May 31, 2006

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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Nevada History:

REMINISCENCES OF

Senator William M. Stewart

OF NEVADA

Part 5 [Chapters XXXIV-XL]

CHAPTER XXXIV

Harrison's infidelity to pledges—His capacity to repel both friends and foes—Cleveland's panic—The fall of Congress into the arms of the gold trust—My protest against the Gladstone-Cleveland bondholding combination.

            Benjamin Harrison was a unique character. He was gifted beyond comparison with a capacity to be disagreeable. He never either refused or granted a favor during the time he acted as President that he did not give offense. He was so impartial in the distribution of his disagreeableness that when a Senator entered the cloakroom of the Senate his associates could tell by his excited and disgusted manner if he had visited the White House that day.

            His repudiation of his pledges, and the platform of his party, on the question of silver, naturally enraged the advocates of honest money. His attempt to pass the Force bill through Congress aroused the whole country, and particularly the South, where the colored population was to be forced into power by a partisan President.

            He had no difficulty in securing the delegates to the National Convention of the Republican party held at Minneapolis in June, 1892. The gold standard contractionists were powerful enough in the Republican States of the North and East to reward their faithful servant.

            He was repaid for his efforts to place the South under negro control by solid colored delegations from nearly every State in the South. I knew his nomination was inevitable. My State offered to elect me a delegate to the Convention. I declined to accept, or to go to Minneapolis to be a witness to the nomination of such a man as Benjamin Harrison.

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            Nevada led off by organizing a silver party which cooperated with the Populist party and the silver men of the Mountain States. This vote went to James Weaver, the candidate of the Populist party, and secured for him five States.

            The gold trust made an active campaign to nominate Grover Cleveland for a second term in 1892. The South was so exasperated against Harrison for his attempt, as they termed it, to secure negro domination in the late Confederate States, that the delegates from that section were inclined to look favorably upon the nomination of Cleveland.

            The managers of the gold trust prepared a platform for him on the silver question, which they contended, and which the Democratic press of the country contended, was so plain a proposition in favor of bi-metalism that Cleveland would be bound to obey it. It was a cunning device and read as follows:

            We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination against either metal or charge for mintage, but the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value or be adjusted through international agreement, or by such safeguards of legislation as shall insure the maintenance of the parity of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in the payment of all debts.

            The contest in the campaign of 1892 was three-cornered between Harrison, Cleveland, and Weaver. The Populist party had its stronghold in the South and West, which, other things being equal, would have cast their vote for Weaver. But the Populist party of the South, dreading the possibility of the reelection of Harrison, and believing that he would renew his efforts for negro supremacy, joined the gold trust of the North in favor of Cleveland.

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            Harrison having fewer personal friends and supporters than any man who ever occupied the White House, was very strong in the slow race, and Cleveland received an overwhelming majority against his unpopular opponent.

            In the session of Parliament previous to the inauguration of Mr. Cleveland there was a strong effort to demonetize silver, when Prime Minister Gladstone, among other things, said :

            I suppose there is not a year passes over our heads which does not largely add to the mass of British investments abroad. I am almost afraid to estimate the total amount of property which the United Kingdom holds beyond the limits of the United Kingdom, but of this I am well convinced, that it is not to be counted by tens of hundreds of millions [pounds].

            One thousand millions [$5,000,000,000] would probably be an extremely low and inadequate estimate. Two thousand millions [$10,000,000,000], or something even more than that, is very likely to be nearer the mark.

            I think under these circumstances it is rather a serious matter to ask this country whether we arc going to perform this supreme act of self-sacrifice.

            I have a profound admiration for cosmopolitan principles. I call go a great length in moderation [laughter] in recommending their recognition and establishment; but if there are these two thousand millions [$10,000,000,000] or fifteen hundred millions [$7,500,000,000] of money which we have got abroad, it is a very serious matter as between this country and other countries.

            We have nothing to pay them; we are not debtors at all ; we should get no comfort, no consolation out of the substitution of an inferior material, of a cheaper money, which we could obtain for loss and part with for more. We should get no consolation, but the consolation throughout the world would, be great.

            This splendid spirit of philanthropy, which we cannot too highly praise—because I have no doubt all this is foreseen—would result in our making a present of fifty or a hundred millions [$500,000,000] to the world. It would he thankfully received, but I think the gratitude for our benevolence would he mixed with very grave misgivings as to our wisdom.

            Mr. Cleveland fully concurred with Mr. Gladstone, and contended that the American people ought to coin

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no more silver, and that they should pay the bonded debt of the United States and all other debts of the States and the people in gold alone; notwithstanding that the United States never agreed to pay gold, but agreed to pay coin, of gold or silver, of the standard value at the time the funding bill was passed July 14, 1870.

            In obedience to the demands of the bondholders everywhere, Mr. Cleveland deliberately proceeded to create the panic of 1893 after his inauguration. But before he got the panic fully under way he invited the leading Democrats of the United States to a grand feast at the White House, and then and there took occasion to show contempt for all Democrats who advocated free coinage, placing in charge of the feast only disciples of the gold trust, which created much feeling.

            The leading bankers of New York, cooperating with Mr. Cleveland's Secretary of the Treasury, John G. Carlisle, refused to extend loans or to allow the banks of the West their usual accommodations. The stringency occasioned was known at the time as the "bankers' squeeze," and had its effect. The banks of the interior commenced to fail. These failures brought on the most disastrous panic the country has ever seen.

            New York banks, in the confidence of the Treasury Department, violated the law under which they were created and refused to pay either drafts or checks drawn on them except in their own certificates of deposit. They issued in violation of law over forty millions of certificates which the people were compelled to take in lieu of money, and thus the syndicate banks lost nothing by the panic, but made enormous gains by creating money without authority of law.

            When distress became general and the great mass of enterprising men of the United States were being destroyed Cleveland, on June 30, 1893, issued a proclamation convening an extra session of Congress

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to assemble on August 7 following, to repeal the silver purchasing clause of the Sherman Act. This message was well calculated to increase the panic by intensifying the distrust which had already been created by the bankers' squeeze which the conspiracy organized.

            The first two paragraphs of the proclamation read as follows:

            Whereas, the distrust and apprehension concerning the financial situation which pervade all business circles have already caused great loss and damage to our people, and threaten to cripple our merchants, stop the wheels of  manufacture, bring distress and privation to our farmers, and withhold from our working men the wage of labor ;

            And whereas, the present perilous condition largely the result of a financial policy which the Executive branch of the Government finds embodied in unwise laws which must be executed until repealed by Congress: [Meaning the purchasing clause of the Sherman Act]

            Such a proclamation at such a time was like an alarm bell in a heavy fog on a rocky coast. The scramble of the people of the United States to save themselves from financial ruin, the approach of which was proclaimed by the Chief Executive, was very like the frantic disorder of the passengers on a ship when warned of approaching danger. The proclamation created a storm of distrust, and every man not in the conspiracy struggled to hold on to some portion of the financial wreck to save himself from utter destruction, which was the common fate of the mass of business men.

            When Congress assembled on the 7th of August, 1893, it required three months of manipulation by Cleveland and other emissaries of "frenzied finance," many of whom have figured in the recent investigation of life insurance companies, to subject Congress to the will of the gold trust.

            It required about a month to subdue the House of Representatives, and three months to persuade the

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majority of the Senate to do what everybody ought to have known was wrong.

            I will not allude to individuals, for it would be unkind, and might be unjust, because the pressure was too great for an ordinary Senator to withstand.

            I struggled against the Gladstone-Cleveland combination until a clear majority was secured for the gold trust. I took the floor at all times to prevent the consummation of the wrong, when no one else would occupy it. The Congressional Record contains between two hundred and two hundred and fifty pages of my speeches during that contest.

            I closed the debate, when the vote was about to be taken, and protested in as strong language as I could command against the consummation of the great wrong. But Cleveland, life insurance manipulators, Shylocks and bond-dealers were too strong to be resisted by the Senate of the United States, and the people suffered the consequence.

