The Indianapolis journal., 1894-08-16
THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION.


idan had captured Five Forks and crushed
the confederate left the enemy. several
miles to the left OF the scene of the dis
aster confronting the Second Corps. which
did not then know OF Sheridan's victory
set up cheer after cheer and carried on
brisk fire. His design was to prevent the
Second Corps from going TO Sheridan in
the hope of causing a delay in which he
might reform his lines for another battle
The device succeeded in holding back the
Second Corps for time, but it did not
enable Lee to gather and reform his broken
brgades. Yes 4erday the Joshua Jumps with
their gaugers. the Martin Van Buren Spen-
GERS with their clerks and the scores of
postmasters and the yet hungry but hope
ful remnant. assembled in State convention
and repeated the device of the confeder-
ates southwest of Petersburg. They
shouted and fired their old smooth bores
in the hope that their racket would check
the Republican advance and bring back
into line their disheartened rank and fle
which is nov in full retreat The trick will
fail il failed Lee.
The speech Of Governor Matthews was a
disappointment to many men who have
been his friends when his own party lieu
tenants stood aIoof. They did not expect a
Republican speech but they did expect
something different from the malignant, ep-
tibet and vituperation which characterized
every reference TO Republicans and the Re-
| publican party Governor Matthews knows
that month ago he received the prompt
and cordial support of all Republicans.
while men of his own official household
were stabbing him in the back, and his
party organs were condemning him, and
prominent men in his party caused it TO be
understood that they were not in sympathy
with him. If that speech is the keynote. the
campaign on the Democratic side will be
one of rancor and epithet, of demagogy and
slander. If Governor Matthews believes that
the Republican press shouted in triumph
last year when disaster overlook financial
Institutions. he is a hopelessy ignorant man
regarding current events. He should know
that the Republican press sustained the re-
peal of the sherman act. If weIl-informed
man, unless he is reckless on the stump,
| the Governor would not assert that silver
| formed considerable part of the national
money when both parties, in 1873. dropped
| the coinage of silver legal-tender dollars.
| For twelve yc RS neither gold nor silver
had been in circulation. and gold was the
| only metal used in foreign exchange during
a score of years before the war. He knows
| that the silver dollar in his boyhood days.
| and until its coinage and specie payments
were resumed, kept a curiosity, and
| that more silver dollars were coined in two
months in 1879 than during the administra-
| tons of Jackson, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce
| and Buchanan.
The platform is the patchwork of hard
| pushed politicians The tariff bill which
Mr.. Cleveland said means party perfidy
| and party dishonor," and which the Senti-
| mel and every Democratic paper in Indiana
| has denounced as "a defiled BILL" is pro-
4 SuDSldHlldl IHedSuIe VI Ie-
form" The declaration regarding silver is
| so evenly balanced that George William
| Cooper. in the Fifth district. can claim that
| it means the passage of BANDS free-coin-
| age bill, and Mr.. Bynum, in this district,
| and the Sentinel can maintain that it
| stands for bimetallism based upon interna-
| tional agreement and sustained by equal in
trinsic values of the metal in both gold and
| silver money. The ardent resolution re-
| garding pensions will not blind the eyes of
| veterans to the fact that three-fifths of
| the Democrats in both Senate and House
are hostile TO the present system of pen
| sions. and that if the convention had been
| in earnest it would have denouncel the in
! suits to pensioners contained in Mr.. Cleve-
| lands last message and demanded that
/ the spies which the Pension Bureau has
sent to seek pretexts to erase the names of
| pensioners from the roll, be called off, Hav-
| ing indorsed a system which all free-trad-
| ers who are intelligent and honest admit
| will reduce the standard of wages, and de-
clared for that free trade, the mere threat
| of which has caused two millions of men
| to be without employment, the recital of
the few Insignificant things the Democratic
| party claims to have done in Indiana for
employees will be regarded by de-
luded men as bitter mockery. The Jour
| nal is thankful however. that if the con-
| vention could not fully indorse Governor
| Matthewss course i'm regard TO the Debs
insurrection, it did not pat that once active
Democrat on the back and did declare for
the enforcement of the laws and the MAIN
| tenance of public order. That is a gain.
| MIR. CLEVELAND'S OPPORTUNITY.
The tariff bill reached the President yes
terday, and its fate rests with him