Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-01-06

4
| able then by any shift to fare much better thai
! other classes of the people. II would not miti-
gate the sufferiugs Of innocent people. how
| ever. that the corporate owners OF silver mines
| would sooner. have come to grie; from their
| own prescription than would have been possible
| from any other source.
| The experiment. which was nov being made
| to have the government purchase on compul-
| sion a fixed monthly amount Of silver bad. he
feared, complicated and more or less retarded
any international compact relative to silver
and perhaps contributed to the degradation of
| its value by largely restricting the demand to
one country alone and By the practi-
| cal exclusion Of any popular demand
from any other. The menace Of unlim-
| tied coinage. with the swelling nc
foundations Of coined and uncoined silver in
! the treasury. which might in some financial
contingency be thrust upon any or all other
markets, not only tended to perpetuate its
present uncertainty of value, but might further
tend to sink it to a lower deep. Certainly I'M
limited coinage would indefinitely postpone ali
hope of an international compact
| In 1854, according to the director of the mint,
me annual silver product Of the world amounted
| 1854.
WHAT HAS ACCELERATED SILVER DEPRECIATION.
The depreciation Of silver had been acceler-
| ated not only by its greatly increased abund-
anee, but also by its diminished use g money
by leading commercial nations On q gold
| standard Great Britain was the center and mis-
tress oil the money exchanges Of all the world
Germany. changing from silver to gold,
mad large unredeemed stock of anti
| quated coins yet to be Disposed of, and
France was no longer q buyer Of silver and had
not been since 1873. No European nation nov
| opened its mints to the free coinage of silver,
but all were fighting shy of it, and only toier-
ated it as subsidiary coinage. Even in Mexico
1 / Vvosc sinh arf IN a. 80
| about AZ per cent. The drain Of silver to
India. where formerly nearly one-third Of the
worlds total product was annually ab-
| sorbed, had not yet ceased, though appar-
emily this year diminishing, and would not
| wholly cease SO long as wheat, cotton and other
products could there be bought with silver.
but India like the United States, was beginning
| to learn that il WAS buying an elephant The
| total output Of silver. including the large in
crease in Mexico and Bolivia, Austria and the
United States, had more than doubled,
even since 1878, while the legitimate
demand for it, though intrepidly and o.
tentatiously promoted by the United States ap-
peared to have fallen off elsewhere more than
one-hah. The law of demand and supply was
as autocratic as that of gravitation, and silver
was not exempt from its all-pervading power.
Silver was a large product of the thrifty sill
yer states, happily net dominant in all. but
was doubtless more remunerative, and likely 80
to continue, than any other mining pro-
duct or any product Of agriculture
or of manufactures. The Granite Mountain
company in Montana, one of the largest, OBJ
tanned silver, had been authoritatiyely re-
ported, at a cost of II cents per ounce But the
same authority stated the average mining
cost OF silver from American mines at 81 cents
per ounce. while brought now. even
In the season of its great depression, nearly q.
or " cents, per ounce. That is 20 say, it
fetched in all markets almost double the first
cost. No other industry offered such dazzling
money-making attractions.
THE SILVER MEN WANT MORE.
The great silver corporations, however were
eager for more By existing law the United
States government had been buying and was
bound to put silver at its going market price to
an amount about equal to the total produc-
.lon OF the American mines, leaving
consumption only for the arts almost wholly
dependent upon q foreign supply. No other
| industry claimed such rotund and gigantic pro-
lection. Considered an industrial Amer
lean product, he should not haggle about
nor Degrudge 1t fun and ample protection
TO the capital and labor employed; but silver
miners had no promise of an increase OF wages
In case OF the free coinage of silver and silver
! as standard Of money must for all the world,
stand or fall upon its intrinsic merits, and not
upon the merits of the place whence it came.
The silver propagandistsr Of which the
president of the Montana Granite Mount-
! ain Company, MIR. Rumsey, ap-
peared to be an honored aud distinguished
| member, from their Astounding resources.
maintained here year after year expensive
literary and oratorical bureau to propagate and
disseminate their silver theories and inanc ial
dogmas
They innocently declared. with one eve
brow drawn up and the other drawn down,
that they only sought to have silver placed on
an equality with gold. knowing as they did,
that their inequality had been displayed from
age to age and was as wide that between
the sun and moon. and that silver for many
years appeared to have been aping that unsta-
BILE satelite by its restless monthly changes.
Ii they did not suppose that free coinage of
silver would give it supremacy and Danish gold
from circulation il would be safe TO
beiieye their love for the silver dollar would
disappear as swiftly as the light from falling
star. No anarchist bad oftener denounced gold
or goid bugs, or with deadlier hate,
than the ultra lartisans of silver. The
transparent design appeared to be to
bring silver In America to the front as q lower
and cheaper standard of money, with which to
buy and bell, as the sole measure of debts, and
us more tempting and sinister inducement to
the debtor class to follow a troacherous lead.
Mr.. Morrill, read his speech from printed
Slips. lie was not III very good voice, 80 that
the Senators on the democratic side of the cham
Der had good excuse Tor not paying marked
attention to his arguments. On the republican
side of the chamber, however, he was listened
to with that close attention due to the importance
OF the subject and to Mr.. Morriiis high char
acter and position as chairman of the finance
committee.
HOUSE
The attendance in the House this morning
was not as large as that of yesterday, many Of
the members whose states had been called
taking advantage of this fact to absent them
selves and to attend to departmental business
Mr.. Mcmillan. Speaker pro tempore, took the
chair promptly at noon and after prayer the
journal of yesterdays proceedings was read
and approved.
The Speaker pro tenn. having laid before the
House Senate joint resolution authorizing the
Secretary of the Navy to transport contribu-
tons for the relief of the suffering poor of
Russia, Mr. Blount Of Georgia asked that it be
referred to the committee on naval affairs II
anything was to be done il was easy to be seen
that it must be done at an early day. He there
fore further requested that that committee
| have leave to report at any time To
this Mr.. Kilgore (Tex.) objected and he con-
tended that the resolution, under the rules,
| came under the Jurisdiction of the committee
| on appropriations and that it should be re-
ferred to that committee.
The Speaker pro tenn. thought that, in the
absence of rules, the House could dispose Of
| the resolution as it saw fit, but that the first
motion in order was one Of reference.
MoN~ \ Al