People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1896 — SILVER MUST BE RESTORED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SILVER MUST BE RESTORED.

Evils of the Single Gold Standard Portrayed. ADDS TO DEBTORS’ BURDENS. Purchasing Power of Gold 'Has In* creased Fifty Per Cent Since 1872. Congressman Charles A. Towne of Minnesota Makes a Memorable Speech In Favor of the Restoration of Silver—Any Great Commercial Nation Can Maintain the Parity es Gold and Silver—Burden 1 of the Gold Standard Can Be Measured Only In Blood and Tears A Falling Standard of Value Is Preferable to a Rising One —Legislation, Not Overproduction, Has Lowered the Price of Silver. Mr. Chairman—ls it were not for a profound, an almost overpowering, sense of duty, I should not on this occasion vex the ear of the house nor venture to do violence to that feeling of embarrassment which I Assure you is most oppressive to myself and, I fear, all too evident to my auditors, particularly when I follow the distinguished and eloquent gentleman from lowa [Mr. Hepburn], whom the house is always glad to hear. Under these circumstances I am reminded of those familiar lines of Shakespeare: As in a theater the eyes of men, When a well graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next. But, sir, I conceive that the general subject which is brought before this house by the pending measure is by all odds the most important one that will engage or has engaged the attention of this body at this session of congress. The eminent gentleman who opened the discussion upon this measure [Mr. Dingley], following a metaphor that had its origin, I believe, with Aristotle, and which has had frequent employment since, well likened the money of the commercial nations of the world to the lifeblood of the physical body. Sir, the comparison is most apt, for not more do the health and efficiency and happiness of the physical organism depend upon the quantity and condition of the blood than do the welfare, the prosperity and the progress of society depend upon the volume and character of the money that flows in the channels of its commercial circulation. This it is which gives importance and special emphasis to the question now pending, because there are hundreds of thousands of men in the United Stares andelsewhero in the world today who believe that there is a studied effort on the part of certain interests by subtle surgery to abstract from the blood of the body politic its white corpuscles and to allow to atrophy one of the ventricles of its great central heart whose harmonious pulsations give power and energy and movement to its organization. The question, sir, is an imminent one. It is a question that, like Banquo's ghost, will not down. “Avaunt and quit my sight” will not banish it. Gentlemen may cry, “Peace, peace,” but there is no peace. Politicians may say, “We will make this thing or that thing or the other thing the issue.” But, sirs, it is issues that make c parties, not parties that make issues. Some gentlemen say: “Let it alone. Let the question settle itself. Do not agitate it.” Sir,,that is not the language of brave men; that is not the language of statesmen; that is not the language of the whilom and customary leadership of the grand old Republican party. Its constant reiteration shows a decline in the ancient and salutary standards of self government. Our institutions are founded upon and presuppose the fullest investigation, the genuineness of opinions, fair, free and tearless discussion. Had men in the past neglected to exemplify these requirements and to insist upon their guarantee, what would have been the history of liberty? To what unhappy condition would not mankind have been reduced had John Hampden been afraid to arraign his king for the unconstitutional exactions of ship money; had Sam Adams and Patrick Henry been obsequiously silent as to the stamp duty or hesitated to affirm the great principle of “no taxation without representation;” had Thomas Jefferson permitted himself to entertain politic doubts whether “all men are created equal;” had Washington deemed it safer to submit to British tyranny than to defy it; had Garrison, Lovejoy and Phillips been frightened from their high purpose by the calling of hard names and threats of personal violence; had Sumner, Seward and Lincoln thought it indiscreet to denounce the treatment of Kansas as a crime, to assert that the conflict between freedom and slavery was “irrepressible,” and to make a new application of the old proverb that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” No, sir. Let us not abandon our duty. Let us stand to it like men. Said Daniel Webster in answer to a similar argument 60 years ago; “If any evil arises to destroy or endanger this medium or this currency, our duty ■is to meet it, not to retreat from it—to remedy it, not to let It alone. We are to control and correct the mischief, not to submit to it.” An Era of Investigation. Moreover, a question of this magnitude and significance ought to be discussed In a spirit and manner appropriate to so high a theme. To treat it as If it were the claim of a small private Interest seeking an pvonue for self aggrandizement at the expense of the general good is to show a grave incompetence to weigh and handle the momentous concerns of the people. That so many in this house are Unable to grasp the higher and only real issues In volved is not complimentary to the standard of American statesmanship. Similar but much severer strictures must be drawn upon a considerable part of the public press. To call one’s opponent in an argument “fool,” “crank,” “lunatic,” “traitor,” Isas unprofitable as iris impolite. People are apt to suspect one who “doth protest too much.” Better answer your antagonist’s argument than abuse him, and if he really be a fool his argument ought to be easily answered. Nor can you escape the ordeal of critical examination by merely pasting a label on your faith. Calling It “honest” and “sound”doesnot by any means make it so. It only * begs the question. Nobody contends for unsound and dishonest money. I will permit no man to call me dishonest, nor shall he

affix «uch a brand upon any proposal of mine. The people cannot be deceived. They are studying this question as never before. Epithets cannot deter them from penetrating to its mystery. The “craze” may have passed, but the era of sober and deliberate investigation has begun—nay, is already far advanced—and I warn gentlemen that there never has been so much interest in this great question as there is now. “What is ‘honest money?’ ” men are asking. “Have we it now? If not, how shall we obtain it?” These questions must be answered by arguments, not by adjectives. Nor, sir, on the other hand, does this discussion give proper place to wild talk of revolution, secession and bloodshed. Sir, that kind of declaration has no justig cation in this forum or in any other in the United States. This is a government of the people. It is the highest form yet known of that kind of government which a great commentator has called “a government by discussion.” and it is by orderly, sane, passionless though earnest discussion in the presence of the intelligent public opinion of the United States that we must settle all large questions of policy. Duclos said, in reference to public opinion, “The man in power commands, but the intelligent govern, because in time they form public opinion, and that sooner or later subjugates every kind of despotism.” We bow to the reign of law, and he who advocates any other way of settling differences Is preaching anarchy and will find no sympathy in this country. In the discussion of this question the first line of demarcation should be plainly drawn between the advocates of the single gold standard upon the one side and the advocates of bimetallism on the other. In this matter there is, great confusion of terms. It has been noticeable in the discussions on this floor, it is noticeable in similar discussions everywhere among those who take part in this controversy. Men call themselves bimetallists, men have today upon this floor called themselves bimetallists who believe in a monetary system having one metal as a basis and another metal practically redeemable in it or resting upon it. That is not bimetallism. That, I repeat, is not bimetallism. Nothing can be gained by a false use of terms. Everybody ought to favor the removal of all uncertainty in the meaning of the terms employed in this argument. If a man actually believes In the continuance of the present system—and I concede that there are two sides to the question and that a man may rationally contend for the one or the other—but if a man honestly believes that gold should be the sole measure of value In the world why cannot he say: so and stand boldly and bravely up to his declaration? I have no patience with the believer in the gold standard who exhausts all the resources of ingenuity in an attempt to avoid stating his real position. Such evasion bespeaks a lack of confidence either in his own conclusions or in their acceptability to the country.

Bimetallism Defined. Now, sir, a man who is honestly a bimetallist, who believes In the use of both gold and sliver as standard money, as money of ultimate redemption, the final basis of all token and representative currency, cannot consistently stand up here and deny the evils of the single gold standard. It amazes me to hear gentlemen upon this floor loudly proclaim themselves bimetallists and then launch themselves Into tedious argument to prove that the gold standard is wholly satisfactory. They are bimetallists, yet gold is a stable measure of values I They are bimetallists, yet there Is no appreciation of gold I They are bimetallists, yet prices have not fallen ! They are bimetallists, yet prices have fallen and entirely because of cheapened cost of production! They are bimetallists, yet the restoration of sliver Is impossible! They are bimetallists, yet the present system must continue indefinitely! They are bimetallists, but the single gold standard is good enough for them! Why, sir, this is the very acme of inconsistency. I know not which is the more pitiable—that such folly should be tolerated or that so many who commit it should be so unconscious of It. It may be thought, sir, that lam spending too much time upon this matter.. But In the forum where this discussion Is soon to be taken—l mean the great tribunal of the public opinion of the United States—it Is of the.utmost importance to both sides that we agree upon the meaning of the terms used in the Inquiry, and that men honest in their convictions shall boldly take their places under the banners they mean to follow. Mr. Maurice L. Muhleman, deputy assistant treasurer of the United States at New York, in his recent book, “Monetary Systems of the World,” page 12, says: “By bimetallism, strictly defined, is meant the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver into coins of full debt paying power.” I refer to Mr. Muhleman’s definition because he speaks with authority upon matters of fact, and because his book aims not at theoretical discussion, but at a clear statement of settled and existing conditions. Let me cite another authority: The royal commission appointed in 1886 by Queen Victoria “to inquire into the causes of the recent changes in the values pf the precious metals” reported in 1888, and the report was published by our government in 1889. I quote from page 59 of lhat report, section 116: “A bimetallic system of currency, to be completely effective, must, in the view of jhose who advocate it, include two essential features: (a) An open mint ready to coin any quantity of either gold or silver which may be brought to it; (b) the right on the part of a debtor to discharge his liabilities, at his option, in either of the two metals at a ratio fixed by law. ” That, sir, is bimetallism, and if a man do not believe in it let him say so, but let him not believe in something else and label it “bimetallism” for purposes of deception. The statement that the present lystein is bimetallic, if not ignorant, is not candid. The attempt to substitute for the well understood meaning of bimetallism a new definition, whereby it is applied to any monetary system in which both gold and silver are “used” without reference to the manner of the use, is a subterfuge unworthy of the honesty and dignity of American political discussion and one that will not impose upon the aroused intelligence of the American people. If their final judgment is for gold monometallism. It will not be pronounced under any mistake or delusion. You cannot promise them both silver and gold and satisfy them with gold alone. Until recently it never entered into anybody’s head since the word bimetallism was coined to have a doubt about what it meant. There can be no question as to ‘he meaning of. the word. Bimetallism means two-metallism. It was coined to mean and does mean a money system where two metals, gold and silver, are treated alike. It never meant anything

e.s.. It signifies the equal access of gold and si)v»v to the mints at a fixed ratio and the option by the debtor as to the coin in which he shall discharge his debt. This i matter is important. Gentlemen here and i elsewhere constantly misapply this word. I do not propose to permit it any longer to the extent to which my little Influence may go. I here and now challenge any gentleman upon this floor or anywhere else —and this is not a mere rhetorical defiance, but Is Intended to bring this confusion to an end—to produce a definition of bimetallism by any publicist or economist of authority or any statesman of standing made prior to 1895 which is not in substantial accord with the definition I have given. Let no gentleman who may do me the honor to reply to this speech neglect this point. Let him be either for the single gold standard or for bimetallism, and if for bimetallism lot him discuss the means of reaching the end and frankly concede that t e . present system cannot be permitted to last. Goldbugs Satisfied. It has been, sir, only since the great parties of the United States have been every one of them unequivocally pledged to bimetallism, and that fact conflicted with the desires of certain people that they have sought to make a new definition of bimetallism, and under that new definition to hold the pledgers to the letter of their ancient pledge without its spirit. Why cannot men who do believe in the gold standard be honest and say so? Ido not Impute now, when I use the word “honest,” any moral obliquity to any gentleman. I should perhaps rather phrase it in this way: Why shall not a man have the open and manly courage of his convictions and stand up and be counted? Why let | him not say as the New York Evening i Post said? That great representative of English opposition to the Monroe doctrine, ' protection and bimetallism and every other form of Americanism said not long ago: | “There are some people (a diminishing number, however) who hesitate to avow themselves in favor of the single gold standard, although they are opposed to any change from the present system. There are others (also a diminishing number) who think that because a certain limited number of silver dollars are in circulation we have bimetallism, or the double standard, in this country. This is a totally false conception, as false as it would be to assume that we have a paper standard because a limited number of greenbacks are afloat. The ‘goldbugs’ have no change of standard in contemplation. They arc satisfied with the present posture of affairs, so far as that goes. The ‘expulsion of everything but gold as real money’ took place in 1878 and continues unabated.”

