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was conferred on Congress to declare either metal should not be money. Congress has, therefore, in my judgment, no power to demonetize either. If, therefore, silver has been demonetized, I am in favor of remonetizing it. If the coinage has been prohibited, I am in favor of having it resumed. I am in favor of having it increased."

Webster said: "I am certainly of opinion that gold and silver at rates fixed by Congress constitute the legal standard of values in this country, and that neither Congress nor any State has authority to establish any other standard or to displace this standard.”

McKinley said: "I want the double standard. I would have gold and silver alike."

Hill said: "I am indignant at the rapacity of the gold monometallists, so reckless of both science and of public opinion. The bimetallic coinage is the demand of a vast majority of the American people. No wonder it made us the party of the silver dollar for eight years. To restore it safely, finally, and wisely is the mission of the Democratic party."

Hamilton and Jefferson agreed in saying that the money unit must rest on both metals.

The Democratic National Convention of 1892 declared: "We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of this country, and to the coinage of both without discrimination against either metal." The Republican National Convention of 1892 demanded "the use of both gold and silver as standard money."

Cleveland said in his letter of acceptance : “With this condition absolutely guaranteed, both gold and silver can be utilized upon equal terms in the adjustment of our currency."

Carlisle said, in the House of Representatives, February 21, 18781:“. . . Mankind will be fortunate indeed if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual increase of population, commerce, and industry. According to my view of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three sevenths to one half of the metallic money of the world is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age.

"The consummation of such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human race than all the wars, pestilences, and famines that ever occurred in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous destruction of half the entire movable property of the world, including houses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for carrying on commerce, while it would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would not produce anything

"On the Senate amendments to the bill (H. R., No. 1093) to authorize the free coinage of the standard silver dollar, and to restore its legal-tender character.”

The extracts as here presented have been carefully compared with the official report of this speech, as printed in the Congressional Record, Vol. 7., Part 5., Appendix, page 41. Second Session XLVth Congress.

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like the prolonged distress and disorganization of society that must inevitably result from the permanent annihilation of one half of the metallic money in the world. With an ample currency, an industrious and frugal people will speedily rebuild their works of internal improvement and repair losses of property, but no amount of industry or economy on the part of the people can create money. When the government creates it or authorizes it, the citizen may acquire it, but he can do nothing more.

"I am in favor of every practicable and constitutional measure that will have a tendency to defeat or retard the perpetration of this great crime, and I am also in favor of every practicable and constitutional measure that will aid us in devising a just and permanent ratio of value between the two metals, so that they may circulate side by side and not alternately drive each other into exile from one country to another. . . The struggle now going on cannot cease, and ought not to cease, until all the industrial interests of the country are fully and finally emancipated from the heartless domination of syndicates, stock exchanges, and other great combinations of money grabbers in this country and in Europe. .

It would be easy to multiply such quotations. Many of them have been published.

I have steadily opposed the 16-to-1 idea, and have always claimed that the ratio should be regulated by Congress at approximately the market ratio

when both metals should have substantially equal access to the mint. But this question of ratio is quite distinct from the question of constitutional right to have both metals coined at rates regulated by Congress and available as money in payment of debts.

Suppose it were found possible by some new test to distinguish the gold mined in Australia and Africa from all other gold, and that laws should be made in Europe and in America excluding from the mints all Australian and African gold,-would not this be an injustice to debtors on a gold basis? Would it not impair that obligation of the contract which had compelled creditors to accept any gold? Would not Australian and African gold decline to half their former value? Would not all other gold greatly increase in value?

The Constitutional Convention refused to give Congress the right to print paper money, but did give it the right to coin money, and the power to regulate the ratio. It is ultra vires for any political convention to attempt to fix the ratio. That duty belongs to Congress. The States agreed to leave the matter of rates or ratio to the arbitration of Congress when they adopted the Constitution. Our present trouble comes from the failure of Congress to alter the ratio on one of those very rare occasions when an alteration was necessary to make the ratio approximately accord with the market ratio, while both metals had free access to our

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It would be unfair to take the market ratio for our government now while one of the precious metals is demonetized. But if a reasonable future date were fixed when both metals should be admitted to free coinage at the then market ratio, no wrong would be done to any just interest. Massachusetts used to be proud of being called the silver colony, and strict bullionist views have been held by many of the most enlightened citizens of this commonwealth since it became a State in the

Union.

If we will now take the only real sound-money ground-opposition to all credit money,-and patiently and fairly contend for this great principle, that “money must be an equivalent as well as a measure," and that nothing should be money that does not honestly represent labor, the East may yet lead in carrying the country for this great reform of the currency as the East has led in other reform movements.

While most of my interests are in the East, I have interests in the West, and go there every year, and I think I know something of the real feeling there. It is that the East has been more prosperous than the West, and that in so far as this inequality springs from adroit legislation in our favor they intend to have this changed, so that opportunities, so far as law is concerned, shall be made equal, that the government shall not give advantages to manufacturers and bankers that it does not give to farmers and miners. As I have long