Qf RAR'f J THE UNIVERSITY LIBkAWv W JOLLA. CALtfOHNW DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER. I do not believe it (the power ol regulating the currency) is a safe power in the banks. I believe it is a great power which is capable of belnp used for the destruction of the business and interests of ihe people. If confided to the banks * * * the banks will issue their notes or regulate the vol- iirne of the currency according to their own interests. * * * If it be to their interest to contract, they will contract. If it be to their Interest to ex- pand the currency, they will expand it. * * * 1 want no pet children of the Government and no stepchildren. Let all her children be treated alike. * * * So long as I hold a seat on thi.s floor I shall not, under any pressure, cast a vote which will give to any privile^iied class, to any pet children of the Government, a privilege or an advantage denied to the great masses of the people themselves. — Senator George's speech in ihe United States Senate, in February, 1884. SPEECH f. '"' HON. JAMES Z. GEORGE, OF MISSISSIPPI, m THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, Wednesday and Friday, September 20 and 22, 1893. WASHINGTON. 1893. SPEECH OF HON. JAMES Z. GEORGE The Senate having nnder consideration the bill (H. R. 1) to repeal a part of an act, approved July U, 1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasm-y notes thereon, and for other pur- poses"— Mr. GEORGE said: Mr. President: I am well aware that the debate has pro- ceeded to such an extent that discussion is not listened to with much patience by this body, but as I am a Democrat and happen to differ from a Democratic Administration upon tlris very im- portant measure, and as I believe that a largo majority of my constituents concur in the view which I take, I deem'it to be my duty to state with some iDi-ecisiou the reasons which compel me to refuse my support to the bill now before the Senate. There is no question as to the very serious and gi-ave financial situation in which we are placed, though there are now visible evidences of improvement. An important and essential part of our duty is to inquire and ascertain, if possible, the causes which have produced this unparalleled state of affairs, and then to enact the remedy. For any action of Congress taken in ignor- ance of the true causes would be a leap in the dark, and as likely to increase as to diminish the gravity of the evils under which the country suffers. Whilst we lind that the supporters of the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Shei-man bill agree that the repeal is a proper remedy, we find them differing widely as to the cause and nature of the disease itself. The President thinks the cause is the Sherman law, and very logically recommends its repeal. SHERMAN LAW NOT THE CAUSE OF PRESENT DISASTER. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] and the Senator from Indiana [Mr. VooRHEES], whilst differing widely as to the true cause, yet agree that our present troubles are not attribu- table to that much-abused enactment. The Senator from Massa- chusetts, after depicting in eloquent language the distress of the present, with equal force and eloquence described the liappy con- dition of ova- country up to tlic 4th of March last, which day seems, in his judgment, to be the beginning of our sorrows. In expressing his view of the causes of the present distress he uses the following language: While I do not attribute our present disasters in any part to the legisla- tion of 1890 (the Sherman law), I do attribute them to a serious extent to the failui'e of the present Exemitive to assure the country and the world that h^ woxild use the power sivou him tomaintain the twometals at par. This, with the prevalent dread of v.hat a distinguished member of this body de- scribed as a "war of extermination upon the protected industries of this country," accounts, in my judgment, for our existing condition. 486 3 Whilst not affreein^ with that distinguished Senator in his affirmation as to the true cause of our troubles, I concur with him ;;s to his negation on that subject. I ■am. after the best ex- amination I am able to give, convinced that our present disasters are not attributable in any part to the Sherman act. I am in accord with the view of the Senator from Indiana, which attributes in a large degree the causes of our disasters to the moneyed classes of the country. If these distinguished Sen- ators are i-ight, no relief can come from the passage of this bill. UNCONDITIONAL REPEAL AN AGGRAVATION OF TROUBLE AND NO RELIEF. My judgment is thattherepeal,unaccompanied with any other remedy, will be an aggravation of our troubles and in no sense a relief. Concurring in the opinion expressed by the Senator from In- diana, that the national banks and moneyed clashes are largely responsible for the precipitation on us of our present and recent financial troubles, yet I think there are causes beyond their ac- tion—causes inherent in the money system of the country and of Europe, which not only make these financial crises inevitable, but furnish the occasion and opportunity for the banks and capi- talists their allies in this country and in Europe to atrlict man- kind at their will with these constantly recurring monetary troubles. Two antagonistic forces exist in the financial world, engaged in never-ceasing conflict. One, the great mass of mankind — the laborers and producers — the other, those who have been fortunate enough to secure to themselves the greater part of the wealth of the world; between those who labor and those who have ac- quired and now enjoy the stored-up results of the past labor of mankind; between those producing commodities for exchange and consumption and those who possess the money and other machinery by which this exchange must be made and wages paid. The former class, being the great mass of mankind, the great mass of our own people, desire an abundance of money for which to exchange their labor and their products — they want a rise in the pric.^s of products. The latter, possessing nearly all the money of the world, and possessing moneyed obligations of nations and corporations and individuals to many billions of dollars, de- sire a sc ircity of money — an increase in its purchasing power. These, whilst knowing that all the gold and silver in the world are insufficient to carry on even to their advantage the trade of the world, have invented certain substitutes for money, highly profitable to them, in order to decrease metallic coinage— real money. By decreasing the amount of metallic money they have a larger field for the operation of their monetary devices; they have the opportunity to manufacture more of the substitutes for real money, which substitutes the world under the present sys- tem must use. They desire just enough of metallic money to enable them skillfully and profitably to manage their own sub- stitute devices for money. URGENT NEED OF INCREASE OF MONEY. As civilization advances, as trade and commerce increase, as they have done enormously in the last hundred years, so the necessity for an increase in money becomes more urgent. Up to the middle of this century, traders, capita ists, owners of money, all agreed with the great mass of the people that every increase in real money— gold and silver— was beneficial to mankind. It could not escape notice that periods of increasing volumes of money, always accompanied by rising prices, were periods of enterprise, industrial and commercial activity, of progress and advancement, and that periods of contraction were also times of stagnation, hardships, b mkruptcies, and penury. The great addition to the bimetallic money of the world about the middle of the present century— coming from the gold mines of Australia and California— caused a great rise in prices and a corresponding fall in the purchasing jjower of metallic money. Or, in other words, the wealth of the money classes was greatly diminished; those who had money could only buy a greatly di- minished part of the commodities of the world. So it was gravely proposed to demonetize gold, that being the metal which was then so rapidly increasing in volume. But that scheme only partially succeeded. Gold, though very largely produced, became at length a diminishing production. The production of silver began to increase beyond all foi-mer precedents. The fear was, not that the Avoi-ld would have too much money for its monetary needs, but that prices would continue to rise and the purchasing power of money, that is, its value, would continue to decrease. FIRST MONETARY CONFERENCE. This was the situation inlS67 when the first international mon- etary conference met in P ' is at the invitation and under ihe auspices of the Emperor Napoleon. In the mean time— between A. D. 1850 and that year — France had exchanged her silver me- tallic currency for gold, though without demonetization of silver The invitation to this conference skillfully concealed the de- sign of its author. It invited the nations to confer about the international unification of coin, and referred to the bimetallic Latin Union — established in 1S65— as the desirable thing to be followed by all nations; but it expressed next, if that were not satisfactory, a wish to confer about other means of unification. It alluded to the benefits already realized from the bimetallic Latin Union, and enlarged upon the evils coming "from the di- versity of coinage which multiply the fluctuations of exchanges." That was the feast to which the nations were invited. The United States accepted the invitation in this sense and in no other. The conference met, and without notice to the world, without notice to the governments which had sent delegates, they recommended a single gold standard. This action excited no attention in this country at the time, for we were then using a forced paper currency. BTmOPB TURNING TO THE GOLD STANDARD. But soon the effects of the conference began to be felt. As early as June 17, 18ti9, Norway, in consequence of this recom- mendation, began to turn from a sole silver standard to gold. (See Report International Confei'ence of 1881, page 393.) The other Scandinavian states joined in the movement. A com- plete transition in these states from a silver to a single gold standard was effected in 1872 and 1874. Germany, having con- quered France and exacted a billion of dollars as indemnity, lax'gely in gold, commenced in the next year, 1871, to change to a gold standard exclusively, completing that transition in 1873. 6 nep'.iblican France, humiliated and impoverished, now began to reap the fruits of the action of lier late emperor, consummated "by tlie international conference of 18t)7. Deprived largely of her gold by lier triumphant enemy, she believed that she was to be made the dumping ground of the millions of silver which were being sold by Germany. She was also induced by the action of tbo United States to make that movement. Right here I desire to correct a statement made by the very accurate and learned Senator from Iowa [Mr. Allison] on this subject. In answer to an interruption in his very able speech a few d:iys ago, he asserted that there was no such action of the Uhited'States ]n'ior to the action of France which could influence or did influence her action. The record is the other way. I might remark in this connection that in the examination and discussion of this very important, aye, momentous question, to the American people, it seems that statesmen and pub- licists are dwelling in a kind of hallucination, by which they mistake important and well-settled historical as well as finan- cial facts. The fact is ttjat France took no step toward the de- monetization of silver until many months after the action of the Congress of the United States, in February, 1873. But as this point is disputed by so able and accui*ate a Senator as the Senator from Iowa, I deem it my duty to present to the Senate the evi- dence which sustains the assertion which I make. I read now from the proceedings of the international conference of 1881, which met at Paris for the purpose of investigating this ques- tion. This is a statement in reference to France made by Mr. Cernuschi, who was a delegate to that conference: The late legislation of the Gei-mau Empire produced, after 1873, a great afflux of silver in Belgium and Francs. The French mints, which In 1872 had received less than a million of francs worth of silver to coin, received onchuudred and seventy-three millions worth of it in 1873. Here is the first step ever taken by the French Government in reference to a suspension of the coinage of silver: A ministerial order of the 6th of September, 1873, directed thatthemlntage of silver 5-f ranc pieces should henceforth be restricted to 200.030 francs per day. Our action was in February of that year. About six months after the United States had demonetized silver France, through a ministerial order, restricted the coining of silver in the sev- eral mints. It is not worth while to read the extent to which they restricted it. They made the first order on the 6th of Sep- tember, 1873. Then they made a second order in November, 1873, still further limiting it. ■ The system of limited coinaRe of silver, with a contingent for each State, was inaugurated in the Latin Union by the treaty of January 31, 1874, and has been in force since then. So, Mr. President, it is a plain historical fact, and a momentous fact, so far as we are concerned, that our demonetization of sil- ver antedated any action on the part of Prance by at least six months, and was, in fact, the cause of the action of France. How the demonetization luippened hero I need not now discuss. By what influences— through what ignorance of this action on the part of the great body of members of Congress, including in this Ignorance some of the most eminent statesmen in the Union of both parties, atid including in it also the President of the United States — I need not now recall. That matter has been sufficiently 486 debated. It was, however, done in such manner that our Com- missioners to tho International Monetary Conference of 1ST8, speaking through Mr. Grocjibeck, felt authorized to say: From 179:2 to this day, v/hen by a soz't of inadvertenco in 1873 the silver standard was superceded, not a mercliant, nota baulcer, not anjanufacturer, not an establishment, nor an interest of any Icind could be cited as having raised any objection to the simultaneous use of the two metals. Biuutal- lisni is therefore in the United States notou'.y a tradition of the law. but has entered deeply into the habits of the people. (See International Monttary Conferenco Report 1881, page 21.) Mr. Evarts, in the conference of 1881, called the demonetiza- tion of silver in the United States in 1873 an "unlucky inci- dent " in the legislation of that year. CONSPIRACY FOB DEMONETIZATION. At that time, it is hardly necessary for me to remark, as every- body knows it, that on the ratio of IG to 1 silver was at 3 per cent premium; but after those events silver fell rapidly as com- pared with gold, but not as compared with anything else. Well was Mr. Carlisle justified in saying that this demonetization was the result oi' a consi)iracy, and the conspirators, sir, were mon- archical Europe, the money-lenders, the holders of money se- curities in Europe and in this country. Money was about to be- come too abundant, as was complained in 1850; the prices of agricultui'al and other products were too high. Labor was about to be too well rewarded. Tho autocratic control over human affairs by money was threatened. The emancipation of the masses of the people appeared to be imminent. God's gifts to the human race for their progress and welfare were about to be- come through their munillcencc dangerous to plutocratic sway. So one-half must be destroyed. This work was done by kings and emperors and the holders of money. This destruction was not demanded, as Mr. Groesbeck stated, by any single business intcrestin this country. It had not been discussed in the newspapers. Our Congress, without knowledge of what they were doing, by a simple provision — an omissioi^ rather than affirmative action — in a very long and complicated bill, demonetized silver, and the act was approved by a great President, not knowing at the time what he was doing. EFFORTS TO REVERSE DEMONETIZATION. Prom the time of the discovery of the deed of demonetization the people of the United States have persistently agitated to se- cure back what they had thus furtively or, if that term be pre- ferred, inadvertently lost. In 1888 and 1892 the Republican national convention unequivocally pronounced in favor of the coinage of both gold and silver, and in the former year condemned in vigorous language Mr. Cleveland's administration for what they wei'e pleased to say were its efforts "to demonetize silver." In 1884 the Democratic national convention declared in favor of "honest money," which they declared to be "the gold and silvsr coinage ofthe Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such money" (gold and silver, not gold alone), "without loss." In 1888 the Democratic convention, without mentioning gold and silver specifically, " reaffirmed the platform adopted by its representatives in the convention of 1884." In 189:2, the last ut- terance of the party on tho question, it was distinctly affirmed 486 8 that "We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the stand- ard money of the country and to the coin:ige of both gold and silver without discriminating against either.'' The Populists' convention, in 1 81)2, demanded "the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1." On more than one occasion free coinage, a restoration to the people of their ancient right, has passed one House and leen defe;ited in the other. Three times, in 1890, in 1891, and in J 892, and if I did not misunderstand the Senator from Iowa in his speech the other day, at another time has a free-coin-ige bill passed the Senate and failed in the House of Representatives. Once in 1877 a free-coinage bill passed the House and was de- feated in the Senate by an amendment which created the Bland- Allison act. RISE AND FALL OF PRICES. From that fateful day, when in 1873 silver was demonetized, the people have suffered and decayed, and money owners and holders of money obligations have flourished. Prices rose from 1849 to 1873, 38 per cent; during that period there were immense additions to the gold and silver of the world. In 1873, the date of demonetization, prices began to fall. From 1873 to 1885 there was a fall of 30 per cent. This is according to Dr. Soetbeer's tables. Mr. Sauberback's calculation shows that, taking the average of prices from 1867 to 1877 as the basis, there has been a fall up to 1887 of 68 per cent in the general range of ])rices; and the London Economist shows that this fall has continued up to 1892, for the two years 1890 and 1891, at the rate of 2* per cent per annum. These figures are taken from the speech of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Jones] in the conference of 1892. But we need no tables to show the fall in the great agricultural products, wheat and cotton; both have fallen to a point below the cost of production. COTTON AND WHEAT GO DOWN WITH SILVER. I will, however, insert in my remarks at this point a table which was printed in the remarks of my colleague [Mr. Wal- thall] in this body on the 7th instant, from which it appears that there was pari pa^su an even fall of cotton and wheat from 1872 to 1892 along with the fall in the price of silver. The table is as follows: Year. Wheat. Cotton. Silver. Year. Wheat. Cotton. Silver. 1872 $1.47 1.31 1.43 1.12 1.24 1.17 1.34 1.07 1.25 1. n 1.19 Cents. 19.3 18.8 1.5.4 15 12.9 11.8 11.1 9.9 11.5 11.4 11.4 81.32 1.29 1.27 1.24 1.15 1.20 1.15 1.12 1.14 1.13 1.13 1883 $1.13 1.07 .86 .87 .89 .85 .90 .83 .85 .80 Cents. 