| Show THE DEMOCRACY AND SILVER When the ardent friends of silver endeavored to commit the Democratic party to the free coinage movement before the adjournment of Congress it I was evident that they had left the matter until it was too late to gain a full expression of the majority in either House of their views as to the movement It is not too late by any means to organize for the purpose in view The work of obtaining a statement state-ment of leading mens opinions was merely a preliminary effort which need I not affect the plan and purpose of its I promoters I But a near contemporary attempted ito i-to draw from the failure of the silver men to obtain the expression or views which they desired evidence that the I Democratic party is not in favor of i free silver and that the claim that it is may be set down as one of the Democratic Dem-ocratic false pretenses It Is true that the gentlemen who endeavored to obtain signatures to I their document did not succeed very well But the reason for that was plain to all people whose eyes are not I i full of Republican smoke and who do not wish to wilfully misrepresent facts I I As there was not time to make thorough thor-ough canvass of the Senate It was left I out entirely That contemporary with its usual peculiar logic jumps to the conclusion that this means a thorough canvass was made of the House and that as only thirtythree signers were obtained that was the number of the Democratic friends of free silver out of a possIble 217 The dishonesty of such a statement and the puerility of such reasoning I may be perceived clearly when the votes cast In the House on the question during the Congress now expired are Investigated It will be found that the I proportion of Democrats in favor of free silver was far greater than that of the Republicans The figures for I many years show that the majority of Democrats favored free silver while the majority of Republicans were against it These have been published and contrasted several times But the same paper which advanced the false reasoning and absurd conclusion which we have pointed out contains the address ad-dress of the Bimetallic League on the silver question in which appears the admission that while asserting that the Democratic party is under the control of the money power u undoubtedly undoubt-edly a large majority of the members of that party are opposed to the gold standard Against that declaration the same document has the following The Republican party is committed by its leaders by Its record and by the press behind it to the gold standard stand-ard supported by gold bonds and to the retirement of the greenbacks and the surrender of the issue and control of paper currency to the banks These statements coming from the organization established for the purpose pur-pose of forming a new party with the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 with gold as its object and platform are sufficient to stamp the assertions and deductions of our contemporary as foolish and untruthful un-truthful While we do not support the Bimetallic Bime-tallic League in its endeavor to create a new party because we < believe that would weaken the true silver party the Democratic organizationwe endorse en-dorse the statement that the large majority ma-jority of Democrats are free silver men and therefore we look to their party for silver salvation and resent the misrepresentations resorted to < by Republicans on that question The proper course for silver Democrats I Demo-crats to take is to cling together not be driven or drawn apart If a few I of them go over to the socalled Silver I party it will by so many weaken the I I efforts that will be made to commit the Democratic party to a silver campaign cam-paign That the majority of Democrats are silver men there can be reasonable doubt They can combine and present so strong and unyielding a front that there will be no more misleading or ambiguous party utterances on the money question but the silver issue will be made paramount and give the I party the victory in 1896 Let there be no surrender and noI I division And let there be no excuse for Republican sheets to cast a doubt on Democratic loyalty to the bimetallic doctrine which is an essential tenet of the Democratic creed n |
