of the promised enfranchisement of silver, the Sherman law was thrust bodily down the unwilling throats of a long-suffering and patient people. If, now, the slight barrier which bars, to some extent at least, the way of greed and avarice is broken down, I tremble at the thought of the dire results that must inevitably follow.

Starvation is already stalking' abroad in the land, and the heartrending cries of countless thousands of unemployed men and women are hourly borne in upon us from the fields and shops of the West. But greed, insatiable greed, hath neither care nor conscience. Desolation and ruin are impending. Despondency and actual want have entered many a happy home, and the darkest gloom pervades many once prosperous sections of our beautiful land.

Mr. Speaker, as I reflect upon the perils that environ us upon every side, and behold the helplessness of my people, I realize as never before the truth of the words of that great apostle of Democracy, Thomas Jefferson, that "banks are more dangerous than standing armies." (Loud applause.)— From speech in House of Representatives August 22, 1893.

Hon. J. S. Williams, of Mississippi.

And, Mr. Speaker, that question was not answered, and it never will be answered satisfactorily to the people, nor at all, until the crack of doom, unless gentlemen on the other side should be brave and bold enough to come out like that grand old man in England, Mr. Gladstone, who stated the other day that he represented a creditor nation. That is where you really stand, and you had better come out and take your position like men. Do not pray "Good Lord, good devil." (Laughter.) Do not say "Good President" and in the same speech "Good people," but come right out and tell what the interests of the people on your side are. (Laughter.) And, gentlemen, if your constituents have that interest, I do not blame you a particle for representing their interest. Not at all. On the contrary, I admire Mr. Gladstone, who, when he was interrogated on the floor of the House of Commons the other day as to whether he was going to send the delegates back to the monetary conference, replied:

"What is the use? What do we want with a bimetallic convention? I am afraid," said he, "to undertake to state what the amount is, but a very large amount of money is due to people who live in the United Kingdom from people who live without the United Kingdom. I should estimate it at not less than two billions of sterling-ten billions American dollars. I admire the philanthropy of gentlemen who would make a gift to our debtors of that amount, but I do not see what cause we would have to congratulate ourselves, though I may, perhaps, see some reason why the rest of the world should congratulate itself."-From speech in House of Representatives August 22, 1893.

Hon, Chas. A. Towne, of Minnesota.

The results of an appreciating standard are so hidden in the very processes of ordinary business that until we stop to look carefully for them we are not aware how serious-nay, how fatal-they may become. My time will permit only a few illustrations. Between 1874 and 1885 gold appreciated so that the holders of the public debt in England could buy in the latter year £200,000,000 worth more of all commodities on the average with the principal of the debt as it was in 1874 than they could have bought with it in 1875. In other words, the property and industry of England were robbed of $1,000,000,000 in eleven years and a present made of it to the holders of her bonds.

The Manufacturer, of February 1, 1896, shows that the gold standard has presented English trade since 1890 with a gratuity of nearly $250,000,000; also, that the value of farm live stock in the United States has fallen in three years $622,000,000.

The United States paid off about $750,000,000 of her debt between 1870 and 1884. Yet, as President Andrews has shown, if we reckon it in eight commodities-beef, corn, wheat, oats, pork, cotton, coal and bar iron-the debt was nearly 50 per cent. larger afterward than before.

It is said that in 1866 we could have paid the national debt of this country with 14,000,000 bales of cotton. In 1894 it would have taken 51,000,000 bales to pay what remained due, although meantime we had paid on it 94,000,000 bales in principal and interest. In 1866 we could have paid it with 1,000,000,000 bushels of wheat. In the fall of 1894 we still owed 2,000,000,000 bushels, after paying 5,000,000,000 bushels in principal and interest.

The burden of the gold standard on the world could be fully measured only in blood and sweat and tears.

Hon. C. A. Swanson, of Virginia.

I, for one, will never consent to be manacled and bound hand and foot to the domination and mercy of British money kings. When you do this you create here a British power, a British tyranny, a British despotism far more potential for evil and disaster than existed prior to the Revolutionary war. England will then regulate according to her own interest the prices she shall pay for our tobacco, cotton, corn, wheat, oats, and other agricultural products. When she fixes these at a greatly reduced price to suit her own interest, to the impoverishment and ruin of the producer, you who have assisted in the accomplishment of this purpose will have to answer to an indignant, outraged, and ruined constituency. That such is the interest and purpose of England there can be no question.-From speech in House of Representatives August 24, 1893.

Hon. Joseph Wheeler, of Alabama.

The most unblushing and colossal fraud which has been injected into the debate is the "honest dollar fraud," as interpreted by the banker and capitalists of the great money centers.

They tell us that the people of the great West owe them money on mortgages and they want it paid in honest dollars.

Now, I lay down as a correct proposition that the laws of a country enter into and form a part of every contract between its citizens.

Now, let us explain by some of the millions of examples which illustrate the injustice of the capitalist demand and the crushing hardship and wrong he asks us to inflict upon the struggling masses who have built up and created an empire in the rural sections of the South and West.

Take the Northern Pacific Railroad as an illustration.

It has sold millions

of farms to honest toilers. They paid part of the purchase money and mortgaged the farm for the remainder.

These sturdy farmers have built homes and made a garden of a barren waste.

When the farm was purchased and the mortgage executed the silver coinage laws of the land provided for an increase of money in the United States at the rate of from $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 a month.

The money in the United States was, therefore, increasing, so as to, in a manner, keep pace with the increase in property and wealth.

