Show I WHY DEMOCRATS SHOULD ESPOUSE FREE SILVER It has been our opinion right along that the Democratic national convention conven-tion would declare for the free coinage coin-age of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 and nothing has happened or is likely to happen to change it Aside from the rightfulness of free silver it is the only policy left to the Democratic I party on which it can go before the country with any assurance of winning win-ning The Republican party has come out as the champion of the gold standard stand-ard and will be the recognized champion cham-pion of It even should the Chicago convention by any possibility declare for the same standard Moreover the overwhelming gold sentiment of the country is found In the Republican party and the overwhelming silver sentiment Is in the Democratic party If the people should come to the conclusion con-clusion that they want the gold standard stand-ard is it not reasonable to suppose that they would turn to the candidate of that party wherein the sentiment for that standard is very much the stronger It certainly is Outside of lire financial question there is not another an-other single great issue before the people j peo-ple this year Protection or tariff reform re-form is not an issue The Democratic party could not successfully charge the Republicans with favoring an excessively ex-cessively high tariff for in its platform plat-form it has very adroitly refrained from pledging Itself to any particular schedules which would allow it to say In answer to any specific charge made i against it that it favored a high or j prohibitive tiriff on any article or class of articles that It was not pledged to any rate or schedule in fact It j could not irs cornered on the tariff I The minor and unessential points of i disagreement between the two parties would not arouse any Interest on I either side The Democratic party I must take up the cause of free silver i if it would have an issue with which I it can go before the people Otherwise it might almost as well have no ticket I at all in the field this year I |