The record-union., 1896-06-22
SENATOR FORAKER SPEAKS.
HE SAYS TELLER HAD NO REA.
SON TO LEAVE THE PARTY.
The Issue is the Same Now as Four
Years Ago, When He
Did Not Bolt.

CINCINNATI, June 21.-The McKin-
ley and Hobart ratification meeting at
Music Hall last night was under the
auspices of the Stamania Club. In
speaking of the platform adopted at
st. Louis Senator Foraker had this to
say in regard to the financial plank:
1t has constantly and repeatedly
been declared by both parties that BIZ
1neta1lism was desirable in preference
to gold or silver monometallism. Both
Of the parties have agreed that we
could maintain the parity of the two
metals and bring about bimetallism
again by an international agreement
Some people have insisted in the mean
While that If we could not do it that
way We could do it alone without re-
gard to what other nations might see
lit to do. The Republican party has
constantly, consistently and persist
emily stood up against that idea.
-Four years ago, when we held the
convention at Minneapolis, it was my
fortune to be the Chairman of the Com
1nittee on Resolutions, as | was at the
st. Louis Convention, and it was my
fortune to be associated on that COM
mittee with Senator Teller. He and his
associates of the silver States came to
that convention and came before that
committee asking us to insert a plank
pledging the Republican party to the
Tree coinage of silver. We refused to
do it. We declared that we were in
favor of international bimetallism, but
that until that was brought about it
would be our policy to maintain silver
at a parity with gold by issuing no
more of it than could be maintained
at parity with gold.
They accepted the result and re-
mained in the Republican party. They
did not feel called upon to go out of
the party then; their consciences did
not seem to trouble them so much then
as now. When the last session of
Congress commenced, as a result of the
Democratic free trade experiment. the
Government was found to have def
cient revenues, not enough revenues
to meet it's current expenses A bill
was prepared in the House and passed
that body without partisan division
almost, ~providing for an increase of
revenue. That bill was known as the
Ldngley bill. 1t went to the Senate
The national credit the national honor.
the national life, was at stake These
tionable, but they refused to vote for
it Chat is, six of these gentlemen from
silver States did unless the great ma
jority who did not agree with them
would sacrifice their convictions and
vote for the free, unlimited and unre-
stricted coinage of silver The great
majority in the Senate would not be
coerced by that minority.
I1a
people directed the attention to that
question and before we met at ST Louis
conditions We're ripe, not for a differ
ent stand, but for more explicit dec
laration of our principles than we had
heretofore made. and, inasmuch as
they had thrown down the gauge of
battle by demanding free silver and
seeking to coerce us to accept it, we
concluded that was a good time to meet
them half way, join issue and let the
battle come on.
ITO conclude with a word, the point
I was seeking to make was this: That
when Senator Teller and his associates
bolted the party at the st. Louis Con-
vention they had no cause for it what
ever that did not exist four years be-
fore at the Minneapolis Convention.
and when the Republican party made
the declaration it did make at st. Louis
it did not change its position one par
ticle but simply made it absolutely
certain in order that there could be a
settlement of that question that the
free and independent and unlimited
coinage of silver is a proposition that
we will not entertain. We will not en-
tertain it because in our judgment it
does not, as Senator Teller and his as
scciates claim, mean bimetallism, but
simply silver monometallism.