ribe, and of denomination of $50, or some multiple of
that sum, redeemable in coin of the present standard value at the
pleasure of the United States after thirty years from the date of
their issue, and bearing interest payable semi-annually in such
coin at the rate of four per cent. per annum."

Thus it will be perceived that instead of the three series of bonds
provided by the Senate, the House proposed to authorize the issue
of $1,000,000,000, redeemable in coin after thirty years from the
date of their issue, with interest at four per cent. This difference
in the description of the bonds was the chief difference between
the propositions of the House and the Senate. To emphasize this
difference I quote what was said by the chairman of the House
committee, Mr. Schenck, in reporting the bill:

"It is a proposition to refund a portion of the public debt of the
country at a very much lower rate of interest. It is a proposition
that $1,000,000,000 of that debt shall take the form of bonds, upon
which the United States will agree to pay only four per cent. per
annum. But, in order to make those bonds acceptable to capitalists
at home and abroad, further provision is made that the bonds
themselves shall have a longer time to run, not merely for thirty
years, but that they shall only be redeemable after thirty years;
thus giving them, without the objections, the advantages which in
a great degree attach to a perpetual loan."

This bill, with a very limited debate, passed the House on the 1st
of July, and then immediately was offered as a substitute for the
Senate bill, and was adopted.

Those two rival propositions, differing mainly upon the question
of the character of the bonds to be issued, were sent to a committee
of conference, composed on the part of the Senate of Messrs. Sherman,
Sumner and Davis. The chief controversy in the conference was as
to the description of funding bonds to be provided for. After many
meetings it was finally agreed that the bonds authorized should be
$200,000,000 five per cent. bonds, $300,000,000 four and a half
per cent. bonds, of the character described in the Senate bill,
and $1,000,000,000 of four per cent. bonds, as described in the
House bill. In other words, it was a compromise which, like many
other compromises, was in its results an injury of great magnitude,
but it was an honest difference of opinion between the Senate and
the House, in which, tested by the march of time