. Knox's report contained two specific
statements that it was a purpose of the bill to prohibit the coinage
of the silver dollar; the report of the Secretary of the Treasury for
the year 1872 made a specific recommendation to that effect; the bill
was printed six times; it was considered in each House during the
Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses; the precise question in
controversy was the subject of discussion, and two years and ten months
were given to the consideration of the bill.

The bill was discussed in the House of Representatives. Mr. Reed has
stated that the report of the debate covers one hundred and ninety-six
columns of the _Congressional Record_. Senator Jones, in his report
of 1876, as chairman of the Silver Commission, refers to the debate in
these words: "In the brief discussion on the bill in the House of
Representatives, the principal reason assigned in favor of those
sections which interdicted the future coinage of the silver dollar was
that its value was three per cent greater than the value of the gold
dollar." Thus Senator Jones admits that the debate in the House of
Representatives was upon the question of the abolition of the silver
dollar, and he recognizes his knowledge of the fact of the debate.

Finally the bill passed the Senate without one dissenting vote.

The downfall of silver has not been due to any legislation in America
or Europe, nor to any decrees or despotic policy in Asia, but to the
inventive faculties of one Charles Burleigh, of Fitchburg,
Massachusetts, the inventor of the power drill.

If through him many silver mines have been rendered valueless, so it
is to him that the world is indebted for a new application of force by
which mountains are penetrated and mining in all its forms is carried
on at one fourth part of the former cost. Every step in civilization,
every advance movement that we call progress, is a peril to many and a
ruin to some. By one stroke of genius, and limiting our thoughts to
one only of its many consequences we may say that Burleigh has made
gold so abundant and cheap that all substitutes for a currency from
wampum to silver must soon disappear.

There is historical evidence tending to show that the representatives
of the silver mining interest had sufficient and worthy reasons for
assenting to the suspension of the silver dollar. In 1872 silver was
at a slight premium as compared with gold. Therefore the privilege of
coinage of the d