standard of gold; and when the people become tired of it, disgusted or ruined by its instability, as they soon would be, a fresh clamor may be expected for the remonetization of gold, and another clipping or debasing of gold coins may follow to bring them again into circulation on the basis of silver equivalency.  In this slippery descent there can be no stopping place.  The consoling philosophy of the silver commission may then be repealed, that a fall in the value of either or both of the metals is a “benefaction to mankind.”  If that were true, then copper, being more abundant and of lower value, should be used in preference to either gold or silver.  The gravity of these questions will not be disputed.

The silver question in its various aspects, as involved in the bill before us, is one of admitted importance, possibly of difficult solution; and it is further embarrassed by not only the conflicting views of those entitled to some respect, but by the multifarious prescriptions intruded by a host of self-constituted experts and by all of the quack financiers of the land.  Every crocheteer and pamphleteer, cocksure “there’s no two ways about it,” generously contributes his advice free of charge; but sound, trust-worthy advice does not roam like tramps and seldom comes uninvited.  Many of the facts which surround the subject are perhaps of too recent occurrence to justify hasty and irrevocable conclusions.  The service of our own people, however, must be our paramount concern.  Their intercourse with themselves and with the world should be placed upon the most solid foundation.  If any have silver to sell it is comparatively a small matter, and yet we earnestly desire that they may obtain for it the highest as well as the most stable price; but not at the expense of corn, cotton, and wheat; and it is to be hoped, if any have debts to meet now or hereafter, that they may meet them with the least inconvenience consistent with plain, downright, integrity; but, from being led astray by the loud declamations of those who earn nothing themselves and know no trade but spoliation of the earnings of others, let them heartily say, “Good Lord, deliver us.”

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A stupid charge, heretofore, in the front of debate, has been made, and wickedly repeated in many places, that the Coinage Act of 1873 was secretly and clandestinely engineered through Congress without proper consideration or knowledge of its contents; but it is to be noted that this charge had its birth and growth years after the passage of the Act, and not until after the fall of silver.  Long ago it was declared by one of the old Greek dramatists that, “No lie ever grows old.”  This one is as fresh and boneless now as at its birth, and is therefore swallowed with avidity by those to whom such food is nutritious or by those who have no appetite for searching the documents and records for facts.  Whether the Act itself was right or wrong does not depend upon the degradation