184: 



CONGRESS. (THE DINGLEY BILL.) 



Senator Sherman said : 



" The convention to which the Senator refers al- 

 ways assumed the same kind of bimetallism that I 

 have alluded to. They always insisted as a condi- 

 tion that the money coined from silver should be 

 maintained by the Government at a parity with 

 gold. That has been declared over and over again, 

 and it is not necessary even to repeat it now." 



Senator Teller replied : 



" That is not a correct statement. That conven- 

 tion never suggested a bimetallism so ridiculous as 

 I have read to the Senate. I believe if that had 

 been suggested in the convention it would have 

 been laughed out of the convention. The Senator 

 can not put the Republican party on that kind of 

 bimetallism. Why did we want to say anything 

 about it if that was the kind of bimetallism <? Every- 

 body knew that you could not get along without 

 subsidiary silver money, and that is all that the 

 Senator is now contending for ; and he is contend- 

 ing that when you hare subsidiary silver money 

 you have got bimetallism. Does he mean to say 

 that Great Britain has got bimetallism, does he 

 mean to say that Germany has got bimetallism be- 

 cause they use subsidiary silver money i Mr. 

 President, he knows better. Everybody knows 

 better. Bimetallism means, as I have stated, the 

 use of the two metals as legal-tender money upon 

 equal terms. 



" When you make silver subordinate to gold it is 

 no more standard money than a national bunk 

 note. A man must be ignorant of the philosophy 

 of money or unwilling to admit the truth and the 

 logic of his position when he claims that because 

 you use silver with gold and subordinate to gold 

 you have bimetallism. What we contend for is 

 silver as standard money ; silver that shall measure 

 values as gold measures values ; that the double 

 sum of silver and gold in the world shall determine 

 prices." 



' March 13, Senator Palmer, of Illinois, submitted 

 the following resolution : 



" Resolved by the Senate, First. That it is the 

 policy of the United States to maintain the existing 

 legal and commercial standard of value. 



" Second. That the unlimited coinage by the 

 United States of silver dollars of 412i grains of 

 standard silver with forced legal-tender quality for 

 all debts, public and private, would subvert the ex- 

 isting legal and commercial standard of value by 

 establishing a standard of value based upon silver 

 coinage only." 



The House bill to increase revenue was laid be- 

 fore the Senate again the same day, and Senator 

 Cockrell, of Missouri, spoke, confining his remarks 

 to the free-coinage substitute reported by the Fi- 

 nance Committee. Reviewing the operations of 

 the Treasury, he said in part : 



"Secretary Foster redeemed not one solitary 

 Treasury note in silver. Secretary Carlisle has re- 

 deemed more than $19,377,000 of the Treasury 

 notes with standard silver dollars, and has retired 

 and canceled them, and no harm has come. Had 

 every ounce of the silver bullion in the Treasury 

 been coined into standard silver dollars, and every 

 Treasury note redeemed and canceled, no harm 

 would have come. Secretary Foster redeemed in 

 gold from the 14th day of October, 1891, to the ex- 

 piration of his term, over $34,000,000 of the Treas- 

 ury notes, and Secretary Carlisle up to October 

 last had redeemed over $43,000,000. Over $41,000,- 

 000 of them were presented at Boston, New York, 

 and Philadelphia. It was simply a meek surrender 

 to the gold gamblers, as a convenience to them to 

 get gold upon which to speculate. There is no law 

 upon the si, it iite book requiring the Treasury to 

 maintain $100,000,000 gold reserve. Secretary 



Carlisle has so decided. All the funds in the Treas- 

 ury are deposited in the general cash. 



" Now, let us look as to what has been done by 

 reason of this meek and unjust and improper sur- 

 render of the option of the Government to pay in 

 silver as well as in gold. To maintain this imagi- 

 nary gold reserve of $100,000,000. the executive ad- 

 ministration, January, 1894, sold $50,000,000 of 5- 

 per-cent. ten-year bonds for over $58,000,000 of 

 gold, and put the gold in the Treasury and pro- 

 claimed its purpose to continue to redeem green- 

 backs and Treasury notes in gold whenever de- 

 manded. 



" From January, 1894, to November, 1894. $103,- 

 000,000 of gold was taken out of the Treasury, and 

 in November, 1894, the Government issued and 

 sold $50,000,000 more of ten-year 5-per-cent. bonds 

 for more than $58,000,000 of gold, and put th.> 

 gold in the Treasury and used the Treasury notes 

 to pay current expenses. More raids were made. 

 It had only whetted the appetites of the bond 

 lovers and the gold-standard advocates to get moro 

 bonds and to fasten the gold standard by perma- 

 nent legislation, naming gold as the money of final 

 payment. Between the sale of bonds in November, 

 1894, and Jan. 28, 1895 only about two months 

 $69,000,000 of gold was taken from the Treas- 

 ury. On Jan. 28, 1895, the President gave to 

 Congress the message I have quoted, recommend- 

 ing the issue of $500,000,000 of bonds payable in 

 gold. In February, 1895, Congress having refused 

 to authorize the issue of any gold bonds, the ex- 

 ecutive administration issued and sold more than 

 $62,000,000 of thirty-year 4-.per-cent. bonds for a 

 little over $65,000,000" under the now famous, if 

 not otherwise, Rothschild-Belmont-Morgan syn- 

 dicate contract to guard our Treasury. Sixty-two 

 million dollars of United States thirty-year bonds 

 were sold at the rate of $104.50. They have since 

 sold in the open market at over $123. 



" A magnificent speculation called patriotism. 

 Think of it ! Peans of praise sung to the Belmonts 

 and the Rothschilds and the Morgans for'their pa- 

 triotism in buying American bonds at $104.50 on 

 the $100, and then selling them for $122 for every 

 $100 of bonds. But the raids were renewed, and 

 only recently $100,000,000 more of thirty-year 4- 

 per-cent. bonds were sold for $111,000.000 and a 

 little over, as reported, a total increase of our 

 bonded interest-bearing debt of more than $262,- 

 000,000 in time of profound peace. To do what ? 

 To maintain the gold reserve and to show our pa- 

 triotism. 



" What is this proposed remedy, Mr. President ? 

 We have seen it. It is a miserable makeshift. It 

 simply substitutes for a noninterest-bearing debt, 

 for the full legal-tender greenbacks and Treasury 

 notes mere demand obligations, whose debt qual- 

 ity has been absorbed in their money function, and 

 which are to-day money used by the people in the 

 daily transactions an equal amount of interest- 

 bearing gold bonds. It contracts the legal-tender 

 currency of the country to that amount, reduces 

 the selling price of all trie products of the soil, the 

 mine, and the factory, and is in violation of that 

 cardinal principle of every honest republican gov- 

 ernment that when in debt it should maintain in 

 circulation the largest possible amount of its in- 

 debtedness in the shape of noninterest-bearing obli- 

 gations that the people of the country will keep in 

 circulation without depreciation. 



" What is further proposed in the proposition of 

 the President ? To surrender to the national banks 

 the absolute control of the paper circulation. It 

 proposes to give to the banks the right to deposit 

 bonds, draw interest upon the bonds thus deposited 

 in the Treasury, and then receive from the Treas- 



