

192 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



bloated bondholders ' against whom so much 

 eloquence is fulminated in this House. 



u Suppose you undo the work that Congress 

 has attempted to resume specie payment 

 what will result? You will depreciate the 

 value of the greenback. Suppose it falls ten 

 cents on the dollar. You will have destroyed 

 10 per cent, of the value of every deposit in 

 the savings banks, 10 per cent, of every life- 

 insurance policy and fire-insurance policy, of 

 every pension to the soldier, and of every day's 

 wages of every laborer in the nation. 



u In the census of 1870 it was estimated that 

 on any given day there were $120,000,000 due 

 to laborers for their unpaid wages. That is a 

 small estimate. Let the greenback dollar come 

 down 10 per cent, and you take $12,000,000 

 from, the men who have already earned it. In 

 the name of every interest connected with the 

 poor man I denounce this effort to prevent re- 

 sumption. Daniel Webster never uttered a 

 greater truth in finance than when he said that 

 of all contrivances to cheat the laboring classes 

 of mankind, none was so effective as that that 

 deluded them with an irredeemable paper mon- 

 ey. The rich can take care of themselves, but 

 the dead weight of -all the fluctuations and loss 

 falls ultimately on the poor man, who has only 

 his day's work to sell. 



"I admit that in the passage from peace to 

 war there was a great loss to one class of the 

 community, to the creditors ; and in the return 

 to the basis of peace some loss to debtors was 

 inevitable. This injustice was unavoidable. 

 The loss and gain did not fall upon the same. 

 The evil could not be balanced nor adjusted. 

 The debtors of 1862-'65 are not the debtors of 

 1877. The most competent judges declare that 

 the average life of the private debts in the Uni- 

 ted States is not more than two years. Of 

 course obligations may be renewed, but the 

 average length of private debts in this country 

 is not more than two years. Now, we have 

 already gone two years on the road to resump- 

 tion, and the country has been adjusting itself 

 to the new condition of things. The people 

 have expected resumption, and have already 

 discounted most of the hardships and suffer- 

 ings incident to the change. The agony is al- 

 most over ; and if we now embark again upon 

 the open sea, we lose all that has been gained, 

 and plunge the country into the necessity of 

 trying once more over the same boisterous 

 ocean, with all its perils and uncertainties. I 

 speak the deepest convictions of my mind and 

 heart when I say that, should this resumption 

 act be repealed and no effectual substitute be 

 put in its place, the day is not far distant when 

 all of us, looking back on this time from the 

 depth of the evils which will result, will re- 

 gret, with nil our power to regret, the day 

 when we again let loose the dangers of infla- 

 tion upon the country. 



" Our country needs not only a national but 

 an international currency. Let me state a fact 

 of vast importance in this discussion. The 



foreign trade of this country its exports and 

 imports amounts to $1,500,000,000 in value ; 

 and every dollar of that trade must be transact- 

 ed in coin. We can not help ourselves. Every 

 article of the exports we send abroad is mea- 

 sured by and sold for coin. Every dollar of 

 imports we must pay for in coin. We must 

 translate these coin prices into our currency, 

 and every fluctuation in the value of the green- 

 back falls upon us and not upon the countries 

 with which we trade. Therefore the commer- 

 cial interests of America demand that the in- 

 ternational and national value of money shall 

 be one, so that what is a dollar in Ohio shall 

 be a dollar the world over. Our money must 

 be international as well as national, unless we 

 wish to isolate this country and have no trade 

 or commerce, or glory on the sea. We who 

 defend the resumption act propose not to de- 

 stroy the greenback, but to dignify it, to glorify 

 it. The law that we defend does not destroy 

 it, but preserves its volume at $300,000,000 

 and makes it equal to and convertible into 

 coin. I admit that the law is not entirely free 

 from ambiguity. But the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, who has the execution of the law, 

 declares that section 3579 of the Eevised Stat- 

 utes is in full force, namely : 



When any United States notes are returned to the 

 Treasury, they may be reissued, from time to time, 

 as the exigencies of the public interest may require. 



" Although I do not believe in keeping 

 greenbacks as a permanent currency in the 

 United States, although I do not myself believe 

 in the Government becoming a permanent 

 banker, yet I am willing for one that, in order 

 to prevent the shock to business which gentle- 

 men fear, the $300,000,000 of greenbacks 

 shall be allowed) to remain in circulation as 

 long as the wants of trade show manifestly 

 that they are needed. Now, is that a great 

 contraction ? Is it contraction at all ? Why, 

 gentlemen, when you have brought your green- 

 back up two and a half cents higher in value, 

 you will have added to your volume of money 

 $200,000,000 of gold coin which can not circu- 

 late until greenbacks are brought to par. Let 

 those who are afraid of contraction consider 

 that and answer it. 



" Summing it all up in a word : The strug- 

 gle now pending in this House is on the one 

 hand to make the greenback better, and on 

 the other to make it worse. The resumption 

 act is making it better every day. Eepeal that 

 act, and you make it indefinitely worse. In 

 the name of every man who wants his own 

 when he has earned it, I demand that we do 

 not make the wages of the poor man to shrivel 

 in his hands after he has earned it ; but that 

 his money shall be made better and better, un- 

 til the plow-holder's money shall be as good 

 as the bondholder's money, until our standard 

 is one, and there is no longer one money for 

 the rich and another for the poor. 



"This is the era of pacification. We be- 

 lieve in the pacification of the country. That 



