CONGRESS. (COINS AND COINAGE.) 



247 



issued, but, at the expense of the United States, shall 

 be transmitted to the coinage mints and shall be re- 

 garded and treated as silver bullion, and, at their 

 bullion value, shall be deducted from the amount of 

 bullion required to be purchased and coined by the 

 act of February 28. 1878, and shall be recoined* into 

 standard silver dollars according to the provisions of 

 said act: Provided* That the amount to be so de- 

 ducted as provided in this section shall not exceed 

 $500,000 in any month. 



SEO. 3. That all laws and parts of laws authorizing 

 the coinage and issuance of United States trade -dol- 

 lars are hereby repealed. 



SEO. 4. That the President is hereby authorized to 

 renew negotiations with the states of the "Latin 

 Union," and with other foreign powers, for the pur- 

 pose of making treaties with them in order to secure 

 such co-operation as may enable the nations agreeing 

 thereto to open their respective mints to the free 

 coinage of silver, with full legal-tender power, at an 

 agreed ratio to gold. 



This measure was debated earnestly and 

 learnedly, but it was not put upon its pas- 

 sage. 



March 2, Mr. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, in- 

 troduced the following joint resolution, which 

 was passed by the Senate the next day : 



Resolved by the Senate, etc , That the President of 

 the United States is hereby requested to enter into 

 negotiations with the states of the Latin Union, and 

 such other foreign powers as he shall deem advisable, 

 with the purpose of securing such treaties with them 

 as shall bind the nations agreeing thereto to open 

 their respective mints to the free coinage of silver 

 with full legal-tender power, at such uniform ratio to 

 gold as shall be agreed upon. 



Dec. 4, 1884, in the Senate, Mr. Hill, of 

 Colorado, offered the following resolution : 



Resolved, That in the existing depressed condition 

 of the industrial interests of the country, and in pres- 

 ence of the great fall which has taken place and is 

 still in progress in the wages of labor and in the 

 prices of the products of farms, workshops, mills, 

 and mines, the recommendations of the President 

 and of the Secretary of the Treasury that the coinage 

 of silver dollars and the issue of silver certificates 

 shall be immediately and unconditionally prohibited 

 are calculated to create alarm and thereby aggravate 

 the difficulties of the situation, and that to the end 

 that the public mind may be quieted by the assurance 

 that if the total volume of the currency is not to be 

 enlarged in correspondence with the increasing popu- 

 lation and exchanges of the country, it shall at least 

 not be reduced by suspending the coinage of silver 

 dollars. 



The Senate declares its opinion to be that no valid 

 reason exists at the present tune for imposing any new 

 and additional restrictions upon either the coinage of 

 silver dollars or the issue of silver certificates. 



The resolution was ably discussed, hut was 

 not brought to a vote. Mr. Hill, in the course 

 of his speech on the subject, said : " To now 

 contract the volume of money by one half 

 (which is the ultimate object of most of the 

 persons who urge the stoppage of our silver 

 coinage, and which would probably he the 

 ultimate effect) by the method of demonetiz- 

 ing one of the metals which has heretofore 

 constituted its mass, is wholly indefensible. It 

 must be some great object which induces those 

 who originated such a policy to persist in it 

 after the course of events has so clearly demon- 



strated the injury and injustice which it must 

 inflict upon the world. 



" Certain classes, having the whole world as 

 tributaries, by a system of national debts 

 which has in itself reached fabulous propor- 

 tions, and which is re- enforced by a vast 

 amount of other public as well as corporate 

 and individual indebtedness, seek to increase 

 the tribute in the form of interest which they 

 are enjoying by the noiseless and insidious 

 process of increasing the value of the money 

 in which it is paid. 



" Gold monometallism, which increases the 

 value of credits and in a corresponding degree 

 the burden of debts, is naturally a favorite 

 policy in England, for the double reason that 

 the creditor classes, by whom it is dominated, 

 are enriched by that policy, as against the 

 debtor industrial and tax-paying classes at 

 home, and that the English people as a whole 

 are enriched by it as against the rest of the 

 world, which is involved in an enormous in- 

 debtedness to them. 



" The London ' Economist ' of April 21, 1883, 

 closed its comments upon an address in which 

 Mr. Goschen had pointed out the recent rise 

 in gold and fall in general prices by saying : 

 4 There is some consolation to ns in the fact to 

 which he directs special attention, that any 

 increase in the purchasing power of gold is a 

 benefit to creditors. Nearly every nation on 

 the face of the globe is indebted to" us, and the 

 result of an appreciation of gold is that we 

 obtain a larger quantity of their commodities 

 in settlement of our claims.' 



" H. H. Gibbs, an ex-Governor of the Bank 

 of England, says in an article in the * British 

 National Review' for July, 1883, that the 

 following ideas, being precisely those of the 

 * Economist,' are constantly pressed upon the 

 English public : 'England is a creditor nation. 

 The scarcity of gold has made that metal more 

 valuable, and she must needs be the gainer by 

 this, and must continue to be still more the 

 gainer if gold becomes scarcer still. Is it to be 

 expected that she should throw away this ad- 

 vantage ? ' 



" The same reasons which make gold mono- 

 metallism a favorite policy in England make it 

 a favorite policy in every country and in every 

 section of all countries in which the creditor 

 classes are dominant. Quite as naturally it is 

 not a favorite policy in countries and sections 

 of countries which are heavily loaded with 

 publip, corporate, and private debts. 



" It was not a fortuitous circumstance that 

 when the silver coinage law was passed in the 

 Senate, over the President's veto, by a vote of 

 46 to 19, 13 of the 19 votes were given by 

 Senators from New England, New York, and 

 New Jersey. These States have 16 Senators, 

 and the 3 not voting were paired so as to neu- 

 tralize the vote of 6 Senators who were 

 friendly to the law, so that the entire senato- 

 rial representation of the eight Northeastern 

 States without regard to party lines (5 of the 



