g 100 pounds, put
in it 500 pounds of water, and the weight was 600 pounds, just as the
boy had told the teacher; then Mr. Franklin added a 100-pound live fish
and the total weight was 700 pounds. The next day the teacher called on
Franklin for his solution of the great problem, whereupon Franklin
replied, there was but one solution to the question. "What is that?"
anxiously inquired the visitor. "Why," replied Franklin, "the boy
lied."

My friends, when they tell us the law cannot regulate value and that
gold never changes, and when we examine the records and see that gold
does change and that law does regulate value, we say there is but one
answer to them, and that is just as Franklin answered the teacher about
the boy.

We hear it said by the Republicans that free silver would drive gold
out of the country; our Democratic friends tell us that free silver
will not drive gold out of the country. So we see on that point people
seem to differ in opinion. For my part I believe that free silver
either will drive the gold out or else it will not. I want to ask the
Republicans to acknowledge for the sake of argument that silver would
not drive the gold out. Now, let us examine the question if silver
don't drive the gold out, and we have a block of gold large enough to
make into $100, and a block of silver sufficiently large to make into a
like amount, if the gold-standard Democratic idea prevails, all the
money we could coin would be the $100 from the gold, for silver could
not be coined, but if bimetallism prevailed we could coin $100 from the
gold and $100 from the silver, making $200, that is, if the silver does
not drive out the gold. But the Republicans may urge that free silver
would drive out the gold by the gold going at a premium over silver,
then we would coin the block of silver into 100 legal tender dollars
and the gold would be exchanged for a block of silver say 25 per cent
larger than the block that drove it out, and we would coin that block
into 125 legal tender dollars, adding it to the silver that stayed at
home, making 225 dollars, just $25 more than we would have if the gold
did not advance to a premium. But they tell us that would be coining
the cheapest metal. Now, honor bright, you Republicans cannot complain
of that for the reason I will presently explain. We often hear it urged
that during the eighty-one years of bimetallism in the United States
only about 8,000,000 silver dollars were coined, and