NOTIFICATION OF MR. HOBART.

The Committee on Notification of the nominee for Vice-President, Hon. Garret A. Hobart, met at the home of Mr. Hobart in Paterson, New Jersey, on July 7, 1896, where Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana, temporary chairman of the convention, and chairman of the committee, addressed Mr. Hobart as follows:

MR. FAIRBANKS TO MR. HOBART.

Mr. HOBART The Republican National Convention, recently assembled at St. Louis, commissioned us to formally notify you of your nomination for the office of Vice-President of the United States. We are met, pursuant to the direction of the convention, to perform the agreeable duty assigned us.

In all the splendid history of the great party which holds our loyal allegiance the necessity was never more urgent for steadfast adherence to those wholesome principles which have been the sure foundation rock of our national prosperity. The demand was never greater for men who hold principle above all else, and who are unmoved either by the clamor of the hour or the promises of false teachers. The con. vention at St. Louis, in full measure, met the high demands of the times in its declaration of party principles and in the nomination of candidates for President and Vice-President.

Sir, the office to which you are nominated is of rare dignity, honor, and power. It has been graced by the most eminent statesmen who have contributed to the upbuilding of the strength and glory of the Republic. Because of your exalted personal character and of your intelligent and patriotic devotion to the enduring principles of a protective tariff, which wisely discriminates in favor of American interests, and to a currency whose soundness and integrity none can challenge, and because of your conspicuous fitness for the exacting and important duties of the high office, the Republican National Convention, with a unanimity and enthusiasm rarely witnessed, chose you as our candidate for Vice-President of the United States.

We know it to be gratifying to you personally to be the associate of William McKinley in the pending contest. For you and your distinguished associate we bespeak the enthusiastic and intelligent support of all our countrymen, who desire that prosperity shall again rule throughout the Republic.

MR. HOBART'S RESPONSE.

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE: I beg to extend to you my grateful acknowledgments for the kind and flattering terms in which you convey the formal announcement of my nomination for Vice-President of the United States by the Republican National Convention at St. Louis. I am profoundly sensible of the honor which has been done me, and through me to the State in which all my life has been spent, in my selection as a candidate for this high office.

Concurring without reserve in all the declarations of principle and policy embodied in the St. Louis platform, I accept the nomination tendered me with a full appreciation of its responsibilities, and with an honest purpose, in the event that the people shall ratify the choice made by the National Convention, to discharge any duties which may devolve upon me with sole reference to the public good. Let me add that it will be my earnest effort in the coming campaign to contribute in every possible way to the success of the party which we represent, and which, as to the important issues of the time, stands for the best interests of the people.

Uncertainty or instability as to the money question involves most serious consequences to every interest and to every citizen of the country. The gravity of this question cannot be overestimated. There can be no financial security, no business stability, no real prosperity where the policy of the Government as to that question is at all a matter of doubt.

Gold is the one standard of value among all enlightened commercial nations. All financial transactions of whatever character, all business enterprises, all individual or corporate investments are adjusted to it. An honest dollar, worth one hundred cents everywhere, cannot be coined out of fifty-three cents' worth of silver, plus a legislative

fiat.

Such a debasement of our currency would inevitably produce incalculable loss, appalling disaster and national dishonor.

It is a fundamental principle in coinage, recognized and followed by all the statesmen of America in the past and never yet safely departed from, that there can be only one basis upon which gold and silver may be concurrently coined as money, and that basis is equality; not in weight but in the commercial value of the metal contained in the respective coins. This commercial value is fixed by the markets of the world, with which the great interests of our country are necessarily connected by innumerable business ties, which cannot be severed or ignored. Great and self-reliant as our country is, it is great not alone within its own borders and upon its own resources, but because it also reaches out to the ends of the earth in all the manifold departments of business, exchange and commerce, and must maintain with honor its standing and credit among the nations of the earth.

It

My estimate of the value of a protective policy has been formed by a study of the object lessons of a great industrial state, extending over a period of thirty years. is, that protection not only builds up important industries from small beginnings, but that those and all other industries flourish or languish in proportion as protection is maintained or withdrawn. I have seen it indisputably proved that the prosperity of the farmer, merchant, and all other classes of citizens goes hand in hand with that of the manufacturer and mechanic.

I am firmly persuaded that what we need most of all to remove the business paralysis that afflicts this country is the restoration of a policy which, while affording ample revenue to meet the expenses of the Government, will reopen American workshops on full time and full handed, with their operatives paid good wages in honest dollars. And this can only come under a tariff which will hold the interests of our own people paramount in our political and commercial systems.

