The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-02-14
SENATOR O0KE,s SPEECH.

Elsewhere will be found tho speech o
Senator Coke, which wo received yesterday
and which was delivered January %, in III,
Senate Of the United States. In his frs
proposition On the constitutionalty of Treas
ury notes he is very clear and correct us well
Ho demonstrates very lucidly that the not,
Is contract with the Government. He sr
CUES forcibly that the Government may call il
these notes under the resumption act, but il
cannot domonetize them, that is take from
them that quality which gave them life when
the issue was made and tho dire necessity OF
the land occasioned the ISSUE 1t does not
appear that Senator Coke objects to the reso-
ton of Senator Baya per SO, Its spirit,
perhaps, is not 80 Objectionable TO him, but
the words, 'from and after its passage"
they meaning that the Treasury
notes should then be shorn Of their legal ten
der quality, is what he demurs to. And he
argues that silver being to great extent
demonetized now If these Treasury
notes be also suddenly demonetized, then the
national banks will have the country
entirely under their control, entirely at their
mercy. They can, he says, contract or ill.,
hate their currency and speculate upon
the necessities of the people. He also
enters into discussion of the
question of tbs obligation of contracts, con-
tending that the Treasury notes are part of
the war debt, and contract between the
Government and the holders thereof and
that no legislation can BIO had that will impair
o contract already made. On the LIST of Jan
uary, 1879, there were outstanding $846, O00,-
900 of these Treasury notes, and under the act
of May, 1878, as fast as they were redeemed,
they were to be reissued He urges that in
stead of killing the legal-tender quality of
Treasury notes, that they should have the
same debt-paying power as National bank
notes have, for then they would come back
for coin and so disa ppear from circulation,
occasionng reduction of the volume of
legal-tenders. This decentralization of Treas
ury notes he thinks will give the National
banks infinite power, give to them
the power to put their own notes
in circulation, thus enabling them to become
the supreme masters of fifty millions of peo-
pie. He contends for the free circulation of
silver, because the supply of gold is dimin-
ishing, and to demonetize silver ..means the
destruction Of one-half the worlds money
European governments, notably Germany,
have discovered their error in demonetizing
silver, and their statesmen are looking
about them to see how to restore it to its for
mer dignity as money. As the enterprises of
the day increase; as civilization moves up
ward and onward and brings out new UNDER
takings. develops new energies; as the peo-
pie of the world increase in numbers and the
brain-power of mankind grows stronger
and greater, the uses of money
increase, and as the uses in
crease the various qualities must increase
also. And here he argues strongly that the
effect of the limited coinage of silver is bad.
He depicts graphically the condition: Of pau
perized Europe, and contends that to sud
denly, as the resolution in question proposes,
demonetize the Treasury notes will be to bring
this country into the sameEuropean condition
of impoverishment. He urges the theory that
the advancing value ofgold means the receding
value Of commodities and labor, and prefers,
if anything is to be retired, to retire national
bank notes, because he contends it is cheaper
to use the Treasury notes than to put them
into money and pay interest on them, and on
the question of exports and imports he makes
The point that we should not abandon this
Treasury note currency while our exports
are falling off, as Is now tho case, and our
imports increasing 10 take the gold out of
the country He also criticises pungontly
and caustically the petition from New York
asking for the repeal of the lega-tender
quality of these notes. The speech from
Senator Coke's standpoint, Is forcibly OK.
haustiye one, clear in the positions
ken, cogent in the reasoning urged.
The people of Texas may we'll be proud of