he free coinage of silver provided for in the Bland bill. The
comments in the public press, both in the United States and in
Europe, generally sustained the position taken by the President
and myself. I soon had assurances that the Bland bill would not
pass the Senate without radical changes. Even the House of
Representatives, so recently eager to repeal the resumption act,
and so hasty and united for the free coinage of silver, had become
more conservative and would not have favored either measure without
material changes. I conversed with Mr. Allison and wrote him the
following letter:

"Washington, D. C., December 10, 1877.
"Hon. W. B. Allison, U. S. Senate.

"Dear Sir:--Permit me to make an earnest appeal to you to so amend
the silver bill that it will not arrest the refunding of our debt
or prevent the sale of our four per cent. bonds. I know that upon
you must mainly rest the responsibility of this measure, and I
believe that you would not do anything that you did not think would
advance the public service, whatever pressure might be brought to
bear upon you.

"It is now perfectly certain that unless the customs duties and
the public debt--as least so much of it as was issued since February,
1873--are excepted, we cannot sell the bonds. The shock to our
credit will bring back from abroad United States bonds, and our
people will then have a chance to buy the existing bonds and we
cannot sell the four per cent. bonds. This will be a grievous loss
and damage to the administration and to our party, for which we
must be held responsible. You know I have been as much in favor
of the silver dollar as anyone, but if it is to be used to raise
these difficult questions with public creditors, it will be an
unmixed evil.

"I wish I could impress you as I feel about this matter, and I know
you would then share in the responsibility, if there is any, in so
amending this bill that we can have all that is good out of it
without the sure evil that may come from it if it arrests our
funding and resumption operations.

"With much respect, yours, etc.
"John Sherman.

The amendments to the Bland bill proposed by Mr. Allison from the
committee on finance, completely revolutionized the measure. The
Senate committee proposed to strike out these words in the House
bill:

"And any owner of silver bullion may deposit the same at any coinage
mint or assay office, to be coined into such dollars, for his
benefit, up