Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-21

treatment The allegation, even if 1t were true, that a great crime was surrepe tiously committed in 1873, or at any other time, does not prove, or even conduce to prove, that the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 would be beneficial Is the country under the conditions now ex- isting. But, gentlemen, it is not true that the act of February 12, 1873, which made the gold dollar the unit of value and dropped the standard silver dollar from the coinage, was passed by stealth or that its purpose or effect was to deprive the peo- pie of the use of any coin then in use or then in existence in this country. That bill was pending in congress for neafly three years and was under consideration during five sessions of that body; 1t was distinctly recommended in two reports of the secretary of the treasury, and the director of the mint, and it was officially printed and laid on the desks Of members of the house and of the senate thirteen different times before the final vote was taken on it. It was read at length in the open senate several times. and in the house at least once, as shown by the record: it was reported from committees seven times, and the discussion upon II in the house fills sixty six columns of the Congressional Globe, and in the senate seventy-eight columns. As first reported to the senate and passed by that body in January. 1S71 the bill did not provide for the coinage of any silver dollar what ever but expressly limited the coinage of that metal to subsidiary pieces-half- dollars, quarters and dimes. In this form, without any provision for the coin age of any kind of silver dollar. the bill was passed in the senate on the 10th day of January, 1871, upon the call of the yeas and nays. and the record shows that the two senators from Kentucky Hon. Gar rett Davis and Hon. Thomas c. Me Creery, the distinguished democratic sen ator from Ohio, Hon. Allen G. Thurman, the present senator from Nevada, Hon. Wm. M Stewart together with the other senators from the Pacific slope, voted in the affirmative, while Senator sherman, Senator Morrill,, and twelve others voted in the negative. The reason given by MT, sherman for voting against the bill was that the senate had. in obedience to the demands of the senators from the Pa cific coast, so amended the bill, after 1t was reported from the committed, as to abolish the charge of Is of per cent for coining gold. thus making the coinage of that metal entirely free. The bill went to the house of representatives, but 1t was not disposed of during that congressf and at the first session of the next congress MT. Kelley of Pennsylvania introduced it in the house and it was referred to committee. So far as the coinage of the silver dollar was affected, the bill intro duced by him was precisely the same as the one that had passed the senate--that
 
 However, when the bill was finally re- ported back from the committee to the house 1t was so amended as to provide for the coinage of a subsidiary piece. to be called a dollar. and to contain 3Sf grains of standard silver, the same as the French 5-franc piece, and il was to be legal tender to the extent of $5. and no more. In this form 1t passed the house by very large majority--in fact. the opposition to it was so weak that the yeas and nays were not even called The senate struck out the 5-frane sub sidiary dollar and substituted for it an other subsidiary coin called the trade dollar. conaining 420 grains of standard silver, and provided that it should be a legal tender to the amount of $5. and no more. A committee of conference was appointed, the senate amendment was agreed to, and the bill became a law by the approval of President Grant on the 18th day of February 1873. This brief historical statement of the proceedings. which is fully sustained by the official record, shows that it was well under stood in congress that the old standard silver dollar of 412k grains was not. to be thereafter coined at our hints. and that the only difference of opinion that ever existed, even temporarily, between the senate and house was whether they would substitute in it's place a subsid- iary coin containing 3S4 grains, or a sub
 
 yer. No proposition was made in either body to continue the coinage of the old dollar. or to make any silver coin the unit of value, or a full legal tender in payment of debts.
 Truth About the Act of 1873.
 The plain truth is that this act of 1873, which has been the subject of so much msapprehension and denunciatien, was simply legal recognition of a monetary 1;,; f<I, lNa taI t,. fa< this country for about thirty-five years, or ever since a short time after the pas sage of the coinage act of 1884. From about the year 1888 until after the pas sage of the Bland-Allison act in 1878. no silver dollars were in ejaculation in this country and our whole currency con sisted of gold coin and bank notes. ex- cept from 1862 to 1878, when our active circulation. outside Of California and it's Deighboring territory, was all paper. There was during the latter period about $25, ,000. 900 in gold in circulation on the Pacific coast. and the United States was collecting customs duties in gold and using 1t in the payment of interest on the public debt but there was no silver in circulation anywhere in this country, not even the lightweight subsidiary coins. The value of the United States note or greenback was always meas ured by gold and not by silver, and com modities had gold price and a paper price. but never a silver price, because silver, except the half dollars quarters and dimes coined under the act of 1853. had been out of use here for more than twenty years before the commencement of the war, and even these subsidiary coins had not been in use for eleven years prior to 1873. Our own monetary history had already furnished two most striking illustrations of the operation of the natural law under which the coins which are over valued by statute always drive out of circulation the coins which are under-valued. Our own experience had again demonstrated what the his-