The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-07-09
WON'T COME RIGHT AWAY.
The Currency Message to Congress Tenn.
porarily Held Up.

Washington, July s.-The proposed mes
sage of the President to Congress recon-
mending the appointment of commits
sion to consider the question of a revision
OF our currency and national banking
laws, will not be transmitted today, MOI
for several days, ii. it goes in at all, which
is matter of doubt.
| The President is now undecided wheth-
er or not to send any message for the rea-
son that a number of the most prominent
leaders of the party in the Senate and
House have made strong representations
to him of the inadvisability of sending a
message to Congress while the tariff bill
is in conference.
Senators Allison and Quay Representa-
tive Dingley and other party leaders
called at the White House and had q long
conference with President Mckinley. ,
They urged him to reconsider his de-
termination to send special currency
message to Congress and gave as reason
that the sentiment in Congress was
such that it would be likely to arouse
feeling and cause friction that would
delay speedy final action on the tariff
bill.
Upon their return to the Capitol, Sen
ators Allison and Quay denied having
conferred with the President upon the
currency. Senator Allison expressed
the opinion that if a message should
be received it would be extremely diff
cult, if not impossible, to secure action
by the Senate under existing conditions.
Necessarily, he said, the matter would
be referred to the finance committee. q
majority of which would in all probabili-
ty be opposed to the scheme for a curren-
cy committee and would therefore hold
the matter up indefinitely.
Independently of the statement of Sena-
tor Allison, it is known that the Re
publican managers Of the Senate agreed
three weeks ago not to press any measure
providing for currency commission at
the present session of the Senate.
The promise was made at time when
the fate of the tariff bill was by no means
certain, and when 1t was in the power
of the opposition to at least indefinitely
delay action on that measure.
The agreement provides that there
should be no effort on the part of the OPP
ponents of the tariff to unnecessarily de-
lay action and that the Republicans
should not urge the currency scheme on
Congress at the present session, though
the President should send in a message
recommending such commission.
The Republican senators feel that any
effort to get currency legislation through
would be futile. Aside from the difficult
| ty of getting measure such as that pro-
posed by the President out Of committee,
the scheme, would if reported, be debated
at length, and then upon a vote, would
probably be defeated.
"We think we have the votes in the
Senate to beat such a measure" said
Senator Jones of Arkansas, a member of
the finance committee, shut if it should
be reported we should feel that it would
be of sufficient Importance to demand ex-
haustive debate. think that 1t would be
difficult to dispose of it in less time than
three or four months
The prevailing opinion of the Republi
can side of the chamber is that the Presi-
dent will not Immediately send mes
sage, but that it may come later. The
Republican senators seem to think 1t
better that all proceedings In connection
with the matter be dropped until the
final disposition of the tariff.