CHAPTER XXXV

The money question—Adherence to principle regardless of party—Supply of money a necessity, enormous output of gold furnished that supply—Conversion of my critics to the views I advocated in 1900—No more office for me.

            The depreciation of silver as compared with gold during the twelve years from March, 1875, to March, 1887, was a great calamity to the people of my State, and more injurious to the people of the civilized world than famine, pestilence, and war combined.

            The 412 1/2 grains of silver which composed a silver dollar had been for hundreds of years worth little more than 23.8 grains of standard gold, which composed the gold dollar, and my investigation satisfied me that there was nothing in the relative production of the two metals which changed their relative market values.

            From the discovery of gold until the beginning of the last century, Von Humboldt estimated that there were over forty ounces of silver produced for every ounce of gold, which would have made the ratio of value, according to the production for that period, over 40 to 1, which was not the case.

            On the contrary, an ounce of gold would at no time during that period buy more than 15 1/2 ounces of silver. From 1800 to 1850 about thirty ounces of silver were produced for each ounce of gold. Still, their relative prices remained the same. From 1850 to 1873, when the frenzied financiers of that day excluded silver from the mints of the United States, only six ounces of silver were produced for one ounce of gold; still, an ounce of gold would buy in the world's market 15 1/2 ounces of silver.

            After much investigation I realized that it was legislation, and not production, which had depreciated the

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price of silver as compared with gold; for so long as a certain quantity of silver and another certain quantity of gold could each be taken to the mint and coined into the same amount of money without cost, it was evident that that certain amount of silver and that certain amount of gold would be equal to each other in value according to the axiom in mathematics that things equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

            On examining the legislation of Congress I found that the silver dollar had been omitted from the list of coins in the Mint Act of 1873, and a trade dollar containing about 420 grains of standard silver for use in the Orient to compete with the Mexican dollar, with legal-tender power of only $5 in the United States, had been substituted for the dollar of the fathers.

            Although I was a member of the Senate at the time this legislation took place, I had no knowledge of the change, but continued to suppose that the dollar of Jefferson and Hamilton was still recognized by the mint laws, and in a speech in favor of specie resumption I declared myself in favor of gold, meaning specie, in one or two sentences of my speech; but the context of the speech shows that I had no idea of advocating gold as distinguished from silver.

            This speech became the stock in trade of Sherman and every frenzied financier who manipulated insurance companies or was engaged in kindred rascality. I was compelled in self-defense to investigate and expose the manner of the demonetization of silver and the tricks employed for that purpose, all of which will be found at length in the Congressional Record. The outrage of discontinuing the use of silver when there was not enough of both gold and silver for use as money made a deep impression upon the people, and the managers of the scheme to enhance the value of money and bonds, and depreciate the value of property and wages, found it necessary to pretend they were in favor of restoring

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silver. The Republican party vied with the Democratic party in various pretenses that they were in favor of the rehabilitation of silver. Times went from bad to worse.

            After my experience with Harrison's Administration I found it would be impossible for me to further indorse the Republican party without indorsing the crime of John Sherman in demonetizing silver. When it became evident that Benjamin Harrison would be nominated his own successor in 1892, I severed my connection with the Republican party and joined my fellow-citizens of Nevada in the organization of a silver party, to which I adhered until the silver question was disposed of by a sudden and unexpected output of gold. The general prosperity which a thousand millions of new gold in the short period of four years had produced made further agitation of the silver question in the campaign of 1900 not only unnecessary, but useless.

            The silver question having been eliminated from politics for the time being at least, I frankly told the people of my State the honest truth, which they all now believe. I told them the output of gold had buried the silver party, and that the adherents to that organization were at liberty to align themselves politically as they thought proper. For all of which I was criticised by a portion of the public press.

            I have no harsh words for those who criticised me on account of their financial necessities, or because of their ignorance of the conditions, or because of their unreasonable faith in the speeches that William J. Bryan made in Nevada. It is possible they did not observe the fact that Bryan's silver speeches in Nevada were not heard outside of the battle-born State, or that there was no party in any other State favoring the remonetization of silver.

            They should, however, have known that Mr. Bryan could not remonetize silver with Nevada alone. They must have realized in the campaign of 1904, when they

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supported only gold-standard candidates for the Presidency, that their effort to remonetize silver through the silver party of Nevada in 1902 without the aid of other States was a mistake.

            I have no apprehension that they will criticise me for doing what they have done themselves, or for finding out that the output had buried the silver question before they did.

            I am deeply attached to Nevada. It has been my home for more than forty-six years at the time of this writing, and I am deeply grateful to the people for their many acts of kindness. While I live I shall do all I can to promote the interests of my State, but shall never accept reelection to the Senate of the United States or other important office.

            After the silver question was eliminated from politics, having been a Republican from the organization of that party, I returned to my natural allegiance, and entered upon the campaign with the Republican party in 1900.

            My Republican associates in the Senate understood that I severed my relations with the Republican party on the silver question, and that my position on that question was unchanged. They restored to me positions on committees which were reserved for the dominant party. Among other things, they made me chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, one of the leading committees of the Senate.

            While I believe that organization is necessary, and that there should be several political parties in the government of the country, I have never allowed the party lash to force me to violate my conscience, in or out of office.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Cleveland's bond speculations and Venezuela deal—His repudiation by the Democratic Convention of 1896—The nomination of Bryan on a free-coinage platform—His brilliant campaign and defeat by lavish use of money by the gold trust—Bryan's mistake in advocating silver money after the enormous output of gold made money plenty.

            Grover Cleveland's second administration was an object-lesson. It was probably the worst administration that ever occurred in this or any other civilized country; A few more examples of the unparalleled audacity and greed of Cleveland and his cohorts will be sufficient to satisfy thinking men that Cleveland was the boldest man the country ever produced.

            The United States four per cent. bonds, commonly called four-thirties, because they drew four per cent. interest and had thirty years to run, had not sold in the market for twenty years for less than one per cent. premium for every year they had to run. The four-thirties then outstanding, having about thirteen years to run, were selling at from 14 to 15 per cent. premium.

            Without giving the people a chance to purchase bonds, he sold to private parties sixty-two millions of four-thirty bonds at 4 1/2 per cent. premium, which if they had been sold at the market value would have brought thirty per cent. premium. He attempted to sell another one hundred million at the same rate, but financiers resented the favoritism, to the parties having purchased the sixty-two millions, and the matter was compromised among them by a pretense of a sale to the public. It was only a pretense, however. The combination syndicate secured nearly all of the one hundred million bonds at an average of eleven per cent. premium.

            It required several months to arrange matters before the one hundred and sixty-two millions could be put upon

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the market. When this was done, however, the bonds sold from 29 to 30 per cent. premium; and to-day, notwithstanding more than one-third of the time before their maturity, has run, they are selling for over 30 per cent. premium.

            Making all liberal allowances for commissions and expenses of every kind, somebody made thirty millions at least by Cleveland's bold and unscrupulous stock-jobbing.

            It may be asked why Mr. Cleveland was permitted to do this. The answer is easy, and is furnished by a question or two. How did Rockefeller acquire a thousand millions of money? How has J. Pierpont Morgan obtained what millions of the toiling masses produced? How has the money of the life insurance companies been used to build up colossal fortunes?

            The Venezuela job was the grandest scheme on record. Before it was consummated I received reliable information that our Minister to England, Mr. Bayard, would convey a belligerent message from Mr. Cleveland to Lord Salisbury, and that if he could obtain permission from the Prime Minister of England to send that message officially, and not give offense, he would inaugurate a diplomatic war for the purpose of diverting the attention of the people from the silver question.

            At that time I was editing a paper called The Silver Knight, published in Washington. I prepared an "interview" of what seemed to me would take place on the presentation of Mr. Cleveland's private message to Lord Salisbury by Minister Bayard. I had the parties participating in that interview caricatured; all of which I published in The Silver Knight of November 7, 1895.

            On the 17th of December Cleveland inaugurated the diplomatic war. He sent a message to Congress, proposing to fix the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, without consulting either Venezuela or Great Britain, and to compel the British Empire to

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accept the same, either with or without war with the United States. No more threatening document was ever issued by the United States against any country, weak or strong. The concluding paragraphs of this special message to Congress read as follows:*

            Assuming, however, that the attitude of Venezuela will remain unchanged, the dispute has reached such a stage as to make it now incumbent upon the United States to take measures to determine with sufficient certainty for its justification what is the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Guiana. The inquiry to that end should of course be conducted carefully and judicially, and due weight should be given to all available evidence, records, and facts in support of the claims of both parties.

            In order that such an examination should be prosecuted in a thorough and satisfactory manner, I suggest that the Congress make an adequate appropriation for the expenses of a commission, to be appointed by the Executive, who will make the necessary investigation and report upon the matter with the least possible delay. When such report is made and accepted, it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela.

            In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow.

            I am, nevertheless, firm in my conviction that while it is a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English speaking peoples of the world as being otherwise than friendly competitors in the onward march of civilization and strenuous and worthy rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.

            The uninitiated supposed this message meant war, and panic followed. Stocks dropped ten to twenty per

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*Messages and Papers of Presidents, 5789-5897, Vol. 9, pp. 655-658.

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cent. on both sides of the Atlantic. The British Lion did not even growl. Henry Clews reported that five hundred millions changed hands.

            Cleveland gave his friends three days to fill their shorts, which they did, while the people at large were greatly agitated over the war cloud which the message had brought over the country. On the 10th of December, 1895, he sent another special message to Congress in which he assured the bond-holding syndicates of London and New York and gold contractionists everywhere that the Administration was doing, and would do, everything in its power to pay all indebtedness in gold, and asking Congress to cooperate.* This was all the apology Great Britain required for the warlike message of three days previous. Lord Salisbury's administration was fully satisfied with both the insult and the apology, and no word of complaint came from the other side of the Atlantic.

            This friendly message to bondholders closed the incident. The knowing ones became rich, and the uninitiated lost hundreds of millions of dollars.

            The masses of the Democratic party broke loose in 1896 from the control of the Cleveland bondholders, and met in convention at Chicago and denounced the bond-dealing administration of Grover Cleveland in their platform in the following language:

            We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering to the holders of the obligations of the United States the option reserved by law to the Government of redeeming such obligations in either silver or gold coin.

            We are opposed to the issuing of interest-bearing bonds of the United States in time of peace, and condemn the trafficking with banking syndicates which, in exchange for bonds and at an enormous profit to themselves, supply the Federal Treasury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometalism.

            The Democrats nominated William J. Bryan on a

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*Special Messages and Papers of Presidents, 1789-1897, Vol. 9, p. 659.

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free-coinage platform, but unfortunately loaded it down with an attack on the judiciary and other outside matters which embarrassed the canvass.

            Bryan made a campaign of energy and oratory without a parallel in American politics. The manipulators of finance on both sides of the Atlantic, who had impoverished the nations by falling prices and doubled the obligations of bonds and contracts for the payment of money, became alarmed before the middle of September. They poured out their money like water, and counted and returned in the pivotal States thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of votes beyond the number of voters then existing; and although Mr. Bryan was probably elected, the returns were in favor of Mr. McKinley.

            McKinley did all in his power to make matters go as smoothly as possible, and Providence or chance favored his efforts to have a popular administration. War is always popular, and the Spanish War was no exception to the rule; but if the money volume had continued to shrink and prices had continued to fall, the money powers would have been overthrown in 1900.         

            Fortunately for McKinley and the people at large, the output of gold increased in a phenomenal manner. Over one thousand millions of new gold was produced between 1896 and 1900. This new gold was added to the volume of money in circulation, and caused rising prices, because all the money in circulation and all the property for sale are reciprocally the supply and demand of each other, and the increase of money produced rising prices, as it always does.

            From 1896 to 1900 the rise in prices occasioned by the new gold stimulated industry and created good times. Then came the fatal mistake of William J. Bryan.

            He had hitherto floated on the tide of popularity. He was a magnetic orator, and his theme of hard times found willing ears as long as prices were falling and

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times were going from had to worse. In 1900 he was unwilling to accept the situation and claim, as he rightfully might, that his argument had been vindicated, that want of money was the cause of universal distress and more money was the remedy. When the remedy came from the output of gold he should have claimed a vindication of his theory. One of two things must be said of him—he either did not understand the money question or he was willing to deceive the people.

            If he had understood the money question he would have known that more gold was just as good as more silver, and that it was neither more gold nor more silver that was wanted, but more money. When that need was supplied it was idle to call upon the country to supply a want where none existed.

            It is impossible to estimate the wrong and misery inflicted upon the western world by the exclusion of silver from the mints. At the time of the passage, or rather the smuggling through, of the Mint Act of 1873, the output of both silver and gold was not adequate to the supply of the legitimate demand for money metal. The cutting off of one-half of the supply produced want and misery throughout the civilized world. This could not have been done if the people had not been ignorant of the money question.

            The manipulators of finance, or, more properly, financial robbers, have been able to keep the people in ignorance of the question of finance. The fact that money is a function created by law which is made manifest by the stamp of the Government, and that any material upon which the edict of the Government may be stamped commanding creditors to receive it in payment of debts is money, is kept a secret by the designing few.

            Anything bearing the stamp of the Government making it legal tender is the best money that can be created. The value of each unit of money, of course,

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must depend upon the volume of money in circulation compared with property for sale. The idea of regulating that volume by the accident of mining, whether it be gold or silver, or both, is no more intelligent than the practice of putting a stone in one end of the bag to balance the corn carried to the mill.

            The idea that any one commodity, or any number of commodities, will always bear the same relation numerically to all other commodities, is too absurd for reflection. But inasmuch as money can be stamped on gold, if you can get enough of it it will answer all the purposes of commerce equally as well as if it were stamped on paper—and no better.

            A moment's reflection will convince any one that gold has depreciated fully 50 per cent. in the last ten years: or, what is the same, that prices in general have risen fully 50 per cent. in the last decade.

            We hear on every hand that everything is growing dearer, and our daily experience verifies the enormous rise in the value of property compared to what it was ten years ago. If Mr. Bryan had understood these simple principles of finance and accepted the situation which presented itself in 1900, he would not have led his party to defeat and deprived himself of a brilliant reputation which he acquired in his campaign of 1896,

            Before the inauguration of McKinley, after the campaign of 1896, I published a little book entitled "Analysis of the Functions of Money," which states the money question as I understand it after some years of study and investigation.

            It gives me great satisfaction to be able to name one of the most conspicuous exceptions to the dreary diatribes in Congress on the money question, viz.: the speeches and writings of my honored colleague, John P. Jones, which will survive for the instruction of future generations.

            It is not my purpose to speak ill of former colleagues

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who are now dead, but John Sherman has left the most enduring monumental record of fraud and deception in manipulating the currency to enrich the few and impoverish the many which can be found.

            The Record, when examined, will show that I gave him every opportunity to explain the deception he practiced in the Senate, which he could not do, although he made a desperate effort to defend himself against the charges I made.*

            I submit to the candid judgment of my readers if any self-righteousness or egotism could be more colossal than the claim of the manipulators of London and New York, that they were the purest and best, and that anybody who complained of the villainous schemes of robbery and oppression was dishonest. Does anybody suppose the Morgans and Rockefellers, and their associates, in concentrating the wealth of the nation in the hands of the few, are any worse to-day than the conspirators who concocted the demonetization of silver and doubled the obligation of thirty thousand millions of bonded indebtedness?

            If the people of the United States succeed in uncovering their methods and preventing the destruction of the Republic by impoverishing the masses and concentrating the wealth of the nation in the hands of the few, liberty may survive. No government has ever survived the accumulation of the wealth of the country in the hands of an unscrupulous few.

