The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-03
Of Our Daddies That Fills Wall
Street With Alarm.
The Tariff Is Almost Univer-
sally Ignored.
Farmers, Business Men and La
bOrers Debating Free Silver.

printed under startling headlines, as
follows:
FREE SILVER IN THIS STATE.
''Plain Facts About the Restlessness Of
the Rural Counties and Their Drift
Toward Tillmanism Told BY
the Herald.
"CAN BE IGNORED NO MORE.
Sentiment Forming Rapidly and Moth
ing Being Done to Check It
By Republicans.
WORK OF THE SILVER LEAGUES.
Sound Money Democratic Conventions
Overwhelmed Without Any
Concert of Action.
TARIFF IS M'KINLEY'S HOPE.
Some OF His Supporters Not Aware
OF the Danger; Others Think
1t Exaggerated"
OF course the Herald is not a silver
paper. but it refuses to stifle the truth,
and among it's collection of word pic
lures today appears the folliwing:
"POrtentous and menacing. a political
specter has risen in the rural counties
of this state. threatening to overshadow
parties and conditions and obliterate
partisan lines from the Pennsylvania
boundary to the st. Lawrence and
from Lake Erie to the Hudson. The
farmers are worshiping the silver calf.
In many of the counties there is no
actual organization Of the friends of
free silver. An organization and
active free silver campaign would make
many of the stronger Republican coun-
ties in the state doubtful in Novem-
Der"
Continuing, the Herald says that
even without an organization the free
silver farmers knocked the sound mon
ey men off their feet IN many places in
the state in the recent Democratic pri-
naries, and proceeds to enumerate 10
ca1ities where this has been done,
prominent among them being such
counties as Lewis and Genesee. The
latter is the home of Bob Maxwell
leader of the Cleveland Democracy in
western New York.
ON A TEST VOTE
The silver men knocked out the
friends of Roswell P. Flower in the
Second assembly district of Jefferson
county, and would have carried both
districts had they been organized.
Silver is likely to control both party
organizations in st. Lawrence county,
and the free silver Democrats in OnOn-
daga and Monroe counties were in con-
troll at the Saratoga convention. Sum
ming up the whole situation, the Her
aid says that the reports of its cores
pondents show that it is the Republi-
cans rather than the Democrats who
should be alarmed The situation is
like a mountain forest in August, ready
for the match. The Republican leaders
are in ignorance of the actual state of
affairs-it has come about in three or
four weeks. The county Democratic
leaders. having become acquainted with
it in their caucuses, are secretly anx-
ious for the free silver to triumph in
Chicago. They think they can shift the
tariff issue and carry the farmers al
most sOIidly for free silver.
From St. Lawrence county the Her
AIDS correspondent telegraphs that that
rockribbed Gibraltar of Republicanism
is one enormous debating society, and
the only subject debated is free silver;
the tariff has been forgotten. The writ
er portrays the deplorable condition of
the farmers of that section OF the state,
and says that tremendous fall in the
prices Of farm products has made the
scarcity Of money in the rural districts
almost grOtesque. Cheese sells for
from to 61z cents a pound; butter has
been down as low as 10 cents; potatoes
must be fed to the stock
When the Wilson bill was enacted
and Canadian hay began to come
| across the line and undersen the New
York product the farmers were in
Lately they have been told that even if
that be true the Republicans will be
powerless to give relief within a year
or two, and that in the meantime some
thing must be done.
That something they are beginning
to believe is free silver, and this belief
has, the writer says, become SO deep
seated that that section Of the state
has been converted to free silver Three
free silver leagues have been organized
in St.Lawrence county alone, and others
are being rapidly organized in various
counties of the state. Senator Malby.
of Ogdensburg, is quoted as admitting
that the free silver sentiment is unus-
ually strong.
From Watertown comes the word
that the spread of the free silver senti-
ment is astonishing and bids fair to
crystalize unless something is done to
counteract it. The editor of the Water
town Times, w. D. Mckinstry, former
ly one of the civil service commission
ers, went over the country and after
ward stated that what he had learned
| about free silver in that part of the
state astounded him. If the silver
| men only organized he thought the re-
| suit would be doubtful for the Repub-
| licans. The correspondent further said
1 that he discovered the farmers were no