ss they wish to
measure the volume of money? It cannot be the farmers' business and the
merchants' business they would have to measure the volume by, for that
would make a double standard of measurement, and they tell us we cannot
have but one standard of measurement.

Then I ask, whose business will measure the amount under such a law? To
me the answer comes back in reverberating tones repeated with emphasis,
measured in volume according to the bankers' business, of course. Our
philosophers tell us there are two kinds of elasticity--elasticity by
compression and elasticity by expansion. Thus an elastic substance
after being either compressed or expanded when released, returns to its
original shape and size, so when the bankers want money expanded in
volume according to the need of their business, they would expand it,
and whenever their business ends are best accomplished by contraction;
then, of course, contraction is the program with them. While the
government is completely separated from the banking business so they
can furnish no relief, we might compare that system with an alligator
on the banks of a Louisiana river lying out to sun himself; he gets the
bankers' elastic idea in his head, and his upper jaw flies over his
back, and his mouth is twice as large as when it is closed, elasticity
by expansion. (Laughter.) A sweet substance gathers on his open mouth,
and the flies light there to eat it (just as the people will gather
around the bankers for money when there is no other place to procure
it). The flies gather thicker and thicker, and the mouth gets bigger
and bigger, more and more elasticity by expansion; finally the
alligator, like the banker, happens to think that there is another kind
of elasticity, when down comes the upper jaw on the lower jaw and the
flies are caught in the trap, and the Government shall go out of the
banking business to furnish no relief or escape (cries of good, and
cheers). My friends, if I mistake not, every cry of the Republican
party from the time of John C. Fremont until the campaign of 1896 has
been against banks issuing paper money except that the Government was
strictly in the banking business. Have not they always told us, that
when state or other banks issue paper money without the Government in
the banking business to back up the issue, such money in case of a
failure of the issuing bank became wild-cat money, and did they not say
to us wild-cat money made paupers? Now the