The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-09
THE MONEY COMMISSION
EX-SENATOR EDMUNDS AND OTHER
PROMINENT MEN ON 1T.
Will Meet i'm Washington and Organ
ize This Month-Sketches of
the Members.

nounced nine members of the mon
etary commission selected by the
committee the acceptances of the
members having been received. The
commission is composed of ex-Sena-
tor George F. Edmunds, of Vermont;
Charles S. Fairchild, of New York, ex-sec-
rotary of the treasury; C. Stewart Patter-
son, of Philadelphia, who was president of
the monetary convention held here last
January; j. w. Fries, of Salem, n. c.; T..
G.. Bush, of Admission, Ala. George f..
Leighton, of st. Louis W. B. Dean, of St.
Paul; r. S. Taylor. chairman of the Mis-
sissippi river commission, of Fort Wayne,
and Stuyyesant Fish, president Of the Hi
nos Central Railroad Company.
These men are all practical men of af-
fairs some OF them well known to the
general public and the others equally well
known in their particular lines of COM
merce finance or manufacture. In not plac-
ing on the commission any money theorists
or men who have made a life study of the
question, the committee took the ground
that it would be better to make up the COM
mission of keen and conservative business
men and invite experts and theorists be-
fore the commission to give it the benefit
of their knowledge and their views.
The commission will be called together at
Washington about Sept % to organize and
begin work at once. 1t is likely that Sena-
tor Edmunds will be made president of
the commission and it will be furnished
with a working force of secretaries and
clerks. All suggestions made by the people
should be mailed to 1.-The monetary commits
sion" at Washington and will be given at
tention.
One more member is yet to be selected
from the Pacific coast and one from the
Central West AS finally constituted the
commission will contain one man (Senator
Edmunds) regarded as representing the
country at large, three from the East, two
from the South, enc from the Pacific coast
and four from the Central West. Political
ly, the commission will be pretty evenly
divided, containing Ave Democrats and six
Republicans.
Charles Stewart Patterson has been for
years one of the leading men of Philadel-
phia, though never in public life. His pro-
fession is that of lawyer and in it he
attained his first success. But he developed
broad business ability as well as legal tall
ent, and now at the age of sixty years
ne is a director in the Pennsylvania Rail-
road Company, vice president of the West
ern Saying Fund, director in the Pennsyl-
yania, Steel Company, at the head of the
tional law in the University of Pennsylva-
MIA. He was unanimously chosen president
of the monetary convention which was held
in this city last January.
THE INDIANA MEMBER.
Judge Robert s. Taylor, the Indiana men,
Der of the commission. is a lawyer famous
throughout the country for his successful
legal fight in the electric light patent liti-
cation. He was born IN Ross county, Ohio
in 1888 and came to Jay county with his
parents in 1874 He got an academic educa-
ton in the Liber College in that county
and moved to Fort Wayne in 1852 In the
following year he was admitted to the bar
and began the practice of law. He was
elected prosecuting attorney in 1867 and
common pleas judge in 1868. In 1871 he was
sent to the General Assembly and is the
only Republican ever elected to that body
from Allen county He was twice the Re-
publican nominee for Congress in his dis
majority in 1874 of 5000 to 1000 and in 1880
reducing a normal Democratic majority in
1874 of $500 to 700. When General Harrison
retired from the Mississippi river commits
sion to take his seat in the Senate in 1881,
Judge Taylor succeeded him and has since
remained the legal member of the commits
sion. He is a man Of broad culture and OF
remarkable mental force and has written
much that is OF permanent value upon
social conditions and economic subjects.
T. G. Bush was born in Pickensville,
Pickens county, Alabama, in 1S47 His child
hood was spent in Pickens county, Ala
bama, and in Mobile, and during his youth
was portion of the time on his fathers
plantation in Noxubee county, Mississippi.
He entered the University of Alabama at
the age of fourteen and remained there
two years. He was adjutant of the corps
of cadets, which, in 1854, was ordered into
the Confederate service. In 1851. when he
was thirteen years old, he organized two
military companies the service of one of
which was rendered to the Governor of
a a "a fn Qr1A cd hNy
him. In 1854, while the university cadets
were in service, in his seventeenth year,
army as adjutant of the Fifty-second Ala
bama- In May, 1866, he was captured at
Blakely, Ala, after severe battle there,
and held prisoner at Ship island and in New
Orleans until the surrender of General Dick
Taylor, when he was exchanged at Vicks-
burg, Miss, and paroled at Meridian Miss.
In October, 1865, he entered the University
of Mississippi and had among his inStruc-
tors, the late Justice L. Q. G. Lamar and
Vanderbilt University At the end of two
years he graduated in the same class with
his brother, who was two years his senior,
ing second. His school days ended, he en-
tered into the cotton commission business
with his father and brother in Mobile, with
drawing, after four years, from the firm,
and establishing himself in the wholesale
grocery business In Mobile, in 1871. This
under the firm name of T. G.. Bush & Co.
In 1866 he accepted the presidency of the
Mobile & Birmingham Railroad Company
a position which he still retains. He was,
the first president Of the present Mobile
Chamber of Commerce and served for sew
eral years. He also served for some time
as president of the Planters and Mer-
chants Fire Insurance Company, of
Mobile. In April, 1890. he was elected presi-
dent of the Shelby Iron Company, Shelby,
Ala. In 1892 he was made president Of the
Clifton Iron Company, at Ironton, Ala,
which position. he still retains, together
with the presidency of the Shelby Iron
Company. He was a member of the LegiSla-
ture of Alabama in 1SS6-H and served as
chairman of the ways and means commit
tee. He is also engaged in farming and
stock raising, having a large farm near
Oxford. Ala. and within four miles of An
niston, on which he has a large herd of
thoroughbred Jersey cattle and Shetland
ponies.
Mr. John w. Fries is a cotton and wooden
manufactures. He was born in Salem N
c., on Nov. Z, 1885, and is descended from
the early German settlers of that section
Mr. Fries was educated in local schools
and at the University of North Carolina
and has always been a careful student q
great reader and an accurate, acute and
independent thinker. He is a member of
the old and weil-known firm of T. q H.
Fries and is its active and successful man.
agcr. He has served the public Judge
of the Superior Court. member of the board
Of county commissioners. trustee of the
State University and in other capacities.
Mr. Fries is a member of the Moravian
Church, and at the present time holds the
position of chairman of its board of trus-
ested in the study of finance and is con-
sidered an authority on that subject. He
has never been in politics nor held n politi-
cal Office but is a lifelong Democrat. He
stood for sound money in the last cam
W. r. Dean, of St Paul is regarded as
one of the strongest men of the Northwest.
He is at the head of the great wholesale