Proceedings & Collections - NSHS - Vol. IV

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Congress has a new man been accorded the attention or awarded the praise that has fallen to the rising young statesman from Nebraska. When he began to speak the Republicans looked on with something of curiosity, but curiosity soon gave way to interest, and interest developed into admiration as the conviction became apparent that it was not the argument of a novice that was being delivered.
When the next morning's sun arose Mr. Bryan found that he was famous and that his political sun was already high in the heavens. Without exception the papers all over the country spoke in the most glowing terms of this new light in the Democratic Party, and predicted a brilliant future for him.
GEMS.

In presenting a summary of this "maiden effort," an admission of failure on the part of the compiler need not humiliate, considering how far disjointed parts fall beneath a harmonious whole. As a compiler, however, I will give a pen picture of him, in colors of his own compounding, as he stands out on the plane of the Congressional Record.

FIRST, AS A FEARLESS, SELF-POISED ANTAGONIST.

In his opening sentence he accepted the protection challenge of Mr. Dingley, of Maine, and waiving all conventional formalities, as a new member, thrust a javelin at once in the side of the opposition party, whom he described as occupying the "wedge shaped space on what used to be called the Republican side." Said he:

I consider myself fortunate that I am permitted to hear protection doctrine from its highest source. Out in Nebraska we are so far away from the beneficiaries of a tariff that the argument, namely, justification of protection, in traveling that long distance, becomes somewhat diluted and often polluted, so that I am glad to be permitted to drink the water, fresh from its fountains in Maine and Massachusetts, and I will assure the gentleman that those of us who believe in tariff reform are willing to meet him on the principles involved not only here, but everywhere.

At the end of an hour, having revealed himself as a sound, logical debater, Mr. Burrows (Republican) moved that he be
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granted unlimited time, and the advocates of high protection determined to ply the new and inexperienced member with annoying questions.

EQUAL TO THE EMERGENCY.    MR. McKENNA: Do you really believe that the protective policy is similar to the pick-pocket policy of putting a man's hand into another man's pocket and extracting money from it?
   MR. BRYAN: Yes, that is my belief.
   MR. McKENNA: Now, then, one more question. You can answer it all together. If that is so, how do you justify your position, not in economics, but in morality, for reporting a bill which leaves 39 per cent taxes on woolen clothing?
   MR. BRYAN: Mr. Chairman, if I found a robber in my house, who had taken all I had, and I was going to lose it all or else get back one-half I would take the half. [Laughter and applause on the Democratic side.] I will ask the gentleman from California if he would refuse to give the people any relief because he could not give all that he wanted to give.
   MR. McKENNA: No.
   MR. BRYAN: Then we agree. [Applause.]
   MR. PERKINS: Are you to be understood as opposed to a state or national protection to be extended to the beet sugar industry?
   MR. BRYAN: I am most assuredly. [Loud applause on Democratic side.] And when it is necessary to come to Congress and ask for a protection or bounty for an industry in my own state, which I should refuse as wrong to an industry in another state, I shall cease to represent Nebraska in Congress. [Great applause.] There is the difference between a bounty and a protective tariff that the Bible describes when it speaks of the "destruction that wasteth at noonday, and the pestilence that walketh in darkness."
   MR. RAINES: I have in my desk a list of twenty-seven manufacturers of tin, but I want to say to the gentlemen, that no trade paper was ever published that could ever contain a list of all the tin plate liars of the United States. [Applause on the Republican side.]
   MR. BRYAN: I do not suppose that paper, then, has a biographical sketch of my friend from New York. [Prolonged applause on the Democratic side.]
HAPPY WITH ILLUSTRATION.    It has been said that a slave was a slave simply because