            The extravagant panegyrics upon the exploits of Alexander the Great are not warranted by the fact that the vast empires of the East which he invaded were rotten to the core. The people had no interest in their governments, and hailed Alexander with his few soldiers as a

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*See March 8, 1888, Cong. Record, 50th Congress, 1st Sess., Part 2, pp. 1848-52; and June 5, 1890, Cong. Record, 51st Cong., 1st Sess., Part 6, Pp. 5622-5641 ; and Sept. 5, 1893, Cong. Record, 53rd Cong., 1st Sess., Part I, pp. 1211-1236.

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deliverer, and not as an enemy. Those empires which were defenseless against an invader could send armies abroad.

            Rome furnishes another example of what frenzied finance could do. When the naked barbarians swarmed down upon the Roman Empire they had no fighting to do. Financial robbers had done their work. The people sought refuge from their oppression in the arms of the wild men of the North. Hundreds of examples of this kind might be given, but enough has been said to call attention to what may happen to the United States.

            If the colossal fortunes already acquired continue to accumulate, the time is not far distant when the people at large will have no love for a government in which they have no interest. If action be taken in time the people of this country will not flock to a foreign or barbarous standard for deliverance from bondage at home.

            The panic-breeding National Bank system is a twin sister of the regulation of commerce by private corporations. I have insisted, since its organization, in and out of Congress, that it ought to be abolished. Under it banks are allowed to borrow money from the United States without interest. The deposit of United States bonds in the Treasury is a sham. The banks draw interest on their bonds while they are in the Treasury; consequently, it costs the banks nothing to get money from the Government. The country banks are allowed to loan all or nearly all of their depositors' money to the great banks of New York and draw interest thereon. The New York banks loan the money so obtained from the country banks, and derive great profit therefrom. The multi-millionaires control the stock of the great banks of New York and use the funds of those banks to carry on their speculations.

            When the stocks in which Rockefeller and his kind

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are interested are boomed far in excess of their value, mainly on margins, the great banks which the trusts control refuse to loan money. The investors in stocks and bonds are unable to make their margins good, and a panic ensues and the great manipulators who caused it collect up, at their own price, the stocks and bonds which are practically thrown away. Confidence is then restored by resumption of loans by the great banks which, in the mean time, have held their money and issued certificates in violation of the statutes of the United States.

            Why should the Government loan money to anybody without interest? Why should not all persons have a right to get money from the Government on equal terms? The Government alone is authorized by the Constitution to coin or stamp money, which is the same thing, and regulate the value thereof. The law of supply and demand regulates the value of money as it does of all other things.

            The only way the Government can regulate the value of money is to regulate the supply. The Government can regulate the supply by furnishing money to all persons on equal terms. Pass a law whereby all the people, including bankers, who have bonds of the United States may sell them to the Government at par for currency, and all persons having currency may also have the privilege of buying bonds at par. The banks would not then have a monopoly of the currency by getting money from the Government without interest. If they were compelled to pay for money with bonds, the same as all other persons and corporations, they would not be a favored class and the business of the country would not be controlled by them.

            The ease with which panics can be created is shown by Cleveland's panic of 1893 and Rockefeller's panic of 1907. The bondholders' fraternity, who either owned or controlled Mr. Cleveland, induced him to send

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his Secretary of the Treasury to New York and suggest that the great banks squeeze a little and tighten the currency. When hard times began Cleveland issued a proclamation declaring that the silver coin in circulation, amounting to about five hundred millions, was not good money, and that it was necessary to repeal the law then existing, authorizing the purchase and coinage of silver. A panic was created by the squeeze and the proclamation, and millions of enterprising citizens were ruined. We know now that Mr. Cleveland did not tell the truth when he said legal-tender silver dollars were not good money, because they have been circulating ever since on a par with gold, without question.

            In 1904 President Roosevelt began an investigation of the various devices of the railroads and trusts to rob the people by means of rate discriminations. Among others, he dared to investigate the doings of the great and cunning financier, J. D. Rockefeller, and the Standard Oil Trust, which had been created by Rockefeller and his associates. Mr. Rockefeller told the country that if the President did not stop his investigations there would be a financial panic.

            The President continued to investigate and prosecute the violators of the law; the squeeze began, and finally terminated in a most disastrous panic. All persons in the United States controlling or being controlled by the trusts and monopolists, who are subverting the Government of the Fathers into an oligarchy of multi-millionaires, turned against the President and his policy.

            In November, 1907, at the time of this writing, every person the oligarchy can command is assailing the President and charging him with the prevailing panic. The great mass of the people who own themselves and control their own actions are in favor of the policy of Theodore Roosevelt and are grateful to him for raising the curtain in time to enable them to see the dangers

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which threaten the Republic, and to avoid the final collapse which inevitably follows the concentration of wealth.

CHAPTER XXXVII

The Pacific Railroad—Jefferson Davis's survey—Collis P. Huntington—Crossing the Rockies—Rivalry of the companies—Credit Mobilier scandal—Investigation by Congress—Beginning of railroad rate discrimination against the people.

            It was the early dream of both the East and West to find a suitable route upon which to construct a railroad across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Jefferson Davis, while Secretary of War, had four routes surveyed across the continent by the engineers of the Army. The work was very thoroughly performed, and a complete description was given as to topography, temperature, and the natural resources along the four routes. These surveys were published by the Government in twelve large volumes, which I have in my library, and I have often perused them with much interest and profit.

            It was deemed necessary by the War Department to purchase an additional section of land from Mexico, which was known as the Gadsden Purchase, to secure the right to construct a railroad on the 32d parallel.

            It was contended by the engineers that it was impracticable to construct a railroad on either of the routes which are now known as the Santa Fe, the Central, and Northern routes. The people of the Pacific Coast were much gratified at the Gadsden Purchase, because they believed that ultimately a railroad would be constructed on that line.

            From 1850 to 1860 the growing antagonism between the North and South on account of the institution of slavery was a great discouragement to the people of the Pacific Coast. They feared that the trans-continental railroad would never be constructed. After the war began there was a desire on the part of the Government

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at Washington, as well as on the Pacific Coast, to connect the two sections by a railroad for military as well as commercial purposes. It was feared the Pacific Coast could not be held with the Atlantic States unless a military road joined them with bands of iron.

            Five gentlemen, C. P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, Judge Crocker, and his big brother Charles Crocker, residing in Sacramento, California, all Union men, conceived the project of a railroad over the Central route.

            The press of San Francisco ridiculed the idea, but the Sacramento projectors of the enterprise never wavered. They went to Washington in 1862, and joined a party of business men from Boston, with Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts as their leader. Mr. Ames was a hardware merchant who had supplied California, from the earliest development of the mines, with picks and shovels, and his name was a household word in every Western mining camp. Congress passed a law for the organization of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and invited men from all the Northern and Eastern States to take stock in the corporation.

            The gentlemen from Sacramento, before going to Washington, organized themselves into a corporation called the Central Pacific Railroad Company. The Union Pacific Company, authorized by Congress, was given rights as far west as the California line, and the Central Pacific was authorized to construct a line from tide-water to meet the Union Pacific.

            Aid in money and land was granted by the Government to both companies, but the embarrassed finances of the country in consequence of the war made it impossible for either company to comply with the conditions of the grant. The Central, however, having obtained some aid in California, constructed a few miles of railroad from Sacramento east, and selected

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what was then known as the Dutch Flat route as the line of their road.

            Two years later, in 1864, Congress allowed both of the railroads to issue a first-mortgage bond equal in amount to the subsidy of the United States; and the lien of the United States for the money advanced, about $60,000,000, for the two roads, was made subsequent, by the Act of 1864, to the bonded lien which the Company was authorized to put upon the road as fast as it was constructed. When the work was actually commenced at both ends, Congress became anxious to expedite the construction, and passed a law allowing each company to build all the railroad it could until the tracks met. After this resolution the work went on with remarkable energy.

