T74 
 
 T^iiiSiSSSSL 
 
. ._ Cornell University Library 
 
 HG 529.T74 
 
 Silver restoration— The duty of the Repu 
 
 3 1924 013 817 006 
 
 New York 
 
 State College of Agriculture 
 
 At Cornell University 
 
 Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 Library 
 
Silver Restoration — The Duty of the Republiean Party. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 oy- 
 
 Hon. Chas. A. Towne 
 
 OF MINNKSOTA, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 Satubday, FebeUaey 8, 189G. 
 
 WASHINGTON, t). C. ».-....> 
 
 1896. 
 
 JAN 20 1''^4fi 
 
SILVER RESTORATION-THE DUTY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 HON. CHAS. A. TOVV^NB, 
 
 OF MINNESOTA, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 Saturday, February 8, 1896. 
 
 The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the UntoU) and having under 
 consldei-ation the bill {H. B. 2904) to maintain and protect the coin redemption fund, and to- 
 authorize the Jssue of certificates of indebtedness to meet temporary deQciencles of revenue, 
 with Senate amendments — ^ 
 
 Mr. TowNB said: 
 
 Mr. Chairman: If 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 vio- 
 lence 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 must follow 
 the distinguished and eloquent gentleman from Iowa [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 theatre the eyes of men, 
 
 When a well-graced actor leaves the stage. 
 
 Are idly bent on him that enters next. 
 
 But, sir, I conceive Ihat the general Subject which is brought before this House by 
 the pending measure is by all odds the most ipiportant one that will engage or has 
 engaged the attention of this body at this session of Congress, The eminent gentle- 
 man who opened the discussion upon this measure [Mr. Dingley]. following a meta- 
 phor that had its origin, I believe, with Aristotle, and which has had frequent em- 
 ployment since, well likened the money of the commercial nations of the world to 
 the life-blood 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 npon 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 oommetcial circulation. This it is which gives importance and 
 special emphasis to the question now pending; because there are hundreds of thou- 
 sands of men in the United States and elsewhere 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 [applause], and to allow to 
 atrophy one of the ventricles of its great central heart whose harmonions pulsations 
 give power and energy and movement to its organization. [Applause.] 
 
 The question, sir, is an imminent one. It is a question that, like Banquo's ghost, 
 will not down. - "A vaunt 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- 
 parties, not parties that make issues. [Applause.] Some gentlemen say, "Let it 
 alone; let the question settle itself; do not agitate it." Sir, that is not the languajf^ 
 3f 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. [Applause. J- 
 
Its constant reiteiration 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, tree, and fea^rless discussion. Had men in the past 
 neglected to exemplify these requirements and to insist upon thei* guaranty, whait 
 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 BUent as to the stamp duty, or hesitated to affirm the great prin- 
 ciple of "no taxation without representation;" had Thomas Jefferson permitted him- 
 self 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 liigh purpose by the calling of hard names 
 and threats of personal violence; had Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln thought it indis- 
 creet to denounce the treatment of Kansas as a crime, to assert that the conflict 
 between freedoni and slavery was "irrepressible," and to make a new application of 
 the old proverb that "a house divided against itself cannot stand." [Applause.] 
 
 No, sir; let us not abandon our duty. Let us stand to it like men. Said Daniel 
 Webster, in answer to a similar argument sixty years ago: 
 
 If any evU arises to destroy or endanger this medium or this oarreney, our duty Is to meet 
 It, not to retreat from It — to remedy It, not to let W alono. We are to control and correct the 
 mischief, not to submit to It. 
 
 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 avenue for self-aggrandizement at the expense 
 of the general good, is to show a grave incompetence to weigh and handle the mo- 
 mentuous concerns.!Of the people. That so many in this House are unable to grasp 
 the higher and only real issues involved, 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," is as unprofitable as it is 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 easly 
 answered. Nor can you escape the ordeal of critical examination by merely pasting 
 a label on your faith. Calling it "honest" and "sound" does not 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 such a brand upon any 
 proposal of mine. 
 
 The people can not be deceived. They are studying this question as Wver before. 
 Epithets can not 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 
 tills 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 an- 
 swered 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 justifica- 
 tion 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 opin- 
 ion 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 intelli- 
 gent govern, because in time they form public opinion, and that sooner or later sub- 
 jugates 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 sympa- 
 thy in this country. 
 
 In the discussion of this question the first line of demarcation should be plainly 
 
drawn between the advocates ot the Single Gold Standard upon the one side and the 
 advocates of Bimetallism upon 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 sim- 
 ilar discussions everywhere among those who take part In this controversy. Men 
 call themselves bimetallists, men have to-day upon this floor called themselves 
 bimetallists, who believe in a monetary system having one metal as a, basis and 
 another metal practically refteemable 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 ot 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 can not he say so, and stand boldly and bravely up to his declaration? [Ap- 
 plause,] 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 accept- 
 ability to the country. 
 
 Now, sir, a man who is honestly a bimetallist, who believes in the use of both gold 
 and silver 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 gentleman upon this floor 
 loudly proclaim themselves bimetallists, and then launch themselves into tedious 
 arguments to prove that the gold standard Is wholly satisfactory. They are bimetal- 
 lists, yet gold is a stable measure of values! They are bimetallists, yet there is no 
 appreciation of gold! They are bimetallists, yet prices have not iallen! They are 
 bimetallists, yet prices have fallen, and entirely becauseof cheapened cost of produc- 
 tion! They are bimetallists, yet the restoration of silver is Impossible! Thev are 
 bimetallists, yet the nresent system must continue indefinitely! They are bimetal- 
 lists, 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 unconscious of it. 
 
 It may be thought, sir, that I am spending too much time upon this matter. But 
 in the forum where this discussion Is soon to be taken, I mean the great tribunal of 
 the nublio opinion of the Union 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 reoeent book, Monetary Systems of the World, page 12, says: 
 
 By bimetallism, strictly defined, is meant the free and unlimited coinaere of both e-nid otiM 
 silverinto coins offuUdebtrpaylng power. "omgom and 
 
 I refer to Mr. Muhleman's definition because he speaks <vith authority upon mat- 
 ters 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 of the precious 
 metals," reported in 1888, and the report was published by our Government in 1889 
 I quote from page 59 of that report, section 116: 
 
 A bimetallic system of currency, to be completely effective, mast, in the view of tlino.^ -^v. 
 advocate it, include two essential features: (a) An open mint ready to coin anv nnor,*)* "1 
 either gold ov silver which may be brought to it. (b) The right on the part of a defitm- 1,;^ •"' 
 charge 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 deoen 
 tion. [Applause.] The statement that the present system is bimetallic, if not igno 
 rant 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 
 
Tjoth gold and silver are "used," without reference to the manner of the use, la 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. 
 [Applause.] If their final judgment is for gold monometallism it will not be pro- 
 nounced under any mistake or delusion. You can not promise them both silver and. | 
 gold and satisfy them with gold alone. . "'' 
 
 UntU recently it never entered into anybody's head since the word bimetallisnt 
 was coined to have a doubt about what it meant. There can be no question as to the- 
 me&ning of the word. Bimetallism means Two-metallism. It was coined to mean, 
 and does mean, a money system where the two metals, gold and silver, are treated^ 
 alike. It has never meant iinything else. It signifies the equal access of gold and 
 silver 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 matter is important. Gentlemen here and 
 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 
 bimettallism by any publirast or economist of authority or any statesman of stand- 
 ing, made prior to 1895, which is not in substantial accord with the definition I have 
 eriven. 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 bimettalism, and if 
 for bimetallism let him discuss the means of reaching the end and frankly concede 
 that the present system cannot be permitted to last. 
 
 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 confiicted with the 
 desires of certain people, that they have soughttomakea new definition of bimetallism, 
 and under that new definition to hold the pledgors to the letter of their ancient pledge 
 without its spirit. [Applause.] Why cannot men who do believe in the gold stand- 
 ard be honest and say so? I do 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 Post said? That 
 great representative of English oppositiqn .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 
 DEtvor of the single gold standard, althoQgh they are opposed to any change from the present 
 system. There are others (also a diminishing number) who think that because a certain lim- 
 ited 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 '-gold bugs" 
 have no change of standard In contemplation. They are satisfied with the present posture of 
 affairs, so far as that goes. The "expulsion of everything but gold as real money" took place 
 In 1873, and continues unabated. 
 
 Let every man who believes with the Post imitate its frankness and say so. Let 
 him say so along with the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
 Walker], Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency, who declared in 
 his speech yesterday — I do not pretend to quote him exactly, but I remember per- 
 fectly the substance 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 an d sliver. It could not be maintained beyond a very brief space of time In face 
 of the 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 he cannot remain in the Bepublican party unless, when tbeBepub- 
 lican party next proclaims its doctrine in a national convention, it shall change its 
 platform. [Applause.] 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, I am not using the words of excess and incaution. I say 
 that the Bepublicah platform uses unmistakable language. It may net 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 
 
6 
 
 what it did not mean, he is welcome to do it; bat 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. [Applause.] And that party in convention 
 a,ssembled proclaimed, in the last authoritative national utterance that we have from 
 ^hat organization: 
 
 The American people, from tradition and interest, favor bimetallism, and the Bepublioan 
 l)arty demands the nse of both gold and silver as standard money. 
 
 I care not what restrictions, limitations, or qualifications were added to that sen- 
 tence to complete the plank, they never could get away from that initial pronounce- 
 ment pledging the party to the restoration of the lull money functions ot 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. ' 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, if bimetallists are opposed to the single gold standard, what 
 is the reason for their 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 ot the United States or the people of the world. Bimet- 
 allists 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 mnst 
 continue so to increase; that this appreciation is evidenced by a progressive fall of 
 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 imme- 
 diate remedial action. 
 
 Now, sir, in order to proceed intelligibly along the line of argument I have laid out 
 for myself, it becomes necessary to get a clear conception of certain words used in 
 the terminology of this discussion. Standard and unit are examples, occurring In 
 the expressions "standard of value" and "unit of value." By the Century Diction- 
 ary "standard" is defined as "a weight, measure or instrument by comparison with 
 which the accuracy of others is determined," and unit as "any standard quantity by 
 the 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, and 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 weigfht, length and capacity. But 
 value is neither "so heavy," "so long" or of "such-and-such contents." You can not 
 see it. Value is nothing absolute. Value is a relation. It is the ratio at which one 
 thing exchanges for another. One thing may be worth as much as another thine 
 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. When I 
 pay $100 for a horse, as in the illustration used by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr 
 Tucker] the other day, the horse buys the $100 just as certainly as the $ioo buys the 
 horse; and if it be true to say that horses are high if they cost $150, it is equally true 
 to say that money is high when you have to give two horses for $100. [Applause 1 
 
 Gentlemen here have much to say of "intrinsic value," and declare their wUlin 
 ness to vote for bimetallism when somebody shall show them how to make a eo^ 
 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 meanin 
 of value and utility. Things may possess qualities that make them useful a d 
 
■faenoe will have utility, but the measure of their VALtTE is what they will exchange 
 for. You pick up a piece of iron. It is useful for many purposes; but you cannot 
 tell how much it is worth, that is to say, what its value is, until you find what you 
 can get tor it. Valtje in exchange is the only value with which political economy 
 has to deal. 
 
