CONGRESS. (THE DIXGLEY BILL.) 



183 



walk away from our party, we will gaze upon them 

 in sorrow.'' 



.Mr. Hoar said : 



"If the Senator will allow me a word there, I 

 wish to say that, so far as I know, there is not a 

 Republican in either House of Congress from the 

 East, and there is not, so far as I know, in the Si air 

 of Massachusetts, or in the 6 New England Slates. 

 -.' per rent, of the entire Republican party who hold 

 the theories of Grover Cleveland, as I understand 

 them. There are no gold monometallists there. 



He thinks that a double standard of value, that 

 undertaking to have by any assent of anybody or 

 everybody two metals which may fluctuate some- 

 what in " their reference to one another, is an 

 absurdity and an impossibility. The Republicans 

 of the Eastern States deny lhat proposition. They 

 believe that there can be a double standard of 

 value, just as when the astronomer wishes to get a 

 clock whose pendulum shall be so accurate in its 

 length and in its beat that the most delicate meas- 

 urements, upon which depend great astronomical 

 calculations, shall not be disturbed by atmospheric 

 influences, he puts rods of three metals which pass 

 through the disk of the pendulum and by which it 

 is suspended so that the fluctuation caused by the 

 atmospheric influences on one will be corrected by 

 the atmospheric influences on another. 



" That is the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton ; it 

 is the doctrine of the Constitution ; it is the doc- 

 trine of every one of the fathers, without an ex- 

 ception ; it is our doctrine, and the American doc- 

 trine to-day. There is where we all agree ; where 

 the Senator from Colorado and I agree, I suppose, 

 if I understand him, though I do not know that he 

 will consent to agree with me on any subject what- 

 ever. But where we differ is this: We believe that 

 to do that thing by one nation alone is impossible ; 

 that you drive out the more valuable metal and you 

 have monometallism not only of the cheaper metal, 

 in which all transactions will sooner or later- dis- 

 charge themselves, but you have a standard of value 

 that is a fluctuating, a disturbing, and a degenerat- 

 ing measure, so that no transaction expressed in 

 money is a record of what it is to be in the future. 

 Whether we are right or wrong, there is where our 

 difference comes in; and the Senator has no more 

 right to turn on me and say I agree with Grover 

 Cleveland, or I am a monometallist, than I have to 

 turn on him and say he is a silver monometallist. I 

 take his statement of his opinions as he utters them, 

 not as I translate them, and I demand of him, if he 

 does me the honor to allude to my opinions at all, 

 that he shall take my statements of opinions as I utter 

 them and translate them. There is where these two 

 parties differ in the Republican party as they do in 

 the Democratic party; and what I want to know is, 

 if any Senator says on either side of that difference, 

 ' If you do not come to my views, whether you be- 

 lieve them or not, and vote with me, whether you 

 like it or not, I will not do anything else that is for 

 the interest of the country in regard to which we 

 agree.' " 



Senator Teller, of Colorado, spoke in reference to 

 his share in drawing up the Minneapolis platform, 

 which had been brought up by Senator Gear, of Iowa, 

 and on the true meaning of bimetallism as follow : 



" Bimetallism means the free access of both 

 metals to the mint on equal terms, and I now here 

 challenge the Senate, I challenge the country to find 

 that prior to 1892 any person had ever suggested 

 that any other definition could be given to bimetal- 

 lism. Dr. Giffen, the great statistician of England, 

 a gold man. equal in his adherence and devotion to 

 gold even to the Senator from Vermont or the Sena- 

 tor from Ohio, has declared over and over again that 

 there can be no bimetallism without the coinage of 



both metals on equal terms; that that is what it 

 means. 



Any man who asserts that it means anything 

 else is cither ignorant or means to deceive. He 

 either has not studied the question and does not 

 know, or, having studied the question, he docs not, 

 mean to tell the truth. He who says that bimetal- 

 lism means maintaining silver as subsidiary coin 

 writes himself down in opposition to the entire 

 thought of the intelligent and educated world on 

 this subject." 



Senator Sherman said : 



" My idea of bimetallism is that both metals shall 

 be adopted and used in this country as far as possi- 

 ble and to the extent that they can be maintained 

 at a parity with each other. In order to bring 

 about that condition, as a matter of course the 

 silver dollars and the silver coins must be main- 

 tained at a parity with gold. 



" We maintain the parity of the two metals by 

 limiting the supply of the cheaper one. We buy 

 the bullion from the people of the United States or 

 in the markets of the world, and we coin it into 

 money upon the old basis of 16 to 1. But in order 

 that we may maintain the silver coins at a parity 

 with gold we limit the amount and only make it 

 an act of the Government which maintains those 

 coins, of less market value, at a parity with gold. 



" I know that the free coinage of silver is quite a 

 plausible idea, but the effect would be merely to 

 cheat the creditor of one half of his debt. The 

 United States of America has contracted debts upon 

 the basis of gold to the amount now, under the 

 present Administration, of $750,000,000. Suppose 

 we should have the free coinage of silver, and gold 

 were demonetized practically or excluded from cir- 

 culation, because none but the cheaper metal will 

 circulate, we would cheat the creditors of the Gov- 

 ernment out of one half of their investment. 



" There is a narrow difference between those of 

 us who believe in what I call bimetallism and those 

 who believe in the free coinage of silver. If you 

 open the doors of your mints to all the silver that 

 may come to us from all parts of the world, now 

 estimated to amount to $3,800,000,000, how long 

 will it be before the silver of other countries will 

 flow in here and pass for more than it is worth 

 and I think revolutionize the whole monetary sys- 

 tem of our country i I believe, therefore, that if 

 we maintain the two metals as we ought to do, at 

 full use as money, it must be under such circum- 

 stances and conditions that there will be no dif- 

 erence in their value as money." 



Senator Teller said : 



' The question here is, what did the Republican 

 platform mean by bimetallism ? If it did not mean 

 that we should go to bimetallism to-day it meant at 

 least that we believe in bimetallism and that under 

 any construction which could be put on it we should 

 go there as speedily as we could. The question 

 now is whether we who believe in bimetallism as bi- 

 metallism is defined by the economic writers of the 

 age are recreant to Republican principles or whether 

 we can be driven out of our party because we do not 

 agree with this most astonishing, unheard-of, and 

 unusual bimetallic definition of the Senator from 

 Ohio, which it seems that the Republican party is 

 about to accept. That is the question, Mr. President ; 

 it is not the question whether we can maintain free 

 coinage or not. If the Senator from Ohio and the 

 Senators who agree with him have got wiser than 

 the convention they had better wait until they go 

 to St. Louis, and change the platform. The ques- 

 tion is, did we not declare for bimetallism i Did 

 we not say we are in favor of it i Does not that 

 give us the right to insist upon having bimetallism 

 and still keep within the parly f " 



