The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-05
SEATTLE. sATURDAY. SEP. s.
THE PENNSYLVANIA MUDDLED
REHOLUTION.

The facts concerning the shfei Pioi'h -
the platform adopted by the Republican
State Convention of Pennsylvania have
been mlsrepresented by the Democratic
press. The Associated Press blundered in
sending out the following resolution in
stead of the one adopted by the con-
vention.
We favor bi-metaliism so regulated as to allow
free coinage OF all the gold and silver produced
from American mines, and so guarded by tariff
duties as to protect our country and its currency
from the debasement which will surely follow
II this nation is made the dumping ground tor
the silver of the world.
The committee on resolutions rejected
this plank, as an absurd proposal which
would result in fixing two prices for an
article that was to serve as unit of value
in this country. and which had been sub
mitted in the last congress without secur-
ing hardly supporter in either house.
When congress passed the act of July Ia,
1880. which provided for the purchase of
more silver bullion than was produced in
the American mines, excluding the silver
used in the arts, the advocates of free COIN
age asserted that the price of silver would
rise to a parity with gold, but silver was
imported. and Importation increased with
the advance in price. SO the act proved a
failure so far as increasing the price of sill
yer was concerned.
This provision to purchase 100000
ounces of silver, quantity equal to the
last years production of the American
mines, was in the mind of the Harrisburg
committee on resolutions when they re-
jected the resolution cited above and
agreed to approve the silver act of July,
1890. The free coinage of American silver
would be no possible gain to the people,
because the government now buys as
much as American mines produce, only it
gets the bullion at the market price, and
free coinage confined to American silver
would only compel the people to pay
$4,000 600 more a year to few mine own
ers for precisely the same quantity of
silver, adding nothing to the circulation
and taking from the people the profit now
made on the purchase of silver bullion.
The last congress did not provide for the
coinage of the production of the American
mines, but specified the coinage of defin-
ite amount, which exceeds the mine pro-
duction of the last year. There is no ques-
ton as TO intention of the convention; the
rejection of the first resolution showed
that; but the resolution as finally adopted
is so bungling where it should have been
explicit that il has been enormously in
terpreted as concession to free coinage.
These are the facts as given by the Phila-
delphia Press concerning the Pennsylvania
Republican silver plank, which is falsely
described as identical, both in text and ex-
tent, with the Democratic free coinage res
olutions in Ohio and Iowa.
This free coinage of American silver res
olution the convention rejected as abso-
lutely indefensible, but in the hurry of
changing it the resolution was bungled
and made to read as follows:
We favor bi-metallisr. and indorse the action
OF the Fifty-hrst congress IN providing for the
purchase and coinage OF all the silver produced
from American mines, and we recommend such
tariff duties as will protect our country and its
currency from the debasement which will surely
follow Il this nation is made the dumping
ground for the silver of the world.
A comparison of this resolution with the
one that was rejected, but was sent abroad
as adopted. makes it perfectly plain that
the sentiment of the convention was
against free coinage of silver in any shape,
rs wholly impracticable until an interna-
tional agreement is reached upon the sub
ject by change of sentiment in Europe.
The Ohio resolutions, as well as those of
Kentucky and Iowa, declare for the free and
unlimited coinage of the worlds silver,
while the Pennsylvania resolution approves
of the action of the last congress in the
ton taken by congress was the passage of
the act of July IA, 1890, and under this act
no free coinage of silver is approved. The
Ohio resolutions mean that the United
States shall pay any man $1,29 an ounce
for something the present market price of
which is but 80 cents-that he may take 10
the mint S7l14 grains of silver, worth 1856
cents in gold. and get for them silver
dollar, or that he shall be paid bounty of
30 cents ON every ounce of silver that he
produces.
The Pennsylvania resolution, with all its
lack of explieitness. did approve the action
OF the last congress on silver. and under
that action the government gains the diff
ference between the bullion and legal ten
der value of the coined silver, so that in
spite of its bungling form, the Pennsylva-
mia resolution clearly did not mean even
the American free coinage of deprecated
dollars, which the Ohio resolutions I'M
questionably do.