The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-07
The Grimm Convention.


What viii the convention OF silverites
that is called TO meet al Griffin on July
IS amount 20? Is there any question that
% will settle? II not, what is the purpose
Of it, We have not yet seen il stated any
where what il is that those who have
the convention movement in charge ex-
pect 10 accomplish.
The convention will meet. hear a few
speeches and adopt resolutions in
favor Of the free, unlimited and indie
pendent coinage Of silver at the ratio Of
l6 to !. But everybody knows that those
who will be al the convention are in IA
vor of free silver coinage. and therefore,
they don't accomplish anything in par
ticular by meeting and passing resolu-
tions to that effect.
If they were chosen as the representa-
tives of the Democratic party or the Re-
publican party their action would mean
something. 1t would amount to commit
ting the party they represented to free
silver coinage, but the delegates to the
Griffin convention will represent nobody,
except the few people who appointed
them. We say few people," because the
mass meetings at which the delegates are
being chosen appear to be rather insignif-
cant affairs in respect to numbers. and
they are made up Of populists, repubH-
cans and democrats. In our dispatches
yesterday it was stated that after much
advertising and drumming there were only
forty-seven persons present at the sill
verite mass meeting in Atlanta on Fri
day night. That certainly was not a re-
markable showing in a county that has
a population OF more than sO.OOO Either
the silverites in Fulton county feel no in
terest in the Griffin convention or there
are only a few silverites in that county
Probably the number of silverites is
small since Hon. Joseph Patterson made
his sound money speech there Thursday
night.
At the mass meetings in the other coun-
ties in which delegates have been chosen
there have been very few present, if the
reports we have seen are correct. We no.
tiee. for instance, that Col. Boyce Flick
lin of Washington. Ga, in a letter to
the Atlanta Journal. relative to the meet
ing in Wilkes county. says: Il do not know
how the democracy of Wilkes county
stand on the money question. as there are
over 700 democratic voters in the county
and only forty expressed themselves in
the aforesaid meeting. as there we're only
forty present It does look little cheeky
for forty men to say we. the democrats
Of Wilkes
1t is quite safe to say that not one dem
ocrat in fifty in any of the counties at
tends the mass meetings to Sc
lect delegates to the Griffin con-
vention. Hence. so far as the
Democratic party is concerned. the
action Of the Griffin convention will have
no meaning whatever.
We should not be at all surprised if the
populists should claim the convention as
being representative of their party. They
would be justified in doing So Their ma
tional platform contains a plank declar-
ing for free silver coinage at the ratio of
1G to l, and the purpose of the Griffin con-
vention, as we understand it, is to make
a similar declaration in respect to silver.
No doubt the populists regard the conven-
ton with much satisfaction. Probably
they Will be there in force They may be
in the majority; but what difference does
it make to them whether they are or not,
if the convention puts the stamp of APP
proval upon the silver plank of their
platform? If they do not claim that all
who attend the convention. outside their
own number, are accessions to their party
we shall be very much mistaken.