CONGRESS. (FREE COINAGE.) 



205 



for u loni,' period of time, and reduce us to a 

 single monometallic standard of silver measured 

 I iv the \alue of ;{?li grains to the dollar." 



'lie reviewed briefly the financial history of 

 the eountry. and, among other things, in cxpla- 

 ii.-n ion of the law of IN;:J demonetizing silver, he 

 said : 



.Mr. President, when that law of 1873 was 

 passed the only trouble about it was that we 

 were not as wise as the Almighty Ruler of the 

 universe. We could not see ahead. I have no 

 doubt, however, that if it had been known that 

 silver was going to fall as much as it did after 

 that, it might have made a change. But I know 

 myself and I speak for myself only that while 

 1 did not know it, did not dream of the fall in 

 the price of silver following that law, vet I do 

 now say, in the light of all the circn instances 

 that surrounded us, that if I had known it I 

 would have kept the silver dollar there and put 

 it on the same footing as the fractional silver 

 dollar and no better. 



Now, Mr. President, let us go a little fur- 

 ther. A rapid change occurred in the coinage 

 of Germany from a silver basis to a gold basis. 

 The change in Germany necessarily suspended 

 the coinage under the agreement of the Latin 

 Union, which was an agreement by which each 

 nation entering into it provided for the issue of 

 so much silver coin of a certain character, agree- 

 ing among themselves that the balances that 

 should be due to any nation or to the people of 

 any nation at the end of the term should be paid 

 in gold coin. Just about that time also the 

 discovery of silver in the West, and other dis- 

 coveries in Australia and elsewhere, together 

 with the increased production of silver and 1 

 will hereafter furnish a table giving the exact 

 figures combined with other causes, led to the 

 gradual fall of silver. 



It was said, therefore, that we who had the 

 law passed were unfriendly to silver. Let me 

 answer, and state the exact facts as a denial of 

 that. 



" Why, sir, under the resumption act and I 

 suppose I may fairly be held responsible for that 

 under the resumption act we bought more of 

 silver and issued more silver coin, fourfold, than 

 we issued of the old silver dollars. Under the 

 Allison act, as it was called, of 1878, together 

 with the act of 1890, there were issued 388.000,- 

 000 silver dollars, forty-five times as much as 

 was issued of the old silver dollars; and of the 

 trade dollars, which superseded the old silver 

 dollars, we issued 36,000.000, being more than 

 four times the amount of all the ' dollars of the 

 daddies' that were coined prior to 1878." 



In explanation of recent measures for limited 

 silver coinage, Mr. Sherman said : 



" All our money is at par with gold. How is 

 that maintained? We have a careful series of 

 guards and laws which practically make now in 

 the United States gold coin the standard of 

 value, not the legal standard in the sense that 

 the Senator speaks of as the ratio, because when- 

 ever that ratio diverges from the market value 

 the ratio ought to be changed always. It has 

 been so for two thousand years. How, then, is 

 this money that we now have all good in every 

 part of the United States of America and in all 

 the countries of the world t You may take any 



form of our paper money and travel in Ei 

 and it is eagerly taken and sometimes chosen n 

 preference to their own money. 



How is our si her maintained at par with gold f 

 By carefully limiting the amount purchased and 

 buying it at its market value. In the Allison 

 bill it was limited to $4,000,<XK), with an option 

 on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury 

 only to buy $2.000-.000. That was the limita- 

 tion, $2,000.000 a month. That limitation pre- 

 vent, d any undue thrusting of idle silver on the 

 market. Then, by the law of 1 !<. which the 

 Senator from Nevada and 1 are responsible for, 

 we did the same. We carefully limited the 

 amount. We take in respect to that money ad- 

 ditional precautions, because we buy the silver 

 at its market value, at 86 to 98 cents an ounce 

 instead of $1.29. We put the whole of that bul- 

 lion in our Treasury, and we only issue paper 

 money for the actual cost of the bullion and not 

 for legal ratio. So, behind all the money which 

 is issued under the law of 1890, there was at the 

 time it was purchased silver enough at its market 

 value to be equal to gold, and that is maintained 

 all the way through. 



"Then there are other provisions in the law 

 of 1890 which give additional guarantees. We 

 there expressly declare that it is the public policy 

 of the United States to maintain the parity of 

 these two metals, and we know they can only be 

 maintained at this parity by the redemption of 

 one with the other. You can maintain the lower 

 up to the standard of the higher by making it 

 equal to that of the higher and treating it so. 

 So, behind all this money we have not only the 

 promise of the United States, the declared policy 

 of the United States, but we. have enough silver 

 behind all this money to be equal to its cost 

 at the time even the silver that was bought 

 under the law of 1878, a portion of which we 

 called profit. That is a piece of folly; it is no 

 profit at all. 



" If it had been seigniorage levied upon the 

 people, it would have been the most outrageous 

 seigniorage ever inflicted upon a people by any 

 government in the world; but it was not in the 

 nature of seigniorage, but bought at its market 

 value, and we issued money for it at its coinage 

 value. We have behind it all the silver we 

 bought, and we have that very surplus of silver 

 called the profit fund in our Treasury now, 

 which amounts to $75,000,000. We have treated 

 it as an ordinary income, but that is not the 

 proper way it should be treated. If the time 

 shall come when it will be necessary, the |>cople 

 of the United States can without loss restore 

 this large sum of $75,000.000 for the redemption 

 of the silver coin or for the maintenance of it at 

 the standard of gold. 



" We maintain our United States notes "t par 

 by our ample reserve in gold and silver of $100,- 

 000,000 of gold and the surplus in the Treasury. 

 We maintain our gold certificates and have U-- 

 hind them dollar for dollar in gold. Our silver 

 certificates have behind them a coin dollar, what 

 is miscalled the profit fund, and our declared 

 policy to maintain the parity of the two metals, 

 Our bank notes are secured by United States 

 bonds; our fractional minor coin are received 

 and redeemed whenever presented. But few 

 silver dollars will circulate, but they are repre- 



