The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-07-09
YESTERDAY IN CONGRESS.
The silver Compromise Roundly Criticise
In the Senate.

The Silver Compromise Roundly Criticised
In the Senate.
WASHINGTON, July 8.-The conference re-
port on the silver bill was taken up. Vest
stated his reasons why he should vote
against the report. A large majority of the
senate has voted, he said, for the free coin
age of silver, but the conference report alb
solutely did away with all idea of free COIN
age, and was intended to continue the sys-
tenn under which silver had been persistent
ly and consistently degraded since 1873. He
was anxious to see absolute parity between
the two metals as money metals. He would
like to see the time when sixteen ounces of
silver would purchase an ounce of gold,
and when an ounce of gold would continue,
as at present, to purchase sixteen ounces of
silver. He read the closing clause of the
conference bill, sit being the established
policy of the United States to main
each other upon the present legal ratio, or
upon such ratis as may be provided by law
and asked Why that declaration had been
inserted. and why that stump speech had
been injected into the stomach of the bill?
It had been put in, he said, for the purpose
of saying to the treasury department. that
until silver came to a parity with gold it
should pay out gold and public business
should be conducted on gold basis. He,
for one, would never vote to maintain and
continue that practice. He never had been
a ''silver man" for the purpose of booming
silver, or increasing the price; he was
against that and all other forms of subsidy.
marketQ for silver; but the principle for
which the senate voted, that the two metals
should be on a parity, had been given away
Coke on that bill, absolutely and completely.
expressed concurrence in the conclusion
reached by Vest. He could not support the
conference bill if the senate conferees had
not represented the bill of the senate which
had declared for the free and unlimited
coinage of silver. On the contrary
they had assented to bill which pro-
vided definitely for the cessation of
the further coinage of silver at all. There
was not any compulsion on the secretary of
the treasury to coin silver after the 1st of
July, 1891. Silver coinage was then left to
the discretion of the secretary, and such
discretion was equal to stopping the coin
age of silver. That was fact we'll known,
and admitted in debate. That official was
opposed to buying single ounce of silver
TO be coined. he was opposed to the United
for silver or any other product. If silver
was not to be coined, why should it be pur-
chased! II the object of the bill was to
ADVANCE the money power of silver why
should its coinage be stopped, when COIN
age alone conferred upon it the power of
money. Two-thirds OF the people of the
United States were in favor of the nm
limited coinage of silver, and it was ad-
mitted that the majority in the senate were
checked at every turn by the executive and
the secretary Of the treasury. He proposed
to vote against the conference bill because
he preferred the law as it now stood.
sherman defended and explained the con-
ference report.
The question had arisen in the conferences
committee, he said, whether the tvo houses