The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-06-27


congress. Here is another evidence of
the mans forcefulness of character.
Without any Confederate record, at a
time when that counted in politics. and
with only eight years residence in the
state. at the age of thirty-seven. he
was elected to congress.
The speaker of the Forty-third con-
gress was very willing to let Mr.. Bland
have the committee assignment which
suited his inclinations. There are two
committees of the house which deal
with forms of money-the banking and
currency and the coinage, weights and
measures. At that time banking and
currency was the dominating commit
tee of the two. Permanent upon it had
been Judge Aylett II. Buckner. one of
the strong men of the Missouri delega-
tion. The national banking and cur
rency laws came from that committee.
coinage, weights and measures was one
of those committees which existed for
little more than the purpose of giving
some member of the majority chair
manship and clerk. Furthermore, as
the preceding congress had revised the
coinage laws, there was no prospect for
yet in three congresses, Bland had
pushed the coinage question to the
front, had forced transfer of the rela-
tive positions of these two committees
and had begotten the Bland dollar The
sixteen years which followed steadily
increased his prestige as the foremost
advocate of free coinage of silver. The
persistency with which he pressed the
issue made him in the eyes of the East,
"a silver crank" yet in each successive
organization of the coinage committee
the speaker recognized the position Mr..
Bland had won by making him the
chairman or the leader of the minority
of the committee, according as the
house was Democratic or Republican.
! These facts are interesting to recall,
because they go to show how thorough
| " logical is Mr.. Bland's candidacy for
| the presidential nomination If 16 to l
| wins at Chicago.
| TRYING TO DOWN HIM.
In view of the swelling list Of free
| coinage delegates to the Chicago con-
vention, 1t is interesting to recall that
fourteen months ago u manifesto conf
mitting the Democratic party to a l6 to
l ratio was circulated on the Demo-
cratic side of the house of representa-
tives. There was 200 Democratic men,
bers in the house of the last congress.
The paper received thirty-one sigma
lures. Mr.. BANDS name headed the
list. The Democratic representatives
who would not sign number over 1OO
or the thirty-one who signed the de-
claration i'm favor Of committing the
Democratic party to such platform
twenty-one were congressman who had
been defeated for reelection. Not only
did the big Democratic majority in the
house a little more than a year ago re-
pudiate Mr.. Bland as q leader on the
coinage issue. but 1t was guilty of one
of the meanest acts of party ingrati-
tude. The Wolcott proposition had
gone through the senate providing for
the election of delegates to an inter-
national monetary conference. In order
to secure representation Of the silver
sentiment it provided that the senate
should select three and the house the
same number of delegates. This legis-
lation was enacted in the full eXpecta-
tion that such conference would be
held. The general understanding was
that Mr.. Bland would be one of the
delegates. A final vote was not reached
until the closing hour of the congress,
and then it appeared that in conference
the proposition had been changed so as
to make eligible as delegates only those
elected to the tifty-fourth congress.
This was done through the insistence
of certain members of the house who
had practical control of the matter and
who said openly:
I'VE don't want any cranks in this
thing"
The proposition was changed solely
for the purpose of shutting out Mr..
Bland. And now the man who was set
aside by the party leaders as crank is
q presidential candidate who will enter
the balloting at Chicago, it is claimed
by his Missouri managers, with 200
votes.
Up to the present time Mr.. Bland's
candidacy has not been treated serious
ly in Washington. The wise men of
the national capital weren't convinced
that Mckinley had a walkOver until all
the rest of the country saw it. The Re-
publican senators held daily cloak
room conferences until they had fig
ured out the impossbility of McKin-
ley's nomination. For several weeks
Democratic senators have been en-
gagged in the same pleasing work of de-
termining by cloak-room consultation
the programme for the Chicago conven-
ton. The parallel doesn't run all the
way. There is this difference The Re-
publican senators who beat Mckinley,
in their minds, had among them four of
their number who were candidates for
the nomination. The Democratic sem
ators have no candidates among them,
but two-thirds of them will sit in the
convention as delegates, and they are
strongly impressed with the feeling
that what they say will go long way
toward the determination of the con-
vention's action. If the masses of the
Democratic party show the same dis
position to turn down their senators
that the Republican masses did, the
parallel will be completed. The plan of
the Democratic senators is comprom-
ise, a declaration of ardent devotion to
bimetallism with the ratio left for fu-
ture conditions to fix. AS for candi-
dates, these senators do not consider
Mr.. Bland the remotest possibility. He
isn't on such a platform as the senators
will formulate, If enough of them get
on the platform committee and are al
lowed to have their way. But If the
convention gets away from the senators
and pronounces unequivecolly for 16 to
], Mr.. Bland will be in the front rank
of possibilities. The candidate of the
senatorial cloak-rooms is Vice Presi-
dent Stevenson. He is the choice of
such extreme silver senators as Morgan
and Pugh, of Alabama, and of such gold
standard Democrats as Brice and Cor
man. If Mr.. Bland amounts to any