“The proposition is that we shall issue certificates which the gentleman calls warehouse receipts, based upon a silver dollar now worth 71½ cents, and then keep on buying silver bullion until it advances 28 cents on the dollar, making the dollar worth intrinsically 99½ cents.
“Was any merchant in the history of the world ever known to go into the market and buy wheat or corn or oats, or any marketable property, and to continue to buy it day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, upon a rising market created by himself! We have all heard of corners in stock in New York, and corners in wheat in Chicago, where speculators not infrequently raise the price of stocks or of wheat to a high and false value by a trick, and then oblige other people to buy their accumulation at fictitious value in order to fulfil their contracts! But no man ever before heard of an individual or a nation making a corner upon himself or itself and obliging himself or the nation to buy other people’s commodities at high and false values created by the purchaser! Gentlemen, do you propose to do this foolish thing? I hope not. This Convention of Bankers has from the beginning shown itself to be a conservative body on all these questions. I beg you to remain conservative. Let the Congress of the United States consider these subjects and take the responsibility. I know of no question that has ever been introduced here and sent to Congress for consideration of which I would be ashamed. But it is not for us to say that we can comprehend in an hour these great questions of legal tender which the Supreme Court has taken years to consider. And I hope their last decision will not long hence be again reversed by a new court that may arise. I believe with George Bancroft,[C] that some day or other it will be reversed, and that it will be held that legal tender is a thing to be issued in time of war only. Kings and crowns have clipped the dollar; they have cut it down one half and two thirds and three fourths. Nobody but tyrants can force a poor man to take 70 cents for 100 cents in gold, or 30 cents, or any sum less than 100 cents exactly. Gentlemen, I entreat you to go slow on this subject. Nothing is lost by a little time. You might not decide in a day a transaction involving but $10,000 in your own banks. You would not decide in an hour unless you knew every thing about the subject. Let us consider these four great propositions wisely and diligently, and then be able to give an intelligent reason for our decision.”
Mr. Knox was frequently applauded. Then Mr. Sneed again came forward. “Gentlemen,” he remarked, “I had not intended to say any thing more on this subject; I am not going to make a speech. But my friend Mr. Knox, known to all as a man of the very highest character—and I say that there is no man among those who compose this body for whom I have a higher regard; I have served with him in these conventions since their organization; I know him not only to be fair and generous and just, but he is more, he is a man—and I say it without disparagement to any other man in this convention—who has given this subject and other subjects of finance his most careful consideration. But we are all inclined to run in a groove; it is natural. And I believe that Mr. Knox is just as honest in his view on this question as I am in mine. But Mr. Knox is a monometallist. Mr. Knox believes there ought to be but one coin, and that gold. Now a great many, and very great many men in this country believe that; but I tell you, gentlemen, the time will come——”
Mr. Knox: “If the gentleman will allow me, I wish to make the statement that I am not a monometallist in the sense which he means. I wish to remain on the gold standard, but nevertheless I am willing to agree to as free a use of silver as possible, while still maintaining that standard. I am willing to increase the coinage of silver from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000 per month. But I want the silver certificates which are based on the silver dollars to always remain so close to the value of the gold dollar that no man, rich or poor, can hereafter lose any thing by their depreciation.
“I want this silver certificate to be always worth 100 cents in gold. I believe in a single gold standard, supplemented by the use of all the silver dollars that can be kept at par in gold. This is not monometallism in the sense used by the gentleman, who would give the impression that I am against the use of any silver whatever.
“I have therefore introduced a resolution providing that hereafter in the issue of silver certificates, such certificates shall be secured by silver bullion worth in the market 100 cents on the dollar. So long as we remain upon the gold standard, so long as the present legal-tender silver-dollar coin remains worth 100 cents, these silver-bullion certificates will be redeemable with the standard-silver dollar. But if we suspend gold payment then the standard-silver dollar will decline in value, and in that event the holder of these silver-bullion certificates shall be entitled to receive the full face value of these certificates in silver bullion at its market value. Use both gold and silver for our currency, but maintain the silver dollar at par with the gold dollar. I want to keep the two metals as close together as possible, so that a man who has debts to pay can pay them in gold value; and you, gentlemen, who have money loaned out can receive back in payment an equivalent to a dollar in gold. This is my proposition; these are my views.
“I wish all the bankers of the country to be able to pay their depositors, like honest men, in the same coin which they have received; or, at least, to return them the value of the money which they received on deposit.
“The issue of silver certificates hereafter based on their bullion value will prevent, without the possibility of doubt, loss to either debtor or creditor.
“I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for giving me the opportunity for expressing my views upon the resolution which I presented to the convention. I intended to have made this explanation at the outset, but these remarks upon the resolution were inadvertently omitted.”