Let every man who believes with The Post imitate its frankness and say so. Let him say so along wlt|i the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Walker], chairman of the committee on banking and currency, who declared in his speech yesterday—l do not pretend to quote him exactly, but I remember perfectly the spbstauce of the statement—that if all the nations of the world were to come together and agree upon a ratio for the free coinage of gold and silver it could not Iw m.lintel ovd beyei.d n very brief space of time in face of tlie inevitable laws of trade. Perhaps he believes it, sir. If he says so, I have no doubt he does, strange and incredible as it may seem to my poor faculties. But, sir, if he does believe it, then I undertake to say be cannot remain in the Republican party unless, when the Republican party next proclaims its doctrine In a national convention, it shall change its platform. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am not using the words of excess and incaution. I say that the Republican platform uses unmistakable language. It may not have said what the convention meant. If anybody wants to assume the burden of proving that the Republican party, in national convention assembled, solemnly declared what it did not mean, he is welcome to do it; but, for my own part, I have never yet found it necessary to charge the grand old Republican party of these United States with deliberate misrepresentation. And that party in convention assembled proclaimed in the last authoritative national utterance that we have from that organization: “The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money.” I care not what restrictions, limitations or qualifications were added to that sentence to complete the plank. They never could get away from that initial pronouncement pledging the party to the restoration of the full money functions of silver so as to clothe it with every dignity bestowed on gold. “Tradition” refers to some ancient system, not the present. “Standard money” is not token money. I am not now discussing the means of reaching it, but I defy any man on the top of this earth to say that the Republican party is not by its platform pledged to achieve bimetallism in some way, and I affirm that you must change that platform before a man who believes in a single gold standard can consistently stand upon it. If I am wrong on this point, let some subsequent participant in this debate set me right. Single Gold Standard Is Wrong. Now, Mr. Chairman, if bimetallists are opposed to the single gold standard, what is the reason of tbeir opposition? It must be because in some respects the single gold standard is wrong, because in some way it is an evil, because in some way it injuriously affects the people of the United States or the people of the world. Bimetallists contend that such is the fact. They contend that the single gold standard is and has been since its adoption by the leading commercial nations an appreciating standard whose unit has rapidly increased in general purchasing power and must continue so to increase; that this appreciation is evidenced by a progressive fall in prices throughout the gold standard world not accounted for by diminishing cost of production, and that the inevitable result must be to augment the burden of all debts and fixed charges, to discourage investments and enterprise and to'undermine the productive forces of the countries where it prevails. And they affirm that if these things are so the evil is so tremendous and pressing as to call for some immediate remedial action. New, sir, in order to proceed intelligibly along the line of argument I have laid” out for myself it becomes necessary to g«t a clear conception of certain words tired in the terminology of this discussion. Standard and unitare examples, occurring in tlie expressions of “standard of value ” and “unit of value.” By the Century Dictionary standard is defined as “a vyeight, measure or instument by comparison with wliioh the accuracy of otliers is determined,” and unit as “any standard quantity by tlie repetition and subdivision of which any other quantity of the same kind is measured.” Thus by the expressions referred to the mind is centered on the thought of weight, dimension and

quantity a<*l thus some persons are led to the notion that a “dollar" or “pound sterling” or “franc” means something as absolute and definite as to value as “ton,** “yard” and “quart” are as to weight, length and capacity. But value is neither "so heavy,” “so long” nor “of such and such contents.” You cannot see it. Value Is nothing absolute. Value is a relation. It is th* ratio at which one thing exchangee for another. One thing may be worth as much as another thing, more than another thing or less than another thing—that is, of equal, greater or less value. But it takes two things to express value—one is compared with the other. And the relation between exchanged commodities is perfectly reciprocal. W’hen I pay 1100 for a horse, as in the illustration used by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] the other day, the horse buys the 1100 just as certainly as the 1100 buys the horse, and If it be true to say that horses are high if they cost <l5O it is equally true to say that money is high when you have to give two horses for SI 00. Intrinsic Values. Gentlemen hero have much to say of “Intrinsic value” and declare their willi ingness to vote for bimetallism when somebody shall show them how' to make a gold dollar and a silver dollar equal in . “intrinsic value.” I should like to hear some of these gentlemen define "Intrinsic value.” They confuse, it seems to me, the meaning of value and utility. Things ; may possess qualities that make them useful, and hence will have utility, but the measure of their value is what they will exchange for. You pick up a piece of I iron. It is useful for many purposes, but I you cannot tell how much it is worth—that is to say, what its value is—until you | find what you can got for it. Value in I exchange is the only value with which ■ political economy has to deal. Originally exchange was by barter. ! Commodities were traded one for another, i The cost of production and the relation of supply and demand regulated the ratios at which they mutually interchanged. Convenience necessitated the selection of some common medium into which all commodities could be converted and with which any of them could be procured. This medium Was money, and its Invention marked an advance of inconceivable importance in the development of society. Gold and silver, by reason of their special fitness, finally displaced all other things in the performance of this function. As a consequence the demand for them for money purposes, being equal to the sum total of the values of all commodities seeking to be exchanged, became so vastly more important than the demand for them for any other purpose that cost of production ceased to be a large factor in determining their value as expressed in commodities, but that value practically became the ratio between all the goods seeking exchange and the quantity of gold and silver in existence to perform the exchanges. Men carried about with them acid to test the purity of the metals and scales for weighing out the requisite amounts of them called for by numerous and various transactions. The exchange relation between a certain unit number of grains of gold or of silver and a given commodity being onoe determined, there was established in the minds of those who came to market the idea of its value, which, when expressed in terms of money, was its price, but when for any reason the number of grains of metal out of which those units could be formed grew greater or grew less, other conditions remaining unchanged, then the value of those grains of gold or silver—that is, their power to command the products which were there to be exchanged for them—became relatively smaller or greater, and prices rose or fell accordingly. And no change was made in this principle when society began to put its stamp upon those grains of gold or silver to show authoritatively the quantity and fineness of the metal. After the coin is stamped, whatever may be its ' name, what it is worth depends at any given time upon what it will buy—in other words, upon what is required to buy it. Commodity demand and supply remaining constant, an increase or decrease of the substance out of which the coins are made must correspondingly lower or raise the power of each coin, must raise or lower prices. These observations, which seem to me to be oomformable to reason and in precise accord with what history teaches us, are sustained by practically all economists of recognized authority. The following citations will illustrate. Said Adam Smith, the father of English political economy: Gold and silver, however, like every other commodity, vary in their value, are sometimes cheaper and sometimes dearer, sometimes of easier and sometimes of more difficult purchase. The discovery of the mines of America diminished the value of gold and silver in Eu rope. (Wealth of Nations, Worthington edition, pages 24 and 26.) John Locke, the groat philosopher, in his treatise on “The Value of Money,” said: By which means Lt comes to pass that the intrinsic value (of gold and silver) • • ♦ is nothing but the quantity which men give or receive of them, for they having, as money, no other value but as pledges to procure what one wants or desires, and they procuring wfeat we want or desire only by their quantity, it is evident that the intrinsic value of silver and gold used in commerce is nothing but their quantity.—“ Principles of Political Economy.” by McColloch. and “Essay on Interest and Value of Money,” by John Locke, edition of Ward, Lock & Co.. page 233. The same writer declares in another place (Works, volume 5, page 49): For the value of money in general is the quantity of all the money in the world in pro portion to all the trade.

In his “Principles of Political Economy” (Appleton edition, 1880, volume 2, pages 36-80), John Stuart Mill declares: The value or purchasing power of money depends on demand and supply. Money ta bought and sold like other things whenever other things are bought and sold for money. The supply of money is all the money in circulation at the time. If the whole money in circulation was doubled, prices would be doubled. If there were less money in the hands of the coihmunity and the same amount of goods to be sold, less money altogether would be given for them, and they would be sold at lower prices. Robert Giffen, the ablest champion of the gold mooometallists, bolds this language in hte “Chapter on Standard Money:” In thia sense to aay that the quantity of money regulates prices is only the same thing as to say of any article that is bought or acid that its quantity is a material faotor in determining its value. (Case Against Bimetallism, page 218.) It is no answer to the quantitative argument to show, as some do, that the per capita circulation in Turkey is only a small proportion of that in France, and that prices in the two countries are not widely variant. Money is a world substance and adjusts itself to the amount of business, and the method of doing it, in each country. Let the person smitten with this Turko-Frankish fancy answer

the question whether, demand for goods remaining unchanged, prices would alter if suddenly the amount of money in each country were multiplied by ten. To answer "No” would be foolish, and to answer "Yes” is to kill his argument. Cruelty of Monometallism. Thus, sir, attention is strongly drawn to the function of money as a measure of value. Nearly all who discuss this general subject from the standpoint of the gold monometallist treat of money almost wholly as a medium of exchange only, but they miss entirely the philosophy of the question. The Inequity and cruelty of the single gold standard lie principally in its operation as a measure of values and criterion of deferred payments. Now, Mr. Chairman, after this somewhat inadequate and very hasty examination of the way in which value arises and of the way in which price arises, price being simply the value of an article reckoned in money and a comparison of the worth of the material in the unit of money with the worth of the article against which it is exchanged, I come to the proposition which is made by those who are opposed to the single gold standard. That proposition is that there has been and is going on an appreciation—that is to say, a rise in value—in this standard of gold which the major portion of the oom merical nations of the world has adopted. In other words, sir, it is affirmed that the quantity of all commodities on the average required to buy a given number of grains of gold has been and is increasing, and that from that fact there follows a train of woes from which tlw world has been suffering in an increasing measure ever since the mistake was made in 1873 and thereabouts of going to that standard. How shall wo ascertain whether there has been this rise in value? There is only one way, and that is to examine the general price level of commodities. When one thing Is used as a common denominator of all other things, to tell whether It rises or falls you must look at the average level of those other things and find whether they fall or rise, for the relations of the two are entirely and necessarily reciprocal. Now, sir, a general law of this kind—and I ask the attention pf the house to this proposition—a general law of this kind as to the course of prices Is determinable only by a very broad generalization from observed facts. The commercial world Is a complex one. The causes that affect the rise and fall, the demand and supply and the cost of production of the Infinite variety of articles that make up the modern market uro difficult of investi- . gatlon. A rise In the price of one commodity may accompany a fall in the price of another, as was shown by the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Johnson] the other day, who told us, us I remember, that there was a time when hay went up as wheat and corn went down, though what that fact scientifically signified is hidden in the inner consciousness of Brother Johnson. I mean no disrespect, for I know the gentleman from North Dakota as a scholarly man of distinguished ability and entire honesty In his opinions. But I say that when you undertake to deduce a general law from the course, up or down, of two or three articles for two or three years you are proceeding absolutely outside of the upproved method of science, and a generalization of that kind has no value whatever.

