In these troublous times those charged with the administration of the Government’s financial affairs could not fail to recognize in the law of 1890, directing the monthly purchase of silver and the issuance in payment therefor of Treasury notes in effect redeemable in gold, a prolific cause of our financial trouble. Accordingly, a special session of Congress was called to meet on the seventh day of August, 1893, to repeal this law, and thus terminate the creation of further demands upon our already overburdened and feeble gold reserve. The repealing act was quite promptly passed in the House of Representatives on the twenty-eighth day of August; but, on account of vexatious opposition in the Senate, the repeal was not finally effected until the first day of November, 1893, and then only after there had been added to the act an inopportune repetition of the statement concerning the Government’s intention to maintain the parity of both gold and silver coins. II The effect of this repeal in its immediate results failed to quiet the fear of impending evil now thoroughly aroused; nor were all the efforts thus far made to augment the gold reserve effective as against the constant process of its depletion. On the seventeenth day of January, 1894, the Government was confronted by a disquieting emergency. The gold reserve had fallen to less than $70,000,000, notwithstanding the most diligent efforts to maintain it in sounder condition. Against this slender fund gold demands amounting to not less than $450,000,000 in United States notes and Treasury notes were in actual circulation, and others amounting to about $50,000,000, in addition, were temporarily held in the Treasury subject to reissue--the entire volume, by peremptory requirement of law, remaining uncanceled even after repeated redemption; nor was there any promise of a cessation of the abnormal and exhausting drain of gold then fully under way. Another factor in the situation, most perplexing and dangerous, was the distrust, which was growing enormously, regarding the wisdom and stability of our scheme of finance. As a result of these conditions there loomed in sight the menace of the destruction of our gold reserve, the repudiation of our gold obligations, the humiliating fall of our nation’s finances to a silver basis, and the degradation of our Government’s high standing in the respect of the civilized world.