenographers appointed by this committee. At the same time the committee has made ample ar- rangements to give the discussion the widest publicity possible. Stenographers have been employed by the committee who, under direction of this committee, will take down a verbatim report of the speeches as they fall from the lips of the speakers ; each day's discussion will be copyrighted and a type-written copy given to the newspapers, press association, and publishing companies under such conditions as will protect the copyright. With these safeguards it is hoped that the speakers and the public will both be sufficiently protected and that the authenticity of this official report of the debate will be beyond question. THE GREAT DEBATE 15 I have the pleasure of introducing to you, ladies and gentlemen, the Honorable Roswell G. Horr, of New York. (Applause. ) MR. HORR's OgENING STATEMENT. Mr. Horr: Judges and Gentlemen, it is agreed be- tween Mr. Harvey and myself that previous to entering upon the general discussion, each of us shall make a brief statement defining in a general way the position he proposes to occupy in this debate. The question which we are about to discuss is one that is not only receiving very great attention among the people of the United States, but it is one that is also receiving some attention from the nations of the Old World. The question involves the kind of money that shall be used by the people of the United States, and has to do with laws that will affect the great bus- iness interests of this nation. The question of finance is a very complicated one, and there are some features of it about which the ablest men of the world have been differing for years. The foundation of the discussion upon which we are about to enter is a small book published by Mr. Harvey, my opponent, and entitled "Coin's Financial School." The real aim and object of that book is to convince the people of the United States that this government alone should at once enter upon the free and unlimited coin- age of silver upon the old ratio of 16 to 1. The wisdom of such a course I dispute. Mr. Harvey will still main- tain the affirmative of that issue. I will state in the outset that, from the beginning to the end of the book, there is hardly a proposition made to which I give my assent. I propose to controvert many things which are stated as facts, and shall at- l6 THE GREAT DEBATE tempt to prove that the entire theory set forth by its author, if adopted by the people of this country, would lead only to business disaster and financial ruin. I do not now remember ever to have examined a book care- fully in which I found so few statements that I consider worthy of belief, and I certainly never saw so many ab- solute errors crammed into so few pages. (Laughter.) 1 am not here as an opponent of birtietallism. I Ix'liove in the use of gold and silver as money to the fullest extent that can be done on sound business prin- ciples. My position upon this question has been too frequently stated within the last five years to be mis- understood by any one. I believe that both gold and -ilver are the natural money of the world; that in all the larger transactions gold is better adapted to the bus- iness needs of the people than silver; that all the smaller business transactions of the human family for many years have been, and always should be, conducted with silver. I also believe that in all transactions of the nations of the world between themselves, the two met- mIs should be used in the settling of balances, but only :it their commercial value. I also believe that in the business of our nation the people should never attempt to use either metal except at its actual value, only in cases where one metal may be used as token money and be made redeemable in metal at its commercial value. I have always entertained the hope that the business men of the world would yet come together in an inter- national convention and agree upon some basis whereby irold and silver can both be used as the money of final settlement among the people of the entire world. I am very clear in my idea that until some such arrangement shall be made it would be simply suicide for this nation to adopt a system of free coinage of silver upon the old THE GREAT DEBATE 17 ratio, a ratio which all the civilized nations of the world long since have discarded. I do not believe that any one government can fix the value upon any two metals and name a ratio which will be accepted by the people of the world or of the country itself so that the two metals will be used side by side. Consequently if our nation alone should attempt any such action, it would simply place our country upon a silver basis and the attempt would end in silver monometallism. If we are compelled to decide between gold monometallism and silver monometallism, then I am decidedly in favor of adopting the standard used by the civilized nations of the world. I do not believe that silver has ever been demonetized anywhere in the world. I believe that the law of 1878, which Mr. Harvey's book denounces as a "crime," was honestly conceived, openly advocated and passed by the American Congress after full deliber- ation, and because the people at that time who held seats ill the^ American Congress believed that such a law ought to be enacted. I do not believe in the teach- ings of this book, that this nation is on the verge of financial ruin, or that starvation is staring our people in the face. I believe, if our nation should adopt the course advocated in this book, it would seriously injure the entire wage-earners of the United States. I believe we would destroy the confidence of the business men of 1 he world in our integrity as a nation and that we would precipitate such a financial panic as our country has never before seen. I shall deny most emphatically that the great majority of the people of this country are in debt, and shall insist that three-fourths of the Ameri- can people are creditors and not debtors, and that con- sequently the system which Mr. Harvey advocates would work great injury to the great majority of American citizens. 18 THE GREAT DEBATE I will state still furtherthat if this book, about which we are going to debate, is true, then I am all wrong. (Laughter.) It seems to me to be devoid of business sense from beginning to end, and I shall enter upon the work of attempting to prove that, and hope to" be able to do it in language that shall be so plain and explicit that my fellow-citizens will be satisfied that I have ac- complished my task. Understand me, in a few words I believe that the American nation should have just as good money as any nation uses on the face of the earth; I believe that every dollar paid to a poor man for his daily toil should be worth as much as the dollars paid to men who are rich. I would have the money which measures values the most stable that can be devised, and would insist that buyers and sellers, lenders and debtors, as nearly as possible be required to use the same measure of val- ues,and shall insist that repudiation in all forms is dis- graceful and dishonorable in the case of nations, corporations or individuals. What our people need is good credit, good money, good principle and sound business sense. Visionary schemes and debased money never yet made a nation prosperous. The quality of the money used in any country is far more important than the quantity. Laws should be drawn to protect the men who earn money as well as those who owe money. A man who works faithfully and lives on his daily earnings should never be sacrificed for the benefit of men who live on what they borrow. But all these things will be more fully explained as the contest progresses. MR. HARVEY's opening STATEMENT. Mr. Harvey: I am here to defend the facts and prin- THE GREAT DEBATE 19 ciples in "Coin's Financial School," I am aware that the illustrations in that book are a great aid in present- ing clearly its views. We find this true in our schools. Many scientific works rely largely on illustrations, and our newspapers find that illustrations make plain many ideas that could not otherwise be clearly expressed. And yet I am here to defend orally these principles. I expect to make good in this debate the following prop- ositions: 1. That silver and gold are the money of the consti- tution. That the silver dollar was the unit of value in our coinage system in this country from 1792 to 1873, just as the yard-stick was the measure of length. That gold was measured in this silver unit, and concurrent coinage given to it (gold). That silver and gold com- bined constituted the legal standard of value in this 'ountry till 1878. Silver measured gold; the two to* gether measured all other property. 2. That the act of 1873 was surreptitiously passed. 3. That during the period of 1792 to 1873 the mints were opened to the ini limited coinage of both metals into primary or redemption money, and that both were treated as such. That during that period people had a right to have either metal coined into full legal-tender money, and that the option was with the debtor to pay in coins of either metal. 4. That this bimetallic system made an unlimited demand for both metals to be coined into money, in- creased the demand for these metals, and under this law, authorizing any one to coin 371^ grains of silver and 23.2 grains of gold into a dollar, there was no one willing to sell either for less than one dollar. 5. That the option to pay in either metal caused the cheaper of the two metals to be used, and transferred 20 THE GREAT DEBATE the demand from the dearer to the cheaper metal and restored its rehitive commercial value. We are called silver men because we are defending the metal that has been demonetized, but we are nevertheless for both gold and silver. (). That it is to the interest of the United States to act independently in the remonetization of silver at the ratio to gold of IG to 1 without waiting for the action of any other nation. 7. That monometallism consists in the use of the dearer of the two metals to the exclusion of the other as primary or redempti(^n money. That mono- metallism is an experiment on trial for the first time in the history of the world and began with the period of 1873; that it is impossible and impractical as a sta- ble money measurement of values; is not based on scientific financial principles; is in the interest of the money lenders and against the interest of the property owners and laborers. 8. That the gold unit as the measure of values, with no concurrent coinage of another metal to assist it in performing the functions of primary money, has caused the fall in prices as compared with 1872, when the world's prices of property were measured in the money mass of both metals. That all prices of prop- erty and labor have declined accordingly as compared with 1872, except when held up relatively by increased demand or short supply, or combines and trusts, or special reasons affecting a particular service or property. That the average price of all production, except gold, will show this decline is adjusting itself to the gold standard. And that when we include in labor the un- employed and the time lost by those employed, there is a fall in wages of one-half as compared with 1872. That labor is adjusting itself to the gold standard meas- THE GREAT DEBATE 21 iirement of values. That the gold standard is confis- cating the prosperity of the people, and depriving labor of work. 9. That the decline in prices covering a period of twenty-two years has as a rule made all classes of pro- ductive, mercantile and manufacturing business un- profitable That a falling market covering a long period, destroys the prospective profits based on cost of purchase and production, and a majority of our most astute bus- iness men cannot avoid failure or loss of capital under these conditions. 10. That it has worked a hardship and injury to debtors, who, unconscious of the causes that continu- ously reduced the prices of their property, have con- tracted debts during these twenty-two years. That this fall in prices causes a sacrifice of property to purchase the dollars with which to liquidate these debts. That this has caused the renewal of debts, the contrac- tion of new debts to pay old debts and an enlarged vol- ume of all debts that this unjustly takes from a debtor his property and emphasizes the importance of a stable money measurement of value. 11. That in the end no one is benefited by a fall in prices, but the money lender, the owners of money and securities payable in money fixed incomes. 12. That the foregoing facts and conditions produced by a change in our money measurement of values will impoverish the masses of the people, and points, by rea- son of the disturbances it will produce, to the overthrow of the republic. That the free coinage of both metals by this government in the ratio of 16 to 1 will restore prosperity to this nation. To all unbiased men, and those who will lay aside their prejudices during the reading of this debate, I 22 THF niJKNT DP:BATE expect to make good ail ot the foregoing propositions. Every fact in the "School" that Mr. Horr does not attack, I shall take for granted that he admits its truth. T am now ready to proceed in the order indicated in "Coin's Financial School" and as contemplated by the rules of the debate. THE "school" an allegory. Mr. Horr: Before entering upon the discussion proper I desire to call the attention of my opponent to the manner in which this book is written. I desire to state to him that I understand that the book represents that a certain school was held here in the city of Chicago for the purpose of discussing financial matters and that the book gives the room where the school was held. I ask him to tell me plainly if there was ever any such school held in that or any other room in the city of Chicago. I find all through the book a large number of statements attributed to a very considerable number of the business men of Chicago, and lam informed that those men, never one of them, uttered a single word at- tributed to them. If they did not I want my friend to state so clearly, because then I will not be bothered with helping my friends out of any difficulty into which they may have Vjeen gotten on account of what they are -aid to have said when they never said a single word. (Laughter.) If the book is written as an allegory I would like my friend to state why he did not use, as all literary men have always done, the names of ficti- tious individuals why he selected individuals well known to the entire community and put words into their mouths which they never uttered, unless he in- tended to convey the impression to his readers that tho^c niPH wpre ]np^pnt and received the castigation THE GREAT DEBATE 23 wliicli ho says he iidiiiiuirflered to them on the spot. (Laughter.) The book even goes fartlier; it describes the crestfallen manner in which some of these gentlemen left the room after being worsted in this fearful man- ner. (Laughter.) I want to know if any of them went out in the way he describes. (Laughter.) I feel now that what we want to get at is the fact about the book, so we will know where we are proceeding. (Aj^plause. ) Mr. Harvey: The "School" is allegorical; it mar- shals tlie opinions of the two sides of this controversy, so that one in imagination can see the conflict of opin- ions and the contest as it proceeds. It puts in the inoutlis of the gold-standard advocates their well-known views, fairly stated, with which the country had been Hooded up to the time the '^School" was written. The strength of the book was intended to be in the fairness of stating these views. The fact that a little boy in knee breeches was the instructor of the men was supposed to be sufficient to fix the story as allegorical. One reading i^^sop's faldes does not care whether the nniinals talked or not. Neither does he attach any im- portance as to whether the little boy talked or not. It is the subject and the truths uttered that gave to it in each instance its importance. Robinson Crusoe and his island never existed, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is imaginary,and the Legree phmtation in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was not an actual fact; but these stories are nevertheless entertaining and teach great lessons. From the time the parables in the Bible were written, this style of literature has been recognized. Our school lit- erature is largely imaginary, and when the question is put, "John has five api)les and gives two of them to his brother Henry, how many apples has he left?" the problem is itnaginary, and put so purposely as an ob- J 1 THE QllEAT DEBATE ject lesson to teach the principle of subtraction. Our greatest poems and the sweetest music that molds the heart in affection and love, animates the soul and moves ihe minds of men to daring deeds of patriotism, are imagery pure and simple. Imagination is the unlet- tered language of the soul, leading us on to a higher state that we know exists while yet the slaves of base motives and selfish ends. If it is charged that acliuil characters are used in the hook while similar books use fictitious characters, the answer is, that the well-known utterances and opinions of these men are used, and the further answer, that Shakspere used actual characters. Mr. Hork: I desire to say, that to me the excuse is a very lame one. I am somewhat familiar Avith fiction, liave heard of Shakspere before, but nowhere in the history of all literature can you find another instance of a man selecting his immediate neighbors and putting words into their mouths which they never uttered and then publishing it to the world, not only the fact that they uttered them, but giving the different peculiarities and expressions of their countenances when they were agonizing under their efforts. Such a thing is not known in the history of literature, and I submit that if my friend had studied the Scriptures a little more care- fully when he was looking for the motto which I shall take up next, he would have found it somewhere stated that a man is not permitted to bear false witness against his neighbor. He says that he put into their mouths the words that they themselves would have uttered. I have had that done for me so many times in my life that I know what it means. I never yet had a fellow state what I would say if I had a chance, who got anywhere near what I THE GREAT DEBATE 25 wanted to say myself, and I submit to him, whether in kindliness he should not have submitted every one of those statements to his neighbors and received from them their consent that that is what they would have said if they had been present; at least they were en- titled to that courtesy. THE MOTTO FROM THE BIBLE. But now I come to the motto of the book, which is this: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes." I would like my friend to tell me why he used that motto. Does he desire to intimate that the kind of finance which he teaches is something that babes will understand, but that people who know anything will never be able to comprehend? (Applause and laughter.) Is this his idea? Does he desire to intimate that he has received some inspiration from on high that en- ables him to make diilicult questions plain so that suck- lings can understand them when full-grown men won't know anything about what he is driving at? Of course I cannot conceive what the object of tlie motto is, but the motto usually leads up to the contents of the book. So I want to get at his intention so as to fully appre- ciate the exact position, mental and moral, that my friend occupies on this question. Be a little more explicit, Brother Harvey. Do you mean to intimate that the great complicated questions of finance are so simple tliat little children can understand them when grown men cannot find out anything about them? Is it your idea that when Newton saw the apple fall, if a little baby had been with him, the babe would have found out a good deal more from the circumstance than New- l'() THE (mEAT DEBATE ton did? Newton, j^ni know, divined the laws of the universe, solved the great problem of gravitation. Have you got some method so that babes could have done as well as that? I w^ould like to know the object of the motto and then I will proceed. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr misinterprets the meaning of that verse. The word "babes" is intended to mean the pure of mind and unselfish. It is in that sense that it is used in the Bible, and means that those pure of mind and unselfish can see clearly those things which the impure of mind and selfish cannot see or under- 1 and. The cause I represent is pure and unselfish. THE PREFACE TO THE BOOK. Now I begin. In carrying out the idea of an illus- trated book, an illustrated preface was adopted to show the rise and decline of civilization concurrent with an increase and decrease in the volume of i)rimary money. The two pictures that appear in the preface were used thus; the space below the pictures was limited in which to explain the illustration; so I used only sufficient of the authority to establish the principle to be taught as the space would permit of. The authority used was the report of the Monetary Commission appointed by Congress in 1876, reported in 1877 and pu})lished in 1878. The copy used had the date of its publication on the cover and that date was given in accrediting the authority. It was afterward changed in the "School" to read 1876. I now read from the report the paragraph from which the abbre- viated statement printed under picture in preface was made. It ])egins with the last two lines on page 49 and is as follows: "At the Christian era the metallic money of the THE GREAT DEBATE 27 Roman empire amounted to $1,800,000,000. By the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to less than $200,- 000,000. During this period a most extraordinary and baleful change took place in the condition of the world. Population dwindled, and commerce, arts, wealth, and freedom all disappeared. The people were reduced by poverty and misery to the most degraded conditions of serfdom and slavery. The disintegration of society was almost complete. The conditions of life were so hard, that individual selfishness was the only thing consistent with the instinct of self-preservation. All public spir- its, all generous emotions, all the noble aspirations of man shriveled and disappeared as the volume of money shrank and as prices fell. History records no such disastrous transition as that from the Roman Empire to the dark ages. Various ex- planations have been given of this entire breaking down of the framework of society, but it was certainly coinci- dent with a shrinkage in the volume of money which was also without historical parallel. The crumbling of in- stitutions kept even step and pace with the shrinkage in the stock of money and the falling of prices. All other attendant circumstances than these last have oc- curred in other historical periods unaccompanied and un- followed by any such mighty disasters. It is a suggestive coincidence that the first glimmer of light only came with the invention of bills of exchange and paper sub- stitutes, through which the scanty stock of the precious metals was increased in efficiency. But not less than the energizing influence of Potosi and all the argosies of treasure from the New World were needed to arouse the Old World from its comatose sleep, to quicken the torpid limbs of industry, and to plume the leaden wings of commerce. It needed the heroic treatment of rising prices to enable society to reunite its shattered links, to shake oft' the shackles of feudalism, to re-light and uplift the almost extinguished torch of civilization. That the disasters of the dark ages were caused by de- creasing money and falling prices, and that the recov- ery therefrom and tlie comparative prosperity which followed the discovery of America were due to an in- 28 THE GREAT DEBATE creasing supply of the precious metals and rising prices, will not seem surprising or unreasonable when the noble functions of money are considered. Money is the great instrument of association, the very fiber of social or- ganism, the vitalizing force of industry, the protoplasm of civilization, and as essential to its existence as oxy- gen is to animal life. Without money civilization could not have had a beginning; with a diminishing supply it must languish, and, unless relieved, finally perish." I now pass the book to Mr. Horr. The statement in the preface credited to Dr. Adam Smith is taken from page 117 of "The Nature and Causes of the Wealth ui Nations," by Adam Smith. (Mc- Culloch.) The average price of wheat for the year 1455 \\ as 1| pence per bushel ; as expressed in our money, seven cents. All my authorities as I proceed will be .xhibitof] to the other side, as I do these. (Applause.) THE PASSAGE OF SCRIPTURE. Mr. Horr: Gentlemen, I desire to state that my friend has spent his whole time answering something that I never mentioned or said anything about. I merely called his attention to the use of the passage of Scri2:)ture which he has now fully explained by saying that the passage does not mean what it says; that the word which is translated "babes" really means hon- .^t, disinterested persons, and then he informs us that lie represents the honesty of the American people. It may be that that is some excuse for the use of such a motto as that. It seemed to me at the time a little sacrilegious as he used it. I do not desire to criticise him for that; but I do desire to say to him that that motto is not susceptible of the explanation he now makes of it. That motto was intended to illustrate the fact that a boy, a child even, like his young fellow who taught finance in his book, could distinguish the differ- THE GREAT DEBATE 29 ence between right and wrong, and would be among the first to learn to live a pure life. But I submit to him that that motto does not give an excuse for a boj^, be- cause he is in knee breeches,tostop telling the truth. It does not give the boy any right to misrepresent facts. I shall come to this thing that he has been reading about hereafter; and the trouble is, that when I come to that I don't know but he will have to read this same speech over again. I am taking the book up in the or- der in which I find it and I intended to commence pretty nearly at the beginning. I think I succeeded. THE MEASURE OF VALUE. My next quotation I find, still before you get to the body of the book, it is this: "All money is a medium of exchange, but primary money only is the measure of values." I do not desire Mr. Harvey to make a speech on the subject until I have stated my own position, and I would like to have him tell me in a word what he means by primary money? It is not defined as I can find anywhere in the book. What kind of money is primary money? Am I entitled to an answer, Mr. Harvey? Mr. Harvey: When you have finished and sat down, Mr. Horr, I will go ahead. Mr. Horr: I submit that a question so simple as that which is at the basis of this question should be answered as readily. I will sit down and let you an- swer it. Mr. Harvey: The question asked is a part of the main argument in the book, and it would be out of place for me to answer this question now, and would disturb the logical arrangement of the argument as outlined by the book. 80 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Horr: I have not succeeded in getting very much information. If I did not misunderstand him in his previous remarks when he laid down the positions he was going to occupy, he for the first time in those remarks gave his definition of primary money. I submit it to the reporters that he said "primary or redemption money" in the course of the explanation. If I am right then it is redemption money which he refers to in this motto. If that is what he means then I call his atten- tion to the fact that the statement itself is not true. "All money is a medium of exchange," it is true that far. But primary money only, or redemption money only, is not always the measure of values. We sometimes live and do business for years, and the meas- ure of value that we use is not redemption money at all. I lived seventeen years, from 1862 to 1879, and saw the business of this country for years all transacted in money that was not redemption money, but that every dollar of it had yet to be redeemed. The greenbacks tliat we did business with in those days depreciated in value, and yet we used those prom- ises as the measure of the values of this country. The measure of value isn't so abstruse as some people think. The measure of value in every country is the term that people, by common use, come to understand as mean- ing a certain definite thing. When a man says in Eng- land a horse is worth so many pounds, he uses the word that the people there are accustomed to. I am so truly American, never having been in England in my life, and having no great desire ever to go there, that I have to stop and cipher before I can tell what it means when they tell me in pounds. In France they say a thing is worth so many francs. That doesn't convey any idea THE GREAT DEBATE 31 to me until I convert it into the measure I am used to. In Germany the measure is a mark, but that don't mean anything to me until I reduce it to something that I am in the habit of using. It is just so with distances, just so with weights. If a man should tell me that I weighed a certain number of kilograms, if that is an ex- pression that will do, I wouldn't know what he means, wouldn't know whether I was heavy or light; wouldn't have any idea about it. We use terms that we are fa- miliar with. Now the measure of value from 1862 to 1879 here in the United States was the greenback dollar. That wasn't a dollar of primary money, redemption money, it was a paper dollar, a promise to some time pay a real dollar, and it depreciated in value as the contest went on. Sometimes it was worth forty cents on the dollar, sometimes it was worth eighty, and when we got up toward redeeming it in good, straight, honest money, than it came to be worth just about the same as gold at that day. Now the error in that statement is a vital one. What is money? That is a question that has been asked by the scholars of the world for a good many hun- dred years. It has been answered in a very great num- ber of different ways. But every writer that I am familiar with admits that originally money was always some substance that possessed value; it must of neces- sity be so. You could not have a yardstick that did not have length, because the yardstick is to find out the length of goods. You could not have a bushel measure that had no capacity, because capacity is what they are trying to measure. You could not use as a weight a substance that was lighter than air, that instead of pulling the scales down went up itself and left 32 THE GREAT DEBATE the scales on your undertaking to weigh with it; you have got to have something that represents a cer- tain amount of specific gravity. When we wanted some- thing to measure values with, that is when the human family wanted something, they necessarily selected something that possessed some value. Almost every article in the world has, from time to time, been used as money, been used as the measure of values. One of the very first articles undoubtedly was the skins of ani- mals; for they were easily handled, they could be counted, they were surplusage and used more or less by everybody for clothing and for warmth, consequently the human family at first commenced to use them as the mc^lium of exchange. Now in a country where they did that, if a coon had been an animal that was sought, as it was when I wa^ a boy and lived in the country, they would have called a slieep worth so many coon- -kins, and that would have meant just precisely the same thing as when we say each sheep is worth so many ehillnigs or dollars. It meant the same thing, and the people had to be accustomed to the measure, and know, both the buyer and seller, just what was meant by it. In the same way people used wheat for a time. If you will search the Scriptures you will find that very early among the Hebrew people measures of wheat, barley, nil, were used as money. In the contracts given when Solomon sent abroad to get men to build his temple the price is named in a certain given quantity of oil, and wheat, and barley; they used them as money. But people who used them had to understand each other alike. That is all. Now gold and silver finally came to be used as money simply because they were the best adapted for money uses of any substance that the world THE GREAT DEBATE 38 had ever discovered. They came to be used as money just as naturally as wheat came to be used for the pur- pose of making bread. We have used wheat ever since tl)e memory of man runneth for the purpose of making bread. Why? Because it makes a little better bread than anything else, and people like the best that they can get in this world. Gold and silver were not the first money. Originally, copper was more universally used as money than either of these metals, and I shall hereafter show you how we have been going from a money that is cumbrous, difficult to handle, a money tliat is not stable, a money that perishes; so we have l)een finally developing from a poorer quality of money to a better quality of money since the foundations of the globe. WHAT IS MONEY? Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr and I agreed that somewhere near the beginning of the discussion we would define what money is, and then launch into the first chapter of tlic iDook. So far as his statement deals with the re- lation of primary and credit money mentioned in the lly-leaf of the book, I for the present ignore it, and will wait till I reach the logical place in the book. But I will now define what money is. Mon(^y is a medium of exchange and a measure of values. It is a tiling representing value. When we ex- l)ress price, we have reference to the unit of value or its equivalent. When we say that a horse is worth $100, we have reference to the relative value of the horse and the dollars that is, that the horse in exchangeable val- ue is worth one hundred times as much as the substance residing in the unit of value. Here is a primitive illus- tration (f wliat. a mcnsiire of values is: 34 THE GREAT DEBATE If the law selects a bushel of wheat as the unit of \:\\w and wheat only is money, and the horse is worth one luindri^l bushels of wheat, then we say the horse is worth .^100. If instead of Inishels of wheat, grains of wheat were dollars or units, then when we expressed in terms of dollars the value of the horse, we would have reference to grains of wheat instead of bushels. In this case, the horse would be worth, say $10,000,000. So that, when we express in terms of dollars the value of any- thing, we have reference to the exchangeable value of the dollar with the thing exchanged for it. You send your agent out to sell a house and lot when she<)p are dollars and he brings you 1,000 sheep. You send him out to sell the same house and lot when horses are dollars and he brings you only say, 100 horses. So that what con- stitutes the dollar and the quantity of substance from which it is made, in existence, governs the value of other property when expressed in terms of dollars. This is what we mean when we Fay that money is a measure of value. With goKl and silvrr m (xj^siunce as primary money there is double the quantity of money, real money, as there is when gold only is in existence as primary money. Money is also a medium of exchange. What is meant by that is this: Instead of exchanging one property for another property, we exchange it for money, and money being by law and usage a common medium of exchange, we are thus able to exchange it for the other j)roperty desired. We exchange property for money, and then exchange the money for other property or for services. THE IMPORTANCE OF MONEY. To understand the importance of money we must THE GREAT DEBATE 85 consider the cuiiditiuiis that would exist if we had no money. It would then be a matter of barter and ex- change of one kind of property for another. Need- ing the wheat of your neighbor, you might offer him in exchange your horse, but not needing your horse he would refuse you his wheat. You would then have to continue looking for a man having wheat who wanted a horse, and the number of bushels of wheat thus ex- changed for the horse would be the exchange value as between the wheat and the horse. Under these condi- tions, there being no money, commerce would be slug- gish if it scarcely moved at all. If you were shipping property by railroad, you would have to give up a por- tion of the property in payment for freight, and if the property was not divisible, as a threshing machine and thousands of other kinds of property, you would have to pay the freight in some other kind of property. The railroad company would have to have places to store the property until it could again dispose of it; would have to refuse all kinds of perishable property, and would have no practicable method for paying its employes. Merchants would have to exchange the goods on their shelves for all sorts of property, and provide storage for it till they could again exchange it for other property. There would be no practical method for paying labor ill the thousands of industries, including type-setting. Hence there would probably be no books or newspapers, or if published, no convenient way to pay for them. We thus see the necessity for money that its existence is essential to civilization. Thus seeing the condition that would be brought on if there were no money, we can better understand the noble function it performs and the importance of it. And yet the men of to-day 86 THE GRRAT DEBATE do not understand money and its relation to property and to society ; if they did we would not be engaged in this discussion. It is to assist in its solution that this debate is in progress. We all agree that money is the blood of commerce; that it is the organic fluid of civ- ilization ; that without it civilization would practically perish. Mankind would still live, but not in a state of civilization. Where we do not agree, is as to what money sht)uld be made of, its quantity, and laws which oper- ate to protect or divert it from the channels of trade. We thus have three points of dilference: First: As to what money should be made of. Second: The quantity. Third: The laws defining its use, and intended to pro- tect it from being diverted from the function for which it is created. Under this last head comes the question whether all money should be issued by the government, or all or parts of it should be issued by private parties and cor- l^orations. The necessity for money, the fact that it is the organic fluid of society, should make it solely a creation of the government. (Applause.) We regulate interstate commerce by laws, because it is a matter alTecting society. Nothing is so intimately connected with the organization of society as money, and yet we have a school of financiers who advocate that it should be the creation of private parties and corporations and be regulated by them. (Applause.) It should become a fixed principle with us that the issuing of money is an act of sovereignty. (Applause.) Our monetary sys- tem should be fixed upon scientific principles b)^ which every dollar is as good as every other dollar. (Ap- plause. ) All money should be a legal-tender in the pay- ment of all debts, and no act of discrimination or nul- THE GREAT DEBATE 37 lification or debasement of the currency by any one should be permitted. (Long continued applause.) Mr. Horr: There is quite a large portion of that essay that is true; indeed I think there is more truth in that simple, short statement than can be found in the whole of Coin's School. It is true that money is the life blood of commerce and of business. It isn't true that money can exist only when it is created by law. Money was in use and well understood long be- fore there were any laws upon the subject. Money does not have to be made a legal-tender to make it good money, even; that is a mistake of J3rother Harvey. As a rule legal-tender laws are never needed except to make somebody take some money that is poor. No one ever yet had to enforce a legal-tender enactment to get somebody to take the best money in existence. People will take what is best whenever they can get it,andyou don't have to have a legal statute to make them do it, you know. Indeed you may pass all the legal statutes you please in certain directions as to money, and the l)eople will go riglit along and use the common rules of business in spite of your laws. That has been the history of the world. Legal-tender is used for the sake of adjusting disputed accounts. But legal-tender laws, except in the times of national calamity, are never needed to enforce the circulation of good money. We have to-day in the United Slates, as I remember, about half of our money, one dollar just as good as the other, and yet the half of it isn't legal-tender at all. A national bank note isn't legal-tender for debts or anything. All the silver certificates are not legal- tender, not one of them, and yet they are taken as read- ily as any of our money. Why? Why, because the folks want them, they have confidence in them, they 88 THE GREAT DEBATE know tli< ^> .4i< good, and when a party believes a thing is good you don't have to force liim to take it. Don't forget that. So, as a rule, legal-tender is always re- sorted to in emergencies when you want to compel some- bod}^ to take something that they really wouldn't like to take,and would prefer something else in place of that if you won't let him receive the other. That is the his- tory of legal-tender. Now I don't dispute the fact that the government should regulate money. I am not for the purposes of this debate going to go extensively into the question of whether all currency should be sup- plied by the government, or whether it should be done, as it is in a large number of tlie civilized nations of the world, b}' corporations, and regulated simply by govern- mental laws. OIUGIN OF AMERICAN MONEY. Now we come to the real first question under debate. When tliis government became independent after the Revolutionary War we had no monetary system of our own. The people had be(!()me accustomed to doing bus- iness mostly in pounds, shillings and pence, the mone- tary system of Great Britain. However, on account of the large circulation of Spanish and South American silver within our borders, our people had become more or less accustomed to using the Spanish money; and as soon as Congress w^as organized, directly after peace was declared, when the first Congress of the confederation met, one of the first things they took up was the ques- tion of the monetary system. Libraries almost were wTitten and published on the kind of money that this nation had better have. There were a few men who gave the subject great attention. Some suggested that the people were so familiar with the English system THE GREAT DEBATE 39 that we should adopt that; others suggested entirely different money systems. Finally, if I remember right, Thomas Jefferson hit upon the plan of devising a sys- tem of money which should make our notation of money l)recisely the same as our notation in arithmetic. In arithmetic the people have become accustomed to start- ing with 1 and going each way; one dollar, ten dollars, twenty dollars, one hundred dollars, one thousand dol- lars. Or going down, one dollar, half, quarter, ten cents. Always either a multiple of a unit, or else a decimal multiple of a unit, a fractional iliulti- ple. You have no idea of the immense amount of lit- (.'rature that was written by the thinkers of that time, l)efore any decision even was made in the Congress of the Confederate states (that is, our Confederate states, not the new one) upon that question of money. And finally they adopted Jefferson's idea. You will find a report of their actions in the fourth volume of the Journal of Congress, running from April 1, 1782, to November 1, 1788. The first law that was ever passed in this United States upon the subject of money was on the 0th day of July, 1785; that was two years after the subject had been discussed in every shape and form by the people and pvess of the United States. Congress then I will use the exact words: ''And on the question that the money unit of the United States of America be one dollar, the yeas and nays being required by Mr. Howell, every member answering ay, it was "Resolved, that the money unit of the United States of America be one dollar. Resolved that the smallest coin be of copper, of which 200 shall pass for one dollar. Resolved that the several pieces shall increase in a decimal ratio." That was the first action taken by the AnKM-icnn Con- 40 THE GREAT DEBATE gross. They first fixed the unit that is, the name of the thing that sliould be used as the measure of value deciding tliat it should be called one doliar,and that the smallest division of that should be a half-cent piece, that it should be copper and that it should take 200 of them to make the unit. That was the first effort of the new government to establiali a monetary system. Now, every one will say they had not yet stated at all what the dollar should consist of, except that 200 cop- per hall-cents should be one of them, and that was the first unit of measure that Congress established 200 half-cent coppers. That is all the law there had ever been on the subject, and all that had ever been said about it anywhere. (Applause.) So we had first the money of the daddies of copper, no doubt about it. This work in Congress then was postponed until Tues- day, August 8, 178(3, on the report of the Board of Treasury. At that time the Board of Treasury corre- sponded to our present committee of finance. On the report of the Board of Treasury, to whom they referred a letter on the 18th of Octol^er, 1785, they took up this money question and passed some laws that have noth- ing to do with coinage. Afterward they ordered that "Monday next shall be assigned for the selection of a superintendent for the northern district." Then came the report of the Board of Treasury: "Resolved," now comes the next important legislation upon this subject: "Resolved, that the standards of the United States of America for gold and silver shall be eleven parts fine and one part alloy. " Originally that was the weight of alloy in all the coins of the United States. Afterward we reduced the alloy so that it was one part in ten. THE MONEY OF THE CONSTITUTION. Mr. Harvey: Replying first to what Mr. Horr said THE GREAT DEBATE 41 about the legal-tender character of money, I call your attention to the fact that I said when our monetary system is arranged upon scientific principles then all money should be legal-ten"der. When so arranged there can be no such thing as depreciated paper money. (Ap- plause. ) What Mr. Horr says about copper used as money during the continental days preceding the adoption of the constitution is trivial to be used in this argument. The first history of bimetallism or a permanent finan- cial system for the United States was that considered by the constitutional convention at the end of the col- onial days. Then statesmen came together to fix for you and me and our children to come after us a perma- nent financial system that would, together with other laws, free us from the selfish and aggressive policy of the European countries from which they had declared their independence. (Applause.) At the time our con- stitution was framed the details governing the con- current coinage of the two metals in our financial system were under discussion in committees and be- tween statesmen of that period. So while these details were left to Congress, after the adoption of the consti- tution, a bimetallic system was provided for in that constitution. Article 1, Section 8, says, "Congress shall have power to coin money, reguhito the value thereof, and of foreign coins." Section 10 says, "No state shall coin money or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of de])ts." It says gold a/icZ silver (applause), not gold or silver. (Applause.) ^rhis is the constitution. It took away from the states the power to coin money or to make anything a tender in ]^ayment of debts except these two metals. It re- 42 THE GREAT DEBATE served to Congress the exclusive right to coin money. The states were to have these two metals for legal-ten- der money, but Congress would coin it for them. Copper or other metals could be coined into money by Con- gress, but the states could not make them legal-tender. Congress could, but the states could not. Thus the two metals given dignity and distinction were silver'and gold, and upon these two metals only the states were to rely for debt-paying substance. Copper was coined, and since then nickel, into token money, but silver and gold were named in the constitution as actual money. Congress was authorized to regulate their value; that is, to determine the relative value of the two metals. To the states had been reserved the right to use two certain metals, silver and gold, as act- ual money not as tokens, but as money of the highest order; and Congress was to coin it and regulate its value. This was to prevent confusion in mint dies, as would be the case if every state had a separate mint with different pictures and letters upon the coins, and to insure uniformity and purity in the weight of the coins. For this reason the states surrendered the right to sep- arately coin money, but expressly retained the right to the use of silver and gold as money, not one representing the other as silver is now coined representing gold, but both as money in their own right. (Applause.) Con- gress in good faith with the states has no more right to demonetize one of these metals than it has to demone- tize both of them, without the consent of the states. (Applause.) The men who framed this constitution then proceeded to give it the construction intended. They gave to both metals equal dignity, equal rights, except to make the THE GREAT DEBATE 43 dollar of silver and it the unit of value, in which the value of gold would be measured, but with concurrent coinage with silver. They gave both metals free and unlimited coinage. Both were given full and unlimited use in the payment of debts. There was no discrimi- nation made in the use of the two metals, except that the unit of value was to reside in the silver dollar, and that gold coins were to be of the value of so many sil- ver dollars. This is the exact language of the statute, of the men who framed the constitution and knew the construction that it was intended that it should have. Daniel Webster said (see Congressional Globe Ap- pendix., pages 54 to 56, 24th Congress, second session, December 21, 1836), "Gold and silver is the money of the constitution." (Applause.) "The constitutional standard of value is established and cannot be over- turned. To overturn it would shake the whole system. Gold and silver at rates fixed by Congress constitute the legal standard of value in this country, and neither Congress nor any state has authority to esta])lish any other standard or dispose of this." (Long continued applause. ) I now hand Daniel Webster's speech to Mr. Horr. Mr. Horr: The difficulty with my friend Harvey rises largely from the fact that he seems to think that everything is trivial which he doesn't know anything about. But he is mistaken. There may be very many very serious matters. There have taken place very many very worthy matters and he may never have known any- thing about them. He thinks the Government of the United States originated in 1792. I don't know but he celebrates the Fourth of July, 1792 I don't know. I had supposed this Government commenced on the Fourth of July, 1776. He seems also to confound the 44 THE GREAT DEBATE Coluuial Cuiij^Lr>s wilii the Conri'duriitu Congress. We have had three Congresses in this blessed government of ours; the first was a Colonial Congress and lasted during the war; when our independence was acknowledged we then formed a confederacy and a Congress under the confederacy met for years, and it was the record of that Congress that I commenced to read to you about. Now if my friend had waited he would have found more food for his silver business than he is aware of if he had waited till I finished reading the next resolu- tion of that Congress. They had had a Congress and resolved on the unit which should be used in the money accounts of this nation. They fixed that unit at a dol- lar. They fixed the design to indicate what the unit is. Just where it came from I have never been able to sat- isfy myself; almost every one thinks it is the letter U with the letter S written over it, making the sign for the dollar, and that that is the origin of the sign, but that does not make any difference. It is simply an in- teresting fact. As I stated. Congress first decided in 1785 what the unit should be called, and the only thing that they designated was that it should be two hundred half copper cents. They dropped the subject. There was no provision made for the amount of any other substance at that time. The subject, however, was be- ing agitated all the while and discussed by the United States thoroughly, and in 1786 Congress took up the subject again. Now they provided: '^Resolved that the standard of the United States of America for gold and silver" both together "shall be eleven parts fine and one part alloy. " That was precisely as they had decided before, that the mone}^ of the United States, be- ing by the resolve of Congress on the 6th of July, 1785, a dollar shall consist of fine silver, 875.64 grains in each THE GREAT DEBATE 45 silver dollar. That is the first establishment of what the unit should consist. Next, "that the money of ac- count to correspond with the division of coins agreeable to the above resolve proceed in a decimal ratio agree- able to the forms and manner following to-wit" don't forget it. They were organizing a new system of money, a system that had never been known on the face of the globe, making money history. Is that trivial? Why, it was the important act of that age. "Mills: The lowest money of account, of which one thousand shall be equal to the federal dollar or money unit. Cents: The highest copper piece, of which one hundred shall be equal to the dollar. Dimes: The low- est silver coin, ten of which shall be equal to the dol- lar. One dollar: The highest silver coin, that between the dollar and the lowest copper coin so fixed by the resolve of Congress, July 5, 1785, there shall be three silver coins and one copper coin; that the silver coins shall be as follows: One coin containing 187.82 grains of fine silver to be called a half dollar; one coin con- taining 75.188 grains of fine silver to be called a double dime; and one coin containing 87.3 of fine silver to be called a dime; that the two copper coins shall be as follows: One equal to the hundredth part of the fed- eral dollar to be called a cent; and one equal to the two hundredth part to be called a half cent. That two pounds and a quarter avoirdupois weight of copper shall constitute one hundred cents." Here is provision again for the copper dollar: that it should consist of one hundred copper cents, and gave the weight of the coin ; "that there shall be" now mark "two gold coins, one containing 246.308 grains of fine gold, equal to ten dollars, to be stamped with the impression of the American eagle and called an eagle; and the other containing 117.123 of fine gold, equal to five dollars, stamped in like manner and called a half eagle. The law then gives the mint price of gold and silver. 46 THE GREAT DEBATE Now that is the first time the American Congress des- ignated what should constitute a dollar. You under- stand when they named the unit of value a dollar, it did not mean anything but just the unit. It gave no definite idea until they had defined of what that dollar should consist. They might have called the unit a dodo just as well; it would not have meant anything until they had described by Congress of just what the dodo consisted; then the people would soon have learned to estimate values in dodos as readily as in dollars. The American Congress fixed upon three items, making them equal at that time to one dollar; that is, two and one-half pounds avoirdupois weight of copper was one of them. A number of grains of silver was another and a num- ber of grains of gold was the other. That was the first arrangement the American Congress made on this ques- ion. He tells me it was trivial. Why, it was the basis of the entire action in 1792 of which you talk so much. They did not go to work and enact over again what that Congress had done they did not have to. The unit of measure had been fixed; the names of the coins that we were going to have had been fixed; they simply changed the amount of gold and silver, as you will see, from the amount agreed upon by the Confederate Congress and fixed the amount by the law of 1792. Congress dropped the matter with the exception of one resolution passed afterward. They did not really or- ganize the mint. We had no mintage under the law of 1786; it ran along until 1792, when they established a mint and for the first time we had coin of the United States of America. When they came to that law they took for granted everything that had been done by the Confederate Congress. They did not go back and go THE GREAT DEBATE 47 over again a single thing, but they changed the quality of the alloy, which was changed, if not then, afterwards, from one-eleventh to one-tenth, as it now is in this country, and they changed the amount of pure gold and pure silver which should be placed in the coins. Under that law, if you will figure it, Mr. Harvey, you will find that they established the ratio of 15^ to 1. In 1792, when this matter was under consideration, there were letters written all over the United States; it was a matter that was discussed and runs through the Mad- ison papers, x^ages and pages, as to what kind of a ratio should exist in this country between gold and silver. It was an important question. The Morrises, both of them able men, insisted that the unit of value should be silver alone. Jefiferson insisted that it should be both gold and silver, and I will show in my next talk that Jefferson won in that contest. Mr. Harvey: Then I understand Mr. Horr to claim that the silver dollar was not made the unit of value Iw the act of 1792. Mr. Horr: I will get to that in my next talk. Mr. Harvey: If he will answer my question. Mr. Horr: But you wouldn't answer mine. I did want to do that way, you know. You insisted on the other rule. I could answer it very readily, it wouldn't take me but a quarter of a second, but I am afraid I will offend you. THE act of 1792. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr has read extensively and treated extensively the acts of the Confederati^ Con- gress preceding the constitution anrj the United States Congress of 1792. What took place in the Continental Congress will corroborate what I am about 48 THE GREAT DEBATE tu say took place in the United States Congress, but tliis is futile and of no pertinency; we should consider the law that was made based upon the constitution that came after the Continental Congress in the United States Congress organized in pursuance of that consti- tution. The straits to which the colonies were put between 1770 and 1790, when we, as a government known as the United States, went into operation, were those of expediency, but no permanent system was adopted, awaiting the constitution of the regular United States Congress; and it is to the action of that constitution and the Congress that met in pursuance of it we should as educators upon this question direct our attention. The constitution said Congress should regulate the val- ues. The first thing to do in regulating the value was to fix a measure just as Congress under a like clause fixed the bushel measure in which to measure wheat. It fixed a unit of value in our coin money system as the first necessary step to carry out the requirements of the con* stitution to regulate the value of the coin. The sub- stance of the discussion that led up to the fixing of that unit of value wliich we are now discussing is in the state papers of that period which are reproduced in the report of the International Monetary Conference of 1878, and consist of the following documents: 1. Mr. Jefferson's notes on the establishment of a money unit and of the coinage for the United States. 2. Rei)ort of a grand committee on the money unit. 8. The coinage system proposed to Congress April 8, 1786, by Samuel Osgood and Walter Livingston, who constituted the Board of Treasury. 4. The resstricted the legal-tender quality of foreign coins. The very first law that passed on the subject after the law of 1792 was passed on Feliruary 9, 1898, an act regulating foreign coins, making thoni IpfrnI t^ndpr and establishing their value. "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen- tatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that from and after the 1st day of July next, foreign gold and silver coin shall pass current as money within the United States and be a legal-tender for the payment of all debts and demands at the several and respective rates following and not otherwise: "Viz. : The gold coins of Great Britain and Portugal, of their present standard, at the rate of one hundred cents for every twenty-seven grains of the actual weight thereof; the gold coins of France, Spain and the do- minions of Spain, of their present standard, at the rate &2 THE GKEAT DEBATE of one hundred cents for every twenty-seven grains and two-fifths of a grain, of the actual weight thereof. Spanish milled dollars, at the rate of one hundred cents for each dollar, the actual weight whereof shall not be less than seventeen pennyweights and seven grains; and in proportion for the parts of a dollar. Crowns of France, at the rate of one hundred and ten cents for each crown, the actual weight whereof shall not be less than eighteen pennyweights and seventeen grains, and in proportion for the parts of a crown. But no foreign coin that may have been, or shall be issued sub- sequent to the first day of January, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two, shall be a tender, as afore- said, until samples thereof shall have been found, by assay, at the Mint of the United States, to be conform- able to the respective standards required, and procla- mation thereof shall have been made by the President of the United States." That is the way it goes on "and not otherwise." Does that make all foreign coins legal tender? Mr. Harvey: Do you want me to answer you now? Mr. Horr: It makes all foreign coins named in that act legal-tender, if they come up to a certain standard, that is, if they have so much fine gold and so much fine silver in them, and if they are worth so much, then, and not otherwise. Mr. Harvey: Now can I answer? Mr. Horr: Certainly. Mr. Harvey: It provides the amount that each shall be received for, received by tale. Mr. Horr: Certainly, but unless they are up to the standard they are not legal-tender. Mr. Harvey: Can I answer you further? Mr. Horr: I will get the very law quoted from, be- cause it is a good while afterward. You skipped the section that made the gold dollars also a legal-tender. You are asking me questions. What made you do that? THE GREAT DEBATE 83 Mr. Harvey: Mr. Hurr, in writing a book or making a speech, wlien your number of words are limited, un- less you want to confuse the reader with a great big volume, in making a quotation it is not necessary to quote that which is not pertinent to the subject you are treating; otherwise you load down the book till no one will read it. (Applause.) Mr. Horr: I agree with you, but when you state that the government passed a law requiring or making all sil- ver coins a legal tender and also in the same act they made gold coins a legal-tender, why did you quote the silver part and leave the gold out unless you wanted to im- press your readers with the fact that silver was consid- t'led the most important, which wasn't true? Mr. Harvey: Can I answer you now? Mr. Horr: Yes, I have no written essay, I am here to work. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: When a man is discussing cattle he doesn't talk hogs. Mr. Horr: Sometimes cattle and hogs are the sama, l)()th live stock. Mr. Harvey: And when a man is discussing silver and the manner in which it was treated by our forefath- rs, and comparing it with the way in which it is treated by you people now, it wasn't necessary to refer to how they treated gold or copper. (Long-continued applause. ) ^Ir. Horr: Unless your treatment is such that you are misleading your readers as to the manner of legis- lation upon that subject. Mr. Harvey: So, you are misleading yourself. Mr. Horr: No, I am not. What made you stop with your ''etc."? Mr. Harvey: Because I had quoted all of the statute necessary to show that they had made foreign silver legal-tender. 84 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Horr: No, you hadn't, you bad quoted all there was necessary to show that they had made legal-lender certain coins if there had been nothing attached to it. Mr. Harvey: There is nothing attached to it. Mr. Horr: There is; I will read it. Mr. Harvey: You refer to theainount. for which the Spanish coin of such a name is received in American money, and the Mexican coin for so mucli, the Britisli coin for so much, meaning to tell the American people how much they could pass that coin for as expressed in our money. That is not necessary in order to eslalt- lish the principle I was stating, that foreign silver was legal-tender in this country. The point is this: Our mints tested these foreign coins and valued the silver that was in them. The alloy of much of that coin was different from our alloy, so it was necessary to assay those foreign coins and see how much they were worth in our money; that the mints did and Congress put in- to that act how much a certain foreign coin was worth in our money, and that is stated in that statute where he accuses me of leaving out what was unnecessary for me to state in establishing the principle that our laws made foreign silver legal-lender. (Applause.) Mr. Horr: When you left out that you left out the very fact which showed that a number of foreign coins were not a legal-tender, because none were made such' except they came up to a certain standard. But away on ahead you speak of 1873. Now up to 1873 you said that they had made all these a legal-tender. Did you think so? Here is the law of 1857 passed upon the same subject, when they declared that none of them should be legal-tender and required the mints of the country to melt them up and re-coin them all, and repealed the very law that you have been talking about. (Applause. ) THE GREAT DEBATE That is tliH iact iiij(jut it. Now I claim that this is a serious matter, I admit that I had do idea for a mo- ment that you could defend the proposition. To me it is preposterous. Do you claim that all the silver coin that was in the United States at that time was a legal- tender? Why, not anywhere near half of it was ever a legal-tender. Congress pointed out what should be legal- tender, and none other was. The mint was required to measure or weigh rather and assay coins and fix the amount that they were worth, but the statutes of the Tnited States at that time never dealt w^ith gold and silver separately on this subject. Ain't I right? They did the same for gold that they did for silver, a fact which you I don't say purposely but inadvertently covered up. You are in such a state of mind that you can't see anything if it says gold. (Applause.) That is the trouble, and you skip everything that has the word gold in it, that is all. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr accuses me of misrepre- sentation. Now I never have attempted yet in dealing with the public to mislead them. And in dealing with this financial question I have looked at both sides of the question to judge it from its merits. But I will settle one question of misrepresentation that I am charged with right here, because it settles several .'it once, and will leave Mr. Horr to explain something. In reading this section that I quoted in the book as to foreign coin, he asks me why I didn't put gold in along with silver, and said that the statute so read, gold and silver, and that I had skipped gold. Now I call Mr. llorr's attention to the statute that I quoted, and gold is not in it. It says silver only. (Applause.) A man is not guilty of misrepresentation every time somebody accuses him of it. (Applause.) On that same page I S6 THE GREAT DEBATE said that the statement made by gold-standard advo- cates that only eight million dollars of silver was in circulation prior to 1878, was not true, and that instead of eight million dollars in silver being in circulation ])rior to 1873 there was one hundred and five million dollars in silver in circulation prior to that time coined at our own mints. Now he says that that one hundred and five millions is not correct. What is the correction? 1 did make a mistake. The Treasurer had made a mis- lake in the book that I copied it from. When he corrected the mistake six months afterward it read 143,- (XX), 000. (Applause.) That is the only misrepresenta- tion that the book is accused of. We sometimes under-estimate that which is in our favor. We think that is a better quality than to exaggerate that which is in our favor. Now I proceed. THE ACT OF 1873 CONTINUED. The bill to demonetize silvf r was pressed. If passed through Congress in this form, the intention of the con- s[)inxtors was to strike out secretly the single line pro- viding for tlie silver dollar the size of a French five franc piece, and with the bill thus enrolled the mints would be closed by its terms to silver, except the trade- dollar. To make the bill operative in this respect when tiio standard dollar clause was erased, a section was inserted in the latter part of the measure that there should be no coins struck at the mints except those here- inbefore provided for. The trade-dollar clause could be easily repealed or limited under the purchase clause, and this was subsequently done. As to the fractional silver coin, the bill would so read as to close the mints to silver for that ]Hirpose, as did the Act of 1853. The right to deposit for coinag > only existed as to the silver dollar. To bridle this dollar was their object. To de- THE GREAT DEBATE 87 ceive Congress and at the last moment destroy the stanfhml silver dollar was the purpose. This was the program that was afterward faithfully carried out. If that single line, giving unlimited free coinage to a silver dolhir, the size of a French five franc piece, had been Wft in the bill, we would have had bimetallism with the unit on gold. To understand why a bill changing the unit from sil- ver to gold, with the dollar dropped out at the last mo- ment and thus fraudulently changing our system, could be put tlu'ough Congress as against formerly well recog- nized monetary principles, one must consider the situa- tion as it then existed. TJK.'re was no silver or gold then in circulation except in California. Paper money was our currency. Coined uKjney was not daily asserting its importance as in 1854, when tlie money power tried to demonetize gold. If it had been in daily use in 1878, it would have been an object lesson reminding congressmen of the principles on which coined currency is founded. A majority of members of Congress had entered pul)lic life after the suspension of specie payments in 186 1. To consider the moral status of Congress at that time is important, also. An era of corruption in official life followed the war; the nverage congressman appeared to believe that public office was a private gift, and that it was to be utilized to benefit himself and those who had assisted him to offije. This condition in 1872-3 had led to all kinds of schemes being pushed through Congress for the benefit of private parties and special interests. The halls of Congress swarmed with lobbyists intent upon the passage ol their several measures, out of which large sums of money were to be realized as the result of pending legislation. Out of this corrupt period came 88 THE GREAT DEBATE disclosures that caused articles of impeachment to be preferred against Vice-President Colfax for complicity in the Oakes Ames fraud, causing him to abandon offi- cial life in disgrace in the year 1878. The resignation of Secretary of War Belknap, for bribery, followed in 1873. Corruption was charged in committee reports against numerous congressmen in connection ,with the Land Grant swindle, and a still larger number growing out of the Credit Mobilier scandal of 1872 and 1878, in which two senators and three contrressmen confessed their guilt. MORE ON THE FOREIGN SILVER LAW. Mr. Horr: Mr. Harvey, I am sorry to have to take you back again to this statute, but I know you desire to get this thing correct. I cannot think you intention- ally try to mislead these people and the people of this country. The law which you marked and sent to me is not the law at all that you quote in your book. Mr. Harvey: How do you know it is not? Mr. Horr: It is not, it is not the same language, it is not the same words. Take your book and I will read word for word; there is a gold clause preceding this sil- ver one. Mr. Harvey: That has a silver and gold clause. Mr. Horr: That has, but that is not the one you quoted from. Don't misunderstand me. That is not the law that you quoted part of and left off the rest. Now take your book and watch: "And be it further enacted that after and from the passage of this act, the follow- ing foreign silver coins shall pass current as money within the United States and be receivable by tale, for the payment of all debts and demands, at the rates fol- lowing; that is to say, the Spanish pillar dollar," is that there? THE GREAT DEBATE 89 Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr Mr. Horr: Well, is that there? Mr. Harvey: I will bring you the act that includes that. This is a republication of the statute. Mr. Horr: But I have got it as you quote it. Mr. Harvey: But this is a copy of 1894. I will bring it to you at the next session. Mr. Horr: The one you take is not the one you quote. The one Mr. Grier handed me provides for silver; this is the money of Mexico, Peru and Central America; and you stop at Bolivia. This is not the money of Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. Mr. Harvey: This is Mexico too, isn't it? Mr. Horr: Ah, but it is not the same law, no use talking. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, T will bring you the statute at the next session. Mr. Horr: I wish you would, I would like to see it, and gold is in front of the one you quote. Now I sim- ply wish to say he left otf at Peru and Bolivia the fol- hjwing, "of not less than eight hundred and ninety-seven thousandths in fineness, and four hundred grains in weight, atone hundred cents each; and the five franc j)ieces of France, of not less than nine hundred thou- sandtlis in fineness, and three hundred and eighty-four iTL-ains in weight, at ninety-three cents each." Now that did not make all the silver coin of those countries legal-tender as he said they were, and if he had printed the whole law there would not be a chance to deceive the people on that subject, and if my point is not well taken I don't know when a point is made out. Now I call your attention next: On page 10 you say on account of the scarcity of silver both Jefferson and Jackson recommended that dimes, quarters and halves racing coins from the dime to the half dol- lar. ' Cmii aijy tiling be more plain than that? Was there any covering up of anything in that letter? Mr. Harvey: In the interrupted presentation of demonetization I had called the attention of the people to the condition, morally, of Congress at the time of the passage of the act. I had referred to impeachment charges against Vice-Pr.^sident Colfax in 1873 for fraud in connection with legi.-ihition; to the resignation of Secretary of War Belknap for bribery, 1873. I now pro- ceed, after first stating for Mr. Horr's information, that THE GREAT DEBATE 111 Del Mar, the English historian, says that the act of 1816, demonetizing silver in England, had a clause in it that it might be reinstated by the king; that that clause, giving a right t(j reinstatement, was repealed in 1871, and that the act in which it was repealed was within two weeks in the hands of Mr. Knox, the Comptroller of the United States Treasury (applause), and was in part the basis of the act in this country. Now I proceed with this argument as to what occurred in Congress, and I shall pass the books to Mr. Horr. I will give page references so the readers of this debate can check on me. There will be no uncertainty as to anything that I say being authentic. 1 will quote noth- ing that is not here present in the room. By examin- ing the records of the day and the newspapers we find that there was an era of corruption in Congress at that time. Clinton Colgate confessed before the Ways and Means Committee of 1878, to the use of nionoy to intiu- rv<^d with me in several Congrc^sses, and I appeal to 'ach and every onc^ of them if during their entire service they ever saw or mistrusted that money was being used to ])urchase members of Congress. I served six years without ever knowing that an instance of that kind had occurred during the Congresses in which I served. When men start out with the proposition that in order to ))rove their case they must also prove that the majority of the best men of this country are thieves and scoun- drels, they had better stop before they begin. (Ap- l)lause. ) The people of this country and the congress- man is no exception as an average are upright, honest business men. I admit that Judge Sherman was guilty of a crime. That was never in any way connected with his brother, John Sherman, and you know it. They exonerated him. 114 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Harvey: Did they impeach Judge Sherman? Mr. Horr: Judge Sherman resigned immediately, they drove him from the bench. (Applause.) The pub- lic opinion of this country would not permit a man to hold a public position who would do a thing of that kind. But what has that to do with the question whether Mr. Knox openly and squarely presented this bill to Congress? Mr. Knox said himself, "The coinage of the silver dollar piece, the history of which is here given, is discontinued in the proposed bill. It is by law the dollar unit" you read that yesterday '*and assuming the value of gold to be 15^ times that of silver, being about the mean ratio for the last six years, it is worth in gold a premium of about 8 per cent, its value being $1.08 12-100 and intrinsically more than 7 per cent premium in our other silver coin, its value thus being $1.07 48-100. The present laws consequently authorize a gold dollar unit and a silver dollar unit ditfering from each other in intrinsic value. The pres- ent gold dollar piece is made the dollar unit in the pro- posed bill, and the silver dollar was discontinued." A voice in the audience: When was that written? Mr. Horr: Just before it was sent to Congress in 1870. It was a part of the report that Secretary Bout- well sent to the Senate in the spring of 1870. It accom- panied the bill and was printed in the public documents as being an explanation of the bill by order of the Senate. Is there anything hidden in those statements? Now Mr. Sherman was chairman of the Finance Com- mittee. This bill went immediately to his committee. He said only in August of 1893 as follows: "Mr. President: The Finance Committee carefully examined that bill; we were not in any hurry about it; it was sent to us in April, 1870. In December, 1870, the Committee on Finance, after a careful examina- tion, after having the bill printed and sent by order of THE GREAT DEBATE 115 the Senate to every one who desired to read it or look over it, reported it unanimously. That committee was composed of Messrs. Sherman, Williams of Oregon, Cattell, Warner, Fenton and Bayard. The bill was re- ported to the Senate, December 19, 1870, after lying in our committee room eight months. The nature of the hill I have already described. The dollar was dropped from the coinage of the bill framed in the Treasury de- lartment. No one proposed to re-issue it. The Pacific Coast had six intelligent, able and competent senators on the floor, representing a population of not more than a million then, if that. They would have care- fully looked out for the interests of silver if the bill effected them injuriously, but the silver dollar at that time was worth more than the gold dollar. California and Nevada were on the gold standard. As I said, the bill was printed over and over again and finally re- ported and brought before the Senate. "It was debated here for three days, and I have the voluminous record upon the subject. Now the bill came to a vote on the 10th of January, 1871, in the Senate." It was passed by a "yea and nay vote" and let me say right here so far as I have been able to discover that is the only yea and nay vote taken during the entire passage of this bill, which ran along for nearly three years. Now mark, "the senators from the Pacific slope, including Senator Stewart, of Nevada, voted for the 1)111, and Senator Sherman voted against it." Mr. Sher- man tells us that he did not vote against it because it struck out the silver dollar, but because it compelled the government to pay the expense of coinage, and he thought the people who owned the gold and silver bul- lion shoidd pay that expense. Now up to that time had there been any secrecy? The bill was sent from the Senate to the House; and on January 13, 1871, on mo- tion of William D. Kelley, the bill was ordered to be nrinted. February 25, 1871, Mr. Kelley, who was at 116 THE GREAT DEBATE that time chairman of the committee on Coinage, re- [)ortecl the bill back with an amendment, which was in the nature of a substitute. It was again printed and Mgain sent back to the committee. The fifty-first con- gress died by constitutional limitation a few days after the bill had thus been reported and without any action upon it by the H(Uise. That ended the effort to pass that bill in that congress. Now I will submit, to Mr. Harvey or any one else if there was anything but the most open, fair elYort to show the people of this country just what that committee proposed to do. Now on March 9, 1871, there had been already a spe- cial session called of another Congress. Mr. Kelley again introduced this bill, and it was ordered to be printed and referred to the commitee on coinage when such committee should be appointed. Nothing further was done al)out it during that entire extra session. EVIDENCE OF CORRUPTION IN CONGRESS. Mr. Harvey: As I proceed in a connected mapner, however I will fully answer Mr. Hon*. Among the many charges of corruption made at this period 1873 there was one of significance when we consider that silver was demonetized by a single sentence being omitted from the report of the Conference Com- mittee and enrollment of the mint bill, and indicates the power, in this instance, a corrupt clerk could have. George A. Bassett, clerk of the Ways and Means Com- mittee, 1878, was charged with having demanded $250 per month from the bankers and brokers of New York to assist them in repealing the tax on borrowed capital, and $5,000 when the act passed. In the Chicago Tribune of February 21, 1878, an ad- ministration paper of that period, now before me on THE GREAT DEBATE 117 tliis table for the inspection of Mr. Horr, a Washington correspondent says: "As for George A. Bassett, long the clerk of the Ways and Means Committee, the story of the use of his l)rivileges is as old as my residence in this city. I heard comphiints made in California that he had de- manded payment for services after experiencing unu- sual hospitality from the corporations there." This same correspondent in the same issue of this ad- ministration paper (the Republican party being then in power), speaking(jf the situation at Washington, Feb- ruary 21, 1873, the very month in which silver was de- monetized, said: "Turkish corruption under the Pashas and Beys, or Russian official rottenness, could scarcely be worse than it is here." (Applause.) The salary-grab bill was introduced in the House, De- cem})er 2, 1872, and in the Senate, January 9, 1873. It passed March 3, 1873. It included two years' back sal- ary, and aroused an exclamation of indignation through- out the land. The people rose en masse and forced Congress to repeal this bill, little dreaming at the time that another bill had passed at that Congress that was to rob them of millions of dollars. The people could understand a salary-grab, but they could not understand a scientific spoliation of their rights. (Applause.) These exposures were followed by general disgust of the people at the neglect of congressmen to prosecute each other, or rather at the disinclination of those in- nocent to prosecute their guilty fellow-members. It was in this Congress that silver was demonetized. (Ap- plause. ) To make plain how the fraud was practiced I copy into my remarks Sections 15 and 21 of the bill as it is supposed to have read when on its passage, together wirh the words fraudulently omitted in brack- ets. Omit the words in brackets, and you have these 118 TtlE GREAT DEBATE -ectioDS as they now read in the statutes; include the words in brackets, and you have the sections as the bill was supposed to have passed Congress. Mr. Horr: Where is that from? I don't under- stand. Mr. Harvey: I take the two sections as they now appear in the statutes, and I add between brackets the words that were erased from the bill Mr. Horr: By wliom? Mr. Harvey: (continuing) surreptitiously in its passage. Mr Horr: By whom? What proof have you that anything was erased? Mr. Harvey: I'll get to the proof of that a little later. Mr. Horr: Well, let's have it. proof of fraud. Mk. Harvey: ^'Section 15. That {he silver coins of the United States shall be a trade dollar [a standard dollar], a half-dollar, or fifty-cent piece, a quarter-dol- lar or twenty-five cent piece, a dime or ten-cent piece; and the weight of the trade dollar shall be four hun- dred and twenty grains Troy [the weight of a standard dollar shall be three hundred and eighty-four grains Troy] ; the weight of the half-dollar shall be twelve grams and one-half of a gram; the quarter-dollar and the dime shall be respectively one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half-dollar; and said [fractional] coins shall be a legal-tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding five dollars in any one pay- ment. '^Section 21. That any owner of silver bullion may deposit same at any mint, to be formed into bars, or into dollars of the weight of four hundred and twenty grains Troy, designated in this act as trade dollars [or into standard dollars of three hundred and eighty-four grains], and no deposit of silver for other coinage shall THE GREAT DEBATE 119 be received; but silver bullion contained in gold depos- its and separated therefrom may be paid for in silver coin at such valuation as may be, from time to time, established by the director of the mint." As the bill passed both houses the unit was on gold, and free and unlimited coinage of both metals was pro- vided for. By it there was free coinage of silver in the standard silver dollar and the trade dollars; fractional silver coins only were to be regulated by the Treasurer at his discretion. But as enrolled the mints were closed to free and unlimited coinage of silver, except as to the trade dollar, afterward abolished. The standard silver dollar was fraudulently omitted after the bill had passed both houses. (Applause.) It will be questioned by our best citizens that such a fraud could be practiced, and the hesitancy with which they accept its truth attests the integrity of our citizenship. Before offering my proof, and I promise you it shall be conclusive, I wish to speak of official crimes. iriSTOKV OF THE DEMONETIZATION LAW. j\Ir. Horh: I wish to say right here that upon the face e, or siilistanlially the same thing, in regard to this bill, which was before the American Congress. The bill was rei)oile(l just as he says, with a dollar of that kind, but no{ giving free coinage to that dollar- I deny that anybody ever dreamed of so preposterous a proposition as that It is simply monstrous, the claim that Mr. Harvey makes. Mr. Harvey: I pause a moment in the logical ar- rangement of this argument to reply to Mr. Horr. He says that Judge Kelley, who w^as chairman of the com- mittee reporting this bill, said in 1872 something indi- cating that it was an honest measure. Now, Mr. Horr, I read you from volume 5, part 1, 44th Congress, second session (Congressional Globe, page 170, date December 13, 1876). Mr. Kelley there says: ''Mr. Speaker: I have none of the remarks quoted from me to withdraw. They were not made on the bill demonetizing the standard silver dollar which was passed, and which was a substi- tute, never read in this House, and, being a substitute, was not the bill to which I had spoken." (Long-con- tinued applause.) On May 10, 1879, page 1285 (Congressional Record, volume 9, j)art 1) Mr. Kelley again says: "In 1872, when I made the remarks which were cited by these gentlemen, and which have been frequently quoted in both houses, and always with an air as much as to say that to convict this man of the crime of hav- ing been instructed by the logic of events would forever settle this momentous question, we were not using coin, and no gentleman in either house appears to have ap- preciated the scope and magnitude of the silver question or to have given it special study. Hence the bill and I w4sh the gentlemen to know what that bill was it was a bill to reorganize the mints, not to revise the coin money of the country, but to re-organize the mints, THE GREAT DEBATE 123 and it was passed without allusion in debate to the r|uestion of the retention or abandonment of the stand- ard silver dollar. "I was chairman of the committee that reported the original bill, and I aver on my honor that I did not kncjw the fact that it proposed to drop the standard dollar, and did not learn that it had done it for eight- '('11 months after the passage of the substitute offered 'V Mr. Hooper, when I disputed the fact and was iictwn the law." (Applause.) OFFICIAL CRIMES AGAINST THE PEOPLE. 