The Republican journal., 1897-09-09

DU WFitS r.. " SmalIty HUH tHt west. UtMV'
Gratis firing Of Bryan, the Vociferous Young
Man.
E. V. Smalle,, who has been taking
observations in the West, writes from
Chicago to the New York Evening Post.
"Everyone in the West appears to agree
that the silver movement is absolutely
dead. The great rise in the price of wheat
and corn and the fall in the price of silver
had given the coup de grace to it. The
farmers, who are pay ing off their mort
cages and store bills and buying bugges
and Il little furniture with the proceeds of
this years crop, no longer take the slight
est interest in the old arguments of silver
agitators. In the towns the discontinued
labor element and the petty political agi-
tators still look upon William j. Bryan as
a great leader, but their continued atfec-
ton for him does not rest at all upon his
advocacy of bimetallism, but is based
rather upon his supposed socalistic ten
denotes. You no longer hear any talk in the
beer saloons OF in the street cars OF on the
street corners about the reconciliation of
silver There is a general feeling that
better times have come and are going to
! stay, and this belief has powerful effect
on the public mind. The work that tens
of thousands of men are finding at good
wages tends to the same result
1.-The collapse of the silver movement
has been SO sudden and SO complete that
the politicians engaged in it are at a loss
to know where 20 turn for new issue
that will capture the public mind. Nj
| Bryan is still talking in the far West, but
| he is careful to contine his speeches to the
silver producing States. He does not ven
/ ture into the corn OF wheat States, for he
! knows he would be asked some very dis
agreeable questions by his audiences if he
should 60 into those now prosperous COM
| munltieS. | do not believe Mr.. Bryan will
be wanted at all by the Democratic cam
paign managers in Iowa, Nebraska or Ohio
1t will be found that these managers will
pass the word along their lines to drop
silver and 60 in strong on local questions
Mr.. Bryan does not intend to allow him
self to be shelved He regards himself as
the only possible leader of the new De-
mocracy and means to keep on with his
efforts to amalgamate all elements of dis
content with the existing state of things
in industry, finance and politics, into one
strong political party. He believes that
such party will be strong enough 70 turn
the Republicans out of power in 1900 and
put him in the White House. Most of the
old Democratic leaders in the West are
| growing tired of this pertinacious and
self-seeking young man, and do not in
tend to fall into line with his procession.
Bryan is a man of resources, and is by
no means without a new issue to put in
place of free silver He intends, it is said.
to start crusade against the banks, and
raise the cry of Government paper cur
rency as against bank notes. Such an
issue will have the element of humbug in
it which made the silver movement so
popular. The people will be told that the
banks are trusts and monopolies, and that
| the business of issuing paper money is
! rightly as much a function of the general
Government as that of coming metallic.
In business circles in the West, among the
merchants in country and town and ON the
boards of trade and in commercial bodies.
there has been good deal Of ripening of
opinion in the past few months on the
money question, and | think that strong
pressure will be brought to bear from
these sources next winter upon members
| of Congress in favor of the immediate
passage of some simple measure of cur
rency reform.
"Western business men do not now talk
in a vague and general way on this sub
ject, as they did last winter and spring,
but they seem to know exactly what they
want. Nine out of ten of them, if ques-
toned, will say that the first step in the di-
rection of reform is the repeal of the law
of 1878, which obliged the Secretary of the
Treasury to reissue the greenbacks as fast
as redeemed With this law repealed they
think the gold standard will be sufficient
ly fortified for the present. The second
measure they advocate, with almost entire
unanimity, is an act authorizing strong
banks with large capital in the principal
cities to establish banks in the small
towns. This measure, they say, would
make the present ample currency supply
of the nation available at all points where
it might be needed for immediate business
use, and would give the conveniences and
advantages of banking to the farming
communities throughout the West and
South.''