Some Republicans, like Senator Morrill, of Vermont, firmly believed that no approach could be made to a genuine bimetallic currency, both metals freely and equally circulating, without the cooperation of the leading commercial nations of the world; and they also went so far as to doubt whether it would be possible even then to adjust the "fickle ratio" finely enough to prevent supply and demand from driving one or the other metal out of circulation. Other Republicans, like Blaine, declared that the Constitution required Congress to make both gold and silver coin the money of the land, and that the only question was how best to adjust the ratio. In a speech in the Senate on February 7, 1878, Blaine said: "I believe then if Germany were to remonetize silver and the kingdoms and states of the Latin Union were to reopen their mints, silver would at once resume its former relation with gold.... I believe the struggle now going on in this country and in other countries for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and establishment of gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property, _except those investments which yield a fixed return in money_." It was this exception made by Blaine that formed the crux of the whole issue. The contest was largely between creditors and debtors. Indeed, it is thus frankly stated by Senator Jones of Nevada in a speech in the Senate on May 12, 1890: "Three fourths of the business enterprises of this country are conducted on borrowed capital. Three fourths of the homes and farms that stand in the name of the actual occupants have been bought on time, and a very large proportion of them are mortgaged for the payment of some part of the purchase money. Under the operation of a shrinkage in the volume of money, this enormous mass of borrowers, at the maturity of their respective debts, though nominally paying no more than the amount borrowed, with interest, are, in reality, in the amount of the principal alone, returning a percentage of value greater than they received--more in equity than they contracted to pay, and oftentimes more in substance than they profited by the loan.... It is a remarkable circumstance that throughout the entire range of economic discussion in gold-standard circles, it seems to be taken for granted that a change in the value of the money unit is a matter of no significance, and imports no mischief to society, _so long as the change is in one direction_. Who ever heard from an Eastern journal any complaint against a contraction of our money volume, any admonition that in a shrinking volume of money lurk evils of the utmost magnitude?... In all discussions of the subject the creditors attempt to brush aside the equities involved by sneering at the debtors." Both parties to the conflict assumed a monopoly of virtue and economic wisdom, and the