Birmingham state herald., 1896-03-01
AN 1RREPRrssIBLE CONFLICT.

The multiplying signs that free silver is going to cut through both parties ana make itself the controlling issue In the next presidential election will give gen. eral satisfaction-they certainly will to the friends of sound money. The great trouble now is two-faced platforms and dough-faced candidates. The silver re publicans are apparently prepared to fight, and the sound money democrats are also stripping for the contest-none too soon. Secretary Carlisle boldly said last night that the conflict was now an ire pressible one and the issue of kind that could not be avoided, even by trimmers and would not be by men of character A silver party, pure and simple. IS by all means to be desired. If all the 16 to l men and the international agreement men and the straddlers and dodgers in either party could be forced to go off with the populists. where they belong, the country would first rise up and call them blessed. and then rise up and Smite them hip and thigh. It seems almost too much to hope for such a result but we may, for the present. hope for it with fear and trembling.-New York Evening Post.
 Why there should be an irrepressible conflict between the wings of the demo- cratic party over the currency question is only clear to the mugwump and inde- pendent press. The grand old party has had many differences within it's ranks and has always adjusted them to the sat- isfaction of the great mass of its fol- lowers. If if could be SO easily killed it's death would have occurred long ago. It should be the hope and labor of all good men to harmonize their differences within the party lines No man is eX- pected to surrender his conscientious opinions upon any political question: but every good democrat should stand ready to accept the best measure that is at tainable even if 1t does not come up to his wishes. The democratic party cannot be kept together if men high in its coun- cils, like MT. Cleveland and MT. Carlisle, look upon our currency differences as an 'irrepressible conflict" and if they pro- pose to rule out of the party all who en- certain opinions adverse to the policy of the administration.
 When the irrepressible conflict shall have been ended. and the two old parties are reduced to the gold standard follow ing. we will witness the spectacle of sectional republican party, bounded on the north by the Ohio and on the west by the Mississippi, and we will seeea sec tional democratic party struggling vain ly for a foothold among the protective tariff states covered by the republican party. Outside of that territory we would find new party dominant, covering an enormous territory south of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi as far as the Pacific ocean. This new party would like wise be sectional Each of the parties as thus constituted would contain within it. self the elements of disintegration, as each would be based upon single idea, which changed conditions might obliter- ate in a few years, and when the disin- tegration comes and the great bodies break into a hundred factions we may find repeated on this continent the his- tories of the old world.
 The only hope of good government in this republic is to have two, and only two great parties of about equal strength, within whose lines all grave questions of government may be freely discussed and fairly settled. In this be- lief the State Herald views with great concern the disposition of the admins tration leaders to make the so-called "sound money" cry the shibboleth of party loyalty. If that test should be ap- piled at the Chicago convention chaos will have come again.