 Originally exchange was by barter. Commodities were traded one for the other. 
 The cost of production and the relation of supply and demand regulated t^e ratios 
 at which they mutually interchanged. Convenience necessitated the selection of 
 «ome common medium luto which all commodities could be converted and with 
 which any of theBa 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 
 perfdrmance of this function. As a consequence the demand for them for money pur-/ 
 
 poses, being equal to the sum total of the values of all commodities seeking to be ex- 
 changed, became so vastly more important than the demand tor them for any othei 
 purpose that cost of production ceased to be a large factor in determining their valut 
 as expressed in commodities, but that value practically became the ratio bet ween\ 
 all the goods seeking exchange and the quantity of gold and silver iu existence to V 
 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 cortain unit 
 number of grains of gold or of silver and a given commodity being once determined, 
 there was established in the minds of those who came to markettheideaof its value, 
 which, when expressed in terms of money, was its pbioe; tfxit when for any rea- 
 son 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 prodiacts which were 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, ata 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 cor- 
 respondingly lower or raise the power of each coin; must raise or lower prices. ' 
 
 These observations, which seem to me to be conformable 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 sometime 
 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 * 
 Europe. ("Wealth of Nations, Worthlngton ed., pages 24 and 26.) 
 
 John Locke, the great philosopher, in his treatise on the "Value of Money, said: 
 
 By which means it comes to pass that the Intrinsic value of gold and silver * * * Is noth- 
 ing 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 what 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 McColloeh,and 
 Essay on Interest and "Value of Money, by John Locke, edition of Ward, Look & Co., page 233.) 
 
 The same writer declares In another place (Works, "Volume V, page 49): 
 
 For the value of money in general is the quantity of all the money in the world in proportion 
 to all the trade. 
 
 In his Principles df Political Economy (Appleton edition, 1880, Volume II- pages 
 26-30), John Stuart Mill declares: 
 
 The value or purchasing power of money depends * * * on demand and supply. « » « 
 Money is 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 community, and the same amount of goods to be- 
 sold, less money altogether would he given for them, and they would be sold at lower prices. 
 
 Kobert GifPen, the ablest champion of the gold monoraetallists, holds this language 
 in his Chapter on Standard Money: 
 
 In this sense, to say that the quantity of money ifegulates prices is only the same thing as t» 
 say of any article that is bought or sold that Its quantity is a material iaotOT in determining lis 
 value. (Case Against BimetalUsm, page 218.) 
 
 It is no answer to the quantitative argunient 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 
 adiusts itself to the amount of business, and the method of doing it, in each country. 
 Let the person smitten with this Tiirkish-Prankish 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 hts argument. 
 
 Thus, sir, attention is strongly drawn to the function of money as a measure ot 
 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 cri- 
 terion of deferred payments. 
 
 I find, Mr. Chairman, that my time has flown away almost unobservedly— 
 
 Mr. Hartman. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent of the House that the 
 time of the gentleman from Minnesota be extended tor twenty minutes. He is. 
 making one of the ablest argument^a that has been presented to this House and I ask 
 that his time be extended. 
 
 Mr. Williams. I second the request. 
 
 A member. Make it thirty minutes. Let him finish his argument. 
 
 Mr. Haetman. Then I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman's time be' 
 extended, for thirty minuted in addition to the ten minutes which he has remaining. 
 
 There was no objection. 
 
 Mr. TowsTE. Mr. Chairman and gentleman, I am under very great obligations for 
 your kindness. I will endeavor to requite it in the directness add closeness of my 
 remarks. 
 
 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, that is, a comparison of the worth 
 of the material in the unit of money with the worth of an 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 ta 
 say, a rise in value— in this standard of gold which the major portion of the commer- 
 cial nations of the world has adopted; in other words, sir, it is affirmed that ithe 
 quantity of all commodities, on the average, required to buy a given number of 
 grainsof gold has been and is increasing, and that from that fact there follows a 
 train of woes from which the world has been suffering in an increasing measure ever 
 since ihe mistake was made in 1873, and thereabouts, of going to that standard.. 
 How shall we 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 fail 
 or rise, fbr the relations of the two are entirely and necessarily reciprocal. 
 
 Kow, sir, a general law of this kind— and I ask the attention of 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 m,ake up the modern 
 market are difficult of investigation. A rise in the price of one commodity may 
 
aocorapany a fall in the priee of another, as was shown by the gentleman from SortTi 
 Dakota [Mr. JohnsonJ the other day, who told us, as I remember, that th6re was a 
 time when hay went up as wheat and corn went down, though what that fact scien- 
 tifically signified is hidden in the inner consciousness of brother Johnson. [Laughter.] 
 I mean no disrespect, for I know the gentlem^an from North Dakota as a scholarly 
 man of distinguished ability and entire honesty in his opinions. But, I say that 
 when yon undertake to deduce a general law from the course, up and down. Of two' 
 or three articles for two or three years, you are proceeding absolutely outside of the 
 approved method of science, and a generalization of that kind has no value what- 
 ever. ' 
 
 But, Mr. 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 com- 
 modities of such character as to indicate the essential condition of the market, and 
 extends over a number of years. In this way special causes, whether of time or of 
 product, are largelv 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." Thu^, 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 Londoii Economist newspaper, twenty- two com- 
 modities be used, the sum of these averages is, of course, 2200. Then frir 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 
 2200 prices are higher than in the years used as the standard; if the total is less than 
 2200 prices are lower. By dividing the totals by the number of cofnmodities an' 
 expression IS obtained on the scaleof 100, which is conveniently used in investiga-! 
 tion. 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 prietes— the average of the whole market— have fallen, then the con- 
 clusion 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 dolla r that 
 had grown larger and which would require more of all commodities to buy it. 
 
 The authoritative figures for Grermany are those of Dr. Adolf Soetbeer, the famous 
 economic authority, as 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 fourteen cf British export. In England two sets of data 
 enjoy great reputcT^those of the London Economist, and especially those of Augustus 
 Sauerbedi, of the London Statistical Society. The former are based on the prices of 
 twenty-two leading commodities in the London market, using the average prices of 
 1845 to 1850 as 100. Mr. Sauerbeck's tables use as the par of comparison the average 
 prices of forty-five representative commodities on the London market for the years 
 1867 to 1877. In the United States no such scientific and exhaustive study of this sub- 
 ject has been made as in Germany and England. Practically the only attempt in 
 this direction was that undertaken in 1891 by a committee of the United States Senate, 
 and whose results are embodied in the voluminous report which is customarily cited 
 as the "Aldrich Report," after Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, who was chairman 
 of the committee. This document deals with the prices of 223 articles, and uses as 
 its par or 100 mark the prices of 1860. Although hastily compiled and based on the 
 prices of only one year, and that year one of exceptionally low pricey, and although 
 allowing the same influence to a mass of nonstable and unimportant articles as to 
 the 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 report to maintain 
 prices above the European level and to withstand to the utmost the influence tending 
 to lower them, yet the results of that investigation are among the most instructive 
 that we have. They confirm in a most emphatic way the lesson that primary money 
 is a world substance, like the atpiosphere, and that the law of an appreciating stand- 
 
10 
 
 ard and measure of values Is as inexorable as fate. Ingenuity may for a time post- 
 pone 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 submit them- 
 selves to the control of such a system. 
 
 By Dr. Soetbeer's tables it appears that prices in Germany fell about 22 per cent, 
 from iS7S to 1891. Since 1891 the fail 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 the Economist tables, the fall of prices from 1873 to 1893 was 30 per 
 cent.; and the last two years have witnessed a much greater fall in proportion, show- 
 ing the 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. Sauerback, from 1818 to 1875. 
 His standard, it will be recalled, is the average prices in Ijondon of forty-five princi- 
 pal commodities for the period 1867-1877, which is also the average tor 1853-1877. . The 
 arrangement below is by continuous ten-year periods, thus equalizing merely tem- 
 porary fluctuations and clearly showing the law controlling the fall of prices: 
 
 TEN- YEAR PERIODS AND AVERAGE INDEX NUMBER. 
 
 1818-27 Ill 
 
 1819-28 106 
 
 1820-29 103 
 
 1821-30 101 
 
 1822-31 100 
 
 1823-32 98 
 
 1824-33 97 
 
 1825-34 , 96 
 
 1826-35 ;; 93 
 
 1827 36 93 
 
 1828-37 : 93 
 
 1829-38 93 
 
 1830-39 94 
 
 1831-40 95 
 
 1832-41 96 
 
 18a3-42 96 
 
 1834-43 96 
 
 1835-44 95 
 
 1836-45 95 
 
 1837-46 . 93 
 
 1838-47 93 
 
 1839-48 .• 91 
 
 1840-49 ' 88 
 
 1841-50 86 
 
 1842-51 83 
 
 1843-52 82 
 
 1844-53 83 
 
 1845-54 85 
 
 1846-55 86 
 
 1847-56 88 
 
 1848-57 ; 89 
 
 1849-58 90 
 
 1850-59 92 
 
 1851-60 94 
 
 1852-61 96 
 
 1853-62 99 
 
 Thus, by these authoritative data, prices fell in England, between 1873 and Feb- 
 ruary of 1895, 46 per cent. In other words, the purchasing power of gold rose more 
 than 85 per cent. Even comparing the 1895 prices with the average of 1864-1873, the 
 fall has been more than 41 per cent, and the increase in the power of gold more than 
 69 per cent. 
 
 These results, as well as others to which I shall later advert, are impressively re 
 presented by the charts to which I will ask the attention of the House. [At this 
 point a large chart, "A" and "B," was placed before the Clerk's desk.] 
 