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100 per cent of the proceeds of his toil was appropriated by somebody without his consent. If the law is such that a portion of the proceeds of our toil is appropriated by somebody else without our consent, we are simply to that extent slaves as much as were the colored men. And yet this party, that boasts of striking the manacles from 6,000,000 slaves, is engaged driving the fetters deeper into the flesh of 65,000,000 of free men.
   You want to raise an infant industry; you take a protective tariff for a lever and put one end of it under the infant industry; you look around for some good, fat, hearty consumer, and lay him down for a ground chunk; you bear down on the rail, and up goes the infant industry, but down goes the ground chunk into the ground. [Laughter and applause.]
   Out in Nebraska there was a time when we had almost one sheep for each man, woman and child. We look back to it as the mutton age of Nebraska. [Laughter.] But alas! that happy day has passed. The number of sheep has decreased, until now, if every woman in the State named Mary insisted on having a pet lamb at the same time, we would have to go out of the State to get lambs enough to go around. [Laughter and applause.]
CLASSICAL ALLUSIONS.    Homer tells how Ulysses escaped from the cave of the Cyclops by means of a sheep. We read in the Bible that when Isaac was about to be offered up, a ram was found caught by the horns in a thicket, and offered in his stead; and in the 4th chapter of Genesis, I think in the 2d verse--my Republican friends, of course, will remember [laughter]--it is recorded of the second son of the first earthly pair, "Abel was a keeper of sheep." And from that day to this the sheep has been the constant companion of man in all his travels, and it has differed from its modern owner perhaps the most in that it is recognized as the symbol of meekness. [Laughter.]
   In dealing with the imperious ex-Speaker, Tom Reed, of Maine, who used to count quorums when the House journal did not disclose the fact, Mr. Bryan's English classics did good service.
   MR. BRYAN: We shall not find fault with him if he consumes much of his time, as he gazes around upon the chairs once occupied by his faithful companions, in recalling those beautiful words of the poet Moore

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"'Tis the last rose of summer,
   Left blooming alone.
All her lovely companions
   Have faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred,
   No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
   Or give sigh for sigh."

[Laughter.]
The time may come, I say, when his constituents will address him in the language of that other verse, as beautiful in words and appropriate in sentiment

"I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
   To pine on the stem,
Since the lovely are sleeping,
   Go sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
   Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
   Lie scentless and dead."

We cannot afford to degrade the common people of this land, for they are the people who in time of prosperity and peace produce the wealth of the country, and they are also the people who in time of war bare their breasts to a hostile fire in defense of the flag.
Go to Arlington, or to any of the national cemeteries; see there the plain white monuments which mark the place "where rests the ashes of the Nation's countless dead,"--those of whom the poet has so beautifully written

"On fame's eternal camping ground,
   These silent tents are spread."
BRILLIANT RETORTS.    You say that we deceived them; that we exceeded you in misrepresentation. You have the consolation of knowing that if we did, it was the first time we ever went beyond you in that respect. [Applause.] But we did not, because, as a successful fabricator, the average Republican will be recognized as one the latchet of whose shoes we are not worthy to unloose. [Applause.]
   Where are the men who were the most largely instrumental in fastening that iniquitous legislation on this country?
   MR. RAINES: One of them is Governor of Ohio.
   MR. BRYAN: Yes; I believe he did succeed in being elected governor of a Republican State. [Applause.]
   MR. DAVIS: By a minority vote.
   MR. BRYAN: Yes, by a minority vote. And to such extremity has this great Caesar come that he welcomes the hold-

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ing of a Republican state, now, more than ever before, he boasted of the conquest of an empire. [Applause.]
   And to-day the once proud Republican party thinks it worth while to announce to this body, through the gentleman (Mr. Raines), that the Republican party has made a gain in supervisors in New York. [Laughter and applause.]
   As space can not be given to many paragraphs of a two hours' speech, it is difficult to do justice to the argument and the speaker.
FREE WOOL.    MR. BRYAN: The reason why I believe in putting raw material upon the free list is because any tax imposed upon raw material must at last be taken from the consumer of the manufactured article. You can impose no tax for the benefit of the producer of raw material which does not find its way through the various forms of manufactured product, and at last press with accumulated weight upon the person who uses the finished product.
   Another reason for believing that raw material should be upon the free list is because that is the only method by which one business can be favored without injury to another. We are not, in that case, imposing a tax for the benefit of the manufacturer, but we are simply saying to the manufacturer: "We will not impose any burden upon you." When we give to the manufacturer free raw material and free machinery, we give to him, I think, all the encouragement which a people acting under a free Government like ours can legitimately give to an industry.
NOT CLASS LEGISLATION.    Our friends have said that this is class legislation. That is, that when we say we will deprive the wool-grower of any advantage he has under the present law we are guilty of class legislation. It is sufficient evidence, Mr. Chairman, that this bill does not advance class legislation that the Republican party is solidly opposing it. If it were class legislation we could reasonably expect their united support. [Applause on the Democratic side.]
   But, Sir, I desire to call the attention of the committee to this distinction. We have referred to it in the report of the committee on binding-twine. There is a difference between a man coming to this Congress and demanding that other people shall be subjected to a tax for his benefit and a demand on the part of those taxed to be relieved of the burden. Is there not a difference between these two

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principles? It seems to me that the difference is as marked as between day and night. It is simply this difference, sir: The man who says, "Impose upon somebody else a tax for my benefit," says what the pick-pocket says, "Let me get my hand into his pocket"; but the man who says, "Take away the burdens imposed on me for other people's benefit," says simply what every honest man says, "Let me alone to enjoy the results of my toil," I repeat, is there not a difference between these two principles?
MR. CLAY'S ARGUMENT.

