The San Francisco call., 1896-04-04
Federal Brigade Gold Forces and
Silver Men From Hills
and Valleys.
THE BUCKLEY-JUNTA BATTLE.
Buckleyites Will Make a Silver Play
and Shrewdly Complicate Their
Contest.

The Democratic State Convention is
ten weeks distant in the future, but it
looms up now as a battlefield that will be
CORY when the day is done.
There will be two chief struggles in that
convention according to all present indi-
cations. The fight of broadest i'm portance
will be that between the silver and the
gold forces. The fiercest battle, and the
one OF most local significance, will be that
between the con testing Buckley and Junta
delegations that now seem sure to be sent
TO Sacramento.
The Junta delegation will be owned by
the Federal brigade, no matter how the
tight over Rainey in the Junta turns out.
That fight has local politics for its chief
motive. II the new Lanigan combination
wins complete control of the general COM
mittee and creates the delegation, it will
be by very great majority for gold. for
the administration and for Carlisle. All
the chief influences in the Junta-Daggett,
Rainey, Welourn, McNab. Lanigan, Wise,
Pepper. and others-are for sound
money" and the Federal brigade will, of
course, be united in support of admins
tration policy and the personal interests
OF the Secretary of the Treasury. The in
fuence of other Federal officials who are
not now pnlhng patronage strings in local
politics will, to some extent, be thrown the
same way. So, if the Junta delegation is
seated, there will be pretty nearly one
hundred and siXty-one votes for Carlisle
and gold plunked solidly into the conven-
tion.
1t is uncertain how this gold and silver
business Will come out at the convention,
but the gold men are afraid of defeat.
how sarr hor oil i,,fi,
ences that can be brought to bear through
out the State the hill tribes Will come
down from the mountains and the hus-
bandmen up from the valleys with such
heavy re-enfOrcements under the silver
standard that silver will run the conven-
ton. 1he indications are that the gold
men will be beaten, though their strength
will be formida bic.
The Junta delegation will present the
spectacle of a lot of personal enemies
pulling together for the power that dis
pensed their Jobs just exactly as in the
general com mittee which is controlled by
these personal enemies, the members pull
together out OF respect to their Jobs.
Daggett and Welburn will have mos. of
the delegation, and there is considerable
disesteem between them. If Rainey
should win the local organization Daggett
will get the big end of the delegation at
Sacramento and Welburn will have con-
siderable. If Lanigan, the newly crowned
boss of the Junta, who proposes TO make
Kainey mere pretender, succeeds in run
ming the organization, Welburn will get as
much if not a little more than Daggett
Collector John II. Wise and John Dag
gett are bitter enemies. Wise will get
some recognition in the Junta delegation
because several members of the general
committee nave Custom house Jobs. No
body knows where Wise stands in the
local trouble. Last fall when the anti
Buckley movement was started, McNab
aud. others thought they had patched up
things between Wise and Daggett to such
an extent that Wise would go into the
anti-Buckley com bination. Then he sud-
denly went to Los Angeles on important
business on the eve of that meeting when
a. a. Watkins was elected chairman. He
left his politics 10 be managed by his son
Harry, and when he got back he was
amazed and chagrined to find that his son
had landed HIM in the Buckley camp.
= However, he made the best of ii by going
late to the first meeting of the Buckley
general committee alter he had received
word that the crowd was large ana the
thing was success. Since then Wise has
been considerably ont of politics. He has
friends and Custom-house employees in
both the Buckley and Junta general COM
mittees and he will probably come out all
right.
OppSI- WnO Is d ROIu illdI, likes
Daggett as he likes poison, and there are
all sorts of ties like that among the Junta
people who will figure as influences in the
Sacramento delegation.
The fight of the contesting Junta and
Buckley delegations will open almost at
the first whack of Chairman Gould gavel,
and this fight seems destined to be in
volved in the financial contest.
There now seems no prospect of a COM
promise between the local factions. Both
wllfsend 16l delegates to the convention.
The Junta IS banking largely on the pres
tige gained by its recognition by the State
Central Committee and on the hostility to
buckley among the representatives. of the
interior. The Junta expects that Chair
man Gould and Secretary Markley
will put its 161 delegates on
temporary roll and that they will thus
get chance to vote for q chairman who
will appoint friendly committee on Gre
dentials. If there is an attempt to do this
the battle storm will break then and
there, anG if any determined effort is made
to give the Junta the best of it one of the
star rows of Democratic convention his
tory will at once be in action. The Buck
leyltcs count on their showing OF Demo-
cratic strength necessary to the party, on
the right of their cause, on the wrong of
the Junta cause, on Democratic conven-
ton precedents and IN their orators,
proIestants and howlers.
But they are figuring on something else.
They see the Junta delegation getting
ready to go up with the Federal brigade
for gold, Carlisle and gold delegates. They
are going TO send a silver delegation,
probably favorable to Mcguire and White
for delegates at large. That will be good
politics. likely. The convention will hear
the knocking of 161 silver men and
then the knocking of 161 gold men
and the complexion of the convention and
the record IL makes will depend largely if
not wholly, on 10 whom the door is opened.
OF course many of the pulls and in
fuences will figure in the contest.
The representatives of the rest of the
State can order in 161 votes of the kind
>. they want. The contest will not be wholly
Buckley and anti-Buckley by any means.
Personal am bitions and the control of San
Francisco Democratic politics will be in
VOWED and probably a California contest
in the National Convention, for the Buck
-leyites declare that if they are shut out at
Sacramento they will send contesting
delegates 10 Chicago from the Fourth and
Fifth districts.
Dagget;, it is now said, will not be a
candidate for delegate at large, although
he wants to name two or three. Welburn
and Wise OF the Federal brigade and likely