CONGRESS. (FREE COINAGE.) 



808 



sorry remnant of this debt in a legal tender of 

 much !'>- value." 



On the same day Mr. Teller, of Colorado, put 

 the rn>e a.i;aiii>t an exclusive use of gold us 

 iiu y : 



While I am on my feet, 1 should like to call 

 the attention of those who are to debate this 

 question to the real issue. 1 have never met :i 

 gold man who would discuss the issue. The 

 i-sue i-. Have we gold enough for use as money ; 

 and. if we have not, what are we going to do 

 aliout itt 



There are two kinds of circulating medium : 

 one is credit money, and the other is money re- 

 quiring no redemption. Eighteen years ago, ac- 

 cording to the estimates of statisticians, there 

 was in the world about $7,500.000,000 of gold 

 and silver coin, which, in the language of the 

 royal commission, was one money. Upon it 

 rested the credit of the circulation of the world. 

 To-day, according to the estimates of the Direct- 

 or of the Mint, there is less than $3,750,000,000 

 of that kind of money. 



" The Senator front Vermont and all gold men 

 say that silver must be discarded as real money; 

 that it shall be used only as subsidiary coin; 

 that it shall depend upon redemption in gold to 

 give it circulating power. If so, it is no better 

 than paper. It is credit money. Now, the re- 

 duct ion of the world's money one half that is, 

 the reduction of the money of the world by one 

 half in eighteen years has brought calamity 

 everywhere, has reduced prices everywhere, and 

 it is not going to stop. There has been no ma- 

 terial increase in the gold coin of the world 

 since silver was demonetized. It is all absorbed 

 for nonmonetary purposes. 



"It is used much more largely than for- 

 merly for ornaments; it is used in dentistry; it 

 is used in photography ; it is used in ornamenta- 

 tion ; it is hoarded in Asia, whence it never 

 comes, because their exports exceed their im- 

 ports; and the fact is that our stock of gold 

 here is not increasing, but must diminish in the 

 future, and the Secretary of the Treasury and 

 others sav there is not gold enough in use as 

 money. Now, how will you increase itf You 

 can not increase it with paper, because that has 

 to be redeemed ; you can not increase it with sil- 

 ver, for that has to be redeemed also, if your 

 standard is based upon this narrow foundation 

 of gold alone. I have not heard a gold man who 

 would meet the question and say how he was 

 goinj; to supplement the gold of the world, how 

 he was to increase it; he simply makes war on 

 silver, talks against that, but proposes no 

 remedy. 



"There must be a remedy for this shrinking 

 basis of circulation. The distinction between 

 the circulation and the basis of circulation is 

 wide. You can have circulation: you can have 

 credit. I suppose that on the $3,727,000.000 of 

 money used for reserve is based a credit and 

 credit' circulation of from $125.000,000,000 to 

 $160,000,000,000. There is not of real money 3 

 per cent, of the credit in the world. The failure 

 of the Barings has disclosed the fact that the 

 world is bankrupt on a gold basis. The proposi- 

 tion now is to accumulate gold. Austria is going 

 to try it and bankrupt herself. We will try it, 

 and we shall be bankrupt. 



" It is said that we will hoard gold here. What 

 will that do for your cotton planter 1 If you 

 take the gold away from Kurope. when- v.iir 

 market is, by selling bonds here and paving 

 large interest and accumulating it, gold will be- 

 come scarcer here, and they can not buy y< .ur 

 products, and cotton will lie cheaper and cln-aj er, 

 and all your products will be cheaper. \\ hat 

 we want is a proper Im-is. and there is no way to 

 have it except to recognize silver as real money. 



" Why are 25'8 grains of standa -d gold always 

 worth $1! Because it can be excnanged at the 

 mint for $1. Why were 412| grains of standard 

 silver always worth a dollar during the whole 

 history of the country and for all time previous 

 to 1873 f Because it could be exchanged at the 

 mint for $1. The only way to put silver on a 

 parity with gold is to give it the same privileges. 

 If it is treated as a commodity, it will be specu- 

 lated in as a commodity and can not be a meas- 

 ure of value. 



" I want some gold advocate to show that there 

 is gold enough. I believe they have all admitted 

 that there is not. Then I want to have him 

 show out of what material we can make any real 

 money money that does not have to be re- 

 deemed, money that is not a promise to pay 

 without the use of silver as money. There is no 

 relief from this but in the use of silver. No one 

 has suggested it. The buying of silver and 

 treating it as a commodity does not do it. There 

 can be no increase in the volume of money, but 

 it must shrink continually without the free coin- 

 age of silver ; for if that metal is not to be used, 

 and you adhere to gold, there is no prospect in 

 the world but continued contraction. I make 

 the statement that there is not a farm in Eng- 

 land or in the United States where it has not 

 been affected by immigration that will sell for 

 50 cents on the dollar for what it wonld have 

 brought eighteen years ago, and that corresponds 

 precisely with the shrinkage of the volume. 



'There is only half as much real money of 

 ultimate redemption as there was eighteen years 

 ago. You circulate paper and you circulate sil- 

 ver ; but when you come to your reserves, in 

 which all credits must be ultimately paid, you 

 have only half as much as you had eighteen 

 years ago, and that is the trouble. How are you 

 going to increase those reserves f One nation 

 may make sacrifices, and buy gold and impover- 

 ish its people; another nation will do the same; 

 but the people suffer. 



" Since the failure of the Barings it has been 

 the business of every great financial institution 

 to increase its reserves at all hazards and reduce 

 its credits: and that is why the national and 

 state bonds of the world have shrunk $800.000,- 

 000. It is because the moneyed institutions 

 mu>t have gold at all hazards ; they must sacri- 

 fice everything: they must sacrifice their securi- 

 ties and have gold or go into bankruptcy; and 

 thousands of them must fail, for there is no gold 

 to give them all reserves: and business mu>t 

 shrink under the withering grasp of contraction, 

 which is inevitable. 



" No gold man has ever suggested a remedy. 

 No gold man has ever suggested how we can 

 enlarge the basis of credit, the Imsis of circula- 

 tion. In private conversation every one admits 

 that we are on the downward grade toward 



