Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1893-08-25
FIFTY THIRD CONGRESS.
WASHINGTON. August %, 1898
SENATE.

At the close of the routine morning
business, which comprised no matter of
public interest except the presentation
of communications from the Treasury
Department adverse to any special leg
islation in regard to penalties on the
whisky tax, Mr.. Hill addressed the
chair and was recognized. He yielded,
however, to Mr.. Vest, who sent to the
clerks desk and had read commune
cation from the director of the mint
giving statistics as to the purchase, cost
and coinage OF silver. He said that
considerable attention had been called
in the public press and in the Senate to
letter addressed by the Secretary OF
the Treasury to the Senator from In
diana (NIr. Voorhees, in reference to
the bill reported from the minority OF
the committee on finance changing the
ratio between gold and silver from 16
to to 90 to l. In order to bring out
all the information on that subject he
had addressed communication to the
Treasury Department, and had receiv-
ed reply from the director of the mint.
When the reading was ended he said
that he assumed, from the zeal mani
tested by the advocates of the uncondi-
tional repeal of the Sherman act that
the great thing to be desired in the in
terest of the American people was a
parity between the two metals, and
that the commercial ratio should be, as
far as possible, the same as the ratio es-
tablished by statute. The commercial
ratio had been, up to within q few
days, rs to l, while the legal ratio was
16 to l, and he took it for granted that,
if there was to be an honest attempt to
bring the two metals together, in order
to redeem the pledges of the two great
national parties and of the administra-
ton, there should be coinage of gold
and silver on parity. Now it seemed
said Mr.. Vest in contemptuous
tone-that the question of expense was
to be injected into the discussion, and
that, leaving the great and absolute
necessity of the parity, Senators We're
to enter into an examination of the
number of dollars that the change of
ratio would cost. He had made a
short analytical statement of the ac-
count between silver and the govern
ment at this time. 1t showed the pro-
6t to the government under the Bland
Allison act of 1878, as, lin round num-
bers) $70,000,000, and the profit under
the Sherman act of 1890 as SIS, O0O, 900
the total profit being Sl2S,000, 900.
The uncoined silver in the Treasury
was 133, 100000 ounces and the profit
on that was $57 100000. The number
of ounces necessary to recon the silver
dollars now coined was 81 100000, and
the number necessary to recon the
subsidiary silver coins l9, 900 0OO-in all
00,000,000. If this quantity of silver
bullion were taken from the uncoined
silver in the Treasury on the 26th Of
August there would be still left of I'M
coined silver in the Treasury 33,000,000
ounces. His summing up Of the &C
count was, "Silver, debtor side, $l12,-
STD, $21 credit side 1928, 1913, 3l4
balance in favor Of silver ST., 1867 ,993."
If the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr..
Vest continued, meant to put the ques-
ton fairly to the American people, why
had he not told the Senate what he pro-
posed to do with the vast amount OF
silver now uncoined in the Treasury
when the purchasing clause of the
Sherman act were repealed? Was that
silver to be there, menace to bi-met-
talism for all time to come? Or did
the Secretary propose to coin it and
hold it in the Treasury as dollars? The
Secretary had assumed that the govern
ment was to purchase the silver neces-
sary to make good the ratio of 20 to 1,
and at the same time, logically, to leave
uncoined the silver bullion now in the
Treasury All that he (AIr. Ves0 pro-
posed to do now was to put the facts
before Congress and the people in order
that they might form judgment upon
them.
Mr.. Hill then took the floor and be-
gan his speech, the opening paragraphs
of which attracted much attention.
There were those, Mr.. Hill said, who
did not wholly agree with the Presi-
dent in his diagnosis OF the malady now
affecting the body polite, and who did
not hastily join with him in the rosy
conclusion that the financial millennium
is to come the moment the Sherman
law is removed. There were some who
had given the subject attention who
believed the cause of the present de-
preston was deeper and beyond the
Sherman bill, and that its foundations
were laid in the evil hours of 1878,
when the country unwittingly laid
aside the financial policy that had been