The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-09-17
THE FREE SILVER CHAMPIONS
COME AT Us RIDING DOUBLE.

COME AT Us RIDING DOUBLE.
We publish herewith Mr.. Webb's sec
ond argument @ in behalf of free silver,
We hardly think it needs any reply, and
we will await his pleasure to begin the
real defense of the free and unlimited
coinage of silver at 16 to !.
In order TO free ourselves from irrcle-
want matter, wcproposed that the free sill
yer party should select some one writer
to represent them, and that proposition
was accepted, but we find them coming
two Oh one horse, riding double, and an
other like SanchO Panza, bringing up the
rear on Il broncho. AS will be seen from
this article. and communication pub
lishcd in this issue of The Statesman,
pcrpatctic knight SHES his caster into
the ring. We care nothing about the
number of representatives they may
select, but certainly that is not the prop
osition accepted by the chairman OF the
free silver committee.
Mr. Webb Cncloscs us an article from
Mr.. VIM. NJ. Brown and asks us to pub
lish it. We have declined two of Mr..
William NJ. Browns articles, while we
have also published others. The first we
declined because he wanted us to take
sclf-cvidCnt Misrepresentation by
northern exchange of the position on free
silver held by DR.. Arcndt, Il leading
member of the German International BIZ
metallic League, as genuine; and we de-
Ir RrnN-n
because the only issue was whether the
Associated Press report of u speech of
Mr.. Bryan at Buffalo was correct or the
special report from which Il paragraph
was quoted in The Statesman, which Mr..
Browns eagle eye discovered was rot i'll
the same language of the Associated
Press report. The sentence as quoted
in the editorial Of The Statesman from
Mr.. Bryan's speech ut Buffalo read: "ln
his Buffalo speech Bryan said: In all
platforms there is Il supreme issue, the
issue this year is between a gold stand
ard and n silver Standard This was
quoted literally from the report of Il
newspaper which had Il special reporter
present. The report of the Associated
Press according to Mr.. Brown read as
follows: while platform covers Il
great many questions necessarily there
must be one supreme issue. The issue is
made by those who believe in Il gold
standard and those who oppose gold
standard There is no middle ground"
We do not know which is the correct re-
port, and we confess that we do not care.
For if there is no middle ground, those
who oppose Il gold standard must add
vocatc some other standard, and as MIR.
Bryan is advocating the free and UNI
limited coinage of silver, there being no
middle ground, he must stand on the sill
yer standard. While it is only Il QuCs-
ton rs to which report was correct, the
one quoted from The Statesman or the
one by the Associated Press, and as the
inevitable logic of the whole question
was in point of fact a battle of stand
ards, we did not care to waste space
in permitting Mr.. Brown to indulge in Il
long hair splitting argument ut our ex-
penSc.
There is no one who has higher
opinion of Col. William NJ. Browns
standing as a worthy and highly intel
ligent gentleman than The Statesman.
There is no man whom we should prefer
by our side in an hour of trouble or dan
ger than Col Brown, because we know
he is brave and as true as steel, but
when he gets into one of his intermin-
able arguments on free silver in which
he insists on doing all the talking, we
prefer to be in some deep and impenetra-