The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-10-05
a QUARREL WITH JONES
THE DEMOCRATIC TAT NOMINEES
HOLD A CONFERENCE.
Insist Fusion Shall Not BE Accom-
plished While PopuIist State
Ticket Is Still in Existence.

1t is a little difficult to properly estimate
the developments of the last week in In
diana. The two events Of importance We're
the deal by which the Populfsts put out a
combination ticket for electors and the de-
olson of the sound-money Democrats not
to put a State ticket in the field. The deal
with the Popuiists has caused two rows,
one in the Popocratic and one in the Popu-
list camp. The Populist committee of thir-
teen, to which the State convention had
delegated power to make an electoral tick
ct, yielded to pressure brought to bear by
the Populist and Popocratic national
committees and put out a COM
bination electoral ticket, pulling down
the straight Populist electoral tick
ct it had put out {. week before.
The combination ticket contains ten OF the
Popocratic electors and five Populists, three
of whom have heretofore been in the field
as congressional candidates. The Popo-
Gratis, on the other hand, have yielded moth
ing. Mr.. Jones's national committee is en-
deavoring with all its might to force the
indiana State committee to accept these
terms of fusion, but the State committee
declines to do so because the Populist State
ticket was not taken down. The State can
didates who have been furnishing all the
money that the State committee has had
to prosecute the campaign with suspect
that the Bryan managers are willing and
anxious to sacrifice them in order to pull
Bryan through in Indiana, and they do not
propose to be sacrificed. They say some
salty things about the national committee
and particularly about JIG. Johnson, of
Kansas, who came here to promote the flu
sion deal and then returned to Chicago de-
claring that fusion had .een accomplished
In n VI m CO tscfo or,r - Lo+b o;lo- a.
this proposition Chairman Martin, of the
State committee, is with the State candi-
dates, and the Populists will not get any
expense money while their State ticket is
in the field. Whatever funds they get to
prosecute their campaign they must get
from Senator Jones's snap at Chicago.
In the Populist ranks the deal has caused
the biggest kind of a row. The middle-of-
the-road men, led by Charles X. Mathews,
editor of the Nonconformist, the national
organ of the party, are loud in their denun-
citation of the deal. They declare that it was
purely a mercantile transaction, that their
committee of thirteen simply sold out and
betrayed Watson at the behest of the ma
tionalN committee. The deal was made in
the face of a telegram from Watson pro-
testing against it, and, no matter what the
national committee will demand the In
diana Populists regard Watson as their
leader, and they idollze him. He is coming
mere 10 speak one day next week, and l.
is expected he will say some very sharp
things about the national committee and
the fusion deal in Indiana. Nearly all of
the candidates on the State ticket are mid
dle-of-the-road men, and they are leading
the revolt against the fusion deal.
With these two elements in the two par
ties up In arms against the combination,
II seems likely that the Bryan managers
Will lose more than they will gain by the
manner in which the Populists were han
died last Tuesday.
The decision of the National Democrats
not 10 put a State ticket in the field is in
terpreted by the PopocratS as a sign of
weakness, and the declaration is made that
not enough men could be found willing to
assume the burden of a campaign to make
The leaders of the, National movement,
While they believe that a State ticket, if
1t had been placed in the field a month
ago, might have added some strength to
their movement, are convinced that if il
were undertaken now it would accomplish
their strength among men who nave per-
sonal friends on the silver Democratic
State ticket and would absorb in working
up county primaries and the State conven-
ton energies that might better be used in
hustling for votes.
In no State in the Union has the rapid
growth of s~ound-nloney sentiment among
railroad employees had more effect than In
Indiana. There are over thirty thousand
railroad men in the State and a very large
the past. 1t is estimated that fully 80 per
cent. of them will vote for sound money.
The vigor with which they nave been or
ganizing sound-money clubs and making
been one of the surprising features of the
campaign, and the cry of coercion raised by
the Bryan people has had no greater effect
than to amuse the men.