OCR Text |
Show j THE FREE COINAGE BILL. - The bill for the free coinage of silver ; was defeated in the House yesterday by ' ',: a vote of 126 to 161. The result will be ; : deplored by the silver men of the coun- ; try and especially by the people of the ; Bilver-producing States and Territories. ' It however was not, or should not have ; f been, unexpected by any person who has : ; watched the progress of events since the i ( convening of Congress. At the coin- j menccraent of the session the gold bugs : ; were highly elated and the friends f : of bi-inetalism correspondingly depressed. ; The former claimed sufficent strength - to repeal the Bland bill, while the latter, doubtless alarmed at the unexpected position assumed by the Administration upon the question, confined their endeavors endeav-ors to the retention of tha present law, : not dreaming of the possibility of more ; - ; i favorable legislation. For this reason I" f much valuable time was lost, and mem bers who would doubtless have voted in favor of free coinage committed themselves them-selves to the compromise of non-legisla tion upon the subject. A few weeks, however, demonstrated the fact that the President could not carry any considerable portion of his party witli him in his opposition to what has ever been one of the cardinal principles of Democracy, and antagonism to which constituted gross violation of the financial plank in the Democratic National Platform of 1884. It soon became evident that there was no danger of any unfriendly legislation, and then the ardent advocates of silver assumed the aggressive by urging the passage of the bill which was defeated yesterday. But it was too late. Too much strength had been frittered away through groundless ground-less fears, and the result was as might have been foretold. Had they known I their strength at the start, instead of acting act-ing on the defensive they would have pursued the opposite course and yester-i yester-i day's result would, in all probability, I have been reversed. Thpr hnnp. however, that the experience of the pres-,' pres-,' ent session will prove beneficial at the i next, and that the defeated bill, or a sim ilar measure, will then become a law of the land. The President has latterly i" evinced less active opposition to the sil ver interest, and it is not at all improbable : that in the course of another year he will . ; have withdrawn it altogether. He cau f hardly do otherwise. He sees the futility of attempting to turn his party from its course in the past, and he will be likely to yield to the inevitable, so far at least as to interpose no executive influence or power against the evident policy of the Democracy, as manifested by its representatives in Congress during the present session. It will be wise in him to do this, for he can never reconcile his - past position to the platform upon which . he was elected, the financial plank in j ;, which reads as follows : We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the Constitution, and a circulating medium convertible into such j r money without Joss. This is the only allusion in the platform to the currency question, and if it has any significance it means that there should be no discrimination between the coinage of gold and silver. Indeed, if any distinction is made it should be in favor of the latter, which is not only converted con-verted into money "without loss," but its coinage yields a handsome revenue to the Government, while the former is minted at nearly a corresponding loss. Tljs-AvW I ' ministration ofMr. ClevelanJTiKis been a- " -"model one with but this single exception. Let him have the courage to take the back track upon this proposition, continuing contin-uing in other respects in his present course, and no power on earth can defeat his election for a second time. 1 |