Connecticut western news., 1885-03-04
CLEVELAND ON SILVER COINAGE.
Emphntically Opposed to Coming Dollars
 Worth EIRhIy-Five Cents Only.

The following is the reply addressed by Presdent-elect Cleveland to the silver coinage advocates in Congress:
 GENTLEMEN: The letter which Ihaye had the honor to receive from you, invites, and indeed obliges, me to give expression to some grave public necessities, although in advance ot the moment when they would become the objects of my official care and partial responsibility. Your solicitude that my judgment shall have been carefully ahd deliberately formed is en- tirely just and l accept the suggestion in the same friendly spirit in which it has been made. It is also fully justified by the nature of the financial crisis which, under the operation of the act of Congress Of Feb. 2S, 1878, is now close at hand. By compliance with the requirements of that law all the vaults of the Federal Treasury have been and are heaped full of silver coins which are now worth less than 85 per cent. of the gold dollar prescribed as ''the unit of value, and which with the silver certificates representing such coin, are receivable for all pub- lie dues. Being thus receivable, while also constantly increasing in quantity at the rate of S9s, GOO a year, 1t has fol- lowed, 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
 
 ready 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 forewarned to us in the official reports of every Secretary of the Treasury from 1878 until now. They are plainly af- frmed in the last December report of the present Secretary of the Treasury to the Speaker of the present House of Representa- tiyes. They appear in the official documents of this Congress, and in the records of the New York Clearing House, of which the Treas ury is a member, and through which the bulk of the receipts and payments of the Federal 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. l hope that you con- cur with me and with the great majority of our fellow citizens in deeminS 1t most desirable at the present juncture to maintain and con- tinue in use the mass of our gold coin as we'll as the mass of silver already coined. This is possible by a present suspen- sion of the purchase and coinage of silver. am not aware that by any other method tis pos sible. It is of momentous importance to pre- vent 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 in the daily business of the people; to prevent the ultimate expulsion of gold by silver. Such financial crisis as these events would certainly precipitate, were it now to follow upon so long period of com mercial depression, would involve the people of every city and every State in the Union in prolonged aud disastrous trouble. The re- vival of business enterprise and prosperity, so ardently desired and apparently so near, would be hopelessly postponed. Gold would be withdrawn to it's hoarding 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 labor, already depressed, would suffer still further depression by a sealing down of the purchasing power of every so- these impending calamities it is surely most patriotic and grateful duty of the representa- lives of the people to deliver them. Tam, gen. tlemen, with sincere respect, your fellow citi- zen, GROVER CLEVELAND.