ernment for the purpose of procuring
and maintaining a sufficient gold reserve and the redemption and
cancellation of the United States legal-tender notes and the Treasury
notes issued for the purchase of silver under the law of July 14, 1890.
We should be relieved from the humiliating process of issuing bonds
to procure gold to be immediately and repeatedly drawn out on these
obligations for purposes not related to the benefit of our Government or
our people. The principal and interest of these bonds should be payable
on their face in gold, because they should be sold only for gold or its
representative, and because there would now probably be difficulty in
favorably disposing of bonds not containing this stipulation. I suggest
that the bonds be issued in denominations of twenty and fifty dollars
and their multiples and that they bear interest at a rate not exceeding
3 per cent per annum. I do not see why they should not be payable fifty
years from their date. We of the present generation have large amounts
to pay if we meet our obligations, and long bonds are most salable. The
Secretary of the Treasury might well be permitted at his discretion to
receive on the sale of bonds the legal-tender and Treasury notes to be
retired, and of course when they are thus retired or redeemed in gold
they should be canceled.

These bonds under existing laws could be deposited by national
banks as security for circulation, and such banks should be allowed to
issue circulation up to the face value of these or any other bonds so
deposited, except bonds outstanding bearing only 2 per cent interest and
which sell in the market at less than par. National banks should not be
allowed to take out circulating notes of a less denomination than $10,
and when such as are now outstanding reach the Treasury, except for
redemption and retirement, they should be canceled and notes of the
denomination of $10 and upward issued in their stead. Silver certificates
of the denomination of $10 and upward should be replaced by certificates
of the denominations under $10.

As a constant means for the maintenance of a reasonable supply of gold
in the Treasury, our duties on imports should be paid in gold, allowing
all other dues to the Government to be paid in any other form of money.

I believe all the provisions I have suggested should be embodied in our
laws if we are to enjoy a complete reinstatement of a sound financial
condition. They need not interfer