1 now proceed with my argument. I said I wished to speak of official crimes. Secretary of War Belknap <'ommitted a crime and confessed it, as have many others in high official life, and it is believed because it is confessed. The percentage of those who confess to those who are otherwise found guilty and punished is probably not to exceed one percent, and only a small lU'oportion of those corrupted ever are arraigned. The effect of official bribery on civil liberty as affect- iiig the permanency of governments, and the admitted history of similar corruption in this and other nations, i- worth considering. A few years ago, and within our own recollection, lour prominent members of the National Legislature of France were found guilty and sentenced to punishment for accepting bribes to control their votes, in connec- tioii with the construction of the Panama Canal. No people are naturally more tenacious of their lib- erty than the Irish, yet through the efforts of the un- scrujHilous diplomat, Lord Castlereagh, English gold, supplemented by royalty's gift of titles, purchased the dissolution of the Irish Parliament. Since then Home Rule in Ireland has been prevented l)y the inliuenco of the aristocracy of England "side 1?4 THK GREAT DEBATE tiacKiiig 1 tH' issuH ()(' Home Kuk'. As long as the dominant power can prevent it, like this financial question with us, from coming to a political issue, either by deceiving the people with party platforms or hy prevpnting an issue from being made up, they can continue to accomplish the work already begun. Home Rule in Ireland is in that condition. The Chirnrfn Pod of yesterday, a gold-standard paper, says: ''For all political purposes the free-silver dogma is as dead in the United States to-day as the Home Rule doctrine in p]ngland. Both are out of the range of practical politics. You may demonstraif ai tlie ballot box of the Morn- iiKj Record of Chicago that the silver men of this city are two to one of the gold men; you may demonstrate that the farmers almost uniformly in this country are in favor of restoring silver; yet the soaking into the people of such insidious statements as. that, telling them it is not an issue in other words, that they cannot get an opportunity to vote for that which they have a right to vote for is their method for suppressing popular liberty. History teaches us that during the period from the Revolution to the end of Queen Anne's reign bribery was practiced openly in the English Parliament. The Speaker of the House of Commons was expelled for bri- bery, and the great Marlborough could not clear his character from pecuniary dishonesty. During Walpole's administration there is no doubt that members of Parliament were paid in cash for their votes, and his memorable remark that "every man has his price'* has been preserved as a characteristic in- dication of his method of government. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: THE GREAT DEBATE 125 ''Bribery is the administration of a bribe or reward that it may be a motive in the performance of functions lor which the proper motive ought to be a conscientious sense of duty. It is difficult to get the Oriental mind lu understand how it is reasonable to expect the temp- tation of a bribe to be resisted, and this has been the nuiin impediment to the employment of a native judi- ciary or legislature in the British Eastern Empire. In no country, perhaps, is the offense visited with more dire chastisement, when discovered, than in Rus- ia, yet by the concurrent testimony of all who are ac- quainted with Russian society, not only the official (i('[)artment but the courts of law at this day are influ- enced by systematic bribery." Mr. Horr: Mr. Harvey still continues to rest his case upon an attempt to prove that the human family is made up of scoundrels; that there is no such thing as iKjnor among the people of this or any other country. Tlie infamous statement that every man has his j^rice ought to be branded upon the brow of every man who will quote it in earnest, because it is a lie against hu- manity. (Long-continued applause.) It is equaled only by the other statement that there is no such thing as virtue among the women of the United States or any other country. Mr. Harvey: I don't make that statement. Mr. Horr: That was a motto that nobody but a vil- lain like Aaron Burr ever could have originated, and I am surprised that in the nineteenth century a man will stand up before an American audience and base his case upon the proposition that the people of our grand nspublic are mostly villains, because I say to you in all candor, the members of Congress are fully up in honesty and decency to the average of the American people. I know it because I have been one myself, you know. (Laughter.) 126 THE GREAT DEBATE CONGRESSMAN KELLEY's RECORD ON THE COINAGE BILL. But what has all that to do with whether this bill was properly presented and discussed? I am familiar with what Mr. Kelley said afterward, but I am now going to read to you what he said when this bill was up in the House on the report of Mr. Hooper, and Brother Harvey, I call your attention to this fp,ct; it is not a speech that was printed "by leave." This took place right on the floor of the House. If you will ask your colleague, Brother Warner, he will tell you that I am correct; he has had experience as well as myself, on that subject. Whenever you find in a speech a ref- erence to what some man has just said on the floor of the House, a running debate, that is never printed by leave, that is always something that has occurred right then and there; that is, a man could not get leave to print, and then put in something that never occurred they did that in Coin's book, but they cannot in the American Congress. (Applause.) Mr. Stoughton, also a member of the Committee on Coinage, made a long speech upon that bill. He said: "The silver dollar as now issued is worth for bullion three-and-a-quarter cents more than the gold dollar, and seven-and-a-quarter cents more than two half-dol- lars, having a greater intrinsic and nominal value; it is certain to be withdrawn from circulation whenever we return to specie payment, and to be used only for manufacture and exportation as bullion." Now mark: "This bill provides for making changes in the legal-tender coin of the country and for the sub- stituting as legal-tender coin of only one metal instead as heretofore of two." Mr. Kelley said during this same debate and you will mark that that did not occur in a speech under leave to print. No one will claim that. THE GREAT DEBATE 127 Mr. Harvey: Do you say that Stoughton's speech was running debate? Mr. Horr: No, I did not; I say that Kelley's was, l)ocause he starts right in. "I wish to ask Mr. Potter if he knows of any govern- ment in the world which makes its subsidiary coinage of full value? The silver coin of England is 10 per <"(>nt below the value of gold coin, and, acting under the julvice of the experts of this country and England and France, Japan has made her silver coinage within the last year 12 per cent below the value of gold coin, and for this reason it is impossible to retain the double standard. The value of gold and silver continually fluctuates; you cannot determine this year what will l)e the relative value of gold and silver next year. They w^ere 15 to 1 a short time ago; they are 16 to 1 now. Hence all experience has shown that you must have one standard coin which shall be a legal-tender for all nthers, and then you may promote your domestic con- venience by having a subsidiary coinage of silver which 'hall circulate in a limited value and be redeemable at its face value by your government. But, sir, I again call the attention of the house to the fact that the gentle- men who oppose this bill insist upon maintaining a sil- ver dollar worth 8^ cents more than the gold dollar and 7 cents more than two half-dollars, and that so long as those provisions remain you cannot keep silver coin in the country." That is Mr. Kelley's speech which he made right on the bill at the time. Now, May 27, 1872, tlie bill was again called up by Mr. Hooper, who offered an amendment, awid then the bill was passed by a vote of 110 yeas to 12 nays. There was no record of the parties who voted for or against It: it was a vote without calling for the yeas and nays. Just previous to the passage of the bill Mr. McNeally, who was also a member of the committee that examined this question, said: 128 THE GREAT DEBATE "Asa member of the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures, having carefully examined every section and line of this bill, and generally understanding the subject before us, I am satisfied that the bill ought to pass." Those were members of the committee that had care- fully examined the bill. Now mark you, they had j)ut the silver dollar back as a subsidiary coin. They could not have done that had they not had their attention called to the fact that the original bill had omitted the old standard dollar. You cannot conceive of their do- ing it without knowing something about what they were doing, consequently there was no secret about it. The bill passed by the House, so far as silver coinage is con- cerned, was identical with the bill first introduced by Mr. Kelley, with the exception of putting the 884- grained silver dollar into the bill as a subsidiary coin with the halves and quarters and dimes. That was the only difference, and it was precisely in that respect the same as the bill reported by Mr. Knox, or sent to the Senate by Mr. Knox in 1870, with the exception that they had introduced this new subsidiary silver coin of one dollar. Now, do not forget, this bill which we are told was passed by a trick and that few men knew anything about, is the very bill that I have shown you had been mider discussion then for nearly two years in the Amer- ican Congress. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr criticises me for the history of bribery leading up to the Salary Grab Congress of 1878. I don't mean to say that all congressmen are dishonest, or that the majority of them are. I do not mean to say that all of the members of the Congress of 1872-3 were dishonest. I do say this, that as selfish in- dividuality by aggressiveness accumulates the wealth THE GREAT DEBATE 129 of the world, and what is left is fought over by the other people, and as the value of property and means of living in sight is lowered, human character is low- ered, and that it has continued on a general average to be lowered since that Congress, and we will only preserve this republic by recognizing and noting the sin that has destroyed all past republics. The Chicago Post, a gold-standard paper, does not agree with Mr. Horr in his philippic of a few moments ago. It says editorially in yesterday's issue: "The man who should undertake to diagnose the con- dition of the body politic of this state and city at just this juncture might be inclined to describe it as suffering from an epidemic of dishonesty. The gravest charges are continually made; the most shocking disclosures are hourly threatened. We are told that the serpent's trail can be traced in the higher seats of power, and that his odious slime has trickled down over the whole fabric to its very bottom, everywhere debasing manhood and ]ioisoning civic honor. There is more truth than meta- phor in this; and the most deplorable feature of the situation is the tone of Uippant pessimistic comment witli which such a sorry condition of things is treated by many whose duty as citizens it is to put an end to if." (Applause.) Mr Horr reads, without giving page but that makes no difference of where members of Congress spoke of subsidiary coinage. Now, he has confused you with subsidiary coinage, which means the fractional silver, not the dollar, and where a congressman spoke of sub- sidiary coins he did not mean the silver dollar that had free access to the mints. Now so much for that. He ((notes from Stoughton's speech by reading language that would look as if it included the dollar piece, but Stoughton's speech is one of those "leave to print" speeches that you hear about and that never was spoken 130 THE GREAT DEBATE ill Congress, and is a part of this plan tliat was piirsiied during the period of demonetization. BRIBERY PAST AND PRESENT. Now I proceed. Both modern and aix^ient history give plenty of evidence of the frequent practice of bribery; and yet few are exposed of the thousands who are con- taminated by it. The prophet Samuel, priding himself upon his vir- tues, said: '^Whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed? Or of whose hands have I received any bribe to blind my eyes therewith?" Amos, denouncing th(^ condition of Israel under Jer- olioam, says: ^ ''They afflict the just they take a bribe and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their rights." Nearly twenty-five centuries ago Sojihocles, the Greek philosopher, said: '^Nothing in use by man, for power of ill, Can equal money. This lays cities low, This drives men forth from quiet dwelling place, This warps and changes minds of worthiest stamp, To turn to deeds of baseness, teaching men All shifts of cunning, and to know^ the guilt Of every impious deed." In the Illinois Legislature in 1857, the city street rail- way company of Chicago was asking for a renewal of its charter for ninety-nine years. Nearly all the citi- zens of Chicago were opposed to it and petitioned the Legislature against it. No one expected it would pass in the form it was introduced, as it was virtually a pres- ent of millions of dollars to the company. To the sur- prise of every one it went through. The governor, who was unpurchasable, vetoed it. An effort at once \\f\^ pxprtpfl to pass it ov^r the gov- THE GREAT DEBATE 131 . rnor's veto, and the people of Chicago became aroused to tliy danger of the methods that were being used. Large committees of the most prominent citizens of 'Chicago went to Springtleld to work with the members u the Legislature against the bill. The experience of one of the committeemen will illustrate that of the others. The first member of the Legislature he spoke to said to him, "How much money is there in it for me if 1 vote on your side?" The member of the committee referred to is now in this room. The committee representing the people of Chicago were not prepared to bribe, and the bill was passed over the governor's veto, and is the charter under which the street railway of Chicago to-day, with her nearly two million people, is operated. The Denver RepvUican of January 15, 1894, says editorially: "It is silly for members of the State Senate to affect surprise or indignation over the fact that many laws enacted during the regular session of the Ninth General Assembly were wilfully changed in the process of enroll- ment. That form of knavery has been practiced for years in the Colorado Legislature, and senators and rep- resentatives have always winked at it if they have not actually prompted it. Senators who denounced it on Saturday must have known what was going on last winter or else they must have been as blind as bats. So long as our Legislatures continue to make the commit- teeships at their disposal the plunder of men and wom- en of known bad character, for personal or political reasons, they must expect that the laws they pass will be tampered with if any rogue has sufficient financial interest in the matter to pay for the dirty work." And this is what happened in Congress in 1873. The more recent history of our Congress in connec- tion with the open and flagrant venality of members of the Sugar Trust, by which these men made twenty-five 132 THE GREAT DEBATE 111 ill lull dollars in sixty days, is fresh in the minds of all here present, and, with other things, has served to deaden and shock the public conscience. (A])plaiise. ) Mr. Horr: My friend still clings to his delusion that there is no such thing as honesty in the world, and ho tries to establish it by quoting the facts that the whole of Colorado has gone over to bribery and corruption. He ought to know better than I do. That being a sil- ver State, I would not dare dispute his proposition. (Applause.) But I do know this, that it is a disgrace to a citizen of Chicago or any other city to stand up before the public and claim that honesty and decency do not exist in the city where he lives. I live in the city of New York; we have a reputation for being pretty Avell up on that matter of corruption in New York. (Long applause and laughter.) But I come here to learn for the first time that Chicago can discount us every day. Now I say to my friend, frankly, I have no idea but what there has been considerable bad work in New York. I do not think that an exact record of every- thing that has transpired in all the wards of the city would be very nice reading for the public generally. I presume the same thing exists here in Chicago. Ah I but that does not prove that the great majority of the people in New York and Chicago are not upriglit, law- abiding, decent members of society. You cannot possi- bly fix the status of civilization by picking out a few scoundrels and claiming that that is the record of the world. Suppose Harvey had run across Brother Job, who is mentioned in the Scriptures, at the time he was suffer- ing from sores. You remember he had considerable difficulty with the breaking out of boils he was in THE aREAT DEBATE 133 trouble. Harvpy would have looked him over and then :nne before the people of Chaldea for if my history is correct Job was a Chaldean and he would have told the people of Chaldea that the entire nation was sim- ply one big carbuncle, while the fact is, so far as we know, Job was the only man that was afflicted in that way; at all events his wife had not yet been silenced, for you remember by the record she did considerable talking right on the spot. Now I protest against this effort to smirch the char- acter of the American people by fixing on a few in- stances of corruption and then drawing the general ])roposition that this whole entire republic is nothing but a festering sore of corruption. It is an outrage on the decf^ncy of men who are trying to lead pure and up- right lives in this country and world of ours. But now I want to proceed with the question we are debating. SENATOR Sherman's report. This bill was then passed and sent over to the Sen- ate, December 16, 1872. Mr. Sherman said he was the chairman of the committee, and was making a re- port upon it "This bill has in substance passed both houses, ex- cept that the Senate bill enlarged and increased the salaries of the officers of the mint. It was passed by the Senate of the last Congress, went to the House, and now, somewhat modified, has passed the House of this Congress." So that the bill had practically passed both houses of Congress. "The Senate Committee on Finance propose a modi- fication of only a single sentence, but as it is not the same Congress that passed the bill in the Senate, I sup- pose it will have to go through the form of a full read- 134 THE GREAT DEBATE ing unless the Senate is willing to take it on the statement of the committee, the Senate having already adopted and passed it." It was the same bill, with the exception that they had put the subsidiary dollar coin into it. Now, January 7, 1878, almost three years after the bill had been sent to Congress, you see, the bill was again reported with amendments, and again printed. It passed the Senate on January 17, 1878, after a discussion which fills nineteen columns of the Congressional Record. Its provisions were again fully explained; Mr. Sherman in that debate called attention to the fact that the bill provided for the coinage of a silver trade dollar, to accommodate the people of Cali- fornia and others engaged in trade with California he pointed that fact out, which could not have been done without calling their attention to the very fact which Mr. Harvey says was surreptitiously going on. The simple fact that this bill did provide for a trade dollar, and that that subject was fully discussed, necessarily itself called attention to the other fact that the bill dis- continued the silver standard dollar. Now, remember this bill was before Congress almost three years; at every stage of it it had provided that the coinage of the standard silver dollar of 412^ grains should be dropped; that the old dollar about which we hear so much, neither in committee nor anywhere else, was ever in that bill during these whole three years, and Congress was aware of the fact; they were informed of it time and time again, and a man stultifies him- self who could sit in that Congress and say that he had no way of finding out what was in the bill. Mr. Knox says in his report: "The bill was read in full in the Senate several times, THE GREAT DEBATE i;j > and the record states on January 9, 1872, that it was read in the House. It was undoubtedly read at other times; the bill was printed separately now mark eleven times, and twice in reports made by the Comp- troller of Currency. It was considered at length by the Finance Committee of the Senate, and one Coinage Committee of the House during five different sessions, and the debates upon the bill in the Senate occu])y sixty-six columns of the Globe." Now the Secretary of the Treasury had already called the attention of the country to this bill several tinins. I submit to every candid man whether it is possible to introduce a bill into the Aoierican Congress in a more fair, open-handed manner than that in which this bill was introduced. Its provisions were carefully pointed out, first in the report of John J. Knox, the deputy comptroller who prepared the bill. The report was sent to Congress with the draft of the bill. He specifically called attention to the change as to the sil- ver dollar. In the Committee of the House and the Senate the measure was examined as those members stated, line by line and word by word, and then it was finally passed with the full understanding as to what was be- ing done. I shall next show you that they knew what they were about. Mr. Harvey: As to Senator Sherman and the trade dollar, the latter being alone in the bill while it was passing the Senate, Mr. Horr will have to retreat from his position when I reach it. I want the reader to remember what I now say for a few minutes. As to reading the bill line by line, he is talking about another bill, and not the bill that is on the statute books, as the reading of the record will show. (Applause.) 136 THE GREAT DEBATE HOW THE BILL PASSED THE HOUSE. Now I take up the bill in the House where it passed in May, 1872. In volume 1, 2d session, 42d Congress, l)age 822, we tind Mr. Kelley, chairman of the Com- mittee on Weights and Measures, presenting Ihe hill. He said: ''The House will find the body of the bill to be a well- devised and careful codilication of the mint laws, njak- ing very few, if any, essential changes except in this/' Now, what was the change? He proceeds: "There is now a director of the mint at Philadelphia, :ind there is no more reason why he should supervise the other mints than that the clncf otticers of the othfr mints should supervise him." He then proceeds to explain at hnigth why there should be one superintendent over all the mints, to in- sure a uniformity in the coins struck from them. This was the only change in the old law^and in the "carefuT' codification of the laws then in existence. The gold unit clause does not appear to have been sprung up to this time. I do not mean to say that ludge Kelley cannot be proven false in his statement by copies of bills afterward fraudulently altered and substituted for the original, and by speeches that were never spoken in the House, but printed in the record under 'Meave to print. " But in this open statement made by Judge Kelley, chairman of the committee hav- ing the bill in charge, in presenting the bill, we find that it is declared to be merely a ^^ careful codifimtion of existing laws^ Judge Kelley, near the close of his speech presenting the bill, I have given you the page in the record, re- ferring again to the change in the superintendency of the mints, says: ''It is of the highest importance, therefore, that the THE GREAT DEBATE 1B7 one single cardinal change that the bill proposes should he made." There was and could hQ no suspicion thus far, that an English dagger lurked in the folds of this bill. While Mr. Kelley was on his feet, Mr. Potter asked this question (volume 1, page 828): "I desire to ask the gentleman who has this bill in (charge, whether, if it become a law, it will make any change in the value of the coin issued pursuant to its provision to the value of the coin which now exists.'' Mr. Kelley replied: "It does not." The bill came up again, with nothing done to it in the meantime, on April 9, 1872. A determination on the part of3Ir. Hooper of Massa- chusetts, to press what was regarded as a bill dealing with a dry subject, caused most of the members to lose interest in the bill, but excited the suspicion of one member. Mr. Potter said (volume 3, page 2810): "I confess, therefore, that the introduction of the ])ill at such a period excited my suspicion. I was, and am, at a loss to gather from anything I know or can learn that there is any necessity for the adoption of this measure now." Mr. Brooks of New York made a speech (volume 8, page 2810), ridiculing the proposition of taking up the time of the House with a bill there was nothing in. He said the House at that time was a subject for the pencil of a Nast in the caricatures of the day. It is during this day in the printed record of speeches that we discover that the change of the unit from silver to gold had been inserted in the bill. It is in one of the printed speeches of Mr. Hooper. Give me a jury, and make an issue for that jury to try, and let this be the issue "Were the words printed in the record for that day spoken openly in the house?" lllE tiUEAT DEBATE iuid 1 will secure a v* I'dict I'roin that jury that part of them either were delivered by request for leave to print, a common custom in Congress by wliich speeches are printed without being actually delivered, or that Mr. Hooper read from manuscript and omitted in the de- livery certain passages that afterward were printed. It is not denied, however, that we could have bimet- allism with the unit on gold. It would not be a safe ex- periment to try, but if the mints were left open to the unlimited coinage (making an unlimited demand) of the other metal, we might have bimetallism. As we will see later in this discussion, unlimited coinage is the first as to importance of the several conditions mak- ing bimetallism. While the record disclosed the intention to change the unit to gold, it nowhere revealed the intention to close the mints to silver. Mr. Hooper on this same day (April 9), goaded to it by an inquisitive member, said (volume 8, page 2306),that the bill -'re-enacted laws in regard to silver, except that it changed the size of the silver dollar from 412^ grains standard silver to 884 grains." Mark you, I have quoted his exact words. He stated as a reason that this would take the three-per-cent premium out oi the silver in the present silver dollar as compared with gold. In other words, he conveyed the express understanding that silver was to be favored. Less silver was to ht put in a dollar. He did not say that the i-ilver from which these silver dollars were to be coined was to be pur- chased nor that the mints were to be closed, but he did say that the bill re-enacted exir,ting laws, except to change the size of the silver dollar. This is the clause providing for the 884-grain dollar with the right to unlimited free coinage, that was sur- THE GREAT DEBATE 139 reptitiously erased from the bill in 1873 before it was enrolled. By the erasure of this provision or by its omission in enrolling the bill, the mints were to be closed to silver. This was now the plan of the con- spiracy. The bill had re-enacted the law of 1858 providing for the purchase of silver for fractional silver coins, but that law had left the mints open to the silver dollar; but, by striking out the silver-dollar clause, the mints would be closed to silver. This was the point on w^hich the minds of the conspirators were focused. If the change of the unit from silver to gold passed the gantlet they were safe; with a copy of the bill sprung at the last moment omitting this sentence and possibly a further part of a sentence in one other sec- tion that referred to it, or with a willing clerk to fraud- ulently make this omission on enrollment, and their object would be accomplished. Mr. Horr: I am very much obliged to my friend for referring to this history of the debate and quoting Mr. Potter of New York. When I called for the book I did it because my memory was very distinct that my friend Harvey had done precisely what he thinks conduces to the history of any subject. He has followed that method through this entire book of "Coin's Financial School," that is, to pick out some sentence that by itself alone will look as though it was on his side of the case, quote that and then leave the people to think that is the opinion of that man on that subject. It is an old method of arguing, but I say frankly. Brother Harvey, it has come into disrepute for a good many years. They used to do that always in all theological debates. There was never a thing so ridiculous or so absurd, or so vile, hardly, that a man could not find some passage in 140 THE GREAT DEBATE >C1 ijuiur wliich he would put as ii iiiotiu at the head of his book, as we found in this book, and you never could "get" a fellow of that kind because he always had a pas- sage ready. I know there was a chap taken up for rob- bing immigrants when they landed in the city of New York, and he immediately said he did it according to Scripture, and then he quoted Scripture, as, follows: '* They were strangers and I took them in. " (Laugh- ter.) Now, Brother Potter did speak in that debate and he spoke the w^ords that my friend has quoted, and the hook shows that it was a running debate, they were not printed speeches at all, no leave to print at all, be- cause page after page one man is up and then another; when they get leave to print, the thing comes out solid and nobody ever pays any attention to it because there was no one paying attention to it it is like "Coin's School," you know, wasn't anybody there. (Laughter.) Mr. Potter in the course of his remarks says just what he (Mr. Harvey) has read, but afterward he went on to state: "In the next place this bill provides for the mak- ing of changes in the legal-tender coin of the country, and for substituting a legal-tender of only one metal instead as heretofore of two. I think myself this would be a wise provision, and that legal-tender coins, except subsidiary coins, should be of gold alone." (Ajiplause. ) You didn't read that part of it for the same reason that you left off part of the statute we talked about yester- day, it was not necessary for the points you were mak- ing now, but if you had read that it would have shown that the point you were making was not correct at all. Now I submit to this audience there is right there in that speech that you refer to, positive proof that that bill was well understood by the peoj^le who were legis- lating upon it. Mr. Potter opposed the bill, but he THE GREAT DEBATE 141 was frank enough to state that one provision in the bill met with his hearty approval, and that was the very provision we are debating here to-day. No better proof can possibly be given that that bill was, like all the bills passed in that Congress, examined carefully, onscientiously. Men differed about the necessity of such a law. It was not an entirely new question. Mind you, Mr. Potter only suggested that it was not neces- sary at that time because we were not using either sil- ver or gold as money. At the same time he afterward supported the bill and aided in changing the silver coin to the trade dollar. There had never been l)ut eight million silver dollars coined, not quite eight million up to the passage of that bill Voice in the audience: Coin or silver? Mr. Horr: I said silver dollars coined. There had been a large amount of fractional coin, but we lost all of it by 1853, and we made it subsidiary, and the coin- age after that remained in the country. Now England, it is true, had demonetized silver in 181G. They had done it because the men who under- stood that subject best in England had concluded it was best; they were the clearing house of the world; they were seeking to get control of doing the business of the world, and they had been ages trying to find out what was the trouble when you coin two metals at a cer- tain ratio. They found that when a ratio varied, when it was ditferent from the commercial ratio, one metal or the other disappeared from use among the people, and scientifically they decided it was best to have only one money standard and they had adopted this away back in isio. Now, my friend in his book is mistaken when he tells us that Germany followed the United States. Why, Ger- 143 THE GREAT DEBATE many demonetized silver in 1871, not in 1878. The edict was in 1871 and Germany coined no silver (free coinage) after 1871. In 1878 another act was passed by the legislature, but free coinage had ceased before that. That is the record of that government. It is true the subject had been agitated in this country ever since 1870. We neither followed Germany nor did she follow us. After the French war Germany threw^ upon the markets, as I now remember it, three hundred million dollars of silver; it was in consideration of the fact that that was about to be done that the people of the world set to thinking and acting upon this silver question. There was no conspiracy about it. I want to say to this audience and to the American people that laws of that kind are never planned by conspirators; there is no such thing as a great "money power" either in this or any other country that dominates the people of that country. (Applause. ) The people of the United States act independently. It is a slander upon civilization, the proposition that Mr. Harvey makes and tries to maintain here to-day. (Applause. ) QUESTIONS BY THE AUDIENCE. This ended the debate for the day, and Judge Miller announced that questions from the audience would be received. Mr. Horr: This is a question by Charles Coffin of Arkansas: "If the American people always act independently on great questions, why do you oppose their doing so on the free coinage of silver?" (Applause.) Why do you cheer till you know what I say? Why don't you wait? Maybe you won't want to cheer. My answer to that is, I did not know that I had opposed anywhere on the face of the earth their acting on the tHE GREAT DEBATE 148 subject, and I did not know as anybody in the United States had ever opposed it. It is a new thing to me. The next question is from Hon. J. C. Sibley of Pennsyl- vania: "In view of your statement that the silver dollar was worth more by at least three per cent than the gold dollar in 1878, what justification do you make of the claim of the monometallistthat silver was demonetized because of its decline in value arising from over-pro- duction of silver?" My answer to this is, that the monometallists do not claim anything of the kind. (Laughter.) Wait till I get through. When questions are asked me you must let me answer them. The monometallists claim that silver was demonetized because the men in Congress in 1878 believed that silver was fiot as good a measure for values, that it was more unstable than gold; and they demonetized it on that account, because they thought there was going to bean influx brought in from Germany. They claim that afterward the over-pro- duction of silver was such as to drive the price down down, and they have refused to enact any laws re-in- stating the free coinage of silver on the old ratio be- cause over-production has continually reduced the pric<^. That was not given as the reason for passing the law. Germany did not give it; England did not give it; France did not give it; but they gave the reason that sil- ver is not the best measure of value for the people of thf ivilized world. They give the reason that it is con- tinually cheapening in price because of the constant increase in production. Is that satisfactory? Mr. Sibley: As long as you ask me, I will ask you. You will allow, then, if the claim is made by monomet- allists that silver was demonetized because of the large 144 THE GREAT DEBATE increase of production that that statement would be in- correct? Mr. Horr: That statement would be nonsensical, b(3- cause it was not cheap at that time. Certainly you and I don't differ about it; that is a business proposition. A man with your sense and I have got about as much wouldn't get into any such foolish nonsense as that. The next question is by Howard S. Taylor of Chicago, one of the referees in this case I want to give him dig- nity. ''Is it true that in volume 2, page 165, public docu- ment on Finance, Mr. Jefferson communicated to Con- gress a report of the director of the mint in which the reason assigned for discontinuing the coinage of the dollar was the need of small change among bankers and the fear that the specie would be exported? I present the book open at the page." It is true. January 15, 1806, Mr. Jeiferson sent to Congress and I take it it was very near the time that this letter was dated when he made the order he sent a communication from Robert Patterson, the di- rector of the mint, which had been sent to him, and he communicated it or sent it in his communication to Congress. And one of the statements in that com- munication of Mr. Patterson reads as follows: "The striking of small coins is a measure which has been adopted to accommodate the bankers and other depositors and at their particular request, but with a view of furnishing a supply of small change and to pre- vent the exportation of the specie of the United States to foreign countries." The clause previous to that reads: "Of the precious metals the number of pieces coined in the last year far exceeds that of any former year since the establishment of the mint. Indeed it is con- T.HE GREAT DEBATE 145 siderably more than double what it has been in any one of the four last years." I say yes, that is in the record and occurred.. No doubt about it. Mr. Harvey: This question is by H. L. Bliss of the Sound Money League, of Chicago: "You state that there was coined prior to 1878, $143,- 000,000 of silver, and that there was besides $100, 000,- 000 of foreign coin in circulation. There had been coined also $850,000,000 of gold. Was this also in cir- culation?" The answer is, they were both in circulation up to the suspension of specie payments in 1861. Up to 1850 there were two dollars in silver in circulation in this country to one dollar in gold. Then came the enor- mous gold discoveries in California and the large in- crease in gold circulation that makes Mr. Bliss's figures show up so well for gold: they came after those dis- coveries, between 1850 and 1878. How much of this gold had gone abroad I do not undertake to say. The next questi THE GREAT DEBATE This debate is of great value in removing tliese points of doubt, that are now more or less subject of general discussion', and brings us nearer to the issue in the con- troversy. I wish in the way of summary to say that I have made no charge in this debate reflecting upon the general integrity of the American people, and I do not intend that those corrupt in official life shall throw around themselves the cloak of integrity of the American people for their protection. (Applause.) Nor did I say, as it was attempted to be construed, that every man has his price. I said that that saying had its origin in the corrupt English Parliament at a time when his- tory tells us that bribery was common, and nearly all, or a large portion, of the members of that Parliament were subject to the accusation of bribery. Were it true that the integrity of the American people as a whole could be impeached, a remedy for what we are now discussing would be fruitless in the attempt. It is on that integ- rity that we rely, and to that integrity that we appeal. (Applause.) Mr. Horr, in his closing speech at the la^t session, refers to what Mr. Potter says as to the sujjport of the l)ill before the House, and accuses me of unfairness in not reading the whole of Mr. Potter's speech. I called your attention to Mr. Potter's speech to show you that the introduction of this mint bill, at the time it was be- fore the House, excited his suspicion, showing that it was inappropriate to be considered at that period. Mr. Potter was suspicious. It was a Congress in which it was natural to be suspicious. Mr. Potter was satisfied that something was wrong back of the bill, and by fol- lowing his speech through j^ou see that Potter thought it was a speculation in nickel, that the bill provided THE GREAT DEBATE 149 for the recoiniiig of the cent pieces the way Hooper had it then before the House, by making these cent pieces largely of nickel, and Potter, from the experience of that Congress and the numerous investigating commit- tees there were then in session, supposed that that was where there was something wrong or corrupt. Mr. Potter was not a bimetallist in the sense of understand- ing bimetallism, or he would have seen what was be- hind the bill, and later in this discussion I ask Mr. Horr to explain the inconsistency between Mr. Hoop- er's assertions as to the bill being fair and Mr. Potter's suggestion that it made a change in the coinage system. That was on April 9. Mr. Potter and Mr. Brooks, both -iispicious of the bill, defeated its being taken up on iliat day, and the bill went over, and on May 27 it again came before the House, not in the form of the hill which Mr. Hooper had been pressing, but in the form of a new bill. This time Mr. Hooper presented it in the form of a substitute. Mr. Hooper called up the bill offered as a substitute and closed with this propo- sition: "I move that the rules be suspended and that the sub- stitute be put on its passage." Whether the change of the unit from silver to gold was in the bill up to that moment is not certain. We iiavo only Mr. Hooper's manuscript speech. It was, however, in the substitute. At any rate, this remark- able debate followed. (Vol. III., page 38, May 27, 1872.) DEBATE ON THE COINAGE BILL. "Mr. Brooks: I ask the gentleman from Massachu- setts (Mr. Hooper) to postpone his motion until his colleague on the committee, my colleague from New York (Mr. Potter), is in his seat. It is my impression that he does not concur in the substitute." 150 I'HE GREAT DEBATE This is the suspicious Potter. ^*Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts: It is so late in the session that I must decline waiting any longer. "Mr. Brooks: I would again suggest to the gentle- man that he should wait until my colleague comes in. "Mr. Hooper: I cannot do so. "Mr. Holman: I suppose it is intended to have the bill read before it is put upon its passage. "The Speaker: The substitute will be read. "Mr. Hooper: I hope not. It is a long bill, and those who are interested in it are perfectly familiar with its provisions. "Mr. Kerr: The rules cannot be suspended so as to dispense with the reading of the bill. "The Speaker: They can be. "Mr. Kerr: I want the House to understand that it is attempted to put through this bill without being read. "The Speaker: Does the gentleman from Massachu- setts, Mr. Hooper, move that the reading of the bill be dispensed with? "Mr. Hooper: I will so frame my motion that it will dispense with the reading of the bill." Here was an attempt to pass a bill a bill to regulate the life-blood of the Nation \\ ithout being read. (Ap- plause. ) Mr. Horr: Before commencing the regular work of the day I desire to call the attention of my opponent and of the people who may read this discussion to a state- ment made by Mr. Harvey on day before yesterday. It is in substance this: That whenever he should make any statement which I should fail to deny he should take it for granted from my silence that I admitted the truth of what he said. Mr. Harvey, you have no power to force me into such a position. Mr. Harvey: I don't think I said that. I said that any proposition in the book that you did not dispute I would take for granted was correct. THE GREAT DEBATE 151 Mr. Horr: That wasn't what I understood you to say. But even then, I will admit nothing of the kind. It might do in an ordinary- running debate where both men are standing up and discussing a question in an offhand manner, but such has not been the course fol- lowed by my opi^onent. Since the opening of this dis- cussion he has done little but read essays prepared and written out, filled up with a lot of incorrect, and, as I think, untrue verbiage. It is impossible for me to re- member and call attention to all his carefully written and misleading statements. I will give him a rule that he can follow with my permission. It is this: You may take it for granted that I admit nothing which you state or have stated except when I say so; that I deny t he bulk of the stuff that you have heretofore printed or that you have prepared and are now reading from day to day. I supposed that I was at liberty to take the utterances of '^Coin" in his financial teachings as the utterances of my opponent. But on Thursday when "Coin," by the question of one of the people here in attendance, was caught in having told a "whopper," ^Fr. Harvey refused to be responsible for ''Coin," and ''Coin's" statements, although the youngster had given utterance only to words put into his mouth by Mr. Harvey himself. Now, I submit that such treatment of this wonderful little baby is cruel, and smacks of the stex^-father. This is especially the case, because the father in this instance was really begotten by the boy. (Laughter.) The laws of nature in this case seem to have been reversed. Were it not for the sayings of this young prodigy we would have no Harvey. Now, I beg of my opponent not hereafter to go back on "little Coin," because if he does, who is responsible for him? Then, you see, the difficulty will be to fix your own status in a case like that. 152 THE GREAT DEBATE THE LAW OF 1873. I now proceed with the discussion of the law of 1878. My opponent, after spending the whole, or nearly so, of the last session in trying to smirch tlie peo- ple of the United States not only the American Con- gress, but the people of the city where he now lives begins to take water and wants it understood', that he does not intend to make out that everybody is wicked. I have shown you that this bill had its incipiency among the experts on coinage in the United States. I should have stated that previous to 1878 there had been a monetary conference held in Paris I think he has re- ferred to that conference and said that Senator Sher- man was present at the conference. I quote here from W. A. Shaw's "History of Currency," page 275: "The first widely embracing international conference proper, however, was the outcome of an expression of opinion in the conclave of the Latin Union. It was called at the invitation of France and met at Paris on the J 7th of June, 1867. The states represented were " Now listen "Austria, Baden, Bavaria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the United States, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Swe- den and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Wurtemberg. The eight sessions of the conference occupied till the 6th of July, 1867. All the states except Holland de- clared in favor of the gold standard." Now that is the record of that conference, showing that the subject was being agitated by the civilized na- tions of the world. They had met together; they had discussed this question eight long days or sessions; and then, with the exception of Holland, every one of them had declared in favor of the gold standard. It was after that action that our experts cooiinenced to ex- THE GREAT DEBATE 153 amine the question and see what legislation should be enacted. I stated that they honestly engaged in that work. Has he proven a syllable to the contrary of that? Now mark; those experts were American citizens that held financial positions. The bill of 1873 simply car- ried out a resolution of all these civilized nations of the world. I showed this: I showed you how openly, how completely that bill was drawn in all fairness and submitted in every detail to the American people. Now, Mr. Harvey comes back by saying it was passed Ijy corruption, and he seeks to prove it because certain officials some time about that era were caught stealing. I am familiar with the tactics of this whole business. The silver men have attempted from the start to smirch that bill by claiming that those men were all false to their duties. The first yarn that they told, and pub- lished in a thousand papers broadcast all over the United States, was that a man by the name of Ernest Seyd visited the United States and brought with him }}5500,000 in gold and that he paid that gold to secure the passage of that bill. Brother Harvey, your people asserted that year in and year out. You published it in your newspapers, you used it on the hustings. I heard it dozens of times asserted even on theHoor of Congress. Tliere wasn't one word of truth in it, not a syllable. ( )nly a little while ago somebody happened to think t hat maybe Ernest Seyd had written something on the question. Mr. Hooper, who was as honorable a man ns ever served in the American Congress, had died, was in his grave. This stuff was being retailed about him all over the United States, and especiall}^ this Ernest Seyd yarn was told in every part of this country. Only a few months ago it occurred to some one to write to Mr. Hooper's widow and children and see if there 154 THE GREAT DEBATE wasn't something that could be found on that subject. Mr. Harvey knows the result. They there found a let- ! nr from Ernest Seyd in reply to Mr. Hooper, who had sent him this identical bill and asked his opinion upon it. In the course of Mr. Seyd's letter he said (the letter covered many pages): "I now come to the most important part of the bill, which omits the coinage of the silver dollar and affirms ! he debased silver coinage of half-dollars and below un- ler the tender limit of five dollars. I am aware, of ourse, that through the amendment of 1858 the same .lebased coinage was already established, but, although the absolute coinage of the silver dollar had actually ceased, still, that was not abolished by law." Now listen. Here is the man that they said came over to buy up the American Congress in favor of de- monetizing silver. '^As this is a new bill and presumably repeals all pre- vious enactments, I suppose that the total abolishment of the silver dollar is contemplated. I think that the United States with her gold and silver mines is in an eminently favorable position to uphold the full use of both gold and silver and that the double valuation as it existed before would be of great benefit to the coun- try. " (Applause.) My free-silver friends clap their hands. This is the man that you vilified all over the United States. '*I am, myself, as you will perceive from my writings, and others with me, in favor of the full and complete adoption of the double standard." And in that letter from Mr. Seyd from beginning to end, covering pages and pages of typewritten matter, he does nothing but oppose the very measure that these men say he spent so much money to pass through the American Congress. Mr. Harvey: I am going to hold this argument on Ih.Mrack if I can. (Applause.) The report of the THE GREAT DEJBATE 155 Monetary Conference at Paris in 1867 will contradict the history that Mr. Horr has read from. I leave him with that. As to Ernest Seyd and a letter found among Mr. Hooper's effects since he and Seyd both died, it reminds me of this suppose in the years to come that some one were to say to the people then living that John G. Carlisle was a bimetallist, and say, "Here is the proof of it,'' and were to read from Mr. Carlisle's speech: "The demonetization of silver is the greatest crime of the ages, and its consequences for evil are greater than all the floods and fires and pestilences of the past." Would that prove that Mr. Carlisle was a bimetallist at a particular time when something might be charged against him when he acted as Secretary of the Treasury under Mr. Cleveland? If that Seyd letter, disentombed by the zealous friends and family of Mr. Hooper, was to prove anything it would prove that Mr. Hooper falsified when he said that he had submitted that bill to distin- guished experts and they had all agreed that it was the proper thing to do. I continue with the presentation of the substitute by Mr. Hooper, that he was so solicitous should not be read. Next in the record is this: "The Speaker: The gentleman from Massachusetts moves that the rules be suspended and that the bill pass, the reading thereof being dispensed with. "Mr. Randall: Cannot we have a division of that motion? "The Speaker: A motion to suspend the rules can- not be divided. "Mr. Randall: I should like to have the bill read, although I am willing that the rules shall be suspended as to the passage of the bill. "The question was put on 'suspending the rules and 156 THE GREAT DEBATE passing the bill without reading; and (two-thirds not voting in favor thereof) the rules were not suspended." WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS. The record shows that the clerk began to read the bill, when he was interrupted, and the reading stopped with the interruption. Members then satisfied them- selves with asking him questions, and the reading of the bill was nev(>r cnntinuod. Mr. Holman asked this ques- tion : ^'Before the question is taken upon suspending the rules and passing the bill I hope the gentleman from Massachusetts will explain the leading changes made by this bill in the existing law, especially in reference to the coinage. It would seem as if the small coinage of the country is intended to be recoined. " To this Mr. Hooper replied: "The bill makes no change in the existing laws in that regard." This question was then asked: "Is not the salary of the Sub-Treasurer at New York increased?" Mr. Garfield asked this question: "Does the gentleman say that no salary is increased by this bill?" Then came this question from another member: "Are there any additional offices created?" Then this question: "How many mints are jn'ovided for by the bill?" This is a sample of the fusillade of questions put by members, the questions themselves indicating the char- acter of the importance they attached to the bill, and showing their ignorance of the critical provision. They were more concerned over whether a salary w^as raised by the bill than anything else or some minor point, THE GREAT DEBATE 15'/ showing that none of them comprehended that a funda- mental question miglit be inv(jlved in the bill. And how could they? The bill (the substitute) had been offered within the hour, and was passed within the hour without having been read. This question was put and answered: "Mr. Brooks: My colleague from the Wt-stminster District [Mr. Potter this was the suspicious Potter who was now absent] stated the other day that this bill provided for the recoinage of more or less of the small currency of the country and the creation of a new cur- rency. "Mr. Hooper: That is not the case with the bill as it now stands." The rules were then suspended and the substitute passed about an hour after it was olfered, and passed without being read. The second session of the 42d Congress adjourned soon after, and the same Congress met again in December. IN THE SENATE. The bill was called up in the Senate by Senator Sher- man on January 17, 1878; he began by saying (Con- gressional Globe, Part 1, third session 42d Congress, page 608): "I move that the Senate ikjw procetid to tiie consid- ( ration of the mint bill, as it is commonly called, revising and amending the laws relative to the mints and assay othces and coinage of the United States. I do not think it will take more than the time consumed in the reading of it." On being interrupted by an attempt to bring up an- other bill he said: "I think it will only take the time required in reading it." He was, however, again interrupted, and again he 'ommenced by saying, "I will state that this bill will 158 THE GREAT DEBATE not probably consume any more time than the time consumed in reading it." Again, when answering Senator Casserly of Califor- nia, on the subject of abrasion of coins, he said: "I believe this is the only controverted point in the bill." Again, after an attempt by his bill to take the eagh' off silver coins was voted down, he said: "As the Senate are so patriotic that they will not abolish the eagle, I hope they will be perfectly willing now to hurry along with the bill." Again, he said: "I do not wish to enter into a discussion in regard to this coinage charge that may probably weary the Sen- ate and dehiy the passage of the bill. I promised that the bill will not take more than an hour, and when I made that promise I supposed these amendments which had been acted upon would be acted upon sub silentio, and other questions which had been settled would not be revived." It is evident that it was the intention of Senator Sherman to convince the Senate that no careful consid- eration of the bill was necessary, and in this he suc- ceeded, as appears from something Senator Casserly said during a discussion provoked by him about abra- sion. It is this: "I will not contest it with him (Sherman) because it is evident very few senators are paying attention to this subject." In answer to a question from Senator Casserly Sher- man said (Congressional Globe, part 1, third session 42d Congress, page 672): *'If the Senator will allow me, he will see that the preceding section ]3rovides for coin which is exactly in- terchangeable with the English shilling and the five- franc piece of France; that is the five-franc piece of France will be the exact equivalent of a dollar of the United States in our silver coinage." THE GREAT DEBATE 159 Mr. Horr: That is right, Mr. Harvey. The bill that was reported to the Senate and that they were then discussing had in it a provision for the coining of sil- ver dollars, the silver dollars about which you talked at the last session of this debate, containing 384 grains, and they were made, with all the other silver coins, subsidiary coins. There was no provision in the bill at that time, and I do not believe you dare claim there was, for the free coinage of a dollar of 884 grains. No- body ever had the effrontery to claim that the Ameri- can Congress would have stultified itself in that way. That provision had been introduced into it in the House, and it was a part of it, a provision for coining a dollar precisely like the five-franc piece in use in France no doubt about it. The Senate struck that provision out and substituted the trade dollar for that 384-grain dollar. Now, have you ever noticed that the opposition to that bill in the House came from Clarkson N. Potter, from Mr. Brooks Mr. Harvey : May I interrupt you? Mr. Horr: Certainly. A POINTED PROPOSITION. Mr. Harvey : If you will show me from the record of the proceedings in the Senate on that day that the Senate struck out that dollar we will stop this debate right here. (Long and enthusiastic applause.) Mr. Horr: I have not the record, but I can get it. The law when it was passed had the trade dollar in it. Do you deny that? Mr. Harvey: No, sir, I do not. Mr. Horr: And didn't that take the place of the other dollar? 160 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Harvey: No, sir. (Laughter.) Mr. Horr: I defy you to show a word anywhere that substantiates that position. It was a simple piece of legislation, and bears that impression on its face. That bill, after it left the House, was amended and the trade dollar was put in there at the instance of men who thought that it could be coined and used in our trade with China. It was put in at the instance of the silver producers of the country. But you stopped me just as I was calling your atten- tion to a fact. The only men who opposed that bill in the House were Clarkson N. Potter and Mr. Brooks, both millionaires from Wall Street, both representing the very men that you say were trying to impose that bill upon this country for the purpose of aiding men who are rich. Was anything ever more contemptible than a proposition of that kind? You would have Clarkson N. Potter trembling for fear the bill would help the millionaires? Wanted to investigate it more carefully what about? Mr. Potter stated in so many words the truth; he thought it was inoj^portune, but he says: "I am in favor of the gold unit. I am in favor of that provision of the bill." That is the very provision that you are making such a fuss about. But I must proceed. That bill became a law by the substitution of the trade dollar. The law in reference to making the gold dollar the unit of value was never changed at any stage in the progress of the bill. Mr. Harvey has not even had ingenuity enough to put such a provision in brackets, and I will now say for the bene- fit of the country that there is not one word of truth in that whole bracket business. No such thing ever THE GREAT DEBATE 161 occurred in the United States, and there is no proof of it either; it is innuendo and nothing else. It is apparent, however, that the bill met with little opposition, not ''because its provisions were not under- stood, but because at that time no one cared very much about the silver dollar. Silver was at that time being bought by the govern- ment and coined, if at all, into subsidiary coins. The subsidiary coins were of less value than their face, and the government made a profit on them. The new bill provided for the same thing. Our silver dol- lars were worth more at that time uncoined than coined. Of course the owners of silver could not have afforded to have them coined. Neither could the government afford to buy bullion and coin standard silver dollars ''the dollars of the daddies" that they tell us so much about. Consequently they dropped them from the coinage at that time, and it had little practical inter- est to any one except the experts who were trying to get a good system of coinage for the United States. Now, since all this talk, many people have had their attention called to the passage of this law. I have be- fore me an extract from a letter published recently in The New York Independent and signed by Justin S. Morrill of Vermont. I take pride in reading it, because Mr. Morrill and myself were born near the same spot in the little State of Vermont, and I know that he comes from good stock and from a good territory. (Laughter. ) If there is an honest, pure man inside the United States it is Justin S. Morrill, and the men that have served with him of all parties for the last thirty years in this country, without an exception, will unite in saying just that much about him. I never yet heard the slandering t(mgue of even a free silverite talk against 162 THE GREAT DEBATE Senator Morrill. Here is what he said only a few days ago: ''There has been a loud and delusive cry about the act of Congress in 1878, which, after three years of consideration by the Treasury Department and by Con- gress, purposely omitted to provide for the further coin- age of the silver dollar, none having been coined for nearly forty years and only eight millions had ever been coined. All that time the only currency in use as money was depreciated paper, a legal-tender for all debts, and debts then on a specie basis could have been paid in gold at about two per cent less cost than in silver. It was sought to avoid its instability, which followed soon- er, perhaps, than was expected, and this prudent and politic act has been the ark which has saved our peo- ple from being wholly overwhelmed by the silver flood. " That is said by a man who served through the entire time that this bill was being discussed and who knows what he is talking about. (Enthusiastic applause.) Mr. Harvey: The other day when Mr. Horr said that the bill before the Senate as shown by the Con- gressional Record only had a trade dollar in it, I re- plied that when I got to the Senate proceedings, he would have to retreat from that position (applause), and now he retreats of his own accord. (Applause and laughter. ) Mr. Sherman, in speaking of the silver dollar on that day, said, "We are providing that it shall float all over the world." Again he said (42d Congress, Volume I. page 672): ''This bill proposes a silver coinage exactly the same as the French and what are called the associated na- tions of Europe" (meaning the Latin Union), "who have adopted the international standard of silver coin- age; that is, the dollar provided for by this bill is the precise equivalent of the five-franc piece. It contains the same number of grams of silver; and we have THE GREAT DEBATE 168 adopted the international gram instead of the grain for the standard of our silver coinage. The 'trade dollar' has been adopted mainly for the people of California and others engaged in trade with China. That is the only coin measured by the grain instead of by the gram. The intrinsic value of each is to be etamped upon the coin." The idea conveyed was this: Our silver dollar was above par with gold, because of the French ratio of 15^ to 1 while ours was 16 to 1. The Latin Union alone had maintained the commercial and coinage value of silver and gold undisturbed at the ratio of 15| to 1, and by reducing our silver dollar to 384 grains, the same size as the French five-franc piece, with our mint open to it, as was that of France, a parity of the two metals was assured and our "silver dollar would float around the world." (Applause.) It was in this form that the bill passed the Senate, as it had passed the House. There was no disagreement. The only thing that had happened that they had not anticipated was that the debate in the Senate had forced them to show their hand and to disclose the fact that the dollar was in the bill the dollar that Mr. Horr said the other day was not in the bill Mr. Horr: I didn't. I will not be misquoted on that, and I never said anything of the kind. I ap- peal to the record. I have never denied that that small dollar was in the bill when it went from the House over to the Senate, never, nowhere, and if I had I would take it back in half a minute, for when I am shown that I am in the wrong I always own it, I don't try to dodge it as Coin does. Mr. Harvey: I refer this dispute to the only just judge, the record of the day's debate in which Mr. Horr said it. (Applause. ) 164 THE GREAT DEBATE The bill bad now passed botb bouses witb a slight disagreement of two or three minor points only, but it made a necessity for it to go to a conference committee. Here is where the dirty work was done and the conspir- acy culminated. It was the duty of the conference committee to settle the disputed points only, and the Congressional Record shows the silver-dollar clause was not one of the con- tested points. If it were an honest committee it would not have tried to change what botb houses had already agreed on; it would simply try to perform its duty in disposing of the disputed points. A conference com- mittee was appointed, composed of Senators Sherman, Scott of Pennsylvania, and Bayard of Delaware, on the part of the Senate, and Hooper of Massachusetts, Stoughton of Michigan and McNealy of Illinois on the part of the House. The committee either acted upon the disputed points formally or left the matter to Senator Sherman and Mr. Hooper, the two who were taking the most active inter- est in the bill, as is frequently done in committees. At any rate, those two, Sherman and Hooper, are next found in their respective houses with the bill in their hands, representing that the committee had agreed upon the points of dilference, presented the report, and recommended that the bill pass. The Congressional Record thereupon says, ''The Re- port was concurred in." These five words and no more. No questions were asked; no debate took place. The two houses, knowing that the points of difference were immaterial, would naturally pay no attention to it, the committee was supposed to have i3erformed their simple duty and not on any points to have reversed the action of the two houses. But they had. They had THE GREAT DEBATE 165 taken out the 884 grain dollar, the size of the French five-franc piece, the dollar that was to "float around the world," the dollar that would have put our system on the same basic ratio' with France and the Latin Union. If that dollar was only a subsidiary dollar, limited to the purchase of silver by the Secretary of the Treas- ury only, and that was its only virtue in that bill, why did it disappear from the bill? (Applause.) Years afterward, when it was discovered what that corrupt Congress did, a search through the records, printed bills and committee's reports taken from the pigeon-holes disclosed that changes had been made in all things that would bolster up this work, except in the Congressional Record which transcribes immediate- ly what occurs on the floor and is printed on the same day. This was printed already and had gone into the bound volumes. But the report of the Senate Finance Committee turned up so altered as to show that that committee reported an amendment to strike out the silver dollar. It is apparent wliy this was done. It was to furnish the excuse or the authority for the con- ference committee's fraudulent action. I will show you conclusively in a few miiuiU'H lliat the section in wliich this occurs was agreed upon with- out any amendment at the time being considered to it, (Applause.) Mr. Horr: I wish to say now that I have never in- timated there was not at one time in that bill a provi- sion for the small dollar of 384 grains. I do deny that in any draft of the bill it was ever made anything but a subsidiary coin, and I defy you to prove that the clause making the gold dollar the unit of value was ever erased from the bill in any of its proceedings anywhere during the entire discussion. (Applause.) 