But you can, by legislation, compel the use of an article,
which use will create a demand for it, and the demand will
then increase its price. If Congress shall require that every
soldier in the United States Army shall wear a hat or coat
of a particular material or pattern, or shall enact that every
man who votes shall come to the polls dressed in broadcloth,
if there be a limited supply of these commodities, the price
of the hat or the coat or the broadcloth will go up. So,
when the nations of the world joined in depriving silver of
one of its chief uses--that of serving the function of a tender
for the payment of debts, the value of silver diminished because
one large use which it had served before was gone. Whether
this doctrine be sound or no, it was the result of as careful
study as I ever gave in my life, to any subject, public or
private. It was not only the doctrine of the Fathers, but
of recent generations. It was the doctrine on which the Republicans
of Massachusetts, a community noted for its conservatism and
business sagacity, had planted the Commonwealth, and it was
the doctrine on which the American people planted itself and
which triumphed in the election of 1896.
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