Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/231

Rh And if there should be another flaw in the present law dangerous to the gold standard in any other way, you, Mr. Secretary, able financier as you are, will surely detect it, and find a legislative remedy and have it ready in the shape of a well-matured bill to be submitted to Congress at the opening of the session. In short, the Republicans, controlling both the Legislative and the Executive branches of the Government, will, next winter, have ample power and opportunity to do what they ought to have done at the last session—to put the currency law in such a shape that the gold standard cannot possibly be shaken by Executive action, no matter who may occupy the Presidential chair—and thus remove, to that extent at least, the basis of our monetary system from the changeful game of party politics.

Do you see any reason for doubting that Congress at its next session will do this? It is quite evident that, if there is any substance at all in your predictions of disaster, the Republicans in Congress cannot refuse to do it without proving that the professed solicitude of the Republican party for the maintenance of the gold standard is arrant hypocrisy. But if there be any wavering, I am convinced public opinion will, in case of necessity, compel them to take the necessary steps.

You will thus have to admit, Mr. Secretary, that when you sounded your note of alarm, you had overlooked the most important fact that you and your party friends, that is, the Republican majority in Congress, led by the Administration of which you form so influential a part, will be able easily and promptly to remedy the defects of the law which you have described as a source of terrible danger, and therefore your note of alarm was, to say the least, a mistaken one. It may suggest itself to you as a matter worthy of grave consideration whether you should not retract what you have said, in fairness to the business