3 cents a day, when he paid his own keep. By this
rule the national government's expenses were $90,000
a year, or about $250 a day. Thus, by the substitu-
tion of nickels for gold on a king's-evil day, I not
only injured no one, dissatisfied no one, but pleased
all concerned and saved four-fifths of that day's
national expense into the bargain -- a saving which
would have been the equivalent of $800,000 in my
day in America. In making this substitution I had
drawn upon the wisdom of a very remote source -- the
wisdom of my boyhood -- for the true statesman does
not despise any wisdom, howsoever lowly may be its
origin: in my boyhood I had always saved my pennies
and contributed buttons to the foreign missionary
cause. The buttons would answer the ignorant savage