Mr. McPHERSON. I am sorry that I interfered with the Senator.
Mr. JONES, of Nevada. It was no interference on the part of the Senator, except that I can not separate the Senator's questions from the argument and assumptions that he makes. As to the outflow of gold, as I have said, it would take a long time for even $400,000,000 of it go. The amount of gold driven out would tend to raise prices abroad by making money more plentiful there, and so check the outflow of gold from here. When Senators speak about $600,000,000 of gold being withdrawn from circulation here a question that is a little curious arises. What are these people who own it going to do with that gold after they have withdrawn it from circulation? Are they going to invest it in Great Britain? Are they going to invest it in France? Are they going to the Cape of Good Hope to invest it? If they are they will reverse the policy that English capitalists are pursuing now and have been pursuing for years—bringing their gold over here for investment. The Senator tells us that gold is to disappear from circulation. What will the owners do with it? Where and in what are they going to invest it?
Mr. McPHERSON. It will be held for a premium.
Mr. JONES, of Nevada. But who will buy it at a premium? Who needs it at all? For what purpose is it needed? Who is going to pay any premium for it? Nobody is "short" on it, and there is no law which forces anybody to have it.
Mr. President, nobody wants it enough to give a premium for it. It is only worth what is daily paid in the markets of the world and nobody is going to pay a premium for it. It is a bogie with which to frighten the people who demand reform in the currency of this country. Let them withdraw their gold.
I tell the Senator it is not the men who hoard the gold in vaults who maintain or promote the prosperity of this country, but the toilers in the wheat-fields and on the farms of the country, the men who work in the planing mills, the forges, the furnaces, the factories, and in all our institutions of industry. It is they that bring us our prosperity, and not these people who are gambling for premiums on gold.
Let them gamble among themselves; let who lose and let who win, the people care nothing. The people of the United States are going to institute a money that shall install and maintain justice as between the citizens of this country, and they will not be impeded. I can tell the Senator that neither his party nor the Republican party will ever impede the march that this great country is about to make—the first in the world, I am glad to say—in adjusting to the demands of industry and commerce, that great instrument, money, the non-adjustment of which, as I have already stated, has, in my belief, caused more misery than was ever caused by war, pestilence, and famine.
But to resume at the point where I was interrupted:
The gold going out would tend constantly to restore the equilibrium between our prices and those of the gold-using countries, making the proportion of the gold outflow each year less than that of the year before. If there be included in this computation the remaining $100,000,000 of gold, which would remain after the outflow of the $600,000,000, we shall be compelled to come to the conclusion that the time when our stock of gold can be driven out will be almost indefinitely postponed.
But even should all our gold go by reason of the remonetization of silver, it will not be to the injury of the gold standard, but to its great advantage, and to the equally great advantage of the masses of the people, as well of this country, which the gold may leave, as of all countries to which it may go. It will make the "gold standard" consistent with the prosperity of the countries maintaining it. But instead of preserving the gold standard of to-day, which is a standard of wrong, it will inaugurate a gold standard that will approximate to a standard of justice.