The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1899-08-05
A HOPELESS STRUGGLE.
The Silver Cause Has Lost Serength
Steadily Since the First Free
Coinage Dill.

On November S, 1877, in the first of
President Hayes two extra sessions of
congress, Representative Richard P.
Bland moved to suspend the rules and
pass bill directing the coinage of ISL
yer dollars of the weight of 412Hs grains
of standard silver, as provided in the act
of January 1S, 1887" the coins to be
legal tender, a. their nominal value, for
all debts and dues public and private,
except where otherwise provided by
contract" With this motion Mr.. Bland
became national character, and the
silver question became an absorbing
issue in American politics.
This was the original Bland bill. 1t
provided for the unrestricted coinage of
silver dollars, then worth seven or eight
| cents less in intrinsic value, as indicated
| by the market price of silver bullion,
than gold dollars. The house in which
| that bill was introduced had demo-
cratic majority of 20. Samuel j. Ran
| dali was speaker. BANDS motion was
| agreed to by vote of 1874 (97 democrats
and 81 republicans to 81 GA republic
| ans and ten democrats). AS reported
in the senate by William B. Allison,
from the committee on finance, the bill
was changed from the free coinage
| form to limited coinage measure. 1t
provided that not less than $2,000,0O0
nor more than $4,O0O,00O of silver bull
lion should be bought each month and
coined into dollars of the weight pre-
scribed in the house bin, the profit from
the coinage, however, to go into the
treasury, and not, as in the house bill,
into the pockets of the owners of the
silver bullion. The bill passed the SEN
ate in this shape by a vote of 4S GA re-
publicans, 20 democrats and one indie
pendent) to Fl GA republicans and
seven democrato), was accepted by the
house, was vetoed by President Hayes
on February %, 1878, in one of the
strongest state papers ever penned by
an occupant of the white house, but was
| passed over the veto on the same day.
Silverism on the day when the modi-
fled Bland act was passed over the veto
of President Hayes touched its high
water mark. At that time the silver
bullion in the dollar was worth 90 cents.
There was only eight cents of fiat in
the silver dollar. Many republicans
voted for the Bland bill at that time be-
cause they supposed that the creation
of an enlarged market for the bullion
by making the government purchaser
would send its price up to point at
which the silver dollar would be worth
100 cents in gold. They quickly found
themselves mistaken, and then they
abandoned the silver side. The repub-
licans did, indeed, pass the bullion de-
post act of July II, 1890, called the
Sherman law, but this was far safer
measure than the Bland act which it
displaced, and it was enacted to head
off the passage of a free silver measure.
Three years and third afterward, find
ing the accumulations of silver cur
rency of the various sorts menace to
the financial stability of the country,
the republicans helped to repeal the act,
and thus stopped silver absorption in
every shape by the government. The
Bland faction continued their fight for
free silver, however, and at the Chicago
convention of 1896 they secured control
of the democracy, and, for the first time
in presidential canvass, the contest
was specifically between the gold and
the silver standards, the gold standard
gaining sweeping victory. 1t is now
81 years since Richard p. Bland intro
duced his first free coinage bill. The
silver cause is to-day distinctively
weaker than it was then, or than it has
been at any time since then. How long
is the deocratic party going to keep up
it's fight against fate?-St. Louis Globe
Democrat.