ation
of the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.

* * * * *

"Our Democratic friends differ from us in this particular. They
are in favor of allowing any holder of silver bullion, foreign or
domestic, any old silverware or melted teapot, any part of the vast
accumulated hoard of silver in India, China, South America and
other countries of the world, estimated by statisticians to be
$3,810,571,346, to present it to the treasury of the United States
and demand one dollar of our money, or our promises to pay money,
for 371 grains of silver, or any multiple of that sum, though this
amount of silver is now worth only 77 cents, and has for a period
of years been as low as 70 cents. If with free silver we receive
only the quantity of silver we are required to purchase by existing
law, the United States would pay over $13,000,000 a year more than
if purchased at the market value, and this vast sum would be paid
annually as a bounty to the producers of silver bullion.

"But this is not the worst of it. Free coinage means that we shall
purchase not merely four and a half million ounces a month, but
all the silver that is offered, come from where it may, if presented
in quantities of one hundred ounces at a time. We are to give the
holder either coin or treasury notes, at his option, at the rate
of one dollar for every 371 grains, now worth in the market 77
cents. Who can estimate the untold hoards of silver that will come
into the treasury if this policy is adopted?

* * * * *

"But it is said that free coinage will not have the effect I have
stated; that the silver in sight is so occupied where it is that
it will not come to us. They said the same when the present law
was passed, that foreign silver would not come to us. Yet our
purchase of 4,500,000 ounces, troy weight, or 187 tons, of silver
a month, at market price, brought into the United States large
amounts of silver from all parts of the world. If that is the
effect of limited purchases at one dollar an ounce, the market
price, what will be the effect of unlimited purchases at 29 cents
an ounce more than market price? It would inundate us with the
vast hoards of silver in countries where silver alone is the current
money, and draw to us all the rapidly-increasing production of
silver mines in the world.

"But they say with free coinage the price of silver will rise to
the old ratio with gold. The experience of all the world belies