The Republican journal., 1897-10-28
Our Washington Letter.
Correspondence of The Journal.

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 25. 1897. Further
evidence from Ohio corroborates the state
ments that the silver question has been
absolutely eliminated from the discussions
there in the campaign. And silver was
practically the only plank of the Dem
ocratic platform adopted but three months
ago. Mr. Bryan proposed to canvass the
State thoroughly in the interests of silver
and speak from every stump. Ex-con-
gresham Towne entered the State with
an idea of speaking for free silver many
times but for some reason Mr.. Bryan has
not kept faith with his assertions and Mr.. /"
Towne has been peremptorily ordered off
of the stump by Allan O'Myers, Nc
Leans manager, with this action sustain
ed by Mclean. Bryan, Towne, and others
who have been for the past two years
laboring in the interests of the silver trust,
view this turning down" with nothing
less than dismay, because it means to
them that the Democratic party is aban-
doning the free coinage talk in every State
where its managers see any real hope of
success at the polls this fall. This general
program has been adopted in all States
where there are campaigns, as is shown
by the various reports. When it came to
direct clash, as was the case the other
day between Democracy and Bryan, De-
mocracy won and Bryan was snubbed. The
New Yorkers were about entering on their
campaign and Mr.. Bryan wrote urging them
to keep free silver to the front in their
fight; Chairman Jones, however, advised
them to eliminate free silver and Jones'
advice was followed. Silver is practically
tabooed in this falls campaigns and the
free silver men are excluded from partici-
patton in them. This seems nothing short
of wonderful, in view of the fact that only
three months have elapsed since the Demo
cratic leaders determined that free silver
should be the leading issue of this year
where State and local campaigns were to be
fought. In Ohio, Iowa, and Kentucky as
we'll as in other States, it was made the
! the only plank of the platforms. The
Marylanders, under Senator Germans
shrewd leadership, managed to save them
selves from being obliged later to run
away from the platform, by straddling t
at their convention, but in almost every
other case free coinage was the watchword
of the State and local committees as much
! as it was of the Democratic National Com
mittee of last year. In Massachusetts, the
George Fred Williams element of the
Democracy adopted it; in New York a
segment of the Democracy declared for it,
and in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Iowa,
Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and other States
it was to be the leading issue of the cam
pagns.
But all this happened within the last
three or four months, and all these rattica-
lions of free silver by various conventions
were before the passage of the Dingley
law and the signing of that measure by the
President. This occurred later, and what
was the effect? Immediately the wheels
of industry began to revolve. 1t is useless
for calamity howlers to say. they did not or
that prosperity has not returned to thous-
ands of homes throughout the land. I'M
mediately with the passage of that law !;
and in some cases in anticipation of its
passage, factories began to resume and to
increase their number of employees, and
thousands of men who had been looking
vainly for work suddenly found it, and at
good wages, too. The hum of industry
was heard on all sides, and the factory
smoke began to roll out in black volumes.
Employers began paying out money to
labor which they had been previously
boarding, afraid to embark in business
ventures, and the employees began to de-
mand the necessities of life from the farm
ers. Farm products rose in price and
laborers had the money with which to buy
them. Not only wheat went up, in which
there is a ''shortage" abroad but all
other farm products advanced likewise
And strange to say, simultaneously with
| IlcSo dtiYduCGS JIG PRICE VI silver SJodully
fell, reaching low water mark never
dreamed of by the Democrats who were
proposing last year to supply the country
with So cent dollars. Things reached such
state-silver down to nothing, and every
thing else up and going up-that there re-
manned nothing to do but to drop the sill
yer issue and forget it, although it had
been made the leading plank in most of
the platforms, and the advices from all
the States where there are campaigns be-
ing fought show that this plan has been
adopted with singular unanimity. AS
stated, Messrs. Bryan and Towne, and
others of that school, are rigidly exclud-
ed from all the important campaigns and
only allowed to educate the people in
those sections where they can't do any
harm, while the Democrats are casting
about for other issues, ma king their cam
paigns on a variety of misleading and so
called issues, personal abuses, and the
a;,1Jo - IL.