Having quoted Alexander Hamilton, in 1791, against the policy of "continued bounties," Mr. Bryan continued:

   That was the original idea. Mr. Clay said in 1833:
   "The theory of protection supposes too that after a certain time the protected arts will have acquired such strength and perfection as will enable them subsequently, unaided, to stand against foreign competition."
   And again in 1840:
   "No one, Mr. President, in the commencement of the protective policy, ever supposed that it war, to be perpetual."
   This was the argument used in the beginning; but arguments have to be framed to meet conditions, and we find now that infants that could get along on 10 per cent when they were born, and 20 per cent when they were children, and 30 per cent when they were young men, have required 40, 50, 60, or 70 per cent when old and entering upon their second childhood. [Laughter.]

As a justification for attacking the tariff law by special amendment, he referred to the fact that the Senate and President would resist a general modification, but he hoped might favor a few changes on articles of prime necessity. His language was:

It is not as great a reduction as might be made. I believe that we have left far more tariff than can be shown to be necessary to provide for any difference, if there be any difference, between the cost of manufactures here and abroad. But I am led to agree to this moderate reduction of the tariff upon manufactured articles for two reasons; first, because, in going from a vicious system--and I believe that our present system is a vicious system, created by the necessities of war and continued by favoritism--because, I

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say, in going from a vicious to a correct system the most rapid progress can be made by degrees.
Another reason why I am willing to stop at this point at this time is because all measures of legislation must be practical rather than ideal.
SUNLIGHT TOO CHEAP.

Desiring to give prominence to the theory which he regarded as fallacious, "an attempt to raise at a high price that which we can purchase abroad at a low price" in exchange for the products of our toil, we have:

   It was said by a gentleman who appeared before the committee--I think at the last Congress--that wool could be raised in Australia for 6 cents a pound, and that it could not be raised in this country for less than 15 cents; and we are told that it is a wise policy to so tax imported wool am to enable our people to raise wool at 15 cents a pound instead of buying it at 6 cents a pound; that we save money and give employment to labor. If that principle is true, then it is wise to raise wool at 15 cents a pound instead of buying at 3 cents, because we save more in labor. If it is wise to raise it at 15 cents a pound instead of buying it at 3, it is still wiser to raise it at 15 cents rather than have somebody give it to us. [Laughter.]
   That is what it leads to; and the gentlemen who maintain that position are fit companions for the people who are supposed by Bastiat to have petitioned the French legislature to find some way of preventing the sun from shining, because it interfered with the business of the candlemakers. If their theory is true, then the most unkind act of the Creator was to send that great orb of day every morning to chase away the shadows of the night, flood all the earth with his brightness, and throw out of employment those who otherwise might be making tallow candles to light the world. [Laughter.]
REVENUE.    I am not objecting to a tariff for revenue. If it were possible to arrange a system just as I believe it ought to be arranged, I should collect one part of our revenues for the support of the Federal Government from internal taxes on whisky and tobacco. These are luxuries and may well be taxed. I should collect another part from a tariff levied upon imported articles, with raw material on the free list--the lowest duties upon the necessaries of life and the

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highest duties upon the luxuries of life. And then I should collect another part of the revenues from a graduated income tax upon the wealth of this country. [Loud applause on the Democratic side.] It is conceded by all writers that a tariff upon imports operates most oppressively upon the poor. A graduated income tax would fall most heavily upon the rich, and thus the two would partially compensate each other and lessen the injustice that might come from either one alone. That, I say, would be my idea, if it were possible.
"REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM."