Course of Prices. Bat, Sir. Chairman, the scientific world has determined a way of investigating the general course of prices. It proceeds upon the selection of a large number of commodities of such character as to indicate the essential condition of the market and extends over a number of years. Thus special causes, whether of time or of product, are largely neutralized, and general results are obtained having value as indicative of the underlying law controlling the movement of prices. This method of Inquiry Is by means of a system of “index numbers." Thus the price of each commodity chosen is averaged for a certain number of years, and that Average is called 100. If. as is done by the London Economist newspaper, 22 commodities be used, the sum of these averages is, of course, 2.200. Then for any other year with which comparison is sought the price of each commodity is ascertained and is set down at so many points above or below 100, according to the percentage of its rise or fall, as the case may be. These are then added, and if the total exceeds 2,200 prices are higher than in the years used as the standard; if the total is less than 2.200, prices are lower. By dividing the total by the number of commodities an expression is obtained on the scale of 100, which is conveniently used in investigation. Under normal conditions various causes make temporary fluctuations in the prices of different commodities, some rising and others falling in the same period, without special significance. But when, after allowing for all such variations and offsets, general prices—the average of the whole market —have fallen, then the conclusion is unavoidable that some general cause has operated on all alike, and, as we have seen, such a fall would mean an increase in the measure of values, a dollar that had grown larger, and which would require more of all commodities to buy It. The authoritative figures for Germany are those of Dr. Adolf Soetbeer, a famous economic writer, os continued by Heinz, statistician for Hamburg. They take as 100, or the par for comparison, the average prices from 1847 to 1850 of 100 articles in the Hamburg market and 14 of British export. In England two sets of data enjoy great repute—those of the London Economist and especially those of Augustus Sauerbeck of the London Statistical society. The former are bused on the prices of 22 leading, commodities in the London market, using the average prices of 1845 so 1850 as 100. Mr. Sauerbeck’s tables use as the par of comparison the average prices of 45 representative commodities on the London market for the years 1867 to 1877. In the United States no such scientific and exhaustive study of this subject has been made as in Germany and England. Practically tbe only attempt in this direction was that undertaken in 1891 by a committee of tbe Uhlted States senate, and whose results are embodied in tbe voluminous report which is customarily cited as tbe "Aldrich Report," after Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, who was chairman of the committee. This document deals with tbe prices of 223 articles and uses as its par or 100 mark the prices of 1860. Although hastily compiled and based on tbe prices of only one year, and that year one of exceptionally low prices, and although allowing the same influence to a mass of nonstable and unimportant articles as to tbe controlling and significant commodities, and notwithstanding that the operation of our protective tariff, by keeping out foreign competition and by stimulating home consumption, has tended during all the period covered by the aeport to maintain prices above tbe European level and to withstand to tbe utmost the influence tending to lower them, yet tbe results of that investigation ere among the most instructive that we

Aave. They confirm in a most emphatic way the lesson that primary money is a world substance, like the atmosphere, and that the law of an appreciating standard and measure of values Is as inexorable as fate. Ingenuity may for a time postpone the catastrophe or mitigate the hardships that signal its approach, but the end is Inevitable, and a common ruin waits on all nations that mistakenly suit themselves to the control of such a system. By Dr. Soetbeer’s tables it appears that prices In Germany fell about 32 per cent from 1873 to 1891. Since 1891 the fall there, as elsewhere in Europe, has been very much more than in the same proportion, unquestionably exceeding 30 per cent by 1895. This means that the purchasing power of gold in Germany has increased more than 40 per cent since 1872. In England, by Thu Economist tables, the fall of prices from 1873 to 1893 was 80 per cent, and the last two years have witnessed a much greater fall in preportion, showing an increase in the purchasing power of gold to have been at least 45 per cent from 1873 to 1895. I give here the very careful and reliable figures of Mr. Sauerbeck from 1818 to 1875. His standard, it- will bo recalled, is the average prices in London of 45 principal commodities for the period 18(57-1877, Which is also the average fqr 1853-1877, The arrangement below Is by continuous ton year periods, thus equalizing merely temporary fluctuations and clearly showing the law controlling the fall of prices: TEN YEAH 1-EKIODS AND AVERAGE INDEX NUM- . UK It. 1818- .. A 11l 1854-63 100 1819- 100 1855-64 100 1820- 103 1856-65. 100 1821- 101 1887*06..,....., 100 1822- 100 1858-67 09 1823- 98 1839-68 100 1824- ...07 1860-00 101 1825- 06 1801-70 100 1820-85 03 1802-71 100 1827- 93 1863-72 101 1828- 08 18C4-7B 102 1829- 93 1805-74 102 1830- 94 1880-75 101 1831- 96 1867-70 101 1832- 96 1808-77...... 100 1883-42 90 1800-78; 99 1834- 90 1870-79 97 1835- 95 1871-80.. 00 1830-45 .. ..95 1872-81 .05 1837- .. 98 1878-82 (« 1838- 03 1874-83 90 1889-48 91 1875-84 87 1840- 88 1870-85 ...85 1841- 80 1877-86.,... 82 1842- 83 1878 87 79 1848-52 82 1879-bS ..73 1844-58 83 1880-89 76 1845*64 85 1881-90 ....75 1846- 80 1882-01 74 1847- 88 1888-02 72 1848- 89 1884-93 71 1849- 90 1885-04 09 1850- 92 Year 1834 03 1851- 04 February. 1895 00 1852- 00 Year 1878 11l 1853- 00 Thus by these authoritative data prices fell in England between 1873 and February, 1895, 46 per cent. In other words, the purchasing power of gold rose more than 85 per cent. Evon comparing the 1895 prices with the average of 1864 78 the fall Ims been more than 41 per cent and the increase in the power of gold more than 69 per cent. These r -bults. ns well others to which I shall later advert, are impressively represented by the charts to which I will ask the attention of the house. CHART A.—APPRECIATION OF GOLD.

Measured by its purehasirig power on the basis of The Economist index numbers. England 22 commodities. Prices of 1878 token as zero. CHART B.—FLUCTUATION IN THE PRICE OF SILVER AND COMMODITIES MEASURED BY OOLIX

Prices of 1873 taken an zero. E —, Economist index numbers, wholesale prices. 22 principal commodities. London market. Average prices 1845-60 taken as 100. B—, Soetbeer's index numbers. 100 Hamburg articles and 14 British exports. Average prices 1847-60 taken as 100. «, silver. Now, gentlemen, I call your attention to the fact that the lines of the two halves of the chart are continuous. Really these are two diagrams representing one idea. They indicate the reciprocal relation of the prices of commodities and the price of gold. For example, starting with 1878 as the zero point, the upper chart shows bow gold has with few exceptions gone constantly up until it climbs off at the top of the ohart and how the prices of commodities and of silver have, as a necessary and reciprocal fact connected with the rise of gold, gone relatively down since 1873 in the percentage indicated in my remarks. Upon the lower chart you will find the course of prices as shown by The Economist index numbers upon the London market indicated by the line marked E, the line showing the course of prices in the German market is indicated by the letter S, standing for Soetbeer, and the course of silver is shown by the heavy black line.

: Asking you to bear In mind, as before Stated, that no general law in economics oan be learned except by studying broad and large results over considerable periods of time, I ask you to note bow beautifully this chart exemplifies to the eye the effects of the rise of gold. The line of gold is not uniform, but its general direction is upward. The lines of silver and commodities are not entirely regular, but their general tendency is downward. The correspondence between the values of commodities and silver is very remarkable and ought to be very interesting to gentlemen who deny the appreciation of gold .and declare that there is no parallel between the prices of commodities in general and silver. You will notice that in 1890, for example, there was a sudden rise of silver and of these commodities. Naturally sillier rose in a more pronounced degree than the other commodities, because in that year there was pending in congress a proposition to rehabilitate the white metal and snake it as good as gold. As soon as there was a likelihood of the restoration of its full money functions it began to mount toward the point of parity, and as a necessary consequence gold began to fall. Chart C exhibits upon one diagram the course of prices in England as shown by The Economist and Sauerbeck tables, and in the United States as shown by the Aldrich report, already referred to. The prices are in gold, of course. The United States prices are shown in the heavy dark lines marked A, and the two English lines are indicated by their appropriate letters. The general correspondence of the three is very striking. American prices started higher than English prices and have remained so. The action of our protective tariff in stimulating production, restricting competition very largely to our own producers and upon our own standard of living and keeping out own markets for those producers has justified the policy of its advocates, of whom I claim to be as faithful as any, but it has not availed to withstand the constricting Influence of the gold standard, whose sway is as “broad and general as the air.” Prices had fallen in the United States about 28 per cent by 1891, and by 1895 the fall was certainly 33% per cent or more, so that the purchasing power of gold in this country is fully 60 per cent greater than it was in 1872-3.