 1854-63 100 
 
 1855-64 100 
 
 1856-65 100 
 
 1857-66 100 
 
 1858-67 99 
 
 1859-68 100 
 
 1860'69 101 
 
 1861-70 100 
 
 1862-71 100 
 
 1863-72 101 
 
 1864-73 102 
 
 1865-74 102 
 
 1866-75 101 
 
 1867-76 .'. 101 
 
 1868-77 * 100 
 
 1869-78 99 
 
 1870-79 97 
 
 1871-80 _. 96 
 
 1872-81 95 
 
 1873-82 93 
 
 1874-83 90 
 
 1875-84 * 87 
 
 1876-85 ; 85 
 
 1877-86 82 
 
 1878-87 79 
 
 1879-88 78 
 
 1880 89 76 
 
 1881-90 75 
 
 1882-91 74 
 
 1883-92 72 
 
 1884-93 71 
 
 1885-94 69 
 
 Tear 1894 63 
 
 February, 1895 60 
 
 Year 1873 Ill 
 
11 
 
 ^^ 'Appreciation Of Gold 
 
 MtasuFtdByltsPwckiSghiKrlaniluisOfTliiEcMiHiist jwlqdlvgibtis (Eiithiui22(«mtilt6«) 
 
 
 Prices Of lt13Tak(^szcfo 
 
 
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 Flucfuafion In The Price of Silver^XommodiliesNiasared by Golf 
 
 Prices of 1873 E-=Ecn«»lliil«Niiri(i9.WMi$ateh«s.22hKfd(aMas.lMtaNa^^ 
 
 TakenAsZero. S^S«tb«nlii<l«iNuihis.lHHubwsaili(lc}Aii»l4'Brilisli Eii|»rtsft«at>Pric<sHil'7-USIt[knAslW 
 
 -Silver 
 
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 SS§3g§S§sS§SSg3 §8§f 
 
 The Chairman. The Chair suggests that if gentlemen will retain their seats a 
 better view of the chart or diagram can be obtained by members generally. 
 
 Mr. TowNB. I think the chart will bequite visible from every part of the House. 
 After the speech of the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Johnson] the other day, I 
 happened to think ot my charts at home, so I sent for them and they arrived here 
 about an hour ago. [Applause.] 
 
 Now, gentleman, 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 
 $:old. For example, starting with 1873 as the zero point, the upper chart -shows how 
 gold has with few exceptions gone constantly up until it cliilibs off at the top of the 
 chart [laughter], and how the prices of commodities and,pf silver have, as a necessary 
 and reciprocal fact connected with the rise of gold, gone relatively down since 1872 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 Jnarket 
 
IZ 
 
 indicated by the line marked E; the line showing the course of prices in the Germani 
 market is indicated by the letter S. standing for Soetbeer; and the course of silver is. 
 sho\yn by the heavy black line. 
 
 . FalU^Prices^^Enilandt^^llniiedSlafes Since 1872 
 
 UllHCdSTMES A— BuidOn SnAMi>'B9t:S2fta)iBU!SisMt.CoM«air(iii(^«iM»N<rmtiniMinsRWi;.9i.^ 
 En&LAND jS=' " " 'Saurrbtflts TiMk Adjusted rtAMii(liriM.S«|(pt.MLP.usfi - ' 
 
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 Asking you to bear in mind, as before stated, that no general law in economics can 
 be learned except by studying broad and large results over considerable periods of 
 time, I ask you to note how beautiftiUy this chart exemplifies to the eye the effects of 
 the rise of gold. The line of gold la not uniform, but its general direction is upward. 
 The lines o,t silver and commodities are not entirely regular, but their general ten- 
 dency 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. Yon will notice that in 1890, for 'example, there 
 was a sudden rise of silver and of these commodities. Naturally aUver rose in a 
 
13 
 
 more pronounced degree than the other commodities, because in that year there was 
 pending In Congress a proposition to rehabilitate the white metal and make it as 
 good as gold. [Applause.] 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. [Applause.] 
 
 Mr. Po-w'LEB. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him if he has a line on his 
 ■chart to show the rise and fall of wages at that time? 
 
 Mr. Towns. Oh, I will come to the wage question later on. 
 
 Mr. Bbttmm. That was the year, was it noti when wheat was so high, as was 
 shown by our friend the other day? 
 
 Mr. TowNE. I believe so. Everything naturally rose at that time. 
 
 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 arein gold, of course. The United States prices 
 are shown in the heavy dark lines marked A, and the two Eugllsh lines ire 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 our 
 own market fqr those pronJucers, has justified the policy of its advocates, ot whom I 
 claim to be as faithful as any; but it has not availed to withstand the constricting m- 
 fluence ot the gold standard, whose sway is as "broad and general as the air." 
 Prices had faUen in the United States about 28 per cent, by 1891, and by 1895 the fall 
 was certainly 33i per cent, or more, so that the purchasing power ot gold in this 
 country is fully 50 per cent, greater than it was m 1872-73. 
 
 In this connection, I append the following extracts from The American, of PhUa- 
 •delphla, edited by Mr. Wharton Barker, whom I regard as without exception the 
 ablest writer on economies in the periodical Ijlterature of the United States. 
 
 The first is from the number of January 25, 1896: 
 
 The fluctuations In prices since January 1,1891, are of muehlnterest. The figures representing 
 the index numbers may be considered to represent the number of dollars that It would require 
 to purchase at various dates the same quantity of goods as $100 on January 1, 1891, Thus, 859.59 
 would buy the same amount or the six breadstuflffe— wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye and flour. In 
 equal proportions— as 8100 January 1, 1891. 
 
 These Index numbers give' much food for thought. In the first place the general Index num- 
 ber shows that while prices In general are 6 per cent higher than on the 1st of January a year 
 ago, they are 14.72 lower than five years ago. It is also obvious that this Index number does 
 not indicate the full extent of the fall In prices, as, leaving oat the advance in the prices of 
 mineral and vegetable oils and of chemicals and some other comparatively unimportant oora- 
 niodltles, the Index number would be much lower. It Is an Instance where a fall In the price 
 •of the most Important articles Is offset to some extent by a rise in the price of less Important. 
 
 The marked and continuous fall In breadstuff^, which Is quite equal to the tail In silver. Is 
 •especially noteworthy. While general prices have fallen less than 15 per cent as compared to 
 prices ruling January 1, 1891, breadstuflfe have fallen over 40 per cent. This fall Is not due to 
 overproduction, for tne Increase of production has not kept pace with the Increase of popula- 
 tion, and it can not be accounted for by the cheapening of production, because, as we pointed 
 out last week, there has been little Improvement in agricultural methods during the past five 
 years, and the Introduction of labm--savlng machinery and economies has been much more 
 marked in the factory than on the farm, yet farm products have fallen In price further than the 
 products of the factory. The coincident fall between breadstufi's and sliver. Is evidence that 
 with the depreciation of silver our silver competitors can lay down grain In Europe at prop6r- 
 tlonately lower rates. 
 
 The second Is from The American of January 18, 1896: 
 
 For the fact that agricultural products have fallen much more rapidly the,;! manufactured 
 articles, there is only one explanation, and that is, our agricultural products were the first to 
 come Into direct competition with the products of silver-using countries. The appreciation of 
 gold, of the money which silver-using people receive in payment for what they sell to gold- 
 using peoples, and which they can exchange for double the amount of sliver that they could 
 tvehty years ago, has greatly encouraged production and stimulated exports from silver to 
 gold-using countries. To Increase the area devoted to raising wheat and cotton was the work 
 of a season; gathering experience and knowledge and building the factories to make manu- 
 factured goods, the work of a decade or more. The result Is that, while our farmers and plant- 
 ers have sufltered from the competition of silver-using countries for years, our manufacturers 
 are only now beginning to feel Asiatic competition. This is the explanation of the tall in 
 prices that has been more marked in agricultural than manufacturing articles. [See tahle on 
 next page.] 
 
 The enormous fall in prices In ihe gold standard world I have proved. Gen- 
 tleman In this debate may hereafter seek some other explanation for the fact 
 than that which I ofler as chiefly accounting for it; but nobody will deny the fact. 
 
14 
 
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 110.60 
 111.61 
 104.41 
 
 94.19 
 104.42 
 88.67 
 84.17 
 
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 79.63 
 77.11 
 
 75.87 
 77.34 
 89.39 
 81.64 
 
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15 
 
 It is an open and notorious fact whose significance, if preponderantly due to the sin- 
 gle gold standard, challenges the intellect, the conscience, and the patriotism of this 
 nation. [Applause.] 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 Wet- 
 more, at Shanghai, shows this by the following index numbers based on twenty 
 staple commodities on the Chinese markets: 
 
 Year. 
 
 Aggregate 
 
 value of 20 
 
 commodities 
 
 in silver. 
 
 Silver 
 
 value of 
 
 gold. 
 
 ! 
 
 Year. 
 
 Aggregate 
 
 value of 20 
 
 commodities 
 
 in silver. 
 
 Silver 
 
 value of 
 
 gold. 
 
 1873... 
 
 2,000 
 1,814 
 1,787 
 1,930 
 2,031 
 2,102 
 2,023 
 1,925 
 1,940 
 1,986 
 
 2,000 
 2,029 
 2,078 
 2,160 
 2,159 
 2,215 
 2.301 
 2,275 
 2,322 
 2,307 
 
 1883 
 
 1,916 
 
 1,883 
 
 1,854 
 
 1,85& 
 
 1,774^ 
 
 1,761 
 
 1,803 
 
 1,808 
 
 1,748 
 
 1,761 
 
 2,336 
 
 1874 
 
 1884. 
 
 2,376 
 
 1875 
 
 1885 
 
 2,425 
 
 1876 
 
 1886 
 
 2,571 
 
 1877 
 
 1887 
 
 2,648 
 
 1878 
 
 1888 .' 
 
 2,730 
 
 1879. 
 
 1889 
 
 2,746 
 
 1880. 
 
 1890 
 
 2,539 
 
 1881 
 
 1891 
 
 2,621 
 
 1882 
 
 1892 
 
 2,950 
 
 
 
 
 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 great commercial 
 nations of the world. Together they formed one vast money reservoir, whose aggre- 
 gated contents measured all exchange values and constituted the ultimate solution j 
 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 contem- 
 poraneous adoption ot that standard about 1873 by several leading governments, fol- 
 lowed at frequent intervals by others, made a sudden and tremendous lessening of 
 the mint demand for silver, and threw upon the volume ot gold the double burden 
 of sustaining the credits and the redemption demands formerly borne by both metals 
 jointly. This added enormotisly to the strain upon gold, rendering it relatively 
 scarcer and more difficult to obtain, increasing almost beyond conception the demand 
 for it, while its f^npplv did not material ly alter. The inevitable result was to raise 
 the value ol gold, to make it constantly necessary to give more and more of all com- 
 modities, on the average, to get gold. The full effect was not telt all at opce in 1873. 
 The steps in the process were progressive, and the effects were correspondingly so. 
 Prices began falling with the cause, and have fallen and are falling as the cause con- 
 tinues 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: 
 
 1872. Norway and Sweden substitute the gold standard for the silver standard. 
 
 1873. The United States, whUe on a paper basis and looking longingly toward re- 
 sumption of specie payments, adopts the gold standard, although silver at the time 
 is worth more in the market than gold, and although there has been no public de- 
 mand 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 
 silver dollar from our coinage can to this day be found ol record. Thus on resuming 
 specie payments in 1879 we became an aggressive scrambler for a share of the gold 
 in the world, which w^s now becoming more and more the object of the eager pursuit 
 of nations. Between 1877 and 1879 we absorbed over 5560,000,000 of gold, as against 
 about 855,000,000 in the preceding eleven years. 
 