The tendency of the monthly increase would be to make it easier for debtors to meet their obligations, and in every case this enlargement of the volume of money was essential to enable the debtor to fulfill his contracts. Now, these creditors come to us and demand that Congress change the contract by stopping all increase of money, and if we comply with their demand we change the condition so as to make it very difficult and in many cases impossible for these debtors to pay their mortgages, and the beautiful homes they have built up will be swept away and the honest farmer, with his wife and children, instead of being a land owner, becomes a tenant.-From speech in House of Representatives August 12, 1893.

Hon. Nicholas N. Cox, of Tennessee.

Let me in no sectional feeling call the attention of gentlemen to the unprovoked and unjust course you are pursuing toward our people. The war left our country in ruin; our farms unfenced, our stock all destroyed, our court-houses, churches, and educational buildings in ashes; our railroads almost useless: no money, no property, but a firm and unyielding will. The stocks and bonds of our railroads you purchased at your own price. We borrowed money from you to replace our losses and rebuild our country; we promised to pay you in silver or gold; we refunded our State debts into new obligations, which you had purchased for a trifle, and promised to pay you in silver or gold. In the State of Tennessee you purchased what we call State bank money for fifteen and twenty cents on the dollar. We have paid you every dollar of it in silver and gold. You laid on us a pension expense that cost us from thirty to fifty millions every year in the South. This we pay you in silver and gold.

Our rural banks rediscount our notes with you and pay you the principal and interest in silver and gold. You collect your interest on your railroad

bonds and dividends on your stocks in silver and gold. We in Tennessee pay you your interest on our State debt twice every year, collected by direct taxation, in silver and gold. You have for thirty years filled our statutes with class legislation in tariff laws, and this, the greatest of all burdens, is collected from us for the benefit of your favorite classes; this we pay you in silver and gold.

Will you Pepublicans add any more to our burdens? Will you, brother Democrats--Southern Democrats-with a swoop of your pen change all these obligations intc gold debts, and by your votes increase and double the labor necessary to pay them?

Not one cent of an honest debt would I repudiate. I have spent much of my time to prevent such a calamity; but, sirs, there is a limit to our endurance, and I, for one, will never cast my vote to add another feather's weight to the onerous burdens of my people. No, never. (Applause.)-From speech in House of Representatives August 21, 1893.

Hon. John H. Bankhead, of Alabama.

Mr. Chairman, I have been most pained by the action of my Democratic brethren from the North and East. They have not only stood idly by and seen our discomfiture, but have contributed to our distress. They have received and concealed the stolen goods. They have refused to stand by us when we stood on the platform of the party. When their interest is best served they turn and rend us; when their interest is threatened they appeal to us. This condition can not continue. If our Eastern friends will not be just, if they will not consent that we may live on our own efforts and receive the wages of our labor, we will seek new alliances. If we can not get fair Play from the East, we will take Horace Greeley's advice and go West; the South and West have a common interest and destiny, and we will invite them in 1896.

You Democrats, so called, who have dictated the policy of the party in the past, will be sent to the rear, and the great West will be asked to fill your places. You gentlemen who call yourselves Democrats and who have been consorting with the Republican minority on this floor to defeat Democratic measures, will not be trusted longer. The South and West will assert themselves and put into effect a truly American policy. The time has come when men must pay taxes on what they have and not altogether on what they must have. Wealth created by legislation in the hands of a few can not longer escape or refuse to pay its share to the support of the Government which created and protects it. God speed the day when the humblest toiler on the farm or in the mine can truly say. This is my Government, my flag, and under its folds I receive the same blessings that the rich and powerful enjoy. -From speech in House of Representatives Feb. 13, 1894.

ABILITY OF THE UNITED STATES TO MAINTAIN FREE

COINAGE.

Some hesitate to espouse free coinage because of a fear that the United States cannot maintain it and that the result' would be separation of the two metals and the loss of gold as a part of our currency. Let us examine the question.

We believe that the United States can maintain free coinage and a bimetallic standard. Of the many arguments to sustain this the following may be cited:

The first in favor of this proposition is that she has always done it when she made the effort. Even as a weak nation, in 1792, she embarked upon it and maintained it to 1873. When silver was secretly demonetized in that year, the silver dollar of our coinage was at a premium over gold.

Second. When England demonetized silver in 1816 it was at a premium over gold, and in opposition to England we maintained free coinage. It is estimated that the working power of this country is forty times greater than it was then.

Third. Through all of the wars this Government has had from the foundation we maintained bimetallism. It was a colonial success before it was a constitutional requirement.

Fourth. France maintained free coinage of both metals for seventy years. France was then a much smaller part of the fiscal power of the world than

we are now.

Fifth. France and the Latin Union maintained free coinage when the nations composing that Union combined were a less factor in the commercial world than the United States is now.

Sixth. The price of gold having been artificially increased and the price of silver artificially diminished by gold monometallism and the war that has been made on silver, two things will follow when this, the greatest commercial, manufacturing, agricultural, and banking country in the world refuses longer to stand up for gold monometallism and adopts bimetallism, 1. e.. it will cause the value of gold to diminish throughout the world and the value of silver to increase. No further evidence need be adduced on this subject than the decline in the price of silver everywhere when even the dependency of India closed the mints to it.

Seventh. The industrial energy and activity of a people, and the magnitude of their accomplishments, is not only one measure of their need of, but a test of, their power to sustain a large volume of currency.

In agricultural productions we equal Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy combined.

To educational purposes we appropriate three times as much as Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy combined.

Eighth. We have more miles of railroad, even excluding our street railroads, than all the balance of the world combined. We carry more railroad frights than all the balance of the world.