The enormous fall of prices in the gold standard world I have proved. Gentlemen in this debate may hereafter seek some oUx;r explanation for the fact than that which I offer as chiefly accounting for it, but nobody will deny the fact. It is an open and notorious fact, whose significance, if preponderantly due to the single gold standard, challenges the Intellect, the conscience and the patriotism of this nation. Contrast it for a moment with this: The purchasing power of silver in silver using countries is today almost the same as in 1873. Consul Wetmore, nt Shanghai, shows this by the following index numbers based on 20 staple commodities on tba Chinese markets: Aggregate value Silver of twenty coimuodi- value of ties, in silver. cold. }ghj l.ffcO 2,100 Jgg 2,102 2,215 --- 1,925 2,275 Jg« 1.883' 2,870 J&»7 1,774 2,648 »£* 1.701 2,730 And the royal commission of 1888 declared that the purchasing power of silver In India had not fallen. Sir, there is ample reason why prices began falling about the year 1873 and have kept falling with more or less regularity ever since. Down to that period gold and silver shared together the functions of ultimate money among the groat commercial nations of the world. Together they formed one vast money reservoir, whose aggregated contents measured all exchange values and constituted the ultimate solution of all representative and credit money. England’s action in going upon the gold standard in 1816 had not impaired this relation, but the sudden and nearly contemporaneous adoption of that standard about 1873 by several jcading governments, followed st frequent intervals by others, nmdo a sudden and tremendous lessening of the mint demand for silver and threw upon the volume of gold the double burden of sustaining the credits and the redemption functions formerly borne by both metals jointly. This added enormously to the strain upon gold, rendering It relatively scarcer and more difficult to obtain, increasing almost beyond conception the demand for it, while its supply did not materially alter. The inevitable nssult was to raise the value of gold, to mate it constantly necessary to give more •nd more of all commodities, on the average, to get gold. The full effect was not folt all at once in 1873. The steps in the process were progressive, and the effects

were correspondingly bo. Prices began i falling with the cause and have fallen and are falling as the cause continues and intensifies. The following is a fairly good statement of these successive stages in the process of squeezing the expanding energies of the nineteenth century down to the narrowing measure of the gold standard: From Bimetallism to Gold. 1872. —Norway and Sweden substitute the gold standard for the silver standard. 1878.—The United States, while on a paper basis and looking longingly toward resumption of specie payments, adopts the gold standard, although sliver at the time is worth more in the market than gold, qnd although there has been no public demand for such action, the people and nearly every man in public life being ignorant of the real scope and object of the act, no amendment to which striking the standard sliver dollar from our coinage can to this day be found of record. Thus on resuming specie payments In 1879 we became an aggressive scrambler for a share of the gold in the world, which was now becoming more and more the object of the eager pursuit of nations. Between 1877 and 1879 we absorbed over $560,000,000 of gold as against about $55,000,000 In the preceding 11 years. 1873. —Germany changes from the sliver standard to the single gold standard, making a great demand for gold, so that by May, 1881, she £ad coined over $414,000,000 worth of it, and throwing upon the market for sale as bullion large masses of her worn and demonetized sliver coin, selling by 1879 more than 7,100,000 pounds weight of fine sliver. 1878.—Belgian parliament authorizes the government to suspend the free coinage of sliver. 1878-1874.—France and the Latin union (Italy, Switzerland, Belgium and Greece, besides France) suspend the free coinage of silver, and France substitutes the gold standard for the double standard. 1875.—Holland formally demonetizes sliver, having suspended Its free coinage in 1873, and adopts the single gold standard for herself and her East India colonies. 1873-1875. —The Bank of France retires $350,000,000 worth of paper and adds greatly to its gold reserve. 1878.—The United States enacts the Bland law, compelling the government to

purchase from 12,000,000 to 84,000,000 worth of silver monthly, hut to add it to the money stock not as primary money, but, under tho construction placed on it by our government, virtually as a token coinage measurable in gold, thus increasing enormously the strain on gold. This law, moreover, completely nullified the main principle of bimetallism, which de pends upon the right of the debtor to elect In which metal be will pay by enacting that silver should be legal tender except where otherwise provided In the contract. This gave the creditor the determination of the metal of payment and virtually completed rhe demonetization of sliver. 1879.—The United States resumes specie payments and on a single metal—gold. 1879.—Austrla-Huagary suspends the free coinage of silver. 1883.—Italy resumes specie payments on a gold basis and borrows $86,(W0,600 In gold to do it with. 1890.—The United States passes tho Sherman sliver purchase law, continuing the vicious principle of tho Bland act. 1890- —The Imperial bank of Russia Increases Its gold reserve by $120,000,000 and begins a policy of hoarding gold, which has gone on eyer since: 1891- —Austria-Hungary adopts the gold standard and becomes a borrower of gold to an enormous amount. 1892.—Roumunlu adopts the gold standard. 1898.—India closes her mints to the oolnI age of silver. i 1894-1895.—Chile and Brazil adopt the single gold standard and join the ever fiercer struggle for the lessening supply of real money. 1895, February.—The United States begins the unhappy and humllitating procedure, apparently become chronic If wo are to preserve the single gold standard, of borrowing millions in times of peace wherewith to pay tribute to the despotism of gold. Why will gentlemen persist in shutting , their eyes to the plainest of evidence? The I great fall of prices in the gold standard i world since 1873 is as indisputable as any physical fact In nature, and that it is chiefly due to the appreciation of gold seems to me as conclusively established as the law of gravitation. In England, where the gold standard was born and where its operation Is to fill her creditor coffers with unearned Increments cf the wealth of all debtor countries, no mystery is made of It. The World In Bondage to Money. Moreover, so clearly are the observed effects of the gold standard conformable to the economic law I have tried to state that they have been foretold at different times by men learned in the science. Many years ago, befojre the nations had become crazed by the misunderstood example of England and bad not so generally gone to work to subdue the world to a money bondage, Jevons wrote as follows:

“I am far from denying that If the Italian government decide to carry Into effect M. Luzzatti’s threat of buying gold at all hazards, and if the like course be taken by the United States and France, not to speak of Germany, there might be considerable disturbance of values for the time. But is It likely that such proceedings will be taken by rational statesmen and rationt*l parliaments? It is really too absurd to suppose that any country will insist upon having a gold currency at any cost.” Alas for the fallibility of genius! Even Jevons could not foresee that so many parliaments would prove irrational, and that great countries should be so smitten of the gold standard he advocated as to pay their lifeblood for it. But no prophecy of economic effects from observed causes has probably ever been made so unique and startling In its Insight and accuracy as that of Ernest Seyd, the famous bimetallist, who In 1871 wrote: “It Is a great mistake to suppose that the adoption of the gold valuation by other states besides England will be beneficial. It will only lead to the destruction of the monetary equilibrium hitherto existing and cause a fall in the value of silver, from which England’s trade and the Indian silver valuation will suffer more than all other interests, grievous as the general decline of prosperity all over the world will be. The strong doctrinism existing in England as regards the gold valuation is so blind that when the time of depression sets In there will be this special feature—the economical authorities of the country will refuse to listen to the cause here foreshadowed; every possible attempt will be made to prove that the decline of commerce is due to all sorts of causes and Irreconcilable matters The workman and his strikes will be the first convenient target; then speculation and overtrading will have their turn. Later on, when foreign nations, unable to pay in sliver, have recourse to protection; when a number of other secondary causes develop themselves, then many would be wise men will have the opportunity of pointing to specific reasons which, In their eyes, account for the falling off in every branch of trade. Many other allegations will be made, totally Irrelevant to the ma'ln issue, but satisfactory to the moralizing tendency of financial writers. The great danger of the time will then be that among all this confusion and strife England’s supremacy in commerce and manufactures may go backward to an extent which cannot be redressed when the real cause becomes recognized and the natural remedy is applied.” Nothing could better show on what just philosophical principles bimetallism rests than this picture in 1871 of events to begin with demonetization in 1873 and continue until now and as much longer as we shall permit. If the test of science Is prediction and verification, surely the evils of gold monometallism are scientifically condemned.

Just before the monetary conference at Brussels, in 1892, the late Dr. Soetbeer, the eminent German philosopher, wrote, foretelling the cataclysm of the year 1898 and subsequent evils: “I fear that if the English government, on the occasion of the forthcoming international monetary conference, should refuse to submit or support practicable propositions destined to extend considerably the use of silver as legal tender there will probably result a further Incalculable depreciation In the value of the metals and a very serious appreciation of gold, followed by disastrous consequences.” Yet, sir, men will persist in referring the fall of prices since 18T3 to the multiplication of inventions and to cheapened cost of production. It is no Impugnment of my argument to admit that this may account for a relatively small proportion of the fall. But, sir, it Is a very small proportion. Between 1850 and 1873 prices gradually and generally rose, a fact nobody will dispute, and yet I assort with perfect confidence that -between those dates greater Improvements In productive processes, compared with the condition at the beginning of the period, were, made than between 1873 and the present time. Gentlemen cannot have forgotten the marvelous mechanical exhibit at the centennial exposition, practically all of which related to the period In question. By far the greatest amount of this accomplishment belongs, so far as its commercial and productive aspect is concerned, to the period from about 1850. By that time the steam engine had been perfected. The old Newcomen engine of 179 with a “duty” of 5,500,000 foot pounds per one bushel of Welsh coal had developed into the improved Cornish engine of 1850 with a ‘‘duty” of 60,000,000 foot pounds. The factory system had come into systematic operation—the greatest revolution in production In the history of Industry—so that when England, about 1850, changed the tariff policy under which she had grown groat and started out to impose free trade upon the world it is estimated that her labor saving machinery represented the capacity of 450,000,000 pairs of human hands. History of Industry. In agriculture the period in question saw the perfection of the plow, the seeding machine, the grain drill and the mowing machine. The first successful reaper was McCormick’s, Invented In 1834, improved in 1847 and first attracting general attention at the London world’s fair of 1851, where it took the gold medal, and from which time It came rapidly Into use. Between 1851 and 1876 nearly 3,000 patents were taken out In this country alone for harvesters and tbeir attachments. The thrashing machine was brought to perfection In 1853. The self binder belongs to a later period, but Its effect and that of Improvements on the Inventions named bad nothing like the significance for agriculture which the devices that oame In from 1850 to 1873 had. To this period also belongs the beginning of scientific agriculture and the use of imported and manufactured fertilizers on a large scale, the systematic and general brooding of cattle, horses and sheep and the inauguration and considerable development of the cheese factory system. In manufactures it is sufficient to name the leading processes and machines that had become commercially effective in this period—the cotton gin and spinning jenny, with tbeir principal attachments and improvements; the power loom, calico printing and color weaving; the hot blast in iron manufacture, jierfected by 1.845, by which many previously refractory ores were rendered reducible and the cost of smelting was diminished nearly half; the steam hammer, rolling mill and turning lathe; the bessemer steel process and the chief Improvements in producing and refining iron, the casting, forging and rolling of the heated metal and the turning and planing of the cold metal; the jack, the slotting, key grooving, milling and shaping machines; the process of assembling, or thq making of interchangeable parts of machines, permitting the vastly cheai>er manufacture of articles like watches, clocks and firearms; the sewing machine, dating effectively from about 1850, between when and 1876 about 2,000 patents

connected with it were granted in the United States; the pnuematlc caisson in engineering, the centrifugal pump, tunneling and drilling machinery, and the use of compressed air In connection with them; scales and elevator machinery, gang and circular saws and sawmill machinery generally, about the only new departure dating from since that time being the use of the band saw on a large scale; turning machinery, particularly Blanchard’s spoke lathe for turning irregular forms; general woodworking machinery for planing mills and furniture factories, washing machines and knitting machines, the principal kinds of boot and shoe machinery, especially the McKay sewing machine, which, between 1861, when it was perfected, and 1876, had made 225,000,000 pairs of shoes in the United States alone; the Westinghouse air brake and Its various adaptations, eleotrop Luing, lithography and photolithography, optical instruments, musical instruments, ice machines, the growth of India rubber manufacture, the Goodyear vulcanising process, dating from 1844; machinery used in sugar refining and In paper, porcelain and glass manufacture, stereotyping and electrotyping processes, Bruce’s and other type casting machines, folding and addressing machines, the Gordon job press and the Adams, Campbell, Walter, Bullock and Hoe perfecting printing presses. In this connection remember that there Is no branch of Industry where production has cheapened In any degree approaching that of the mining of gold in recent years. But cheapened gold mining does not seem to have cheapened gold compared with other commodities to any alarming extent. Effects of a Changing Standard. The method of operation and the effect of a changing money standard are not sufficiently understood. A<ny convenient medium of exchange to which priceshad once accommodated themselves would discharge sufficiently well the mere function of a medlun>of exchange. But, when viewed as a measure of the values of all other thing?, it is of the very greatest importance that the money unit remain as nearly unvarying as possible in value over long periods of time. When a man loans another a sum of money, he loans a certain quantity of purchasing power, for that is what money Is. Now, absolute justice would require that when the loan is repaid it should stand for the same purchasing power as before. But If, meantime, money has depreciated—-that is, if prices have risen—the same nominal sum when repaid has less purchasing power than when borrowed, and the lender or creditor really receives less than he loaned, the borrower or debtor profiting by the difference. On the other hand, if money rises in purchasing power between the making of the loan and the repayment, so that the borrower has to find more commodities with which to buy the money to pay back than the money would buy for him when he borrowed it, then he loses the difference, and the money lender makes it.