            The Central Pacific Company organized among themselves a construction company in which all equally participated. The Union Pacific Company made a contract with an outside corporation, known as the Credit Mobilier.

            The five hundred miles of the Union Pacific road from Omaha to Cheyenne were over a level plain and through a good agricultural country. The lands granted by the Government, and the bonds, much more than built the road. The Credit Mobilier Company made large dividends on its stock during the building of the road. As the roads approached each other a most exciting contest arose as to where the junction should be.

            The law which allowed each company to build all the road it could construct provided that each should construct a continuous line. The Union Pacific Company, when it reached the Wasatch Mountains, did not wait for the completion of a tunnel, which was afterward constructed, but zigzagged its railroad over the mountain.

            The Central Pacific Company tunneled through the

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Sierra Nevada Mountains and built a continuous line so far as it went. The Union Pacific commenced construction at many points west of Ogden and as far as Elko, Nevada. The Central Pacific rushed its work, with the result that the lines of grade paralleled each other for more than two hundred miles.

            The Union Pacific sought legislation to fix the point of meeting, and framed a bill to suit themselves, and passed it through the House of Representatives, where they had an overwhelming majority. The bill came up for consideration in the Senate in the winter of 1869. It was contended on the part of the Union Pacific that they were fully justified in extending their line as far as Elko, Nevada.

            On the other hand, the Central Pacific contended that the Union Pacific was not entitled to come west of the Wasatch Mountains, because they had not complied with the conditions required to build a continuous line, but had built a temporary track over the mountains.

            The Union Pacific had friends in all the Atlantic States, who not only gave them an overwhelming majority in the House, but also a majority that could not be overcome in the Senate.

            I heard of a lawsuit which was instituted in Philadelphia by one of the Union Pacific stockholders against the Credit Mobilier Company and the Directors of the Union Pacific Company, for an accounting, in which it appeared that Oakes Ames, the president of the Union Pacific Company, had distributed a large number of shares of the Credit Mobilier Company among members of Congress. These shares became very valuable because they paid large dividends. I asked Mr. Huntington to obtain the record of that suit and all the testimony, and he did so.

            I stated to the Senate the reasons why the Central ought to be allowed to proceed to a suitable stopping-place for both companies. I said that the people of

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the West desired to reach the Salt Lake settlements of Utah, and the Central Pacific, having built a continuous line, were entitled to go there, if not farther. It was claimed on the part of the Union Pacific people that they needed something over six millions more to complete their line.

            I exhibited the contracts between the Union Pacific directors and the Credit Mobilier Company, and contended it was the duty of the Government to investigate the affairs of the Union Pacific to prevent the subsidy granted by the Government being wasted through the instrumentality of the Mobilier Company, so that the Union Pacific Company might not be bankrupt or rendered incapable of redeeming the Government lien. After I had laid the foundation for my argument, I had read in the Senate the charter of the Credit Mobilier Company, and stated that I had the entire record of the litigation in Philadelphia to exhibit. After the reading of the charter the Senate adjourned.

            The companies met that night and agreed upon Ogden as a place of meeting. The Union Pacific did not want the record of the Philadelphia case read in the Senate. A delegation from the two companies came to my room that evening and asked me if, in case of a settlement, I would eliminate from my speech in the Record the charter of the Credit Mobilier Company and my proposal to offer the record of the Philadelphia case. I agreed, for the sake of harmony.

            In the next Presidential campaign the record which I had withheld was published, and the investigation of the Credit Mobilier Company followed in the next session of Congress. It was reported to me by Mr. Huntington that during the settlement between the two companies all matters were amicably adjusted except one, and that Oakes Ames had said he would forgive everybody except me.

            At the next meeting of Congress, after the matter

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of the Credit Mobilier was exposed, and before the investigation had proceeded to any extent, some member of the Senate made some very disparaging remarks about Oakes Ames, who, unknown to myself, was sitting behind me in the Senate.

            The remarks were so unjust, for Oakes Ames had played such an important part in the construction of the Pacific Railroad, and had expended his great fortune in the enterprise, that I felt called upon to defend him. I did so, doing him nothing but simple justice.

            I turned around a few minutes later to pass into the cloakroom, and saw Mr. Ames, with eyes wet with tears. He arose, extended his hand, and said:

            "I told Mr. Huntington to tell you I never would forgive you. I want to take that back, and want to be your friend."

            Afterward, during the whole of the investigation, I frequently talked to him about the conduct of different parties involved in the scandal. He did not appear to have much concern for himself or to realize that he had committed any wrong. He said that when the legislation, which made it possible to construct the Pacific Railroad, had passed both Houses of Congress, he did not anticipate that he should have occasion to call upon Congress for any further legislation, and he thought those who had been active in securing the legislation ought to have some token of recognition for their services. He did not know, he said, at the time he gave them the stock, that it would be so valuable. He said he was very sorry he did it, and intended no wrong.

            What grieved him most was that a number of his old friends appealed to him to lie in their behalf. He brought me a letter one day from a Senator to whom he had given some of the stock, requesting him to make an affidavit that the charges were not true. Ames said he would not perjure himself. I told him he was right.

            I do not feel disposed to discuss or criticise persons

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who were involved in the Credit Mobilier investigation, but Oakes Ames, notwithstanding the errors he unwittingly committed, deserves well of the American people, and his name should be cherished by all as a brave, energetic, enterprising man.

            The unjust and violent criticism of the press and of ambitious partisans will be deplored in view of the accomplishment of the great work under embarrassing and adverse circumstances, and particularly in view of the fact that the Government has received back all the subsidy granted, dollar for dollar, with interest at six per cent, per annum, while the Government at the same time was borrowing money for less than four per cent. per annum, making a net gain in interest of from two to three per cent.

            The five gentlemen from Sacramento who conceived the idea of constructing a Pacific Railroad over the Central route, which had been condemned by the War Department as impracticable, and pushed the work with heroic faith, will be remembered in after years with gratitude and admiration. When their great success ceases to excite jealousy, and the work they did is viewed from an impartial standpoint, their merits will be acknowledged.

            C. P. Huntington was the greatest railroad builder the United States has ever produced. He provided the sinews of war from the beginning. His financial honor and unswerving integrity soon secured for him the confidence of the financial world. He did not adopt the plan by which many of the great railroad magnates have made themselves millionaires.

            He never wrecked a road, nor made a dollar from the destruction of other men's fortunes. He bought many run-down railroads, reconstructed them, and made them paying institutions. By this means he acquired millions and benefited the people. The construction of a railroad from Ogden to San Francisco, and from San Francisco

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to Portland, Oregon; and another from San Francisco to New Orleans, with numerous branches to each, was a marvelous undertaking. A man who could devise such a gigantic enterprise will be remembered in history.

            Huntington was a benevolent man; his charities were numerous, liberal, and judicious, and he intended that they should be private. He was never a candidate for laudation, and never attempted to purchase fame by spending money on the housetop.

            It is true that the people have been unjustly discriminated against by the Pacific Railroad, but I know of my own knowledge that the managers of the railroad were not so much at fault in this matter as the merchants of San Francisco.

            In 1849 the Board of Trade of San Francisco devised many schemes to acquire quick wealth at the expense of the miners in the interior. All the supplies which California consumed for several years after the discovery of gold on the American River came through the Golden Gate. The price of food, wearing apparel, tools, and machinery which the miners were compelled to have was not regulated by the law of supply and demand, but by arbitrary edicts issued by the Board of Trade. However abundant food was in San Francisco, the price at which it could be obtained was generally exorbitant.

            When the Pacific Railroad was nearing completion the Board of Trade of San Francisco notified the managers that they must establish a freight schedule which would give them the trade they had previously enjoyed in supplying the interior. In other words, upon goods delivered at any point east of Sacramento there should be added to the freight rate to San Francisco the local rate from San Francisco to the point of delivery.

