he Republican Party, who could not
adopt the Democratic plan for the free coinage of silver,
without contradicting all their utterances in the past, denounced
this proposal as a subterfuge, a straddle, an attempt to deceive
the people and get votes by pledges not meant to be carried
out.

I believed then, and I believe now, that we were right in
demanding that the Republican Party should go into the campaign
with the declaration I have stated.

It is true that you cannot give value to any commodity by
law. It is as idle to attempt to make an ounce of silver
worth as much as an ounce of gold by legislation, as it is to
try to make one pound weigh two pounds, or one yard measure
two yards. You cannot increase the price of a hat, or a coat,
or a farm, by act of Congress. The value of every article,
whether gold or silver, whether used as money or as merchandise,
must depend upon the inexorable law of demand and supply.
But you can, by legislation, compel the use of an article,
which use will create a demand for it, and the demand will
then increase its price. If Congress shall require that every
soldier in the United States Army shall wear a hat or coat
of a particular material or pattern, or shall enact that every
man who votes shall come to the polls dressed in broadcloth,
if there be a limited supply of these commodities, the price
of the hat or the coat or the broadcloth will go up. So,
when the nations of the world joined in depriving silver of
one of its chief uses--that of serving the function of a tender
for the payment of debts, the value of silver diminished because
one large use which it had served before was gone. Whether
this doctrine be sound or no, it was the result of as careful
study as I ever gave in my life, to any subject, public or
private. It was not only the doctrine of the Fathers, but
of recent generations. It was the doctrine on which the Republicans
of Massachusetts, a community noted for its conservatism and
business sagacity, had planted the Commonwealth, and it was
the doctrine on which the American people planted itself and
which triumphed in the election of 1896.

I have been accused, sometimes, of want of sincerity, and,
by one leading New England paper, with having an imperfect
and confused understanding of the subject. Perhaps I may
be pardoned, therefore, for quoting two testimonials to the
value of my personal contribution to this debate. One came
from Senator Clay of