Birmingham state herald., 1897-02-06
MR- GAGE.s POSITION.


 Since it has become an accepted fact that MT. Mckinley will appoint MT.
 Gage secretary of the treasury. the po-
 litical toga, of MT. Gage is being given
 general airing. And the letters and in-
 terviews that MT Gage has given out
 as to his position on the financial ques-
 tion and the course he will pursue are
 too. clear to be misunderstood. As to
 the currency question MT. Gage thinks
 the government ought to step out of the
 currency question and place the bur
 den of redemption on the banks. and his
 method is for the government to author
 ize the issue of $25O, ,O00, 900 of 21a per cent.
 bonds payable at such time as con
 gress may determine, say twenty-five
 years, to be offered to subscribers at par. - While there Is nothing particularly
 new or revolutionary in this position. re-
 marks the New Orleans Times-Demo-
 crat. it win be observed these proposi- tions of the next treasurer are on line
 either with what the treasury has been
 doing under the last three or four ad-
 ministrations, or at any rate with what
 the present administration has been per- j sistently recommending with view to
 stop the "endless chain" that has been
 afflieting the treasury. The retirement
 of the greenbacks has been quite pet
 hobby of President Cleveland's; he has
 pressed that retirement upon the con
 gress in more than one message, and if
 his method of raising the money with
 which to retire the government notes
 was not precisely the same as that recon
 mended by Mr. Gage, the scheme of
 Messrs. Cleveland and Carlisle is prac-
 tically that of Mr. Gage. MT. Cages
 is perhaps the less satisfactory of the
 two, as it is very questionable whether
 the government could dispose of 2A per
 cent. bonds at par, the investment not
 having a lucrative look.
 MT. Cages idea, moreover, of com
 hitting the issue, and the general ma
 nipulation. of notes to the national banks, to enlarge or contract such issues according to the promptings of their wills, is precisely the idea Of the pres ent administration. And it would be at- tended, without any doubt with just such disastrous consequences as we have frequently foreshadowed in these col umns. ., t Looked at, however, from the point of view of the November election and the issues then passed upon by the people, the coming secretary's attitude respect ing the trea tment of the national fsc must be pronounced to be strictly or thodox. The people voted for continu- ance of the system of gold monometal- lisrn, for retirement of the greenbacks and for the commitment of the issues of notes to the national banks; and MT. Gage in his capacity of secretary of the treasury will do everything he can for the furtherarce of those views.
 We are astonished to learn from the Washington Post, which is uniformly well-informed about such matters, that the republicans at the national capital continue to give expression to their dis satisfaction at MT Gage's appointment.
 They persist in pronouncing Mr. Gage
 to be more of gold democrat than re-
 publican; and they continue to think as
 they thought when they first heard of his
 choice-that it was an intended compli-
 ment to that faction of the party which
 had done something toward helping along the election of MT. Mckinley. MT. Cages statement that he Is and has been an independent republican, they laugh att and they challenge him to deny that he voted for MT. Cleveland every one of the three times that he ran for the presi- dency. And, finally, they affirm that his reception by the party in power will be exactly of a kind with tho reception which Judge Gresham received at the hands of the democratic party-when he was appointed secretary of state by MT. Cleveland.
 That Mr. Gage is a low tariff, man, a violent anti-spoilsman, and a keen anti trust man are, moreover, facts in his his- tory or in his creed which do frequently recommend him to elements of the party whose opinions count for much. His is the least enviable of all the portfolios in the next cabinet; and it seems certain that the difficulties with which he will inevitably have to contend will be far more likely to emanate from republican than from democratic opposition.