REMINISCENCES 101
forty days' session, when Geo. W. McBride was elected after midnight.
Thirty members signed a pledge not to allow any law to be passed such as they threatened. Without that pledge they could not have done it, for the Secretary of State had a ma- jority in both houses and the Governor behind him. I do not blame Senator Dolph and his friends for anything they did or tried to do. They felt sore at the bolters and at the Secretary. He might have felt the same if he had been in their places. Senator Dolph was entitled to re-election on account of his superior ability and his valuable public services. The everlasting money question, the almighty dollar, pre- vented his re-election. It also prevented the re-election of Sena- tor Mitchell, in 1897, and the re-election of Secretary of State Kincaid in 1898.
Gold and silver had been the standard of values at about 16 to 1 throughout the world for 2,000 years, until England adopted the single gold standard in 1816. This was done because England had billions of dollars invested in bonds and other securities in the United States and other debtor nations. Germany and other creditor nations followed Eng- land. These creditor nations used their great financial power to force it upon the United States. Iron, copper and other base metals have so little intrinsic values that they are not suitable for money. Paper is the same. Gold and silver are the only metals suitable for money, and, without silver, there is not enough gold in the world to pay ten cents on the dollar of the debts and carry on the business. Under this gold standard system all debts and all business is made pay- able in "gold coin," a physical impossibility.
The striking out of silver, the greatest part of the money of the world, doubled the value of gold, and the value of billions of bonds and interest and of investments originally made on a basis of gold arid silver, so that it will take for an indefinite time double the amount of the products of labor to pay the