The opposite policy, which discourages American enterprise, reduces American labor to idleness, diminishes the earnings of American workingmen, opens our markets to commodities from abroad which we should produce at home, while closing foreign markets against our products, and which, at the same time, steadily augments the public debt, increasing the public burdens, while diminishing the ability of the people to meet them, is a policy which must find its chief popularity elsewhere than among American citizens.

MAJOR MCKINLEY'S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE.

CANTON, OHIO, August 26, 1896.

Hon. JOHN M. THURSTON, and others, Members of the Notification Committee of the Republican National Convention.

GENTLEMEN: In pursuance of the promise made to your Committee, when notified of my nomination as the Republican candidate for President, I beg to submit this formal acceptance of that high honor, and to consider in detail questions at issue in the pending campaign. Perhaps this might be considered unnecessary in view of my remarks on that occasion, and those I have made to delegations that have visited me since the St. Louis Convention, but in view of the momentous importance of the proper settlement of the issues presented on our future prosperity and standing as a Nation, and considering only the welfare and happiness of our people, I could not be content to omit again calling attention to the questions which in my opinion vitally affect our strength and position among the governments of the world, and our morality, integrity and patriotism as citizens of that Republic which for a century past has been the best hope of the world and the inspiration of mankind. We must not now prove false to our own high standards in government, nor unmindful of the noble example and wise precepts of the fathers, or of the confidence and trust which our conduct in the past has always inspired.

THE FREE COINAGE OF SILVER.

For the first time since 1868, if ever before, there is presented to the American people this year a clear and direct issue as to our monetary system, of vast importance in its effects, and upon the right settlement of which rest largely the financial honor and prosperity of the country. It is proposed by one wing of the Democratic Party, and its allies the People's and Silver Parties, to inaugurate the free and unlimited coinage of silver by independent action on part of the United States at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. The mere declaration of this purpose is a menace to our financial and industrial interests and has already created universal alarm. It involves great peril to the credit and business of the country, a peril so

grave that conservative men everywhere are breaking away from their old party associations and uniting with other patriotic citizens in emphatic protest against the platform of the Democratic National Convention as an assault upon the faith and honor of the Government and the welfare of the people. We have had few questions in the lifetime of the Republic more serious than the one which is thus presented.

NO BENEFIT TO LABOR.

The character of the money which shall measure our values and exchanges, and settle our balances with one another, and with the nations of the world, is of such primary importance, and so far-reaching in its consequences, as to call for the most painstaking investigation, and, in the end, a sober and unprejudiced judgment at the polls. We must not be misled by phrases, nor deluded by false theories. Free silver would not mean that silver dollars were to be freely had without cost or labor. It would mean the free use of the mints of the United States for the few who are owners of silver bullion, but would make silver coin no freer to the many who are engaged in other enterprises. It would not make labor easier, the hours of labor shorter, or the pay better. It would not make farming less laborious, or more profitable. It would not start a factory, or make a demand for an additional day's labor. It would create no new occupations. It would add nothing to the comfort of the masses, the capital of the people, or the wealth of the Nation. It seeks to introduce a new measure of value, but would add no value to the thing measured. It would not conserve values.

On the contrary, it would derange all existing values. It would not restore business confidence, but its direct effect would be to destroy the little which yet remains.

WHAT IT MEANS.

The meaning of the coinage plank adopted at Chicago is that any one may take a quantity of silver bullion now worth fifty-three cents to the mints of the United States, have it coined at the expense of the Government, and receive for it a silver dollar which shall be legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private. The owner of the silver bullion would get the silver dollar. It would belong to him and to nobody else. Our people would get it only by their labor, the products of their land, or something of value. The bullion owner on the basis of present values would receive the silver dollar for fifty-three cents' worth of silver, and other people would be required to receive it as a full dollar in the payment of debts. The Government would get nothing from the transaction. It would bear the expense of coining the silver and the community would suffer loss by its use.

THE DOLLARS COMPARED.