Mr. Bryan showed great ability in the "Reductio ad absurdum" mode of argumentation:

   Now, what is a protective tariff, and what does it mean? It is a simple device, by which one man is authorized to collect money from his fellow-men. There are two ways in which you can protect industry. You can give it a bounty out of the Federal Treasury, or you can authorize it to take up the collection itself. This is the only difference. Suppose that the Chairman desired to help some particular industry--for instance, one in the home of my friend from New York (Mr. Raines), who has asked the question. He might do it in either of two ways. He might pass around the hat here and collect the money and turn it over to the favored industry, or he might simply say to the man, "I will put a tariff upon the imported article and make the price so high that you can collect the additional price for your home-made article."
   Now, what is the difference except that in the one case the Chairman passes around the hat and turns the money over to his friend, and in the other case he authorizes the friend to pass the hat himself.
WHO WILL JUSTIFY IT?    I desire to say that no man on that side of the House in this session of Congress will stand up before you and justify a law that takes from one man one cent and gives it to another man if he will admit that that is the operation. Take an illustration: Here are ten men owning farms side by side. Suppose that nine of them should pass a resolution, "Resolved, That we will take the land of the tenth man and divide it among us." Who would justify such a transaction? Suppose the nine men tell the tenth man that he will get it back in some way; that it is a great advantage to live amongst nine men who will thus

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be better off, and that indirectly he gets an advantage from the transaction? [Laughter and applause on the Democratic side.]
   How long do you suppose it would be before they would convince that man that they were right in taking his land? Would you, gentlemen, dare to justify that? You would not justify the taking of one square foot of his land. If you do not dare do that, how will you justify the taking of that which a man raises on his land, all that makes the land valuable? Where is the difference between the soil and the product of the soil? How can you justify the one if not the other?
MORE BLESSED TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE.    Now, there are two arguments which I have never heard advanced in favor of protection; but they are the best arguments. They admit a fact and justify it, and I think that is the best way to argue, if you have a fact to meet. Why not say to the farmer, "Yes, of course you lose; but does not the Bible say, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'--[laughter]--and if you suffer some inconvenience, just look back over your life and you will find that your happiest moments were enjoyed when you were giving something to somebody, and the most unpleasant moments were when you were receiving." These manufacturers are self-sacrificing. They are willing to take the lesser part, and the more unpleasant business of receiving, and leave to you the greater joy of giving. [Loud laughter and applause on the Democratic side.]
   Why do they not take the other theory, which is borne out by history--that all nations which have grown strong, powerful, and influential, just as individuals have done it, through hardship, toil, and sacrifice, and that after they have become wealthy they have been enervated, they have gone to decay through the enjoyment of luxury, and that the great advantage of the protective system is that it goes around among the people and gathers up their surplus earnings so that they will not be enervated or weakened, so that no legacy of evil will be left to their children. Their surplus earnings are collected up, and the great mass of our people are left strong, robust, and hearty. These earnings are garnered and put into the hands of just as few people as possible, so that the injury will be limited in extent. [Great laughter and applause on the Democratic Side.]

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LONG LIVE THE KING.

After quoting Mr. Jefferson's description of a happy and prosperous people he came to a period, exclaiming:

The day will come, Mr. Chairman--the day will come when those who annually gather about this Congress seeking to use the taxing power for private purposes will find their occupation gone, and the members of Congress will meet here to pass laws for the benefit of all the people. That day will come, and in that day, to use the language of another, "Democracy will be king! Long live the king!" [Prolonged applause on the Democratic side.] BINDING TWINE.

May 3rd, 1892, Mr. Bryan having in charge a bill on its passage, to place binding twine on the free list, declined its further discussion as his views were fully given on a wool bill. Of the binding twine bill he said:

   This bill places upon the free list the various hinds of binding-twine. The majority and minority of the committee agree upon some of the facts. We agree that there were consumed in this country last year about 100,000,000 pounds of binding-twine. We agree that if a tariff of seven-tenths of 1 per cent is added to the price of the binding-twine that it costs the people of this country $700,000 because of that tariff.
   We agree also that no twine was imported and that no revenue was received by the Government from this source. Therefore, if this was a tax upon the consumer, it was a tax of $700,000 taken out of the people's pocket, not one cent of which reached the Treasury. According to the Republican idea, that is an ideal tariff; it embraces the maximum of burden with the minimum of revenue. [Laughter.]
   We had a report from one of the manufacturers of binding-twine that there are thirty-five binding-twine factories in the United States (there are possibly a few more). If that is true, then $700,000 a year means $20,000 to every one of these binding-twine factories. Is that a trifling consideration? It is trifling to the farmer to be taxed 1 cent an acre, but it is a matter of some importance (which the minority seem to think of more consideration) that it means $20,000 a year to every binding-twine manufacturer in this country. This tax is a small matter, Mr. Chairman; 1 cent an acre is trival (sic); the total sum is not great; but if

