of Montana, and Congressmen Charles S. Hartman of Montana, John F. Shafroth of Colorado, Clarence E. Allen of Utah, and others.

The money plank of the platform reported by a majority of the committee was as follows:

Money Plank of the Republican Platform.

It caused the

The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money. enactment of the law providing for the resumption of specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been as good as gold.

We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are, therefore, opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement with the leading commercial nations of the world, which we pledge ourselves to promote, and until such agreement can be obtained the existing gold standard must be preserved. All our silver and paper currency must be maintained at parity with gold, and we favor all measures designed to maintain inviolably the obligations of the United States and all our money, whether coin or paper, at the present standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations of the earth. Senator Teller, on behalf of the minority, submitted the following report and substitute:

We, the undersigned members of the Committee on Resolutions, being unable to agree with a portion of the majority report which treats on the subject of coinage and finance, respectfully submit the following paragraph as a substitute therefor: "The Republican party authorizes the use of both gold and silver as an equal standard money, and pledges its power to secure the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at our mints at the ratio of 16 parts of silver to 1 of gold."

Senator Teller then addressed the convention in support of the substitute. It was an impressive scene-a scene not to be forgotten by any one who witnessed it. He was deeply moved and his earnestness made even his opponents anxious to catch each word. He realized that nothing he could say would affect the action of the convention; he realized that for the present he was bidding farewell to the Republican party. He had been identified with that party from its birth, had received distinguished honors at its hands, had faithfully defended its principles and its policies, and he spoke like one whose heart was almost broken at the thought of separation from his political associates.

While the delegates were almost unanimously against the course. which he advocated, they offered but little interruption, and that was at once checked by Chairman Thurston. It is only fair to say, in this connection, that the majority, while at all times maintaining control of the convention, treated the Silver Republicans with all the courtesy

and consideration which could have been asked, and Senator Thurston, as the presiding officer, was eminently fair and impartial in his rulings.

I reproduce in full the speech of Senator Teller; it deserves to be preserved for succeeding generations:

Senator Teller's Farewell Address.

Gentlemen of the Convention: I will not attempt to inflict upon you a discussion of the great financial question which is dividing the people, not only of this country, but of the whole world. The few moments allotted to me by the convention will not enable me to more than state in the briefest possible manner our objections to the financial plank proposed for your consideration. I am a practical man, and I recognize the conditions existing in this convention, foreshadowed, as they were, by the action of the committee selected by the representatives assembled from the different States.

This plank, or this proposition, was presented to the whole committee and by it rejected. Loyalty to my own opinion, consideration for the great interest that is felt in this country compel me, in the face of unusual difficulties, to present this substitute for your consideration, not with that bounding hope or with that assurance that I have felt in presenting similar propositions in other bodies where I have met with greater measure of success than I can hope for here. The great and supreme importance of this question is alone my excuse now for the few words that I shall say to you.

In a public capacity, I have dealt with this subject now for twenty years. I represent a State that produces silver, but I want to say to you here and now that my advocacy of the proposition is not in the slightest degree influenced or controlled by that fact.

I contend for it because I believe there can be no proper financial system in any country in the world that does not recognize this principle of bimetallism. I contend for it because, since 1873, when it was ruthlessly stricken from our statutes, there has been a continued depreciation of all the products of human labor and human energy.

I contend for it because in this year of 1896 the American people are in greater distress than they ever were in their history.

I contend for it because our present financial system is, in my judgment, the great weight, the great incubus, that has weighed down enterprise and destroyed progress in this favored land of ours.

I contend for it because I believe the progress of my country is dependent on it.

I contend for it because I believe the civilization of the world is to be determined by the rightful or wrongful solution of this financial question.

I am tolerant of those who differ from me. I act from my judgment, enlightened as best I have been able to enlighten it by many years of study and of thought. In my judgment the American people in the whole line of their history have never been called upon to settle a question of greater importance to them than this question of the currency. The great contest in which many of you participated which was to determine whether we should have two flags

or one was not more important to the American people than the question of a proper solution of what shall be the money system of this land.

I have said enough to convince you that I think that this is not a question of policy, but a question of principle. It is not a mere idle thing, but one on which hangs the happiness, the prosperity, the morality and the independence of American labor and American producers.

