ssrs. Jones, Bogy,
Willard, Bland and Groesbeck. They favored the remonetization of the
silver dollar, and that without delay.

Of the points made in their report, I mention these. They said: "The
supply of gold is diminishing, being now but little more than one half
what it was in 1852, and is always so fitful and irregular from the
method of its production that it is ill-suited to be a sole measure of
value."

This statement as a statement of an existing fact was wide of the
truth, and as a prophecy it was as fallacious as are the prophecies
which predict the destruction of the world. From 1851 to 1855 the
annual gold product of the world was 6,410,324 ounces. From 1876 to
1880 the annual gold product of the world was 5,543,110 ounces. The
gold product of the latter period was eighty-six per cent of the gold
product of the former period.

Far wide of the truth were the predictions of the majority in regard
to the future product of gold. For the year 1894 the product was
8,737,788 ounces, or about thirty-seven per cent over the product of
1851-'55.

They, the majority, said: "No increase in the yield of silver in the
immediate future seems upon the whole to be probable." The commission
said further: "The exchanges of the world, and especially of this
country, are continually and largely increasing; while the supplies of
both the precious metals, taken together, if not diminishing, are at
least stationary, and the supply of gold, taken by itself, is falling
off."

Each of these two statements in regard to the precious metals was a
serious error, and in their controlling influence upon the judgment of
the commission they were fatal errors.

The gold product of the world in 1876 was 5,016,488 ounces. In 1894
the product had risen to 8,737,788 ounces, a gain of more than
seventy-four per cent in the short period of eighteen years.

In 1876 the product of silver was 67,753,125 ounces, and in 1894 it
was 167,752,561 ounces, a gain of about 147 per cent in eighteen years.

Upon these errors the majority of the commission based a policy by
which the only opportunity that the country ever had for the
establishment of a bimetallic system which should include the
commercial nations of Europe, was put aside and forever lost.

If, in 1876, I had anticipated the immense increase in the product of
silver, I might have hesitated, but in the view that I was then able
to command I had great confidence that a bimet