10.8 10.5 10.6 9.9 9.5 9.8 9.9 10.2 7 7.3 $1.11 1873 lSg4 1.01 1874 1875 1«H5 1«86 1.06 .99 1876 1887 .97 1877 1888 .93 1878. 1889 .93 1879 1830 1.04 1880 . . 18J1 .90 1881 1892 .86 1882 486 9 The evils of demonetization have been acknowledged by all parties. Promises of redress, as I have shown, have been freely made. False and delusive hopes have been held out for relief through international monetary conferences. MONETARY CONi'EltENCE OF 1882. Three of these have been held . The evil to the world of silver demonetization has been acknowledged in them, but nothing has been done. In 1892, November 22, the latest monetary confer- ence met. The delegates fully acknowledged the gravity of the situation arising from silver demonetization. The president of the conference said in his opening address that the delegates would " investigate the possibility of remedying the condition of affairs, of which none mistake the gravity." Another delegate said: Whatever personal sympathies we may feel, we must admit that very few of us have been able to ascree with the stoic opinion, which denies the exist- ence of a crisis, and concludes very logically there is no need of looking for a remedy. * * * It disappears before the reitc^rated and recent declara- tions of statesmen, who have descriliod the evils wnich are ruining the agri- culture and destroying the industries of their country with a precision whose signitlcance it is impossible to mistake. And the president of the conference, on adjourning it, said: At the moment we suspend our labors we carry with us, I regret to say, the very general impression of an uneasiness which calls for a remedy. And Mr. Rothschild, the great banker and monometallist, and a delegate to the conference, in submitting his proposition that European nations should join the United States in purchasing silver as a palliative for what was considered an impending mone- tary crisis, said: I need not remind you [the conference] that the stock of silver in the world is estimated at several thousands of millions, .and if this conference were to break up without arriving at any definite restill, there would be a deprecia- tion in the value of that commodity which it would be frightful to contem- plate and out of which a monetary panic would ensue, the far-spreading effects of which it would be impossible to foretell. Those were the opinions expressed in the conference . The con- ference adjourned, without action, on December 17, 1892, till the 30th of May of the present year, when it was hoped that they would be reconvened and further consideration of the remedy would be resumed. He who will study the deliberations of these conferences will be struck with the general consensus of opinion, that silver was a necpssary money metal. The failure to agree was upon some common action to be taken by the principal nations, and not on the necessity for silver as money. The response of the European delegates to the proposition of the United States, being the conclusion of the conference of 1878, stated, as their judgment, "that it is necessary to main- tain in the world the monet:u'y functions of silver, as well as those of gold, but that the selection, for use of one or the other of the two metals, or of both simultaneously, should be gov- erned by the special position of each state or group of states." (See Conf. rep. of 1878, p. IG.'J.) This reference to the action of these conferences is designed to show and doossbow that whilst they failed to produce results, it was the opinion of the dele- gates, after full debate, that silver, just as gold, .^^hould continue to be a monetary metal, and that each st:ite was to judge for it- self how it would use either, or both, according to its special condition. 486 10 TROUBLE CAUSED BY DEMONETIZATION OF SILVER AND NOT BT SHERMAN LAW. The quotations from the last conference in A. D. 1892 show tliat in the months of December and November of last year the ablest men in monet;iry affairs in ICuroiJO concurred v.-ith the United States in bolievin>r that the demonetization of silver — as 1 have explained, in and about 1873 — was cause for serious alarm apd for apprehension of a monetary crisis of the gz'avest char- acter, and that no one attributed this condition to the Sherman law. On the contrary, great weight was given to the view that silver purchases ought to be increased — even partipipated in by other governments. It \yas suggested by no on,e that purchases under that law would even contribute to a crisis. It was thought they would tend to avoid it. But, Mr. President, the evident disposition of the conference of 1892 to consider further the grave questions before it, the gen- eral acknowledgment that the monetary situation was then, owing to the demonetization of silver, sei'ious if not alarming, and the adjournment till the 30th of May for further delibera- tion, produced a profound impression on those who were inter- ested in keeping money scarce, and thereby giving it more and more value as compared with commodities. So they conspired again. As in 1873, as declared by Mr. Carlisle, and as 1 think the circumstances I have mentioned conclusively show, they con- spired toprocure demonetization. So now, in the beginning of our present troubles, they conspired to defeat all efforts to remedy that great wrong, and even to augment the disasters which had followed demonetization by a repeal of the Sherman law. The people of the United States had endeavored, as I have shown, to repeal the act of demonetization. Their efforts liad been baffled. They had secjred partial relief only. In 1878 they got the small and inadequate relief of the Bland act. Like a sensi- ble and practical people, as they are, they took what they could get, with the determination that they would not cease their ef- forts to gain all that was due them. They persisted from year to year, but their efforts were futile. At last, in 1890, the Sen- ate passed another bill for free coinage of silver. It was not passed by the House, but such action was taken as resulted in a conference between the two Houses. The confer- ence report gave the act of 1890, called the Sherman law. The Democrats voted against it. The free-coinage Democrats — or at least I did — so voted, not because it provided for an addition to the purchase of silver and consequently to the volume of the currency, but because, taking the whole act together, it was not deemed as favorable to free coinage as the Bland act, which it repealed. VOTE AGAINST REPEAL OR GIVE UP SILVER. Some Senators who voted against the Sherman act and who now oppose, not the repeal of the Sherman act, but the repeal of one clause of it, are criticised as being inconsistent. It is said as an excuse for Mr. Carlisle's change of position upon this ques- tion, and very properly, that the circumstances differ. How much, sir, do the circumstances differ now as to those of us who voted against the Sherman act in 1890? Then we had a choice betv,-een the Bland- Allison act, which gave us certainly $2,000,000 of silver coinage per month and possibly $4,000,000, and the 11 Sherman law. To-day we have no such choice. If Senators who are advocating' the pcndinc,-- bill dcsii-e to place us in an incon- sistent position, they ought to brin^-ina, bill repealing' the whole of the Sherman law and reviving the Bland-Allison act of 1878. But they do not do that. They do not propose even to repeal the whole act, but one single clause of it, and that clause the very one which every Senator who is for free silver approved of, for the purchase of more silver. We free-coinageDemocrats voted against it for the reasons T have stated, because we did not regard it as being as favorable to free coinage as the act which it repealed. It did, however, contribute to an increase of currency. NATIONAL BANKS BENT ON REPEATj Off SHERMAN LAW. It was assailed by the mouometallists and bankers from the very beginning. The national banks, who had shown their op- position to the coinage of any amount of silver, who had in 1878 immediately after the i^assage of the Bland-Allison act, refused to receive silver on deposit, and to use it in the clearing house and exchanges, and who were only compelled by an act of Con- gress in 1882 to do that thing, of course opposed the Sherman law. It was assailed by the monometallists from the beginning. They had become enamored of the gold standard of Europe. The falling prices of cortimodities, consequent on the increased purchasing jiower of gold, augmented largely the v.-ealth of those owning money and money obligations. Through the insuffi- ciency of the metallic currency, and the opportunity thus af- forded to increase the devices I have alluded to for supplying this deficiency, these men had acquired unlimited power over the finances of the country. It was determined to reverse the action of Congress in enacting the Sherman law, and thereby prevent a further increase of the volume of the currency for which it provided. Mr. President, it had not been regarded by the national banks, though thoy opposed it, that the Sherman act contained the dangers now ascribed to it. Nor did the business men of the country have that opinion. Both acted under it exactly as if it were a safe and sound financial measure free from danger. The act went into operation in August, 1890. That the business men and money-owners had faith in the financial situation as fixed by the Sherman law is shown by their deposits in the banks. When trouble and disaster are anticipated money is hoarded — as we have reason to know in the last few months — withdrawn from banks, not deposited in them. The deposits in national banks incrc;'-fed in the year ending October 2, 1890— a date nearly three months after the passiigc of the act — o\-er the deposits of the preceding year by$lOS,;{0(),000; and in the next year the deposits were about the same amount; and in the next year, ending September 30, 1S!)2. they were still further inci'eased, in addition to the increase of the year ending October 2, 1800, by the sum of $243,800,000. BANKS HAD NO FEAR OF SHERMAN LAW. This shows conclusively there was no fear on the part of the business men. The banks themselves exhibited their confidence in the finances by increilsing their capital stock by $64,000,(Ki0over the stock in the year ending September 30, 1889. But more 486 12 than this, as if to show their entire confidence in the monetary system as tixed by that act, they increased their lonnsto $2,171.- 000,000 in the year ending Se))tember 'M, 1892, as compared with $1,805,700,000 in the year ending September 30, 1S89. The business of the banks in deposits and loans and the in- crease of capital stock showed the utmost confidence in the monetary situation under the Slierman law. The exports and imports of gold during the year ending June ;]0, 1891, and June 30, 1892, exhibit the same confidence. In the first year named the net exports were $63,590,tit)G, and the next year succeeding that, having another year of experience under the Sherman law. the net exports were only $494,873. This confidence as exhibited by exports and imports of gold contin- ued up to and including the month of November, 1892, on the 22d day of which month the international monetary conference met. The gross exports of gold for October, 1892, were only $484,- 250, and in November only $1,138,647. The imports for these two months show a net gain in gold to the country of $4,572,- 645. The imports exceed the exports by that amount. But suddenly there was a change. The international conference was in session, with the sentiments favorable to a more enlarged use of silver, which I have mentioned. They determined to meet again on May 30, to try to come to an agreement favorable to this enlarged use. England's delegates, through Mr. Roths- child, had expressed the gravest apprehensions of disaster if no agreement was reached. The United States had c.illed the con- ference. A new President had been elected, supposed to be not favorable to the Sherman law. The Ijanks had the power, in conjunction with their allies, to absolutely dominate the mone- tary situation. The situation itself, occasioned, as I have shown, by the de- monetization of silver, increased this power. Apprehensions had been expressed by the greatest authorities on finance in the world of a monetary crisis, certain to come at no distint day, not from the purchase of silver, but from a too small purchase of silver. The financial world was thus in a condition in which distrust could be easily fomented. THE MOSEY POWERS CONSPIRE TO REPEAXi THE SHERMAN LAW. So, it was resolved that such a condition of affairs should be produced as would compel a repeal of the Sherman act, and thereby destroy all chances of remonetizing silver, and thus give to the banks and their allies the profitable business of supplying the needed currency at their will, contracting or expanding, raising or reducing prices, as they should see proper. CRISIS PRODUCED TO PREVENT MONETARY CONEERENCB. Whilst the conference was in session the exports of gold were suddenly i-aised to $12,879,727 for the month of December, the imports' being only $1,540,538. Whether this sudden increase in the exports was the result of a preconceived plan to produce a panic, or whether coming from the course of trade and excessive monetary demands in Europe it was afterward seized upon to produce distrust and a consequent panic, it is difficult to determine accurately. However this may be, the large exports were at once made the ground for either inducing or aggravating the seriousness of the situation. After December. 1892, there was a continuous monthly increase 486 13 of exports of gold to the 30th of May, 1893, reaching $19,148,064 in April, and in May $16,914,317. Then fi-ora the day on which the international conference was to miet— the conference having been abandoned — the exports fell suddenly to $1^,771,220 in June, and since then there have been continuous net importations of gold to the amount of many millions; I believe about fifty-four millions several days ago. The Senate will note that the sudden ceasing of the large ex- portation of gold occurred on the very day when this conference was to meet, when it was ascertained that the conference would not meet. The crisis had been produced and the conference had failed. During all this time the country heard it announced over and over again in the metropolitan press and by the banks and their agents that all this trouble came from the Sherman law; and in connection with this was a demand not only for the repeal of the act, but also for the issue of new bonds with which to buy gold, and, what was equally significant and important, to furnish a basis for the additional issue of national- bank notes which the crisis thus produced seemed to demand. They determined to have the exclusive right to furnish the currency for the country, and in such quantities as they might see proper. And thus these corporations, skillfully taking advantage of a situation made, by the demonetization of silver, favorable to the successor their machinations, filled the world with a clamor that the purchase of silver under the Sherman law was the cause of the disasters which they had themselves produced. I am glad to know that the able chairman of the Committee on Finance, Mr. Voorhees, fully concurs in the view I have expressed as to the cause of the gold exports. He used the fol- lowing language: The shipments of gold which took place from this country in the last four or five mouths must be accounted for, to my mind, In a different way. They were a part of the same plan which attenipte.l to sack the Treasury of its gold reserve fund, to create distrust, fear, agitation, panic, and a withdrawal, ::s far as possible, of all moneyin circulation: and all this to be aciompanied by a concerted outcry from terror-stricken business circles, and from the whole national-banking system, that nothing can restore contldence and save the public credit except the issuance of at least $300,000,000 of interest- bearing Government bonds. To which I will add, and the repeal of the Sherman law. I add also the testimony of the distinguished Senator from New York [Mr. HiLL] to the same elt'ect. The Senator, whilst stating that it can not be denied that the Sherman law has been at least in part, and possibly the most largely, instrumental in producing the existing complications, also stated, in most graphic and eloquent language, the part that had been borne by the gold monometallists. WHAT SENATOR HILIj SAYS OF THE PANIC. I quote from his speech: Some portion of the present panic may be traced to a concerted effort on the part of numerous monometallists to produce It in order further to discredit silver aw a part of the standard money of the country. That fact is apparent everywhere we turn. And among their acts which contributed to this result he men- tioned: They encouraged the hoarding of money; they inaugurated the policy of refusing loans to the I'.oople. even upon the besi security; they circulated false petitions, passed absurd and alarming resolutions ; predicted the direst 486 u disaster, attacked tho creditor the Government, sought to exact a premirqn upon currency, and attempted In every way to spread distrust broadcast throughout the laud. He continues. J quote his languog^e literally: The best tiuaucial system in tho world could not stand such an organized and vicious attack upon it. These disturbers, these promoters of the public peril, represent largely the creiliior class, the men who desire to appreciate the gold dollar lu tirdor to subserve their own sellish interest, men who revel in hard times, men who drive harsh bargains with their fellow-men In periods of Jiuancial distress, and men wholly unfamiliar with the principles of monetary science. It is not strange that the present monetary panic has been induced, in- tensified, and protracted by reason of thoii- malign influences. But it will be objected to this view, that tho banks and their allies would not combine to produce a situation by which they themselves were to be losers. From circumstances hereafter to be stated, it is not certain that the great banks in New York who have the power to produce the crisis and did produce it have been losers. But if they have, the ansvrer to that view is contained in the following extract from the same speech of the Senator from Indiana: If it be assorted that some of the banks have therefore suffered and fallen by the overthrow of public and private confidence which has taken place, it only adds one more illustration to the well-known fact that a demon of destruction once raised sometimes escapes tho control of its masters and turns and rends them. * * * In this attempt to force the Government into the attitude of a borrower, the banks have endangered their own credit, and in many instances totally lost tho confidence of those who trusted them. And the distinguished Senator from NeAV York, immediately following the quotation I have made from his speech, expressed a similar view in these words: Having contributed much to bring about the present exigency, these men— The monometallists and creditors described in the extract be- fore quoted — are now tinable to control it. They have sown to the wind, and we are now reaping the whirhvind. So it is that the present storm which has been raised will not be still at the bidding of the necromancers who called it into being. As in the outset, on the eve of the bursting of the storm upon the country the banks were acting, as has been shown, as if there was to be no trouble which they could not master, so in its progress they up to a late date exhibited the same confidence in their abil- ity to control it. I mention that as another evidence that they got it up. They increased their loans so that in nine months they were $2,141,400,000 from October 2, 1892, to May 4, 1893, as against $2,171,000,000 in the preceding twelve months, almost as much in nine months as in tlie foregoing twelve. At the same time there was a decrease in their siDccie and legal-tender re- serve; and their percentage of cash to net deposits was exactly the same as it was in the year ending September 25, 1891. This proves beyond controversy that tho banks had the utmost confi- dence in their ability to ride the storm which they had raised, that it would down at their bidding. They were lending and gaining just as if no storm had arisen. But, sir, whilst it may be conceded that the contagion of dis- trust has been spreading; that the financial crisis produced, as I have explained, has gotten beyond the control of those who evoked it, yet it is by no means certain that it has entailed loss and disaster on the banks. 