Morning journal and courier., 1888-04-04
Fiftieth Congress--First Session.

WASHINGTON, April 3.
 SENATE.-The resolution heretofore offered by MT. Riddleberger to suspend so much of the rules as provide for executive sessions during the consideration of the fisheries treaty. was taken up. He called for the yeas and nays on agreeing to. the resolution.
 MT. Edmunds said that as the question was on agreeing to the resolution he desired to submit some observations to the Senate which he did not care to submit to her ma- jesty's ministers just at present He therefore moved that the galleries be cleared and the doors closed. The motion was agreed to and the order Cat o'cleck) was executed.
 When the doors were reopened the vote was taken on MT. Palmer's motion to recon init to the finance committee the bill to pro- vide for the purchase of United States bonds and the motion was rejected; yeas 20, nays 31.
 MT. Stewards pending amendment having been read MT. Beck asked hin to withhold it for the present and until the bill should be presented to the Senate. MT. Stewart agreed to do so and then Mir. Spooner offered as a substitute for the whole bill the following:
 That section of the act making appropriation for the sundry civil expense P of the government for the Secretary of the Treasury may at any time ap- ply the surplus money in the treasury not otherwise CT proper for the purchase or redemption of United States bonds provided that the bonds SC purchased shall be cancelled was intended to be permanent provision of law, and the same is hereby declared to have been since it's enactment and to be now in full force and effect
 The substitute was agreed to without di- vision.
 MT. Beck then offered an amendment as an additional section providing that whenever the circulation or any portion thereof of any bank not in liquidation shall be surrendered and shall not be taken up by other national 1a,, Ak.oC os kIo l,o1l purchase at the market price an equivalent amount of silver bullion in excess of the min imuna monthly silver coinage which shall be coined and used as provided for in the silver coinage bill of February 2S, 1878.
 Mir. Stewart proposed an addition to the amendment (and MT. Beck accepted it) pro- viding that nothing in the act shall alter or repeal the silver coinage act of 1878.
 Mr. Allison suggested some verbal changes in MT. Becks amendment which the latter ac- cepted so as to make it read ''that whenever the circulation or any portion thereof of any national bank not in liquidation shall be sur rendered, by the deposit of United States notes in the treasury or otherwise, and the same or any equivalent amount shall not be taken by other national banks within thirty days, the Secretary of the Treasury shall, etc."
 Without action on the amendment offered by MT. Beck. and with the substitute for the bill still to be reported from the committee of the whole and to be voted on in the Senate, the Senate at 5:05 adjourned.
 HoUsE-The House went into committee on the Senate direct tax bill. Messrs. Heard of Missouri, Elliott of South Carolina and Hopkins of Illinois favored the measure, and Mr. Wheeler of Alabama opposed it.
 Pending further debate the committee rose and the House at o'clock took recess until o'clock.
 At its evening session the House passed number of measures reported by the military committee, among them one providing for the promotion of officers of the army after twenty years continuous service in one grade and another for the retirement of Alfred Pleasanton with the rank of colonel