Now, in either case the changing standard takes something from one man without his deserving to lose it and gives it to another who has no right to it. In either case it is a silent robbery. The ideal standard would preserve the rights of both debtors and creditors. But if a deliberate choice had to be made between a gradually falling and a gradually rising standard all writers of authority agree, and it is consonant with common sense, that morally, economically, politically and socially the falling standard would be preferable. Its inevitable losses fall on the creditor, the lender, who can better than the debtor endure its effects, and it encourages enterprise, while the certain hardships of the rising standard fall on the borrower, the debtor, the investor, the captain of industry, who cannot so well sustain the burden, who has no surplus, but is most frequently wiped from the face of the industrial world by the vanishing of the margin between his property and the automatically enlarging lien upon it. In the latter case the absolutely unavoidable result must be, if tho evil is permitted to run, that all property will eventually belong to those who shall control the ’ultimate money of the world, and thrift and enterprise, if enterprise and thrift can belong to a race of slaves, would plan and save and toll to further fatten the overfed fatness of their masters. This is no exaggeration of language. It is the speech of truth and soberness. Said Sir Arthur James Balfour, the real head of the present Conservative government of England, an earnest bimetallist and one of the profoundost thinkers in Europe, in a speech at Manchester Oct. 27, 1892: ‘•But of all conceivable systems of currency that system is assuredly the worst which gives you a standard steadily, continuously, indefinitely appreciating, and which by that very fact throws a burden upon every man of enterprise, upon every man who desires to promote the agricultural or the industrial resources of the country and benefits no human being whatever but the owner of fixed debts in gold.” Falling prices of agricultural products deprive the farmer of the means of buying his usual conveniencesand necessities, and these accumulate on the hands of the manufacturer and retailer, who in turn curtail expenses to the uttermost, discharging labor, which then loses its power to consume, and limiting tbeir own consumption to the barest needs. Thus farmer, manufacturer, tradesman, transporter, laborer, all lose patronage and employment, while taxes, interest and principal of mortgages, fixed charges, bonded indebtedness and rents are constantly and remorselessly measuring off increasing equivalences in all human products. Under such circumstances there is no Inducement to enterprise or to investment in producing industries. No man wants to borrow money to use in a business in which the fall of prices is sure to eat up his profits. On the other hand, the man with money for tho same reason does not want to put it into business, but prefers either to invest it in gilt edge securities or let it lie idle and grow. This collects the money in the largo financial centers and emphasizes the absolute power of the money lender, who must be sought in hie lair, and who can make his own terms wtth borrowers. It is a bad symptom when “breeding” money, to use Bhylock’s phrase, is regarded as better business policy than embarking it in productive industry. The results of an appreciating standard are so hidden in the very processes of ordinary business that until we stop to look carefully for them we are not aware bow serious—nay, bow fatal—they maj* become. My time will permit only a few illustrations. Between 1874 and 1885 gold appreciated so that the holders of the public debt of England could buy in the latter year £200,000,000 worth more of all commodities on the average with the principal of the debt as it was in 1874 than they oould have bought with it in 1874. In other words, the property and industry of England were robbed of $1,000,000,000 in 11 years and a present made of it to the holders of her bonds. The Manufacturer of Feb. 1, 1896, shows that the gold standard has presente 1

r-LAdsh trade since 1890 with a gratuity of nearly $250,000,000; also that the value of farm live stock in the United States has, fallen In three years $622,000,000. The United States paid off about $750,000,000 of her debt between 1870 and 1884,’ yet, as President Andrews has shown, if we reckon it in the eight commodities, beef, corn, wheat, oats, pork, cotton, coal and bar iron, the debt was nearly 50 per cent larger afterward than before. j It is said that in 1866 we could have; paid the national debt of this country with 14,000,000 bales of cotton. In 1894 it would have taken 51,000,000 bales to pay ; what remained due, although meantime we bad paid 94,000,000 bales on It in prin-, cipal and interest. In 1866 we could have paid it with 1,000,000,000 bushels of wheat. Last fall we still owed 2,000,000,000 bushels, after paying 5,000,000,000 bushels in principal and Interest. The Single Standard Measured. The burden of the gold standard on the world could be fully measured only in blood and sweat and tears. It is pertinent to this discussion, sir, to answer briefly a contention constantly re- ! peated by the opponents of the restoration of silver—that silver has fallen because of its enormous overproduction. I do not wish to appear dogmatic, but Ido say that this argument is absolutely without foundation. It has been a thousand times refuted, but continues to reappear in every discussion as fresh as ever and apparently unconscious of its discredit. The famous senior senator from Ohio (Mr. Sherman), In a public speech in his state a year ago, lent the support of his high name to this profound error, and in substance It restated by the distinguished gentleman from Maine (Mr. Dingley) in opening this debate. I cannot hope to stop the circulation of this convenient and serviceable assertion, but I can easily show that it is utterly without foundation. The following table shows the world’s production of gold and silver (coinage value) since 1792. I have added to the table as cited the correct figures for 1893 and 1894: PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SILVER IN THE WORLD, 1792 TO 1892, COPIED FROM UNITED STATES SENATE REPORT NO. 235, PAGE 103, COINAGE LAWS OP THE UNITED STATES, 1792 TO 1894. Silver (oolnGold. Ing value). 1792-1800.. 1106,407,000 $328,860,000 1801-10 118,162,000 871,677,000 1811-20 76,068,000 224,786,000 1821-30. 94,479,000 191,444,000 1831-40 134,841,000 247,980,000 1841-48 291,144,000 259.520,000 1849 37,100,000 89,000,000 1850 i 44,450,000 89,000,000 1851 67,600,000 40,000,000 1852 132,750,000 40,600,000 1853 155,450,000 40,600,000 1854 127,450,000 40,600,000 1855 135,075,000 40,600,000 1856 147,600,000 40,650,000 1857 123,275,000 40,650,000 1858 124,650,000 40,650,000 1859 124,850,000 40,750,000 1860, 119,250,000 40,800,000 1861 113,800.000 44,700,000 1862 107,750,000 45,200,000 1863 106,950,000 49,200,000 1864 113,000,000 51,700,000 1865 120,200,000 51,950,000 1866 121,100,000 50,750,000 1867 104,025,000 54,225,060 1868 109,025,000 50,225,000 1869 . 106,225,000 47,500,000 1870 100,850,600 51,575,000 1871 107,060,000 61,050,000 I 1872 99,600,000 65,250,000 1 1873 96,200,000 81,800,000 1874 90,750,600 71,500,000 187597,500,000 80,500,000 1876 103,700,000 87,600,000 1877 114,000,000 81,000,000 1878 119,000,000 95,000,000 1879 109,0Qp,000 96,000,000 1880 106,500,000 96,700,000 1881 103,000,000 102,000,000 1882 102,000,000 111,800,000 1883 95,400,000 115,800,000 1884 101,700,000 105,500,000 1885 108,400,000 118,500,600 1886 106,000,000 120,600,000 1887 105,775,000 124,281,000 1888 110,197,000 140,706,060 1889 123,489,000 162,159,000 1890 118,849,000 172,235,000 1891 120,184,000 180,447,000 1892 138,860,000 196,450,000 1893 157,228,000 209,165,000 1894 181,510,000 214,381,000 T0ta1556,001,254,000 $5,501,075,000 Thus in the 103 years ending In 1894 the production of gold has exceeded that of sliver by $500,000,000. It must be borne in mind that a disproportionate production for any one year or a few successive years in the case of the precious metals Is far less significant as affecting relative value than would a similar disporportion ba in any other kind of commodities. The metals are so durable and their existing mass so large compared to the production of any one year that the value of the whole will show little variation. The disproportionate production,

to have any visible effect, must continue long enough to change materially the relative bulk or mass of the whole supply in existence. The following table shows bow barren must be the attempt to connect the fall of silver with an alleged disproportionate production: Production Production of gold. of silver. 1782-1848 $821,680,000 $1,624,217,000 1849-1852 1,570,950,000 573,800,000 1863-1873 1,120,175,000 615,225,000 1874-1894 2,419,048,000 2,687,888,000 HIGHEST AND LOWEST VARIATIONS IN MARKET RATIO. 1793-1848,..., 16.25 to I—ls1 —15 to 1 1849-1862 15.78 to 1—15.19 to 1 1868-1873 15.92 to 1—15.87 to 1 1874-1894 82.56 to 1—16.17 to 1 In the first period twice as much silver as gold was p reduced; in the second, three times as much gold its silver; in the third, twice as much gold us silver; tn the fourth, only 10 per cent more silver than gold. Yet during the enormously disproportionate production of the first three periods all the variations' in the market ratio are embraced within IM points, while in the last period, when production was almost identical in both metals, the ratio sank

