Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-02-01
F FINANCIAL FOLLIES
Mr.. Morrill's Speech Today on the
Silver Amendment.
FRANCE HAS NO SILVER PARTY
Confidence Expressed by the People
in the Republican Party.
OUR BUSINESS INTERESTS

At the beginning Mr.. Morrill, stated what
the President had asked Congress to do
and he said. "Was that not fair request?"
The House had promptly responded to the
| Presidents demand and supplemented It
| with an emergency tariff revenue bill. The
| Senate finance committee proposed as a
| substitute for the bond bill a measure for
the free coinage Of silver.
This" he said, may not be the first
time when bread has been asked for that
| stone has been presented. but it is the
| first time that q committee of the Senate
seems to have perpetrated a practical joke
almost good enough for the clown of Bar
NUNS menagerie.''
The Senator thought that a deficient
| national income should be not less swiftly
| remedied than an excess, and In this con-
nection he said
The present administration, however, ex-
hibits a bashful diffidence about acknowl-
edging any deficiency of revenue derived
from tariff bereaved of its parents an
early infancy, but with their hands be-
hind them they may quietly take whatever
money Congress may place i'm their hands
Tor the treasury, where the outflow of gold
has been so swift as to make even the
heads of the keepers dizzy. Certainly
there is no mathematical equation between
the monthly receipts and monthly eXpendi-
| lures, and the public debt visibly expands
| more rapidly than the public credit.
Changes of revenue laws, or of duties
en- imports of foreign merchandise, are
always troublesome to administer, as well
both to home as foreign trade, and are
only advisable when demanded by poten-
tlal reasons or when substantial improve
ments will justify the changes made. The
reasons now for change are abundant"
Quotations were then made from the re-
ports OF the Secretary of the Treasury,
showing the deficiencies in revenue for 1894
and 1875, and the Senator said that if
further evidence of lack of revenue
| should be asked it might be found in the
| increase in our public debt. The deficit of
the revenue should be remedied as early as
possible.
The Example of France.
Reference being made to the financial
policy and condition of France it was as
serted that silver in that country is main
| tanned at par with gold because the govern
ment long ago suspended its coinage, and
Because there is no clustering silver
party, and no silver-plated democratic
| party there striving to pull down their
money standard to that of deprecated sill
Yer, but they keep silver to the amount of
Sss6.OoO.OoO. with s772,o00,0O0 of gold on the
ratio of 1917 to l.
THE United States has been the friend
and patron of silver to its own hurt, and
made a large market for the white metal
while many other markets were closed. 1t
has coined silver by the million, and kept
value with the best money of the world"
Under the free coinage substitute for the
House bond bill it was contended that the
government will be required to run into
debt for what 1t does not want
If our late investments of nearly $780,
OOO,OoO In silver have been VIGOROUSLY i'm
provident and Improbable, the disastrous
results will appear as drop in the bucket
when compared with what must flow from
the enormity of the present proposal, which
is to open all of our minis to the free coin
age not only of all ourown silver product but
that also of all the world, excluding nobody
| from Dan to Beersheba, and to tempt a
great increase of the annual product both
at home and abroad. by Offering United
| 1t now commands in any other market.
THE vast product, whether in silver bull
lion or silver dollars, once in the possession
OF the government. must stay there for
ever, defunct as an Egyptian mummy, as
the public long ago refused to aid in its
larger practical circulation.
Nv henever the issuance OF deprecated
money Is tolerated, as to permit an in
crease of the amount outstanding as is
proposed by the silver free-coinage substi-
tute for the bond bill, now under consider
alton, further memorable depreciation of
sCch money must follow, as our own recent
unhappy experience sufficiently demon
StrateS."
Competition With the East.
We are seriously urged. the Senator said
further on, to adopt free coinage in order to
equalize financial exchange so as to COM
pete with the oriental artisans of India and
China and Japan To him it looked only as
the first step in equalizing the wages of
labor instead of exchanges. The sharpest
competition we meet in selling agricultural
products and provisions abroad arises from
countries using silver currency only
where they are destitute of skilled labor
and where cheap wages prevail. A market
ABROAD Tor any surplus of wheat or corn,
beef or pork, only occurs when the United
States can urdersell the rest of the world
Therefore, he said, the home market should
be preserved.
THE absurdity of free coinage as a pro-
lection against oriental industrial rivals
| cannot well be concealed. We might with
almost equal propriety be invited to intro
duce an Asiatic plague and have it just as
| logically urged on the ground that it has
all died there.
Some whispered threats have fioated in
the air that the extreme silver men, now
fraternizing here and at home with the
republican party, would band themselves
together on one dominant idea forsaking
all Others, and, with auxiliary democratic
aid hitch onto the tail of great republican
measure, at the first opportunity, some
unkling silver amendment, hoping thereby
to secure a silver triumph of hybrid COM
bination, although the grand old republican
party might perish. But there is little fear
Of these eruptive threats; for If carried out
1
offenders, upon whom public opinion would
OF fail to place its brand, and. whatever
party might survive. not ell of the garroters
of the republican party would be found
among its members.
'The southern people can hardly be ex-
pected to see with much complac ency over
s1OO,OOO.OO0 annually expended for pensions
to the survivors of our great Union army
but they should bear in mind that these
survivors are now diminishing by thousands
year by year, and that the confederates
| must be held responsible for the first gun in
deplorable war, where they then took the
chances whether their surviving and bruised
soldiers or those of the Union army should
| be rewarded for their heroic services The
northern people were subjected to an enor-
nous expense, national and state to SUM-
port the Union, and now by far the greater
part of the pension money is paid by the
more populous north, as the largest con-
sumers of merchandise upon which revenue
has been collected
THE annual industrial products of the
United States" continued the Senator
amount to twelve thousand million dol
lars, or more, perhaps than those of half of
Europe. and our foreign trade is largely in
creasing. A silver currency would throw
all these vast interests into a state of de-
crepitude"