Huntsville gazette., 1892-02-13
CLEVELAND AND "REFORM."
The Stuffed Prophet Has Large and
Difficult Hill to Climb.

Difficult Hill to Climb.
The latest demonstration on behalf
of Mr. Cleveland was made at the an
nual dinner of the New York Reform
club. 1t will be remem bered that an
attempt was made at similar ban
quet by the Massachusetts, Reform club
to getup a little boom for the Columbian
party, but the mem bers would not have
it. They were devoted to Mr.. Cleve-
land, and wanted him to have behind
hIm party with some chance of sue
cess, and not a handful of political
neophites The New York Reform
club had before it no proposition of a
Quixotic character. On the contrary,
the speaking was all done by regular
democratic politicians, the lion of the
occasion being the eloquent Senator
Villas. 1t must have been treat to
the banqueters to hear such superb and
enthusing eloquence. He is an ora
tor of whom the west, without re-
gard to party. is proud But it may
well be doubted if his discretion bears
any comparison with his oratory. He
awoke the echoes with his praise of
Cleveland, without mentioning his
name, which was all well enough, but
the way he went for the silver dollar
was certainly impolitic. Not content
with declaring that tariff reform and
free silver are not twin brothers, he
sneered at the standard dollar as ''73
cents OF silver" That sentiment
would take in New York city.
where the demonetization act of 1878
had its origin, and whence has come
the most virulent hostility to genuine
bimetallism ever since the issue was
raised; but the American people are
not in sympathy with that species Of
plutocracy. They recognize the fact
that 412]9 grains of silver, properly
coined, are dollar. The coin may
not be the fifth Of a pound sterling,
but it is dollar. Nor do the people
despair of being able to bring the gold
and silver dollars into perfect oneness
of value. They have kept them upon
precisely the same plane of purchasing
power, and, as a matter of fact. they
have substantially the same intrinsic
value; at least there is no intrinsic
not be worth as much as the gold dol
lar. The depreciation of silver is due
to the manipulation of the market for
Indian exchange by the bank of Eng
land Senator Villas would have done
well to have suppressed lis ''73 cents
of silver" sneer.
Mr. Springer profted somewhat by
the criticisms provoked by his sth of
January speech in New York. He let
the silver ques ton severely alone. 1t
was outside the jurisdiction of the ways
and means committee. of which he is
chairman. and he has probably been
made to feel that he had better attend
to his own knitting, leaving Mr.. Bland
alone. He did not discuss either what
Gov. Hill termed ''piebald" tariff re-
form. He dealt in vague generalities,
prove on the reciprocity clause of the
Mckinley bill. If he can let him do it,
it will be time enough to judge of his
improvement when it has been definite
ly proposed. His nearest approach to
defniteness was the Endorsement. of free
trade with Canada and Mexico.
The only other speaker of note was
Mr.. Breckinridge. who protested
against any issue being raised except
the tariff. Evidently the friends of
Cleveland will stake all on that plan
Of campaign. If they cannot win on
that they cannot win at all. 1t may be
a somewhat dangerous experiment,
viewed in the light of what may occur
at the national convention. 1t looks
now as if free silver would be one
Of planks adopted But from the
standpoint of New York state it is a
good play to make, apparently. Hill
has the machine, and is strongly anti
Cleveland, but New York is strongly
anti-silver. and will he dare, or can he
swing the delegation against Cleveland
if by SO doing he helps the free
silverites? Events are shaping them
selves in a way to render the situation
a critical one for the new senator the
seat stealer whose ambition it is to be
the young Napoleon" of the national
mocracy.-Chicago Inter Ocean.