The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-06-28
Projecting CANE ron s1LvER.

of the Denver Republican convention
said in his opening address. 1t is capa-
bic of a double Interpretation and was
doubtless so intended. The position of
the Republican party as to silver today
IS a straddle. To commit the party to
free silver coinage would damage it
materially in the east; to pronounce
against it would ALLEVIATE the west.
Therefore it poses as. the protector
of the white metal which may be inter-
preted in the east as that enlarged
use" which Ohio advocates. or in the
west by free coinage declared for by
California.
But on what ground and in what
way may.the people safely entrust sill
yer to the protecting care of the Re
publican party? Shall we judge of the
unknown future by what we know of
the past? That would seem to be both
fair and wise What sort of protecting
care does the Republican party show
for silver?
In 1873, being in full power of the
government, by trick it cast down
the white metal from its position as
money and made it no longer a stand
ard. 1t even took away the legal tender
quality of the silver dollar for amounts
over five dollars.
In 1878 it fought the Bland bill in
troduced in a Democratic House by
which silver was partly restored, a GER
tain amount being coined monthly and
the legal tender power of the dollar
being given to it again. But there
were enough Republicans to unite with
the Democrats in passing that measure
of relief, in spite Of the fight of the
party at large against it, and the veto
of the Republican President.
In 1890 the Sherman Act was passed,
wholly by the Republican party, for
the avowed purpose of preventing the
passage of free coinage bill, which
hit was known President Harrison would
veto. 1t was, as denounced by every
body, miserable makeshift'' and
damaged the silver cause materially
The coinage of silver dollars ceased
under its operations and the market
price of the metal rapidly descended,
until the mining interests in many
places were ruined
In 1898 the Republicans in Congress
in large majority of their members
united with the Democrats for the re-
peal of the purchase provision of the
Sherman law, and voted against free
coinage at any ratio.
There have been individual Republi-
cans like Senator Stewart of Nevada
who have advocated the free coinage
of silver, but they are few and far
between, and he has had to leave the
party because there was within its
folds no promise or probability of re-
turn to the silver policy prevailing be-
fore 1873.
How much dependence, then, can be
placed upon the protecting care of the
Republican party for the re-establish-
ment of the money of the people?"
The leading organs of the party today,
like the New York Tribune, the Pioneer
Press, the Chicago Tribune. the Buff
falo Commercial, The Utica, n. Y. Her.
aid and host of others, talk of 'tthe
crime of free silver and look upon
its advocates as robbers or lunatics,
and the Tomreeds and Cabotlodges
who are playing with the question, as
political jeremy-diddlers trying to fool
the unsophistlcated.
No, if the cause of silver coinage
Is to be befriended by either party it
is the old and ever living Democratic
party wherein that friendship will be
found. At any rate it is not in the
Republican party, which has been and
is today as a body the greatest foe sill
yer has had in America. The free COIN
age men in its ranks form a hopeless
minority, as Will doubtless be seen in
most of the conventions and assemblies
of the party throughout the United
States. Protecting care" to silver by
the Republican party, is that kind
which gold bugs have for the green
things they devour.
Since the foregoing was written the
resolutions adopted at the Denver con-
vention have come by wire. The silver.
clause, as we predicted, is straddle
The free coinage proposition was re-
jected. 1.-The enlarged use" deception
is to be the silver doctrine of the Re
publican party. and that sort of bogus