CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



183 



upon labor known in the legislative history of 

 the world. The scheme of demonetizing one 

 of the metals throughout the Western World 

 originated soon after the discovery of gold in 

 California and Australia. It was supposed that 

 the production of gold would be enormous, and 

 the governments of the world were invoked to 

 prevent the anticipated decline in the value of 

 gold by its demonetization. Germany and 

 Austria did in 1857 demonetize gold, and other 

 nations would have followed their lead but for 

 the resistance of France. It was changed in 

 1865 into a movement for the demonetization 

 of silver. This movement was likewise resisted 

 by France. Here I may remark that France 

 has at all times managed her finances with an 

 ability unequaled among the nations of Europe. 

 Her war with Germany increased her debt 

 $2,000,000,000, besides the loss of two of her 

 finest provinces. She appeared to be wrecked. 

 Germany, her conqueror, looked on exultingly ; 

 believed she was crippled for a half century ; 

 but France has taught her that well-managed 

 finances are more powerful than well-managed 

 .armies. To-day, while Germany, crazy about 

 a single metallic standard and the resumption 

 of specie payments, sits shivering on the verge 

 of national bankruptcy, France, with every dol- 

 lar of her war fine canceled, with all her in- 

 dustries prosperous, is, seven years after her 

 crushing defeat, the superior of her conqueror. 

 The French government made paper money a 

 legal tender for all debts, public and private 

 honored its own money. The banking establish- 

 ments of the country loaned to the people money 

 in sufficient quantities to carry on their indus- 

 tries, and the people were so prosperous that 

 they in turn tendered to their government the 

 loan of four times the amount of money ne- 

 cessary to pay their war debt. Such is France, 

 that resisted the one-metallic-standard folly; 

 such is the nation that inflates rather than con- 

 tracts her currency, that never worries about 

 resumption, and at the same time has in the 

 vaults of her banks more gold and silver 

 than the combined banks of England and Ger- 

 many. 



"Germany and the United States demone- 

 tized silver in 1873, both Governments being 

 influenced by one motive, namely : to protect 

 and enrich the creditor class and those having 

 fixed incomes against a fall in the value of 

 money. This is the secret of the one-metallic- 

 standard movement. They feared a decline in 

 the purchasing value of silver. They knew if 

 they could shelve one of our metallic standards 

 it would quadruple the value of the remaining 

 standard. Enjoying 'fixed incomes,' which 

 are never affected in volume by the uncertain- 

 ties of trade, by fickle and unreliable seasons, 

 by sickness ajid amount of work performed, 

 they knew they would thereby quadruple their 

 wealth; that it was the certain means of mak- 

 ing the rich richer and the poor poorer; it 

 would send down the wages of labor and the 

 prices of commodities. So, then, silver, the 



money of the Constitution, the coin which had 

 been a legal tender for all dues, public and pri- 

 vate, from the origin of the Government, was 

 deliberately set aside, retired from circulation, 

 practically driven out of the country; the 

 chances for resumption lessened, indeed made 

 imposible; debts contracted when gold and 

 silver were both legal tenders, now to be paid 

 only in gold ; all for what ? To benefit that 

 'small part of capital that has ceased to labor 

 and is at rest, in the form of fixed and perma- 

 nent investments.' 



" But, sir, this l money power ' was not con- 

 tent with the demonetization of silver. This did 

 not contract the currency sufficiently. This did 

 not shrink values in proportion to their greed. 

 This did not quite transfer all the property of 

 the country into their hands. This did not 

 quite make New York and commercial New 

 England the owners in fee simple of the cotton- 

 fields of the South and the grain-fields of the 

 West. Ever on the alert, in 1875 they devise 

 and consummate the grandest scheme of con- 

 traction known to the history of governments, 

 at a time when the public and private indebted- 

 ness of this country was appalling ; for there was 

 the national debt, upon which the Government 

 has paid interest alone, since the war, amount- 

 ing to $1,442,057,577 ; there was the railroad 

 debt, amounting, at the time this iniquitous 

 law was enacted, to about $5,000,000,000, up- 

 on which the labor of the country was paying 

 interest ; to which must be added the State and 

 municipal indebtedness of the country, swell- 

 ing the entire indebtedness of the country to 

 about $10,000,000,000, upon which labor is 

 paying interest. Then there is the private 

 indebtedness of the country, absolutely incal- 

 culable. Then there was the southern section 

 of our country, laid waste by war, with her 

 former immense wealth about $7,000,000,000 

 blotted out ; her fields uncultivated ; her 

 once happy homes, many of them, in ashes ; 

 her farmers without implements of husbandry, 

 without stock, and without credit ; all her en- 

 terprises prostrate widowhood and orphanage 

 throughout the land. Just at this time the 

 Government resolves to contract the currency, 

 bringing every commodity and every species 

 of labor down to a gold basis, and unquestion- 

 ably reducing the debtor class to penury and 

 want. 



" It has been said that the issuing of our 

 greenback currency was a war necessity. It 

 was intended to sustain the country during the 

 exhausting struggle in which it was engaged., 

 It was successful in doing this ; and I submit 

 that a currency which was essential during that 

 period of waste and destruction the stimulant 

 that preserved the vital forces of the nation 

 during the war is more a necessity at the 

 close than it was during the excitement of the 

 struggle ; that, so long as the sequences of that 

 war continued, so long the stimulant should 

 be applied. The physician who suspends his 

 remedies just as the paroxysm passes off, either 



