Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-08-11
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
The Repeal of the Silver Purchase Law
Urged

teIOEm huHN NOhts DNNN NON iii
the Silver Question is Settled.
To the Congress Of the United States:
The existence of an alarming and extra
ordinary business situation, involving the
welfare and prosperity of all our people,
has constrained me to call together in ex-
ira session the peoples representatives in
Congress, to the end that through wise
and patriotic exercise of the legislative duty
with which they solely are charged, present
evils may be mtigated and dangers threat
ening the future may be averted.
Our unfortunate financial plight is not
the result of untoward events nor of con-
ditions related to our natural resources;
nor is it traceable to any of the afllctions
which frequently check national growth
and prosperity. With plenteous crops,
with abundant promise of remunerative
production and manufacture, with unusual
invitation to safe investment and with sat
isfactory assurance to business enterprise,
suddenly financial distrust and fear have
sprung up on every side. Numerous mon
eyed institutions have suspended because
abundant assets were not Immediately
available to meet the demands of frighten-
ed depositors. Surviving corporations and
individuals are content to keep in hand
Aht hlblltN IltN dlt usually dlAlOuo "
loan, and those engaged in legitimate bust
ness are surprised to find that the securi-
ties they offer for loans, though heretofore
satisfactory, are no longer accepted. Val
ues supposed to be fixed are fast becoming
conjectural, and loss and failure have in
volved every branch of business.
The silver Law Responsible.
| believe these things are principally
chargeable to congressional legislation
touching the purchase and coinage of silver
by the general government. This legisla-
tion is embodied in a statute passed on the
l4th day of July, 1890, which was the cul-
mination of much agitation on the subject
involved, and which may be considered a
truce, after long struggle, between the
advocates of free silver coinage and those
intending to be more conservative.
Undoubtedly the monthly purchases by
the government of four million and five
hundred thousand ounces of silver, en-
forced under that statute, were regarded
by those interested in silver production
as a certain guaranty of its increase in
price. The result, however, has been en-
tirely different, for Immediately following
a spasmOdic and slight rise, the price of
silver began to fall after the passage of the
lllt dNl, anu HAS SlllCt Tie lOMtSl
point ever known. This disappointing re-
suit has led to renewed and persistent eff
fort in the direction of free silver coinage.
Meanwhile, not only are the evil effects
of the operation of the present law con-
stantly accumulating, but the result to
which its execution must inevitably lead is
becoming palpable to all who give the least
heed to financial subjects. This law pro-
vides that in payment for the 4,500, 900
ounces of silver bullion which the secre-
tary of the treasury is commanded to pur-
chase monthly, there shall be issued treas
nry notes redeemable on demand in gold
or silver coin, at the discretion of the Sec
retary of the treasury and that said notes
may be reissued. 1t is, however, declared
in the act to be "the established policy of
the United States to maintain the two
metals on a parity with each other upon
the present legal ratio or such ratio as may
be provided by law"
Treasury Department Hampered.
This declaration so controls the action
of the secretary of the treasury as to pre-
vent his exercising the discretion nominally
vested in him, if by such action the parity
between gold and silver may be disturbed.
Manifestly refusal by the secretary to
pay these treasury notes in gold, If de
manded, would necessarily result in their
discredit and dNnreciation as obligations
payable only in silver and would destroy
the parity between the two metals by estab-
fishing discrimination in favor of gold.
Up to the fifteenth day of July, 1898,
these notes had been issued, in payment
of silver bullion purchases, to the amount
of more than one hundred and forty-seven
millions of dollars. While all but a very
small quantity of this bullion remains un-
coined and without usefulness in the treas.
ury, many of the notes given in its pur.
chase have been paid in gold. This is
illustrated by the statement that between
the first day of May, 1892, and the fifteenth
day of July, 1898, the notes of this kinC
issued in payment for silver bullion
amounted to a little more than fifty-fom
millions of dollars, and that during tn,
same period about forty-nine millions O.
dollars were paid by the treasury in golC
for the redemption of such notes.
The Gold Reserve EncrOached Upon.
The policy necessarily adopted of pay
ing these notes in gold has not spared tn,
gold reserve of one hundred millions O
dollars long ago set aside by the govern
nGub lOl luO VI OlIl6I uOIeS
for this fund has already been subjected
to the payment of new obligations amount
ing to about one hundred and fifty millions
of dollars on account of silver purchases
and as a consequence, for the first tim,
since its creation, been encroached upon.
We have thus made the depletion of ou
gold easy, and have 'empted other anC
more appreciative nations TO add it TO thei
stock. That the opportunity we have of
fered has not been neglected is shown by
the large amounts of gold which have beer
recently drawn from our treasury and ex
ported to increase the financial strength o.
foreign nations. The excess of exports o
gold over its imports for the year endin,
July 30, 1893, amounted to more than $S7,
100000.
Between the first day of July, 1890, ant
the 18th day of July, 1893, the gold coli
and bullion in our treasury decreased NOR
than S1S2, 10000 while during the SAM
period the silver coin and bullion in tn
treasury increased more than S147, 900, 600
Unless government bonds are to be con
stantly issued and sold to replenish ou
exhausted gold, only to be again exhausted
it is apparent that the operation of the sill
yer purchase law now in force, leads in tn,
direction of the entire substitution of sill
yer for the gold in the government treas
ury, and that this must be followed by tn
naUmpnt of all UOUarnmant Ohlioatfnno [,