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Show FRIENDS OF FREE SILVER ALARMED. Peculiar Phase in the Bill P?ed by the Senate Bland Not to be Trapped. Washington, July 5. House. The speaker laid lefore the house the senate free silver bill. He said it would be referred to the committee on coiuage, weights and measures under the rules. Bland of Missouri, Mis-souri, asked that the committee have leave to sit during the sessions of the house. Tracy of New York objected. He moved that the bill be referred to the committee on banking and currency. The vote resulted in no quorum and a call of the house was ordered. or-dered. One hundred and seventy-nine members mem-bers responded. Catching of Missouri offered of-fered a resolution that all leaves of absenc, except for sickness, be revoked. It was carried. car-ried. Another vote on Tracy's motion to refer re-fer the bill to the committee on batiks and banking, showed that no quorum was voting. vot-ing. A motion to adjourn was defeated and a call was ordered. The quorum having been secured after two calls, Tracy's motion was next in order. ERROR IN THE SILVER BILL. Washington, July 5. Representative Culberson of Texas expresses the opinion thas the senate made a fatal mistake in the passage of the free coinage bill; that it failed to preserve in the repeal of the act of '90, the legal tender quality of the coin notes, issued under the authority of the secretary of the treasury to redeem. The effect of the senate bill, he says, will be to demonetize more thon 80,000,000 in coin notes and postpone that redemption until congress authorizes au-thorizes it. The house will be compelled to amend the bill, thus the session may be prolonged. pro-longed. Tni? err wt mi i Washington, July 5. Everybody in the house this morning was discussing the prospects pros-pects of the silver bill. It is clear that Culberson, Cul-berson, chairman of the judiciary committee, commit-tee, has. discomfited his free silver friends by his statemant that the senate bill would destroy the legal tender character of the treasury notes issued u uler the terms of the act of 18'.K), which bill u repeals. The result Is that the declaration has been made to create a division amonn the free silver men. A number of them, including Bland himself, him-self, accept Culberson's opinion, and believe be-lieve the bill will have to be amended to cure the defect. Even so ultra an advocate as Pierce takes this view. He is very much put out that' Bland should have made the statement in advance of the consideration of the bill in the committee com-mittee as he thinks it will tend to strengthen the opposition. On the other hand, a large number, probably a majority of the democrats demo-crats and no considerable number of republicans, repub-licans, take issue with Chairman Culberson's view and hold that the bill does not in any way affect the legal tender character of the treasury note. There are many different methods of reasoning by which they arrive at this conclusion, but probably one of the simplest and clearest is stated by a distinguished democratic demo-cratic senator, who says congress can do nothing to impair the contract already existing; ex-isting; that as the notes show on their face, they are contracts pure and simple. A large number of republicans take the position that the act could not be made retractive, therefore no amendment is necessary. These opinions do not satisfy Bland, who evidently is under the suspicion that his political enemies are digging a pit for his feet, by facilitating the passage of the bill which the president might veto without committing himself upon the merits of the silver question. Democratic member of committee on rules, who takes issue with Bland, said as to this objection that the president would not veto the bill upon any such indirect ground as to the possible legal le-gal construction of its provisions, -tral.:wltti" his usual directness would stump it with his disapproval because it was a free coinage bill. The broaching of the pegal question has had the effect to cause some of the members to talk of referring that feature of the bill to the judiciary committee for examination and report. But it is probaDle this will come to nothing; that the coinage committee will be left to deal with the matter in its own fashion. Bland, the chairman, has called a special meeting of the committee for tomorrow tomor-row at 10 o'clock, and he will try to force the fighting. The anti-silver democrats will not wait to make the fight in the committee, to have it referred to various committees supposed sup-posed to be hostile to the measure. They have not been able yet to get any assurances ui nupiui 1 iium rejjuoucans ana are extremely ex-tremely anxious as to the outcome. With the aid of republicans in the refusal to vote a quorum could probably be broken and action ac-tion upon the bill be indefinitely postponed, but the republicans are maintaining an air of reserve and are not giving any comfort. The committee on'rules in the house did not meet this morning, but will try to get together tomorrow. Catching says so far a majority of the committee have not had any conference respecting the treatment of the silver bill and he is not prepared to say whether the committee will require petitions signed by a majority of the democrats before be-fore they will report a special order for its consideration. He says, and the remark may have some significance, that 'the status of the bill is materially different from that of the bill reported by the house coinage committee, in which case a petition was required. There is now pending before the rules committee a resolution introduced by Pierce setting apart a day (left in blank) in July when it sfiall be in order to move to suspend the rules of the house and pass the bill. The ordinary rules of suspension day which shut off rillibustering would apply in that case, but there is a further proviso that a majority vote instead two-thirds shall be sufficient to pass the bill. The resolution, of course, is intended to meet the case of the silver bill. The committee com-mittee also has before it Catcuing's resolution, resolu-tion, introduced on Saturday, making next Thursday suspension day in place of yesterday, yester-day, which was a holiday. This resolution was intended to secure a vote upon the tariff bills still pending on the calendar, but it may be that the committee will amalgamate the resolutions, although this will encounter the objection of republicans who intend to fillibuster against the tariff bills, but who have not as yet determined to do so against the silver bill. Meantime, conferences are in progress in the various parties of the house and the aspect of the caucus is subject to change every moment to the anti-silver democrats there has been no conference among them, but many say that in the absence of any programme ther shall vote against the bill so far as going on record, and will not assist in any obscruc-tive obscruc-tive m'ovement. The amendment of the bill by the house is not likely to be so serious in its effects upon the final passage of the measure as has been generally supposed if the present programme of the 6ilver men is carried out. They intend to pass the bill aud amendment, if the latter is found to be necessary, and send it back to the senate sen-ate with a request for a conference. By so doing they say they will avoid the danger dan-ger of having the bill smothered in the finance committee, which is constituted with a majority adverse to free silver coinage. The senate has rarely refused to accede to Riirh fi. re finest, and t.h nrpnmnlinn i that. there will be but one test vote upon the adoption of a motion to accede to the re-request re-request of the house, and, as a conference report, the bill would be so privileged as to be sure of speedy action. SENATE. Berry called up the Hiles resolution as to the two policies of potection and tariff for revenue only and the addressed senate. He declared that in part of the preamble it was contrary to the actual facts and evidently a desperate effort to prop a falling cause. j The president sent to the senate the nomi- j natiou of William Kopus (Oregon) for consul con-sul to Sydney, N. 8. W., and Earnest Timme of Wisconsin as fifth auditor of the treasury. |