more than 16 points. To say that this 1 per cent difference caused such vast disturbance, while differences hundreds of times greater caused no disturbance at all, is to do violence to the primary suggest tions bf the reason. Note upon the following chart (to which I shall hereafter refer for another purpose) how the fail of silver began with the concerted legislative assaults upon it and continued by preclpitous decline as those assaults were repeated and consider, for example, how steep the decline was between 1873 and 1880, although those years the gold production was $836,650,000 and the silver production only $690,1(50,000. Now, sir, I ask the attention of gentlemen to chart D, which Is the last one I shall exhibit. It is a chart which, in my judgment, Is absolutely unanswerable on the single gold theory. Some of Its arrangement is original, but the main Idea is drawn from a document many will recognize. Ido not know whether lam correctly Informed, but I understand that a distinguished gentleman is to follow me with the purpose of answering this argument. I hope he can. Ido not say that it Is unanswerable. I simply say that I am stating propositions which seem to me like axioms, and that if the gentleman who follows me can show I am wrong be will at least have made one convert from a most pernicious error. On this chart the production of silver In any given period covered by it is taken as the space between the zero line and the silver line (marked S) and the production of gold during the same period Is indicated by the colored ground. From this it will appear that from 1800 to 1810 about 32 per cent as much gold as silver was produced; from 1810 to 1820 about 82 per cent as much gold as silver; from 1820 to 1830 about 49 per cent as much gold as silver; from 1830 to 1840 about 55 per cent as much gold as silver; from 1840 to 1850 about 12% per cent mora gold than silver; from 1850 to 1855 about 4160 per cent more gold than silver; from 1855 to 1860 about 250 per cent more gold than silver; from 1860 to 1865 about 166% per cent more gold than silver; from 1865 to 1870 about 130 per cent more gold than sliver; from 1870 to 1875 about 41 per cent more gold than silver; from 1875 to 1880 about 11 per cent more gold than silver; from 1880 to 1885 about 83 per cent as much gold as silver and from 1885 to the present time about 75 per cent as much gold as silver. This table also shows that from 1800 to 1820, when about one-third as much gold as silver was produced, but while there were In the world of coin and bullion from 32 to 33 tons (ounces would do as well) of silver to one ton of gold, you could go into the market and buy an ounce of gold for 15.55 ounces of silver, and that from 1820 to 1872 while production oscillated as we have seen, and while the relative number of tons of silver In the world’s stock was all the time becoming less in proportion to the stock of gold, falling from 31.1 tons of silver to 1 of gold to about 22 tons of silver to 1 of gold, still the market price remained closely by the ratio established by the open mints of France, but that when the onslaught on-silverwas commenced in 1873, and the mints were shut in Its face, notwithstanding that production has continued from that day to this nearer equal . than at any time in 100 years, and though the bulk of the world’s stock of silver in tons has for years been almost exactly the old mint and market ratio—namely, from 18.0 to 16.1 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold, yet the market price of silver as measured in gold has constantly fallen, until in December, 1894, you could have bought for one ounca.of gold 34 ounces of silver, and the market price today is about 32 to I. No man can look that chart in the face and then say that it is the “enormous overproduction of silver that has lowered the price. ” It is legislation, foolish, al- ■ most criminal legislation, that has done this thing. Fall o* Commodities. I undertake to say that if this chart is true there should be an explanation forthcoming from the gentlemen who have declared that overproduction of silver is the reason of its fall in price. And there is no explanation of this fact, of this colossal fact, of this to me inexplicable fact (except on one basis, which I shall next mention) that during the period when the bulk ratio between silver and gold wtfi rising from 32 to 1 to 16 to 1 the market price fell from 16 to 1 to 34 to 1. The only explanation that I can give is this: That the open mints of France afforded a channel through which the two metals could and did equably flow, according to the demands of trade, in this ultimate money, the one metal or the other predominating according to the demands of commerce and exchange, making of the

two metals one ultimate money substance of final redemption. Now, one word more, and I shall sit down, for I have abused your patience. I wish to say only this ip conclusion—that the condition in which the suffering gold standard world today finds itself is one that in my opinion calls loudly for remedy calls loudly upon the statesmanship of this' country, calls loudly and I pray not hopelessly upon the patriotism, upon the intelligence, upon the courage of the splendid leaders of t|ie grand old Republican party if we have subh left, and I believe we have. Sir, if a man denies that these things are true, then he may believe in the perpetuation of the present system, but if he believes that this picture, which I have endeavored to show, of the continual fall of commodities an<of the rise in gold, and the ruinous effects of it, are due to the fact that part of the ultimate money substance of the world has been taken away by law, he cannot believe in its perpetuation. He cannot supinely submit to its continuance. Ho will arise against it and help put it aside. I must not forget, sir, that I promised to say something about wages. I am prompt to admit that the great Republican

policy of protection has rsstly benefited the laboring man In the United States. Sir, nobody upon « fit occasion can speak upon that great policy with more enthusiastic encomium or more Intense eon vlotion than myself. But it cannot do everything. Handicapped by the single gold standard, it can work out only a portion of its proper results. When I plead for bimetallism, I plead for the other half of protection. Free trade and the gold standard both aim at low prices, are both embodiments of British aggression upon the industrial Independence of my country. I will resist them both to the utmost. I do not question the sacs that protection has had a beneficial effect upon wages; but, sir, organized labor is also largely to be credited for the maintenance of wages. Diminishing the number of hours of labor, lessening the number of apprentices, organizing against proposed reductions, they have fought their way by one method and another and have succeeded to a large degree in warding off the natural effects of an appreciating money. Let me add that if you will consider the number of men who have been out of employment and the diminished labor of those who have had employment the statistics of the rise in wages will appear far less imposing than they do now. The laboring man’s interests are precisely the same as the manufacturer’s, the tradesman’s and the farmer’s in this respect. And the policy that Is sure to wreck all employers in productive industry, if continued, cannot fail to ruin also the men who work for them. Profits cannot disappear and leave wages untouched. When men that hire labor become bankrupt, the man who works is very apt to be out of a job. The voluminous evidence gathered by the English parliamentary commission on the depression of trade and industry shows conclusively that wages in England have been long falling and continue to fall. In the United States various conditions have prevented the full operation of the same cause as yet, but many of its effects are already visible and the ultimate result is clearly foreseen by intelligent laboring men all ov?r the country. Their attitude is not uncertain. They are and will be for a money system that is favorable to industry and that deals justly between man and man. Experience of France. Frequent reference is made in this discussion to the experience of France In the early part of this century. Now, that government, from 1803 to 1865, and the Latin union—France, Italy, Greece, Belgium and Switzerland—from 1865 to 1873, did maintain the with mints open to both gold anu silver, and keep them practically at par at her mint ratio

or 15/j to 1. This great fact is of such conclusive significance that the advocates of the gold standard have not hesitated to fly in the face of history and flatly to deny one of the most notorious accomplishments on record. Such denials have been made in the course of this debate, and for that reason I propose to say a few words upon that subject. Soetbeer gives the following as the extreme variations of the market ratio of gold to silver in each decade from 1803 to 1873: 1803 1:15.41 1849 1:15.78 1808*...■ 1:13.08 1850 1:15.78 1813*1:13.25 1850 1:15.70 1814* 1:15.04 1331 1:15.19 1820 1:15.62 1862 1:15.35 1830 1:15.05 1869 1:15.60 1832 1:15.72 1871 1:15.57 1833 1:15.93 1873 1:15.92 1843 1:15.93 •Extremes during Napoleonic wars. An examination of chart E will confirm the lesson of these figures. For 80 years the line of market value of silver as compared with gold runs almost coincidently with the line representing the ratio on which the metals were coined at the mint of France. Mr. Williams—-I want to ask the gentleman a question for information. That, as I understand it, is the price of silver bullion in the London market? Mr. Towne—ln the London market. Mr. Williams—lt did not vary at all in the French market? Mr. Towne—The gentleman from Mississippi is right. Sir Henry Hucks Gibbs,' for 40 years a director of the Bank of England, some time its governor, a monometallic gold delegate to the international convention of 1878 and a bimetallist now and for the remainder of his life, declares —and he had personal knowledge for many years—that from 1803 to 1873, notwithstanding the fact that the law requires nothing of the sort to be done, there was not a day when any person could not go to the Bank of France and get either gold or silver for the other at the mint ratio. And here it occurs to me to call attention to the fact that mints do not, under systems of free coinage, purchase bullion, nor do they exchange necessarily coin of one metal for bullion of the other. I have seen on this floor indications that some gentlemen appear to think that one way we should lose our gold—if we opened the mints to silver—would be in handing it over to designing individuals who should bring silver bullion to the mint and “demand’ ’ gold. The open mint exists merely to coin the bullion brought to it and pass it back in coin to the owner. The government stamp cannot create value. Whether * coin when stamped shall be effectual to pass at the value it claims to represent will depend upon the USeitoan command. In this respect 1 agree wholly with the honorable gentleman from Maine [Mr. Dingley], who opened this debate, and who now does me the honor of listening •o me. The whole question of maintaining freely coined silver at a parity with

pld Is one simply of giving It enough to io, subjecting it to large enough demand. But to return to the French coinage. The figures above given are authoritative. In considering them It must be remembered that they are London market quotations, and that coinage In France was free, but not gratuitous. All gold and silver brought to the mint was coined as desired, but a charge was made for expense of coinage of three-tenths of 1 per cent on gold and 1 % per cent on silver. The total transportation cost on coin and bullion during the most of that time must have been somewhere about 1H per cent. In addition to this, interest was lost on lhe value of the bullion while at the mint for coinage. These considerations are entirely adequate to explain the small variations in the bullion market in London. Indeed these variations show that gold and silver m ust have circulated side by side in France. The following table, on the authority of the distinguished economist, J. Barr Robertson, shows, in five year periods, the French coinage during the time in question of both gold and silver. It is given in English money because taken from an English document: Silver Gold (average (average per per annum). annum). 1803-1810£1,201,136 £1,184,737 1811-1815 8,290,508 5,208,029 1816-1820 1,951,604 003,111 1821-1825 465,748 8,526,4$ 1826-1830 293,976 5,032,004 1831-1835 826,149 6,576,12 C 1836-1840 589,857 8,048,1® 1841-1845 159.326 8,033,25 f 1846-1850 1,294,337 4,311,27 f 1851-1855 12,669,268 1.481,751 1856-1860 21,605,465 666,651 1861-1865 7,667,357 175,00 f 1866-1870 9,546,561 8,402,0® 1871-1875 2.475,213 , 2,742,77( Total c0ined322,993,410 217,640,234 Silver was tendered and coined every year and gold every year but 1838 and 1872. When England in 1821 resumed specie payments after a long paper regime, the coinage of gold in France, as will be noticed in the table, fell off very much, and when in 1850 and following years the greatly increased production of gold came into the world’s supply it was tendered and coined in immense quantities. But al) this time the mints were coining both metals, and the open mint of France, like a jflpe between two reservoirs, maintained the level of the two masses of metal and was the equalizer of their variations. Two Metals Really One. Nothing could more beautifully or triumphantly illustrate the fundamental principle of bimetallism. Tho two metals became in effect one metal, one primary

money mass, to respond to the demands oi debts and business and to support with broader basis the credit fabric of the world. Said Mr. Cernuschi, French delegate at the monetary conference of 1881: “The law by placing the yellow metai and the white metal on the same footing, by establishing a fixed and invariable ratio between them, has made them really a single money. ’ ’ Thus, fellow citizens, they must be considered. Thus treated they become such a money, and if so we can regard with perfect equanimity, when the system is once established, the going out of one and the coming in of the other metal. The ebb and flow would be a perfectly natural and healthful movement, marking the frictionless adjustment of the money volume to the demands of trade and of localties. If gold starts to leave us today, we have nothing to take its place, and so we keep hanging on to it, the amount of our desire to keep it the measure of our necessities for it, being registered in the fall of the prices of all we produce or make. This is the greatest and heaviest premium money can command. If silver were also primary money, when gold wanted to go so badly it might go temporarily and satisfy the wants of somebody who would give more for it for the time being than we would. Under present conditions we pay more than it is worth to keep it. A premium of 50 per cent paid in all our commodities is today the premium on gold in the United States. It isn’t worth the sacrifice. In this connection I draw your attention to the following extract from the final report of the English commission before mentioned. This portion ip signed by the 12 members of the commission, gold monometalilsts and all, comprising the greatest specialists in England: Sec. 189. Looking then to the vast changes which occurred prior to 1873 in the relative production of the two metals without any corresponding disturbance in their market value, it appears to us difficult to resist the conclusion that some influence was then at work tending to steady the price of silver and to keep the ratio which it bore to gold approximately stable. Sec. 192. These considerations seem to suggest the existence of some steadying influence in former periods which has now been remov ed, and which has left the silver market subject to the influence of causes the full effect of which was previously kept in check. The question therefore forces itself upon us, Is there any other circumstance calculated to effect the relation of silver to gold which distinguishes the latter from the earlier? Now, undoubtedly the date which forms the dividing line between an epoch of approximate fixity in the relative value of gold and silver and one ftf marked instability is the year when the bimetallic system which had previously been in foroe in the Latin Union ceased to be in full operation, and we are irresistibly Jed to the conclusion that the operation of that system, established as it was in countries the population and commerce of which were considerable, exerted a material influence upon the relative values of the two metals.

