EESOLUTIONS 
 
 ADOPTED AT 
 
 TIE SILVER COIVEITIOI, 
 
 HELD AT CHICAGO, 
 
 August 1st and 2d, 1893. 
 
 Whereas, Bimetallism is as ancient as human history ; certainly 
 for more than 3,000 years gold and silver came down through the 
 ages hand in hand, their relations to each other having varied hut a 
 few points in all that vast period of time and then almost invariably 
 through legislation ; and 
 
 Whereas, The two metals are named together, indissolubly united 
 in the Constitution of the United States, as the standard of value 
 of this country, placed there by George Washington, Thomas 
 Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and their associates, 
 and subsequently indorsed and defended by Andrew Jackson and 
 Abraham Lincoln ; and, 
 
 Whereas, Silver, one of these'ancient metals, was, in the year 
 1873, without any previous demand by any political party, or by any 
 part of the people, or even by any newspapers, and without public 
 discussion, stricken down from the place it had occupied since the 
 days of Abraham and the Pharaohs, under circumstances of such 
 secrecy that Allen G-. Thurman, James B. Beck, William M. Stewart, 
 
Daniel W. Yoorhees, James G. I <..e, then Speaker of the House, 
 James A. Garfield, William D. K „ and others present and voting 
 for the bill, as Senators or Representatives, subsequently repeatedly 
 and publicly declared that they did not know until long afterward 
 that so great and grave a change had been made in the financial 
 system founded by the fathers of the republic ; and, 
 
 Whereas, The debates in Congress show that the parentage of the 
 measure was in part ascribed by friends of the bill to one Ernest 
 Seyd, a London banker, who it is claimed, was sent over to Wash¬ 
 ington by the moneyed classes of the Old World to secure its passage 
 by secret and corrupt means, and, 
 
 Whereas, President Grant, who signed the bill, declared long 
 subsequently that he did not know that it demonetized silver ; and, 
 Whereas, The purpose of this attack upon one of the two ancient 
 precious metals of the world was, by striking down one-half of the 
 money supply—to wit, silver—to double the purchasing power of the 
 remainder, gold, by making it the equivalent of everything possessed 
 or produced by the labor of man, thus reducing the price of all com¬ 
 modities, arresting enterprise, impoverishing the toiler and degrad¬ 
 ing mankind. That these results were not only inevitable but for- 
 seen, appears by the following language used at that time by the 
 then President of the Bank of France, who said : “If by a stroke 
 of the pen they suppress one of these metals in the monetary service 
 they double the demand for the other metal, to the ruin of all 
 debtors ; ” and, 
 
 w Whereas, The awful consequences thus prophesied are now upon 
 the people of the whole world, we stand in the midst of unparalleled 
 distress, and in the shadow of impending calamities which are be¬ 
 yond estimate. The ruling industry of the people who inhabit one- 
 tliird of the area of this republic has been stricken down, property 
 values destroyed, and the workmen compelled to fly as from pestilence. 
 Everywhere over this broad land the honest toilers, numbering hun¬ 
 dreds of thousands, have been thrown out of employment, and will 
 have to eat the bitter bread of eharitfy, or starve. The products of 
 industry, of the farm and the works lop, have depreciated in price, 
 as shown by official and public ? atistics, until production ceases to 
 be profitable ; the money in the ecu utry, inadequate for the business 
 
 f § 
 
of the land, has gravitated to tlu banks ; while the people, distrust¬ 
 ing the hanks, have demanded deposits to hoard or hide them ; 
 mercantile houses are going to the wall by thousands because the 
 masses have not the means to buy even the necessities of life ; to 
 supply the lack of currency the hanks of the great cities have issued 
 a substitute for money unknown to the laws, called clearing-house 
 certificates ; the movement of the great crops now being gathered 
 demands a vast amount of currency, which the banks are unable to 
 furnish ; and in the midst of these conditions the daily press is clamor¬ 
 ing for the repeal of the act of July 14, 1890, called the Sherman act, 
 although the repeal of that act means the stoppage of the issue of 
 more than $3,000,000 every month ; thus shutting off the supply of 
 funds for the business of the country in the midst of the terrible 
 conditions which surround us ; and ignoring the fact that to hold 
 the balance level between the debtor and creditor classes the supply 
 of currency must increase side by side with the increase of population 
 and business ; and that in this nation the growth of population is at 
 the rate of about 30 per cent, every ten years, while the increase of 
 business is much greater ; and, 
 
 Whereas, The great expounder of the Constitution, Daniel 
 Webster, said : “ Gold and silver, at rates fixed by Congress, con¬ 
 stitute the legal standard of value in this country, and neither Con¬ 
 gress nor any State has authority to establish any other standard or 
 to displace that standard and, 
 