 1873. Germany changes from the silver standard to the single gold standard; 
 making a great demand for gold, so that by May, 1881, she had coined over $414,- 
 000,000 worth of it, and throwing upon the market for sale as bullion large masses of 
 
13 
 
 her worn and demonetized silver coin, selling:, by 1879, more than seven million one 
 hundred thousand pounds weight of fine silver. 
 
 18T3. Belgian Parliament authorizes the Government to suspend the free coinage 
 of silver. 
 
 1873-1874. France and the Latin Union .(Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, and Greece, 
 besides Prance) suspend the free coinage of silver, and France substitutes the gold 
 standard iTor the double standard. 
 
 1875. Holland formally demonetizes silver, 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 pur- 
 chase from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 worth of silver monthly, ye't to add it to the money 
 stock not as primary money, bui, under the construction placed on it by our Govern- 
 ment, 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 depends upon the right of the debtor to elect in which metal he 
 will pay, by enacting that silver should be legal tender except whekb otherwise 
 PROVIDED IN THE CONTRACT. This gave the creditor the determination ot the metal 
 ol payment and virtually completed the demonetization of silver. 
 
 1879. The United States resumes specie payments and on a single metal, gold. 
 1879. Austria-Hungary suspends the free Coinage of silver. 
 
 1883. Italy resumes specie payments on a gold basis, and borrows $86,000,000 in gold 
 to do it with. 
 
 1890. The United States passes the Sherman silver purchase law, continuing the 
 vicious principle of the Bland Act. 
 
 1890-1892. The Imperial Bank of Kussia increases its 'gold reserve by $120,000,000, 
 and begins a policy ot hoarding gold, which has gone on ever since. 
 
 1891-1892. Austria-Hungary adopts the gold standard and becomes a borrower of 
 gold to an enormous amount. 
 
 1892. Roumania adopts the gold standard. 
 
 1893. India closes her mints to the coinage of silver. (And the price of silver on 
 the London market tell eighteen cents an ounce in three hours.) 
 
 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 humiliating proce- 
 dure, apparently becoming chronic if we are to preserve the single gold standard, of 
 borrowing miUions in times of peace wherewith to pay tribute to the despotism of 
 gold. \ 
 
 Why will gentlemen persist in shuttmg their eyes to the plainest evidence? The 
 great fall of prices in the gold-standard 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 coflfers with 
 unearned increments of the wealth of all debtor countries, no mystery is made of it. 
 Thus simply does Mr. Giffen, her greatest monometallist, dispose of it in his "Oase 
 Against Bimetallism," pages 218 and 219: 
 
 If we were told that copper or Iron or wheat were rising because there was a deficiency of the 
 supply of them to meet all the demands we should accept the stfttepient as a matter of course. 
 But what Is true of iron or copper or wheat must equally be true of any commodity which 
 happens to be the standard monetary substance. If gold or silver is that subst inoe, and gold 
 or sliver Is increasing In demand without any correaponding Increase In. suddI v. then people 
 who want gold or silver for any purpftSThiust^l ve morSTSFffisW. 'Alia ffi!f— 
 
 He says — 
 
 win be described as a fall of prices. * » * We see. then, how widely mistaken these mono- 
 metalllsts have been, who, in their dislike of bimetallism, have denied that the recent- 
 He is writinjr in 1890— 
 
 great demand for gold In relation to Its supply were likely to have caused a rise In its exchanne 
 valuf for other things. Looked at in this way, the fall of prices Is Itself a proof that gold, in 
 
17 
 
 relation to all the demands for It, has been relatively scarcer than It was. Everybody who has 
 ■warned It has had to give more for It. If everybody who wanted coal or pig iron was giving 
 more for It than before we should not hesitate to say thai coal or pig Iron were relatively more 
 In demand than they had been; but what we should say of coal and pig Iron we must also say 
 of gold or silver In a like case. 
 
 Moreover, so clearly are the observed efleots of the gold standard oonlormable to 
 the economic law I have tried' to state, that they have been foretold at different tins es 
 by men learned in the science. Many years ago, before the nations had bfeoome 
 ■crazed by the misunderstood example of England, and had not so generally gone to 
 Vfotk 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. Luzattl'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. Byt is it likely that such proceedings will be taken by rational statesmen and rational 
 parliaments? It is really too absurd to suppose that any country will insist upon having a 
 gold currency at any cost. 
 
 Alas! tor 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 life-blood for it. 
 
 But no prophecy of economic effects from observed causes has probably ever been 
 made so uiA]ue and startling in its insight and accuracy as that of Ernest Seyd, the 
 lamous 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 money 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 couse here foreshadowed; every possible attempt will be made to ;Jrove 
 that the decline of commerce is due to all sorts of causes and irreconcilable matters. 
 The workman and his strikes will be the first convehient target; then speculation 
 and overtrading will hav# their turn. Later on, when foreign nations, unable to pay 
 In silver, 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 tor the falling off in every 
 branch of trade. Many other allegations will be mode, totally i rrelevant to the main 
 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^Englknd's 
 supremacy in commerce and manufacturers may go backward to an extent which 
 cannot be rediressed when the real cause becomes recognized and the natural remedy 
 is applied." 
 
 Nothing could better show ota what just philosophical principles bimetallism 
 rests tjian this picture in 1871 of events to begin with dem*oiietization In 1873 and to con- 
 -tinue until now and as much longer as we shall permit. If the test of science is pre- 
 diction 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 tiie cataclysm of the year 1893 and 
 ■subsequent evils: 
 
 I fear that It the English Government, on the occasion of the forthcoming InternatlonSl 
 Monetary Conference, shoutd refuse to submit or support practicable propositions destined to 
 extend considerably the use of silver as legal tender, there will probably result a further incal- 
 ndble depreciation in the value of the metal and a very serious appreciation of gold followed 
 by disastrous consequences. 
 
 Yet, sir, paen will persist in referring the fall of prices since 1873 to the multiplica- 
 iiion of inventions and and to cheapened cost of production. It is no impugnment of 
 jny 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 assert with perfect confid- 
 ence that between those dates greater improvements in productive processes, com- 
 
18 
 pared with the condition at the beginning of the period, were made than between 
 1873 and the present time. 
 
 Oentlemen can not have forgotten the marvelous mechanical exhibit at the Cen- 
 tenial Exposition, practically all of which related to the period in question. In IKTS 
 Harper <fc Bros, published a monumental work called First Century of the Bepublic, 
 summarizing the course of progress in this country. It covered practically every 
 department of activity, and was written by a carefully selected body of specialists. 
 I quote from the preface, which is dated July 20, 1876 : 
 
 An unusually large amount of space was given to the department o( 'Mechanical Progress, but 
 not disproportionately, when it Is considered how charaoteristie of the century has been tne 
 advance In this field and how largely other progress has depended upon It. The same consid- 
 eration j uatifies the elaborate and extended treatise on Scientific Progress. 
 
 By far the greatest amount of this accomplishment belongs, so liar as its commer- 
 cial and productive aspect is concerned, to the period from about 1850. By that time 
 the steam enginge had been perfected; theold Newcomen engineof 1769 with a "duty"' 
 of 5,500,000 foot-pounds perionejbushel of Welch 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 i]| the history 
 of industry; so that when England, about 1850, changed the tariff policy under which 
 she had grown great, and started out to impose free trade upon the world, it is esti- 
 mated that her labor-saving machinery represented the capacity of 450,000,000 pairs 
 of human hands. 
 
 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 
 MoCormiok's invention in 1834, improved in 1847, and first attracting general atten- 
 tion 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 3000 patents were 
 taken out in this country alone for harvesters and their attachments. The threshing 
 machine was brought to perfection in 1853. The self-binder belongs to a later period, 
 but its effect and that of improvements on the invention^ named had nothing like 
 the significance for agriculture which the devices that came in from 1850 to 1873 had. 
 To this period also belongs the beginning of scientific agriculture and the use or 
 imported and manufactured fertilizers on a large scale, the systematic and general 
 breeding of cattle, horse and sheep, and the inauguration and considerable develop- 
 ment 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 their principal attachments and improvements; the power loom, calico print- 
 ing and color weaving; the hot blast in iron manufacture, perfected in 1845, by which 
 many previously refractory ores were rendered re<^ucible 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 hearted metal and the turning and planing or 
 the cold metal; the jack, the slotting, key-grooving, milling and shaping machines; 
 the process of assembling, or the making of interchangeable parts of machines, per- 
 mitting the vastly cheaper 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 pneumatic 
 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 saw mill machinery generally, about the only new de- 
 parture 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 irregjilar 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 Westing- 
 house air brake and its various adaptations, electroplating, lithography and photo- 
 
19 
 
 lithography, optical instraments, musical instrnments, lee machines, the growth of 
 India rij^bber manufacture, the Goodyear vulcanizing process dating from 1844; ma- 
 chinery used in sugar refining and in paper, porcelain and glass manufacture, stereo- 
 typing and eleotrotyping processes. Brace's and other type-casting machines, folding 
 and addressing machines, the Gordon job press and the Adams, Campbell, Walter 
 BuUook 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 comparM with 
 other commodities, to any alarming extent. 
 
 The method of operation and the effect of a changing standard are not sufficiently 
 understood. Any convenient medium of exchange to which prices had once accom- 
 modated themselves would discharge sufficiently well the mere function of a medium 
 of exchange. Bntwhen viewed as a measure of the value of all other things 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 sam« purchasing power as before. But if, meantime, money has denreciated — 
 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 leceives less than he 
 loaned, the borrower or debtor profiting by the difterence. On the other hand, if 
 money rises in purchasing power between the making of the loan and the repay- 
 ment, so that the borrower has to find more commodities with which to to buy the 
 money to pay back than the money would buy for hinJ when he borrowed it, then 
 he loses the difference and the money lender ipakes it. 
 
