PRESIDENT:

$100,000,000

.....

150,000,000

55,000,000

11,000,000

144,000,000

40,000,000

100,958,112

Then the well-to-do pay less than onequarter, the poorer classes pay more than two-thirds, and the wealthy pay less than one-tenth of $640,958,112 revenues and $600,958,112 expenditures in sustaining the Glory-and-Gold Policy under the Republican Régime.

SENATOR: In the presence of this omnivorous monster it is not so difficult to understand how one-tenth of our families hold three times as much property as the other nine-tenths.

PRESIDENT: Yes, and to this fabulous sum must be added the Double Direct Taxation and the Compound Interest of the National Bank since 1864. The unfathomable, immeasurable, unknowable Indirect Taxation!

SENATOR: Yes, sir. Under your fetich Constitution, Judas Iscariot and Paul of Tarsus count equal at the polling booth. Result, the ghastliest of algebraic spectralities of Indirect Taxation. Upon the European system of the inequality of man that man was made for the state, and not the ironical creed that the state was made for man, with our vast resources, the Republican party could reduce taxation one-half.

PRESIDENT: The Constitution is the primordial factor of the case we are trying.

SENATOR: The Nebraskan banks on Jefferson. What was his view of bonded debt?

PRESIDENT: Prior to the War of 1812 our debt was $57,000,000. The war increased it to $127,000,000.

Jefferson wrote the Ways and Means Committee as follows, urging the complete payment of the debt:

It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, but at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its facilities, never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax at the same instant for paying the interest annually and the principal within a given term, and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith. On such a pledge as this, sacredly observed, a government may always command, on a reasonable interest, all the lendable money of her citizens, while the necessity of equivalent tax is a salutary warning to them and their constituents against oppression, bankruptcy, and its inevitable consequence, revoÎution. But the term of redemption must be moderate, and at any rate within the limits of their rightful powers. But what limits, it will be asked, does this prescribe to their powers? What is to hinder them from creating a perpetual debt? The laws of nature, I answer. The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will and the power of man expire with his life, by nature's law.

SENATOR: What is the English System?

PRESIDENT: It is based upon one sentence-Fund the public debt. The charter of the Bank of England was granted in consideration of £1,200,000 loaned two centuries ago. It is unpaid to this hour.

SENATOR: The system of funding is not a plant of American growth. It is borrowed from the effete aristocracies and monarchies of the old world. The class of

men who stand behind this funding system are as merciless as the grave, and utterly regardless of the rights and interests of those who pay the taxes and bear the burdens of society. They have at all times and in all countries exhibited the same heartless characteristics. In 1816 England was in a most deplorable financial crisis. It grew out of the attempt of her stock gamblers and security holders to convert her legal-tender paper money, that had carried her safely through the Napoleonic wars and which had been used as a substitute for coin, into a currency representing coin. This could only be done by contraction of the volume. When that was accomplished England's marvelous prosperity at once vanished like a dream; and yet the cormorants were not satisfied. To absolutely impoverish the people and to render them unable to ever pay their enormous debt, the managers of the English funding system in 1816 procured the demonetization of silver and the limitation of its coinage. That stupendous crime was repeated in 1873 on this continent, in this capital, and for the same purpose.

Our public debt is about $2,000,000,000. That of England is almost double that amount. It should be remembered, however, that hers has been accumulating for about twe centuries, while ours is scarcely forty years old. England's debt began in war; so did ours. In its general sweep and history the debt of England has steadily grown by every extraordinary contingency incident to national life. Ours is destined to run a like career, unless there is virtue enough left within the hearts of our people to demand that it shall be extinguished at the earliest possible day consistent with public honor.

All legislation looking to the perpetuation of our national debt and of the national banking system which feeds and fattens upon it should be universally discouraged and

denounced as a crime against the people, and all laws looking to their existence should be immediately repealed.

When we further consider that these appalling and most truthful statements relate to but one-fourth of our public debt, that this dreadful blight and mildew upon the industries of this country must be multiplied fourfold; and when we add to this picture the further fact that during the long life of this debt these bonds are to be exempt from every species of taxation, are to shirk every burden of state and be sheltered from every calamity incident to the investments of human toil, the revelation is almost enough to destroy hope and courage in the breasts of the poor and to freeze the currents of industrial ambition.

PRESIDENT: How can our funded debt be paid off?

SENATOR: First, by applying the surplus revenue to its extinguishment, which now amounts to over $50,000,000 per annum after defraying all expenses of the Government.

Second, by paying out the silver now in the Treasury, which would have to be coined over into standard dollars. Third, by operating our mints to their full capacity in the coinage of standard silver dollars.

Fourth, by levying a judicious income tax upon the wealthy, who now bear none of the burdens of taxation.

Fifth, by substituting legal-tender greenbacks for national bank notes and cancelling the bonds now held by the Treasury to secure their circulation.

There is no lack of ability to pay. The trouble is that the bond interests have control of the Government and are determined their investment shall not be disturbed. The great question with them is how to prevent payment.

The National Bank and the Funded Debt are twin tigers.

PRESIDENT: They should perish together and quickly. SENATOR: They have forged the chains which rob Industry of its reward.

PRESIDENT: If the Nebraskan were elected

SENATOR (interjecting): And seated?

PRESIDENT: He would declare with the Populists these covenants with death shall be disannulled; their agreement with hell would not stand.

SENATOR: The Currency Bill and a Republican Congress would block the game for the next four years.

PRESIDENT: Ah! the most changeable and inconstant thing is politics; people weary of one another. As tyrants of old used to unite living men to dead bodies, they select and bind their representatives.

SENATOR: The hope of the country is with conservative Republicans and Democrats. The Senate has rarely sustained a greater loss than in the conservative counsels of Arthur Pue Gorman. Simple, profound, at times sublime, he charmed and instructed the Senate without offense. Without bitterness, without satire, full of wit and brilliant sallies, he could tell a story promptly, vividly, and without premeditation. Always more willing to listen than to talk, men were his books. With commonplace people he was commonplace. He only talked with those who had something to tell him worth remembering.

PRESIDENT: There is and ever will be in all countries and under all governments an ostracism of their greatest

men.

SENATOR: I have often admired the secret working of Providence in punishing parties and states for their evil deeds in removing and retiring their best men.

What an incomparable loss the country has sustained in the enforced retirement of Senator Gorman and Speaker Reed!

PRESIDENT: Senator Gorman always took his station in some fixed, invulnerable principle, soon surrounded and entangled his adversary, disjointing every member of his