People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — DROPPED THE FIGHT. [ARTICLE]

DROPPED THE FIGHT.

Silver Senators Will No Longer Obstruct Legislation. They Decide to Permit the BUI for U«conditional Repeal to Be Brought to a Vote—Story of the Memorable Struggle. THE BATTLE IB OVER. Washington, Oct. 26 —At 12:3o p. m. Tuesday Senator Harris (dem., Tenn.), acting for the silver democrats, informed the silver republicans that the democrats, after taking all the circumstances into consideration, had decided that their best course was to drop the fight against the repeal bill and allow it to come to a vote. If this decision is not reconsidered—and it does not seem at all probable that it will be —the end of the present fight will soon be reached, and the result will be in accordance with the wishes of the president and the repeal forces in the senate. During the afternoon Senators Voorhees, Harris, Aldrich and Dubois, representing the two factions in each party, authorized the statement that the vote will be taken on unconditional repeal at the earliest possible moment. This is understood to mean as soon as the silver republican senators have concluded their speeches. Following is a full text of the Voorhees bill, which will be substituted in the senate for the house bill:

“That so much of the act approved July 14, 1890, entitled ‘An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and issue of treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes,’ as directs the secretary of the treasury to purchase from time to time silver bullion in the aggregate amount of 4,500.000 ounces, or as much thereof as may be offered in each month at the market price thereof, not exceeding U for 371.25 grains of pure silver, and to issue in payment for such purchase treasury notes of the United States, be and the same is hereby repealed “And it is hereby declared to be tHe policy of the United States to continue the use of both gold and silver as standard money, and to coin both gold and silver into money of equal intrinsic exchangeable value, such equality to be secured through international agreement er by such safeguards of legislation as will insure the maintenance of parity in value of the coins of the two metals and the equal power of every dollar at all times in the markets and in;the payment of debts. And it is hereby further declared that the efforts of the government should be steadily directed to the establishment of such a safe system of bimetallism as will maintain at all times the equal power of every dollar coined or issued by the United States in the markets and in the payments of debts.” .

There are twenty-seven amendments to the bill. When the voting begins the first question will be on one of the many amendments. The main amendment is that of Senator Vest, for free silver at a ratio of 16 to 1. It was introduced by Senator Vest as embodying the views of the silver minority of the committee on finance. There are also amendments by Senators Faulkner, Peffer. Call, Vance, Blackburn, and, indeed, by almost every man on the democratic side. Some of the senators have two or three amendments pending. Tnese amendments embody every phase of s : lver and antisilver legislation. If a yea and nay vote is insisted upon on each of these amendments much time will be consumed in disposing of them. There is every probability, however, that a test vote on one of the amendments will satisfy the silver men, and that after that the amendments will be rapidly disposed of, one after another, by a viva voce vote. Then the question will recur on the Voorhees bill. This will be passed by a vote of 48 to 37, if the silver democrats go on record as opposed to the administration measure. If, however, their surrender goes to the extent of voting for the bill it will carry by an overwhelming majority. President Cleveland is much gratified at the outcome of the prolonged fight. To one of his cabinet ministers the president said it was a great relief to him to feel that the senate was about to do its plain duty. The result, Mr. Cleveland said, was no surprise to him. The surrender of Tuesday came on the seventy-sixth day of the struggle. The Voorhees bill was not reported to the senate until August 30, so that the main debate on this bill covers only fifty-five days. But the senate was discussing the silver question long before the Voorhees bill was reported. Indeed, the speeches began in the senate while the Wilson measure was pending in the house. The first reference to silver in the senate was on August 9, when Senator Lodge introduced a resolution to vote for unconditional repeal. This excited a lively debate which was kept up from time to time for a week. Then the senators began delivering set speeches, although the Voorhees bill had not yet been reported. The actual beginning of the struggle, therefore, dates back to the day of the Lodge resolution, on August 8, and the intervening time is exactly seventy-six days. * Not only in time consumed, but in stirring incidents, the contest has been memorable. On September 2 Senator Voorhees made his first demand for a vote, and ever since that time he has been trying to get a vote. On October 11 Senator Voorhees attempted to keep the senate in session night and day until a vote was reached. This text of physical endurance lasted throughout Wednesday night, Thursday night and until 1:45 o’clock Friday morning. October 18, covering a period of forty hours. Altogether the contest has been the most memorable in the congressional history of the last decade.