000,000 in silver certificates
issued under existing laws. They are serving the purpose of money
usefully and without question. Our gold reserve, amounting to only a
little more than $100,000,000, is directly charged with the redemption
of $346,000,000 of United States notes. When it is proposed to inflate
our silver currency it is a time for strengthening our gold reserve
instead of depleting it. I can not conceive of a longer step toward
silver monometallism than we take when we spend our gold to buy silver
certificates for circulation, especially in view of the practical
difficulties surrounding the replenishment of our gold.

This leads me to earnestly present the desirability of granting to the
Secretary of the Treasury a better power than now exists to issue bonds
to protect our gold reserve when for any reason it should be necessary.
Our currency is in such a confused condition and our financial affairs
are apt to assume at any time so critical a position that it seems to me
such a course is dictated by ordinary prudence.

I am not insensible to the arguments in favor of coining the bullion
seigniorage now in the Treasury, and I believe it could be done safely
and with advantage if the Secretary of the Treasury had the power to
issue bonds at a low rate of interest under authority in substitution of
that now existing and better suited to the protection of the Treasury.

I hope a way will present itself in the near future for the adjustment
of our monetary affairs in such a comprehensive and conservative manner
as will accord to silver its proper place in our currency; but in the
meantime I am extremely solicitous that whatever action we take on this
subject may be such as to prevent loss and discouragement to our people
at home and the destruction of confidence in our financial management
abroad.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _August 7, 1894_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I herewith return without approval House bill No. 2637, entitled "An act
for the relief of Eugene Wells, late captain, Twelfth Infantry, and
second lieutenant, First Artillery, United States Army."

This bill authorizes the President to nominate and, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint the beneficiary therein
named a second lieutenant of artillery in the Army of the United States,
and it directs that when so appointed he shall be placed upon the
retired list on account of disability, thus di