The San Francisco call., 1896-06-09
But All Glasses Are Demanding
That Silver Be Given a
Fair Chance.
SENTIMENT MANIFESTED DUR
ING AN EASTERN TRIP.
John Paul CoSgrave Tells of the
Demands Made on the Bona.
parte From Ohio.

ST. JOSEPH, Mo-, June S.-As one
crosses the Snowy summit of the Sierras
when leaving the garden land of Califor-
mia he realizes that the public sentiment
of the Golden State is for protection first
and free coinage after.
Since the Democratic Wilson tariff bill
ruined the Democratic sheep-raisers, raisin
vineyardists and wine-producers all over
the State, the Democrats of the San
Joaquin Valley, chiefly in the Bourbon
hotbeds of Stanislaus, Merced, Fresno,
MADEIRA, Kings, Tulare, Mariposa and
Kern, where Democracy is said to be a
religion, have lost all interest in their
party. They have become impoverished
by theory, and now that the free-t trade
condition confronts them with jeer at
their poverty, in the same manner as the
footpad clubs and kicks his victim be-
cause he had not more money to be robbed
Of they have become convinced by the ir-
resistable logic of a hungry stomach that
protection viii lead them out of the desert.
Hence they are protectionists first, silver
ties second.
The placer and quartz mines of Califor-
MIA are gold, and if the issue before the
people was simply as to the relative none
tary value of silver to gold they would be
unanimously anti-silverites, but outside of
the banker and most of the capitalists
class the people are outspoken in favor OF
silver, the question of free coinage being
second in Importance to that of the protec-
ton of American industries, because free
coinage means the employment of thou
sands of idle men with which the country
is at present afflicted, and return OF the
prosperity which prevailed before the sem
timental theories of Democratic free trade
had Iured the voters into the jaws of pow
erty and desolation.
After leaving California and plunging
into the heat and solitude of Nevada sage
brush deserts, the traveller finds that pro-
lection has ceased to be so much of an is
sue, and that free coinage is looming as
the great question. Silver is the life blood
of the sagebrush State. Without it she
must relax into barbarism, typefed
bv the shiftless Piute, and into
that gemi-barbarism of which the cow
boy is the most conspicuous example.
Silver iingled in the notes of the meadow
lark when / awoke at Ogden at in the
morning. Even the great Salt Lake shone
like a sheet of FURNISHED silver, rejecting
the snow-streaked peaks, the blue sky and
the white clouds that curtained the gate
wav of the silver land of Utah, and along
the line from Ogden;to Salt Lake City and
up high in the treeless rocky mountain
to the coal-begrimed cabin at Castle Gate,
silver was the cry. Its echoes flowed down
the mountains and across dreary wastes of
sagebrush deserts to the pictured pink
cliffs and the dark green alfalfa fields of
Colorado.
Ask one of these adventurous settlers.
whose cabin of cottonwood logs starts up
from the sagebrush with the suddenness
of q surprised jackrabbit, as to his opinion
on the subject OF the tariff, and he will tell
you with some show of Indignation that
he would not be so poor were it not for the
goldbugs of Wall street and the gold
bonds of Grover Cleveland.
In Denver. that pretty monochrome in
red brick, they say that the prosperity of
the State was paralyzed when free coinage
was slungshotted in 49, and that they are
silverites first, silverites second, and Dem
ocrats, Republicans, Populists and Pro-
hibitionists last. The same song is sung
on the gently undulating praries of Ne
braska by the thrifty farmer as he walks
behind the cultivator between the rows of
Young corn. He wants protection, too
but he demands free coinage first. Thence
through Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, free
coinage is the prominent topic. Protection
increases in importance until the rippling
of the Mississippi is heard, where protec-
ton seems the more pressing need.
Farther East, in the thickly settled CEN
ters of trade and production, protection
stands in the first place, so that all in all,
taking into consideration the wishes of
the great masses of the people, protection
will be the battle-cry.
The personal characteristics, the intel
lectual and political strength of the candi-
dates for the Presidency whose names will
be presented before the Republican Ma
tional Convention at st. Louis next week
are the subjects next in importance, the
chief question being, GLOW does he stand
upon silver2" for it is assured that, no
matter who the nominee may be, he will
he a strong protectionist. Within the past
two days the question has been repeatedly
and even threateningly asked of Mr.. Nc
Kinley and his managers by the leading
newspapers of the West.
The st. Louis Republic, Democratic
paper, in prominent editorial calls upon
Mr.. Mckinley to define his attitude on
the financial question, and strongly in
sists that he cease this palpable Jug
Cling" Republican papers, evidently
guided by a common suggestion, are
tiercely making the same demand. They
base it upon the fact that the lieutenants of
the Bonaparte from Ohio are claiming $50
votes in the convention-nine more than
are necessary for choice. Hence Re-
publican adherents of free coinage in
sist that they have a right to be
informed as to whether they will