Show TIIEIII IDEAS V THEI IEAS V WIE APART House Members Discuss the Administration Bill For Six Hours A VERY KNOTTY QUESTION SILVER DEMOCRATS AXD popuLISTS popu-LISTS OPPOSE IT Hale Favors a Substitute oil the I Lines V of the Carlisle Bill Reed V Charges the Present Trouble to the Deficiency in ii vennc und Introduces a Measure He Seems to I Think Will Cure All the Present Ills Pa crson Favors Gold Bonds I Washington Feb 5The House met at 1 oclock today I Several bills were passed by unanimous unani-mous consent including one to pension II pen-sion the widow of the late Commodore Frank Avery at the rate of 20 a I I month I In accordance with the terms of the special order adopted yesterday the House resolved itself into a committee of the whole to consider the bill to authorize the secretary of the treasury to issue bonds to maintain a sufficient gold reserve and to redeem and retire United States notes and for other purposes pur-poses I I Springer as a Patriot V Mr Springer opened the debate with a long statement concerning the condition condi-tion of the treasury He produced figures fig-ures to show that there would be an estimated surplus of 26000000 in the revenues at the end of the present calendar cal-endar year but a deficiency at the end of the fiscal June 20 of 526000030 The deficiency was now 34000000 but this would be reduced 1400000 the coming five months On June 3 1896 he said there would be in the treasury 85000000 surplus revenues This surplus sur-plus had been derived from the sale of bonds I I While Springer was discussing the dwindling gold reserve and the enormous enor-mous outstanding gold obligations of the government he was interrupted by Mr Simpson of Kansas who asked if the secretary of the treasury was I compelled to redeem legal tender in gold coin I He replied he was so compelled by I the precedents of former secretaries I I or in bad faith repudiate the established j i establish-ed policy of the government In con elusion he appealed to the members to lay aside party preferences as patri ots stop the drain of gold and save the countrys credit Mr Cox of Tennessee in opposition to the bill followed Springer Cleveland Criticized I Mr Cox made a vigorous argument in favor of the substitute he should t offer which was based on the princi pIe of the Carlisle bill the issue of circulation I cir-culation by banks on deposit of legal tenders contending that this would take the greenbacks out of the way without increasing the interestbear ing debt in the country and without throwing the country upon an absolute gold basis Mr Hall Democrat of Missouri 111 followed in the same strain in support of the substitute He deprecated the further washing of dirty linen on the floor of the House Mr Swinton Democrat of Pennsylvania vania 11 bitterly criticized the administration adminis-tration The present trouble was due I to two causes deficiency of revenue and the gold drain on the treasury Congress passed the bill for coining The president had vetoed the seignorage toed the bill Let the responsibility be placed where i belongs Mr Reed the leader of the mmonity then took the floor He was given close attention This bill he began might exhibit the science of statesmanship states-manship but it did not exhibit the art thereof In order to accomplish anything any-thing it was necessary that the bill 1 should pass both houses and be signed by the president What was wanted practical measure that would was a practcal remedy U the evil that had produced this I crisis in our national affairs In my judgment he continued i the president when he became convinced I con-vinced that an effort was being made 1to drain the treasury of its gold bad I of maintain I announced his purpose hie the reserve at 100000000 the limit set by Conrad Jordan a Democratic treasurer and had followed that announcement I an-nouncement with vigorous measures there would have been no difficulty If the party in power had provided sufficient revenue there would have been no trouble To Find it Remedy To find a remedy i was necessary to I know the condition There were 196 V 000000 outstanding paper obligations subject to redemption For a country coun-try like this that was an insignificant suma sum not worth talking about 1 i when the question of the governments I ability to pay and pay it promptly was abity i raised Therefore something must have been done to create distrust The first and main thing that was done was the passage of a financial measure i meas-ure which had already resulted in a deficiency of 107000000 and which from present Indications would create a further deficiency permanent or temporary The treasury was divided Into two sharp divisions I was engaged en-gaged in banking and it was engaged In business The business end of the concern was running astern as he had pointed out Now the conductors of the treasury had allowed the business V end to interfere with the banking department de-partment Discarding the wisdom of those who have insisted in discarding the revenues and borrowing money to meet the deficiency in that department depart-ment it has taken from the banking department funds to supply the deft clencyfjn the business department There was set in operation the endless chain by which we were furnishing gold for the rest of the world The