"Very respectfully,
"John Sherman, Secretary."
Contemporaneous with this contract for selling the four per cent. bonds for gold coin, there appeared in the New York "Times" a suggestion that these bonds could be paid in silver. Henry F. French, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in a published letter of the date of June 11, asserted his opinion that the bonds issued under the act of July 14, 1870, for refunding, were redeemable in coin of the standard value at that date, and that "as it cannot be known what bonds have been transferred since the act of 1873, all bonds under the act of 1870 must be paid in gold coin of the standard value named in the act of 1873."
I received a letter from Messrs. Seligman & Co., inclosing an extract from the New York "Times," as follows:
"New York, June 12, 1877.
"Hon. John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, Washington.
"Dear Mr. Secretary:—We beg to inclose a short editorial article which appeared in to-day's New York 'Times,' which, coming from a Republican paper, may frighten investors in our country and abroad. Intelligent people know that you, sir, as well as President Hayes, are sound on the silver question, and yet it may appear to you proper, and highly advantageous to the prompt marketing of the four per cent. bonds, to disabuse those who have been led to believe that the President and you favor the remonetizing of silver, with a view of paying our national debt in a metal so fluctuating as silver has become since the principal nations of Europe have demonetized it. We remain, dear Mr. secretary, your obedient servants,
"J. & W. Seligman & Co."
The article in the New York "Times," of June 12, 1877, said:
"In a dispatch received by the Secretary of the Treasury yesterday from Mr. Conant, the syndicate agent in London, it was stated that the contract touching the four per cent. bonds is well received in London, and the new bond bids fair to be the most popular of American securities. There is no doubt that the bond has many advantages both for home and foreign investors. It has only one point of weakness, and that is, if the silver ring should succeed in getting an unlimited issue of legal tender silver dollars, this bond would be payable, principal and interest, in that coin. Shrewd men, who know what silver has done and is liable to do in the way of ups and downs, will take this fact into consideration, and the government will ultimately be compelled to do the same. At present the strength of the silver movement is estimated to be small, but if this estimate should prove to be mistaken, the new four per cents. would suffer."
Mr. August Belmont wrote me a letter upon this subject of the date of June 14th, in which he said:
"Permit me to add a few words to the letter of my house of this day, in order to urge upon you the vital importance of an official expression of yours over you own signature, in the sense of the letter of Assistant Secretary French, published in this morning's papers.