Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — SPEECH —OFHON. D. W. VOORHEES. [ARTICLE]

SPEECH —OF—HON. D. W. VOORHEES.

The Senate having under considers ion the bill (H. R. 1) to repeal a part of an aot approved J <ly 14, 1890, entitled “An act d resting the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes the reon, and for other purpo es"— MR. VOORHEES said: Mr. President: The Sena e will bear witness that I have occupied not muon of its time during the debate through whioh we have been passing, nor have I desired to do sc, nor do «. desire to do so now. The Senator from Colorado [Mr Wob ccttj has done me the honor to read extensively from the speech with which I opened the present discussion. On that account, however, I would not rise. There is nothing in it to explain or that eeds explanation. My position, humble tho' my career has been in this body, is well known on the subject of sil er. There is no doubt pertaining to my record; andon the subject of my recent speech, so repeatedly reproduced here, I have nothing to say. But I have thought, Mr. Preside t, for some days back, that it might be well at some time in this discussion to correct at least one very striking and fundamental error. The very corner stone of the discussion in opposition to the pending bill is laid in error and makes a false foundation. The constant asseveration that the

bill demonetizes silver is not supported by a single fact. I say here that while it has been repeated a tho sand times that the bill demonetizes silver, it may be repeated a hundred the usand times more and still it will n it be true, nor havj even the semblance of truth. We nave at this time something ever $618,000,000 of silver currency, $77,000,000 of subsidiary coin, which is legal tenderin sums under slo,leaving $541,000,000 in round numbers, of full legal tender silver money. I speak in the hearing of old|financiers, I speak in the hearing of the whole coun try, when I say that this bill does not take away from a single dollar or item of silver money its monetary value Webster says deffionetizatization means to deprive a metal Jof its money value. Wh t piece of silver money, subsidiary or otherwise, is interfered with by the bill in the way of demonetization? It is time the country should hear this. It is time the country should ki.ow that this donate, so far as the opponents of the bill are concerned, has proceeded upon an entirely*erroneous and false assumption. It is not a bill to demonetize silver; it is not at war with silver money. Op the contrary, in the few moments I expect to be on the floor I shall demonstrate that it is a better friend to silver as money, and to its use, than any measure can be which buys silver bullion as corn, wheat, oats and rye. I say, sir, the bi'l does not touch the monetary value of silver. What does it do? It eimplv says that we do not want to buy any more silver bullion for the present. It suspends the purchase of the raw mat rial out of which silver money is made. That is all that it does. Let us come to an understanding. Let us have some definitions. I repeat myse.f purposely, and I Care not how often, for I intend the statement to be borne i nponthe public mind that to say it s a bil demonetizing s Iver is not true. It demonetizes no dollar, andw 11 you know it. It simply suspends the purchase of the material you have to sell. The American people at thi- time w >nt to stop buying, whether for long or short it is not for me to say. That is all the penning bill does. Mr. President, the Senat r from Tennessee [Mr. Harris], some days ago, in hie ver-- able speech, saw fit to reproduce an utterance of mine on this floor last Februar y. I have no complaint to make. Wehll stand alike npon our records; and it is not a matter of the highest consequence whether a man is consistent with himself, but it is of i-upreme consequence whether he is consistent with the oubnc good. Sii, I may as well 8 y here now that if by act inconsistent with my entire political lie, if it be still an act of honor, 1 would redeem this country from its present perils without a moment’s be itatipn. As individuals, of what consequence are we? u e are here for a day| and gone tomorrow, fleeting through time on our way rapidly f.om one world to another. What matters much the record that we make, so we make it for the safety and welfare of the countiy? The Senator from J ennessee produced here an utterance of mine whioh I shall pay a little attention to, now that I am on the floor. In an allusion to t e bill which had be< n offered by the Senatot from Ohio [Mr. Sherman] to repeal the Sherman act, and speaking on some other subject at the time, without full consideration, I said, on the 17th of last February: “I should have voted tha other day to take up what is known as the Sherman act, and for its repeal, but for the fact that its passage would absolutely demontize silver and lea- e it supported by not one word of 'egislation.'’ The bill the Senator from Ohio had introduced, an I to which I alluded, is not the bill pending. It had in it a elm so discriminating tn favpr of a certain kind of money. In other words, to read it, it contained the followipg proviso: “Provided, That thi s act shall in no way affect, or impair, or change the legal qua!. ities, redemption, or use of the Treasury qotes issued under said act.* 1 thought, as did the Senator from lowa [Mr. Allison], that the insertion of such a clause as that gave rise to an inference that other kinds of money not mentioned might be injuriously affected by the passage ol the aot, and I took the alarm in behalf of silver. I was alarmed for fear it went further and was metpit to demonetize silver, ut lam satisfied now that I was mistaken. It would not haye demonetizes silver, but ut the same time it is well for that'kind of language tobpoutof the bill, ana it is not in the bill which I present here. There is no suggestion in the bill before the Senate of thejdemonetization of any class of our mon y as there muht have possibly arisen from the bill introduced by the Se ator f.om Ohiolast February, it wap on that state of the case I said what I did. Mr, Harris. Will the Senator from Indiana allow me? Mr. Voorhees. Certainly. Mr, Harris. There can be nothin; more painful to me than any issue between the Senator from Indiana and yself, but I want to ask him here and now if th< passage of House bill No. 1, or the Senate committee’s substitute for it, does not remove from und r silver bullion the last statutory recognition of silver bullion as money iuctal? Of course it leaves t e

