, the Senate was
right and the House was wrong. But it was perfectly manifest that
without this concession by the Senate to the House, the bill could
not have passed, and even with this concession, the first report
of the committee of conference was disagreed to by the House,
because of certain provisions requiring the national banks to
substitute the new bonds as the basis of banking circulation.

This disagreement by the House compelled a second committee of
conference, in which the contested banking section was stricken
out, and the bill agreed to as it now stands on the statute books.

And thus thirty-year securities, subsequently at a premium of more
than twenty-five per cent., were forced into the law by the determined
action of the House.

This proved to be an error. No bonds should have been authorized
that did not contain a stipulation that the government might pay
them at pleasure, after a brief period and before they became due.
This stipulation during the war was inserted in the 5-20 and the
10-40 bonds. Its wisdom and importance were demonstrated by the
early substitution of bonds bearing a lower rate of interest for
the 5-20 six per cent. bonds. When this precedent was cited, and
its saving to the government shown, it was strongly urged by the
House conferees that such a provision would prevent the sale of
bonds, and that there was no probability that bonds bearing less
than four per cent. could be sold at any time at par. This was
proven to be an error within a short period, for securities of the
United States bearing three per cent. interest have been sold at
par.

Some years later, Senator Beck, of Kentucky, arraigned me for
consenting to the issue of bonds running thirty years, but I was
able to show by the public records that I resisted this long duration
of the four per cent. bonds, that the House insisted upon it, and
that Mr. Beck, then a Member of the House, voted for it. The same
objection was made by the Senate conferees to the bonds bearing
four and a half and five per cent., that no stipulation was made
authorizing the government to anticipate the payment of these bonds.
Under the Senate bill the bonds would have been redeemable in a
brief period, and would, no doubt, have been redeemed by bonds
bearing four, three and a half, or three per cent. interest.

The bill, as it passed, authorized the conversion of all forms of
securities, then outstanding, into the bonds provided for by