Mr. Stanford and his wife visited various institutions of learning throughout the country, and found consolation in raising this noble monument to a noble son--infinitely to be preferred to shafts or statues of marble and bronze. This same year, 1885, Mr. Stanford's friends, fearing the effect of his sorrow, and hoping to divert him somewhat from it, secured his election by the California Legislature to the United States Senate. He took his seat March 4, 1885, just a year after the death of his son. He did not make many speeches, but he proved a very useful member from his good sense and counsel and kindly leaning toward all helpful legislation for the poor and the unfortunate. He was re-elected March 3, 1891, for a second term of six years. He will be most remembered in Congress for his Land-Loan Bill which he originated and presented to the Senate. "The bill proposed that money should be issued upon land to half the amount of its value, and for such loan the government was to receive an annual interest of two per cent per annum." "Whatever may be thought by some of the practical utility of his financial scheme," says Mr. Mitchell, a senator from Oregon, "which he so earnestly and ably advocated, and which was approved by millions of his countrymen, for the loaning of money by the United States direct to the people at a low rate of interest, taking mortgages on farms as security, all will now agree it indicated in unmistakable terms a philanthropic spirit, an earnest desire to aid, through the instrumentality of what he regarded as constitutional and proper governmental influence, not the great moneyed institutions of the country, not the vast corporations of the land, with several of which he was prominently identified in a business way, but rather the great masses of producers,--the farmers, the planters, and the wage-workers of his country." In this connection the suggestion of Professor Richard T. Ely in his book on "Socialism and Social Reform," page 334, might well be heeded. After showing that Germany and other countries have used government credit to some extent in behalf of the farming community, and that New York State has been making loans to farmers for a generation or more, he says, "A sensible demand on the part of farmers' organizations would be that Congress should appoint a commission of experts to investigate thoroughly the use of government credit in various countries and at different times, in behalf of the individual citizen, especially the farmer, and to make a full and complete report, in order that anything which is done should be based upon the lessons to be derived from actual experience."