Los Angeles herald., 1892-01-07
WASHINGTON GRIST.
The Grind of the National
Law Mill.
Stewards Free Coinage Bill Dis
cusSed in the Senate.
Morrill, Speaks in Extenso Against
the Measure.
Teller Makes Spirited Reply = The
House Refuses to Charter Ship
to Carry Relief to the
Russians.
Associated Press Dispatches.

Associated Press Dispatches.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6.-In the senate
today large number of papers were
presented and referred. One was from
the chamber OF commerce of Seattle,
Washington, praying congress by more
liberal appropriations to enable the war
and navy departments to place the
country in thorough condition of de-
tense so as to be prepared to maintain
its national dignity and protect its
humblest citizens in any part of the
world.
Among the bills introduced and re-
ferred was one granting pensions to
soldiers of the Seminole and other In
dian wars.
Morgan offered resolution directing
the committee on foreign relations to in
quire into the progress made on the
work of the Nicaragua canal. The reso-
luton was laid on the table, Mr.. Nor
gan stating that he would call it up to-
morrow.
MORRILL, ATTACKS FREE COINAGE.
The senate bill introduced by Stewart
to provide for free coinage of gold and
silver bullion was taken up and Morrill,
proceeded to address the senate. He
criticised the speech heretofore made by
Stewart on the same subject, and spoke
in opposition to the bill for free and un-
limited coinage of silver. He was now
and ever in favor of maintaining both
gold and silver in circulation, and silver
to the extremist boundary that could
maintain it on parity with gold. He
had not voted for the silver act of 1890
for the reason that silver bullion was
not to be paid out in accordance with
the safer proposals of Secretary Win
dom, and that the silver to be purchased
was fixed, as it appeared to him, at a too
magnificent amount; and also that a
full price be paid for commodity which
the government could neither sell nor
part from, to any considerable extent,
without financial revolution and serious
loss.
Morrill, went on to say that national
bank notes are rapidly being made to
step down and out to give room to silver
paper. The original United States
notes or greenbacks are likely to be the
next sacrifice demanded in order to give
the who field to silver paper. No ex-
pedie g have been untried and no cost
with seld to push or carry silver dollars
into circulation, but twas demonstrated
that not more than about SO 000, 900 of
the $400, 900, 900 coined could be coaxed
or kicked outside the treasury. Their
weight is objected to as too heavy and
their value too light. In the treasury
today there are oveHl2, 900 tons of silver,
and more coming in monthly. When
and where is this silver deluge to end
In ten years more under existing
statutes the government might have
locked up in its vaults silver to an ag-
gregate of, perhaps, more than one
thousand million dollars, for all of
which its obligations, payable in coin,
will be outstanding and this inundation
would be further aggravated by unlimit-
ed free coinage. No silver certificates or
treasury notes issued for silver bullion
have been presented for payment in
silver but they are paid in gold when
so demanded. How long they could be
thus kept on parity with gold is al
ready matter of public and profound
concern, and largely dependent on an
honest and proper Interpretation of
the law and the courage and skill of the
secretary of treasury. Whenever the
gold in the treasury should vanish, these
certificates and notes could then be paid
only in nsilver dollars, and these as money
are known to be not worth their face
value. AS security, as silver certificates,
or treasury notes to circulate at parwith
gold, they would be notoriously made
quate, as 4121a grains of silver, nine
tenths fine, would fetch no more than
IA cents. 1t would be hardly less
safe, and certainly equally honest, to
base such certificates as notes and cir
culate them as good money upon iron or
copper or upon wheat or tobacco pur-
chased and accumulated in like manner
at 3315 per cent above the market value,
as to base such circulation upon So
called standard silver dollars under free
coinage. Whatever advantage from un-
limited free coinage of silver might &C.
crue to the corporate owners of silver
mines, when gold advanced to a pre-
MUM, would be brief and not perma-
nent, as then no secretary of the treas
ury would be willing to sell United
States bonds in order to obtain gold to
keep up any paper currency paid out
for silver on parity with gold. These
corporations, therefore, at no remote
period would have their own drug re-
turn to plague the inventors, and find
the silver certificates or treasury notes
received for silver bullion when unsup-
ported by gold of no greater value than
that of the silver contained in free sill
yer dollars.
The experiment which is now being
made to have the government purchase
on compulsion fixed monthly amount
of silver had, he feared, complicated
and more or less retarded any interna-
tional compact relative to silver and
perhaps contributed to the degradation
of its value by largely restricting the de-
mand to one country alone and by the
practical exclusion of any popular de-
mand from any other. The menace of
unlimited coinage with the swelling ac-
cumulations of coined and uncoined sill
yer in the treasury, which might in
some financial contingency be thrust
upon the markets, not only tended to
perpetuate its present uncertainty of
value, but might further tend to sink
it to a lower depth. Certainly un-
limited coinage would indefinitely post
pone all hope of an international COM
pact. The depreciation of silver has
been accelerated not only by its greatly
increased abundance, but also by its
diminished use as money by the
leading commercial nations. Silver
miners had no promise of an in
crease in wages in case OF free coinage of
silver, and silver as standard money
must for all the world stand or fall upon