The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-07-08
THE CURRENCY COMMISSION.

The decision of the President to send to
Congress a message recommending the
appointment of currency commission
has not been arrived at of course without
careful deliberation nor without full
knowledge of it's dangers. Hence 1t is
reasonable to assume that there are some
strong arguments in it's favor which are
not apparent to those not on the inside.
Viewed in the light that the public has it
must be said that the sending of this
message at this time looks like mistake.
At any rate it looks as if it could do little
good at this time and might do much
harm. The Presidents proposal is sup
posed to be that the Senate shall authorize
him to appoint a commission to investi-
gate our currency system and report
recommendations for its improvement.
Of course the findings of this commission
are to be advisory merely but as it will
be an official body authorized by Congress
its conclusions must have a good deal of
weight with the public and will obvious
ly constitute a strong argument in favor
of the particular theory which it favors.
Being a so-called sound money man the
President will, of course, select the ma
jority of the commission from the ranks of
the sound money men and their conclu-
sious may be relied upon to be adverse to
the theory of the silver men. This being
so it may be taken for granted that the
silver Senators will interpose every
possible obstacle to favorable action on
the Presidents recommendation. Indeed
they have expressly declared that they
will fight it with every weapon which
they can command The Senate has
passed the tariff bill, but the measure has
yet to be considered in conference and the
report of the conference is yet to be &C.
cepted by the Senate. A hold up of this
bill is yet among the possibil tiles. But
even should the silver men refrain from
using this weapon and allow the confer
ence report to go through they can avail
themselves of indefinite fllibustering, and
that they will do this rather than allow
a provision for currency commission to
pass admits of very little doubt. This
would lead to an indefinite prologation
of the session of Congress, unless the Re-
publicans surrendered, and an extension
of the session at this time would do q
good deal more harm than currency
commission could possibly do good be-
tween this time and the regular session
of Congress in December.
The business community are not much
disturbed at present over the currency.
They know that as long as there is Re-
publican President the gold standard will
be maintained, except in the very remote
contingency of both houses of Congress
containing a two-thrds silver majority
and though they recognize that some re-
forms are needed in our currency system,
they would prefer, we have little doubt,
to have them postponed rather than to
have torrent of free silver oratory let
loose just now when there are signs of
business revival. Possibly the President
intends simply to call attention to the
need of certain reforms and suggests q
currency commission as q convenient
means of doing SO, without any idea
of pressing the matter to vote at this
session. That might be advisable in order
to let the country know that he still has
the financial question on his mind, and
did not intend to permit it to be pushed
out of sight by the tariff.