Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/204

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

that for a moment. It means that any one with sixteen ounces of silver can come here from any part of the world, or with one ounce of gold, and he can buy your grain, he can buy your house and lot, he can buy your manufactured product, and buy the property and commodities of all sorts that you have to sell with either the one or the other; that is to say, he can buy just as much with his sixteen ounces of silver as with his one ounce of gold.

With the billions upon billions of property existing in this country to-day and being produced in this country every year, we simply offer to exchange that which we have in abundance on a basis of one pound of gold as the equivalent of sixteen pounds of silver. We invite, then, the world to come with its silver and make the exchange. No nation now, it is true, offers in exchange for silver the gold at any fixed ratio; consequently, all the silver that is coined is used in the countries where it is coined. And why? Because no great power offers to exchange commodities for one metal or the other at any fixed ratio. That is the only trouble with silver to-day.

What is it, then, that you are asked to do? It is that we, the government of the United States, we as a people say to all the world, especially the silver-using people, all of the Asiatic nations and the Great Indies, come here with your white metal, if you choose to come, and trade with us on the basis of 16 to 1, and buy your commodities from us at that ratio.