The Topeka state journal., 1897-07-26
A CURRENCY BILL.
Executive Committee of the Indianap-
oils Conference to Act at Once.

Indianapolis. Ind, July 26.-Hugh H.
Hanna, chairman of the executive COM
mittee created by the monetary conVen-
ti5n held in this city last January, to-
day announced that he would call the
committee together either at Chicago or
Saratoga within a week, and it would
at once take up the matter of appoint
ing a commission to frame a currency
bill for presentation to congress at the
beginning of the regular session. The
convention, it will be remembered, laid
down a few fundamental principles for
sound currency and authorized the
executive committee to endeavor to per-
Suade congress at the extra session to
authorize the appointment of a COM
mission by the president, falling in
which it was authorized to select such
a commission for the preparation of a
measure. The chairman and members
of the executive committee have spent
a great deal of time in Washington
duringsthe extra session, and the result
of their labOrS is seen in the strong
message on the subject sent to congress
by the president and the quick passage
of the Stone bill, authorizing a commits
sion, by the house.
THE executive committee said Mr.
Hanna, will be called together within
a week, and the matter will be taken
up and pushed without cessation to the
end.
The first work of the executive COM
mittee now must be the selection of
commission of IL men. The commits
sion must be nOn-partiSan and compOS-
ed of men big enough and broad
enough to handle the subject, men who
have knowledge of the question, and
men who understand the needs of the
country, with its enormous agricultu-
raj, commercial, manufacturing and
ton interests.
1.-The work of the committee will have
just begun when the commission is Sc
lected. It will be its business to pro-
vide for the running expenses of the
commission, which will serve without
salary, and to provide it with data, to
Il zss,l.
every facility for doing it's work thor
oughly and well. I think it will be CIV
en- much valuable help and advice in it's
work by members of the banking and
currency committee of the house and
finance committee of the senate, many
of whom have devoted years of intelli-
gent study to the subject snd have ac-
quired vast stores of information.
IF the commission does not bring
forth a proper bill, one formed upon
broad and patriotic lines, it were better
to never propose the measure to con-
gress, but if it does frame a right and
proper measure, and I take it that it
will, it will be the business of the eX-
ecutive committee to organize behind
the measure the whole business inter
eStS of the country, and by the business
interests I mean every class interested
in the prosperity of the cOuntry-the
farmer as much as the merchant, the
workman as much as the banker, and
the professional man as much as the
manufacturer. We are all alike inter
ested in stable currency. With the
people behind the measure, I have no
fear about it's passage. The average
member is anxious to know what the
people want in the way of legislation,
and then to give it to them.
I'VE shall have long fight over the
measure in the senate Such a thing
closure can not be had there, and it is
likely to resolve itself into a question
of endurance, but there is a sound mon
ey majority in the senate, and the mem
-
rency bill is a question of the highest
Importance. And they believe, as do,
that if such a measure is not passed by
this congress, the opportunity as not
likely to come again.