I predict that the restoration of silver to its birthright, Mr.
President, will mark an epoch in the history of this country. It will
place in circulation an amount of money commensurate with our increasing
population. It will give assurance to our languishing industries that
the volume of our circulating medium is not to continue shrinking, and
that the tendency of prices shall no longer be downward. It will
increase the wages of labor and the prices of the products of labor; it
will reduce the price of bonds and other forms of money futures, it will
lighten, but not inequitably, the burden of mortgages; it will increase
largely, though not unjustly, the debt-paying and tax-paying power of
the people. It will loosen the grasp of the creditor from the throat of
the debtor.
By the remonetization of silver, money will cease to be the object of
commerce, and will again become its beneficent instrument. Activity will
replace stagnation, movement will supplant inertia, courage will banish
fear; confidence will dispel doubt; hope will supersede despair.
The lifting up of silver to its rightful plane by the side of gold will
set in motion all the latent energies of the people. It will banish
involuntary idleness, by putting every willing man to work. It will
revive business, and reanimate the heart and hope of the masses.
Capital, no longer fearing a fall in prices, will turn into productive
avenues. The hoards of money lying idle in the bank vaults will come out
to bless and enrich alike their owners and the community at large;
while the millions of dollars now invested at low interest in gilt-edged
securities will seek more profitable investment in the busy field of
industry, where they will be utilized in the payment of wages and the
consequent dissemination of comfort and happiness among the people.
And this it will accomplish not for the United States alone, but for
civilization. For it is not too much to say, Mr. President, that upon
the decision of this question depend consequences more momentous than
upon that of any other question of public policy within the memory of
this generation. In a broader sense than any other question attracting
the general attention of mankind it is a question of civilization. It
embodies the hopes and aspirations of our race.
The act of Congress which shall happily solve it will constitute a
decree of emancipation as veritable as any that ever freed serf from
thraldom, but more universal in its application. It will proclaim the
freedom of the white race the world over, it will lift the bowed head of
labor, it will hush the threnody of toil. It will inaugurate the true
renaissance--a renaissance of _prosperity_, without which industry,
learning, science, literature, art, are but as apples of Sodom.
(Applause in the galleries.)