 Whereas, The Hon. James G. Blaine, quoting this utterance, 
 adds : “On the much-vexed and long-mooted question as to a bime¬ 
 tallic or monometallic standard, my own views are sufficiently 
 indicated in the remarks I have made. I believe the struggle now 
 going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold 
 standard, would, if successful, produce widespread disaster in and 
 throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money 
 and establishing gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous 
 effect on all forms of property except those investments which yield 
 a fixed return in money. These would be enormously exhanced in 
 value and would gain a dispropu- ionate and unfair advantage over 
 every other species of property , as the most reliable statistics 
 affirm, there are nearly $7,00 - 1 , 0 ' ,000 of coin or bullion in the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 AT URBAN A-CHAMPAIGN 
 
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 world, very equally divided between gold and silver, it is impossible 
 to strike silver out of existence as money without results which will 
 prove distressing to millions and utterly disastrous to tens of thou- } 
 sands. ” 
 
 Again he said : “ I believe gold and silver coin to be the money of 
 the Constitution ; indeed, the money of the American people anterior 
 to the Constitution, which the great organic law recognized as quite 
 independent of its own existence. No power was conferred on Con¬ 
 gress to declare either metal should not be money. Congress has, 
 therefore, in my judgment, no power to demonetize either. If, there¬ 
 fore, silver has been demonetized I am in favor of remonetizing it. If 
 its coinage has been prohibited I am in favor of ordering it to be 
 resumed. I am in favor of having it enlarged/' and, 
 
 Whereas, The present Secretary of the Treasury, the Hon. John 
 Gr. Carlisle, on the floor of the House of Representatives, February 
 21, 1878 said : “ I know that the world’s stock of the precious metals 
 is none too large, and I see no reason to apprehend that it will ever 
 become so. Mankind will be fortunate, indeed, if the annual pro¬ 
 duction of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual 
 increase of population, commerce and industry. According to my 
 views of the subject the conspiracy which seems to have been formed 
 here and in Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from 
 three-sevenths to one-half of the metallic money of the world is the 
 most gigantic crime of this or any other age. The consummation of 
 such a scheme would ultimately entail more misery upon the human 
 race than all the wars, pestilences, and famines that ever occurred 
 in the history of the world. The absolute and instantaneous de¬ 
 struction of half the entire movable property of the world, including 
 houses, ships, railroads, and all other appliances for carrying on 
 commerce, while it.would be felt more sensibly at the moment, would 
 not produce anything like the prolonged distress and disorganization 
 of society that must inevitably result from the permanent annihilation 
 of half the metallic money in the world/’ and, 
 
 Whereas, Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, who more than any 
 other man is responsible for the demonetization of silver, clearly * 
 understood the evil consequences of shrinking currency below the legi¬ 
 timate demand ol the business of the country, as evidenced by what 
 
he said in the Senate in 1869—to wit: ee The contraction of the cur¬ 
 rency is a far more distressing operation than Senators suppose. Our 
 own and other nations have gone inrough that operationbef ore. It is 
 not possible to take that voyage without the sorest distress. To 
 every person except a capitalist out of debt, or a salaried officer, or an¬ 
 nuitant, it is a period of loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, 
 suspension of enterprise, bankruptcy and disaster. It means ruin to 
 all dealers whose debts are one-half their business capital, though 
 one-third less than their actual property. It means the fall of all 
 agricultural productions without any great reduction of taxes. 
 What prudent man would dare to build a house, a railroad, a factory 
 or a barn with this certain fact before him ? ” 
 
 Therefore, in view of all these facts we declare: 
 
 1. That there must be no compromise of this question. All legisla¬ 
 tion demonetizing silver and restricting the coinage thereof must be 
 immediately and completely repealed by an act restoring the coinage 
 of the country to the conditions established by the founders of the 
 Nation and which continued for over eighty years without complaint 
 from any part of our people. Every hour’s delay in undoing the 
 corrupt work of Ernest Seyd and our foreign enemies is an insult to the 
 dignity of the American people, a crushingburdenon their prosperity, 
 and an attempt to place us again under the yoke from which George 
 Washington and his compatriots rescued us. We protest against the 
 financial policy of the United States being made dependent upon the 
 opinion or policies of any foreign government, and assert the power 
 of this Nation to stand on its own feet and legislate for itself upon 
 all subjects. 
 