president had appealed not only to his party associates but to the opposition for aid As a party man he ought to be not melancholy over the prospect but as a citizen he stood ready to as t < V VVVV V V b V < A < V sist his country in the present crisis 11 Reed warned the House however that there could be no currency legislation legis-lation at the dictation of any other manthe president Mr Springer the speaker or any other man it must be had by the consensus of opinion of I all There can be no legislation he I added on the eve of an expiring Congress We well know said he 1th3t if this bill passes the House it will go no further But it does seem to me that a practical measure could be presented Cause of the Trouble Continuing as a preliminary before V in offering his own suggestion and order to prevent the accusation of partisanship he quoted from Horace White to show that the real cause of the present trouble lay inthedeficiency of the revenues V if the revenues equalled the expenditures whenever a greenback was redeemed It would taY in the treasury I was the fact of the necessity of its reissuarice to meet current cur-rent obligations that caused the trouble trou-ble He fortified his statement with the figures adduced by him some days agoAfter all the showing made under the disadvantages under which the treasury was laboring was done as a remedy for the present condition of affairs it was to separate the banking department from the business department depart-ment of the government The first step was to make the government revenues equal its expenses V But said Mr Reed to raise revenues would be confession and confession might mean suicide He said that those in control of public affairs would have command of the revenue question for the next two years The secretary of the treasury i had just reported to the Senate that he would have a surplus of l22000000 The secretary had given tIe list dollar of this surplus omitting however the cents as otherwise some question might have been raised as to the accuracy curacy of this surplus Now if the secretary had any surplus one thing to do was to use it and instead of i longtime gold bonds issue certificates to be redeemable at any time I Mr Reed said he would send to the desk the plan he had formulated I might be changed or modified He was not insisting on having i considered as a substitute or in any other particular icular relative to the pending bill butt but-t avoided the question of putting a gold bond against the coin bond it avoided other complications compromised compro-mised by the original measure Reels Plan Section 1 I of Mr Reeds bill author lzes the secretary of the treasury to issue 3 per cent bonds payable after five years similar to the bonds issued under the resumption act I is substantially similar to Mr Shermans bill introduced in the Senate Section 2 embodies the new phase introduced in-troduced by Mr Reed and is as follows fol-lows lowsThat That to enable the secretary of the treasury to pay the current expenses of the government so long as the cur rent revenues shall be deficient he is authorized and required from time to time In his discretion to issue sell and dispose of at not less than par such an amount of certificates of indebtedness in-debtedness of the denomination of 25 S50 and 100 olpnny multiple thereof as may be needed for that purpose bearing not to exceed 3per cent interest in-terest per annum payable semiannually semian-nually and redeemable at the pleasure of the government in coin after two years from their date with like quali ties privileges and exemptions provided pro-vided in the act approved January 1 1875 The secretary may at his discre ton sell and dispose of the same for not less than an equal amount of lawful law-ful money of the United States and at designated depositories of the United States and at such postoffices as he may select and the secretary shall use the proceeds thereof for the purpose provided for in this section and for none other Mr Walker Republican of Massachusetts Massa-chusetts also opposed the measure He was very sarcastic at times The government I gov-ernment had already been forced to issue is-sue 100000000 of bonds which were I denominated Grovers Shortly 100 000000 more Grovers and the next step would be the issue of 500000000 Grovers Mr Simpson Populist of Kansas paid in the beginning of his speech that he could add no hilarity to this funeral occasion He inquired whether the moral obligations to which Mr Springer had referred as binding the secretary to redeem obligations gations in gold and declared that it was an evil inheritance from the Republican Re-publican rule He characterized the new bill as a complete surrender of the Democratic party to the banking interest in-terest Mr Pence Populist of Colorado marvelled that such a measure as the pending bill should emanate from a Democratic committee at the dictation of a Democratic president and he expressed ex-pressed for himself and his party a willingness to cooperate for the passage pas-sage of some relief measure Mr McKeighan Populist of Nebraska Ne-braska followed in the same line creating cre-ating some amusement by calling Mr Springer the artful dodger of the situation sit-uation The committee then rose and the House at 415 p m adjourned until tomorrow at 1 oclock |