CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



187 



ing nonsense, and having passion and temper. 

 I think, Mr. Speaker, if the gentlemen on the 

 other side would be less angry it would be bet- 

 ter for them. Why, sir, these gentlemen are 

 only mad because with one of their gold dollars 

 they can not buy twice as much as you can 

 with one greenback dollar. That is the cause 

 of the anger. I hold in my hand one of those 

 greenbacks. It is of the series of 1869. When 

 issued, this promise to pay $10 was worth $7.50. 

 It is worth now $9.30, and yet it is a 'dirty 

 rag,' 'a sham,' worth nothing in eyes jaun- 

 diced by yellow gold. No, sir, my friends are 

 angry because we are about to take it out of 

 their power to make one of their gold dollars 

 worth two of greenbacks ; or in other words, 

 to give to their gold double the purchasing 

 power which the money of the people has. 



" Then there is another thing. The gentle- 

 man from New York said yesterday that it was 

 a breach of faith and that is a very serious 

 charge that it was a breach of faith to pay 

 these debts now in this money. Why, sir, he 

 said it was 'repudiation.' Again I point the 

 gentleman to this greenback which I hold in 

 my hand. There it is. Does it fix any time 

 when it is to be paid? It does not. But it 

 promises to pay $10. Oh! but, he says, there 

 was legislation fixing when it should be paid. 

 But how was that legislation brought about? 

 Let the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 

 Kelley) tell. By a party caucus, he said. And, 

 sir, how was the act demonetizing silver passed? 

 By fraud ? Honorable gentlemen on that side 

 of the House have intimated as much. Why, 

 Mr. Speaker, the measure which was passed on 

 the 5th of November had been publicly discuss- 

 ed upon every stump in the land ; it had been 

 discussed both before the people and in the 

 press. Everybody had been informed in rela- 

 tion to it, and every gentleman knew what he 

 was doing. When the gentleman speaks about 

 the wrong done to the people and of appealing 

 to the people to right this great wrong, I tell 

 him to bring down his half million of men, and 

 I shall not dread them half as much as I would 

 that lobby of the bankers and bondholders 

 which in former times influenced the legislation 

 of Congress. I shall not dread that half mil- 

 lion of men so much, because I do not dread 

 the enemy who fights with open hand, for I can 

 meet him in battle; but I do dread the insidious 

 lobby which comes around with bankers' money 

 to influence the legislation of Congress." 



Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, said : " The 

 question before the American people to-day is 

 not between gold and the inconvertible paper 

 of the Government, which by its legal-tender 

 character is money. It is between paper 

 money and bank credits, which, in the absence 

 of a sufficient supply of metallic money with 

 which to convert them, will continue to be ir- 

 redeemable. I have conversed confidentially 

 with many bankers, and have not found one 

 of them, when speaking thus confidentially, 

 who did not admit that, though the Treasury 



may resume specie payments on the 1st of Jan- 

 uary, 1879, it can not maintain them a week. 

 The inadequate supply of bullion on which it 

 may resume will, some of them have said, be 

 exhausted on that day by the holders of certifi- 

 cates of deposit and banks which will have 

 sent forward large amounts of notes for re- 

 demption ; and the gold having thus been trans- 

 ferred to the banks and the Treasury having 

 again suspended, the time will have arrived for 

 a renewal of profits on sales of gold by those 

 banks that may have happened to present their 

 demands in time. What the eifect of a new 

 suspension by the Government would be on 

 the price of gold, none can predict, as no one is 

 able to predict the duration of the suspension. 

 " Upon what demands do we propose to re- 

 sume gold payments ? Over $300,000,000 of 

 greenbacks; over $300,000,000 of -bank notes. 

 I have here (to continue the list) Mr. S. Dana 

 Horton's work on Silver and Gold, in which I 

 find some things from which to dissent and 

 much to commend, but the facts embodied in 

 which have been most carefully compiled. It 

 gives on page 44 the debt statement for Sep- 

 tember, 1876, when the national debt was 

 $2,203,902,645. The nominal amount of out- 

 standing State securities is given as about $385,- 

 000,000, of city securities $543,000,000, of rail- 

 road and canal bonds about $2,170,000,000. 

 Gentlemen may say, ' Why, the passage of this 

 act does not mature those obligations ! ' No, 

 gentlemen, it does not ; and I do not pretend to 

 assume that the conversion of all, or even of a 

 considerable percentage, of them will be sought; 

 but when you remember that all those securi- 

 ties are marketable in our market, it matures 

 all of them that may be held by foreigners who 

 can send them home, have them sold, and draw 

 for the proceeds in gold. It puts our Govern- 

 ment in the attitude of holding itself up as the 

 reservoir of gold from which all its creditors 

 and those of our people (and they are to be 

 found in every civilized nation) may draw for 

 gold when they need or desire it. The act 

 does make payable in gold the deposits in our 

 national, State, private, and savings banks, which 

 amount to thousands of millions. It puts upon 

 the gold-paying basis all book accounts, prom- 

 issory notes, and mortgage and judgment debts. 

 It piles up such an amount of debt as no nation 

 has ever undertaken to pay in money based on 

 a single metal. And with what do you pro- 

 pose to pay it? Gold, I know. What gold 

 have you ? Why, five resolutions, ingeniously 

 contrived to extort information, brought us 

 the fact that in July of the long session of the 

 last Congress the Treasury had of real gold 

 at its absolute disposal $13,000,000; for in 

 the amount of gold named by the Treasury in 

 monthly debt statements we have bonds retired, 

 but which have not been canceled; we have 

 coupons paid, but which have not gone into 

 the account of coupons paid. The major part 

 of the gold reported as in the Treasury is paper 

 gold, against which parties have claims, or pa- 