 Now, in either case, the changing standard takes something from one man without 
 his delerving to lose it and gives it to another who has no right to it. In either case 
 it is a silent robbery. The i,deal 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 fall- 
 ing 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 in- 
 vestor, the captain of industry, who can not so well sustain the burden, who has no 
 surplus, but lis 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 resiilt must be, if the ev^l 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 toil 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 profoundest thinkers 
 in Europe, in a speech at Manchester, October 27, 1892: 
 
 But of all conceivable systems of currency, tha,t system is assuredly the wor^t Which gives 
 von a standard steadily, continuously, indefinitely appreciating, and which by thai very farts, 
 throws a burden upon every man, of enterprise, upon every man who desires to promoto the 
 agricultural or the industrial resources of the country, and benefits no human being whatever 
 but the ovyner Of fixed debts in gold. 
 
 Falling prices of agricultural products deprive the farmer of the means of buyin g i 
 bis usual convenienoga aiuL5S£essities, and these accumulate onHthe hands of the \ 
 SftmrftrotSrefanSretailer, who inturnciiiftail expenses to the uttermost, discharg- 
 ing labor, which then loses its power to consume, and limiting their own Consump- 
 tion to the barest needs. Thus farmer, manufacturer, tradesman, transporter, 
 laborer, all lose patronage and employment, while taxes, interest and principal of 
 mortgages, fixed changes, bonded indebtedness, and rents are constantly and re- 
 
 fe^ 
 
20 
 
 morselessly measuring off increasing equivalences in all human products. Under 
 such circumstances there is no inducement to enterprise or to investment in pro- 
 ducing industries. No man wants to borrow money for use in a business in which 
 the fall of pricSs is sure to eat up his profits. On the other hand, the man with 
 money for the same reason does not want to put it Into business, but prelers 
 either to invest it in gilt-edge securities or to let it lie idle and grow. This collects 
 the money in the large financial centers and emphasizes the absolute power of the 
 money-lender, who must be sought iu ihis lair and who can make his own terms 
 with borrowers. It is a bad symptom when "breeding" money, to use Shylock's 
 phrase, is regarded as better business policy than embarking it in productive indus- 
 try.- [Applause.] ■ 
 
 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 how 
 serlbus— nay, how fatal— they may become. My time will permit only a few illus- 
 trations. Between 1874 and 1885 gold appreciated so that the holders of the public 
 d^bt qf Enland could buy ^n the latter year ^200,000.000 worth more of all commodi- 
 ties on the average with the principal of the debt as it was in 1874 than they could 
 have bought with it in 1875. In other words, the property and industry of England 
 were robbed of $1,000,000,000 in eleven years and a present made of it to the holders of 
 her bonds. 
 
 The Manufacture*, of February 1, 1896, shows that the gold standard has presented 
 English trade since 1690 with a gratuity of nearly $250,000,000; also, that the value of 
 farm live stock in the United States has tallen'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 eight commodities, beef, com, 
 wheat, oats, pork, cotton, coal, and bar iron, the debt was nearly 50 per cent, larger 
 afterwards than before. , 
 
 It is said that in 1866 we could have paid the national dtebt 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 had paid on it 94,000,000 bales in principal and 
 interest. In 1866 we could have paid it with 1,000,000,000 bushels of wheat. In the 
 fallol 1894 we still owed 2,000,000,000 bushels, alter paying 5,000,000,000 bushels in 
 principal and interest. 
 
 The burden ot the gold standard on the world could be fully measured only in 
 blood and sweat and tears. 
 
 It ds pertinent to this discussion, sir, to answer briefly a contention constantly 
 repeated 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 I do say that 
 this argument is absolutely without fouildation. It has been a thousand times 
 reluted, but continues to reappear in every discussion as fresh as ever and appar- 
 ently unconscious of its discredit. The famous senior Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sher- 
 man], in a public speech in his State a year ago, lent the support of his name to this 
 profound error, and in substance it -was restated by the distingui^lied gentleman 
 from Maine [Mr. Dingleyj in opening this debate. I cannot 6ope to stop the circula- 
 tion 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 values) since 1792. I have added to the table as cited the 
 correct figures for 1893 and 1894: 
 
21 
 
 PRODtJCTION OP GOLD AND SILVEB 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. 
 
 Calendar years. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silver 
 
 (poining 
 
 Value). 
 
 Calendar years. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silver 
 
 (ooininK 
 
 value). 
 
 1792-1800 
 
 $106,407,000 
 118,1^,000 
 76,063,000 
 94,479,000 
 134,841,000 
 291,144,000 
 37,000,000 
 44,450(000 
 67,600,000 
 132,750,000 
 155.450,000 
 127,450,000 
 135,075,000 
 147,600,000 
 133,275,000 
 124,650,000 
 124.850,000 
 119,250,000 
 113,800,000 
 107,750,000 
 106,950,000 
 113,000,000 
 120,200,000 
 121,100,000 
 104,025,000 
 109,025,000 
 106,225,000 
 
 (fe28,860,000 
 
 371.677,000 
 
 224,786,000 
 
 191,444,000 
 
 247,930,000 
 
 259,520,000 
 
 39,000,000 
 
 39,000,000 
 
 40,000,000 
 
 40,600,000 
 
 40,600,000 
 
 40,600,000 
 
 40,600,000 
 
 40,650,000 
 
 40,650,000 
 
 , 40,650,000 
 
 40,750,000 
 
 40,800,000 
 
 44,700,000 
 
 45,200,000 
 
 49,200.000 
 
 51,700,000 
 
 51,950,000 
 
 50,750,000 
 
 54,225,000 
 
 50,225,000 
 
 47,500,000 
 
 1870 
 
 $106,850,000 
 
 107,000,000 
 
 99,600,000 
 
 96,200,000 
 
 90,750,000 
 
 97,500,000 
 
 103,700,000 
 
 114,000,000 
 
 119,000,000 
 
 109,000,000 
 
 >l06i500,000 
 
 103,000,000 
 
 102,000,000 
 
 95,400,000 
 
 101,700,000 
 
 108,400,000 
 
 106,000,000 
 
 105,775,000 
 
 110(197,000 
 
 123,489,000 
 
 ^118,849,000 
 
 126,184(000 
 
 138,860,000 
 
 157,228,000 
 
 181,510,000 
 
 $51,575,000- 
 61,050,000 
 65,250,000 
 
 1801-1810 
 
 1871 
 
 1811-1820 
 
 1872 
 
 1821-1830 
 
 1873 
 
 1874 
 
 1831-1840 
 
 71,500,000 
 80,500,000 
 87,600,000 
 81,000,000 
 95,000,000 
 
 1841-1848 
 
 1875 
 
 1849. 
 
 1876 
 
 1850 :.. 
 
 1877 
 
 1851 
 
 1878 
 
 1852 .... 
 
 1879 
 
 1880 
 
 1853 
 
 96,700,000 
 102,906,000 
 111,800(000 
 115,300,000 
 105,500,000 
 118,500,000 
 120,600,000 
 124,281,000 
 140,706,000 
 162,159,000 
 172,235,000 
 186,447,000 
 196,459,000 
 209,165,000 
 214,381,000 
 
 1854 
 
 1881 
 
 1882 
 
 1855 
 
 1856 
 
 1883.... 
 
 1884 
 
 1857 
 
 1858 
 
 1885 
 
 1859 
 
 1886 
 
 1860 
 
 1887 
 
 1861 
 
 1888 
 
 1889.. 
 
 1862 
 
 1863 
 
 1890 
 
 1864 
 
 1891 '.'..'..'..'. 
 
 1892 
 
 1865 
 
 1866 
 
 1893. 
 
 1867 , 
 
 18S4 
 
 1868 
 
 Totals 
 
 1869; 
 
 6,001,254,000 
 
 5,501,075,000 
 
 
 Thus in the 103 years ending in 1894 the production of gold' has exceeded that of 
 silver by half a billion of dollars. 
 
 It must be borne in mind thai a disproportionate production for any one year or a 
 few. successive years in the case of the precious metals is far less significant as affect- 
 ing relative value than would a similar disproportion be in any other kind of com- 
 modities. 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 showjittle variation. 
 The disproportionate production, to have any visible efleot, must continue long 
 enough to change materially the relative, bulk or mass of the whole supply in exist- 
 ence. This is important to remember. 
 
 The following table shows how barren must be thp att;empt to connect the fall of 
 silver with an alleged disproportionate production : ' 
 
 Period. 
 
 1792-1848 
 184&-1862 
 1863-1873 
 1874-1894 
 
 Production 
 of gold. 
 
 $821,086,000 
 1,570,950,000 
 1,190,175,000 
 2,419,043,000 
 
 Production 
 of silver. 
 
 $1,624,217,000 
 
 573,800,000 
 
 615,225,000 
 
 2,687,833,000 
 
 Highest and low- 
 est variations 
 in market ratio. 
 
 16.25 to 1—15 to 1 
 15.78 to 1—15.19 to 1 
 15.92 to 1—X5.S7 to 1 
 32,56 to 1—16.17 to 1 
 
 In the first period twice as much silver as gold was produced; in the second, three 
 times as much gold as silver; in the third, twice as much gold as silver; in the fourth, 
 only 10 per cent, more silver than gold. Yet during the enormously dispropor- 
 tionate production of the first three periods all the variations in the market ratio are 
 embraced within a point and a quarter, while in the last period, when production was 
 
22 
 
 ^ almost identical in both metals, the ratio sank more than sixteen points. To say 
 / that this 10 per cent, difference caused such vast disturbance, while differences hun- 
 ; dreds of times greater caused no disturbance at all, is to do violence to the primary- 
 suggestions of the reason. Note upon Chart E, page 25, (to which I shall hereafter 
 refer for another purpose) how the fall of silVer began with the concerted legislative 
 assaults upon it and continued by precipitous' declince as those assaults were, 
 repeated; and consider, for example, how steep the decline was between 1873 and 
 1880, although between those years the gold production was $836,650,000 and the silver 
 production only $690,100,000. 
 
 Vf 
 
 SS^- 
 
 Markkt 
 Ratio Of 
 
 SiLVKR To 
 
 Gold 
 AvERAoes 
 
 119 ofTons 
 OfSiiverToI 
 Of Gold In 
 WovssStooi 
 
 TO 
 I 
 
 15" 
 
 TO 
 I 
 
 1559 
 
 TO 
 
 
 IS *o 
 
 -E- 
 
 I9 8T 
 
 TO 
 
 I 
 
 ao^Tc I 
 
 2J»T0| 
 
 649W I 
 
 -fWi 
 
 32.2 
 
 31.1 
 
 31 
 
 22.6 
 
 18.6 
 
 18.6 
 
 le.g 
 
 le. ■ 
 
 16.3 J 
 
 Production of Gold (jn Value) 
 Measured In Silver 
 
 1800-1894 
 LeSSTHAN MORETHAfI 
 
 Silver. Silver. 
 
