Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1888 — TO REDUCE THE SURPLUS [ARTICLE]

TO REDUCE THE SURPLUS

A Lively Discussion of the Question in the House of Representatives. Gen. Wearer Insists That the Conntrjr Is in the Hands of a Gigantic Monej Trust. [Washington speciaLl In the House of Representatives, oa Wednesday, the bill authorizing the Secretary of ihe Treasury to purchase bonds with the sorplos revenue was the subject of a lively debate. Mr. McKinley contended that under existing laws the President might purchase or redeem bonds, and charged that his failure to do so was due to a desire to pile up the surplus in order to scare the country and break down the protective tariff. The President had based his refusal to apply the snrplas to the redemption of bonds on the fact that the law was an independent section of an appropriation bill. On the same grounds the President could characterize as suspicions at least one-half the public statutes. Everybody knew that there would be a snrplas revenue, but the President had declined to call an extra session of Congress, and thereby assumed the responsibility of managing the surplus revenue so as to do the least harm to the country. He (Mr. McKinley) thought some friend of the administration should explain why it had not paid out the surplus upon the debts of the Government and thus stop the interest charge which rested so heavily on the people. Instead of doing that the administration preferred to use the banks as a means of putting the money in circulation, and fully $59,000,000 that ought to be in the Treasury to-day was out among the banks without drawing interest. He charged here to-day that the President and his administration were solely responsible for whatever congested condition was found in the Treasury and the finances of tho Government. [Applause on the Republican Bide.J The President might lecture the Democratic side as much as he desired, but there was some little responsibility resting upon him. Mr. Weaver said the was in the hands of a gigantic, cold-blood money trust There were a score of banks in the country that had been literally stuffed with government money for the last quarter of a century. The Hamilton bank of Fort Wayne was presided over by ex- Secretary McCulloch, and he had to-day the use of $1,000,000 of the people’s money. The Chase National Bank of New York, presided over by Mr. Cannon, late Comptroller of the Currency, had $1,100,000 ot government funds. The same was true of the Fiist National Bank of New York, the National Bank of the Republic of New York, presided over by Mr. Knox, and the National Bank of the Republic of Washington, presided over by Mr. Cresswell. The Western National Bank of New York, organized by three prominent treasury officials, was nsing $1,100,000 of government funds without interest, and the Third National Bank of Buffalo—the Standard oil bank—had $165,000. Granted that this money had been placed in the banks to avoid a panic and a financial stringency, if this bill should have the effect to recall that money it would bring far greater stringency than had existed in OctobdPlast.

Mr. Breckinridge (Ky.) said the difference between the 24 or 3 per cent at which the Government could borrow its money, and the 44 or 4 per cent, it was paying on its bonds was the precise sum that the American people were annually paying for the glorious privilege of having had Mr. John Sherman as Secretary of the Treasury. [Applause on the Democratic side.] The President had delivered a message which had by its very uniqueness been taken out of the mere dull sequence of official documents and caused a discussion from one end of America to the other which would not cease until this protective iniquity had been reformed. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Now, the lesson of the President and the labors of the Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee were united for the purpose of giving manufacturers their fair protection, but doing it with jnst and equal law to the tax-payer who was to use the manufactured article. While the majority of the committee might not be very wise, while gentlemen might laugh at them for not taking their Bepublican colleagues into consideration, he assured the gentleman that if he would just wait he would have as much of a tariff bill as he was able to consider, and far more than he would be able to defeat. [Applause on Democratic side.] A tariff bill that would gather to its support every Democrat on the floor of this House, and every Representative who was not given over io a strong delusion, a tariff bill that would gather to its support all fair-minded manufacturers who only wanted what was just, and which, when it came into the House—modified it might be by the wise suggestions of the Bepublican members of the committee, and by Democrats who did not agree with all of us provisions—framed, not by dickers and barter, but with a strone desire to make the public good the first object of its legislation—when that bill came into the House it would be passed, and it would relieve the President, whether he was Mr. Cleveland or some one else,' of the necessity of finding a disposition tot the surplus by leaving the surplus iu the pocket of tne man who made the money. [Applause on the Democratic side.] □Mr. Beed of Maine, after saying that the Secretary should have expended the surplus in the purchase of bonds, continued: “Why has not this been done? Because men have pursued the empty vision of a free-trade policy, to be accomplished, not by virtue of its merits, but by virtue of outside pressure, by fear of panic, and by means to mislead the reason, to control the feelings, and not to affect the judgment. I believe the present financial condition of the country is a part of the conspiracy against protection. I believe that this surplus in the Treasury has been accumulated with reference to its effect upon the people of the United States, so that they might, without investigating, without qnite understanding, clamor for something to be done, they cared not what, which would lead to the impracticable condition into which Chairman after Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means had endeavored in vain to lead the House.

Mr. McCreary, of Kentucky, offered the following amendment, which was accepted by Mr. Mills: “Provided, That the bonds so purchased or redeemed shall constitute no part of the sinking fund, but shall be

canceled by the Secretary of the Treasury.* The bill was then passed.