FREE COINAGE OF SILVER. 509 



the treasury, as they have done several preceding admin- 

 istrations. 



"There is not an outstanding obligation which can 

 not be legally and honestly discharged by the payment of 

 the present standard silver dollar. It is simply an attempt 

 to repeat the legislation of 1869, anc ^ ^ ne same pretenses 

 are made now that were made then. 



"An honest dollar for the working man was then, as 

 now, held up as the patriotic object of those who repudi- 

 ated the greenback. The last report from the treasury 

 bureau of statistics shows that the silver dollar, which it 

 has become fashionable to malign and denounce in aristo- 

 cratic circles, will now purchase from twenty-five to thirty 

 per cent, more of all the toiling millions of this country 

 labor to produce, and of all that men need money to obtain, 

 than it would in July, 1870. In the light of these official 

 facts and figures why should it be stricken down? 



u The president says: ( A special effort has been made 

 by the secretary of the treasury to increase the amount of 

 our silver coin in circulation, yet not one dollar, so far as 

 I am advised, has ever been paid in silver as interest on the 

 public debt, or in the purchase of a single bond for the 

 sinking fund. The public creditors have unjustly de- 

 manded gold for the interest on their bonds without any 

 semblance of right. And every secretary of the treasury 

 has disregarded the law and acceded to their demands. 

 Our officials have thus aided and abetted the organization 

 of the most powerful body of capitalists in the United 

 States, against silver coinage men who control the cur- 

 rency of the country and hold the obligations of all its 

 business concerns; men who can contract or inflate the cir- 

 culating medium on which all our commercial transac- 

 tions depend.'' * * * 



"These men control boards of trade, chambers of 



