The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-31
TURPIE,s IGNORANCE.
His Speech Based ON an Incorrect
Statement of Facts.
New York Evening Posi-.


Senator Turpie's carefully prepared
speech of last Monday on the Teller resou-
ton, now at hand in the Congressional Rec
our past financial legislation is not limited
to the younger generation" about whom
Mr.. Vest is so solicitous Mr.. Turpie's en-
torical assertion. Prior to the passage of
the act to strengthen the public credit in
1859, the senator begins 1.-The bonds of the
United States were payable in any lawful
money The public credit had sue
cessfully passed through the strain of war
without any law that our bonds should be
payable in coin" This is strange history
to spread before the younger generation"
If Senator Turpie is so ignorant of the
statement to be true, we will refer him to
the recent compilation, by the register of
the treasury, Of the provisions inscribed on
the successive bond issues of this govern
ment. From that official summary he will
learn that something over one billion dollars
in bonds, issued between 1862 and 1869, bore
on their face the SGperscription, Payable
interest and principal, in COIN" and that
these words were in the act OF March 8,
1868. Mr.. Turpie seems to be equally I'M
aware of the fac, familiar to most readers
of history that the public-credit act of 1869
applied primarily to the legal-tender notes,
and in the case of bonds merely reafhrmed
the already publicly declared purpose of
the government.
But in what coin were principal and in
terest payable? Let the senator himself in
form US There was at that time" says
Mr. Turpie, speaking of tnis very period.
'.onIy an inconsiderable amount of standard
silver dollars in eXistence-not enough to
pay interest on the bonds" The simple
minded reader might then imagine that
provision for coin payment was to all in
tents and purposes provision for settlement
in gold But 1t seems not for in the next
breath Mr.. TuTpie tells us that when 1.-The
act of 1878 discontinued the further coinage"
of the standard silver dollars, there was
nothing left but the gold dollar and it's
multiples with which to pay the bonded
debit and that this transmutation of pa
the history of the Rosicrucians of the mid
die ages" That is TO say, the senator first
declares, what we have shown not to be
true, that the war debt was all payable in
notes, and then assumes what he himself
admits to be untrue, that ii might have
been paid in silver, and from these two
premises arrives at the conclusion that the
syndicate of debt and gold'' has somehow
been cheating the government out of it's
fair share of contract. If we We're not so
familiar with this method of reasoning on
this subject we should say that we have no
patience with 1t. But patience comes with
long practice, though we are sorry TO See
sometimes does not. We thank the senator
however, for his plain confession that there
was virtually no such currency in circula-
ton, prior to 1873. as silver dollars. If the
silver dollar did not circulate and was not
coined, in the years before 1878 we find IL
hard to see wherein the helpless citizen was
wronged oppressed and pauperiZed by
dropping il from the statutes. We frankly
admit that this mystery has always baf-
fled US. 1t Is true that in the few years
after 1873 the unexpected bonanza discoV-
cries suddenly quadr pied the output of the
Nevada silver mines. Somebody certainly
had an interest now In compelling the gov