rust companies that are in debt more than their
credits. It means a nominal advance in the prices of the produce
of the farmer, but a decrease in the purchasing power of his money.
Its chief attraction is that it enables a debtor to pay his debt
contracted upon the existing standard with money of less value.
If Senators want cheap money and to advance prices, free coinage
is the way to do it; but do not call it bimetallism. The problem
we have to solve is how to secure to our people the largest use of
both gold and silver without demonetizing either.

"Now, let us examine the situation in which we are placed. Our
country is under the pressure of a currency famine. Industries,
great and small, all suspended by the owners, not because they
cannot sell their products, but because they cannot get the money
to pay for raw material and the wages of their employees. Banks
conducted fairly are drained of their deposits and are compelled
not only to refuse all loans, but to collect their bills receivable.
This stringency extends to all trades and businesses; it affects
even your public revenues, all forms of public and private securities,
and, more than all, its stops the pay of a vast army of laboring
men, of skilled mechanics, and artisans, and affects the economy
and comfort of almost every home in the land.

"The strange feature of this stringency is unlike that of any of
the numerous panics in our past history. They came from either an
irredeemable currency, which became worthless in the hands of the
holder, or from expanded credit, based upon reckless enterprises
which, failing, destroyed confidence in all industries. Stringency
followed failure and reckless speculation. This panic occurs when
money is more abundant than ever before. Our circulating notes to-
day are sixty millions more than one year ago. It is all good--as
good as gold. No discrimination is made between the gold and silver
dollar, or between the United States note, the treasury note, the
silver certificate, or the gold certificate. All these are
indiscriminately hoarded, and not so much by the rich as by the
poor. The draft is upon the savings bank, as well as the national
or state bank. It is the movement of fear, the belief that their
money will be needed, and that they may not be able to get it when
they want it. In former panics, stringency followed failures. In
this, failures follow stringency.

"Now, as representatives of the peo