The record-union., 1893-08-16
Special to the REcoRp.uNroS.

| Special to the RECoRD-UNIoN.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 15.-Tn the Senate
this morning Gordon of Georgia recalled
the plank in the last Democratic platform
| by presenting measure to suspend for
ninety days the law imposing the 10 per
cent. tax on State bank issues. He de-
clared that it would give relief to the
country in fifteen days and make it pos
sible to move the cotton crop in the
South. The proposition was not received
with any particular warmth by the Sem
ate, and 1t was referred to the Finance
| Committee.
| Voorhees, reported back from that COM
mittee bill introduced by him yester-
day as a measure Of relief. 1t had, he
said, the approval of the committee and
! Secretary Of the Treasury, and he hoped
! the Senate would take the matter up.
| National banks were no tavorites of his,
but that was no reason why they should
not be used to bring about measure OF
relief, if they were capable.
| COckrell of Missouri objected, saving
| that several Senators desired to be heard
on the proposition. The bill went over,
and Coclzrell then asked the Senate to
pass the House joint resolution for the
payment of mileage to Senators and Rep
resentatives for the present session.
| Frye Of Maine ridiculed the idea of a
public duty which would postpone reIiet
| for the people. and make haste to provide
relief for Senators and others. The reso-
luton went to the calendar.
The Lee Mantle case, involving the
question of the right of Governors of
States to appoint Senators under certain
! circumstances, was taken up, and Hun
ton of Virginia spoke briefly in support
of Mantle's right to seat.
VOORHEES, introduced joint resolution
| extending Tor six months the bonded
! period for whisky in Government ware
| houses.
! Lodge then made an address in advo-
cacy of his resolution offered on Tues
! day last, directing the Committe on
Finance to report at once bill to repeal
the purchasing clause of the Sherman
Act. What the people wanted, be said,
was prompt action. He had no mind for
| party policy or delay.
| Wolcott of Colorado replied at length.
| He had yet to hear any intelligent man
| state that he firmly believed the Sherman
Act had wrought the injury under which
the country now suffers. The sherman
Act was illogical and vicious, in that it
made of silver commodity and left the
silver bullion in the Treasury uncoined.
1t had some advantages, however. It's
quasi-recognition of silver had been of
infinite good in the hope that it had in
spired of bimetallism, and in the fact that
it had afforded an enlarged currency from
month to month for the past three years.
1t had given the country a currency
| backed by the credit of the Government
and by silver at its bullion value. That
was pretty good urrency-better than
the thirty millions of Clearing house
! certificates now in circulation in New
York. The only tangible statement he
could get as to the injury wrought
by the Sherman Act was that there
was a lack of confidence in Eu-
rope, but he did not find that state
ment borne out by facts. American
securities had been held enormously in
Great Britain. That country suffered
seriously in the Argentine and in her
own colonies, and had been forced to sell
her securities. The great liquidation had
come, not because there was a lack of
confidence in American finances and
Great Britain, but because the holders of
American securities were compelled to
sell. The Sherman Act was not respon-
sible for the Reading fiasco or the whisky
trust trouble, or the cordage trust trouble.
and yet the New York papers, striking
balance between the quotations of now
aud year ago argued that the silver and
the Sherman Act were responsible for all
those disasters. The real cause of the
present financial panic was to be looked
for elsewhere. 1t came partly because of
European losses in South America and
Australia, partly because Russia and
Austria were buying gold, and partly be-
cause the United States has purchased
more goods abroad than it had sold
abroad. All these causes were utterly
independent of and Irrespective of silver
and the Sherman Act. All legislation
that might be enacted would not bring
back confidence to men who have with
drawn their money from the banks.
Wolcott expressed the conviction that
when prosperous days came back to this
country it would be after it had an
nounced to the world that this was ma
ton of bimetallists, believing in hard
money, both gold and silver, and that it
proposed to have its share of the gold of
the world, was rich enough 70 hold it, and
was entitled by its resources and condi-
tions to have it; that at the same time it
proposed to open the mints tc free ana
unlimited coinage of silver, and that we
had returned to the paths of the founders
of the republic.
The Lodge resolution was then laid
aside without action, and Hoar addressed
the Senate on Vests resolution as to BIZ
metallism. The Republicans, he said.
stood ready to hold up the hands Of the
President and restore that prosperity
which the country enjoyed down to
March 4th. He entered upon long discus
sion concerning the production of gold
and silver, during which he announced
himselfin favor of both these metals as a
currency OF parity. He had always been
bimetallist. but it was the biinetaIlism Of
Washington and Jefferson which recog-
nized gold as the finer metal and neces-
sarily the standard of value. The pur-
chase of silver under the Act of 1890 was
a wasteful and extrayagant expenditure
OF public money. 1t could never have