The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-29
NO "OFF YEAR" IN '9S
M'KINLEY RESULTS WILL KEEP IN
DIANA IN REPUBLICAN COLUMN.
Keynote of the Great Love Feast Held
Here Yesterday-Currency Re-
form Is IndOrsed.
SEVERAL NOTABLE SPEECHES
THE PRESENT CIvII-SERVICE MIS-
FIT SEVERELY ARRAIGNED.
senator Fairbanks, Governor Mount,
Others Among the Speakers.

The biennial Republican conference or
love feast held yesterday proved much
larger affair than the Republican managers
anticipated. They had made preparations
for about two hundred, and the crowd
numbered something like eight hundred
The meeting enthusiastic as it was
big, and in all the speeches made, just two
great points were brought into prominence.
The first of these is that the Republicans
of Indiana will stand unit in favor
Of rational and conservative currency re-
form. Whenever any of the speakers
touched upon this the tenor of the declara-
ton was that the Republican Congress must
follow the lead of the President and carry
out both the letter and the spirit of the
St Louis platform by passing such legisla-
tion as will assure the maintenance of the
gold standard, and put the currency of the
country upon so sound a basis that it will
not he subject to future attack The crowd
in attendance showed it's sympathy with
such declaration every time the subject was
touched upon. The speeches of Senator
Fairbanks, General Lew Wallace, Judge
Robert S. Taylor, and Hugh H. Hanna,
chairman of the monetary executive COM
mittee, all dealt directly with the subject
on the same general lines. Senator Fair
banks declared that in his opinion the
House would pass a currency measure, and
that he did not regard the matter as hope
less in the Senate.
On the subject of civil service Representa-
tive Faris raised applause when he stated
his position as against the present method
of administering the civil-service law. He
was not in favor of repeating the law but
declared that there were several infamies
in it's ,;oic
was ready right now to vote for radical
notifications in the present method of its
administration.
These two subjects were the principal
topics of conversation in the hotel lobbies
and the comments there were in line with
the speeches. In making their fight for
sound and conservative currency reform the
Indiana representatives in Congress will
have the cordial support of their constitu-
ents If the general tenor of the remarks
made by the crowd in attendance yesterday
is any true index OF Republican opinion in
this State. Nor is there among the Repub-
licans here any demand for the overthrow
of the civil-service law. though there is
strong and nsstent demand that there shall
be more or less radical change i'm the
method of its administration. 1t was fire.
queht.y remarked by strong friends of the
civil-service law that Cleveland had in the
last months of his administration, by ex-
tending the classification so as to cover
thousands of Democrats who had been ap-
pointed to Office without undergoing any
examination, had done more harm to the
civil-service cause than he had ever ac-
complished in it's behalf during the eight
years that he sat in the White House.
One of the first things that the conference
did was to pass unanimously resolution
extending it's greetings in the most cordial
manner to General Benjamin Harrison and
Col Richard w. Thompson, again demon
strating to the world the fact that these
men hold a warm place in the hearts of the
Indiana Republicans.
Taken all in all, the conference was the
most satisfactory gathering of the kind the
party has ever held in Indiana. 1t was the
most largely attended and the most en-
thusastic. Notwithstanding the fact that
it was held in an off year, after a presi-
Dental victory; it demonstrated that the
party is united and harmonious and has
no factional quarrels within itself to deal
with; and best of all, it demonstrated the
fact that the Republican party in Indiana
has the courage to take advanced ground
upon the most important question that has
come up for settlement since slavery DAYS
By yesterdays gathering it has strength
oned it's claim to the confidence and respect
of the people party of action, not one
OF criticism; a party of progress, not one
of retrogression; a party that appeals to
and lives by the intelligence of men, not
one that fattens and thrives upon their
weaknesses and prejudices.