 How, 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 standard theory. Some oi its arrangement is original, but the main idea 
 is drawn from a document many will recognize. I do not know whether I am cor- 
 rectly informed, but I understand that a distinguished gentleman is to follow me 
 with the purpose of answering this argument. I nope he can. I do 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, he will at 
 least have made one convert from a 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; 
 
23 
 
 trom 1810 to 1820 aboat 34 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 124 per cent, more gold than silver; from 1850 to 1855 
 about 260 per cent, more gold than sUver; from 1855 to 1860 about 250 per cent, more 
 gold than silver; Irom 1860 to 1865 about 166S per per cent, more gold than silver; from 
 1865 to 1870 about 130 per cent, more gold than siver; 1870 to 1875 about 41 per ciant. 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 1895 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 Jihe 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 whUe the relative number of tons 
 of silver in the world's stock was all the time becoming less in proportion to the stock 
 ot gold, fallins from 31.1 tons ot silver to 1 of gold to about 22 tons of silver to 1 of 
 j;old, still the market price remained closely by the ratio established by the open 
 mints of France; but that when the onslaught on silver was 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 a hundred years, atid though the 
 bulk of the werld's stock of silver in tons has for years been almost exactly the old 
 mint and market ratio, namely, from 18.6 to 16.3 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 llought for one ounce of gold 34 ounces of silver, and the market 
 price today is about 32 to 1. No man can look that chart in the face and then say that 
 it is the "enormous overproduction of silver that has Iqwwed the price." It islegis- 
 lation, foolish, almost criminal legislation that has done this thing. [Applause.] 
 
 I undertake to say that if this chart is true there should be an explanation forth- 
 -coming from the gentlemen who have declared that the overproduction of silver is 
 the reason of its fall in price. [Applause.] 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 
 was 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 
 « ehannel through which the two metals could and did equably flow, according to the 
 demands of trade, in this ultimate iboney, the one metal o^ 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. [Cries 
 of "Go on!"] I wish to say only this in conclusion, that the condition in which the 
 suffering gold-standard world to-day finds itself is one that in my opinion calls 
 loudly for remedy, calls loudly upon the statesmanship of this country, caUs loualy 
 and I pray not hopelessly upon the patriotism, upon the intelligence, upon the cour- 
 age of the splendid leaders of the grand old Eepublican party, if we have such left, 
 and I believe we have. [Applause.] 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 
 and 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 can not 
 believe in its perpetuation. He can not supinely submit to its continuance. He will 
 arise against it and help put it aside. 
 
 I must not forget, sir, that I promised to say somethmg about wages. I am prompt 
 to admit that the great Republican policy of protection [i^pplause] has vastly bene- 
 fitted the laboring man in the United States. Sir, nobody upon a fit occasion can 
 sneak upon that great policy with more enthusiastic encomium or more intense con- 
 viction than myself. But it can not do everything. Handicapped by the single gold 
 mandard it can work out only a portion of its proper results. When I plead for 
 bimetallism I plead for the other half of protection. [Applause.] Free trade and the 
 
24 
 
 gold standard both aim at low prices j are both embodiments of British aggression 
 upon the industrial independence ot my country. I will resist them both to the 
 utmost. [Applause.] 
 
 I do not question the tact that protection has bad a beneficial effect upon wages ; 
 but, sir, organized labor is also largely to be credited with the maintenance of wages. 
 Diminishing the number ot hours ot, 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 -vfrill 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. [Applause.] The laboring man's interests are precisely the same as the 
 manufacturer's, the tradesman's, and thv farmer's in this respect. And the policy 
 that is sure to wreck all employers in productivelbdustry, if continued, can notfail to 
 ruin also the men who work tor them. Pbofits can not disappeab and leave wages 
 ■DNTOUCHED. 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 Parlia- 
 mentary 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 over 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. 
 
 The Chairman. The time of the gentleman has expired. 
 
 Mr. Habtman. Mr. Chairman, I ailn going to ask again that the time of the gen- 
 tleman from Minneaoto be extended for fifteen minutes. 
 
 SeveraliMembers. Let him have time to conclude his remarks. 
 
 There^was no objection, and it was so ordered. 
 
 Mr. TowNE. Again, sir, am I most grateful to the House and most sensible of its 
 kindness. 
 
 Frequent reference is made in this discussion to the experience of France in the 
 early part of this century. Now, that (irovernment, from 1803 to 1865, and the Latin. 
 Union (France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, and Switzerland) from 1865 to 1873, did main- 
 tain the bimetallic system, with mints open to both gold and silver, and keep theiii 
 practically at par at her mint ratio of 16i 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 
 
 1808* 1: 16,08 
 
 1813* 1: 16.25 
 
 1814* i. 1: 15.04 
 
 1820 1: 15.62 
 
 1830 1: 15.95 
 
 1832 1: 15.72 
 
 1833 1: 15.93 
 
 1843 1: 15.93 
 
 1849 1: 15.78 
 
 1850 1: I5.7g 
 
 1859 1: 15.70 
 
 1861 1: 15.19 
 
 1862 1: 15.85 
 
 1«69 1: 15.6» 
 
 1871 1: 15.57 
 
 1873 1: 15.92 
 
 * Extremes during Napoleonic wars. 
 
 An examination of Qhart E will confirm the lesson of these figures. For eighty 
 years the line of market value of silver as compared with gold runs almost ooTnci- 
 dently with the line representing theratlo on which the metals were coined at the 
 mint of France. 
 
 Mr. WiiiiiiAMS. I want to ask the gentleman a question for information. That as 
 I understand it, is the price of silver bullion m the London market? 
 
 Mr. TowNB. In the London, market. 
 
 Mr. Williams.' It did not vary at all in the French market. 
 
 Mr. TowNE. The gentleman from Mississippi is right. Sir Henry Hucks Gibbs 
 for forty years a director of the Bank of England, some time its governor, a mono- 
 
25 
 
 metallic gold delegate to the International convention of 1878, and a bimetallist no-w- 
 and for the remainder of his lite, declares^and he had personal knowledge for many- 
 years— that from 1803 to 1873, notwithstanding the fact that the law reduire^ nothing 
 of the sort to be done, there was not a day -wtien any person could not go to the Bank 
 of Prance and get either gold or silver for the other at the mint ratio. 
 
 [N. B.— There is a slight error in the tracing of this chart oibcum 187&-'76, as will be 
 seen at a glance. This does not, ho-wever, affect its general character.] 
 
 in 
 
 
 mm 
 
 N 
 
 I 
 
 lA 
 
 eo 
 
 ^ 
 
 s ffi Q4 n 
 
 EC la 441 za 
 
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 {■■■■■■■■iaaBaBBHHBB*!S<f£TiWiBaaH ■■■■■■■aaips ■■■■■■■«■»■■■■■■ ■■■«■■■■ 
 
 
 H ll lll lIl M IfP fTH i H M H I I I I I III 
 
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 J ■■■■■■■■•■«Bk>^BBBBaB ■■■■■■■■■■■■! 
 
 ■■ {■■■■■•■■■^^■B ■■■■■■■■ ■■■«■■■■■ 
 
 III 
 
 
 «A s 
 
 U5 
 
 
 — oKlUm N 
 
 5 
 
 
And here it oceurs to me to call attenijon to the fact that mints do not, under sys- 
 tems 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 gentle- 
 men 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 browght to ii and. pass it back in coin to the owner. The Government 
 stamp cannot create value. Whether a coin when stamped shall be effecttial to pass 
 at the value it claims to represent will depend upon the use it can command. In this 
 respect I agree wholly with the honorable gentleman from Maine [Mr, Dingley], who 
 opened this debate and 'who now does me the honor of listening to me. The whole 
 question of maintaining freely coined silver at a parity with gold is one simply of 
 giving it enough to do— subjecting it to lar g e enough demaild . [Applause.] Let us 
 hear no more cheap denuiici'stliron <iT''^crea!tlng value by law." Nobody claims you 
 can do so. Yon can le g islaie opportun ity, and that is all silver asks. ' 
 
 But to return to the French coinage. The hgures 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 of U per cent on silver. The total transporta- 
 tion cost on coin and bullion during the most of that time must have been somewhere 
 about li per cent. In addition to this, Interest was lost on the valiie 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 must have circulated side by side in France. 
 
 The following table, on the authority ot the distinguished economist, J. Barr Robr 
 ertson, shows, in five-year periods, the French coinage during the time in question, 
 ot both gold and silver. It is giveli in JSnglish money because taken from an Bnglish 
 document : 
 
 
 Gold 
 
 (average 
 
 per annum). 
 
 Silver 
 
 {average 
 
 per annum). 
 
 
 Gold 
 (average • 
 per annum). 
 
 SUver 
 
 (average 
 
 per annum). 
 
 1806-1810 
 
 £1,201,136 
 3,299,503 
 
 1^^1,604 
 465,748 
 293,9T6 
 826,149 
 389,857 
 159,326 
 
 £1,184,737 
 5.208,029 
 
 6,576,120 
 
 ' 3,048 189 
 
 3,033^286 
 
 1846-1850.... 
 
 £1,294,337 
 
 12,669,263 
 
 21,605,465 
 
 7,667,387 
 
 9,546,561 
 
 3,475,213 
 
 £4,311,276 
 
 1,431,755 
 
 666 6&1 
 
 173,808 
 
 3,403,020 
 
 2,742,776 
 
 1811-1815 
 
 ■ 18.51-1855 
 
 1818-1820 
 
 1856-1860 '.. 
 
 1821-1825 
 
 1861-1865 ■ . 
 
 1S26-1830..; 
 
 18B6-1870 
 
 1831-1835 
 
 1871-1875.. 
 
 1836-1840 
 
 Total coined 
 
 1841-1845 
 
 322,993,410 
 
 217,640,234 
 
 
 
 Silver was tendered and coined every year, and gold every year but 1833 and 1872. 
 When England in 1821 resumed specie payments after a long paper regime, the coin- 
 age of gold in France, as will be noticed in the table, tell off very much ; and when, 
 in 1850 and following years, the great increased production of gold came into the 
 world's supply, it was tendered and coined in immense quantities. But all this time 
 the minis were coining both metals, and the open mint of France, like a pipe between 
 two reservoirs, maintained the level of the two masses of metal and was the equalizer 
 ot their variations. 
 
 Nothing could more beautifully or triumphantly illustrate the fundamental princi- 
 ple of bimetallism. The two metals became in effect one metal, one primary money 
 mass, to respond to the demands of debts and business and to support with broader 
 basis the credit fabric of the world. Said Mr. Cernuschi, French delegate at the mone- 
 tary conference of 1881 : \ 
 
 " The law by placing the yellow metal and the white metal on the same footing, by 
 establishing a fixed and invariable ratio between tfiem, has made them really a single 
 money." 
 
