Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-03-05
Sound on the silver Question.

The following is the reply of Presi-
dent-elect Cleveland to the silver coin
age advocates in Congress. 1t was adj
dressed TO A. j. Warner and others,
members of the forty-eighth Congress:
''The letter which l have had the hon.
or TO receive from you invites, and, in
deed, obliges me to give expression to
some grave public necessities, although
in advance of the moment when they
would become the objects of my official
care and partial responsibility. Your
solicitude that my Judgment shall have
been carefully and deliberately formed
is entirely just, and accept the sug-
gestion in tho same friendly spirit in
which it has been made. 1t is also full
ly justified by the nature of the finan-
cial crisis which, under the operation
of the act of Congress of Feb. %, 1878,
is now close at hand.
"By compliance with the require
ments of that law all the vaults of the
Federal Treasury have been and are
heaped full of silver coins, which arenow
worth less than s. per cent of the gold
dollar prescribed as the unit of value
in section Ia of the act of Feb. u, 1873,
and which, with the silver certificates
representing such coin, are receivable
for all public dues. Being thus receiv-
able, while also constantly increasing
in quantity at the rate of $4,000, 900 a
year, it has followed of necessity, that
the flow of gold into the Treasury has
been steadily diminished. Silver and
silver certificates have displaced and
are now displacing gold, and the sum
of gold in the Federal Treasury now
available for the payment of the gold
obligations of the United States and
for the redemption of the United States
notes called 'greenbacks, if not already
encroached upon, is perilously near such
encroachment.
"These are facts which, as they do
not admit of difference of opinion, call
for no argument. They have been fore
warned to us in the official reports of
every Secretary of the Treasury from
1878 till now. They are plainly af-
firmed in the last December report of
the present Secretary of the Treasury
to the Speaker of the present House of
Representatives. They appear in the
official documents of this Congress and
in the records of the New York Clear
ing House, of which the Treasury is a
member. and through which the bulk of
the receipts and payments of the Fed
eral Government and of the country
pass. These being the facts of our
present condition our danger and our
duty to avert that danger would seem
to be plain.
II hope that you concur with me and
with the great majority of our fellow
citizens in deeming it most desirable
at the present juncture to maintain and
continue in use the mass of our gold
coin, as well as the mass of silver al
ready coined. This is possible by
present suspension of the purchase and
coinage of silver. am not aware that
by any other method it is possible. 1t
is of momentous Importance to prevent
the two metals from parting company;
to prevent the increasing displacement
of gold by the increasing coinage of
silver; to prevent the disuse of gold in
the Custom Houses OF the United States
and in the daily business of the people,
to prevent the ultimate expulsion OF
gold by silver.
.Such a financial crisis as these
events would certainly precipitate were
it now to follow upon so large period
of commercial depression would involve
the people of every city and every state
in the Union in prolonged and disas-
trous trouble. The revival of business
enterprise and prosperity, SO ardently
desired and apparently so near, would
be hopelessly postponed. Gold would
be Withdrawn to its boarding places and
an unprecedented contraction in the
actual volume of our currency would
speedily take place. Saddest of all, in
every workshop, mill, factory, store and
on every railroad and farm the wages
of laborers already depressed, would
suffer still further depression by a
scaling down Of the purchasing power
of every so-called dollar paid into the
hand of toll. From these impending
calamities it is surely most patriotic
and grateful duty of the representatives
Of the people to deliver Them