The Gold Standard Bills: Speech of Hon. George Turner, of Washington, in the Senate of the United States, Wednesday, February 7, 1900 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Gold Standard Bills: Speech of Hon. Geor...)
Excerpt from The Gold Standard Bills: Speech of Hon. George Turner, of Washington, in the Senate of the United States, Wednesday, February 7, 1900
And United States notes, and Treasury notes issued under the act of Jul 14, 1890, when presented to the Treasury for redemption, shall be redes in gold coin of such standard.
When this paper money has thus gotten into the Treasury, sec tion 2 of the Senate substitute makes it the duty of the Secretary to use it in the following manner: First, to exchange it for any gold coin in the general fund of the Treasury; secondly, to ex change it for any gold which individuals may offer at the Treas ury for that purpose, and third, to purchase gold with it in the Open market at such rate of discount as may then prevail in the market. Now, since individuals may. Under both measures pre sent their gold at the Treasury and obtain gold certificates for it, it is certain they would not part with their gold for a less satis factory form of paper money. The only way, then, which this act leaves by which we may get the pa er money in circulation again is to go into the open market an purchase gold with it. This would immediately place gold at a premium, and no Administra tion would either wish to do that or would dare to do it if it had the inclination.
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George Turner was an American lawyer an politician.
Background
George Turner was born on February 25, 1850 in Edina, Mo. He was the son of Granville Davenport and Maria (Taylor) Turner. His father, a cabinet maker, was of English and Dutch ancestry; his mother, of Scotch-Irish. They had moved from Kentucky to Missouri in 1825.
Education
George Turner attended the common schools and served as a military telegraph operator with the Union Army from 1861 to 1865. After the war, he studied law in the office of a brother in Mobile.
Career
He was admitted to the bar in 1870. President Grant in 1876 appointed him United States marshal for the middle and southern districts of Alabama, and he served until 1880. During this period he was the acknowledged Republican leader of the state.
He was chairman of the Alabama delegation at the Republican National Convention of 1880, and held his Negroes in line for Grant through the six days' battle between the Grant and Blaine forces.
In 1885 President Arthur appointed him associate justice of the supreme court of Washington Territory. Resigning in 1888, he entered upon the practice of law in Spokane.
He was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1889 and chairman of its judiciary committee.
Working with scanty capital in the panic years of the nineties, Turner and some Spokane friends developed the Le Roi mine, at Rossland, B. C. It became a rich producer and was sold to a British syndicate for $4, 000, 000. Turner's sagacity and his skill in bending insurgent stockholders to his purpose were largely responsible for this success.
He was president of the Le Roi and, later, of the Constitution mine and the Sullivan group, near Cranbrook, B. C. With profits from the Le Roi, he joined Frank Graves of Spokane in the purchase of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. They paid $50, 000 for the paper in September 1897 and some two years later sold it for $350, 000 to Senator John L. Wilson backed by James J. Hill. This paper was the principal Republican organ of the state; Turner made no effort to change its policy while he was an owner, and it continued to attack his acts as United States senator.
Turner was elected to the Senate on a fusion ticket of Silver Republicans, Democrats, and Populists, and served from March 4, 1897, to March 3, 1903. At the expiration of his term, the legislature was under Republican control, and there was no possibility of his reelection.
He had won high regard as a constitutional lawyer, and on the day following his retirement President Theodore Roosevelt notified him of his appointment, with Secretary of War Elihu Root and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, as a member of the Alaska Boundary Tribunal.
In 1910 President Taft appointed him as counsel for the United States in the Northeastern fisheries dispute with Great Britain, which was arbitrated at The Hague. President Taft also appointed Turner to the International Joint Boundary Commission, on which he served in 1913 and 1914, resigning because of the demand for his legal services in Spokane.
From 1918 to 1924, however, by President Wilson's appointment, he acted as counsel for the United States before this commission.
He died on January 26, 1932 at his home in Spokane.
(Excerpt from The Gold Standard Bills: Speech of Hon. Geor...)
Politics
He is credited with the authorship of the bill of rights, regarded by jurists as exceedingly comprehensive. The Puget Sound tidelands were coveted by railway interests, and his successful campaign in the convention to save them for the state created an opposition to him which repeatedly prevented his election to public office later.
Personality
His rise to eminence in the face of educational disadvantages was due to an orderly mind, phenomenal memory, and untiring will.
Connections
On June 4, 1878, he married Bertha C. Dreher, daughter of George and Catherine Dreher of Montgomery, Ala.