Fifth.  The responsibility of re-establishing silver in its ancient and honorable place as money in Europe and America, devolves really on the Congress of the United States.  If we act here with prudence, wisdom, and firmness, we shall not only successfully remonetize silver and bring it into general use as money in our own country, but the influence of our example will be potential among all European nations, with the possible exception of England.  Indeed, our annual indebtment to Europe is so great that if we have the right to pay it in silver we necessarily coerce those nations by the strongest of all forces, self-interest, to aid us in up-holding the value of silver as money.  But if we attempt the remonetization on a basis which is obviously and notoriously below the fair standard of value as it now exists, we incur all the evil consequences of failure at home and the positive certainty of successful opposition abroad.  We are and shall be the greatest producers of silver in the world, and we have a larger stake in its complete monetization than any other country.  The difference to the United States between the general acceptance of silver as money in the commercial world and its destruction as money, will possibly equal within the next half-century the entire bonded debt of the nation.  But to gain this advantage we must make it actual money—­the accepted equal of gold in the markets of the world.  Re-monetization here followed by general remonetization in Europe will secure to the United States the most stable basis for its currency that we have ever enjoyed, and will effectually aid in solving all the problems by which our financial situation is surrounded.

Sixth.  On the much-vexed and long-mooted question of a bi-metallic or mono-metallic 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 wide-spread disaster in the end 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 enhanced in value, and would gain a disproportionate and unfair advantage over every other species of property.  If, as the most reliable statistics affirm, there are nearly seven thousand millions of coin or bullion in the world, not very unequally 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 thousands.  Alexander Hamilton, in his able and invaluable report in 1791 on the establishment of a mint, declared that “to annul the use of either gold or silver as money is to abridge the quantity of circulating medium, and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of the benefits of a full circulation with the evils of a scanty circulation.”  I take no risk in saying that the benefits of a full circulation and the evils of a scanty circulation are both immeasurably greater to-day than they were when Mr. Hamilton uttered these weighty words, always provided that the circulation is one of actual money, and not of depreciated promises to pay.