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you concede the right of Government to collect from the farmer 1 cent an acre in order that a binding-twine factory may make $20,000 a year more, you concede the right of Government to collect from that farmer 1 cent an acre on each of two hundred additional items for the "protection" of other industries, until you have absorbed every cent of his income from his farm. They told us the other day that there are twenty-five hundred articles upon the tariff list.
Now, if there are twenty-five hundred articles upon that list, and you can take one at a time and deal with it upon this principle, imposing a tax of 1 cent an acre upon the farmer for each article, then you can impose an aggregate tax of $25 an acre upon the farmer for the benefit of somebody else. This binding-twine tax is a trifling consideration, but the farmers of this country who have been oppressed, who have been made to bleed at every pore by your infamous system, will welcome even a trivial advantage as an earnest of that complete relief which will come when it is in our power to give it. [Loud applause on the Democratic side.]
FOX AND CHICKENS.

Just as the bill was put upon its passage, Mr. Bryan, replying to Mr. Payne, of New York, said:

I ask them why it is that people who manufacture this article are so anxious to continue a system which they say reduces the price of that which they have to sell? We have listened too long to the men who levy these charges upon the farmers and who continually assert that they are the only friends of the farmer. It is too much like the parable of the fox, who when the farmer undertook to build a fence around his chicken house, said: "You go about your business; we foxes will take care of the chickens; we are used to that sort of thing; we understand the chicken business; you can do something else." [Laughter.]
Mr. Speaker, the farmer has been allowing these men to attend to this business for him long enough, but he has now come to the point where he is going to attend to it himself, and gentlemen who represent farming constituencies upon this floor will have something more than child's play on their hands when they go back and undertake to explain to their constituents why it is that they are willing to refuse even the benefit of 1 cent an acre to this oppressed class. I do not care to consume more time. I demand the yeas and nays upon the motion to suspend the rules and pass this bill. Let us so vote that we can defend our action before our constituents. [Applause on the Democratic side.]

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PINKERTON DETECTIVES.

Just after the bloody repulse of the Pinkerton detectives by the Homestead strikers in Pennsylvania, the House of Representatives ordered an investigation.

   MR. BRYAN: I only desire to say, Mr. Speaker, that this resolution ought to pass. It is simply to investigate whether there has been any violation of the Federal Constitution or laws by the action of these men. I believe in law and order, but I believe that the law and order should be maintained by the lawful authorities, and not by private armies. Governments are organized to protect life and property. These functions should not be transferred to private individuals and hired detectives until we are ready to acknowledge government a failure. It is not fair to compel corporations to protect their property in this way, nor is it right that the safety and even life of the citizen shall be imperiled by a private and irresponsible soldiery. Let public order be preserved by public authority. [Applause.]
CURRENCY.    MR. BRYAN: I am in favor of the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution. I am in favor of the free coinage of gold and silver at the present ratio and believe that our paper money should be issued by the National Government alone, and convertible into coin on demand [applause]; I am not willing, either by my voice or vote, to continue national banks as banks of issue; neither am I willing that the states shall authorize private corporations to issue money which would have all the objectionable features of national-bank notes without their advantages. If we are going to have a currency issued by private corporations--I repeat I do not think we should have it at all--I want a currency that is guaranteed, that will be as good in one state as another, and that will not be subject to the fluctuation which the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Joseph D. Taylor) has spoken of. I do not want a currency which will make it necessary whenever a man travels from one state to another to have telegraphic communication with all parts of the United States in order to know whether his money is good.
ADDITIONAL NAVY APPROPRIATIONS.    MR. BRYAN: This House has in the present Congress passed bills proposing to bring to the country relief from taxation; does the other legislative branch consider those measures? No; it stands absolutely in the way of afford-

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ing any relief whatever to the people. It yields absolutely nothing to us. Now, it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that when the other branch of the Legislature insists upon extravagant expenditures, while at the same time refusing relief to the people, we who have sought to afford such relief are justified in refusing assent to such extravagant expenditures. [Applause on the Democratic side.]
Mr. Speaker, I believe in a sufficient navy. We have this now, either in existence or in construction. We do not need more. It is not necessary for us to establish a navy greater than any other in the world, any more than it is necessary for us to organize a larger standing army than any other nation. I desire to emphasize the thought which has been so eloquently expressed by my friend from Indiana (Mr. Holman)--that we are becoming a nation of splendor, a nation of extravagance, a nation of show. I may be pardoned for repeating--not because gentlemen have not heard it, because the thought conveyed deserves to be impressed upon every mind--the truth so beautifully expressed by the English poet:

"Ye friends of truth, ye statesmen who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land."

