Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — The Silver Bill. [ARTICLE]

The Silver Bill.

President Hayes, unlike all hit predecessors, .declines receiving presents. Th? public burden wee lightened $14,107,016 daring the month of , March. The Rhode Inland ntato election was held on the 4th instant and resulted, as usual, in a victory for the republicans. The republicans of Chioago re-elected Mayor Heath by an overwhelming majority at the recent city election, and routed the democracy in nearly every ward. Bravo! At the expiration of Lord Duffer in’s term as Governor-General of Canada, which occurs in August, it is understood that he will suoceed Sir Edward Thornton as British Minuter to the United States. The Rensselaer Union is a model paper, and its editor a model man, or we are no good j udge.— Valparaiso Vxdette. Everybody who lived in Judge Talcott’s common pleas district knows that the editor of the Vulette is an excellent jadge. A grand soldiers’ reuuion of the old tenth district of Indiana will be held at Warsaw on Wednesday and Thursday, June 6th and 7th. Sherman, Logan,. Morton, Ingersoll, and other prominent' gentlemen are expected to be present. Arrangements are being made for *< general good time.

Readers of Thb Union are aware that a law was recently passed by the legislature, and is now in full force, requiring that) the doors of aH churches, school houses, theatres and public halls be changed so as to swing ont instead of in, and that on failure to comply therewith within sixty days the penalty is SI,OOO. Let church organisations, sc bool officers and proprietors of theatre buildings and publio halls take notice and govern themselves accordingly. - *- .. ■ -*?*■". The Louisiana Commission is composed of the following gentlemen; Hon. Charles; B. Lawrence, of Illiuois, exGovernor Brown of Tennessee, General Hawley of Connecticut, General Harlan of Kentucky, and Hon Wayne McVeigh of Pennsylvania. They are all geu'tlemen of national reputation, and unquestioned honor and integrity, and possess the perfect confidence of the masses of the people. Whatever measures they recommend in the settlement of the disputed question in that state the people at large will consider to be for the best interests of the state as well as the nation, and eagerly acquiesce in any action that will effect a speedy, and peaceable solution of the vexed problem. Let us calmly await proceedings.

One of President Jackson’s first acts after he was inaugurated was to remove nearly seven hundred officeholders, and fill their vacancies with his own political friends. Of course this raised a storm about his ears »ud reproaches resounded on every hand, but he bad an iron will and was inflexible. He pleaded in justification the precedent of President Jefferson, and was reelected at the expiration of his term by a satisfactory majority. President Hayes pursues a different policy. He announced before his election in his letter accepting the nomination of his party that he would not be a candidate for re-election. Upon entering upon the duties of the executive office he was beset by applicants for official appointments whose number reach thousands. He meets them with all the suavity of a polished gentleman and says that he has decided to make bat few removals, and that his appointments will be based upon character, moral standing, mental and educational qualifications rather than party considerations. What will be the result? President Jackson left the impress of his strong will upon the nation aud upon his party which has lasted through £be lives of two generations—how long will president Hayes’ influence be felt ? Jackson’s was the policy of a rough, self-willed mao dealing with a hardy, adventuresome people; Hayes’ is that of a cultivated gentleman who has been exalted to role over a keep, educated and impulsive generation,

\ Though the president, in calling «n extra session of oongress to gin on the 4th of Jane, bed in view only the necessity for providing appropriations for the support of the array, there is no law or regulation which forbids legislation on any aubjeot, and petitions have been Signed in all parts of the country asking that congress shall inolnde in their action at tha called session the passage of the Silver bill. We think the whole country will second the appeal es the petition, and we know of no legislation on the part of congress which would meet with »uch cordial general approval. It is not a sectional qnestion, but a national one; not a party question, bat one in which the whole people are directly and deeply interested. The silver mines of the United States have suspended their productions because the government refuses to let the owners have it coiued for them by the mint. In the matter of gold, the mints are free; every man having any gold in the shape of bars, or plate, or foreign coin, can deliver it at the mint and receive therefor a like value in gold coin. Before the act demonetizing silver, any person could deliver any amount of silver, in any form, at the mint, and could have the same coined into legal tender silver dollars. But the act of 1863 forbade the further coinage of such dollars. The smaller silver coins are coined only for the government, and the mint will refuse to coin them for any person. They are .only coined from silver purchased *by the government, which, when reproduced in the form of coin, affords a large profit to the government. There is no valid and no reasonable pretext why the coinage of a silver dollar should beprobibited, especially in a country where silver is one of th# largest products. Silver coinage exists in all countries. Iu Germany the silver thaler remains a legal-tender, and is in great popular favor, though silver has been prospectively demonetized. There may be some room for controversy as to the relative benefits and advantages of having an exclusive gbjd standard or a silver and gold standard of values; but silver is the current coin of the great mass of mankind, and the prohibition of its coiuage is peculiar to the United States. It has only been within the Just eighteen months, and then only on the pretext of replacing the fractional currency, that congress could be induced to direct the coiuage of the fractional dollars. What the country asks is that congress shall, in a bill of few words, provide and direct;

1. That a silver doll a* of specified weight and firmness, other than the so-called trade-dollar, be coined; that this silver dollar shall be a le-gal-tender generally for all debts contracted after the date of the act, or for all debts to the amount of $100; and that any person deliverilg silver at the mints may have the same coined into snch silver dollars to the value of the metal deposited by him. 2. That the coinage of the smaller silver aoius be continued until the whole amount shall reach SIOO,000,000. This bill, with which the public mind has long been familiar, and whioh meets the approval of the people of the whole country, is especially free of all danger and of all disturbing tendencies. Its direct effort will be lo advance the value of silver, to overcome the present small depreciation in the paper currency, and to give the country a permanent metallic currency incapable of d epreciatlon. France, with both silver and gold a legal-tender, has not suffered from the f all in the price of silver valued in gold, and, having silver ooin in abundance, was able to retire almost instantly all her small paper currency and maintain the larger at or near par. The passage of each a bill wonld have a most encouraging and reviving effect on the business of the country. The addition of $100,000,000 ot silver to the currency—the dollar coins being legal-tender-would be an expansiou and an inflation in one sense, but of a most healthful and invigorating character. It wonld be an inflation to the extent that it would induce investment in productive enterprises, giving employment to labor and pntting idle machinery in operation. It would encourage speculation, —that is, the speculation which is the mainspring ot all trade. All commerce is speculative; men buy, taking the chances to sell again at a profit. Tbe silver coin, having a value as money at home frpqfcejr

than ft can oommand abroad in any form, will abide with os. It would be plentiful, yet always intrinsioally of the value of tb# metal. The general demonetisation of silver is an impossibility; it is needed for the world’s uses, and, so long as trade exists between men and nations, so long will silver maintain generally its relative value with gold. The inflation, therefore, will be a natural and a healthy action; it will be ay activity resulting from the presenoe of more than ordinary ourrency, that oorrenoy, however, having.a substantial and not a credit value. It will be an inflation and an expansion, not of credit alone, but of currency, wkioh is actual and real money, and of the credit which is incidental to the possession of increased means. An inflation of irredeemable and depreciated paper, and an inflation caused by the introduction and presence of large sums of coin, are very different matters. One is an increase of substances, the otber of credit without Bubstances. This whole subject has been thoroughly discussed in congress and in the country, and no measure could more fitly crown the successful pacification and reconciliation accomplished by the president th an the passage of the Silver bill. Chicago Tribune.