Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1893-08-09


dents message was delivered to con-
gress shortly after noon. It's reading
was proceeded with. It 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 q wise
and patriotic exercise o. 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 bush
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 hSsetofore 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.
I 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 14th day of July, 1890, which
was the elimination of much agitation on
the subject involved and which may be
considered q truce, after a 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, 500,000 ounces of sill
yer, enforced under that statute, were re-
garded by those interested in silver pro-
duction as a 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.
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, 500 600 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. 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, 1893, these
notes had been issued in payment of silver
bullion purchases, 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, $685. the notes of this kind issued in
payment for silver bullion amounted to
little more than $54, 100000, and that
during the same period about 100000
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 800, 100000 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, 100000 on
account of silver purchases, and has as a
consequence, for the first time since it's
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 been
recently drawn from our treasury and ex-
ported to increase the financial strength of
foreign nations The excess of exports of
gold over it's imports for the year ending
June 30, 1898, amounted to more than
81, 900, Between the 1st day of July,
1890, and the 18th day of July, 1898, the
gold coin and bullion in our treasury de-
creased more than $132 100000, while dur
ing the same period the silver coin and
bullion in the treasury increased more than
$147 600 900. Unless government bonds are
ish our exhausted gold, only to be again
exhausted, it is apparent that the oper
ton of the silver purchase law now in
force, leads in the direction of the entire
substitution of silver for the gold in the
government treasury and that this must
be followed by the payment of all govern
ment obligations in deprecated silver
Must Part Company.
At this stage gold and silver must part
company and the government must fail in
its established policy to maintain the two
metals on a parity with each other. Given
over to the exclusive use of currency
greatly deprecated according to the
standard of the commercial world, we
could no longer claim place among ma
tions of the first class, nor could our gov
eminent claim performance of it's obliga-
ton, SO far as such an obligation has been |
imposed upoa it, to provide for the use of |
the people, tie best and safest money