 Thus, fellow-citizens, they must be considered. Thus treated they become such a 
 
27 
 
 money ; and if so, we can regard with periect 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 friotionless 
 adjustment ot the money volume to the demapds of trade and localities. If gold 
 starts to leave us to-day we have nothing to ta&e its place ; and so we keep hanging 
 on to it, the amount of our desire to keep it, the Measure of our necessities tor it, being 
 registered in the fall of the prices of all we prpduoe 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 po per 
 cent paid in all our commodities is to-day the premium on gold in the United States. 
 
 i 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 is signed by the 
 
 - twelve members of the commission, gold monometallists and all, comprising the 
 greatest specialists in Bugland : 
 
 Sec. 189. Looking then to the vast chfinges which occurred prior to 1873 in the relative pro- 
 duction of the two metals withoat a,ny corresponding disturbance in their market value, it 
 appears to us dlfflpult to resist the conclusion that some induenoe was then at work tending to 
 steady the price of silver and to keep the ratio which it bore to gold approximately stable. 
 
 Sec Iffi. These considerations seem to suggest the existence of some steadying influence in 
 tormer periods, which has now been removed, and which has left the silver market subject to 
 the Influence of causes, the full eflJect of which was previously kept in check. T^he question, 
 therefore, forces Itself upon us: Is there any other c(rcumst«.nce calculated toeflfeot therela^ 
 tion 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 of marked Instability, is the year when 
 the bimetallic system which Had pi'evionsly been in force in the Latin Union ceased to be In 
 full operation; and we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that the operation of that systein, 
 established as It was in countries the population and commerce of which were considerable, 
 exerted a material influence upon the relative valuesof the two metals. 
 
 So long as that system was in force we think that, notwithstanding the changes in the pro- 
 duction 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 15J^ to 1. 
 
 Sec. 193. Nor does it appear to us a priori unreasonahle to suppose that the existence in the 
 Latin Union of a bimetallic system with a ratio o^ 151^ to 1 fixed between the two metals, should 
 have been capable of keeping the market price of silvpr Steady at approximately that ratio. 
 
 The view that it could only aflTect 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 
 ofthosecountrles, is we think, fallacious. .x, ,xx x,. 
 
 The fact that the owner of silver could, in the last resort, take it to those mints and have it 
 converted into coin which would purchase commodities at the ratio of \5% of silver to 1 of gold, 
 would, in our opinion, be likely to afl'ect the price of silver in the market generally, whoever 
 the purchaser and for whatever country It was destined. It would enable the seller to 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 ttleory of the bimetallic adjustment, 
 are admirably set forth in the following eloquent words of Cernuschi in the monetary 
 conference ol 1881 : 
 
 Until 1874 a clear and sonorous voice was always heard resounding flrom 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 
 sliver ,y»u like ; I take it all. For a hundredweight of gold, or for ISK hundredweights of silver, 
 I will always give you the same quantity of tones. Let the production ol one metal or the 
 itherbe mdre or less abundant, more or less costly, it w 11 be immaterial to me. Peoples and 
 nations, do you want gold? bring silver ; do you want sliver ? bring gold. As bimetalllst, the 
 French have no preference for one metal or the other ; they will always make exchange for you, 
 if vou know how to ask it, Of one metal for the other on the basis of 15X. and in the two hemis- 
 plieres the relative value of the two metals will always and everywhere be the same. 
 
 The reason why France was able to do this was that her commere was great enough 
 and varied enough to give employment and exchange to all the metal of either kind 
 that was offered for coinage. As I have before said, the test of abUlty 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 tbe United States could independ- 
 ently 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 the fact that it was thepowerlul influence of the 
 
28 
 
 French mint that caused first the gold (when our mint'ratio was 15 to 1 and France's 
 15i to 1) and then the silver (when we had changed to 16 to 1) to leave the United , 
 and go to France. It was exactly as if a commodity were to seek the highest market. 
 But if, she took our gold she sent us her silver, and vice versa. The process i was > 
 natural and not harmful. Both metals were somewhere performing tull money 
 tunotlous for all the world. If om ratio and hers had heen the same this alternation 
 would not have occurred. 
 
 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 comiuercial 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. [Applause.] Why, we are i 
 more afraid of England now, after we have grown big enough to whip all creation, 
 thasi bur 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 interest 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 i)), from 1803 to 1870the averagenumber of ounces ofsilver 
 In the world in coin and available for coinage was thirty times asgreatas the number 
 of ounces of gold. Yet she made it possible during all that time to go into the mar- 
 ket and buy as much with 15J ounces of silver as conld be bought with one ounce^of 
 gold. Today there ai-e only 16 times as many ounces of silver in the world's stockias 
 of gold. Our ratio of coinage, 16 to 1, would, to commence with, almost exactly cor- 
 respond to the natural ratio by weight. Ought it not to be very much easier toifloat 
 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 to-day is immeasurably greater in respect to the general 
 capacity of the world than was France twenty-five and more years ago. Says Mul- 
 hall, the world's greatest statistician : 
 
 If we take a survey of mankind In ancient or modern times as regards the physical, mechani- 
 cal, 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 com- 
 munity of woodcutters and farmers to become in less than one hundred years the greatest 
 nation in the world, is the aggregate of the strong arms of men and womeii, aided by horse- 
 power, machinery, and steam power applied to the useful arts and sciences of everyday life. 
 (North American Review, June, 1895.) 
 
 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 busi- 
 ness and can give money work to do. In 1870 the world's steam power, according to 
 Mulhall's didlionary of statistics, was 18,460,000 horse-power. That of France was 
 1,^0,000 horse-power, or little more than 10 per cent of the whole. In 1888 the tota 
 for the world was 50,150,000 horse-power, and of this the share of the United States was 
 14,400,000, or nearly ,29 per cent. Our share to-day 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 France in 1870. Here we see, says Mulhall— 
 
 that the United States possesses almost as much energy as Great Britain, 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 its trade, it is easy to maintain a money system possessing independent 
 features. In 1870 the total exports and imports of the wojld were, approximately 
 111,000,000,000, 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 $17,000,000,000, and the share 
 
29 
 •of the trnited States was about ?1, 600,000,000, or nearly 10 per cent. While it is impos- 
 siDle to obtain data as to the internal commerce of various countries with complete- 
 ness and accuracy, enough exists to show us that a very much greater percentage of 
 tbei, total commerce of France in, 1870 was toreign than the percentage of the 
 foreign commerce in the totdl trade ot this country today. It js commonly con- 
 sidered that not more than 4 per cent, of our trade is with foi-elgn countries, while it 
 IS safe to say that in France in 1870 fully three times that proportion of her trade was 
 ot that character. Thus the enormous preponderance of our internal over our foreign 
 <;ommerce.giveS ua a proportionate advantage of perhaps determining significance. 
 
 Iniagriculture 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 |19,740,000,000, of 
 which the share of France was $2,300,000,000, or somewhat less than 12 per cent., and 
 that of theUnited States $3,880,000,000, or nearly 20 per cent. There is no doubt that 
 the stati8tics:of 1870 and 1895 would show even a much greater relative advantage on 
 our part than this. 
 
 In manufactures Prance in 1860 produced approximately $1,900,000,000 worth but of 
 ^e world's total of $12,000,000,000, or about 16 per cent.; 'in 1888, $2,425,000,000 out of 
 ^,000,000,000, or less than 10 per cent. If her share for 1870 be taken as the average 
 of these two years, she would that year have j)roduced aboutlSperoent.of the world's 
 manufactures. The United Stotes in 1888 had about $7,215,000,000 worth of manufac- 
 tures, or over 31 per 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 U. In 1895, of the world's 870,281 miles of railway the 
 United States had 163,597, being about 44 pej cent, of the mUeage of the eptire world, 
 and 26,732 miles more than all Europe combined. In 1870 the railway freight ton- 
 nage ot Europe was 401,000,000 tons, of which the proportion of Prance was 52,000,000 
 tons, or about 13 per cent. In 1888 her share was 78,000,000 out of 765,000,000 tons, or 
 10 2-10 per cent.; while the tonnage of the United States was 590,000,000 ton8,or nearly 
 eight times as much as that of France and three-quarters as much as that of all 
 Europe. Of a like significonce 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 50,000,000 
 tons in the United States in the latter year. The total canal and river mileage of 
 France is 7,730, and of the United States 51,8?4, or 30 per cent, of the world's mileage 
 of that character. Add to this the enormous capacity of our Great Lakes system, 
 and oununequaled facilities for the development of internal commerce can be partially 
 realized. 
 
 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 
 ■(the statistics of 1895 not being at my present command). In proportion to the total 
 bankiiig power of the world at those respective dates. In 1870 the world's banking 
 power was about $8,000,000,000, and that of Prance was $320,000,000, or 4 per cent. In 
 1890, and, the proportion is still more favorable to us* in 1895, the world's banking 
 power was nearly $16,000,000,000. and that of the United States was 32 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 tl^ country in that respect as on 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 thfe 
 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 to try to meet thedemands 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 Uiaited States today to absorb 
 a new supply of real money is almost incalculable. These considerations are much 
 enforced by the fast that our vast territory of just touched possibilities, with its con- 
 
30 
 
 Btantly multiplying population, affords incomparable scope for the operation and 
 expansion of the energizing functions of an adequate supply of primary money. 
 
 This short examination of the capacity of our country to create busmess, to produce, 
 exchange, and consume products, shows that its power to absorb real mone^, to give 
 it use and value, is almost limitless. I have no doubt of our ability to maintain at 
 parity far more ultimate money than open mints could famish. 
 
 Xow, sir, as we have seen, there is a demand in the world for a large additional 
 amount of primary money, l^he enormous appteciation of gold and the almost incal- 
 culable multiplication of credits are incontesteble proofs of it. The supply of gold 
 has not tor many years come anywhere near keeping pace with the demand, so that^ 
 even the increasing faoilities tor using it, ot 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 $92,000,000 a year fi-om 1851 to 
 1870, and but $24,000,000 a year from 1871 to 1881, Mulhall says that during the fifty 
 years, 1831-1880, the consumption of gold was 160 tons more than the production. In 
 an article in the Nineteenth Century magazine for November, 1889, the great statisti- 
 cian and gold monometallist, Giften, said : 
 
 The precious metals, It is admitted on all sides, have an extensive non-monetary use. They 
 are merchandise as well as moaey. Bat few people realize that probably this non-monetary 
 use is preponderant over the monetai:y use Itself. « • * About two thirds of the gold annu- 
 ally produced is taken for the farts ; and if the coDBumptlon of India is included, as being either 
 for simple hording or for the arts, * * » then the demand for gold for non-montary purposes 
 appears anuost equal to the entire annual production. 
 
 Professor Bemis, the brilliant young economist of Cbicago,/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 ot new gold all told. 
 
