The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-08-09
UNCONDITIONAL REPEAL.
President Cleveland Comes Out
SQuarely Against the Sher-
man Law.
It's Evil Effects, He Says, Are
Responsible for the Present
Situation.

No Tariff Legislation Until
the Financial Question Is
Settled.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8-The presi-
dents message to congress is 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 a 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
to en- hot ho
they offer for loans, though heretofore sat-
isfactory, are no longer accepted.
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 statute
passed on the 18th day of July, 1890, which
was the elimination 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-
sentative
Undoubtedly the monthly purchases by
the government of 4,5OO, 900 ounces of sill
yer, enforced under that statute, were re-
garded by those interested in silver pro-
duction as certain guaranty of it's 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 led to renewed and per
sistent effort in the direction of free silver
coinage.
Evil Effects Accumu Eating.
Meanwhile not only are the evil effects
of the operation of the present law con-
stantly accommodating, 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 provides that in payment for
the 4,5O0, 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 the treasury, and that said
notes may be re-issued. It 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"
This declaration so controls the action of
the secretary of the treasury as to prevent
his exercising the discretion nominallv
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
H. It'll ~ e.
of gold.
Up to the 18th day of July, 1893, these
notes had been issued in payment of silver
bullion purchases to the amount of more
than $147, 100000 While all but a very
small quantity of this bullion remains un-
coined, and without usefulness in the
treasury, many of the notes given in its
purchase have been paid in gold. This is
illustrated by the statement between the
LIST day of May, 1892, and the 18th day Of
July, 1893, the notes of this kind issued in
payment for silver bullion amounted to
little more than $4,000, 600, and that
during the same period about 5000 ,0OC
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 gOlO
reserve of 500, 600, 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 $50, 100000 on
account of silver purchases, and has as q
consequence, for the first time since ita
creation, been encroached upon.
We have thus made the depletion OF our
gold easy, and have helped other and more
appreciative nations to add it to their
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 tho financial strength o.
foreign nations The excess Of exports O
gold over it's Imports for the year ending
June 80, 1898, amounted to more thar
81, SOC, &C., Between the LIST day of July
$780, and the 18th day of July, 1893, tn,
gold coin and bullion in our treasury de
creased moro than $132. 600, 900, while dur
ing the same period tho silver coin and
bullion In the treasury increased more thar
4147 ,00O, 600. Unless government bonds ar,