166 THE GREAT DEBATE Now the bill went, as he says, to the committee of conference. Three-fourths of the complicated laws which are enacted in the United States pass in that way. The Senate differs from the House in a bill, the House differs from the Senate. There are provisions in the bill that both houses have not agreed to; the bill is sent to a conference committee always, as a rule three men from each body. Mr. Sherman, Mr. Scott and Mr. Bayard from the Senate, Mr. Harvey, were they corrupt men? Were not their reputations as good as the average advocates of silver in the United States? The committee in the House were all of them honorable men, they did precisely what every committee on con- ference does. They took up the bill and tried to adjust the differences. Mr. Harvey, if he had had any experi- ence, would not have told you here that that committee never changes anything on which the two houses have agreed, he should know better than that. Sometimes if you strike out one part of a law the committee from the other house will claim that that changes the whole thing, so that it is necessary to make other alterations. Then the committee discuss it carefully and they fi- nally agree, usually not touching things both houses have agreed upon, except the members from one or the other of the branches of Congress insist it is necessary. Now that does not pass the bill. The committee of confer- ence does not make the law. They return the bill to the House, to the Senate, and they are compelled to state to each body, the chairman of the committee of con- ference is compelled to state, just what changes have been made. They report always, "Your committee have agreed to report," and then they state the agreements and the differences. Sometimes, not often, a motion will be made to con- THE GREAT DEBATE 167 cur in the whole report, but generally some one pro- poses to non-concur in something, and then the House or the Senate votes on the proposition, and if the House is not satisfied with the bill as the committee have agreed upon it they send it back to another committee or the same one for further action. The Senate does the same. The bill is not a law till both houses have concurred in the amendments made by the committee on conference. No unusual thing was done with this bill. It passed almost precisely as the Secretary of the Treasury had recommended it when he first sent the draft to the American Congress. The only other feature of any im- portance in it was the new feature of the trade dollar, otherwise it was nearly identical with the bill that had first been drafted. And for' a man now to stand up and say that the men in that Congress who passed that bill were generally corrupt, I repeat again, it is infamous for an American citizen to endeavor in that way to smirch the character of the best citizens of the United States. (Applause.) If that bill was a fraud then the majority of the members of Congress in 1873 were fraudulent men. It is not true. Now I happen to have right here a letter just written by a member of that Congress, Jasper Pack- ard, of New Albany, Ind. Some of y(m may have known him. I have been acquainted with him long years, and I want to say to Mr. Harvey that with all the pos- sible admiration that I have alrendy been able to get up for your character, I think fully as much of Packard as I do of you. (Laughter and applause. ) He is an old friend of my friend Doctor Robinson, who sits here. The Doctor wrote him, knowing he was in that Con- gress, and aslvPd him about it. Listen to his reply: 168 THE GREAT DEBATE "New Albany, Indiana, May 20, 1895. "My Dear Doctor: The regular routine grind of a daily paper (he is an editor) has prevented me from writing as I intended. Day to day has gone by and here I am. It was my intention to write you at some length concerning the celebrated silver legislation, "the great crime" of 1878, as to what I know about it. But, really, it is scarcely worth while. The "sound money" papers have quoted largely from the most inVportant debate that was had upon the Ijill, on the 9th day of April, 1872. I heard it all, Hooper 's speech and Kel- ley's and all the rest. The only opposition to the bill came from the "money power;" that is, as represented there by Clarkson N. Potter, James Brooks and Fer- nando Wood. At the time the dollar was not wholly dropped. The gold dollar was made the unit of value in the bill from its first printing, and a dollar of 884 grains was provided for and put in the list of the sub- sidiary coins, legal-tender'^o only five dollars. After- ward that dollar was dropped entirely, and tlie trade dollar, with more silver in it, was substituted There was never any secrecy al)out it. I was not on the Com- mittee of Coinage, Weights and Measures, but I know all about it in every step of it. The man who, being then a senator or representative, and pleads ignorance of the dropping of the old dollar, stultifies himself. And the same may be said of the newspapers that had Washington correspondents. That is all I need say. All the rest is in the Congressional Record and has been often quoted. "Sincerely your friend, Jasper Packard. "To Dr. S. A. Robinson." (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: The man who wrote that letter ought to have read the Ccyigressional Record. (Applause. ) When he says in that letter that the trade dollar was substituted for the dollar that was omitted, he is con- tradicted by the record of that day, from which I am now reading and which is on this table before Mr. Horr, and, I think I am right, he is contradicted by THE GREAT DEBATE 169 Mr. Horr's last speech. There was no substituting of the trade dollar for the dollar for which I am contend- ing. They are both in the bill (applause), and Sena- tor Sherman, as I have ju'st read to you from one of his short speeches on that day, explains that the dollar is in there of 384 grains, the same as the French five-franc piece, and puts our coinage on the same basis as the French coinage and gives us a dollar that will float .Li'ound the world. (Applause.) And then he adds in the next line: ''The trade dollar provided for in this bill is for use with China and California," no substi- tuting. I am now looking for that dollar that was to float around the world. (Applause.) And I want to know what became of it. Senator Sherman told all those senators that it was there when he was forced to do it by Senator Casserly. I want you to show me where in any recorded proceeding of the debate in the Senate or House that dollar was struck out, and if you will show it here, this debate will stop. (Applause.) When the men that were manipulating that bill, when reaching the critical period in the action of that conspiracy, had played their part in secrecy they were confronted with this situation: The Congressional Record had Ijeen made up. It showed that when sec- tion 15 of the House bill, afterward called 14 in the bill as passed, was disposed of, that section (IG) 15 was the next in order, where the silver dollar appeared, and that n(j amendment to it had been considered, proving that none existed. That on disposing of the previous section, the one on abrasion, the President of the Sen- ate said, "The next amendment is to strike out section (17) 10," thus skipping the section in which the dollar appeared and showing that it was not considered by the Senate at all, except as their attention had been called ITO THE GREAT DfjBATE to it by Senator Sherman when Senator Casserly wanted to know where it was. (Apphiuse.) The section (17) 10 was next considered, the section following the one in which the silver dollar was provided for In other words, by the record, in the presiding officer's words, there was no amendment to section (16) 15, the silver- dollar section to be considered, and it was passed as it came from the House simply by being marked "agreed to." The debate itself showed that it was in the bill with no o})jection to it, and praised greatly that it was there. This was the embarrassment. But in the hurry and desire to cover their tracks, the House bill, with the Senate Finance Committee's proposed amendments, turned up reprinted, is put in the pigeonhole where such bills belong, contradicting both the Senate pro- ceedings and Senator Sherman's own words, but fur- nishing an excuse for the fraudulent conference report. Now, as to what Mr. Horr says about the change made by the conference committee. I am right and every congressman will confirm it, and the common sense of the people will be with me on it, that a con- ference committee between two legislative bodies is to agree, if possible, on what has been disagreed to. And if in agreeing on those things that have been disagreed to, it requires a change in the verbiage of the bill else- where to make it read consistently, they make that change. But they never go to a section that has been agreed upon and make a change, that is a fundamental change that has not been disagreed upon. (Continued applause. ) And that is what the men who handled the conference report, or some fraudulent clerk, did after this bill had passed both the House and Senate with the American dollar in it. (Applause.) By the same THE GREAT? DEBATE 171 corrupt practice an omission was evidently made in section 21. I ask the voters of the republic to read the Congressional Record of January 17, 1873, and see for themselves that it is therfe expressed that the silver dol- lar was in the bill before it was emasculated by the conference committee, the silver dollar that was with the trade dollar to have free access to the mints. Thus the conspiracy succeeded either by a corrupt clerk or the two men who made the report, or both. If the lat- ter then these two conspirators had admirably per- formed their work. If the former, then there stood a man in the Senate with sallow face and conscience dead with this report of the conference committee in his hand who was to go undetected facing a Vice-President who was soon to be detected in a smaller crime. At the other end of the capitol a similar drama was being en- acted. Mr. Hooper was presenting a similar report surrounded by members of a House, a majority of whose hands had been in more than one corrupt deal that session, and who closed the corrupt record of a corrupt Congress by voting themselves and pocketing two years' back salary. (Long-continued applause. ) On February 12, 1873, it was signed by the President and enrolled as a law, with the dollar the size of the French five-franc piece left out, and with mints barred to the silver dollar that had always theretofore had free ac- cess, and with the only silver coin that entitled silver freely to enter the mints with gold erased from the bill. When the country should attempt to return to specie payments, as it afterward did, it would not mean s[)ecie payments with two metals, but with one metal. Mr. Horr: Mr. Harvey, when you say that that bill as it came from the House contained the provision for the 384 grain silver dollar, and that silver had free access 1 r2 THE GREAT DEBATE to the mint for the coinage of such dollars in that bill, what do you mean? ^ Mr. Harvey: I mean that it was understood by the members of both houses that were paying attention to the discussion of that bill that it was in there, and that it was in there. Mr. Horr: Do you mean to say tliat that bill as it came from the House and went to the Senate provided for the free coinage of such a dollar as that, the same as it did for gold coins, and that it ^as not put in the bill and made subject to all the conditions that were applied to half-dollars and quarter-dollars and sulisid- iary coins? Mr. Harvey: 1 claim that it was in the bill the same as gold, and was entitled to free access to the mint. Mr. Horr: "Free access to the mint" is a quibble. I say to Mr. Harvey, if you will show in any way that that 1384 grain dollar was to be given free coinage in this country I will give you my time to do it in. ^Ir. Harvey: I have shown it already. Mr. Horr: He can't do it, because there isn't a word of truth in that proposition. Look at the philosophy of it. You can charge a man with a thing that is such nonsense that you can't believe he would have done it unless you also conclude that he is a fool. That is one of those i^ropositions. That is, that the Congress of the United States were providing for a smaller silver dollar than we had ever had. Now mark: This new dollar that was provided for in the bill in the House as it went to the Senate was just twice the size of the half-dollar. Am I right? Ain't that true? Don't you know, Mr. Harvey? Mr. Harvey: That is right. Mr. Horr: Well, then, just say so. Now, the provi- THE GREAT DEBATE 173 sioi) existed that the silver for making such half-dol- lars should be bought by the government, and that the seigniorage arising .from coining such money, which was worth less than its face, should go into the government treasury. Do you believe they pro- vided for coin containing double the amount of the silver in the half-dollar and agreed to take all the sil- ver that should come to the mint and coin it into such (hjllars, and in the same bill also provided that if it was coined into half-dollars the government should buy it? Now, if men have any sense, how much could the government buy under those circumstances? Let us be honest about this. They couldn't get a dollar, and you know it, anywhere in the United States. Men wouldn't go and sell their silver for the market price when the very bill would permit them to have it coined and give them a larger price for it. The thing is too ridiculous to be discussed by men who have any business sense. That is all there is about it. And a man must be en- tirely devoid of common, ordinary business sense to even make such a proposition to anybody. And the American Congress may be pretty much all of them corrupt, but they are not all of them fools. (Applause.) And if his claims were true they would have to be both corrupt and idiots at the same time. (Applause. ) But there are some things about which Mr. Har- vey and myself differ and some about which we agree. He thinks that our forefathers established a single measure of value, and that that measure was 37 li grains of pure silver, and that gold was made a simple companion metal of silver, and that its value was to be all the time measured by a silver dollar. I l)elieve that those early patriots attempted to establish a measure of value out of two metals, gold and silver, 174 THE GREAT DEBATE and that they supposed they had hit upon a ratio which would secure the use of both gold and silver dollars side by side. We agree that up to 1884 the measure of value in actual use in this country was the silver dollar. I assert that in 1884 the ratio was changed, that the gold dollar was made smaller. He admits that. I insist that when the gold dollar was cheapened it became the actual measure in this country and remained so up to the suspension of specie payments; that the silver dol- lar, though still a legal measure of value, was not used in this country as the actual measure after 1884. He denies that. \Ve both agree that from 1862 to 1879 the domestic business of this country was done by using the greenback dollar as the measure of values, which was during none of those years equal in value to either the gold or the silver dollar. He states that in his book, we both agree. Now mark. We both agree that in 1878 the coinage of silver dollars was stopped by law; and that since 1878, since the resumption of specie pay- ments, the domestic and international business of this country has been done on a gold basis. We agree that Great Britain has been on a gold basis since 1816, no dispute about it. I claim that Germany ceased the coin- age of silver in 1871, and he claims that it was not done until later, in 1878, but we both agree that since Jan- uary, 1874, Germany has been entirely upon a gold basis. We agree that the nations which compose the Latin Union to-wit: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and Greece are all of them to-day gold-standard countries. There is no dispute between us that British America and Australia are also gold-standard countries. We agree that Mexico, China, Japan and several of the Republics of South America are silver-standard nations. There is to-day no nation on the face of the THE GREAT DEBATE 175 earth that is actually using a double standard. The actual measure of value in each of the countries of the world is either gold alone.or silver alone, except in some countries where depreciated paper money is the only circulating medium and metal money is bought and sold as a commodity, just as was the case in this coun- try during the suspension of specie payments. Mr. Harvey claims that the law of 1878 was secretly and fraudulently passed. He won't deny that he claims that. That I have denied and still deny. I say there is not a grain of truth in such a statement. But we both agree that the law was passed and is in force to- day. Now the important question before the American people at this moment, and the one we are here to dis- cuss, is this: Ought the law to be repealed? Ought we to again throw open the mints of the United States to free coinage of silver, upon the old ratio of 16 to 1, when the actual ratio of value in the markets of the world is fully 30 to 1? Mr. Harvey: When I have read the printed record of what Mr. Horr has just now said, it will be time enough for me to take up a new subject. I am not done with the present subject yet. The act of 1853 served the purpose of the men who were seeking to overthrow our constitutional standard of money in this way. In 1853, on account of the ex- portation of our silver coins by reason of the French ratio of 15^ to 1 being less than ours 16 to 1 Congress, preserving the silver unit, ordered by act, that the frac- tional silver fifty cents and less should be cut down in size to the French ratio to stop its exportation. The silver unit was preserved and could be preserved with- out even coining a sinsfle one of them. It would regu- late the other coins all the same. 176 THE GREAT DEBATE Now this fractional silver had its legal-tender char- acter taken away from it because it was not of full weight. It was not made full weight because of the ex- jiortation, and it was made non-legal-tender because it was not of full weight, awaiting further consideration whether we would go to the French ratio as a whole or not. So that when the bill in 1878 was being consid- ered at a time when nobody \vas thinking about coins and very few knew anything about it, these men who were steering the bill said, ''We are re-enacting the act of 1858. There qan't be anything wrong about that." And that is what they made senators and congressmen believe they were doing, except that they were going to reduce the size of the silver dollar to put us on the French ratio; but talking to men who knew nothing about bimetallism or the previous history of coinage, the act of 1853 served their purpose to get its language in the bill concerning the fractional coin and the pre- c^:ding clause that had the dollar in it into language of the act of 1878. So that all they had to do was to strike out the line that had the dollar in it in the w^ords of the act of 1858, which was a free coinage dollar, and there you had an act without any free coinage silver in it. Now, with that explanation, I proceed. I want all the men and women of America to read the words ut- tered in the two Houses of Congress on the day the bill passed, May 27, 1872, and January ^17, 1878. It is the best school on this question that they can attend, the reading of it will cause them to agree with me. It can be found in the Congressional Record or in No. 7 of the Financial Series, published by the Coin Publishing Compan}^ of this city, wherein it is copied, and I hope all publishers 4)f f)ooks on finance will include it in the appendix of every book they publish. THE UKEAT DEBATE 177 But I had not finished with my proofs. Proofs pre- cede comments. Plain facts are more eloquent than words. I have before me on this table the files of The Chicago Tribune for 1873. (Laughter.) I want Mr. Horr and his assistants to inspect it. I turn first to January 18, 1873. This bill that was supposed to have had in it a silver dollar that would float around the world was passed in the Senate on January 17, so that the morning papers of the 18th would contain any news, if there were any, showing that the fundamental laws of the government had been changed. The only reference that appears in that paper is in a press telegram from Wash- ington, which is this; I read it: ^'Mr. Sherman called up the bill to revise and amend the laws relating to mints, assay offices and coinage of the United States, which was amended and passed." That is all, not another word. One of the money metals of the United States, as is now conceded, was struck down by that bill; one of the moneys of the constitution had been overthrown; the dollar that had regulated all other coins had been abol- ished. A great war debt to be paid off, and one of our money resources for paying it had been destroyed. (Long-continued applause. ) No information of that fact was conveyed to the peo- ple through the newspapers of the country. (Applause. ) The reporters at Washington did not know it; the con- gressmen as a whole did not know it. The money of the people that had served them well was destroyed, and I now challenge Mr. Horr to show me anywhere in the newspapers of the United States during the passage of the bill, which he says has no taint of fraud attached to it, where the people knew that a bill was being con- 178 THE GREAT DEBATE sidered by Congress that was to destroy as money one- half of the money metal of the country or that they had passed such a bill. I have charged that it was passed secretly. The fact that a fundamental law of the government had been reversed and that no information of it had gone to the people whose government it was, either before or after the passage of the bill, until it was discovered several years afterward, is one of the best evidences of its se- cret passage. Mr. Horr: I desire to say that Mr. Harvey is mis- taken when he says that the money of the people had been stricken down. I desire to say that he or anybody else who states that the passage of the law of 1873 ever resulted in curtailing the silver money in circulation in the United States (laughter on the silver side of the house) states something that is not true. (Applause on the gold side. ) I desire to state that according to what "little Coin" said there had not been very much silver coin in his country up to that date. Listen. I read from page 152 of "Coin's School up to Date." "Coin here explains how an error had crept into the official report of the Treasury of the United States for 1893 that had caused him to heretofore set his figure at $105,000,000." The boy in the other school had stated that the coin- age was only $105,000,000. He proceeds: "Coin said that he had since forced the Treasury De- partment to correct that error and it now stood cor- rectly stated in the report and footed up $148,4(55, 150. 70, which with the foreign silver coin in circulation dur- ing that period in this country estimated at about $243,000,000 used in this country prior to 1873." It is this statement which Mr. Harvey says that he is not responsible for, that "Coin" represents the whole THE GREAT DEBATE 179 bimetallism of the United States, and that when "Coin" said that he forced the Treasury Department to correct its error, the boy lied, but, says Harvey, ''I can't help it you can't charge it tome." Now whether that is true or not, he and I won't differ as to the fact that the Treasury Department had never reported it at $105,000,000. "Coin," the little fellow in his first school, had taken the wrong figures, his at- tention had been called to it, and, boy fashion, you know, instead of owning his mistake as he would have done if he had been a full-grown man like Harvey instead of that, he tries to get out of it by claiming that he had forced the Treasury Department to correct an error, when the Treasury Department had never made any error, and the error was his own. But that is im- material. Such little things happen in the world once in a while. Boys sometimes try to get out of a trouble in that way; men do not, of course never. We all admit, however, that up to the passage of the law of 1873 there had only been about $143,000,000 of silver coined and that only about $8,000,000 of that were standard silver dollars. This law passed in 1873, and under that we coined silver trade dollars $36,000,000 for the benefit of the people of the United States. Not to circulate in this country they were then worth too much but to enable the producers of silver to use them in trade with China and the East. All of this talk about striking down the money of the people is the merest rot it is the only word that ex- actly covers that kind of bosli. The money of the peo- ple should be just as good as the money of the nabob, and before I get through I will show the people of the United States that I have come here to defend the rights 180 THE GREAT DEBATE \ of the millions who live by work, whose wages would be cut in two by the passage of this law which my friend advocates. (Long-continued applause.) I will now resume. I was just saying that Mr. Har- vey and myself agree that the law of 1878 was passed. Dropping the matter of how it happened to be, the fact 1 still exists. THE QUESTIO.N NOW BEFORE THE PEOPLE. The imi^ortant question before the American people at this moment, and the one we are here to discuss, is this: Ought the law to be repealed? Ought we to again tlirow open the mints of the United States to the free coinage of silver upon the old ratio of IG to 1 when the , actual ratio of value in the markets of the world is 4 fully 30 to 1? I If Mr. Harvey now listen shall succeed in proving I that the people gf the United States in 1873 were mostly a set of corrupt scoundrels and that he is really the only pure and upright man left in the entire city of Chicago, it won't avail him anything in this debate. These questions are not i)ertinent to the questions in dispute. The law of 1873 did pass; it is to-day the law of the land. Several attempts have been made to repeal it in Congress and they have thus far all failed. Mr. Harvey claims that the law should be repealed at once and that this nation should instantly be placed upon a silver basis that is, that 371^ grains of pure sil- ver should be made the only unit of value in the United States now mark and if the gold dollar shall prove to be more valuable than such a silver dollar, then the gold dollar should be reduced in size until the gold contained in it is worth no more than 371:^ grains of pure silver. You claim that in this book that is, ''Coin" does, and I supppose he won't deny that. THE GREAT DEBATE 181 Mr. Harvey: You state me wrongly. Mr. Horr: Here the issue between us is clear cut and I oppose such legislation with all my soul and with all my strength. That is really the only question in dispute here between us. In order to decide intelligently we must inquire some- what into the doctrine of ratios. I now ask, is it possible Ity legal enactment to fix a ratio of value between two substances and then maintain such a ratio for any great length of time, either in the markets of the world or in 1 he markets of the country where such law is enacted? I pass to the discussion of the question of ratios as leading up to the correct solution of the dispute be- 1 ween us. Mr. Harvey: We were discussing the question of whether the act of 1878 was secretly and surreptitiously passed, and I supposed that Mr. Horr would address hims(?lf to the fact that I called his attention to that none of the people in the United States, including the newspaper reporters at Washington, knew that that bill had passed. His failure to reply to that is an admission that it was passed, so far as the papers were concerned, secretly and without their knowledge. (Long-continued applause. ) It means tliis: we are a republican government, a government of the people, and it is part of the policy and spirit of the government that when it is proposed to make a change in our laws affecting the welfare of the i^eople, or changing a fundamental principle, it is to be discussed before the people, and the people are more or less to express themselves on it not only know in advance that it is proposed to do such a thing, but know it when it is done; neither of which occurred in this instance. 182 THE GREAT DEBATE When I reach the proper place we will see that what Mr. Horr has said here about the immense coinage of silver since 1878 has nothing to do with this question. You might as well print your token money on leather as to stamp it on demonetized metal. (Applause. ) When your demonetized metal becomes token money, representative money redeemable in gold, you are wast- ing nuiterial to stamp it on a valuable substance. (Ap- plause.) Because il is gold that it represents, it has ceased to represent itself. (Applause.) I am going to satisfy the people and Mr. Horr that there was something wrong about the passage of that bill. Senator Thurman on the 15th of February, 1878, in debate, said: 'I cannot say what took place in the House, but know when the bill was pending in the Senate we thought it was simply a bill to reform the mint, regu- late coinage and fix up one thing or another, and there is not a single man in the Senate, I think, unless a member of the committee from which the bill came, who had the slightest idea that it was even a squint toward demonetization." (Congressional Record, vol- ume 7, part 2, 45th Congress, second session, page 1064. ) Senator Conklin, in the Senate, on March 80, 1876, during the remarks of Senator Bogy on the bill to amend the laws relating to legal tender of silver coin, in surprise, inquired: "Will the senator allow me to ask him or some other senator a question? Is it true that there is now by law no American dollar? And, if so, is it true that the effect of this bill is to make half-dollars and quarter- dollars the only silver coins which can be used as legal tender?" (Congressional Record, volume 4, part 3, 44th Congress, first session, page 2062.) TESTIMONY OF SENATOR ALLISON. Senator Allison, on February 15, 1878, said: THE GREAT DEBATE 183 "But when the secret history of this bill of 1878 comes to be told, it will disclose the fact that the House of Representatives intended to coin both gold and silver and intended to place both metals upon the French relation instead of on our own, which was the true scientific position in reference to this subject in 1878, but that bill afterward was doctored." (Applause.) (Congressional Record, volume 7, part 2, second ses- sion, page 1058.) I call Mr. Horr's attention to what I have just read. There is the testimony of a man who was present and among the men who were deceived Mr. Allison, at present senator from Iowa. Passed, did you say, in your opening, without the least taint of suspicion of its integrity? (Long-con- tinued applause. ) And that the records would demon- strate that you were right? What do you do with Senator Allison? He says that the bill was doctored. Haven't I proved to you that it was doctored, by the records of the Senate? He says that it was the intention of Congress to put our coinage system on the French ratio. Isn't that what I said, and isn't that what the bill would have done if it had passed, as I claim, with the silver dollar in there that S^^nator Sherman himself said, when pulled out of his hole, was on the French relation? I want you when you rise here again to address your- self to the language of Senator Allison. (Applause.) Mr. Hoi man, in a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, July 18, 1876, said: "I have before me the record of the proceedings of this House on the passage of that measure, a record which no man can read without being convinced that the meas- ure and the method of its passage through the House, was a 'colossal swindle, ' I assert that the measure never had the sanction of this house, and it does not possess the moral force of law." (Congressional Record, volume 184 THE GREAT DEBATE 4, part 6, 44th Congress, first session, appendix, page 198.) I want you, iMr. Ilorr, to make good your assertion that that bill had not about it the least taint of sus- picion, and in making it good I want you to explain what Mr. Holman says about its being a ''colossal swindle." Again on August 5, 1873, he says: "The original bill was simply a bill to organize a Bureau of Klines and Coinage. The bill which finally passed the House, and which ultimately became a law, was certainly not read to the House. It was never con- sidered before the House as it passed. Up to the time the l)ill came before the House for final passage, the measure had simply been one to establish a bureau of mines, I believe 1 use the term correctly now. It came from the Committee on Coinage, Weights and Measures. The substitute which finally became a law was never read, and is subject to the charge made against it by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Bland), that it was passed by the House without a knowledge of its provi- sions, es})ecially upon that of coinage. I myself asked the (piestion of Mr. Hooper, who stood near where I am now standing, whether it changed the law in regard to coinage, and the answer of Mr. Hooper certainly left the impression upon the whole House that the subject of the coinage was notaft'ected by the bill." (Congres- sional Record, volume 4, part G, 44th Congress, first session, page 5287.) Mr. Horr: I desire to say to the gentleman that just what one congressman or another may have said about this bill I neither know nor care. (Applause from the gold side; derisive laughter from the silver side.) I know this, that the men composing the Congress of 1878 personally and individually have every one of them denied the statement of corruption that you charge in the passage of this bill. I know that you have nothing but innuendoes to base the charge upon. I know that THE GREAT DEBATE 185 you cannot make a case unless you first prove that no decency was left in the American Congress in 1873. (Litighter. ) Oh, I know what I am talking about. In order to make out their case they must make out that the best men of this nation were a set of villains and have been for the last twenty-five years. (Cries of "No, no.") Harvey proposes to do that. Mr. Harvey: No, I don't. Mr. Horr: He has attempted it. I say that every charge that he has made against the members of the American Congress is false. (Cries of "No, no.") The ChairmAxn: It is not proper for an3^body in the audience to interrupt the speaker. Mr. Harvey: That is so. Don't do that. Mr. Horr: I am well acquainted with you gentle- men. It is not the first time I have met you face to face. The disease which you men have got always breaks out by running at the mouth. (Long laughter and ap- plause.) It is one of the symptoms that shows the silver craze, it is the same old craze with the same symptoms that affected the Greenback party, and there is where Harvey first came down with it when he was young. (Laughter and applause.) Now I proceed. I am not to be diverted from com- pleting this debate sometime during this year. I propose to take up now the question of ratio. Mr. Harvey: Would you let me finish on this sub- ject, and then we can go along together on the ratio, if you will hold back so as to get this out of the way? Mr. Horr: I couldn't do that. If he wants to still keep barking at that old hole let him bark. I am pro- ceeding to discuss the question before us. THE ratio between GOLD AND SILVER. There has been an effort among the civilized nations 186 THE GREAT DEBATE of the world from the earliest days of history to try and do business by using gold and silver as money. There has been always an attempt among all these people to fix some ratio between the real value of gold and silver, so as to use both metals indiscriminately. That effort commenced at a very early date. I have with me the great bimetallic authority on this question, a gentleman whose book my friend has quoted from in this debate lief ore, A. Del Mar of London, pub- lished by the Royal Exchange. He gives a very care- fully prepared statement showing how these two metals have been separating in value from the very earliest dates. I want to call Brother Harvey's attention to this fact: Del Mar tells us that in the archaic epoch, in the very earliest days, where the records were kept on the papyri of Boulak, silver and gold were equal in value, one exchangeable for the other. At that time an ounce of gold was worth just as much as an ounce of silver. People cared nothing as to which one they received. He then tells us in the Vedic epoch silver had depre- ciated so that it took four ounces of silver to buy one of gold. He next tells us that in the Braminical epoch, that was in 1650 b. c, the ratio was 5 to 1, and in 1367 the ratio in some of the countries of the East was 6 to 1. In the second Buddhic epoch, 521 b. c, it had changed to 6^ to 1. In India it was 6i to 1 and remained so for long years. In 700 a. d., in India it rose, that is, lowered the price of silver to 6^. In 1150 the ratio had become 8 to 1. In Marco Polo, Middle Ages, he tells us that in 1290 it varied in different countries from 4 to 1 even to 10 to 1, different countries had different ratios, in 1295 in the Jul-al-ad-din epoch the ratio had got to be 7 to 1. In 1351 again it went back THl<: GREAT DEBATE 187 to 6^; but again it went up in India to 7. Now he gives the limit in the days of Akbar the Great 9^ to 1, then it went down to 9 and was for a long time 9. The East India companies lowered the value of silver and put it 10 to 1 ; in the days of the India Company that was the ratio for a long time. In 1769 in the coinage of mohurs at the Indian mints, the ratio was down to 14 to 1. I say now, silver was cheaper all the while in Bombay and Bengal from 1489, 10 to 1. It rose in Spain at one time to 6^ to 1. In France it was 14, then 15, then 15^ to 1. We started with the ratio in this country of 15 to 1. We then adopted 16 to J. During the entire Roman Empire it was at first 10 to 1, then 12 to 1, and Senator Stewart in his debate states that the records of the Babylonian kingdoms show that during those long years the ratio was 13| to 1. Now, Brother Harvey, I want you to explain to the American people how it is that silver from the dawn of civilization to the present day has constantly been growing cheaper? Why is it that it has constantly been taking more silver to buy the same amount of gold? Tell us why the ratio between silver and gold did not always remain 1 to 1? I want you to explain how it happened that the more civilized a nation has become in the past the cheaper silver has been in that nation, and that in the country where there is little civilization, where their wages are low, where the people are poor, silver has been used rather than gold, and to explain to me why it is that to-day every civilized nation on the face of the earth has adopted the gold standard, and that the silver standard is only used in such countries as Mexico, Japan, China and the like. (Applause.) CRAZES IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Mr. Harvey: To something that occurred in this au- 1S8 THE GREAT DEBATE dience when Mr. Horr failed to reply to what Senator Allison and others said as to the manner of the passage of the act of 1878, Mr. Horr said that your enthusias- tic expression of manner was derogatory, or implied that it was, to your character or intelligence, and that it was a failing of men who had the silver craze, Mr. Horr, I want to answer that right now. There have been periods in the history of the United States when wo have had crazes; one of those first in- stances when you might have used that language was just preceding the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. (Loud applause. ) There have been two or three instances since, and there is another coming (applause), when the integrity of the American people intends to restore the integrity of this nation and take it away from the men who are now driving us upon the reefs of disaster, and hurling ridicule at us because we exercise the rights of American citizens to investigate. (Cries of "Hear, hear,'' and applause.) We will arraign you and those men you defend for their acts, and when they come back at us with ridicule we will answer them with arguments. (Applause and cries of "Hear, hear.") When we have presented an argument to you so strong as that of Sen- ator Allison and Holman, Grant, Blaine and others, that that act was a fraud, and you fail to answer it intelli- gently, you cannot answer it with ridicule. (Cries of "Hear, hear," and applause, and renewed applause.) I had intended to quote from Mr. Blaine, Garfield and many others on this subject, all in harmony with what I had read (cries of "Go on, go on"), but Mr. Horr's utter retreat in answering what I have read makes it unnecessary. (Applause.) TESTIMONY OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. I now come nearer home for testimony. The Chicago Tribune of February 28, 1878, says: THE GREAT DEBATE 189 "In 1873-4, as it was two years and more later dis- covered, the coinage of this silver dollar was forbidden, and silver dollars were demonetized by law. This act, which was done secretly and stealthily, to the profound ignorance of those who voted for it, and of the Presi- dent who approved it, had, without the knowledge of the country, removed one of the landmarks of the gov- ernment; had, undercover of darkness; abolished the constitutional dollar, and had arbitrarily, and to the iinm(3nse injury of the people, added heavily to every lurni of indebtedness public and private." (Applause.) On January 19, 1878, this same paper said: '-''ILirpeis WeeJdij insists on the single gold standard, ;ind has frequently denied that the silver dollar was (l(:!monetized surreptitiously or unknown to Congress tmd the country. But it appears from Harper^s own files that nobody about that concern had the faintest conception as late as January 9, 1875, that silver had l)een demonetized. In the issue of that date Nast illus- trated tlie 'Ark of State' floating toward a distant peak, just showing above the watery waste, on which is inscribed, 'A Sound Specie Basis Gold and Silver,' whil(3 above gleams the bright rainbow of 'Our Credit.' This, recollect, was on the 9th of January, 1875, nearly two years after Doctor Linderman and his co-conspir- ators had sneaked the fraud through Congress, and up to that time neither Tom Nast nor George William Cur- tis nor Eugene Lawrence, the three editors of that pub- lication, had yet an inkling of what the anti-silver conspirators had accomplished." (Applause.) Gold standard men, this is what your beloved Chicago Tribune said (laughter) when it was honest. It now repeats what Mr. Horr says, and is publishing a one- sided report of this debate. (Cries of "Good, good, " and applause. ) A cause that depends on the suppression of the truth should not be the cause of honest men. (Long applause. ) I want the record of thisdebate to contain the proper reference to General Grant's letter on this subject. It is 190 THE GREAT DEBATE in McPherson's Hand-Book, 1872-76, page 134, in which General Grant, eight months after the passage of this bill, says in a letter to Mr. Cowdrey: We have got the silver and it will soon commence coming to the mints, and with silver and gold we will pay our public debts. He goes on and shows in as plain language as you would have it stated, that he knew nothing of the passage of the act. Twenty-two years have passed, it is but a moment in the flight of time, but we who lived then and who know now how the country was deceived will write the crim- inal records of these modern Benedict Arnolds of Amer- ica. (Applause. ) The first question ihat strikes the innocent mind of to- day is, ''Why has not this wrong been righted sooner?" It is because, sirs, men stand bare-headed beneath a sun whose enervating rays blind the eyes and destroy human character. The same deception which originated and completed this crime still is practiced upon the people, and the same power that directed it then is directing it now. (Applause.) The child of nature standing in the laboratory of the chemist can see the most deadly poison made, but its appearance furnishes no evidence of its deadly power. So it is with the man who reads the act of 1878; he does not understand the science of finance, he beholds a poison more deadly than any drug that destroys human life, a poison that eats into the arteries and veins of the nation and destroys the lives and happiness of millions of people. Such has been the effect of the act of 1873 that debased one- half the money of the government. (Applause. ) Its debasement consisted in destroying the attributes that gave to silver its value and power as a money metal. Its use since in debased token money has served to de- THE GREAT DEBATE 191 ceive the people by making them believe that it is pri- mary money while not treating it as such. (Applause.) QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE. This ended the debate for the day. Judge Miller then announced that questions would be received from the audience, which questions are as follow: Mr. Horr: I have a question from George H. Sibley? of Chicago, as follows: ^'You state in your opening ad- dress: 'I would have the money which measures value the most stable that can be devised.' My question is: Do you agree with Professor Jevons that the stability referred to is the ratio in which money exchanges for commodities? (See 'Money and the Mechanism of Exchange,' p. 30. Same effect, Professor Laughliii in 'Elements of Political Economy,' p. 73.)" I cannot answer the question as to whether I agree with Jevons and Laughlin, from one little sentence taken out that way, because that might mislead me and mislead everybody else. You have to know 'iiough about the position that a man actually takes before you can answer such a question as that. I can answer the question, though, so the questioner will understand A voice in the audience: "The straight principle " Mr. Horr: You cannot ask the questions and answer them too; I am answering them. I mean money should be made of metal that is the most stable in value, that varies the least in a long series of j^ears; that it is im- l)()ssible to get any measure of value that is always pre- cisely the same; and that money should be so arranged, if possible, that no variations of a large amount should I'ver take place in the measure suddenly; that what the people should guard against, and what the nation should 192 THE GREAT DEisAii^. guard against, is a change which occurs suddenly; that there will be a little rise or little fall in the value must always be as long as commodities depend upon the sup- ply and demand, the cost of production, for their val- ues, and I want the metal to be used which is the most certain to remain stable, that is, that fluctuates the least. Mr. Harvey: A question by Mr. H. L. Bliss, of Chi- cag(j: "As silver was in 1873 the dearer metal, please exiilain why the alleged conspirators did not demon- etize gold. Were they gifted with prophecy, and did they foresee the enormously increased and cheapened production of silver?" The answer to that is this: Concerted action by the money-changers around the thrones of European gov- ernments had commenced by demonetizing silver in England in 181(3 and it would be easier to carry out the programme as started than to reverse it after having started it. To turn around and reverse the laws of Klngland and demonetize gold would be something like trading horses while crossing a stream. They already had demonetization started on silver, which would avoid the necessity for an act being passed in England. Another reason : These men knew more about the production of silver and gold than you do; they made a study of it and knew that history for hundreds of years previous to 1850, which was in their possession, showed that sil- ver produced more money than gold did, that the pro- duction had been larger than gold, and though gold had temporarily gotten ahead of silver in the quantity produced, beginning with the year 1850 and continuing up to 1873, they thought they could rely on a longer period showing that there would be more silver pro- duced, as past hi.story had shown, than there would be THE GREAT DEBATE 193 gold, and for that reason preferred to demonetize silver. Mr. Horr: A question by George S. Bowen, Elgin, 111. "Is it not a fact that The New York Tribune, in whose employ you are, has charged the use of British money to induce a reduction of our tariff laws, and if so is it not as likely that British money has influenced financial legislation?" My answer is that if The New York Tribune has at any time charged that any British money has been used for the purpose of purchasing or bribing members of Congress, I myself have no recollection of having f'ver read anything of the kind in that paper, and I read it pretty carefully. The New York Tribune may have charged that foreign manufacturers, and our home im- ]iorters getting money from them, have used that money in political ways in supplying the bone and sinews for the party to get into power; that has been charged, t ]n'esume, more or less, but I do not believe that The New York Tribune or any reputable paper has charged corrup- tion on the members of Congress in order to get finan- cial legislation. I have served through the revision of the tariff twice and I never heard such a thing intimated within the walls of Congress nor within the city of Washington. I have heard intimations that the silver men kept a big lobby and paid out a good deal of money in order to put their business through, but I denounced them at the time as false, for I never had any evidence that they tried to buy a single congressman while I served in the American Congress, never. Mr. Harvey: A question from C. C. Reed, of Chicago: "Does Mr. Harvey assert that there has not been suffi- cient honesty in the Congress of the United States since 1873 to correct the terrible crime which he charges?" The people of the country are familiar with the his- 194 THE GREAT DEBATE tory of legislation on this subject since the discovery of the demonetization of silver. The attempt to reverse that law began in 1876. Friends of silver were met in Congress by an enormous money lobby from New York City, and it resulted in a compromise known as the Bland bill in 1878, a bill that did not restore free coin- age of silver. You are familiar with the influences that have been brought to bear to control Congress, and I am now going to quit the answer to this question by calling your attention to only one thing, and that is, that the people who have elected congressmen to go there to represent them have been deceived as to what that act of 1878 was and is and as to the effect of it; deceived until they were made to believe that their rights had not been interfered with. They were de- ceived. How? By newspapers such as The Chicago Tribune, by such articles as Mr. Horr wrote in The New York Tribune, wrote on this question, on the crime of 1873 (applause) saying that that bill was passed clearly and openly before Congress,and that nobody ever charged there was anything wrong, and he made it read so smoothly as to deceive thousands of honest farmers who were subscribers to The New York Tribime, and cap- ital has spread these misleading representations which when they meet us face to face they cannot make good. They have now in New York what they call a Sound- Money League, where they are sending out cords of matter to the press over the country, misleading the people. The country newspapers are so hard up and they want to follow the leaders and at the same time save money in setting type that they are putting that infamous plate matter into their papers. They have carried on this deception for years that you see they have not made good when they meet us. And in that THE GREAT DEBATE 195 way the people are deceived, and congressmen are elected jiiid go to Washington never understanding this and therefore never having it in their heads or hearts to remedy that wrong. A PROTEST PROM MR. HORR. Mr. Horr: I submit to the judges that it is out of (U'der in answering questions for either party to attack the other Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, I did not mean to attack you. Mk. Horr, continuing: to take advantage of a ques- tion asked in order to make a stump speech in refer- ence to the private work I am doing. If that is legitimate then I have a right to defend myself. I had supposed that Mr. Harvey was above that kind of trick in order to get before the American people with that kind of slush. I answer questions, I don't commence pettifog- ging on something else. Judge Miller: If you rise to that point while he is talking, then the chair can decide it, but not after he is through. Mr. Harvey : I want to put in the record that I meant no reflection on Mr. Horr, because I believe that he be- lieved what he wrote, and that I only referred to his article in The New York Tribune as an instance in v/hich both the writer and the people were deceived on this subject. (Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Horr: Add right after that that the reason (cries and laughter. ) Gentlemen, you cannot possibly choke me down by your howls. I have known you for too many years. I am here and on my feet, and I shall have my rights in spite of your discourtesy. My friends have not treated Mr. Harvey in a single instance with discourtesy, and 1 beg of them to be too much of gentlemen ever to attempt a thing of that kind. 196 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Harvey: I have asked my friends not to inter- rupt Mr. Horr, and I hope they will not, and I don't know they intended to, but I have asked them to sit quietly and listen to what is said. Judge Miller: I was about to remark on that, that I am advised that the roof of this room is not entirely safe, and I want to say to Mr. Horr that if anything occurs that annoys the speakers I will do my best to remedy it. I have not interfered with the cheers for the reason, as stated on the first day, this audience is the people, and this debate coming before the people of the United States, if it is interspersed or punctuated with cheers it reads better perhaps in their estimation than if it were all dry, and, therefore, it was preferred to have it appear that the points they make are appreciated by the audience they are addressing. Mr. Horr: I say frankly I don't object to the cheer- ing of Mr. Harvey in the least cheer him whenever you please but I do object that whenever I attempt to make an answer in a concise, straightforward way, you gentlemen set up yowls for the purpose of breaking me up and preventing me from being heard, and that is not gentlemanly and does not show good breeding in the men that do it. Mr. Harvey: I don't think they intend to show you any disrespect. Mr. Horr: I don't charge Mr. Harvey with being re- sponsible, but that is the treatment I have received from the men who sympathize with him, and none of the friends here who seem to believe with me have shown that discourtesy to him in a single instance during this debate. That is what I say. Judge Miller: I called the attention of the audience to that subject a few moments ago, and I do not think THE GREAT DEBATE 107 it is necessary to dwell upon it now any further. I don't think you will be interrupted; I know they are all fair-minded men, and they do not desire to interrupt you, and I don't think you will have any difficulty of that kind from this time forth. INIk. Horr: All I was about to say was that Mr. Har- vey, in answering a question, stated to the audience that I, who was not supposed to have any opportunity to answer him, was misleading the people. He says that he did not intend to say that I did it dishonestly; 1 don't know that he did. I don't think he had any right to introduce my work in that way, in the answer of a question. I don't suppose Mr. Harvey would in- timate to the audience that he thinks I am not doing what I honestly believe is best for this country. If I thought he would intimate that, I would not be in this debate with him. My life has been given up to hard work, and I never yet uttered a sentence, either when I wrote it and published it, or before the people, when I did not honestly believe what I uttered. I am good for nothing in this world, except to state my honest convictions. (Applause.) In reply to Mr. Harvey, as long as he said what he did, I will say to him that when he gets to be as old a man as I am, when he has seen as much of the adversities and the peculiarities of life, he will learn one lesson that I think will be of benefit to him, and that is, not always to try to at- tribute dishonesty to men who differ with him in opin- ion. I have found myself to have been wrong a good many times in my life. I propose always to be the first to acknowledge it; if I can, I will do it before I am charged with the mistake. I have often had to do it after I have been charged, because I never found it out before. 198 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. E. D. stark, of Cleveland, asks me this question : "You have claimed that the act of 1873 was a good thing for this country; now, considering how the gold output was diminishing and silver increasing, our great war debt, greenbacks, etc., was payable in either metal, ex- plain how demonetization was not advantageous to creditors, to England, and a hurt to the debtors of America." I wish to say to Mr. Stark that before this debate is through, I shall try to answer that question, but that to undertake to answer it in 300 words, would simply be ridiculous. It embraces the entire question we are discussing here to-day, and he seems to want me to ren- der a decision before I have heard what Mr. Harvey says; it would be impossible for me to do that. Adjourned to Monday, July 22, 1895, at 1 o'clock p. m. CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTH DAY* THE MEASURE OF VALUE. On Monday, July 22, at 1 p. m., the debating hall was well filled. Among the new attendants were Sen- ator Kyle of North Dakota and Congressman Henry P. Thomas of Michigan. Mr. Charles H. Aldrich and Judge Miller occupied the platform. Judge Miller: Before the discussion commences will you allow me to say a few words to the audience? Gen- tlemen, you are here upon the invitation of the commit- tee who has charge of these proceedings, and it is very important, very important indeed, that the very able ontestants in this debate should receive every encour- agement from you, and that perfect fairness and cour- tesy be accorded to each one. This I know is the wish of each of the very able gentlemen who is participating in this discussion. When either gentleman is on his feet addressing you, I beg of you not to interfere with the course of his thoughts by demonstrations of disapproval of whatever he is saying. It is very embarrassing to any gentleman who is addressing an audience to find, by the conduct of the audience, that the audience is not in sympathy with him. Be in sympathy with each speaker so far as to encourage him in the presentation of his side of the case. There have been instances when this rule has not been observed. I hope for the credit of our city and for the credit of this discussion you will observe these rules of courtesy, and that there will be 199 200 THE GREAT DEBATE no unbecoming applause, no shouting, nothing of that kind. It is proper, perfectly, to make manifest your approval of the point made by either speaker, but do not let it be boisterous, for if it does become boisterous it is in the power of the audience to terminate this discussion, and I hope you will not do it. (Applause.) Mr. Horr: At the close of the debate on Saturday I had given the facts as to the constant depreciation of silver as compared with gold since the dawn ojf' civiliza- tion. The civilized nations of the world have at some time or other all of them tried to fix a ratio so as to give free coinage to both metals. Through all ages the market or commercial value of the two metals has been a changing quantity, hence the ratio has been variable. A diti'erence between the legal ratio and the commercial ratio of one-fourth of one per cent has been enough lo drive the dearer metal out of any civilized country on the face of the earth. History is full of efforts of governments to force a legal ratio upon the people, and there is no instance. on recoi'd where the market value of each metal has not controlled in the end. The best money has always been driven from the field by the cheaper. Such result is in accordance with a law that is as universal and as un- changeable as the law of gravitation. Our forefathers tried the experiment and fixed the ratio at 15 to 1 in 1792. The commercial ratio at that time was about 15^ to 1, and our gold coins left us. In 1884 the legal ratio was changed to 16 to 1. The commercial ratio was at that time about 15} to 1, and our silver coins left us. This became so marked that in 1858 Congress passed a law for coining smaller silver coins of less value than either the legal or commercial ratio would indicate. They made such coins token money. THE GREAT DEBATE 201 The government purchased the silver at its commer- cial value and covered the profit into the public Treas- ury. They gave no free coinage to silver used in such subsidiary coins. This is .all history, which is disputed by none. I know ''Coin" says in his "Financial School," page 10: "During this struggle to get iii 24,500 1840 1()0,000 1S47 140,7.50 184S 1.5,000 1841> (J2,000 1850 47,500 1851 1,300 1852 1,100 1853 46.110 1854 33,140 1855 20,0(K) 1856 ()3, 500 1S57 04,000 1S58 1850 636.500 1860 733,030 1861 78,500 1862 12.000 1863 27.660 1864 31 ,170 1865 47,000 THE GREAT DEBATE 205 Silver dollars Year. coined. 1 8Cr, f 49 ,C25 1S07 *. V C0.325 ISGS 182,700 im) 424.300 ISTO 445,462 ISTI 1.117,130 1K72 1,118,000 Look at them, Mr. Horr. See that in 1859 there were 636,000 of them coined; in 1860, 783,000 of them coined; in 1871, 1,117,000 of them; in 1872, 1,118,000; and in all those forty years silver dollars in large quan- tities were coined, except in six years. And when you answer me, Mr. Horr, tell us why Mr. Morrill said there were none coined; and if he was untruthful about that, what importance should be attached to what he said abouf the silver dollar being purposely omitted in the ))ill? The secret of all this is that Senator Morrill is a bank stockholder and insurance company money-lender, and when giving utterance to the statement that serves his personal interest he has not had a strict regard for the truth. I want to nail this statement at this point; not only to discredit the letter that Senator Morrill wrote and that was read here, but to nail that same statement that is being industriously published all over the country, and that has been reiterated here in Chicago, that there were no silver dollars coined for many years prior to 1873. There it is before Mr. Horr in the report of the director of the mint and as published in my remarks. I now pause for Mr. Horr to justify Senator Morrill in making the statement that no silver dollars had been coined for nearly forty years prior to the act of 1873. (Applause.) ::X)6 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Horr: I desire to riay in deleiise of Senator Mor- rill that the object of that letter was to deny the gen- eral fraudulent talk that was going about the country and originated by Mr. Harvey as much as any one else, that all who were connected with the Congress of 1878, or enough of them, were corrupt and were crowding the bill through Congress by the use of money. Now Senator Morrill did not intend by that expression to say that there was not one single dollar coined. He did mean to say that substantially there were none, and that is true. In the whole length of the time from the organization of this government up to 1878, as your book shows itself, there were less than eight million silver dollars coined. There were over six hundred million dollars of gold, if I mistake not. I speak now from my memory. Senator Morrill simply used the expression, "There were none coined," and Mr. Harvey draws the conclu- sion that because that is not accurately true, he can- not tell the truth about anything else. Mr. Harvey: Will you pardon me? Mr. Horr: Certainly. Mr. Harvey: Isn't it true, as that statement shows, that there were several million coined and that they were coined largely every year except six years? Mr. Horr: Certainly, I do not dispute it, nor did Senator Morrill intend to. Mr. Morrill may'have made a mistake in the exact words he used. (Applause on the silver side of the house. ) Now wait a moment. You made a mistake when you quoted the amount from the Philadelphia mint, and made a bad mistake. (Ap- plause on the gold side of the house. ) Your attention was called to it, and, instead of owning up when you found yourself caught, yon published that you had THE GREAT DEBATE 207 forced the treasury department at Washington to cor- rect the mistake. (Applause.) Wait till I get through. There wasn't one word of- truth in your last statement. Now if you argue right about Morrill, because he didn't speak the truth, then I have a right to assume that you cannot tell the truth now. (Applause. ) Mr. Harvey: May I answer you now? Mr. Horr: Certainly. Mr. Harvey: Isn't it a fact that "Coin's Financial School" states that the silver coinage prior to 1873 was .15105,000,000? Mr. Horr: Yes. Mr. Harvey: And isn't it a fact that the error when corrected states it at $143,000,000? Mr. Horr: Yes. Mr. Harvey: And was not that error in "Coin's Fi- nancial School" against me and not in my favor? Mr. Horr: Certainly it was. Then why didn't you have the manhood to say, "I made a mistake, and when I found out my mistake I corrected it"? That would have been the straightforward thing to do. You are making the same mistake that Brother Carlisle, as you charged the other day, did. You charged him with having once been a free silver man and now advocating a different doctrine. You were right about that; Car- lisle made the mistake of not owning that he once did l)reach that kind of stuff and that he now thinks he was wrong then and right now. If you had done the same thing in your second book you would not have had all this trouble squirming around about that mistake you made. Now I do not reflect I don't desire to on Mr. Har- vey. I know Senator Morrill; I know him as I know my own father and brothers. I would take his word 20^ THE GREAT DEBATE on any subject as quickly as that of any man living on the face of the globe. Many men who served in that Congress of 1878 have denied this doctrine of corruption from one end of this nation to the other, and my friend hangs his case upon making out that that bill was pur- chased through Congress by bribery. He has not brought a scintilla of proof on that subject, there isn't any in existence, not a particle. It is all a fabrication, every word of it, and what I object to is adopting a the- ory that compels you to smirch the character of every man that differs from you. Now he sneeringly says: "Senator Morrill is an own- er of bank stock." Does that affect a man's character for truth and honesty? Is it against a man to save a little something and to put it into good stock? I am not a stockholder in a national bank. I wish I was. I would be ever so glad to be one, and if you know of anybody, Harvey, that you are afraid is being corrupted with any, and who wants to dispose of it, I wish you would refer him to me. I will run the risk of corrup- tion. The idea that because a member of Congress, a senator of thirty years' standing, has also been frugal and has become the owner of stock in some banking institution, that, therefore, he is not to be believed, I submit it is too contemptible for men to teach in any argument of this kind. (Applause.) Doctor Linderman, formerly director of the mint, gives the exact value of the silver dollar each year from 1884 Jto 1876 in the Senate Report. It is a little, short statement, and I purpose to put it in the record. THE GREAT DEBATE 209 Gold equivalent Gold equivalent of a silver dollar. of a silver dollar. Year. Cents. Year. Cents 1S34 101. (>2 1856 jOS.OS is;r> 101 .20 1857 104 69 l^-.) KUl-l (',(;;) 1()S0-17(M>, 1701-1720, 17l'1-174ik 1741-17(;o 17r.l-17so I7SI-1S00 isoi-lslu. isll-lsiM, l.Si'l-ls:{(), l,S81-ls40. is4l-ls:)0. l.S")l-l,S.M ls,")<*)-i.s(;(), l.SfU-lS(M. lsi)(MS70. 1X71-1X7.-). 1S7 1S77 Is7s \s:\\ Isso issl iss:; 1SN4 1SS5 Iss*; 18S7 isss ISNJ) isiK) 1891 J line, 1893 (average) Mean Annual Product. Gold. Kilos. 8,510 ().840 7.380 8.r)L>Q 8,300 S,770 9,2(50 io,7(;r> 12,820 19,080 24,r>i( 2(,70r) 17,790 17,77s 11.44.-) 14,210 20,289 54,759 193,388 201,750 185,057 185. 02G 173,904 105,956 179,445 185.847 107,307 163,515 158,864 148,475 144,727 153,193 159.289 159,741 159,155 159,809 185.809 181,256 189,824 Silver. Kilos. 31L()00 2i)9 500 418.900 422,il00 393,(51M) 3()0,300 337.000 341,900 355,(500 4.31.200 533.145 (552,710 S79,0()0 894.1.50 .540,770 4(50,5(50 .590,450 780,415 880,115 904,990 1,101,150 1.339,085 1,969,425 2,323,779 2,388.612 2,551,364 2,507,507 2,479,998 2,592,639 2,7(59,065 2,746.123 2.788,727 2,993,805 2.902.471 2, 990,. 398 3,388,(506 3,901.809 4,180,.532 4,479,649 o o .2f i^ ^ 36.6 43.8 .5(5.8 49.6 47.4 41.8 3(5.4 31.8 27.7 22.6 21.7 31.5 49.4 50 3 47 2 32.4 2J).4 14.3 4.4 4.5 5.9 6.9 11.3 14.0 13.3 13.7 15.0 15.2 16.3 18.6 19.0 18.2 18.8 18.2 18.8 21.2 21.0 23.1 23.6 18.6 *The ratio here given is the commercial ratio, not the coinage ratio. 234 THE GREAT DEBATEi 235 demonetized by the nations of the world on account of its growing cheaper. That wasn't the question asked me. The question asked me, as I remember it, was; Did the people of this country in 1873 demonetize silver on account of its over-production? Now, right here, I stated then and I state again now, that the nations of the world which first demonetized silver gave as the reason that they did it because gold is a better measure of values and a better metal to be used in the great transactions of the world than silver is. I repeat it. England in 1816 demonetized silver. Did any one ever claim that she did it because silver was cheap or be- cause it was scarce? At that time nothing of the kind, so far as I know, was mentioned by any one who dis- cussed the question. Mr. Harvey seems to forget that the question of the impossibility of keeping up a double standard of measures had been argued in this country for one century. The great philosophers of the world the greatest philosophers of the world had said over and over again that a double standard or measure of value was as impossible as a double standard of weight. Locke had said so, Sir Isaac Newton had said so, Co- ])ernicus had written a book and said so. Every man so far as I know of brains in those early centuries Jiad written that it was impossible to do business with two measures of value. Now, Brother Harvey omits this one important thing. You may make two standards by law, but the ]ieople will discard one and use the other. We neces- sarily are compelled to do business with one or the other unless the value happens to be precisely the same so that the measure becomes one and identical. Now that question had been long discussed, and Eng- land decided that as long as they must take one or the 286 THE GREAT DEBATE other, they preferred gold. A oonference met in 1867, which I referred to and retid tofyou about, where nearly all the civilized nations of the world were in session and discuBHed the subject, and, with one exception, they were in favor of a single standard, and that a gold standard. Now the question of whether there was an over-pro- duction of silver never entered into that oonference at all, nor is it referred to in the report of Mr. Knox, where he recommends the passage of the bill. The only thing that is referred to is the instability of the two metals and the better quality of gold for great commer- cial transactions. Now, I admit that it has been oftentimes asserted that silver was demonetized on account of over-production, and I do not know but I may myself have said some- thing of that kind, because I have not always been as well posted on this question as I am now, and some- times when I don't know as much as I ought to I say things that I think are true, and I afterward find out that I was wrong, and then I back out like a man. I don't try to dodge njy statements, and if he finds some- thing from me looking as though I said that was the reason if I said so I was mistaken, and I will try to correct myself right now. Other nations, however, did give that as a reason later on. Silver began to decrease in value, the production began to be immense, it in- creased so rapidly that other nations took the course they did for two reasons; first that they considered it unsafe metal to use on account of its fluctuations, and, second, that they had the proof right on hand of which nations did not know in the tirst place when they com- menced to demonetize silver. Now, I was surprised to hear Mr. Harvey before the THE GREAT DEBATE 237 American people announce the proposition that we had thrown the people of this nation out of work by the demonetization of silver. I don't know but he thinks HO. If he does I don't blame him for saying so, but if lie will study the question as I have he will change his mind. He tells us truly that it was in 1879 when the ques- tion of metallic money became prominent in this coun- try. We resumed specie payment in that year and the only money of final redemption was gold. People liad come to find it out. Do you tell me, Mr. Harvey, tliat distress was abroad in the land from that on? I was here at that time in this country of ours, you know, I have never been out of the country. Any man who says that must be ignorant of the history of work in the United States. I make this proposition to Mr. Harvey: Since this nation began, the years from 1879 to 1892 found our people better employed and at better wages than in any other same number of years since this government was tormed. (Applause.) I know what I am talking about. Four million men to-day out of employment! Faugh I Where did you get your figures? Did that inspired baby give them to you? They must correspond with some of the other mathematics that I shall get to in that book. Mr. Harvey: I said from two to four million. Mr. Horr: Two to four million. Four million is out of the question. Two million is just about as bad. There isn't any truth in either statement. Some people are out of employment in this country. I was in the years 1889-90-91-92 in thirty-one states of this Union. I was in dozens of large cities in a great many of those thirty-one states, and during that entire time I did not visit a city where the people were not 238 THE GREAT DEBATE well employed at good wages, and I know that any man who says that from 1879 to 1892 this country was in financial distress and that the laboring men were not then well employed, is not well qualified to talk upon the subject, l^ecause that is not the fact. Mr. Harvey: My references to Mr. Horr's running argument will be brief until I have got into this debate what the reader should know with reference to the his- tory of these two metals. I, however, congratulate the people of this country who are studying this question on Mr. Horr's frank admission that over-production cuts no figure in this controversy. Mr. Hokr: I have never said that. Mr. Hakvey: Mr. Horr said that when England de- monetized silver in 181(5, and when the Paris Conference was held, and when Dr. Linderman, and, as the Trib- une calls them, his co-conspirators at Washington, advocated it, none of them mentioned or thought of the over-production of silver as a reason for it. I quote him correctly, I think, and the table that I have given you last so thoroughl}' disposes of that argument that I am not surprised at Mr. Horr for yielding that posi- tion. It is one of the remarkable instances wherein this debate is of great value to the people of the United States, that we eliminate these points as we go along. It seems to worry Mr. Horr that I have not backed down yet on any fact or proposition stated in "Coin's Financial School," except in one instance, and that exception is what makes the worry the greater for him, because in that one instance where I said that the silver coined prior to 1873 was $105,000,000, the correction for the error shows that it is $143,000,000. The only error thus far that Mr. Horr has found in the book is an error that was against us. (Applause.) THE GREAT DEBATE 239 Now, as to the prosperity of this country between 1879 and 1892. You could not break down a great nation like this in one year. It has taken a short period to bring us to the hitter cup of disappointment and dis- tress. I know with each four years the political parties have charged each other with having destroyed the pros- perity of the previous four years, (Applause and laugh- ter. ) In 1884 the Democrats arraigned the Repub- licans with being responsible for the terribly hard times, and on that they put in Mr. Cleveland. But in 1888 you came back at the Democrats and you ar- raigned them for the terrible disaster that spread from ocean to ocean. (Applause and laughter.) And the poor workingman who wafe out of employment, and the people knowing that something was wrong, but not knowing what it was, believed what you said, Mr. Horr, and the Republican orators, and they voted the Dem- ocrats out. Why? Because of the distress in this country resulting from some unknown cause, and Mr. Harrison was elected. But when 1892 came then came the Democrats and accused you, Mr, Horr, and the Re- publicans, of all the sins that were then piled upon the people, and the people again, knowing that something was wrong, but not knowing what it was, believed that Mr. Harrison and his party \\'ere responsible for it, and voted til em out. Now, since 1892, a flood of calamities has come. No, don't you in this debate refer to the prosperity of this country from 1878 to 1895. The word "tramp" was coined in 1878, and the Ignited States census shows that depression has been increas- ing at a disproportionate ratio. So has the number of penitentiary convicts, persons confined in all classes of prisons, insane asylums, and of suicides. 240 THE GREAT DEBATE No, don't you refer to the prosperity that has built up millionaires and multi-millionaires and strewed this country with millions of tramps and paupers and men that don't know how they are going to provide for their families in the coming year. (Applause.) Referring to that table I last gave you, the fourth column gives the world's quantity ratio between gold and silver produced in the world. The fifth, column gives the commercial ratio. Between 3545 and 1560, the quantity ratio was Siyf^ of silver to 1 of gold. Be- tween 1581 and 1600 it was 56^,)- of silver to 1 of gold. From that time on down to 1850, the relative propor- tion fluctuates. From 1800 to 1810, it is 50x^o f silver to 1 of gold. By 1850 a sudden change sets in and the relative quantity that year is only 14^^^ ^^ silver to 1 of gold. By 1855 the relative production has fallen to only 4^ of silver to 1 of gold. Then it rises again, and in 1893 it is 18yfiy of silver to 1 of gold. In 1871-75, at the period of demonetization, it is IIj^q to 1 of gold; less than 16 of silver to 1 of gold at the very time of demon- etization. This table covers a period prior to 1878 of 328 years. In that time the quantity ratio between the two metals fluctuated, as we see, enormously from 56 to 1 to 4 to 1 and yet the commercial ratio hung tenaciously to the legal ratio. A change in relative production had no effect as long as the mints were open to the two metals. (Applause.) Now, observe the change in the commercial ratio (the fifth column) that came after demonetization. The closing of the mints in the short space of twenty years (1873 to 1893) pulled it away from the moorings of over three hundred years and advanced it from 15.98 of sil- THE GREAT DEBATE 241 ver to 1 of gold in 1878 to 80.18 of silver to 1 of gold in 1808, while for that period the change in the quantity was les:-5 than at any time in the previous 845 years. It is idle to comment on this table; it is a study for the student itself. Mr. Horr: I desire right now to see if I can state my proposition so plainly that Brother Harvey will cease to misquote me, or attempt to drive me into a position which I do not occupy. I have never said that the cheap price of silver was not on account of its over-production, I have never in- timated anything of the kind; and in order that you may understand me and have it last over twenty-four hours, I will tell you now, silver has become cheap in this world just precisely the same as wheat and iron and zinc and lead and other articles have been cheap- ened, just precisely for the same reason. (Applause.) I want to state this proposition: All of these articles have been cheapened by the natural laws which govern the production of every substance known to the produ- cers in the world. Mr. W. D. Wilcox of Chicago: How about gold? Mr. Horr: Gold the same. I am glad you asked me. That is a question I will answer right now. Gold has depreciated in value in less than one hundred years 50 per cent. It is cheaper now than it was in 1878. All articles that can be produced by inventions are cheaper than they were before the invention was made. Every method which brings machinery into play and puts less human toil into the production of any article cheapens that article. The whole trend of civilization is to cheapen human products, gold as well as silver and wheat. A large number of the articles to-day produced in the world have not been decreased in value at all by the 242 THE GREAT DEBATE demonetization of silver, but simply because the laws of production have crowded down the price. How do I know that gold is cheaper than it was in 1878? I will tell you. Now. listen (addressing Mr. Wilcox) you are a younger man than I am and you have a respecta- ble face I wish 1 could say as much for the crazy man beside you. As to the measure of value by liuman toil : The rate of wages, the amount of gold that a man can get for a certain number of hours' work, tells me whether gold has decreased in price or not. I can get lo-day twice as much gold for a day's work following the plow as I did in 1849. The people of this country are paid in gold for their work; so they were in 1860. Wages are 70 per cent higher, paid in gold, for the same amount of work, than in 1860. Has not gold depreciated then when you measure it with the great commodit^y of human toil? LABOR THE REAL MEASURE OF VALUES. What I find fault with is that the silver men invari- ably leave out of their calculation this article of labor, and the article of labor is the greatest article known in the civilized world. You think for a moment. Do you know how much would have to be produced in this great nation of ours to supply the necessities of life before we accumulate ]>roperty at all? Before there is anything left for accu- mulated capital this nation alone has to be supplied with $15,000,000 of products. That much has to be produced daily by the workers of this country to supply the con- -^umption of the people. Consequently the question of Ijow labor is paid is a great question in this and every other country. But there is another reason almost as good. Business THE GREAT DEBATE 243 is active when men are all employed and when they get good pay for the work they do. You cut down the pay of labor and you paralyze the entire business of any na- tion. The men who do the work, especially in a Repub- lic like ours, are the men who consume. A nation iji ])rosperous and happy according to the amount of stuff it uses. You have thought of it, Brother Harvey? It is what a man consumes that does him good in this world, it is what he uses up; and in a system of finance which reduces the amount of consumption of the comforts of life as well as the necessities, there is something wrong. I admit I am personally interested in this question; I work for pay. It would make a good deal of difference to me when every month I re- ceive a certain amount that will purchase the articles I need in my family and for my home consumption, to know that I get paid in money that will purchase for me the largest amount of such goods, and when you propose a system that attempts to pay me oft' with money that compels my children to go hungr}^, that compels my family to deprive themselves of the com- forts of life, I protest against it; and before I get through with this debate I give Mr. Harvey notice now he says I will retreat from the proposition that more than half the people of this country are creditors I give you good notice that I will retreat from nothing of the kind, and I will make it so plain that I am right that twory man will, even though he be a silver man, agree with me. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr says that everything has been cheapened, including gold. To say that gold and prod- ucts cheapen simultaneously is a financial contradic- tion. You buy gold by exchanging other property for it. When it takes more property to buy gold than 244 THE GREAT DEBATE formerly, gold has risen. Instead of becoming cheaper, gold has become dearer. That is the case now. And yet Mr. Horr, by sophistry, reasons that it has become cheaper. He says to the laboring man : You can buy more with a gold dollar now than you ever could, and Ihen turns to you and says that gold is growing cheaper all the time. He transforms himself at pleasure from a dear dollar advocate to a cheap dollar advocate. It reminds me of a story. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Horr, but the story is apt. A negro went to a neighbor and got a pig. He started home with tlie pig in a sack and stopped at a saloon. While he was drinking and being entertained by the boys, the pig was taken out of the sack and a pup was put in, so when he left the saloon it was a pup instead uf a pig he carried. When he reached home he discov- ered that he had a pup instead of a pig. He put the pup back into the sack and started at once for the neigh- bor's to see how it all happened, and on his way he ^topped again at the saloon. He was again highly (entertained, and the pup was taken out of the sack and the pig put back. When he reached the neighbor's he explained that it was all a mistake, that he had a pup instead of a pig, and emptying the sack, out rolled a pig. "Before God, massa, " he said, "that pig can turn from a pig to a pup, and from a pup to a pig, as often IS it wants to." (Laughter.) With us now the price of services or property means the gold dollar or its equivalent. Price has a definite meaning. It is gold that property and labor is being priced in, it is not priced in labor, and the average hu- man intellect will have to be reduced a little lower than it is now, before Mr. Horr can toll the people out on a limb and chop the limb off and mangle them any more THE GREAT DEBATE 245 than they are now mangled. He is trying to lead you off on a theory that has no practical application as a monetary unit. QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE. This ended the debate for the day, and questions were submitted from the audience as follows: Mr. Horr: This question is put to me by Mr. John J. McGrath, treasurer of the Bricklayers' and Stone-ma- sons' Union of Chicago. Is Mr. McGrath here? I do not know that I quite understand his question, but will read it. "Why is it that the workingman's opportunity does not keep pace with his increased productiveness if he produce five times what he did twenty years ago, ought he not to get five times the pay? In other words, what right has the dollar that its value (purchasing power) sliould be increased thereby?" I do not understand the last line. I understand the import, however, of the general question. The trouble with that question is that Mr, McGrath assumes two or three things that may not be true. "Why is it that the workingman's opportunity does not keep pace with his increased productiveness?" I did not know but what it did. "If he produce five times what he did twenty years ago," well, I don't know as he does. Do you lay five times as many bricks as you used to lay thirty years ago? Can a man do that? It is a fair question. I did not know as you could do that. Mr. Harvey: Didn't you state in your argument the other day that the productiveness had increased some- thing like five times as much? Mr. Horr: I don't know, but whether I did or not I would say so now, but I did not say that each laboring 246 THE GREAT DEBATeJ iiinn produced live tunes as much, by any means. I stated before, and I will repeat it now, every invention that is made may increase productiveness twenty times, l)ut not of the men that work at hand labor. I stated the law this morning, that whenever such invention is made a part of the profit should go to increase the pay of the laborer, part of it should go to the cheapening of the substance for those who consume it, and part of it should go to the inventor or manager, to pay him for his invention and for running the business. Now, Mr. McGrath, how much do you get a day for laying brick? Mr. Harvey: Mr. McGrath handed me that question Saturday and asked me to see that it was put to you. Mr. Horr: Is there any one in this audience who knows what bricklayers get here to-day for such work? I would like to know if any of these men who are cheer- ing me or Mr. Harvey are bricklayers, or if they know how much bricklayers get now. My friend here says fifty cents an hour. That would be at the rate of five dollars for ten hours' work. I used to hire bricklayers for two dollars and twenty-five cents a day. They were paid in the currency of the country. They are getting now say four dollars a day and paid in gold. Does that show that gold has increased in i^rice? Mr. Harvey: They get it when they get work. progress since 1878. Mr. Harvey: This question is by Mr. L. G. Pow- ers, of Minnesota. "Do not the facts in the United States Census about farm tenants and owners show a steady progress for the toilers since 1873, and does not that progress contradict your statements about the etfect of the silver legislation about that year?" Mr. Powers has not stated the facts with reference to that THE GREAT DEBATE 247 census. The Census Bulletin is in my room, but I read just one paragraph, as I am limited to three hun- dred words, from an article in LippincotVs Magazine by an able writer who deals with the Census Bulletins on this subject of farmers. He says: "Between 1880 and 1890 the number of owning farm- ers decreased in every New England state and the num- ber of tenant farmers increased. In each of these states there was a marked increase in the percentage of farmers who plowed the fields of another man and in the sweat of whose brow somebody in Boston ate cake. In the six states, in the ten years, the owning farmers dimin- ished 24,117 and the tenant farmers increased 7,246. The percentage of tenant farmers in Massachusetts, though not large in 1890, was nearly doul)le what it was in 1880; over 17 per cent of the farmers in Vermont and Connecticut and 25 per cent of the farmers in Rhode Island were tenants in 1890. In each of the four middle states the number of owning farmers de- creased and the number of tenant farmers increased. In the group the owners decreased 42,804 and the tenants increased 24,075. In New Jersey the tenants increased from nearly a fourth to nearly one-third of the whole. In New York the loss of owning farmers was 2(3,584 and the gain of tenant farmers was 12,108. For Pennsylvania tliHsn figurft^ wcrn 11.290 and 9,222 respectively. I am going lo treat that subject carotully when it is reached. Mr. Horr: Question from E. D. Stark, Cleveland, Ohio: "Had our money unit remained on silver, would or cotild prices, as made in United States standard money, have so fallen as they have since 1873? Simply yotir opinion, yes or no." How do yoti undertake to make me answer qttestions to suit you? (Laughter.) Just ask qtiestions, it is more respectful, and let me take my method of answer- ing them. In the first place you assume, "had the unit 24S THE GREAT DEBATE ivniaiiied on silver," as if that was the only unit we had. I have already tried to show that that was not tlie only one. But I say squarely, priees could have fallen since 1878 if the unit had remained double just as they have, and the prices to-day, if we had remained that way, would either be in silver money that is not worth as much or would be the same as now. Mr. Harvey: Question from S. A. Robinson, of New York: ''Is not the assumption that there can be an un- limited demand for money to exchange or measure com- modities, which are necessarily limited, a self-evident contradiction?" Mr. Kobinson has probably misconstrued my state- ment that when the mints are open to the unlimited coinage of these two metals there is an unlimited de- mand for these two metals for monetary purposes. The - ii])ply being limited, as we know precious metals are, an unlimited demaiid for them at so much to constitute a dollar makes a demand that the supply cannot till. We could absorb three times the amount of money we have in this country now and be the more prosperous tor it (applause), and when the mints are open to un- limited coinage it means unlimited demand, so there is !io such thing as 87 H grains of silver being worth less than a dollar when the mints will coin it into a dollar. That is what I mean by unlimited demand and short -upply fixing the price because it makes it money at the time. The property is limited that you measure into money, so are the products of these metals that you coin into money. That is as near as I can answer directly Mr. Robinson's question. Mr. Horr: Question from J. S. Painter, of Chicago: "If it is true, as you have alleged, that the demoneti- zation of silver was accomplished in the most open man- ner, after a full, fair and protracted discussion of the THE GREAT DEBATE 249 ubject, why did Kelley, Blaine, Grant and other dis- tinguished statesmen afterward disclaim any knowledge of the purposes of the bill at the time of its passage?" Why, I suppose they disclaimed it because they did not recollect anything about it. Because a man doesn't i-ecollect a thing does not prove that another man does not remember it. And the difficulty of this whole sys- tem of my friend Harvey's is this: He assumes that because certain men don't recollect about it now, no- body remembers about it I beg pardon for using your name, Mr. Harvey Mr. Harvey: That's all right. Mr. Horr (continuing): This man assumed the same thing. The difficulty is Grant, Blaine, Kelley and you may name a hundred other men, all of them may have been members of Congress, and all of them may say tliey don't remember anything about it now, that wouldn't disprove in any way the fact that the bill was openly discussed, that the men on the committee knew ubout it at the time and that they did nothing of a .secret nature. In courts we never try to disprove a matter by showing that somebody doesn't recollect it; it is never taken as proof against a man who does re- <'ollect it. Mr. Harvey: Question by Henry F. Thomas, of Alle- in, Michigan: ''Can two metals be the unit of value ;it the same time, anymore than two different measures of length or weight? If you answer yes, explain why :i 11 nations use a single standard in settling balances. If you answer no, state what metal you recommend for the ultimate standard." The answer to that question is this: No two metals are used out of which to make the unit in scientific Itimetallism. When we discuss silver as having con- stituted the unit you get an erroneous impression if you 250 THE GREAT DEBATE thiiik we are silver monometallists by that. There is a necessity for fixing the unit 'in your coinage system that reguhites your other coins and you can only make that of one metal, so that there is only one yardstick, only one weight, in your 'system. Now here is where the double standard comes in. You give at the same time unlimited coinage, full legal-tender money power and all the rights of primary mone}^ to the other metal that you have measured in the unit made, say, of silver, so that our statute in 1792 read a ten-dollar gold piece shall be of the value of ten dollars, the dol- lar having been fixed in silver. You have the mints open to the unlimited coinage of both metals, and both as full money, so they form together what you call a double standard, for what? For measuring the value of i^roperty. And when we say that gold and silver together constituted a double standard we mean that these two metals did that, linked together in that way. Gold was measured in silver, both were coined into primary money, and property measured its value in both metals. They were linked together virtually as one metal, and for two hundred years, as you will see liy that table I have distributed, which is as far back as we have the history of commercial ratios, the two were virtually one mass of metal, so that you paid in either, and if one became a little dearer the demand went to the cheaper, because the people then used the cheaper, and the fluctuation of a little might do that and shift the demand and bring back the parity, and the two together made the double standard. Now the reason the nations settled balances in one metal: That is not true except since 1873; nearly all the nations China, India, Mexico, South America and the United States have almost, if not wholly, settled in silver. CHAPTER VII. THE SIXTH DAY. PRIMARY AND CREDIT MONEY. THE MEASURES OF VALUE. On Tuesday, July 28, at 1 p. m., the debating hall was well filled, while the committee had been obliged to refuse part of the increasing number of applications (or tickets. Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, of New York, was in the audience. Judges Miller and Vincent were on the platform. Mr. Harvey: The debate at the last session is of value in this: 1. That during the thirty or forty years prior to 1878 silver was seeking the mints to be coined into silver dollars, and that any contrary statement is not true. The two million dollars and more that thus were coined at the mints in the two years immediately pre- ceding demonetization, were for circulation in Nevada and California, where they had refused to use the paper money in their circulation, and were usincr uold and silver. 2. That by the table copied from the Oflicial Reports from Washington, for about two hundred years prior to 1873, the commercial ratio between gold and silver was at the legal ratio of 15^ to 1, fixed by France dur- ing the period that ratio existed, and with the legal ratio that was fixed prior to that, and that there was no difference between the legal ratio and the commercial ratio in that two hundred years except the cost of ex- 251 2ryJ THE GREAT DEBATE cbaoge, and that for the twenty-two years since 1873 tlie legal ratio and the commercial ratio, as we claim Jiy reason of demonetization, have separated rapidly and gone from practically 15^ to 1 to 82 to 1. 8. That by the table represented in kilograms taken from the same Official Reports from Washington, the quantity ratio in the world between silver and gold for the three hundred and twenty-oight years prior to 1878 ranged from 5(3 of silver to 1 of gold to 4 of silver to 1 of gold, and that during all that time and during those fluctuations the commercial ratio hung tena- ciously to the legal ratio, the quantity ratio seemingly in no way affecting the legal ratio or commercial ratio. 4. That by the table of prices of silver as measured in gold in London from 1888 to 1894 we see that the price of silver there as measured in gold up to 1878 w as practically steady, cost of exchange being sufficient to account for the slight fluctuation; but that since 1878 silver in the London market as measured in gold has rapidly declined from 60 pence per ounce to 28J pence per ounce. 5. That this violent fluctuation and depression of silver has onl}^ come since 1878. Why the London market of silver is taken in gold in quoting the price of silver is this: England went to the gold standard in 1816, and since then London has be- come the market of the world. In 1844 the Peel act of England required the Bank of England to pay a cer- tain stipulated price for every ounce of gold; there free coinage to gold was fixed in that way, so that, growing out of their gold standard and the Peel act of 1844, ex- changes being drawn on London from all portions of the world, gradually a custom grew up meaning gold when you spoke of exchange, until it .finally became a THE GREAT DEBATE 253 habit among our bankers in the United States to say things are worth so much in gold. It was the dominat- ing influence of London and England on the financial world that caused the custom to arise of speaking of gold prices. Mr. Horr: Gentlemen: On yesterday Mr. Harvey stated that I had found but one error in the statements in his book, and he defied me to call attention to any other mistake that he had made. The mistakes that are made in Mr. Harvey's book are, many of them, not mistakes as to the words that he uses, but misleading inferences from positions which he takes, and which he, giving him credit for the ordinary sense of an ordinary man, must have known when he printed and published such statements. I will now in my opening remarks call some attention to what I mean. In your book, Mr. Harvey, you say: "It is estimated by all men of judgment who have given practical attention to mining, that the silver now in existence has cost not less than $2.00 per ounce, and many put it much liigher. " You will find that in "Coin s" book, page 74. I deny that men of judgment and experience claim any such thing. I assert that every man of any common sense who has studied this question knows instantly that that statement is not true; knows instantly that silver has not cost that much for production, because silver has been constantly increasing in production at a low price, ruiniing from $1.20 an ounce down to 57 cents an ounce, and the people of the world never keep constantly pro- ducing an article at so much less than it costs them to produce it. Business men are not such idiots as that. According to this statement the silver-mine owners and 254 THE GREAT DEBATE men engaged in producing silver lost in the year 1892 $54,000,000. They increased their product in 1898 so that they lost that year $78,000,000. Again in '04 the increase was so large that they lost $109,- 000,000, a total loss in three years of $286,000,000. Now, there is an old rule somewhere that "a burnt child dreads the fire." I think there is some truth in that, and whenever silver mining gets so that the men los(3 at the rate of almost eighty million dollars a year, they will stop silver mining. I don't have to argue that. Every man with a grain of sense knows it. Again, Mr. Harvey says on page 39 of his book : "There is in the world now, according to the report of the di- rector of our mint, $8,727,018,869 in gold and $8,820,- 571,846 in silver." The mint director didn't give that as the amount of silver and gold in the world at all. The director of the mint gave simply the amount of coin supposed to be then in existence. Mulhall, whom you refer to as good authority, gives the stock of gold coin and bullion in 1890 as six thousand million dollars, and the amount of silver at about six thousand million dollars. ("Mul- hall's Dictionary of Statistics," page 809.) "Coin" tells us on page 58: "We have in the United States in round figures $1,600,000,000 of all kinds of money." The statistical abstract of the United States, page 80, says: "The total amount is $2,420,000,000." That gives one amount, you give another. You tell us, page 58, "We are paying England two hundred mil- lion dollars annually in gold in the payment of interest on our bonds, national and private bonds owned by her people." Who says that, Harvey? I deny it, and defy any proof that will show that we owe all the countries of Europe combined that much that is, the bonds that THE GREAT DEBATE 255 would require that much of interest to be sent abroad, f defy him to prove anything of the kind. You state that the indebtedness of the Uiiited States is forty thousand million dollars, that is, that the people of this country, if that be true, owe nearly two-thirds as much as all the property in the United States is worth. I brand such a statement simply as false. I don't say that Mr. liarvey don't believe it, because it is impossible for me to tell what a man in his state of mind may believe (laughter), but I say the fact is contrary to his state- ment. Mr. Harvey: When we reach the cost of production of silver I think I will make Mr. Horrfeel like the ordi- nary eastern man who has spent $100,000 in western silver mining and taken about $250 out, and will sat- isfy him about the cost of production. (Laughter.) When he refers to the amount of gold and silver in the world he omits to say that my statistics gave the amount of gold and silver available for use as money. 1'he quantity for use as money is the subject we are in- tf>rested in. It will do him no good to jump around in ''Coin's Financial School" from one end to the other of it, before we get through. He is not going to distract nie from the regular line of the debate. (Applause.) I now distribute among you a table showing the world's production of silver and gold from 1792 to 1892, t^ken from page 103 of the book last referred to, the 'Official Coinage Laws and Statistics" issued by the Treasury Department at Washington, and I pass the liook to Mr. Horr. I now make the table* a i)art ol" my remarks. *The table, shown on the following page, is copied from the U. S. Senate Re- port No. 235, page 103, Coinage Laws of United States, 1792 to 1894. Calendar Silver (coin- Years, Gold, ing value). 17{LM8()0 $ 10(), 407,000 $ 32S,S()0,C00 lSOl-1810 118,152,000 371 ,(577,000 1811-1820 7(>,03.000 224,78(1,000 1821-18:^0 J)4,471),000 191,444,(M)0 1831-1840 134.841 .000 247,030,000 1841-1848 21)1 ,144,(K)0 259,520,000 1841) 37.000,000 30.000,000 1850 44,450,000 30,000,000 1S51 (57,()00,000 40,000,000 1852 132.750,000 40,()00,000 1853 155,450,000 40,()00,000 1854 127,450,000 40,(500,000 1855 135.075,000 40,()0(,000 185(5 147,(500,000 40,(550,000 1857 133,275.000 4(),(550,0()() 1858 124,(550,000 40,(550,000 1S50 124.850,000 40,750.000 18(50 1 19,250,000 40,800,000 1S(51 113,800,000 44,700,000 1S(52 107,750,000 45,200,000 ^Km 10(5,950,000 49,200,000 1S<54 113,000,000 51.700,000 1S(55 120,200,000 51 ,950,000 \sm 121,100,000 50,750,000 ls(57 104,025,000 54,225,000 IS(58.... 109,025,000 50,225,000 1M<59 10(),225.(X)0 47,500,000 1 S70 10(5,850,000 51 ,575,000 IS71 107,000.000 (51,050,000 IS72 99,600,000 65,250,000 1N73 96.200,000 81,800,000 1S74 90,750,000 71,500,000 1S75 97,500,000 80,500,000 1X76 103,700,000 87,600,000 1877 114,000,000 81,000.000 1878 119,000,000 95,000,000 1879 109,000,000 96,000,000 1S80 106,.500,000 96,700,000 1881 103,000,000 102,000,000 1S82 102,000,000 111,800,000 1883 95,400,000 115,300,000 18S4 101,700,000 105,.500,000 1885 108,400,000 118,500,000 18S<5 106,000,000 120,600,000 1887 105,775,000 124,281,000 1888 110,197,000 140,706,000 1889 123,489,000 162,159,000 lN90 118849,000 172,235,000 1891 126,184,000 186,447,000 1892 138,860,000 196,459,000 Total 5, (563, 21 6,000 5, 077,529,000 256 THE GREAT DEBATE 257 Here we see that from 1792 to 1800 there was $3.25 in silver produced to $1 in gold, or a quantity ratio ounce for ounce of about fifty of silver to one ounce of gold. And yet there was no fluctuation of the commercial with the legal ratio. For the first fifty years of this century there was produced in the world $1.78 of silver to one of gold a quantity ratio of about twenty-eight ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. The world is now producing about $1.10 in silver to $1 in gold. In 1873, when the mints were closed, the world was producing about eighty cents in silver to $1 in gold. In 1853 the world was producing about $1 in silver to $4 in gold, four times as much gold as silver. For 328 years prior to 1873, as far back as we have statistics that are undisputed, that all writers agree on as substantially correct, the changes in the quantity of relative production had no effect on their relative commercial value. But in twenty-two years demone- tization has revolutionized the metallic currency of the world. And there is no longer a par of exchange between the two metals at the legal ratio, which ratio is now only retained to govern the coinage of silver into token money to represent gold. They assign no other reason than over-production for the break in the commercial parity of the two metals. If they assign any other reason Mr. Horr will surely state it, for the gold standard now has a chance to lay its claims before the intelligence of the country. I began by defining scientific bimetallism, and in the second clause of its definition I emphasize the impor- tance of the unit. As that has already been discussed, it is not necessary to add anything to what has been said. 258 THE GREAT DEBATE LEGAL TENDER MONEY. Both should be legal tender, in the payment of all debts. This assists in maintaining the equality of the two metals. You interfere with the unlimited demand for their use as money w4ien you limit their full use as money. Excepting in the unit, there should be no discrimination between the two metals as th^y stand before the law. The right to make a contract to be liquidated in any specific property should not apply to money. All such contracts, when made payable in money, should call for "lawful money." What is good for one citizen is good for another. To permit a raid to be made upon either gold or silver is to permit in- dividuals or combinations of men to dictate to the gov- ernment what should be legal-tender money. Making money is an act of sovereignty for the common good, and to allow it to be corrupted would be to permit that which would defeat the object intended. The govern- ment is the creator of money, and the creator should regulate that which it creates. (Applause.) As we have seen by the Constitution, only the gov- ernment can coin money and regulate the value there- of. It is a right inherent in its creation to protect the value of that which has been created, in order that its value may continue to be regulated as fixed. And one of the most important steps is to give to the citizen the right to pay his debts and taxes in either form of coin that the government has created as primary money. No one should have a right to place a limitation upon the right of any citizen to exercise this right. (Ap- plause. ) To make debts payable in one to the exclusion of the other, is to make a greater demand for the one and to discredit the other; it is giving the individual a right to promote his selfish interests at the expense THE GREAT DEBATE 259 of tlie common good, to interfere with that which the hiw creates for the benefit of society. (Applause.) CAN THE GOVERNMENT CHANGE VALUES? Mr, Horr: I wiJl now proceed, notwithstanding I am charged with jumping around in discussing this book, lo point out some of its errors. The difficulty about discussing this book in a systematic order arises from the fact that there is no system in it, and it would be utterly impossible for anybody to devise a system out of such a hodge-podge as that book contains. While discussing your visionary "law of unlimited demand for silver by free coinage," on pages 47 and 48 of your book, you make Mr. John R. Walsh, whom you represent as present in your school which never ex- isted, ask "How can the government, bypassing a law, add a cent to the commercial value of any commodity?" You answer: "'Suppose,' said Coin, 'that Congress should pass a law to-morrow authorizing the purchase by the govern- ment of 100,000 horses, cavalry horses of certain sizes and qualities ; and the government entered the market to get these horses. Horses would advance in value. Not only the kind of horses desired, but also other horses upon which there would be a demand to take the place of horses sold to the government.' The hand-clapping that followed this reply, and smiles on many faces, in- dicated two things: one was, that the reply was satis- factory, the other that the School was making progress, for it was the first applause Coin had received. " (Laugh- ter. ) It was the first time Harvey had plucked up courage to cheer himself, it was an important stage in those proceedings, surely. You would not have supposed from .what I have seen of Harvey's followers that he would have been so terribly 260 THE GREAT DEBATE A voice in the audience: Modest. Mr. Horr: (continuing) fearful of cheering too much. '^The government," continued Harvey, "can create a demand for a commodity." Now that answer has misled thousands of honest and unthinking people. My friend here. Dr. Robinson, says "it is using the truth to lie with, which is the most crafty and dangerous kind of false statement." You used this illustration to teach that free coinage would create an unlimited demand for silver and in- crease its value in the markets of the world. The horses would be bought, kept, and used by the government; and the price of them would be paid to those who sold them, in money. Under such coinage as you advocate silver would be received by the government, coined, and then, in effect, returned to the owner again. He miglit not get the dollars made from the identical silver which he took to the mint, but he woukl get those coined from silver received and treated precisely as his was, so that he would practically get back the same thing. The only honest connection possible between your illustra- tion and the truth would depend upon the government's branding each horse and returning him, or another horse of the same class which had been treated and branded in the same way, to the man who presented the horse for branding. Now, what influence would that have on the price-of horses? It would not increase the consumption nor would it affect the supply. That horse business is a fraud on its face, that's all. (Ap- plause.) PRICES OF WHEAT AND CORN. Aijuther item: You say that the average price of wheat, as given on page 108 of "Coin's School," aver- THE GREAT DEBATE 261 aged 85 cents in 1891. The Statistical Abstract gives the New York price .$1.09 in 1891, and the average price in Chicago in 1891 was 97 cents. If you are teaching the people the truth, explain this discrepancy. Again: The statement that the corn crop of Illinois controlled the market price of corn in 1873, you so state on page 11(3 of "Coin's School." Now, the corn crop of Illinois in that year was 217,000,000 bushels; the corn crop of the United States was 1,092,000,000 bushels that same year. In 1893 you state that the corn crop of Illinois was 160,000,000 bushels, which you teach to the people governed the price of corn in the United States that year, whereas the product of corn that year in the United States was 1,619,000,000 bushels. Now, what I want is. Brother Harvey, that you should tell us how that little tail in the Illinois corn crop wagged the Avhole dog in the United States. (Applause.) In another portion of your book you state, at least by implication, that the farmer's products will not buy as much of all kinds of commodities, except labor, as in 1873. You do this on pages 121 and 122 of Coin's School. That statement is misleading and untrue. The farm- ers' products taken as a whole will buy as man}^ things that the farmers need and use as the same products, all taken together, would have bought in 1878, and I shall make that plain before this debate is finished. I will not go on to the other topic until my next time. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr will make nothing by abusnig or ridiculing me; the intelligence of the American peo- ple demands something higher than that. (Applause. ) If Mr. Horr will utilize his time in answering me when I give the official history of bimetallism and the rela- tive ratios, quantity, commercial and legal, that is now l)eing spread upon the pages of this debate from the 262 THE GREAT DEBATE official documents at Washington, he would be serving a better purpose in this debate than by trying to divert it. When he called your attention to the illustration in the ^'School" of the government entering the market for horses, which speaks for itself in the book and needs no defense, Mr. Horr should have thought of how the government fixes the price on gold. You take a certain quantity of gold to the United States mint, and it is coined and given back to you in so much money. The price of gold as money is fixed. Now we ask the same thing for silver, that's all (applause), and we believe this government can become more prosper- ous and more easily kept out of the hands of pawn- brokers of the world, wdth two metals for money than it can with one. When we get to the wheat table in the fifth chapter of "Coin's Financial School" I will satisfy Mr. Horr that it is right, as he has already been satisfied of every- thing that we have touched. (Laughter and applause.) THE OPTION OF THE DEBTOR. Now I proceed with the argument of what is scien- tific bimetallism. An important branch of it is the option that we have of paying in either metal. So im- portant is the question of the impartial treatment of the two metals in respect to legal-tender that it has al- ways been regarded as one of the most important essen- tials in bimetallism. The option of the debtor to pay in either metal is a vital principle. Unlimited free coinage at the mints guarantees substantial parity. But if, by reason of short supply, a corner on one of the metals, or from any other reason, one of the metals is enhanced in value, the debtor exercises his option to pay in the other metal, and this transfers the demand THE GREAT DEBATE 263 from the dearer metal to the cheaper metal. A break in the commercial parity causes the cheaper metal to be used. This increases the demand for the cheaper metal. This increased demand restores the value of the metal that has thus fallen below a parity and brings it back to parity. To give the option to the creditor causes the dearer metal to be demanded, and it thus grows dearer and dearer, and a parity is permanently broken, and the gap grows wider and wider. When the debtor has the option the two metals will oscillate close to a parity and substantially at a parity. This oscillation is the elasticity that bimetallism gives to primary money. If one becomes scarce the other is used. If one is cornered the other takes its place. Either answers for money. This option in the debtor regulates the demand. With silver discarded as it is now we must go to the men who own the gold to get it and submit to their terms. A corner on beef cannot seriously threaten the health of the people of this nation so long as mutton and pork are in competition with beef. A corner on gold could not, as it does now, seriously threaten the credit of this nation if silver were in competition with gold as primary money. (Applause. ) If we used the 1300,000,000 of silver now in the Treasury, there would be no borrowing of gold. When both are money on equal terms, one is in competition with the other. This shifts the demand from the dearer and scarcer to the cheaper and more abundant and holds them at a par- ity. This proposition has been demonstrated to you by the tables that are already printed in this debate. Supply and demand make values, and the law of bimet- allism regulates the d^mand and holds the two dollars, silver and gold, at an equal value. Bimetallism has 264 THE GREAT DEBATE the same principle as in the construction of a balance wheel of a watch. It is made of two metals, and under heat or cold as one of these metals contracts the other expands, and the effect is the regular action of the wheel. In 1873 we made our financial halanco wheel out of one metal. Authorities are as numerous on this, the debtor's option, as on the subject of the unit. I shall satisfy my- self by reading from The Chicago Tribune of January 14, 1878. It says, editorially: "Hamilton and Jefferson concurred in the wisdom and necessity of having a double standard, the purpose being to confer the option on the debtor to pay in either metal at his pleasure. Those great statesmen clearly foresaw' the trouble and disaster that a single standard would bring upon the Country. The retention of the option by the debtor to pay in either silver or gold is vitally important to the welfare of the whole American people and must never be surrendered." (Applause.) I quote this because I know there are many })eople who, while not agreeing with me, will agree with 'Jlic Chicago Tribune. (Applause.) PRINCIPLES OF BIMETALLISM. These are the principles upon which bimetallism is constructed. Thus joined together, silver and gold were in effect one metal. Like two legs joined to one body, they obeyed a common will, that put forward first the one and then the other. The will they obeyed was the law of supply and demand. Thus civilization strode down through the ages, ever growing and increasing as the aggregate supply of the two metals increased. Its greatest growth came with the phenomenal increase be- ginning in 1849, and by 1878 had adjusted itself to this THE GREAT DEBATE 265 increased supply. The body and limbs had grown with the new supply of blood. All nature is bimetallic. We have two legs, two arms, two eyes, two ears: one re- lieves the strain upon the other. It is not necessary in this debate to give statistics for the relative quantity of the two metals now in existence in the world available for use as money. It was con- ceded until Mr. Horr made a statement a few minutes ago that they were both equal at about ^$4,000,000,000. He does not deny now that they are equal, but he puts it at about $6,000,000,000. I will settle that at a future session. An equal quantity of either, dollar for dollar in quantity, by weight, sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce "of gold. Both are in the world to-day in existence available for use as money. Mr. Horr: My friend Harvey insists on conducting this debate without permitting me to refer to anything he has said in the previous part of the debate unless it comes in order, according to his idea of order in his Ijook. It is easy to see why he does that. He has a portfolio filled with written essays, worked out by him or somebody, I don't know who (laughter), which he proposes to read in his order. I came to the city of Chicago without a syllable having been written and supposing that this was to be a sort of stand-up fight, and every word I read is called out by the statements tliat he makes here on the discussion. It may be an- noying to him, I am sorry if it is (laughter), but I am running this business to please myself. (Laughter.) Mr. Harvey: That is right. Mr. Horr: I am not laboring very hard to please you. (Laughter.) INCREASE OF FARM TENANCY EXPLAINED. Yesterday, Brother Harvey called attention to the -06 THE GREAT DEBATE great iucrease of farm tenancy in the United States since 1860. It is one of the points that he makes in his book that the country is going to the dogs, because there are more people that work land as tenants than he likes to see. He objects to their doing it. He tells us that it is a sign of national ruin. It is from his point of view, but not from mine. Now let us see why he calls this in- crease evil and I call it good. The Minnesota Bureau of Labor, in 1898, investigated fhe condition of all the farmers in eleven typical town- ships. It thus obtained reports from 1,798 farmers, of whom 1,555 were farm owners and 248 were tenants. Of the farm owners, 285, or a number equal to that of the tenants, once were tenants, and most of them once worked for wages. Only two of those tenants had ever lost a farm by mortgage foreclosure and only seventeen of them had ever been farm-owners. Of the 285 own- ers, once tenants, the average of four years had sufficed them to pass through tenancy to farm ownership. This rising from the position of farm tenancy to farm own- ership is something that pleases me it doesn't please Brother Harvey. But tenancy in all parts of the United States means just the same as it does in Minnesota, and hence Brother Harvey objects to that tenancy in Georgia and Massachusetts the same as in Minnesota. Now take the United States census. The men and women in 1880 working for wages on farms was 8,225,- 876; in 1890 their number was only 8,004,015; in 1880 the farms worked by tenants were 1,024,601; in 1890 they were 1,294,918; in 1880 the farms worked by their owners were 2,984,806; and in 1890, 8,269,728. The persons working their own farms now see how com- pletely this accords with my ideas the persons work- ing their own farms increased 285,422, while those who THE GREAT DEBATE 267 were tenants increased only 270,812, and those work- ing for wages instead of increasing in number actually- decreased 219,761, while the i)opulation of the nation increased twelve and a half million. Now I like these changes. Mr. Harvey says he does not. I like to see men improve their condition in life. I say it is a good thing. Mr. Harvey doesn't seem to agree with me. He sees in tenancy, as it is in the United States, the ris- ing of men by the hundreds of thousands, from a low to a high condition, a national calamity. Is it? I do not so regard it. I was once a farm hand myself. I was only too glad to get ahead so that I was afterward able to work a farm as tenant, and then I was just as glad when I later was able to manage and own a farm of my own. And after that I left the farm and it is to-day being worked by a tenant. But the man who is working it as tenant was once a day laborer, and I think he is better off by working as he does, and I know I am doing better than T did when I was farming. And now he seems to think that it shows a bad con- dition of society to have men come from one class into another. See here, Brother Harvey, if you would show the people of the United States that this increase in tenancy had been at the expense of farm-owners you would have made a point, but that is not the truth. Undoubtedly in Massachusetts men have left their lands in the hands of tenants, but they have gone to the West. They make up the best people in the great Western country; persons who have graduated from the farms of New England and helped to build up this great coun- try of ours in the West. They are the sinews of this nation. Is it possible that in order to show that this country 268 tHE GREAT DEBATE is almost a hell on earth, you must undertake to prevent the natural growth of man from a lower condition to a higher? Your philosophy compels you to do that. Mine is the other way. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: The rules governing this debate are that we are to discuss "Coin's Financial School" in its or- der, and that is exactly what I am doing. That Mr. Horr does not find himself prepared to discuss it in that way is no reason why I should follow him in all the somersaults that he makes. Now the reader may think it strange that I do not stop and answer him about this tenant business, but I promise you that when I have reached its logical place in the order of the debate, I will attend to it, and at- tend to it right. And I promise that Mr. Horr's state- ment that he has just made will not only appear plainly unfair and not consistent with the facts, but one which, when properly considered, is a part of the history of our hard times. He had no right by the rules of this debate to go to that subject now. A simple question yesterday put to me at the end of the debate brought that subject up in an answer. Its logical place in ihp debate is elsewhere. I now proceed with the discussion as logically ar- ranged by the rules. primary and credit money. There are two kinds of money, in the general sensp in which we use the word money. One is primary money, to use the expression "money" only, would be more proper, the other is representative money. The latter is something that represents real money. For the purposes of this argument, I will sometimes re- fer to representative money as "credit money." Credit r THE GREAT DEBATE 269 money is of two kinds. One is paper money and the other is token money, both representing real money. Token money is used because of the uses to which it is put. This use would quickly wear out paper money. Thus copper cents have always with us been token money, and nickel five-cent pieces also, since they came into use. No attempt is made to maintain the com- mercial parity of these metals at any ratio with the metal out of which primary money is made. They sim- ply represent real money, and are redeemable in real money. They are used for convenience to represent primary money. We use token money to pay for articles the price of which is less than values at which we coin primary money. Primary money is the measure of values. GOLD THE MEASURE OF VALUE. Now Mr. Horr wanted me to take up that subject when he- was discussing that verse from the Bible in the fly-leaves. I now reach it at the place where it is discussed in the book. Gold (our present primary mon- ey) is now the measure of values. Mr. Horr has told you that that is a fact. He and I agree. Silver and gold working together, as before explained, virtually as one metal, was formerly the measure of values. What is meant by measure of values is, that the price you receive for a commodity you take to the market is governed by the supply and demand of the other com- modity from which real money is made. Let me illus- trate this first by an exchange of property. Suppose a man goes to market with a hogshead of to- bacco to exchange it for wheat. When he reaches the market the quantity of wheat he will Q-t^t for his tobacco 70 THE GREAT DEBATE depends on two things: first, the supply of tobacco and the demand for it; secondly, the supply of wheat and the demand for it. If wheat is plentiful, and the de- mand for it is normal, the man will receive in exchange for his tobacco more wheat than he would receive if wheat is scarce and the demand for it strong. If wheat is scarce he will receive less wheat for his tobacco than he will in the first instance where wheat is plentiful. So, money being made from a certain substance, when the man goes to the market with his tobacco to ex- change it for money, the quantity of money he will get depends on the supply of this substance from which money is made, and the demand for it. If the supply uf the money substance is large and the demand for it light, he will get more of it for his tobacco than if the money substance is scarce and the demand for it great. The quantity of gold now in the world, available for money, as we shall see later when we reach the fifth hapter of the "School," is in bulk the size of a cube wenty-two feet. Now suppose a mountain of solid gold was suddenly discovered that was the cube of a rpile that is, a mile high, a mile wide and a mile long and after this discovery you went into the market to ex- hange your tobacco for money (gold being the sub- stance from which money is made), you would get in exchange for your tobacco a much larger quantity of money than you do now. The say 3 cents a pound you get for it now represents its exchange value with gold, and the six cents a pound you once got for the same grade of tobacco represented its exchange value with money when silver and gold both were used as real money. (Applause.) The trouble with most men in understanding the effect of money on prices, is, that they are coijiu:ded with ho many forms of money, and THE GREAT DEBATE 271 do not understand the relative nature of real money with credit or representative money. When we have gold as.real money, as we have now, our representative money is tied to it as the tail of a kite is fastened to a kite. It goes up and down with gold as the tail of a kite goes up and down with the kite. We make it as good as gold only by fastening it to gold. Hence we now hear of a fifty-cent silver dollar. Why? Because silver is being measured in gold, and so is all your property. We have fifty-cent wheat and five-cent cotton, and this relative decline is the same with all other property where its value is measured in the gold markets of the world, not affected by trust causes or a new use that has increased its demand. What re- duced the prices was taking away one-half the real money. What will put it back is to restore that half of the money. Silver is now used as token money, rep- resenting gold. Bear in mind one thing through this whole argument that supply and demand regulate the value of money, the same as of all other property. This the people al- ready know. They only need to be reminded of it. THE ASSESSMENT OF CHICAGO BANKERS. Mr. Horr: Before proceeding to the discussion of the question of the production of silver I want to complete what I was trying to show to the American people: the unfair (and if it was not for Brother Harvey himself, so good-natured, I should be inclined to say the pur- posely misleading) nature of his statements in his works on finance in his "Coin Up To Date" on page 19. He there endeavors to make the people of this country believe that the banks and the bankers are swindling the people and do not list their money for taxation. He makes the broad statement that - 102,000,000 111,800,000 ]^^3 1)5,000,000 115,300,000 IsM 101,700,000 105,500,000 1NN5 10S,400,000 118,500,000 IVS6 106,000,000 120,600,000 1 ^^7 105,775,000 124,281 ,000 l^ss 110,197.000 140,706,000 ]ss'.> 123,480,000 162,151),0()0 1 ^t< 113,150,000 172,235,000 1 ^in , 120,510,000 186,733,000 1 ^'.t-_> 130,817,000 196,605,000 1 -':; 157,238,000 209,165,000 1 ^'.14 181 ,510,000 214,381,000 Now this table shows and the table that he exhibited to you and exhibited around shows the same as far as it goesr-that since 1874 the production of silver has been constantly on the increiase. Gold since 1875 has been constantly increasing in quantity too, but gold has increased since 1878 from $90,750,000 worth in one J THE GREAT DEBATE 275 year to $181,510,000, just caboiit double. Silver in those same years has increased from $71,500,000 up to $214,881,000. While gold increased only twice, silver has increased just about three times. Mr. Harvey : Mr. Horr began the last time by getting clear out of the book we are discussing and brought into this discussion another book I have written. Now why does he do that? If he will only stay in the harness with me in this debate where I can get at him, and at the same time devote the words at my disposal to the subject we have agreed to debate, it seems to me it would be more proper. (Applause. ) His fondness for protecting national bankers probably lured him out of the book we are debating. (Applause.) I say "now that I refuse to discuss anything outside of "Coin's Financial School'' that is notappropriate to the subject under dis- cussion, but will add that all of you who will write a letter to David Gore, Auditor, Springfield, Illinois, will get the confirmation of what Mr. Horr attacked in "Up to Date." (Applause.) When I reach it I will follow Mr. Horr closely and drive him from every position that he is taking in its proper order. I was discussing the relation of primary and credit money, and had called your attention to the fact that supply and demand regulated the value of gold, out of which our primary money is now made, the same as sup- ply and demand regulate the value of all property, and you only needed to have your attention called to that. The lesson for you to learn is that primary money, now gold, gives to its representative credit money the same purchasing power that it has itself. Mr. Horr has learned this lesson. He says on page 64 of his de- bate with Senator Stewart, Mr. Horr has the book of that debate now with him, "The circulating medium 276 THE GREAT DEBATE of the United States is to-day based upon gold, its value is fixed by the value of gold." Mr. Horr is right, and our currency is fixed by the value of gold. The question i^ often asked, ''Is our silver redeemable in gold?" The iovernment has by its different credit acts fixed this, ;nd therein confirmed what was originally intended namely, to establish the gold standard. So all our forms of money have their value fixed'by gold, and on this Mr. Horr and I agree, if I understand Mr. Horr. Ar..> TTork: That is right. rREDIT MONEY DOES NOT AFFECT VALUES. Mr. Harvey: He says that is right. To illustrate tliis, in the '-School" I used wheat certificates and said that these certificates issued against the wheat in Chi- :igo elevators did not increase the exchangeable value of wheat with other property. The certificates represent the wheat and facilitate business, but do not give any nlditional value to wheat. In fact, the price of wheat ^ now lower than it was before the use of wheat certifi- cates was introduced. Neither does paper and token money, representing gold, affect the value of gold or ])roperty, except in the sense of facilitating exchange. They are each a medium of exchange, but not a measure of values. Primary money fixes the sea level of prices. There was no paper money in circulation in California lietween 1849 and 1878, and very little between 1878 and 1880. When visiting California as late as 1884 I found gold and silver to be at least two-thirds of the money in use. It is hard for one accustomed to j^aj^er money to understand this unless he has been in a country where no paper money is used. In California gold and silver were carried in the people's pockets. A $20, a $10, two $5's in gold and $5 in silver was not regarded I'HE GREAT DEBATE 277 as inconvenient, and the remainder of their money, in gold and silver, was deposited in banks. And yet between these years, gold and gilver prices were as high in Cal- ifornia as they were with us. Paper money circulating with us did not take away from silver and gold prior to 1873, or from gold since then, any of its exchange- able value, nor did it add any to coin prices with us as compared with prices in California where there was no paper money. Mexico has no paper money (see article "Romero, Mexican Minister," in June number, North American Review)^ and yet wheat is worth there $1.30 per bushel in silver the equivalent of our gold price for wheat here where we have paper money represent- ing gold. And corn in Mexico is worth $1.50 per bush- el more than its relative value here in gold, where we have credit money to re-enforce gold, and Mexico has no credit money to re-enforce its silver. When the law makes a certain metal the measure of values, as it now does gold, or two metals in concurrent coinage the measure of values, it is a mistaken idea that paper or tokens, issued to represent this money, in- crease or decrease their exchangeable value, except in the sense that they may facilitate the exchange. Mr. Horr says in the Weekly New York Tribune of June 19 (the paper is here, Mr. Horr), "Paper money is worth only the value of the money in which it is redeemed." And Mr. Horr is right. I do not mean to say that paper money cannot be made primary money, as we may see later, but it does not become the measure of values when only representing primary money. To be a meas- ure of value it must represent itself only. Any one who denies the proposition that primary or real money alone is the measure of values is asked to consider this: With relative production of silver to 1' ^ > THE GREAT DEBATE --)ld since 1873, not accounting for the decline in silvei* ince that year, why is it that silver is worth only fifty 'nts now, as compared with one hundred cents in iST3? And, if a change of our money measure to the ^old standard has reduced the price of silver 50 per 'nt, what reason is there that it would not exert a iinilar influence on other property? For 2,000 years -liver and gold have gone together, locked arm in arm, md now suddenly while gold stands erect silver falls on its knees with its head resting on the hip of gold. Does not the same hand that thus humbles silver strike it the prices of all other property? The reader is now isked, before he reads further, to turn forward to page MfS, and look again at Mr. Sauerbeck's table giving the relative decline of property with silver since 1873. WHY SILVER IS CHEAPER. Mr. Horr: Any business man will only need to look nt the table of production of silver and gold since 1873 lo be able to ascertain that the law which I partially illustrated yesterday operates in reference to silver as well as in reference to every other commodity. Silver !oes not represent to-day the same amount of labor, 'f work, that it represented in 1873. It is cheaper be- ause the demand and the supply are in such relations <) each other that it makes it cheaper just as wheat has l>een cheaper, and for the same reason. Mr. Harvey is mistaken. Prices are not governed or controlled by the amount of primary money in any country or in the whole world so far as I know. No political writer of any distinction 'ver claimed anything of the kind. I know in the book he refers to in my debate with Mr. Stewart he admitted in so many words that the price of articles is affected by the entire circulating medium of the coun- THE GREAT DEBATE 279 try. I shall show you before I get through that such a rule is, of necessity, the right one. Why, when we passed the law of 1873 there was at that time only about one hundred and thirty-five millions of gold in the country, all the primary money we had. If his doctrine is true prices should have been doubled in- stantly. Ah, but here is the trouble with your mathe- matics. If your doctrine is true every product in this country should have been reduced in price by this cheap- ening of silver. Mr. Harvey: Silver is not now primary money. Mr. Horr: Silver is not primary money; and under his doctrine, because primary money has been reduced in that way one-half, all prices should be reduced one- half. Have they been? Has corn depreciated that way? Has pork depreciated that way? Have cattle depreciated that way? Over one-half the farm products of the United States are as high now as they were in 1873, a fact which could not be true if his doctrine as to the appreciation of the measure of value is true. Prices would necessarily be split in two, reduced one- half. Now the difficulty is, articles are cheapened by the processes of production. What is value? Where do we get the idea from? PRICES are fixed BY COST OF PRODUCTION. As-f stated yesterday, it is fixed by the amount of hu- man toil which enters inta the production of an ar- ticle. Now don't misunderstand me, I don't say the price of an article will be just the price of the human labor that enters into it. No, no, that isn't the rule. The price of an article is always fixed by the absolute cost of production to the concern producing it, which does it at the highest price at which it can stay in the 280 THE GHEAT DEBATE l)iisiness after the price is lixed. You will understaiui me, because I will illustrate it so that you will get at what I mean. It isn't a question that a little boy like ''Coin" could understand, perhaps, but it is a question that thinking men will see in a moment. Whenever you make an invention, an improvement, so that by machinery you cheapen the cost of production,, the price of the article will go down to the lowest point that it c:\n possibly get toward this new cost of production, but always stops with the highest cost to the men who stay in the business of producing. For instance, we had been paying years ago a dollar a pound, and a good deal more, for aluminum. It used to cost that in actual work in expense to get a pound of it. Now aluminum is without limit in the crust of the earth almost. Scientific men tell us that it composes perhaps one-tenth of the entire crust of the earth. Every clay bed is from 20 to 70 per cent aluminum. Every shale rock is loaded down with it, and the trouble has been to re- duce it into the form of a metal so that it could be utilized by the human race. It used to cost so much that it was worth a good deal more than silver. Dr. Robinson: More than gold. Mr. Horr: Yes, more than gold. Now we have been cheapening the pr(xluction of aluminum by discovering means of separating it and getting it into metal form, pure metal. Every invention that we have made has cheapened the production until now it is down to per- haps 40 or 45 cents a pound. Now listen, I believe that there are men in this house who will yet live to see aluminum so cheap that it will be used in casing our houses, and will take the place of lumber when it shall disappear from use in house-building. Each generation takes care of itself, and generally THE GREAT DEBATE 281 succeeds in getting something better than the generation before it. Now mark, when some person shall make an invention and it will be done shall discover a method of reducing aluminum so that it can be made for ten cents a pound, so that that is all it will cost, the price of aluminum will not go down to ten cents a pound at first, or anywhere near it. The man making the dis- (()very will hold the price as high as he can keep it, and that is always at the highest point that it costs any of the men who still stay in the business to make it, and the balance he puts in his pocket as profit. And that is the law of prices the world over. After a while they will drive out the most expensive man in the business. \h} will have to stop, and the price will go down to the next lower, and they will keep reducing the price in that way. But the cost of production after all is the great element that fixes the price of any article, gold and silver, or anything else, and any one who endeavors to impose upon the people, attempting by law to drive them to use any article for more than its actual value, will fail. (Applause.) You can't do business on that ])lan in this world of ours. Mr. Harvey: I hope in the course of the next debate, to get through with the logical presentation of this ques- tion and then have it out with Mr. Horr right here on ill these questions that he is now bringing up, and T am only going to refer briefly to what he has said now. He speaks of improved facilities and improved cheap- ness of production as lowering prices. Now, when we meet on that I know exactly how a reasonable man is going to decide it, but I just give you this to think about in the mean time, so you won't be following Mr. Horr off on his sidetracks. Between 1850 and 1873 we had a great era of im- 282 THE GREAT DEBATE proved facilities. Even the harvesters were all invented and in use before 1878, even the binder, and yet prices were rising. Improved facilities increased constantly, and at the same time prices were rising. When we get to it we will all understand this question. The people of the United States are being deceived, most wofully deceived, on this money question, and the owners of money, gold and money payable in gold, and bonds and securities payable in gold, are running a corner on you by which they are becoming owners of you. (Applause.) You are being sold in bondage to the pawnbrokers of Europe to-day by this monetary policy. (Applause.) And before I get through with Mr. Horr none of these specious arguments and specious styles of reasoning of his will be in our way. We shall brush them all to one side so that an intelligent man can understand himself and be deceived by none of them. In the mean time remember this, that when you say price, you mean dollars; that the price of a thing is its value measured in dollars, and that that now means gold dollars, and when Mr. Horr tells you tliat silver can be produced twice as cheap now as it could in 1873, and that is the reason why it is only worth fifty cents, put this question back to him in your minds: "Cannot gold be produced now for one-half what it cost in 1873, if you areright,Mr. Horr?" (Applause.) "If 871 4 grains of silver is now only worth fifty cents why is not the quantity of gold in the gold dollar only worth fifty cents, if you are right about your cheap cost of production?" (Applause.) The reason why the gold in the gold dollar is worth a dollar is because the gov- ernment stamps and makes it a dollar. The reason why the silver in a silver dollar is only worth fifty cents is because you are not measuring it in itself it is no dol- TUE GilEAT DEBATE 283 Jar, it is a token, and you are measuring it by the gold dollar that is the measure of value. (Applause.) SILVER IS NOW TOKEN MONEY. I was discussing primary money as a measure of val- ue. We have as much silver relatively with gold in our monetary system now as we have had at anytime in forty ypars, but it is not performing the functions of primary or redemption money it is token money resting on gold, and silver bullion is measured in gold. When we say price we mean gold. Silver is not exerting an in- fluence as a measure of values. The act of 1878 made by express words the unit of value of gold, and left gold without any concurrent coinage of another metal to add to its quantity. Hence it left gold the sole meas- ure of values, and such it is. In determining whether primary money or primary and credit money combined are the measure of values I want you to think of this: That in 1867 I read from the Statistical Abstract of 1894, page 278 in 1867 all the money in circulation was per capita |18.28. At that time all money was primary money, the measure of values was paper money itself. In 1872 the money in circulation was $18.19 per capita, and all of it was primary money. We were pricing everything in l)aper money, and bought gold and silver when we wanted it. Now come to the time when we have the redemption system in vogue. We find that in 1894 we had a per capita circulation of primary and credit money combined of $24.28, more money per capita in 1894 than in 1867 or 1872. Now you will say that the quantity of money in circulation affects prices. You have more money, primary and credit combined, in cir- culation in 1894, per capita, than you had in the two S84 THE GREAT DEBATE years named previous to 1878, and yet the prices were higher then than now. Why? Because there was more primary money per capita in circulation at the two first named years than there is in the last named year, 1894. Of the $24 per capita in circulation of all money in 1894, only about six dollars is primary money, while in 1867 and 1872 there was $18 per capita primary money in circulation. Mr. Horr: I am very much surprised to hear my friend say that we were getting along well during the years of suspension of specie payment when we used en- tirely money that on its face had to be redeemed. His definition of primary money was money of redemj^tion. Every greenback has to be redeemed to make it good. It is not primary money, nor we cannot construe it into primary money by any hook or crook. Now, in 1879, we did return to specie payment, we did make our greenbacks and all our money as good as the best, and Brother Harvey and his whole crowd of followers and adherents were goiiig up and down this country stating that if we undertook to enforce that act we would ruin the business of this country. I know they said it be- cause I heard them dozens and dozens of times. They believed it just as Harvey does now. Mr. Harvey: You did not hear me say it. Mr. Horr: Well, if you were old enough you did say it. A man constituted as you are couldn't have said anything else. Your whole crowd kept repeating it. I did not hear you say it because I didn't hear you talk, but if I had been near enough to have been within sound of your voice I would have heard just the same words exactly from you. I am familiar, not with him, but with his history on that business. We were told this same thing, that the whole business hung on the amount per capita of money in circulation. THE GREAT DEBATE 285 Now I want to say to Mr. Harvey right here, I have not admitted that prices are governed entirely, oranj'-- thing like it, by the amount of money in circulation. 1 said that your authorities who claimed that "quan- tity" doctrine all admitted (all of them, so far as I know, admit) that it is the quantity of anything that is used as a circulating medium that affects prices. I tlid not say I adopted the theory, because my experience has proved to me that a country is prosperous, not in proportion to the ajnount of stuff that circulates and is called money, but to the amount of honest money, of honest money that will be redeemed when presented in its value dollar for dollar. (Applause.) This country was never more prosperous than from 1879, as I told you yesterday, up to 1892. There is not a man living who can take the statistics and prove that we were not doing well as . a nation during all those years. Now, Brother Harvey opens every speech he makes i)y announcing what wonders he is going to do before tins debfvte closes. He is going to drive me into the corner; he is going to maul me all over the house; he ])roposes to l)ury me out of sight; he is such a fearful fellow that he is going to sweep like a cyclone over this whole country with that terrible intellect of his. Why, I am here yet, and I notify you. Brother Harvey, I will be here when we get through. (Laughter and applause. ) And another thing I want to call your attention to. What the world has lost, hasn't it, because there have been no Harveys up to the present time! (Laughter.) What a darkness the whole world has been in! The ''stuff" I am preaching, if he calls it such, is believed in by a great majority of the thinking men of the United States. It is believed in by the best men in 286 THE GREAT DEBATE Great Britain. The financiers of France have adopted it. It is well understood that it is firmly rooted in the conviction of the German students. Switzerland be- lieves in it. Every civilized nation on the face of the earth believes in it, and they have adopted it deliber- ately. CIVILIZATION IN SILVER COUNTRIES. Who are your followers, Harvey? The men of China what financiers they must be, what a civilization they have developed, haven't they, with their silver theories? There isn't enough of them to withstand that little patch, Japan, which has recently knocked the stuffing out of them. (Laughter.) Now you know that Mexico believes it. Are you proud of Mexican civilization? Do you know anything about it? Do you want to reduce this country to the condition of the miserable poor Mex- ican peons, ,who are just a little bit above the grade of our Southern slaves? What nation have you that knows anything and believes as you do, Harvey? Japan is recently looking toward a gold standard; she is getting her eyes open and she drifts in the way of common sense. The only South American nation that claims much civilization is Chili, and she is just adopt- ing the gold standard. Is it that the philosophers and sages of the civilized world are all ignoramuses and that we can get no wis- dom except we look for it in this crowd of populists I cannot use the proper words that would express my feelings without being disrespectful to my hearers, whom I love dearly, you know. When you come to the opinion of intelligent and of thinking men, to-day, as they did in the past, they agree with me upon this question, and I propose as we THE GREAT DEBATE 287 go on in this dohate to show to my friend Harvey and to the people of this country that all he is trying to do is to destroy the values of this country and trying to jHit this nation upon a level with the uncivilized na- tions of the world, and he is trying to reduce the pay of men who labor, in an indirect manner, by cutting down the value of the dollar which they receive for their work, and I do not boast of being able to hold him down to any kind of business. I am too old 'to think that is possible for anybody to do, you know, but I will show the American people that his whole philos- ophy would work ruin to the best interests of this na- tion, and when I have done that the people of this country will never adopt the nonsense he teaches. (Ap- plause. ) Mr. Harvey: When I said the automatic binder was invented before 1878, I meant to say the automatic hay rake. Mr. Horr says I am a greenbacker. Now, Mr. Horr, there is nothing in anything I have ever written or any- thing that I have ever said that will justify you in say- ing that I do not believe in gold and silver as primary money to the fullest extent under the bimetallic laws that governed it prior to 1878. (Applause.) We may later discuss greenbacks and their proper position in our financial system. Mr. Horr failing, I presume, to find better arguments, undertakes to sustain his case by saying that gold has been adopted by all civilized countries as the sole meas- ure of value, and that we have on our side only Mex- ico, China, Japan, and such nations. Now, Mr. Horr, that is not argument. When national legislators are tricked into adopting laws, and it has been secured by such means, to turn around and use that argument will act as an irritant on the people. 288 TH K <^ v>' i<^ A I' t>?:bate I want to call your attention to another fact, that we had slavery once in all civilized nations (applause); and the slaveholder made the same argument that you have made here to-day. (Applause.) I want to remind you of another thing: that Rome rose to a high state of civilization, they did not have everything that we now have, but they had many things that we. have not now, and when she was at that great height of civili- zation her strength was her farmers; the yeomanry of the Roman Enipin^ was prosperous and was out of debt, and there was a high state of civilization. No one can tell but that they were then possibly within one hun- dred years of a new era, that would have opened up things yet undiscovered, when the mailed hand of selfishness was laid upon the Roman Empire. It was the money-lenders of Rome and Athens (applause),and in a short period they had so manipulated the money of that emi)ire, the measure of values by which those honest and unsuspecting people contracted debts in one moasure and had to pay them in a dearer measure, that they ruined that great civilization which is commemorated to-day by the Italian hand-organ. (Ap- plause. ) That we have risen to a high state of civiliza- tion does not mean that this change in our monetary system is right ; it is the l)eginning of a decline in civili- zation, and has been forced upon us to pander to the sHlhsliness of the men who understood that legislation would be in their personal interest when they fostered it. (Applause.) THE PROPER FUNCTIONS OF CREDIT MONEY. I now proceed with the question of the relation of primary and credit monpy. Credit money represents THE GREAT DEBATE 289 primary money. If a bank issues it, it is expected to redeem it in primary money; if the government issues it, it is expected in likje manner to redeem it. It is not value, but represents value. It is issued on the same principle that a check is issued. Credit money may be issued by the government with safety only in such quantity as will not embarrass it in case a run is made on the government for redemp- tion. If it is a government well founded and popular with its own people it may issue credit money to an equal amount with the quantity of primary money in its border. If redemption money is required, it can float bonds among its people to the full amount, if nec- essary, and get the primary money. It should never borrow money from the people of another nation. (Ap- plause. ) To do so is a sure indication of monetary weakness (applause), and if persisted in will lead to V)ankruptcy. No man can do business on borrowed capital over a long period without the almost certain risk of failure. The same is true of a nation if it bor- rows from a foreign nation. No harmful elfeci results necessarily from a nation borrowing from its own peo- ple. When a nation, its municipalities, its corporations and its people are all borrowers from another nation, their decay has set in (applause), and nothing but ex- ceptional statesmanship and vigorous action can save it from financial revolution and resulting disaster. (Ap- plause. ) Hence a government should not issue credit money in quantity beyond the amount of primary money among its people. As to itself, it should have no money in its treasury except for its current expenses and im- provements. The money should be among the people. (Applause.) L'uut $1,000,000,000. Hence a surplus of from $4(K),(X)0,000 to $600,000,000 of credit money is now in circulation, and the run on the United States Treasury must con- tinue till the credit money is reduced to the quantity of gold in the country, or the stock of primary money is increased. (Applause.) Hence, we see that in all financial systems, primary money and our credit system are intimately connected and that our credit system begins with credit money. The next step in ourcredit system is individual credits, including checks, drafts, bonds, mortgages, accounts and other forms of indebtedness, all resting on what is our actual money i^rimary money. To bring order out of confusion, we want to go to work at once to build up our stock of primary money. To do this, the first step is to remonetize silver and make it with gold, as under the old laws, substantially one mass of metal constituting our primary money. r')2 THE GREAT DEBATE When we come to the discussion of the last cliapter of the "School," we will see how this will in no way prevent holders of gold obligations getting their gold, while the country will return to a prosperous condi- tion. Under the financial derangement we are now going through, the country must suffer as a patient with chills and fever. The demand on gold will rise and fall as the markets for gold alternately loosen and tighten. Prices of property will rise and fall accordingly, but ever with a tendency downward. Like the progress of a fatal disease, the impulses of nature at intervals resuscitate the patient and hold out a deceptive prom- ise of improvement. Each time a government gold loan is made, with, say, the Rothschilds behind the treasury, temporary confidence will be restored and prices will advance. The government supplying itself with gold causes the gold-hoarders in the United States to let their gold out. But as the yellow sand in the hourglass at Wash- ington runs out again, as it must, a scare returns, gold-hoarding begins again, the demand for gold in- creases, and prices correspondingly fall. The end is national bankruptcy. To correct this system is national prosperity. Every moment's delay endangers the safety of the republic. (Applause.) If I am wrong as to primary money being the meas- ure of values, then you will all agree with me that it is the total volume of money, that it is a deranged monetary system, that tries to hold the quantity of credit money at a disproportionate volume to that of primary money, and that this cannot be done. Hence, as all credit money rests on primary money, if we ad- here to the golf] ^iniwiMid uA must look to gold alone to sustain it. THE GREAT DEBATE 803 SILVER DOLLARS COINED IN NEVADA. Mr. Horr: I wish the stenographer before she leaves would tell me the amount of silver dollars Mr. Harvey stated had been coined in 1870 at the mint at Carson City. The Reporter: Four hundred and twelve thousand, tour hundred and sixty-two. Mr. Harvey (Stepping up to Mr. Horr and taking 1 he book) : I see that in the uncertain light of this room 1 mistook the dollar mark for the figure "4" I will state that the number of silver dollars coined at Car- son City, Nevada, in the year 1870, was 12,462. Cor- rect it in your notes. (To stenographer.) Mr. Horr : No, I want it put down just as it occurred. My friend Harvey seems to think that because I make a statement that I have taken from the mints of the United States, and because I don't lug in the books, and then with a good deal of show say, '^I now pass this book over to Mr. Harvey," that therefore I don't make my statements correctly. He has fur- nished a book here which proves exactly my statement. His mistake I am very sorry he made it, because if he had read carefully he would not have made the criti- cisms on my statement at all Mr. Harvey: Excuse me, that is the object in passing the books to each other, so if one of us makes a mistake inadvertently, the other can correct it. Mr. Horr: If I make a mistake he has the chance to go right and bring me up as I have him this morning. Now this mint report which he handed me shows that after 1870 up to 1874, in the entire mint at Carson City there were only coined 19,288 of the old silver dollars. The mint report will show that those were coined from the silver accumulated in assaying the gold taken to 804 THE GREAT DEBATE thai mint. My prc)p(>8ilioii was that not any of the silver produced in the country and sold by silver own- ers, or taken to the mint for coinage, was embraced in that money which he says was coined after 1853. I have made it plain. Now this report shows that there were over 4,000,000 trade dollars coined in that mint after 1873, but I was talking of the coinage of the standard silver dollars and accounting for their being coined when the silver in them was worth more as bul- lion than as coin. Now I submit to Brother Harvey that all his statement on that subject is simply incor- rect and his own report here shows that my statement is true. THIS COUNTRY CANNOT RESTORE THE RATIO. 1 now proceed to state that up to this moment Mr. Harvey has not said one word upon the real question in debate. He spent hours to prove that the law of 1873 was ''conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity." I gave a short, succinct history of the origin of the bill and the steps taken in its passage. He has not success- fully controverted a single statement of mine. He has nowhere proven any act of bribery or the influence of money in a single step taken during the progress of that bill through Congress. He or no one else ever will, because there was none. He has now printed long tables to prove that when the entire world, except England, was attempting to control the price of silver by legis- lation, they succeeded in keeping the legal price within five cents on the dollar of the market or commercial price, and that generally the variation between the market price and the legal price was only about two points. I have shown and he virtually admits, at least THE GREAT DEBATE 805 he has nowhere denied it that a variation of one- quarter of one point has thus far been sufficient to drive the dearer metal from every country in the world. But suppose we admit that by the concerted action of these countries, including all Europe, except England, they did prevent, with the conditions that existed in those days, a variation of no more than two points be- tween the legal and commercial ratio, that does not help Mr. Harvey in this debate in the least. That does not tend to show that the United States Government alone, with the entire civilized world refusing free coin- age to silver, and when the difference between the com- mercial ratio and the legal ratio is 16 points, can restore the old ratio; it proves precisely the opposite of what he claims. It proves that if the combined action of the civilized world, except Great Britain, with the half-civilized nations, all that have the silver standard and working to help them, could not maintain a parity between the legal and com- mercial ratios when the production of gold and silver were nearly the same, that now, when the production of silver has increased twice as fast as that of gold, it is folly to claim that one nation alone can restore that old ratio. Mr. Harvey admits as much when he provides for cutting down the size of the gold dollar. With all his assurance he has not had the hardihood to claim that the United States alone can restore the old ratio. He ought to know I am satis- fied he does know that nothing of that kind would oc- cur. I think he does not desire to have any such thing occur. I think he does not desire to drive the pur- chasing power of the silver dollar up. He says, reduce the size of the gold dollar, tells us that tfee gold dol- lar has been constantly advancing in price, and that 306 THE GREAT DEBATE the silver dollar has remained stationary. He says over and over again that an ounce of silver will exchange for as much of human productions to-day as it ever would. We will see about that as we go on. Now, my proposition is that gold has remained nearly station- ary in price since 1873 and that silver has fallen in price in accordance with the great law of supply and demand, and that the cheapened processes of produc- tion, with the increase of the supply, has driven down the price of silver. Mr. Harvey : I am going to ask Mr. Horr a question before I proceed. The table on production of silver for the world shows the world's production in 1860 to have been $40,800,000, and that the production in- creased each year till 1872, twelve years later, when it was $65,250,000. Here was an increase of 64 per cent in twelve years in the production *of silver. Now if you are right why did not this increase break down the price of silver from 1860 to 1873? And before you an- swer I call your attention to the twelve years, 1872 to 1884, when the increase is 63 per cent, 1 per cent less than the previous twelve years, during which time the price of silver had fallen 17 per cent. Do you want to answer it now, Mr. Horr? Mr. Horr: No, I will think over it, don't crowd me now. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr challenged me to show where any dollars were coined outside of the Philadelphia mint. I did that. Now I want to say to Mr. Horr, while disputing all that he has said, the silver derived from gold in refining gold at the mints was not coined into dollars, but was coined into fractional silver. When he says that the government was willing to lose that 2 or 3 per cent premium he is saying that the gov- THE GREAT DEBATE 307 ernment was willing to do something that the individ- ual was not. That is what he contends for. I want to make that thing plain. Suppose a man in Nevada had a lot of silver bullion and wanted it coined in those years into silver coin. Now 2 or 8 per cent premium for silver would be no inducement to that man to ship that bullion to London, that is where this premium was; it wasn't here nor in New York. The freight and insurance and expressage would more than consume that 2 or 3 per cent, not to speak of being out of the use of his money in the mean time. Hence he would take it to the United States mint and have it coined into money that he could use immediately. (Applause. ) The premium on silver, so called, as measured in gold prior to 1873 was only the difference in cost of exchange at London with the French ratios. And if you will study the tables that have been produced here in the history of the metal you will find that is trup. Now I will proceed where I left off. HOW MUCH PRIMARY MONEY IS NEEDED? We have thus far considered what primary money should be made of and its relation to credits. It is im- portant in the study of money to inquire into the quan- tity necessary to transact the business of the country. How much money does the aggregate business of the country demand? We have seen that there is not to t'xceed $600,000,000 of primary money (gold) in this country, and $1,600,000,000 in circulation of primary and credit money combined. If this was properly pro- portioned credit to primary money would it be enough? It is in effect admitted by the other side that it is not, but they say bank credit with the check system 308 THE GREAT DEBATE supplies the balance. The "Coinage Laws and Ap- pendix" we have been using, pages 215 and 240 I now hand the book to Mr. Hon* show that the total de- posits of the people in the United States at a certain day in 1893 in banks of all kinds, were $4,848,862,080. This is in the face of the fact that there is only $1,- ')00,000,0(.)0 of money of all kinds in circulation; and it, as we know, is not all deposited in the banks. This leaves at least $3,300,000,000, more money subject to check than there is of our whole stock of money. The -urplus is what is known as bank credit and check sys- tem. It also indicates wliat is a normal amount of money for the transaction of the business of the coun- try. Give it your impartial judgment, and you can- not escape the conclusion that the $4,800,000,000 approximates the quantity necessary. You cannot say that it is in existence, for it is not. You cannot say that it is the capital of the business men, on which they are transacting the business of the country. You can only say that experience teaches that so much is riecessar3\ You cannot say that it exists. It repre- sents the amount of cash capital necessary for the bus- iness of the country, but it is not cash capital. It is 'ne-third money and two-thirds bank credit. There is .)ne-third enough money to furnish capital for and facilitate the business of the country, and the banks, with their credit system, furnish the other two-thirds. On the one-third we pay no interest. It is not interest- bearing money; it is the money of the- country. We pay interest on the other two-thirds. To say there is $4,800,000,000 deposited in the banks, is to say at the same time the banks are drawing interest on $3,300,- 000,000 of it. It works this way: A deposits $10,000 in bank. B borrows the $10,- THE GREAT DEBATE B09 000 from the bank, but does not take the money, it is placed to his credit. Now the $10,000 has swollen to $20,000 on deposit. The $10,000 is still in the bank. C comes in and borrows it, and places it to his credit. Now there is $80,000 on deposit. Interest is being paid on $20,000 of it. A has $10,000 to his credit, the cap- ital in his business, on which he is paying no interest. B and C have each $10,000 to their credit as capital in their business, and they are both paying interest. This is how we find there is $4,800,000,000 on de- posit, with only $1,600,000,000 in the country. It shows that business demands $4,800,000,000. It shows that business is borrowing $3,800,000,000 of it. If it did not need it it would not borrow it and pay interest. The lesson to be learned from this is: That the country needs $4,800,000,000 to meet the normal demand for money. It needs it just as it needs a normal supply of wheat or anything else. If you want to confirm this, take the loans given on the same pages last referred to, showing that the loans of all banks at that date were $4, 7GU, 879,495. With only $1,600,000,000 in the government, they are loaning three times that sum. This money is furnished how? The banks furnish it with the credit system, by which one dollar is made to circulate in place of three that are needed, and the banks collect interast on two of the dollars. For each dollar in existence, we are paying the banks interest on two dollars. This is the way the banks work the actual volume of money in exist- (uice up to the normal volume. With $1,600,000,000 in existence, the people are using it and paying inter- est on $8,800,000,000 additional. This interest va- ries from 6 to 12 per cent. At six percent it is a tax of $198,000,000 annually, to support this sytsem in sup- 310 THE GREAT DEBATE plying the shortage in our money volume. The banks are interested in holding down the volume of money, and supplying the remainder needed with their system. They take the quantity of money in existence and stretch it like a piece of rubber. And they sometimes let loose of their end. It is used to mold public opin- ion in their interest. It can be truthfully said that all the money in circulation represents borrowed money. The bankers thus have an influence in molding pub- lic opinion. It is human nature known of all men that most debtors are moral cowards. Money is the lash they are afraid of, and money-lenders hold the whip handle. The borrower is the servant of the lender. (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: That whole question of whether banks are a curse to the world, and as to the credit of the country being the country's life blood, will come later in this debate. When I reach it in the regular order (laughter and applause), it will be presented to Mr. Harvey's perfect satisfaction. (Laughter and applause. ) Indeed I doubt whether he won't leave the room in per- fect disgust with himself for having entered into this debate. (Laughter.) I now proceed to the question I was talking about. DECREASE IN COST OF SILVER. According to the report of the Senate committee the decrease in the price of 226 leading articles on our farms and in our s-hops and factories since 1879 is only about 7 per cent. That is no more than the natural decrease in the price of such productions owing to the improve- ments of machinery, which I spoke to you about, and which should always diminish the price to the con- sumers of the country. Silver has decreased in price THE GREAT DEBATE 311 50 per cent, so have several other articles in the world, influenced by the peculiarities surrounding each arti- cle, and consequently not influenced by the unit or measure of value having appreciated. It is all idle talk, Brother Harvey, about silver costing two dollars an ounce. To add to the cost of producing an article all the money that has been lost in mining specula- tions and gambling is too ridiculous to permit a child, even though his name be "Coin," and though he be "inspired," to announce as an economic proposition. Gamblers are not producers. The men who manage and operate silver mines will be diverted by such nonsense as that. There are mines in the United States that can produce silver, and save money, at fifteen cents an ounce, large mines that are doing that very thing to-day. