You will note that 41 cents is one-half of a cent more than we understand the market, the present price of silver, to be per ounce. He does not tell me how much profit the Government made, so I put these figures down and added them up: $29,660 plus $1,500, plus $99.36, makes $31,259.36. That he explains, that is the whole cost; $100,000 would have to be paid for 200,000 of these coins by the banks, leaving a net profit to the United States Government of $68,740.64 to offset a little inconvenience to the Treasury Department and the lack of its getting any direct credit for making this money as profit for the Government. The profit on 500,000 coins would be $171,851.50 to the Government.

I think that this may be useful in considering this and similar bills.

I then took up with Mr. John Stewart Bryan, or rather Hon. S. O. Bland took the matter up with John Stewart Bryan. I felt that I could finance this matter in the State of Ohio, being from that State, or that I could do it through the National City Bank of New York, the president of which comes from my district, but this is a matter in which the people of Virginia are greatly interested, and rightly so, and if there is anything which they can do to aid the project and show their very great enthusiasm in it, I felt it right for them to do and consequently Mr. John Stewart Bryan, an eminent man and publisher of the News Leader in Richmond, was com municated with, and he communicated with the banks there, and I have his letter, in which he says:

Hon. S. O. BLAND,

Washington, D. C.

THE NEWS LEADER, Richmond, Va., March 27, 1930.

MY DEAR MR. BLAND: I have seen the bankers of Richmond, and they will very gladly undertake forming a committee for the purpose of placing the five hundred thousand 50-cent coins which you request. It would be their idea to get in touch with the banks of the thirteen original States and then the banks over the country at large for the purpose of placing with each of them a certain quota of the coins. It is their opinion that there will be no question of distributing a large part and probably all the coins.

I am looking forward to seeing Mr. Fitzgerald next week, and am sorry you will not be able to come.

That is signed by John Stewart Bryan.

(The first letter referred to from Secretary Mellon is here printed in full as follows:)

Hon. Roy C. FITZGERALD,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
Washington, March 5, 1930.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN FITZGERALD: I have your letter of March 3, addressed to the Director of the Mint, relative to a proposed commemorative 50-cent piece for the Yorktown Sesquicentennial Commission.

The cost of manufacturing 50-cent pieces is approximately $9 per 1,000 pieces. In the case of special coins, it has been the custom for the organization bringing about the legislation to procure designs and submit them to this department for approval. The department has not undertaken to suggest artists for the preparation of models for such coins.

The cost of executing such models has ranged from $1,000 to $3,000. This cost is borne by the association interested.

Upon receipt of designs which have been approved by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Mint prepares the dies from such models. The cost of manufacturing the dies is $300, and this cost would also be borne by the Yorktown Sesquicentennial Commission.

The coins would be delivered at face value by the mint to the chairman or secretary of the Yorktown Sesquicentennial Commission.

May I submit the following statement as manifesting the attitude of this department toward the issue of special coins?

Since 1920, 15 acts of Congress have been passed authorizing the issue of special coins. By the authorization of the issue of these 15 commemorative coins within 10 years, Congress has permitted a new design for the half dollar at an average of one every eight months.

Section 3510 of the Revised Statutes provides that “* * * no change in the design or die of any coin shall be made oftener than once in 25 years from and including the first adoption of the design, model, die, or hub for the same coin * * *" The department considers that this enactment of Congress adopted after due deliberation, enunciates a wise general public policy.

Upon practically every occasion when the department has been invited to express an opinion upon special coin issues, it has recommended disapproval of the passage of the bills. Upon a vigorous appeal before the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, when the bill was pending for the issue of the Bennington coin, the committee agreed to cooperate with the department in discouraging the issue of special coins. The committee went on record at that time

in its report in the following terms:

"The committee desires at this time to go on record as not favoring legislation of this class because of the great number of bills introduced to commemorate events of local and not national interest, and because such quantities of the coins so authorized have had to be taken back by the Government, melted and reminted."

Aside from the very dangerous and objectionable policy of diverting coinage from its original use in trade, we are imposing upon the mints and, therefore, upon the Government, an unnecessary and wasteful practice. We are required to invest money in metal for unnecessary coinage, and we are entirely defeating the original idea that coinage should be on Government account only. We are imposing an unnecessary burden on the manufacturing plants charged with the preparation of coinage needed in business and we are diverting the activities of the mints, intended to supply the needs of all of the people, in order to meet the demands of a few of the people. The department, is now endeavoring to meet the coinage requirements of the country with the same number of mints that we had 30 years ago. This can only be done by avoiding every superfluous undertaking and confining the work of the mints to the legitimate-demands of the enorInous business of the country for regular coinage.

For your confidential information I am appending a table which indicates the number of special coins authorized, coined, and then returned to the mints to be destroyed:

2 It is understood that large numbers of Stone Mountain coins are on hand, unsold, at the banks.

I have gone into this subject at some length in the hope that you will consent to assist us by intercepting the passage of further legislation of this character. Respectfully,

A. W. MELLON, Secretary of the Treasury.

Mr. FITZGERALD. Now there is to be gathered from the statistics in this first letter the idea that the mint is put to a disadvantage in having many thousands of these coins which have been afterwards. returned to the mint for recoinage. There would be some little expense, of course, in melting them up. It can not be a great expense because the alloy and all is fixed and the silver in the coins is of that standard which we call coin silver, but I believe we can avoid in this case the issue of any number of coins beyond that which will actually be marketed.

