The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-12-27
rs PASSED BY ALMOST
STRICT PARTY VOTE.
The Result Of Prompt aud Constant
Work by the Committee.
is SIMPLY A BILL FRAMED FOR
EMERGENCY,

i
EMERGENCY,
Governor Dingley Sets Forth the Causes
/ ( (which Lend to Its Framing and Ably
Explains the Republican Position
Judge Crisp Leads the Democratic
| Opposition to the Bill-Abour as Many
Congressman Spoke as Gould be Crowd
ed Into the Short Time AlIowed-How
the Vote Stood-The Populists Voted
With the Democrats.
Washington, December 26.--The
promised debate on the revenue measure
proposed by the committee on ways and
means attracted to the House today an
attendance which filed the galleries to
| their utmost and filed the seats with
many more than quorum of members.
| Immediately after the reading of the
|
committee "a bill to temporarily increase
the revenue to meet the expenses of the
government and provide against
deficiency" together with a statement of
the reasons why the bill should be passed.
Committees REPORT.
"The committee on ways and means.
| to whom was referred so much of the
Presidents annual message, and so much
of the annual report of the Secretary of
the Treasury as related to revenue and
/ the condition Of the treasury and also the
Presidents special message presenting
the urgency of immediate action Of Con-
gresS in direction calculated to bring
relief, report that the committee appre-
clate the seriousness OF the situat ion and
the Importance of prompt remedies so far
as Congress can give them. Your COM
mittee regard the chronic efficiency of
revenue for the past two years and a half
as a most potent cause of the difficulties
which the treasury has encountered and
an important factor in the creation and
promotion of that serious distrust which
has paralyzed business and dangerously
shaken confidence even in the financial
operations of the government. 1t is as
| impossible for a government to have a
continuous deficiency of revenue for two
years and a half, without affecting its
financial standing, as it is for an in
dividual. 1t is impossible also for a
government TO continue in this condition
without casting shadow of doubt and
discouragement over all business opera
tions within it's borders The serious fact
which we are called upon to confront, is
that in the two and a half years that
have elapsed since July L, 1898, this
government has had an insuffioienoy of
revenue to meet current expenditures
amounting in the aggregate to about
$138. 900, 600. And even in the first half of
the present fiscal year the deficiency will
reach about $40, 900, 900, and about So, 600, :
600 in the present month. And up to the
present time there is no sufficient ground
for opinion that this sufiiciency of revenue
will not continue during the remainder
of the fiscal year, and how much longer
no one can safely predict
"If the consequences of such chronic
deficiency were only the necessity of
| borrowing money to meet current ex-
penses in time Of peace, even this would
afford aboundant reasons for increasing
the revenue. But the consequences are
more wide reaching than that. In
sufficiency of revenue has made it
necessary to use redeemed United States
legal tender notes to pay current ex-
penditures, and thus to supply additional
means to draw gold from the greenback
redemption fund, in short to create the
endless chain of which the Secretary of
the Treasury complains and which has
made 1T necessary to sell issue after issue
| of bonds to replenish the reserve. This
will be clearly seen when it is remem-
bered that tho Secretary of the Treasury
has issued and sold a little over $l62,-
| 900. 600 of five per cent ten year, and four
per cent thirty year bonds, from which
he has realized about S1S2, 100000, and
after redeeming $192, 600, 600 of United
States legal tender notes with the pro-
ceeds, has been obliged to Immediately
pay out $133, 900, 600 of those demand notes
to meet current expenses and thus fur
nished $133, 000 000 million of govern
mental demand notes to be again and
again used to draw gold from the treas
| ury. 1t is evident that SO long as there is
insufficient revenue, this performance will
go on, and bond sale after bond sale will
be required 1t ia also evident that if
there had been a sufficiency of revenue
these redeemed legal tender notes would
not have been paid out at once and there
would have been so much the less oppor-
tunity to draw gold from the treasury.
Indeed there is good reason to believe
that If in the first six months of the dis
trust which inaugurated the run on the
redemption fund, the treasury had been
receiving revenue more than ADEQUATE to
meet expenditures, so as to temporarily
hold the redeemed government notes, the
disposition to present these notes for re-
demption would have soon been over
come. That would have undou btedly
been the case If the redemption fund had
been increase in the spring of 1898, and
never allowed to fall below the $780, 600,
600 minimum. And the necessity for
more revenue from the point of view of
the maintainence of the redemption fund
is not taken away by the fact that we
have $50, 600, 600 of cash in the treasury in
addition to the slo0, 900, 900, part gold,
( required for the redemption fund and the
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