The history of the world affords no example of a money system regulated
by human prescience and intelligent calculation. It is not too much to
say that the money system of the world--the most important associative
instrumentality of civilization, in so far as it is not controlled for
their own advantage by the creditor classes--is practically the result
of accident. We are even less logical than the ancients, for they
availed themselves of the entire supply of money possible to their
civilization and development. They used the full yield of both silver
and gold, while we, in order to line the pockets of a privileged caste
of money-lenders, reduce the money volume to the lowest possible minimum
by discarding one of those metals and making all debts payable in the
other.
Gold has been erected into a fetich by methods familiar to the pagan
priesthood, who forbade investigation of the claims of their idol to the
superstitious veneration of their followers. The quality of a universal
standard claimed for gold has been set up by the classes which, like
that priesthood, had interests to be served by the superstition. All
things else may be subjected to the test of reason and argument, but the
slightest approach to a scrutiny of the claims of gold as a much-vaunted
universal standard of valuation has been repelled by interested casuists
and sophists who constitute the sacred guard of the temple of the idol.
The people of this country, Mr. President, begin very seriously to doubt
the sacredness of a so-called standard by which they have been robbed of
thousands of millions of dollars--a standard that despoils and
impoverishes the toiling masses, in order to swell the plethoric pockets
of the privileged few. From all parts of the Republic we learn that the
people have become aroused on this subject, that they have discovered
gold to be a standard, not of valuation, but of spoliation and
confiscation.
The world at large shares to a great extent in the doubts entertained by
the people of this country as to the orthodoxy of the continuing worship
of gold. Throughout all Europe the suspicion is beginning to make itself
felt, among those who have no personal interest at stake, that the
constantly appreciating value of this metal bodes no good to society,
however advantageous it may be to the moneyed classes, and especially
the money lenders. It begins to be feared that there may be too long a
persistence in this artificial standard, and that the pressure upon the
people, in the fall of prices and the increase of the burden of debt and
of taxes, which multiply with time, may have serious consequences upon
public order. The stock of gold, never half enough to meet the wants of
the people anywhere, is year by year being drawn upon more and more for
use in the arts, while the yield from the mines is decreasing, and
giving no promise of any material increase from any quarter.
The pressing need of the time, the standard for which the people are
calling, is a standard of equity, a standard of justice, a standard that
shall measure fairly and impartially the rights of both parties to a
contract, that will not wrongfully and stealthily add to the burden of
the obligation on either side, that will not, under the guise of fair
dealing, rob one of the parties for the benefit of the other. The first
indispensable step to a realization of that standard is the full
restoration of silver to its rightful position as a part of the money of
the world.
In any discussion of the question, it would be uncharitable not to make
allowance for the force, on many conscientious minds, of what, to the
free and unprejudiced inquirer, can only be regarded as an absurd and
meaningless superstition, which, notwithstanding the advance of thought
in other directions, still persists in disarranging the industries and
vexing the civilization of an enlightened age. It is to the strength of
this obdurate superstition that we must ascribe the horror with which
many minds contemplate the possible loss to the country of a part of its
gold.