reserve, with its attendant and inevitable temptations to speculation.
Most of our financial laws are the outgrowth of experience and trial,
and should not be amended without investigation and demonstration of
the wisdom of the proposed changes. We must be both "sure we are right,"
and "make haste slowly." If, therefore, Congress, in its wisdom,
shall deem it expedient to create a commission to take under early
consideration the revision of our coinage, banking and currency laws,
and give them that exhaustive, careful and dispassionate examination
that their importance demands, I shall cordially concur in such action.
If such power is vested in the President, it is my purpose to appoint
a commission of prominent, well-informed citizens of different parties,
who will command public confidence, both on account of their ability and
special fitness for the work. Business experience and public training
may thus be combined, and the patriotic zeal of the friends of the
country be so directed that such a report will be made as to receive the
support of all parties, and our finances cease to be the subject of mere
partisan contention. The experiment is, at all events, worth a trial,
and, in my opinion, it can but prove beneficial to the entire country.

The question of international bimetallism will have early and earnest
attention. It will be my constant endeavor to secure it by co-operation
with the other great commercial powers of the world. Until that
condition is realized when the parity between our gold and silver money
springs from and is supported by the relative value of the two metals,
the value of the silver already coined and of that which may hereafter
be coined, must be kept constantly at par with gold by every resource at
our command. The credit of the Government, the integrity of its
currency, and the inviolability of its obligations must be preserved.
This was the commanding verdict of the people, and it will not be
unheeded.