The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-02-16
TALKING oF.THE sEleNIoRAeE.

TALKING OFsTHE SElGNlORAGE.
Speeches ON the Bland Bill, Including that
of the Sockless Simpson.
| Washington, February 15.-The House
| went into committee of the whole on
the seigniorage bill today. Mr.. Rawlins.
Dem, of Utah. said that gentlemen from
the East smiled in derision at the finan-
cial theories of the South and West. The
could live without the East, wheras the
East, with its great manufacturing enter
prses and teeming millions, was depend
ent upon the West and South. The
miners of the West could produce money
for the people of that section and those
of the East would be dependent upon
them.
Mr.. Latimer, Dem,, of South Carolina,
supported the bill. He reviewed the de-
monetization legislation of 1878, and re-
cited the evil consequences that followed
it. He believed the Secretary of the
Treasury used the latitude given him to
discriminate against silver. If the sec
retary used the same ingenuity to inter-
pret the laws governing the seignorage
as he did the statutes bearing upon the
issuance of bonds, there would have
been no necessity for the introduction of
the pending bill.
Mr. Hendrix, DEM, of New York, said
the impression prevailed throughout the
world that the United States had gone
| out of the business of giving fictitious
value to deprecated money. The ques-
ton of silver affected the entire world,
and was now awaiting settlement some
where, in some way The whole world
was waiting for England to do something
Mr.. Hendrix said the pending bill's new
features were not good, and the good
silver purchased by this government was
| paid for in gold dollars. The secretary
| had heretofore coined the seigniorage,
but he had no legal or moral right to
| take an imaginary portion of the bullion
| deposited in the treasury and designate
| it as seigniorage. Mr. Hendrix declared
| the statement that New York banks
boarded gold erroneous. The banks ac-
tually lost gold. Every banker in New
York realized that he must back up the
United States treasury, and they all
worked together like brothers to main
tain sound financial condition. The
! impression made upon the country by
| the pending bill was an extremely bad
one. The same impression spread abroad
would have the effect of delaying the
calling together OF an international mon
etary conference to consider the financial
situation There had become such over
production of silver that some inter-
national agreement must eventually be
made in favor of bimetallism Golu
would still remain the standard, but
when such an agreement was reached, it
would be the redeemer of silver. Mr..
Hendrix believed the Secretary of the
Treasury could satisfactorily handle the
financial question at this time without
the enactment of mandatory instruc-
Iions.
Mr.. Simpson, Populist, of Kansas. be-
lieved in the issuance of fat money. He
favored the bill because it would increase
the volume of money. MI. Simpson as
cribed the present hard times to the
financial legislation made necessary by
the war. He pronounced the whole sys-
tenn of gold redemption as makeshift.
There had never been, he said, any mon
| ey but fiat money. He would limit the
| issue of fiat money to the needs of the
people. He said there should be at least
enough money to supply per capita Cir
culation of $50.
| Mr. Enloe, Dem, of Tennessee, be-
| lieved that as soon as the money realized
by the sale of bonds became exhausted.
| the bankers of New York would again
raid the treasury and compel repeated is
sues of bonds.