Los Angeles herald., 1890-05-16
THE SILVER QUESTION IN CONGRESS.

luc IlEhALD 10 NSly nuCi plCdoCu W
see that the journals of Los Angeles and
California at large are at last beginning
to take some interest in the silver ques-
ton. For years this paper was about
the only journal in the length and
breadth of California that had good
word to say in favor OF this unjustly dis
priced metal This fact has been uni
formly recognized by our esteemed con-
temporary, the New York Mining and
Financial Journal, and is fully under
stood by the people of Southern Califor-
MIA.
The status of the silver question just
now is somewhat complex. We prefer
to treat it from non-partisan point of
view, contenting ourself with the remark
that silver was only protected from be-
coming base metal, ranking with cop
per and pig iron, by the splendid efforts
of Mr.. Bland, a democratic congressman
from Missouri, and democratic house
of representatives. Their joint labors
resulted in the passage, in 1873,
five years after the disastrous demoneti
zation of silver of a law by which
the secretary OF the treasury was COM
PEELED to purchase and coin in standard
dollars 1000 900 of silver monthly, and
was authorized to buy and coin $4, ,000,-
600 worth of silver monthly, minimum
and maximum figures of that patriotic
enactment.
Nothing has shown, or could show,
more absolutely that the government of
the United States has been under the
dictation of the gold bugs of Wall street
than the fact that, since 1878, no secre-
tary of the treasury has dared, under any
administration, republican or demo-
cratic, to go the maximum authorization
of the Bland bill. During that time the
country has languished for circulation,
but the hidebound secretaries OF the
treasury, most of whom ought to have
been hung for treachery to the best in
terests OF the American republic, and of
mankind at large, have stubbornly re-
fused to give the people relief. 1t was
as easy to do it as for COW to let down
milk to her sucking calf, but the edicts
of Wall street, New York city, received
at second hand from Change iii London,
were memorable, and were obeyed to the
letter.
re HERALD has been to certain eX-
tent quite happy in its characterizatlons
of the various aspects of the silver ques-
ton. In referring to Secretary Win
dom's bill, we called it the Trojan horse
which was used as the means to capture
the citadel of the silver interest. Senator
Teller, in his speech, plagiarized this
expression from us.
This journal also, in its issue of some
weeks ago, said that within week after
either the free coinage of silver or the
Jones bill had passed congress, silver
would 90 up to 30 an ounce, or be at a
parity with gold on the immemorial
standard of Is in silver to l Of gold.
Senator Jones, of Nevada, in his splen-
did speech of Tuesday, did us the honor
to quote this prediction, without giving
us the proper credit, which was doubt
less an oversight of that eminent ad-
vocate and apostle of silver re-
monetization.
The great danger which menaced
silver when congress met was the sly
scheme propounded by Secretary Win
dom, New York gold-bug, who sur
rendered the presidency of the Delaware
and Lackawanna Railway Company, and
snug Office within a block of Wall
street, to figure as a western member of
Brother Harrison's cabinet. Every
effort of this Minnesota political dead
duck and real Wall-street stool-pigeon
eve hope the mixing of metaphors will
be forgiven in this instance, as we stick
to the foul conspiracy was directed to
bringing about the repeal of the Bland
bill, with its customary and obligatory
coming of at least two millions of dol
lars monthly. If WINDOWS bill had
once passed every energy OF the gold
bugs OF New York and London would
have been directed to pounding down the
price OF silver to as near an approach to
copper as the respective outputs OF those
metals would have admitted of. With
this cheap silver, coined into rupees,
bne merchants OI Leduenlldll SlrecJ anu
of Change in London would have been
enabled to so stimulate the production
of East Indian wheat that California
wheat would probably have fallen to
forty cents bushel. Real estate values
would have shrunk indescribably, and
every mortgage would have been the
death warrant of the unfortunate debtor
The creditor classes would have owned
the world without recourse, and soon
agriculture would have been impossible,
at least as to the raising of the cereals
outside of East India and Africa-regions
peopled by slaves and ryots.
No sooner had it become apparent
that the Window bill was understood,
and was repudiated by the more patri-
otic portion Of congress, than the tools