8o long as that system was in force think that, notwithstanding the changes in the production and the use of the precious

metals, it kept the market price of silver approximately steady at the ratio fixed by law between them—namely, 15K to L Bee. 198. Nor doe« it appear to us a priori unreasonable to suppose that the existendb in the Latin union of a bimetallic system .with a ratio of to 1 fixed between the two metals should have been capable of keeping the market price of silver steady at approximately that ratio. The view that It could only affect the market price to the extent to which there was a demand for it for currency purposes in the Latin union, or to which it was actually taken to the mints of those countries, is, we think, fallacious. The fact that the owner of silver could in the last resort take It to those mints and have it conyertcd into coin which would purchase commodities at the ratio of of silver to 1 of gold would, in our opinion, be likely to affect the price of silver in the market generally, whoever the purchaser and for whatever country it was destined. It would enable the Beller t-o stand out for a price approximating to the legal ratio and would tend to keep the market steady at about that point. The situation in France and the nature and theory of the bimetallic adjustment are admirably set forth in the following eloquent words of Cernuschl in the monetary conference of 1881: “Until 1874 a clear and sonorous voloe was always heard resounding from the banks of the Seine. It said: ‘I am France, rich in gold and rich in silver. I can arrange that in the entire world the two metals form but one money. Peoples and nations, bring to Paris all the gold and silver you like. I take it all. Fora hundredweight of gold, or for 15>i hundredweights of silver, I will always give you the same quantity of francs. Let the production of one metal or the other be more or less abundant, more or less costly, it will be immaterial to mo. Peoples and nations, do you want gold? Bring silver. Do you want silver? Bring gold. As bimetallists the French have no preference for one metal or the other. They will always make exchange for you, if you know how to ask it, of one metal for the other on the basis of 15>$, and in the two hemispheres the rclatiije value of the two metals will always and everywhere be the same.’ ” A Question of Judgment. The reason why France was able to do this was that her commerce was great enopgh and varied enoughtogive employment and exchange to all tho metals of either kind that were offered for coinage. As I have before said, the test of ability to maintain a parity between the metals is the power, founded on extent and variety of uses for money, to absorb them in commerce. Whether the United States could independently achieve this result is not, perhaps, absolutely demonstrable. It is a question of judgment. My own opinion is that the task is not beyond us, and that, though some international concert is preferable, independent action is much to be preferred to the indefinite continuance of the present system. In this connection I wish merely to call attention, in passing, to tho fact that it was the powerful influence of tho French mint that caused, first the gold (when our mint ratio was 15 to 1 and France’s to 1) and then tho sil - ver (when we had changed to 16 to 1) to leave the United States and go to France. It was exactly as if a commodity wore to seek the highest market.' But if she took our gold she sc-ut us her silver, un.l vice versa. The process was natural aud not harmful. Both metals were somewhere performing full money functions for all the world.

When asked whether England could successfully alone undertake the maintenance of the parity of gold and silver with open mints, Sir Henry Hucks Gibbs said, “Any great commercial nation can do it.” We do not sufficiently realize what a powerful nation we are and what we can do if we set about it. We need a little of the spirit of 1776. Why, we are more afraid of England now, after we have grown big erough to whip all creation, than our fathers were when they could count no more population than the state of Ohio has now. So long as we want her to do it England will manage our money system for us, and we may depend on her having an eye on England’s interests while she is at it. I make the assertion that in nearly every respect the conditions enabling a nation to support a system of bimetallism are today more favorable to the United States than they were to France from 1803 to 1873. To begin with (see chart D), from 1803 to 1870 the average number of ounces of silver in the world in coin and available for coining was 30 times as great as the number of ounces of gold. Yet she made it possible during all that time to go into the market and buy as much with 15 ounces of silver as could be bought with one ounce of gold. Today there are only 16 times as many ounces of silver in the world’s stock as of gold. Our ratio of coinage, 16 to 1, would, to commence with, almost exactly correspond to the natural ratio by weight. Ought it not to be very much easier to float two metals at 16 to 1 when the relative amounts of them are practically just that than to do it when there were twice as many ounces of silver to one of gold as the ratio called for? Again, if the demand for ; the use of a metal is the test of ability to maintain it at parity, the case is .still stronger. In extent and variety of power to give employment to money the United States today is immeasurably greater in respect to the general, capacity of the world than was France 25 and more years ago. Says Mulhall, the world’s greatest statistician, in North American Review, June, 1895: “If we take a survey of mankind in ancient or modern times as regards the physical, mechanical and intellectual force of nations, we find nothing to compare with the United States in this present year of 1895. The physical and mechanical power which has enabled a community of woodcutters and farmers to become in less than 100 years the greatest nation in the world is the aggregate of the strong arms of men and women, aided by horsepower, machinery and steam power applied to the useful arts and sciences of everyday life.” The relative extent to which a nation uses steam power illustrates perhaps as well as any one thing can the degree to which that nation is a factor in the world’s business andean give money work to do. In 1870 the world’s steam power, according to Mulhall’s dictionary of statistics, was 18,460,000" horsepower. That of France was 1,850,000 horsepower, or little more than 10 per cent of the whole. In 1888 the total for the world was 50,150,000 horsepower, and of this the share of the United States was 14,400,000, or nearly 29 per cent. Oilr share today is 16,940,000, almost as great as that of all the world in 1870 and fully three times as great in proportion to the whole as was that of Franco in 1870. Here we see, says Mulhall, that “the United States possesses almost as much energy as Great Brittan, Germany and France collectively.” In comparing the two countries In respect to commerce, a most important point is this: In proportion as the foreign commerce of a nation is small relatively to the entire bulk of trade, it is easy to matn-

tain a money system possessing independent features. In 1870 the total exports and Imports of the world were approximately *11,000,000,00® and those of France a little more than *1,100,000,000, or about 10 per cent of the whole. In 1889 the world’s total was nearly 817,000,000.000, and the share of the United States was about 81,800,000,000, or nearly 10 per cent. While it is impossible to obtain data as to the Internal commerce of various countries with completeness and accuracy, enough exists to show us that a very much greater percentage of the total commerce of France in 1870 was foreign than the percentage of the foreign commerce in the total trade of this country today. It is commonly considered that not more than 4 per cent of our trade is with foreign countries, while it is safe to say that in France in 1870 fully three times that proportion in her trade was of that character. In agriculture I have not at hand the figures for 1870, but Mulhall gives the total value of the world’s principal agricultural products for 1887 at about 819,740,000,000, of which the share of Franco was or somewhat less than 12 per cent, and that of the United States 83,880,000,000, or nearly 20 per cent. There is no doubt that the statistics of 1870 and 1895 would show even a much greater relative advantage on our part than this. In manufactures France, in 1860, produced approximately 81,900,000,000 worth out of the world’s total of 812,000,000,000, or about 16 per cent; in 1888, $2,425,000,000 out of 823,000,000,000, or less than 10 percent. If her share for 1870 be taken as the average of these two years, she would that year have produced about 13 per cent of the world’s manufactures. The United States, in 1888, had about 87,215,000,000 worth of manufactures, or over 31 ner cent of the world’s entire product. In 1870 the railway mileage of France was 9,770, and that of the world 128,235, the percentage of France being 7%. In 1895, of the world’s 870,281 miles of railway, the United States had 168,597, being about 44 per cent of the mileage of the entire world, and 26,782 miles more than all Europe combined. In 1870 the railway freight tonnage of Europe was 401,000,000 tons, of which the proportion of France was 52,000,000 tons, or about 13 per cent. In 1888 her share was 78,030,000 out of 765,000,000 tons, or 10 2-10 per oent, while the tonnage of the United States was 590,000,000 tons, or nearly eight times as much as tpat of Franco and three-quarters as much as that of all Europe. Of a like significance is the comparative tonnage carried on canals and rivers, being in France 14,500,000 tons in 1870 and 24,500,000 in 1885, as against 51,000,000 tons in tho United States in the latter year. The total canal and river mileage of Franco is 7,730, and of the United States 51,834, or 80 per cent of the world’s mileage of that character. Add to this the enormous capacity of our great lake system, and the unequaled facilities for the development of internal commerce can be partially realized.

A Convincing Comparison. '■But the most convincing comparison as a basis of judgment of the matter in hand is as to the relative banking power of France in 1870 and the United States in 1890 (tho statistics for 1895 not I < Ing at my present command) in proportion to the total banking power of the world at these respective dates. In 1870 the world’s banking power was about 88,000,000,000, and that of France was $820,000,000, or 4 per cent, tn 1890—and the proportion is still more favorable to us in 1895—the world's banking power was nearly SIQ,000,000,000, and that of the United States was 82 per cent of that tremendous aggregate, or $5,150,000,000. Of course the gold standard men will point to the doubling of the banking capacity of the world in the last twenty odd years as proof of the diminished need of money and will cite the very exceptional equipment of .this country in that respect as an argument that we cannot use any more primary money. But it is too plain for dispute that this great growth in the world’s means of economizing gold, coinciding, as it does, so closely with the steps by which the volume of ultimate money has been deliberately curtailed, gives convincing support to our position that more primary money is a crying need of the world. Credit has been expanded to the utmost, far beyond the safety limit; gold has appreciated beyond all precedent, and td try to meet the demands of business this banking power has been evolved. It is an exact index of the increased need for primary or real money and shows conclusively that the capacity of the United States today to absorb a new supply of real money is almost incalculable. These considerations are much enforced by the fact that our vast territory of just touched possibilities, with its constantly multiplying population, affords incomparable scope for the operation and expansion of the energizing functions of an adequate supply of primary money. Now, sir, as we have seen, there is a demand in the world for a large additional amount of primary money. The enormous appreciation of gold and the almost incalculable multiplication of credits are Incontestable proofs of it. The supply of gold has not for many years come anywhere near keeping pace with the demand, so that even the increasing facilities for using it, of which our gold friends have so much to say, have not availed to keep it from rising ruinously. Dr. Soetbeer and others have exhibited the immense growth of the demand for gold in the arts and manufactures. He showed how the gold available for coinage averaged $92,090,000 a year from 1851 to 1870, but $24,000,000 a year from 1871 to 1881. Mulhall says that during the 50 years, 1881-1880, the consumption of gold was 160 tons more than the production. In an article in The Nineteenth Century Magazine for November, 1889, the great statistician and gold monometallist, Giffen, said: “The precious metals, it is admitted on all sides, have an extensive nonmonetary use. They are merchandise as well as money. But few people realize that probably this nonmonetary use is preponderant over the monetary use Itself. About twothirds of the gold annually produced is taken for the arts, and if the consumption of India Is included, as being either for simple hoarding or for the arts, then the demand for gold for nonmonetary purposes appears almost equal to the entire annual production.” Professor Bemis, the brilliant young economist of Chicago, has recently shown from perfectly reliable sources that during the nine years last past there has been available for addition to the world’s stock of circulating gold money not over $15,000,000 of new gold all told'. Mr. Walker of Massachusetts —Will the gentleman tell the house how much the economic power of gold- in commerce has increased in the last 50 years? Has it not increased several thousandfold? Mr. Towne—Mr. Chairman, I understand the gentleman’s question to refer to the common argument of gold standard theorists that the conclusions drawn by

