of Congress implied in the original charge.  Interested outsiders may glory in libelling Congress, but why should its own members?  The Act may be good and Congress bad, and yet it is to be hoped that the latter has not fallen to the level of its traducers.  But there has been no fall of Congress; only a fall of silver.  To present the abundant evidence showing that few laws were ever more openly proposed, year after year, and squarely understood than the Coinage Act of 1873, will require but a moment.  It had been for years elaborately considered and reported upon by the Deputy Comptroller of the Currency.  The special attention of Congress was called to the bill and the report by the Secretary of the Treasury in his annual re-ports for 1870, 1871, and 1872, where the “new features” of the bill, “discontinuing the coinage of the silver dollar,” were fully set forth.  The extensive correspondence of the Department had been printed in relation to the proposed bill, and widely circulated.  The bill was separately printed eleven times, and twice in reports of the Deputy Comptroller of the Currency,—­thirteen times in all,—­and so printed by order of Congress.  A copy of the printed bill was many times on the table of every Senator, and I now have all of them here before me in large type.  It was considered at much length by the appropriate committees of both Houses of Congress; and the debates at different times upon the bill in the Senate filled sixty-six columns of the Globe, and in the House seventy-eight columns of the Globe.  No argus-eyed debater objected by any amendment to the discontinuance of the silver dollar.  In substance the bill twice passed each House, and was finally agreed upon and reported by a very able and trustworthy committee of conference, where Mr. Sherman, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Bayard appeared on the part of the Senate.  No one who knows anything of those eminent Senators will charge them with doing anything secretly or clandestinely.  And yet more capital has been made by the silver propagandists out of this groundless charge than by all of their legitimate arguments.’

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The gold standard, it may confidently be asserted, is practically far cheaper than that of silver.  I do not insist upon having the gold standard, but if we are to have but one, I think that the best.  The expense of maintaining a metallic currency is of course greater than that of paper; but it must be borne in mind that a paper currency is only tolerable when convertible at the will of the holder into coin—­and no one asks for more than that.  A metallic currency is also subject to considerable loss by abrasion or the annual wear; and it is quite important to know which metal—­gold or silver—­can be most cheaply supported.  A careful examination of the subject conclusively shows that the loss is nearly in proportion to the length of time coins have been in circulation, and to the amount of surface