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"While we are on the gold standard, all the other nations of the world, except France, are on a managed currency basis. The result is that they are not only taking our foreign markets but, over a high tariff wall, they are taking our domestic markets."
"It's Like Stealing." Echoing the Republican arguments of 1896 against Bryanism, Pennsylvania's Senator Reed bitterly flayed the Wheeler silver amendment: "It would be giving a great cash bonus to India and perhaps China. . . . Panic and crisis would be precipitated. . . . We'd see a flight of capital that would take our breath away. . . . There would be such a catastrophic overturn of American business that all the benefits would be obviated. . . . It's like stealing from one class to help another. ... I don't believe that the people of the United States have gone dishonest overnight because we're having a spell of hard times."
It remained for Senator Glass to curl his lip scornfully, grip his desk with both hands and pronounce a final damnation of the Soft Money arguments. Drawled he out of the right corner of his mouth:
"Ruin! 'Wreckage!" "I totally dissent from the quantitative theory of money. I do not think depreciation of the dollar would permanently raise commodity prices. On the contrary it would so deprave our currency that it would bring ruin, particularly to the wage earners of the country and those on fixed salaries. . . .
"If views presented here are to prevail, this country is nearing the brink of absolute wreckage. If it be admitted for a moment that private contracts may be abrogated by a law of Congress or if the creditors may have their property confiscated by taxation, that would simply abrogate contractual relations in this country and there would be no more of them. . . .
"It was held that perhaps the Government would have to pay its obligations, already contracted, in the dollar of existing gold content but even that was regarded as doubtful. . . . If any such views are to obtain, may God have mercy upon the Secretary of the Treasury when he shall be compelled in a few months to refund $11,000,000,000 of government obligations.
"I should like to be told where he might expect to find his clients. What bank or investor of average intelligence would agree to buy a bond of the U. S. in such circumstances? . . .
"Arbitrarily reduce the content of the gold dollar? Very well. What is the moral difference between a 30% and a 50% repudiation of an obligation? . . . Why not go the whole length and authorize complete repudiation by the debtor class? Why not follow the example of Germany and start the printing presses without cease and then repudiate our own currency and use it for wallpaper. . . ?"
56-to-18 v. 16-to-1. Senator Glass pushed the Wheeler 16-to-1 silver amendment to a vote and the Senate resoundingly rejected it, 56-to-18. Six Republican progressives and twelve Democrats from the South and West plumped for silver. That did not indicate the full strength of the Senate inflationists because many a Soft Money man favors another method of devaluating the dollar. But for the time being the stalking ghost of William Jennings Bryan retired from the Senate chamber.