We have coined since 1878 more than four hundred millions of silver dollars, which are maintained by the Government at parity with gold, and are a full legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private. How are the silver dollars now in use different from those which would be in use under free coinage? They are to be of the same weight and fineness; they are to bear the same stamp of the Government. Why would they not be of the same value? Ianswer: The silver dollars now in use were coined on account of the Government, and not for private account or gain, and the Government has solemnly agreed to keep them as good as the best dollars we have. The Government bought the silver bullion at its market value and coined it into silver dollars. Having exclusive control of the mintage, it only coins what it can hold at a parity with gold. The profit, representing the difference between the commercial value of the silver bullion and the face value of the silver dollar, goes to the Government for the benefit of the people. The Government bought the silver bullion contained in the silver dollar at very much less than its coinage value. It paid it out to its creditors, and put it in circulation among the people at its face value of one hundred cents, or a full dollar. It required the people to accept it as a legal tender, and is thus morally bound to maintain it at a parity with gold, which was then, as now, the recognized standard with us, and the most enlightened nations of the world. The Government having issued and circulated the silver dollar, it must in honor protect the holder from loss. This obligation it has so far sacredly kept. Not only is there a moral obligation, but there is a legal obligation, expressed in public statute, to maintain the parity.

THEY COULD NOT BE KEPT AT PAR.

These dollars, in the particulars I have named, are not the same as the dollars which would be issued under free coinage. They would be the same in form, but different in value. The Government would have no part in the transaction except to coin the silver bullion into dollars. It would share in no part of the profit. It would take upon itself no obligation. It would not put the dollars into circulation. It could only get them, as any citizen would get them, by giving something for them. It would deliver them to those who deposited the silver, and its connection with the

transaction there end. Such are the silver dollars which would be issued under free coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen to one. Who would then maintain the parity? What would keep them at par with gold? There would be no obligation resting upon the Government to do it, and if there were, it would be powerless to do it. The simple truth is we would be driven to a silver basis-to silver monometallism. These dollars, therefore, would stand upon their real value. If the free and unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold would, as some of its advocates assert, make fifty-three cents in silver worth one hundred cents, and the silver dollar equal to the gold dollar, then we would have no cheaper money than now, and it would be no easier to get. But that such would be the result is against reason and is contradicted by experience in all times and in all lands. It means the debasement of our currency to the amount of the difference between the commercial and coin value of the silver dollar, which is ever changing, and the effect would be to reduce property values, entail untold financial loss, destroy confidence, impair the obligations of existing contracts, further impoverish the laborers and producers of the country, create a panic of unparalleled severity, and inflict upon trade and commerce a deadly blow. Against any such policy, I am unalterably opposed.

BIMETALLISM.

Bimetallism can not be secured by independent action on our part. It can not be obtained by opening our mints to the unlimited coinage of the silver of the world, at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold, when the commercial ratio is more than thirty ounces of silver to one ounce of gold. Mexico and China have tried the experiment. Mexico has free coinage of silver and gold at a ratio slightly in excess of sixteen and a half ounces of silver to one ounce of gold, and while her mints are freely open to both metals at that ratio, not a single dollar in gold bullion is coined and circulated as money. Gold has been driven out of circulation in these countries and they are on a silver basis alone. Until international agreement is had, it is the plain duty of the United States to maintain the gold standard. It is the recognized and sole standard of the great commercial nations of the world, with which we trade more largely than any other. Eighty-four per cent. of our foreign trade for the fiscal year 1895 was with gold standard countries, and our trade with other countries was settled on a gold basis.

WE NOW HAVE MORE SILVER THAN GOLD.

Chiefly by means of legislation during and since 1878 there has been put in circulation more than $624,000,000 of silver, or its representative. This has been done in the honest effort to give to silver, if possible, the same bullion and coinage value, and encourage the concurrent use of both gold and silver as money. Prior to that time there had been less than nine millions of silver dollars coined in the entire history of the United States, a period of eighty-nine years. This legislation secures the largest use of silver consistent with financial safety and the pledge to maintain its parity with gold. We have to-day more silver than gold. This has been accomplished at times with grave peril to the public credit. The so-called Sherman law sought to use all the silver product of the United States for money at its market value. From 1890 to 1893 the Government purchased 4,500,000 ounces of silver a month, or 54,000,000 ounces a year. This was one-third of the product of the world and practically all of this country's product. It was believed by those who then and now favor free coinage that such use of silver would advance its bullion value to its coinage value, but this expectation was not realized. In a few months, notwithstanding the unprecedented market value for the silver produced in the United States, the price of silver went down very rapidly, reaching a lower point than ever before. Then, upon the recommendation of President CLEVELAND, both political parties united in the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. We can not with safety engage in further experiments in this direction.

