and destroy it. How will you call it in ?-A. You have got the money and you want to know how the government is going to get it. Now, that market; just go right back to that; it paid its dividend into the treasury and not to you; it paid some profit into the treasury.

Q. What dividend?—A. It earned something; the stalls were rented out for so much

a year.

Q. That is a particular case you put.-A. It is a general case, and illustrates the whole thing.

By Mr. RICE:

Q. You said a few moments ago you would issue a thousand millions of this kind of money, perhaps; did I understand you correctly?-A. If necessary.

Q. Now, supposing I have got $1,000 of that thousand millions in my pocket, I have given my labor for it. How am I going to get my consideration for it when the gov ernment calls it in ?-A. The government only calls it in through taxes and licenses. Q. There are only about two hundred millions of taxes to be paid in a year. What is going to become of the other eight hundred millions?-A. Suppose we pay 5 per cent. of the whole money advanced in a year into the treasury. It will earn 5 per cent. That is paid into the treasury, and in twenty years the whole would be paid into the treasury. We could take that one-twentieth as it came into the treasuryas that must necessarily come in straight as a string—we could take that one-twentieth and destroy it, and, at the end of twenty years, the last twentieth would come in aud we could take that and destroy it without violence to any one.

Q. But you would have no more money in the country than you have now?-A. I said we would keep thus the industries in operation; would be constantly developing the country; and I have said in my paper that, if it be necessary, we would destroy it and, if it was not, I would not. If we needed that money as a circulating medium among private individuals we would use it right over and over. There would be no objection to it at all. It would be a fair legal tender. It would be full money if it Was necessary to do that.

Q. Suppose I wanted to go to England and spend my $1,000 there, how much English money do you suppose I would get for it?-A. I think you would get 101 or 102 per cent. I think if our money to-day was a full legal tender for everything, it would be at a premium in the London market.

Q. You think if there were one thousand millions of this money out, and only two hundred millions of it to be called in in a year for taxes, that every dollar of it would be worth par in the markets of the world?-A. Exactly so; provided the people that got it gave an equivalent for it. You never heard of a man running down his own property-his own money.

Q. Why was not the continental currency valuable?—A. Because we agreed to pay it in Spanish mill dollars, and we hadn't got them to pay. We never could have got through that war without that money, and the government should have said, "We will take this money for public and private debts and make it a legal tender;" and such a period of prosperity would have come on this country as we have never experienced I have no doubt of it at all.

By Mr. BOYD:

Q According to your system you insist that success and speculation follow inflation?-A. Under our competitive monetary system it does.

Q. Would there be any limit to it; could you fix any limit; would not the necessities of this year beget greater necessities next, and would the time ever come when by the consent of the people you could call in the money, as you say, and destroy it ?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. When?-A. The people are masters of the situation; they ought to be in this government, but they are not; they are in the hands of a parcel of Shylocks.

Q. You have gone on the basis all the time that this property you have spoken of was productive and paying. Now, as long as it would be the other way, as a great deal of the property in this State is non-productive, what would be the condition of things then?-A. I would make a provision for it. We have our system of individual insurance now. I would lay by out of the earnings of that property a certain amount, and out of the earnings of all the industries a certain amount as an insurance fund; so that when the property was burned up or destroyed by the floods or any means, there would be a fund of money to replace it.

Q. Suppose it was non-productive and not destroyed-suppose it didn't produce any income, what would you do then?-A. Then there would be so much loss to the whole people absolutely. We would be so much poorer.

Q. The creation of that kind of property would not result in any good to any one.— A. Precisely the same as with individuals. Individuals don't build up property expecting it will be non-productive, but frequently, under our present system, it is unproductive; it is a source of taxation instead of income.

