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CONGRESS. (TiiE DINGLEY BILL.) 



vcrsal agreement and the most perfect harmony 

 upon the question of finance prevailing in the 

 Democratic party of Alabama and all the Southern 

 States. While This is conceded to be an undeniable 

 fact, it is claimed that those Democrats who now 

 oppose free coinage and advocate the gold standard 

 had the right to change, and it was their duty to 

 change their opinions when additional information 

 and additional reflection satisfied them that they 

 had been in error, and seeing they were wrong they 

 gave up silver and took to gold. This is all con- 

 ceded, but how long will it be before they will make 

 another change ? "How old must their opinions be- 

 come before the authors of them can be accepted as 

 standard authority on finance? For fifteen or 

 twenty years, while the new Democratic converts to 

 the single gold standard were advocating and strug- 

 gling for free silver coinage in the Democratic 

 party, the Republicans in Congress and their pub- 

 lic speakers and newspapers in the country were 

 flooding the country with every one-of the identical 

 facts and arguments these new converts are now 

 parading and urging as the grounds for their con- 

 version to the gold standard in the last two years. 



"The whole theory of bimetallism is founded ab- 

 solutely on the unrestricted right of free and un- 

 limited coinage and indiscriminate use of both 

 metals. Free and unlimited coinage into money of 

 both metals is an unalterable law of bimetallism. 

 What is the unquestioned cause of the wide differ- 

 ence in the bullion value of gold and silver? It is 

 that gold bullion can be now taken to the mints of 

 the United States by its owners and coined into 

 money. If any person owns 22-33 grains of pure 

 gold he can take it to any mint and have it coined 

 into a standard dollar with one tenth alloy, making 

 25*8 grains of standard gold worth 100 cents. 

 This right that the owners of gold bullion have to 

 take it to the mints and have it coined into money 

 free of expense makes the gold bullion as valuable 

 to its owners as it is when coined into money. 

 Stop the coinage of gold and take away the right 

 of its owners to have it coined into money free of 

 charge, and how much would gold bullion be worth 

 as mere merchandise with all the demand for it as 

 money taken away by law ? Without the right to 

 be coined into money there would be no demand 

 for it except by jewelers and manufacturers for 

 use in the arts, but when gold bullion can be 

 coined into money as soon as it is turned out of the 

 mint the whole world joins in the scramble to get it. 



' When at any time in the history of any country 

 in the world, where gold and silver had the same 

 equal right of free and unlimited coinage at a fixed 

 ratio, has silver bullion or silver money been worth 

 less than gold, or had less purchasing power than 

 gold in the markets of the world ? And to-day in 

 gold-using countries where silver is excluded from 

 coinage over 2,000,000,000 of legal-tender silver 

 coins are in circulation side by side with gold, and 

 having less silver in the coins than in the silver 

 dollars of the United States; and, also, in the 

 face of the undeniable fact that silver was never 

 dropped out of the coinage laws of any country in 

 the world because silver bullion or silver money 

 was worth less than gold as bullion or money. 



" If the conventions of the two national parties 

 refuse to pledge themselves to the restoration of 

 silver to free coinage, and declare in favor of con- 

 tinuing gold as the only standard of value and the 

 only redemption basis of currency, they will be 

 compelled to pledge themselves to repealing the 

 law requiring greenbacks to be reissued when re- 

 deemed, and leaving the national banks the sole 

 power of supplying the people a currency and 

 regulating thereby the prices of labor, property, 

 and productions in the United States. It is a sig- 



nificant fact that the same Democratic party that 

 elected Tilden President also elected the members 

 of the Congress that passed the Bland-Allison silver 

 law in 1878, and at the same session, within a few 

 days of each other, passed the act requiring green- 

 backs to be reissued when redeemed ; and, most re- 

 markable to relate, a Democratic President asks 

 that same Democratic party to join him in repeal- 

 ing both these laws, to destroy both silver and 

 greenbacks, and thereby strangle its own offspring. 



" If Congress can ever be induced to repeal the 

 law requiring the reissue of greenbacks when re- 

 deemed, and authority granted to the President and 

 Secretary to issue 3-per-cent. bonds payable in gold 

 without limit, in amount to sustain the gold stand- 

 ard, and retire and cancel the greenbacks and 

 Sherman coin notes, amounting to about $500,- 

 000,000, thereby contracting the currency over one 

 third of the entire amount in existence, and over 

 one half the present amount in circulation, such a 

 panic would follow as would drive this country into 

 revolution, and the only suggestion of any remedy 

 to mitigate the evils of such unprecedented contrac- 

 tion is to trust to the national banks to fill up the 

 vacuum created by the destruction of greenbacks 

 and Sherman notes with the bills of national banks, 

 to be issued at their will and pleasure to the amount 

 of $500.000.000. to be added to their present circu- 

 lation of $307,000,000, making over $700,000,000 of 

 national bank bills. 



" Who is reckless enough to express the belief 

 that the national banks can be trusted to issue such 

 an amount of their bills to fill up the vacuum 

 created by the destruction of the greenbacks and 

 Sherman notes? If the banks could be compelled 

 to issue their bills to the amount of $700,000,000, 

 how could the banks float that amount of currency 

 redeemable in gold ? It would be impossible, and 

 the banks will take no such risk. The national 

 bank bills would instantly take the place of the 

 greenbacks and be absorbed by gold sharks and 

 gamblers to draw gold out of the banks just as they 

 now do so with greenbacks out of the Treasury. 

 No, Mr. President, the gold system of finance can 

 not be made to operate successfully in this country 

 without inevitable disaster and ruin. It is bound 

 to work its own destruction." 



Senator Carter's resolution to recommit the bill 

 to the Committee on Finance was again read April 

 9 at the reqtiest of Senator Mantle, of Montana, who 

 spoke at length upon it. A large part of his ad- 

 dress was devoted to the tariff provisions of the 

 Dingley bill. In reference to the silver States, he 

 said in part : 



" I have grown up from childhood among the 

 people of the West, in what are now known as the 

 silver States. I think I may therefore justly say 

 that 1 know something of their character, something 

 of their lives, their hopes, and their ambitions. 

 And it is for this reason that I feel impelled to say 

 a few words in their defense and to repel the unjust 

 and indiscriminate charges of lawlessness, of selfish- 

 ness, and lack of patriotism which it seems to be 

 the fashion just now upon the part of the metro- 

 politan press of the East to bring against them, as 

 well as their representatives upon this floor 

 charges which I deeply regret to note have recently 

 found expression to some extent through the Chief 

 Executive of the nation, and that, too, in a notable 

 Christian gathering, which, it would seem to me. 

 over and above all others, should have been found 

 exercising that rare virtue of charity which was the 

 distinguishing trait of Him in whose name and for 

 whose cause they were gathered together, rather 

 than to have made it the occasion for a wholesale, 

 uncharitable, and untruthful arraignment of a 

 great mass of their fellow-citizens who are bound 



