Part 33

No, Mr. President, we need not wait, and we will not wait. All that is necessary is to act, and so far as the rules of order and of parliamentary procedure will permit, we propose to act, promptly and decisively. The world can not expect the initiatory movement for any change to be taken by those whose interests are served by the continuance of present conditions. Such conditions being consistent with their own welfare, they find no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that they are for the welfare of society at large.

The dogma that cupidity is a synonym for virtue will never fail to find ready converts among the beneficiaries.

* * * Plate sin with gold. And the strong lance of Justice hurtless breaks.

CONCLUSION.

I predict that the restoration of silver to its birthright, Mr. President, will mark an epoch in the history of this country. It will place in circulation an amount of money commensurate with our increasing population. It will give assurance to our languishing industries that the volume of our circulating medium is not to continue shrinking, and that the tendency of prices shall no longer be downward. It will increase the wages of labor and the prices of the products of labor; it will reduce the price of bonds and other forms of money futures, it will lighten, but not inequitably, the burden of mortgages; it will increase largely, though not unjustly, the debt-paying and tax-paying power of the people. It will loosen the grasp of the creditor from the throat of the debtor.

By the remonetization of silver, money will cease to be the object of commerce, and will again become its beneficent instrument. Activity will replace stagnation, movement will supplant inertia, courage will banish fear; confidence will dispel doubt; hope will supersede despair.

The lifting up of silver to its rightful plane by the side of gold will set in motion all the latent energies of the people. It will banish involuntary idleness, by putting every willing man to work. It will revive business, and reanimate the heart and hope of the masses. Capital, no longer fearing a fall in prices, will turn into productive avenues. The hoards of money lying idle in the bank vaults will come out to bless and enrich alike their owners and the community at large; while the millions of dollars now invested at low interest in gilt-edged securities will seek more profitable investment in the busy field of industry, where they will be utilized in the payment of wages and the consequent dissemination of comfort and happiness among the people.

And this it will accomplish not for the United States alone, but for civilization. For it is not too much to say, Mr. President, that upon the decision of this question depend consequences more momentous than upon that of any other question of public policy within the memory of this generation. In a broader sense than any other question attracting the general attention of mankind it is a question of civilization. It embodies the hopes and aspirations of our race.

The act of Congress which shall happily solve it will constitute a decree of emancipation as veritable as any that ever freed serf from thraldom, but more universal in its application. It will proclaim the freedom of the white race the world over, it will lift the bowed head of labor, it will hush the threnody of toil. It will inaugurate the true renaissance--a renaissance of prosperity, without which industry, learning, science, literature, art, are but as apples of Sodom. (Applause in the galleries.)

INDEX.

Alison, Sir Archibald, coinage has no effect in preventing fluctuations in value of coin, 42 effect of suspension of specie payments in England in 1797, 78

Allegory of the clocks, 50

American Review, effect of increasing volume of money, 8

Automatic system of money, gold and silver, 9 why interfered with, 18

Appleton's Cyclopedia, definition of money, 67

Aristotle on Money, 66

Balance of trade, the argument based on, 96

Banker's advice to the Usurer, 70

Baring, Alexander, a reduction of paper would have the same effect as of any other money, 78

Bastiat, description of the crown piece, 68

Baudeau, on Money, 66

Behren, Jacob, opinion as to effect of gold standard in England, 23

Berkeley, Bishop, queries as to Money, 67

Best Money (truthfully so-called), a money of unchanging value in the unit, 70

Cairnes, Prof. J. E., relations of paper currency to foreign exchange, 98

Cattle, estimate of value in 1880, 4

Cernuschi, the purchasing power of money is in direct proportion to the volume of money existing, 77

Checks and clearing houses, their effects in economizing use of money, considered, 46