Los Angeles herald., 1890-06-17
Silver Must Be Put on a
Parity With Gold.
Senator Vest Defines the Dem
Ocratic Position.
He Says Free Coinage Has Always
Been Democratic Doctrine.
Senator Allison's Conservative Views on
the Coinage Question-The Silver De-
bate Not Yet Ended.
Associated Press Dispatches.

to establish the customs collection dis
trict of Puget Sound, was non-concurred
in, and conference was asked.
A message from the house asking fur
ther conference on the antitrust bill
was presented and the request assented
to after remarks by Edmonds and Vest.
The deficiency appropriation bill for
pensions, District of Columbia, and the
census. was reported and passed.
Dawes introduced bill to retire Gen
eral Banks as a Major-General of the
United States army. Referred to the
committee on military affairs.
The house silver bill was taken up and
Daniel resumed his speech which he be-
gan last Friday.
In concluding his speech, Daniel said
that the world moved, and that thiswas
a land of progress had never been better
demonstrated than by this fact, that the
leader of the Republican financial policy
of the United States (alluding to Sena-
tor Sherman), who carried the single
gold standard over two continents, had
come forward in his speech and lain
down at the feet of the double standard,
and proclaimed that he was at last an
advocate of silver money.
Allison next addressed the senate.
He said he should vote for the house
bill as amended by the senate finance
committee, as he considered it the wisest
and best solution of the question. The
question to be considered was What
currency could be safely substituted for
the national bank circulation? The
judgment of the finance committee was
(and he thought it would be the judg-
ment of the senate) that if the govern
ment issued paper money, it should
issue it on something that was of itself
convertible to legal tender money;
therefore the bill proceeded on the idea
that whatever paper money should be
issued should be issued on silver bullion
purchased by the government at the
market price. Why, he asked, had silver
bullion been selected as the basis for
that new paper money? 1t was be-
cause the public mind rested in the
belief that sooner or later silver
bullion would be coined and become
part of the metallic currency. Itwas on
that basis that he would vote for the
bill. 1t was on that basis he was willing
that the coinage of silver dollars as now
provided for should cease. There were
people who believed that the coined
dollars in the treasury were useless, and
that it would be wise public policy to
cease that coinage. He for one did not
share that belief. He believed that it
was just as well to continue them to the
utmost limit of $4 100000 month"; but
there was large public opinion against
that view, and therefore he consented
that the bullion should be left in the
treasury uncoined. He did that more
readily for the reason that he believed
that sooner or later the United States
would have to change the number of
grains of silver in the dollar, and there
fore the dollars now coined would be re-
coined. He was therefore willing that
the bullion should lie in the treasury
until it was known whether there would
be an international agreement as to the
ratio 1t was true that the pending bill
provided that the bullion in the treas
ury should be coined for the redemption
of treasury notes. Whatever might be
the opinion of other senators in that
respect, he did not labor under the
deluson that in the near future, under
the provisions of the house bill or the
senate bill, any additional silver dollars
would be issued. There were now
more than 300,000,000 coined dollars
in the treasury against which silver GER
tificates were issued; so, although those
dollars belonged to the holders of the
certificates, the certificates were paya-
BILE for public dues, and when they were
received into the treasury they belonged
to the government of the United States;
so the government would always have
working balance sufficient to redeem
those treasury notes. He believed that
the only safe way to rehabilitate silver
was to secure concurrent agreement
among the nations whereby they would
open their mints cOncurrently to the free
coinage of silver at an agreed ratio.
So believing he was willing to go on as
they were going on now Tentatively, as
it were, with provision for the use OF sill
ver) pending negotiations that ought to
be had for the restoration of silver on
some agreed ratio by the nations of the
world. In supporting the bill, he sup
ported it on the basis or idea that the
government of the United States would
use it's power in endeavoring to secure
an agreement whereby all the CONNER
cial nations of the world would use silver
as gold was now used, at ratio to be
agreed upon. He regarded the
pending measure, and the unanimity
with which it was supported,
as complete justification of the legis-
lation of 1878, which contemplated
minimum monthly coinage of two mil
lion silver dollars, and maximum of
four million. He was for the full and
complete restoration of silver as one of
the coin metals of the world, and was
willing to do whatever he could do to
promote that most desirable object.
He could not vote for the free coinage of
silver at this time, or any time in the
near future. He could not do so until
every effort to secure the use OF silver
by the commercial nations of the world
was exhausted.
Vest commented upon remark OF
Allison as to the newborn zeal of the
Democratic senators in the cause OF the
free coinage of silver, and made state
ment to show that it had always been
the Democratic policy. If the Demo-
cratic party said nothing on the silver
question in the platform OF 1885, it was
not because it had receded from the po-
sition it always held. 1t was because
President Cleveland was an eastern man,
a New York man, who did not
sympathize with the majority OF
his party on that question. Cleve-
land had come to the presidency