Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/238

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

lon<? discussions in both Houses, and after a conference between them, a bill was passed July 14, 1890, by which the secretary of the Treasury was directed to purchase from time to time sil- ver bullion to the aggregate of 4,500,000 ounces a month at the market price and to issue in pay- ment of such purchases treasury notes of the United States, which were made a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, and were redeemable by the secretary of the Treasury in gold or silver coin at his discretion. This measure, it was thought, would arrest the decline in the market value of silver and enable the sec- retary to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other at the ratio of 16 to 1. But the market value of silver continued to decline. The government purchased under the act of July 14, 1890, 168,000,000 ounces at a cost of $156,- 000,000.

When we contemplate the great amount of debt and credit that is unavoidable in a vast but new country like ours, we naturally shrink from any measure that will either rob the lender or do injustice to the borrower. It is impossible to estimate the wrong and injustice that will be done to creditors by the selling of nearly one- half of the debts duo them.

The very threat to do it will lead to the prompt and harsh collection of debts before free coinage can become a law. I am advised that already debts that would have remained uncalled for have, in fear of such a law, been enforced. It

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