g, but whether we will recede from the promise
made by the law as it stands, as well as refuse all means to execute
that promise. If the law is deficient in any respect it is open
to amendment. If the powers vested in the secretary are not
sufficient, or you wish to limit or enlarge them, he is your servant,
and you have but to speak and he obeys. It is not whether we will
accumulate gold or greenbacks or convert our notes into bonds, nor
whether the time to resume is too early or too late. All these
are subjects of legislation. But the question now is whether we
will repudiate the legislative declaration, made in the act of
1875, to redeem the promise made and printed on the face of every
United States note, a promise made in the midst of war, when our
nation was struggling for existence, a promise renewed in March,
1869, in the most unequivocal language, and finally made specific
as to time by the act of 1875.

"And let us not deceive ourselves by supposing that those who oppose
this repeal are in favor of a purely metallic currency, to the
exclusion of paper currency, for all intelligent men agree that
every commercial nation must have both; the one as the standard of
value by which all things are measured, which daily measures your
bonds and notes as it measures wheat, cotton, and land; and also
a paper or credit currency, which, from its convenience of handling
or transfer, must be the medium of exchanges in the great body of
the business of life. Statistics show that in commercial countries
a very large proportion of all transfers is by book accounts and
notes, and more than nine-tenths of all the residue of payments is
by checks, drafts, and such paper tools of exchange.

"Of the vast business done in New York and London not five per
cent. is done with either paper money or gold or silver, but by
the mere balancing of accounts or the exchange of credits. And
this will be so whether your paper money is worth forty per cent.
or one hundred per cent. in gold. The only question is whether,
in using paper money, we will have that which is as good as it
promises, as good as that of Great Britain, France, or Germany; as
good as the coin issued from your mints; or whether we will content
ourselves with depreciated paper money, worth ten per cent. less
than it promises, every dollar of which daily tells your constituents
that the United States in not rich enough to pay more than ninety
per cent. on the dollar f