This celebration differs somewhat from some of the others like the Bennington and Plymouth where local interest has probably overshadowed the general interest, but on this occasion I believe from the indications which have come to me from the organizations of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Sons of the American Revolution and other patriotic organizations throughout the United States, that this celebration will be nation-wide, that pageants of the surrender will be organized in many schools and that there will be a great advantage in the marketing of these coins over what there would be in a matter which although historical in importance to the United States is often given but scant attention outside of the locality. So I believe we could be very safe in saying that irrespective of the guarantee of the banks to take this full coinage that there will be at least $200,000 worth of these sold at a great profit to the Government and the commission will also be aided so as creditably to carry out this work. Of course in this case there is no private profit to be made, as I presume there never has been in any others, but this is a little different in that the body which asks this from your committee is a body created by Congress and proceeding in its official duty as it sees the way and any money that will be realized from the sale of these coins would further the purpose of the celebration which Congress has already provided for, and which I believe will have a national if not an international appeal.

Some question was raised by the Postmaster General as to the care that should be taken not to offend a foreign nation in the issue of a postage stamp. Before the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday one or two wondered whether or not it would be the proper thingor a tactful move, to invite Great Britain to participate because this has been designated the surrender of Cornwallis rather than the birth of American liberty, or some more euphonious expression, but we find by the records of 1881 that Great Britain not only participated but made some very happy expressions of the interest of Englishmen and Britons in the event. One facetiously said after looking over the place at Yorktown, that he was surprised that Cornwallis had held on as long as he did; he could not conceive of anybody desiring to hold the place at all. But the happiest expression of all was that the millions of Englishmen, the millions of English-speaking people in Great Britain, regarded the surrender of Cornwallis and the success of the American cause as the success of the principles of the Magna Charta and the establishment more firmly for the English speaking race of those principles of liberty and freedom from oppression, the oppresssion of government which appeals strongly to the hearts of all English speaking people, and consequently they feel that the great growth and power of the British Empire was based upon a failure of a mis

guided King and a misguided minister, Lord North, in the treatment of the English speaking people on the American Continent.

So the matter probably will be left as the resolution was phrased in the Senate, to the discretion of the President as to whom to invite, to include the Germans because of the great service of Baron de Steuben, possibly Poles, although Pulaski was killed at Savannah and was not present at Yorktown; possibly the Dutch, because they loaned money to the Americans, and possibly the Spanish, because at that very critical time when Washington and Rochambeau were in doubt as to where they would strike the blow, if they were able to strike at all, and it lay betweeen New York, where General Clinton had his headquarters, Yorktown, and Cornwallis who had finished his campaign in Virginia and was attempting to hold the South and encamped at this very exposed place, and De Grasse in the West Indies without express authority from his home government, undertook to participate in an operation and found that it would be most likely to be successful if it came from the Cheaspeake, then it was the support and cooperation of the Spaniards in the West Indies, that enabled Admiral de Grasse to bring to Yorktown a great body of French troops, the seige cannon which made possible the reduction rapidly of defenses in and around Yorktown. One of the few occasions on which the French had been successful over the British on the sea was the defeat on September 5, 1781, a great fleet of British under Admiral Graves at the mouth of the Chesapeake. This made possible the investment of the forces of Cornwallis and the surrounding of the British on the south bank of the York River where Yorktown is situated and Gloucester on the north bank opposite. It is deplorable that De Grasse has never been given the appreciation which he merits. Our late Ambassador Herrick, in speaking at the home of the De Grasse family at Tilly in France a few years ago spoke of the great debt of gratitude which the American people owed to De Grasse and how he has been ignored and overlooked, although we have realized and paid great tribute to the splendid service of such men as Lafayette and Rochambeau, and I speak of that because at this moment there is a movement sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution and other patriotic American people to repair this neglect. That was one of the reasons why originally I had a provision in this bill to erect some memorial to De Grasse, but it ought to be an independent enterprise and ought to be done here in Washington, and then the design of this coin has not been settled upon. I am seeking by some research through the records of the Library of Congress to develop whether or not there may be obtained profile likenesses of Washington, Lafayette, Benjamin, Lincoln, and Steuben, who commanded the American forces, and then of Rochambeau and De Grasse, who commanded the French forces. This with the idea that with a series of overlapping profiles we might get a coin which would appeal very greatly to those having a love for the early history of the United States; also to the French people who would realize that here would be three Frenchmen who had rendered great service to the establishment of the Government of the United States and to whom the American people were really grateful.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now hear Mr. Bland.

STATEMENT OF HON. SCHUYLER O. BLAND, A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA

Mr. BLAND. I think, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, that Mr. Fitzgerald has thoroughly covered this case. I simply want to call attention to the fact that the personnel of the United States Yorktown Sesquicentennial Commission, to which he has referred, consisted of Senator Swanson, of Virginia; Senator Reed, of Pennsylvania; Senator Edge, of New Jersey, who, having been sent abroad, was substituted by Senator Townsend, of Delaware; Senator Bingham, of Connecticut; and Senator Wagner, of New York. The House members were Representative Frothingham, of Massachusetts, who, having died, Representative Stobbs, of Massachusetts, was named; Representative Bacon, of New York; Representative Fitzgerald, of Ohio; Representative Byrnes, of Tennessee; and Representative Crisp, of Georgia.

I call attention to the report which was filed, and particularly to the language of that report recommending "That in commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Revolutionary War by the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va., there shall be coined by the Director of the Mint 500,000 silver 50-cent pieces," as proposed in the bill which has been submitted, and while Yorktown is in my district I am simply supporting this resolution as secretary of the commission and because it is just another step in the accomplishment of that celebration which we think should be commemorated, or rather the event should be commemorated, in a dignified and proper way.

The CHAIRMAN. Could we, for the purposes of the committee, obtain a copy of the report you have just mentioned?

Mr. BLAND. I will hand you this report. I am sorry that I have not other copies of it.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will stand adjourned to meet on call of the chairman, when we will have a meeting of the full committee for the consideration of these bills.

(The committee thereupon adjourned to meet on call of the chairman.)