represented by certificates in active circulation. Sixteen ounces of silver bullion may not be worth one ounce of gold, still one dollar's worth of silver bullion is worth one dollar of gold.

What will be the effect of the free coinage of silver? It is said that it will at once advance silver to par with gold at the ratio of 16 to 1. I deny it. The attempt will bring us to the single standard of the cheaper metal. When we advertise that we will buy all the silver of the world at that ratio and pay in Treasury notes, our notes will have the precise value of 371 grains of pure silver, but the silver will have no higher value in the markets of the world. If, now, that amount of silver can be purchased at 80 cents, then gold will be worth $1.25 in the new standard. All labor, property, and commodities will advance in nominal value, but their purchasing power in other commodities will not increase. If you make the yard 30 inches long instead of 36 you must purchase more yards for a coat or a dress, but do not lessen the cost of the coat or the dress. You may by free coinage, by a species of confiscation, reduce the burden of a debt, but you cannot change the relative value of gold or silver, or any object of human desire. The only result is to demonetize gold and to cause it to be hoarded or exported. The cheaper metal fills the channels of circulation and the dearer metal commands a premium.

If experience is needed to prove so plain an axiom we have it in our own history. At the beginning of our National Government we fixed the value of gold and silver as 1 to 15. Gold was undervalued and fled the country to where an ounce of gold was worth 15 ounces of silver. Congress, in 1834, endeavored to rectify this by making the ratio 1 to 16, but by this silver was undervalued.

Sixteen ounces of silver were worth more than 1 ounce of gold, and silver disappeared. Congress, in 1853, adopted another expedient to secure the value of both metals as money. By this expedient gold is the standard and silver the subsidiary coin, containing confessedly silver of less value in the market than the gold coin, but maintained at the parity of gold coin by the government.

But it is said that those of us who demand the gold standard, or paper money always equal to gold, are the representatives of capital, money-changers, bondholders, Shylocks, who want to grind and oppress the people. This kind of argument I hoped would never find its way into the Senate Chamber. It is the cry of the demagogue, without the slightest foundation. All these classes can take care of themselves. They are the men who make their profits out of the depreciation of money. They can mark up the price of their property to meet changing standards. They can protect themselves by gold contracts. In In proportion to their wealth they have less money on hand than any other class. They have already protected themselves to a great extent by converting the great body of the securities in which they deal into gold bonds, and they hold the gold of the country, which you cannot change in value. They are not, as a rule, the creditors of the country.

The great creditors are savings banks, insurance companies, widows and orphans, and provident farmers, and business men on a small scale. The great operators are the great borrowers and owe more than is due them. credit is their capital and they need not have even money enough to pay their rent.

Their

But how will this change affect the great mass of our fellow citizens who depend upon their daily labor? A

dollar to them means so much food clothing, and rent. If you cheapen the dollar it will buy less of these. You may say they will get more dollars for their labor, but all experience shows that labor and land are the last to feel the change in monetary standards, and the same resistance will be made to an advance of wages on the silver standard as on the gold standard, and when the advance is won it will be found that the purchasing power of the new dollar is less than the old. No principle of political economy is better established than that the producing classes are the first to suffer and the last to gain by monetary changes.

I might apply this argument to the farmer, the merchant, the professional man, and to all classes except the speculator or the debtor who wishes to lessen the burden of his obligations; but it is not necessary.

It is sometimes said that all this is a false alarm, that our demand for silver will absorb all that will be offered and bring it to par with gold at the old ratio. I have no faith in such a miracle. If they really thought so, many would lose their interest in the question. What they want is a cheaper dollar that would pay debts easier. Others do not want either silver or gold, but want numbers, numerals, the fruit of the printing-press, to be fixed every year by Congress as we do an appropriation bill.

Now, sir, I am willing to do all I can with safety even to taking great risks to increase the value of silver to gold at the old ratio, and to supply paper substitutes for both for circulation, but there is one immutable, unchangeable, ever-existing condition, that the paper substitute must always have the same purchasing power as gold and silver coin, maintained at their legal ratio with each other. I feel a conviction, as strong as the human mind can have, that

the free coinage of silver now by the United States will be a grave mistake and a misfortune to all classes and conditions of our fellow citizens. I also have a hope and belief, but far from a certainty, that the measure proposed for the purchase of silver bullion to a limited amount, and the issue of Treasury notes for it, will bring silver and gold to the old ratio, and will lead to an agreement with other commercial nations to maintain the free coinage of both metals.

And now, sir, I want to state in conclusion, without any purpose to bind myself to detail, that I will vote for any measure that will, in my judgment, secure a genuine bimetallic standard-one that will not demonetize gold or cause it to be hoarded or exported, but will establish both silver and gold as common standards and maintain them at a fixed ratio, not only in the United States but among all the nations of the world. The principles adopted by the Acts of 1853 and 1875 have been sustained by experience and should be adhered to. In pursuance of them I would receive into the Treasury of the United States all the gold and silver produced in our country at their market value, not at a speculative or forced value, but at their value in the markets of the world. And for the convenience of our people I would represent them by Treasury notes to an amount not exceeding their cost. I would confer upon these notes all the use, qualities, and attributes that we can confer within our constitutional power, and support and maintain them as money by coining the silver and gold as needed upon the present legal ratios, and by a pledge of all the revenues of the government and all the wealth and credit of the United States. And I would proclaim to all our readiness, by international negotiations or treaties, to bring about an agreement among nations for common units

of value and of weights and measures for all the productions of the world.

This hope of philosophers and statesmen is now nearer realization than ever before. If we could contribute to this result it would tend to promote commerce and intercourse, trade and travel, peace and harmony among nations. It would be in line with the civilization of our age. It is by such measures statesmen may keep pace with the marvellous inventions, improvements, and discoveries which have quadrupled the capacity of man for production, made lightning subservient to his will, revealed to him new agencies of power hidden in the earth, and opened up to his enterprise all the dark places of the world. The people of the United States boast that they have done their full share in all this development; that they have grown in population, wealth, and strength; that they are the richest of nations, with untarnished credit, a model and example of selfgovernment without kings or princes or lords. Surely this is no time for a radical change of public policy which seems to have no motive except to reduce the burden of obliga. tions freely taken, a change likely to impair our public credit and produce disorder and confusion in all monetary transactions. Others may see reasons for this change, but I prefer to stand by the standards of value that come to us with the approval and sanction of every party that has administered the government since its beginning.