Born in Erie co., N. Y., December 7, 1827; started, a poor boy, a sixteen, for Racine, Wis. ; worked on a farm for a time and returned to New York; admitted to bar of Erie co., 1852; elected to Assembly, as a Republican, 1853; nominated second time and defeated; moved to Waterloo, Iowa, 1867; practiced profession, and became large land owner; left the Republican party on account of its prohibition doctrines in 1883; advocated Cleveland's election in 1884; favored tariff reform, but not unqualified free coinage; nominated for Governor, on Democratic ticket, in fall of 1889, and elected; a Congregationalist, strictly temperate, and a patron of fine-stock raising. Prominently mentioned as candidate for the Presidency on Free Silver Democratic ticket of 1896.

brought to give common consent. France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium formed what was called "The Latin Monetary Union" in 1863, based on bi-metallism. But in 1867 was held the "International Monetary Conference," at Paris, in which it was laid down that the adoption of a single gold standard was a principle necessary to universal coinage.

Following this, in 1871, came the defeat of France in the Franco-Russian war, and her payment of an immense subsidy in gold to Germany. Immediately, Germany, by a series of Coinage Acts from 1871 to 1973, demonetized her silver and adopted a single gold standard. She stopped coining silver and threw it on the market, selling $140,000,000 worth between 1873 and 1879. This alarmed the countries pledged to a bi-metallic system. The Latin Union closed the mints of France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, to the coinage of silver, thus confessing their inability to, maintain the two metals on an equality and as money. For thirteen. years France did not issue a single legal tender silver coin, and on January 1, 1891, the Latin Union went out of existence.

Meanwhile, our own country was passing through the throes of war and the demoralization attending an expanded and strained credit. In 1861 the government became a borrower in gold to the extent of $100,000,000. In February, 1862, it passed the "Legal Tender Act," under which $150,000,000 in "Greenbacks" were issued as legal tenders. At once gold jumped to a premium. The government's promises to pay were so much cheaper and inferior as a circulating medium, that gold hied away and disappeared as currency.

In July of the same year another issue of $150,000,000 of legal tenders was authorized. Gold rose to a still higher

premium. Even our fractional silver currency, depreciated as it was by the Act of 1853, went to a premium and disappeared with the gold. This made the fractional paper currency necessary. Subsequent uses of government credit in various forms and for war purposes, continued to advance the premium on gold till in July, 1864, it reached 185 per cent. Peace, the ability of the government to pay, as steps toward resumption showed, and final resumption in 1879, mark the decline of gold to par again, or rather the exaltation of the government promise to pay to the gold standard.

THE ACT OF 1873.

This Act has become more famous through subsequent discussions of it, than on account of its intrinsic merits or the debates which attended its passage. It is now “The Odious Demonetization Act of 1873" or "The Conspiracy Against Silver" of that year. The facts connected with its passage hardly support the charge that it was a "trick" played on the advocates of free silver coinage by their opponents. As to the intimation that "its contents were not fully known" or sufficiently known, that is matter personal to the majority which passed it and remote from its merits.

The approaches to no other Coinage Act seem to have been more deliberate and gradual. The original draft of the Act was presented to the Senate as early as April, 1870, by the then Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Geo. S. Boutwell. It had been prepared with great deliberation, and under the supervision of Dr. Linderman, Director of the Mint. It proceeded on the theory that if the American silver dollar were made the equivalent of the five-franc piece of France-France being on a bi-metallic basis, and with a great volume of silver currency-said dollar might become interchangeable

with European coins of like value. The bill, therefore, fixed the weight of the silver dollar at 384 grains standard silver, that being the weight of the five-franc piece.

But as this was really to reduce the ratio between silver and gold to about 14.8 to 1, and as the bill gave to the silver dollar a limited legal tender power, it was not regarded as one which would effect its object and make our silver dollar float all over the world. It, therefore, flitted back and forward between the two houses of Congress for three years, the subject of repeated debates and amendments, the theme of much newspaper discussion, till at length it was passed by the House, with the clause providing for a silver dollar of 384 grains in it. This provision was struck out by the Senate, and what was called the "Trade Dollar" clause was inserted in its stead. This clause provided for a trade dollar of 420 grains standard silver and 378 grains pure silver, and a limit on its legal tender quality to sums of five dollars. The object was to provide a market for our production of silver and to make a dollar which would substitute the old Spanish dollar in the Pacific trade with China and Japan. It was a dollar of commerce and not circu

lation.

The bill then went to a Committee of Conference between the two Houses, where its final form was agreed upon. It then passed both Houses and became a law February 12, 1873. It provided that the gold coins "shall be a one dollar piece, which, at the standard weight of 25.8 grains, shall be the unit of value," etc.

The gold coins of larger denominations were based upon the one dollar piece. The silver coins were declared to be a trade dollar, etc., and "the weight of the trade dollar shall be 420 grains troy .. and said coins shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding

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five dollars in any one payment." Thus the standard silver dollar was not only struck from the list of coins, but its substitute was limited in legal tender power and classified with the fractional coins. No change was made in the weight or quality of the gold coins. The important changes made, and which have given rise to so much contention since,

were:

1. The gold dollar was made the unit value.

2. The trade was substituted for the standard silver dollar. 3. Silver was deprived of full legal tender power, and limited to payments in sums of five dollars.

No change was made in the minting privilege accorded the two metals, except with reference to fractional coins. Owners of silver were permitted to deposit their bullion at the Mint upon the same terms as owners of gold bullion, so far as trade dollars were concerned. The provision of the Act of 1853, to buy silver bullion on Government account for coining fractional silver, was continued in the Act of 1873, but any owner of silver bullion could "deposit the same at any mint, to be formed into bars or into trade dollars," at a charge not to exceed the actual average cost to the mint. In answering the complaint that the Act of 1873 struck down silver, Mr. Ehrich, of Colorado, says :

"Silver has been struck down, but not by the bill of 1873, nor by any bill concocted by man. The hand which struck down silver is the hand which will strike us all down in time, the hand which nothing can withstand, the irresistible hand of Nature. Silver has been struck down by the natural forces, by the great law of supply and demand. The yearly average of gold production in the twenty-five years from 1851 to 1875 was $127,000,000. The yearly average product of silver for the same period was $51,000,000. The average annual product of gold for the fifteen years from