Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1894 — CONGRESSMAN COOPER’S BILL. [ARTICLE]

CONGRESSMAN COOPER’S BILL.

Provisions of His Greenback Taxation Bill, Which Is Now a Law. The only financial legislation accomplished by this Congress, except the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman act and the passage of the~seigniorage bill, which received the presidential veto, is the bill to subject to State taxation national bank notes and United States Treasury notes, which passed the House with Senate amendments, which was introduced by Mr. Cooper, of Indiana. Attempts have been made in nearly every Congress since the war to subject these forms of money to taxation. The bill provides that circulating notes of national banking associations and United States legal tender notes and other notes and certificates of the United States payable on demand and circulating or intending to circulate as currency shall not be exempt from taxation under the laws of any State or Territory, provided that taxation is exercised at the same rate and in the same manner as upon other property or money. The three acts authorizing the issuance of greenbacks each put in circulation $150,000,000, but the total amount was afterward reduced to $346,000,000, a figure that has remained permanent, although much of the money had been lost or destroyed. Each issuing act declared the greenbacks exempt from taxation by State or municipal authority, as well as all other obligations of the United States, and under this law are the Sherman notes for .the purchase of bullion of $150,000,000, which were issued undpr the act of ■IB9O. There are, in round numbers, $500,000,000 of United States notes [exempt from taxation. Against the 'bill it was argued that it was an inIfringement updn the sovereignty of Ithe general Government to permit IState and municipal authorities to lax its monetary issues, but on the jpther hand, it was pointed out that 'the States were not permitted to (discriminate against any forms ol money and that these greenbacks should be placed on the same basis as gold and silver.