in a common danger we may be able to seek with unclouded vision a safe
and reasonable protection.

The real trouble which confronts us consists in a lack of confidence,
widespread and constantly increasing, in the continuing ability or
disposition of the Government to pay its obligations in gold. This lack
of confidence grows to some extent out of the palpable and apparent
embarrassment attending the efforts of the Government under existing
laws to procure gold and to a greater extent out of the impossibility
of either keeping it in the Treasury or canceling obligations by its
expenditure after it is obtained.

The only way left open to the Government for procuring gold is by the
issue and sale of its bonds. The only bonds that can be so issued were
authorized nearly twenty-five years ago and are not well calculated to
meet our present needs. Among other disadvantages, they are made payable
in coin instead of specifically in gold, which in existing conditions
detracts largely and in an increasing ratio from their desirability as
investments. It is by no means certain that bonds of this description
can much longer be disposed of at a price creditable to the financial
character of our Government.

The most dangerous and irritating feature of the situation, however,
remains to be mentioned. It is found in the means by which the Treasury
is despoiled of the gold thus obtained without canceling a single
Government obligation and solely for the benefit of those who find
profit in shipping it abroad or whose fears induce them to hoard it at
home. We have outstanding about five hundred millions of currency notes
of the Government for which gold may be demanded, and, curiously enough,
the law requires that when presented and, in fact, redeemed and paid in
gold they shall be reissued. Thus the same notes may do duty many times
in drawing gold from the Treasury; nor can the process be arrested as
long as private parties, for profit or otherwise, see an advantage in
repeating the operation. More than $300,000,000 in these notes have
already been redeemed in gold, and notwithstanding such redemption they
are all still outstanding.

Since the 17th day of January, 1894, our bonded interest-bearing debt
has been increased $100,000,000 for the purpose of obtaining gold to
replenish our coin reserve. Two issues were made amounting to fifty
millions each, one in January and the other in November. As a result of
the first issue there