silver already coined untouched, unimpaired, but does.it not effectually destroy any hope, any prospect of the further coinage of silver as money? Mr. Voorhees. In the language of the Senator)! rom Tennessee, I[answer hereland now that the bill does only what I have said. It does not demonetize a doll .r of silver money. You can not demonetize a ra v, uncoined material any more than you can demonetize tobacco or cotton. It tops buving bullion. That if* what it does, and all it does. It does not demonetize bullion; bullion is not money and is not subject to demonetization. Examine the phraseology of your dictionaries and you will find a thing has to be money be* fore it can be demonetized. You might as well talk to me about demonetizing or a paii of mules or a yoke of oxen because they have|value as about demonetizing bullion because it may be turned into money? Mr. Harris. I wish to ask the Senator from Indiana another question. If you pass the pending bill can you utilize silver in any way to increase the volume of money in this country? Mr. Butler. In other words, if the Senator from Indiana will permit me to supplement the inquiry of the Senator from Tern essee, does not the passage of the pending bill absolutely stop the coinage of silver? Mr. Voorhees. No wI do not want more questions put than are necessary. I huve one man on my hands over yonder.— [Laughier. I But I will answer. The Senator from South Carolina does know, because he ought to know, that there is*a coinage power left in the Sherman aot after the bending bill repeals the purchasing clause. The power is there. Mr. Morgan rose.

Mr. Voorhees. £o, I can not talk longI want to get through as quickly as I can. I could, of course, extend my re.i arks all the afternoon, but I am not in a condition of health this morning to run into a colloquial debate. But I repe t, that after repealing the purchasing clause of the Sherman aet the power of coinage continues in what remains of the act The anthorit. remains to coin silver for the payment of the Treasury notes. Mi. Butler. May I inquire one step further, if the coinage provision of the act, whioh tie Senator from Indiana says is left, is not restricted to the bullion on hand? Mr. Voorhees. Whether it is or not, it is there to coin silver money. It seems to take three or four Senators to collaborate the question I was asked to answer by the Senator from Tennessee, whether there was any power to coin money out of silver after this bill passes: and I say “yes."— Now, again, on the subject of the demonetization of silver Mr. Harris. The broad answer “yea" tempts me to ask the Senator—while I grant that the third section of the Sherman aot authorizes, and not only authorizes, but, in my opinion, requires the Secretary of the Treasury to coin so much silver so purchased as may be necessary to redeem the Treasury notes issued to pey for it—when the silver now deposited in the vaults of the Treasury is oined, if the pending bill passes, can there ever another dollar of silver be coined in this country without additional statutory authority to coin it? Mr. Voorhees. I will answer there is enough silver bullion on hand now to occupy the Government, as I have been inform d, for the next seven or eight years in coining it, and power to do it under the Sherman act that will remain as part of the laws of the coudtry after the purchasing clause has been repealed. Now, Mr. Piesident, to.proceed: If I have accomplished my purpose it is simply to impress upon the public mind that the bill demonetizes silver is totally and absolutely unfounded. It is simply a bill to suspend the purchase of the raw material out of which silver money is made, and the raw material cannot be demonetized because it is not mcnev. But I went further [when I made the statement whioh the Senator from Tennessee produced here on the floor. I said I should vote for the repe >1 of the Sh rman act simply because it is vicious in principle, but it must be in connection with something better. Sir, can there be anything worse? The Senator from Colorado said that the bill now before the Senate was accompanied by a very remarkable manifesto. Sir, he forgets, or perhaps know, that this world has been instructed, enlightened, moved forward, an I humanity educated by declaratory purposes far more than by laws. I expect when the Declaration of Independence, that mighty instrument of declaration for future legislative action was framed and promulgated, there were tho e who cried out “what a monstrous and remarkable manifesto that is; it does not amount to anything." I have heard Senators around me sneer at the bill before us because it contained a declaration of future purpose. The world, I repeat, has been educated, mankind has been enlightened, free government established in that way more thnn all other ways put together. The Declaration of Independence came from a voluntary association of men. It was not a law. It simply declared the purposes to be achieved by laws in the future and from t hat day to this the Declaration of Americanjlndependeuce has been, as it were, the halo, the nimbus, the light in whioh the Constitution has been interpreted. John Marshall, who more than eveiybody else put together by his interpretations of that mighty instrument made the Constitution as it is to-day, sought his inspiration, the light to guide his mighty mind in the declaratory purposes of the Declaration of 4 m erican Independence. I intend, sir, to vindicate this humble declaration that found its wav into the pending measure through my own instrumentality. Toe great declarations of the world stand out boldly in history, but none of them ever received such a sanction as this will r ceive when it has passed this body, passed the other House, and received the sanction of the executive department. Is a declaration of future purpose made by both branches of Congress and by thp executive department to be sneered at? Where has it its peer? Where has a declaration such a sanction as this Will have when it • at passed Congress and beep approved by (he Executive, as it will be. Wfay, sir, the Bil] of Rightgof 1688 was but a declaration of future purposes in behalf of liberty and the afety of property. The petition of right, drawn by Sir Edwin Coke in 1688, was another one of tho'e declarations of future purpose that the Senator from Colorado I presume will mock and deride. Sir, what was even Ma na Charts, e v cept an emanation from an|ae°emblage of men declaring what they would do in the future,'and the sanction given by the barony at Kunnymede coercing King John to approve what they had done never has had in history the solemn, orderly, high sanction which this declaration in favor of the coinage of silver and gold ss money on terms of equality will have when it has passed tbe Ameriean Congress and been approved by the Chief ; Magistrate of the Republic. [Concluded [next week.]