“If parity with gold is demanded, and the Secretary of the Treasury construes the law to mean whenever demanded to pay gold, then let us maintain the parity by reducing the number of grains in the gold dollar from 23.22 grains pure gold to 15 grains, or to such number of grains as will keep it at parity. While we may wrong by so doing the creditor class, through the increased value of the products of human industry, we much remember that for every one creditor there are a thousand debtors; and we should remember that the aim of the Government is the greatest good to the greatest number, and also the minimum amount of evil. But no such drastic measure is necessary. Parity may be maintained and every declaration of governmental policy fully met by accepting for all dues, public and private, including duties upon imports, silver and paper issues of the Nation of every description whatsoever.
“In all the gold-standard nations destitution and misery prevail. With great standing armies in Europe outbreaks are not of frequent occurrence, and yet one rarely peruses his paper without reading of these outbreaks. In Nebraska and Kansas, the land of wheat and corn, we read of starving households; even in Ohio appeals are sent out for the relief of thousands of starving miners, and yet men have the temerity to tell us that the evils arise from overproduction.
“Men tell us that there is an overproduction of silver, and that its price had diminished in comparison with gold because of its great relative increase. Such statements are not only misleading, but absolutely false. Figures show that in 1600 we produced 27 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1700, 34 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1800, 32 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; in 1848, 31 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; while in 1880 the production of silver had declined until we produced 18 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; and in 1890 but 18 tons of silver to 1 ton of gold; and that, instead of the ratio of coinage being increased above 16 to 1, if relative production of the two metals is to determine the ratio, then the ratio should have been diminished rather than increased, and confirms the fact that merely the denial of mintage upon terms of equality with gold is responsible for all depreciation in the value of silver bullion.