The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-09-18

"noblest and grandest men of the
country" Then to stir up enthus-
iasm he referred to the returns
from Maine, but never said word
about the $4,000 majority of Ar
kansas. Perhaps this was an over
sight. Some laughter was created
when the speaker referred to the
pioneers of the Black Hills and told
how they came into the country on
the railways built under the repub-
lican administration and stated that
the people of this region should
thank capital for this. Then he re-
ferred to the excessive freight
charges of today and failed to ask
his hearers to ''thank capital for
these. He referred to the g. O. D.,
as 'the party which never broke
promise OF course he knew bet
ter, but the phrase sounded smooth.
Leaving the tariff chestnut the
ex-governor approached the fnan-
cial question. At a mention of free
coinage a burst of applause followed
which shook the entire building.
The speaker began to sweat and it
was plainly evident that the demon
stration unnerved him to some ex-
tent He sought to regain his
equilibrium by telling another story
and then back-tracked long enough
to blame slavery and the civil war
onto the democracy. This met with
slight applause and then the speaker
told another story. Again coming
to the money question he said there
was more money in the country
than ever before, but failed to tell
just how it was beneftting the
masses. Like the Black Hills dry
rancher whose crops were burned
up and upon complaining Of his con
dition was assured by neighbor
that there was Just as much mois-
ture in the world as ever The gulf
of Mexico was full, but the man with
the parched crops derived little con-
ISOLATION from the assurance. Next
the ex-governor set up the silly
claim that the silver people want
the millionaire lined up and forced to
divide, and then he chewed the old
cud over again about the fifty cent
dollar. The silver leaders, he said,
were in the paid employ of the
bonanza silver barons and then he
told the people how heavily they
would be taxed to keep mints in
operation to coin the hundreds of
thousands of tons of silver" Then
Mr.. Lyon said that the grand old
republican par-tee" was the best
friend silver had ever had. Right
here he neglected to quote that
financial plank adopted at St. Louis
last June. AS was expected, the
Mexican dollar chestnut was the
next thing presented, paid no heed
to the fact that Mexico coins no
gold and bimetalism is unknown
there. He failed also to quote
wages in that country and hurried
on to brand the silver men as cheats
and regulators of honest debts.
Then came the melting pot test.
The "ex-governor" did not know
how often this same chestnut had
been presented and answered by the
ignorant (?) westerners or he would
have omitted it from his talk. Ap-
preaching the conclusion of his talk
Mr.. Lyon paid a glowing eulogy to
labor, but omitted saying anything
about how labor had been defrauded
by an appreciating gold dollar and
the producers price lessened one
half and more through the same
process. Then with vain appeal for
the common people to rally to the
support of Mark Hanna's agent the
''ex-g governor closed.
While the talk was as able as that
of any gold standard advocate so far
during the campaign, nothing new
in the way of argument was pre-
sented. Mr.. Lyons is not an elo-
quent talker, though he talks quite
fiuently. When he mentioned
Bryan's name the cheering was
deafening and continued for nearly
minute. This caused the speaker
to mop his brow and some little
time was required for him to get
cooled down again. Be thai as it