Show t MONTANA fUSION STRlKfS A SNAG A Senatorship the Price of Silver Republicans J 1 DEMOCRATS DECLINE EXPENSIVE LUXURY J Will Now Proceed to Nominate a Straight Ticket i 1 Were Willing to Concede the Congressional Con-gressional Nomination to the Silver Sil-ver Republicans But the Latter Would Take Nothing Less Than a SenatorshipMichigan Republicans i Republi-cans Renominate Pingree and Declare De-clare For Alger and Gold Anaconda Mont Sept 2lThe Democratic Populist and silver Republican Repub-lican state conventions met at noon today In each the chief Issue is fusion or no fusion Only two judges and clerk of the supreme court and one congressman are tobe nominated but the coming session of the legislature will elect a United States senator tO succeed Lee Mantle and the strife for this office complicates the situation State Senator Edwin Norris of Dillon was temporary chairman of the Democratic Demo-cratic convention and A J Campbell of Butte was made permanent chairman chair-man Senator Mantle of Butte was temporary tem-porary chairman of the silver Republicans Repub-licans He made an hours speech in defense of the existence of the silver Republican party A J Seligman of Helena was chosen permanent chairman chair-man In the Populist convention Secretary of State Hogan of Anaconda was tem porao and later permanent chairman Each of the three conventions appointed the usual committees and in addition a conference committee on fusion All three then recessed until 8 oclock this evening NO HOPE OF FUSION The conference committees were unable un-able to agree and apparently all hope I Of fusion has gone The proposition of the Democrats was first that the two retiring judges of the supreme court be renominated One of them Chief Justice Pemberton was elected sL years ago by a fusion of Democrats and Populists and is generally regarded re-garded as a Democrat The other Associate As-sociate Justice PIgott is a straightout Democrat The Democrats further proposed pro-posed that the nomination for clerk of the supreme court should go tO the Populists that the siHrer Republicans take the congressman meaning their nomination of the present congressman congress-man Charles S Hartman and lastly that the Populist and silver Republican conventions pass a resolution agreeIng to the ejection of a Democrat for United States senator by the legislature legisla-ture This last proposItion met with immediate dissent When the Democratic convention met tonight its conference commIttee reported re-ported that it had mad the fore going proposal and that it had been rejected The report was promptly accepted ac-cepted and the committee discharged The convention adjourned to tomorrow morning when it is proposed to nominate nomI-nate a straight ticket Without waiting to hear the report of its fusion committee the silver Republican I Repub-lican convention met tonight and adjourned ad-journed to tomorrow in the hope of inducing the Democrats to recede from their position regarding the senator ship The silver Republicans are willing will-ing to accept all the terms but that The Populist convention is still debating de-bating the subject DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM The Democratic platform adopted tonight t to-night endorses the Chicago platform I declares emphatically for free coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1 loyally accepts the leadership of William J Bryan congratulates the country on the results re-sults of the war with Spain arraigns the war department for crimInal In competency and inefficiency opposes any alliance with any European power condemns the unnecessary issue of In terestbearing bonds by the government govern-ment under pretense of war necessities and calls for an honest administration by the mIneral land commissIoners The platform says nothing about territorial ter-ritorial expansion |