            The railroad company hesitated, and the San Francisco merchants, to compel compliance, aided in the establishment of a clipper ship line around the Horn, and took measures to obtain freight by the Panama

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route. In this way they forced the railroad company to submit to their demands. The system has been kept up since the construction of the Pacific Railroad, and is still in force so far as Nevada is concerned.

            Southern California was partially rescued from San Francisco railroad monopoly by the construction of the Santa Fe Railroad. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho were liberated by the Oregon Short Line, the Northern Pacific, and the Great Northern.

            Whatever may have been, and whatever now may be, the reason for the discrimination against Nevada in freights and fares of the Central Pacific, it is evident to every intelligent man who has investigated the question that the railroad has been the loser. If the same encouragement had been extended to Nevada in the way of freights and fares as Colorado has enjoyed from the beginning, Nevada would have been for the last forty years a growing and prosperous State, with abundant business and a network of railroads. There is no doubt in my mind that if the Sierra Nevada Mountains had been sufficiently high to be impassable, Nevada would now have a population equal to that of Colorado.

            The Comstock did much to build up the city of San Francisco, but nothing is left in Nevada to bear testimony to the millions furnished by the great mine. The Virginia & Truckee Railroad, owned in San Francisco and New York, was built by assessments on the mines, and aid furnished by local county governments. Since its construction it has made millions for those who ordered the people to build it.

            While Nevadians welcome Californians who can overcome the teachings of a generation, and without regard to prejudice or preconceived opinions cross the Sierra Nevada to dwell, they are glad to inform them that they can get along without them. The men of Pennsylvania, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Idaho, and other States make up a population good enough for

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Nevada. Their presence in the State has revived enterprise and discovered vast mineral resources which will soon place Nevada in the lead of mineral-producing States. The agricultural resources of the State, developed by Government aid and private enterprise, will attract a large and thriving population to supply the markets which the developments of the mineral resources of the State will furnish.

            The scheming Board of Trade of San Francisco, aided by the railroads it controls, must in the near future lose its grasp on the State of Nevada. Goods will be landed in any part of the State, as they now are in Colorado, Utah, or any other State, without the unjust discrimination which has paralyzed Nevada for a generation.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Conflict between the railroads and the Government—How the trusts rob the people An argument for government ownership a gloomy view of the economic situation—Praise for Theodore Roosevelt.

            It must not be inferred that I indorse the present railroad system of the United States. While I commend the foresight, energy, and courage of such builders as C. P. Huntington and his associates, I realize that the railroads are subverting the Government and destroying the freedom and independence of the people.

            Railroads have superseded public highways, and have been granted franchises under which they exact all the profits the traffic will bear; and they assume authority to decide what they shall take, and what they shall leave to the people. While it does not extend to all the property of the people, it extends to all persons and property transported on railroads, and as to such property, the power claimed and exercised by railroad corporations is co-extensive with the power of taxation possessed by any independent government.

            The fixing of fares and freights by railroad corporations is the power of sovereignty without constitutional limitation. It is so emphatically the sovereign power of taxation which the railroad corporations have exercised in, this country, and claim the right to exercise, as long as they own and control railroads, that I shall treat the regulation of fares and freights as taxation, not by the sovereign, but by usurpation of sovereign power.

            The railroads also exercise the power to transfer the earnings of the people, not only to railroad corporations, but to favored companies and individuals.

            Andrew Carnegie, the father of the Steel Trust, is

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a most conspicuous example of how to get rich quick by railroad discrimination. He is now engaged in spending a small part of the proceeds of the hundreds of millions of watered stock which fell to his share when he organized the Steel Trust and doubled the price on all commodities manufactured from iron ore. The libraries he is establishing, to create and perpetuate his renown as a benefactor, are accessible to the rich, which he may regard as sufficient compensation to the taxpayers for the perpetual burdens his libraries invariably entail upon them. He was also one of the conspirators who demonetized silver to enhance the value of gold.

            In 1891, when the distress from the demonetization of silver was most acute, and before the new output of gold had relieved the money famine, he published in the North American Review an arrogant and self-lauding article, mocking the toiling masses by telling them it was their duty to buy more gold—when they were straining every nerve to obtain money to save themselves from bankruptcy. I took occasion to reply to his publication in language which I deemed appropriate of his self-serving and egotistical production.

            It was the partiality of the railroads to the Standard Oil Company that made it possible for Rockefeller to accumulate a thousand millions of money in addition to the colossal fortune of all connected with that favored company.

            It was discrimination of the railroads in favor of the Packers' Trust at Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City which enabled that gigantic institution to destroy the business of every independent butcher in the United States, and confine the killing of animals to the localities appointed by the trust, thereby not only giving the trust the monopoly over the markets of the United States, but giving it complete control of the price of cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry throughout the entire country.

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            The millions taken from the people and concentrated in the enormous trusts arc not the greatest evil inflicted upon the American people. The storage of beef, mutton, pork, and poultry in localities selected by the trust, to be distributed throughout the whole country as occasion may require, is destroying the vitality of the people of the United States. Ptomaine poison is undermining the health of all the people.

            The effect upon the health of the people is well illustrated by the fact that during the Civil War the stomachs of the young men, North and South, were rarely defective; but during the Spanish War it was difficult to find a recruit with a sound and healthy digestive apparatus.

            Nearly every trust afflicting the United States has been created by the manipulations of the railroad managers. If under the present system of railroads there is no limit of power of managers of corporations in exercising taxation, or in building up or tearing down the enterprises of the people, there must be a change or the Government will be destroyed.

            The power of taxation is essential to all independent governments, without which no government can exist; but if the railroads can exact all the contributions that the business of the country will bear—as they claim the right to do—the time is not far distant when the country will be ruined and an oligarchy of railroad magnates will supplant the Government established by the Fathers.

            I thank President Roosevelt for bringing the question before the people for discussion, in his recommendation of railroad regulation. He is entitled to the gratitude of the country for his exposure of the Beef Trust, Standard Oil Trust, Steel Trust, and other trusts and combinations, all of which are the creation of railroad discriminations.

            The interstate commerce laws are the entering wedge

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for the exercise by Congress of the power to regulate commerce with foreign countries and among the several States. The regulation of commerce cannot be left to private corporations. The wisdom of the constitution in conferring the power to regulate commerce upon Congress is fully vindicated by the unbusiness-like, if not dishonest, regulation of commerce by railroad corporations. Whether it is possible for Congress to regulate commerce on private railroads while those roads are managed by private corporations is an unsettled question, but if it cannot be done by the joint action of the Government and private corporations the United States must own the railroads. The question must be settled. The agitation will not stop until Congress regulates commerce without interference from any source. In view of the inevitable depreciation of railroad property and railroad securities during the long contest which will he necessary to secure the regulation of commerce over private railroads, why would it not be good policy for the railroads without coercive measures to sell to the General Government and take in payment interest-bearing bonds of the United States? Why would not such an investment be profitable to the Government? This would accomplish a settlement of a question which may agitate the country for a generation.

            It has been suggested that ownership and management of railroads would place enormous power in the hands of the General Government, and so concentrate authority as to create a monarchical government, which might be dangerous to liberty.

            If the alternative is presented of ownership by the Government, or the despotism of an oligarchy of railroad magnates, I prefer the former, because no government, however arbitrary, would undertake to transfer the earnings of the people to corporations, trusts, and favorite individuals, with such unparalleled rapidity as

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the railroads have done in the last thirty years. Public sentiment is powerful with any government, while irresponsible corporations are blind to the wrongs of the masses, and treat with contempt the reasonable complaints of the people.

            It may be that this Government can survive, notwithstanding the multi-millionaires already created by the railroads; but it cannot withstand the continuance of the process of transferring the earnings of the masses to an oligarchy of wealth without suffering the fate of the nations which have preceded us, whose people were slaves, and millionaires their slave-masters.

            The conflict between the people and their financial oppressors cannot be postponed. One generation more of the rule of railroad monopoly will not only concentrate the wealth of the nation in the hands of the few, but will impoverish the people and weaken their power of resistance.

