CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



193 



is, we seek to pass out of the storm-center of 

 war that raged over this country so long and 

 enter the calm circle of peace. We believe in 

 the equality of States, and the equality of citi- 

 zens before the law. In these we have made 

 great progress. Let us take one step further. 

 Let us have equality of dollars before the law, 

 so that the trinity of our political creed shall 

 be equal States, equal men, equal dollars 

 throughout the Union. When these three are 

 realized we shall have achieved the complete 

 pacification of our country." 



Mr. Ewing, of Ohio, said: "The Adminis- 

 tration has had in its hand for three years past 

 the whole credit resources of our nation for 

 the purchase of coin wherewith to prepare for 

 resumption. It has been authorized to sell 

 bonds bearing 4, 4|-, and 5 per cent, interest. 

 ' Three fourths of the time allotted for prepara- 

 tion have already elapsed. The Secretaries of 

 the Treasury have exerted themselves to the 

 utmost to accumulate gold. The national banks 

 have no doubt been fairly diligent in getting 

 and hoarding it. The problem before the 

 Treasury and the banks has been to get gold 

 enough to keep seven hundred and thirty-three 

 millions of paper afloat, or to take up the paper 

 with gold and destroy it. How successful have 

 they been? 



" We find from a report of the Secretary of 

 the Treasury made to this House last Thursday 

 that the United States had succeeded in ob- 

 taining to October '31, 1877, but $57,436,071 

 of gold, from which is to be deducted, how- 

 jever, accruing interest, amounting at that date 

 to $24,840,093 leaving but $32,595,978 of 

 gold applicable to resumption. Whether any 

 of that small sum is what Jim Fisk would have 

 3alled ' phantom gold ' say subscriptions by the 

 , national banks for bonds payable in gold, but 

 aot yet paid does not distinctly appear. In 

 iddition to the thirty-two and a half millions in 

 ;he Treasury, the national banks hold $19,948,- 

 tOV of silver and gold combined. How much 

 )f this is silver and how much gold does not 

 tppear from the bank statement. No doubt 

 he chief part is subsidiary silver coin, which 

 s of no use for resumption. 



"After nearly three years of preparation, 

 i'hat have we accomplished ? We have effect- 

 d a net destruction of over seventy-five nril- 

 ons of greenbacks and bank notes combined ; 

 ut have accumulated in the banks and the 

 reasury less than fifty millions of gold and 

 3n millions of silver applicable to resumption, 

 tere we are, then, with resumption day not 

 lurteen months distant, with not one fifteenth 

 f the amount of gold and silver indispensable 

 ) float six hundred and fifty-eight millions of 

 aper money now outstanding with no stock 

 E the precious metals in the United States to 

 '-aw from with the outgoing drain still kept 

 ? with our foreign creditors and the great 

 mks of Europe determined to prevent the 

 lipmeiit of gold to America, holding in effect 

 ' mortgage on every dollar of the coined pro- 

 VOL. xviii. 13 A 



duct of our mines, and able to drain the petty 

 accumulations in our Treasury or the banks at 

 will by simply demanding coin payment of the 

 interest on our public and private securities, 

 or by sending them home for sale. Under 

 these conditions, how utterly futile it is to 

 hope that we can maintain resumption without 

 the swift destruction of much the greater part 

 of the present currency of the country! 



" If we were wholly out of debt to Europe, if 

 our foreign commerce floated under our own flag, 

 if there were no system of absenteeism among 

 our wealthy classes, expending their wealth 

 abroad, resumption in gold, or even in gold 

 and silver, would be impossible on our present 

 volume of paper currency for many years to 

 come. In the proportion of coin in England 

 to redeemable paper money, it would require 

 about eighteen hundred millions in our coun- 

 try to maintain resumption on the six hundred 

 and fifty-eight millions of paper money out- 

 standing. In the proportion of France's paper 

 money to her coin, we would require an accu- 

 mulation of sixteen hundred millions. Take 

 even the proportion of coin in our country in 

 1860 to the highest volume of paper money 

 then in circulation and nominally redeemable, 

 and it would require nearly nine hundred 

 millions of coin to float our present paper 

 money. 



"Hence resumption can only be maintained 

 by the destruction of the greater part of the 

 present paper currency. To accomplish that 

 purpose the means provided in the law are 

 probably adequate. Mr. Sherman says they 

 are. He ought to know. His plan probably 

 will be to limit the amount of redemption per 

 day to, say, two millions; to require all the 

 greenbacks to be presented through a chosen 

 syndicate which can pay him two millions of 

 gold per day for 5 per cent, bonds, and present 

 two millions of greenbacks per day and receive 

 the gold back. 



" After our currency shall have been con- 

 tracted over a half by destruction of the green- 

 backs, the bank circulation must also be largely 

 reduced to maintain resumption. The national 

 banks, since the resumption law was enacted, 

 have made a net reduction of forty-eight mil- 

 lions of their circulation. Whatever other 

 causes may have led to it, the obvious im- 

 practicability of maintaining even the present 

 volume of bank currency redeemable in gold 

 was the main cause. Over three hundred 

 national banks have already surrendered their 

 circulation in whole or in part. 



" The destruction of over seventy-five mil- 

 lions of greenbacks and national-bank notes 

 under the operation of the resumption law has 

 of itself caused much of the business distress 

 we have witnessed ; but the obviously impend- 

 ing destruction of more than half that is left 

 is the storm-cloud which covers our heavens 

 and fills all communities with alarm. 



"Sir, the assertion that the distresses that 

 our country is now undergoing are due to the 



