life tenure which is being
built up in Washington, and which excludes from participation in
official benefits the humbler members of society.

Let me call your attention to two or three important things. The
gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment to the
platform providing that the proposed change in our monetary system
shall not affect contracts already made. Let me remind you that there
is no intention of affecting those contracts which according to present
laws are made payable in gold; but if he means to say that we cannot
change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned
money before the change was made, I desire to ask him where, in law or
in morals, he can find justification for not protecting the debtors
when the act of 1873 was passed, if he now insists that we must protect
the creditors.

He says he will also propose an amendment which will provide for the
suspension of free coinage if we fail to maintain the parity within a
year. We reply that when we advocate a policy which we believe will be
successful, we are not compelled to raise a doubt as to our own
sincerity by suggesting what we shall do if we fail. I ask him, if he
would apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. He
says he wants the country to try to secure an international agreement.
Why does he not tell us what he is going to do if he fails to secure an
international agreement? There is more reason for him to do that than
there is for us to provide against the failure to maintain the parity.
Our opponents have tried for twenty years to secure an international
agreement, and those are waiting for it most patiently who do not want
it at all.

And now, my friends, let me come to the paramount issue. If they ask us
why it is that we say more on the money question than we say upon the
tariff question, I reply that, if protection has slain its thousands,
the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why
we do not embody in our platform all the things that we believe in, we
reply that when we have restored the money of the Constitution all
other necessary reforms will be possible; but that until this is done
there is no other reform that can be accomplished.

Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the
country? Three months ago, when it was confidently asserted that those
who believe in the gold standard would frame our platform and nominate
our can