The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-22
THE SAD CASE OF SENATOR TELLER


THE A CASE OF SENATOR TELLER
Senator Teller opened his speaking cam
paign for Popocracy at Richmond Monday
night This campaign, which furnishes the
spectacle of thousands of men putting
country and patriotism above party in
their advocacy of sound money and the en-
forcement of law, presents no sadder case
or a good man gone wrong than that of
Senator Teller. For he has been a good
mana man Of strict integrity, high moral
character, upright life and unbienished
record. In politics he was for twenty years
a trusted Republican leader, and doubtless
would have continued to be had not the
necessities of his situation, his physical and
political environments, compelled him to go
off on the free-silver issue. If he had re-
manned in the State of his birth, New York,
or in the State of his early manhood, ILL.,
nois, he would doubtless still be a good
Republican and sound-money man. But be-
ing a citizen of and Senator from Colorado,
and personally interested in silver mines.
he has been coerced by circumstances into
becoming an advocate of the free and un-
limited coinage of silver at the obsolete
ratio of 16 to /. Excepting this heresy
Senator Teller is still a Republican. AT
heart he is as much in favor of protection
and reciprocity as Major Mckinley, as
much in favor of maintaining the Consti-
tuition and enforcing the laws as General
Harrison, and as much in favor of every
distinctive Republican principle except
sound money as any Republican in the
land vet tho raoace;+;a. 90 bic oz.it;o,
and the inexorable demands of the silver
miners conspiracy have led him to turn
his back on the associates and principles of
a lifetime and take the stump in favor
of free trade, opposition to the enforce
ment of law, State sovereignty, reputation
and anarchy. 1t is sad to see a man of
senator Teller's age and previous good rec
ord thus led to stultify, and, morally speak
ing, degrade himself by the hopeless adj
vocacy of a wrong principle, especially
when it leads him into the advocacy of
other principles equally wrong and danger
GUS which he has opposed all his life. One
cannot help thinking he must feel that he
has closed the doors of good political So
ciety behind him and become a statesman
without a party. By his own act he stands
to-day disowned by Republicans, despised
by Democrats, and distrusted by Populists.
In his speech at Richmond Senator Teller
showed how easy.i is for a man who es-
pouses a wrong doctrine to adopt the fall
lacies and falsehoods by which it is sup
ported. He said: I'VE have not enough of
both metals to carry on the business of his
country Or to transact the necessary
-.A, g IL. 10 49,
of the world" OF course. he knows that
our paper currency exceeds in volume the
metallic currency, and that more than nine
tenths of the business of the country is
done on credit instruments, but it suited
him to pretend that more silver was needed
to do the business of the country. Again,
he said: N country has ever tried to
run the business of the government on a
single gold standard and succeeded" Eng
land has had a single gold standard since
1916, the United States since 1859, Germany
since 1872. France, Belgium, Switzerland
and Italy since 1885, Austria-Hungary since
1892. A Senator of the United States ought
to be ashamed to tell a public audience
that no country has ever tried to do bust
ness with the single gold standard and sue
ceeded. What / want said Senator Tel
Ter, lis more silver put in circulation. to
dignity it, to raise it by our own efforts
throughout the markets OF the world, to
raise prices The government tried to
dignity silver and raise the price by pur-
chasing about seven tons a day of it
for several years, but it refused to be
dignifed and kept going down. IF prices
said the Colorado statesman, wages
rise with them, and you cannot find an
in the worlds history where prices
have risen and wages have not" A man
who makes such a statement as this is
either intentionally untruthful or hopeless
ly infatuated. The latter is probably the
case with Senator Teller, especially as his
speech abounded with statements equally
of intellectual bewilderment. 1t
was largely a paraphrase of Bryan's fall
individual as one of the best and greatest
men since the time of Abraham Lincoln.
a general rule m~onomania affects only
the mind, but in the case of Senator Teller
the free-silver fad seems to have obscured
his moral as well as his mental faculties.
II ,he can still be intrusted with a simple
his friends should send him back
to Colorado with a message to the mine
owners that their cause is lost and that
indiana will join with other States in swell
Ing the majority for Mckinley.
MEN MOST INTER STED