486 15 BANKS LOSE NOTniNC; BY THE CRISIS. If thero has been a want of confidence in their solvency, and, therefore, a wish on the p:irt of depositors to withdraw their money, tliatwish has beenmetbyaflat refusal to pay them. For the ish deposited and p:iyabic on demand, and which the banks had loaned as their own at a largo interost, only the certified cheeks of the banksare tendered to the depositor. For his money and the promise of the bank to pay on demand he gets another promise of the bank to pay, when it shall suit its convenience. These checks in many places circulate as money. So desperate is the condition of the peo]>le from want of money that they take as currency the dishonored obligations of the banks Avho are the authors of their ruin. But the banks hive other resources for maintaining them- selves than by refusing to pay on demand their debts to de- positors; they manufacture and ui-e without authority of law, and contrary to law, the currency to help them out of their dis- tress. They resort to the ingenious device of issuing what is called clearing-house certificates, which are not allowed to cir- culate among the people, but are kept for use exclusively by the bafiks, to enable them to persist in locking up the currency by their refusal to pay depositors. These certificates in New York amount to over $;J8,000,()00. What is the total amount in the whole country I am unable to say, but it is probably not less than $l(Rl,OU(',000. ' The power of the banks for evil, to create monetary troubles, is so grcit tliat even this body of ambassadors from the States, the great tribunal in which the rights, the dearest interests, the pi-osperity and happiness of the American people are sup- posed to be, aiid I believe are, the great end of our deliberations, dares not to inquire into these illegal transactions lest their of- ficial exposure shall increase the distress which the sinning banks have brought upon the people. Now, Mr. President, up to this point I have discussed the agency of the banks and their allies in producing the present panic, and endeavored to show their power to do it, as coming from the conditions which were peculiar to the time at which this crisis commenced. THE SINGLE GOLD STANDARD BREEDS MONETARY CRISIS AND DANGEROUS TO PROSPERITY. Now, I procsed to show that our present monetary^ system, based on gold as the only money of ultimate redemption, is at all times and under all circumstances favorable to the produc- tion of monetary crises, whether they come from acts of folly on the p.vrt of governments, of traders or bankers, or may be de- literately designed. Sir, I mean to say that the present system is a constant menace and ever-impending danger to the pros- perity of the human race. SCARCITY OF METALLIC MONEY INCREASES THE POWER OF THE BANKS Great, sir, as is this power of the b:mks and their allies, the moneyed classes, they could not at their will dominate and con- trol tiie business of the world unless there was a real and per- manent deficiency in actual or metallic money. The smaller the amount of real money in circulation or in existence, the more is the need for paper money and those contrivances and devices for economy in the actual use of money which are so much relied on by the monometallists. Bank paper and bank contrivances for 16 minimizing the use of money are the means by which the power of the moneyed cl-isses is itiade nbs^olute. They are despots with autocratic sway in the re ilm of trade and production. Hence, sir, the proposition is now mide openly for the first time in the United States by any considerable number of men to dispense entirely with nil ver as money of full debt-payinj? power, to degrade it to mere token or subsidiary money, depending for its value, like paper, upon its redeomability in gold. And in this connection it must not be forgotten that as silver money is made subordin.ate. as it is now in the United States and in Europe, dependent upon redemption in gold, as a necessity for its parity with that met il, gold has imposed on it an additional demand and duty whereby it is made still more valuable in comparison with commodities, thus causing prices to fall more and more. NOT MONEY ENOUGH IN THE WORLD TO TRANSACT BUSINESS. That there is a deficiency in the amount of gold to do the world's business is generally conceded, at least in this Chamber. It is needful, however, to a clear conception of the questions aris- ing on this bill that the facts and figures showing this deficiency and its extent should be set out. By a Treasury circular dated the 16th of August, 1893, it ap- pears that all the gold coin in the world is $3,582,605,000, say, in round numbers, thi'ee and one-half billions of dollars. This state- ment refers to countries containing a population of 1,220,000,000. Deduct the population of China, South and Central America, and Mexico, aggregating 4')0, 000,000 — all now on a silver basis and also India, which is now somewhat uncertain as to its fu- ture monetary policy — we have in round numbers 700,000.000 of silver-using people to be deducted, which leaves 522,000,000 of people for the gold-using countries. Then giving these coun- tries all the gold, say three and one-half billion dollars, we have that sum on which to do the foreign commerce of the civilized world (excluding China and India) which in 1>;!!),479,524; debts due by banks to depositors, $4.- 900,000,000; del)ts due to banks by borrowers, $4,300,000,006; making a grand aggregate of $153,824,272,505, or about $370, of needs for money, to one dollnr in gold, in circulation, and about $100 to every dollar of all kinds in the United States. To this is to be added for traffic and business unenumerated a sum many times larger. AMOUNT OF MONEY ABROAD ALSO rNStrFFICIENT. We have seen how utterly insufficient is the money in the United States for the needs of the people. I now show that the world's needs — excluding the silver-using countries— are equally unsatisfied.. Taking the railroad traffic of Europe— omitting Roumania, Turkey, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, and Spain, for which I have no statistics — and the internal traffic of the whole of Eu- rope, estimated on the basis of twice that of the United States, though the population is five and a half times greater, and the expenses in manufacturing and mining and agriculture at the same rate, and counting the taxation as actually returned, with estimate's only as to the local taxes, except as to taxation in Roumania, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, which is estimated, we have three hundred and ten billions for Europe's annual needs for money. But from this is excluded what was included in the computa- tion for the United States— all local and municipal debts, all railroad debts, and all private debts. Adding the above sum to the demand for money in the United States and we have four hundred and fifty-nine billions as the annual needs of Europe and the United States for money, leav- ing out the exceptions before noticed, and the unspecified busi- ness hereafter to be alluded to, and also the whole foreign com- merce of the world, over twenty-five billions, and the interest on the public debts of the world seven hundred and fifty mil- lions. The above specifications shows $130 of needs to$l in gold, giv- ing Europe and the United States all the gold in the world, and yet of the three and one-half billions of that gold three hundred and seven-six millions are in other countries. In these calculations I have made no estimate for cost of min- ing the precious metals. Of these, two hundred and twelve mil- lions were mined in 1892, and counting all losses in unprofitable mining, I believe it is understood that each dollar mined costa dollar in expenses. Sir, in making these estimates I have designedly been ex- tremely conservative. My object has been to exhibit amounts certainly needed and at the same time to call attention to the general subject of the world's needs for money, with such speci- fications as would t Mid to aid the thoughtful mind to grasp these great needs for itself, and to furnish suggestions for data (rather than to give complete data) by which some idea might be formed 48S 22 of the great inadequacy of the money of the world to do the needed work. But, sir, in this tabuhition we have omitted, as before alluded to, the immense transactions I'oquiriug the use of money, based on all handicraft manufactures, and all m inufactures elsewhere than in cities of 20,000 inhabitants and over; on all sales of lands, the lending- in the first instance of money by others than banks, on other securities than mortgages; all transactions in com- modities not transported by railroads and water craft; and build- ing houses, barges, ships, steamboats, and repairing the same; expenses in the immense slaughter and packinghouses; compen- sation to di-ay men, truckmen, hackmen, blacksmiths, bakers, sa- loon-keepers; for work in distilleries; compensation to attaches of theatrical companies and other exhibitions; in domestic serv- ice; to hotel-keepers and servants, restaurant-keepers, lawyers, doctors, preachers, keepers of lodging-houses, lumbermen, rents of dwellings and other houses and lands; money used in travel- ing other than for railroad fares, including money used in navi- gating all water craft, ships, barges, canal boats, and in street cars, omnibuses, hack and carriage fares; to pay sewing-women; money spent daily for newspapers and the wages and other expenses in publishing them, and of books and magazines; spec- ulations in stocks, in futures, and speculation by real purchase and sale of commodities; and the expenses of running the large number of colleges and universities and high schools not pro- vided for by taxation. To these there are to be added many other kinds of daily ex- penditures requiring money. ONLY ONE DOLLAR IN GOLD TO EVERY ONE HUNDRED AND FIFtY DOtiLABS NEEDED IN COMMERCE. And yet, sir, to do all this work, to carry on this specified com- merce and business of Europe and the United States, we have but three and a half billions of gold— one dollar in gold to about one hundred and fifty in traffic and commerce, without estimat- ing for the unspecified business, which I have no doubt amounts to ten times as much more. That the world also uses about the same amount of legal-ten- der silver, say three and one-half billions, does not help tlie cause of the mouomctallist. For by refusing to coin silver as we do gold, in unlimited quantities whenever the bullion is presented, we have reduced the gold price of silver at the ratio of 10 to 1, the largest in any coinage in the world, to the bullion value of 60 cents in the dollar. This large amountmust, therefore, be kept atpar with gold by making it redeemable in gold like paper money , and thus, as I have before shown, increasing the value of gold by requiring it to perform this nesv duty. As it is claimed that the trouble now aflQicting us is the fear that this would not be done in the United States, i might rest this part of the case by transferring this three and one-half billions of silver to the commodity column, as before ascertained, for which gold must furnish the exchange. But if we allow it to stand as money, then, sir, we have seven billions of metallic money to do the whole world's commerce of about four hundred and seventy billions, with the unenumerated billions included in the business I have alluded to, for which vre have no statistics. 486 23 Will that do? It seoins to bo conceded it -will not do. We hear from all sides nearly that v;e must have an intcvnational monetary conference to set silver up again as a money metal. That would be folly if we had money enough without it. That is unattainable. England, the gi^eat creditor of the world, stands in the way. BHALL WE ACT FOR OUKSELVES OR WAIT FOB CONSENT OF BDROPE? WHAT JEFFERSON SAID. Mr. President, I desire to submit this question to the serious consideration of the American people. With us all conceding that there ought to be remonetization of silver, that we need silver, that it is necessary to cari'y on the world's work properly, that there is a deficiency of currency, ai'o we to stop and say we will not supply this deficiency, as was suggested by the Senator from Texas [Mr. Mills] yesterday, without the consent of Eu- rope? Is it a fact that in the most important of all governmental action we dare not take a single step to supply an acknowledged want of the American people without consulting Europe? On that subject I desire to read, for the benefit of some Senators who profess to be JefEersonian Democrats, what Mr. Jefferson said not quite a century ago. I read from a letter dated May 13, 1797, by Mr. Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry. Said Mr. Jeffer- son: It has been my constant object through my public life; and with respect to the English and French particularly, I have too often expressed to the former my wishes, and made to them propositions verbally and in writing, officially and privately, to official and pi'ivate characters, for them to doubt my views, if they would be content with equality. They will not have equality. They wish to domineer the American Republic as to the most important question which can be submitted to a people. Of this, they are in possession of several written and formal proofs in my own handwriting. But they have wished a monopoly of commerce and in- fluence with us; and they have, in fact, obtained it. I am afraid that is the fact now. When we take notice that theirs is the workshop to which we go for all we want; that with them center either immediately or ultini:Uely all tlie labors of our hands and lands; that to them belongs either openly or secretly the great mass of our navigation;— I believe that is so now — that they are advancing fast to a monopoly of our banks and public funds— The great cry is now that if we pass this bill the immense number of bonds and public securities owned in Europe will be turned back upon us — and thereby- Said Mr. Jefferson — placing our public finances under their control. My God! is not that the situation to-day when American Sena- tors get up and gravely tell the American Senate that silver ought to be remonetized and they dare not do it except by the consent of Europe? That they have in their alliance the most influential characters in and out of office; when thev have shown that by all these bearings on the different branches of the Government, that they can force it to proceed in whatever direction tUey dictate, and bend the interests of this country entirely to the will of another— 486 24 Is not that what is gravely proposed to be done with reference to the remonetization of silver? When all this— Continues Mr. Jefferson — I say, is attended to, it is impossible for us to say we stand on Independent ground, impossible for a free mind not to see and to groan under the bond- age in which it is bound. If anything after this could excite surprise It would be that they have been able so far lo throw dust in the eyes of our own citi- zens as to flx on those who wish merely to recover self-government the charge of subserving one foreign influence because they resist submission lo another. I fear this is true now — But they possess our printing presses, a powerful engine In their govern- ment of us. Further, Mr. Jefferson says: But I hope we may still keep clear of them, notwithstanding our present thraldom, and that time may be given us to reflect on the . wful crisis we have passed thi-ough, and to find some means of shielding ourselves in future from foreign influence. What sort of foreig-n influence? Foreign influence political, commercial, or in whatever form it may be at- tempted. And then comes the expression of a wish which, when I hear it stated that we dare not move in this matter of supreme im- port to the American people without the consent of Europe, I confess I feel exactly as Mr. Jefferson did. Said he: I can scarcely withhold myself from joining in the wish of Silas Deane, that there were an ocean of tire between us and the Old World. FALLING PRICES AND GENERAL DISTRESS RESULTS OF SILVER DEMONETI- ZATION. Mr. President, the world's business is carried on in a way, under the present system of demonetization, but is it well car- ried on? Let the low and still falling prices of the great commodities of the world answer. Let the distress now prevailing everywhere answer. The insufficiency of the present metallic coinage not only ruins the people by low prices, butitfurnishestheopportunity for the banks and their allies to produce panic and distress, from con- traction and distrust, by which the people are still further robbed and the moneyed classes grow rich. Mr. Picsident, hivl ■ shown the insufficiency of the money of the world to do the work of the world, I propose to call the attention of the Senate to the various devices and contrivances which have been invented by the banks to supply the wants of the world for money. With a traffic requiring many hundred dollars to one in ex- istence of gold, with the superadded dependent silver, there has come a necessity for such credit devices as are now claimed to be the substitutes for money, and which are alleged to be bet- ter than an increase of money itself. These substitutes are all based on what is called confidence. In this way the ingenious devices of men are claimed to be and are, as longas a credulous public will give faith to them, substitutes lor money. 