Q. When men own that kind of property, conld the government afford to take in and destroy these credits, as you term them ?-A. We could not make the discrimination; we have got to make as good provision for it as we can. You have supposed a case where we could make no provision; that it became non-productive by machinery or invention; that a new invention has taken the place of this other great invention, and we have thrown our money away. That is so much the public's loss. The whole people lose and not the individual, and the whole people are better able to lose than an individual is. The idea I want to convey is that all governments should conserve the public good all the way through-should look out for everybody instead of somebody. The government now conserves the advantage and interest of a few people, to the great injury of business. I want to change it so that whatever good is in the government should conserve to the good of the whole.

By Mr. RICE:

Q. In your letter, speaking of the effect of charity, you say: "Charity is temporary and will have to be gone over and over in constantly increasing munificence, because where persons find themselves openly degraded they lose faith and ambition in themselves, and finally come to depend upon this provision for a livelihood." I merely want to ask whether the same result would not in the same degree be caused by that which you speak of here as governmental provision for people; whether you have considered that at all? I agree with your statement.-A. I have not the example, because we have not tried what I propose fully. I will give you the nearest example I can, and see whether it excites to indolence and sloth.

Q. Suppose everybody knew that he could get work from the government if he did not get it somewhere else, would that not induce somewhat the same result upon him that would be induced if he knew he could get food from the government if he could not get it from somewhere else? Would it not take away some part of his own independence, of his own determination to earn a living for himself, and thereby have somewhat of the ill effect on him that this provision by charity for him has ?-A. I think it would be quite the reverse. For instance, I am a laboring-man-which is not a fact; I wish it was-I am a laboring man; I know that if I go to Chicago I can get work in the government employ if I cannot anywhere else. It may be that I would not get quite as much in the government employ or I might be held to a stricter régime than I would be outside, for I would have this government employ as strict a régime as the Army. The body of the people are nothing but machines to be operated upon really. I would go there, and do you think it would make me slothful and indolent to change my locality? Why, it brightens up an individual to change his locality and go around among the people and undergo the different influences.

Q. Suppose the government saw fit to leave you at work in New York instead of Chicago; it would be for the goveri ment to say whether it would do so, would it not?-A. If I enter into the government service for one week or for one month or for one year, I fill the bill and must fill it if I am able to. Then when I fill that bill I am a free man; I have got my pay and I can go to Chicago. I am a voter and everything that I ever was and a good deal more.

Q. When you spend the money that you get from that work yon have got to go to work somewhere else, have you not?-A. Yes, sir; and he that will not work, neither should he eat.

Q. And supposing you were sure you would get more work from the Government when you would get through with that, you might spend the money?-A. I might spend it for books. The great body of the people, if they were properly treated and lifted up by proper means, not be the ignorant scavengers they are to-day. It is because capital to-day stands on the neck of the great body of the people and has no interest in them, and uses them as so much lumber timber to build up fortunes for themselves. That is the misfortune. You must lift those people up. The great body of the people of New York are fit for nothing except to utilize in building up a better

structure.

Q. Who will lift them up?-A. The whole people should, under the system of government régime.

Q. Where is the money coming from to lift them up?-A. Make it out of paper. Q. Who is going to make it ?-A. The United States.

Q. Is the United States government to tell people where to go and work, and find work for them?-A. If you don't take care of yourself to-day, the public steps in and takes care of you as a pauper or a criminal. That is the fact about it. We have got either to fill the labor journal or the pauper journal or the criminal journal.

Q. Don't you underrate the intelligence of the laboring people of the country when you describe them, as you did a while ago, as being only fit for scavengers ?-A. You didn't let me get through.

Q. Are the laborers of any country as intelligent, as well fed, and as well educated as the laboring people of this country?-A. I don't know; I never was out of this

country but once, and that not a great way. I know it is so that if you wanted fifty thousand soldiers at $14 a month you could get them in this city to shoot anybody, even to shoot themselves. Can you have anything lower than that?

Q. While you have not traveled over sections of other countries, you are an intelligent man and giving your views very much from theory. Do not you know as an historical fact, as a statistical fact, that that is true as I put it to you?-A. Yes, sir.

