CONGRESS. (TiiE DINOLEY BILL.) 



179 



He has reported it and called it up twice, and 

 now he has had a vote. 1 shall not aiialy/.e that 

 vole, or say anything about why Senators of any 

 party voted this way or that way. It is sufficient 

 for us to know that our duty is not yet performed, 

 and if the Senator from Vermont does not, I will, 

 at the proper time and under proper circumstances, 

 move to take up the bill and then see what the de- 

 tects are. 



10 very Senator here appreciates the necessity for 

 increased revenue. Every Senator knows that the 

 Impes and expectations of the President and the 

 Secretary of the Treasury as made in their reports 

 have been erroneous, not from any willful design 

 on their part, but because they did not see the nat- 

 ural tendency of a course of measures which every 

 day left the Government more and more in debt, 

 and every month the necessity " 



Senator Harris, of Tennessee, asked Senator 

 Sherman why he did not advise the Treasury De- 

 partment to coin the $55,000,000 of seigniorage and 

 the balance of the silver lying idle in the Treasury 

 and use it for the purposes of the Treasury, " as 

 they are in duty bound to do under the third sec- 

 tion of what is called the Sherman act." 



Senator Sherman replied : 



" The Senator from Tennessee wishes to divert me 

 to the question of the free coinage of silver. That 

 has been tried and tested, and if ever that question 

 met its final solution it was in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, freshly elected by the people, where, by a 

 majority of almost 2 to 1, the judgment of the House 

 of Representatives, the representatives of the people 

 from equal and exact districts throughout the coun- 

 try, pronounced their denunciation of the most fool- 

 ish and dangerous policy of departing from the now 

 lawful standards of money in the country. 



" Sir, it is not enough for the Senator to say to me 

 that the Senate could provide a remedy by provid- 

 ing for the free coinage of silver, when the fact is 

 that 10 States whose 20 Senators voted for the free 

 coinage of silver contain a less population than two 

 thirds of that of the State of Ohio. The Senate does 

 not represent the people. It represents the States, 

 and rightfully so, and I do not complain about it. 

 But in the House of Representatives the people are 

 represented according to their numbers in every 

 portion of the United States. Let me prophesy to 

 my honorable friend that his remedy will never be 

 so strong in the future as it has been in the past. 

 In my judgment the sober conviction of the people 

 of the United States will settle down in favor of 

 having the best standard that can be found, or that 

 is yet known as the standard of value, with ample 

 paper money always maintained at par with gold. 

 to circulate in all parts of the country freely and 

 without danger of its breaking up. 



" Mr. President, I have said a great deal more 

 than I intended to say. I will merely add that I shall 

 not consider my duty in the Senate discharged dur- 

 ing the present session until some action is taken 

 fding to the wishes of the President and the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, not their form of action, 

 but until we give them as the executive department 

 of the Government sufficient money, collected from 

 the people of the United States, to carry on the ex- 

 penses of the Government. If we go home to our 

 constituents without performing that duty, every 

 man who can be held responsible for that condition 

 will be severely dealt with, as I believe, by the peo- 

 ' ple^of the United States." 



Senator Stewart, of Nevada, speaking against the 

 bill, said, in part : 



" Mr. President, I can not afford to hold my peace 

 and allow the false pretense that this bill is designed 

 to produce revenue, or that there is any necessity 

 for a bill to produce revenue, to go unheeded. The 



most oppressive and the most wicked part of the 

 bond sales is the impounding of the people's money 

 in the Treasury Department. Financial journals in 

 this country declare that that is one of the modes of 

 retiring greenbacks, and the favorite mode. There 

 will be in the Treasury when the last loan shall have 

 been paid in nearly $900,000,000 of cash balance. A 

 deficiency of $30,000,000 a year will not draw down 

 the cash balance in the Treasury to where it ought 

 to be in less than four years. It will take four years 

 for the people to get back into circulation the money 

 which has been unlawfully taken from them by t hese 

 bond sales. It will take four years to reduce this 

 unhealthy surplus in the Treasury, it matters not 

 how it has got there. It is a sham, a pretext. Any 

 one who seeks to put more money there wants to 

 impound the greenbacks to a greater extent. Addi- 

 tional taxation, when there is about $300.000,000 in 

 the Treasury, when there is a cash balance which at 

 the present rate of deficiency can not be drawn 

 down to a reasonable limit in less than four years, 

 it seems to me, is outrageous, and I hope that Con- 

 gress will not adjourn until it takes some means 

 of relieving the Treasury of the surplus that has 

 been taken away from the people. 



" The gold standard and the policy of impound- 

 ing what little money is left lias distressed the coun- 

 try, and when it is said that the country is anxious 

 for more taxation, that the country is rich and 

 abounding in money and anxious for further taxa- 

 tion, I deny it. I deny that in all the history of 

 this country there was ever such general distress as 

 prevails to-day after twenty-five years of peace and 

 abundant harvests. I deny that with the money 

 impounded as it is now, with contracting circulating 

 medium, the resources of this country can be made 

 available. The wealth of the United States is not 

 in its debts, but it consists in its productive power. 

 There has not been 33^ per cent, of that productive 

 power made available for the last three years be- 

 cause of want of money. Falling prices paralyze 

 industry, and here we have a proposition to put 

 $40,000,000 a year more in the Treasury and con- 

 tract the currency that much more. 



" This an emergency bill ! This bill that is not 

 for legislation, but for agitation ; a bill to keep the 

 tariff question open ; a bill to run only two years ; 

 a bill to disturb business interests ; a bill to set the 

 country quarreling about the tariff for the purpose 

 of burying other issues upon which the prosperity 

 of the human race depends ! 



"I wonder if there is any truth in what we con- 

 stantly hear? It comes to me in letters every day 

 that there is an arrangement whereby this bill, if it 

 can go to the Executive without amendment, is to 

 be signed by the President. I have received hun- 

 dreds of letters saying, 'Do not amend it; the 

 President is going to sign it as it is.' I wonder if 

 the partnership between Cleveland Democracy and 

 gold Republicanism is perfected and satisfactory? 

 Is this a scheme between the gold forces at both 

 ends of the Capitol to get a bill through to retire 

 the greenbacks { 



" It has been forty years since the Republican 

 party came into existence. It has served its day. 

 It has betrayed its cause. It has become an enemy 

 of the people. It started as a friend of the people. 

 It started in favor of free labor; in favor of free 

 men. It has now become a party of slavery, a party 

 of bonded slavery, a party which if its principles 

 can succeed, according to the desire of the Sen- 

 ator from Vermont, will relegate the people 

 to the same condition of feudal slavery and 

 serfdom from which mankind emerged by the dis- 

 covery of gold and silver in Mexico and South 

 America. The same causes produce like effects, 

 and it is to be presumed that the Republican party 