4S6 25 COMMERCE DRIVEN TO SUB.STI'njTES FOR METALIvIC MONEY. But ure these substitutes reliable when c .ri'icd to the extont they are no/v.' They may do when there are uo clouJs in the l.nancial skies, when credit is in J uU vig'or, when trust and faith aro abound- ing-, but when there comes the smallest disturbnnce anywhere in the commercial world I'lom any cause, from folly in over- tradinjr.or from that cool and calculating malignity and hunger for gold so often m mifestod by those who conti'ol the li nances of the world, when p mics are produced, and the business of the world wrecked in order that the fortunes of those who cause these disasters to mankind may be increased — I say when these troubles come, these substitutes are of no value. We have heard something of the trouble coming from the Barings' failure in 18!J0, the failure of one banking house caused by overspeculation in one little country containing only 3,oOO,OCM3 inhabit ints, and with a foreign trade of only $24.'i,00U,000. So these devices are of such a character that the smallest disturb- ance in one ol' the most insignificant countries in the world com- mercially brings disaster and panic over the civilized world. Let us look for a moment at the substitutes or alleged economies In the use of money so far as developed in our own country. Gi^eat stress is laid on the small portion of money used in the clearing housos. whereby transactions to the amount of over sixty-one billfons in the year 1892 were settled with only about 5 per cent in money. But, sir, there is an obvious reflection to be made with refer- ence to thos ! cle.iiings. It is that they rehite only to large transactions, which go through banks associated in clearing houses, having no reference to the daily use of money in small transactions, in paying wages of all kinds, in retail business, and, in fact, all the millions of ordinary daily traffic of the 67,000,000 of people of the United St ites. Another is that there are more than liftcen States and Territories in which there are no clear- ing houses, whilst there are two States which have five each and two which have four each. This economy is used in a few localities only. It aids the banks associated in them and no one else. THE BANKS HOARD MONEY NOT THEIR OWN IN A PANIC. But the principal thing on which it is relied to make a small and insufficient currency do the work of a very large circula- tion arises from the habit of dcj)0.iiting money in banks, and the keeping by the banks of that money in circulation by con- tinually lending to others a 1-irge portion of the amount depos- ited for safe-keeping. And, sir, when it shall be noted as I shall develop it that this is a remarkable assistance in making a little money go a great way by lieeping that liitle in constant use, it must not at the same time b^ forgotten that this constant circula- tion coasos when there is a commercial panic. It is worthless to aid us in a financi 1; torm. It increases its fury by refusing to the owners of the deposiled money the power to use it. Money, then, is locked up in the banks. It is in all respects, so far as beneficial use is concerned, hoarded except that it is not hoarded by the owners, but by tho banks, who refuse to let the owners have it. Then there are also checks and bills of exchange which in good times perform useful olhces. But they, like deposits 26 in the banks, are worthless in a financial crisis, except so far as they are drawn on money r.ctually held for their payment by a trustee, who will not refuse to honor them. But, sir, I would fail to do justice to the genius of the great monometallist capitalists of the world, the banks and their allies, if I fail to mention another expedient, another device, by which the world's money ismade 1o support and to carry on the world's commerce, and by which the commerce is made to fit the cur- rency, instead of increasing the volume of the currency to meet the demands of commerce. This expadient — this Procustean de- vice—has the advantage over all others in this, that it is not a fair-weather device only, but becomes more and more efficient as the financial disasters shall increase in intensity and fury. By this device the prices of commodities fall as the calls for money become louder and more exigent. SXBEKIHG PEOOrS OE" THE EFFECT OF SILVER DEMONETIZATION ON PRICES- ENORMOUS LOSS. To show how this is done, I read an extract from the report of the gold and silver commission of Great Britain, and it is very significant and important. Commenting on the effects of silver demonetization, they say: The following figures from Miv Giffen's reports to the board of trade show that the declared \ alue of our [Great Britain] foreign trade in the under- mentioned yearsTvas asfoUows, the progressof the trade to 1873 having been for many years almost imbroken: 1873 £626,000,000 1879 554,500,000 1883... 667,000,000 1884 023,000,000 If, however, the trade of the three latter years be valued at the prices of 1873, it would be represented by the following figures: 1885 £584,000,000 1886 562,500,000 1887 583,500,000 1885 £835,000,000 1886 858,000,000 1879..., £711,000,000 1888 861,000,000 1884 844,000,000 The average for the last four years is— Declared value £600,100,000 Value at prices of 1873 849,500,000 showing an average falling off of £210, 400, 000. or about 29 per cent. Even a more striking proof of the decline in value of British trade aS com- pared with volume is afforded by the fact that while we have seen the total value of that trade decline from £626,000,000 in 1873 to £583,641,000 in 1887, the total tonnage employed in carrying it advanced from 37,934,432 in 1873 to 56, 170,447 in 1887. But, Mr. President, lest i^ may be asserted that the falling values of commerce are local to Great Britain, I submit some figures to show that the same ingenious device to make a small volume of money do the great business of the world is in full force in the United States. I have already called the attention of the Senate and had in- serted in my remarks the tables taken from the speech made by my colleague [Mr. Walthall,]. I will put in one or two more. LOSS ON COTTON FROM DEMONETIZ.4TION OF SILVER. The farm value— not the commercial value at New Orleans, New York, and Liverpool, but the farm value of the cotton crop oif 1890, consisting of 7,313,726 bales, was by an official table 4S9 27 $310,000,000, whilst tho farm value of the crop of 1892. consist- ing of over 9,000,000 bales, vi^as only $270. 000, 000. A like result will be found when we come to the wheat crop, a constantly increasing- production and a constantly decreasing- price. The small volume of money did the business of the world be- cause the value of the commodities of commerce were made to shrink to the competency of the money of the world to carrying it on. I present some figures on tho subject of these devices. Of course to intelligent, observing men they will not be nev/. but possibly they may contain some information to those who are not so familiar with this kind of literature as are the Senators upon this floor. FIGtrEES SHOWING EXTENT OF THESB DEVICES. The total money in circulation of all kinds in the United States in 1891, as shown by a statement of the Treasury, was $l,fi01,347,187. The national banks had on deposit on September 30, 1892, the sum of $2,002,000,000, or more than all the money in circulation by 25 per cent. The State and private banks investment and loan companies, and savings banks had on deposit, in the same year, of ordinary deposits $1,198,825,545 Savings deposits 1,712,769,026 Total 2,911.594.571 Add deposits of national banks 2,002,600^000 Makes total deposits in all banks 4,914,194,511 or just about three times the whole amount of all the money in circulation in the United States and more than all the gold cir- culation in the whole world. These banks did not keep this money hoarded; they lent it out at a good interest, whereby it produced great profit to them. The national banks had out in loans in 1892 $2, 153, 498, 829 The other banks loaned 2, 202, 131, 728 Total loans of all banks 4, 362, 630, 557 or about $2.70 loaned by the banks alone to every dollar in cir^ culation in the United States. What a wonderful contrivance of the banks, by which they not only use their own capital profit- ably, as will be seen, but which enables them to lend at interest $2.70 to every dollar in the circulation of the United States. This is a very p,ocd showing for supplying the deficiency of the currency and enriching the banks. It only has this ohe trouble, that it is utterly impotent as a substitute for a deficient currency, though omnipotent for enriching the banks. When the slightest financial storm shall arise, it would be no addition to the circulation, but a contraction, as the banks in such times refuse payment of their deposits. 28 But all these loans are based on deposits and circulation, and are payable on demand, as follows: Circulation and deposits of national banks $1, 908, 846, 2-;i State- bank deposits, payable on demand 1, 198, 825, 545 Total 3,107,671,820 nearly twice as much as all the currency of the country. But these banks do notownall,or even nearly all, of the money of this country. At the same time that they are subjected to these enormous obligations, payable on demand, they have only cash as follows: State banks, cash and cash items (whatever that may be) -- $197,789,384 (What cash items may be is unexplained, but I give them the benefit of it all as cash.) Cash held by national banks $332,941,816 Total held by all banks .- 530,731,200 This shows demand obligations — which may be presented at any time, and must be met when presented — nearly six times as much as cash and cash items to meet them. In this calculation we leave out the savings deposits, which practically are demand obligations, in case of a panic, since, if the banks holding them decline to pay on demand and claim the sixty or thirty days' notice, as the case may be, it brings dis- credit and distrust, and but adds fuel to the fire. Adding these, and we have the result that all the banks have only one-ninth of the cash and cash items needed to meet their obligations payable on demand. This view gives them credit for all money of whatever kind which they possess. GOLD AN INADEQUATE BASIS FOB BUSINESS. But if we are to consider that gold alone is to be the money of ultimate redemption, how utterly insignificant is the amount now owned by the banks to meet their obligations. The total gold and gold certificates held by all the banks in the United States on July 12, 1892, was only a small fraction over $191,000,000, and all the gold in circulation in the United States was only $408,- 568,824. (See page OG, Coinage Laws.) In this situation, is it a matter for wonder that we have a finan- cial crisis now; or. rather, is it not a wonder that we are not in that condition all the time? Whilst everybody has confidence and faith matters go along, not indeed smoothly, yet without violent convulsions and without great catastrophies. Then we have that evenness in business, that absence from disturbance which comes as often from that dulness and stag- nation which are sure monitors of approaching death, as from a blind faith that the banks will meet their obligations. Governor Stannard, the president of the business men's convention which met in this city a few days ago, stated in his speech on taking the chair that 92 per cent of the business of the country was done on confidence, and that about 60 per cent of this confidence had now vanished. In this situation it is in the power of the banks and the great capitalists to impair this confidence and thus pro- duce the panic now prevailing. And they did it. 486 29 Would it not be better, Mr. President, if for this vanishingf confidence we had an addition of re ' 1 suhstMncc — metillic money':' But, Mr. President, notwithst 'nding the conc-ded insulli- ciency of real money, ;'nd the necessary substitutir.n for money, of these devices, all of which are based on confidence, on the faith of the people in that airy nothing — a mere emotion of the mind which may vanish in an instant, which can be made to vanish by capitalists— wo are urged to decrease real money in order that these substitutes may usurp its place. A writer, the editor of TJradstreet's in the Forum for Septem- ber, 1893, states we have had nine panics in this century, and, with one or two exceptions, they come in periods of about nine or ten years apart. "These periods,'' says this same write)-, "consist of from three to five years of commercial activity, suc- ceeded by several years of depression."' He names also five other intermediate periods in which there were distinct business disturbances, but less formidable than the panics. Of these five he names one as the " echo of the Baring crash," in ISiiO. So that under the present system we are nearly all the time either in a financial crisis or in the depression occasioned by one, or just on the eve of having one to burst on us with all its terrible fury. CONDITION OF THE BANKS FAVOR PANICS. It was said a few days ago in this body by the very able and careful Senator from Missouri [Mr. Cockrell], who had fully investigated the matter, that the condition of the banks in this counti-y wei'e better than they were in Europe. This being so, the conditions for world-wide panics exist everywhere as they do here. And yet, sir, we are told that the present system of silver de- monetization and the single gold standard is the only basis of financial safety and business prosperity. It is impossible, sir, to reconcile this position with verity in the operations of the human intellect. The hallucination can be accounted for only on the ground that business men refuse to exercise their reason and blindly repose in confidence on the interested assertion of those who, having the power through a deficiency in the currency to control at their will the business of the world, are unwilling to surrender their destructive preeminenc3. But, Mr. President, having shown that we are ahvaysin a con- dition to have a panic whenever tiny considerable part of the great capitalists of the world want one, and that according to this writer in the Forum wo are always either in a panic or in the depression occasioned by one, or just about to have a panic burst upon us. I want to notice some of the palliatives which the banks have invented for the purpose not of saving the commu- nity from the terrible ett'ects of these financial storms, but to shelter their guilty heads from the fury which they have evoked. PALLIATIVES FOR PANICS. But, Mr. President, the great financial genuises who create these panics, are not without the power to contrive shelter and protection for themselves against the peltings of the pitiless storm. They have invented devices by which the hardships of panics, resulting to them from an insufficient currency, may be, if not wholly obviated, at least palliated. 486 30 But it will be seen that they are mainly if not exclusively for the banks. They do not extend to the great mass of the people, who remain the impitied victims of these financial necromancers, who have evoked the angry spirits of disorder and distrust. The banks are permitted to refuse payment of their deposits— not by law, but by the tolei'ance of the Government, after having received the money of the people on a contract to return it on demand — if the payment should be impracticable or inconven- ient. It is nearly always one or the other, owing to their hav- ing loaned their deposits, to an amount six times greater than the money on hand to pay them. DISHONEST PHACTICES OF THE BANKS. But even then, such is the infatuation produced by wealth, these embezzlers of the funds of others are claimed to be bene- factors of the public, seeking only from patriotic and philan- thropic motives to advance the public weil by their generous action in certifying their depositors' checks. If you, sir, or I, had done thesp things, so meritorious in the banks, we would have been sent to the penitentiary. There is all the difference in the world between the defaults of corporations and the short- comings of private individuals. What is a crime in one is a merit in the other. The banks put off their depositors by cer- tifying their checks as "good,-' which means "good"' when con- venient for the banks to pay. The merchant, or other depos- itor, having debts falling due have no such privilege of certify- ing checks. Being unable to get from the banks the money they have de- posited, ihey must go to protest, and in many instances into bank- ruptcy. They have no palliatives; they can not certify checks as "good." Then again the banks, having refused payment of the money on deposit with them, keeping, hoarding it for such use and at such times as they, shall adjudge best for their own interests, have another contrivance, also unauthorized by law. They create a curi'ency for the occasion, and this not only with- out authority of law, but in express violation not only of the spirit of the law, but of its letter. The banks, combined in a clearing- house association, which is not a Federal but a State association, issue a currency called clearing-house certificates, not based oh United States bonds, but on such collaterals as the "loaning committee " of the clearing house shall adjudge sufficient, and on the guaranty of the associated banks. BANKS PKOVIDE CURRENCY FOR THEMSELVES; BUT NOT FOB THE PEOPLE. It is said that these certificates ax'o not currency. I present one: Loan committee of the New York Clearing House Association No. 31. "Five thousand dollars" on the right-hand corner. This certifies that the has deposited with this committee security In accordance with the proceedings of the meeting of the association held No- vember U, 1890, on which this certificate is issued. This certificate will be received in payment of balances at the clearing house for the sum of $5,000 fi-om any member of the clearing house associa- tion. Then there is a memorandum down in the left-hand corner which reads as follows: On the surrender of this certificate by the depositing in the bank above named the committee will indorse the amount as a payment on the obliga- tion of said bank held by them and surrender a proportionate share of uie collateral securities held therefor. 486 31 Then hero (exhibiting papers) is all the various mafhinery by which a bank can got one of these clearino'-houso certificates. Here is the obligation of the bori'owing bank. It will be noticed that the bank borrowing this certificate figrees to pay " inter- est thereon at the rate of per cent i)er annum to the said association." Then it is signed and sealed by the president and cashier. Now, that certiflcato passes as legal-tender currency from bank to bank. It is a kind of elite currency, which is never issued in sums of less than $5,000, and is not brought down to the wants and necessities and capacities of the average American citizen. They are not allowed to be circulated among others than banks. But that makes them not a currency at all, but cur- rency for the banks only. The people are hungry for more cur- rency; their business is stopped; their debts are unpaid; distress prevails everywhere, yet they are not to have a share of this currency created for the especial use of the banks. Nor, sir, will the banks, so far as they can prevent it, and that is the worst thing- about it, allow Congress to authorize the issue of addi- tional currency for our distressed people. The banks keep the money of the people deposited with them, and at the same time issue without authority of law a special and unauthorized cur- rency for their own use, and which by its terms can not circu- late among the people. Does it not seem that this is not a gov- ernment of laws, which our fathers vainly strove to establish, but a government of banks? And yet we are told that the trouble is not a deficiency of the currency, but a want of confidence, 60 percent of which confidence has vanished, as Governor Stan- nard stated in his inaugural speech to the great convention of business men which met at this capital a few days ago. DEFICIENT CURRENCY CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE. But a want of confidence in whom? Is it in the banks, which refuse to pay their deposits and are unable to pay them? Oh, no. Their refusal to pay their debts is, under the contention of the banks and their allies and apologists, no ground for aAvant of confidence in them, but of praise and gratitude. According to them it is the Sherman law which prevents the people from giving their unreserved confidence to the suspended banks. Though the batiks refuse to pay their debts for an alleged want of funds, which they ought to have on hand, we are asked to believe that the Slierman law, which largely increases the cur- rency, is the cause of all trouble. The depositors in the banks would be glad to get the Treasury notes issued under the Sher- man law and put them away, so that they might have a privi- lege, denied by the banks, of using their own money as they need it. Mr. President, may I not now confidently assert that th6 great trouble is a deficient currency? When banks entirely solvent can not pay their demand obliga- tions because they exceed by 300 per cent all the money in the country and by more than 1.000 percent all the money of all kinds which they hold: v/hen this is their I'egular, normal con- dition, into which they voluntarily place themselves in order to satisfy their greed for gain; when all the devices and confeil- 32 vances used for supplying this deficiency prove utterly unavail- ing, and when there is disaster throughout the land — factories closed, laborers without employment, crops unmoved, harsh bar- gains driven by the usurer. ])roperty sold at enormous discounts below its value, and all this for the want of mon<'y— isitthe true remedy to further tliminisli the supply of money? And'yet, sir, this further depletion, this diminution of money, is exactly wh;ii is proposed. No, sir, I w,is too fast; with convenient inconsistency there is to be an addition, but of what and to whom? Of the national- bank circulation and to be issued to the banks and to them alone. Thus, as if to show oar contcm])t for the rights of the people, when distress comes we diminish circulation to them and in- crease it to the banks who oppress them. This will but increase their power, now already too great. They can lend it at a hi«h interest or they can hold it as they are now holding the people's money on deposit with them. But, sir, we must stand all this in order that silver money shall be suppressed. THE REAL CONTEST, SHALL MONET BE COINED FOR THE PEOPLE OR PAPER MONEY ISS0ED TO THE BANKS? This, sir, is the real contest. It is the question of the day. As we have hud so much talk in the Senate by gentlemen who are pressing the consideration of the pending bill that they mean after awhile, somehow or other, at a date unspecified, to give us money. I wish to show to the Senate what the real promoters of this scheme mean. I do not mean to charge any Senator with not being candid in his statement. 