The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1895-05-11
1T WAS NOT PASSED.

A subscriber recently wrote to the New
York World as follows:
''I want to get the names and address
es of the members of the senate and the
house who voted in favor of the bill to
demonetize silver; also the names of
the chairmen of the committees that
recommended 1T, and the date of the pas
sage of the bill. F. N. M.
Marquette, Mich
No bill was ever passed "to demone-
tize silver" Silver was demonetized by
. trick, and not more than three men
in the city of Washington knew when it
was done or within a year thereafter,
even, that it had been done. This de-
monetization was the result of a COM
bination among half dozen of the lead
ing gamblers of the Gold Board, which
had its ramifcation abroad. The coin
age committee of the house reported a
t'bill to codify the mint laws" The
necessity for that codifcation was well
known, and the chairman explained
that no change had been made in any of
the laws, but that the different acts
bearing upon the mint had been brought
together under one section. The bill
was not even read except by title. 1t
was passed without one dissenting vote.
In the section enumerating the different
lawful silver coins of the United States
the word s'dollar" was omitted, begin
ming "the half dollar" etc. No one
noticed the omission. Even a careful
reading Of tie bill by every member of
congress would not have revealed the
trick to any one of them. No one was
thinking of the decentralization of silver.
No human being on the face of the earth
had ever suggested such thing. The
silver dollar was at three cents premium
over the gold dollar, and when the gold
dollar was quoted at 116 the silver dol
lar was quoted at 119. The word had
been stricken out by some member of
the committee without the knowledge Of
his unsuspecting colleagues; but who
did it has never been discovered. In
after years each member of the coinage
committee expressly disclaimed any
knowledge of the trick or that he knew
or had heard that the word "dollar'' had
been omitted. The bill went to the
senate. was referred to its committee on
coinage, examined perfunctorily, re-
ported by Mr.. Sherman (the chairman)
to the senate, and passed by the senate
on Mr.. Sherman's assurance that it
made no change in the law, only bring
ing all the different laws together. At
ter the bill was passed the secret that
silver had been demonetized was care
fully kept. No member of the govern
ment knew it. Six months after, and
again year after, President Grant, not
knowing that silver had been demone-
tized, advocated the coinage of more
silver dollars. At that time there were
some in the country. The secretary ol
the treasury also advocated the same
thing. To their intense astonishment
they were shown the report of the di-
rector of the German mint, in which he
stated that America had demonetized
its silver coinage. The statement had
been laughed at as the blunder of a for
eigner, but upon the examination of the
mint laws as .codified under the act o.
the year before, it was discovered thai
silver had been demonetized for year
Every effort from that moment to thil
to take the back track has been de.
feated.