The record-union., 1893-08-09
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.

There is no uncertain sound in the mes
sage of the President to Congress. 1t is
as direct, clear and emphatic as any State
document could be. 1t is so brief that
every man in the Nation can afford to
read it with deliberation. 1t is so simple
in style and clear in expression that no
derstand it.
In brief, it is the statement of COM
mercial law, universal and immutable
law, that neither this nor any other nation
can single-handed and alone establish the
money standard of the world. The
American people are entitled, says the
President, to a money that will pass in
every market, and be recognized on
'Change in every trade center of the civil
lied world. However commendable it
may be to make silver the money of uni
versal use, or to maintain it on parity
with gold, wesnot only cannot do so alone.
but by the attempt to do it single-handed
we prevent the accomplishment of the
friends of silver, and afford the European
inanciers the best of opportunities to
speculate in gold at our expense.
The present strained conditions of
trade, the depression in commerce and
the distress in the industrial ranks, the
President charges to the bad legislative
policy which compels the Government to
purchase a large amount of silver
monthly and issue notes for the bullion
payable in gold or silver. under the de-
clared policy of the law that our aim is
to maintain the two metals at parity.
If now the Treasurer should announce
that the notes would be payable in silver,
at once gold would take new wings and
our credit go down with rush, for the
action would be nothing less than that of
discrediting our own paper. To avoid
that i'll the Government has been COM
PEELED to trespass upon the gold reserve
set aside to redeem other notes. In the
last year, as a result of our unwisdom,
our gold export has been over eighty
seven and half million dollars in excess
of import as the direct result of our ex-
perimenting, though the earth has
yielded bountifully and neither war nor
pestilence has befallen US.
Unless, says the President, we are to
constantly issue bonds to be as constantly
exhausted to keep up the supply of gold,
we cannot hope to go on in this way; but
to do that will result inevitably in estab-
fishing deprecated silver as the only
money we will have to handle with re-
sultant conditions worse than those Of
the present.
Perhaps the most forcible and striking
expression in the document is that III
which Mr.. Cleveland declares that the
knowledge of the business world that
this Government cannot make its faith
equal to intrinsic values, nor keep an in
ferior metal on a parity with a superior,
results in precisely such ills as now
afflict us. In other words, we must
recognize the trade and financial laws
and conditions of the world, if we are to
have any part in them, or exercise any
influence in their councils. If there
were a limit TO the silver purchasing
idea, the effort to maintain parity be-
tween the two metals might command
some respect, but the world knows that
it is under the law imitless, and it will
not therefore recognize it as safe.
Whatever the theorists may say is the
cause of the present financial and indus
trial distress. the President is satisfied to
recognize its existence, aud is driven to
the conclusion that it is in the main
chargeable to the discredit we put upon
our own by the policy that attempts to
nut gold and silver on level without the
agreement among the nations of the
earth with which we must trade both in
imports and exports.
The conclusion of the whole matter OF
the message is the advice to Congress
to stop short in the silver experiment