SPEECHES AND PAPERS

ON THE

SILVER, POSTAL TELEGRAPH,

AND OTHER ECONOMIC QUESTIONS.

BY

NATHANIEL P. HILL.

PUBLISHED BY

THE GAZETTE PRINTING COMPANY,

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.

1890.

335.4h H5545

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

Among the more important questions now agitating the public mind, and receiving the consideration of Congress, are those relating to the Postal Telegraph and the Silver Coinage. During the service in the Senate of the Hon. N. P. HILL, he was regarded as an authority on both of these subjects.

His speech on the Postal Telegraph was the first comprehensive presentation of this subject in the Senate, and since then it has been a national question. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, he carefully investigated the facts relating to the Postal Telegraph, and made a report containing the most valuable data on this subject now available.

But his advocacy of the silver question has generally been considered his most important work in the Senate. While his first speech was delivered a little more than four years after the passage of the act of 1878 remonetizing silver and when barely one hundred millions of dollars had been coined, yet his arguments are as pertinent and strong to-day, when our coinage is approaching four hundred millions, as they were then. His speeches were marked by originality of thought, great freshness in the selection and use of statistics, and a breadth and fairness of argument which were refreshing at the time. Of course the statistics have not been brought down to the present time, but express the condition of affairs at the time the speeches were delivered. But it is a significant fact that the inferences drawn at the time these speeches were delivered are abundantly vindicated to-day, with the larger range of facts and experience at our command.

The discussion of these subjects during the last few months has caused great inquiry for these speeches among those who wish to study these subjects more carefully. To meet this demand we have published this volume, which includes all of his speeches delivered in the Senate, together with some contributions to Reviews, and also his addresses delivered since he left the Senate which bear on similar questions.