Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1888-03-17
L Y

The Kentuckiau Quotes Numerous UtteI
ances Showing How Secretly 1t Wa
Done-Sherman Makes a Broad Denia
of the Secrecy Charge.
WASHINGTON, March 13.-In the Senat
Mr.. Hale called up a resolution offered b,
him for the appointment of a special com
mittee to examine fully into the condition
of the civil service in all branches OF tn
Government.
Mr.. Cockrell offered an amendment t.
extend the inquiry to instances OF partisa,
activity OF Republican officials since tn
executive order OF President Hayes Of jun
1877, particularly in the Presidential
| elections of 1880 and 1884.
Mr.. Hale said he could not consent to
the amendment. He vas not, however,
opposed to the investigation; he desired it,
but it should 60 in distinctly by itself.
The amendment was defeated by a strict
party vote: Yeas, "a; nays 20, and the
original resolution was adopted.
BECK ARRAIGNs SHERMAN.
The Senate proceeded to the consider
alton OF Mr.. Beck's bill to provide for the
retirement OF United States legal tender
and national bank notes OF small denomin-
ations aud the issuance of coin certificates
in lieu Of gold certificates. The bill, Mr..
Beck said, had been referred to the Finance
Committee and had been Qast Tuesday,
reported back by a bare majority. He re-
ferred to what he said in his speech on the
pension bill as TO Sherman's responsibility
for the silver characterization measure.
In support OF his statement that that
measure had been carried through Congress
secretly, he quoted from a speech made in
the House by Kelley Of Pennsylvania, the
chairman who had charge OF the bill, to the
effect that the bill was passed without any
allusion in the debate to the question OF
abandonment of the standard silver dollar
law, and that he Kelley did not know
anything of it for eighteen months after
ward. He Also quoted from a recent speech
in the Senate by Senator Stewart who was
in the Senate in 1878, and who, although
his State was deeply interested in the
question. knew nothing of the
BILL DEMoNET1zING SILVER.
He also quoted from the speech OF Sen
ator Allison in 1887, in which he
declared that the bill Of 1878 was
"~doctored;" from a speech of Sena-
tor Howe of Wisconsin, in 1887,
in which he spoke OF it as an act
OF guilt compared with which the robbery
of two hundred millions was venal; from a
speech OF Senator ingalls, in 1878 in which
he spoke of it as 1.-The elimination OF a
scheme long entertained by holders OF the
public debt, devised by them for the pur-
pose OF approaching the value OF their in
yestment, regardless of the ruin and desola-
ton which itwould bring on the productive
classes of the nation" He quoted from a
speech of Senator Voorhees, in which he
spoke OF it as having ''crawled into the
statute book furtively and noiselessly;;"
from q speech of Senator Coke on which he
said
mo GREATER r
had ever been perpetrated under the form
OF law" and from speeches Of others. He
also quoted from the House proceedings on
the occasion OF the passage Of that bill
CIRCULATING 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 re.
ported by Hooper as a substitute for all
former bills on the subject; that it was
avowed by Hooper that it had nothing to
do with the coinage. He denounced as I'M
true the pretense hat silver was demone-
tized because it was more valuable thar
gold, but declared it was because capital
lists and bono owners saw that gold was
becoming more and more valuable every
day. He also charged that 1.-THE fraud
was consummated through revision OF the
statutes. The act OF 1878 had not de-
stroyed the legal tender principle of silver
coin then in existence, but the Revised
Statutes (which professed not to alter the
law in a single syllabIe) came afterwards
and declared hat silver coin should be
legal tender for
NOT ORE H FIVE
Was that an accident? 1t was true that
whoever did it committed a palpable fraud
upon the country, for it required the Re,
vised Statutes to destroy the silver coin
age Of the country. The truth was that
from the beginning OF the wal until now the
money men OF the country n their advo
Gates and supporters in Congress and else.
where had sought, first, to make money
out of the country's distresses and then at
all hazards and by all means, foul and fair,
WI dbN IL w ldh &c
rich at the expense OF the great masses Of
the people. The characterization of silver
was but one step in that line, a step which
was in perfect accord with all other steps
taken. The act in the Revised Statutes
was another step in the same direction,
After that was done, the next thing de.
termined upon was to strike down green,
backs in the resumption act, to destroy it
altogether and to leave national banks
omnipotent over the land ard
ALL THIS
the Senator from Ohio had been chairman
of the Senate Committee on Finance. After
criticising several OF Sherman's reports and
suggestions while Secretary OF the Treasury,
Mr.. Beck said: THAT is one of the reasons
why l said hat while the Senator from
Ohio might be President of the United