Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-02-28
News by Telegraph
FROM ALL QUARTERS.
CLEVELAND ON SILVER.
The Full Text of His
Letter.
THE LATEST CABINET slate.
Hendricks Arrives at the
Capital.
A SCARE IN PARLIAMENT.
Gladstone Escapes Censure
BY Fourteen.
A SCARE IN PARLIAMENT.
VIEWS ON SILVER.

CLEvELAND's VIEWS ON SILVER.
His Letter I'm Reply To the silver
Coinage Advocates In Congress.
ALBANY, Feb. 27.-The following is the
reply of President-elsct Cleveland to the sill
yer coinage advocates in Congress:
To the Hon A. J. Warner and Others MEM
bers of the Forty eighth Congress
Conference.-The letter which I have had
the honor to receive from you invites and,
indeed, 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 respon-
sibility Your solicitude that my judgment
shall have been carefully and deliberately
formed is entirely just; and accept the sug-
gestion in the same friendly spirit ip which
it has been made. 1t is also fully justified
by the nature of the financial crisis which
under the operation of the Congress of July
90, 1872, is now close at hand. By a COM
pliance 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 IS per cent of the gold
dollar prescribed as ''the unit of value"
in section IA of the act of February IL,
1878, and which with the silver certificates
representing such coin are receivable for all
public dues. Being thus receivable, while
also constantly increasing in quantity at the
rate of s2S, 900, 900 a year, it has followed of
necessity that the flow of gold into the treas
urv 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 Uni
ted States and for the redemption of the
United States notes called s'green-
backs" 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 argu-
ment. They have been forewarned to us in
the official reports of every Secret airy of the
Treasury from 1878 until now. They are
plainly affirmed in the last December report
of the present Secretary of the Treasury to
the Speaker of the present House of Repre-
sentatives. They appear in the official decu-
ments of this Congress and in the records of
the New York clearing house, of which the
treasury is a member and through which the
bulk of the receipts and payments OF the
federal government and the country pass.
These being the facts of our present con-
dition our danger and our duty to arrest that
danger would seem to be plain. hope that
you concur with me and with the great ma
iority 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 already coined. This is posi-
BILE by present suspension of
the purchase and coinage of silver.
I am not aware that by any other method 1t
is possible. 1t is of momentous Importance
to prevent the two metals from parting COM
pany, 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 ulti-
mate expulsion of gold by silver Such a
financial crisis as these events
would certainly precipitate were
it now to follow upon SO
long period of commercial depression
would involve the people of every city and
every State in the Union in prolonged and
disastrous trouble. The revival of business
enterprise and prosperity SO ardently desired
and apparently SO near would be hopeless
ly 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 labor, already depressed,
would suffer still further depression by a
scaling down of the purchasing power of
every so-called dollar paid into the hands of
toll From these impending calamities it is
surely a most patriotic and grateful duty of
the representatives of the people to deliver
them.
I am, gentlemen, with sincere respect,
Your fellow citizen,
GROVER CLEVELAND