Confronted for the first time in the history of this glorious party of ours, confronted, I say, for the first time with a danger of a financial policy that, in my judgment, will be destructive to all the great interests of this land, we are called upon to give this provision of our platform our adhesion or rejection. Mr. President, I do not desire to say unkind or unfriendly things, and I will say in a moment, and only a moment, why I object to this provision of this platform. The Republican party has never been the party of a single standard. It was a bimetallic party in its origin and has been in all its history. In 1888 it declared for bimetallism; in 1892 it declared for bimetallism. In 1896 it declares for a single gold standard.

Mr. President, in 1888 we carried the State that I here represent; for whom? For the Republican nominee; we carried it on a bimetallic platform. We carried it with a majority that was equal, considering our vote, to that of any State in the Union. It has been a Republican State from the hour of its admission. It has kept in the Senate Republican Senators, and in the House Republican members. I promised you that I would not discuss the silver question, and I will not do so further except to repeat that this platform is such a distinct departure from any policy heretofore enunciated by the Republican party that it challenges our Republicanism to accept it.

Mr. President, the platform contains some platitudes about international conferences. It provides that we shall maintain the gold standard in this country until the principal nations of the world shall agree that we may do otherwise. Sir, this is the first great gathering of Republicans since this party was organized that has declared the inability of the American people to control their own affairs.

To my horror, this declaration comes from the great political party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Do you believe that the American people are too weak to actually maintain a financial system commensurate with the greatness of the country of their own fruition? Gentlemen of the convention, you will have no bimetallic agreement with all the great commercial nations of the world; it cannot be obtained. Therefore, this is a declaration that the gold standard is to be put upon this country and kept upon it for all time. Do you believe that Great Britain-the great commercial nation of the world--our powerful competitor in commerce and trade, will ever agree to open her mints to the free coinage of silver? Or consent that we shall open ours as long as she gets the advantage of the low prices and the declining values that have been brought to this country by the adoption of a gold standard? We are the great debtor nation of the world. Great Britain is the great creditor. We pay her every year millions and hundreds of millions of dollars which count as income on her investments in this country or interest on her loans. The gold standard, in my judgment, lowers prices and decreases values. Great Britain buys of us millions and millions more than she sells,

and she buys upon a gold standard-a lowering and depreciating standard. How long do you think it will be before she will agree to a system of finance that raises the price of the farm products, or the products of our mines in this country?

It is a solemn declaration that the Republican party intends to maintain low prices and stagnate business for all time to come.

There is a beautiful provision in this platform about the tariff. Mr. President, I subscribe to that. I believe in a protective tariff. I have advocated it for forty years. But it is my solemn conviction that a protective tariff cannot be maintained upon a gold standard. The tariff protection principle is for the raising of the price of human toil. It is for giving to the producer ample compensation for his labor. The gold standard, on the contrary, everywhere that it is enforced, is for the purpose of reducing values.

Now, gentlemen of the convention, I am going to make this simple objection as to the protective system, that it is in danger, and then I will call your attention to one other fact, and then I will leave it to your judgment whether this platform shall be adopted or rejected. Under existing conditions we undoubtedly have a gold standard. I do not deny that, but what I have sought for twenty years is to change it to the bimetallic system. I have believed, and I now believe, that when the Almighty created these twin metals He intended that the world should use them for the purposes for which they were created. And when He blessed this land of ours with more gold and more silver than any other country in the world, He meant that we should use them as standard money. We today reverse the traditions of our country and declare we will use only one. If the American people are in favor of that system I have nothing to say. I must submit to the majority vote and the majority voice in this country of ours. I do not believe this party of ours, if it could be polled, is favorable of the single gold standard. I believe that 90 per cent. of the American people are in favor of bimetallism of the old-fashioned kind that eixsted in this country up to 1873.

Mr. President, and gentlemen of the convention, I promised you that I would consume but little of your time and I believe I am allowed only a few minutes more in which I can rapidly address you. I want, however, to say a few things which may seem to you to be personal and which ought not to be introduced in an audience like this. I must beg your indulgence if I seem to transcend the proprieties of this occasion, if I shall say something personal to myself.

I have formed my convictions on this great question after twenty years of study-after twenty years of careful thought and careful reading. I have been trained in a school that it seems to me ought to fit me fairly well for reaching just conclusions from established facts. I have formed my conclusions to such an extent that they have become binding on my conscience. I believe that the adoption of the gold standard in the United States will work great hardship, that it will increase the distress, and that no legislation touching the tariff can remove the difficulties that now all admit prevail in this land. I believe that the whole welfare of my race is dependent upon a rightful solution of this question; that the morality, the civilization, nay, the very religion of my country is at stake in this contest. I know, and you know, that men in