The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1896-07-07
FOR ONLY ONE DAY.
Gov. Altgeid Outlines the Plans of
the Silver Men

Gov. AItyeid Outlines the Plans OF
the Silver Men.
Springfield, ILL.,, July 4.--If the free
silver leaders have their way the Chi
cago convention will be IN session but
one day. they intend to make Wig
orous effort to carry this idea into eff
feet, and that is one reason why they
are SO determined to have a free silver
man for temporary chairman. They
want man who will expedite bust
ness in a manner that will meet their
approval. Gov. Altgeld returned to
Springfield from Chicago to-day, and it
was he who said the free silver men
wanted q One-day convention. The
governor expects to return to Chicago
Sunday, and Will remain until after
the convention. In conversation with
a representative of the Associated
Press to-day Gov. Altgeld said the adj
vance guard of free silver men at Chi
cago were of one mind, and that was
that short convention was impera-
tive to the good of the cause.
1--WE will have control of the conven-
tion," he said, land it is, we think, to
our best interests to wind up the bust
ness of the convention in one day. The
single gold standard men will, of
course, hight for delay. 1t is to their
interests to spar for wind, as the sport
ing men would say. They have no
hope of controlling the convention, but
it is their desire to procrastinate. They
want to divert the platform from n
straight 16 to l silver basis to some
sort of muddled compromise. Were
we to let the convention remain in
session several days, they might do
this Wall street and the Standard
Oil interests have an influence that is
far-reaching and powerful. But the
free silver men are in the majority,
and will run the convention. They
will never permit the small minority
to dictate terms" AS to tile position
of temporary or permanent chairman,
the governor said he did not want
either.
ut was what might be called clever
politics. he continued, "for the gold
bug papers to boom me for the honor.
They knew it would tend to arouse q
spirit of jealousy among the Democ-
racy. 1t would give them q chance to
say was hogging everything and Civ
ing no one else chance. I don't want
to be chairman for two reasons. A
man who preSides over body OK this
kind, If he is honest and fair, is mere
~ figurehead. If he were dishonest,
he might abuse his power to the adj
vantage or disadvantage of one side or
the other. Then it will require good
deal of hard work to preside properly
over the convention. l think l can be
Of more service to the party on the
floor. My whole desire is to see silver
win. l want to see free silver ticket
with free silver platform. For my
self | want nothing"
Gov. Altgeld said he had no idea
who would be temporary or perma-
nent chairman of the convention be-
yond that both positions would be
filled by men acceptable to the free
silver Democrats. In regard to the
presidential nominee, he said he had
no preference. 1t was too soon yet to
fix upon a man. There were not
enough delegates in Chicago to deter
mine upon any one. The chief object
now was to see to it that the rights Of
the majority were not interfered with
by Wall street gold.