            It must be admitted that railroad corporations, and the trusts they have created, are more formidable antagonists of the people than any with which former generations were compelled to contend; but the people of the United States are better prepared to overcome the enemies of human rights than any people who have preceded them.

            The fact that the ancient empires of Asia, Africa, and Europe perished through the avarice and oppression of the masses by the cunning and greedy few, does not prove that there is not a remedy for intolerable injustice.

            When the people of France were serfs, and all the property belonged to the church and the nobles, the vitality of the Gauls was sufficient to overthrow their oppressors and distribute the land among the natives of the soil.

            When the church and the nobles seemed to have England in their perpetual control, Anglo-Saxon vigor

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and manhood limited the monopoly of the soil by passing laws to deprive corporations from acquiring or holding more land than was absolutely necessary for the purpose of their organization.

            The laws of mortmain, passed from time to time by the Parliament of Great Britain, show that the power of government in which the people had a voice checked the aggression of the monopoly. The success of the people of England, France, and many other countries of Europe in asserting their rights against oppression is most encouraging. How much more may not be predicted for the people of the United States, who have established and maintained the freest and the most potent Government which ever existed in the history of the world!

            The only danger is delay. It will take but a few generations of the rule of railroads and trusts to prepare our Government for the fate of Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome.

            If the wealth of the country becomes concentrated in the hands of a few, its redistribution among the people may not be as gradual as the methods employed by our ancestors in the mother country, and it is even possible that it may exceed the horrors of the French Revolution in quick retribution for intolerable wrongs. It is to be hoped that the investigation of the railroad oligarchy and its brood of infamous trusts will reveal to the people a remedy by peaceful means without the necessity of violence or bloodshed.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Irrigation investigations in the arid regions—Marvels of the Mormons—Major Powell grows ambitious and is removed from office--A powerful friend in the White House—What Roosevelt has done for the development of the country.

            In traveling over the arid regions of the West during the twelve years from 1875 to 1887, during which time I was not in the Senate, I was strongly impressed with the vast extent of country west of the one hundredth meridian that required irrigation to produce crops.

            Immediately upon reentering the Senate in 1887 I agitated the subject, and by speeches and articles in the magazines brought to the attention of the Senate the fact that two-thirds, if not three-fourths, of all the agriculture which had supported civilized and semi-civilized people had been pursued by means of artificial irrigation. The conflict between man and the desert has been unceasing since the dawn of history. When Egypt was the granary of the world, much of the Sahara Desert was irrigated from the Nile, and the dams and aqueducts which once turned that mighty river consisted of masonry so perfect in material and construction as to defy modern imitation. The ruins of irrigation works, such as dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts, are everywhere visible in the ancient land of Palestine. The waters of the Euphrates were spread over hundreds of acres that fructified what is now a vast desert, while the ruins of Babylon and other ancient cities challenge the curiosity and admiration of the scientists of our own time.

            It was evident to me that the arid region of our country could only be made habitable by irrigation, and that the snow-capped region of the Rocky and Sierra

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Nevada Mountains furnished a more abundant supply of water for irrigation of the valleys than was found in the ancient empires once so densely populated.

            I offered a resolution in the Senate creating a Committee on Irrigation, and, following a full discussion, the resolution passed, and soon after a like committee was organized in the House of Representatives. I then offered a resolution in the Senate authorizing the Committee on Irrigation to travel over the arid region, investigate conditions, and report to the next session of Congress. I was made chairman of the Senate committee.

            The two men on that committee who manifested the greatest interest and took the most active part were Senators John H. Reagan of Texas and James K. Jones of Arkansas. I invited Major Powell, Director of the Geological Survey, to accompany the committee. We visited every State and Territory of the arid regions.

            In many places we found people residing on the banks of streams which flowed through valleys of fertile soil, actually suffering for the products of the farm which they could easily have acquired if they had known the elementary principles of irrigation. To these we imparted such information as we had, and passed on to Colorado and Utah, where deserts were being converted into fertile regions by diverting the streams.

            Utah furnished a marvelous lesson. Whatever might have been said, or may now be said, of the Mormons, when they entered Utah from the agricultural lands of the North and the East where rain-fall supplied moisture, they had no knowledge of irrigation. But they experimented by diverting the water upon the land, while they had very little food except roots, wild game, and fish.

            The hardships they endured while they were working out for themselves the problem of irrigation have done much to cement and build up the Mormon church.

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            When polygamy is eliminated and forgotten, as it must be as time passes, the history of the Mormons who created a great State in a desert, more than a thousand miles from supplies, will be read with sympathy and admiration.

            Our committee found that irrigation had been practiced under the supervision of the Catholic priests who established missions in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, and that the American people who were occupying those countries at the time of our visit were improving upon the ancient systems, and gradually appropriating the water available in developing agricultural resources.

            The committee found that in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada some progress had been made in agriculture by irrigation. The larger portion of Texas is in the arid and semi-arid region, and Senators Reagan and Jones took a lively interest in the development of irrigation in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, their immediate Western neighbors. These Senators were very influential throughout the South, and made irrigation popular in nearly every State south of Mason and Dixon's line.

            Before the organization of the Committee on Irrigation, Senator Teller and myself appreciated the necessity of withdrawing from sale reservoir sites required for the storage of water for irrigation. The extent of the reservations for that purpose was not sufficiently guarded, for we did not anticipate that more land than was necessary would be withdrawn from the market by the Interior Department.

            The ambition of Major Powell to manage the whole subject of irrigation, without regard to the views of others, led him to induce the Interior Department to withdraw vast regions of the public lands preparatory to the selection of the necessary sites. This withdrawal of public land from settlement practically closed many

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of the land offices in the West, and created much complaint. It became necessary to secure legislation to restore the public domain to settlement.

            The result was that Major Powell was removed from his powerful position as Director of the Geological Survey. Great dissatisfaction existed on the part of the Major and his friends on account of the action of Congress, and as if by some general and secret understanding articles appeared throughout the Northern States unfriendly to irrigation. The farmers were told by writers who gained access to the agricultural press that the irrigation of the arid region would ruin the agriculture of the North by bringing in competition a vast region of country, the products of which were of the same character as those of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and all the Northwestern States. At nearly every session of Congress, however, the Senators of the Mountain States of the West continued to agitate the question, and with the aid of the Senators from the South would put upon various appropriation bills amendments providing for National aid to irrigation. But our amendments were never considered in the House of Representatives; in fact, the rules of the House were such that the Republicans of the North prevented any discussion of the question of irrigation in that body.

            When President Roosevelt became the Chief Executive of the Nation by the deplorable death of President McKinley, irrigation had a powerful friend in the White House. He had lived in the mountain regions of the West, and was more familiar with Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico than any Representative from any of those States or Territories. In his first message he urged Government aid in irrigation in the West, and in private conversation with all who approached him on that subject he was earnest in his advocacy of the measure he recommended.

            Senator Hansbrough of North Dakota introduced a

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bill providing for National irrigation, and referred it to the Committee on Public Lands, of which he was chairman, because it was considered by the friends of irrigation that that committee was more familiar with the subject, and more enthusiastic in support of a measure of that kind, than the Committee on Irrigation.

            After the bill was introduced the President suggested various amendments to perfect it. Senator Hansbrough in time reported the bill to the Senate, and after full explanation and debate it passed the Senate unanimously, went to the House of Representatives, and was referred to the Committee on Irrigation. That committee, as well as the Committee of the Senate, kept in close touch with the President, and took his advice at every stage of the proceedings. It required no argument to secure the support of Representatives of the Southern States, as they had been in favor of irrigation for many years. It was not necessary to educate the President, as he was as well informed as anybody in the United States. He sent for the leading Republican members of the North, and appealed to them to cease their opposition and permit the bill to pass as an Administration measure. The bill was passed.