 Mr. Walker of Massachusetts. Will the gentleman tell the House how much the 
 economic powerof gold in commerce has increased in the last fifty years. Has it not 
 increased several thwsand fold? 
 
 Mr. Towns. 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 ot coin to 
 discharge commercial functions have been abrogated and overthrown by modern 
 inventions that have facilitated exchange, as checks, clearing-house certificates, 
 book credits, and such things. Is that what the gentleman referred to in his ques- 
 tion? 
 
 Mr. Walkbe of Massachusetts. I made it as clear as I could. Give your own 
 answer. 
 
 Mr. Haedy. Will the gentleman pardon me a moment? 
 
 Mr. TowNE. I must decline to yield just now, Mr. Chairman, to the gentleman 
 from Indiana. To the question of the 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 
 ot some modern hocus pocus, you can compel a limited amount of real money to go 
 on forever doing an unlimited amount of work. [Laughter and applause.] They 
 say, "It does not make any difference how much ultimate money you have it 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 can not 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 ; the^e gentlemen use it as a 
 business word, in a practical sense, and so used it has reference entirely to the confi- 
 dence which you must feel in the ability of a man or an institution that is making 
 unlimited and multiplying promises, at some time to redeem those promises. 
 [Laughter and applause.] 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 doc- 
 trine, credits are expanded on the basis of a tew gold dollars, the geld itself consantly 
 growing relatively less and the various forms of its credit representatives becoming 
 constantly and absolutely greater, until finally you have a huge, distorted, swaying, 
 anfiated fabric of credit upon an ever-narrowing base of gold. And while you stand 
 there making your boast in the very fece and eyes of the world of what a tremendous 
 amount ot business you are able to do upon an infinitesimal amount of gold, you ask 
 men to have " confidence" in the operation. [Applause.] Ah, sir, let not gentlemen 
 deceive themselves. The world has not outgrown either the obligations or the limi- 
 tations 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, the credit is oorrespondinerly growing bigger, eating up more and more com- 
 modities, j(ist as the gold dollar does that measures the credit. [Applause.] 
 
 Says the great English economist, Jevons : 
 
 Prices temporarily may rise or fall independently of the quantity of gold in the country. 
 
31 
 
 Credit gives a certain latitude without rendering prices ultimately independent of gold. 
 (Investigations in Currency, page 32.) 
 
 And Haskisson, the famous British statesman and financier, In hiia 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 of course must be varied by any variation in the quantity of gold or 
 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 represehtative money and basic money con- 
 trols the volume of credits that act as money, and the quantity of all these, with the exchanges 
 to be made and payments to be met, fixes 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 ot 
 money has overtaken and passed the supply of metal for the purpose long ago, and 
 has lor many years explored all the avenues of invention for substitutes and econo- 
 mies to eke out the inadequate amount of ultimate money. The limit was long since 
 reached. I cannot now take the time to prove, taut I assert with no dread of contra- 
 diction that the actual proportionate use of money among the people jto-day is very 
 much greater than it was forty years ago. Says a great authority,, Professor Kinley 
 rJournal of Political Economy, March, 1895): 
 
 After a certain point of development in the use of credit instruments, there Is no further rela- 
 tive Increase, but rather, possibly, a slight decrease. 
 
 The trae fiatist, Mr. Chairman, is your mqdem American gold-standard advocate. 
 The logic ot his argument leads to a money base so small and a credit top so lar^e 
 that "confidence" is to take the place of redemption: and confidence never realized is 
 only another name for irredeemabilitv. For "populism" that out-populists your 
 Populist, commend me to your gold-standard extremist. 
 
 Sir, I think I have heard the gentleman from Massachusetts argue for increasing 
 the resources of the banks sobs to permit them to enlarge their accommodations to 
 customers. We are to assume, then, from these arguments, that the extent of accom- 
 modation is limited to the present i-ate of expansion, and that there must be some 
 way of increasing the reserves in order to permit the piling on of additional credits 
 at the rate of four or five dollars for one. Increasing theireserve 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 ulti- 
 mate money that the world wants, and must have. [Applause.] And I warn gentle- 
 men upon this floor — not as a prophet, but as one who has always lived near to the 
 people, and by the grace of God meaiis always to continue 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 ths year of grace 1896. [Applause.] They know that the constrict-- 
 ing gold standard is existing by the permission and growing at the cost of the man- 
 hood and the enterprise of the universe [applause], and that the time will come when 
 a stop must be put to it. , 
 
 Mr. Habdy. After your elaborate remarks, will you now state in a few words 
 what you want theTlepublican party to do ? . 
 
 Mr. TOWNB. Mr, Chairman , it is to the great Republican party at such a crisis that 
 the people turn with hopefulness, even as in times past, when the hour was heavy 
 and the way was 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., [Applause.] The Republican party has 
 not yet declared for a single gold standard-^ 
 
 Mr. Habdt and othelrs. And never will. ^ ^ -^ 
 
 Mr. TowNB. And I pray Heaven it never will. But what is expected now, Mr. 
 'pbairman, of the Republican party is a prompt and definite proposition as to what 
 it intends to do. / 
 
 Mr. Hardy rose. „. ^ ^ j. 
 
 Mr. TowNE. No, I deelineto yield further to the gentleman. Sir, I am not strenuous 
 upon having my way. While I should infinitely prefer that the nations undertake' 
 this resignation together, yet I believe that the United States of America, with its 
 unlimited resources, with its manho6d representing an engery that Mulhall says is, 
 quite equal to that of the Englishman, the German, and the Frenchman combined 
 
 ing its absorptive capacity over the money of all the world that should seek employ- 
 ment here, with one-thixd of the steam power (which is the basis of industry and of 
 business today) of all the eartb, I believe the United States could, with all this mar- 
 velous energy, with its multiplicity andvariety of commerce, a proper care for which 
 would enable it to become the clearing house fi)r this hemisphere, as Blaine 
 fondly hoped it might become [applause]; I say the Republican party might, by 
 opentag the mints of this Governnlent and^ giving to silver the same privileges now 
 bestowed upon gold, maintain the two metals at a parity at the old coinage ratio. 
 
32 
 
 [Applause.] It would b » easier for us to do it than it was tor France, because Franc 
 had to it and did it whe^ the natural bulk ratio ot silver to gold was 32 to 1, whi! 
 with us it is proposed to m ake the ratio practically identical with that which tl 
 metals sustain to each other by bulk today. Nor, air, is there anywhere any "floo: 
 of silver" to swamp the mint. I can not now pause to prove this, but it is absolute! 
 true. Nearly all existing silver now circulates at a token-parity, or a virtual redemj 
 tion parity, with gold, and would gain nothine by coming here. What we want is t 
 take the silver from the top and put it beside gold at the bottom of the mone: 
 structure. 
 
 If we cannot do the work in an independent way— it I am deceived in thmkini 
 that we might— let up do it in some other way. If somebody proposes in this Cod 
 gross to restore the ultimate money tunction to silver in any practical way, he sha. 
 have mv vote. The main thing is to take away from gold its universal and excli 
 sive necessity, that keeps all the nations and all the men ot the world in a scramb t 
 tor it at the constantly growing cost of their happiness and their substano-i 
 [Applause.] ' 
 
 Restore the tuU money tunction to silver in some wa.y, and do it speedily. Sa 
 even that you will do it three or four years from now, w^-th such other nations as yoji 
 may be able to induce to associate with you, and I will vote for the propositloiil 
 Say that you will tax incoming Silver, and coin only the American product,_aud ; 
 will vote for it. Say that you will, coin silver upon an international basis, withov 
 theoonsentof England (which yon can never get so long as the Rothschilds hav 
 that country by the throat); say that you will do it in combination with France an 
 Germany — and there ought to be no question in the mind ot any reasonable man tl|^ 
 these three nations could sustain the parity of the metals— say you will do that, aii' 
 I will vote for it. I know that all legislation is a compromise, and even in this grei' 
 matter I will compromise to almost any limit on the means if only the end beopenL 
 avowed and speedily sought. 
 
 But what I say, Mr. Chairman, is that the Republican party must at this time mak, 
 up its mind to do something. The people of the United States have passed a vote < 
 confidence in thn Republican party ; that is all. We must now justify that oonfldenc 
 by being equal to the emergencies that contront the p*ple. Our plattorm pledges n' 
 «xplicitly to the rehabilitation of silver, to make it " standard money" even as goi: 
 is. The people want that done. They have not yet decided exactly how, perhaps 
 but that is what they elected ustor — to find out how, to show them the way and lea^ 
 therein. Be assured, sir. If we fail to do what they want done they are not so untraino 
 in managing their atiairs but that they will find somebody else to do it. 
 
 Mr. Ohairma'n, I did not think to have spoken so long. IdidnottbinkthatIcoul« 
 h^ve abused the courtesy of the House to such an extent. Bat the question is mos* 
 important and well nigh exhaustlesis. Even ijow I am conscious of having omitteij 
 many things that ought to be said. I thank the House very much for extending riii 
 time and for the unusual compliment of its general and prolonged attention. I desii^i 
 to express my gratitude for this indulgence, and shall endeavor not to be thus agaii< 
 a debtor during this session. 
 
 But, sir, I could not be silent. I love my country. I cannot endure to see her suffe 
 without relief when relief is within call. And the Republican party is dear to me 
 My ancestors were Federalists and Whigs of New EJhglanil. My fS^her followed tlii 
 standard of Fremont and Dayton to the glorious defeat ot 1856. ^he infancy ot thi 
 Republican party rooked my own cradle. Since my youth I have treasured thi 
 deathless tame of its great leaders, studied and professed its doctrines, benefitted bj 
 its policies, and wielded ceaselessly what little strength was mine in its strenuou.' 
 contests tbr the confidence of the people. My anxiety that it shall now rise level wiO 
 the emergency that meets us is greater than I can express. 
 
 Sir, we are told in an old German legend how a monster, Alberic, became possessec 
 of a magic ring ot gold which gave him unlimited power, which power he used ji 
 heaping up and hoarding all the gold and wealth of the world; and that he fashionec 
 for himself a helmet of gold that enabled him at will to become invisible to men oi 
 to take upon himself any form he pleased. And the world, it is said, was at thi 
 mercy of that monster until the god Wotan appeared and took him captive while 
 in the insolence of his power, he was boastfully wearing his most odious shape. It 
 sir, there is in this country to-day a malevplent power, with ring and helmet of gold 
 now invisible and now terrible in aspect, as it either insidiously or openly under 
 ,,imiijes the toundations of liberty, could there be for the Republican partv a mori: 
 "glorious destiny than, like the god in the story, to come to the relief of the people' 
 jXoud and prolonged applause;] 
 
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