THE DOUBLE STANDARD.

On the 22d of August, 1891, in a public address, I said: "If we could have an international ratio, which all the leading nations of the world would adopt, and the true relation be fixed between the two metals, and all agree upon the quantity of silver which should constitute a dollar, then silver would be as free and unlimited in its privileges of coinage as gold is to-day. But that we have not been able to secure, and with the free and unlimited coinage of silver adopted in the United States, at the present ratio, we would be still further removed from any international agreement. We may never be able to secure it if we enter upon the isolated coinage of silver. The double standard implies equality at a ratio, and that equality can only be established by the concurrent law of nations. It was the concurrent law of nations that made the double standard; it will require the concurrent law of nations to reinstate and sustain it.

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IT FAVORS THE USE OF SILVER MONEY.

The Republican Party has not been, and is not now, opposed to the use of silver money, as its record abundantly shows. It has done all that could be done for its increased use, with safety and honor, by the United States acting apart from other governments. There are those who think that it has already gone beyond the limit of financial prudence. Surely we can go no further, and we must not permit false lights to lure us across the danger line.

MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY.

We have much more silver in use than any country in the world except India or China $500,000,000 more than Great Britain; $150,000,000 more than France; $400,000,000 more than Germany; $325,000,000 less than India, and $125,000,000 less than China. The Republican Party has declared in favor of an international agreement, and if elected President it will be my duty to employ all proper means to promote it. The free coinage of silver in this country would defer, if not defeat, international bimetallism, and until an international agreement can be had every interest requires us to maintain our present standard. Independent free coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold would insure the speedy contraction of the volume of our currency. It would drive at least five hundred millions of gold dollars, which we now have, permanently from the trade of the country, and greatly decrease our per capita circulation. It is not proposed by the Republican Party to take from the circulating medium of the country any of the silver we now have. On the contrary it is proposed to keep all of the silver money now in circulation on a parity with gold by maintaining the pledge of the Government that all of it shall be equal to gold. This has been the unbroken policy of the Republican Party since 1878. It has inaugurated no new policy. It will keep in circulation and as good as gold all of the silver and paper money which are now included in the currency of the country. It will maintain their parity. It will preserve their equality in the future as it has always done in the past. It will not consent to put this country on a silver basis, which would inevitably follow independent free coinage at a ratio of sixteen to one. It will oppose the expulsion of gold from our circulation.

FARMERS AND LABORERS SUFFER MOST.

If there is any one thing which should be free from speculation and fluctation it is the money of a country. It ought never to be the subject of mere partisan contention. When we part with our labor, our products, or our property, we should receive in return money which is as stable and unchanging in value as the ingenuity of honest men can make it. Debasement of the currency means destruction of values. No one suffers so much from cheap money as the farmers and laborers. They are the first who feel its bad effects and the last to recover from them. This has been the uniform experience of all countries, and here, as elsewhere, the poor, and not the rich, are always the greatest sufferers from every attempt to debase our money. It would fall with alarming severity upon investments already made; upon insurance companies and their policy-holders; upon savings banks and their depositors; upon building and loan associations and their members; upon the savings of thrift; upon pensioners and their families; and upon wage earners, and the purchasing power of their wages.

UNLIMITED IRREDEEMABLE PAPER MONEY.

The silver question is not the only issue affecting our money in the pending contest. Not content with urging the free coinage of silver, its strongest champions demand that our paper money shall be issued directly by the Government of the United States. This is the Chicago Democratic declaration. The St. Louis People's declaration is that our National money shall be issued by the General Government only, without the intervention of banks of issue, be full legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private." and be distributed "direct to the people, and through lawful disbursements of the Government." Thus in addition to the free coinage of the world's silver we are asked to enter upon an era of unlimited irredeemable paper currency. The question which was fought out from 1865 to 1879 is thus to be reopened, with all its uncertainties, and cheap-money experiments of every conceivable form foisted upon us. This indicates a most startling reactionary policy, strangely at variance with every requirement of sound finance; but the declaration shows the spirit and purpose of those who by combined action are contending for the control of the Government. Not satisfied with the debasement of our coin which would inevitably follow the free coinage of silver at sixteen to one, they would still further degrade our currency and threaten the public honor by the unlimited issue of an irredeemable paper currency. A graver menace to our financial standing and credit could hardly be conceived, and every patriotic citizen should be aroused to promptly meet and effectually defeat it.