I have recited these provisions by way of leading up to the proposition that, under the law of 1890, the burden upon the gold reserve was tremendously enlarged. It will be readily seen that it forced larger monthly purchases of silver than were required under the prior act, and that, instead of providing for silver dollars, which as coins, or certificates of deposit representing such coins, should circulate as silver currency, unredeemable in gold as was done under the act of 1878, it directed that in payment of such purchases a new obligation of the Government, redeemable in coin, should be issued and added to our circulating medium. It is, however, only when we examine the specific provision for the redemption of these notes that we discover in its full extent the harmful relationship of this new device to the integrity of the gold reserve. At its outset the redemption clause of the act courageously and manfully gave to the Secretary of the Treasury the authority to redeem such notes in gold or silver _at his discretion_; but in its ending it fell down a pitiful victim of the silver craze. The entire clause is in these words: “That upon demand of the holder of any of the Treasury notes herein provided for, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, under such regulations as he may provide, redeem such notes in gold or silver coin at his discretion, _it being the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals at a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio, or such ratio as may be provided by law_.” According to the legal ratio then existing, which has never been changed, the average intrinsic gold value of a silver dollar as compared with a gold dollar was, during the year 1891, about seventy-six cents, during 1892 a trifle more than sixty-seven cents, and during 1893 about sixty cents. It is hardly necessary to say that the assertion in the act of “the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals at a parity” had the effect of transferring the discretion of determining whether these Treasury notes should be redeemed in gold or silver, from the Secretary of the Treasury to the holder of the notes. Manifestly, in the face of this assertion of the Government’s intention, a demand for gold redemption on the part of the holders of such notes could not be refused, and the acceptance of silver dollars insisted upon, without either subjecting to doubt the good faith and honest intention of the Government’s professions, or creating a suspicion of our country’s solvency. The parity between the two metals could not be maintained, but, on the contrary, would be distinctly denied, if the Secretary of the Treasury persisted in redeeming these notes, against the will of the holders, in dollars of silver instead of gold.