1 have no doubt that those who say they are going to give us free coinage or more coinag :■ at some indefinite and unspecified period mean to do so, but that is not the object of this movement. The New York merchants honored me by sending me a circular, which I understand was circulated all through the State of Mississippi and other States which happen to have Senators here who do not believe in the divinity of national banks. This 'is rather a formidable paper. The signatures, amounting to about a hundred, are not put clearly in plain type; they are fac- simile autographs, so as to appear as if each had been signed by the important individual or firm whose signature is attached. Now what do they say? I will not read it ail: We believe it to be necessary for the best interests of this country that the silver-purchasing clause of the Sherman act be promptly repealed— They want it promptly repealed. They are not willing to give the Senate of the United States the opportunity of debate and discussion and consideration to see whether this is the best thing to do. They want it promptly repealed, when up to this time, so far as I have heard, not one single man on this floor who ad- vocates repeal has said that the act of 1890 is the fruitful mother of our woes — MACHINB PRESSURE ON SILVER SENATORS. and feel that every day's delay in arriving at this result delays the revival of confidence and the return of trade to its normal volume. We believe also that to insure the necessary legislation, pressure— Oh, pressure! Pressure! — from their sound-money constituents must be brought to bear upon many Seaators and Representatives. 486 33 Oh, sound money! Is this cloiiving-house certificate sound money"? Is that the pressure for sound money which they de- sire to be brought to bear upon the Senators of the United St.ites, or is it the sound money co .sisting-of ceiti'ied checks of default- ing- banks who, having- received the peop e's money and having raised a storm which they can sufcly ride by defyin,-,"- the people, they give to the p jople in exchange for their money? Now, let us go on with this cii'cular: The advocates— Now, notice. The advocates of what? — of free silver have been organized and au-j^ressive, have held mass meetings and conventions, have lobbied in Washington - If there hiis been a free-silver lobby in this city since the present session of Congress it has been my misfortune to be so insigniM- cant that not one member of it has ever approached me on the subject — and have used every possible influence to advance their cause and to en- danger the imeondiiional lepeal of the silver-purchase clause. It is time for vigorous counteraction on the part of all who advocate sound flnance and a currency good the world over. Mr. ALLEN. Will the Senator from Mississippi permit me to call his attention to a fact? Mr. GEORGE. Cerhainly. Mr. ALLEN. The Washington Post of yesterday morning contained a dispatch announcing the fact that the New York banks are already engaged in retiring the new circulation taken out within the last few weeks. They are doing it, I suppose, preparatory to another panic, or for the continuation of the ex- isting panic. Mr. GEORGE. They are retiring these cleai'ing- house certifi- cates? Mr. ALLEN. No; retiring the new national-bank note cir- culation. Mr. GEORGE. There is no accounting for what they will do. Anything which the devilish ingenuity of man can invent will be done to oppress the people in order that they may send their clamors to this Chamber and force us to pass the pending bill. I proceed with the circular. It is time for vigorous counteraction on the part of all who advocate sound finance and a currency good the world over. We therefore indorse the action of the Dry Goods Economist in seeking to arouse the sound dry-goods trade throughout the country to work for their own interests— Ah, Mr. President, to work for their own interests I It would not do to let it stand that way, and they said it first, and then, by a sort of afterthought, added — and, at the same time, those of the whole country. Let each dry-goods man exert himself to focus populr.r sentiment in his locality and to secure direct pressure upon doubtful Kepresentatives or Senators from his State in favor of unconditional repeal— I desire to call the attention of Senators who have said that they do not mean by repeal the demonetization of silver to the next four words — In favor of unconditional repeal and no free coinage. In this emergency— This is in capital letters — talking is useless, petitions are of no value. Pressure— Whatis that? If petitions and if talk will not do, then what 486 3 34 is the pressure? They do not disclose that, but say talking will not do — pressure on individual legislators from the electors is the only method of assuriuR success in this momentous movement. There are about 100 names signed to this circular. I ara sorry the capacities of the Public Pi-inting' Office will not allow the facsimile signatures of these important men to go into the Record. THE REPEAL BILD MEANS THAT SILVEn COINAGE SHALL FOREVER CEASE. I do not think anybody doubts now that the issue is squarely made by this bill between a total cessation of the coinage of silver forever and free coinage. That is the issue. Wo must meet it. We can not evade it. We must either hereafter hive the money of the Constitution, gold and silver, as declared in the Democratic platform of 18^4, or we must turn over to the banks the great power and the necessary governmental func- tion of furnishing the currency for the people in such amounts and at such times as they deem proper. That, sir, is the true issue now made by the bill to repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. On this issue my opinion has long been made up. In Febru- ary, 1884, on a bill then jiending in this body to allow the banks an"increase in the circulation on their deposits of bonds, it was argued in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] — increasing the circulation of the United States legal-tender Treasury notes — that the regulation of the volume of currency should be left to the national banks. THE POWER TO REGULATE THE CURRENCY CAN NOT SAFELY BE LEFT TO THE BANKS. I said, on the 23d day of that month, in supporting the amend- ment: The question now before us is whether it is proper to leave this power (of regulating the volume of the currency) in the Government or to vest it in the banks. I do not believe it is a safe power in the bunks. I believe it Isa}|reat power, which is capable of being used for the destruction of the biismess and interests of the people. If confided to the banks * * * the banks will issue their notes or regulate the volume of the currency, g.ccording to their own intci-ests. * * * if it be to their interest to contract, they will con- tract. If it be to their interest to expand the currency, they will expand it It was shown then, what ought not to be forgotten now, that the banks contracted the currency whilst that bill was under consideration by over $2,000,000 in one week. This was done to secure the passage of the bill. I also showed on that occasion that the banks on several previous occasions had contracted their currency in order to secure political not business ends. In the same speech, in reference to a statement of the Senator from New Jersey, that the national-bank system was a pet child of Congress, I said; I want uo ]->et children of the Government and no stepchildren. Let al her children be treated alike. Whether they have money in the national banks, or whether they delve in the mines, or whether they work in the fac- tories, or plow in the llelds, or pursue any other calling, they are entitled to equal rights and equal privileges. So long as I hold a seat on this floor I shall not, under any pressure, cast a vote which will give to any privileged class, to anyi>et children of the Government, a privilege and advantage de- nied to the groat mass of the people themselves. I stand by those sentiments to-day, and standing by them I shall not vote for the repeal of the Sherman act, nor will I vote 486 35 for that other bill which attempts to increase the currency by giving- a privilege to the national banks to issue more of their circiiiation on bonds already deposited. The contest, sir, between the bunks and the people, as made by this bill, involves much of interest, the deepest interest to the people on the one side and to the banks on the other. If silver is to be suppressed as full legal-tender money, if it is to bo limited in amount to a degree Lhat it may be redeemed in gold instead of performing its constitutional function of money, absolute money, with no necessity for red.emption, then its place will be supplied with bank paper and other banking contrivimces. For the monometallist will not let the people have greenbacks or legal-tender notes. This supply will not be full, but only pai'- tial. It will not be to the full need of the people, but only to the extent needful to the interest of the banks. BANKS WISH TO SUBSTITUTE THEIR NOTES l^OR SILVER AND CONTRACT THE CURRENCY. The business, sir, as I have described it, of lending money of depositors to the extent shown, so thut there shall be $G loaned to $1 kept for redemption, is rather a profitable one to the banks, however hazardous to the community. I have stated the de- posits in all the b.inks to bo $4,91-1,194,511; and the loans were l4,o():2,<)30,557, being more than •$() loaned to $1 of capital. But as we have to deal more directly with the national banks, which are under Federal .jurisdiction and supervision, it will be be best to state their condition and operation separately. The stock of all national banks on September 30, 1892, was $686,(501,000. On that basis, after paying proper dividends, they had a surplus of $-138,900,000: undivicled profits, $101,610,000. They had thus gained $340,500,000 more than their legitimate divi- dends, or about 50 per cent on their capital. At the same time they owned also of United States bonds - --.. $185,500,000 Stocks and other bonds ] 54, 500. 000 Real estate 87, 800, 000 Due from United States Treasury. 8, 200, 000 Due from other sources 43,000,000 Total 479,100,000 This would seem to be doing very well, as these investments alone amounted to about two-thirds of their capital. After hav- ing invested two-thirds of their caj^ital as I have stated they lend other people's money to the amount of $2,171,000,000 at in- tei-est. This intei'est. however, does not go to the owners of the money, but to the bank . With such profits in the pi'csent system, of course the national banks want more circulation and less real money, and hence wc must demonetize silver: must repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. If we had more real money — if gold and silyer, the money of the Constitution, were in abundance, there would be less — very much' less — need for the contrivances used as substitutes for money, less need for the national-bank notes, less need for put- ting in peril the business of the whole country by the banks lending their depositors' money to the dangerous extent I havo 48G 36 pointed out. So the banks and others who have money to lend don't want the competition cominj? from Iree coinage of silver. They don't want the money of the Cons'titution to compote with their contrivances, their ingenious, but unsafe, substitutes for real money. PLAN FOR A SATE AND SUFFICIENT CDBRENCY. But it is said that the free coinage of silver would give us such an abundance of silver money as to cause a great deprecia- tion in it: especially it is said would there be a great ditlerence in the value of gold and silver coin at the ratio of 16 to 1. Mr. President, I do not believe it. First, restrain all national banks from lending any more than 50 per cent of their depositors' money. Let the reserve for de- positors be one dollar ifor every two deposited. Next prohibit absolutely, under severe ijenalties, clearing- house certificates. So that when the banks shall either reck- lessly inflate credits, or designedly produce commercial crises, they may not save themselves at the expense of the people by the creation of an unauthorized currency for their sole use. Then there would be no distrust, no want of confidence. There would be no panics. Besides, this would make room for many millions of metallic currency to supply the vacuum occasioned by this necessary provision for safety. Lest, however, we should create a stringency in the money market by precipitate action, the result should be approached gradually. Next, put the national banks in process of taking the proper steps for the final withdrawal of all their circulation, which must como in 1907, when the last United States bonds are paid, unless Congress so far sh;ill forget their duty to the American people as to authorize the issuance of further bonds in order to be the basis of further issuance of national-bank notes. Let this withdrawalbo gradual so as to prevent sudden con- traction. Then, sir. as I advocated in 1884 in the speech from which I have quoted, ]irohibit the coinage of gold in coins of a denomination less than $10, and prohibit the issuanceof all paper money under a like denomination except silver certificates. With these provide for the free and unlimited coinage of sil- ver, equally with gold, at the old ratio of 16 to 1. Coin all silver whereverproduced and all gold ;;s they come to the mints. Coin not only the new silver and gold that may be mined, but recoin all thu gold and silver coins in the world that may come to our mints. There will be no iimndation of this counti'y by silver. If silver sliall come to us from foi-eign countries it will scarcely come us a gift: if so, then so much the better. If it comes in the way of trr.de, then it will come oaly by an exchange for it of our commodities on teriiis f.i vorable to us. When we prefer the silver to the things given for it -ve can not be injured. Then, sir, there will be competition with the banks, and no surplus of uncoined metal, denied the right of free coinage in order to fix a commer- cial iM-ice below the mint value of silver. There would be no inllux of silver coins from Europe to our mints. For first, Europe his no more silver coin than is re- quired by her commerce, and not as much. The scramble for goid now going on, as described by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman], is significant. It means there is in the opinion of 486 37 European financiers not enough gold for the world's use and not likely to be. Why should there bo a scr;imblc for it if there were plenty? The annual product of gold, counting the half c^^'ntury together, is a diminishing quantity. The annual con.^umption of it in the arts is an iuci/easing quantity. INCREASE OF SILVER TO KEEP PACE WITH INCREASE OF POPULATION AND BUSINESS. The steady increase in population and in commerce creates increased demands for gold and silver beyond, far beyond, the supply. Europe, at least, must keep up their present proportion of silver coin— subordinate coin. The amount must not only be kept up, but increased with the population. The waste by wear of silver circulating so rapidly in everyday life and its consump- tion in the arts create a constant large demand for the new pro- duction. Europe will in this way not only retain its present silver, but consume in conjunction with Asia and the silver States in America the annual production outside of the Unittd States. The Senator from Texas [Mr. MiLL.s] thought, if I understood him correctly, that all the silver production is about being con- sumed in the arts now. The world's production of silver in 1892 was $196,005,200, of which the United States produced $74,989,900, about five thir- teenths of the whole. The consumption in the arts in the United States alone, as es- timated by the report of the Director of the Mi at fo'.- 1S92, is $19,329,000 of gold, and of silver $9,301, OjO. Dr. So 'tbeer esti- mates the total annual loss of gold in the world by abrasion and in the arts at $43,506,253, of silver at $23,730,000. So I think there is little to fear from a superabundance of these metals. The danger is that thei'e will not be eno.igh of these metals for the money use of the world, and we i^hall be driven to resort to the miserable devices and contrivances to which I have alluded. I now come to the special needs of the people of the United States for money supply. Mr. COCKRELL. Would it interrupt the Senator from Mis- sissippi just to call his attention to ihe dilference between the production of gold in the world and its coinage'.-' Mr. GEORGE. No; it will not. I should like to have the Senator st'ite that. Mr. COCKRELL. From 1873 to 1892 the production of gold in the world was $2.210,961,206, while thecoinage w:.s$2,TST,714,- 679, or over $500,000,000 more of gold coin thin the world pro- duced, while the consumption of gold for industrial purposes is admitted by all writers to be over one-half, or 5"' per cent. Mr. GEORGE. That is, then, the recoinnge of old coin. Mr. COCKRELL. It must have been recoinage beyond all question. No man can to-day come within $ H;0,biiO.O(nt of the amount of coined gold in the world, and 1 challenge any one to do it. You have no method on earth by which you can deter- mine the exact amount of gold in the world, and I say, taking thefuct of free coinage and the estimate of the product of gold and the coin.nge of gold, the amount of gold in the world to-day is $")GO.<;00,0(K) more than can ever bo fovmd. Mr. GEORGE. I am very much obliged to the Senator from Missouri. He has made a very valuable contribution to my speech as well as to the general information of the country. 