Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/377

Rh Senators, mostly Democrats, with some Republicans, coalesced under the leadership of the Republican Senator Teller, a man full of the zeal of honest fanaticism. The silver men understood the greatness of the stake. So long as the silver purchase act was in force, they could hope that its operation would bring the country at last upon the silver basis even without the enactment of a free-coinage act. The repeal of the silver purchase law would extinguish that hope. Therefore they fought against it with desperate energy. The repeal force, mostly Republicans, with some Democrats, were led by the Democratic Senator Voorhees, the chairman of the Committee on Finance, at heart a silver man, but honestly enough in favor of this Administration measure for the occasion. But he did not master his subject, and his leadership was unskillful and spiritless. Moreover, there were among the Democrats, and even apparently on the President's side in this struggle, some whose lurking rancor against him inspired the wish that if the repeal must pass, it should at least pass in a form making it appear as somebody else's measure rather than his.

From the 28th of August, when Senator Voorhees reported the bill to the Senate, the debate went on week after week, until finally the time was occupied on the part of the coalition opposing repeal only by those unseemly maneuvers called filibustering. Meanwhile the business community, harassed by the wantonly prolonged uncertainty and the accumulating embarrassments and disasters caused by it, grew more impatient from day to day. A storm of popular indignation broke upon the Senate. Senators were pelted with telegraphic messages, letters and resolutions adopted by business men's associations and public meetings in which prompt action was vehemently demanded and the obstruction denounced as a hostile plot against the public welfare. It is more