The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-10-19
SILVER A pRopER ISSUE.

nave 9nSlSttd, ana Stlil INSIST tnat the
silver question has no legitimate place
in the local campaign. The Herald has
insisted. and still insists. that it mas its
legitimate place in the campaign and
has repeatedly shown how and why it
must have its place. Our contemp1-
rafTes have tried to pooh-pooh the idea
that silver is q question for the people
of this city TO consider in their local
campaign, but their pooh-poohings
have utterly failed OF their object
Why they have tried to ignore the
question and lead their readers to be-
lieye there is nothing in the municipal
campaign that should cali up the silver
question, they themselves best know;
If they are the friends of silver they
profess TO be it is hard 20 understand
why they are opposed to any declara-
ton in favor of silver by any of the
local parties. for if all the parties had
declared in favor Of it none could have
any advantage over the other so far
as this one question is concerned.
The Herald has pointed out that the
silver question is an issue in Salt Lake
City as well as in the Greater New
York campaign, but the non-partisans
have said that it has no place in any
municipal campaign Not so think
some very distinguished men Of ma
tional prominence. Ex-President Har-
rtson, in an interview SO late as Sum
day last. said:
There is great force in the sugges-
| uon that ordinarily a city election
ought to turn of2t upon questions Of
city administration. but there are ma
tional questions that will not be ig-
nored. The men who voted for Nc
Kinley in 1S96-whether Republicans
or gold Democrats-Will not fail TO in
quire how the candidates for mayor OF
/ Greater New York stand upon the
! question whether public and private
debts are TO be paid at 40 cents on the
dollar. and whether the Just powers OF
/ the courts are 10 be upheld against the
/ assaults of the mob. They viii want
TO know, further, whether a particular
! election is going to scatter or weaken
! the forces that won these issues in
! 1896. New York's mayor, they will
think, ought 10 be a repudiationist or
| a friend of the mob. It is folly to say
that the St. Louis platform is not an
! issue and that the business men of
! this Greater New York are not to take
may have in the further fight that is
to be made before the advocates of
Republication and disorder are dispersed.
I Good local purposes and management
are not the worse for being associated
With good national purposes and meas
ures. The business men of
New York have right TO make sure
that the issue of this city contest is
not such as 10 weaken or disorgani1e
the sound money forces throughout
! The country. They are not asked TO
vote for unworthy and Incompetent
men in order to do this-their oppo-
neats themselves being the judges.
I The problem of currency reform is also
pressing itself upon public attention
and if it is to be wisely solved it viii
! be by the Republican party and its
sound money allies of the campaign of
1896 1t is not time for the conServa-
tive forces 10 fall apart.
If it is time for the friends Of
sound money" to stand together in
New York land Sound money" means
the gold stanaard), is it not a time for
the friends of free silver TO stand to-
gether? If the friends of sound
money" want TO know whether a par
ticular election is going to scatter or
weaken the forces that won on that
issue in 1886. will not the friends of
the free and unlimited coinage of silver
want to know whether a particular
election is going to scatter or weaken
the silver forces that fought SO val
iantly together in 1895?
But General Harrison is not the only
Republican Of national prominence
who has said that the issues of 1896
are involved in the municipal cam
paign in Greater New York in 1897.
Secretary of the Interior Bliss, writing
to General B. f. Tracy under date of
October y, 1897. says:
The contest Of 1896 has been renewed
! all over the country, and it is incon-
ceiVable TO one absent from the scene
/ OF contest that there can be even a
suspicion that d majority of the three
! million and more inhabitants of the
! New York that-is-to- be can, with the
( George and Tammany parties, each in
| its own way, striving for the reversal
Of the verdict given by New York on
! the great issues then presented to the
American people, deliberately surren-
( der, upon the specious plea of non-par-
/ tsanship. all that was then gained
1t is impossible that the people of
! New York have SO soon forgotten the
! danger that menaced them only short
( year ago, and are now prepared to
make such surrender chiefly to crafty
, the ambitions of q few men, who are
! irreconciablY opposed to the Republic
an party, whatever its position, and to
send out to the states that are fighting
again the same battle which they
! Waged year ago the message that
! New York has no further interest in
the cause which was gained by such
magnificent concerted effort
! Ii. after the victory of Gettysburg
/ taken TO its heels and left the remnants
| Of the Confederate army a free road to
! Washington, it would have been q par
allel case
The contest of 1886. the contest be-
/ tween the single gold standard and the
/ free and independent coinage Of silver,
! has been renewed all over the country,
and every election held in the United
States this fall makes either for or
/ against free silver And paraphrasing
! Secretary Bliss words, shall the mes
sage go forth from Salt Lake City that
| its people have no further interest in
the cause for which they voted last
November shan the message go forth
to the country that the people of Salt
Lake City have become so Indifferent
TO the cause Of free silver that they no
longer make mention of it in their po-