486 38 Hon. J. H. Walker, in an address at the World's Fair Con- press, states that our consumption of commodities has been three times greater, i)er capita, than that of Europe; making^ oui- mar- ket the equal of 200,000,01)0 of European people. He further stated, that we consumed over one-third of the goods manufac- tured in the world, whicli equals a market for manufactured goods of over G00,O0U,00U of average people. Mr. Walker, I believe, is a member of Congress from the State of Massachusetts. I thought I had a little pamphlet here which contained his speech. He is evidently a man of ability; but I see I have left it at my room and I can not produce it. He is a monometallist, and it was a monometallist speech that he made. Mr. GRAY. I have it here. [Handing wamphlet.] Mr. GEORGE. Yes; this is it: Hon J. If. WALKER, on cheaper rates and better money. Our bad mone- tary sy.'siera thoroughly exposed. You can not afford not to I'ead this. Carry it in your pocket until read. From the official report of the World's Con!,'ress of 180.3. Department of Commerce and Finance, General Division of Banking and Finance, Then there is a preface to it in which Mr. Walked is spoken of very highly, but not any more highly than his due as I un- derstand. Mr. COCKRELL. I suggest to the Senator that probably he is one of the authors of the Sherman act. I think he was a mem- ber of the conference committee on the part of the other House that agreed to the Sherman bill. Mr. GEORGE. At all events, there is a statement made by this eminent man and monometallist to the effect that we con- sume in the United States three times per capita the consump- tion of Europe and that we consuine as much as six hundred million of the average population of the world. These are im- portant facts. I believe he has stated it correctly, and if he has made any mistake he has understated it, except that I shall be compelled to show before I get throagh that there is a little underconsumption going on just now on the part of the farmers. Mr. GRAY. I hope the Senator will read the whole speech. Mr. GEORGE. I do not agree with the rest of it, but I won- der that a man should ever start out with such a fact as that and arrive at the conclusion wliich he reached. I say I believe this statement to be under the mark rather than excessive. This consumption will largely increase under the prosperity cQpiing from free coinage, as I shall show hereafter. I shall show that, so far as the farmers are concerned, consump- tion has been reduced to the lowest point by virtue of the want and distress occasioned by the falling prices, which seem to have no terror for the Senator from Texas. Our population is increasing more rapidly than that of any other nation. It is also advancing more rapidly in intelligence and refinement than any other. It increased at the rate of very nearly 2.3 per cent (24.80) in the last decade. That rate would give, in round numbers, an increase for this decade of over 15,000,- 000 and in the next of over 10,000.000— one million and a half a year for this decade, aild nearly two millions a year for the next— or one million seven hundred thousand as the annual aver- age increase for the two decades ending in 1910. To keep up the present per capita circulation of $25 it would requii'e an annual 486 39 addition to the circulation of over $42,000,000. Our gold produc- tion for coinage is Only ^13,000,0, and a fraction over, locking about $2!), 000,000 to keep up the present per capit i. Whence iive we to get it? The banks will answer from bank paper. And they will answer truly if we get it at all. France has a per capita circulation of $41.07. Ours is $25, or about $17 less per he;id. Franco has, according to the British Statistical Abstract, but a little more foreign commerce than we have; yet her money is not excessive, though about G7 percent greater per capita than ours. The population of the United States in 1890 was. 62, 602, 250 Add three years at 1,500,000 a year 4,500,000 67, 162, 250 Say 67,000,000. To have the French per capita we must in round numbers have to-day $2,791,000,000 But we only have 1,601,000,000 Making deficit to-day of -- 1,190,000,000 which must be made up in some way. Our population will increase in numbers for the two decades at 1,700,000 a year, or 34,000,000 for the two decades. For the seven remaining years of this decade we must haye, to give us the French per capita to this increase, 1,700,000, multiplied by 41.67, to make the addition for each year, which is $70,- 779,000, and for seven years it would be $495, 453, 000 Add to this the present deficit of 1, 190, 000, 000 We have to be made up from now until 1890 $1, 685, 453, 000 Now, that is the demand. Let us turn to the supply. The present silver bullion supply of the United States is sev- enty-four millions a year, of which about ten millions is used in the arts, leaving sixty-four millions for coinage. Supposing all this $64,000,000 shall be coined (and that is a very large estimate, as shown by the statement of t^he Senator from Missouri), it would make but $448,000,000 in silver coinage in seven years. From this silver coinage alone we would lack, in 1900, $1,137,453,000 of having enough money to equal the French per capita. Then, if we resort to gold to make up the deficit, we lind the world's annual production of gold, in 1802, was $130,000,- OOO, of which the United States produced $33,000,000. a little more than one-fourth. Of the presentgold coinage of the world, say $3,500,000,000, we had, in lS92,in cii^culatiou $408,000,000, or less than one-eighth of the whole. Our stock altogether was over six hundred million, or one-sixth of the stock of the woi'ld. So, whilst we have produced more than one-fourth of the whole gold production of the world, we have in circulation less than one-eighth of that metal in circulation in the world. The world's coinage of gold for the years 1889. 1800, and 1891 was $637,300,338, or an annual average of 5212,435,446. Deduct from this annual average the recoinageof two years. $16,234,589, v.-e have for amount of annual new coinage of the world, in ro-nd numbers, $196,000,000. If we got one-eighth of thit it would be $24,500,000, and according to that we should be short 486 40 of the French per capita in liiOO, counting coinage of both gold and silver, $'.)41,2");5,00O. Bat, sir, while we produce one-fourth of the world's gold iind have gold circulation to the amount of only one-eighth, I will state the casj, by giving us not only the whole silver production of the United States, but also all the gold production. The gold production, we have seen, amounted in 1892 to $33,000,000; of this sum we consumed in the arts $19,329,000, leaving for coinage only $13,671,000, and on that basis, coining all our gold and silver not used in the arts, we would lack in 1900 $1,041.7(33,000 in having as much money in circulation per capita as the French now have. In 1910 we should lack $250,000,000 of having cum^oncy enough to make us equal to the French per capitn. Then for the next decade, from 1910 to 1920, we shall find thit the total production, if not increased, will not keep pace with the increase of our population. This is certain, if we take into consideration the losses by consumption in the arts, by abrasion, by sinking in rivers and seas and hiding without dis- covery afterward. In this estimate no account has been taken of the destrLiction of the national-bank currency, which must take place, thank God, in 1907. unless we issue, which God for- bid, bonds for their accommodation. But, sir, we ought not to confine ourselves to the amount of cur- rency per capita which France has. The French are the most economical people in the world in their living, and we are the most extravagant. The two peoples stand at the two extremes of greatest frugal- ity and very libei-al expenditures. The people of the United States, according to Mr. Walker, as I havj quoted, consume three times per capita what is consumed by the people of Europe and consume one- third of all the manufactured goods in the world. Thi.-n. sir. it would seem that we ought to have at least three times the amount of currency of the French, whilst we have a little over one-half. I do not hesitate to say that if our currency of real money was $100 per head it would not be too much, but the greatest of bless- ings. But fi"ee coinage of silver will not give us even the French per capita, even if we retained all the paper money we now have in circulation. But I do not mean to rely on general statements to Throve that our country ne'ds for actual use more money than can be added by the free coinage of silver and of gold. We h ive seen that, though the clearing-houses pass over sixty- one billions of trade every year. These transactions do not enter into or embrace the ordinary business of the farmer, laborer, mechanic, and professional man of the country. We have seen that for actual use, by duplications, the deposits in the banks of thecountry reach over$4.900,0()0,000, and that on them (with only about nine hundred millions of capital) are based loans to over four billions, to a most dangerous extent, and that all of these contrivances do not satisfy the whole want of the people for money, but the wants of those only who borrow from the banks, and with all this thei^e is an acknowledged deliciency of cur- rency, to the extent that international free bimetallic coinage is regarded favorably by all our statesmen. So that the need for more money is acknowledged. It is only disputed that we 486 41 alone can maintain the needed increase by free coinage of silver. We can maint dn it at par with gold. The value of silver .md gold buJlion is regulated by the demand for them, like every other commodity. Of all the demands for these metals the money demand is not only the most extensive, but also the most urgent. A deficiency in money to do the world's business is of all deficiencies the most universal in its ruinous effects, and at the same time the most exigent for instant re- moval. Hence, as we have seen, the devices invented as substi- tutes for money. To say, as thos^ who insist on international bimetallism admit, that the people of the United States need for money all the gold and silver possible to fall to their lot — for coining into money, and even more —with all the substitutes for money now or likely to bo invented, is to say that all such gold and silver, when coined, will perform usefully needed money functions. How can there be, under these circumstances, a dif- ference in the value of the met-il coinage? Is there such need for money? I have shown the needs of France and compared them with our own supply, and by such comparison I have shown that every dollar, both of gold and of silver (without surrendering any of the substitutes), which can be coined under free coinage would be insufficient: that there is a dem' nd, and an urgent demand, for more and more money on which to do the business of the people, even on the French rate of money per capita. But, sir, we need more money than the French have, as has been shown. And when all the gold and silver in the world which can come to us is coined, we will still be without enough. A PLEA FOB MERCY FOR THE PLAIN PEOPLE But, sir, as this is the very point on which' the controversy turns, I must be indulged in further argument to make this po- sition absolutely impregnable. It can be so made. There are other business pursuits of greater interest to the people of the United States than banking, traffic in merchandise, gambling in stocks, dealing in money and exchanges. Whilst the devices I have alluded to may, if not obviate, at least palli- ate the effects of a scarcity of money among these classes, they do not reach or alTect, except indirectly and remotely, the wants — the necessities — of the gro.it masses of our people. There are fif- teen States and Territories in which there are no clearing houses. They are to be found in a few great cities in the other States far removed fiom the great mass of population, and they deal in such wise as not to touch nine-tenths of the business of the country. The retail trade carried on in hundreds of thousands of dif- ferent places, and amounting, as 1 have said, to more than double the trade of the country, transported by railroads and water craft, is not settled for through clearing houses. In this trade the people need money— cash. Failing to have it, they are forced to a most disastrous credit system, in which interest in the shape of increased profits is absolutely ruinous to the pro- ducers. However beneficial credit may be in large transactions in the wholesale business of the countrj-. in foreign commerce, in building railro ids and ships, and carrjdng on other great en- terprise.s. domestic economy teaches with unerring certainty that for the ordinary purposes of life— the retail trade of the country — it is in most cases disastrous; or, testate it differently, 486 42 that for such persons so buying it is belter, far better, that they use cash. Under the present system this is absohitely impossible, and hence the results, as we see them every day, of increasing- debt and distress, mortgaging and pledging property, which, under demonetization of silver and the consequent ai)preciation of gold, is grinding our people to deatb. To enable the people to have cash to pay for their daily ex- penditures we must have a large amount of currency, not locked in banks and loaned again to other people, as we have seen is don'^, but in the actual possession of the i^eople. Take the case of the farmers, who constitute a little less than one-half our population, and who furnish by their toil and self- denial, too often unrequited, three-fourths of the exports of our country, and whose products are now relied upon by the bankers of New York to bring back to this country the gold which, by their mismanagement, has been exported to Europe. We have seen that they need $750,000,000 ayear to pay for wages alone. We have seen that their products amount to about $3,000,000,000 annually, and that this great mass of wealth is cre- ated, in a Inajority of instances, at a loss— costino- more to pro- duce than it will sell for. This justifies me, at least, in saying that the necessary expenditures of the farmers, including such luxuries as they ought to have, including wages, exceed $1,000,- 000,000 per annum, probably twice that sum. Friday, September 22, 189S. THE PRESENT HOPELESS CONDITION OF THE FARMER. Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, I desire to present the interest which the farnfers of this country have in the silver question. To those who have given attention to the matter, it is known that for the staple markets, crops raised by our farmers in the South and West— corn, wheat and cotton— that money is brought to the farmers but once a year. At the harvest ho sells and has money when, as happens in but few instances, his expenses have not exceeded the sales. In most cases, however, the farmer, owing to the credit system imposed by the scarcity of money, rarely has any money at all, even at harvest. The process is a year of labor and toil and ex- pense on the high prices of the credit system; then the harvest, and settlement, and sale on the low prices of a small and con- tracting currency, whereby no money remains as a surplus. The next year witnesses the same dreary, despairing, treadmill round; credit at enormous prices for supplies, charged as a ne- cessity of the system at disastrous, even absolutely ruinous rates; then an enforced sale of the crop at harvest for whatever prices the speculators in futures, and others, may fix; an application of the proceeds to the debts thus incurred, with little or no re- mainder, and most frequently with a deficit. And then the next year the same thing over again, and thus continuing year by year the never ending remoi'seless system, until a merciful Prov- idence shall remove the victim from the scene of these infernal 486 43 operations— operations flowing directly from the action of Con- s;ves5. Death, sir, is the end of the troubles, it would seem; but not so, the inheritance of debts and ruinous finances he leaves to his children, i^erpetuates through them the horrors from which he has escaped. At this jioiat, Mr. President, I think it right to bring some evidence to the Senate that the statements wliich I have made are recognized as correct by the highest authoritie;i in this coun- try. I wantnow to show the condition of the firrmer in this year 18t).'> and in this month of September, when wo are gravely de- ■ bating intheAmei'ican Congress whether we shall not takeaway from him what I believe is his only chance of ever battering his condition. FALL IN VBIOES OF FARM PKODUCTS GtlEATEn THAN DECEEASB IN COST OF PRODUCTION. It has been urged, Mr. President, by two Senators on this floor that the fall in prices of the things v/hich the farmer buys is a compensation to him for the fall in prices of the things which he produces and sells. The, argument seemed a little plausible at first blush, but when we come to look at the matter in all its bearings it will bo found that it amounts to nothing as an alleviation to the farmer of his present ills. It is claimed that there has been a reduction in the cost of producing the farmer's crops. I I'cad from the New York Sun a very able argument on that subject, published September 10, 1893: For more than fifteen years, 1878 to 1893, all theRveat primary accricultural staples have heen declining in price. altUoiiy;h there have been periods when the price of some one wa.'s high for a limited time, This is more notably true as respects secondary products, especially meats and lard; but the trend of the whole scale has been constantly downward, and the general price level at the end of each year was lower than at its beginning. In the meantime, there has been no material reduction in the cost of production, the self-binder, the gang plow, mower, hay tedder, and hay loader, and all other great imxjrovements in agrioultm-al machinery, having come into use prior to 1878. Subsequent modifications and improvements have beenin the direction of greater facility in operation rather than o! lessened cost. He further proceeds: While the cost of production can not have been lessened as much as 5 per cent since 1875 — I speak with the knowledge of myself and of other Senators around me when I say that the cost of production ol' the great staple crop of the South has not decreased one cent — While the cost of production can not have been lessened as much as 5 per cent since 1875, prices for the staple products of the farm averaged 82 per cent greater during the five years ending with 1875 than now. Then there is a table, Mr. President, which I will have inserted in my remarks; but I will now only state the result of that table so far as cotton is concerned. It is sfctted in this table tliat the average value of the production of an acre of cotton in 1873 was $28.01; and that the average now is $10.60, -which I think is rather extravagant. So it will be seen that there has been a fall in the value of the production of an acre of cotton, from the average for the years betv/ecn lSG6and 1870, of $28.01 to $10. 60 — a reduction of about 6(3 per cent. 44 The following table shows, In flve-year averages, the gold value per acre (in the local farm markets) of the proUict of t'ae five staples named, for quinqxieuuial periods, sine.' IKiV. nnd an e.stiinai',> of the value, with average yields, of an acre under each such st:iple in I8.'3 at i. resent prices: Staples. Value of an acre's product— 1866-1870. 1871-187.0. 1876-1880. 1881-1885. 1886-1890. 1893. Corn SI 2. 