People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — NO LOOKING BACKWARD. [ARTICLE]

NO LOOKING BACKWARD.

Congressman Bland Yet on Guard—He Is Still Foil of Fight. Washington dispatches state that all indications point to the fact that the free coinage fight will be renewed in the regular session of congress. The free coinage men hold that the repeal of the silver purchase law has not restored commercial prosperity, that the position of the silver me# in urging free coinage at the extra session has been vindicated and that now the democratic party in congress should devote itself to redeeming the remaining pledges of the last national convention on the subject of silver and financial legislation. With this object in view, Chairman Bland, of the committee on coinage, weights and measures, has prepared a bill, which he, as the leader of the free coinage men, will introduce early in the session. It is further declared by him to be his intention to afford no loop hole of escape for those congressmen who have talked for free coinage to their constituents at home, but voted against it on plausible pretexts, when the matter came up for consideration in the house. He holds that there is a clear majority for free coinage in the house, if the private declarations of the members to him during the extra session are to be relied upon,and purposes now to bring these gentlemen to the crucial test. Mr. Bland's bill is substantially a re-enactment-of the law of January 18, 1837. It is the belief of the silver men that this will command greater strength and afford less opportunity for evasion than any other measure which could possibly be presented. The act of 1837 was simple and brief. It provided for silver dollars of 412 X grains, and de-

elared that “the dollars, half dollars, quarter dollars, dimes and half dimes shall be legal tenders according to their nominal value for any sums whatever.” In regard to his position and the plans of the silver men, Mr. Bland said: “I do not see that the repeal of the Sherman law has changed the situation for the better—indeed it appears to have changed it for the worse. The truth is—and the people now thoroughly realize it —the silver purchase law has had nothing to do with the hard times. The hard times came on and they are with us and we have simply got to go through a process of liquidation before good times can come again, and that was necessary whether we repealed the Sherman law or not. This panic, like all other panics, finally reached a point where the people got afraid of the banks and afraid of each other, and there has got to be a general liquidation and blotting out and beginning anew. The repeal of the Sherman law will only tend to make liquidations harder for the debtor class of people, because it contracts the currency and leaves the business interests of the country without a sufficient volume of money to supply a growing population and development of industries. It was thought that European capital would be invested here more readily by the repeal of the silver purchase act than by letting it stand. But it seems that even in that they have been greatly disappointed. There seems to be now less confidence in Europe in our financial conditions than before. They are sending no money here and continue to draw away ours. If the gold basis which we have here now tends to contract currency, it is making the times harder everywhere. The contraction of the currency and a gold basis will tend to make a sharp demand for gold in Eujpp«» as well as here and will injure our producers by causing lower prices for everything we send to Europe. This also makes lower prices here, and hence since the passage of the repeal act, wheat and cotton have gone down in the market instead of going up. We expect to undertake to pass a free coinage bill before congress adjourns. What success we will have is very uncertain. My position now is that we should repeal all of the Sherman laws on silver and have the law of 1887 reenacted and thus put silver back to where it was before he put his hand on it. Since we have repealed one of his laws, let us repeal all of them. I think that a majority of the committee on coinage, weights and measures will favor such a bill as I have prepared. I think the late election will stimulate some of them to a belief in the wisdom of such a policy. The result of the late election does not look as though the people had much confidence that the repeal of the Sherman law would help them. My purpose is to introduce such a bill, have it promptly acted upon by the committee, as I have no doubt it will be, and have it reported back to the house.”