            Many men both in and out of Congress deserve credit for assisting in this great enterprise, but to Theodore Roosevelt the country owes the final success of the measure.

            I first met Edmund Winston Pettus the summer of 1850 at Nevada City, California. We were both miners, and a warm friendship arose between us which lasted through life. He was a genial companion, and knew more of law and politics than any other young man of my acquaintance. He had been a lieutenant in the Mexican War. He returned to his home in Alabama in 1855, and I did not see him again until his entry into the United States Senate, March 4, 1897. Although a man much past middle-age he made a repu-

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tation for himself in the Senate which added luster to his State. He did not believe in shams and took a comical view of buncombe oratory.

            Senator Albert J. Beveridge, of Indiana, a young, aggressive, and flowery speaker, had occupied the attention of the Senate in February and March, 1900, in two or three florid and, what he assumed to be, commanding orations. A bill to regulate the status of the people of Porto Rico was under consideration. The debate also included suggestions with regard to the government of the Philippines. Mr. Pettus took occasion to comment on the oratorical performances of Senator Beveridge, and made one of the most humorous speeches I ever heard in the Senate.

            "Mr. President," he said,* "we had a wonderful declamation yesterday from our great orator—wonderful. It was marvelous in all its parts. It was so marvelous that I dare say such a thing has never before been heard of in the Senate of the United States. When you get a genuine orator he is absolutely absolved from all rules of logic or common sense. When it is necessary, in the fervor of oratorical flourishes, to prove any proposition, true or false, rules of common sense and the decent observance of what is due to others must not stand in the way of maintaining 'my reputation as a great orator.' It will not do. If it is necessary I must break down the ideas of an observance of what the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Proctor] characterized as 'the best policy.' If it is necessary I must 'draw on my imagination for my facts and on my memory for my flights of fancy,' as Ovid Bolus did. When an orator speaks he has a right, in the fervor of his oratory, here in the United States Senate, in reference to the Republicans, and Democrats, and Populists, and any other man who may choose to take a seat here,

______________________________________________

*Cong. Record, Vol. 33, Part IV, 56th Cong., 1st Sess., page 3509.

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to speak of them as 'enemies to the Government.' He has a right to speak of them as 'opponents of the Government.' The Government, in his mind, is 'me and my wife, my son John and his wife; us four, and no more.'

            "I was amazed at that speech. I once before heard one that went off in that direction. Oh, I tell you the senior or junior Senator from Iowa—I do not know which—and the senior or junior Senator from Maine--I do not know which—will have to take some action in reference to that orator. There is no doubt about it in the world. There will have to be some caucus on that matter. I tell you, Mr. President, these four wise men from Maine and Iowa could not devote their time, if they want to serve their party well, better than to take some consideration of the orators in this Chamber. Orators; yes!

            "The Master once had to select a man to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness to Canaan. He did not select an orator. No; he selected one of these men from Maine or Iowa, and his name was Moses. And he was a stuttering man, too. But Moses told his Master to his face that he could not do it, because he could not speak to the people. And what was the reply? 'There is Aaron. He speaks well.' And they took Aaron along, not in command, that was not allowed, but they took him along as a kind of deputy; and when Moses on his Master's order went up into the mountain for the Tables, the orator left in charge had a golden calf framed. And he put all the people down to worshipping the golden calf. More people worship the golden calf now than did in those days. But while Aaron and his people were all down worshipping the golden calf, the man of God appeared, and he pulled out his sword and demanded to know 'who was on the Lord's side,' and the orator jumped up from his knees, drew his sword, got on Moses's side,

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and went to killing the Israelites along with Moses. All these orators will do the same thing—the last one of them. We saw an instance of it yesterday afternoon."

CHAPTER XL

Conclusion—The Pious Fund Case—I argue before the Hague Court of Arbitration—A tribute to the Dutch—I retire front the Senate—Back to the Nevada gold fields.

            The Pious Fund Case was tried in the fall of 1902 before the Court of Arbitration authorized by The Hague Convention of 1899. I was employed with John T. Doyle as counsel in that case, and argued it as senior counsel on the final hearing. The case grew out of donations made by pious persons in the eighteenth century to create a fund for the civilization and conversion of the natives of California, and for the maintenance and support of the Catholic religion in that country. This fund was covered into the Mexican treasury by decree of October 24, 1842, with an undertaking on the part of Mexico to pay interest thereon for the purposes intended by the donators.

            After the sale of California to the United States the Mexican Government failed to pay the agreed interest on that part of the principal belonging to the missions of upper California. There had been a previous arbitration and an award made to the United States in behalf of the Catholic Church of upper California, but the Mexican Government denied that anything more was due. Finally, by stipulation with the United States, it was agreed that the question should be submitted by the two governments to the permanent Court of Arbitration under The Hague Convention of 1899. The hearing before the court occupied the time from September 15 to October 14, 1902. After some two or three weeks of deliberation the court made an award in favor of the Catholic Church of $1,420,662.69 Mexican money; and further decreed that the Mexican Government should pay to the

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Catholic Church annually the sum of $42,050.99. The Mexican Government has complied with the judgment, and thus the Pious Fund Case was finally settled.

            It was a remarkable case in many respects. It arose before the Mexican Revolution, and was in controversy by negotiations and arbitration between the United States and Mexico from 1842 to 1902. It was the first case submitted to the permanent Court of Arbitration.

            While at The Hague I took opportunity to visit nearly every place of interest in Holland. The existence of that little kingdom is one of the wonders of the world. The difficulties encountered and labor required to create a flourishing kingdom below the water level of the stormy North Sea required courage, fortitude, industry, and endurance beyond the comprehension of this generation; but the accomplishment of what now seems miraculous accounts for the heroic, determined, persevering, and unconquerable qualities of the Dutch. I saw more to admire in the Dutch character and in the deeds accomplished by that people than in any other nation in Europe. Every man in whose veins the blood of Holland circulates is liable to be a great character.

            This is conspicuously illustrated by Theodore Roosevelt, now President of the United States, and by the Boers of South Africa, who, insignificant in number, fought the British Empire to a standstill. The odds were so fearful that no other race of men would have dared to enter the contest. The heroic deeds of the Hollanders in resisting the combined powers of Continental Europe for more than half a century can never be fully described. No people ever suffered more, endured more, or fought more bravely since prehistoric times.

            I retired from the Senate for the last time, March 4, 1905, and returned to my old home in Nevada, and with a four-horse team attached to a camping-wagon

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spent about six weeks inspecting the mining camps of the southern part of the State.

            I came to the conclusion that the Bullfrog mining district was more promising than any other in the State. At the time I am writing, two railroads are approaching Bullfrog from the south, and another is contemplated from the north, making this a central point far a very extensive and wonderfully rich mining region. I located in Bullfrog in May, 1905. I have built a commodious office and furnished it with a law library of about three thousand volumes, and have also built a dwelling-house with all the necessary conveniences, where I reside with my family, consisting of my second wife and her little daughter.

            My wife is a strong character, endowed with the rare gift of common sense, and although she is unaccustomed to Western life she adapts herself to the situation with readiness and ease, and makes my home more delightful than it would be in any other part of the world. We are not compelled to look abroad for excitement or entertainment. New developments and new discoveries are more agreeable than the vanities of society and the passing shows of large cities.

            The climate is excellent. It is free from severe cold in winter, and the heat in summer is not as uncomfortable as it is in the inland country of the Northern States. The elevation at my office and residence is 3,575 feet above the level of the sea, and the cool breezes at night make it a comfortable place to sleep in the hottest weather.

            At the present time I am engaged in my profession of the law, and acquiring interests in mines and assisting in their development. The fascinating business of mining is a perennial source of hope. It inspires both mental and physical vigor, and promotes health and contentment. 

Part 1 [Chapters I-VII];  Part 2 [Chapters VIII-XVI];  Part 3 [Chapters XVII-XXV];  Part 4 [Chapters XXVI-XXXIII];  Part 5 [Chapters XXXIV-XL]