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, that is your individual asser- tion, for which you have no proof. (Loud applause.) Mr. Horr: I hold in my hand a pamphlet written by M. L. Scudder, who spent a long time in the mines of this country, and obtained from the mine-owners them- selves the real cost of producing silver in those mines. He gives the name of the mine, the exact cost of pro- ducing the silver per ounce, and the year, taken from the books of the company, and in that there is one mine where the cost was only thirteen and a fraction cents, and he names another where it was twenty-four cents. Now I submit that that is a simple proof of the proposition I stated and undertook to make you under- stand here previously. Silver mining is like anything else, men do not engage in it as a business for fun, they engage in it for the purpose of profit, of getting ahead in the world, and whenever silver mining costs two dollars an ounce, men who are in it paying their 812 THE GREAT DEBATE t-Apt'jjbt, and can uiily sell it foi* sixtv cents, will quit that business, you know. (Applause.) Yes, they will the world over. Men don't conduct a business year in and year out and lose three times as much as they get out of the enterprise every year I say three times as much as they get out of it. I don't know but Brother Har- vey could stand a drain of that kind a gapd while; but it would swamp me in a very few years to do a busi- ness that lost three times as much as I could get out of the concern. The mines that are mining silver at less than sixty cents will keep right on in the business; they will get the price, as I told you before, of those concerns that can barely live and produce it at sixty cents. They get the highest price at which anybody can produce it and still stay in the business. Now, if silver drops below sixty cents, there are a few mines that have to shut down; the mine that is taking its silver out for fifteen cents an ounce does not shut down, it keeps right on and gets as high a price as it can, and that will be fixed by the highest-cost mine that still produces it and stays in the business. Now, Mr. Harvey, the fact that these mines have been running since 1879, according to your own statement, when the full effects of demoneti- zation took place, wdth silver going down and down, I say if the production is increased from year to year, that of itself proves, and no man can gainsay it, that they are still making money at the price, or they would not stay in that business they could not. That is the law of business all over the world. (Applause. ) Hence this effort of Brother Harvey is to get $1.29 out of the entire people of the United States for an article that costs the men who are producing it less than sixty cents an ounce. Was there ever such class legislation THE GREAT DEBATE 813 atteiJipted in any country, to (3ompel the people to piiy for a thing three times as much as it costs to produce it? No man who knows anything about the hxws which govern production will dispute my proposition in this regard. Hence now listen hence the men who own mines and those who owe sums of money in excess of the money due them, if they can work the scheme to pay their debts in cheap money, and if those men who own the mines can manage to get three times as much as it costs them for their product, they may be benefited, but the balance of the people of this country will receive nothing but injury fromthis entire scheme. (Applause.) COST OF PRODUCING GOLD. Mr. Harvey: I am going to permit myself to l)e di- verted for a moment. What Mr. Horr lias said about the cost of producing silver, he could haVe said with a great deal more force about the cost of producing gold. (Applause.) Gold and silver are alike in their geolog- ical formation, in this, that silver only is found in hard formation, and gold is found in the same hard for- mation in quartz veins. In that they are alike. In this they are not: gold is also found in placer mining :uid most of it has come from placer mining and there, gold is produced very cheaply, because it requires no miners' picks nor blasting powder, nor working in hard rock, and no quartz mills are necessary; it is panned out or sluiced out at a very small cost of production. Silver is never produced that way, and gold, dollar for dollar, costs a great deal less than silver does. (Ap- [)lause. ) Now I am not going to stop with my own ipse dixit, 314 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Horr, I am going to read from Del Mar on the his- tory of money, the book yoii read from the other day. He says: "Apart from other considerations there can be but little doubt, that the average cost of producing a pound of silver, from the beginning of the world to the pres- ent time, has been far greater than that of producing a pound of gold. " (Applause.) That is by weight, which means that it has cost six- teen times as much to produce silver as it has to pro- duce gold. Now this is the fact, gentlemen, silver and gold where found in quartz formation are mined not only with great difficulty, but with great uncer- tainty; the precious mines are not even and certain like coal and iron veins you have got it to-day and lose it to-morrow. You have it in a three-foot vein of rock quartz to-day, and one inch to-morrow; you area mil- lionaire this hour and poor the next; you are poor one hour and rich, the next. Frequently they erect costly machinery and buildings to work a mine, only to find the next shot has blown the mine out, and all that ex- pense goes for nothing. (Applause.) Now, that is precious-metal mining, and Mr. Horr knows it, we all ought to know it, because some of you, if you have not tried it yourselves, have neighbors that have gone out West, and do you know that ninety-nine out of a hun- dred of them come back with their money lost? (Ap- plause. ) Precious metals are not in the earth in even or certain quantities, and the cost of production in the ag- gregate has been more than the value produced. Now you ask me, "Why then do they continue to jjroduce?" Tell me why men will gamble on the Board of Trade of Chicago, and I will answer you. (Applause.) It is that feverish desire of men to make a fortune suddenly. THE GREAT DEBATE 815 and occasionally somebody does it in the precious-metal mining, and that is the reason why they keep at it. Now, Mr. Horr says that so many ounces of silver have been produced since 1878, year by year, and in- creasing, and he says if they are not making money out i)f it why do they continue it. Now that is answered in this: First, a large per cent of that comes out of the production of gold. In the production of the gold, they are born in the earth together they are wedded by God Almighty in the earth (cries of "Good! Good!" and applause); and in refining the gold a large percent- age of the silver we get is produced to get one you must get the other. In the next place over fifty per cent of all the silver produced comes from prospects where men are trying to make mines, mines that are not paying in either gold or silver or both, and they are shipping that to get back what they can. (Ap- ])lause. ) There are three or f(jur silver mines only left in the United States that are paying, and they are running pre- cariously. Why? Because all mines are uneven and uncertain and may be lost in a w'eek from now. You refer to this man Scudder, you refer to this will- ing servant of the National Banking Association of the United States who was sent out to Colorado to defame his own country (loud applause), who wrote a pamphlet tliat was a fraud, wrote it purposely for circulation to injure the cause of silver and the people. (Applause.) The United States is the largest producer of silver in the world, and our Rocky Mountains are a source of wealth to the nation. To the loyal American, sensi- tively zealous as to the institutions of his country, it is humiliating to hear men renounce reason, and resort to abuse of their country, to make good an English 316 THE GREAT DEBATE argument that should, if there is anything in it, rest upon the soundest logic and ihf purpst Anglo-Saxon common sense. (Applause.) WHAT BANKERS ARE DOING. I will direct your attention to where this trouble comes from, and I do it by continuing with the subject that I was on, because I am now traveling with you to the point whence all our troubles have come. I have nothing against the bankers individually; I have against their system. They are a smooth, pol- ished, well-fed class of citizens, and on any subject that does not threaten their system they are patriotic, in- telligent people. They cannot see why they should not loan the same money over and over again until they work the quantity in existence up to the quantity re- quired. To have what money there is play through the banks like a shuttle-cock, weaving their fortunes, is a system they consider worth defending. The Shylocks of old loaned their own money; the Shylocks of to-day have a system by which they loan other peo^^le's money. (Applause.) They are defending that system. They are organized. I read from page 1026 of volume 7, part 2, Congressional Record of February 14, 1878. This was read in the United States Congress from the files of The New York Tribune, the corporation which the honorable gentleman is with: 'The capital of the country is organized at last, and we shall see whether Congress will dare to fly in its faco. " CHANGES IN PRICES OF FARM PRODUCTS. Mr. Horr: I wish to say to the people of this country that on the face of business transactions the statement which Mr. Harvey makes, I do not care who has said THE GREAT DEBATE 817 it before him, that it costs as much to get a pound of silver as it does to get a pound of gold, is not true. It has not been true for a great many thousand years. There was a time when the two were worth precisely the same per pound. The same author that he kept quoting from will show you the separation in price from 4 to 1 until it got down where it is now, to 80 to 1. The gap has always been widening and silver has always been getting cheaper. So has gokl. I have stated that to you here before. Gold has been clieapen- ing since 1873 when measured by human toil togetlier with the products of human toil. It has been following the same law, but silver has depreciated much faster than gold. Now, I deny from the start that the depreciation m gold has been anything like what my friend Harvey claims, or that he can prove it, as he attempts to, from the price of articles produced in the world. Their whole effort is aimed toward trying to make the farmers of the United States believe that they have been injured by this legislation. They frankly admit that on the face of it to cut the price of the dollar down with which you pay a man for his every-day work, would injure the man. Consequently they have turned their guns en- tirely on this agricultural business. However, the American toilers, the great producing classes of the nation, how have they been affected by the economic changes since 1878? Those toilers may be divided into two great divisions, the agriculturists and the toilers of the city, of the towns; men who live on the products of the soil and get their pay according to the price those products bring, and the men who work for fixed wages and get their pay in money such a^ is circulating in the country. The effects of those aiS THE GREAT DEBATE changes upon the agriculturists may be seen in the average prices received by them for the produce raised on their land. The measure of those results upon tin? city toilers must be found in the wages the}^ receive for their work. Let us take first the agriculturists. Let us inquire about the average sum received by llieni for their agricultural produce. Brother Harvey, in Monday's debate you stated that owing to the resumption of specie payments from 187^) to 1879, the silver legislation of 1878 did not allect prices very much until 1879. To measure the effect ol silver legislation then upon the farmer I will compare the value of their crops before and since 1879. I will compare the five years from ]875 to 1879 with the five years from 1890 to 1894. I will use the home value of the crop, or the value of the same to the farmers, and begin by using material furnished by the agricultural dej^artment and sum- marized in the statistical abstract for all the years ex- cepting the last two years. I will begin with the lai'gest and most important crop of the land, a crop which is worth more to the producers than any other two. I refer to corn. In the five years, 1875-1879, there were raised in the United States an average annual crop of 1,176,715, 000 bushels, for the five years a total of 2,- 533,220,162 dollars in currency. That is an average ot 36.8 cents a bushel in currency or thirty-five cents in gold. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, won't you treat us fairly and compare the crop of 1872 with the crop of 1894 instead of mixing the figures up in that way? Mr. Horr: I will give you those I have prepared. I don't mix anything. It is just as straightforward as it THE GREAT DEBATE 3l9 Mr. Harvey: You can get it from the book here on the table. Mr. Horr: Well, wait. Don't you want me to run this thing as I like? Or do you want me to run it en- tirely to suit you? (Laughter. ) He sees what is com- ing, and he's in trouble, you know. In 1890 to 1894 they were raising annually on an average 1,602,170^857 bushels with a total value of $8,879,864,093 for the five years, which is 42.1 cents per bushel. Here is an advance in gold of 7.1 cents a bushel between the two series of years. Now in the same period in Alabama, Georgia, Louis- iana, Mississippi and Texas the average gold value of corn fell from 68.5 cents to 58.8, or 5.2 cents a bushel. In New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania the price advanced 1.6 cents a bushel. For several western states west of the Mississippi River the price advanced from 3.1 to 14.1 cents, an advance of 11 cents on a bushel in those states. From these summaries it can be seen that the average value per bushel advanced since 1875, although some farmers gained the larger share of the advance and some in certain sections saw the value of their corn depreciate. Now in my next talk I will take up oats. Mr. Harvey: We can reasonably suppose that if there is any virtue in the statement that has been made that the check system re-enforced our money in circulation, Mr. Horr would have closed with me and would have discussed it. Here we are trying to help the people discuss this question with information, and in its log- ical place I begin discussing the relation of cliecks and the bank system to our money, and Mr. Horr runs from it and tries to get at my flank, as it were. Now why does he do that? Why doesn't he join with me in dis- 820 THE GREAT DEBATE cussing a proposition that we would all like to know the truth about? (Applause. ) I will adopt a compromise plan and will meet him in part on his own tactics. As to corn. See Statistical Abstract, page 284. For 1872, we produced in the United States 1,002,719,000 bushels of corn. We then had a iiopulation of 40.r)9(3,- 000. (Seepage 278.) In 1894 the United States produced 15 212,770,052 bushels, with a population of 68,275,000; for J872, 24| bushels per capita; for 1894, 17} bushels per capita. Seven bushels less per capita in 1894 than in 1872. Take it another way. The number of farm animals (corn-eating animals) in the United States for the years 1872 and 1895 is shown by the same Statistical Abstract, pages 298-294, and by taking the corn crop for these two years, as shown on page 294, we find that there were ten bushels of corn to each animal for the year 1872, and only seven and a half for each animal for 1894. So we see less per capita per man and per animal in 1894. There was an over-supply of corn produced in 1872, affecting the market of 1878 with a low price, and a shortage of the corp per man and per animal in 1894, making a scarcity in 1895, and raising the price. This is not all. The demand for corn has materially increased since 1878. It is now used more extensively in breweries. A new use has sprung up for it in glu- cose. Candy and molasses and many other things are made from it now that were not made from it in 1878. The demand for corn has increased, and the supply has decreased. In examining every item, where for a moment it looks as if it had not been falling in price to correspond with the gold standard, you will find a reason for it. THE GREAT DEBATE 321 The demand has increased enormously for corn, and the supply is less than it was in 1872. And yet while the price now ought to- be eighty or ninety cents a bushel, as it would be under a bimetallic system, it is only about forty-five cents. (Applause.) I criticise Mr. Horr for juggling figures. I don't mean that. I don't want to cast any aspersion on Mr. Horr.' I want to treat him as a gentleman. But when he found the figures I used did not suit him it wasn't ex- actly fair for him to take eight or ten years and average them and fix it all up so nobody could tell whether he was traveling north or south. (Applause.) THE NATIONAL BANKS ARE ORGANIZED. I am going to discuss in fragments this credit system. The national banks are organized to force down your throats, as it were, tlieir monetary system, which 1 claim originated for their money-making purposes, and they are going to deceive ^^(^^i hy such scoundrels as that man Scudder, and by similar articles in newspapers and otherwise, if they can. I'll read from a speech made here in this city by William C. Cornwall, presi- dent of the New York State Bankers' Association, last winter. He was speaking to bankers. "If, in 1875, 1870, 1877 and 1878 the bankers and sound-money men had been organized as they are or- ganized now, and had spoken out as they are speaking out now, had started on a campaign of education, as they are starting out now, the greenback would long ago have been wiped out; the silver lunacy, before it Juid wrought incalculable damage, would have been con- fined to the asylums, where it belongs." (Applause.) And further he says, and it is significant in view of w hat Mr. Horr has said in this debate: "It is time to tear off disguise. International bi- metallism is a traitor in the camp. It is a false friend. '.I'j THE grp:at debate It can never oe accomplished. It is a will-o'-the-wisp dancing over the deadly marsh." Now we are not surprised after playing that decep- tion on us in party platforms for years, we are not surprised now, when they think they have got us down and got both the old political parties in their clutches, and you scattered and poor, and a large percentage of your voters changing residence because they can't live in one place, become more or less tramps, now they propose to put the knife to us, and, as this banker says, throw olf disguise. Nobody but a dishonest man would ever have worn disguise. (Continued applause and cries from the audience. ) Now, Mr. Horr comes here and tells you that silver was demonetized because gold is the best measure of values. When crowded with the logic and common sense that confronts him he makes an assertion that he would like to see all the nations, or enough of them, come together to adopt" the double standard, right after having said that the nations in 1873, when we did have both metals, had demonetized silver be- cause gold was the best measure of values. He is here to advocate that principle. He comes from a city where they are sending out circulars all over the country. One of them commences to read this way. It is from that bankers' organization in New York City (taking up a circular in his hand): ''We are convinced that the one thing that is wanted at present to help along the re2:)eal of the Sherman Law (this was at that time) is a volley of petitions from southern and western cities and towns. The feelings and desires of the people of New York and Boston are perfectly well known in Washington to be in favor of the repeal." Bankers all over the country were working up peti- THE GREAT DEBATE 323 tioDS and sending them to Washington to influence congressmen. Again : "We ask you to join u's at once urging upon Congress and the President the immediate repeal of the Sher- man Silver Law of 1890, for the reasons following." They are organized and they are a great organiza- tion; and just as Mr. Horr's paper said that I read from in the Congressional Record, "Capital is organized, and Congress does not dare fly in its face. " (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: My friend Harvey is very much distressed because I insist upon discussing this question in a log- ical manner. (Laughter.) It bothers him terribly, but I don't blame him. The difficulty is, he has got a lot of essays that somebody has prepared, or he has, and if he isn't reading one of them he isn't happy. I don't happen to have that voluminous amount of stuff carefully written up for ^me by the various men who believe as I do, and I am trying to follow this discus- sion in the order of the business propositions that it involves, and if I am at times out of that part of the subject that Mr. Harvey is on I hope he will take it quietly, because I say to you, in his books he never yet discussed any subject in a logical, regular order. That is, if he ever did, he did it in his sleep, he never put it in any of his books. I have one word more to say to the friends here whom the chair seems to have so much difficulty in keeping from being boisterous. I don't want you to cheer me. I notice that you become perfectly delighted, almost overwhelmed with joy, when Brother Harvey states that somebody is a scoundrel. The moment he sticks in an effort to i^rove the human race a set of vagabonds, and to prove that the human family is corrupt from begin- ning to end, you seem to take comfort from it (laugh- 324 THE GREAT DEBATE ter), and you show you do, and delight yourselves. (Laughter and applause. ) Now I am not constituted that way. It gives me nothing but grief to know that a human being has made a mistake or erred in the duties of life, and I don't want to get into a frame of mind so that I rejoice over the meanness of my fellow-men. I prefer to take comfort in cases of heroism, in cases of devotion to principle, in cases of self-sacrifice; and I will never stoop while I live to an attempt to get ap- plause by tickling the palates of people who never en- joy life except they are where there is some carrion that they can sniff at. (Applause.) I like the sweet things of this life, and the pure things of this world, and get no comfort from the low and corrupt things that are now and then discovered, as I think, in only a few cases of the human race. Now to the oats. (Laugh- ter. ) VALUE OF OATS, CORN, AND WHEAT. In 1875 to 1879 the nation raised each year an aver- age crop of 371,787,760 bushels, which were worth dur- ing those five years $5,885,065.04, or 81| cents per bushel in currency, or 29.8 cents in gold. In 1890 to 1895 the average annual oat crop was 644,788,355 bush- els, with a total value for those five years of $1,066,- 207,376, or 34.4 cents a bushel in gold. Here is a gain in the average value of 2.6 cents a bushel. The corre- sponding gain on the farms of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania is five cents a bushel. In the twelve central western states the advance was 5.9 cents a bushel. These figures show that the greatest cereals have not been decreased in price by the legislation of 1873. Silver has been constantly going down, corn and oats are higher in gold value than they were in the THE GREAT DEBATE 825 five years previous to 1879. I know these figures are rather annoying to Brother Harvey, and for fear of ill results if I continue to refer to this class of statistics, of which there is no limit, I will now refer to wheat. Here are figures that will please my friend. I find the average annual price of wheat from 1875 to 1879 to have been 94.8 cents a bushel in gold, and for 1890-1894 it was 67.5 cents. Here is a marked decline. That decline was greater in the eastern states than in California and least in the northwest. The price of wheat was depressed because it was so largely exported. The value of the other grains was maintained yes, advanced because corn and oats are mainly mar- keted upon the farms upon which they are raised. Let us now strike a balance for these great cereals in the United States. The United States from 1875 to 1879 produced of corn, oats and wheat an annual average of 2,111,585,219 bushels, with an average annual value in currency of 46.7 cents a bushel, or 44.4 cents in g')ld. From 1890 to 1894 they raised an average crop of 2, 728,- 687,220, with an average value of 44.4 cents a bushel. This is exactly the same as the gold average for the years just before the silver legislation; before, accord- ing to Brother Harvey, the effect began to be felt in the prices of the United States. Now, here is a fixedness of price that is marvelous. It has no parallel in hu- man history. It thoroughly explodes Mr. Harvey's theory and misstatements. He shows the price of a single commodity, for a single place, and argues a de- cline in value. I take the sum total of the vast pro- duction of the whole United States. I admit a variation in value between localities, and from year to year. Thus the average for the three grains in the twelve central western states, in the twenty years men- 826 THE OftEAT DEBATE tioned, advanced nine cents a bushel. There was a de- cline in the eastern and southern. The variation makes an effect upon farm values due to changed cost of trans- portation, but none are brgught about by the change in the primary or any other money of the country. (Ap- plause. ) NO DECLINE OF WHEAT IN SILVER COUNTRIES. Mr. Harvey: A farmer in India or Mexico takes his wheat to the world's market at London, and sells it to- day for about $1.:25 a bushel in silver, or for half that amount in gold, and with it buys the silver and takes the silver home with him $1.25 per bushel and pays with it .$1.25 worth of del)t. Now, before this change in our monetary system began, that $1.25 was about what the price of our wheat was. Hence the farmer in India and Mexico is still getting the price we once got in the honest currency of the country silver. There is a stable currency for you. A debt contracted in 1872 could be paid now in those countries with the same number of bushels of wheat that it could then. We take our wheat to London and sell it for sixty-five cents, say, and bring it back here, and we can't, by any exchange for silver or otherwise, pay more than sixty- five cents of debt with it. (Applause.) I am going to settle this whole price question directly so that you can decide it right in your rooms at home. It has been so arranged by one of the greatest societies to promote civilization in the world, and I am going to place it directly in your hands. They have figured out what we are trying to do here and what Mr. Horr is making fruitless efforts to try to do. THE uses AND ABUSES OF BANKS. I now want the reader to connect what I am about to THE GREAT DEBATE 327 say with what I was saying when Mr. Horr insisted on a diversion. It is no answer for a banker to say that men are not compelled to borrow money and pay interest unless they want to. Business requires so much money, and the volume being insufficient, the business men are compelled to assist in this stretching process. We are now getting at the place from which all this finan- cial wind and thunder comes this influence, which has brought us panics and crushed our hopes as it loosened and contracted its use of this credit system; the same influence that took our government by the throat while her brave sons were exposing their lives upon the bloody fields of battle. Want, famine, pros- titution, loss of character, and insanity now mark the low level of our national existence. Politicians deceive the people; national party platforms are a record of national duplicity and dishonor; and every effect and influence can be traced to this same power as it saps the veins of commerce and diverts from its channels the blood of civilization. The influence of these bank- ers on business men who want money and on our poli- ticians extends throughout the Union. We need banks of deposit and the convenience of checks and bills of exchange for transferring money, but we don't want banks to loan "bank, wind" at an annual tax to us of $200,000,000 as a substitute for money, that, as a sovereign people, we can bring into (existence in sufficient quantity to transact our business. The banks should go out of the government business instead of the government going out of the banking business. (Applause.) Let the banks be banks of de- posit and discount, and not makers of money. They are making it now with bank credit, and you are pay- 828 THE GREAT DEBATE ing them interest for it. The bankers, except those who are unselfish, will be found on the side of the gold standard or any system that limits the quantity of money and lets them supply bank credit at seven per cent. There is another way and a common-sen$e way of estimating the quantity of money needed in the United States. This question of the quantity of money needed in the country is an important one. It will not do to meet it by saying that confidence is what is needed. This argument that confidence, and not money, is all that is wanted, if made by a greenbacker, would be ridi- culed by those same men. Confidende won't bu}^ any- thing; it will get a man in debt to a banker, that is all. It reminds me of a fable. '^An industrious Duck who had laid a great many eggs returned to her nest one day to find that they had all been stolen. Disconsolate, she set out in quest of them, when she met a Fox whose mouth bore evidences of a Burglary. 'Dear Sister Duck,' said he, 'I sympa- thize with you most deeply, but regret to notice your lack of Faith. Return immediately to your nest, and sit thereon with as much Confidence as formerly, and the Result will be, I assure you, as satisfactory as you desire.' " (Applause and laughter.) The men living in the large cities, who are molding public opinion on this subject, try to teach the people how little money they need, and how confidence takes the place of money; and yet when these same people come to the cities the World's Fair, for instance they find they need money; that confidence is not currency. It takes money. The more money these "moneyed men" have, and the finer the outfits they drive, the less money they think other people need. I do not say THE GREAT DEBATE 329 this to excite prejudice, but to show how people reason for themselves. THE AMOUNT OF MONEY NEEDED. Let us see how much money we need. Our popula- tion is now 68,000,000. Of this 40,000,000 are over the age of 20. Of this 40,000,000, 80,000,000 are married, and 10,000,000 are single adults. This is in round numbers. Allowing $10 to each housewife, $10 to each hus- })and and $10 to each single adult over 20 years of age to carry in their possession, we find $400,000,000 nec- essary. This allows nothing for those under 20 years of age. Let us count $50 to each business concern to keep at its place of business for the purpose of mak- ing change, and in this calculation I would include all railway stations where change is required. Now do not stop and say you do not need that much, for you do, if we are to have prosperous business, and that is what we will have if we have our way. By the Statistical Abstract of 1894, there was that year (page 307) 1,114,174 business concerns in the United States. The depots and other places needing ready money would bring the number up to 1,200,000. This would require $60,000, 0)0 at hand })y these con- cerns to facilitate business. Thus far we have $460,- 000,000 required to be in circulation among the people that would not be counted as a part of the money de- posited in banks. This much would be in the pockets of the peoph), at their houses, and at their places of business. No one will probably say that this estimate is too high. The average man should have $10 with him; if he hasn't it, he ought to have it. If he is a fit product 380 THE GREAT DEBATE of civilization, he should have it. If he is not, it may be because he hasn't it. The average housewife should certainly have at all times an average of Ji>10 by her. She should at times have much more. They will all agree with me that tliey should have at least $10. We are a traveling peo- ple, a migratory people, and an average of $10 in our pockets, including unmarried people over 20 years of age, will not be objected to by any one as unreasonable, miless it should be Edward Atkinson of Boston, who has been trying to ascertain how little money people can get along with and yet live. This makes $400,000,000 that should be in circula- tion among the people, in their possession. The next question is, how much cash capital is neces- sary to conduct the business of the country. We have seen how much this is as indicated by the bank depos- its and loans. I am now going to estimate it another way, that all men can grasp. THE PRICE OF WHEAT HERE AND IN MEXICO. Mr. Horr: I desire to say just one word in reference to the price of wheat. At our last session my friend Harvey stated that a man in Mexico could get $1.80 a liushel for his wheat, while it was only sixty-seven cents in Chicago and eighty-five cents in New York, and he stated that if we had free coinage in this coun- try then the farmer would get $1.80 in this country just as they do in Mexico. I have not misrepresented you, Brother Harvey? Mr. Harvey: No, sir, you have not. Mr. Horr: Well, that is a marvelous proposition to anybody that can't think, you know. But it is ridicu- lous to a man who can use his head. THE GREAT DEBATE S31 The man in New York and Chicago who sold his wheat got more for it than the man did in Mexico. The man in Mexico got $1.80 in Mexican money. The man who sold his wheat in New York or Chicago got American money American money under a system run by business men who know something of business laws. The man who got his eighty-five cents for his wheat, who got $85 for a hundred bushels of wheat here in this country, can take his $85 and go to Monterey and meet his Mexican farmer who has just sold the same amount of wheat for 180 Mexican dollars, and he can step right into a bank and leave his $85 that he pock- eted for his wheat here in Chicago or New York and ask the banker to let him have it in Mexican money, and he will give him $170 of Mexican money. (Ap- plause. ) Mr. Harvey: You have twisted what I said. I said sixty-five cents, not eighty-five cents. Mr. Horr: It has not been down to sixty-five cents lately. Mr. Harvey: The man who ships wheat from here to London won't get sixty-five cents back by about fifteen. Mr. Horr: Then it is lower in Mexico just the same. No doubt about it. (Laughter and applause.) The point I am trying to point otit is, even if he got sixty- live cents in American money and the man in Mexico got $1.80 or $180 for 100 bushels, he could go right into the bank and swap his $65, and get 180 Mexican dollars for the same wheat that you talked about. Mr. Harvey: But you couldn't pay $180 of debts with it. Mr. Horr: That is it. You couldn't pay somebody a debt with the same amount. I will come to that. He fixes his whole theory of money, as I told you on 882 *niE GREAT DEBATE the start, on the ground that all it is used for is to help somebody pay an old debt, whereas what it should be used for is to pay men for what they do from day to day as they live and work. (Applause.) Now, I have shown you that the three products, oats, corn and wheat, brought as much gold in the five years past as they would have brought before 1879, when sil- ver was almost at par with gold. Now what did the farmer do with his money? First, understand every one of those articles is modified by the invention of machinery, so that the farmers of the United States produced this last crop with a large amount less of human toil, and hence with a largely increased profit over what they received in 1874, 1875 and 1876. That is estimated at 20 per cent. That is, they produced by improvements those cereals that much cheaper at the last date than they did before. Now what could he buy with the money he got? I have first shown you that he got just as much gold as he did before. There are things that farmers have to buy, and before you can tell whether they have been ruined by these changes you must see how far that money would go in purchases. In 1878, when this act passed, calico averaged 11^ cents a yard. The farmer can buy it now for 5^ cents, cheapened not by cutting in two the measure of value, for we have the same measure of value we had then, but cheapened by the great law of cheaper production. Carpets which were then $1.85 a yard can be bought to-day for 45 cents. The suit of clothes that you had to pay $25 for can to-day be bought for $15. Tinware, for which you would have had to pay $5 then, can be bought to-day for $1.20. A reaper which then cost $170 can be bought to-day for $70. A mower which cost $90 then can be bought now for THE GREAT DEBATE 833 $45. A wagon which you had to pay $90 for then can be bought to-day for $50. Tea which cost forty cents then can be bought to-day for 20 cents, the same grade of tea. Sugar which cost 12^ cents then can be bought to-day for 5 cents. Coffee to-day is about the same price it was in 1873. School and other books are about half what they cost in 1873. This simply shows that the articles which are affected in their production by the improvements in machinery have fallen in price when thus cheapened on account of less hand work which enters into their production. Silver has been cheapened in precisely the same way. So have iron, copper, lead, aluminum and every other leading commercial article. Mr. Harvey's idea about mining is singular. I sup- pose he has had some experience in mining; he has stated at all events a fact about mines that is true. Frequently your vein will be open and large, and then, before the sun goes down, it will, as the miners say, '^pinch up" on them, '^play out" the miner's term is "peter out" and they have nothing before them. It is so with every metal on the face of the earth that I have ever had any experience in mining. Mr. Harvey: It is not true with iron. Mr. Horr: It is true in a great many sections of the country with iron. The lead will run out. Iron, though, is very much more generally distributed. It is exactly true of lead, isn't it? I have worked in lead mines year in and year out, smelted and produced lead l)y the ton for years. It is true of zinc. It is true of all the metals and true of iron in a measure, though not to so great an extent. But men never follow year in and year out any min- ing, when they put in three times as much as they take 884 THE GREAT DEBATE out, as a whole. We would go without a metal that was produced that way, and the world would be en- tirely devoid of it in a little while. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr insists on his human-toil unit, but by that system he leaves that human toil with no unit to purchase what they must have. He throws that into the argument occasionally and I don't want it to deceive any one, and I may later read you what IMr. Horr says on that subject himself. You may cheapen a thing with reference to the time required to produce it, but if the man that handles the machinery that does it does not get enough for his work to hold him up as a respectable citizen in the community, wherein does your cheapening process help him any? (Applause.) Mr. Horr has been giving you an illustration of the gold standard by the fall of prices. I am very much obliged to Mr. Horr for that long list he went through, but there was one kind of property that Mr. Horr did not mention. It is property regarded by all people as the most desirable property in the world. Mr. Horr, you may mention oats, corn, beef, wheat and hundreds of other articles, but unless you name this one that I am going to mention you have notyet mentioned the article for which there is the most numerous and gen- eral demand in the world. It is a class of property for which men will travel to the ends of the world; for which men will at times risk their lives; a property that lures men to commit crime; a property which if you have it in your pocket you are perfectly safe as to dependency at any point in the world. That prop- erty is money. (Applause.) It has not declined. Do not let us be deceived with all this sophistry. Price is a relative term. We have a class of men that own THE GREAT DEBATE 835 this kind of property that I have named money. How are they benefited by this decline in the prices in that long list that Mr. "Horr Tead? They go forth into the market with their money and buy property with it. You go into the market with your property, with your tin buckets, your reapers, your dozens of other things you mentioned to buy money, and you only buy one- half as much as you bought with them in 1873. (Long continued applause. ) NO DECLINE IN THE PRICE OF MONEY. But these men in London and New England go into the market with their property money to buy your property that you have spent so much human toil over. (Applause.) And how much do they buy with their property? One-half as much as in 1873? No, sir, they buy twice as much. (Applause.) Gentlemen, there is by the United States census at the cash valua- tion $65,000,000,000 worth of property in the United States outside of money and securities, and the assessed value of it is $24,000,000,000. There is a class of men in this country who own money securities in a larger volume than the assessed value of all the property in the United States. Now we may have a class of men invning cotton, or n class of men owning wheat, but none of those classes are near so large in interest moneyed interest as this class of men who are sowing money and reaping the harvest from it. And this crop which! call money is the crop that has been legislated in favor of. All commerce is an exchange of property, one pro]^prty for another, and when you so legislate that the man own- ing one class of property can enhance the exchangeable value of thnt ]rrn])prty in c^xchnnffo for your ])ropprty so 336 THE GREAT DEBATE as to make his disproportionately more valuable than yours, you have legislated in the interest of that class. But you have done a more serious thing in this instance, because this class of property to which I now refer, money, is a class of property which you must have. You can do without wheat, because you can eat some- thing else. You can do without beef, you can eat pork or mutton. You may exist without all those articles I have named, and yet you cart be happy and prosper- ous. But here is legislation that has enhanced the ex- changeable value of a class of property with your prop- erty that you must have. You might as well talk about doing without air and water as to talk about doing without money. There is no condition of civilization that you can imagine by which you can be a part of that civilization and yet do without money. (Applause.) It is the blood of civilization, it is the life fluid of civilization, and it is property; and instead of our na- tional laws protecting and seeing that it ran in the channel where it belonged to feed the social organism, it has been diverted and hoarded by these men who own it under laws encouraging them to do so. And by the legislation in 1873 it has been enhanced in ex- changeable value with your property. That is the cru- cial point in this financial discussion. (Apj^lause. ) A man loaning money in 1872 that one thousand bushels of wheat would have paid you must now give him two thousand bushels of wheat to pay that debt. (Applause. ) That is true as applied to the price of wheat compared with 1884 and 1894, And that is the main point in this discussion. These men who own bonds payable in money and securities, payable in money aggregating more than all the assessed value of the property in the THE GREAT DEBATE 837 I'liited Stales, have legislated so as to enhance the value of ihoAV property until you have got to give up twice as much to then), when they come to buy your property, as they give up to you when you go with your hard earnings, with the product of your loom and your tieM, to buy their property. (Applause.) Mr. Horr: Now I want to call the attention of my friend to the fact that he can't get at how farmers are doing simply by selecting one article which happens to be cheap. Mr. Harvey; I want to ask you right here, l^efore these people, to answer my argument made just before I sat down. increased savings of farmers. Mr. Horr: I am going to do it if you will wait and keep still, that is what I am up here for now. (Laugh- ter.) The very last thing he said was in reference to the fact that a farmer had to give twice as much wheat to pay his debt as he did before the demonetization of silver. What ails you? That is the very thing I am speaking about. Now I was stating that you can't possibly find out the facts in reference to the farmer simply by taking one article and that the lowest one you can find. Now I will call your attention to a con- firmation of the figures which I have heretofore given. Those figures show that prices for farm products, all taken together, you know, have not declined. Here in the United States, comparing the present values to those of twenty years ago, I find my confirmation in an analysis of national wealth by the great statistical authority, Mr. Mulhall, so often quoted by Mr. Harvey. In the June North American Revieio Mr. Mulhall says that the average yearly accumulation of the agricultural 88s THE GREAT DEBATE workers, per capita, of the United States, was, for the decade 1861 to 1870, $17.90 each. Mr. Harvey: Will you pardon me Mr. Horr: Don't bother me. For the decade 1870 to 1880, $47.10 per capita; and for the decade 1881 to 1890, $47.50 per capita. Here is an ability on the part of the farmers of this country to save iii the last census decade nearly three times as great as in the dec- ade before the silver legislation of 1878. The savings of the last two decades are substantially the same, show- ing that prices must have been practically unchanged, as my figures would indicate thai is, prices of'the whole taken together. But the significant fact to which Mr. Mulhall alludes is that the saving power of the agri- culturists of the United States is now nearly three times what it was in Mr. Harvey's golden era, the dec- ade before 1878. They have been doing better. That don't seem to rejoice you, friends, at all. It is only when they are doing worse that you feel glad. (Ap- plause and laughter.) Mr. Mulhall, in the same article, calls attention to the fact that for 20 years, 1850 to 1870, the annual increase in the United States national wealth averaged $846,000,000, while for the 20 years, 1870 to 1890, and that is the time when he tells us the agricultural interests of this nation had been blighted by this gold- bug legislation, the average was $2,049,000,000, two and a half times as great. From this we see that dur- ing years in which, according to Mr. Harvey, we have been going to ruin, our savings were two and a half times as great as when he says we had prosperity. When we have proven Mr. Coin to be inaccurate, Brother Harvey disavows him ; he dodges in a hundred ways; plays hide and seek with the words and their meanings. THE GREAT DEBATE 839 Me. Harvey: Didn't you have that written before you left New York? (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: He uses the words prosperity and ruin, meaning exactly the opposite of ordinary mortals. I know your folly. It is a kind of a disease. When men get it, they take everything wrong end first always. That is a peculiarity of men in that state of mind. When the values of the grain of the nation are advanc- ing he says they are depreciating. When the nation is adding most to its values, it is going to ruin in his eyes. But my friend and the free-silver men of the South may argue that in my figuring, calculations along two independent lines, and reaching conclusions practically the same, are insufficient because they do not include that other factor; that is, cotton. This staple, being quite largely exported, has declined in price, as has its great export rival, wheat. Let us see if we cannot make a comparison that will remove this objection of my friend. I now present a statement of nine agricultural staples expressed in tons. Mark, now, in tons, to- gether with the value of the same for the two five- year periods from 1875 to 1879, and 1890 to 1894 They are corn, hay, cotton, wheat, oats, potatoes, barley, rye, and buckwheat. From this table I find that the aver- age of these nine staples for the first period was $17.10 in currency, or $16.20 per ton in gold, and in the last period was $15.56 per ton in gold. If figures had been given by the agricultural department for fruits, gar- den truck, peanuts, and tobacco, the results would have shown as close an agreement as those already given for wheat, corn, and oats. Where, Mr. Harvey, in these averages involving thousands of millions of dollars' worth of farm property, I say, where is the 840 THE GREAT DEBATE (^\ lut^iice of ruin for tlie fariiier and of a decline in farm prices of which your inspired boy, witliout akno,wledge of mathematics and the facts, has been telling the country so much? That ruin and that decline, save in exceptional cases, exists only in the nooks and crannies of a diseased imagination and in the brains of boys like "Coin," who borrow their inspiration from sources of which no man has any knowledge. I. want to present this table as part of my remarks where I have compared the rates of tons, the price per ton, showing the condi- tion as I claim. A COMPAiIaTIVE exhibit of the PRODUCTION IN TONS AND THE VALUE OF THE LEAI)I\(J AORICl'LTURAL STAPLES VOR THE TW^O PERIODS OF 1875 TO 1879 AM) lS90 TO 1894. Produeti*. Home Value. Name 18751879 92,740,051 (;.5,471,2i)6 54,204,970 .5,351,550 30,672,424 22,976,472 4,622,142 3,044,979 1,438,182 18901894 1875-1879 18901894 Corn Hay* Wheat Cotxou OatH Potatoes* . Barley* Rye* liufkwh't* 224,303,9(;7 301,601,415 71,501,704 9,786,013 5.3.195,040 2(i,5:39,615 7,876,197 3,729,814 1,560,032 $2,-533,220,162 1,531,387,893 1.812,912,635 1,1.57,450,641 583..51K),504 377,34.3,108 125, 9 1 3,. 595 68,910,878 35,496,886 $3,379,364,093 2,598,502,980 1,609,431,676 1,503,281,271 1,066,007,376 500,471,470 139,683,780 67,519,245 35,286,720 Total .... 480,522,0(56 700,0^)3,797 8,226,142,302 10,899,548,611 Mr. Harvey: I submit that Mr. Horr did not answer m}^ question. He attempted to show that prices had been reduced in his former speech, and read a long list of articles that had been reduced in price, and he now tries to take the other track and say they have not been, he does not do it specifically, but leaves you to infer it. No man can carry water on both shoulders with the The aRricultural department only gives figures for these staples for the last two years of the latter period. The figures for that period are here estimated upon the basis of those given for 1893 and 1894. THE GREAT DEBATE 841 Americau people for the next two years. (Applause. ) Now let me show you what he did. He said that we had increased in wealth. Nobody disputes that. Nor does our increase in wealth go to show that my propo- sition was not true, that the owners of money and secu- rities are exchanging their property and absorbing yours. We are increasing in wealth, Mr. Horr. The United States has not only been a workshop in produ- cing wealth, but it has been a sweat-shop. (Applause.) It has been producing wealth, but have the men who produced that wealth got the wealth? No, wealth is rapidly concentrating in the direction I pointed out to you in my last statement, and I gave you the causes for it. Now I am going to give you what I think will settle in your minds this whole cpiestion of prices. The ex- change value of money for property has increased ab- normally by reason of the reduced quantity of primary money in the world. MR. SAUERBECK AND THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY. In England there was founded in 1884 an organiza- tion, a society for the advancement of science by re- searches into statistical and similar matters, Vviiich was called ''The Royal Statistical Society,'' and a journal published in London says: "The society was founded in pursuance of a recom- mendation of the British Association for the Advance- ment of Science, on the 15th of March, 1884; its object being, the careful collection, arrangement, discussion, and publication of facts bearing on and illustrating tJio complex relations of modern society in its social, eco- nomical, and political aspects especially facts which can be stated numerically and arranged in tables and also to form a statistical library as rapidly as its funds would permit." 342 THE GREAT DEBATE That society is composed of men who arc iiinDflii- eiiced by wealth or by the patronage of political office; men devoutly engaged in the study of "Why we are on this earth, and what is necessary to advance us to a higher state. " They have in that society an honored man whom they claim as the first statistician in the world, Augustus Sauerbeck. I now make a part of my remarks a table* prepared by Mr. Sauerbeck and a part of the official tiles of that society, showing the prices substantially of all property in the world that seeks the world's markets. It explains itself, and in that table he includes silver. I hand these tables around among the audience. A study of this table would settle this whole question that we are discussing in this country, I mean an un- selfish study of it; not a study to stick it in the flank or to see where you could confuse some one, but an unselfish study of that unselfish table made by unself- ish men ; then you would settle this silver question in twenty-four hours afterward if you had a chance to vote on it. (Applause.) It shows you that the price of silver was steady in its exchange value with other property down to 1878. It shows you how prices have fallen since 1873. It does not isolate corn or oats, and try to mislead you; but it takes all the properties, and it shows you a ruinous decline in the average of prop- erty since 1873. (Api^lause.) It shows you conclusively *The table on the opposite page was calculated by Augustus Sauerbeck, Esq., of 3 Moorgate St. Building, London, and published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, London, September, 1886, March, 1892, and March, 1895. The commodities are the forty-five leading articles of commerce. His work shows the greatest care and is accepted asreliable by all others who have undertaken the same work. Thetable is by indexnumbers. The 100, or index number, with which the average is compared for each year, is arrived at by taking the average prices for twenty-five years, 1853-1877. With 100 thus used to represent this aver- age price (1853 to 1877), the price of each year is compared. His calculation is on the ratio of 15 Yz of silver to 1 of gold ,YEAR. h eg Hi II < 1 1 e 1 i 1 1 1 1 1 1 1846 . . . . . 106 129 92 79 74 73 80 100 120 120 109 105 87 85 99 102 98 87 79 84 95 116 113 91 88 94 101 106 105 93 92 100 95 87 89 84 84 82 71 68 65 64 67 65 65 75 65 59 55 81 88 83 71 67 68 69 82 87 87 88 89. 83 85 91 91 86 85 89 97 96 89 88 96 98 100 101 109 103 108 108 101 101 94 101 101 104 103 97 d8 87 79 82 86 82 81 84 85 80 98 .87 69 77 87 84 75 87 85 89 97 119 97 .102 107 96 98 99 106 97 94 94 96 98 96 100 104 106 105 100 98 103 90 87 88 84 76 77 63 63 60 67 65 75 70 71 69 75 65 95 105 84 -76 75 74 75 91 101 101 99 102 88 89 98 97 94 89 88 91 95 101 100 d4 93 98 102 107 104 100 99 101 96 90 94 91 89 89 79 74 72 70 72 75 73 77 73 72 66 92 94 78 77 77 75 80 105 115 109 110 108 96 98 97 91 91 93 96 91 91 87 85 89 89 93 127 141 116 101 90 84 74 73 79 77 79 76 68 66 67 69 78 75 71 68 64 77 78 64 67 78 75 78 87 88 84 89 92 84 88 90 92 123 149 162 134 130 110 106 109 106 103 114 103 92 88 85 85 78 74 81 77 73 70 68 65 03 65 64 70 66 59 57 59 53 86 86 77 75 80 79 84 101 109 109 109 119 ,102 107 HI 109 106 LOl 98 97 99 100 102 100 99 105 108 106 96 92 95 94 88 85 89 86 85 84 81 76 69 67 67 68 69 69 67 68 64 85 86 73 73 78 76 81 97 104 101 102 107 94 98 100 99 107 115 119 108 107 100 99 100 99 101 115 114 100 93 91 89 81 78 84 80 80 77 73 70 67 67 69 70 71 68 65 65 60 89 95 78 74 77 75 78 95 102 101 101 105 91 94 99 98 101 103 105 101 102 100 99 98 96 100 109 111 102 96 95 94 87 83 11 84 82 76 72 69 68 70 72 72 72 68 68 63 97 5 1847 98.1 1848 97.8 1849 98 2 1850 98.7 1851 99.9 1852 99 9 1853 101.2 1854 101.1 1855 100.7 1856 101.0 1857 101.5 1858 101.0 1859 102.0 I860 101.4 1861 99.9 1862...., 1863 100.9 101.1 1864 100 9 1865 .* . . . 100.3 1866 100 6 1867 99.7 1868 99.6 1869 99.6 1870 99, 1871 99 7 1872 99.2 1873 97 4 1874 1876 95.8 93,3 1876.. 86 7 1877.... 1878 90.2 86 4 1879 . 84,2 1880 85.9 1881 85.0 1882 84.9 1883 83.1 1884 83.3 1885 79.9 1886 74.6 1887 . . 73.3 1888 70.4 1889 70.2 1890 78.4 1891 74.1 1892 65.4 1893 . . 58.6 1894 47.6 Average, 1878-1887 Average, 1885-1894 79- 65 95 83 76 68 84 72 73 71 71 62 81 68 76 67 79 69 82.1 69.2 343 B44 THE GREAT DEBATE Jiow the men who own money, and securities payable in money, dominate you, absolutely dominate the toil- ers and producers of the world. Now I want the reader to connect what I was saying, when I was trying to arrive at how much money we needed in this country, with what I am about to say. By the Statistical Abstract, 1894, page 3(37, there were, as I have stated, in that year, 1,114,174 business concerns in the United States. This means business concerns such as the mercantile agencies are asked to report on; men asking credit and buying and selling merchandise, from the wholesale house that requires a million dollars capital, down to the corner grocery store. It does not include lawyers. It does not include doctors, unless they are running drug-stores, and does not include tens of thousands of citizens who need money; but I am going to leave these all out of my calculation. I am going to take these business concerns that need cash capital, and average their cash capital at $4,(XK). They ought to have it if they haven't. The average profits from business is less than six per cent. That much on $4,()00 for one year is $240. A man ought to make that much, which with his own labor might support his family if he had no rent to pay. I say this to show that $4,000 in money is an average small capital, while many must be much larger. This would require for the business of the country $4,400,- 000, OlK). You could not have less than this without making it necessary for some one to borrow. Add to this the $460,(X)0,000 and you have $4,800,000,000. This does. not vary far from the other estimate of $4,- 800,000,000 shown as now required, and that did not include money outside of banks or the cash capital of banks. THE GREAT DEBATE 345 No one can answer this by saying this is too much money, for this much money or its substitutes is now required. As it is now, a class of men non-producers are living off you by an occupation that furnishes it to you with bank credit. (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: I desire to say in my closing remarks that before the debate ends I shall attempt to show the peo- ple of this country that banks are just as great a bless- ing to the world, and as necessary a part of civilization, as railroads and machinery, and any other modern im- provement that has blessed the toiling millions. But I shall do it in the regular order. I cannot be swerved from the reguhir order. (Laughter and applause.) Be- fore I say anything else, I want to call attention to the ([uestion. Brother Harvey, you asked me, because you might think I slighted you if I paid no attention to it. I will read it again, so we will understand it: "I am going to ask Mr. Horr a question, and if he fails to answer it in harmony with his theory, I ask a verdict against him." I want to say a word just there: That is nice enough in talking, but if you had a true conception you woukl have said, if I fail to answer it according to the truth, I shall call him to account, for you know I maybe wrong I don't think I am, but I am not dead sure that I am right on everything in this world. A man who has lived as long as I have and has had the headache from the study of as many questions, has learned that he may be mistaken. ^'The table on production of silver for the world shows the workl's production in 1860 to have l^een $40,000,- 000, and that the production increased each year till in 1872, twelve years later, when it was $65,250,030. Here was an increase of 64 per cent in twelve years. Now, if you are right, why did not this increase break 346 THE GREAT DEBATE uuwii ihe price of silver? And before you answer I will call your attention to the twelve years, 1872 to 1884, where the increase is 63 per cent, 1 per cent less than the previous twelve years, during which time the price of silver had fallen 17 per cent." Now he wants me to answer that question. Here it is: The reason why silver did not fall more between 1860 and 1872 was because of the enormous demand for it in the Orient. Mulhall (page 309) gives the imports to India alone from 1860 to 1870 at $500,000,000, while fro-m 1870 to 1880 she took only $250,000,000. The entire production of silver from 1860 to 1870 was $500,000,000 and was entirely absorbed by India alone, while the production from 1870 to 1880 was $655,000,000 more than India absorbed. The difficulty is that silver, like everything else, is affected in its price by the demand for its use. It may have been affected by the fact that people have ceased to hoard it as in days gone by; there are a dozen reasons why the people, not wanting a thing, don't take it, that's all. It is not because there is less silver used as money, because there is an enor- mously increased amount used as money. I will not i^top now to show the exact figures, but the increase as I remember it, since 1873, of silver that has been ab- sorbed into use as money is something like $1,300,000,- 000, so when a man says that silver is demonetized by any nation on the face of the earth unless he gives a definition to '^demonetized" that is not in the dic- tionary he states a thing that is not true. Silver was refused free coinage, and consequently ceased to be the measure of value in all the civilized nations of the world, but the demand for silver as money was not de- creased by that legislation, and Mr. Harvey will not claim that. Mr. Harvey: I do. THE GREAT DEBATE 847 Mr. Horr: Well then, you claim it in the face of the facts of history. We have coined since the demoneti- zation act of 1873 over $600,000,000, if my memory serves me right, in this country, or have it in the form of bullion in the treasury, which we have taken from the markets of the world and paid for in cash there is no doubt about it. Now I submit to the people of the United States that I have shown beyond all ques- tion that the farm products of the country have not suffered, as my friend claims, at all. He knows it if he has looked it up as I have. He now comes back at me and tells you that I blow hot and I blow cold. (Laugh- ter. ) He says in one minute I am claiming that pro- ductions are high, and in the next that they are h:)w. Well, I don't know that I can make him understand it, but I think the majority of this audience will un- derstand it. I believe you who cheered with him so vociferously, who were so marvelously pleased when he mentioned in hislast speech that we had '*sweat-shops" in this country (laughter), you didn't find any place to cheer Harvey when he stated that there was a pure, upright society of gentlemen, and located them in London. (Laughter.) I haven't had anything dome so much good since this debate began as to hear Har- vey say that there is a set of honest, unselfish, upright people in the world, and then locate them in England, a country which the boy "Coin" wants us to go to war with, regardless of consequences. That is the most mar- velously pure set of men ever discovered on the face of the earth. I am glad you found them, Harvey; it does me good to have purity and excellence discovered any- where on the face of the earth. Now, as to the figures that he quotes of the English- men who belong to that pure society, he gave the fig- fU8 THE GREAT DERATE uiHs ni [)rifs 111 Knglaiid, prices ranging in a country where nobody claims, who knows anything about it, that the laboring men have the comforts of life that they have here in the United States. Before I finish I will show you that we here in the United States have a better distribution of property, that the common labor- ing men of this country, under gold legislation, enjoy more of the comforts of life, than any people to be found anywhere under God's burning sun. (Applause on the gold side of the house.) Why don't you cheer over on this side? (Applause on both sides, and long continued. ) Now you are really glad, ain't you, that there is some comfort left for the people in the United States? THE BATTLE OF LIBERTY. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr calls my attention to the fact that I have located some pure men in England. I want to say to our people in America that there are pure people in England^ in France, in every portion of the world, but their hopes of liberty and civilization are not what ours are. (Applause.) We are to-day fighting the battle of liberty in this country, and that society that I mentioned in London is cheering us on with words of good-will. (Ajij^lause. ) A human heart will beat with the same emotions in England that it will here. The men who are control- ling the financial legislation of England are men like the Rothschilds, men who are dealers in money, and whose property is fixed incomes. They are the gilded light and influence around the throne; they absolutely dom- inate it and control it in all kingdoms and monarchies. Human nature there as here is to pander to the rich. If a man is rich, one feels, as it were, like sinking his THE GREAT DEBATE 349 opinion and deferring to that man for his judgment, and when the time comes, that man whose judgment is deferred to, is going to cast his judguient on that sub- ject in his personal interest. The man who defers to him is in the same condition as the lamb which under- takes to lie down with the tiger, if their interests con- llict. You take a slave-owner before the war, who sat upon his elegant front porch with its white pillars. His poor neighbor deferred to him, and it was his opinion that dominated that neighborhood. Now we have a class of people controlling in the world who are dealers, not in slaves, but in money, and as they grow rich and opulent, and you grow poor and seek them for their money, you grow obeisant, and those rich men are controlling the legislation of Amer- ica and the old world, and there is no plan by which European civilization can rise from under it, and when we have passed four or eight years further along there will be no way for us to rise from under it. We are making in the United States to-day the last stand of freemen in the civilization of the world. (Ap- plause. ) That same money-lending influence arose two thousand years ago, and struck down civilization. While exerting its prejudice and its power, it struck down the purest men of those days. It struck down Jesus Christ himself! It is again dominating the world. It now raises its head in this country, and unless you rouse your man- hood and exert your intelligence it will absorb 3^ou in its influence and destroy human liberty heire in Amer- ica. (Applause. ) When we have passed a few years further alung, and you have been made to know more fully that property 350 THE GREAT DEBATE is worth more than humanity, that a globule of gold is worth more than a drop of blood, as you have been taught in the last twenty years and are being taught now, you will find that your dearest constitutional rights will be trampled down by the martial tread of troops. While confusion and restlessness prevail with the lack of prosperity all over our land, causing n^^n to do things they would not do if they were prosperous, causing riots and strikes, you will find that these men who harbor wealth, and bend their knees in supplica- tion to wealth, will not stop to consider what there is in civilization that is wrong, that has brought this on, but they will say that "property must be protected." The bullet will be the whistling messenger of peace, and they will know no law but power, and then you will have lost your liberties guaranteed to you by the constitution. First will coine the loss of free speech; next the loss of a free press; and lastly you will be intimidated until you become virtually slaves, as they have become al- ready in Europe. (Applause.) We are to-day repeating the history of the money- changers of two thousand years ago, and the true se- cret of it all is that you worship money; that you wor- ship a god here on earth that to you is more sacred than the rights of humanity. (Applause.) That working-men are out of employment, that three hundred men in Coal Valley, Illinois, have offered to bind themselves in slavery for a living in the last few days, does not excite your compassion for a moment. What does? The mad pursuit for money! If you can only say that you are worth a million dollars, you regard it as of more benefit to you than if you could say that THE GREAT DEBATE 851 you had given prosperity to a thousand men who are now tramping your streets without a place to find em- ployment. Arid with this worshiping of money has come another form of selfishness, the selfishness of van- ity. Those who are deceiving us are but the willing tools of this other selfish power, and the form that their selfishness takes is vanity. They would rather see their picture in a newspaper, and be lauded, than to do a good deed. And in their desire for office where they can satisfy their vanity they are willing to bow their heads in sub- mission to the moneyed power, that influence which sup- plies the campaign fund, and the power which they recognize will put them in office. (Long continued ap- plause. ) QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE. This ended the debate for the day, and written ques- tions were then received from the audience to be an- swered by the debaters. Mr. Horr: Question by James H. Daskin, of Jack- sonville, 111. "The Republican platform declares for the use of both gold and silver as standard money. Is silver standard money to-day? and, if not, are you in favor of making it so? or do you favor the elimination from the Republican platform of .1896 of the words 'standard money' as applied to silver?" I desire to say to the committee who submitted this (juestion to me that it is doubtful whether this illus- tratps in any way the subject we are discussing. It is a question simply asked by some politician for a polit- ical purpose, and I don't think comes properly in this debate. At the same time there isn't anything about it dangerous at all to me, because I am not enough of 852 THE GREAT DEBATE a politician to hurt, you know. In the first place, I will answer this friend by telling him he has not quoted enough of the platform of the Republican party to show what the platform is on that subject. He has taken out one clause, the thing Icomplainedof about Brother Harvey, without the other part of the resolution being with it, which does not even show the spirit or mean- ing of that platform. If he had quoted the whole of it, he would not have asked the question, because the plat- form is as clear as day that they are for the use of both metals, keeping all of equal value with each other, and they are in favor of silver being used as standard money wherever, by international agreement, we can get silver into that relation, and also prevent the destruction of the measure of values in the United States. Nowhere in any place have the Republican party ever announced the doctrine that they desired to put this nation upon a silver basis, and use silver alone as the measure of value and make gold subsidiary to silver. Nowhera I desire to say this, that should I be in the next Republican convention, and have any- thing to do with their platform, I should endeavor to have one that would not vary a hair from these princi- ples I have been announcing here in this discussion. And I serve notice on my friend who wrote the question that we will have a platform that will win on this question too. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: Question by S. A. Robinson, of New York. "You have stated that we owe England on pri- vate and public bonds five thousand million dollars. Please inform the people when we received the five thousand million." I stated in "Coin's Financial School" in the last chap- tor that we owed England, or Europe, I don't know THE GREAT DEBATE 853 which, but we will say Kiiglaiid, about five thousand million dollars. Mr. Robinson wants to know when we received it. I will tell him. We have floated in nation- al, state, municipal and corporate bonds, twenty thou- sand million dollars, twenty billion as you call it by the French count. Now I claim that at least five thousand million of that, or one quarter of it, is held among t he money-lenders of Europe, principally in England. There is probably more than that held among them. There is no definite way for getting at it. Tlic Ckicago Tribune estimated it recently at a little over half that, but the Trihane was trying to make it as small as pos- sible. I did not try to make it as large as possible. I will tell you now in the short space I have of 800 words, without the other data here that I miglit use, how you can figure that. The man who loans you money in New York we know as a fact is following a system of re- hypothecating that loan in Europe. He will take your l)()nd here, the broker will, he re-sells it in New York, then New York to London. Recently we know it is im- possible almost to place a bond in our own country. Tiie United States bonds have had to be floated in Kurope. The three-million Chicago bonds the other day had to be floated in London, and express messen- f^ers left here with the bonds for London. Now during the last twenty years our railroad })onds, which alone are five thousand million, and a part of this other fif- teen thousand million that is a part of all of it, and a very large part of it has been floated in England dur- ing the last twenty years, and if I had longer to answer and I may have to-morrow I could give you the data on this subject and we are paying interest on those l)onds. Mr. Horr: Question from Dr. T. P. Seeley, Chicago. 354 THE GREAT DEBATE ''Did not the sudden drop of 20 per cent in the value of silver bullion in 1893, immediately after the British Council stopped its free coinage in India, demonstrate that the cost of production had not fixed its value, but that a change of law and demand did change it? and how do you explain the sudden rise in the price of sil- ver from 96 cents per ounce to $1.21 in 1890?" I say in reference to the fall of silver immediately after the act of the British Council in reference to the coining of it in India, it is a subject that I know very little about. If any of you are able to dig out the re- lation between the prices of articles and the system they have of money in India, you have been able to do some- thing that I have never yet succeeded in satisfying my- self about. I suppose that the price of silver must have l)een somewhat atl'ected by the fact that India did stop receiving as much as she had before. It cut off the demand, and when you do that it cuts off one of the places of demand, and when you do that it necessarily drives down the price of any article. In 1890 there was for a little while in this country I know about that, I was here, you know there was an inflation of the price brought about by the purchase of a large amount of silver under the Sherman act. And for a little time speculators and the extra demand that enormous amount taken incidentally by the government drove the price up. But they continued to take it month after month for three years, and the price itself, without regard to the purchase, commenced to decline, and has been declining from that day until within the last six months. Mr. Harvey: Question by H. h. Bliss, Chicago. "The figures of gold production since 1890 of the table pre- sented Tuesday and 'Coin's Financial School' are as follows: THE GREAT DEBATE 355 Coin. Table. 1S90, 1113,150,000 1118,849,000 !s;)l 130.579,000 126,184.000 ! s;rJ 130,818,000 138,860.000 Please reconcile." The original table of the production of gold and silver in the world that was published in the first edi- tion of "Coin's Financial School" was made from that f'hart issued by the Treasury Department at Washing- ton. The chart I refer to is the one I hold in my hand, and was carefully proof-read and is a duplicate of that table. August 16, 1893, is the date on the table. Now, then, after something like 200,000 books had been printed from that plate, the plate was broken at the [)res3-room, and Mr. Knapphad it re-set and proof-read without calling my attention to it, believing that they could do it just as carefully as I could. He didn't un- derstand how easy it was to make a mistake, and there is a slight mistake or two in that table as re-set at the press-rooms. And as soon as I heard of it I had it care- fully examined and found there was no mistake that affected a principle. There were twoor three small mis- t;ik('s. It would not mislead one except that it would look inaccurate to anyone comparing. And I immedi- ately had it re-set, and in re-setting it took it from the table that is reproduced in the treasurer's report of 1894, ;ind it varies a little from the treasurer's table sent out in 1893. As I said the other day, they make those slight mistakes where they handle so many figures at Wash- ington. And the table as it now appears in "Coin's b^inancial School" is made from the treasury table of 1894. But no mistake that ever occurred would change or affect a principle that the table taught. Mr. Horr: Question from F. J. Schulte, Chicago. "Would not the demonetization of gold have the effect 356 THE GREAT DEBATE of diminishing its value regardless of the cost of pro- duction?" My answer to that question is that it assumes that it is possible to demonetize gold. All the nations in the world couldn't demonetize gold. They haven't the power to do it by law in any way possible. Why? Why, people use gold as money because they want it, be- cause they prefer it, because it suits them, and when a man wants to use a thing he is going to use it. Do you think by passing a law you could de-bread wheat stop the people of the world from using wheat any more for bread? You couldn't. You may think you could, but you couldn't. It is beyond the province of law. Now if the United States alone had passed a law as to gold the same as they did as to silver, and had placed this nation on a silver basis instead of a gold one, it would not have affected the price of gold one iota, no more than did the demonetization of silver by the English nation in 181G. The world uses gold to-day as the measure of value, in all international matters, not because there is any law. Gold coin, as coin, has no interna- tional standing. And yet we are just as completely in our recognition of it as a measure of value as if you passed a law. Now I will answer in a word; if govern- ments had let the two metals alone, and had let the people of the world always determine by their contracts just the amount of gold to be paid for a certain thing, or just the amount of silver, and had never attempted to get uj) ratios between the two metals, we never would have had any bother on this question. Every- thing would be run by people according to their under- standing, that they should keep their contracts, and if they said wheat, pay in wheat; if they said gold, pay THE miEAT DEBAT15 S57 in gold; if they said silver, pay in silver. Let the peo- ple run their business they are able to do it. Mr. Harvey: Question by L. G. Powers, of Min- nesota. "The export price of wheat (gold) was in 1873 $1.1(3; 1892, $1.03. Grain rates Chicago to New York were in 1873, 47 cents; in 1892, 22 cents per hundred. With a proportionate reduction from Nebraska points, how much more did the Nebraska farmer receive for wheat in 1892 than in 1873?" This question does not state the truth in regard to these figures. It is easy enough for him to get the true figures. If this question were reframed, then I could answer it; but, in order not to let it go without an an- swer of some kind, I say this: that the construction of no hypothetical question can convince a farmer that he is getting more now for his wheat than he received in 1873. (Long continued applause.) Adjourned to Saturday, July 27, at 1 o'clock p. m. CHAPTER IX. THE EIGHTH DAY. WAGES AND PRICES. BANKS AND FAILURES DEBTS AND MORTGAGES. Mr. Horr: During my remarks at the last session I stated that when you take all the human productions together with the great product known as human labor, gold had not appreciated in value since 1878; and that when measured in human toil it had depreciated. I stated also that after 20 years under a gold standard in this country the farmer can purchase with the products of his farm more of the things which he needs to buy to-day than he could in 1878. More than that I now state that when the entire products of the farm are taken into account, they will bring as much money of final redemption as they would have brought in 1878. I now desire to show the condition of all the products of this entire country. I take the prices of wages from the report of the Finance Committee of fhe United States Senate, computed under the direction of Com- missioner Carroll D. Wright. The country knows who he is. No man in the United States has done more in his efforts to serve the real interests of the working- man than has Mr. Wright. I here give a table which shows the cost of several classes of products, the aver- age wages of men who worked at all kinds of labor, from 1860 up to 1890. This table is computed on the plan of starting in 1860 with 100 as the basis. The table I will insert and have printed as a part of my re- marks. 358 THE GREAT DEBATE 859 PRICES. WAGES AND PURCHASING POWER. Meat Other food Clothes and clothing Fuel and lighting .... Metals and implements Lumber and building materials. . . Drugs and chemicals. . . House furnishing Miscellaneous Average of all prices Average of all wages Average wages by importance Salaries of city teachers Paper money Gold priceof silver bullion in Lond'n Purchasing power of all wages 1860 1865 197 240.3 299.2 237.8 191.4 182.1 271.6 181.1 202.8 216.8 143.1 148.6 134 49.5 99 66 1870 174.3 146.3 139.4 196.5 127.8 148.3 149.6 121.6 148.7 142.3 162 2 167.1 186.3 81.1 98.2 114.1 1875 140.4 135 120.1 156.5 117.5 143.7 144.2 95 122.9 127.6 158.4 158 188.1 88.8 92.2 124.1 1880 103.6 116.9 104.5 100.2 96.3 130.9 113.1 a52 109.8 106.9 141.5 143 182.8 100 84.7 132.3 1885 107.6 97.2 84.8 89.6 77.4 126.6 86.9 70.1 97.5 93 150.7 155.9 186.3 100 78.7 162 1890 99.6 103.5 82.4 92.5 73.2 123.7 87.9 69.5 89 7 92.3 158.9 168.2 186.3 100 77.4 172.1 You will notice that in 1865 the prices were nominally high the table shows that on account of their being given in the cheap money used in this country at that time. The wages of 1860 had been computed when the gold dollar was our measure of value. In 1865, the greenback, in which we were measuring values, was worth only 49| cents on the dollar. All prices had ad- vanced, when named in paper money, to 216.8. Wages had advanced to 148. 1 per cent, but owing to the unu- sual advance in the price of products and of wages, the purchasing power of wages was only .66. Now, what occurred after the passage of the law^ of 1878? Those occurrences have a direct bearing on the question we are discussing. We resumed specie pay- ments in 1879, and, as Mr. Harvey himself stated, you cannot get at the real changes occasioned by the law until after we resumed specie payment. By that time the high prices had fallen off that is, the nominal prices because the measure in which they had been valued had been advancing all the while, not on account of any change in the value of gold, but on account of the paper money which we were using as the measure constantly appreciating in value until it finally reached par with gold. At that time prices as compared with KjO the great debate 1860 were as 106.9 to 100, and wages were as 141.5 to 100 showing that the wage-earners were receiving much better pay nearly fifty per cent than they re- ceived in 1800. But the purchasing power of wages was 132.3 instead of 100, while the average amount had increased from 100 in 1860 to 141.5. Now labor was better paid and men enjoyed the neces- aries and comforts of life to an enormously greater Ingree, notwithstanding silver had at that time declined rom 100 to 84.7. Thus it will appear that in 1890 all wages had risen from 100 to 158.9, and the purchasing puwer of wages had increased more than 72 per cent. In 1870 the average of all prices was 142.3; wages, 102.2; and the purchasing power in greenbacks was 114.1. In 1890 prices were 92.3; wages 158.9; and their purchasing power in gold 172. 1 showing that the wage- earner for his day's work got one and nearly three- fourths times as much of the things he needed in 1890 IS he could have got in 1870. Now these figures, taken from the report of the Com- missioner of Labor of the United States, made for tlie purpose of favoring no particular notion, but simply for the purpose of getting at the facts, show conclu- sively that every proposition which Mr. Harvey ha^ made during this debate in reference to the effects of 1 he gold standard upon the producers and wage-earners of this country is untrue. It was in view of these facts that I made the broad assertion that at no time during the history of this or any other nation has a people en- joyed more of the comforts of life, and the general pros- perity of all kinds of business been more complete, than in the j^ears between 1879 and 1892. The increase of wealth in this country during that time was enormous. THE GREAT DEBATE 861 Now, Mr. Harvey, you gave us a table from the statis- tician, Sauerbeck, whom you vouched for in such glow- ing terms. Sauerbeck gave the prices of only forty-five articles used in England. The committee based this table upon the prices of 226 articles used here in the United States, and I will have printed as a part of my remarks a list of 65 articles selected from the 226 men- tioned in the Senate committee's report, and I hand the list to the reporter. ARTICLES OF WHICH PRICES ARE TAKEN. Beans, bread, butter, cheese, coffee, eggs, fish, apples, lard, pork, beef, mutton, milk, rice, spices, starch, sugar, tallow, potatoes, cotton, woolen and cotton cloths, carpets, hides, leather, coal, candles, matches, iron, copper, lead, nails, knives, quicksilver, rope, saws, silver, scythes, shovels, brick, zinc, cement, lumber, lime, plate glass, sliingles, tar, window glass, alcohol, alum, flaxseed, glycerine, linseed oil, opium, quinine, chairs, tables, molasses, glassware, pails, tubs, gun- powder, rub})er, soap, poultry, flour. Mr. Harvey: It would be fairer to print them all. Mr. Horr: Now, what I ask you, as I close my first talk, is this: Why did you select your data from Eng- land, and undertake to base your argument upon Eng- lish prices, when you could have found the prices all tabulated and shown accurately by a committee of your own country, about articles which we are using here in the United States? What difference does it make to us here in the United States what Sauerbeck's tables show about the condition of affairs over in England? What we are after is to find out how this law has affected the people of this country (applause), and what will be the effect, if you establish your doctrine of the free coinage of silver, on the people here where we live. Mr. Harvey: In the last deljate Mr. Horr said: 862 THE GREAT DEBATE "I will now refer to wheat. Here are figures that will please my friend. I find the average price of wheat from 1875 to 1879 to have been 99.8 cents a bushel in gold." Further on he said : "Now I have shown you that the three products, oats, corn, and wheat, brought as much gold in the five years past as they would have brought before in 1879, when silver was almost at par with gold." Mr. Horr took his figures on wheat there given evi- dently from page 284 of the Statistical Abstract for 1894, where the average home price is given, and he averaged the five years, 1875-1879, giving you the 99.8 cents as the result, and then made the broad statement that it was as high now as then. I am going to read to the stenographer from that same table from which Mr. Horr took his prices for 1875-9, prices also for 1890 to '94, where he wound up with the broad statement that we are getting as much for wheat now as then. The fig- ures as I read them are as follow: 1890 83.8 cents 1891 83.9 *' 1892 62.4 " 1893 53.9 * ' 1894 49.1 " Those were the home prices, and from the agricultural report copied in the Statistical Abstract. I pass the book to Mr. Horr. Mr. Horr: I have a better uuf, all bound. Mr. Harvey: We are accused by Mr. Horr in this de- bate of finding fault w^ith men and conditions for the reason, as he charges, that we seemingly delight to do so. And he contrasts against that the better disposi- tion in man that loves to look upon things that are pleasant. He has touched a phase of human nature on which volumes might be written, audit is a hope of all THE GREAT DEBATE 868 who take an active interest in the promotion of civili- zation that the time will come when there will be noth- ing but contentment and happiness on this earth. But, to reach that period, we must remove the obstacles in the way. I want to say to Mr. Horr that the argument he makes has been used in all ages to fortress and de- fend tyranny. It is an opiate intended to lull into re- pose the oppressed. It is an argument that appeals to man's desire for peace. There is one notable instance in this country when that argument was made, and the answer to it was the Declaration of Independence. (Ap- plause. ) Later the king issued an amnesty proclama- tion offering peace to those who would lay down their arms, and the insidious tongue told the people they were pessimists to further arraign the conditions under which they were living. The answer to that was York- town. You cannot deter brave men, who know their rights, and dare maintain them, by an argument that is intended to lure them from the subject to which they invite your intelligent analysis. Mr. Horr's inappro- priate language consisted of words that might be ad- dressed to slaves, but not to freemen. Mr. Horr says that the Sauerbeck table is English prices. It is a price table that has attracted the atten- tion of the world. It shows the decline in prices of all those articles that seek the world's market, such as our wheat and our cotton. The London price of wheat affects the price of our wheat on the Chicago market. In the official book we have been using here, from Washington, called "Coinage Laws Appendix and Statis- tics," there are three tables. One is the Sauerbeck table, one the Soetbeer table,and the other the Aldrich table. The Aldrich table is the one he refers to as containing 249 articles. It was made by a Senate committee of B64 THE GREAT DEBATE which Senator Aldrich was chairman. He called to his aid principally gold-standard assistants. Unlike Sauer- beck, they were not free from a desire to make as good a showing as they possibly could for prices in the United States. When it is known that Edward Atkinson was one of the men who assisted in making it (the report so states), one can judge of the bias that enters into it. This man Atkinson recently said, in an article pub- lished over his signature in a Chicago newspaper, that the proper way to deal with a silver man is to hit him over the head with a club. (Applause.) This Aldrich report was made in 1891, when the men making'it sup- posed prices had touched the lowest point they would possibly go. And yet it shows a decline in prices of thirty per cent below 1872 and 8 per cent below the price of 1860. I have arranged a table of comparison for the three price tables I have named, thus giving you a comparison of the Aldrich, Sauerbeck, and Soetbeer tables, and I now make it a part of the debate. Price tahlks of the Aldrich report compared w ith Sai'erbeck and Soetbeer tables as given in part I. oi THE Aldrich report. The page numbers given beIvOw ALL ARE OF THE ALDRICH REPORT, WHKJH AT THE PAGEH given copies THE SAUERBECK AND SOETBEER TABLES. Aldrich Report. Page 91. Sauerbeck, Page 247. Soetbeer. Hamburg and England-^- Average. Page 294. Soetbeer, Hamburg. Page 29,5. 1S50....102.3 I860.... 100.0 *1872....138.8 1891.... 92.2 1850.... 77 1860.... 99 1872.... 109 1891.... 72 1851.... 100. 21 I860.... 120. 98 1872.... 135. 62 1891.... 109. 19 1851.... 82.8 I860.... 100.0 1872.... 112.1 1891.... 90.3 1894.... 80 68 1894.... 63 1894.... 95.. 55 1894.... 79.0 Note The last line (1894) is added by me, by deducting the percentage of decline since 1891, as shown by the Sauerbeck table, as heretofore published in this debate. The Aldrich report stops with 1891, while by this estimate I bring it down to date. Deducting 12 V^ per cent premium on gold in the United States in 1872, we have 121.46 as the gold index price, instead of 138.8. THE GREAT DEBATE 865 The table gives the pages in the official book from Washington on which that table may be found. We thus see by all of these tables that i^rices are lower now than in 1850. These tables all prove the enormous purchasing power of money when exchanged for prop- erty, and the small amount of money proj^erty will buy when exchanged for money. THE HUMAN-TOIL UNIT. Mr. Horr has repeatedly called your attention in this debate to a new system of measuring property. It is a system that he calls the human-toil unit. It is a de- ceptive argument, and as near as I can trace its origin it originated with a man in Ohio who wrote a letter to Mr. Horr, in care of The New York Trllnine. Mr. Horr read the letter, sat down at his table and wrote a reply to it, and I now read you from that reply. It was published in a New York Tribune Weeklj/^ and afterward in making up 21ie Tribune Mitnihli/ it was copied into that, and from that I read. (Applause.) "I now come," says Mr. Horr, "to the real gist of Mr. Brown's letter. It will be found in his statement that a day's work may readily form the measuring unit of the mt^dium of excliange; and by contraction he would call it a dollar. That will not do. It would lead to confusion. The word 'dollar' has now a well-de- fined meaning. What a dollar shall consist of is fixed by the laws of Congress. The wortl has been used so long to mean a certain amount of gold or silver that to make it also mean a day's work would give it a double meaning, which would confuse common, ordi- nary people." Further on he says: "Candidly, Mr. Brown, your entire system seems to me so absurd that I can hardly treat it soberly," (Ap- plause.) :>66 THE GHEAT DEBATE 1 now i)ass Mr. Horr's article to him. (Laughter and applause. ) It is ridiculous to an intelligent man to have this financial argument loaded down with a confusing prop- osition of the human-toil unit. Human toil sells its services for a medium of exchange which it can barter for the substance and necessities of life. And I can only reply to Mr. Horr's argument on that question in the language he used to Mr. Brown himself, that it is so absurd as not to be considered soberly. (Applause.) The gold-standard men are constantly pointing to the gold dollar as being worth 100 cents as measured in it- self. Of course it is. It is a self-evident proposition, as measured in itself, it is worth a hundred cents. What we want to consider is the exchangeable value of money with property, and the exchangeable value of property with money. And from these combined tables that are now a part of this debate you learn that lesson, and you learn it in a way that no confused argument that can be put into the controversy can affect you. Mr. Horr: Mr. Harvey is at his old tricks, quoting one sentence from an article and assuming that that shows the gist of the whole. I have not had time to re-read my article, but I will agree if Brother Harvey will read the whole of it that he will get more financial sense into his head, if he will digest it, than he has ever had up to the present day. (Applause and laughter.) I was writing in reply to a man who thought that we ought not to have either gold or silver, a man who be- lieved, as my friend Harvey used to teach, only a little while ago that every kind of money should be a piece of paper stamped by the government and anybody that will read the article will see that he was not only a green backer of the old sort, but his theories were abso- THE GREAT DEBATE 367 lutely so ridiculous that they were contemptible. What I said in reference to his theories being ridiculous, was not in reference to his measure of value at all. It was his whole attempt to substitute a paper dollar based on nothing with which to do the business of this country. That is where Harvey will land yet. The dis- ease that he has never dies out. He hasn't reached the last stages of it. That is the trouble. What he wants and what these people are after is to destroy all values and to destroy all property and to put this nation on a socialistic and anarchistic basis. (Cries of "No! Nol") That is right, I knew you would understand that. Mr. Harvey: I submit right here there is not one scintilla in this debate that authorizes you to say that. (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: I say there is one scintilla in it, and I say that up to date you have got applause from this audi- ence, your part of it only, when your arguments have tended to show that you think the whole society of this country ought to be destroyed. (Cries of "No! No!") I know what I am talking about. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr Mr. Horr: Well, never mind, don't bother. BANKS AND BANKERS. Now as to banks. Why is it that Mr. Harvey feels called upon to enter into a tirade against banks, and to indulge in such a torrent of abuse against bankers? The picture that he drew of our country is a sad one. It would indeed be very sad if it were true. I can hardly conceive of a greater, more wicked misrepresentation of facts than have crept into the talk he has given us up to the present moment. Why do you keep insisting that this country hasn't anything left? That all we have 368 THE GREAT DEBATE liere in this world, in the United States I mean, we owe to foreigners? Why do you try to prove to the people of the country that we are on the brink of a precipice he tells us, just hanging over future ruin. Why, look at the facts I No nation on the face of the earth, I don't care what one you name, has been as prosperous as the United States of America since 1873. Look af the rail- roads we have built within the last twenty years; look at the enormous amount of savings which have accumu- lated in the various banking and loan institutions of this country; look at the new farms which have been opened, at the millions of new homes which have been l)uilt and beautified. I have before stated that I am not familiar with the Old World, but I do know some- thing about my own country. As far as the United States are concerned, I know he is mistaken. Now I will admit that there are, no doubt, too many bad peo- ple in the world. That ought to make you happy. But there are also a large number who are true and honest and good. Some men who accumulate property and have money to loan are grasping and mean, but large num- bers of them are in all things quite decent people. A man may be a banker and not at the same time be a scamp. Men may occasionally invest their money in bonds and mortgages and not become scoundrels by so doing. A man may even be an honest believer in mon- ometallism and not be either a thief or a robber. (Applause and laughter.) Indeed h man may even be- lieve that silver has had its day and should never again ))e used as standard money; he may believe that hon- *'ptly, though Mr. Harvey may differ from him. Thougli 1 may not even agree with him, yet he may be just as ciear-headed, just as good a friend of humanity, as either of us. ''With charity for all, with malice toward none," THE GREAT DEBATE 869 we should strive to convince those who differ with us of the error of their ways, but never lose sight of the fact that we may be in the wrong and they may be in the right. Banks are a natural outgrowth of civilization. They have been continually improved to meet the growing business of the world. No nation can economically do its business without the aid of banks. When well man- aged they bless all the people in any and every com- munity where they are located. (Applause. ) They add business power to every dollar of the standard money in existence. They make a dollar in gold do more than twenty dollars used to do. The commerce of the world all of it is an ex- change of commodities. When money enters into the transaction it performs one or both of two objects. It always is used as the measure of value; it is sometimes also used as the medium of exchange. In civilized countries it is seldom used as a circulat- ing medium. By the aid of banks exchanges are made with the use of very little actual money. In the business of the United States less than five per cent of the exchanges are made in money. The balance is done with checks, drafts, bills of exchange, shipping receipts, promissory notes, and every other conceivable kind of credit, and always with very little money. I spent a day in the clearing house in the City of New York, and saw them settle in three hours $119,000,000 of business, and they used less than five per cent of the amount in actual cash. Their system is so com- plete that their balances were paid with certificates of the United States sub-treasury or with very large bills, and hence there was little counting of money. What a few years ago would have taken an army of men, and 370 THE GREAT DEBATE long, long daj^s of work, was accomplished by this sys- tem of banking and bookkeeping in a few hours. THE CREDIT SYSTEM. Mr. Harvey: I was discussing at the last session the banking system and the short supply of money to sup- ply the normal demand for business. I showed you the normal supply required, and to show you the difference between having the money in existence and having the banks supply it, with their credit system, I here hand the stenographer a table of failures as it appears in the January number, 1895, of Dun's Review, to be copied and inserted at this point of the debate. FAILURES IN THE UNITED STATES FOR THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS. Fail- Amount of Fail- Amount of Y'ear. ures. Liabilities. Year. ures. Liabilities. 1857 4,932 $291,750,000 1876 9,092 $191,117,000 1858 4,225 95,749,000 1877 8,872 190,669,936 1859 3,913 64.394.000 1S78 10,478 234,383,132 1860 3.675 79,807,000 1879 6,658 98.149,053 1861 6,993 207,210,0(X> 1880 4,735 65,752,000 1862 1,652 23,049,000 1881 5,582 81,155,932 1863 495 7,899.900 1882 6.738 101,547,564 1864 520 8,579,000 1883 9.184 172,874,172 1865 :. 530 17,625,000 1884 10,968 226,343,427 1866 1,505 53,783,000 1885 10.637 124,220,321 1867 2,780 96.666,000 1886 9,834 114,644,119 1868 2,608 63,694,000 1887 9,634 167,560,944 1869 2,799 75.054,054 1888 10,679 123,829,973 1870 3,546 88,242,000 1889 10,882 148,784,337 1871 2,915 85,252,000 1890 10,907 189,856.964 1872 4,069 121,056,000 1891 12,273 189,868.638 1873 5,183 228,499,900 1892 10.344 114,044.167 1874 5,830 155.239,000 1893 15,242 346,779,889 1875 7,740 201,000,000 1894 13,885 172,992,85(1 It shows that during the years of the war, when there was plenty of money, and the total volume was confined to what was known as the Union side of the contro- THE GREAT DEBATE 371 versy, making about $40 per capita, the number of bus- iness failures was reduced to a minimum. See, as you look at it, how the contraction of the currency, beginning in 1866, increased the failures. Follow it now along down the years to 1894, and note its ravages as demonetization and bank credit, with their terrible tax on the people, were substituted for real money. Notice the failures prior to 1862, when bank credit was supplying the people with money. Look at its terrible ravages in the last ten years; 115,000 busi- ness concerns have gone into bankruptcy. How is it now? At least that many more are hanging on by their eyebrows. This is the reward of human energy and thrift. I do not mean to say that all these failures are to be attributed to this cause, but I do mean to say, that the credit system of money, with its tax of $200,- 000,000 annually, will account for every dollar in- volved in those failures. If we had more real money instead of bank-credit money, there would be compara- tively few debts and few failures. You owe it to yourselves and to civilization to get rid of this bank-credit money, and substitute for it real money. (Applause. ) The supply of money should be equal to the demand, the same as wheat, corn, meat, or any other property. It is 'in your power to do it. Will you do your own thinking for yourselves, or will you let a selfish interest do your thinking for you? If you will do your own thinking, we will have a repub- lic here that will open up opportunities to all and give us time to study the question : What are we here on this earth for? To master the intricacies of the science of money is not difficult. It is as simple as the law of architecture, and fewer principles are involved in it than in the construction of a building. 872 THE GREAT DEBATE THE NECESSITY FOR MONEY. The first lesson to learn is the necessity for money. Civilization is so constructed as to make it a necessity. Our social fabric, by which our vocations are classified, make of it a medium of exchange and necessity. A suicide was committed in this city the other day by a woman. Her husband was out of work and had no money. She had gone without anything to eat for two days. She had tramped the city looking for work herself, and as night came on she was two miles from home. She could not ride on a street car for the want of five cents. She tried to beg; it, too, was a failure. She finally reached home, where all was cheerless. She was in a city of nearly 2,000,000 people, but she was as desolate as if shp had b(^fM) in tliH middle of the Great Sahara Desert. A little money would have brought food, health, hope and happiness, but she did not have it. Her husband passed through the room. She asked him if he had any money. He had not. A moment later and she was dead; dead by her own hands. Poverty causes intemperate drinking and crime. The want of money often destroys character in both man and woman. The scarcity of money is the principal cause of their poverty. You can not say, if there were more money, the same people would be without it, for to increase the supply of anything is to cheapen it and bring it into more com- mon use. This applies to money, the same as it does to wheat, corn, bicycles, or anything else. (Applause.) To relieve the.demand, make money no more desira- ble than other property, to take that one great strain from the human mind, and turn it in a higher and no- bler direction, is the true study of economy and states- THE GREAT DEBATE 373 manship. It is not a craze for money that civilization needs, but a craze for building up nice homes; for building up character; for studying the universe in which we find ourselves; and in advancing the destiny of the human race. This we may do if we will but break the influence of this money power. The monop- oly of it has encouraged all forms of monopoly, and when we have destroyed this influence, we shall be more competent to judge other questions that are sustained by the cultivation of a selfish principle. We shall have set the example of liberality and humanity, and we shall march rapidly to a new era in- the world's history. I wish to make a part of this debate also a table that you will find in volume 2 of the Publications of the American Statistical Association of 1890 and '91, pages 186 to 194, giving the total business population of the United States and the total number of business firms dropping out of business and 'the number added to bus- iness. I now make it a part of the debate to be inserted at this point. BUSINESS FAILURES. Albert C. Stevens, in a paper entitled "The Connuertial Death Rate," (Vol. 2 of Publications of the American Statistical Association, 1890-91, pages 18G to 194) sums up the result of his investigations on the question of business failures (based on census and Bradstreet reports) as follows: Calendar Year. Total Business Population in United States. Total Number Dropping out Each Year. Net Total Number Added Each Year. 1879 703,000 733,000 780.000 820,000 855,000 875.000 890,000 920,000 933,000 955,000 978,000 989,000 100,000 110,000 110,000 105.000 110,000 120,000 145,000 165,000 170,000 178,000 209,000 229,000 1880 1881 1882 30,000 47,000 40,000 35,000 20,000 1883 1884 1885 15,000 1886 30,000 13 000 1887 1888 22,000 23 000 1889 1890 11.000 :;; 1 THE GREAT DEBATE EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL LEGISLATION. I HOW desire to call your attention to the effects of the financial and kindred legislation that has been encouraged by the same selfish interests upon the coun- try in the years since that legislation. Bradstreet's Publication for July 20, 1895, shows that on June 80 ninety-four receivers were operating 156 railways in this country, representing about 89,000 miles of railway. It shows that during the last twelve months 46 railroads, representing 6,728 miles, have passed out of the hands of receivers by foreclosures. I now read you from page 262 of the February num- ber, 1895, of LippincoiVs Magazine in a comparative re- view of the census of 1880 with that of 1890: *'In forty-seven states and territories the number owning farms increased 158,951 and the number of ten- ant farmers increased 599,887. In 1880, 25.62 per cent of the farms were cultivated by tenants; in 1890, 84.18 per cent of the farms were hired." I refer to this because Mr. Horr used some detached statements concerning Minnesota farms the other day, which must be regarded as very incomplete. I have read you a comparison of the tables for the whole United States. (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: So did I follow it with the whole. Mr. Harvey: I did not so understand it. Mr. Horr: Well, you did not read what I said then. Did not pay attention. I gave the whole. Mr. Harvey: Did you have your book here, the book you read from? Mr. Horr: I don't remember about that. Mr. Harvey: You have not been having the books here. THE GREAT DEBATE 875 Mr. Horr: Why,. the bulk of the books I can't get, because you have got them out of the library and keep them. I have never been able to get them. (Applause and laughter.) Mr. Harvey: There are eight or ten public libraries in this city, all having the books that we are using in this debate. (Applause.) And the books that I have had here have been on this table for Mr. Horr's use if he wanted them. No such subterfuge as that will save the gentleman from criticism for making quotations in this debate, from authorities which he has not produced here for our inspection. (Applause.) I now read you, Mr. Horr, on this subject from the Census Bulletin of the census of 1890, now in my hand. I read you this paragraph: "New York is the congested part of a large urban re- gion, and a greater New York may more fairly be taken into consideration. In New York City and the nine counties in New York State and New Jersey that are neighboring to that city, 81.54 per cent of the home families are tenants." Now as to your City of New York: "The highest degree of city home tenancy is in New York and is represented by 93.67 per cent. " Ninety-three and sixty-seven hundredths per cent of the families in your city are tenants. Mr. Horr: I have this to say in reference to my con- duct of this debate without bringing in my books, and I allude to that reminding you of the gusto for which Brother Harvey is so peculiar, with which he says, "I now pass the book over to Mr. Horr," when he knows that it is impossible for me during the excitement of the debate to examine and look into the merits of the book or his references. The only times when I have done it I have caught him in misquoting the book, and made him own it right here before the audience. 376 THE GREAT DEBATE Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, that is not true. Mr. Horr: The audience knows whether that is true or not. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, the record of the debate will show it. Mr. Horr: Well, it will show it. I have beeji in the business of debating a good deal in my life, and when a man states the authority as I have done, and gives the place and page, I take it for granted that he is hon- est and that he has quoted the book correctly and I would not consider it respectful to myself to be con- stantly demanding that the other side should read it all over to see if I were right. lam in the habit of quoting accurately, but I sometimes make a mistake. I differ from the boy "Coin" in one respect, if you catch him at it, instead of owning it he denies it, and that isn't all, he tells a "whopper" (laughter) in order to ex- plain how he got out of it. (Laughter.) That is not my method. Now look: I charged my friend Harvey, two or three times, with tending toward the old notions of greenbackism and with being a real believer in that ridiculous nonsense, fiat money. He doesn't deny it. Mr. Harvey: I do deny it. Mr. Horr: You did not and you have not. You sim- ply say "there is nothing in this debate from which you have a right to infer anything of the kind. " I did not infer it from the debate, I inferred it from his methods of arguing that old craze of fiat money. I have had large experience with it, you know, and when I see the symptoms I can detect the disease. (Laughter. ) They are not symptoms that are visible to a person who has not been in the practice ; I have been in the practice and I can go right out around in this audience now and pick them out by the score over there. (Long continued applause and laughter. ) THE GREAT DEBATE 377 CONDUCTING COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS. But I must .return to the question of banks. To a man accustomed to doing business at the present time the present methods of conducting commercial transac- tions is readily understood. That the quantity of gold in the world has not increased as fast as the business of the world has increased, I admit. But it does not take as much standard money to do the same amount of business to-day as it formerly did. Human inge- nuity has devised methods so that one hundred dollars in gold will do the same work that more than two thou- sand dollars used to do. Hence Mr. Harvey's conten- tion, that the quantity of the standard money alone determines its value, is incorrect. This increased power of gold, which enables one dollar to do the work that twenty or more dollars used to do, diminishes the actual demand for the metal itself, and hence prevents the burden he talks so much about being anything like in proportion to the amount of the business done in the world. Ninety-five per cent of the entire business in this country is done without the exchange of a dollar of currency. But it is all done on a gold basis with a gold measure for value. While the gold is the measure of values, the business is done by using all kinds of <'redit as a substitute for the money itself. MONEY AS A STREAM OF WATER. It is true that, all other things being equal, the quantity of water in a running stream would measure its value as a power to be used to aid man in the pro- duction of commodities. Yet the same quantity of water turning an old-fashioned under-shot wheel will not com- pare in its benefits with the power obtained from the same quantity of water when mills are located along 878 THE GREAT DEBATE the bank of the stream at successive falls, and the same water is used over and over again, with turbine wheels which take the place of the under-shot, and thus in- 'rease the power in every mill, obtained from using the ;ime water. Thus it is that the work which can be done with the same amount of gold is enormously in- 'reased by our new methods of bookkeeping and bank- iig. All this is for the benefit of the world, and Mr. Harvey, true to his impulses, immediately commences 1 o abuse anything that helps anybody. Go into any ommunity in the entire United States; and you will lind that the bankers range with the very best men in t hat community for good business ability and upright- ness of character. They have the confidence of the de- cent men in amost every city and village in the United States. I know, there may be once in a while a wicked man who does banking for a business. You will find, aice in a while, a preacher who forgets his sacred call- ing, and is guilty of bad conduct. But a man who will undertake to vilify the whole class just on account f that one sample, is in bad business. Once in a while ou will find a mother that will go back on her own hild. But what kind of a state of mind is that man in who, on that account, will denounce all the mothers nf the land as being unnatural and cruel to their ofl- -pring? This whole system of abusing everything that helps to build up a community is what I enter my pro- test against here and now. But I now come to the keynote of Brother Harvey's -ntire system. He bases his new philosophy entirely upon the theory that the people of the w^orld are mostly in debt. You won't deny that (turning to Mr. Harvey). It does not occur to him that the debtors and creditors, when you speak of sums of indebtedness, are always t:he great debate 879 precisely the same. But the number of the debtors and creditors differ very greatly in all civilized and unciv- ilized countries. His whole effort seems to be to prove that everybody is in debt,and that the legislation of the world should all be directed so as to relieve the debtor. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr compares our money to a stream of water and to the utilization of that water in the manner in which he illustrated it. I want to makn another comparison to put alongside Mr. Horr's illus- tration: Money is a stream. Suppose that along that stream manufactories have been erected, and all have adjusted themselves to the quantity of water, that life- giving fluid that is flowing by them, and suddenly one- half of that water is taken out of the stream, what is the effect? (Applause. ) That is the proper illustra- tion to use in this discussion in the demonetization of silver. (Applause. ) Let me draw another illustra- tion from the gentleman's figure: Suppose we were by laws to give rights to men living along the banks of that stream of water, to store it away, draw it out and put it in great reservoirs, and rent it to the manufac- tories and the business houses along that stream where business men have adjusted themselves to the use of it, requiring them to pay a toll for the use of that water then you would have our present banking system. (Applause. ) STATISTICS OF SO-CALLED PROSPEROUS YEARS. I desire to make a part of the record in this debate a table in volume 8, American Statistical Association Publications, page 859; it gives the number of homi- cides in the whole United States in the decade from 1882 to 1891, as compiled by The Chicago Tribune and receiving the endorsement of this Statistical Associa- tion Publications: 880 THE GREAT DEBATE Year. Murders. Year. Murders. 1SS2 1,4(>7 1887 2,335 1S83 1,61)7 1888 2,184 1SS4 1,465 1889 3,567 1885 1,808 1890 4,290 1886 1,499 1891 5,906 This table of Mr. Cook's cannot be explained by an increase in immigration; nor the increase in crimes, insanity and suicides be attributeH to immigration, as will be seen by the following table. I now introduce a table showing the number of immigrants coming to this country the same number of years as apart of this debate: Year. Iniuiij^rauts. Y'ear. Iniuii;L;rauts. 1SS2 788,992 1888 :546,889 iss;; 603.322 1889 444,427 1S84 518,.-.92 1890 455,302 1S85 :595,346 1891 .560,319 1SS6 334,203 1892 623,084 1887 490,109 1893 502,927 1894 314,467 We frequently hear people talk about our having had prosperous times covered by the above dates. It will be well for those who sincerely wish to arrive at a cor- rect conclusion, and who are of too high an order of in- telligence to be misled by party prejudice, to study these statistics bearing on the decline of. civilization, and note the period that has brought it upon us. I wrote a letter the other day to the Census Bureau at Washington, asking for official information showing number of criminals, the insane and suicides for 1880 and 1890, as shown by the census. I now read you the reply, and will pass the letter to Mr. Horr. "Department OF THE Interior, Census Division. Washington, July 6, 1895. "Dear Sir: Referring to yours of recent date,a8king to be furnished various information from this office, I beg to say that the census is not in possession of data THE GREAT DEBATE 381 later than those obtained at the census of 1890. Below will be found a statement of the items desired for the years 1880 and 1890. You will find in the leading pub- lic libraries reports for earlier censuses, from which it will be more satisfactory for you to make such extracts as you may see fit: Number of inmates in penitentiaries, ISSO 35,53K 1890 4r),23:i Prisoners in county jails, 18S0 12,()91 " 1890 19.538 Number of insane in institutions, 1880 41,177 * ' 1890 ....74.0l'S Number of suicides reported, 1880 2,511 1890 3,9.32 These figures, as you understand, are simply the num- ber of convicts in penitentiaries, and do not include the prisoners found in various other places, and for the in- sane the figures are those in institutions, not the total number reported insane June 1, 1890. "Yours respectfully, Geo. S. Donnell, Chief of Division. To Mr. W. H, Harvey, 184 Monroe St., Chicago, 111." The Chicago Tribune of June 30, 1895, speaking^ of the increased suicides, said editorially: "The lamentable occurrence suggests a look at the statistics of suicide, and a question as to the cause of its greater frequency now as compared with a few years ago. The following totals for the United States are of startling interest in this connection : Year. Suicides. 1889 2.224 1890 :i,()40 1891 3,331 "And the number reported during the first six months of this year, lacking two days, is 2,75G, or considerably more than 50 per cent of the number for the whole of 1894, while the average for July and August is always Year. 1 89** Suicides, :> 'M\() 1893 4,480 1894 4.912 882 THE GREAT DEBATE greater than for other months, so that 1895 may be t'xpected to far surpass 1894 in the number of suicides. There is thus an almost steady augment in the number, which increases much faster than the population. " The Chicago Inter Ocean in an editorial of the 12th instant said: "False representations of prosperity are only less dangerous than false representations of adversity. A knowledge of the truth is as essential to success in trade as to progress in morals. A boom predicted upon a false assumption of industrial resources soon collapses. And, in plain truth, there are no reliable indications of any speedy return to such prosperity as obtained prior to the political and financial disaster of J892. " The Inter Ocean then proceeded to quote some prom- inent men on the present status ; among them, Marshall Field. They quoted Marshall Field as saying: '^Business may have improved, but those interested in booming things evidently are trying to make them out as better than they are." LESSON FROM FALLING PRICES. Will not this lesson of the falling prices of property, and the rising prices of money, concurrent with a loss of wealth among the property-owners and wage-earners, producing as it certainly does this increase in crime, insanity and suicide, arrest your attention? You are humble citizens of a republic, and yet the humblest among you are endowed with common sense, the safest bulwark of a republic against the sophistries that have brought ruin to all previous republics, and that is now })ringing ruin to us. On this subject I want to say right here that Mr. Horr has attempted to divert your minds from an ex- amination of the condition of this country as it is now, and as I am now spreading it ii])()n llie pages of this de- THE GREAT DEBATE 383 bate, advising you that it is more pleasant to look upon sweet things. Again, in answer to that, I want to say that history tells you that all republics have fallen. It has been the hope of mankind that one would be erected that would be permanent. That is what we want to do in this country, but you will never have a permanent republic in this country until we teach ourselves to diagnose the national disease. If your child is sick and you turn your eyes aw^ay from its disease, and tell it, in the language of Mr. Horr, to eat candy, to look upon sweet things, your child may die, but if you examine as to what is the matter, send for a doctor, do what is necessary, you may save the life of your child. Now that is all that we are trying to do in this discussion. We love the sweet things of life as much as any man, and we would have them, and have them permanently, for civilization in the United States. Do not let the United States as a republic pass into the hands of selfish men to whom monarchy becomes a necessity. The mo- ment they have deprived you by a false money measure- ment of your property, the people generally of their property, aggregating to themselves, to the few, the property, then monarchy becomes a necessity. And that is.the way all republics have become monarchies (applause) when that condition has arisen. (Applause. ) WHY PEOPLE BECOME RESTLESS. The masses become restless. Why? Because they have become poor; because they have been deprived of the necessaries of life. They become restless, then comes crime, as I am now giving you from the statistics in this debate. Then come poverty and suicide and in- sanity. The country goes morally and politically crazy. Then comes the necessity for martial law; then comes the necessity for Gatling guns and repeating rifles, for 384 THE GREAT DEBATE an increase of the police, and for a standing army. In the last three weeks, and for the first time in the his- tory of the United States, a general order has gone from the President of the United States, to the com- mander of the army, laying down rules for governing the United States army in the control of mobs and riots. (Applause.) We are trending to monarchy, and it is wrong for Mr. Horr or any other man to shut his eyes to this defect in our civilization that I am now point- ing out. (Applause.) If you would save liberty in this land, if you would preserve this, the United States, from the fate of Europe, it is your duly to do it, and it should become your pleasure to do it, and to do it you will act like intelligent men and you will act like freemen. (Applause.) Mr. Horr: I couldn't stop him because he was enjoy- ing himself so well. He gets so much comfort out of denouncing the human race that I was letting him revel in his glory. This little table that he handed over to me where is it, Brother Harvey? that account of failures. Where are the books that you made it up from? Mr. Harvey: Here they are. Mr. Horr: I don't want to see them. ^ (Mr. Harvey throws numerous books over to Mr. Horr.) Mr. Horr: Yes, right there. That is right. (Long continued applause.) You are sure they are accurate? You think they are? You are satisfied they are? You did your best, anyhow? Mr. Harvey : If Dun and Bradstreet are accurate they are accurate. FAILURES AND PANICS. Mr. Horr: Glancing at them, I find tnat this reports THE GREAT DEBATE 385 the failures of 1857 as compared with the failures of 1893 that is they report the failures of both those years; and I make the comparison. 1857 was a year of fearful panic. I lived during those years. I suffered during those years. I know something of the trouble that spread over this nation then. We then had, accord- ing to my friend Harvey, a double standard. We had another bad failure in 1893, which he attributes to our being on the gold standard. I am not going to take the time in this debate to tell you what really led up to that panic in 1893, but one factor that entered into the panic of 1893 was the fear of the business men of this country and the world that our nation was going to be given over to a class of men that were shouting for free silver. That was one great trouble. In his immense effort in his last speech to make out that the country was going to ruin he recites the suicides and diseases that are incident to the human family at this time. But before I get through I must finish the failures of 1857. That table of his shows that they amounted to $291,750,000 or $10 per capita. That was under your double standard. In 1883, when we were under the gold standard, the failures were $346,779,000 that is, $5.25 per capita. (Applause.) They were just about double in 1857 what they were in 1893. But now to go back. Yesterday, in his vivid description of what we are doing under this crushing money power, he could not express himself until he compared the story of the crucifixion of our Saviour, and laid that to the money power of that day. He forgot that the only man that betrayed our Saviour was Judas Iscariot, the only silver man of theentire tribe (applause), and what is remarkable, he insisted on a ratio of thirty to one. (Laughter and continued applause.) 886 THE GREAT DEBATE Now he takes up my illustration of the running water and wants me to tell what would happen if they took away one-half of the w^ater from the fount of a stream and so let only half of it run down. If they should do that, unless there was plenty of water in the stream after they took the half, it would make trouble. But if they could spare half and still have enough to do all the business of the country, it wouldn't make one par- ticle of difference, not one particle. And before I get through I am going to convince Mr. Harvey so that he will leave the room perfectly overwhelmed (laughter and applause) with the truth of my proposition. (Laughter and applause.) CREDITORS AND DEBTORS. Now my idea of life is entirely different from his. T think that credit is a good thing, and we cannot have a creditor without there is a debtor. Mr. Harvey, you are not the first person I have seen in the world who has conceived the idea that everything is wrong in the world on account of some one thing. I sometimes call such men cranks. (Laughter.) You will not be offended when I give the full definition of "crank." I don't use it for the purpose of being offensive. A crank is a man who has been thinking and brooding over some one thing until he twists everything in the universe so as to make it tally with his theory about that one thing, and then forgets all the other circumstances of life. It is on this account that Mr. Harvey talks constantly about the unlimited demand for money when free coin- age is given to silver. Why, there is no such thing in the world as an unlimited demand for anything. He knows it. There is a limit to all demands for every kind of property for everything in this world of ours. I wonder, Brother Harvey, why instead of devoting THE GREAT DEBATE 387 yourself to business you haven't before now established a school for the education of doctors. From your speech this morning on insanity, etc., you haveaclear- cut idea about physicians, and if you will apply your method of arguing you will open such a school to-mor- row. The only way is to start out with the proposition that the whole human race is sick (laughter); that we are all subject to disease; that there isn't a single per- son on the face of the earth who hasn't some ache and some pain. Now, if there is any unlimited demand for- anything on the face of the earth it is something that will relieve people from feeling badly. Doctors are the things I Consequently in order to carry out your theory it would become necessary to magnify the dis- ease of the people, make them think that every little ache is a disease that threatens life, and then you would get an unlimited demand for doctors. Now in order U) carry out just that theory, my friend Harvey has mag- nified the debts of the people of this country. He does not recollect that the business of the world is more done upon credit than alt other things combined. When you strike down the credit of the world you bring trouble. In order to reach his unlimited demand for money, he starts out with the proposition that the en- tire human race are debtors, and consequently the only use for money, the only legitimate use, is to pay debts. Mr. Harvey: As to the unlimited demand for money I think all of the reasonable citizens in the United States will agree with me that there is, comparatively speaking, an unlimited demand for money in this coun- try; that we cannot only use what we have but that we could use several times as much, and that most men would still be asking for more. The history of all coun- tries is, the more money they have tlie more prosperous they are provided it is good money. And silver money, 888 THE GREAT DEBATE as shown by all these tables you will study iii this debate, is a stable money, holding an exchangeable value for long periods of years with property. (Applause.) Mr. Horr compares the failures in 1857 with 1898. The table that I presented is to teach this: that under the bank- credit S3"stem we have always had panics and always shall have. Now the unfairness of Mr. Horr'a compar- ison is this: bimetallic prices are higher than single- standard prices. There was no trouble about the meas- urement of values in 1857, it was based upon both gold and silver. There was a stable measurement of values, and the panic did not come about by reason of a dis- proportionate or radical change taking place in the com- parative value of money with property. Tliey are virtually stable. The panic of 1857 came about by reason of the bank-credit system. A study of the table that I put in this debate will justify it. Now Mr. Horr says that I said in "Coin's Financial School" that there were $40,000,000,000 of debts in the United States, about. This debate is coming to a close virtually to-day, because on Monday I shall speak exclusively upon the independent action of tlie United States, and have not room in the debate now to answer in detail that question Mr. Horr has been putting to me several times in this debate. I am going to answer you now sufficiently in tliis way. I hand you the Bankers^ Magazine issued in New York City, which gives the long-time debts in this country. I skip all of the long-time debts connected with national banks, etc., and read you five items. State and municipal bonds $1,1:35,000,000 Railroad bonds the estimated amount in 1895. 5,(500,000,000 Mortgaged street railroads, business corpora- tions and business ijroperty 5,000,000,000 Farm and home mortgages 2,500,000,000 Loans and discounts, banks, savings banks, and tniHt companies 4,140.000.000 THE GREAT DEBATE 389 You have there, Mr. Horr, in the neighborhood of $15,000,000,000 of debts, and including loans by banks it is $19,000,00a,000. I pass you the book. Now I will tell you how I get the balance of the $40,000,000,000. After this debate is over I will give it to you in detail if you want it, but I get at it in this way. A question was asked you the other day in this debate concerning the debts, and in your answer you said this I now quote from you "The great bulk of debts in this country are not over three months old. The debts that run only ninety days are the great mass of the debts paid in every civil- ized nation. The debts that run over a year are large- ly small in number, while the debts that run over live years are still very much smaller." Now I have shown you $ 15, 000, 0.^), 000 long-tim>3 debts (applause), and as you say that the long-time debts are very much smaller than the great bulk of debts, you can easily get the balance of your $40,000,000,000. SUPPLY AND DEMAND. I want to say something in this debate on tlucn^i ul |)roduction, because it has been enlarged upon by JNIr. Horr. He bases falling prices upon improved facili- ties. My claim is that improved facilities do not lowor the price of such products. It is the supply producf^d and the demand for it that regulates the price of such products. Let us make this plain. Suppose a widow, owning a farm, receives the volun- tary assistance of her neighbors to raise and harvest her wheat crop. Will her wheat be worth any less than the price fixed by the quantity of wheat in existence known to the traders, and the estimated demand for it? No. If all the corn crop in the United States were de- 390 THE GREAT DEBATE stiwed except the crop in Iowa, would the Iowa corn price be governed by the cost of production or the rela- tive supply and demand for corn? We know it would advance heavily under the demand that would exist as compared with the supply. Suppose there were a demand in the United States for 1,000,000 laborers, and there were only 500,000 labor- ers, one half as many as needed. There would be a stifiE and rapid advance in the price of labor. The demand would be greater than the supply. The quantity of wheat in the world and the demand for it fixes the price of wheat in the markets of the world, and not the cost of in'oduction. If improved facilities, however, cause a larger num- ber of people to seek wheat-raising as a vocation, and in that way an over-supply of wheat is produced, the 13rice of wheat will fall on account of the supply being greater than the demand. Thus supply, when greater than the demand, will bring prices down; and, when demand is greater than the supply, prices will go up. The cost of the product has nothing to do with it. A man may produce an ounce of gold for ten cents that is worth twenty dollars. The fact that it cost him ten cents does not make it worth less than twenty dollars. But suppose it be said that improved facilities always result in lower prices. The answer is this: Improved facilities are being applied to all products, including gold and silver. And if it increases produc- tion alike, both in the thing to be measured and the product in which they are measured, the exchangeable value of the two would remain substantially unchanged. (Applause. ) This was illustrated prior to 1878. Im- proved facilities were x^roducing money substance sil- ver and gold a little faster than things to be measured THE GREAT DEBATE 391 in them. Hence rising prices. Then we began destroy- ing one-half the money-measuring substance. The sub- stance in which other things were to be valued became proportionately less than the things to be measured in it. This increased the demand for this money-measur- ing substance by proportionately decreasing the supply. It exchanged for more of other things. This meant fall- ing prices. It (gold) was rising in exchangeable vahie. So, here, too, we see that supply and demand and not cost of production regulates values. Right here let me say: Mone> has a price as well as property. The price of money is what you have to give for it in property, and the price of property is what you have to give for it in money. Supply and demand affects one the same as it does the other. So that before 1878, when silver and gold both made np our stock of primary money, improved facilities were increasing their supply proportionately with other things. From 1851 to 1878 twenty-two years there was a period of rapid growth in improved facili- ties, and yet they did not produce a fall in prices, as claimed for them now. Why? Because improved facil- ities were also at work in creating money. During this period the supply of money was gradu- ally gaining on aggregate production of other property, hence a rise in prices. As it gained, civilization re- sponded with energy and alacrity to its vitalizing in- fluence. It (money) was commercial blood, and the body grew. In the very face of improved facilities and a lower cost of production, prices were advancing. It is the relative proportion of primary money to property that fixes what is called price, and not the cost of pro- duction of either the money or the property. The fall 392 THE GREAT DEBATE in prices in the twenty-two years since 1878 cannot, therefore, be attributed to improved facilities. Mr. Horr: I desire to say tliat before we complete the debate to-day I will give my friend Harvey due notice that his table on debts will receive all the atten- tion that he will like to have given to it, and I will then reconcile my statement entirely that I niade here the*other day with the facts in the case. I will show that it has no reference at all to the debts that he gives and they cannot be included in the $40,000,000,000 that he made the people of the United States owe. But just now, during this talk of mine, I want to call the attention of the country to the fact that Mr. Harvey, true to the doctrines generally taught by his school, is mystified because he takes it for granted tliat the business of a country entirely depends upon the amount per capita of the circulating medium. He in- sists that if you shrink that you ruin the business in the country. There are a large number of men who believe that doctrine, but no more transparent humbug was ever taught the people of this or any other country. PER CAPITA CIRCULATION OF LEADING NATIONS. I have in my liand a table showing the per capita cir- culation of the currency of all the leading nations of the world. I shall make it a portion of my talk and have it printed for the benefit of the readers of this de- bate. It is as follows: France has $86.81 to each inhabitant; The United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland) $20.44; Germany has $18.56; The United States $26.02; Belgium $26.70; Australia $26.05; THE GREAT DEBATE 893 The Netherlands $2484: In China with a popuhition of 402,700,000 the per capita circulation is but $1.80, all silver; Kouuiania Has $4.60; Servia $4.27; Sweden $2.71: Turkey $2.89; Central American States $8.78; Japan $4; India, with a population of 287,200,000, has $8.44; Hayti $4.90; Portugal $21.06; Egypt $19.85; The South American States $9.67 Canada $10; Cuba $12.81; Italy $9.79; Switzerland $14.4^; Greece $12.22; Spain $17.12; Austria-Hungary $9.59: Norway $6.60; Denmark 11.72; And Russia, with a population of 124,000,000, has $8.17 to each inhabitant. I now call attention to a few facts. France has a very large per capita circulation, $86.81 to each inhab- itant; but France has no such system of universal bank- ing as has Great Britain. She does a large proportion of her transactions by the use of currency instead of checks. Great Britain has only $20.44 per capita, and business is fully as readily done in Great Britain as it is in France, because in every nook and corner of Great Brit- ain there is a bank which does all the clearing for the little neighborhood where it is located, and consequently they do not need the amount of money to do business with that they use in France. THE GREAT DEBATE Germaiiy only has $18. 5G, and the greatest writer in Germany to-day, one of the greatest, a professor in one L' her highest universities, states this fact, that Ger- lany is crippled because she has not the banking facil- ies that Great Britain has, and says that until she arns to utilize the modern system of accounts and ;inks she will never learn the great power of a small amount of currency to do a large amount of business. We have in this country $20.02 per capita. We have ;inks,too, scattered all over the United States, and .iioney is a plethora in this country to-day. There are liundreds of millions of dollars lying idle, simply be- luse there is nobody to use it. Did you know that? Vhy, my friend Harvey and all of you men who think t hat way as usual get the cart before the horse. It is 't an abundance of money that makes business active; 11 is business that makes money active in this world of Miirs. (Applause.) And until you can comprehend that )int, Brother Harvey, you will never understand this iinancial question at all. (Laughter.) Sweden has only $2.71 per capita, and yet so complete re her internal arrangements that we hear no com- |.laint of lack of funds in Sweden. Canada has only $10 i^er capita, but Canada has an 'ngant l)anking system no better,! believe, on the face ! the earth than the Canadian system of utilizing .inks. Switzerland, one of the most prosperous little nations "\\ the face of the globe, has only $14.48, about half as ]iiuch as this country has. Norway has only $6.60. Russia, with a population of 124,000,000, has only >. 17. The ratio of money to the population proves ijuthing. What we need in the United States is good THE GREAT DEBATE 895 wages for work, steady employment for our men, and we have got money enough to do twice the business we are doing to-da-y. (Applause. ) He carries the idea that the banks are constantly fleecing the people and that they have their harvest when the people are in distress. Why, there never was a greater fallacy taught to the American people. Bankers never make money when money is scarce, never makr3 money in a panic, never make a great deal of moiu y when interest is high. Bankers make their money when Inisiness is active, when interest is low, when their de- posits are all the while increasing, when the people have confidence and there is something to loan. He up- braided the banks, because they have loaned pjirt of their deposits and made interest on them. Why, a bank the first great effect it produces in a community is to set thn money to being used a second time. The great bulk of the money of this country is used that could not be used at all under the old sys- tem without banks. Men keep it in their drawers, in their pockets, in their tills, have to keep it for emergencies. Now they deposit it in the bank. He seems to think the bank does nothing but just gobble interest. The banks pay interest to depositors in most instances, in all savings-bank instances, and they make the money of depositors earn an enormous sum, millions upon millions each year, that they would never get a cent for but for the banks investing it and paying them interest on these deposits. They can't pay interest on deposits if they don't get some iiiiorest themselves. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: At the conclusion of this debate Mr. Horr and I have 2,500 words each at our disposal to write at our leisure within seven days after the debute, 396 THE GREAT DEBATE to sum Up the debate, and anything in Mr. Horr's ar- guments that I do not reply to to-day I will attend to in that summary, because there is only a short time left to us, and I want to answer some matters that have been introduced into this debate at the earlier stages. INCREAS'E OF WAGES. I want to speak a few moments on the proposition that wages have increased. Laborers are of two classes. One class is the kind that produce something with their labor and depend on selling what they produce to receive pay for their labor. Under this class come all our farmers. If one of them produces with his labor 100 bushels of wheat and gets $50 for it, then $50 is the price of his labor. But if he sells the 100 bushels of wheat for $100, then he has receivecl double the pay he did formerly. Under this head also come the village tanner, the cobbler and tens of thousands of mechanics and others who depend on payment for their labor through the sale of what they make and produce. The effect of the gold standard on this class is manifest. The other class is what is generally known as wage- earners; these are men who sell their labor direct to others for money. In considering the effect of the gold standard on this class, it should be divided into two groups. The first: Unorganized labor. Under this head come all persons not belonging to labor unions in other words, unorganized labor. This group covers store clerks, office help, and all other classes that are not organized. In this instance supply and demand affects the price paid for such labor. The demand for gold not only having enhanced its value, THE GREAT DEBATE 897 but having prostrated business, throwing tens of thou- sands out of employment, the number seeking such em- ployment makes an over-su])ply of such persons, and their salaries are reduced, so that store clerks who re- ceived twelve and fifteen dollars per week in 1873 now receive only five and seven dollars per week. In fact the reduction of wages in this group of labor is carried to the point of paying only what is necessary for the person actually to subsist on, and in many in- stances it is carried beyond that. It is sometimes true that persons in this group are employed for about one- half what it should cost them to live, and they eke out an existence, or have a home where they do not pay board, but contribute what they get to the family ex- penses. It leaves little or nothing for clothes or medi- cine and makes their condition pitiable when no employment, or employment for a part of the time only, can be obtained. This fills the tenement houses and crowds such people toward cheaper and cheaper quarters. The second group is: Organized labor. Here too the supply is greater than the demand, ex- cept in some instances of skilled labor, when the de- mand is greater than the supply. Those coming gen- erally under this head are organized and are men imbued with a principle. They have leaders and news- papers, labor organs. In this way they become united and disciplined. Each time they make a contest with contractors or employers, they either gain their point or inflict such an injury as to make them feared in the future. In this way they have prevented wages from declining as they would otherwise have done, but at a loss to themselves and the business interests of the country. Who has not seen such a contest in the 398 THE GREAT DEBATE large cities? Who has not witnessed their discipline, their picket lines for blocks, and has not deplored the results? Several times in this city deaths on both sides, and always labor arraigned against labor those wanting to work driven to it through necessity, and members of the union who did not want them to work. This condition creates an army of idle laborers who drift into crime or become tramps. Organization sus- tains wages for those actually employed while engaged at work, ))ut when you average the wages by including the unemployed, and include the expense and time lost, it does not do so. Make the calculation this way and you will tind that the gold basis has nn^asured itself in wages with mathematical accuracy. This condition is not healthy, it is not good for the country, it breeds strife. It creates loss to industry and labor, it destroys manhood, it makes criminals. The cause for it should be removed. (Applause.) The labor organizations will continue and have a right to continue as long as money is organized; as long as monopolies are organized. (Applause.) But we should have a civilization that would make it unneces- sary for any organizations of that character to exist. In Europe wages have been forced down to the legiti- mate level of the gold standard. The bayonet has been used to do it. Later it will do it here. The interest of the laboring man is on our side. We will hold his wages up without strikes or the expense of strikes. As the gold of California and Australia raised his wages, so will the silver of our mountains as it pours into our metallic money stock as primary money raise his wages. There will be work for all, and the strife for labor will cease. Over-plenty, men will be brotherei again. THE GREAT DEBATE 399 We have seen how the farmer loses, also these who must sell what they produce to get pay for their labor. This has discouraged those vocations, and men and women have drifted to the cities. The cities have pro- portionately outgrown the country in population. With the unemployed, comes under-consumption. The trend of population should be to the country. To secure this, there must be an inducement; farming must be made profitable. You must advance prices so that the farmer can pay his taxes more easily, so he can sell his prod- uce for more money. The rural population will thus increase. The farmer can live on what he raises. This makes him independent; an independent citizen is a good citizen, and is no man's slave. He is a patriot, and such men make a strong government. (Applause.) Our national policy should cultivate the dignity of the country home. Prosperity and love of home among the producers of the soil build up individual and na- tional character. This policy will draw away from the ranks of the wage-earners, give them happy homes, and h^ave the supply of wage-earners less than the demand. And this will raise the price of wage-earners' wages. The man who now has work or a situation, and selfishly reasons that he benefits himself by maintaining a dear dollar, is neither broad nor humane. He is assisting in wrecking his country, and it may be too late to remedy the error when he, too, is without employment. (Ap- plause.) He should also think of opportunities for his children after he is gone. Now are not we being deceived about wages being in- creased? I want to give you somethinj^ to think about that may indicate that. A few days ago there appeared in The Chicnrjo Tribune an editorial in which appeared these words: lUO THE GREAT DEBATE "Thp Pullman Palace Car Company is reported to have advanced the wages of the employes in its great shops near this city ten per cent. The increase alfects about 4,000 men and was conceded by the company without demand by the toilers, or public announcement of the fact that it would be made." On the same night the Associated Press sent a tele- gram from liere which was published in the newspapers of the United States. I now read from the San Diego "A/% Vidcitc,''^ where that telegram appeared: "Chicago, July 7. The Pullman Palace Car Com- pany has advanced the wages of employes at the Pull- man shops ten per cent, the advance affecting about 4,(XK) people. No formal announcements have been made by the company of its action, as the advance has been gradually taking effect in various departments during the last two weeks." Now what are the facts? In the same issue of The CJnaif/o Tribune that published that editorial appeared a news article showing that in fact no advance in wages was made at Pullman, and that Mr. Pullman himself admitted that there was no advance made; that what they meant was that they had given the men that were at work about ten per cent more work to do. They had previously been working only half time. (Ap- plause. ) DEBTS OF AMERICANS TO FOREIGNERS. Mr. Horr: I have already called the attention of the country to the fact that the little boy *'Coin" is absolute- ly without knowledge of mathematics or correct infor- mation concerning wealth, property or money. In his book the boy says, and Mr. Harvey in his debate re- peats the assertion, that foreigners own real estate, per- sonal property, bonds, stock and mortgages in the THE GREAT DEBATE 401 United States to the amount of ten thousand million dollars. I now state that there is no shadow of authority for suoh a statement, and when Mr. Harvey reads my state- ment as to the short-time debts he don't get out of his trouble, because the debts I referred to were those that accumulate every day, and every man who does an hour's work when the hour is completed has a credit for the amount of that work, and that work every week amounts to such a fabulous sum that you will be as- tounded when I come to that part of my talk. Mr. Harvey: Do you say that I said that foreigners owned ten thousand million dollars' worth of property in this country? Mr. Horr: That is what you did say here. Mr. Harvey: I don't know where I said it, Mr. Horr: You said that England owned five thou- sand million dollars, and the rest . . . .NO 1S1)L> . . 1 O.'J lso;{.... ... .(*:{ iSiKJ.... ... .SO In 1878 wheat was $1.31 currency, equal to $1.16 gold. '0.)iii's' figures are $1.25 gold. Please reconcile." In making that table of wheat and cotton and silver prices that Mr. Bliss refers to I used tlie Statistical Abstract for all the years down to and including 1890, and made the calculation back of 1870 for tlie premium that was on gold and deducted that from the price and made the price of 1873 $1.25; and Mr. Bliss, by using s(mie other calculation, makes it $1.10. I was probably right. The Statistical Abstract was all right down to 1891. Now beginning with 1891 the Statistical Abstract prices did not agree with other prices that were then current and before me. I want to say right here that statistics are now being made at Washington to entrench the money power. In 1891, '92, and '98, your own knowledge of the price of wheat being so recent wil 1 confirm the figures in "Coin's Financial School." Now in addition to that I make apart of this answer a table on prices of wheat made from different reports, showing the difTei-ence in different price tables during those and other years. [See pages 428-429.] THE GREAT DEBATE 427 Mr. Horr: Question from G. L. McKean: "Tuesday you said, 'The price of articles is affected by the entire circulating medium of the country;' if so, does not the large issue of currency by national banks since last March help to account for the rise in prices since that time, and likewise the keeping of gold in this country through the government's employment of gold brokers?" I don't know just exactly what he means by the last clause. I want to understand it. Mr. McKean: I refer you to the files of The New York Tribune in regard to the transaction of the Roths- childs' syndicate with the United States Treasury. Mr. Horr: I don't now get anyJight. I said that the price of articles is affected by the entire circulating medium of the country, everything used in the pay- ment for goods as well as final redemption money. Now he wants to know, if that is so, does not the large issue of currency by national banks since last March help to account for the rise in prices since that time? I should think probably it would have some effect. I would have to find out how much there is compared with the entire business done, and after I had done that I couldn't tell anything very definite al)out it. It is one of those things you can talk about, but you don't know anything about it after you get through. There is no way to figure, you can't get at anything that is mathematical. But the gold business I don't know what he means by it. Mr. McKean: What do you mean, Mr. Horr? Do you mean you don't know anything about the transaction, the employment of gold brokers, or you don't under- stand the question? Mr. Horr: I don't understand what you are driving at. o JS two c 5 o ^ ^ H Z3 > >^ ti 2 ? T3 fH '5. h 8 K< rt ^ 1 K) E Q c "^ (* ;^ >"- iM?4094e4^ 1*5 O w J-5 O 00 O X' lCJ^^-^iO"'l-l-4-|e5MMfOO^o^^^Olr 0> o 5 Xt.^D^O C^r50DlOOO-<0003505taOO03-^r-1M'^^oor--+ooo^?'J4-< E 2 S o r. o i * 5 i^^ o 5 5 S - s 8 - -' "5 s ^r-i r-4WC^i.^r-ii-I^.-;p-ii-<^r-Jr-ir-i 1-5 lO O O M O lO -f 'H ^ P3 pH O - I- M O '5 CI CO fO c:c-ic-. -r-y;=>-3'-i'-ro-aD30oo'M30"q'Mic . .i-0' 30 ^2 r- - .Oi ^06 -< ^Ol-fC"- CIC^ "0 0- ^6-<5; O"?^' M -s s s - o *: o o o -2 =1 a J^ ^5 B ^ ^ iJ rt fl iJ XI tf) Oj u.e 6 2 ^ ^1 0, g ^ tn t-t -S. i> P .5P J3 "oJ i " 2J H 1 'Si S-i "3 a in a rt o O 4, ^ cu a. . OO P t^ 00 '^ rt QO O) M J- IS 2 E y^^ \jj -rr ^ lu <*. c^ Q Q O W On _ ^ o a d ci 00 00 QO GO :;, s s 3 -s 'S S 5 S I ^ - - K- ^ .n g g I O, a o 3 - M M M W o CX3 ^ _ ^ - " s s 3 a ti "^ -n - o is ^ ui (A 3 - ^ S 2 'd 5 3 5 '*^ ii ^ o^ o, ^ a .^ c/j (u (u - B ^ j3 , rt O p H H H H ^ > O rt w O M ^ D fl TO I ?5 5,330 85,007.50 1843 2,506.240 4.27.5,425 1,327,132.50 1844 1,250,610 4,087,715 89.345.00 1845 736,530 2,743,640 276,277.50 440 THE GREAT DEBATE Double Half Three Quarter Year. Eag-les. Baffles. Eagles. Dollars. Eagles. Dollars. 1846.... 1,018,750 2,736,155 279.272.50 1847.... 14,337,580 5,382.685 482:060.00 1848.... 1,813,340 1,863,560 98,612.50 1849.... 6.775,180 1,184.645 111,147.50 $ 936,789 1850.... . . . $26,225,220 3,489,510 860,160 895,547.50 511,301 1851.... ... 48.043,100 4.393.2S0 2.651.955 3,867,337.50 3,658,820 1852.... ... 44.860,520 2.811.060 3.689,635 3,283,827.50 2,201,145 185.3.... ... 26,646,520 2,522,530 2,305,095 3,519,615.00 4,384,149 1854.... ... 18,052,340 2,305.760 1,513.235 $491,214 1,896.397.50 1.657.016 1855.... ... 25,046,820 1,487,010 1.257.090 171,465 600,700.00 824,883 1856.... ... 30,437,560 1,429,900 1,806,665 181,530 1,213,117.50 1,788,996 1857.... ... 28,797,500 481,060 1,232,970 104,673 796,235.00 801,602 1858.... ... 21.873,480 343,210 439.770 6,399 144,082.50 131',472 18.59.... ... 13.782,840 253,930 361,2.35 46.914 142,220.00 193,431 18G0.... ... 22.584,400 278.S30 3.52,365 42.465 164,360.00 51,234 1861.... ... 74,989,060 1.287.330 3.332,130 18.216 3,241,295.00 527,499 1862.... ... 18,926,120 234,950 69,825 17.355 300,882.50 1,326,865 1863.... ... 22jlS7,200 112,480 97,360 15,117 27,075.00 6.250 1864.... ... 19,958,900 60,800 40,540 8,040 7,185.00 5.950 1865.... ... 27,874,000 207.050 144.535 3.495 62,302.50 1,326,865 1866.... . .. 30,820,500 237.800 253.200 12,090 105,175.00 7.180 1867.... ... 23.436,300 121.400 179,600 7,950 78,125.00 5.250 1S6S.... ... 18,722,000 241.550 288,625 14,625 94,062.50 10.525 1869.... ... 17,228,100 82,850 163,925 7,575 84,612.50 5.925 1870. . . . ... 22.819,480 164,430 143,550 10,605 51,387.50 9,335 1871.... . .. 20,456,740 254,650 245.000 3,990 68,375.00 3,930 1872.... ... 21,230.600 244.500 275,350 6.090 52,575.00 3.530 (Pag 'es 184 and 186 , Report of the Director of the Mint, 1892.) SILVER COINAGE. Calendar Half Quarter Half Years. Dollars Dollars. Dollars. Dimes. Dimes. 1793-1795 $ 204.791 $161.572.00 $ 4.320.80 1796.... 72,920 $ 1,473.50 2,213.50 511.50 1797.... 7,776 1,959.00 63.00 2,526.10 2,226.35 17ns 327 536 2,755.00 . 1799 423 515 1800 220,920 2,176.00 1,200.00 1801 54,454 15,144.50 3,464.00 1,695.50 1802 41 650 14 945 00 1,097.50 650.50 1803 66,064 15,857.50 3,304.00 1,892.50 1804 19 57 78,259.50 1 1 105,861.00 30, 684 50 826.50 . 1805.... 32 348.50 12,078.00 780.00 1806 . 419,788.00 51, 525 788 00 55 531 00 1807 160.75 16,500.00 . 1808 684 300 00 1809 702 905 00 4 471 00 . 1810 638 138 00 635.50 . 6,518.00 . 1811 . 601 822.00 1812 . 814 029 50 1813 . 620,951.50 1814 . 519 537 50 42 150.00 . 1815 17. 308.00 . THE GBEAT DEBATE 441 Calendar Half Years. Dollars. Dollars. Igl6 237575.00 1817 607,783.50 1818 980,161.00 1819 1,104,000.00 1820 375,561.00 1821 652,898.50 1822 779,786.50 1823.. 847,100.00 1824 1,752,477.00 1825 1,471,583.00 1826 2,002,090.00 1827 2,746,700.00 1828 1,537,600.00 1829 1,856,078.00 1830 2,382,400.00 1831 2,936,830.00 1832 2,398,500.00 1833 2,603,000.00 1834 3,206,002.00 1835 2,676,003.00 1836 1,000 3,273,100.00 1837 1,814,910.00 1838 1,773,000.00 1839 300 1,748,768.00 1840 61,005 1,145,054.00 1841 173,000 355,500.00 1842 184,618 1,484,882.00 1843 165,100 3,056,000.00 1844 20,000 1,885,500.00 1845 24,500 1,341,500.00 1846 169,600 2,257,000.00 1847 140,750 1,870,000.00 1848 15,000 1,880,000.00 1849 62,600 1,781,000.00 18.50 47,500 1,341,500.00 1851 1,300 301,375.00 1852 1,100 110,565.00 1853 46,110 2,430,354.00 1854 33,140 4,111,000.00 18.55 26,000 2,288,725.00 1856 63,500 1,903,500.00 18.57 94,000 1,482,000.00 1858 5,998,000.00 1859 636,500 2,074,000.00 1860 733,930 1,032,850.00 1861 78,500 2,078,950.00 1862 12,090 802,175.00 1863 27,660 709.830.00 1864 31,170 518,785.00 1865 47,000 593,450.00 1866 49,625 899,812.50 1867 60,325 810,162.50 1868 182,700 769,100.00 1869 424,300 725,950.00 1870 445,462 829,T58.50 1871 1,117,136 1,741,655.00 1872 1,118,600 866,775.00 Quarter Half Dollars. Dimes. Dimes. 5,000.75 "9o,293!56 .'.*.'.'.*.'.'.*!.*.* !!!!'.'.'.!!! 36,000.00 31,861.00 94,258.70 54,212.75 118,651.20 16,020.00 10,000.00 4,450.00 44,000.00 42,000.00 ' ' 5i,bbb!66 '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. ""i,ooo.bb "121,500.00 !'.!!.*.*.*.*.*! 25,500.00 12,500.00 77,000.00 61,500.00 51,000.00 62,000.00 99,500.00 77,135.00 62,135.00 80,000.00 52,250.00 48,250.00 39,000.00 48,500.00 68,500.00 71,500.00 63,500.00 74,000.00 488.000.00 141,000.00 138,000.00 118,000.00 119,000.00 95,000.00 63,100.00 104,200.00 113,800.00 208,000.00 239,493.40 112,750.00 122,786.50 229,638.70 108,285.00 153,331.75 253,358.00 113,954.25 143,000.00 363,000.00 98,250.00 214,250.00 390,750.00 58,250.00 403,400.00 152,000.00 58,250.00 290,300.00 7,250.00 32,500.0) 230,500.00 198,500.00 78,200.00 127,500.00 3,130.00 1,350.00 275,500.00 24,500.00 63,700.00 36,500.00 45,150.00 63,400.00 85,000.00 113,900.00 72.450.00 150,700.00 244,150.00 82,250.00 62,000.00 142,650.00 82,050.00 68,265.00 196,550.00 63,025.00 4.140,555.00 1,327,301.00 785,251.00 3,466,000.00 624,000.00 365,000.00 857,350.00 207,500.00 117,500.00 2,129,500.00 703,000.00 299,000.00 2,726,500.00 712,000.00 433,000 00 2,002,250.00 189,000.00 258,000.00 421,000.00 97,000.00 45,000.00 312,350.00 78,700.00 92,950.00 1,237,650.00 209,650.00 164,050.00 249,887.50 102,830.00 74,627.50 48,015.00 17,196.00 5,923.00 28,517.50 26,907.00 4,523.50 25,075.00 18,550.00 6,675.00 11,381.25 14,372.50 6,536.25 17,156.25 14,662.50 6,431.25 31,500.00 72,625.00 18,295.00 23,150.00 70,660.00 21,930.00 23,935.00 52,150.00 26,830.00 53,255.50 109,371.00 82,493.00 68,762.50 261,045.00 189,247.50 442 THE GREAT DEBATH I do this to remove the representation that has goiie all over the country that for the first half of the cen- tury we were on a silver basis, and from 1850 to 1873 we were on a gold basis. The best answer to that argu- ment is the production of the table of coins themselves. The statement that gold did not seek the mints for the first fifty years and that silver did not seek the mints for the last thirty years prior to 1873 is not true. GOLD AND SILVER OP THE WORLD. Page 130 of the United States Coinage Laws Appendix and Statistics 1894 I now hand the book to Mr. Horr gives the approximate stock of money in the world. The stock of gold there given is }f;3, 90 1,900, 000; the stock of silver there given is $3,931,300,000. This esti- mate includes gold and silver coins and gold and silver bullion available for coinage into money. I have givf^n it to you as expressed in dollars. As expressed in space or bulk there is, if each were melted into a solid mass, the cube of 22 feet of gold and the cube of 66 feet of silver. In chapter five of "Coin's Financial School" you are told how to make this calculation. But it is suffi- cient in this debate that we deal with these two metals as exp'ressed in dollars. The quantity of these two metals available for coin- age into money is what is left after the demand for them in the arts and manufactures is supplied. As civilization has grown the use in arts and manufactures of these metals has grown out of proportion to the in- crease in population. As we became a manufacturing people, ingenuity be- gan to devise all kinds of ornamental and useful things made wholly or in part from these metals to be paraded in the markets to induce people to buy them. We thus I'HE GREAT DEBATE 44^ went to making numerous articles to sell for money, out of the material from which money was made. As we have here to deal principally with the ques- tion as to whether there is a sufficient quantity of gold in the world to supply the quantity of money neces- sary, I shall direct your attention more directly to that metal. USE OF GOLD IN THE ARTS. Our very first step should be to the subject of the use of gold in the arts. We thus see that this increased use to which I have called your attention has a direct liearing on the quantity of our money supply to he de- rived from gold. Edward Suess, Professor of Geology at the Universiiy of Vienna, in a book that I hold in my hand, has com- piled exhaustive information on this subject. I will read you a few facts he gives that will be educational to you and will then give you the conclusions he draws: "In 1890, according to the reports of Mr, Leach, the mints of the United States and the private refining works furnished to industry gold bars of the value of $14,005,901; but aside from this, the goldsmiths are in the habit of melting down a quantity, not accurately known, of gold coins. Formerly, according to the in- formation gathered in four different years, this amount was estimated at $8,500,000. If no decrease has oc- curred in this employment of coin, says Mr. Leach, 1 hen the value of the gold consumed in industry in the United States in the calendar year 1890 has been $18,- 105,901." IN DEFENSE OF THE PRESS. Mr. Horr: I desire to say just a word in defense of the press of the country. I have not a word to say against the action of the Record and the Inter Ocean THE GREAT DEBATE [V (I nor any of the other papers here in the city. Sonn tliem have treated me well, and some of them havo treated me as they saw fit. I had one paper thrust in my face at the door of this })iiilding with a column of belittling remarks about me that were very cutting; but when I came to read the head-lines of five or six articles fn the same paper and found that tlie fellow favored free coinage of silver only because it was a step to break down all the laws of the country rwhen I read in the paper untU I found out that it was th(j worst kind of an anarchistic sheet, I threw it to one side. I was glad he abused me. I do not seek the applause, in this world, of that kind of people. But when you come to the great American press as a whole I have no fault to find with it. They do not always estimate me according to my estimate of myself (laughter), but they may be right and I may be wrong. As a rule the insinuation that the leading press of this country can be bought up for the purpose of producing legislation in the interests of any particular people against the great interests of the citizens of the United States, I do not believe. I believe there is as much honor and integrity among the. men who manage the great newspapers of this country as there is in the sam(! number of men doing any other business in the United States. It will be a good while before you will get me into a state of mind so that I am compelled to make out that the great bulk of any class of American citizens are a set of vagabonds. I am an American citizen my- self and believe in this country, and I think, take it as a whole, we average up as well as the people of any other country on the face of the earth. I sometimes get the "big head," and think we are a little better, you know. THE GREAT DEBATE 445 (Laughter.) Believing that, I never indulge in this kind of talk about people acting from corrupt motives. I had just started to show that no nation alone can 'stablish the old ratio of 10 to 1. I state now that I do not believe Mr. Harvey thinks any one nation can do it at least he does not propose to keep that ratio. He says in his book, "They say it is not bimetallism unless the two metals stay at exactly the parity of 16 to 1. These men do not know what bimetallism is. It may be desirable to let one metal go, as it would be now with both as primary money. Wemay have bimet- allism and bimetallic prices, whether one metal has a tendency to leave us more than the other or not, and if desirable to stop this leaving a change in the ratio will do it, and if necessary we can do it so as to set the other metal going so that we can feed Europe either metal we may choose." So ho is not a stickler for 10 to 1 at all. VALUES NOT FIXED BY LAW. Now I start out with this proposition. Nations by their laws do not fix the value of things. TJiey cannot do it if they try. The actual value of the two metals at the present time is wide apart. The ratio of 16 to 1 is to-day a thing of .the past; the value of the two met- als in the markets of the world has changed. How it happened to have been done, what brought it about, does not bear upon this question to-day. The figures 10 to 1 do not represent the commercial value of the two to-day. Nobody claims they do. Always, from the earliest foundation of society, the ridative value between gold and silver has been fixed by the people of the world, and not by legislation. That is a fixed fact. They have never been able legally to determine any ratio and have it remain permanent. 