The value of the fur seal fishery depends upon the market for the dressed furs, and the value of the dressed furs depends upon the fashions, and the fashions are manipulated by the producers of the varied competing goods.

The United States and Russia are interested in the seal fishery which can be preserved only by the protection of the animals in Behring Sea.

For the purpose of protecting and preserving the seal fishery, Behring Sea ought to be treated as a closed sea.

And if they had had a defence they were in no danger even if they had violated the law ignorantly, for no Secretary would have allowed honest men to suffer for an ignorant violation of the revenue laws.

Of the many measures of my administration of the Treasury Department, the Mint Bill of 1873 is the only one which has been made a party issue, and which has entered permanently into the policy of the country.

The proceedings at the mints were unsystematic, and I resolved upon an attempt to codify the laws and to place the administration in the hands of a recognized, responsible officer.

In 1873 I had come to believe that it was wise for every nation to recognize, establish, and maintain the gold standard.

I was of the opinion then, as I am of the opinion now, that nations cannot escape from the gold standard in all inter-state transactions.

Silver or paper may be used for domestic purposes, but the value of that silver or paper is determined by its value in gold.

Until the act of 1878 was passed, silver coins had had no appreciable influence upon the volume of currency or the business of the country.

Such was the commercial demand for American silver coins that in 1853 Congress authorized the debasement of the subsidiary silver coins as the only means of securing their circulation.

Silver had been recognized in the Coinage Act, but practically it had not played any part in the financial policy or fortunes of the country.

The choice of gold as the standard was not due to hostility to silver or to the silver mining interests, but to the well grounded opinion that gold was a universal currency, while in some countries, as in England and Germany, silver coins…

These--within the limits of a statement--are the reasons for the demonetization of the silver dollar and the adoption of the single gold standard.

The measure was soon followed by the depreciation of silver and coincident with that change came the attacks upon the Mint Bill, and the denunciation of the "Crime of 1873.

Every step in civilization, every advance movement that we call progress, is a peril to many and a ruin to some.

Everybody knows what a dollar in gold is worth.

If we had chosen to accumulate gold and postpone payments upon the Public Debt, we could have brought the nations of the earth to our feet.

This statement as a statement of an existing fact was wide of the truth, and as a prophecy it was as fallacious as are the prophecies which predict the destruction of the world.

If, in 1876, I had anticipated the immense increase in the product of silver, I might have hesitated, but in the view that I was then able to command I had great confidence that a bimetallic arrangement might be secured.

When we had accepted silver, when we had abandoned the vantage ground that we had occupied, it was in vain that we solicited the co-operation of England, France and Germany.

The adoption by the United States of a silver-using policy led the statesmen of those countries to anticipate the more extended and continuous use of silver leaving to them a monopoly of gold, while we should sink financially to the level…

First I said: "There can be but one standard of value in any country at the same time, and a successful use of gold and silver simultaneously can be effected only by their consolidation upon an agreed ratio of value, and by the concurrence…

I now repeat the assertion with which I introduced this topic, viz.: That in 1876 the majority of the Silver Commission put aside the most favorable opportunity, indeed the only opportunity, that the country has ever had for the…

It is not only probable, it is certain, that with every increasing demand for silver there will be an added supply.