The bill was discussed in the House of Representatives. Mr. Reed has stated that the report of the debate covers one hundred and ninety-six columns of the _Congressional Record_. Senator Jones, in his report of 1876, as chairman of the Silver Commission, refers to the debate in these words: "In the brief discussion on the bill in the House of Representatives, the principal reason assigned in favor of those sections which interdicted the future coinage of the silver dollar was that its value was three per cent greater than the value of the gold dollar." Thus Senator Jones admits that the debate in the House of Representatives was upon the question of the abolition of the silver dollar, and he recognizes his knowledge of the fact of the debate.
Finally the bill passed the Senate without one dissenting vote.
The downfall of silver has not been due to any legislation in America or Europe, nor to any decrees or despotic policy in Asia, but to the inventive faculties of one Charles Burleigh, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the inventor of the power drill.
If through him many silver mines have been rendered valueless, so it is to him that the world is indebted for a new application of force by which mountains are penetrated and mining in all its forms is carried on at one fourth part of the former cost. Every step in civilization, every advance movement that we call progress, is a peril to many and a ruin to some. By one stroke of genius, and limiting our thoughts to one only of its many consequences we may say that Burleigh has made gold so abundant and cheap that all substitutes for a currency from wampum to silver must soon disappear.
There is historical evidence tending to show that the representatives of the silver mining interest had sufficient and worthy reasons for assenting to the suspension of the silver dollar. In 1872 silver was at a slight premium as compared with gold. Therefore the privilege of coinage of the dollar was of no advantage to the owners of bullion.
The Mint Bill had a new and attractive feature. It provided for the coinage of a dollar that was to contain 420 grains of standard silver, and was to be known as the trade dollar.
This passage may be found in my report to Congress for the year 1872: