Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1885 — POLITICAL. [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL.

Hon. Robert E. Logan, a Republican Representative In the Illinois Legislature from Whiteside County, fell dead in the State House at Springfield, while climbing the stairs to the Assembly chamber on the 26th 'ult. When the joint session was held for a Senatorial ballot, the announcement was made that both political parties had agreed to have no decisive vote until March 3. An election to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. Logan's death has been ordered by Governor Oglesby for March 21. Very few Government officials at Washington will resign until they are asked to do so. Some take a hopeful view of the situation and think that, while all active partisans and appointees purely political will have to go, valuable and experienced men will be retained. Following is the reply addressed by Mr. Cleveland to the silver-coinage advocates in Congress: To the Hon. A. J. Warner and others, members of the Forty-eighth Congress: Gentlemen, the letter which I have had the honor to receive from you invites and, indeed, obliges me to give expression to some grave public necessities, although In advance of the moment when they would become objects of my official care and partial responsibility. Your solicitude that my judgment shall have been carefully and deliberately formed is entirely just, and I accept the suggestion in the same friendly spirit in which it has been made. It Is also fully justified by the nature of the financial crisis which, under the operation of the act of Congress ot Feb. 28, 1878, is now close at hand. By compliance with the requirements ot that law all vaults In the Federal Treasury have been and are heaped full of silver coins which are now worth less than 85 per cent, of the gold dollar prescribed as "the unit of value" in section 14 of the act of Feb. 12, 1873, and which, with sliver certificates representing such coin, are receivable for all public dues, beinz thus receivable, while also constantly increasing in quantity at the rate of $28,000,000 per year, it has followed of necess ty that the flow of gold into the Treasury has been steadily diminishing. Silver and silver certificates have displaced and are now displacing gold, and the sum of gold in the Federal Treasury now available for the payment of the gold obligation of the United States and for the redemption of United States notes called "•greenback," if not already encroached upon, 1b perilously near such encroachment. These are facte which, as they do not admit of difference of opinion, call for no argument. They have been forewarned to ns in the official reports of every Secretary of the Treasury from 1878 till now. They are plainly as-

firmed in the last December report of the I present Secretary of the Treasury to the Speaker of the present House of Representatives. They appear in the official documents of this Congress, and in the records of the New York Clearing House, of which the Treasury is a member, and through which the bulk of receipts and payments of the Federal Government and the country pass. These being the facts, our present condition, our dancer, and our duty to avert that danger, would seem to be plain. I hope you concur with'.-me and with a great majority of our fellow-citizens, in deeming it most desirab'e at the ’present juncture to maintain and continue in use the mass of our gold coin as well as the mass of silver already coined. This ia possible by the present suspension of the purchase and coinage of silver. I am not aware that by any other method it is possible. It is of momentous importance to prevent the two metals parting company, to prevent increasing displacement of gold by increasing the coinage of silver, to prevent the disuse of gold in the custom-houses of the United States in the daily business of the people, to prevent the ultimate expulsion of gold by silver. Such a financial crisis as these events would certainly precipitate, were it now to follow upon so long a period of commercial depression, would involve the people of every city and every State in the Union in prolonged and disastrous trouble. The revival of business enterprise and prosperity so ardently desired and apparently so near would be hopelessly postponed. Gold would be withdrawn to its hoarding places, and an unprecedented contraction in the actual volume of our currency would speedily take place. The saddest of all, in every workshop, mill, factory, store, and on every railroad and farm, the wages of labor, already depressed, would suffer still further depression by the scaling down of the purchasing power of every socalled dollar paid into the hand of toll. From these impending calamities it is surely the most patriotic and grateful duty of the representatives of the people to deliver them. lam, gentlemen, with sincere respect, your fellow citizen. Gboveb Cleveland. Albany, Feb. 24. The Michigan House has passed a bill to renew the death penalty for murder in the first degree, and a majority of the Senators are pledged to the measure.