The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-06-24
THE OFFER OF MR.. TELLER TO
THE DEMOCRATS.

| night senator Cannon told of his great
| devotion to- the cause of free silver
/ He determined when he was elected to
the high Office of United States senator
to work for the people, to be their
servant. to make their welfare his sole
aim. AT st. Louis he and the little
band of boilers who left that conven-
ton and severed those party ties which
were SO dear to them, did it that they
might better serve the peoples inter-
est. He told of how wealth had in
creased and men decayed; how in this
land of lmitless resources men were
going W and down it seeking work
that they might buy bread for their
wives and little ones, but nowhere was
work to be found; the cause was lack
Of money, the remedy more money, the
means for furnishing that money the
free coinage of silver 1t was that
there might be more money that the
silver men at st. Louis had bolted the
convention, quit their party, for they
held that this great issue Of free silver
was paramount to all others, overshad-
owed and dwarfed them. and was the
one great question before the people.
Protection, reciprocity, all the doctrines
of the Republicans were something;
free silver was everything. 1t was
! for this that they had surrendered so
much; for this they had given up so
many party principles they held dear;
for this they had thrown aside par
tisanship. And who was the leader in
this 10
walton of the people and country? Sen
ator Henry NJ. Teller, of Colorado. He
alone could unite all the silver forces
of the country and lead them to certain
victory AS the Republicans who had
left their party fer silver had conceded
so much. could not the Democrats cen
cede something also for the common
cause of silver? Let them but make
him their candidate and the victory
for silver would be assured.
The devotion to free silver of Sena-
tors Teller and Cannon and their fell
! low delegates who bolted the St Louis
convention is proven by their very ac-
tion they have given the strongest evil
! dence in their power of the sincerity of
their professions in favoG, of free silver.
They have been willing to surrender
the balance of their political beliefs
for their one great belief. All this they
have DONE but the doing of it all does
not rrove them to be frmer or more
steadfast friends of silver than is the
overwhelming majority of the Demo-
! cratic party. That party has been, is
and will be for free and independent
coinage of silver. The platform that
/ it viii adopt in its national convention
/ in Chicago viii be as unequivCcally for
/ free silver as the Republican platform
is for gold. The candidate that it will
nominate will be as ardent, earnest
and honest for free silver as Mr.. Henry
NJ Teller is or can be. He will be a
man the peer in every respect Of Mr..
| Teller, a man who will be as devoted
to all the interests of the American
people as ever was Washington, or JEFF
ferson, or Lincoln, or Grant; and
moreover he will be a Democrat. The
Democratic party is for free silver. A
part, a. mere faction, of the Republican
party IS for free silver, and Senator
Cannon asks that the leader of this
faction be made the candidate of the
Democratic party. He asks that the
Democrats concede something. What
should they concede when they demand
and viii declare for everything that
Mr.. Teller represents? Mr.. Teller says
that the issue is everything and the
candidate nothing. Senator Cannon's
proposition to the Democrats is suscep-
tible of but one Interpretation: it is
that the candidate is everything, the
issue nothing.
That the boilers from the st. Lonis
| convention should ask the Democrats
to take Mr.. Teller as their candidate,
passing by the many able and distin-
guished free silver men in their own
party, as able and distinguished as the
great Colorado silver senator. is most
amazing, amazing to effrontery and
impudence. 1t must SO seem to sena-
tor Cannon, when he deliberately con-
siders the whole situation and remem-
bers where the strength Of the silver
vote in the United States lies: That
strength is in the Democratic party
We cannot think that men who have
given such evidences of their devotion
to the cause of free silver as Senator
Cannon, Representative Allen and
their associates have, will imperil that
cause by making the acceptance of
Senator Teller's candidacy by the
Democratic party an issue between
them and the friends of free silver in
the Democratic party.