Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1897-06-17
MAKE 1T THE ISSUE.
SPEECH or HON. c. A. ToWNE,
OF MINNESOTA.
The silver Republican Conference Meets
at Chicago and LiStens to an Able
address on the Subject Of True 81.
meGsl1ism.

met at Chicago on June 8. Hon.
Charles A. Towne, Of Minnesota, pre-
sided over the conference, and Hon. j.
B. Menanger, of West Virginia, was
Secretary. Thirty-four states and Ok
lahoma Territory were represented.
Committees on Credentials, Plan and
Purposes Of Organization, were then
appointed, after which Mr.. Towne de-
livered the opening address. Mr.. Towne
said:
Gentlemen Of the Committee: 1
give you greeting upon the suspicious
opening of this conference, and con-
graduate you and the great cause in
which we are engaged that so numer-
Gus and representative a body of men
has gathered from a large ajority of
the states and territories to participate
in the first general council of the Sill
yer Republican party of the United
States. We are happy also to welcome
the inspiring presence of delegation
representing the bi.metallic organiza-
ton of the women of the country,
whose quick instincts have OWNED the
woeful results, both to our own below
ed country and to the world, of much
longer continuance of an approaching
money standard, aud whose ready sym
pathies are now, as in all past ages
the sympathies of women have been
when right and wrong have battled to-
gether, enlisted in behalf of justice and
humanity.
at is proper, however, that we
should recall briefly the circumstances
attending and the motives iDstigating
the inception of this movement The
circumstances were these: The Repub-
lican party, previously as plainly pledg-
ed to bimetallism as the most solemn
and deliberate announcements in ma
tional council, REINFORCED by repeated
declarations of state and local conven-
lions and the advocacy of its disting-
uished leaders could possibly pledge
any party, had, in its platform adopted
at st. Louis IN Juue, 1896, committed
itself in definite and emphatic terms
to the maintenance of the gold stand
ard.
To be sure, there was coupled with
this declaration weak and half-heart-
ed concession to the restoration of sill
yer coinage upon condition that it be
secured by an agreement among the
principal commercial nations. But de.
spite the fact that this grudging clause
bore the outward semblancc of prom
Use and was relied on at the ensuing
election by millions of voters, who,
however devoted to protection, would
not easily have Endorsed the uncom-
promising and naked proclamation of
the gold standard, nevertheless those
who controlled the manufacture of
that platform never intended this form
al and hollow promise to be observed
in good faith.
"Time will not now permit cureful
demonstration of this fact, but proof
enough may be found in the attitude
assumed and maintained by the great
newspaper organs of that persuasion.
These hailed the platform on its adop-
ton as a gold standard platform, and
are now deriding the efforts that the
President is making, and honestly
making, let us concede, to carry out
what so many of the masses of his
party insist to have been an agree
ment
"With brutal abandon these organs
declare that the clause in question was
inserted purely as clap-trap, and was
so understood at the time; that the men
who forced the word gold into the
platform would never have consented
to any other Interpretation of that
clause; and that to concGde it to have
any force now is to violate not only the
original understanding, but also the
far stronger obligation arising from
the fact that the unprecedented mil
lions of money wherewith the argu-
ment for gold was supported during
the canvass were distributed by the
benefciaries of the single standard in
reliance upon the engagement to main.
tain it
"Whatever progress altruism may
have made among individuals, selfish
ness still rules the couusels of nations,
especially where the places at the coun-
ell boards are filed by the money brol-
ers of the world or their dupes and
deputies.
ga few days ago those who consult
their desires for a separate encourage
ment to their hopes professed much
satisfaction at the proceedings in Paris
the night before, when Senator VOL
colt and his bimetallic co-explorers
were rendered a banquet by the BIZ
metallists of the French capital. But
the most sanguine utterances at that
board amounted to only this lame and
impotent conclusion, that there was