Now, the question is: Can Congress make fifty cents' worth of silver worth one dollar? That is the question, and if Congress can, then I oppose the scheme on account of its extravagance. What is the use of wasting all that silver? Think about it. If Congress can make fifty cents' worth of silver worth a dollar by law, why can it not make one cent's worth of silver worth a dollar by law. Let us save the silver and use it for forks and spoons. The supply even of silver is limited—the supply of law is inexhaustible. Do not waste silver, use more law. You cannot fix values by law any more than you can make cooler summers by shortening thermometers.
There is another trouble. If Congress, by the free coinage of silver, can double its value, why should we allow an Englishman with a million dollars' worth of silver bullion at the market price, to bring it to America, have it coined free of charge, and make it exactly double the value? Why should we put a million dollars in his pocket? That is too generous. Why not buy the silver from him in the open market and let the Government make the million dollars? Nothing is more absurd; nothing is more idiotic. I admit that Mr. Bryan is honest. I admit it. If he were not honest his intellectual pride would not allow him to make these statements.
Well, another thing says our friend, "Gold has been cornered"; and thousands of people believe it.
You have no idea of the credulity of some folks. I say that it has not been cornered, and I will not only prove it, I will demonstrate it. Whenever the Stock Exchange or some of the members have a corner on stocks, that stock goes up, and if it does not, that corner bursts. Whenever gentlemen in Chicago get up a corner on wheat in the Produce Exchange, wheat goes up or the corner bursts. And yet they tell me there has been a corner in gold for all these years, yet since 1873 to the present time the rate of interest has steadily gone down.
If there had been a corner the rate of interest would have steadily advanced. There is a demonstration. But let me ask, for my own information, if they corner gold what will prevent their cornering silver? Or are you going to have it so poor that it will not be worth cornering?
Then they say another thing, and that is that the demonetization of silver is responsible for all the hardships we have endured, for all the bankruptcy, for all the panics. That is not true, and I will not only prove it, but I will demonstrate it. The poison of demonetization entered the American veins, as they tell us, in 1873, and has been busy in its hellish work from that time to this; and yet, nineteen years after we were vaccinated, 1892, was the most prosperous year ever known by this Republic. All the wheels turning, all the furnaces aflame, work at good wages, everybody prosperous. How, Mr. Bryanite, how do you account for that? Just be honest a minute and think about it.
Then there is another thing. In 1816 Great Britain demonetized silver, and that wretched old government has had nothing but gold from that day to this as a standard. And to show you the frightful results of that demonetization, that government does not own now above one-third of the globe, and all the winds are busy floating her flags. There is a demonstration.
Mr. Bryan tells us that free coinage will bring silver 16 to 1. What is the use of stopping there? Why not make it 1 to 1? Why not make it equal with gold and be done with it? And why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. I am not well acquainted with all the facts that enter into the question of value, but why should it stop at exactly one dollar and twenty-nine cents? I do not know. And I guess if he were cross-examined along toward the close of the trial he would admit that he did not know.
And yet this statesman calls this silver the money of our fathers. Well, let us see. Our fathers did some good things. In 1792 they made gold and silver the standards, and at a ratio of 15 to 1. But where you have two metals and endeavor to make a double standard it is very hard to keep them even. They vary, and, as old Dogberry says, "An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind." They made the ratio 15 to 1, and who did it? Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson, the greatest man, with one exception, that ever sat in the presidential chair. With one exception. [A voice: "Who was that?">[ Abraham Lincoln. Alexander Hamilton, with more executive ability than any other man that ever stood under the flag. And how did they fix the ratio? They found the commercial value in the market; that is how they did it. And they went on and issued American dollars 15 to 1; and in 1806, when Jefferson was President, the coinage was stopped. Why? There was too much silver in the dollars, and people instead of passing them around put them aside and sold them to the silversmiths.
Then in 1834 the ratios changed; not quite sixteen to one. That was based again on the commercial value, and instead of sixteen to one they went into the thousands in decimals. It was not quite sixteen to one. They wanted to fix it absolutely on the commercial value. Then a few more dollars were coined; and our fathers coined of these sacred dollars up to 1873, eight millions, and seven millions had been melted.