Birmingham state herald., 1896-04-07
NO SILVER STRADDLE GOES
Shadows of Trouble for Repub-
 |icanS at St. Louis.
.PHALANX OF SILVER STATES
That Will Walk Out of the Republican Conven- ton at St. Louis if Tbey Are Not Given
 a Free Silver Platform.

United States Senator Frederic T. Du- bois of Idaho spent Sunday in Birming- ham and left on night train, via the Queen and Crescent route, for New Or leans. He was accompanied only by his private secretary, A. P. Ryan. The gen. tlemen stopped at the Norris and spent most of the day looking at Birmingham and it's environment They were away from Washington for few days respite from duties which, the senator says, have recently been unusually arduous.
 Senator Dubois is one of the youngest members of the senate. He was elected when Idaho became a state He is Al years of age, and is a remarkably hand- some man, being much on the style of Senator Gray of Delaware-6 feet tall, dark hair and eyes, regular features and ruddy complexion. Erect, suave in man. ner and frank of expression, the senator is an unusually attractive man.
 No man in the senate has a more de- voted stituency, and no man who oi recent years has gone into the senate has won a better name for ability and frank and courageous bearing. Senator Dubois is one of the sixteen republican senators from the west who gave notice to the eastern manufacturers and their republican representatives in the senate that they need look for no more tariff
 
 free coinage of silver
 State Herald representative enjoyed an interesting conversation With the Sen- ator during his stay here. He deprecated the idea of an interview on the subject of his intentions in the event the republi- cans should nominate a goldbug on a goldbug platform. He said he was a can didate for delegate to the St. Louis na- tional republican convention, and 1t would not be seemly for him to say what he intended to do.
 It is now nevertheless, an open secret that the western silver senators are held together by a community of interests as binding as an oath-bound compact to stand or pull together. They will go to the national republican convention and ask for a free silver platform. If it is de- nied them their constituents will require of them that they leave the convention. Whether they will then nominate a tick ct or defer action until after the national democratic convention depends upon fu- ture contingencies.
 When asked as to his best judgment of the probable action of the democrats at Chicago he said from all that he could gather of conversation and contact with the democrats of congress and elsewhere who favor free coinage, and from what was his information of the sentiment of the people of the states, he believed that the democratic convention at Chi cdSO would adopt Tree SllVer plank.
 The senator said much more of great interest, especially on the hypothesis that the republican convention would fail to meet the demands of the silver senators from the west, and they should be satisfied with the money plank of the democratic convention. He asked to be excused at this juneture, as he was a candidate for delegate to the convention at St. Louis
 Senator Dubois expressed himself as greatly pleased with Birmingham, and said it reminded him of the big western cities more than any place he had ever seen outside of that region.