Q. Then, why do you suggest this ridiculous law or experiment where other governments have not introduced it, and where their people would seem to require it very much more than here ?-A. We are a progressing people; we are a city upon a hill; we established the government on a basis of justice one hundred years ago, and attempted to inaugurate it, but made a mistake in the Constitution of the United States. Q. In what particular?-A. I believe you, honorable gentlemen, are my servants; that is, you are representatives of the people. You are my servants. We clothe you with power to make and execute the laws.

By Mr. BOYD:

Q. What did you say?—A. I said we made a mistake in the Constitution of the United States. You are my servants. We made you; you represent us; but we have clothed the agent, the representative, under the power of the Constitution, with authority to make and execute the law, and we have no redress but to put some one else in your place when your term is out, and if that representative yields to temptations (and temptations are brought there by the thousands-powers are brought to bear there that no one but the Saviour of mankind could withstand) our rights are betrayed.

Q. Then you want to amend your individuals and not the Constitution. It is a new class of men you want, and not a new Constitution?-A. No; we want to amend the Constitution so that neither you, sir, nor the President can make a law. You should only codify the will of the sovereign people into form, and send it back to them for approval or rejection. We should be masters. We want a democratic government and not a bastard republic, as we have got to-day.

Q. Then it is your idea that every law should be only proposed by the law-making powers or the acting powers and submitted for a vote to the people?-A. It might be proposed, or the initiative might come from the people. The Representative sent from his district will know the wants and needs of his people better than any one else, probably.

Q. Yes; he ought to.-A. He would present it and confer with all of them in relation to this proposition. He would codify it into form, and it would go back with all the rest of the laws to the people that are to be affected by it. If it covers the whole nation, then the whole people of the nation should pass upon it.

Q. Our laws can be changed and repealed; they are not like the laws of the Medes and Persians.-A. Not a bit; I know that.

Q. They are changed by the servants and representatives of the people.-A. Yes, sir; they ought to be; they are.

Q. That is the theory, the system, and the law of the government.-A. They are in theory the servants of the people; but it is wonderful-I know of several Representatives (I belong down in Maine) that I have helped to send to Congress that went there poor; they came out comfortably rich, and it could not have come from their salaries.

Q. That is not the fault of the government, is it?-A. No; it is the fault of the damned system.

Q. Of the elective system?-A. No; of the government system, of our régime, of our governmental economics. That is what I mean.

Q. Then you think the whole system of this government is wrong?-A. It is wrong in that particular. Slavery controlled the legislation of Congress for forty years. It even controlled the legislation of the free States. And the banks to-day, and the railroads, and the great corporations control the legislation of Congress in their interest. The little finger of Tom Scott is bigger than the whole Congress of the people.

Mr. BOYD. I think you are slandering the Representatives of the people of the country as badly as you did the laboring class a moment ago when you said they had a lack of intelligence. That is all from you, sir. You may stand aside, sir.

Mr. MADDOX. I desire to make a further suggestion: We would further add, for your favorable consideration, that there should be established a bureau of education and labor equal and co-ordinate with the other executive departments, the duties of which shall be to establish and operate industrial schools, at least one in every State, and out of which create and operate the various national industries needed throughout the country, filling up the rank and file, if necessary, in those industries from the body of the people, as we do the Army; and the régime of such schools and industries shall be as arbitrarily conducted as is the régime of the Army. Thas there might be produced, for the benefit of the whole people, great depots of products in all the great centers of commerce, which would never fluctuate in price and quantity through the speculation, cornering, and control of a few designing men who have no interest in the

public good; also, these depots would be preservers of food in case of famine or any great destruction of our resources.

By Mr. THOMPSON :

Q. Are you engaged in any business; do you represent the laboring class?-A. I have been in the real-estate business in this city, but that has about ruined me. For the last two or three years I have been living on the fag ends.

