had declined was because the Government had discarded it in a large measure, and was only coining it in limited quantities, and it was contended that if we would utilize more of the silver that it would advance its price and more readily bring it to a parity with gold, whereby its free coinage could be safely authorized. But time has demonstrated that this assumption was without foundation, for on the 13th day of August, 1890, we paid for our first purchase of silver under this Act $1.13 an ounce, and on the 13th day of August, 1893, we paid 732 cents an ounce, showing a decline in three years of 40 cents an ounce, while during this same period the highest price we paid for silver was on the 27th of August, 1890, when we paid $1.2014, and the lowest on July 24, 1893, when we paid 693/4 cents per ouce, a difference between the highest and lowest price of 50 cents an ounce.

"But this law, it is said, serves to increase the currency. We purchase silver and give our notes, which are made a legal tender, and which pass into the monetary circulation of the country. While this is true, I venture to say that that is an unwise financial policy which runs the Government in debt for a product it cannot use for the purpose of increasing its volume of money. No government on the face of this earth ever adopted such a policy as that but our own, and I doubt if a like policy can be found in all history.

We might as well buy copper, or iron, or wheat, or any other product that the Government cannot use, store it in Government warehouses, and issue our promise to pay therefor to be used as money. We certainly ought to be able in some way to supply the people of this country with a sufficient volume of currency without resorting to a method so questionable as this. We ought to be able to increase our circulation without increasing our debts. I shall, therefore, vote cheerfully for the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman Act, because I believe it to be unsound in principle, and if continued will be attended with disastrous results.

"But the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Hepburn) would not repeal this Act because it would be a confession that it was the cause of the present disaster. By no means. I am aware the Democratic Party attributes the present condition to the Sherman Law, and that is an additional reason why I would repeal it. I would tear down this shelter and drive the Democratic Party out into the open, where it will be confronted with the evidences of its disastrous Tariff policy.

"I have heard it intimated, and by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bryan),' himself a member of the Democratic Party, that this ought not to be

1 This was Mr. Bryan's first appearance in behalf of Free Silver.

repealed until something is agreed upon to take its place, and the gentleman from Nebraska announces that the message of the President favoring the repeal of this law is the 'burial of silver,' and then exclaims: 'Abandon hope, all you who enter here!' Let me say to my young friend that that is an old sign that has been hanging on the outer wall of the Democratic Party for over fifty years, and I am surprised he has just discovered it.

as to secure it.

"If the Democratic Party does not continue both gold and silver in our monetary system, and maintain that money at a parity, then they are false to Party pledges, and will be rebuked by the people. The Republican Party is in favor of bimetallism—of the use of both gold and silver in our monetary system; and it not only believes in it, but it has legislated so For fifteen For fifteen years we have maintained gold and silver at a parity, and today we have four hundred and nineteen millions of coined silver dollars; one hundred and fifty-one millions of Treasury notes representing silver purchased, or nearly six hundred millions of silver currency which we are maintaining in our circulation on a parity with gold, and propose to maintain it as a part of our monetary circulation, thus utilizing both gold and silver, and keeping them at a parity.

"In the face of this legislation on the part of the

Republican Party, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bryan), I have no doubt, joined his Party in the last election in denouncing this policy of the Republican Party as a 'cowardly makeshift,' and appealed to the people to overthrow that parity in the interest of a Party pledged to establish a wiser and safer financial policy. The opportunity is now with you to redeem your pledges, and continue to utilize both gold and silver in our monetary system, and maintain bimetallism as we have safely established it.

"The next proposition submitted by the majority is the restoration of the Act of 1878. I shall not detain the House long with a discussion of this proposition. That was an Act which directed the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase at least two million dollars' worth of silver bullion every month and coin it into standard silver dollars at 4122 grains. The only material difference between that Act and the Act of 1890 is that the former required the silver purchased to be coined, and the Act of 1890 does not. And if there are degrees of evil, then the Act of 1878 is worse than the Act of 1890; for under it we were coining 37114 grains of pure silver into a silver dollar, and with the stamp of the Government certifying it to be a dollar, when intrinsically it was worth much less. Under the operations of that Act we coined $378,166,793, and that, together with the coinage of

the trade dollar and the coinage under the Act of 1890, makes a sum total of silver coinage already stated at $419,294,835.

"Yet of this vast sum of coined silver dollars the Secretary of the Treasury advises us that on the 1st day of June, this year, only $58,000,000 of it was in circulation, the balance being in the Treasury of the United States, and represented in our circulation by silver certificates. If the coin will not circulate, as seems to be the case, why convert the bullion into coin? Better continue the present law, purchase silver and issue our notes therefor. But one of the most effective arguments used at the time in favor of the passage of the Act of 1878 was that we demonetized silver in 1873, and that Act caused silver to depreciate, and that if we would remonetize it even in part it would at once advance the price of silver and bring it to a parity with gold.

"It has been demonstrated that this assumption was without foundation, for while the value of the bullion in the silver dollar in 1877 was 92 cents, after twelve years of coinage, in 1889, the silver in the silver dol lar was worth only 72 cents, or the value of the bullion in the silver dollar at the end of twelve years had declined 20 cents.

"When this Bill was passed in 1878 President Hayes promptly vetoed it as being unwise financial