self-invited struggle through darkness and uncertainty
our humiliation would be increased by the consciousness that we had
parted company with all the enlightened and progressive nations of the
world and were desperately and hopelessly striving to meet the stress of
modern commerce and competition with a debased and unsuitable currency
and in association with the few weak and laggard nations which have
silver alone as their standard of value.

All history warns us against rash experiments which threaten violent
changes in our monetary standard and the degradation of our currency.
The past is full of lessons teaching not only the economic dangers but
the national immorality that follow in the train of such experiments.
I will not believe that the American people can be persuaded after sober
deliberation to jeopardize their nation's prestige and proud standing by
encouraging financial nostrums, nor that they will yield to the false
allurements of cheap money when they realize that it must result in the
weakening of that financial integrity and rectitude which thus far in
our history has been so devotedly cherished as one of the traits of true
Americanism.

Our country's indebtedness, whether owing by the Government or existing
between individuals, has been contracted with reference to our present
standard. To decree by act of Congress that these debts shall be payable
in less valuable dollars than those within the contemplation and
intention of the parties when contracted would operate to transfer by
the fiat of law and without compensation an amount of property and a
volume of rights and interests almost incalculable.

Those who advocate a blind and headlong plunge to free coinage in
the name of bimetallism, and professing the belief, contrary to all
experience, that we could thus establish a double standard and a
concurrent circulation of both metals in our coinage, are certainly
reckoning from a cloudy standpoint. Our present standard of value is the
standard of the civilized world and permits the only bimetallism now
possible, or at least that is within the independent reach of any single
nation, however powerful that nation may be. While the value of gold as
a standard is steadied by almost universal commercial and business use,
it does not despise silver nor seek its banishment. Wherever this
standard is maintained there is at its side in free and unquestioned
circulation a volume of silver currency sometimes equ