great navy; we cannot put our safety in expensive fortifications along a seacoast thousands of miles in extent, nor can we put our safety in a great standing army that would absorb in idleness the toil of the men it protects. A free government must find its safety in happy and contented citizens, who, protected in their rights and free from unnecessary burdens, will be willing to die that the blessings which they enjoy may be transmitted to their posterity.

Thomas Jefferson, that greatest of statesmen and most successful of politicians, tersely exprest the true purpose of government when he said:

"With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens; a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."

That is the inspiration of the Democratic party; that is its aim and object. If it comes, Mr. Chairman, into power in all the departments of this Government it will not destroy industry; it will not injure labor; but it will save to the men who produce the wealth of the country a larger portion of that wealth. It will bring prosperity and joy and happiness, not to a few, but to every one without regard to station or condition. The day will come, Mr. Chairman-the day will come when those who annually gather about this Congress seeking to use the taxing power for private purposes will find their oc

cupation gone, and the members of Congress will meet here to pass laws for the benefit of all the people. That day will come, and in that day, to use the language of another, "Democracy will be king! Long live the king!"

II

BIMETALISM

Delivered in Congress on August 16, 1893, in opposition to the bill to repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman act, and containing a general discussion of bimetalism.

R. SPEAKER: I shall accomplish my full

purpose if I am able to impress upon the members of the House the far-reaching consequences which may follow our action and quicken their appreciation of the grave responsibility which presses upon us. Historians tell us that the victory of Charles Martel at Tours determined the history of all Europe for centuries. It was a contest between the Crescent and the Cross," and when, on that fateful day, the Frankish prince drove back the followers of Abderrabman he rescued the West from "the all-destroying grasp of Islam," and saved to Europe its Christian civilization. A greater than Tours is here! In my humble judgment the vote of this House on the subject under consideration may bring to the people of the West and South, to the people of the United States, and to all mankind, weal or woe beyond the power of language to describe or imagination to conceive.

In the princely palace and in the humblest hamlet; by the financier and by the poorest toiler; here, in Europe and everywhere, the proceedings of this Congress, upon this problem, will be read and studied; and as our actions bless or blight we shall

be commended or condemned. The President of the United States, in the discharge of his duty as he sees it, has sent to Congress a message calling attention to the present financial situation, and recommending the unconditional repeal of the Sherman law as the only means of securing immediate relief. Some outside of this hall have insisted that the President's recommendation imposes upon Democratic members an obligation, as it were, to carry out his wishes, and over-zealous friends have even suggested that opposition to his views might subject the hardy dissenter to administrative displeasure. They do the President great injustice who presume that he would forget for a moment the independence of the two branches of Congress. He would not be worthy of our admiration or even respect if he demanded a homage which would violate the primary principles of free representative government.

Let his own language rebuke those who would disregard their pledges to their own people in order to display a false fealty. In the message which he sent to Congress in December, 1885, he said, in words which may well be our guide in this great crisis: "The zealous watchfulness of our constituencies, great and small, supplements their suffrage, and before the tribunal they establish every public servant should be judged." Among the many grand truths exprest felicitously by the President during his public career none show a truer conception of official duty or describe with more clearness the body from which the member receives his authority and to which he owes his responsibility.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is before the tribunal established by our constituencies, and before that tribunal only that we must appear for judgment upon our actions here. When we each accepted a commission from 180,000 people we pledged ourselves to protect their rights from invasion and to reflect their wishes to the best of our ability, and we must stand defenseless before the bar if our only excuse is "he recommended it. And remember, sir, that these constituencies include not bankers, brokers, and boards of trade only, but embrace people in every station and condition of life; and in that great court from whose decision there is no appeal every voter has an equal voice. That the Democratic party understands the duty of the Representative, is evident from the fact that it found it necessary to nonconcur in a similar recommendation made by the President in 1885.

In the message which he sent to the Forty-ninth Congress, at the beginning of the first session, we find these words:

"Prosperity hesitates upon our threshold because the dangers and uncertainties surrounding this question. Capital timidly shrinks from trade, and investors are unwilling to take the chance of the questionable shape in which their money will be returned to them, while enterprise halts at a risk against which care and sagacious management do not protect.

"As a necessary consequence, labor lacks employment, and suffering and distress are visited upon a portion of our fellow citizens especially entitled to the careful consideration of those charged with the duties of legislation. No interest appeals to us so strongly for a safe and stable currency as the vast army of the unemployed. I recommend the suspension of the compulsory coinage of silver dollars, directed by the law passed in February, 1878."