e market for
any surplus of either metal, but this they are doing no longer. Silver,
though not yet universally demonetized, is thrown upon the market in
such masses and from so many prolific sources as to be governed by the
inexorable laws of demand and supply. Its magic as coin, if it has not
hopelessly departed, has been, like the retreating soldier, fearfully
"demoralized," and is passing to the rear.

* * * * *

It cannot be for the interest or the honor of the United States, while
possessed of any healthy national pride, to resort to any expedient of
bankrupt governments to lower the money standard of the country. That
standard should keep us "four square" to the world and give us equal
rank in the advanced civilization and industrial enterprise of all the
great commercial nations.

I have failed of my purpose if I have not shown that there has been
so large an increase of the stock of silver as of itself to effect a
positive reduction of its value; and that this result has been confirmed
and made irreversible by the new and extensive European disuse of silver
coinage. I have indicated the advisability of obtaining the co-operation
of other leading nations, in fixing upon a common ratio of value between
gold and silver, before embarking upon a course of independent action
from which there could be no retreat. I have also attempted to show
that, even in the lowest pecuniary sense of profit, the Government of
the United States could not be the gainer by proposing to pay either the
public debt or the United States notes in silver; that such a payment
would violate public pledges as to the whole, and violates existing
statutes as to all that part of the debt contracted since 1870, and for
which gold has been received; that the remonetization of silver means
the banishment of gold and our degradation among nations to the second
or third rank; that it would be a sweeping 10 per cent. reduction of
all duties upon imports, requiring the imposition of new taxes to that
extent; that it would prevent the further funding of the public debt at
a lower rate of interest and give to the present holders of our 6 per
cent. bonds a great advantage; that, instead of aiding resumption, it
would only inflate a currency already too long depreciated, and consign
it to a still lower deep; that, instead of being a tonic to spur idle
capital once more into activity, it would be its bane, destructive of
all vitality;