all statesmen and economists down to recent years as to the limited ability of coin to discharge commercial functions have t been abrogated and overthrown by mod*ern inventions that have facilitated exchange, as checks, clearing bouse certificates, book credits and such things. Is that what the gentleman referred to in his question? Mr. Walker of Massachusetts—l made it as clear as I could. Give your own answer. Mr. Hardy—Wul the gentleman pardon me a moment? Modern Hocus Focus. Mr. Towne—l must decline to yield just now, Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman from Indiana. To the question of tho gentleman from Massachusetts I have only to say this—that it implies one of the greatest fallacies with which the case for the single gold standard fairly teems, although I never heard this particular weakness so strongly stated as by the gentleman from Massachusetts. The Idea is that by reason of some modern hocus pocus you can compel a limited amount of real money to go on forever doing an unlimited amount of work. They say ‘‘it does not make any difference how much ultimate money you have if you only have confidence.” No word in their whole armory is so sadly overworked as this poor “confidence. ” Confidence in what? I take it these gentlemen cannot mean that childlike and bland and innocent reliance upon the established moral order of the universe which is sometimes implied in the word “confidence.” No, sir; these gentlemen use it as a business word, In a practical sense, and so used it has reference entirely to tho confidence which you must fool in the ability of a man or an institution that Is making unlimited and multiplying promises at some time to redeem those promises. That is what it means, and how such confidence operates Is illustrated from time to time when, under the spur and whip of this pernicious doctrine, credits are expanded on the basis of a few gold dollars, the gold Itself constantly growing relatively less and the various forms of its credit representatives becoming constantly and absolutely greater until finally you have a huge, distorted, swaying, inflated fabric of credit upon an ever narrowing base of gold, and while you stand there making your boast in the very face and eyes of the world of what a tremendous amount of business you are able to do upon an infinitesimal amount of gold you ask men to have ‘‘confidence” in the operation. Ah, sir, let not gentlemen deceive themselves. The world has not outgrown either the obligations or the limitations of honesty. All these instruments of credit; Mr. Chairman, are themselves but the expression of the gold measure. If you extend credit to a man, you extend so many dollars of credit, and if the stuff out of which the dollar is made is growing scarcer tho credit is oorre* spondingly growing bigger, eating up more and more commodities, just as tho gold dollar does that measures the credit. Says the great English economist, Jevons:

“Prices temporarily may rise or fall independently of the quantity of gold in the country. Credit gives a certain latitude without rendering prices ultimately independent of gold.” (“Investigations In Currency,” page 32.) And Huskisson, the famous British statesman and financier, in his pamphlet on the depreciation of the currency, sustains the proposition: “Price, therefore, is the value of any given article in the currency with reference to which that article is measured, and must, of course, be varied by any variation in the quality of gold an‘d silver contained in such currency.” An acute writer, Dr. W. H. Smith, in a recent work, says: “The volume of basic money fixes the volume of representative money (paper money Issued by the government). In turn, the volume of both representative money and basic money controls the volume of credits that act as money, and the quantity of all these, with the exchanges to be made and payments to bo met, fix prices. Thus indirectly the prices of commodities in a country are fixed and controlled by the volume of basic money.” Sir, under the stress and impulse of commercial development the world’s need of money has overtaken and passed the supply of metal for the purpose long ago and has • for many years explored all the avenues of invention for substitutes and economics to eke out the inadequate amount of ultimate money. The limit was long since reached. I cannot now take the time to prove, but I assert, with no dtead of contradiction, that the actual proportionate use of money among the people today is very much greater than it was 40 years ago. Says a great authority, Professor Kinley (Journal of Political Economy, March, 1895): “After a certain point of development In the use of credit instruments there is no further relative increase, but rather, possibly, a slight decrease.”

The True Flutist. The true flatist, Mr. Chairman, is yohr modern American gold standard advocate. The logic of his argument leads to a money base so small and a credit top so large that “confidence” is to take the place of redemption, and confidence never realized is only another name for irredeemability. For “populism” that out-Popullsts your Populist commend me to your gold standard extremist. Sir, I think I have heard the gentleman from Massachusetts speak of increasing the resources of tho banks so as to permit them to enlarge their accommodations to customers. We are to assume, then, from these arguments that the extent of accommodation is limited to the present rate of expansion, and that there must be some way of increasing the reserves in order to permit the piling on of additional credits at tho rate of $4 or $5 for sl. Increasing the reserves means increasing the ultimate substance that must in the end make good every dollar of credit and every promise made by bank or government in the nature of credit. It is more ultimate money that the world wants and must have. And I warn gentlemen upon this floor—not as a prophet, but as one who has always lived near the people—our duty must not be neglected. I tell you I know what the people are thinking and what they are feeling in this year of grace 1896. They know ,hat the constricting gold standard is existing by the permission and growing at the cost of the manhood and the enterprise of the universe, and that the time will come when a stop most be' put to it. Mr. Hardy—After your elaborate remarks will you now state in a few words : what you want the Republican party to do? I Mr. Chairman, it is to the great Repub- : lican party at such a crisis that the people, I turn with hopefulness, even as in times' 'past when the hour was heavy and the | way dark they groped anxiously that they ! might find and clasp with their hands the: hand of the Republican party and thus be led again to the heights of peace and along the paths of prosperity. The Republican

party has not yet declared for a single goldi standard— Mr. Hardy and others—And never wUL Mr. Towne—And I pray heaven it never will. But what is expected now, Mr. Chairman, of the Republican party la a prompt and definite proposition as to what it Intends to do. Sir, I am not strenuous upon having my way. While I should infinitely prefer that the nations undertake this regeneration together, yet I believe that tho United States of America, with its unlimited resources, with its manhood representing an energy that Mulhall says Is quite equal to that of the Englishman, the German and the Frenchman combined, with a population of 70,1)00,000, with an area equal to all Europe, and a large part o* which is undeveloped and needs the quickening assistance of an affluent, ultimate money, with one-third of the banking power of Christendom, showing its absorptive capacity over the money of all the. world that should seek employment bore, with one-third of the steam power (which Is the basis of industry and of business today) of all tho earth I believe tho United States could, with all this marvelous energy, with its multiplicity and variety of commerce, a proper care for which would enable it to become the clearing house for this hemisphere, as Blaine fondly hoped it might become, I say the Republican party, might, by opening the mints of this gov-l eminent and giving to silver the same privileges now bestowed upon gold, main-i tain the two metals at a parity at the oldi coinage ratio. It would be easier for us to do It than it was for France, France had to do it and did it when the natural bulk ratio of silver to gold was 82 to 1, while with us it is proposed to make: the ratio practically identical with that which the metals sustain to each other by, bulk today. Nor, sir, is there anywhere any “flood of silver" to swamp tho mint. I cannot pause to prove this, but it is absolutely true. Nearly ull existing silverj now circulates at a token parity, or a virtual redemption parity, with gold and* would gain nothing by coming here. What wo want is to take the silver from the top and put it beside gold at the bottom of tho money structure. If we cannot do tho work in un independent way—• if I iuu deceived in thinking that we might —lot us do it in some other way. If somebody proposes in this congress to restore the ultimate money function to silver Ini any practicable way he shall have myj vote. Tho main thing Is to take awayi from gold its universal and exclusive necessity that keeps all tho nations and all' the mon of tho world in a scramble for it at the constantly growing cost of their happiness and their substance.

Restore Silver. Restore the full money function to silver in some way and do it speedily. Say even that you will do it three or four years from now, with such other nations as you, may be able to induce to associate with you, and I will vote for the proposition.! Say that you will tux Incoming silver uudi coin only the American product, and I" will vote for it. Say that you will coin silver upon an International basis without the consent of Englund (which you can never get so long us the Rothschlldsi have flint country by the throat); say that you will do It in combination with France and Germany (and there ought to be uo question in the mind of any reasonable man that these three nations could sustain the purity of the metals) —say you will do that, and I will vote for it. I know that all legislation is a compromise, and even In this great matter I will compromise to almost any limit on tho means if only the end bo openly avowed and speedily sought. But what I say, Mr. Chairman, is that the Republican party must at this time make up its mind to do something. The people of the United States have passed al vote of confidence in the Republican party; that is all. We must now justify than confidence by being equal to tho emergencies that confront tho people. Our, Slatform pledges us explicitly to the re-; abilitation of silver, to make it “standard money,” even as gold is. The people! want that done. They have not yet decided exactly how, perhaps, but thatK is what they elected us for—to find out how,, to show them the way and loud therein. Bo assured, sir, if we fail to do what they: want done, they aro not so untrained in managing their affairs but that they will find somebody else to do it. Mr. Chairman, I did not think to have spoken so long. I did not think that I! could have abused the courtesy of the house to such au extent. But the question is most important and well nigh exhaustions. Even now I am conscious of having omitted many things that ought to be said. I thank the house very much for, extending my time and for the unusual compliment of its general and prolonged l attention. I desire to express my gratitude for this indulgence and shall endeavor not to be thus again a debtor during this session. But, sir, I could not be silent. I love my country. I cannot endure to see • ersuffer without relief when relief is wit..lm call. And the Republican party is dear to mo. My ancestors wore Federalists and! Whigs of New England. My father followed the standard of Fremont and Dayton to the glorious defeat of 1856. The Infancy of tho Republican party rooked my own cradle. Since my youth I have treasured the deathless fame of its great leaders, studied and professed its doctrines, 1 benefited by its policies and wielded ceaselessly what little strength was mine in its strenuous contests for the confidence ofl the people. My anxiety that it shall now rise level With tho emergency that meets us is greater than I can express. Sir, we are told in an old German legend how a monster, Alberlc, became possessed! of a magic ring of gold which gave himi unlimited ixiwer, which power he used in heaping up and hoarding all tho gold and! wealth of the world, and that he fashioned for himself a helmet of gold that en-i abled him at will to become invisible to men or to take upon himself any form be pleased. And the world, it is said, was at the mercy of that monster until the god Wotan appeared and took him captivewhile, in the insolence of his power, be was boastfully wearing bis most odious shape? If, sir, there is in this country today a malevolent power with ring and helmet of gold, now invisible and now terrible in aspect, as it either insidiously or openly undermines the foundations of liberty, could there be for the Republican party a more glorious destiny than, like the god in the story, to come to the relief of the people? ,