olution
reciting statements made in that address, and calling upon the Secretary
of the Treasury for a detailed account of his administration of the
Silver Coinage Act. Secretary Manning's reply was a long and weighty
argument against continuing the coinage of silver. He contended that
there was no hope of maintaining a fixed ratio between gold and silver
except by international concert of action, but "the step is one which
no European nation... will consent to take while the direct or
indirect substitution of European silver for United States gold seems a
possibility." While strong as to what not to do, his reply, like most of
the state papers of this period, was weak as to what to do and how to do
it. The outlook of the Secretary of the Treasury was so narrow that he
was led to remark that "a delusion has spread that the Government has
authority to fix the amount of the people's currency, and the power,
and the duty." The Government certainly has the power and the duty of
providing adequate currency supply through a sound banking system. The
instinct of the people on that point was sounder than the view of their
rulers.

Secretary Manning's plea had so little effect that the House promptly
voted to suspend the rules in order to make a free coinage bill the
special order of business until it was disposed of. But the influence of
the Administration was strong enough to defeat the bill when it came
to a vote. Though for a time, the legislative advance of the silver
movement was successfully resisted, the Treasury Department was left in
a difficult situation, and the expedients to which it resorted to guard
the gold supply added to the troubles of the people in the matter of
obtaining currency. The quick way of getting gold from the Treasury was
to present legal tender notes for redemption. To keep this process in
check, legal tender notes were impounded as they came in, and silver
certificates were substituted in disbursements. But under the law of
1878, silver certificates could not be issued in denominations of less
than ten dollars. A scarcity of small notes resulted, which oppressed
retail trade until, in August, 1886, Congress authorized the issue of
silver certificates in one and two and five dollar bills.

A more difficult problem was presented by the Treasury surplus which, by
old regulations savoring more of barbarism than of civilized polity, had
to be kept idle in the Treasury vaults. The only apparent means