The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-04-15

cost. Such as fruit, ice-cream or single
cup of tea or coffee, and in fact any
thing required.
A few rooms are reserved for ladies in
town over a night, which at the low rate
of 80 cents per night, must appeal to
those who appreciate comfort and clean
illness, if once these rooms are seen.
Visitors to Troy are asked to visit and
inspect this new building as space will
not allow further description, and per-
sonal inspection is all that is needed to
convince the most skeptical that Troy
has an enterprise managed and con-
trolled by women who intend to enlarge
the work for good in every direction. A
visit before Easter will show many beau
tiful articles on sale in the Women's ex-
change at remarkably low figures. Also
specimens of new fancy work.
The board of managers number 40
ladies from different churches. The Off
GERS are well known to many people
outside of Troy. They are as follows:
President, Mrs. Charles E. Patterson:
Vice Presidents, Mrs. Henry B. Mason,
Mrs. VIM. A. Thompson, Mrs. George
B. Cluett, Mrs. Robert II. Mcclellan;
Treasurer, Mrs. Charles A. Mcleod;
Secretaries, Mrs. Charles A. Brown, Mrs.
Arthur VI OneIIyb WahOh' &uiSo IL o.
Crandall.
All letters of enquiry answered by Mrs.
c. A. Brown, Troy, n. Y.
THE PRECISE FORM OF STRADDLE.
One of the most difficult duties of the
Chicago Convention will be the devising
of some form of straddle upon the silver
question. The thing sought after will be
some utterance which will Simultaneous
ly appease the conservative business
sentiment of the East and the wild silver
fanatics of the West and South, which
can be interpreted by campaign orators
in one section as a pledge of 'honest
money" and by those in another section
as promise of free coinage of silver.
The Democratic party is an adept in the
art of straddling. 1t accomplished that
feat ON the tariff question in 1894, and
would have renewed it in 1888 if Mr..
Cleveland coull have had his way. In
view of the skill acquired by long prac-
tice, it is not surT rising that there
already has been concocted, so far in ad
vance of the Chicago Convention, form
of straddle which is pronounced by ex-
cellent Democratic judges to ce equal to
the emergency. 1t is the gifted dodgers
who framed the platform adopted by the
Minnesota Democrats the other day who
evolved the form of words which won the
cordial approval of papers as far apart in
their supposed convictions as the New
York Evening Post, standing for extreme
gold monometallism, and the st. Louis
Repubicd, representing free coinage
ideas. Here is the marterpiece, which
deserves study from tie probability that
it will at least furnish the pattern or the
Chicago straddle if it is not actually
adopted without change:
"We hold, in accordance with tradi-
tional policy of our party, to the use of
both gold and silver, and the sole func-
ton of the Government is to examine
the relative value of the metals of coin
age as established by the commercial
world, and if there has been a sufficient
fluetuation in the value of either to make
the existing ratio unequal, then to read
just the ratio so that the number of
grains of either metal in the unit of
coinage, the dollar, shall be equivalent
in value, and then to permit the free,
unrestricted coinage of both metals. We
join the Democracy of New Y Ork in de-
manding the repeal of the Sherman
Silver Coinage act. We condemn that
act as an attempt to distract the friends
of honest bimetallism, and denounce it
as calculated to debase our currency,
contract the circulating medium and
wreck the confidence and safety of the
business world"
The utility of this straddle is obvious.
In the West and South the words free
and unrestricted coinage of both
metals" would be emphasized as evil
dence that the Democratic party was in
full accord with the free coinage men,
and had, in fact, pledged itself to free
silver. In the East, it would be claimed
that the declaration was harmless. mas
much as it proposed that there should
always be dollars worth of silver in
the silver dollar, and that the ration was
to be changed with the changes in mark
ct value. The success of such plat
form would depend upon the credulity
of the American people. No one, prob
ably, even among those who are advocat-
ing this declaration, would pretend to
believe that it pointed to definite
policy which the Democratic party seri-
ously proposed to execute. 1t would be
an utter impossibility to shift the ratio
often enough, or to call in the currency
for recoinage With sufficient frequency
to keep pace with the market Quotations
of silver. Let anyone look back over
these fluctuations during the last two
years, with range of more than thirty
points in the quotations, and reflect up
on the number of readjustments of ratio
which would have been necessary if the
number of grains of the two metals were
to be kept equivalent in value in the gold
and silver dollars. There is no serious
ness in this Minnesota proposition. 1t
is put forward as trick. Such papers
as the New York Evening Post do not
hesitate to advocate it as trick. The
interesting question is whether the sim
cere advocates of free coinage on the one
hand and the true friends of honest
money on the other hand are so simple
minded as to be beguiled by it. By
adopting any such device the Democratic
party would bank heavily upon the
credulity of the American people.