practicable,
without respect to individual opinion. The result of the conference
was to reject free coinage and to provide for the purchase of four
million five hundred thousand ounces of silver at its gold price--
a less amount than was proposed by the House, the provisions
declaring the public policy of the United States to maintain the
parity of the two metals or the authority to stipulate on the
contracts for payments in gold, the limit of the issue of treasury
notes to the actual cost of silver bullion at gold value, and the
repeal of the act providing for the senseless coinage of silver
dollars when we already had 300,000,000 silver dollars in the
treasury we could not circulate, were all in the line of sound
money.

"Another object I had in view was to secure a much needed addition
to our currency, then being reduced by the compulsory retirement
of national bank notes in the payment of United States bonds. This
would have been more wisely provided by notes secured by both gold
and silver, but such a provision could not then be secured. These
reasons fully justified the compromise.

"But the great controlling reason why we agreed to it was that it
was the only expedient by which we could defeat the free coinage
of silver. Each of us regarded the measure proposed by the Senate
as a practical repudiation of one-third of the debts of the United
States, as a substantial reduction of the wages of labor, as a
debasement of our currency to a single silver standard, as the
demonetization of gold and a sharp disturbance of all our business
relations with the great commercial nations of the world. To defeat
such a policy, so pregnant with evil, I was willing to buy the
entire product of American silver mines at its gold value.

"And that was what we provided, guarded as far as we could. To
accomplish our object we had to get the consent of the Republican
Representatives from the silver-producing states. This we could
only do by buying the silver product of those states. It was a
costly purchase. The silver we purchased is not worth as much as
we paid for it, but this loss is insignificant compared to our gain
by the defeat of the free coinage of silver. It is said there was
no danger of free coinage, that the President would have vetoed
it. We had no right to throw the responsibility upon him. Besides,
his veto would leave the Bland act in force. We did not believe
that his veto would dispel the craze that