obligation has been imposed upon it, to provide for the use of the
people the best and safest money.

If, as many of its friends claim, silver ought to occupy a larger
place in our currency and the currency of the world through general
international cooperation and agreement, it is obvious that the United
States will not be in a position to gain a hearing in favor of such an
arrangement so long as we are willing to continue our attempt to
accomplish the result single-handed.

The knowledge in business circles among our own people that our
Government can not make its fiat equivalent to intrinsic value nor keep
inferior money on a parity with superior money by its own independent
efforts has resulted in such a lack of confidence at home in the
stability of currency values that capital refuses its aid to new
enterprises, while millions are actually withdrawn from the channels of
trade and commerce to become idle and unproductive in the hands of timid
owners. Foreign investors, equally alert, not only decline to purchase
American securities, but make haste to sacrifice those which they
already have.

It does not meet the situation to say that apprehension in regard to the
future of our finances is groundless and that there is no reason for
lack of confidence in the purposes or power of the Government in the
premises. The very existence of this apprehension and lack of
confidence, however caused, is a menace which ought not for a moment to
be disregarded. Possibly, if the undertaking we have in hand were the
maintenance of a specific known quantity of silver at a parity with
gold, our ability to do so might be estimated and gauged, and perhaps,
in view of our unparalleled growth and resources, might be favorably