 2. We declare that the only remedy for our financial troubles 
 is to open the mints of the Nation to gold and silver on equal 
 terms, at the old ratio of sixteen of silver to one of gold. Whenever 
 silver bullion can be exchanged at the mints of the United States for 
 legal tender silver dollars worth 100 cents each, that moment 412^ 
 grains of standard silver will be vorth 100 cents ; and as commerce 
 equalizes the prices of all commoc iet throughout the world, when¬ 
 ever 412^ grains of standard silvt' ace worth 100 cents in the United 
 States they will be worth that si m t very where else and cannot be 
 bought for less. While it will b i rged that such a result would 
 
6 
 
 enhance the price of silver bullion it is sufficent for us to know that an 
 increase proportional to the increase in the volume of money result¬ 
 ing therefrom would be immediately made in the price of every form 
 of property except gold and credits, in the civilized world. It would 
 be a shallow selfishness that would deny prosperity to the mining 
 industries at the cost of bankruptcy to the whole people. The legis¬ 
 lation to demonetize silver has given an unjust increase to the value 
 of gold at the cost of the prosperity of mankind. Wheat and all 
 other agricultural products have fallen side by side with silver. 
 
 3. That while the “ Sherman act ” of July 14, 1890, was a device of 
 the enemy to prevent the restoration of free coinage, and is greatly 
 objectionable because it continues the practical exclusion of silver from 
 the mints and reduces it from a money metal to a commercial com¬ 
 modity, nevertheless, its repeal, without the restoration of free coin¬ 
 age, would stop the expansion of our currency required by our growth 
 in population and business, widen still further the difference between 
 the two precious metals, thus making the return to bimetallism more 
 difficult, greatly increase the purchasing power of gold, still further 
 break down the price of the products of the farmer, the laborer, the 
 mechanic, and the tradesman, and plunge still further all commerce, 
 business, and industry into such depths of wretchedness as to endanger 
 peace, order, the preservation of free institutions, and the very main¬ 
 tenance of civilization. We, therefore, in the name of the republic 
 and of humanity, protest against the repeal of the said act of July 14, 
 1890, except by an act restoring free bimetallic coinage as it existed 
 prior to 1873. We suggest that the maintenance of bimetallism by 
 the United States at a ratio of sixteen to one will increase our com¬ 
 merce with all the silver-using countries of the world, containing 
 two-thirds of the population of the world, without decreasing our 
 commerce with those nations which buy our raw material and will 
 compel the adoption of bimetallism by the nations of Europe sooner 
 than by any other means. 
 
 4. We assert that the unparalled calamities which now afflict the 
 American people are not due to the so-called Sherman act of 1890, 
 and in proof th ereof we call attention to the fact that the same evil 
 conditions now prevail over all tie gold standard nations of the world. 
 We are convinced that bad as is the state of affairs in this country it 
 
5 
 
 would have been still worse but f r t e Sherman act by which the 
 Nation has obtained to some exten \ j expanding circulation to meet 
 the demands of a continent in proctSo ^ colonization, and the business 
 exigencies of the most energetic and industrious race that has ever 
 dwelt on the earth, and we insist upon the execution of the law with¬ 
 out evasion so long as it is upon the statute books, and upon the 
 purchase each month of the full amount of silver that it provides for, 
 to the end that the monthly addition to the circulating medium the 
 law secures shall be maintained. 
 
 5. That we would call the attention of the people to the fact that 
 in the midst of all the troubles of the time the value of the national 
 bonds and the national legal tender money, whether made of gold, 
 silver, or paper, has not fallen a particle. The distrust is not of the 
 government or its money, but of the banks, which have, as we believe, 
 precipitated the present panic on the country in an ill-advised effort 
 to control the action of Congress on the silver question and the issue 
 of bonds. We invite the bankers to attend to their legitimate busi¬ 
 ness and permit the rest of the people to have their full share in the 
 control of the government. In this way they will much sooner 
 restore that confidence which is so necessary to the prosperity of the 
 people. It must not be forgotten that, while boards of trade, cham¬ 
 bers of commerce, bankers, and money dealers are worthy and valu¬ 
 able men in their places, the republic can more safely repose upon the 
 great mass of its peaceful toilers and producers, and that this “ busi¬ 
 ness man’s age ” is rapidly exterminating the business men of this 
 country. The time has come when the politics of the Nation should 
 revert as far as possible to the simple and pure condition out of 
 which the republic arose 
 
 6. We suggest for the consideration of our fellow-citizens that the 
 refusal of the opponents of bimetallism to propose any substitute for 
 the present law or to elaborate any plan for the future, indicate either 
 an ignorance of our financial needs or an unwillingness to take the 
 public into their confidence ; and we denounce the attempt to uncon¬ 
 ditionally repeal the Sherman lav a an attempt to secure gold 
 monometallism in flagrant violatioi pt ;he last national platforms of 
 all the political parties. 
 
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