Show MR COCICRAXS ASSUMPTIONS A correspondent writes to the New York World as follows If a lawyer should go before the court of appeals and begin the argument argu-ment of his case by assuming the truth of the facts controverted by his adversary adver-sary the court would order him to sit down and read him a scathing lecture ion i-on the first principles of justice and honesty Mr Cockran is a lawyer When I I he went before the court of appeals j I in Madison Square Garden he assumed 1 at the beginning of his argument and I as its foundation a statement of facts absolutely denied by Mr Bryan Mr Bryan asserts that free coinage will give us a silver dollar that will be equal I I intrinsically to the gold dollar Mr Cockran did not attempt to show that this was not true He assumed that it was not true without offering proof and on that assumption based his whole argument The only question in controversy contro-versy is whether free coinage will or will not give us a 50cent dollar This correspondent has summed up the case exactly He charges Mr Cock ran with assuming the facts which are in dispute and the charge is true The same charge can be made against every ev-ery speaker and paper that favors the gold standard It was what Major McKinley Mc-Kinley did in his letter of acceptance I it was what General Harrison did in his Carnegie Music Hall speech it is the thing which the World itself does Of course Mr Cockran did not attempt at-tempt to show that free coinage of silver sil-ver would reduce the value of the silver dollar to fifty cents he had no data j upon which to base such an argument Moreover he was under no necessity I to do it for the audience he addressed came not to hear argument and to be convinced but to hear that which they believed praised He made no assumption assump-tion which they did not accept as prima facie true It is very doubtful if they would have listened to a logical discussion discus-sion of the currency question by him could he have given them one This correspondent sees the question as It is and so do the great mass of the American people When the gold men tell them that under free coinage the silver dollar will only be worth fifty cents they want the evidence to sustain the allegation The silver men when they say that free coinage will make the coinage price of silver I and Its commercial price the same can point to tle historical fact that it was I the same under free coinage This the gold men cannot do |