The herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1893-1900, 1898-01-03
MONDAY, JANUARY B, 1898.
THE REPORT OF THE MONETARY
COMMISSION

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dianapolis monetary convention Of last
January, to make thorough investiga-
ton of the monetary affairs and needs
of the country, has prepared its report,
and digest of it's findings is to be found
in our dispatches this morning. This
convention, as all are aware, was self
constituted body of men, recruited
largely from the banking classes and
thoroughly representative of the money
element in our national life. That large
factor in our population distinguished as
the producers of wealth, which voiced its
sentiments touching federal finances in
the last general election by giving sixty
five hundred thousand votes for re-
turn to the bimetallic system under
which the country prospered for nearly
@ hundred years, was not represented in
that convention, nor in the commission
which has since discovered a panacea for
all our national ills. The report is there
fore precisely what might have been
expected. Coming SO late, it does not
even possess the merit of originality,
for 1t appears to be substantially the
plan that has already been presented to
congress by Mr.. Gage, and supported
by him in lengthy argument before the
committee on banking and currency.
The coincidence of the two plans ex-
plains the endorsement which the men,
bers Of the commission gave to Mr..
Cages scheme at Christmas dinner
rendered them in New York. This en-
dorsement was SO unqualified that We
were at the time constrained to inquire if
their labors had not been quite in vain,
since the secretary of the treasury must
have embodied its views in his own plan.
So similar are the two, in general and
in particular, that it does not seem
worth while to consider the later one
as separate proposition. Each sets out
with the declaration of the gold stand
ard pronouncing the gold dollar the unit
of value; providing for the retirement
of all government legal tender issues
and the substitution of a national bank
rate bureau of the treasury for the re-
demption of United States notes, and
the prohibition of the further coinage of
the silver dollar, subsidiary and minor
coins to be provided for as under the
present coinage laws. The provisions
for the rehabilitation of the national
banks are exhaustive, and it does not
appear that any possible advantage or
protection is overlooked.
The report closes with the following
reassuring paragraph:
This plan is based in it's main fea-
lures upon principles which are con-
ceived to be fundamental and UNI
changeable, and which never have been
and never can be departed from with
out disaster. Its methods and details
are of course capable of considerable
variation consistent with these prin-
pies. The methods suggested have
been reached after very careful inquiry
and study, and it is thought that they
will prove to be practical and ade-
Quate to the realization of safe and
steady system of finance and currency,
In which all OF the people of our coun-
try, of whatever calling or political
opinion, are equally and most deeply
interested.
The report is signed by all the mem
bers Of the commission save two. Louis
A. Garrett dissents to the provisions re-
lating to m stallic currency, and ]. Laur-
ence Laughlin, OF the Chicago Univer-
sity, objects to the principle involved in
the section empowering the secretary of
the treasury to reissue United States