The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-01-21
SILVER IN THE SENATE.
Mr.. Pugh, of Alabama, Speaks in Fa-
vor of the Dollar of the
Daddies
Associated Press Report. I

Mr.. Pugh called up Mr. Beck's silver res
olution, and addressed the Senate on it.
With the aid of all the learning in the world,
Mr.. Pugh said, the greatest statesmen in the
world were still graphing with the money
question at precisely the same point at which
they began to grapple with it. So far as the
United States were concerned, there had
never been a time when our paper and metal
lie currency had been so sound and healthy
as it was to-day. This condition of
affairs, and the premium on our bonds con-
stituted grim satire on the prophecies of
the opponents of the legislation hitherto en-
acted by Congress on the money question.
Nothing more was to be desired, Mr.. Pugh
thought, than that the banks, bankers and
Federal Treasury should stand aside and
allow the Gresham law to have full and
free operation on our silver currency. He
had much confidence in the practical ideas,
sound judgment, and integrity of President
Cleveland and his devotion to constitutional
principles. But many Democrats would
differ with the President on the money
question and on details affecting the tariff.
These questions were so far-reaching and
complicated in their operation as not to be
capable of final solution satisfactory to all
honest inquirers. He (Mr. Pugh) had
given the Presidents message much con-
sideration, bnt was constrained to differ
with him in regard to money.
Mr.. Pugh quoted figures from the New
York Clearing House to show that only about
81 per cent. of the clearing house transact
tons were represented by cash, the re-
mainder being made up principally by
cheeks. Congress was confronted, he said,
with an official announcement that our bust
ness relations had reached crisis in which
we must suspend the coinage of silver if we
would secure an international ratio between
gold and silver. The real point involved,
Mr.. Pugh believed, not the suspension, but
the total stoppage of silver coinage, and if
silver coinage were suspended now, it would
be a blow that would directly and speedily
tend TO the consummation of an organized
conspiracy of capitalists to secure absolute
control of our currency and the regulation of
the volume and consequent purchasing
power. Mr.. Pugh believed he spoke for
the Southern people when he said
that three -fourths of them would to-day,
if opportunity were given, vote against
the proposition to suspend silver coinage.
The petitions that came to Congress favoring
suspension were all on printed blanks, and
signed mainly by bankers.
Mr.. Pugh criticised the arguments of the
Secretary of the Treasury and of the Presi-
dent. He inquired whether we were to take
the mere diction of the President on this
matter, and insisted that the executive off,
GERS were under obligation to enforce the
laws of Congress. Why had those laws
been hourly violated? Had Congress abdi-
Gated its powers to the Executive Depart
ment of the Government? The national
banks which were fiscal agents of the Gov
eminent, should not, Mr.. Pugh thought, have
been allowed to become members of clear
ing house that discredited the silver certii-
Gates of the Government. The national
banks had evaded the law of Congress by
agreeing that they would not offer silver GER
tifcates TO the clearing houses, and, there
fore, none had been actually refused by the
clearing house. A New York newspaper, he
said, had squarely identified the invasion.