84 13.16 10.92 13.28 28.01 S11.30 11.90 9.81 14.38 28.55 $9.62 12.00 8.58 11.57 17.65 $10.25 10.20 9.17 11.15 15.63 $8.81 9.07 7.iJ0 10.19 13.84 $8.35 Wheat 6.00 Oats 5.75 Hay 10.00 Cotton 10.65 Total 78.21 15.64 75.94 15.19 59.42 11.88 56.40 11.28 49.44 9.89 40.75 Average 8.15 The writer goes on further to assert that which I can bear testimony is true, as you can, sir: (Mr. Jones of Arkansas in the chair.) If as is altogether probable, the revenue derived from the cultivation of each acre of the staples named— Cotton — has not since 1885 been in excess of the cost of production, then it is readily seen that the workers among the 30.000.000 who inhabit the farms ot the United Slates have for eight years received no more than laborers' wages and could purchase but the barest necessaries. Any Senator here representing a cotton State knows that to be true. But it is said, sir, both by the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Gray] and the Senator from Texas [Mr. MiLLS] that whilst there has been a great fall in the prices of those articles which the farmer sells, there has also been a great reduction in the prices of things which he has to buy. Let us see whether that is any sufficient compensation to the furmer who has seen the proceeds of his farm reduced in every $1U0 in 1873 to about $33 now. In 1873, the date of the demonetization of silver, cotton was worth $94 per bale of 500 pounds. An average laborer, as is well known, in the South — orrather, an industrious laborer— can pro- duce on average land 5 bales of cotton per annum; so that the average production of cotton of a good, fair laborer in 1873 amounted to $4T0. Mr. FRYE. Was that in gold? Mr. GEORGE. The tables presented here do not show. I have taken these figures both from the Senator from Texas [Mr. MiLLS] and from th i Senator from Delaware [Mr. Gray]. I see that in the tables of the Senator from Texas he refers to the gold value of the silver dollar. My figures are taken from those statements. The same laborer now can produce the same number of bales, which at the present price, $oG..5Uper bale, makes $182.50 as the product of his year's labor. Of course. Mr. President, in that year 1873 and in the year 1893 this laborer produced other things for consumption— not for sale. He produc d some corn, oats, potatoes, and things of that sort that are consumed on th e farm , but this refers to his market crop. Cotton was then, in 1873, capable of producing $470 for each laborer. In 1893 it produces $182.50. Now let us see if the Senator from Delaware and the Senator 4» 45 from Texas are rig'bt in saying that the reduction of prices in other things has compensated the farmer. Tliu SenDtorfrom Delaw.a e h s prcd i.ced a taVjIe showing the full of prices of agri- cultural imi)leinents. I am talking now solely of cotton farm- ing. I know nothing about wheat-farming. I am engaged in cotton-raising mys If, and have been during all this period. In fact that is the only business I have, except to be a member of this body. After looking very carefully over the tables pre- sented by the Senator from Delaware, I can say that I make a lib- eral estimate when I stato that the difference in the cost of an outfit of agricultural implements for a laborer on a cotton farm in 1873 and in 1893 does not exceed $15. I do not be- lieve that it amounts to that, but I desire to bo fair, and I will assume that is $1;"). That outfit, on an average, with some re- pairs, will last three years. So that, whilst there has been this great reduction in the prices of his crops, as to his agi-i- cultural implements he has only saved $") ;innually. That is a very inappreciable saving to the farmer as compared to his loss in the fall in price of cotton. In no other way has there been the slightest decrease in the cost of raising cotton. On the contrary, in all that part of our country east of the Mis- sissippi River, except in a very few favored localities, such as the Yazoo Delta, the long use of the land in the production of cotton has caused a necessity for the purchase of commercial fer- tilizers. I do not use these fertilizers myself, though I have some information upon the subject. The cost is about $3 per acre. The use of these fertilizei-s. however — I want that under- stood— does not goto the extent of increising the general fer- tility of the land, but simply to prevent deterioration. So that in the case of use of fertilizers nearly the whole savingof reduc- tion in the cost of agricultural implements is swept away. To sum up: Five bales of cotton in 187."! would yield $470 an- nually; in 1891, 1892, and 1893, it would yield $18f. Balance in favor of 1873, after giving credit for the decrease in the cost of agricultural implements, $288, as against a total production of $182 — more than $100 dift'erence in favor of 1873 over the produc- tion of 1893, There are other things to be considered. The farmers' taxes have not decreased. On a farm of 80 acres capable of ]iroducing one-half of a bale to the acre — and it is necessary that it should produce th it in order that one man may raise five bales, and that is very fine land, as the present oc(".up:int of the chair [Mr. JoNES of Arkansas! knows — worth $1,000. the lowest tax that I am ac- quainted with, taking the tax of the State, countj', school, and all that sort of thing, is 15 mills. There has been no decrease. It strands ex K'tly to-day as it did then. What other decreases are there? The intelligent and able Sen- ator from Texas, who comes from a cotton State, and who, I sup- pose, has given some attention to this matter, has been kind enough to furnish me with the proof sheets of his tables, for which I am very much obliged. As he states it. there have been some re.luctions in the cost of the necessaries which the farmer buys. Recollect — and I hope nobody will forget that— that the farmer has, in 1892 and 1893, but $182 for hin;self. his wife, and, I will say, two children, to invest in coiciforts and necessaries not raised on the farm. Let us bear that in mind, lie has not that much after he pays his taxes and after he pays, as unfor- 486 46 tunately is common in our section of the country, a small bill for doctor's services, and things of th:it sort. But leave out all that and grive him $lS:i. Tea in 1873 was worth 95 cents. In 189U it is worth 25, a fall of Tii per cent. ITow many pounds of tea will a man buy for the use of himself, wife, and two children having an income of $182? Prob:ibly a couple of pounds. So that, as comjiensntion for los- ing the dift'ercnc(' between $')-! and $;3G, which is nearly $G0, on a bale of his cotton, he gets about 50 cents reduction in the price of tea. But that is not all. Take his coffee. I want you to bear in mind that a man who has an income of $182 does not use a great deal of coffee. He can not, however much he may desire. Mr. PEFFER. Less than 50 cents a day is his income. Mr. GEORGE. Less than 50 cents a day. He will probably buy 10 pounds of coffee during the year. Thus lie is to be com- pensated by a saving of $1 in the purchase of his coffee for a loss of $G0 on a bale of cotton. You may add in the tea, too. Now, we will come to drillings and sheetings. It is said that the percentage of saving was 48 in one case and 55 in the other; and so on. His whole purchase of these things and other like goods will ijrobably be confined to $100. Suppose he saves $50 on these articles. Then ho saves less on his whole purchases than he loses on one bale of cotton. And yet the Senator from Texas, representing a cotton con- stituency, argued very gravely before the Senate that after all cotton at 6 cents a pound, its present price, is not such a terri- ble thing to the Southern farmer, because he can save 50 cents on his tea, $1 on his coffee, $10 on his sheetings, and probably $100 on all of his purchases out of the store. This is the way that stands. So. Mr. President, if we put the farmer in this condition— which I hope he will not be in long, though he is in that position now — that he is to use his whole exertion for the purpose of get- ting a bare subsistence, and has no prospect of ever bettei'ing his fortune, we find that he gets, unfortunately, less for his labor in 1893 in the way of supplies, comforts, and necessaries than he did in 1873: and he is in fact reduced to the condition stated by the writer from whom I have quoted — to be working on his own farm for mere laborer's wages without a cent of com- pensation for the rent of his land. I want Senators to under- stand that. I have not overdrawn thig pictui'e. I am not talk- ing about wheat farmers, or tobacco farmers, because I know nothing about them. I am talking about cotton farmers. The Senator who sits by my side here [Mr. Bate], a cotton- raiser, can testify that I have made a liberal estimate for the produc- tion of a single farmer by his own labor, giving him 5 bales to the hand. Mr. BATE. Five and a half bales to the hand. Mr. GEORGE. But, Mr. President, there is a very great mis- take in thetables presented by the Senator from Texas. Idonot know who furnished him those figures, but I do know, as every Senator within the sound of my voice and who comes from a, cotton State knows, that the figures for 1891, where he put theavoi'age price of cotton at 10 cents, are not correct. The occupant of the chair [Mr. .TONES of Arkansas] smiles, and so do his colleague and the Senator from Texas; and so does the cotton planter who sits 486 47 at my left [Mr. Bate] smilo. I would smile too, Mr. President, if, I did not have some cuiso to weep on account of tlii low price. Mr. PASCO. I should like to ask the Senator from what mar- ket report that quotation is taken? Mr. GEORGE. It was only furnished to me this morning by the Senator from Texas. There is no statement of the particu- lar market; it is merely a statement of prices. Mr. PASCO. It certainly is not correctso far asour part of the country is concerned. Mr. GEORGE. It gives the prices of certain products from 1873 to 1891. I have a statement here, which was read by my colleague [Mr. Walthall] the other day, and which put the price of cotton, I will not say at a more reasonable rate, but at a truer rate. The price state^d in that table was 7 cents for 1891, but there is not a cotton farmer within the sound of my voice who does not know that for the crop of 1891 the farmer did not, on an average, receive 7 cents net. Of course, I do not count the New York price or the New Or- leans price; we count the price at the home market, at the near- est railroad depot; and then, too, we count the average price of the whole crop, including the meanest cotton, which every Sen- ator here from the cotton States knows is not worth much over half of the price of the best cotton. As to the other figures con- tained in the table of the Senator from Texas I know nothing. I can only say that as to the one which is prominent and recent in our recollection, the mistake is so great as to bring discredit on the whole table. Now, we begin to see how much compensation the farmer de- rives from the low prices of the things he buys for the loss he sustains in the fall in prices of the things which he raises. It is utterly worthless, it is really no compensation. He is placed in the position, as stated by this writer, of being a mere laborer upon his own farm, without any compensation for the rent. TALI-ING PRICES KEEP THE FAIJMER IN DEBT. There are some other things to which I desire to call the at- tention of the Senate which do not fall in price, and which, un- fortunately, the farmer has to pay. I may state this fact— and I presume without fear of contradiction — as an economic fact that the constant falling of prices on the part of agricultural products is always followed by a constantly increasing debt, almost neces- sarily, for, as the fai'mer's income at the best is a small one, and he is apt to purchase with reference to the fair and liberal price, which he hopes for all through the year, when there is a constant fall in the price of his crop he is brought in debt. So, according to the lluui'cs which I read the other day, there is now nearly $G,UOO,OOU,odo of debt in mortgages of real estate in this country. How much of that is on agricultural land, and how much on town land, I am unable to say; but every Senator from an agricultural community knows that a very large propor- tion of it is on agricultural property. Mr. PIOFJ-M-^R. a^vo-thirds of it. Mr. GEORGE. The Senator from Kansas says two-thirds. I am satisfied it is oven more than that. With his $182 income and with a. small debt even of two hundred dollars — there is no de- crease in Ihat, for it has to be paid dollar for dollar — with the con- stantly falling prices the farmer year by year is getting inex- tricably lodged in deep debt; and I am astonished, not so much 486 48 at my friend from Delaware [Mr. Gray], who lives in a city and who does not represent a very large agricultural interest, as 1 am astonished that any Senator represeutiuj^ a cotton Stats should argue gravely before the Araeric m Senate that the fall in the prices of the articles which the farmer buys is any com- pensation whatever for the immense fall in the price of the things which he sells. Mr. FRYE. Will it disturb the Senator to give me a bit of information? Mr. GEORGE. Not at all. Any information I have I will give to the Senator. Mr. FRYE. I understand the Senator to s.iy that a bale of cotton to the acre is all that it will average? Mr. GEORGE. It will not average that much. The average is half a bale to the acre. Mr. FRYE. And that the farmer can not raise over five bales? That would be cultivating 10 acres. Mr. GEORGE. Yes. Mr. FRYE. Does the Senator mean that the farmer's entire time is taken on 10 acres of land? Mr. GEORGE. I will explain it. I mean to say that 15 acres of land in corn and cotton, that is the usual crop, 10 in cotton and 5 in corn, and perhaps 2 or 3 in oats, is regarded as a full crop for any one man to raise. Mr. FRYE. I suppose that in cert;\in seasons the farmer needs more hands, in cotton-picking times, for instance, and things of that kind, as we do in the North in hay. If the farmer had 100 acres, does the Senator mean that it would take one mtm for each of the 15 of the 100 acres to profitably cultivate them? Mr. GEORGE. I do. Mr. FRYE. So that really the limit of the ability of one man in raising cotton is five or five and a half bales? Mr. GEORGE. That is the full average. I will state to the Senator that some men of extraordinary industry and energy, and with land of extraordinary fertility, will do more. Mr. FRYE. If the Sen t tor will pardon me one moment longer, what did I understand him to say the average value per acre of the land to be, of which he is speaking? Mr. GEORGE. I would say that a farm of 80 acres, with a good dwelling house on it and outhouses. that would produce a half br.le of cotton to the acre would be worth $S00 to $1,000. I doubt whether it could be sold for that; but if a man was out of debt he probably would not t;ike that for such a farm. Mr. FRYE. One question further. Is the cotton ci'op taken at the farm bv purchasers? Mr. GEORGE. No, sir. In the South the farmer usually hauls his cotton to the nearest market town on a navigable river or the nearest railroad town and disposes of it there. Mr. FRYE. And there he gets his price? Mr. GEORGE. Yes. Mr. FRYE. Then it centralizes somewhere else? Mr. GEORGE. Yes. A few large planters in Mississippi, I will state to the Senator from Maine, ship their cotton to New Orleans, Mobile, or Memphis, and it is there sold by a cotton factor. After charging the planter with all the expenses of the 48S 49 freight, commissions, and everything of that sort, the factor re- turns him what we c;ill the net proceeds. Mr. FRYE. If the Senator will p^i'don me one moment fur- ther, there is one other thing 1 should like to know. Mr. GEORGE. I will answer very cheerfully any question I can. Mr. FRYE. I understand that in the South the owners of cot- ton land let it out on halves or iij some other way. Will the Senator kindly tell me how many acres are ordinarily let to one man, and what the general arrangement may be as to the pay for it? Mr. GEORGE. I do not know that I can state the general arrangement. My own experience of that matter is confined to the Yazoo Delta. 1 1 is considered there as a very fair arrangement for the owner of the land to furnish the team, the plows, and the land, and to pay the expenses of keei)ing up the land, repairing the houses, fences, and all that sort of thing, and divide the net proceeds with the man who rents. Mr. FRYE. Divide the net proceeds? Mr. GEORGE. I used the word " net" wrongly there. I did not mean after the planter has been reimbursed for his team, and all that. I ought to have said "' gross proceeds," because those things are not chai'ged to the laborer. Mc. FRYE. Ordinarily does a man hire only 15 acres? Mr. GEORGE. That is about the usual amount. Mr. FRYE. I am obliged to the Senator for the information. Mr. CALL. An allowance is made for a garden. Mr. GEORGE. Gardens, potato patches, and things of that sort are never charged for. That is about the way the business is conducted. In the poor land districts, in the hills, I suppose that the acreage would be larger, but the proceeds would be less. I think I have said enough on this subject, and I shall now, lest it may be supposed that I have overdrawn this picture, read sbme resolutions passed by the farmers in Jefferson County, Mississippi. They are as follows: Whereas the financial condition of our country at preseut la most deplor- able and has been brought about, in our opinion, chiefly by the demonetiza- tion of silver, striking down half of the hard money of the country and vastly increasing the burdens of the debtor classes, inspired by the greed of English financiers and assisted by unpatriotic, undemocratic, and avaricious Ameri- cans, the effect of which has been, and still is, to rob the American farmer out of millions each year: and Whereas we know the Sherman act of 1890 to be in no wise responsible for the present financial difflcuUies, and that any law that has added $US,CS0,22I to the volume of oiir currency could not have been otherwise than benefi- cent in its effect: Eesolved, We demand that our representatives in Congress cling tena- ciously to the Sherman act of 1890 and steadily vote against the repeal of same, unless a free-coinage act at a ratio of 10 to 1 be embodied in the same bill, thus restoring to us the money that the founders of our Government established as the one most sruted to our wants, and which for ninety years of our history enabled us to enjoy that meed of prosperity which made our cotmtry the wonder of the world! WM. D. TORIiEY, Chairman. JAS. McCLUN, Secretary. The resolutions are in manuscript. They are drawn up by the farmers themselves, prompted thereto by their own feelings and their own wants — not gotten up on printed foi-ms sent out by banks and other capitalists and engineered by their agents, who 486 i 50 are sometimes their dupes and sometimes their fellow-con- spirators. Oh. but it will be said in the contemptuous spirit so charac- teristic of those who are enriched by the present financial sys- tem, that this comes from ''calamity howlers." So did the agents and assistants of Torquemada, as the vic- tims writhed and cried under the tortures of the inquisition, de- nominate them as "calamity howlers." The meetino: that passed these resolutions was composed of hundreds of men in one of the most intellifiront and productive counties in Mississippi. Is their cry to be unheeded":* I fear so. And yet I venture to say if the bankers of New York were to pass similar I'esolutions demanding the free coin- age of silver their demand would ba gi-anted as quickly as the ordinary forms of legislation would allow. I do not mean to say — no, not by any mea;is — that Senators or Congressmen are owned or consciously controlled by the banks, but I do mean to say that such is the influence of men possessing the wealth of the world and supposed to be skilled in finance, that in a matter stated by the Senator from Massachusetts to surpass in difficulty the subleties of metaphysics, the hair-splitting distinctions and profound speculations and logical puzzles of technical lawyers and of disputatious schoolmen and theologians, the human mind is apt to defer tothosowho are supposed to be experts, especially if they have shown an expertness in finance by getting rich. TRUST THE COilMON SENSE OF THE PEOPLE. But, sir, I had rather trust to the common sense of the Ameri- can people, as to their wants and their distresses.than to the expert knowledge of those who have antagonistic interests to them. To say we can not trust the common, average sense of the Ameri- can people, in a matter of government so essential to their wel- fare as this, is to assert that the people are incapable of self- government. The plain provision of the Constitution recognizing as money for coinage in the mint that which has been recognized as such from the earliest period of human history is easily com- prehended. The mystery of finance, so far as it rests