thout redemption and to pay without acquittance.

There had been issued and sold $95,500,000 of the bonds authorized by
the resumption act of 1875, the proceeds of which, together with other
gold in the Treasury, created a gold fund deemed sufficient to meet
the demands which might be made upon it for the redemption of the
outstanding United States notes. This fund, together with such other
gold as might be from time to time in the Treasury available for the
same purpose, has been since called our gold reserve, and $100,000,000
has been regarded as an adequate amount to accomplish its object. This
fund amounted on the 1st day of January, 1879, to $114,193,360, and
though thereafter constantly fluctuating it did not fall below that
sum until July, 1892. In April, 1893, for the first time since its
establishment, this reserve amounted to less than $100,000,000,
containing at that date only $97,011,330.

In the meantime, and in July, 1890, an act had been passed directing
larger governmental monthly purchases of silver than had been required
under previous laws, and providing that in payment for such silver
Treasury notes of the United States should be issued payable on demand
in gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary of the
Treasury. It was, however, declared in the act to be "the established
policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with
each other upon the present legal ratio or such ratio as may be provided
by law." In view of this declaration it was not deemed permissible for
the Secretary of the Treasury to exercise the discretion in terms
conferred on him by refusing to pay gold on these notes when demanded,
because by such discrimination in favor of the gold dollar the so-called
parity of the two metals would be destroyed and grave and dangerous
consequences would be precipitated by affirming or accentuating the
constantly widening disparity between their actual values under the
existing ratio.

It thus resulted that the Treasury notes issued in payment of silver
purchases under the law of 1890 were necessarily treated as gold
obligations at the option of the holder. These notes on the 1st day of
November, 1893, when the law compelling the monthly purchase of silver
was repealed, amounted to more than $155,000,000. The notes of this
description now outstanding added to the United States notes still
undiminished by redemption or cancellation constitute a volume of gold
ob