St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-06-01
The Ohio Senatorial Financier
Gives a Long Talk on
Coinage.
Dropping Of the Silver Dollar
in 1878 Charged to
California
Lack Of a Majority Forces the
House to Indulge in a
Vacation.
Important Duluth Land Case
Settled--AbuSeS Of Nat
uraliZatiOn.

WASHINGTON, May 3l.-Mr. Sher-
mans speech in opposition to the bill
for the free coinage of gold and silver
was the feature in the senate today.
During the first two hours of the Ses-
sion the usual listlessness prevailed, the
average number of senators present be-
ing no more than twenty-five. But that
listlessness disappeared, and the senate
chamber filled up as Mr. Sherman pro-
| ceeded with his speech.
All around him on the Republican
side of the chamber his colleagues set
tied themselves in their chairs and faced
him with an air of marked attention.
1t was the same on the Democratic side.
During the two and half hours that
Mr.. Sherman spoke but few senators
left the chamber. Fully seventy of
them renamed in their seats nearly all
the time, paying close attention to the
argument. Mr.. Sherman's manner was
forcible. his voice clear and strong, and
he spoke like one who felt deeply the
Importance of carrying conviction to
his hearers.
Five states, he said. were largely in
tereSted IN the production of silver and
were ably and zealously represented in
the senate. The South seemed also to
have caught something of the spirit
that actuates the mining states, be-
cause it desired, not exactly free silver,
but
Expansion of the Currency.
cheaper money, broader credit. 1t
was also represented largely in the SEN
ate in favor of the free coinage OF silver.
And so in other parts of the country.
He--repreSenting state nearly central
in population-had tested the sense of
the people of Ohio, and they, he be-
lieved. we're by large majority. not
only in the Republican party, but In the
Democratic party, opposed to the free
coinage of silver. They believed that
it would degrade the body of the cur
rency, reduce its purchasing power one
third, destroy the bimetallic system of
the country to the single monetary
standard of silver measured at the rate
: of ST. grains to the dollar.
He went on to defend the financial
action OF the Republican party and his
own part of it. In passage alluding to
the national banking system Mr.. Sher-
man said that those banks would soon
pass away-not because they were the
best banks in the world, but because
the United States bOndS.On which they
rested would be paid off. No man had
ever lost single dollar OH the notes of
failed national bank. Depositors had
lost something here and there, but very
little. The system, therefore, had fully
justified itself. Coming to the
Dropping of the silver Dollar
from the coinage in 1878 and the sub
sttution of the trade dollar for 1t, he
said that it was done on the representa-
Z tions and petition of the legislature of
Calitornia-the people of that and other
silver mining states wanting to- trans
port their silver to China. The total
amount of silver dollars coined from the
foundation of the government up to 1873
had been little over S,O00,O00;
and at that time the silver dollar was
obsolete, dead and buried. No one
wanted it. 1t was therefore unfair and
unmanly to arraign the gentlemen who
monetzed silver. The whole trouble
about that law was that senators were
not as wise as the Almighty and could
not see ahead. If it had been known
that silver was going to fall as rapidly
as it did. he would have kept the silver
dollar and put it on the same footing as
the fractional silver.
The suspension of silver coinage by
the Latin union had given another blow
to silver; and the increased production
of silver had given it another blow. 1t
was not true that he was unfrlendly to
silver, Mr.. Sherman then went on to
denounce the bill under consideration
as wrong in principle, wrong in detail,
wrong i'm every asDect-a fraud on the
creditor, deception to the debtor and
a decentralization of gold. The very
threat of the free coinage of silver. he
said, was doing more than anything else
to disturb the business interests of the
country. At this point in his speech
Mr.. Sherman yielded to motion to adj
journ.