Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-18
Blaine and Allison on Demonetization

Since the publication in these columns of the facts as to the passage of the act
 of 1873 general circulation has been given to quotations from speeches by Sen ator Allison and others to show that,
 after all, there was concerted and
 stealthy effort to pass the act through
 congress. And the writer has been
 treated to an amount of billingsgate that
 shows he has touched a sensitive wound.
 Specimens of these quotations are as fol-
 lows:
 But when the secret history of this
 bill of 1873 comes to be told, it will dis
 close the fact that the house of repre- sentatives intended to coin both gold and
 silver. but that the bill afterward was doctored, if l may use that term, and I
 use it in no offensive sense, of course.' (Allison, Congressional Record, volume z, part 2. forty-fifth congress, second ses- sion, page 105S).
 Here is an example of willful mislnter-
 pretation, and when such extracts are
 made with an intent to deceive the curse will come back on the issuer of the de- ceit. In that speech of February 18 1878, Mr Allison, arguing for a ratio of 1512 to l, said: There is only one barrier in the Way--namely, a statute passed in 1873, demonetizing silver-passed without pub- lie deliberation in the country, although fully discussed here" etc
 In brief, he was arguing that the gen-. eral public knew nothing of it-which is always true of the mass of bills passed although it was fully discussed in con- gress That is just what was contended | in these columns; that the bill was fully | discussed and it's purpose pointed out | It will be noticed that Senator Allison l was debating the act of 1878. He was | discussing the Latin union and unl- l form ratio of 151s to 1 for this country, l and said: "If that were done, so far as | the public debt is concerned the law of | 1870 stands directly in our pathway, and | that provision was inserted in the law of | 1870 for the reason that it was proposed then in this body and in the l other house to place ourselves upon the
 relation of 15h to 1. But when the secret history of this bill of 1873 comes to be 1 told it will disclose the fact that the | house of representatives intended to coin | both gold and silver and intended to | place both metals upon the French rela- 1 tion instead of our own, which was the 1 true scientific position with reference to | this subject in 1873, but the bill was af- | terward doctored, if I may use that term, and use it in no offensive Sense--
 Here MT. Sargent interrupted; Tt 1 was amended in the senate and went to
 a committee of conference. if that is doc l tored,' and the committee of conference | was concurred in by the two houses. 1 l should like to know if the word 'doc- | tored applies to our legislation here | where there has been three or four days | debate?'
 1 To this Mir Allison replied;
 q sad used the word in no offensive l sense It was changed after discussion, 1 and the dollar of APO grains q. e., the 1 trade dollaD was substituted for it" l When the very passages used to prove l that the act of 1873 was surreptitiously | passed are looked up and the context | given, they, too, disclose evidence that l the bill received full discussion. Even l Senator Allison points this out. l We will take one other from string | of garbled quotations and close with that. l lao nf EahT1aPV h 1 1S7S is printed thus;
 | MT Voorhees-I want to ask my | friend from Maine whether l may call l him as one more witness to the fact that
 it was not generally known whether sil- l yer was demonetiZed? Did he know, as l speaker of the house, presiding at that | time, that the silver dollar was demone- l tized in the bill to which he alludes? | MT Blaine-I did not know anything | that was in the bill at all. As have be- | fore said, little was known or cared on l the subject QaughteD, and now should | like to change the question with the sen I ator from Indiana, who was then on the l floor and whose business it was, far more | than mine, to know, because by the des- l ignation of the house was to put quea- l tions the senator from Indiana, then on | the floor of the house, with his power as | a debater, was to unfold them to the
 house. Did he know?
 | MT. Voorhees-I very frankly say that l I did not"
 Now, this is another typical perversion of the truth, falsely intended to convey | the idea of stealthy passage of the act | of 1873. The bold thing about this quota ton is that MT. Blaine rose to refute this | very argument and stated positively l "The bill was read, every section and ev- l cry line of it, at the clerks desk aloud" | He declared that MT. Kelley, MT. Potter l and Mr. Hooper called attention to the
 omission of the silver dollar of 412h | grains. He referred to the Globe and to
 the daily newspapers of the time to | prove that the bill was read at length. | Moreover, he stated that MT. Neely or | Illinois, on the day that the bill passed | announced to the house that he had | carefully examined every section and l every line of the bill
 | Finally MT. Blaine closed: ''So that all | that has been made out of that, all that has been attempted to be made out of any stealthy effort to pass that bill has | no foundation whatever" He showed
 that nobody cared anything about the | bill. Why should they when no silver
 dollars had been in use for forty years? | Mr. Blaine gives the charge its quietus (p 1863 Congressional Record, Fo o7ty- filth congress, second session, volume 2, part 9:
 q think the senator from Indiana will | agree with me that it has been very | widely stated, and has been the hinge on which the accusation has hung. that that bill was never read in the house;
 that it was passed stealthily--and fur lively Now, I maintain that l have utterly disproved that charge
 The brazen effrontery of writers who
 quote MT. Blaine as evidence that the act of 1873 was stealthily passed is phe- | nomenal in view of his real words just | quoted Indeed, if it were necessity to add a touch of bouffe to the whole non sensical falsehood, it would be by calling
 attention to the fact that Senator Stew | art was himself present in the senate l when the bill was passed.
 | I.AIIRENCE I.AIIGHIIN