there into the same policy. Evidently the first dictate of prudence is to coin such a dollar as will not only do justice among our citizens at home, but will prove a protectionan absolute barricade-against the gold monometallists of Europe, who, whenever the opportunity offers, will quickly draw from us the one hundred and sixty millions of gold coin still in our midst. And if we coin a silver dollar of full legal tender, obviously below the current value of the gold dollar, we are opening wide our doors and inviting Europe to take our gold. And with our gold flowing out from us we are forced to the single silver standard and our relations with the leading commercial countries of the world are at once embarrassed and crippled.

Third. The question before Congress then-sharply defined in the pending House bill-is, whether it is now safe and expedient to offer free coinage to the silver dollar of 412 grains, with the mints of the Latin Union closed and Germany not permitting silver to be coined as money. At current rates of silver, the free coinage of a dollar containing 412 grains, worth in gold about ninety-two cents, gives an illegitimate profit to the owner of the bullion, enabling him to take ninety-two cents' worth of it to the mint and get it stamped as coin and force his neighbor to take it for a full dollar. This is an undue and unfair advantage which the government has no right to give to the owner of silver bullion, and which defrauds the man who is forced to take the dollar. And it assuredly follows that if we give free coinage to this dollar of inferior value and put it in circulation, we do so at the expense of our better coinage in gold; and unless we expect the uniform and invariable experience of other nations to be in some mys terious way suspended for our peculiar benefit, we inevi

tably lose our gold coin. It will flow out from us with the certainty and resistless force of the tides. Gold has indeed remained with us in considerable amount during the circulation of the inferior currency of the legal tender; but that was because there were two great uses reserved by law for gold: the collection of customs and the payment of interest on the public debt. But if the inferior silver coin is also to be used for these two reserved purposes, then gold has no tie to bind it to us. What gain, therefore, would we make for the circulating medium, if on opening the gate for silver to flow in, we open a still wider gate for gold to flow out? If I were to venture upon a dictum on the silver question, I would declare that until Europe remonetizes we cannot afford to coin a dollar as low as 412 grains. After Europe remonetizes on the old standard, we cannot afford to coin a dollar above 400 grains. If we coin too low a dollar before general remonetization our gold will flow out from us. If we coin too high a dollar after general remonetization our silver will leave us. It is only an equated value both before and after general remonetization that will preserve both gold and silver to us.

Fifth. The responsibility of re-establishing silver in its ancient and honorable place as money in Europe and America, devolves really on the Congress of the United States. If we act here with prudence, wisdom, and firmness, we shall not only successfully remonetize silver and bring it into general use as money in our own country, but the influence of our example will be potential among all European nations, with the possible exception of England. Indeed, our annual indebtment to Europe is so great that if we have the right to pay it in silver we necessarily coerce those nations by the strongest of all forces, self-interest, to

aid us in upholding the value of silver as money. But if we attempt the remonetization on a basis which is obviously and notoriously below the fair standard of value as it now exists, we incur all the evil consequences of failure at home and the positive certainty of successful opposition abroad. We are and shall be the greatest producers of silver in the world, and we have a larger stake in its complete monetization than any other country. The difference to the United States between the general acceptance of silver as money in the commercial world and its destruction as money, will possibly equal within the next half century the entire bonded debt of the nation. But to gain this advantage we must make it actual money-the accepted equal of gold in the markets of the world. Remonetization here followed by general remonetization in Europe will secure to the United States the most stable basis for its currency that we have ever enjoyed, and will effectually aid in solving all the problems by which our financial situation is surrounded.

Sixth. On the much-vexed and long-mooted question of a bimetallic or monometallic standard my own views are sufficiently indicated in the remarks I have made. I be lieve the struggle now going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster in the end throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and establishing gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property except those investments which yield a fixed return in money. These would be enormously enhanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other species of property. lf, as the most reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly seven thousand millions of coin or bullion in the