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obligations that will amount to $1,000,000,000 in 

 the next three year.-, at the rate at which it has 

 progivcd in the last two years. This, added to 

 [be remaining war debt, including the greenbacks. 

 .rating more than $1,000,000,000, will throw 

 the country back to a worse condition than we were 

 in ar the close of the civil war. Does this dreadful 

 pro-peel, this certain fate, alarm the bondholding 

 princes of the houses of Kothschild and Belli; 

 They rejoice, indeed, in the return of the old ///. 

 the new phase of the feudal power and the vassalage 

 of the people! 



" The threats of the President that the wheel that 

 carries the endless chain shall continue to revolve 

 and the renewed diligence of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury in grinding out bonds bring dismay to the 

 people, who are ready to cry out. Tax us. tax us to 

 buy u r old to destroy the paper money on which our 

 industries depend. We will make bricks for you 

 without straw; but do not turn our children over 

 to the gold princes as feudatories, to become their 

 vassals and slaves when their fathers have p;. 

 away.' 



The present condition of our country as to in- 

 debtedness, finance, and taxation is a state of pros- 

 tration, almost of despair, in which the will of the 

 people, the votes of the representatives in Congress, 

 and the injunctions and mandates of the Constitu- 

 tion are all in turn silenced and nullified by the 

 will of a single man. What one man has done to 

 shelter wealth from taxation by a judicial sentence 

 will never be forgot while a record remains of the 

 eloquent expressions of the Senator from Missouri. 



The President declares that our coin contracts 

 are only and exclusively gold contracts, and vetoed 

 a bill demanded by the people to coin the silver 

 bullion in the Treasury because his approval of such 

 a measure would be an admission that silver is a 

 money metal. 



" He demands that Congress shall change all our 

 coin bonds and other contracts into gold contracts 

 by express statute so that when they mature our 

 children shall have no excuse for demanding from 

 the bondholding princes the right to pay them in 

 silver. We have that right, and the President de- 

 mands that we shall surrender it on pain of having 

 the wheel to run with increasing velocity that drags 

 the endless chain through the heart of the country. 

 One word an honest, sincere, and just word, the 

 word of truth uttered by the President would re- 

 lieve the country of these terrors. That word would 

 be, ' The rights of the people, as they are expressed 

 in their obligations, must and shall be preserved.' " 



Consideration of the bill was again resumed Jan. 

 14. when Senator Butler, of North Carolina, sub- 

 mitted an amendment to the amendment, proposing 

 to strike out section 4 and to insert in lieu thereof: 



" SEC. 4. That the issuance of interest-bearing 

 bonds of the United States for any purpose what- 

 ever, without further authority of Congress, is here- 

 by prohibited : and that the Secretary of the Treas- 

 ury when redeeming United States notes, commonly 

 called greenbacks, and Treasury notes issued under 

 the provisions of the act of July 14, 1890. and when 

 liquidating either the interest or principal of any 

 of the Government's coin obligations is hereby di- 

 rected to make such payment in gold coin whenever 

 the market value of 2-r8 grains of standard gold is 

 less than the market value of 4124 grains of stand- 

 ard silver, and to continue to pay in such gold coin 

 until the market value of 2-r8 grains of standard 

 gold shall be equal to the market value of 412^ 

 grains of standard silver: but when the market 

 value of 2,r8 grains of standard gold shall be greater 

 than the market value of 412J grains of standard 

 silver, he shall pay the interest and the principal of 

 said coin obligations as they become due in silver 



coin, and continue to pay the same in silver coin 

 until the market value of 412.1 grains of standard 

 silver shall be equal to the market value oi 

 grains of standard gold, and said not, -s. commonly 

 called greenbacks, when so redeemed, shall I 

 issued, as provided by the act of May :>1. 18 



In support of his amendment Senator Butler said : 



"The provisions of this section are perfectly sim- 

 ple and plain. It simply directs the Secretary of 

 the Treasury, in express 'terms, with no option, to 

 do what everybody thought he or any patriot would 

 do in exercising the option of the Government in 

 paying our coin obligations. The law expressly de- 

 clares that he shall use this option to keep gold and 

 silver at a parity. If that law means anything it 

 means that whenever, for any cause, there is a 

 greater strain on gold that is, a greater demand 

 for gold than for silver that then he shall use the 

 Government's option to pay our coin obligations in 

 silver, and. on the other hand, whenever silver is 

 scarce, whenever there is a greater demand for sil- 

 ver and the price goes up. that then he shall equal- 

 ize the demand for the two metals by paying our 

 coin obligations in gold and continue the strain on 

 gold until the two metals come back to a parity. 



" I will answer here a question asked me by a dis- 

 tinguished citizen a few days ago. He asked why 

 I insisted on putting this provision on the bond bill 

 along with a provision reported by the committee 

 providing for the free and unlimited coinage of sil- 

 ver. That gentleman, whose name I shall not call, 

 rather chided me and said : ' You and every other 

 advocate of free silver all over the world have been 

 claiming that the free and unlimited coinage of sil- 

 ver on equal terms with gold would bring silver to 

 a parity with gold that is, have claimed that 412^ 

 grains of silver would always practically be worth 

 as much as 25'8 grains of gold.' That is" true, pro- 

 vided that there are no other laws or conditions 

 created by law to artificially disturb this parity. 



"I will illustrate. We can coin gold and silver 

 on equal terms, but the Secretary of the Treasury 

 can send silver to a premium or gold to a premium, 

 just as he chooses, by an improper use of the option 

 which is vested in him by law of paying out gold 

 or silver on our coin obligations. This option was 

 vested in him sd that he could keep the two metals 

 at a parity, but if he cares nothing for his oath of 

 office, or for the interests of the people, or the credit 

 of this Government, he can use this option to cause 

 a disparity between the two metals. So far he has 

 used his option for the profits of the gold trust, 

 against the interests of the American people, and 

 to the detriment of the credit of our Government. 



There is another reason, and I wish to call par- 

 ticular attention to it. In the Bland-Allison act 

 of 1878 there was inserted a clause, known as the 

 exception clause, making it lawful for a private in- 

 dividual, corporation, or company to take notes or 

 mortgages stipulating payment in gold only. This 

 was a very unwise and unjust provision. It was 

 slipped into that act in the interest of the monopo- 

 lists, the gold combine, and the creditor class, and 

 was done to depreciate silver and to appreciate 

 gold. Under this law which, by the way. was in- 

 serted into a bill which claimed to restore silver as 

 money there have been thousands and millions of 

 dollars of mortgages and notes taken in this coun- 

 try requiring payment in gold. There is practical ly 

 not a town or hamlet in the whole United States to 

 which the banks have not sent orders to the busi- 

 ness men calling upon them to take gold mortgages 

 and gold notes only. 



"That is the case in the State of the Senator 

 from Mississippi ; it is so in my State : it is so all 

 over the country. There are probably a thousand 

 million dollars to-day due under mortgages con- 