Q. Not engaged in anything?—A. In nothing which would really produce a livelihood.

VIEWS OF MRS. S. MYRA HALL.

Mrs. S. MYRA HALL next requested to be permitted to address the committee.

By Mr. RICE:

Question. Whom do you represent ?—Answer. I represent the organization of which Mr. Maddox is the president―our common humanity. I am not a representative of the United States, but of the Congress of Humanity, the congress of the world.

By Mr. THOMPSON:

Q. That is, you mean your operations are not confined to this country?—A. No, sir. I also represent twenty millions of slaves belonging to this country that have never been admitted to the elective franchise; that is, women. I will say what I am going to say in a few words. There is a law in creation which is absolute in its operation. This law is progress, and therefore all kingdoms of creation are unfolded according to this law.

Mr. THOMPSON. I wish to

Mrs. HALL. One moment, one moment.

Mr. THOMPSON. What I wish to call your attention to is this fact, that this committee is clothed with power only to examine into and inquire as to the labor question, and not the object you represent.

Mrs. HALL. I understand. My remarks are perfectly relevant if you will only give me time. In one moment I will be at the point. Now you have scattered my thoughts. However, according to this law of progress, which brings unfoldings to this world, some people have communions and can foretell and prophesy what is going to happen. As one who is privileged with the communion of these unfoldings I want to tell you; as I am privileged with such communions I know that this country can never settle these important questions which are now being presented until it gives the franchise to women; that is, in other words, until you enact the principles of justice and equity into your Constitution. We boast of being a republic of freedom and liberty. It is not true in practice; and the next thing in our progress, the next in order, will be giving the franchise to women. It is a crime to the nation, a crime to all intelligent people, not to do so. You can't settle the question of labor for the workmen or of money for the business of the country until this one condition is achieved; that will be by enacting justice and equity into law, into your Constitution, giving the vote to women; that will settle all the other questions at once. This is the stone under the wheel; it blocks up everything else, and will until this is done. It is the duty of me to say these words; it is not optional with me, but the pressure comes upon me to do this, and I should not be true to myself if I did not say these things.

By Mr. RICE:

Q. Your remedy is that the suffrage should be given to women?-A. It is the first step. I will tell you why; if the labor question were settled, or this finance question were settled, both satisfactorily to the people, they would say: "Let this alone; woman is well enough." Many people say so now: "She is well enough, leave her alone, it is all right," and she would never get it; therefore we would keep on generating a miserable life.

By Mr. THOMPSON:

Q. In other words, you think the condition of the country is a favorable one for agitating the woman's rights question ?-A. It is the time, the important time.

Q. But do you think that the withholding of the franchise heretofore has produced this state of affairs?-A. I do.

Q. And the remedy you propose is the giving the right you speak of?-A. It is the right thing in the order and progress of this country; if it is not given, I would not hesitate to prophesy a conflict.

Mr. RICE. Well, Mrs. Hall, we will take that as a new suggestion. That is one we have not had as yet. This will be all, thank you.

VIEWS OF MR. J. J. O'DONNELL.

J. J. O'DONNELL was the next person to address the committee.

By Mr. RICE:

Question. Whom do you represent ?-Answer. In the first place, my name is J. J. O'Donnell, and in the next place, I represent my sovereign self, a citizen of the

