CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



159 



sage, after all amendments have been consid- 

 ered. A low rate of interest on bonds of brief 

 duration, with no discrimination in favor of 

 national banks, will, in my judgment, make 

 the best funding law attainable. 



"The amendment offered by the Senator 

 from Texas [Mr. Cooke], together with some 

 things which have fallen from other Senators, 

 have induced me to change my purpose of re- 

 maining silent. The amendment of the Sen- 

 ator from Texas relates to a subject of great 

 importance to the American people. Its ob- 

 ject, if I understand it correctly, is to protect 

 the greenback currency now in circulation 

 from possible destruction under the operations 

 of the pending bill. With that object, it is 

 perhaps needless for me to say, I deeply and 

 earnestly sympathize, and I embrace the op- 

 portunity presented by that wholesome amend- 

 ment to express ray views of its propriety and 

 necessity. 



" Sir, it is now something more than a year 

 since a needless, uncalled-for, and alarming 

 financial agitation sprang up, instigated by 

 associated bankers and capitalists, in favor of 

 the wholesale destruction of the entire legal- 

 tender note or greenback currency of this 

 country. The systematic efforts made in the 

 same interest to force a resumption of specie 

 payments on a gold basis alone are fresh in 

 the minds of all. By the act of 1873 silver 

 was destroyed as money, and by the act of 

 1875 provision was made for the retirement 

 and destruction of legal-tender notes until they 

 were contracted within the reach of a gold ba- 

 sis for the purposes of redemption. This policy 

 was the most baneful and truly infernal one 

 ever inflicted upon the people of this country. 

 The memory of it starts afresh the curses of its 

 victims. It destroyed all values both of prop- 

 erty and labor. It bankrupted millions of 

 honest people, deprived laboring men and 

 women of a chance to earn bread, drove thou- 

 sands and tens of thousands to vice and crime, 

 filled the prisons with despairing inmates, and 

 stained the earth with the blood of suicide and 

 murder. This is the true record of the years 

 between 1873 and 1878. The patience of the 

 people at last gave way. They turned upon 

 this accursed policy of destroying money, the 

 measure of all values, and broke it down. The 

 year 1878 is one long to be remembered by the 

 laboring people of this country. In that year 

 they gained the only victories they have had 

 on the financial question since the Republican 

 party came into power, nearly twenty years 

 ago. On the 28th day of February, 1878, the 

 Congress of the United States, by an over- 

 whelming vote over the veto of the President, 

 restored the old American silver dollar to 

 coinage and circulation. 



44 The struggle here was protracted and de- 

 termined. The advocates of the gold basis, the 

 monometallists, the adherents of silver demone- 

 tization, filled the country with predictions of 

 the evils which would flow from its restora- 



tion. No act of Congress, however, has ever 

 given greater satisfaction to the masses, irre- 

 spective of party, their only regret being that 

 it did not go far enough ; that it did not place 

 the coinage of silver on the same free and un- 

 limited basis with gold. In my judgment, this 

 defect of the law will be cured at no distant 

 day. But the work of financial reform in 1878 

 did not stop with the restoration of silver 

 money. By the act of May 31, 1878, the, 

 further destruction and contraction of green- 

 backs was prohibited. They were recognized 

 by this legislation as a permanent part of our 

 currency. They were no longer left to the 

 caprice or interested motives of their enemies. 

 The business world took notice of this fact, 

 and their credit rose at once. Under the ap- 

 prehension of being compelled to do so by 

 law, the Secretary of the Treasury agreed to 

 receive them in payment of customs duties on 

 imports, and they immediately took their place 

 in the money markets at par with gold. On 

 this fact is based the claim that specie pay- 

 ments have been resumed. I am glad to know 

 that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] 

 looks upon this claim of specie resumption as 

 I do, for it is a pleasure to concur with him 

 whenever I can. In the opening sentences of 

 his speech of January 27, 1880, he says there 

 is no actual resumption of specie payments at 

 this time, and, after describing the present 

 law on that subject, he declares that ' to re- 

 sume by such a delusive process is as idle as to 

 bail water with a sieve.' 



" It would be difficult, indeed, to describe 

 more forcibly a foolish effort to do an impos- 

 sible thing. That Senator, I am sure, will 

 therefore agree with me that the revival of 

 business throughout the country is not in any 

 respect due to the so-called resumption of 

 specie payments, when in point of fact such 

 a resumption has not taken place at all. In 

 my judgment the legislation of 1878, legalizing 

 silver money and protecting the greenback 

 currency from further destruction and con- 

 sequent contraction, did more than all other 

 causes combined to restore confidence in busi- 

 ness circles and to bring about whatever de- 

 gree of prosperity we have since enjoyed. "We 

 have had bountiful harvests, it is true, but 

 without financial stability, and without confi- 

 dence in the quality and amount of money 

 regulated by law, no favorable change would 

 have occurred. The President of the United 

 States, however, at the opening of Congress in 

 December, 1879. and again at the opening of 

 the present session, asked us to undo all wo 

 have done on this great subject. In his an- 

 nual message of December last ho strongly 

 urges Congress to authorize the Secretary of 

 the Treasury to suspend the coinage of the 

 silver dollar of 412J grains ; and then with 

 daring hardihood he recommends the retire- 

 ment from circulation of the entire volume of 

 legal -tender notes, commonly called green- 

 backs. 



