The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1893-08-10

ssz b IS sYs
TIKI PRESIDENTS MESS AGB.
Tariff Reform and the Financial
Question the Subjects.
immediate Repeal Of Sherman Act
Strongly Advocated.
Special to the GAZETTE:
WASHINGTON. Aug. S.-The presi-
dents message was delivered to con-
gress shortly after noon. Its reading
was proceeded with. tits as follows:
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
extra 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 mitigated and dan
gers threatening the future may be
averted
Our Financial Plight
is not the result Of untoward events, nor
of conditions related to our natural re-
sources: nor is it traceable to any of the
Affections which frequently check national
growth and prosperity. With plenteous
crops, with abundant promise of re-
munerative production and manufacture,
with unusual invitation to safe investment
and with satisfactory assurance to bust
ness enterprise, suddenly financial distrust
and fear have sprung up on every
side. Numerous moneyed institutions
have suspended because abundant assets
were not Immediately available to meet
the demands of the frightened depositors.
The surviving corporations and individ-
uals are content to keep in hand the
money they are usually anxious to loan,
and those engaged in legitimate business
are surprised to find that the securities
they offer for loans, though heretofore sat-
isfactory, are no longer accepted. Values
supposed to be fixed are fast becoming
conjectural, and loss and failure have in
vaded every branch of business.
Chargeable to Legislation.
believe these things are principally
chargeable to congressional legislation
touching the purchase and coinage of sill
yer by the general government.
This legislation is embodied in a statute
passed on the 18th day of July, 1890, which
was the culEination of much agitation on
the subject Involved, and which may be
considered a truce, after long struggle,
between the advocates of free silver coin
age and those intending to be more con-
servative.
Undoubtedly the monthly purchases by
the government of 4,5OO, 600 ounces of sill
yer. enforced under that statute, were re-
garded by those interested in silver pro-
duction as certain guaranty of its in
crease in price. The result, however, has
been entirely different, for Immediately
following spasmodic and slight rise, the
price of silver began to fall after the pas
sage of the act and has since reached the
lowest point ever known. This disappoint-
ing result has lead to renewed and per-
sistent effort in the direction of free silver
coinage.
Evil Effects Accommodating.
of the operation of the present law con-
which it's execution must inevitably lead
Is UcCOIuIIS ptlpdUIc W WIZ give CuC
least heed to financial subjects.
This law provides that in payment for
the 4, SOC, 600 ounces of silver bullion which
the secretary of the treasury is commanded
to purchase monthly, there shall be issued
treasury notes, redeemable on demand in
gold or silver coin, at the discretion of the
secretary of vhe treasury, and that said
notes may be re-issued. 1t is, however,
declared in the act to be "the established
policy of the United States to maintain
the two metals on parity with each other
upon the present legal ratio or such ratio
as may be provided by law"
Prevents Discretion.
This declaration SO controls the action of
the secretary of the treasury as to prevent
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
demanded, would necessarily result in
their discredit and depreciation as obliga-
tions payable only in silver, and would
destroy the parity between the two metals
by establishing a discrimination in favor
of gold.
Up to the 18th day of July, 1898, these
notes had been issued in payment of silver
bullion purcl ases, to the amount of more
than $147, 100000. While all but very
small quantity of this bullion remains un-
coined and without usefulness in the
treasury, many of the notes given in its
purchaae have been paid in gold. This is
illustrated by the statement between the
first day of May, 1892, and the 18th day Of
July, 1893, the notes of this kind issued in
| payment for silver bullion amounted to
| u little more than 81, 600 600, and that
during the same period about $49, Zoo, 900
were paid by the treasury in gold for the
redemption of such notes.
Made Depletion Easy.
The policy necessarily adopted of paying
these notes in gold has not spared the gold
reserve of 500, OOO, 900 long ago set aside by
the government for the redemption of
other notes, for this fund has already been
subjected to the payment of new obliga-
tions amounting to about $3.50, OOO,O 600 on