This law provides that in payment for the 4,500,000 ounces of silver
bullion which the Secretary of the Treasury is commanded to purchase
monthly there shall be issued Treasury notes redeemable on demand in
gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury,
and that said notes may be reissued. It is, however, declared in the act
to be "the established policy of the United States to maintain the two
metals on a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio or such
ratio as may be provided by law." This declaration so controls the
action of the Secretary of the Treasury as to prevent his exercising the
discretion nominally vested in him if by such action the parity between
gold and silver may be disturbed. Manifestly a refusal by the Secretary
to pay these Treasury notes in gold if demanded would necessarily result
in their discredit and depreciation as obligations payable only in
silver, and would destroy the parity between the two metals by
establishing a discrimination in favor of gold.

Up to the 15th day of July, 1893, these notes had been issued in payment
of silver-bullion purchases to the amount of more than $147,000,000.
While all but a very small quantity of this bullion remains uncoined and
without usefulness in the Treasury, many of the notes given in its
purchase have been paid in gold. This is illustrated by the statement
that between the 1st day of May, 1892, and the 15th day of July, 1893,
the notes of this kind issued in payment for silver bullion amounted to
a little more than $54,000,000, and that during the same period about
$49,000,000 were paid by the Treasury in gold for the redemption of such
notes.

The policy necessarily adopted of paying these notes in gold has not
spared the gold reserve of $100,000,000 long ago set aside by the