St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-14
They Discuss the Possibility
Of Retiring National
Bank Notes,
And the Issue of Coin Certifi-
Gates in Lieu of Gold
Certificates.
Chandler Suggests That Log
ging on Indian Lands
Be Stopped.
Agent Gregory Subp9naed to
Appear and Testify in
the Case.

WASHINGTON. March 13.-The senate
proceeded to the consideration of Mr..
Beck's bill to provide for the retire
ment of United States legal tender and
national bank notes of small denomlna-
ton and the issue of coin certificates in
lieu of gold certificates, and Mr.. Beck
addressed the senate in advocacy OF
this. The bill, he said, had been re-
ferred to the finance committee and had
been CAST Thursday reported back by
a bare majority. He referred to what
he said in his speech on the pension
bill as to Mr.. Sherman'S responsibility
for the silver demonetizatiOn measure.
In support of his statement that that
measure had been carried through coll
gress secretly he quoted from a speech
made in the house by Mr.. Kelly penn
sylvania), the chairman, who had had
charge of the bill, to the effect that the
bill was passed without any allusiOn in
debate to the question of the abandon
ment of the standard silver dollar law.
and that he (Kelly) did not know any
thing of it for eighteen months after
wards. He also quoted from
recent speech in the senate
by Senator Stewart, who was in
the senate in 1875, and who, al
though his state was deeply Interested
in the question, knew nothing of the
bill demonetizing silver. He also
quoted from speech OF Senator Alli-
son in 1887 in which he declared that
the bill of 1878 was ''d0ctored;" from a
speech of Senator Howe, of Wisconsin,,
in 1877. in which he spoke of it as an act
of guilt compared with which the rob-
berry of two hundred millions was We
nial:" from speech of Senator ingalls,
in 1878, in which he spoke of it as ''the
elimination OF scheme long enter
tanned by the holders of the public debt,
devised by them for the purpose Of ap-
p1eciating the value of their invest
ment. regardless of the ruin and desola-
tion which it would bring upon the pre-
ductive classes of the natiOn;" from a
speech of Senator Voorhees, in which he
spoke of it as having ''crawled into the
statute books furtiyely and nOiselessly;;"
from a speech of Senator Coke, IN
which he said mo greater outrage than
the demonetization acD0had ever been
perpetrated under the form OF law;;"
and from the speeches of other senators.
He wanted to Show to the senator from
Ohio (Sherman) that what he Beck had
said on the subject was mild compared
to what others had said about it. If
there was any faith to be put in human
testimony, then neither the senate, con-
gress nor the people knew that silver
coin was being struck down when the
act of 1878 was passed. He also quoted
from the house proceedings on the oc-
casion OF the passage of that bill (regu-
lating the operations of the mint)
WHAT HE COMPLAINED OF
he said, and claimed to prove, was that
the house never knew what was in the
bill; that it was reported by Mr.. Hooper
as substitute for all former bills on the
subject; that it was avowed by Mr..
Hooper that it had nothing to do with
the coinage. He denounced as untrue
the pretenSe that silver was demone-
tized because it was more valuable than
gold; but declared it was because the
capitalists and bond-OwnerS saw that
gold was becoming more and more valu-
able every day. He also charged that
''the fraud" was cOnsummated through
the revision of the statutes. The act of
1873 had not destroyed the legal tender
principle of the silver coin then in exist
ence; but the revised statutes (Which
prOfessed not to alter the law in a single
syllable) came afterwards and declared
that silver coin should be legal tender
for not more than S.. Was that, he
asked, an accident? 1t was true that
whoever did it committed palpable
fraud upon the country, for it required
the revised statutes to destroy the silver
coinage of the country. The truth was,
he said. that from the beginning of the
war until now the moneyed men of the
country and their advocates and sup
IN. n1cnxU hoe
sought, first to make money out of the
country's distress, and then, at all haz-
ards and by all means, foul and fair,
lawful and unlawful, , to make themselves
rich at the expense of the great masses
of the people. The demonetiZation of
silver was but one step in that line, a
step which was in perfect accord with
all the other steps that were taken. The
act in the revised statutes was another
step in the same direction. There was
not man in either house who would
dare to say that he knew that the revised
statutes took away the legal tender
quality of the silver dollar. Even the
senator from Ohio would not admit that
he knew that the thing was done. After
that was done, the next thing deter
mined upon was to strike dOWnthe
greenback Gn the resumption act)-to
destroy it altogether, and to leave ma
tiOnal banks OmnipreSent over the land.
And all this time the senator from Ohio
had been chairman of the senate COM
mittee on finance. After
CRITICISING MIR. SHERMAN'S REPORTS
and suggestions while secretary of the
treasury, he said: ''That is one of the
reasons why l said that, while the sena-
tor from Ohio might be president of the
United States, his conduct in relation to
the act of 1878, and his great financial
abilities exercised as they have always
been in the interest of the money
poweD will not be record of which he
will be proud when he comes before the
people. Notwithstanding all the pre-
lenses about silver he asserted that in
the banks of England, France, Germany
and Austria-Hungary silver was now in
excess of gold; that silver was there at
par with gold, and that it was MAIN
ever. The bill which he had introduced
had been voted for by five of the eleven
members of the finance committee. 1t
proposed to issue coin certificates in
stead of gold and silver certificates.
This was the first great step for the
country to take. Silver had its friends
among the people at large, but it had
never had an enemy who had done it so
much harm as the senator from Ohio.
That senator was one of the very ablest
men in public life; and it was because
of his great ability that he Beck) re-
garded his policy as dangerous to the
great masses of the people. He made
no charges against the senator as to
reputation or anything wrong, but he
thought that his policy was death to the
best interests of the masses of the peo-.
pie. Referring to the efforts of the na-s
tional banks to prevent the coinage of:
silver, he spoke of these banks as fail