194 



CONGRESS. (TnE BILL AUTHORIZING ISSUE OF BONDS.) 



present situation will speedily bring about like re- 

 sults and another sale of bonds will soon be just as 

 necessary us this, and this "endless chain" of bond 

 sales might continue until a thousand millions had 

 been sold, and yet we would be no nearer a solution 

 of the difficulties which encompass us than we are 

 now. In fact, the President in his last annual mes- 

 sage to Congress says, after issuing 160,000,000 

 bonds, that, at that time (the beginning of this ses- 

 sion), to use his language, ' we are nearly where we 

 started'; and we will continue to be ' nearly where 

 we started ' under the system proposed by the House 

 of Representatives or the President. 



" There was a time when, with a much smaller 

 population and much less wealth than we now have, 

 we had no difficulties in the Treasury no deficiency 

 of revenue, and what was of much more conse- 

 quence, no distress among the people. If the causes 

 which produce the present difficulties with the people 

 can be removed we certainly will return to the old con- 

 dition of prosperity and happiness. It would seem 

 that there should be no difficulty in finding out what 

 changes have occurred and in ascertaining beyond 

 question the cause of our present troubles. There 

 must be something radically wrong somewhere if 

 the richest and freest nation on the globe is in such 

 a condition of absolute helplessness and dependence 

 as the President of the United States seems to con- 

 sider us now. 



" In this country the people are the source not 

 only of all power, but also of all wealth and pros- 

 perity. When they are prosperous, business will 

 flourish, all branches of commerce will be active, 

 and no financial difficulties will come to the Treas- 

 ury except as the result of insufficient revenue 

 laws ; but no revenue system, no matter how wisely 

 or judiciously framed, can provide revenue unless 

 there is commerce and active business. A time of 

 industrial depression and commercial stagnation 

 must be and ought to be a time of embarrassment 

 for the Government. 



" The laws we now have on the statute books will, 

 with the revival of business, provide ample revenue. 

 The change needed is not in the revenue laws, but 

 in the financial condition of the people at large. 

 Whatever embarrassments the Government may 

 now have to encounter are the result of the de- 

 pressed condition of all branches of business and 

 the unsatisfactory condition of the people generally. 

 If we can devise a means of relieving these, there 

 will be no difficulty about the condition of the Gov- 

 ernment or of the revenues. 



" There is, however, one commodity which, when 

 affected in its value, necessarily affects all other 

 things in the world, in all countries, and among all 

 civilized peqple, to wit, money. Suppose money to 

 be doubled in value suddenly, it would take then 

 just one half as much of it to buy any given article as 

 it would have taken before the rise in its value; what 

 would before have cost $1 would then cost 50 cents, 

 because the 50 cents is worth as much as the dollar 

 was before. This rise in the value of money, then, 

 would find its expression, its visible manifestation, in 

 a fall of general prices to 50 per cent, of their former 

 scale, while money would remain nominally just as 

 it was before; and the superficial observer might 

 think, and a modern gold bug would bo sure to 

 think, that this change in prices had resulted from 

 overproduction and improvements in methods of 

 production and transportation, and not in the 

 change in the value of money. 



"It is often the case that there are two causes 

 operating at the same time and in opposite direc- 

 tion-, and that these counteract each other to some 

 extent. For instance, suppose the value of money 

 doubled as already suggested; this would tend to 

 divide the price of cotton, for instance; but sup- 



pose at the same time, as was the fact last year, that 

 there should be produced one half of an ordinary crop 

 of cotton. Under normal conditions this falling off 

 in the crop would tend to double the price, while 

 the increased value of money would tend to reduce 

 it 50 per cent. These two causes operating in dif- 

 ferent directions against each other would have a 

 tendency to keep cotton at its old value. It would 

 not fall by reason of the scarcity of money ; it would 

 not advance by reason of the shortness of crop, but 

 remain at the old price. But the two causes operat- 

 ing in directly opposite directions with exactly equal 

 force would paralyze each other, leaving the price 

 of cotton where it had been before. The two evils 

 of an increase in the value of money and a short 

 crop would both be borne by the community, though 

 the effects of both might be hidden. This was prac- 

 tically the condition during the fall of 1895." 



The remainder of the address was devoted to the 

 consideration of the proposed amendment the sub- 

 ject of silver coinage. 



The bill came up for further discussion Jan. 13, 

 when Senator Morgan, of Alabama, spoke in favor 

 of the amendment. He said in part : 



" The Senator from Ohio says that the balances 

 of trade are against us and must be paid in gold. If 

 that is so, it is not because we produce or export 

 less in recent years than we did formerly. It is 

 because the gold policy in Europe, which is but the 

 policy of the feudal age repeated in different form, 

 has deprived those people of the ability to consume 

 our surplus productions except at pauper rates. 

 But, whatever is the cause, is it the business of this 

 Government to furnish gold to pay balances of 

 trade ? When did that sort of paternalism become 

 a part of the creed or practice of the Democratic 

 party ? When England and France find that gold 

 is leaving them to pay foreign balances of trade, 

 they raise the rate of interest and stop the outflow. 

 We tax the people to raise gold to facilitate the out- 

 flow and refuse to pay our debts in silver according 

 to the contract, because the foreign creditors of our 

 merchants demand gold of them. 



' No man knows what is the approximate amount 

 of the stocks and bonds of our corporations that are 

 held abroad. We know that it includes every variety 

 of stocks and bonds created in this country, and 

 their name is legion. 



" We know that bonds of our corporations are 

 seldom sent abroad for hypothecation unless they 

 are accompanied with equal amounts of the stocks 

 to be held as collateral. These stocks are voted in 

 the corporate proceedings and draw dividends if 

 any are declared. 



"The foreign money that comes here under such 

 conditions comes as an investment, and if the in- 

 vestors came with it they would consent to collect 

 their dividends in the money earned by their com- 

 panies. Then we would have no trouble in paying 

 them. But they do not come here and use our 

 greenbacks, Sherman notes, and silver certificates 

 as the resident stockholders use them, and we are 

 required to repudiate our coin contracts to raise 

 gold to keep them in a good humor and to maintain 

 our respectability in their eyes and in the eyes of 

 the snobs at home who worship them and barter 

 their wealth for titles for their daughters which 

 the Constitution forbids their fathers to receive. 



"It is these feudal princes, at home and abroad, 

 now united in the control of the empire of gold 

 monopoly and owing their highest allegiance to the 

 Shylocks of Europe, that object to any plan fur 

 breaking the endless chain that has become such a 

 terror to this Administration. 



" If the wheel that carries this chain continues to 

 revolve, the Treasury crank by which it is kept in 

 motion will grind out an increase of our bonded 



