Message--His Recommendations
Regarding the Coinage of Silver and Tariff Revisions--Bill Authorizing
the Purchase of $4,500,000 Worth of Silver Bullion Each Month--
Senator Plumb's "Free Silver" Amendment to the House Bill--Substitute
Finally Agreed Upon in Conference--Since Known as the "Sherman
Silver Law"--How It Came to Be so Called--Chief Merit of the Law--
Steady Decline of Silver After the Passage of the Act--Bill Against
Trusts and Combinations--Amendments in Committee--The Bill as Passed
--Evils of Unlawful Combinations--Death of Representative Wm. D.
Kelley and Ex-Member S. S. Cox--Sketch of the Latter--My Views
Regarding Immigration and Alien Contract Labor--McKinley Tariff
Law--What a Tariff Is--Death of George H. Pendleton--Republican
Success in Ohio--Second Session of the 51st Congress--Failure of
Senator Stewart's "Free Coinage Bill."

The first session of the 51st Congress convened on the 2nd of
December, 1889, both branches being Republican. President Harrison,
in his message, reported a very favorable condition of the national
finances. The aggregate receipts from all sources, for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1889, were $387,050,058. The total expenditures,
including the sinking fund for that year, were $329,579,929. The
excess of receipts over expenditures was $57,470,129. The estimated
surplus for the current year was $43,678,883. This would justify,
and the President recommended, a reduction of taxation to that
amount. He called attention to the reduction of the circulation
of national banks amounting to $114,109,729, and the large increase
of gold and silver coin in circulation and of the issues of gold
and silver certificates. The law then in force required the purchase
of two million dollars worth of silver bullion each month, to be
coined into silver dollars of 4121/2 grains of standard silver nine-
tenths fine. When this law was enacted, on the 28th of February,
1878, the price of silver in the market was $1.20 per ounce. Since
that time to the date of his message the price had fallen to 70.6
cents an ounce. He expressed a fear of a further reduction of the
value of silver, and that it would cause a difference in the value
of the gold and silver dollars in commercial transactions. He
called the attention of Congress to these three subjects of national
importance--the reduction of taxation, the circulation of the
national banks, and the further issue of silver coin and silver
ce