[Applause on the Democratic side.]
Mr. Speaker, if it is the object of the body at the other end of this Capitol to bring us the splendor of a great country, let it be our object to build up a happy land. We can afford to go forth to our people upon such a record. [Applause on the Democratic side.]

ELECTION OF U. S. SENATORS.

In the House, July 19, 1892, a member from Wisconsin, Mr. Bushnell, said:

The method is following out, and in accordance with a joint resolution introduced early in the session by the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bryan), and is substantially the adoption of the constitutional amendment proposed by him in that joint resolution.
MR. BRYAN: Mr. Speaker, I do not desire to consume the time of this House in the discussion of the merits of the original proposition. So far as the election of Senators by the people is concerned, I am in favor of it in whatever form it may come, and I can see no reason that can be urged against the proposition, except a distrust of the people themselves. But I do earnestly desire to call the atten-

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tion of the members of the House to a difference between the majority and minority reports.
   About three months ago I took the liberty of sending to each member of this House a circular letter, calling attention to the minority report and to the reasons why it was presented, in order that the matter might be calmly considered, and I beg the members of this House at this time in considering this very important question to take up these two reports and to adopt the resolutions which are most likely to meet with general approval.
   The amendment which has been proposed by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Bushnell), representing the minority, instead of making the election of Senators compulsory upon all the states, leaves it optional with each state to adopt or reject the plan as it sees fit. In other words, it is acting in the line of the least resistance. We are attempting to change the Constitution of the United States. While I believe that there is a great public demand for this change among the people, yet I know that it will be combated. I know there will be opposing influences and forces, and I am anxious that we shall adopt that proposition which will have the most chance of being accepted by the people. The optional feature ought to be most acceptable to both sides of this House, whether they favor the election of Senators by the people or not. If you are opposed to it, if you believe that your state does not favor it, then you should favor the optional feature, because it leaves your state free to accept it or reject it.
   If, on the other hand, you are in favor of the election of Senators by the people, as I am, then you ought to have confidence that, if it is left to the people to say, they are wise enough to decide for themselves. You simply give them the privilege in each state of adopting this method if they see fit, and I believe the result of such a proposition would be that in a short time every state in the Union would be electing its United States Senators directly by the people.
ORATORICAL CONDENSATION.

During the second session of the 52nd Congress, amidst intense excitement and anxiety in the House, over an effort to force a vote involving a repeal of the Sherman act of 1890, four minutes only could be allowed Mr. Bryan in which to portray political history, party fidelity, with pertinent illustrations and forcible deductions, couched in plain, bold, parliamentary sarcasm.

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How well he succeeded in compassing a vast circle, in brief time, will appear from the following condensation.

   MR. COX, of Tennessee: I yield four minutes of our time to the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bryan].
   MR. BRYAN: Mr. Speaker, we oppose the consideration of this bill because we oppose the bill, and we oppose the cloture which is asked in order to secure its passage, because the Democratic party dare not go before the people and tell them they refused cloture for free coinage--which is consistent with the history of the party; for the tariff bills which we promised to pass, and for the bill for the election of United States Senators by the people,--and only yielded to it at the dictation of the moneyed institutions of this country and those who want to appreciate the value of a dollar.
   I call attention to the fact that there is not in this bill a single line or sentence which is not opposed to the whole history of the Democratic party. We have opposed the principle of the national bank on all occasions, and yet you give them by this bill an increased currency of $15,000,000. You have pledged the party to reduce the taxation upon the people, and yet, before you attempt to lighten this burden, you seek to take off one-half million of dollars annually from the national banks of the country; and even after declaring in your national platform that the Sherman act was a "cowardly makeshift," you attempt to take away the "makeshift" before you give us the real thing for which the makeshift was substituted.
   What is a makeshift? It is a temporary expedient. And yet you tell us you will take away our temporary expedient before you give us the permanent good. You tell a man who is fighting with a club that it is a miserable makeshift and that he ought to have a repeating rifle; and yet you tell him to throw away his club and wait until his enemy gives him the rifle. We do not like the present law. It did not come from us. The Sherman law is the child of the opponents of free coinage. But they have given it to us, and we will hold it as a hostage until they return to us our own child, "the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution." [Loud applause.] They kidnaped (sic) it twenty years ago, and we shall hold their child, ugly and deformed as it is, until they bring ours back or give us something better than the makeshift which we now have.
   Mr. Speaker, consider the effect of this bill. It means that by suspending the purchase of silver we will throw 54,000,000 ounces on the market annually and reduce the price