In February, 1894, $50,000,000 in bonds were issued, and in November following a second issue of $50,000,000 was deemed necessary.  The sum of $117,171,795 was realized by the sale of these bonds, but the reserve was steadily decreased until, on February 8, 1895, a third sale of $62,315,400 in bonds, for $65,116,244, was announced to Congress.

The receipts of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895, were $390,373,203.30 and the expenditures $433,178,426.48, showing a deficit of $42,805,223.18.  A further loan of $100,000,000 was negotiated by the Government in February, 1896, the sale netting $111,166,246, and swelling the aggregate of bonds issued within three years to $262,315,400.  For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1896, the revenues of the Government from all sources amounted to $409,475,408.78, while its expenditures were $434,678,654.48, or an excess of expenditures over receipts of $25,203,245.70.  In other words, the total receipts for the three fiscal years ending June 30, 1896, were insufficient by $137,811,729.46 to meet the total expenditures.

Nor has this condition since improved.  For the first half of the present fiscal year, the receipts of the Government, exclusive of postal revenues, were $157,507,603.76, and its expenditures, exclusive of postal service, $195,410,000.22, or an excess of expenditures over receipts of $37,902,396.46.  In January of this year, the receipts, exclusive of postal revenues, were $24,316,994.05, and the expenditures, exclusive of postal service, $30,269,389.29, a deficit of $5,952,395.24 for the month.  In February of this year, the receipts, exclusive of postal revenues, were $24,400,997.38, and expenditures, exclusive of postal service, $28,796,056.66, a deficit of $4,395,059.28; or a total deficiency of $186,061,580.44 for the three years and eight months ending March 1, 1897.  Not only are we without a surplus in the Treasury, but with an increase in the public debt there has been a corresponding increase in the annual interest charge, from $22,893,883.20 in 1892, the lowest of any year since 1862, to $34,387,297.60 in 1896, or an increase of $11,493,414.40.

It may be urged that even if the revenues of the Government had been sufficient to meet all its ordinary expenses during the past three years, the gold reserve would still have been insufficient to meet the demands upon it, and that bonds would necessarily have been issued for its repletion.  Be this as it may, it is clearly manifest, without denying or affirming the correctness of such a conclusion, that the debt would have been decreased in at least the amount of the deficiency, and business confidence immeasurably strengthened throughout the country.