on the recog- nition and coinage of the two precious metals, is easily under- stood. It is only when we depart from this and enter into the mazes of ingenious speculation, contrived to make that appear as money which is not money but a sham and a trick, and to make that appear not to be money which is money, that we encounter the difficulties suggested by the Senator from Massa- chusetts. These so-called expert bankers and capitalists are experts only in contriving devices by which the wealth of the world shall accumulate in their hands. Statesmanship dealing with a finan- cial system for the country is the opposite of this. It is provid- ing, as far as human foresight can provide, that money, denomi- nated by the Senator from Massachusetts as the lifeblood of trade, shall be sufficient in volume to circulate freely among all the people and not be congested in the great centers of trade and controlled, absolutely controlled, by a few who have grown overrich. WANTS OF THE FARMER. But, sir, I go back to the point of the wants of the American farmers, for an increased coinage, and the ability of that want, 486 51 with othei's, to keep silver at a parity with g'old. The farmers, at present, alone need a billion and more of money annually to carry on tlieir business on the economical and profitable cash system, rather than on a ruinous credit. They must in the main keep their money so as to expend it in eight or ten months, from the end of one harvest to the beginning of another. That money will not be hoarded, as a miser hoards his gold, with the view of gloating over it in the secret places in which it has been hid, nor as the capitalist hoards his, when in p;inics he saves his money for investment when prices shall fall lower and lower. The farmer does not want it deposited in a bank, which if the storm comes will refuse to return it to him when he most needs it. He wants it for constant use or for some investment to bs made when a favorable opportunity oCfers. He keeps no bank account. Possiblj' there is not a bank in his county or for several counties around him. At all events, he knows his money is safe in his own hands. He doubts its safety with the banks, especially when he knows the banks have demand obligations, payable at any moment, to an amount from six to ten times as great as they'havc cash to meet them. Then, sir, he looks at the laws of his counti'y, and finds that the national banks are not allowed to lend one dollar on the only security which he can oiler— on real estate. So, sir, he must layby money, or submit to the ruinous credit system I have described. We. sir, his servants— not his masters — his agents appointed to do the work needful to his happiness and prosperity — we, in- stead of responding to his calls, made in no equivocal terms, instead of giving him the opportunity of advancement and pros- perity, deliberately (not intentionally, I admit) provide for his destruction. Instead of giving him, as the Democratic platform of 1884: denominated it, gold and silver, the money of the Consti- tution, we desti^oy half of this constitutional monej% whereby, with depressed prices for his products, with largely enhanced prices, through the credit system and through the protective tariff system, for the things he must buy, the farmer must for- ever tread the dreary path of penury and despair. Now, Mr. President, if we give the country free coinage the farmers alone, with the necessary money they must keep to carry on their business, will consume more than one-half the addition free coinage will make to the currency. The laborers will consume much of the other half. Do not they need an increase in the currency? Oh. no, it is claimed that their wages will bo lessened by payment in a depreciated cur- rency, as if the present wages of laborers were the voluntary gift, the philanthropic provision made by capitalists for those who had made them over-rich instead of being extorted from them by the firm demand of associated labor. This argument rests upon the i^rcsumed ignorance of labor of its rights. HOW THE LABORER'S WAGES ARE AFFECTED. Thank Heaven, sir, this presumption is unfounded. Whatever may have been the fact in the past, the laborer now knows his rights as to his wages, and knowing them, ho, by such associated efforts as are needed, asserts them. But, sir, is the present system of demonetized silver the heaven of the laborer? Whilst gold must bo the standard, as the antisilver men assert— whilst gold must be more, the only money, or the foundation of all sub- 486 52 stitutes for real money— has the laborer in the past or does he now receive his wages in gold or its equivalent? I wish to j-ead an extract fi-om a letter addressed by Mr. Pow- derly to the American Congress; which is as follows: In every State of the American Union where mining or manufacturing Is carried ou workingmen are obliged to trade in company stores because of the scarcity of money. The "barter and trade system "of barbaric ages finds its counterpart in liuudreds of mining towns, where the brass check, the shinplastor. and the store order compel workmen to barter labor for food. Wore money plenty this condition of affairs would not exist as it does exist to-day. I produce now a book containing facsimiles of the devices spoken of, and I will read from it. It is the annual report of the secretary of internal affairs for the State of Pennsylvania for 187S-'79. There are about one dozen different kinds of shin- plasters given in it. I will read the language of a few specimens, and insert more in my remarks, so that Senators who think that the laborers are enjoying a heaven under the present system may know something about how the laborers in this country are p.'iid. Here is the facsimile of a shinplaster which reads in this way: THE KIND OF "HONEST" MONEY PAID TO THE LABORER. 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 This ticket is issued by the PINE RUN COAL. COMPANY, On account of the scarcity of small change, and is redeemable at their store in merchandise. THE CHECK IS GOOD FOR THE Amount of the figures (in cents) opposite the punch mark. TWO HOLES IN A CHECK RENDERS IT WORTHLESS. 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 That is the statement of one. Then here on page 366 is an- other: No. . McClure Station, Pa., , 18—. PAINTER MINE STORE. Not transferable. $1. Let have merchandise to the amount not punched. Good when signed by S. B. White. Then another: Good for all amounts unpunched. Payable on demand. 81. In merchandise at the store of . Not transferable. H. C. Frick & Co., Valley Mines. Pa. Date. , —80. To . No. . For use of . And the proof shows that the insertion of the words "not transferable"' was a mere trick for the purpose of evading the tax of 10 per cent. They are nearly all marked "not transfer- able." The scrip Is marked— says the correspondent — 'not tran.sferable." yet they u.se it the same as money here, the parties tak- ing it, however, instead of money do so at a shave of from 30 to 40 per cent ISA 53 Anybody can purchase with them the same as the party to whom they are Is- sued, and I see them \ised here in hotels, saloons, eating houses, etc., every week. Then there is another on page 367, which is as follows: Good for all amounts not unpunched. J5. Payable on demand. In merchandise at the store of . Not transferable. Webster Coal Co., Webster, Pa. To . Signed . No.—. Issued There is another one on page 368: No. — . Not transferable. Sold to ■ This check is goort (until punched) for One dollar, In goods III the store of Brown & Co., Mount Vernon, Payette Co., If properly countersigned. Coimtersigned. $1.00 (One) 187— Then there is another on the same page: DUNBAR FURNACE STORE. • Good for In merchandise at my store. J. M. HUSTEAD. «1. Per . Then here is one that is up to the dignity of fine engraving. It looks a good deal like a bank note: ENTERPRISE COAL WORKS. 10 cents. 10 cents. Store Pay to Bearer 10 cents In Merchandise, and charge to Banksville, Pa., , 18—. Then there is another on page 370: Good for all amounts unpunched. Payable on demand In merchandise At the store of SI. Sharon Iron Works, Sharon, Pa. To or order. Signed WESTERMAN IRON CO. No. — . Issued , 18—. Then here is another with a picture of the father of the coun- try on it: 25 25 No. — . California, Pa., , 18—. J. G. Gleason, The storekeeper Will pay to the bearer iu merchandise Twenty-live cents. Signed JOS. COATS WORTH & CO. 25 25 And still another on the same page: Good for all amoimts unpunched J5. Payable on demand, In merchandise at the Htore of W. B. Enos & Co., Wampum, Pa., To or order. Signed . No. — . Issued , 18—. 54 And also on page 372 is another one: 6, This will bo received As equivalent to Five cents. In exchange for merchandise at the store of L. S. Hoyt. Clinton Station, Pa., — , 18—. Also one on page 373: 25 This will be received As equivalent to Tweuty-flve cents In exchange for merchandise at the store ol L. S. Hoyt. Clinton Station, Pa., , 18—. And another one on page 375: 10 A No. — "William Sharpe & Co., of Dubois, Pa., Will pay the bearer on demand Ten cents. In merchandise. Mr. GRAY. Mr. President The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. JONES of Arkansas in the chair). Does the Senator from Mississippi yield to the Senator ii'om Delaware? Mr. GEORGE. Certainly. Mr. GRAY. I should like to say to the Senator from Missis- sippi in this connection that so far as those Pennsylvania pluck- me-storo orders — as they came to be called in the common par- lance of that State and neighboring States — are concerned, I think I know the fact that their issuance and use was not due in any degree to scarcity of money. They were a part of a system of oppi'ession, I grant, and grew out of the greed of some of those great coal-mining corporations thatendeavoi*ed to make a profit at both ends, and by the peculiar situation in which they found them- selves in relation to their workingmen the former were enabled to compel an acceptance of the pluck-me-store orders as a part of their pay, which were redeemable at the company's stores, and where it was charged the corporations made an enormous profit upon the goods in which they were redeemed. I have had some familiarity with this state of things, and it went to such a pass that I believe the State of Pennsylvania enacted alaw which, in a large measure, broke up that mode of paying wages. Mr. GEORGE. I have no doubt that there is a good deal of truth in what the Senator from Delaware says, but still it is a good answer to the argument made by the Senator himself that the laborer was interested in having the gold standard in order that ho might have an honest dollar for his wages. I want to show what kind of an honest dollar is used for the purpose of paying the wages of the laborers of this country, showing that however honest, and good, and glorious the gold dollar might be as between the capitalists and bankers, when we come down to the laborer, in whose behalf the plea is made, they did not circu- ate. Now, Mr. President.it does nothappen in Pennsylvania alone I have some more of these. Here is one of them from Tennes- see: Good only at East Tennessee Company's store. Fifty cents for all amoimts due. 486 55 I was instructed not to read out the name of tho man to whom the ticket was given, as he might suffer for it. I will call him Richard Roe, though my friend from Delaware may see it if he wants. Due Richard Roe or bearer In merchandise, 50 cents. Mr. GRAY. Payable in merchandise. Mr. GEORGE. Oh, yes; they are all payable in merchandise. Here is another from the State of Kentucky: Beaver Creek Cumberland River Storekeeper. Pay 10 cents to bearer in merchandise. They were not afraid of the tax over there, and they did not put in the words "not transferable." Redeemable at tho store of Beaver Creek Cumberland River Coal Company in merchandise. That is the honest dollar that my friend from Delaware pleaded so hard should be paid to the laborers of this country. Mr. GRAY. Oh, no; that is not it. Mr. GEORGE. The Senator was not talking about that kind of a dollar. He was talking about the gold dollar, and his the- ory was that the workingman should have the gold dollar, but in practice he has this kind of a dollar. Mr. GRAY. I was talking about the gold dollar or the paper dollar or the silver dollar as good as gold. Mr. GEORGE. Exactly. I know the Senator insisted that the laborers got these good, honest dollars, and I am just show- ing that whilst such was the theory, and the theory was all right, the practice was the other way. Now, I have another one: Laurel Coal Company will pay to bearer 5 cents in goods at the supply store. The Laui'el Coal Company does not disclose on this paper where it is. I suppose they knew at the place. Miners' order for 5 cents. Merchandise. J. Pitman & Son. That is another. Now, I have something on my friend from Texas. It is not only done by these rascally mining companies, but here is a very extraordinary paper: Thurber. Texas and Pacific Coal Company— I presume that is in Texas — Two dollars. Issued to blank. I am not at liberty to tell his name. Issued to John Doe. Receipt given for this book and accepted, as stated on cover. There are a great many nice things hero. The remarkable part of this one is it is issued in amounts of $2. It has 40 of these little coupons in it. I will read one of them. Texas and Pacific Companj'. Good for 5 cents in merchandise it not punched. R. B. HUNTER, Treasurer. They did not issue two or three of these. This is numbered 87,530, and all in this book, the whole 40, are numbered 8T,r)30. Mr. GRAY. Are they all redeemable in merchandiseV Mr. GEORGE. Every one of them. That is the good honest dollar which these men get, and which my friend from Delaware insisted they ought to have. Now, these men were not satisfied with dealing in shinplasters. They thought they would get up something a little mox*e solid and 486 56 substantial. They used a coin. They had a mint. I have here some of the coins "issued to pay the laborers with. Miner.i' check. Ufiy cent.-.. It seems that the business of issuing this kind of money to miners was not only indulged in by the principal, but even by the lessees. ^Etna Coal Company, lessees. This is the first coin I ever saw 'that was not of metal. They have impi'oved on that. This is on pasteboard, but it looks ex- actly like a half dollar. Here is another: Good lor 25 cents in merchandise. Main Jellico Mt. Coal Company, Ken- see, Ky. So I have found them in Pennsylvania, and I have found them in Tennessee, and I have found them in Texas, and also in Ken- tucky. Here is another beautiful coin: The Pitman Coal Company. Five cents. Merchandise. Then there is the American eagle upon it. Mr. GRAY. And " in God we trust?" Mr. GEORGE. No, sir; they were not trusting in God over there, they were trusting in the other power. Here is another one. It looks like silver, but I presume it is not. They would not make it out of silver; it must be tin. It comes from the Pea- cock Coal Company. Merchandise check. Then there is a figure five on one side of it, like the Mexican dollar, with the rays of the rising sun on it. Then here is another one good for .5 cents in merchandise. It is also from the Main Jellico Mt. Coal Company, at Kensee, Ky. So, Mr. President, I think the plea set up by my friend from Delaware for the laborers to have an honest dollar will not stand, or ought not to stand. I think if we had a good honest silver dollar it would be better. The rest of them did not deem it necessai'y to make an excuse, they just issued these shin])laster8 and coins: but one of the companies put across the face of its shin- plaster, ''Owing to the scarcity of change we issue this check." I do not think this is exactly under the present system satis- factory to the laborers so far as currency is concerned. I wish to read another extract from Mr. Powdei'ly's address, an address which I suppose was sent to all members of Congress. It was sent to me, and it is addressed to Congress. I read it not so much for the facts as for the argument. BANKS AND EXCHANGES USE CEtECKS, BUT THE PEOPLE USE MONET. We are told that money is not actually required in the transaction of busi- ness. That is true only of our stock exchanges, our grain exchanges, and between banks, men, and concerns having large commercial and mer- cantile interests in common. The great bulk of the people must have money; they must use it, for they are not so engaged as to effect exchanges through the use of paper. But a few men can do without the actual possession of money; that is, a few as compared with the population at large. A gold dollar, as a basis on which to transact business or to point to as a standard, may be suitable among changers of money and those whose business inter- ests are so interwoven that the actual passing of money is not required, but among the masses, who must produce the dollar before' food or clothing will be given them, the actual, real, tangible dollar must be present and must be exchanged. To pass food from hand to mouth the dollar must pass from hand lo band. So, Mr. President, I think that the eloquent plea made by my friend from Delaware the other day in behalf of the laborers for 480 57 honest money turns out now to be all moonshine. I have no doubt that he thoug-ht these laborers were actually receiving from their employei's actual hard dollars worth 100 cents in yold. I read now to show how much tliey wer;' worth. I had b.-tter read a few items to show how they are redeemed at the stores. I had forgotten about that. Here is a table of the prices. Company's stores, flour per sack, $2.10. Other stores, same flour, SI. 90. Sugar per ponnd, compauy's stores, 121 cents. Other stores, 7 cents. And so on, in every instance there is a difference of from 10 to 25 per cent between the prices charged in the company's stores, and given in redemption of these tickets, and other stores. About 25 per cent more is charged than in the other stores in the neighborhood. That is the glorious kind of currency to which the Senator from Delaware invites the American laborer and he insinuates and argues that we Democrats here, in trying to give the American laborer an honest silver dollar, are doing harm to him, because we deprive him of these elegant substitutes for money which I have brought to the notice of the Senate. WE CAN MAINTAIN THE PARITY BETWEEN GOLD AND SILVER. Now, Mr. President, the next question is. Can we maintain the parity between these metals. I do not think there is a doubt about our ability to maintain the two metals at a parity on the old ratio. France, with less than 35,000,000 of people, maintained the parity, at a greatly less ratio, 15i to 1, when the wants of the world for money were far less than they are now. Assuming Mr. Walker to be right — I read the other day from Mr. Walker, in which he said that the consuming power of the American people is three times that of Europe— assuming Mr. Walker to be right, that we are equal to 200,000,000 in Europe, in consuming power, and therefore in the necessary use of me- tallic money can we not, with a use for money three times as great as that of France, do what France did for many years and does now? But, sir, in addition to this the population of France was and is now at a standstill; we are increasing in numbers with the most busy, energetic, and extravagant people in the world at the average rate of 1,700,000 a year as the average for two decades. France, when she maintained the ratio of 15 yV to 1, had large standing armies; was engaged in costly and. to her. devastating wars, whereby production and consumption w •easBAi Jiam ihtav 'sjijbio pnt; 'noisLA.iaaus or JO joqc] SATtanpoJd ui paioidtua saeqraatn itug ao Bjaomo wapnibni .) 'j '0881 or pa].iO(laa jou s«Ai IT dsncaaq 'oegl JOj pepnpn; lou sj j£iJr>dojAV » pa.Coidnia n:)id'BO siuanmstin'us.^ jo jaqnmM :a.m'lJHjuaKta jo s.isstqD l\v. 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