446 THE GREAT DEBATE The tables that Mr. Harvey has produced show that nothing like it was ever accomplished. The people de- termine the kind of metal they desire, and they use that; and desire is demand, it is the foundation of de- mand. Consequently it is useless to talk about fixing a com- parative ratio between any two substances by legisla- tion. Is there a man living who thinks all the nations in the world combined could fix a ratio of value be- tween a bushel of wheat and a bushel of oats? Try it on. You will see where you will land. If you have a small crop of wheat and a large crop of oats, or a small crop of oats and a large crop of wheat, up will go your ratio, and law has no more effect on it tlian it has to make water run up hill instead of down. Does any one think that by passing an act you could stay the floods of Niagara and make them run up stream? Why not? Well, there is a little difficulty in the way. The law of gravitation stands between you and the accom- plishment of such an act. Consequently the same thing occurs when you come to the ratio between any two ar- ticles. They are determined by conditions over which legislators have no control. Now, Mr. Harvey and I both agree that the free coin- age of silver will decrease the measure of value used here in this country. He don't deny that. The bur- den of his whole talk in this debate is that we ought to have a cheaper measure; that the unit is worth too much. So now we agree that it will change the meas- ure. Mr. Harvey says, then, that is what ought to be done, because, he says, the whole world is in debt, and our country is on the brink of ruin, because the present dollar is too valuable. That is his position. That is a position on which I differ with him. THE GREAT DEBATE 447 He proposes to relieve the distress of the peo^^le by letting them pay what they owe in cheaper money. I know I do not misrepresent you in that respect, Mr. Harvey. I answer him, "No, the debts of the day, the bulk of them, have been contracted with the gold dol- lar as the measure, and to relieve the payment of them in any way by a trick of this kind is repudiation." It is repudiation for all debts contracted recently anyhow, because both parties, the borrower and the lender, should always use the same measure. It would be dis- honest if a man had one bushel measure to buy the prod- uce of the farms with, and had a good deal smaller one which he used when he sold articles. You know we would make it hot for a man that would try that on if we found it out here in this world. The measure should always be the one used and understood by both parties. He answers me by saying, "I agree with you, the unit of values should be used by both parties, the same," ])ut he says, "For twenty-two years your unit has been increasing in value, and silver has remained stable." Mr. Harvey: When I reach Mr. Horr's argument as lo legislation not controlling the value of gold and sil- ver, my answer I think will be satisfactory. I now continue reading from Professor Suess: HOW GOLD IS CONSUMED. "In 1877 I was enabled through the kindness of the Secretary's office of the Chamber of Commerce of Bir- mingham, to state the consumption of gold in that city at 250,000 to 800,000 ounces. This did not include gild- ing and gold leaf." The manager of the refining works in Geneva wrote to Mr. Suess as follows: 448 THE GREAT DEBATE "Relying on our sales and on the figures of the fed- eral control, I estimate the demand of Switzerland in 1890 at 14,000 to 15,000 kilograms of alloyed gold; that is to say, about 9,800 kilograms of fine gold. Of this I estimate that seven-ninths went to the watch industry, and two-ninths into jewelry. For silver on the sam<' basis in the same year the demand would have been 00,000 kilograms of fine silver, which was entirely taken up by the watch industry. For 18V)1 I estimate the de- mand for alloyed gold in Switzerland at 9,000 kilo- grams, that is to say, about 5,900 kilograms of fine gold, 7,000 kilograms being for watches and 2,000 kih)- grams for ornaments. Silver would amount to 52,000 to 55,000 kilograms, entirely for the watch industry." Mr. Suess sums up all the information he has ac- ([uired, as follows: "But if this figure is compared with the figure of the total ])r()duction of 1G8,0(K) kilograms in round num- bers for 1890, or 177,000 kilograms for 1891" (the fig- ures he has obtained), "it seems to me very probable that the demand for ornament, for industry, and for hoarding, is close to the figure of production, or has already reached it." I now hand this book to Mr. Horr, Here in the United States we f)roduce a little more gold than we use in the arts, but the portion left for use as money is growing less. On page 102 of the book on Coinage Laws, etc., heretofore referred to, you get the annual gold product of the United States. On page 455 of the same book, you get the gold furnished by the mints to be used in the arts and manufactures for the years 1880 to 1892 inclusive. I put these two to- gether, and here is the result. I hand this table to the stenographer to be inserted in the report: THE GREAT DEBATE 449 I'HODUCTION OP^ GOLD IN THE UNITED STATE8 AND AMOUNT USED I\ THE ARTS FOR THE YEARS 1860-1892. Years. rrodiietioii Used in Arts 1880 j^3(),000,000 34,700,000 32,500,000 30,0(X),000 30,800,000 31,800,000 35,000,000 3:3,000,000 33,175,000 32,800,000 32,845,000 33,175,000 33,000,000 $10,J)()2 000 1881 1 1 770 700 1 S82 10,808,000 14 458 SOO 1 SKI IS84 14,500,000 11,824,742 13 0()t) 52J) 1 SS5 . . 1 SSf) 18S7 ; 1888 14,sio,:J4() 10,514,842 1889 1(;,()97,05( 1890 17,055,9(50 1891 19,(580,91 (5 19,329,074 1892 We thus see that while we produced of gold $8(3,000,- 000 ill 1880, we produced only $88,000,000 in 1892, with population larger and necessity for gold greater than at the latter period. But the comparison is more serious when you notice what is left for use as money at the latter period as (compared with the former. In 1880 there was left for coinage, after deducting what was used in the arts, $25,000,000; while in 1892 less than $14,000,000 was left. This estimate does not include the $3,500,000 before estimated as melted up in the coins by manufacturers, and does not include gold lost by hoarding, accident, fire, or abrasion. We have seen that the supply of silver in 1894 avail- able for use as money was $3,981, 100,000. (See page 180 ''Coinage Laws and Statistics" for the figures I am about to read. ) $950,000,000 of this silver is in use as money in India; $725,000,000 in China; ,000,000 in Mexico, Central and South America; 450 THE fe>REA.T DEBATE $81,800,000 ill Japan; $110,000,000 in the Straits. The remainder, or about $1,900,000,000, is in use as token money or occupying the quasi position of limp- ing bimetallism in the other nations of the world. The larger part of this is divided as follows: ITiiited States 1624,000,000 United Kingdom 112,000,000 France 500,000,000 Germany 215,000,000 Spain 155,000,000 And the remainder among the smaller nations of the earth. The foregoing figures are all coinage value in our dollars. A natural inquiry is, what becomes of the silver we are producing? I quote from an interview with G. H. Gibson, a prominent New York stock broker who has just returned from London, in The Chicago Post, a gold- standard paper, of the 8th inst. : ''I talked with Sir Hector M. Hay, a member of the firm doing the largest bullion business in the world. In reply to a direct inquiry as to how much silver bul- lion he regarded as existing in the market in Europe, he stated his belief that the visible supply in Europe did not exceed 8,000,000 sterling. ''Sir Charles Freemantle, the master of the British mint on Tower Hill, told me five years ago that there was no stock of silver bullion to speak of in Europe. It came by every steamer and went away by every steamer. On inquiry of one of the highest statistical authorities in London, the fact was confirmed that despite the de- monetization of silver by all of the great nations, in- cluding India, the use of silver in the arts has grown so wonderfully that there is a ridiculously small sup- ply in the market at any one time." The production of silver in the United States last year was bullion value $40,000,000, and we exported THE GREAT DEBATE 451 hullion value $87,164,713. Thus there was a demand in the balance of the world for substantially all of our silver. These- are the facts, and this is the situation before us as we begin the argument for independent action of the United States. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Let me first sound a few principles: The more costly either of these metals becomes, the greater the demand for it among the rich for use as or- naments. Where the dearer is used exclusively for primary money, it is the one that is hoarded. When gold and silver were both used as money in their own right, silver was hoarded by the plain people, and was brought forth to serve them in time of need. Gold is principally hoarded by the rich to serve a purpose in bulling the money market. Hoarding of silver by the people was beneficial; hoarding of gold is an injury. The cause of hoarding in the two instances is different. In the first instance it is to serve a natural law providing for the future; in the second instance it Is a commercial motive affect- ing injuriously the community. This is one of the reasons why silver has always proven the more stable money. Gold is not regular in production. I here hand the stenographer a table showing the production of gold for the world for the years 1849 to 1892, taken from page 103 "Coinage Laws and Statistics," to be here in- serted : 452 THE GREAT DEBATE PRODUCTION OF GOLD FOR THE WORLD. Year. Amount. Year. Amount. 1.S49 37,000.000 1871 107,000,000 isnO 44,450,000 1S72 tM),(;00,000 iNol 67,1)00,000 1873 {)(),200,000 1852 132,750.000 1874 00,750,000 1853 155,450,000 1875 07,500,000 1854 127,450,000 1876 -. 103,700,000 1855 135,075,000 1877 .114,000,000 185(') 147,600,000 1878 11 0.000,000 1857 133,275,000 1879 100.000,000 1858 1 24.()50,OO0 1880 106, 500,000 185J) 124,850,000 l8Sl 103,000,000 1860 110. 250,000 1882 102,000,000 1861 113,S00,000 1883 05.400,000 1862 107,750,000 1884 101 ,700,001) 1863 10(;,050,000 1885 108.400,000 1864 113,000,000 1886 106,000,000 1865. 120,200,000 1887 105,775,000 1866 1 21 ,100,000 1888 1 10,107,000 1867 104,025,000 1880 123,480.000 1868 100,025,000 1800 1 1S,S40,0()0 1869 106,225.000 1891 126,184,0CK) 1870 1 06.850,000 1892 138,860,000 It will be seen that the world produced more gold in the year 1853 than it has in any year since then. With increasing population and increasing demand for gold there has been no increase in the annual supply since 1858. If we go back of 1849 (see the table heretofore introduced), the irregularity is more marked. The production of the two metals combined is more regular than either separately, and is safer to rely on for a stable money measurement of values than either could be separately. Where two metals are relied on for money, with the right of the debtor to pay in either, if the demand for money is sufficient this demand regulates the commer- cial value of the two metals at the ratio fixed by law. Supply and demand affect the^value of these metals the same as all other property. When the law Ijeslows the full function of money upon these metals, it creates a use for them that they TftE GRteAT DEBAtfi 458 did not before have. (Applause.) A new use to an article adds to its value. The new use of corn for mak- ing glucose, candy and molasses has increased its val- ue. The extent to which corn can he supplied is virtually unlimited, and, with other farm productions unprofitable, the corn crop will increase, and the price will drf)p. In the case of the two metals we are c msidering, ihey differ from corn in this: The use of these metals For money, when given full money functions, is com- paratively unlimited. The supply, unlike corn, is lim- ited. Their geological formation, and the experience of mankind in their search therefor and development, ])rove this. The abnormal demand for money in all ages, now at a tension, the fact that tens of thousands of men are continually searching for the metal from which it is made, and the further fact that all that is now in existence outside of useful articles and ornaments can, if melted down, be put into three rooms of this build- ing, prove conclusively that the supply is limited. We can therefore better understand the effect to be l^roduced by the United States throwing open its mints to silver and conferring upon that metal the full func- tions of money when I shall reach it directly. Mr. Horr: Before I refer to what I was talking about before, I want to call Mr. Harvey's attention to the ridiculous nonsense of his comparing size as having something to do with value. His cube business that may deceive a little boy, but it never would deceive a lull-grown man. Indeed a man who has ever thought on the subject would never use such a comparison. I state it deliberately, the amount of gold in the world all put into a cube hasn't anything to do with how much it is worth. You could not get the cotton into 454 THE GREAT DEBATE fifty times or five hundred thousand times the same space. Cotton isn't any more available on that account. You are trying to make a comparison a trouble that seems constitutional with you of comparing things that are not alike with each other, and when a man does that he is always in the wrong. I just simply give it out as a hint to you to improve yourself on after the debate is over. (Applause. ) DEBTS MOSTLY OF RECENT ORIGIN. I was just saying that the bulk of the debts of the present day are of recent origin. Very largely the debts of the common people are less than one year old. The debts which have been contracted a long time ago, and which run for a series of years, areas a rule all of them the debts of rich corporations. They are long-bonded debts and the most of them are made to-day payable in gold, and the legislation he is talking about will in no way affect those debts. The debts we are talking about are the debts owed by the people of the United States. It is the business of the present that we want to examine into here to-day. Now there is no disguising the issue between us, it is simply this: Can we benefit the people of this repub- lic now by making a dollar mean about half as much as it now means? Can we benefit them by making it seem any considerable amount less than it now is, by making it actually less in value? We may disguise it as much as we will, the free coinage of silver on a ratio of 16 to 1 means silver monometallism. It means that the business of this country shall be done with silver alone, and that gold shall disappear from the money of this nation. Nobody doubts that; that is, I don't think there is a man in the United States that will dispute that proposition for a moment THE GREAT DEBATE 455 that the first result of such a law will be to drive the gold out of this country. Now where will we land? I don't care whether he admits it or not, it don't make any difference to me, I know we will be as free from the use of gold as Mexico is, as China is. Neither of them use a dollar of gold as coin money; they buy it and sell it in both countries at a large premium, and we will do that the next morning after we pass Mr. Harvey's law. Hence, the question is a vital one. Who will be injured and who will be benefited by scaling down all debts, by making our measure of value cheaper? It is the old question a very, very old one. Can you hless a people by clipping the coins? They used to think we could. Monarchs used to indulge in it. Men away back in early days had the idea that by clipping a coin, as long as they could call it by the same name and have it pass, they injured no one. It took ages of business sense to drive the people of the world out of that no- tion, until they have finally come to understand that there is nothing you must watch more carefully than to have honesty in your money, have the dollar just what it claims to be. Such efforts have always ended and always will end in robbing the mass of the people. Whenever you change the value of money by any de- vice which cheapens the unit of measure and lessens the price of the coin in use and compels people to take it at the old price, then you rob the common people of any nation, and the profit has usually gone into the pockets, not of money-lenders, but of money-changers. That is the history of the world. WHOM WILL FREE COINAGE BENEFIT? Now I come to the practical question : Who in the United States will be benefited by giving them cheap 456 THE GREAT DEBATE dollars fur the good ones they now receive? I first say our census arranges the toilers of the American people under ditlerent subdivisions. The first heading I find here is professional men lawyers, doctors, preachers, editors, writers of books, men who toil at any kind of public work, musicians, teachers will you call them on to the stand, Mr. Harvey, ask them wliat tlioy have to give to the world to show why they should have a right to live in it? There is no more foolish doctrine ever utt3red by human l)eings than that the world owes everybody a living. The world owes every))ody a liv- ing if he will honestly earn one in the world. It does not owe a living to a lazy lout who won't do anything in order to get a living. It doesn't owe him one. (Ap- plause.) Understand that. What have these men to give? Why, they say, we have human eiY(U't. We have spent long years in preparing to do a high grade of work. The doctor says, '*I can heal the sick." The preacher, "I can heal the soul. " The lawyer says, ^'I can do good work in settling disputes and adjusting difficulties l)e- tween my fellow-men." The musician says, "lean give a high order of amusement to my fellow-beings." We pay such men, always, a higher price, because their work ought to be worth more work that has taken years to get ready to do. We even pay men sometimes for genius. A man is born with a gift to do great things, and when he does them the world recognizes it, and gives the big pay in return. Perhaps that is why your book sold so well, Brother Harvey. (Laughter and applause. ) Now I ask the army of professionals, Do you think it would benefit you to cut down the price of the dollar in which you are paid? They are all paid in money for their work. Will you be better off by getting just the THE GREAT DEBATE 457 same number of dollars but having them worth just half as much? '^Well," they say, "we don't want you to submit that proposition to us. We fellows that have studied so that we have got a little bit of gray matter so that it is somewhat active in our brains you don't want to ask us whether we will be benefited by making us think we are getting the old pay when we are onh' getting half as much." Would they vote no? No doubt about it. They say we want the best money, the money that will buy the most of the comforts and the neces- sities of life. Aren't they right about that? There are of those people, Mr. Harvey, 944,843. The census is right here, and if you are afraid of me you watch the book a little as I go on. I next call up those LMigagcd in trades and transpor- tation. That includes all the railroad hands, all the steamboat hands. That includes all the people who work in different trades. Typewriters, men and wom- (iu, they have cultivated themselves so they can do good work, and the world pays them for it. The brakemen it includes people who take risks. Mr. Harvey: I wish I had time in this debate to (characterize the last speech of Mr. Horr as it deserves, I ut I can only stop now to say that when I said that all 1 he gold and silver in the world available for money could be put into three rooms in this building, I knew it would make Mr. Horr wince. The statement that all the gold in the world available for money can be put in the space of twenty-two feet is one of the arguments that worries him the most. It is an object lesson, and if Mr Horr were on our side of this case, with his in- imitable wit and sarcasm, he would go around with a picture, a twenty-two foot block on canvas, and he would have it on every stage where he spoke, and he 458 THE GREAT DEBATE would ridicule the gold gamblers of the world until he would satisfy his audience that the man who would ad- vocate that that twenty-two foot block should supply the people of the world with primary money had a soul in him no larger than a mustard-seed. (Applause.) Mr. Horr, the people of this country have common sense, and when they see that all the gold in the world available for money can go into twenty-two feet of space you have given them the best argument in the world to show that the Rothschilds can corner it in their bank vaults. (Applause.) If the people of this country will only rest their cause always upon common- sense principles, and let this sophistry, that is fed us from the other side, alone, our liberties are safe. He talks about clipped coins. Who clipped the coins in 1873? (Applause.) Who started the world upon the robber measure of values of 1873? (Applause.) And now the very men who have destroyed the value of your property, confiscated your property, robbed you of your rights, including happiness itself, now turn around to you and talk about clipping coins. (Applause.) Mr. Horr, you have in your pocket as a gift from me an honest dollar. (Applause.) A sound dollar. Take it from the people of the great west as a message to the people of the east of what our interpratation is of a good, a sound, an honest dollar. (Applause ) It is that dollar that we want re-coined again as primary money of the country, and not a clipp'z^d coin . GOLD OBLIGATIONS UNDER FREE CO [N AGE. I want to speak now of this: There is great concern among some of our citizens that if free coinage of silver is adopted those holding gold obligations will be paid in silver, also that gold will leave us, and a debtor who THE GREAT DEBATE 459 owes gold will not be able to get it without paying a high premium in order to discharge his debt. Both of these questions can be answered together. Gold obli- gations would be paid in gold, and not in silver. To secure the gold with which to do this would not be so difficult as it is now. It would operate this way: As soon as the United States opens its mints and con fers on silver the full functions of money with the right to no one thereafter to make a debt payable in gold (for under the bimetallic law there would be no such right, debts thereafter would be payable in either met- al), the demand for gold would be withdrawn except to pay previous debts thus payable. When you with- draw the demand in such a pronounced way from an article, it must decline in value. (Applause.) With the demand thus suddenly thrown on silver to supply the United States with money, its value would rapidly advance. (Applause. ) You have suddenly transferred the demand from one metal to the other. One must necessarily decline, and the other advance relatively. Hence, you could buy the gold cheaper then than now, (Applause.) Gold is now at a premium of one hundred per cent over silver. In exchanging your property for gold now, you are paying in property 100 per cent premium over what you did in 1873. Suppose on silver coming into use as primary money that gold went to a premium of 25 per cent. I do not admit this, but state the hypothesis to allay your fears. You would then exchange your property for more gold than you do now. Gold must decline in value when the United States, yet the greatest nation on earth, goes out of the market for gold. To withdraw demand from an article lowers its value, is a law of trade that all men must admit, and no man can contradict. Hence 4G0 THK GREAT DEBATE you will then exchange your property for more gold than you can now. The debtor will pay his gold debt easier then than he can now. When the proposition is made that free coinage ol silver will send gold to a premium, and make it harder for you to pay a debt, you are misled by the manner in which the proposition is put. Premium over what? Premium over silver is meant. Silver would be in that event the medium of exchange through which you would get the gold; but you would have sold your property at a higher price in silver, and when converted into gold you would have received more gold for your property than you do now. (Applause.) With gold at 100 per cent premium over silver now, if on free coinage it went to 25 per cent premium, 75 per cent premium would have been taken out of it. If the demand for wheat in the United States were suddenly to be trans- ferred to corn, wheat in the markets of the world would decline, and corn would advance. Thereafter you could exchange a certain quantity of corn for more wheat than you could before. Money is a function given by law, and a bimetallic law would transfer the demand from gold to silver. Silver would spring into existence as full primary money. Our silver would cease to go abroad, and would be coined into money here. This would lower the supply of silver in the London market, and it would immediately advance in price there. (Ap- plause. ) I want right here to answer Mr. Horr's proposition, that we cannot by law confer value upon silver or any- thing else. I have already answered that, if you will notice, but I want to answer it further. It is not the stamp upon the coin that gives value to it, it is the law creating it as money. (Applause.) It is the law THE GREAT DEBATE 461 that gives to silver the new use of money which it has not now. When you make a new use for a thing you increase its value. Wheat wouM not be worth as much as it is now if it were not for its use when ground into flour for bread. Silver would not be worth so much if it were not for the use we propose for it, to coin it into money for the use of the people as an exchange. (Ap- plause. ) It is in the exchange of property that wealth IS acquired; and when you can exchange your property for more gold than formerly, you are benefited if you are a gold debtor. To assist in taking the demand from gold is to your interest. It is to the interest of the men to whom you owe the gold to keep the demand on it. It is to your interest to take it off. When you have given full money functions to silver you have taken a demand off gold. But, we are answered, gold will go out of circulation, and a panic will result. If it should prove true that gold went out of circulation it would l)e because silver had come into circulation. We would have more pri- mary money in circulation in silver to start with than we have now in gold. A panic could not come for that reason. If on the second Tuesday in November, 189G, a bimetallic President and Congress are elected, you have passed the breakers in a day. The next morn- ing when the news is known silver will begin to ad- vance and gold to decline. (Applause. ) Before Congress meets and the law is passed the influence of the United States will have exerted itself in the markets of the world on both gold and silver. During this interim gold will be the measure of values, but silver will be ad- vancing to it, and the nearer silver gets to gold the less fears creditors will have. Passing f I'om a specie basis to paper in 1861, did not "1^2 THE GREAT DEBATE bring on a pjinic. It brought good times. Passing h\im a paper basis to specie in 1879 created no disturbance. In fact, paper and gold had come together before the day of resumption had arrived. It worked then as it will work now. Gold and silver will come together be- fore the act is passed. (Applause.) PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT FREE COINAGE. Mr. Horr: I was just talking of the great army of people of the United States who are classified under the head of trades and transportation. We have of them 3,325,962; at least three million of that army get their pay in wages given them each day, week, and month, for the work they have done. You ask them whether they want a dollar that will buy a good many of the things they need, or one that will only buy a part as much as they now receive, and what will be their an- swer? Why, my friend Harvey seemed to think that if he could get me schooled on that question of silver coinage, and get me on to the stump on that subject, that I would rattle things up wonderfully by carrying around a chart showing the size of the gold in the world. He is mistaken. The size has nothing to do with the value. You may be able to do it, Harvey, but I couldn't refer to a principle and a picture of that kind without stultifying myself. A man who had as much brains as a chipmunk would know better, would know I was trying to mislead him, because size is not the measure of commercial value. You can put a diamond worth a million dollars, the Regent, all inside of a quail's egg, therefore it isn't Mr. Harvey: But we would not consider the propo- sition to make money out of it for the world. Mr. Horr: We don't make money out of it, no; but i'HE GREAT DEBATE 468 I wouldn't consider the proposition reasonable to go about claiming that it had anything to do with the value of a metal or that you could base any calculation in reference to value. It is so ridiculous. But I must proceed. The next witnesses I want to call up are those in domestic and personal service, the hired girls of the United States, the men who sweep the streets, the men who do the personal duties for people in this great country of ours. There are four million three hundred sixty thousand five hundred and six. They are all of them paid wages. They all of them depend upon what they receive each day to find out how well they are go- ing to live the next day. Is there an idiot anywhere on the face of the earth who thinks those men and women would be benefited by giving them less for their day's work of the things they need? for that is what he proposes to do. Take a vote and see where you will come out among that class of wage-earners. Ask them, "Do you want the dollar cheaper than it is now? Do you want to go down town to get a supply for your family and receive only about half what you get now?" Do you think they would be long in voting on the ques- tion? That is what he proposes to do. That is four million three hundred sixty thousand five hundred and six that will be added to the persons that that kind of legislation will bring ruin upon. That is the reason why I protest against it. Now I come to the list of those in manufacturing and mechanical industries. All factory hands, all skilled laborers in the United States. Have you any idea how many there are? Five million, ninety-one thousand six sixty-nine. Go round among them, ask them, "Do you want the measure of value re- duced? Do you want every dollar you earn cut in two? 4(U THE GREAT DEBATE Do you want people to tell you that you are getting wages so and so, and then give you halt that, instead of the wages you have earned?'- Do you think they would be long in deciding this question? You want to take from them what they can earn with their labor. They will all of them protest against it. The next is agricultural, fisheries, mining. There are nine million thirteen thousand two hundred and one. A part of all those, who are in debt more than they have property with, which to pay, would tell you they Avould like to scale down their debts and pay but fifty cents on the dollar. Ah, but wait a moment. Of these, three million four thousand and fifteen are farm hands, men who w^ork by the day, men who get their pay in cash, not in productions. How will they vote? There is not any question about this. Do you think you are going to fool the people of this great republic by try- ing to make them think they will be better off not to get over half as much as they now get for every day's work they do? That is the proi:)osition he proposes for the purpose of blessing them. This makes a grand total of people who live by labor, by human effort, in the United States because this does not include a few peo- ple who live on legacies and incomes provided by otlior people for them a grand total of twenty-two million seven hundred thirty-five thousand six sixty-one people. Of those people, sixteen million of them receive their pay in wages from day to day and week to week, and large numbers of the others are dependent upon good money in order to be prosperous in this world. Now, in addition to this army of working people, I have a crowd of witnesses I want to call to the stand to vote on this question. It is a strange-looking crowd that I see coming into the witness-box now. Many of THE GREAT DEBATE 465 them are on crutches; empty sleeves are hanging by t he sides of many ; scars received by the furrowing work of shot and shell when they were risking their lives that this nation might live. Ah, there are women in black in that crowd; there are children clinging to the gar- ments of widowed mothers, made widows by the death of their soldier husbands. One million of them now in the United States! Ask them: ''Do you want your pensions cut down by giving you a dollar not worth as much as you have been receiving?" They stood the brunt of battle; they risked their lives that this repub- lic might live, and right now comes the new philosophy which says, "We will cut down their pension rolls by destroying the yalue of the money we pay them for the glorious work they did." Shame, shame on such pa- triotism as that. If you pass this laAv, you must either double the pay of every pensioner, or you disgrace this great nation of ours. I enter my protest against that effort to disgrace this nation by cheating one million of men whom the government is paying for the risk they took and the hardships they endured that you and I might live in a country worth living in. Do you think they would vote with you, Harvey? Try it and see. Again we have in this country I know Brother Har- vey thinks they are wicked institutions, at least I sup- pose he does savings banks. The word bank seems to have holy terrors for him. I am not affected that way at all, and especially about a savings bank where the ])eople put from week to week their little savings. Do you know how many of the people of the United States have patronized those wicked institutions, the savings banks? Four million seven hundred and eighty-one 466 THE GREAT DEBATE thousand six hundred and ninety-five people. Do you propose to say to them, "Yes, you have worked hard, you have received your pay in gold dollars. Those dol- lars you deposited when they were worth their face in ^old. We propose to let those banks pay you off in dollars that are worth only fifty cents, and do not in- tend to let you help yourselves, either." How will they vote, Harvey? Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr refers to the wages of servant girls. I want to stop a moment to talk on that because it touches a phase of our national character. The wages of servant girls have risen since 1878, at least have been stable. The reason for it is this. The want of money, the difficulty of families to make a living by the meth- ods intended by nature for them to make money, name- ly, through the male members of the family, have not provided them with means since 1873, and, gradually, our female population has been compelled to seek sit- uations, until they are crowding out the men, and the females of the country are occupying situations that men ought to occupy, and the females ought to be beau- tifying and making pleasant the homes. This has drawn on the supply of women ; with the supply lessened, the wages of servant girls have remained steady or advanced, because it is moTe difficult now to get servant girls than it was before, the supply of women seeking such sit- uations being short. It means this, the proposition he has touched on, that we are forcing into the stores of this and other cities young women who must work for ten hours a day, scrambling for life, whose anxieties and heartburnings are a despair to them and are crushing out the hopes of womanhood and the aspirations of these women who should be making such mothers as our mothers were. THE GREAT DEBATE 467 (Long continued applause. ) That is the only relevancy that his servant-girl proposition has in this debate. He refers to farm hands. I read a few weeks ago in a newspaper of a farmers' convention in Mississippi, where they had reduced the wages of farm hands to $6 a month. I know in 1878 it was $13 a month. That is the way, Mr. Horr, you have been cutting in two the dollar for the people. Now I want you to connect what I was saying when I sat down the last time with what I am about to say. GOLD WILL DECLINE PROPERTY ADVANCE. Wheat or corn in existence has its price affected by the new crop coming on before it is harvested. And thus gold will be affected when it is known that a crop of silver is coming that is to compete with it in the markets as money. When a man tells you that security holders will throw their bonds on the market and break down the price in a scramble for gold, answer that security holders are not such fools. Men are supposed to act naturally under all circum- stances. As gold depreciates, as we have seen it will, prices advance. Gold's decline means advancing prices, and men do not rush to sell securities on an advancing market. When prices are advancing, people buy. When a man tells you that when he knows that free coinage is to come, he is going to invest his money in gold, tell him to invest it in silver, tell him to invest it in corn, wheat, cotton, or anything except gold. (Applause.) Gold is the only thing that will decline, and everything else will follow silver. Turn back to page 843 at the price table and see how they all followed silver down. They will all follow silver up. 468 THE GREAT DEBATE But they will say, "Gold will go out of circulatioD " Suppose it does. When you want it you buy it. When you want gold now you buy it, buy it with your prop- perty, exchange your property for it. You would but do the same then. (Applause. ) Again they say, "With silver only in circulation we are on a silver basis." They are wrong. When under the law of a land either metal has a right to enter the mints and be coined into money, that nation is a bimet- allic nation. The fact that the people have a right to use the cheaper metal is their salvation, and secures to them a stable currency that will register an exchange value between property over a long period that is equit- able. The metal that is not in circulation re-enforces the one that is. It enters into and becomes a part of the other in exerting itself as a measure of values. Both combined are measuring values. It is when the dearer metal only is used as mone}^ and the other is demonetized that one only becomes the measure of values. I have thus far sought to show you that the debtor need have no fear as to his getting gold with which to pay his debt, and that he would get his gold easier with another metal in competition with gold than he can get it now. I now pass to the question of 16 to 1. We maintain that there will be a commercial parity between gold and silver at the ratio of IG to 1, if the law is passed putting both metals on an equal footing at that ratio. What we mean by an equal footing is that both shall have the right to enter the mints free to be coined into money with 23.22 grains of pure gold to be a dollar and 371i grains of pure silver to be a dollar. The money made from both metals to be full legal-tender money in the payment of all debts, and the debtor to have the right to pay in either metal. THE GREAT DEBATE 469 No notes, bonds or other form of indebtedness to be made payable in either metal to the exclusion of the other. All indebtedness to be payable in lawful money, and either gold or silver to discharge such indebted- ness. ^ The two metals will then be in competition with each other to supply the demand for money. The supply is limited and the demand is substantially unlimited. What we mean by the demand being unlimited is this: When a man owns either metal, and it is a surplus over and above what is needed in the arts, he converts it into money at the mints and puts it himself into circulation. That the business interests of the country demand and will absorb all the gold and silver that can possibly seek the mints for coinage. That if all the gold and silver in the world (a thing impossible) were in the United States, we would be the more pros- perous by having it. (Applause.) That if all the sil- ver in the world available for money $8,931,100,000 were in the United States performing the functions of primary money, it would be our gain and a loss to the balance of the world. When money is dear, money is hoarded. When money is more plentiful, it goes more readily into circulation and seeks investment. When laws encourage the hoarding of money, they are laws injurious to society. Money can be hoarded and at the same time there can be a great demand for money. That is the case to-day. When money appreciates faster by lying in bank vaults than by investing it, it will not seek investment, except on stock or bond investments for a sudden rise in the market and for similarly quick transactions. It will not seek legitimate investment. That is the case now. To say that there is plenty of money at a time like 17() THE GREAT DEBATE this, when there are no profits in general business and tens of thousands are seeking work and cannot get it, all wanting money and cannot get it, and manufactories working half time, is to admit there is something wrong. I call the attention of the reader to the fact that Mr. Horr, advocating the gold standard in this debate, offers no remedy. He is satisfied with the present conditions. His whole argument is that no remedy is needed. He says there is enough money, but admits that business will not absorb it, but does not tell us why it does not absorb it. We thus see, if I am right, that a plentiful supply of money would of itself cause money to seek investment and flow readily into circulation. This would make business. It is not life that makes blood; it is blood that makes life. It is money in circulation that makes business. An increased volume of good money and gold or sil- ver either has always been good money has always advanced civilization, and there has never been too much of it. So, I am justified in saying there is an un- limited demand for money. I can state another fact that you will recognize as a truth : as the volume of primary money increases, busi- ness increases, and the demand for more money is cre- ated. I am justified in standing on the position that the demand for money is comparatively unlimited. Mr. Horr : Before commencing where I left off I want to call the attention of the country to the fact that Brother Harvey is again at his old tricks. Since this debate began he has only run onto one thing that was anywhere near right in the world, and that was an Eng- lishman in London. THE GREAT DEBATE 471 WOMEN PAST AND PRESENT. In his last remarks he had to defame the women of the present day. Mr. Harvey: I did not, sir. Mr. Horr: He said in so many words that what the girls of the present day needed was to be relieved from the present work of the world, that they were crowding themselves into, because they had to in order to become such women as our mothers were. Mr. Harvey: Yes, that is right. Mr. Horr: I knew I was right. (Laughter.) Yes, there is something wrong with the girls of to-day. Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr, don't you dare say that I have passed any implication upon the womanhood of this country. (Long continued applause.) Mr. Horr: Why, not a bit of it. Mr. Harvey: I said that civilization phould be such that they would not be required to burn out their lives upon the selfish pyre your gold standard has construct- ed. (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: Now listen. He could not help taking the view of it that he did. My view is an entirely differ- ent one. We can't agree on anything, Harvey. I think that the fact that the girls of America have independ- ence of character enough to start out and take hold of new enterprises, learn new businesses, and go to work and get bank accounts of their own, is to their credit, and not to their shame. (Applause. ) The bank account of a young woman representing money that she has earned herself does her as much good morally as poor preaching. (Laughter.) It develops her character. Another thing, there isn't any truth in the idea that the girls of to-day are not just as good as our mothers 472 THE GREAT DEBATE were when they were girls, and I repel as totally false the whole idea that we are always talking about, what wonderfully marvelous beings our mothers were, and what good-for-nothing silly things the girls now-a-days are. Mr. Harvey: Nor did I say that. Mr. Horr: I want to say this for the benefit of the girls of to-day. Don't get discouraged over that kind of talk. When you get to be old women, Harvey's crowd will still be telling what wonderful creatures you were when you were young, and they will be abusing the girls of that day. (Laughter and applause.) But I must go on with the question. HAVINGS BANKS AND LIFE INSURANCE. I have just stated that the people who have deposits in the savings banks are over four million; the deposits in those institutions are $1,712,760,026 every dollar of it put in from the hard toil of the American people, and in dollars worth one hundred cents all over the world. He proposes to cut that amount in two, to send those depositors off with half their money. Building and loan associations have 1,745,725 de- positors , representing $526,852,885. Pay them off in cheap money, although they all have put in gold dollars! Loan and trust companies ; there are about three mil- lion depositors in them. Life-insurance companies. The people of the United States are struggling, many of them, to provide against death, to leave a little something for their wives and their children. Do y6u know how many of them have THE GREAT DEBATE 478 done it? 4,537,286. The liability of those conipanies is $8,691,686,594. Cut that in two,not pay that money at its face? Bless them, will it, to let them pay the widows and the orphans off in cheap money? Why, I protest against the whole system, because it is wholesale repudiation. It is wholesale disregard of moral obligations in the business world. But to these must be added other persons who have deposited in the state and private banks and have de- posited gold dollars. You would pay them off with cheaper ones. You haven't any right to do it; it is an outrage upon the people of this natioh. Ah, but wait. Every man and woman in the United States who has some money in his or her pocket, who carries a little about for a rainy day, unless it is in gold you would cut the value of their money one-half and compel them to use cheap money where they did have good money. And you tell me then that this law is in the interest of the many, do you? Why, it is in the interest of the few. Such class legislation was never before attempted in this country of ours. Who is to be benefited? The silver miners and those who own the mines, about 80,(X)0 in the United States, and such farmers and other producers as are hopelessly in debt . And I shall show you, that even the latter iass will be injured and not blest. SILVER AND HEN PRODUCT COMPARED. The silver product, whose friends are making such a noise, is not very large. All the silver we produce in the United States, that they are so agotiizing over, is worth just about half as much as the eggs laid each year by the hens in the United States. (Laughter. ) Give 474 THE GREAT DEBATE the hens of this nation a fair chance, and they will cackle you out of this debate. (Laughter and applause. ) The value of the silver crop is just about equal to the retail value of the peanuts sold in the United States every year, and in order to benefit that small product you propose to change the monetary system of this great nation and send our people onto a silver basis and do the business of this country on debased money, I now come to the most destructive effect of this free silver legislation. It would be the destruction of all credit. I will risk my reputation as a man of observation as to the result; I hope it will never be tried, but if it is tried, mark my words, you will bring upon this country such a busi- ness panic as this nation never saw, and I will show you why. The paralysis of business will be complete, because credit is the basis of commercial transactions at the present day. We do more business ay, ninety- eight per cent of all the business done to-day in the United States is done on credit, the confidence that men have in each other, the ability to do as they agree, the sacred keeping of obligations. You strike down that principle and you strike down the faith of the world in our people as a nation, and when that is done such ruin will come to us as beggars description. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr refers to life insurance. There have been thousands of men in this country wrecked financially in the last twenty-two years by reason of their inability to keep up their payment of premiums (applause), and the insurance companies, who are sub- stantially money-lenders, have taken what those men had paid as forfeits. The gold standard through the THE GREAT DEBATE 475 insurance company business has inflicted a severe wound upon this country. Mr. Horr refers to repudiation, says this is repudia- tion that we propose. There is only one thing that in my mind is more criminal than the Act of 1878, and that is for a man who tries to sustain that crime to say that the men who intend to right it mean repudiation. (Applause. ) I am much obliged to Mr. Horr for calling your atten- tion to the small value of the total quantity of silver in theUnited States. We claim the quantity is small in the world and that the demand will take it all up. (Ap- plause.) I did think, however, that he showed his weakness when he relied on a "cackle" for argument. Now connect what I was saying with what I am about to say. THE EFFECT OF REMONETIZATION. The supply of silver is limited. When a great nation like the United States, whose normal capacity for the absorption of money in the transaction of its normal business is not far from four thousand million dollars, opens its mints to silver, it fixes the price of silver the world over. An apt illustration would be this: Suppose ten million pounds of beef were all the beef available for the next year. So long as that supply was thus limited, if Phil Armour were to fix a price of twenty cents a pound that he would pay for it, no one else could buy it for any less (less freight to Chicago). So long as the supply of silver is limited, as it is now, no one will part with it for any less than he can get for it in the United States. Mr. Horr will say to this as he said the other day, 1 ( ( ) THE GREAT DEBATE ''The government does not buy the silver under free coinage. It stamps it and hands it back to the owner worth no more than when he brought it to the mint." What the government has done is this: It has given to silver a new use, and the new use is what gives to it its value. It is not the stamping of the coin, but the new use, the function of money that has been conferred on the metal, as it now gives it to gold. Why does a great nation like the United States fix the price of silver at a ratio i6 gold when a nation like Mexico cannot do it? It is this. All the nations of the world -are dealing with the United States, most of them largely. When they can bring their sil\fer here and exchange it for our products and wares that they need, get a fair exchange, they are not going to part with their silver anywhere else for less in exchange for it than they can get here. We can take all the silver they have in any one year, and then "go to work and raise and make the same things over again and ask them to come again. That is what we mean by the United States fixing the price of silver. France did it for seventy years at the ratio of 15^ to 1, and it was on that ratio that exchanges were computed on silver and gold in the London market. The United States is larger and more influential than France was or is, and is better situated to dominate the commerce of the world. (Applause.) Let me make that matter plain if I have not made it so ; that with the quantity of silver in the world limited I have shown you the fact, and the vise that is be- ing made of it, the fact that there is virtually no sur- l^lus, then when we throw open our mints and thus make a great money market where any one can go and THE GREAT DEBATE 477 coin his silver into money, and buy our products with his silver, we have here in the United States erected a market for that commodity that will absorb all the sil- ver in the world if necessary, by giving us the silver in exchange for the products of our fields and our looms. We get their silver and they get our products. We have more primary money,and they get what we have parted with. The history of nations is that the more primary money you have, the more prosperous your nation is. Now do you believe that they are going to give us all their silver? What will they do for money if they do? Will the little gold that is left go around to all the bal- ance of them? We must reason as reasonable men ; that when the great United States, which can make an un- limited demand for silver, opens her mints, and stands ready to exchange the products of the world for that silver, the owners of that silver are not going to part with it for any less to any other people than they can get for it from the people of the United States. (Applause. ) You make an unlimited market for a limited prod- uct, and with a great country like the United States you establish permanently its legal ratio with gold, or in other words the price of silver as compared with gold. (Applause.) We have been deceived about this matter just as we have been deceived about the unit in our coinage system, the amount of silver coined before 1873 and many other things. Free coinage and the use of silver as money would give us the trade of all the silver using countries. Peo- ple trade with those nations most where what they have 478 THE GREAT DEBATE will the most readily be taken in exchange. This has always been true of the weaker nations. Oiu' relation to Europe is different. The European nations, espe- cially England, are Qonsumers. They are forced to buy for consumption. If we had the principal trade of India, China, Japan and South America, which we would have, with silver exchange acceptable in payment of balances, the world's market would be transferred from London to New York. (Applause.) San Francisco and all our ports would feel the stimulus of trade. Our trade with Europe would be stimulated in this way. Our virtual monopoly of the trade of those countries that now supply Europe with many articles would put these articles under the control of our traders, and we would fix the price to Europe on these articles, whereas Europe now fixes the price for us. (Applause. ) ENGLAND AS A FINANCIAL OCTOPUS. It will take time to break the hold that England has on the world with her gold-standard debts. But in this we shall have the sympathy of all the nations that are now paying her tribute from poor little Nicaragua to republican France. ,We should immediately exert our influence to save Japan and other nations from going over to the gold standard, and stop the conquest of the world that is being made by the money power of Eng- land. She is heartless and cruel in the extreme. She en- forces the debts due her citizens from the citizens of other nations by laying tribute,imposing"smart money" and taking possession of custom houses. She has taken possession of Egypt in the interest of her creditor citi- zens, and imposes and collects taxes upon those people THE GREAT DEBATE 479 who are her bonded slaves. She is the bully of the seas, and the financial octopus of the world. Her ten- tacles reach into every nation in the world, including our own, sucking from them their life blood. We bow our heads in humiliation and admit that her great bank- ing house is now behind this government; that we are at its mercy to sustain the credit of this nation, and have paid in the last six months five million dollars tribute to get money which we could create by our own sovereign act. (Applause.) Mr. Horr: Brother Harvey, as usual, does not seem able to quote a matter that I have been speaking about just a moment before, and quote it correctly. I did not compare the amount of eggs produced each year with the amount of silver in the country. He imme- diately commenced to claim that I said that there was ;i small amount of silver in the United States. I did not claim anything of the kind. I said that the annual product was small, but there is a difference between the staying qualities of eggs and silver. (Laughter. ) Eggs play out when silver don't, you know. Now I propose to show the country that this talk of Brother Harvey's about there not being any gold in the country that is, enough to do the business of the coun- try with is a myth. But before I do it I will say that the silver will rush in from the old world the moment you pass your law. I don't care anything about that, but what I do say about it is this, Mr. Harvey, you will drive all the gold out of this country and leave us with nothing but silver with which to do our business. Gold will be taken out the moment you make a dollar and put it in use that is cheaper than the gold dollars, and it will be taken out by people who live right here 480 THE GREAT DEBATE in this country, who will send it out. You know the history of it. It is the people that live in a country, when one metal is worth more uncoined than coined, that send the good money out. Of course when we get some more silver we wouldn't need so much more, but that is not it you compel us to do business on a basis diffprent from that done by the rest of the world. THE SUPPLY OF GOLD. Now is there gold enough in the world to do business with? Violent spasms of apprehension are constantly afflicting our silver friends lest the gold shall give out and the world cease to turn on its axis for want of the wherewithal to purchase lubricating materials for its wheels. They would not suffer so much if they would take occasional doses of the information on the subject with which our newspapers, magazines, reviews and sci- entific journals are running over full. Their low spir- its are largely the result of refusing to examine and think. Now this is all wrong. The rest of the world is feeling very comfortable on the subject. Why shouldn't we? The output of gold is increasing fast enough in this country and elsewhere to keep pace with all reasonable demand for safe and legitimate business. In the United States since 1887 we have produced the comfortable sum of $38,000,000 per annum till 1898, when we jumped to $86,000,000, and in 1894 we outdid that, reaching about $48,000,000, and there are no signs of diminution in the supply. Mr. Harvey: Why don't you take the supply of the world? Mr, Horr: I will in a moment, you will get all you want of it. THE GREAT DEBATE 481 Now that should not give Brother Harvey the chills. Id Australia they produced thirty-two million dollars in 1892, and thirty-five millions in 1893, and it seems to be only a question of effort as to how much they can do, for they have discovered new fields extending along the west coast a distance of 1,000 miles, and inland in places as far as 850 miles, and of unexampled richness. In South Africa new discoveries added to the older mines have again increased the output to a large ex- tent. In Russia, beginning in 1886 with 80,800 kilo- grams, they have increased their production every year until 1898, when they put out 89,800 kilograms, with greater opportunities for further progress as far in the iuture as the scientific eye can reach. In India (where they let up on silver coinage, you know, a while ago) they have just made the gold min- ing hum. They took out twenty thousand fine ounces in 1886, fifteen thousand in 1887, thirty-two thousand in 1888, seventy-two thousand in 1889, ninety-six thou- sand in 1890, one hundred and twenty thousand in 1891, one hundred and sixty thousand in 1892, and one hun- dred and eighty-four thousand in 1898. Then comes the three Guianas. Starting at eighteen hundred kilo- grams in 1887, they kept right along increasing until they reach sixty-five hundred in 1898. Now take these six gold-producing regions, the United States, Australia, Russia, South Africa, India and the Guianas, for a ])eriod of eight years, except 1894, for which we have no full reports, and we find that gold was taken out in round millions as follows, computed in dollars: 1886 $ 83,000,000 1887 83,000,000 1888 88,000.000 issj) 101,000,000 1890 .$100,000,000 1891 110,000,000 1892 123,000,000 1893 135,000,0C0 482 THE GREAT DEBATE For eight years up to a year ago last January uhe world's production of gold for those six regions was the enormous sum of $827,011,695. And last year, and all the rest of the world for those years, are not taken into account. Experts calculate that in one single strip of territory they have located upwards of $1,000,000,000 in gold. According to Mulhall, the world's available stock of gold in 1850 was $2,535,000,000, and of silver $4,880,000,000, or of both $7,415,000,000. In 1890 the figures were $6,175,000,000 of gold and $6,065,000,000 of silver, or $12,240,000,000. The increased rate of the production of gold indicates that by 1900 we shall have more gold than in 1850 we had of both metals, in addition to the six hundred twenty million of lim- ited subsidiary coins, which are a legal tender in small sums, and three thousand four hundred million of legal- tender silver that is still current in the w^orld. But it will then only be used for what it is worth. Now when Mr. Harvey sets up his dreadful wail about sorrow, suffering, prostitution, crime, and all that for want of money because of the gold standard, he is simply long on his rhetoric and short on his facts (laughter, and ap- l^lause) ; for at the present rate of gold production, which gives evidence of further rapid increase within thirty years, we might double the world's present stock of hard money without putting out another silver dollar. We are rehandling the old sands and stock piles. We are utilizing the water power from mountain streams at the bases thereof and sending it back up the mountain in the form of electricity to do our work in mining. In Portland, Oregon, for many years water power has gen- erated the electricity, which has been carried a distance of fifteen miles, to light and supply the manufacturing THE GREAT DEBATE 483 interests and run the railroads of a flourishing city at a very low cost. Similar things have more recently been accomplished elsewhere in this country, and we can put electricity into use on mountain tops, in the bowels of the earth, and almost anywhere with comparatively slight expense. New processes and new mechanisms are being supplied by inventive genius to furnish us a substantial gold cure for Brother Harvey's silver jim- jams. More than that, the cost of mining all metals has greatly decreased. For instance, the Quincy copper mine in Michigan shows that in 1864 it cost 26.71 cents per pound to produce copper, while in 1894 it only cost 5.68 cents, about one-fifth, although the ore was no richer, and was mined at far greater depth, while wages had been advanced from $38.76 per month in 1879 to $50.70 in 1894. See the Iron Age, April 18, 1895, page 824. MORE MONEY NEEDED. Mr. Harvey: All that Mr. Horr has said about no more money being needed on account of electricity and other facilities should be taken by you in this way. The more rapidly the blood flows through your body the more blood you need. The more civilization ad- vances and the more business is classified, the greater the volume of money that is necessary to make the ex- changes of products and services. (Applause.) Where a man living forty years ago could afford to leave home for a journey of thirty days with fifty or one hundred dollars, he would now want to take several times that amount with him. Then he ate with his hospitable neighbor, traveled by buggy or wagon. Now by the rapid interchange of commercial blood travel and business require infinitely more money. One of the serious mis- 484 THE GREAT DEBATE takes that we make is that improved facilities and the advance of civilization makes less money necessary; it is just the opposite, more money is necessary. (Ap- plause. ) Mr. Horr is unfair when he takes the production of gold for a few years. I have given you the right way to look at it by giving you the table that I gave, in this day's debate covering a long period of years. He refers to reports from Africa and elsewhere of the great pro- duction of gold promised. To any man who has ever been in a mining camp where reports go out, or to any man who has ever been deceived by those reports, I Ijave only to refer him to his memory. (Applause.) Mr. Horr reads millions of dollars in large numbers to you, as men of his class like to do, to impress you with the enormous volume of money. I hold in my hand a gold dollar melted down. It is the size of a drop of water. All the gold in the world will go into twenty- two feet, and I want to remind Mr. Horr of that again. For that globule of gold a farmer works and toils to raise two bushels of wheat and gives it up for that dol- lar of gold that is infinitely of less value to the world than the two bushels of wheat. PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF FREE SILVER. I want to talk for a few minutes on what effect silver as a currency has had since 1873 on those nations which have had more of it on account of our using less of it. The stoppage of free coinage of ^silver by substantially all the European governments and by the United States immediately gave an impetus to the trade of India with the silver-using nations of the world, and her exports were also largely increased to gold-standard countries. In 1873 she was almost unknown as a commercial coun- THE GREAT DEBATE 485 try, and her people were regarded as indolent and shift- less. However, her soil was rich and her natural advantages great, and under the vitalizing effect of increased silver currency, that has poured into her since 1873, her people became more industrious and a com- plete change took place. In 1878 she produced only 978,000 bales of cotton, while in 1890 she had increased her crop to 2,288,000. In 1878 her exports of wheat were only nominal, while in 1892 they were to England alone 59,000,000 bushels. In the statistics compiled by Archbishop Walsh of Ireland it is shown that prior to 1878 the exports of yarn from India were practically nothing. In her exports of this one item of yarn to China and Japan alone the following table shows a marvelous increase: Pounds. 1874 1.000,000 1875 5,000,000 1880 25,000,000 Pounds. iSfC. 75,000.000 isst).. 127,000,000 181)1 165,000,000 In 1891 she imported from China 2,420,295 tens of rupees of merchandise, while during the same year she exported merchandise to China of the value of 14,295,- 984 tens of rupees. Nor did her vastly increasing com- merce stop with silver-using nations. In her commer- cial relations with the gold-standard countries, be- ginning with and after 1878, the balance of trade was in favor of India. I hold in my hand a newspaper press telegram from the City of Mexico. It is dated July 16, 1895, and reads as follows: "Many print-cloth mills are running night and day, and even now are unable to supply orders. Native mills are finding an increase in business as a result of the depreciation in silver, which renders importation of or- dinary classes of print cloths excessively costly. High 48.6 THfi GREAT DEBATE exchange on the United States and Europe protects na- tive mills. " (Applause. ) Japan is now coming into existence as a wonderfully- commercial country. It has been under her increased supply of silver. Papers of this city have been having special articles from Japan in the last week or two which are a lesson upon this financial question. It is their use of silver and our limited disuse of it that has given to Mexico, India, and Japan the stimulus in civil- ization that they have received recently, and if it were to continue with their monopolizing of silver even against the deterioration of the climate in which they exist they would advance to a period of civilization under that influx of money that they never possibly could reach without it. (Applause.) Any panics in those countries from now on if they have a monopoly of silver will be on account of the bank credit system which may relax and contract to choke prosperity. INDEPENDENT ACTION. I am in favor of independent action of this country because it rights a great wrong. If it be said that some one will be injured, the answer is that more have been injured by the wrong. And again that more will be in- jured by the continuation of the crime. Again the an- swer is, to continue it is to sacrifice the life and happiness of millions, and to invite the destruction of our national existence. Where there is a necessity there is a remedy. Another reason for independent action is that we should be free from all European in- fluences. When our forefathers declared their independ- ence they intended th^t this government be free from all class legislation of Europe. To admit that interna- tional action in this matter is necessary is to admit THE GREAT DEBATE 487 that the parliaments of the monarchies of Europe can make laws for us affecting this nation in its most vital interests. (Applause. ) We would repel by a declara- tion of war an attempt to lay a tax upon us to support their governments, and yet with the assistance of tories in our midst we allow them, by financial law, to deplete us of hundreds of millions of dollars. And now this tribute-laying has so injured and crippled us as to make us seemingly unconscious of the humiliation of our national finances being in the hands of a London banking house. And what reason do they give you for all this? They say that we must have an international money, as if trade with them were worth the price of our liberties. When you are dealing with nations whose commerce bears the relation that ours does to theirs, we can ex- ert a more powerful influence in fixing their financial policy than they can in fixing ours. They need our trade more than we need theirs. We had no interna- tional money between 1861 and 1879. We did not need it then, and we do not need it now. International bal- ances with Europe are now settled by weight and not by the stamp upon the coins. Balances are settled in bullion by weight, and passing as merchandise and not as money. There is no such thing as international money. Mr. Horr: I was cut off as I was closing upon the question of the production of gold. Now it might have irritated my friend and his followers, and if he desires to know all the facts of this branch of the subject he can consult an article in the January, 1895, North American Revieio, written by Hon. Robert E. Preston, the director of the United States mint ; and another by J. E. Frankel, in The Forum, of February, 1894, and pages 488 THE GREAT DEBATE 122 to 134, inclusive, of a work callea "Bimetallism" and written by Henry Dunning McLeod, an eminent authority, all of which works I now hand, as an eye- opener, to Mr. Harvey, so that he may again size up that cube of gold which he illustrates in his "Financial School," and has been talking about here so much to- day, as having only twenty-two feet on each side. Upon further enlightenment he may conclude to extend its dinif^n^^ions somewhat. (Applause.) PROSPERITY OF THE PEOPLE. Now I desire to say tliat there is no such general lack of prosperity even here in the United States as we have heard about continually from the first to the end of this debate. I judge of the prosperity of the people by mingling among them. I speak somewhat from ex- perience. Since the "demonetization," as they call it, of silver, I have visited thirty-one of the states of this Union. During that time I have traveled over 500,000 miles in the United States alone; I have mingled with her people; I have seen them on farm and in factory. There is nowhere living to-day in any country on the face of the earth a people who enjoy as many of the comforts and necessities of life as the people of the United States of America have enjoyed since 1873. In 1891 I was in a little town in Iowa, right in the midst of farms. They held a fair in a small place, and we counted 238 covered buggies and spring wagons at that little farmers' fair. Go where you will, you see evidences uf thrift and evidences of no such starvation as my friend Harvey would claim. Look at the bicycles we have bought this last year. (Applause.) I looked up the industry. This people that are on the verge of THE GREAT DEBATE 489 destruction bought within the last twelve months a little over 500,000 bicycles; paid $30,000,000 for them, all on the eve of starvation, eh? And that isn't an article of necessity. It is used more or less in business, but it is used largely for recreation and for giving the people an artistic view of the human shape divine, you know. (Laughter and applause. ) And now I wish to say that bimetallism is not, as my friend Harvey claims, entirely the way that nature works. In the opening of this discussion he tells us that nature generally produces things on the bimetallic plan. You are familiar with it. It was new tome, you know. He says that we have two hands and two feet and two eyes,- and that nature works by twos. He hasn't examined the case carefully, philosophically nor scientifically. It is true we have two eyes, but only unehead; we have two hands, but only one mouth. Good gracious! What would become of this country if our Populist friends had two mouths! (Laughter and applause.) We have two feet, but it doesn't follow on tliat account that we ought to have two wives no. Be- cause I myself happen to be a twin, and because nature did splendidly, in that efl'ort (laughter and applause), it don't follow that people who are born one at a time are to be counted as unnatural. (Applause.) The whole theory is loo big a humbug to talk about. Now I want to tell you what is a fact: We have in this world but one measure of distance, length. That is all we (night to have, all we can have safely, it is fixed by a law of nature; and if every yardstick and every line of every surveyor of the world were lost we could pro- duce another that would not vary a hair's breadth from the one that was lost. Just the same with a weight; 490 THE GREAT DEBATE we use one measure of weight, one measure of capacity ; if we should forget how much measured capacity there is in a bushel in a quart, a law of nature would be called to our aid and scientific knowledge and we would produce the other. STABLE MEASURE OF VALUE. We should also have one measure of values. . It can not be made as accurate as these other measures, but we must take the metal for our measure that is most stationary, that the world is best satisfied with. And then let me give j^ou this proposition: If it is slowly increasing in value it blesses more people than it harms. It is sudden changes that bring ruin upon the commerce of a nation. Slight ones are never injurious, but you propose by one stroke to cut the measure in two. It is agreed without any exception by men who have stud- ied this question that you cannot keep gold in circula- tion in this country beside silver when the ratio between the two is so different you cannot do it with one- quarter of one cent in favor of gold what can you do with fifty cents in the dollar? Now I beg of the people of this country to stop and reflect what they are doing. It is a part and parcel of the old notion that what we need is cheap money; that the government has the power to make money of anything. Brother Harvey, if you can double the prosperity of the world and double the value of all property in the world by restoring the old ratio of 16 to 1, why don't you go back to the old days of Nebuchadnezzar, or away back of that time, take Rameses II., when the ratio was 4 to 1, and estab- lish that? If by law you can double property in that way, why not bless the world by making them worth ten times what they are why do you want to benefit them tll GtlEAt DEBATE 491 just one half? Why not carry out your power? Why, every man of sense knows that you cannot fix values in that way. Why doesn't somebody spring up, why do not the copper miners ask that their metal shall be made money of final redemption? Ah, Mr. Harvey, we don't destroy the use of silver as money that whole argument of yours is specious. We are using to-day one billion three hundred million more of silver than we did before 1873, and using it as money; have taken it out of the markets of the world for other purposes and placed it in use as money. Taken it for what it is worth. That is all any money of final redemption ever should be placed in any market at. The money of final redem|)tion, if it is honest, must be worth just as much coined as uncoined. It must be worth in the markets of the world just as much in the form of bars or dust, there is no difference what shape, if the metal is pure, the}^ will simply weigh it and reduce it to the measure, which is one grain of gold to-day in the world, and use it as they do any other commodity. I don't have to use money if I send a cargo of wheat to London, in order to pay for another cargo of something over there. My wheat pays the bills. Formerly in old times they had to send the money, took it in the vessel, everybody had to carry with them on long voyages. All that is ended now. Now our beautiful banking system, which is bless- ing the nations of the world, enables us to do the busi- ness on a small amount of primary money, and base mv transactions on credit and on the other property of the world. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr prefers to be humorous. This is a serious matter with the people of the United States. We regard it, on our side of this question, in a serious 492 THE GREAT DEBATE way. If they can divert the minds of the people by treating the question as they treat it, if it is a fact that property is accumulating in the hands of the few, and the many are becoming poorer and poorer, and w^e are traveling in the same route that all repub- lics are traveling, to monarchy and despotism, then his argumeift is a good argument to make on the other side of the question, to keep us going in that direction. I will only answer one thing in his last speech: He says that it is unfair to have two measures in money, that it should be the same as in the measure of length and weight, and makes illustrations for comparisons. Now money is not the same, cannot be considered in the same way that you can consider weight and measure. In money we rely for bimetallism upon two materials, two Bubstanceg. There is more stability in that than relying upon one metal. For bread food w^e rely upon wheat, corn, and rice. For meat we rely upon beef, pork, and mutton, and beef cannot rise inordinately high as long as pork and mutton are in competition with it, You must have in a financial system a bal- ance like the two metals of which the pendulum of a clock is made, made of twjo metals to counteract each other so in your financial system it is safer to have two metals to rely on than one. And when you have them under control of the law, and put them each in competition with the other, then the one cannot ad- vance without the other taking its place, and if the na- tion is large enough to dominate the commerce of the w^orld they will stay at a parity as they did for all the hundreds of years that we have a record of prior to 1878. (Applause.) You put yourself on a false money measurement when you use one metal which the money- . THE GREAT DEBATE 493 lenders can corner at their pleasure. Do not be misled on this financial question by any sophistry, but study for yourselyes, and you will arrive at the same conclu- sion that I have. Gold will not go out of this countrj\ If we have free coinage of silver the use of money in the United States will establish a parity between the two, and then gold will be held. A man settling a bal- ance with us in Europe, if he cannot get silver to send must send us gold. The argument I have made in this debate should convince you that upon the United States adopting the free coinage of silver its extensive use as money will take the metal out of the markets of the world and force a parity as it was forced prior to 1878. With independent action of the United States other nations will follow her example. We have allowed England to set the example for the world. The United States when she exerts her power is greater than Eng- land. (Applause.) And when she exerts it the other nations of the earth will take hope. France will fol- low. She said at the Conference of Brussels, "We are here to hear your proposition and are ready to accede to it. Name it. What is ii?" Mexico and South Amer- ica will be with us; Chinaand Japan and all the* weaker nations of the world; and with France by. our side, we will have more strength, more influence upon themetals of the world, than the Latin Union and the United States had in 1873 when they were at a parity. (Ap- plause. ) All we have to do is to have the heart to ^o ahead and do the right. (Applause.) The "way to resume" was to resume, and the way to remonetize is to remonetize. (Applause. ) Creditors the world over, w hen they can control the legislation of the country 494 THE GREAT DEBATE can dictate what money shall be named in the bond, and England is doing that. The necessities of the people make them sign the bonds to get the money. To relieve the necessities of to-day they will take chances on the future and sign the bonds. But the day of reckoning is coming, and English warships are in all the harbors of the smaller countries; the Monroe doctrine has been violated in the western hemisphere by reason of the gold standard. What we want to do is to say to the creditor, "You cannot name in your bond gold alone. You must name in your bond lawful money, and when you name gold alone you either forfeit your debt or it is payable in either gold or silver at the option of the debtor." That is bimetallic law, and when you have it you have put the two metals in competition with each other, and when the United States leads in this matter, all the nations of the earth except England will follow her. ENGLAND WILL NOT CONSENT. England will never follow us; you may wait for in- ternational bimetallism with England forever, and you will never get it. The men who control the legislation of England are the money-changers of the world, and they know they are getting two portions of property for one portion of money, and they don't intend to yield that advantage. We should act for ourselves, in- dependent of what other nations do. Less than four per cent of our business is with Europe, ninety-six per cent of our business is domestic business. Which shall we legislate in favor of, the ninety-six per cent or the four per cent? Let us legislate for the people. The selfish money-lenders of this country are allies of the banking-houses of London, The great dbbateJ 495 The money-lender is not a patriot, the plain people are patriots. The money-lender will not fight for his country, he sends a substitute; the plain people will fight for their country. In times of distress the money- lender seeks to take advantageof his country and bleeds it at every opportunity. He cannot understand this criticism I make upon his character, for the same rea- son that ho cannot understand that it is treason to his country to advocate the gold standard. Mr. Horr has alluded in this debate to the old soldier. He made him a part of a specious argument, and he appeals to the men who fough't for their country and those who now depend upon their little savings, he ap- peals to their selfish motives to try to make that little money buy more and more, while that little is dwindling away, and the very life of the government is palsied, that is paying to these old soldiers the pension through which he appeals to them. (Applause.) It is a base ap- peal. The distress of this country and its dire need for patriotism is a greater appeal to those soldiers than you can possibly make through theargument of money. (Long continued applause.) Who was it that saved the life of this nation in its wars? It was those soldiers. Who sent substitutes to the war? The men that you (addressing Mr. Horr) are defending here to-day. (Applause.) What did they do while their substitutes were fighting for them? They undertook to ruin the United States government by bleeding it of all they could get; they manipulated and influenced' legislation at Washington to deprive the government of the very sustenance that must sup- port the soldiers in the field. Who sent a substitute to the war and would not brave 496 THE GREAT DEBATE his own person to the bullets of the enemy? Grover Cleveland, the champion gold-standard advocate of the United States to-day. (Cheers and applause.) Mr. Horr: I am not here for the purpose of defend- ing or abusing Grover Cleveland. At a proper time and in the proper place I could give my opinion of him without any hesitancy. (Laughter.) But I arn here to say that Mr. Harvey ought to be ashamed of himself. (Applause.) When he assaults men who furnished means to put down that Rebellion, as grand a band of patriots as the commercial men of this nation were, he is doing something that is beneath the dignity of a good American citizen. (Applause.) Let me tell you, Robert Morris, the banker of our Revolution, did as much to save this nation as any. general in the field. (Applause. ) Men can have money and still be patriots. Men can save a few dollars and still be decent. Shame on a man who will adopt a philosophy that compels him on all occasions, without exception, to vilify and abuse the people, and the best people of his own country. GOLD HAS COME TO STAY. But this debate is drawing to a close. I desire to state to this audience that silver has had its day as a money of final redemption. It will always be used as money for the purposes for which nature adapted it. Gold has come to stay because gold is better adapted than silver for the great transactions of American life. It has come to stay because the people of the whole civilized world like it, believe in it, prefer it. (Applause. ) He talks about England I have no great respect for England; but England did not dictate this matter. In the monetary conference of 1867 the civilized na- THE GREAT DEBATE 497 lions adopted the very principle that was embodied into the law of 18T8. I stated that before, and Brother Harvey promised before we quit to show me that I was wrong. If he will try it, he wall have a good time. I have the report of that monetary conference right here, and when you dispute that proposition of Mr. Shaw's we will'sfee about it. (Applause.) But now, Brother Harvey, before we close, I have a very pleasant duty to perform. I never allow any one to outdo me in little matters of courtesy. You were kind enough to give me a souvenir of the days of Jefferson and Madison, and even a coin struck in the year that the great patriot Washington died. I now. Brother Harvey, have the pleasure of present- ing to you two coins. They are coined by a nation you admire. I present them both to you because you be- lieve in bimetallism (laughter), that things should go in pairs. I know you won't refuse them. One is a sil- ver coin worth twenty cents. I would have had a Chinese tael if it could have been found, but it is a coin that is never struck. The measure of value in China is a certain weight of silver called a tael, but no laels have ever been coined. The little coin is copper, ft only takes a thousand of them, Brother Harvey, to make one of our silver dollars when it is not backed by gold in value. Now you can buy two thousand of them w ith one of our dollars which are based upon gold. The reason those coins represent China is because they represent the civilization of China. We w^ould iiave no use for copper coins, ten of which itw^ouldtake to equal a cent in value. Our transactions are too large for that. You must select a nation where they pay only three or four cents a day for work, then such coins H'^ ^HE GREAT DEBATE come in play. They have to split things up so fine in making change that they must have those little value- less coins. Silver is their standard; gold is no legal-tender in China. Silver is the best they have. Silver is the metal money of nations that have a low order of civilization. China has no railroads of any account; China has no carriages, the people are carried on the shoulders of the lower Chinamen. A man gets two dollars a month on which to sui^port his wife and family there. Where wages are low, where labor is so poorJy paid for, they get along with money of that kind. Now you want to base the monetary system of this nation upon the experience of a nation that has ceased to grow. China claims to be 20,000 years old of course I don't know about that. (Laughter.) It is so much older than I am that I cannot tell about it myself. But the dollar he gave me on Saturday was struck by a nation that had progress in it. It did very well at that time, but now we are not the same country. When I moved, or more properly, when my people moved me, from the hills of Vermont into the woods of Ohio, we were thirteen days in a covered wagon going the dis- tance. Now I cross the continent in five days. The whole nation has been built up, and with it has come this new monetary system with gold for the center. Listen, Brother Harvey. The sun is the center of our system. The world revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the world, the lesser always around the greater. So in the use of metals as money you should place the more valuable where civilization demands it and make that the center, silver to revolve around it, and copper around that, but the yellow metal THE GREAT DEBATE 499 should always be the center, as is the yellow orb of the universe. (Applause. ) Don't forget it. The people of this country, Mr. Harvey, are going to decide this question. I do not say that they will decide it as I think they ought to, but I will say this, if they decide it as you think they will, I will base my reputation as a prophet and as a man of sense on the result, and if I live I may not if I do not I will look down from my seat in the heavens (laughter), and I will see this nation of ours suffering as I have told you to-day. No people can violate the great laws of the universe and go unhurt. A single standard, the best metal in the world, should be used as the basis of money and the center of the monetary system. If I am right, time will demonstrate it. I desire now to thank you for the kind treatment I have received at your hands. The little discomfort that I did receive was not your doing. I have nothing but the kindest feelings for Mr. Harvey in this whole controversy. Of course it is hard for me to see how a man can be- lieve as he does (laughter), but on that account I do not denounce him. He spoke in his remarks the other day of some unkind words that I had used in conversation about him here in the city. I suppose I know the report he refers to, and I want to say I never uttered a word of the kind published in the newspapers, not a syllable. (Applause.) I discuss this question from principle. If I know my own heart I want to do what is best for the people of this nation, I believe that bimetallism undertaken on 500 THE GREAT DEBATE the plan of Mr. Harvey, by passing a law and placing this nation on a silver basis, on the plan that is to-day in use in Mexico, China and a few of the lower-grade nations of the world, would bring disaster to the busi- ness interests and to the working-people of this entire C(juntry. (Applause.) It is against that that I am argu- ing, and if I am wrong I am not to blame. (Applause. ) I have studied the question as thoughtfully and care- fully and conscientiously as I ever studied any question in my life, and I say to the people of the United States now, be careful, do not follow off after these vague and whimsical notions. They lead only to destruction. The business of the world, if it is permanent and pros- perous, must be done upon the basis of honesty. Repudiation is not a good thing for the people of any country, and the free coinage of silver is repudiation for the people of this nation. (Applause.) Mr. Harvey: Mr. Horr presents me with a silver Chinese piece. I accept it, believing that it comes with good grace and kindly feeling from. Mr. Horr. I object to what he says in that presentation as re- flecting upon that metal. The United States is the chief producer of silver; tens of thousands of miners are now in our Rocky Mountains who went there by the encouragement of the laws of our country that made silver a money metal. Many of them who are yet living are to-day sitting by their lunch buckets upon the mountain sides, waiting, with anxiety and patriotic hope, this great battle that is waging in the states of the east. Their cheers are for us. The laws of Jefferson and Jackson sent them there. Until 1873 that metal that this coin typifies was the most sacred metal of our monetary sys- THE GREAT DEBATE 501 tern. It as a unit regulated the value of all our other coins (applause), and it was an honored metal until it was struck down in its own country, struck down, I have a right to say, by a dagger struck as Caesar was struck; and the same men who drove that dagger to the heart of this nation in the destruction of that metal as money now say the same things that the assassins of Caesar said, "We are honorable men. " (Applause.) We are not patterning after China; neither are we going to adopt the financial system that is the birth, origin and result of a crime. (Applause. ) You have set up a crime and undertake to sustain it as an example to the morals of this country, a national crime, and that metal represented in this coin that he gives me typifies that crime. He speaks of the solar system and of the planets that revolve around it. Under a gold standard England is the center of the solar commercial system; under that metal as the unit of value in our coinage, with gold and silver both as money, the tJnited States will be the center of the commercial solar system. (Applause.) The market of the world will be transferred from Lon- don to New York. He refers to the metal he likes as the yellow metal, and compares it to the sun. We look upon that metal in the coin he gives me as pure and white, as emblem- atic of virtue and honesty and purity. We would make it money with the other metal that he has named, and without reference to color or previous condition of servitude. (Applause. ) I thank you, Mr. Horr, for the coin. A MESSAGE OF HOPE. I am about to close this debate. I want, in the words 502 TllE GREAT DEBATE that I shall utter, to extend an encouraging message to the distressed people of the United States; I want to say to them that relief is coming; to pick up courage; and to those who are sutYering until their hopes are crushed and who contemplate abandonment of all hope in their business, I say, do not do so. Hope, comfort and relief are coming. Manhood in this country is again going to be revived. We are going to force this coimtry by the sheer influence of intelligence to cease its worship of property and money as of greater value than humanity. (Applause.) Some Scottish troops were once surrounded by the enemy, and after constant fighting, with provisions cut off, the Scottish soldiers were dying of hunger; they were still brave and could repel the enemy, but the wasting away of life from starvation had brought them to the consideration of the question of surrendering. They had waited in vain for re-enforcements. When about to send forth the flag of truce to announce that fact, after waiting for many days and weeks for re-en- forcements to relieve them, the soldier who started with the message had but mounted the parapets when he heard in the distance the Scotch bagpipes of the Scot- tish soldiers playing "The Campbells Are Coming." There was no surrender, and there was victory. Let me say to the people of the United States that if you will but listen, you will hear the music upon the air, "The Campbells Are Coming" the spirits of Wash- ington, Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln are coming. (Applause. ) The same oppression that is now manifesting itself in this country by a fraudulent money measurement of values that is confiscating your property, ha^, in one THE GREAT DEBATE 5t n\ form or another, existed throughout all the hi^tor}^ of the world. It first entrenches itself in power with the officers who obey its commands. As your property falls in value the salaries of these officers are increased. Where 17,000 bushels of wheat would have paid the President's salary of $25,000 in 1878, it will take 80,- 000 bushels to pay the salary of Mr. Cleveland of $50,- 000 now. With the encouragement of the money power cornea increased salaries and official corruption; hence official despotism. To-day liberty is appealing to us from all over the world. Cuba is to-day striking for liberty against the oppressor, Spain. I have stood in the harbor of Ha- vana and looked upon that old fortress at its mouth, an(\ had told to me by a citizen of Havana that be- neath its walls underground were subterranean chan- nels, passages and cells; that citizens of Cu])a, for political crimes only, had been in those cells for years and years, and had never seen daylight. It is to liberate those people, it is to end their op- pression that comes with the money power, the liberty- loving people of Cuba are to-day striking for liberty. There is a rising in this country, with the money power, a tendency to entrencli and protect oppression the world over where it gets the opportunity. The President of the United States, the willing im- plement of this money-power tvranny and oppres- sion, has given every assistance to Spain, has sent our war vessels to guard the, coasts of Cuba to prevent the friends of Cuba, the Spaniards living in Florida, from going to their succor. He has taken down the flag of this republic when reared upon an island republic in 504 THE GREAT DEBATE the Pacific Ocean. He has stricken down the Monroe Doctrine that said, tyranny and oppression should never be further extended upon the western hemisphere. The poor nations of Central and South America, re- duced and debilitated in manhood and property by the gold standard, the bonds that they have had to pay requiring them to give up two portions of their silver and two portions of their property, are to-day the vic- tims of England, and under the policy adopted at Wash- ington she has no one to stop her passage. We are fighting the battle of liberty for the world. (Applause.) The result of your verdict upon this mo- mentous question will be world-wide. It will convey words of cheer and stimulate the nerves of freemen in every land. Never was civilization so dependent upon the action of any one people in the world as it is to-day upon the people of the United States. The money power has crushed human liberty the world over. Civilization arose on the Tigris and the Euphrates. At its birth, this selfish influence through the money power that arrogated to a few the property of the country drove the people seeking liberty away, and they crossed the Mediterranean into Greece and Rome. In turn this same selfish interest there absorbed the property of the people and sent freemen to modern Eu- rope. Again pursued by the same selfish spirit, those freemen of Europe fled across the Atlantic to America. There is no other place you can go. The islands of the Pacific Ocean will not sustain the population. We stand to-day with our backs to the Pacific Ocean and our faces to that enemy that has eaten out civilization THE GREAT DEBATE 505 in all countries. The tail of that serpent rests in Egypt and India, its body in Europe, and its head is raised in this country. Will you fight it? (Applause.) Thomas Jefferson when in Paris was asked: "What, in your judgment, is your greatest protection in the United States from tyranny?" His reply was: "In every log cabin in the United States there is a rifle> and tyranny does not dare raise its head." The men who owned those rifles have passed away, but they have left you the ballot, and as yoti guard and protect tliat ballot so will you answer to history for the charge that they gave to you. (Applause.) We need a second Dec- hiration of Independence in the United States. (Ap- |)lause. ) I want to take your minds back to a scene that was enacted upon our soil in Philadelphia when Congress was in session and about to pass that declaration. The old bell-man went into the tower at the hour that Con- gress convened. There were ten or fifteen thousand people in the .streets. He had posted a little boy at the door to give him the signal if the declaration was adopted. Hour after hour went by, and the old man shook his head and said, "They will never do it, they will never do it. " Suddenly there was a shout in the Ireets, and the little blue-eyed boy came into sight, clap- ping his hands and shouting, "Ring, grandfather, ring." The old man, seizing the tongue of the bell, threw it back iind a hundred times he sounded that tocsin that has echoed and re-echoed over this land ever since that memorable day when we declared our first inde])end- ence from England. What we need to-day is to have a liberty bell ten thousand liberty bells to ring out in this country. 506 THE GREAT DEBATE speaking the intelligence of this people, that they can understand the war made upon its resources, whether it may be made by a destructive influence or by shot and shell. (Applause.) Teach the people from the little blue-eyed boy the young and old to live again for their country and to understand that when its liberties are about to be destroyed they should act as their Kevo- lutionary forefathers acted, and declare that we should by right be independent of the financial laws of Eng- land or any other land that strikes at our liberty. (Con- tinued applause. ) COMPLIMENTARY RESOLUTIONS. Hon. George S. Bowen, of Elgin, 111. : On behalf of this great audience I desire to offer the following preamble and resolution. Judge Vincent: Will you read the resolution? Mr. Bowen: Whereas, the officers and members of the Illinois Club most hospitably opened the doors of their Club to us for the debate just concluded, and at all times and in every particular have displayed toward us a most pleasant and courteous attitude; Resolved, that upon our own behalf and upon behalf of the great people of the United States who are inter- ested in the important subject here debated, we extend to the Illinois Club our sincere thanks for the hospita- ble and catholic spirit displayed by them. And I move that this resolution be adopted by a rising vote. Resolution was seconded and unanimously adopted. Mr. Harvey : If the judges please I desire to offer this resolution : Resolved, that we all owe our thanks, and a cordial appreciation is due, to Miss Harriet A. Shinn, and to her able corps of stenographers, Mrs. R. Howard Kelly, Miss Kate S. Holmes, Miss Julia C. Pomeroy, Mrs. i'HE GREAT DEBATE 507 L. M. Foxcroft, and Miss Lena R. Wilson, for their val- uable work, courteous manner, and kind treatment to all parties connected with this debate. Mr. Horr: I second that. The resolution was unanimously adopted. Mr. Horr: I wish to say to the audience that I desire to move a vote of thanks to the gentlemen who have presided and who have so kindly and impartially at- tended this debate from the beginning to the end. I do it in appreciation of the fact that they have so well performed the duties devolving upon them. Motion seconded by Mr. Harvey, put, and unani- mously carried. Judge Miller: We thank you for the appreciation of our services, and will say that we have been very much edified and instructed by the very able manner in which this discussion has been conducted. (Applause. ) Hon. George S. Bowen: On behalf of several gen- tlemen of this great audience I desire to present a resolution. Judge Vincent: State the resolution. Mr. Bowen: That the thanks of this audience be ten- dered to both of the gentlemen who have taken part in this debate, expressing to them the sincere thanks for the intelligent and able manner in which it has been conducted, and the great amount of information given to the people of the country by this debate. Which resolution was put and unanimously carried with great enthusiasm. Mr. Horr: I desire to acknowledge the great obliga- tions which I am under to Hon. L. G. Powers, Labor Commissioner of Minnesota, and author of "Farmer Hayseed in Town;" and to Charles H. Sergei, the well known book publisher of Chicago, and joint author of 50S THE GREAT DEBATE ''Sound Money;" also to Dr. S. A. Robinson of New York, who is patriotically giving all his time, at great sacrifice, to the cause of honest money. He is a mem- ber of the Sound Money Committee of the Chamber of Commerce of New York, a non-political organization chartered in 1784 and having no connection with the Stock Exchange or any other exchange. Its member- ship is limited to one thousand, and its energies are devoted to the study of economic and commercial problems affecting not only New York, but the whole country, and the promotion of the best interests of the people of the United States. These gentlemen were all of them untiring in their efforts to aid me in the debate, and rendered such val- uable service as to put me under lasting obligations to them for their unselfish and gratuitous assistance. I thank each [one of them from the bottom of my heart for the help they gave me from the start to the finish. QUESTIONS FROM THE AUDIENCE. Mr. Horr: I am asked by A. H. Lockwood, of Chi- cago, to answer this question: '*What effect has an increase or decrease of the quan- tity or volume of money in circulation upon its value or purchasing power; and what effect upon the prices of commodities and other forms of property?" The question is open to the query as to what he means by money. People differ in their definition of it. I'll answer and say that the amount or quantity of all kinds of money in circulation as money has some effect on prices. The general tendency is, as the volume in- creases, prices will increase very slowly. You have to know all the circumstances sometimes there is more money in the country, and taking it away will not have THE GREAT DEBATE 509 any effect at all there are hundreds of things that en- ter into it, so I give it as my judgment that it is one of those problems we always state with great precision without knowing very much about. Mr. Harvey: I have a question by Warren G. Sayre, of Wabash, Ind. : "If the commercial ratio between silver and gold had been the same in 1792 as it is now, would either Jeffer- son or Hamilton or Congress have advocated or estab- lished the ratio of 15 to 1, or 15^ to 1, or of 16 to 1?" What that question means is, if the commercial ratio between silver and gold now under demonetization is 82 to 1, say, what would Jefferson and Hamilton have done if it had been 32 to 1 then? It is a question that does not furnish an opportunity for an intelligent re- ply, because bimetallism had existed as far back as we liave any history of it up to 1873, and Jefferson and Hamilton fixed a ratio to agree with the commercial ratio at that time, as well as the legal ratio; the legal ratio was controlling the commercial ratio, and the}'- fixed the commercial to conform with both the legal and commercial ratio of the average Spanish coins. Mr. Horr: This question is by Dr. T. P. Seeley, Chi- cago: "Is it not a fact that over $4,000,000,000 of silver in coin is now maintained at a ratio of 16 to 1, or greater, by the different nations of the world, and that not over $40,000,000 of silver bullion needs to be held up by any nation or nations in addition." What does that mean? It is not true that there is over $4,000,000,000 held up to value. It is not true that there is anywhere near that immense quantity of it held up. There isn't a dollar of Mexican, Chinese or Japanese money, there isn't a dollar of any nation 510 THE GREAT DEBATE that is on a silver standard, that is held to a value with gold anywherjB on the face of the earth. Silver is not held at an equal value with gold ex- cept in subsidiary coins, where there is a gold basis, and where they manage to exchange silver dollars into gold whenever it is required, otherwise gold would 136 at once at a premium and silver at a discount. That is my idea of it. I don't know anything about how much silver bullion there is in the world that would have to be held up. Mr. Harvey: A question by S. A. Robinson, of New York: "As the leading foreign bankers having branches in this country which collect the income from European investments estimate our entire foreign indebtedness at three thousand million dollars, costing us annu- ally one hundred and thirty million dollars, please show when we received your other seven thousand mil- lion." In the book that we are discussing, "Coin's Financial School," I state in the last chapter that we are paying England interest on five thousand million dollars of indebtedness. I do not say ten thousand million dollars, and I am not going to discuss any proposition in any other book, because it would require longer time than I have in 300 words. I want to say this: Mr. Robinson here admits that branch banks in this country of foreign banks put the amount we owe abroad at three thousand million dollars and the interest that we are paying at one hundred and thirty million annually. Now I had it two hundred million interest that we are paying, and these men who cut me down in my estimate are interested on the other side of the question. They THE GREAT DEBATE 511 never went to inquiring how much money we owed un- til The New York Post pitched into "Coin's Financial School" on that proposition. The lesson to learn from that is this: That we must pay Europe one hundred and thirty million dollars annually in interest, paya- ble in gold three times as much gold as we produce in this country. A debtor nation that ow^es $180,000,000 annually in interest to a foreign nation, if it won't put silver in competition with gold so as to buy that gold cheaper, is working directly against its own interest and in the interest of that foreign nation to which the gold is due. (Applause. ) Mr. Horr: A question from Mr. F. H. McKee, of Bozeman, Montana: "Is there gold enough in existence to do the money work of the whole world, without increasing, to a peril- ous degree, that so-called enlightened method, the credit system? If the gold is not sufficient, what would you use to supplement it?" My answer is that there is an abundance of gold used in the manner in which it is being used to sustain the credits of the world. You must not imagine under our plan, or my plan, that I have been discussing here, we do not use any silver bullion for settling balances and for the basis of credit in the world. It can all be used, every dollar of it, just as it has always been, for what it is worth in bullion that is all it is in international matters, never has been from the foundation of the world down, never has had any other value but bullion value in settlement and as basis of credit between na- tions, always had that and no other value. We shipped thirty-seven million of it out of this country last year, as Mr. Harvey read you himself, that is at the bullion 512 THE GREAT DEBATE price; it helped to pay our debts the same as wheat or anything else would; if we had sent gold it would have paid the same, and both of them will pay what they were worth; they have always done that, and no system you can adopt will make them bring more than they are worth. (Applause. ) Mr. Harvey: A question from L. G. Powers, of Min- nesota : "As Americans are famous for making good bargains, buying in the best markets, and borrowing at lowest rates of interest, and onl}'^ owe for what they have had, and as the property bonded for foreign debts remains in this country, under our laws and paying taxes, how can our foreign indebtedness be a curse?" It is a curse in this: First, no man can do business on borrowed capital through a long period without fail- ing. Second, it is utterly impossible for a nation to be prosperous and stay largely in debt and pay interest to foreign nations. The amount jmid saps, the vitality of the debtor nation. If we are paying Europe $200,000- 000 annually in gold, how do we pay it? We send them all the gold that we produce, about $40,000,000; we have a balance of trade in our favor with Europe of $100,000,000, that is we ship them more than they do to us, they must pay us $100,000,000; they get that on the debt instead of it coming to us to do us some good, we don't get it at all; that goes also on the interest. They get all our gold and all our products, and we still owe them $60,000,000. How do we pay it? We draw on our reserve of gold "shipping gold from New York" means that we are paying that $60,000,000 when you hear of gold being shipped from New York. The day comes when a debtor will get deeper and deeper into the mire and he cannot pay at all. THE GREAT DEBATE 513 Now one word more. When in sending our products to Europe to help pay this borrowed money, we sent $87,000,000 at the bullion price of silver to pay that much debt, if we had free coinage of silver we would have $74,000,000 that we would send. And when we send wheat as now at sixty cents, under free coinage we would send it at $1.20, and we could wipe out that debt and put the country on a prosperous basis. (Ap- plause. ) END OF DEBATE. SUMMARY BY ROSWELL G. HORR. The object of this debate was to determine if it would be wise for our nation to throw open its mints to the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 when the civilized nations of the world refuse to join in such ac- - tion. My opponent proposed to prove that such course _ is advisable, and undertook to do it on the lines laid down in "Coin's Financial School." I denied the advisability of such action, and attacked the teachings of that book from the title-page to its , close. The debate is finished, and how does the case stand? Mr. Harvey admits that the book is pure fiction. He repudiates its motto by declaring that it does not mean what it says. His statement that primary money only is the meas- ure of value he has not even attempted to sustain, though his proof has been called for repeatedly. His statement that the people of the 15th and 16th centuries were in the most "degraded condition of serf- dom and slavery, " on account of the lack of metallic money, has been completely demolished. He based his whole argument on the proposition that the silver dollar was in 1792 made the only unit or measure of value. I have shown conclusively that our forefathers attempted to establish bimetallism and pro- vided for two units of value, one of gold and one of silver, always naming gold first, and that up to 1884 514 THE GREAT DEBATE 515 the silver standard alone was used. That after that the gold standard came into use, and that since that the silver dollar has never for a day been used as the meas- ure of values in the United States. No nation has ever succeeded in actually using two standards at the same time. Mr. Harvey next based his case upon the assumption that the law of 1873 was a crime, and stated that it had its origin in fraud and its birth through bribery and corruption. He planted himself upon four propositions to prove his case: First, he claimed that the Congress of the United States was purchased; that the passage of the bill was procured by the money of capitalists of this and other nations. Secondly, he stated that the bill passed both houses all right, and was changed by some clerk in its enroll- ment. He next claimed that it was not changed by a clerk, but that the dirty work was done in conference com- mittee. He then showed that none of his other statements are true, but that the work was done by passing a "substi- tute bill." He introduced no evidence in support of either prop- osition, and he stands convicted of making every one of those charges without any proof that would be re- ceived in an ordinary court of justice. If the Congress of the United States was bribed to pass a bad bill, then the bill must have first passed in bad shape. Now if that be true, then there would be no need of a clerk to do the dirty work. If it was done by the enrolling clerk, then it follows that Congress passed 516 THE GREAT DEBATE the bill as it ought to have been, and consequently they could not have done what he says they were bribed to do. Again: If Congress passed the bill all right, and the enrolling clerk enrolled it correctly, then the bri- bery could apply only to the members of the Confer- ence Committee. All these villainies are then abandoned when he claims that the whole thing was accomplished by means of a "substitute bill." He introduced no evidence in support of any one of these positions. Thus he stands convicted by his own statements of an effort to deceive the people. I submit that such conflicting allegations demon- strate beyond a question that Mr. Harvey has attempted to sustain his position in regard to the law of 1873 by pure fiction and without calling to his aid a single es- tablished fact. It is conclusive that if he had proof of any one of his four propositions, he never would have .introduced the other three. It is Useless then to spend more words upon a matter which is manifestly so ab- surd. Mr. Harvey *s statement that free coinage creates "un- limited demand," is not true, because there can be an unlimited demand for no human productions. His assertion that the option of the debtor to pay in either metal causes the cheaper metal to be used, is true. But such option does not I'estore its relative com- mercial value. On the contrary, it drives the dearer metal out of use, just as it has done in Mexico and other countries where the cheaper metal is to-day the sole currency, and is not increased in value one iota. Another doctrine of Mr. Harvey is that by the free coinage of silver in this country upon the old ratio of TftK GRt:AT DEfiATt: Si? 16 to 1, the old price of silver, as compared with gold, will be restored. If it will restore the value of silver, it will not in- crease prices. He proposes to raise prices by diminish- ing the vahieof the uuit with which prices are measured. Both results cannot follow. Mr. Harvey fails entirely to prove that the use of one metal as the measure of value is an experiment. His- tory proves that the use of a single standard is the only means by which both metals can be kept in circulation. It is the only way to secure a stable measure of values and to maintain practical bimetallism. It is based on scientific principles, and wherever attempts have been made to use both, the cheaper has always driven the dearer out of circulation, which has resulted in prac- tical monometallism always leaving the cheaper metal only in use. The gold unit is not responsible for the fall in prices. The prices of labor and property, when taken together, have not declined. It is not true that a fall in prices, when brought about by natural causes, benefits only the money-lender. Such cheapening of products benefits all who consume what they do not produce. Mr. Harvey utterly failed to show a fall in the price of a single article which is not fully accounted for by cheaper cost of production, improved transportation, ox increased supply. He bases his contention on the assumption that gold has appreciated. As gold measures the value of com- modities, wages and land, so wages, lands and com- modities measure the value of gold.. Commodities have fallen eight per cent, wages have increased fifty-eight 518 THE GREAT DEBATE per cent, and lands have increased ninety per cent in value since 1860, when Mr. Harvey contends we were on a bimetallic basis. These facts utterly annihilate the claim that gold has appreciated. During the discussion Mr. Harvey cites Roman his- tory with its many evils. But he inadvertently makes an admission as to the great value of banking facilities which refutes all his other assertions against such sys- tems. After portraying the bad conditions existing in the Roman empire, he says: ^^It is a significant coincidence that the first glimmer of light only came with the invention of bills of ex- change and paper substitutes, through which the scanty stock of the precious metals was increased in efficiency. " He said that, in connection with a statement that at that time the metallic money of the Roman Empire had shrunken from eighteen hundred million to two hundred million. Strange it did not occur to him that this is an entire '^give away" of his whole rant and fustian against banks 1 It would seem from his own statement that the few devices which were in use at that time, and which took the place of metallic money, did wonders for the business of the world. What then can we expect from the systems of banking of the pres- ent day, which multiply more than a thousand times the facilities fordoing business which were known to the people of that age? This admission alone saves me from using another word in defense of the banking systems of the present century. Correctly analyzed, the financial condition of this country has improved immensely during the last twenty- five years in the face of the charges made to the con- trary by Mr. Harvey. ' THE GREAT DEBATE 519 The condition of the masses of the people in the United States has improved more rapidly since 1873 than during any similar number of years since the na- tion was bom. Indeed the improvement has been far greater than that of any other nation on the face of the earth during an equal number of years, at any period in the world's history, as Mulhall has conclusively shown. Mr. Harvey in this debate, as in ''Coin's Financial School," misleads people by partial statements which lead to false conclusions, when the whole statement would have been perfectly clear to any one. His statement in reference to the banks of Chicago, and the amount of taxes they paid, is a good illustra- tion of his methods. He uses a partial statement, well knowing that a full statement would have disproved his contention Mr. Harvey quotes the European geologist Suess to show that the world can produce only about as much gold as is required for consumption each year outside of coinage. He conceals the fact that Suess wrote his essay several years ago, and that the production and coinage of gold in the last three years proves absolutely that Suess was entirely wrong. The facts are that dur- ing the last three years the world has produced $470,- 000,000 of gold, and during those years it has coined, exclusive of re-coinage, over $380,000,000. Mr. Harvey should have known these facts. Why did he quote Suess when he should have known that the actual facts proved the statement of Suess to be false? Mr. Harvey endeavored to prove decreasing wages in the United States since 1873. He introduced only one statement in support of his position; that was the evi- 520 THE GREAT DEBATE dence of a single man for one trade in the city of Omaha. On the other hand, to prove that they are advancing, I introduced the investigation of the United States Com- missioner of Labor, and Mulhall, who show that the average annual wages in manufacturing industries havf risen from $288 in 1870, to $509 for each person in 1890. Unable to produce any table of wages that shows a fall since 1870, Mr. Harvey in the latter part of his de- bate tries to show the falsity of my position that in fix- ing the original measure of value human toil was largely taken into calculation. Did he succeed? No. Mr. Harvey called attention to the increase of crime in the United States, and attributes it to silver legisla- tion. Crime does bear some relation to prosperity, but far more to other causes, which Mr. Harvey ought to know. He repeatedly tried in his book and during this de- bate to create a wrong impression by quoting a part of a statute, and then leaving off that portion which would show that his first statement was utterly untrue. Tht^ records of this debate convict him of such methods, Mr. Harvey has felt called upon to vilify all the bet- ter elements of society, and has attempted to prove that bribery, corruption and fraud have become habit- ual in this nation. He has hardly been able to find a decent man (except himself) within the entire United States. I submit that a cause which relies for its strength upon the wholesale vilification of our best citizens must be hopelessly weak and entirely bad. During this debate Mr. Harvey frequently put me off with the statement that during the discussion he would THE GREAT DEBATE 521 satisfactorily answer my objections, and then failed to mention that part of the subject again. Such failure is complete proof that he could not make successful answer. During the fifth day of the debate Mr. Harvey chal- lenged me to name more than the one error in his book which I had pointed out and which he admitted. On the 6th day I pointed out eight glaring misstatements, none of which he successfully denied. Mr. Harvey gave the foreign indebtedness of this country as more than three times the real amount. He has been repeatedly called upon to tell when and how that vast sum reached us. No such enormous amount could have come without some record of the transac- tion. He has utterly failed to account for the arrival of this vast sum; which is a confession that his state- ment is groundless and only used to misrepresent the condition of his country. His entire table of debts is composed of a doubling up of real debts, and is a slan- der on the actual condition of the American people. Mr. Harvey virtually admits that the action which he proposes will put this nation on a silver basis and drive gold out of this country. His statement that the gold dollar should be out down until its value be no more than the commercial value of the silver in the standard dollar, is a complete admission of this point. Hence I have a right to assume that his plan contem- plates such a result. I showed conclusively that this would work injury to seventeen million people who work for wages. I also showed that the injury would extend to all pensioners, savings and other bank depositors, and the holders of insurance policies, aggregating twelve million peo- 522 THE GREAT DEBATE pie, and to every person in the United States who has any money except gold coin. What has Mr. Harvey said to disprove my statements? Not one word. On the contrary, he has shown that benefits will come to no people except silver-mine owners and insolvent debtors. Mr. Harvey said nothing to offset my proposition that such action would destroy the credit of our people and lead to business disaster in every community in the United States. Good money may rightly be called the life-blood of the nation, but credit is the atmosphere of business life. The perfection of credit is the glory of modern business methods. Repudiation in any form is abhorrent to honorable men. On this account the business men are almost a unit against this scheme. Go where you will, merchants, bankers, managers of great enterprises, successful farmers, intelligent mechan- ics and working-men, are opposed to injuring the coun- try and themselves simply to benefit a few. I have from the beginning arraigned this scheme as being class and sectional legislation of the most obnoxious kind. What has Mr. Harvey said to disprove my state- ments? Absolutely nothing. I submit to the people of this republic that they should never permit threats of revolution to induce them to adopt wholesale repudiation. The civilized world is clearly on my side of this issue. I protest against any attempt to lead this republic into the camp of the half-civilized and barbarous nations of the world. Let us rather remain and work in harmony with people who have large experience and sound busi- ness sense. SUMMARY BY W. H. HARVEY. The debate settles, in my judgment, the following propositions: 1. That gold and silver is the money of the constitution. Mr. Horr did not controvert this, and I left it with Daniel Webster's statement to that effect. The main strength underlying this proposition is a knowledge of the merits of bimetallism, as disclosed by the whole debate. As token money silver performs none of the functions intended by the constitution. Since this debate the press dispatches report the Supreme Court of Ohio as deciding that a municipality cannot issue bonds payable in gold alone; that such bonds should be payable in either gold or silver. If that court has done so, it has clearly decided rightly.. There is no doubt in my mind but that the United States Supreme Court would have decided unconstitutional the act of 1873 if it had been sooner understood as a practical business proposition that that act in effect had destroyed the function of money residing in silver. The circulation of that metal as token money is wherein it has worked a deception. What the United States Supreme Court would do now is more doubtful, as I am inclined to be- lieve that they are, as a whole, as much under the influ- ence of the bondholders as the Supreme Court of 1860 was under the influence of the slaveholders. A test case would now probably result in a Dred Scott deci- 523 624 TSK GREAT DEBATE sion. I do not mciin to express prejudice, but in view of the events of the last two years cannot help believe that official despotism has already set in and that most of our public officials are now unconsciously the will- ing servants of the money-lending power. If a majority of the Supreme Court are thus infected, as I fear, it could not take the broad statesmanship view of this question required. 2. That the silver dollar was the unit of value in our coinage system fixed by the act of 1702. Mr. Horr admits this. See pages 59 and 61, official report. 3. That silver and gold both were the measures of value of all other property till 1878, and the debtor had a right to pay in either metal. See Mr. Horr's answer to. Mr. Motsingeronpage 100. 4. That the act of 1873 was surreptitiously passed. After reading the debate on this subject, one will turn ' ack to page 93 and read there with surprise the follow- aig language used by Mr. Horr when introducing this topic : '^I propose to show you during this discussion that no law has ever been passed by the American Congress which was freer from taint, which was more carefully xamined, and which was more completely aiid fully understood, than the law of 1873." When one considers that the people were deprived of one-half their primary money without their knowledge or consent, in this, a republican form of government, one can better understand the unjust and immoral po- sition taken by the monometallists, who have since stubbornly refused to allow the people to pass a verdict upon this question. What Garfield, Blaine and others aid upon this subject will be found in the congressional THE GEEAT DEBATE 525 records during the discussions, to which my other ref- erences given in debate will direct the reader. A letter from ex-Attorney-General Pierrepont, under President Grant, to the Hon. George Merrick, Denver, Col., stat- ing that General Grant told him that he was deceived by the act of 1878, is in my possession, and I will cause it to be printed and get general circulation. 5. That for all time of which we have a knowledge gold and silver were treated equally as money; both had a right to enter the mints in all the countries of the world until 1816, when England closed her mints to silver, and 1878-4, when the United States, Germany, France and the Latin Union followed. And, until 1878-4, the commercial value of the two metals was substantially at a parity with the legal ratio. That this condition made both metals available for use as primary' money, and the demand for primary money was relieved by the volume of both metals. 6. That prices of all property are now measured in gold alone and are substantially at the present time one-half what they would be under the bimetallic sys- tem. Mr. Horr frequently in debate substantially makes this admission. 7. That there were $143,000,000 in silver coined at our mints prior to 1873, all of which coined prior to 1853 was primary money, and since 1853 the silver dol- lars were primary money, and by virtue of the right of silver to be coined into primary money through the medium of silver dollars the whole volume of the silver supply was behind our monetary system, was exerting its influence as a measure of value, and stood ready to be coined and to share equally with gold the demand ")26 THE GREAT DEBATE for money. That all the silver coined since February 12, 1873, has been token money, representing golvl ; ia not exerting an influence as a measure of values; and is not performing the functions of primary money. 8. I believe those who read and carefully digest the debate will conclude that I have made good all the propositions set forth in my opening statement. That Mr. Horr found no errors in ''Coin's Financial School" except the statement on page 9, where it stated that the silver coined prior to 1873 was $105,000,000, which we both agreed should read $143,000,000. This is not an error affecting the merits of the book or the princi- ple involved, and to have stated it at $143,000,000 would have been more to the interest of my cause than stating it at $105,000,000. NOTES ON THE DEBATE. Mr. Horr stated that Jefferson did not stop the coin- age of silver dollars in 1806, and direct that all silver seeking the mints be coined into 50-cent pieces and less, because of the scarcity of small money, as stated in the ''School," but virtually receded from this claim on page 144. The exportation of silver dollars should have also been coupled by me with this statement in the "School." The reason for this exportation was not, however, on account of a premium on silver over gold, but because our silver dollars circulated as money in other nations, where their familiarity with the dollar would cause it to do so, whereas they were not familiar with our fractional coins, and thus the latter more readily stayed with us. Mr. Horr said that when gold or silver was the unit the quantity in a dollar could not be worth either more THE GREAT DEBATE 527 or less thau a dollar, more or less than itself, and crit- icised my statement in the "School" that it could he worth more. I passed it at the time, as I did many other things that had no substantial bearing on the subject under discussion. I refer him now to recent market quotations in New York, when gold bullion was selling at a small premium, which was accounted for at the time as purchases made by a gold syndicate to pre- vent gold from seeking the mints. I also refer him to the silver unit I gave him, the old-coin dealers' quota- tion on which is $7. Mr. Horr's frequent references to a change in the ratio prior to the formation of this government is an- swered by this: That these changes were not to make less money, but to make more money. In no instance is it known that silver was disturbed by increasing the size of the coins. These changes were made in the gold coins, and were made to make more money. When these changes were made in the legal ratio the commercial ratio soon conformed to the legal ratio. If Mr. Horr had followed me in the logical arrange- ment of the debate as indicated by the book we were discussing, I would have been enabled to furnish data more fully justifying points in the "School" attacked by him. And I had so intended, but after the discussion of the crime of 1873 he seemed to wholly abandon ' the regular order of debate, and went to all parts of the "School," and at one time went to another book I had written ("Up To Date"), and hurled propositions at me that were clearly out of the regular order of the de- bate. This required me to use many words in the brief answers that I made to him. I did so because I did not want his statements to go wholly unanswered at )L'8 THE GREAT DEBATE ^ he time, and risk later an opportunity to answer him ally. I would, however, have answered all of them fully, as I did some of them afterward, if he had let them come in their proper order. One of these topics was debts. The reader knows how I abbreviated my answer. I can only say now that it is admitted by the other side that our long-time debts, including national, state, municipal, corporate, and including farm and home mortgages, amount in round figures to $20,000,- '^00,000. It is also admitted that this does not include urrent business accounts and notes, nor the enormous iim that hangs over the army of debtors who have gone < 'ut of business since the repeal of the last bankrupt law, and that may still be within the statute of limita- ions. Neither does it include debts due from individ- ual to individual that are not on record, and that innot be classed as debts coming under the head of usiness or traders' debts. Nor does it include debts, coming under the following heads: Pawnbrokers^ chattel mortgages, partial-payment ales, maritime debts, overdrafts, judgments and taxes. If I had had time in the debate I would have justified y detail and with authorities the $40,000,000,000 at which I had estimated the aggregate indebtedness of the people of the United States. The great danger in relying on bank credit to make up for us the insufficient supply of money, aside from the heavy tax, approximately $200,000,000 annually, on the people, is the power of the banking fraternity ontrolling this credit system to bring on panics by shutting off this supply at pleasure, as they did in 1857, 1ST3, and notably in 1893, when they used it to assist fr. Cleveland in what they called "teaching the people all object lesson." THE GREAT DEBATE 529 A NEW CIVILIZATION. And now, excepting 800 words I shall use to reply to Mr. Horr's summary, I am closing this debate. The object sought by discussing questions affecting the welfare of the human race is to see wherein we can ad- vance the general condition of the people and to detect errors in civilization. The world, time out of mind, has had business pan- ics, and most men's and women's lives have been full of trouble in acquiring the necessities and comforts of life. That our present civilization has not removed the possibility of these recurring panics, and that to a large majority of the people on this earth their almost exclusive attention and labors are given to acquiring a living, with, in most instances, indifferen'fc^ and discour- aging results, will be admitted by every one. It was once supposed that labor-saving improvements and inventions would lessen the necessary toil of man, and were a promise of a day to come when with little labor all would be provided for, and humanity as a whole would be benefited. Has it had that result? All will answer that it has not. The lines of demarkation between the rich and the poor are more marked than ever, and the percentage of people who devote all their time to a struggle for existence is greater now than at any other time known to modern history. This will not be denied by any but the selfish few, who, their wants being supplied, know nothing of the wants of others. And yet, if there were no defect in our civilization, in- ventions would have the effect first intended for them. We are sufficiently advanced now in this respect to provide all the people of the world with the comforts of life by one hour's work each day by each individual, 530 - THE GREAT DEBATE while the remaining hours not devoted to sleep would be used in the promotion of human happiness and the advancement of the human race. That the passageway to a new era is blocked by a defect in our civilization will readily be recognized. OBSTACLES IN THE WAY. In my judgment the discussion of this financial sub- ject can be made to remove the obstacles in the way, and with their removal will come discoveries that will lift the human race to a higher plane not now dreamed of. The first obstacle in the way is selfishness. The pro- motion of self and personal interest at the expense of others pervades nearly the whole of mankind. As a natural result we are in the midst of a commercial age. Man's object in life is commerce the acquisition of property. Hence property has come to be, in our laws, our habits and our morals, the thing of first im- portance. Under such teachings we can see men and women suffer from hunger and pass them by without concern. Even little children will thus suffer without attracting public notice. A little boy was found under one of the bridges in Chicago the other day dying from starvation. The news found its way into the newspapers in a few lines. If the bridge had burned down under which he was dying it would have furnished a news item regarded as of much greater importance. Thus we are in a commercial age, where inventions, education and all forms of human skill and ingenuity are made to promote the personal ends of men or com- binations of men. Such an age promotes selfishness in THE GREAT DEBATE 531 all things. It follows that it is not only lawful but de- sirable to monopolize to one's self property of any and all kinds, no matter how unnecessary it may be in pro- moting the real comforts of the person in possession. In all such instances it is held in utter disregard to the discomfiture or wants of others. To own a farm which one with reasonable assistance can till and beautify, make grand and refined with the handiwork of art and genius, is the civilization of humanity, l^b own thou- sands of acres, as does Lord Scully in this state, inhab- ited by tenants whose labor supports him in riotous living, is a law born of property interests and not of humanity. It is this era of selfishness that made it possible for selfish men, wise in their own interest, to demonetize silver and increase the value of their holdings as meas- ured in other people's property. And, as mone}^ is a thing everyone must have, the^e dealers in money have thus been enabled to mortgage the producers of the world to them, which by its own self-operation will bring on a crisis. If the people will act unselfishly in- telligent in this crisis we will learn secrets in the sci- ence of civilization heretofore hidden from us that will result in the dawn of a hew era in the history of the world, and the passing from the present crude and commercial age into a newer and brighter civilization beyond. REJOINDER BY MR. HORR. I STATED that when either a gold or a silver unit is being used as a measure of value, the one so used can never be above or below par. When one is quoted at a premium it is never in actual use, but is measured by the other which is in use. This is self-evident. Mr. Harvey took two days to discuss a crime which never existed, but had no time to defend many errors in his book repeatedly pointed out, and which he prom- ised to explain later. He now tells what wonders he would have done had he not been driven from his es- says, which he calls his "regular order." While preparing his summary it occurred to him that there is one honorable body in the United States which he had not vilified, the Supreme Court. Hence he goes out of his way to slander that tribunal, bent upon his general plan to prove that there is notliing but rotten- ness in this republic. Nowhere, in debate or summary, has he shown the advisability of this nation freely coining silver at 16 to 1, nor can he do it. His summary, like his debate, attempts to disparage honest industry, thrift, and solvency. 'His whole sys- tem is at war w'ith the best achievements of civiliza- tion, and clearly aims at the destruction of law, individual development, and social order, if need be, through revolution. His whole case rests on an indictment against hu- 532 THE GREAT DEBATE 533 inanity, and he seems unable to detect anything but bad odors in a world full of sweet fragrance. Out upon ^uch wicked misrepresentation! I have shown that Mr. Harvey is devoting his life to deceiving the people, and that such boys as "Coin" are fitly described in Psalm Iviii. 8: "They go astray as soon as the^^ be born, speaking lies." REJOINDER BY MR. HARVEY. I .SI rruKiED iiiy propDsiliuii llial priiiuiry inoiiey uuly is the measure of values, as will appear on pages 269, 270 and 276, as now published in the official report. I made no statement as to the condition of the people in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I read a state- ment from the report of the monetary commission of 1876 to show what the preface in the "School" was quoted from. More recent history was of more infor- mation to the people. If I had seen fit to defend the report my defense would have been complete. Mr. Horr shows that he does not yet know what bi- metallism is. The cheaper metal mostly in use does not mean monometallism. Because a metal is not actually and constantly in circulation does not mean that it is not regulating our currency. If he were right in that, we are now on a paper basis, for gold is not in actual circulation, not as much so as silver was from 1834 to 1862. He is exceedingly mixed as to the order in which I presented the crime of 1873. My claim was that the bill was surreptitiously passed, not that any one was bribed. This I fully sustained, so strongly that no one can reasonably doubt there was corruption. His eight-per-cent fall in prices, is 1891 (date of Aid- rich report) compared with 1860. The prices of 1872 are the proper comparison; prices have also fallen nine per cent since 1891. 534 THE GREAT DEBATE 585 The book by Suess was written in 1891, and the reader by turning to pages 99 and 190 of the book on Coinage Laws and Statistics will get the answer to his $380,000,000 gold coinage statement. His statement is not true. Couple also with this the further fact that a large percentage of the gold used in the arts is gold coins. I now submit the whole controversy to the intelli- gence of the American people. THE END. INDEX. Abell's tables, 213. Abrasion of coins, 169. Act of 1873, 17, 19, 78-80, 86-88, 93-97. 100, 108-142, 148-185, 475, 515, 524. 534. Act of 1853, 86. 95, 139, 175. Act of 18*9, 99. Africa, South, gold produced in, 481. Agricultural workers, savings of, 338. Akbar the Great, 187. Aldrich, Hon. Charles H., 6, 67, 199. Aldrich, Senator from R. I., 363, 364, 534. Allison, Senator from Iowa, 182, 188. Alloy. 40, 44, 47. Aluminum, cost of. 280. American citizens, 444. American statistical association, 373. 379. Ames. Oakes, 88. Amos, quoted, 130. Amount of money needed, 329, 330. 344. 483. Amount of silver coined, 86, 98, 107. Anarchistic basis, 367. Anarchistic sheet. 444. Anne, Queen of England, 124. Annual price of silver in London, 232. Assessments of banks, 272. Atkinson, Edward, 330, 364. Australia, 174, 481. Austria, 212, 214, 431. Babcock, A. C. question by, 290. Babes, 25, 26. 28, 108. 216. Balance of trade, 293, 294. Balance wheel, 264. Ballot the safeguard of liberty, 505. Bank credit substituted for money, 308, 345, 369-371, 377- 379, 491, 518, 528. Bank of England, 252. V. Bankers, 100. 112, 272, 316, 321- 323, 327, 328, 367, 378, 395, 420. Bankers' Magazine, 109, 388. Barter, 35. Bassett, George A., 116. Bayard, Senator from Del., 164, 166. Beck, Senator from Ky., 203. Belgium, 174. Belknap, Secretary of War, 88, 110, 123. Benton, 94. Bible, quoted, 24, 25, 130, 533. Bible, commented on, 24, 25, 28. Bicycles, 488. Bimetallism, 41, 43, 52, 54, 56, 13S, 210, 265. 445, 468, 492, 514, 534. Bimetallism, definition of, 210, 216. Birmingham, England, 447. Blaine, James G., 188, 203, 249, 524. Bliss, H. L., questions by, 98. 145, 192, 290. 355. 426. Blood makes life, 470. Board of trade. 314. Board of treasury, 40, 48, 50. Bolivia, 81, 89. Bogy, Senator, 182. Bonlak, 186. Bonds, held in England, 352, 353. Bontwell, Secretary of the treas- ury, 108, 109. 114. Bowen, George E., 438. Bowen, George S.. 193, 506, 507. Bradstreet, 373. 374. Braminical epoch, 186. Bribery, 123-125, 130-132, 148, 304, 520. Bricklayers, wages of, 245, 246. British America. 174. British association for the ad- vancement of science. 341. British eastern empire, bribery in, 125. 530 THE GREAT DEBATE 537 British mint, 450, Broolts, Congressman from N. Y., 137, 157, 159, 160. Brussels, conference at, 493. Buddhic epoch, second, 186. Building and loan associations, 472. Bullion, 118, 126, 226, 354, 509, 511, 527. Bureau of mines and coinage, 184. Burr, Aaron, 125. Business, how affected by demon- etization, 230. California, 8, 78, 87, 145, 251, 276, 296. Canada, 394. Carlisle, John G., 155, 207. Carpenters, wages of, 405. Carson City, Nevada, 299, 303. Casserly, Senator from Cal., 158, 170. Castlereagh, Lord, 123. Census bureau, letter from, 380. Census, U. S., 266. Census bulletin, extra. No. 7, 403. . Census bulletin, extra, No. 71, 434. Census abstract, 434. Cents, 45. Chaldea, 133. Chamber of Comerce of New- York, 508. Charlemagne, 68. Chase, Chief Justice, 58, Chattel-mortgage fiends. 419. Check, analogous to credit money, 289. Check system, 307, 308, Cheyney, W. J., 414. Chicago Inter Ocean, 382, 438, 444. Chicago Post, 124, 129, 450. Chicago Record, 124, 438, 444. Chicago street railway company, 130. Chicago Times-Herald, 63, Chicago Tribune, 59, 116, 177, 188, 264, 353, 381, 407. Chili, adopting gold standard, 286. China, trade with, 160, 478, 485; a silver standard country, 174, 187, 286, 287, 431, 455, 493, 497, 498, 500. Chinese coins, 497. Chipmunk, brains of, 462, Civilization, depends on high wages, 222. Civilization of gold and silver countries compared, 187, 286, 431, 432, 522. Civilization increased with sup- ply of metal money, 264, 299. Civilization, state of in fifteenth century, 27, 67, 514, 534. Class legislation, 63, 312. Cleveland, President, 75, 300, 496, 503, 528. Clipping coins, 455, 458. Coffin, Charles, question by, 142. Coin, represents the cause of bi- metallism, 145. Coin, sarcastic allusions to, 29, 151, 163, 178, 189, 216, 217, 237, 259, 280, 298, 311, 338, 340, 376. 400, 402, 403, 416, 418, 533. "Coin's Financial School," the occasion of the debate, 3; basis of discussion, 12; advocates free coinage at 16 to 1, 15; defended by Mr. Harvey, 19; written as an allegory, 22-24, 514; motto of, 25; preface of, 26; method of, 139; discussion confined to, 275. "Coin's Financial School" quot- ed, 25, 56, 80, 91, 200, 215. 216, 217, 227, 253, 254, 259, 260, 355. 426. "Coin's Financial School Up to Date," 145, 178, 271, 275, 401, 409-411, 436. "Coin's Financial Series No. 7," 176, Coinage Laws and Statistics, 233, 234, 255, 363, 442, 534, Colfax, Vice-President, 88, 110, Colgate, Clinton, 111, Colorado, 8, 131, 132, 315, Commercial age, 530, 531, Commercial ratio of silver to gold, 51, 57, 61, 78, 94, 98, 174, 181. 200, 212, 305. Commissioner of Labor, report of, 358-360, 406. Committee on coinage, 116, 120, 184. Committee on finance, 133. "Compiled Laws and Coinage Statistics," 'quoted, 212. )38 THE GREAT DEBATE Complicated questions of finance, 25, 96, 97. Conference committee, 116, 164, 166, 170. Confidence, 37, 328. Congress, colonial, 44, 47. 94, 505. Congress, of the confederation, 38, 44. 46. 47, 52, 94. Congress, U. S., 7. 41. 48, 51, 52, 61, 81, 84, 87, 93-97. 108-144, 148- 150. 152-185. 217. 297. 515. Congressional Globe, 59, 112, 122, 135. 157. Congressional Record, 122, 164, 168. 169. 183. 184. Conklin, Senator from N. Y., 182. Connecticut. 247. Conspiracy to demonetize silver, 78. 170, 171. (Constitution, the money of, 19, 42. 147. 258, 291. 523. Consumption of gold, 443, 447-451, 535. Contracts. 66. Copper as redemption money, 491. Copper coins, 39, 41, 45. Corn, prices of. 261, 320, 362. 453. Corner on gold. 263, 282, 451. I'ornwall, William C, 321. Drporations. 102-107. <>st of producing silver. 253. 254. ost of mining gold and silver, 310-314. Cost of production. 278-282. Cowdrey. letter of Grant to, 190. Cranks. 386. Crazes in history of the U. S., ' redit a good thing, 386. 522. 'redit raobilier, 88. Credit money. 268. 283. 288. 300. Creditors, relative number of, 17, 378, 418, 419. Crime. 381, 520. Cuba, its struggle for liberty, 503. Dark ages, 27, 71. Daskin, James H,, question by, 351. Debts made with gold standard, 295, 447, 454. Debts of Americans to foreigners, 400-404, 408-411, 512, 513, 521. Debts, volume of in U. S., 528. Debtors, relative number of, 17, 378. Debtors, injury to, 21, 294. Decimal system of money, 39, 45. Declaration of Independence, 363. Decline in prices, 20, 21. Deferred payments, 294. Del Mar, Alexander, author of "History of Monetary Sys- tems." 111. 186. 3H. Demand for American silver, 451. Demonetization and falling prices, 292. Demonetization of silver rather than gold, 192. Demonetization of gold, 356. Denver Republican, quoted, 131. Depositors in bonks, 473. Depreciated paper money, 41, 175. Depreciation of silver, 200. Despotism, tendency toward, 492. Destruction of social order, 532. Doctors, unlimited demand for, 387. Dodo, a possible uyit of value, 46. Dollar, defined by law of 1786. 45. Domestics, wages of, 463, 466. Double standard, 219, 235, 250. Duck, fable of, 328. Dun's Review, quoted, 370. Dunham of Mass., 57. Duplication of debts in estimate, 417. Eagle, gold, 45, 51, 55. East India Company. 187. Eggs, value of compared with sil- ver product, 473; staying qual- ity of. 479. Egypt. 505. Encyclopaedia Brittannica, quot- ed. 124. England. 30. 70. 78, 93, 95, 109. 141. 143, 201, 212, 214, 218, 347, 34S, 352, 361, 419, 478, 493, 494, 496, 525. Errors in "Coin's Financial School," 16, 98. 207, 227, 238. 253. 254, 261, 355, 521, 526, 532. Europe, debt of U. S. to, 352, 401- 404, 408-411. European influence, 64, 4S6. European nations are consum- ers, 478. Euphrates, 504. Exchange, calculated in gold, 252. Exchange, London and New York, 220. THE GREAT DEBATE 589 Failures in thp U. S., 370, 385. Falling market, 0, 27, 230, 247, 278, 292, 382. Farm laborers, 230, 431, 455, 476, 485, 4H3, 500. 516. Michigan, 7, 483. Middle Ages, 186. Miller, Judge Henry G., 11, 12, 199, 414, 438, 507. Mills. 45. Mining, cost of. 311, 333. Minnesota Bureau of Labor, 266,'* Mint of the U. S.. 46, 82, 84, 90, 98. 99, 144. 298, 307. Mint bill, Hamilton's, 54. Mint, director of the, 254. Mint laws, codification of, 136, 157. Mint, report for 1892, 438. Mohammed's coffin, 224. Monarchy, tendency to, 384. Monetary commission's report, 26. 71. 534. Monetary conference at Paris, 155. 496. Money, defined, 33; importance of, 34; necessity for. 35; mate- rial of. 36; quantity of. 36; law t*f. 36; should be issued by gov- ernriient. 36; life blood of com- merce. 37; should be regulated i>y government. 38; American, origin of, 31; of account. 45; most universally desired prop- erty. 334; compared to stream of water. 377-379. 386. Money-changers. 455. Money-lenders. 21. 97, 102, 335, 336. 349. 455. 493. 495. Money power, its existence de- nied. 142; oppressions of, 502. Monometallism, 17. 20. 454, 534. Monroe doctrine. 504. Morgan, Senator from N. Y., 79. Morrill. Senator Justin S., 161, 203, 205. 208. 296. Morrises, the, 47, 52. 94. 496. Mortgages, 408. Motsinger. N. H.. 11. 100. Motto of "Coin's Financial School." 25, 26. Mulhall, 90. 254, 337, 482, 520. Murders, increase in, 380. Napoleon, 226. Nast. Thomas, 97, 137, 189. National bank notes. 37. National banking association, 315, National banks organized, 321. Nebuchadnezzar, 490. Necessity for money, 372. Nelson, A. H., question by, 291. Nevada, 115, 251, 296, 299, 303, 307. New England, 247, 419. Newspaper men, veracity of, 408. New York. 132. 247. 339. 353. New York Tribune, 7. 59, 193, 194, 277, 290, 316, 365, 420, 427. Normal demand for money, 309. North American Review, 277, 337, 487. Norway, 394. Number of silver dollars coined, 204. Oats, production and prices of, 324, 362. Octopus, financial, 479. Ohio. 7. 8, 498. Omaha, wages at, 405. Opening statements, 15. 18, Opiate to lull the oppressed. 363. Option of debtor to use either metal, 19, 100, 147, 211, 262.' Oregon, 482. Osgood. Samuel. 48. Over-issue of credit money. 300. Over-production of silver, 143. 147, 233. 235, 238, 257, Pacific ocean. 504. Packard, Jasper, 168, Painter, J. S., 248. Panama canal, 123. Panic of 1893, 385. Panics, inevitable under bank credit system. 388. 529. Panic predicted in event of free coinage, 474. Paper money, depreciated. 162. 175. 367. Paris. 79. 96, 152, 155. Parity between gold and silver, 493. Parliament, bribery in, 124. Pash, C. B., 438. Patriots, 495-497. Patterson, Robert, 144. Pawnbrokers, 419. Peel act regulating Bank of Eng- land, 252. Pennsylvania, 247. Pensioners, how affected by free coinage, 464, 465. Per capita circulation of various countries, 392, 393. Personal explanations, 102-107, 291, 412-415, 420-425. 54^ THE GREAT DEBATE Peru, 81, 89. Pettigrew, Senator, 67. Philadelphia, 98, 108, 136, 306, 414, 505. Pierrepont, ex-attorney general, 525. Pixley's tables, 213. Portugal. 81. Post, Chicago, 124, 129, 450. Potter, Clarkson N., congress- man from N. Y., 137, 140, 148, 149, 157, 159. Pounds, shillings, pence, 38. Powers. L. G., 10, 145-246, 357, 507, 512. Preface of "Coin's Financial School," 26. Premium on gold, 459. President of the Senate, 1G9. Press, American, 438, 444. Preston. Hon. Robert E., 487. Prices cut in two, 219. 221, 224. Primary money. 19, 29, 34, 210, 230, 263, 26S-270, 275, 283, 284, 300-302, 307. 460, 514, 524, 525. Prisoners, number of, 1880 and 1890. 381. Production of gold and silver in the world, 274. 306. 452. Professional men, 456. Prosperity, alleged, 239, 240, 285. 339, 360, 368, 379-385, 488, 519. Pullman Palace Car Company, 400. 404. Purchasing value of dollar, 222, 359, 365. Quantity of gold in U. S., 301. Quantity of gold and silver in the world, 442, 453, 458. Quantity of silver coined, 204, 209. 439-441. Questions by the audience, 98,. 142,. 191,. 245,. 290,. 351,. 425,. 508. Randall, Congressman, 155. Ratio between gold and silver, 51. 57. 61, 78, 94. 98. 174. 181. 200, 212, 217, 218, 225-227, 240. 251, 257. 305. 346, 425, 445, 468, 490, 509, 527. Record, Chicago, 124. 438, 443. Redemption money, 30, 491. Reed, C. C, question by, 193. Refining gold at the mints, 298, 306. Rejoinder by Mr. Harvey, 534. Rejoinder by Mr. Horr, 532. Relation of primary and credit money, 283, 284, 300-302. Relative production of silver and gold, 233. 234, 240, 252, 256, 345, 346. Remonetization, effect of, 458- 462, 474-480. Remonetize, the way to, 493. Rent, an increased charge on labor, 405. Representative or credit money, 268, 271, 275. Republic, endangered by pres- ent conditions, 21, 383. Republican platform, 351. 352. Repudiation, 473, 475, 522. Resumption of specie payments, 174. 359, 462. Revolutionary forefathers, 506. Rhode Island, 247. Rich men as citizens, 430. Rifle in every log cabin. 505. Robinson, Dr. S. A., 10. 168. 248, 260, 293, 352, 430. 508, 510. Rocky mountains, 500. Rogers. Prof. James E. Thorold, quoted, 08. 69, 70. Roman empire, 27, 288, 518. Romero, Mexican minister, 277. Rothschilds. 302. 348. Royal Statistical Society, 341. Rules of the debate, 12. Russia, 125. 394. 481. Salaries, provided for in act of 1873. 156. Salary grab. 117. 128. Salt Lake City convention, 415. Samuel, quoted. 130. San Francisco, 146. Sauerbeck's tables, 290, 341-344, 361. 363. 364. Savings banks, 465, 472. Sayre. Warren G., question by, 509. Schilling, Robert, question by, 425. Schulte, F. J., question by^, 355, 438. Scott, Senator from Pa., 164, 166. Scottish troops, story of, 502. Scripture, passage of, 28; sys- tem of quoting from, 140. Scudder. M. L., 311, 315. Scully, Lord, 407, 531. THE GREAT DEBATE 543 Secret pasage of law of 1873, 177, 178. Secretary of the Treasury, 167. Seeley, Dr. T. P., questiotis by, 353, 509. Seigniorage, 173. Selfishness, era of, 531. Selfishness of those whose wants are supplied, 529. Senate, U. S., 81, 110, 157, 158, 162-172. Sergei, Charles H., 10, 507. Servant girls, 463, 466. Seyd, Ernest, 153, 154. Shaw, W. A., his "History of Currency" quoted, 152, Sherman, Senator John, 79, 96, 111-115, 133-135, 157, 158, 164, 166, 177. Sherman, Judge Charles, 11-114. Sherman law, repeal urged by bankers, 322. Sherman law, silver purchased under, 354. Shibley, George H., 191, 294, 438. Shilling, English, 158. Shylocks of today,. 316. Sibley, J. C, question by, 143. Silver bullion owners, 412-414. Silver certificates, 37. Silver coins, 49, 64, 141. Silver dollar, 87, 114, 118, 126, 141, 147, 154, 204, 251, 297, 514, 525. Silver more stable than gold, 451. Silver standard nations, 174. Silver, world's supply of, 449- 451. Single standard, 499. 517. Skins used as money, 32. Slave-owner, 349. Slavery, 288. 350. Smith, Adam, 28. 69, 72. Socialistic basis, 367. Soetbeer, Dr. A., 213, 363. Sophocles, quoted, 130. Sound Money League, Chicago, 145. Sound Money League, New York, 194. South America, 174, 478. Souvenirs presented, 420-422, 497-500. Spain. 187, 503. Spanish silver, 38, 84. Spanish dollar, 55, 81, 88. Specie payments, resumption of, 174, 359, 462. Stable measure of value, 490. Standards of U.S. coinage, 40. Stark, E. D., 101, 198, 247, 290. Starvation, no evidences of, 488. Starvation of boy in Chicago, 530. States forbidden to coin money, 41. Statistical Abstract, 226. 231, 271, 329, 344, 362, 426, 429. Stenographers, 506. Stevens, Albert C, 373. Stewart, Senator, 115. Stock Exchange, N. Y., Ill, 112. Story of pig and pup, 244. Stoughton, Congressman from Mich., 79, 126, 164. Subsidiary coinage, 95, 129, 140, 159, 200. 298. Substitutes in war of rebellion, 495. Suess, Prof. Edward, 443, 447, 448, 519, 535. Suicides, number of, 18S9-1894, 381. Summary by Mr. Harvey, 523. Summary by Mr. Horr. 514. Supply and demand, 3S9-391. Supply of silver limited, 475. Supreme Court of Ohio, 523. Supreme Court of United States, 523, 532. Sweat-shop. 341. 347. Sweden, 394. Switzerland, 174, 394, 448. Table showing number of silver dollars coined. 204. Table showing gold equivalent of a silver dollar, 1834-1876, 209. Table showing commercial ratio of silver to gold, 1687-1894, 213. Table showing annual price of silver in London, 1833-1894, 232. Table showing the world's pro- duction of silver and gold, 1792-1892. 256. Table showing the world's pro- duction of silver and gold, 1873-1894, 274. Table showing production and value of agricultural staples, 1875-1879 and 1890-1S94. 340. Table showing javerage wages 544 THE GREAT DEBATE and their purchasing power, 1860-1890, 359. Table showing yearly number of murders, 1882-1891, 380. Table showing yearly number of immigrants, 1882-1894, 380. Table showing comparative fig- ures of Aldrich, Sauerbeck, and Soetbeer on average prices of products, 364. Table showing failures in the U. S., 1857-1894, 370. Tables showing increase in number of failures to total business population, 1879- 1890, 373. Tables showing increase in crime, insanity and suicides, 1880-1890, 381. Table showing public and pri- man from Mich., 199, 249. S 410, 411. Table showing amount of long- time debts in the U. S., 38^. Table showing per capita circu- lation of leading nations, 392, 393. Tables showing number of gold and silver coins turned out at the mints of the U. S., 1792-1873, 439-441. Table showing production of gold in the U. S., and amount used in the arts, 1880-1892, 449. 449. Table showing amount of sil- ver used as token money by leading nations, 450. Table showing production of gold for the world, 1849-1892, 452. Table showing production of gold from six principal sources, 1886-1893, 481. Taylor, Howard S., 5, 6, 100, 144, 438. Teller, James H., question by, 430. Tenant farmers, 246, 247. 266, 267, 406. 434. 436. Tenants in cities, 375, 436. Thomas, Henry P., Congress- vate indebtedness of the U. Thomas. Dr. Homer M., 11. Times-Herald, Chicago, 63. Token money, 182, 200, 269, 283, 450, 526. Tra(Je and transportation, work- ers in, 457, 462. Trade dollar, 86, 118, 134, 13;"). 160, 162, 169, 179, 304. Tramps, 398. Tr.^xsurer of the U. S., *C, 119. 225. Treasury of the U. S., 98, 121, 178, 179, 263. Tribune, Chicago, 59, 116, 177, 188, 194, 264, 353, 381, 407. Tribune, New York, 7, 59, 193, 194, 277, 289, 316, 365, 420, 427. Turck, Mr., 75, 76. Unemployed laborers, 224, 237. Union League Club, 6. Unit of values, 20, 39, 49, 57. 59, 63. 75. 87, 104, 147. 446, 514. U. S. Statistical Abstract, 226. 231, 329, 426, 429. U. S. Census, 266. Unlimited demand for silver as money, 211, 212, 233, 248. 259. 386. 387, 453, 469. 477, 516. Use of gold in the arts, 443, 447. 451. Jtah. 8. Value, attribute of monev. 31. Vanity, 351. Vedic epoch, 186. Vicent. Judge William A., 6. 63, 67, 74, 506. Volume of money affecting prioes, 278, 279, 283-285, 391, 427. 508. Wage-earners, how affected by free coinage, 17, 20, 229, 230. 237, 358-361, 464, .521. Wages, 103, 243, 245, 246. 306-400, 404-406, 519, 520. Walpole, corruption in ministry of, 124. Walsh, Archbishop, 485. Warner, Gen. A. J., 67, 93. 126. Washington. D. C, 146. 177. 495. Washington, President, 497. West Virginia, S, 104. Wheat certificates, 276. Wheat, price of, 68, 73, 74. 260, 337, 357, 362. 426, 428, 429. Wheat used as money, 32. Wilcox, W. D., 241, 242. Wisconsin, low wages in, 405. Women, past and present, 471. Wood, Fernando, 168. Wright, Carroll D., 358, 436, 437. Yardstick, 31, 64, 216, 219, 250, 489. This is the only official and au- thorized report of our debate. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. FEB 24 1968 63 REC'D LD EB It) 68'oAM TToi* A^ Ci^a" General Library LP. ?J A-4 oTT! -9. fi^. University of California Berkeley 9T^(8ST99TV)9t<'TT-wgi-8T 'PJO 1 ivi308814