"I appeal to the Senator whether that is a fair statement of my argument?"
Mr. Fessenden: "That is the way precisely that I understand it."
I said:
"That is precisely as no gentleman could have understood me. I never said that the secretary improperly would do so and so by any means. It is one of the honorable Senator's modes of stating propositions."
Mr. Fessenden: "I certainly did not mean to say that the honorable Senator supposed he designed to do so, but such seems to be the result of his argument—that the Secretary of the Treasury having the power, as he says, there is danger that he might abuse it in that precise way; else his argument amounts to nothing at all as against the bill. I certainly acquit my friend of any sort of desire or intention to throw any imputation on the Secretary of the Treasury. That he did not mean to do. . . ."
I said:
"I do not think it wise to confer on the Secretary of the Treasury the power to meet the indebtedness not accruing for a year, or two, or three years. I do not think it is necessary, in our present financial condition, to authorize him to go into market now and sell bonds at current market rates with a view to pay debts that do not mature for a year or two. I have no doubt before the five- twenty loans are due we shall retire every dollar of them at four or five per cent. interest. No one who heeds the rapid developments of new sources of wealth in this country, the enormous yield of gold now, the renewal of industry in the south, the enormous yield of cotton, the growing wealth of this country, and all the favorable prospects that are before us, doubts the ability of this government before this debt matures to reduce it to four or five per cent. interest. . . .
"The Secretary of the Treasury may sell bonds at any rate to meet debts as they accrue, but that is not the purpose of this bill."
Mr. Fessenden: "That is all the purpose there is in it."
I said: