The Portland daily press., 1895-12-12

disregard the obligatory clauses OF bno
sherman Act in an attemrt to malntain
the parity of silver with gold I" nav :
way he took to accomplish it When inc
great Republican party at it's last national
convention, without a dissenting yoleo'
declared in favor of maintaining the par
lGy OF the silver and gold coins OF ui.e
United States. and the great Democratic
party in their national convention, ~
almost similar terms adopted the decla-
ration and when the national Legislature
by a vote that set aside the Obstructive
veto or the Executive, embodied this deo-
laraG1on in the terms of positive law,
what did they mean? :.
They meant to make silver coins OF
equal monetary value and power Wlpn
gold coins. They did not intend tna5
Wlthln the jurisdiction of the Uulteu
States gold dollar should have paying
or purchasing power above a silver
dollar. They intended to give all the
com they authorized the functions and
attributes of money, i. e., the power Oh
complete and absolute and final payment:
Ihey did not intend to create one form OF
coined money that it would be necessary
TO redeem III another form of money. 1t
| Is rhe vital, essential function Of money
tnat 1t redeems and does not have to be
redeemed. All through Mr.. Cleveland 8
1rss administration, all through his second
administration, dollars containing 37lZ
gralnsSof pure silver were lawful money,
q sufficient instrument of complete pay
ment, SO far as the will of the American
| people expressed in their deliberate legis-
lation would give them these attributes.
When the President, who avows in
his message his belief that the only safe
financial standing or condition (for the,
country is that which is built on gold
alone" administers the national finances
so as to accomplish that contamination,
be sets his personal will against the
avowed opinions Of the party that elected
him, and the nearly as numerous party
that opposed his election. as well as
against the most distinctly enunciated
purpose OF the legislature, whose laws he
had sworn to maintain.
No more effective blow has been struck
to destroy the monetary parity of silver
to gold, than was struck by the President
in refusing to the lawful coins OF the
United States the essential attributes of
money, and treating them as rubbish OF
old junk to be jobbed off to the silver
smiths when the market faYors. Not
the suspension of silver five franc coinage
by the Latin Union and by Germany, nor
the governmental stoppage of the coinage
OF rupees in India, nor ven the British
act OF 1916 demonstrating sterling silver
all SO prolific of commercial disaster,
industrial paralysis and destruction of
accumulated wealth, was so sweeping
and immediate in it's consequences as
this carefulness Of the President to main
tain The monetary parity of silver to gold,
by utterly destroying its monetary uses.
In fact we have come to q gold stand
ard and are fast on our way to an ex-
clusively gold currency, and when we
LOOK into the statute book to see who did
it, and where and how it was done, we
| find nothing but series of statutes en-
acting that the monetary standard shall
4 be bi metallic, and the coin of the couE-
try oh a t1cC Gil Won nd rsntd nh of
plete monetary power; and after an over
whelming avalanche of popular diSap-
prevail of something he has done, the
| President rises up magisterially and says:
II have never had the slightest misgiving
concerning the wisdom or propriety of
this arrangement. and am quite willing
to answer for my full share Of RESPONSE
bility for its promotion"
| The American people had not been able
| to re-establish the free coinage of silver
though it was notorious that for ten
years nothing had hindeYed them but an
executive veto; they could ~o5 quite con-
sent to continue the purci . for coinage
of silver bullion, though nothing but an
expectation of free silver by national or
international appointment had made
them consent to the repeal Of the Sher-
man Act; but they had temporarily COM
4 promised with the understanding that
all the silver that had been coined under
the acts of Congress should have the
complete attributes Of coined money
Mr.. Cleveland had summoned Congress
in extra session to put the country into
| the conservative, cautious position
France and Germany had put themselves
in by suspending the coinage of silver,
and the Indian government by suspend
| ing the coinage Of rupees, that is, secur-
| ing the monetary value of their silver
coins by not coming any more.
| Monometallism was in plain sight, but
to be reached by slow and easy stages.
This rush to the inevitable waste and ru-
| in of gold recommendation was not quite
headlong enough to comport with the
Presidents reckless ideas, and so he con-
ceiyed the purpose by one coup d'etat to
convert the millions Of silver in his Gus
tody into old metal, to be worked off for
token money to the best advantage
| AS the government treated it's silver
currency SO inevitably would the banks
and as the banks, the business men, and
as the business men, the people. Behold
us arrived not only to the gold standard,
but to an exclusively gold currency. 1t
seems to have been contest between the
people and their elected legislators, try
| ing to make or at least to keep silver
coins money, and o determination by
| the money power and the President pas
sionately devoted to their purpose, that
silver coin shall not be money, aud the
latter combattauts thus far are clearly
ahead.
G. F. TALBOT.