On December 14, 1868, he introduced a bill “To strengthen the public credit.” This subsequently became a part of the great bill making our bonds payable in gold. Around this fortification of the public credit, for ten years, political warfare raged the fiercest, but the rampart was never taken; and, in 1879, when resumption was accomplished, the law still remained on the statute book. Every attempt to repeal it was fought by Garfield on the principles of political science, and his name must be placed with those of Grant and Sherman on this question. February 26, 1869, General Garfield, as Chairman of the Military Committee, made the monster report upon the reorganization of the army. It contains one hundred and thirty-seven printed pages. The stupendous problem of readjusting the armies of the republic to a peace footing, had occupied Garfield for years. His report was the result of examinations of all the leading army officers. It contained the history of each department of the army. It illuminated all the dark corners, the secret channels, the hidden chambers of corruption which had been constructed in the military policy of the country, and was the product of enormous labor. In the spring of 1869 General Garfield introduced a resolution for the appointment of a committee to examine into the necessities for legislation upon the subject of the ninth census, to be taken the following year. He was appointed chairman. His speeches on the great subject of statistics are most characteristic. They are wholly out of the rut of Congressional speeches. They show Garfield in the light of a political scientist. Nothing could more strikingly prove the enormous reach of his mind. He showed himself abreast of the scientific thought of the age. Volume after volume of the _Congressional Globe_ will be searched in vain to find speeches from any other man which even approximate these studies in the region of social science. Nowhere in or out of Congress can be found so succinct and admirable a statement of the importance of statistics. Here is an extract from his first speech, made April 6, 1869: