CONGRESS. (THE DIXOLEY BILL.) 



would go into tho arts and manufactures, and there 

 would probably IM> a .stiinulatfd production of sil- 

 ver in our own country. The silver product has 

 fallen off in the pa>t few years, but it would not 

 come in an amount suilicient to flood the country 

 or lie more than we could consume its we have done 

 in the last twenty years." 



Mr. Hoar: " A'S I understood the Senator a little 

 while ago, he said that he did not think the amount 

 of silver in the arts would lie diminished .' " 



Mr. Cockrell: "I said that that which is already 

 used in the arts would not come to us." 



Mr. Hoar: "Does the Senator suppose that some 

 would come from other countries to be used in the 

 arts '." 



Mr. Cockrell: "I suppose that there would but 

 little come." 



Mr. Hoar: "Practically " 



Mr. Cockrell: "Practically it would go back to 

 just what it was before." 



Mr. Hoar: "It would make no substantial differ- 

 ence." 



Mr. Cockrell: "But just for the time being. I 

 say the mere fact of our opening our mints might 

 for a short time bring some silver to us that would 

 not otherwise come, but there would be no flood, no 

 deluge, no danger from it ; no more would come 

 than we could assimilate and absorb as money of 

 final payment and redemption and the equal of 

 gold." 



Mr. Hoar : " Does the Senator understand that 

 by having the unlimited coinage of silver in this 

 country there would be an increased silver product 

 occasioned by the stimulus for the mining of silver 

 which would have an effect on the proportionate 

 value in its relation to gold (" 



Mr. Cockrell : " Xo ; I do not think it would have 

 any effect on the value. There would be a little 

 increased product, but not an unlimited one, be- 

 cause it never has been and never could be pro- 

 duced in unlimited quantities." 



Mr. Hoar: "Then my original question is. what 

 earthly difference does it make whether we main- 

 tain or do not maintain free coin 



Mr. Teller : " If the Senator from Missouri will 

 pardon me a moment, I should like to state to the 

 Senator from Massachusetts the contention of the 

 bimetallists. It is that the standard money, which 

 is gold now everywhere (for silver in this country, 

 whatever may be its relation to gold, is a subordi- 

 nate money), determines the prices of products the 

 world over. I saw that recently disputed in the 

 " Xew York Tribune," and I went to-day to look up 

 what old Blackstone said on the subject, and he 

 lays that down as early as his time as an unques- 

 tioned law of money. We say if that is true, when 

 you open the mints to silver and make silver and 

 gold equal in their money functions and money 

 privileges you have done exactly what you would 

 have done if you had transmuted by some process 

 all of that silver into gold. As I have heard the 

 Senator from Delaware say, it is the potentiality of 

 all the silver bullion in the world to perform the 

 functions of gold. That is what makes it." 



In the further course of his speech Mr. Cockrell 

 said: 



" I want now. for the benefit of my good friend 

 from Massachusetts, to show how the English are 

 benefited by the single gold standard. I quote 

 from the "London Statist." a gold-standard au- 

 thority, I understand, a reliable statistical paper. 

 It said in one of its recent issues : 



"'The cash value of our imports in 1895 was 

 416,687,000, but at the 1890 level of prices the 

 value would have been no less than 507,100,000. 

 The benefit to this country, therefore, from the fall 

 in prices of foreign and colonial produce in 1895 



compared with is'.io thus amounted to the enor- 

 mous sum of 'J'.io. inn.iinii.- 



" Four hundred and fifty million dollars of benefit 

 by the decreased prices of commodities t lie English 

 people had to buy between 1890 and 1893. But the 

 paper goes on and says : 



" ' On the other hand, our exports in 1895 were 

 of the cash value of only 226.169.000, whereas at 

 the prices of 1890 the value would have been 267.- 

 600,000. thus entailing a loss of 41.500.000, due to 

 the fall in prices. On balance, therefore, the fall 

 in prices in 1895 compared with 1890 gave a profit 

 to this country amounting to about $49,000,000.' 



"About $250,000,000 they made by the decreased 

 price in the commodities "they had to buy. Eng- 

 land thus in the last five years bagged *2ob,000,000 

 net of the substance of other nations (chiefly of the 

 American people) because of the decline of prices 

 during the past five years. It was able to do this, 

 first, because it is a creditor country, and, second, 

 because, while its exports were manufactures, the 

 stuff it bought in other lands was chiefly raw ma- 

 terial. The manufacturer can always, in a meas- 

 ure, protect himself from shrinkage, because if he 

 must sell cheap he can also buy his raw material 

 cheap. The loss falls heaviest upon the producer 

 of primary substances, like the farmer, who begins 

 the work "of production and can not recoup his 

 losses by moving back upon any other producer. 

 England can not feed her people ; but she has 

 compelled us to give them food below the real 

 value ; she grows no cotton, but she has forced our 

 planters to supply her mills with the staple at half 

 price; she mines no silver, but she has bought for 

 use in her Eastern trade American silver after 

 driving down the price from $1.29 an ounce to 65 

 cents. How did she contrive thus to filch from our 

 people their substance i By inducing us to adopt 

 her gold standard and enlisting in behalf of the 

 maintenance of that robber system the American 

 press, the American bankers, and a great body of 

 American citizens who do not perceive the true 

 character of the conspiracy. 



"I quote from Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, a dele- 

 gate from England to the Brussels conference in 

 1892, to show the effect of law upon the price of the 

 metals. He said : 



" ' Gentlemen, I need hardly remind you that the 

 stock of silver in the world is estimated at some 

 thousands of millions, and if this conference were 

 to break up without arriving at any definite result 

 there would be a depreciation in the value of that 

 commodity which it would be frightful to contem- 

 plate, and out of which a monetary panic would en- 

 sue the far-spreading effects of which it would be 

 impossible to foretell.' 



" I want it recorded in the annals of our country 

 that one gold advocate has made one prediction 

 that has been fulfilled, and the only one that has 

 ever been fulfilled. He predicted in" 1892 the crisis 

 which was then approaching if that conference 

 should adjourn without rehabilitating silver. It 

 did adjourn without rehabilitating silver, and the 

 results have followed just as he said." 



March 16, Senator Pugh, of Alabama, asked that 

 the bill and amendment be laid before the Senate 

 in order to enable him to speak upon the amend- 

 ment. In the course of his address, which was fin- 

 ished March 17. he said : 



" In this connection, I will call attention to a 

 most remarkable state of things. Three years ago 

 there was not a Democratic voter in Alabama or a 

 Democratic newspaper who would not have resented 

 any prediction that at any time in the future, under 

 any circumstances, they would be found opposing 

 the restoration of silver to free coinage and sup- 

 porting the single gold standard. There was uni- 



