The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-03-14

people at large, but it never had ar
enemy who mad done it so much harm
as the Senator from Ohio. Referring tc
the efforts of the national banks to
prevent the coinage of silver. he spoke
of those banks as failure, as no longer
of any account, as going down every
day. AS to Edward Atkinson's report
on the silver question, he spoke of him
as doubtless an able and respectable
man, bat doctrinarian.
Hoar reminded Beck that the present
administration had sent Atkinson to
| Europe.
Beck-I know it, and that is what I
compl,in of. On, bless you, there are
gold men in the Democratic party, as
well as in the Republican party. In
conclusion, he said he would call up his
bill for action at an early day, when he
! would see whether the Senate agreed
with him in thinking his bill step in
the right direction.
Sherman said he would reply briefly
to one or two matters of personal
character, which the Senator felt justi-
fed in Juggling into the controversy.
The Senator's answer o-day to what he
had said when he last spoke on the
SoOJOCS W dS 1diliC anu W UDC
last degree. How had he answered it?
By going to the record and seeing
whether the characterization law was
put through in secret way? Not
at all; but by quoting speeches made on
the stump or in the enate and grossly
misopplyipg. He (Sherman) was now
able, from the original Senate records,
to show that the bill in question had
oeen openly discussed, fully censiderea
and submitted to public opinion in
every form, inside of Congress and out
side. 1t was not bill OF his devising.
He had never seen it until it was seat to
him, as chairman of the finance co
mittee, by the Secretary of the Treasury
Ii did not become law for three years
afterward, and, in the meantime. IL had
been printed thirteen times and had
been debated over and over again. The
House had insisted on reducing the
wight of the silver dollar to 1874 grains,
or just the exact eq Wv ilent of two hat
dollars, thus making the silver dollar
practically minor or subsidiary coin.
From that time april, lS70) ill the
passage of the law of February, 1873,
that provision had stood in he law, had
been printed over and over again in
both houses, and yet members of Con-
gress had been quoted as saying they
did not know what was in the bill. 1t
was in Difference to the wishes of the
Pacific Coast that the Senate had sub
stituted tor the subsidiary silver coin
proposed by the House, the trade dollar
of 420 grams troy weight. and vet
men here said he pleaded the baby a It
in the matter. He knew what was IN
the bill; he knew that the origi-
AL nf ha
to convert the silver dollar
into minor coin, and he did not be-
lieve in that. He believed it better to
have coin according to the desires of
the California people, that would be-
come the coin of commerce. But there
was one thing be did not see. He did
not see into the future. He did not
fOresee that the silver dollar, which
was then at a premium of 3 per cent.
over the gold dollar, would, within
fifteen years, be worth only &c cents. If
ybody had told him so, he would have
though him crazy. So that all that
there was about it was that Congress
had not foreseen the change in the value
Of the silver dollar. Wn, n aHy one. In
the light of those facts. said anything
was sought to be done by indirec-
ton and secresy, he did injustice
to himself and the records AS to the
payment of the interest of the United
States bonds in coin (which Beck had
found so much fault with, he thanked
God that that had been legislated for:
if it had not been what he asked
would have become of the national
credit2 Without the strong anchor of
the coin interest, bonds would have
disappeared like the Confederate bonds,
into thin air, "unhonored and unsung."
As to the Senator's talk about resump-
ton, who did not feel, he asked, that
great work Of courage mot only Of Con
gress, but of the departments and of
the people), he was one of those who
did not want to precipitate this silver
question. He did not care to discuss it.
His views on the subject were known,
whenever he could see his way clear,
with the general consent of the people,
with consent of Colorado, Nevada
and California, to take any step to deal
with the silver question, he was per-
fectly willing to do it. He thought the
time might come when all the silver
product of the country might be repre-
scented by the coin certificates, but
when it would have to be bought at its
market value, not at an artificial value.
After all, what had his silver friends
made by their attempts to get silver
into cert fcates? Silver had gone down
steadily; he would like to see it ad
vance to its value. Congress and the
nation were powerful in many things,
but they were not powerful enough to
create values. These had to be fixed
by value making mercantile nations.
Adjourned.