The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-01-30
SITUATION AS TO SILVER.

The Cincinnati Enquirer in an I'M
partial and able statement of the course
in late years, and the present position
of the two great political parties on
the question of silver, brings the two
parties face to face with the conditions
that confront them, and with which
they must deal in the coming party
conventions. OF the Republican party's
recent record on silver the Enquirer
says:
Mr.. Harrison was elected in 1883 on
a platform which condemned the Dem
ocratic party for the anti-silver policy
of the administration Of President
Cleveland. The gold policy having thus
been apparently rebuked at the polls.
the Harrison administration proceeded
to follow in the footsteps of its pre-
decessor, and, indeed, to go further.
1t was Mr.. Harrison's secretary of the
treasury, Charles Foster of this state,
who in August, 1892, inaugurated a pol
icy of exclusive gold redemption of
treasury notes in whatever sums they
might be presented. He did this by
the redemption of one million of dol
lars in greenbacks with gold coin on
the 18th of August, 1892, the same hay
banking house of Heidelbach, Ickel-
heimer & Co. This act was accompa-
MED by loud announcement, through
the press, by Ellis H. Roberts, the Re
publican sub-treasurer at New York,
that gold only would be used in re-
deening treasury notes. 1t was in the
middle of that same administration
that a senate bill for the free coinage
of silver was stifed in the house Of
representatives, although it was known
to have a large majority of supporters
in that body. The gold papers glee-
fully announced that Speaker Reed
held the bill as If in his teeth. and that
no power could give the representatives
of the people in the house an oppor-
tunity to vote on it.
The course of the Democratic party
is represented in the following manner:
In 1892 the people voted the Repub-
lican party out of power and elected
President Cleveland on platform eva
sive, it is true, but which all the sill
yer advocates understood to favor the
free coinage of both metals. The ap-
pointment of John G. Carlisle, an en-
thusiastic free silver leader, to be sec
rotary of the treasury was accepted as
a construction of the platform favor
able to free coinage Of both metals
was found to have entirely changed
his views and developed into an I'M
yielding and uncompromising gold
standard man. The Democratic advo-
Gates of free coinage, who undoubted-
ly furnished three-fourths of the votes
which made Mr. Cleveland president
the second time, bitterly realize that
their votes at the ballot box might as
well have been cast for Harrison, so
far as the silver question was con-
cerned. Under the present administra-
ton the silver purchase act has been
repealed; the secretary of the treasury
has refused to coin the bullion already
purchased, as required by law; one
hundred and siXty-two millions of in
tereSt-bearing bonds have been sold at
a discount of eighteen per cent. below
the market price, to purchase gold
which has been. paid out for the re-
demption of treasury notes and green
backs, redeemable, by law in silver
dollars; and one hundred million more
of bonds are about to be sold for the
same purpose.
This straightforward statement of
the case may not be pleasant reading
for the silver men in either party, but
il is just as well to look facts squarely
in the face sometimes and then con-
clude what is going to be done in the
case. We ask Democrats to do so at
least. We would like them to ask
themselves if they want any more eva
sive platforms, or any more betrayals
at the hands of their leaders? If not,
it becomes their duty to see 10 it that
such delegates be elected to the ma
tional convention as will insist upon
such platform utterances as cannot be
mistaken; and the selection of such
men to carry them into effect as will
not betray their trust. This question
of finance has been juggled with long
enough so far as Democrats are con-
cerned. Let us have the issue sharply
defined; and if that cannot be done in
the regular Chicago convention, let the
Democrats who favor silver take the
destiny of Democracy in their own
hands and affirm once more the Dem
ocratic faith on finance and all other
doctrines that make up the true Dem
ocratic creed.