The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-02-13
A COSTLY QuIBBLE.

If the American people have as much
business sense as they are usually
credited with possessing, and if they APP
ply it in national finances as they do in
their own affairs they will hold Con-
gress to a severe reckoning if it fails to
do it's duty regarding the new loan At
present the Democratic majority in Con-
gress is standing on verbal bubble
the indulgence of which a few days
longer will cost the government more
than $16,000.00 This is very large sum
of money, not enough to make or break
the government but great deal too
much to sacrifice to sentimental within
or a verbal bubble.
Here is the situation: On the Sth inst
the President informed Congress by
special message that he had negotiated
for the issue of $65, 900, 900 thirty-year
bonds drawing interest at the rate of
S% per cent. per annum payable in coin,
adding that by the terms of the contract
the privilege was specially reserved to
the government of substituting at par
within ten days from that date, in lieu
of the per cent. coin bonds, other bonds
in terms payable in gold and bearing
only 3 per cent. interest if Congress
would authorize such substitution. The
President further stated, as any one can
verify by calculation. that the annual
saving in interest TO the government if
per cent. gold bonds should be sub
stituted for per cent. coin bonds under
the privilege reserved would be $3.50 ,159,
amounting in thirty years, or at the
maturity of the bonds, to SIG, 174,770. Here
then Congress has a chance, open for ten
days from Feb. s, to save the govern
ment more than SIG, 1000 by simply
authorizing the substitution of the word
gold for the word coin in the bonds about
to be issued. 1t is not question of
authorizing an issue of bonds, for the
President already has authority to do
that and has exercised it. Nor is it
question of how the bonds shall be paid,
for it is as certain as any future event
can be that they will be paid, as all other
United States bonds ever have been and
will continue to be, in gold. AS the Pres
ident said in his special message, "Of
course there never should be a doubt in
any quarter as to the redemption in gold
of the bonds, of the government which
are made payable in coin.'' The bonds
will be paid in gold whether it is so NOM
mated in the bonds or not. The substi-
tuition of the word gold for coin will not
make the moral obligation of the gov
eminent any more binding or any differ
ent from what it is now, and will effect
a saving in hard cash of $16.174,77O 1t
is not to the point to say that the ne
gotiation was badly managed by the
President and that he ought not to have
made that sort of an alternative con-
tract. All this may be true and it may
be further true that the representative
Of the foreign bankers overreached the
President, yet the fact remains that the
transaction is concluded and that Con-
gress has an option, with five days to
run, of making this large saving for the
government by the change of a single
word in the bonds.
The reason given by the majority in
Congress for refusing to authorize this
substitution is that it would be a dis
elimination in favor of gold and against
silver, and they say this knowing as well
as they know anything, if they do know
anything, that the bonds will be paid in
gold whether the substitution is made or
not. They are standing on verbal
| bubble and fighting for shadow. I'm
der pretense or deiusion that they
are making fight for silver they are
refusing TO fortify the government
credit and save it over SIG, 900, 900 in in
terest. The option on this opportunity
will expire on the 18th inst If Con-
| gress does not act within that period it
will be as clearly and crinlinally re-
| as If 1t had ordered SO much gold to be
| sunk in midocean. Its quibbling atti-
tude is likely to cost the country dearly.