United States, who was sorry to hear the financial heresies found in this city and community to-day. The fact is I may say, in the language of Robert Burns, I am here for my "ain horn." I believe with all workingmen in all countries of the Old World that a man's labor is worth precisely what he can get for it. I furthermore believe that no dunce, botch, or impostor, or societies ought to draw their sustenance from the money earned by these horny hands [displaying his hands]. I furthermore may say that I affiliate not with that heresy. I say that that is a financial heresy that declares that you, I, or a million like you, could state that a piece of paper with no intrinsic value in it can be made as valuable as that which has been the recognized standard of value since the very dawn of civilization. I affiliate not with those men or their societies. I trust you will not class me among those who say I respect the action of the men who marched under the blood-stained flag of the commune. I simply lay down my platform, that you may know who and what I am; and I may say this, that I am one of this class of men who were stigmatized by the pedagogue who came from New Jersey yesterday, who called them I r-i-s-h-m-e-n, who in Massachusetts were schooled into writing their names in order to vote. In other words, I represent a lot of the citizens of the United States that when you want an army rush to the front; when you want a navy, that do the same; and when you want a Barron or a Sheridan, would give you one. This shows who and what I am.

But as there is supposed to be an antidote for all poisons there ought to be a cure for all distempers. I believe that for the distemper that afflicts the American people at the present time you have it in your power to administer an infallible cure; that is a word in compliment to our greenback friends. A thing that is conceived in vice, developed in villainy and brought to manhood in the same way, cannot have a good end. If I am not mistaken, the greenback heresy, or something akin to it--that says a piece of paper with no intrinsic value ought to be received as a valuable considerationcommenced, I believe, with the usurper and blood-spiller William of Orange, who went to the English and asked them for paper money, saying: "Give me one million and a half pounds with which to crush out the liberties of the people of England and to butcher the people of Glencoe." Since then the paper money has been used every time when it was wanted, or money, or something by which the government would spill the people's blood. Those are facts, and, as Burns says, facts are things that we "dinna dare deny." As I say, there ought to be an antidote for every poison. It was admitted here by the pedagogue from New Jersey that the people a hundred years ago were better off than they are now. Why? Simply because the skilled artisan and the skilled mechanic in England was protected by the English artisans; that is, a botch could not come in to represent a man who served his time at his trade. That was necessary at the time. It is not necessary now. Nevertheless, by a man selling his labor at the highest market, our pedagogue admitted that they were somewhat better then than now. When the Democratic party of the United States held control free trade was the rule, protection was the exception. You are aware of that, gentlemen. But as soon as another party stepped in, then we have a protective tariff. O, yes, by all means we had to have a protective tariff. Well, as we can't come to a final conclusion unless we have an objective point to drive at. I select one and leave you, gentlemen, to select the other; because what applies in this case applies in each and every other one, with no exception to the rule. If our emigrant ships are free to bring free labor from Europe to manufacture European iron, copper or brass, steel, &c., is it not constitutional and logical, and a very law of common sense, that if you introduce these free laborers you should also introduce the machine that the free laborer made three days before he left Manchester or Liverpool? The mechanical parts have been made here-if you like, in Massachusetts, where one of you gentlemen comes fromthe works of watches are made there; they are sent to Manchester; the watches are made, and an ample duty is placed on the watches, and the watches are brought over in the same ship the watchmaker sails in. There is something illogical in this institution, and therefore I say in that point we ought to have free trade. I speak as a machinist of somewhere about thirty years' experience. I have seen the birth of the sewing-machine concern; I thought I saw its death on the 6th of last May was a year. I was mistaken. Like a Briareus it stretches out its thousand arms and says, "I still have the same power." Gentlemen, you would be astonished to learn that here in this country there could take place what I am about to tell you. I simply select the sewing machine, and wish you to fill all the others, as I don't wish to take up your valuable time. Somewhere about the 10th of June, 1846, a bad actor got a patent on that which a machinist made for him; by enterprise he made himself rich. He was known in the world as a bad actor first; he started with a few dollars; when he ended his life he left to his very large family somewhere about $15,000,000 extracted from the working classes of Europe and America, mainly America, made, gentlemen, from the enforcement of a cursed law that should not be recognized in this or any other country that boasts of freedom. I have reference now to the patent law in the wicked instance of extending from year to year that which should never have been given.

By Mr. RICE:

Q. You are opposed to patent laws?-A. Yes, sir; totally opposed to patent laws.